The Manicured Mama

Freak Show Polish - New Tinted Bases

2012-11-15T19:30:00.001-06:00

Hi, guys! I've been gone for more than a month, and unfortunately with my extremely busy schedule, this blog fell on the back burner for a little while. I'm back though, and have some really great indie polishes lined up that I'm excited to share with you all. I won't be able to post as frequently as I was before, but I have many a mani to post from my little hiatus - what, did you think I haven't been polishing my nails this whole time? Lol! For those who follow me on Instagram, you will be seeing a reprise of previous swatches. So without further ado, let's get started.

Today I have for you some amazing polishes from an indie brand Freak Show Polish, which I already have a review on their first five previous polishes. These are maybe, if not actually, the best indie jelly base glitter polishes that I've tried! The formulas are pure perfection!

First up is Circus Elephant a sheer, but easily buildable, gray jelly base filled with a colourful assortment of glitters in different sizes and shapes along with beautiful small translucent glitters than shine golden in the light. This polish totally brings to mind an ornately decorated performing elephant. It's an absolutely gorgeous polish with an even more beautiful application. It goes on smoothly and evenly, with no streaking or patchiness as is the case with some sheer polishes. The glitters also disperse over the nail evenly without clumping together and lay smoothly over the nail surface. Shown in the swatches is 3 thin coats, which were self leveling and required no work at all to look good. This polish would make a great layering polish as well since you get a great glitter pay off in one coat.

Next is Ringmaster, a bright red jelly base with gold, red, white, and black glitters along with the same golden translucent glitters found in Circus Elephant. The jelly base in this is so amazing; it looks exactly like a red lollipop - my personal favourite. Haha. This is 3 coats on it's own, but would look fantastic over any red base. I think it would look perfectly for this fall/winter over an ox blood coloured polish to add a more vampy look to it.

Now for my personal favourite of the three polishes, Mime. This is a stunning milky white sheer jelly base with black and white glitters, some long bar glitters, and again those gorgeous translucent golden glitters. This polish is perfection. Even with the long bar glitters, which I usually don't like because they tend to either curl or not sit flatly on the nail, this polish's formula is perfection. The glitters spread over the nail easily, and there was no need to place or fish out any of the glitters. This is also 3 coats of the polish without a colored base underneath for the swatches, but for my personal preference I would only use 2 because I love how this looks when it's slightly more sheer. Even then, there's no problem with streakiness or patches of colour. Like I said, perfection.

All of these polishes, as well as the 5 others I reviewed previously, are all obtainable on the Freak Show Polish website www.freakshowpolish.bigcartel.com in mini bottles (as shown in the pictures) or full size bottles. Freak Show Polish is also a participating company for The Big Pink Box. Mini size bottles will be included in an upcoming month's box as well as a special promo code for specifically for those customers.

Overall, I am so pleased with these three polishes and how well they performed. I love a good jelly polish, and these just hit it out of the park in terms of performance and overall quality. I'll definitely be excited to see what else Freak Show Polish has to offer in the future.

Thanks as always for reading, and I'll see you in my next post.

These polishes were sent to me for review.

Elle, Très Belle!

2012-10-01T20:53:00.001-05:00

Let's just feast our eyes in unison at this beautiful pink and gray combination. This stunning polish, made by KB Shimmer, is the definition of classic with a twist.

Combining a soft gray jelly base with pink and silver glitters never looked so ladylike. This polish has micro pink, small silver and pink hex, small and medium silver square, and large silver and pink hex glitters - such a perfect mix! The glitters applied smoothly and evenly over the nail in one coat. Elle has a pretty sheer base, so as to not overwhelm the nail with too much glitter, I layered it over another gray polish. I used Joe Fresh - Fog, which is a slightly darker, more cool-toned gray creme that was opaque in one coat.

The mix of pink and gray is so subtle and simple, and the variety of different glitters adds such a nice visual texture to the nail. I highly recommend visiting www.kbshimmer.com to check this and many other gorgeous polishes out.

As always, thank you for reading!

Frankenstine Polish Michael Jackson trio

2012-09-28T21:02:00.001-05:00

Here is a full review for the trio Smooth Criminal, Billy Jean, and Thriller from the Michael Jackson Collection, brought to you by Frankenstine Polish. They are handmade glitter top coats and can be found through Facebook.

The first polish we have is Smooth Criminal, a clear base with tiny square and large hex matte white glitters, small black hex glitters, and large Lapiz blue hex glitters. The application was extremely nice on this polish; the glitters were densely enough packed that they evenly coated the entire nail with one coat. The glitter spaced out well by themselves and they didn't clump together at all. There is slight curving of the large blue glitters, but nothing too severe. I topped this off with a coat of Seche Vite.

The next polish is Billie Jean, a mix of small light pinky white hex, medium dark red hex, with some small holographic hex glitters thrown in there as well. I would prefer this polish to be slightly less dense than it is, this being one coat over Essie - Lollipop, because I feel that all the small glitters of the same variety just look bunched together. I also feel that the sporadic larger red glitters seem out of place, or lost even, in the snowstorm of the smaller glitters. With that being said, the glitters spread out beautiful over the nail in easy strokes of the brush. With my personal preference set aside, it is a well performing polish. This is topped with Seche Vite.

Lastly, we have my favourite polish from the trio, Thriller. A mix of small hexagonal matte black and red glitters, with the same colours of long bar glitters as well. This is a great polish that can be used with a variety of colours as a base (I've used it with a silver metallic base underneath), and the fact that the glitter particles are matte adds just another special touch. This is two coats of polish, and the glitters spread out evenly and spaced out wonderfully without maneuvering. I left out a top coat so you could see the true finish of the glitters themselves.

This is a must-have set for any fan of Michael just for nostalgia, and I enjoyed the polishes overall, with Thriller being the stand-out for me in this trio. For anyone wishing to purchase these polishes, you can contact Christine, the creator and producer of this brand, at frankenstinepolishes@earthlink.net
These polishes were sent to me for review.

As always, thank you for reading!

Monochromatic Gradient Glitter Tips

2012-09-25T18:59:00.001-05:00

Today I'm bringing you a manicure that I forgot to blog about a week ago... whoops! It's a mix of different shades of a dusty mauvey pink, and I think the monochromatic colour palette makes this look very chic.

I started off with a one coat base colour of Joe Fresh - Rosewood, a medium toned dusty pink creme. This colour is so classic and sophisticated; it's a pink-tone but looks very neutral and is a great every day, work-appropriate colour. With opaque pigmentation, and smooth application, this polish is such a winner.

I then applied a gradient at the tips of the nails with Essence - Time For Romance, which was sent to me by a lovely friend from Germany. Just using a dabbing motion concentrating the most colour at the very tips and slightly gradiating the colour upwards I was able to achieve a great ombré effect. The polish is a darker magenta base with lighter medium hex and fine glitters throughout. For even more glitter sparkle, I added touches of Revlon - Sparkling over the Essence colour. This just adds the perfect touch of texture to the already glittery surface.

To even out the top of the nail, I added Seche Vite in a generous coat to smooth things out, and voila! The perfect simple, but interesting pink mani!

Thanks as always for reading!

Dirty Berry With Sprinkles On Top

2012-09-17T22:40:00.001-05:00

Here's a wonderful polish all the way from Germany, from a brand called Catrice. It's a European makeup brand available in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Croatia, Spain, and Portugal. Unfortunately, for the rest of the world, this brand is not available for purchase online. So I suggest to you all who have lemmings for this polish and others from the brand, make a new European friend haha.

In my haste to update to iOS 6, I deleted all of my old manis to clear up some memory (some 1000+ photos), and accidentally deleted manis I haven't posted yet. So this picture has my Instagram watermarks, I hope you don't mind, but it was too pretty not to share. Also, excuse my lack of posts recently. I've been busy making Karmyn's (my almost one-year-old daughter's) birthday invitation, so I've been working on that in my spare time. I think I'll post extra photos from her photoshoot on here soon. Anyway, back to the mani.

This is two coats of Catrice - Dirty Berry, a dusty bluey lavender with super fine holographic shimmer. The formula is a tad runny compared to what I'm used to, but it dries super quickly and super shiny so I definitely am not complaining about that. The brush also took a little bit to get used to. It has a squared-off top and is slightly wider than what I would prefer, and especially for my pinky, it's hard to not hit my cuticle with the brush. That may be the only big downside to this brand of polish, but that's only for my personal preference. Other than that, this polish was a breeze to apply, and would be really great without a top coat.

I added a little extra sparkle with a glitter gradient from the cuticle down using Color Club - Wish Upon A Rockstar from the Fall 2011 Backstage Pass Collection. It's a clear base with large lavender hexes and a mix of tiny hex glitters. I didn't have any major problem with the large glitters curling, which is a problem for most of the larger glitters in this collection. So I guess I got a good batch.

With all the glitter and sparkle together, you would think this manicure would be too overwhelming, but the gradient of glitter actually helps to balance out the holographic shimmer and adds just the right amount of texture. Overall, I really enjoy the look of these two polishes together. I have a few more polishes from Catrice that I'll be sharing in the near future, so keep an eye out for that.

Thanks as always for reading!

Freak Show Polish

2012-09-17T15:23:00.000-05:00

Today I'll be bringing you a review for all five of the polishes from Freak Show Polish. This line of polishes is based around the attractions you can find at the circus lending them a fun, yet still unique vibe. All of the nail polishes consist of different finishes, sizes, and shapes of glitter suspended in a clear base. These are handmade nail polishes made by Carisa (@mrs_cbaker on Instagram) and can be found for purchase on freakshowpolish.bigcartel.com

The first polish we have is Sword Swallower, a mix of silver bar, small silver duo-chromes to black hexagonal, and tiny holographic Mylar glitters. I have layered two thin coats over a white nail polish here. The glitter is very nice to apply, not too thick, and gives a great glitter payoff with each coat. There is no need to push around or place the glitters; they spread event over the nail with each brush stroke. I found absolutely no clumping of glitters, which sometimes tends to be the case with bar glitters, so that was also great. The smaller holographic Mylar glitters add iridescence to the overall look without being too flashy and look absolutely gorgeous under direct sunlight.

The next polish is Snake Lady, which is a mix of large matte white hex, medium chocolate brown hex, small black and chocolate brown hex, and tiny black and holographic mylar glitters. Here I have layered the glitter polish over an unknown Color Club polish with a maroon/brown duo-chrome metallic base with gold shimmer throughout. I feel that this polish really compliments Snake Lady very well. This polish is very similar to the first in quality; very easy to apply, also in with coats in the pictures above. The only small downside is that I have to fish out a few of the larger white pieces and place them evenly around the nail. These pieces tend to want to stick together, mainly because of their size, but once they are on the nail, they add a great pop of contrast to the rest of the glitters.

Here is Lion Tamer one of my favourites from the line. This is one of the more opaque covered polishes, showing two coats over black in the pictures, but with one additional coat, this polish could cover opaquely on its own. It is a mix of tiny holo mylar glitter, tiny gold hex, small gold square, gold holo bar, small red hex, and red star, yes STAR, glitters. This polish has the same great application as the all the others. It spreads evenly and easily over the nail as you brush the polish on. I had to fish out a star glitter for my index finger, but other than that, all the other fingers got at least one star on them without having to dig through the bottle with the brush. The textures and finish of all the glitters together is extremely pretty, and because they layer on so opaquely, I would suggest a layer of top coat just to even out the surface.

This is Fire Eater, a jam packed polish full with orangey red and marigold yellow glitters. It consists of micro, small hex, and small bar glitters in the red colour, and medium and large hexes in the yellow. I layered two coats over the glitter over two coats of Sonia Kashuk Hot Pursuit. As with all the other polishes, this was a dream to apply. No fishing or placing needed for the larger pieces of glitter either.

Lastly, my favourite polish of the bunch (surprise surprise, haha), Cotton Candy, a gorgeous polish with the tiny holo Mylar glitter found in three of the other polishes, small baby blue and baby pink square glitters, giant pastel pink square glitters, and giant diamond baby blue glitters. All of the glitters other than the holo Mylar ones have a satin ribbon finish to them. It lends such a beautiful, soft touch to the look of this polish that I have not seen before. Layered over OPI - You Callin' Me A Lyre?, this pairing is soft and girly, and oh so sweet. As with all the other polishes, this is a dream to apply. I had to fish out a few of the larger pieces of glitter, but overlooking that, this polish is pretty perfect.

Overall, these polishes performed extremely well. They dry slightly slower than what I'm used to, but considering the great application, I'm not complaining. I did top off each swatch with a layer of Seche Vite top coat for faster dry time and to even out any surface uneveness from the larger bits of glitters. This is definitely a collection worth taking a closer look at. With Lion Tamer and Cotton Candy being the absolutely stars within this collection in my opinion, all of them are beautiful and unique. All these polishes are available at www.freakshowpolish.bigcartel.com and they are available in mini size (5ml) - as shown in the pictures - or full size (15ml) bottles.

These polishes were sent to me for review.

Thanks as always for reading, and see you in the next post!

31 Day Challenge - Day 14: Flowers

2012-09-16T16:31:00.001-05:00

A cutesy floral print is what I came up with for this challenge. To make it a little more different from a simple flower print, I added a pop of sparkle in the center of the blooms. I think this is totally cute, and such an easy manicure to recreate.

I chose to use three colours from Essie's Fall 2012 Yogaga Collection since I felt they went together so well and were a perfect colour palette for a floral theme. I started with a base of Boxer Shorts, a periwinkle purpley blue creme. Such a pretty colour, but so hard to photograph the purple tones in it. It's as if Lapiz Of Luxury and Play Date had a baby, Boxer Shorts would be it. The formula for this polish is just as great as the colour; it was opaque in 2 thin coats, non-streaky, and self-leveling. It is a dream to apply.

For the flowers, I alternated Marathin - dusty pink mauve creme, and Pilates Hottie, a soft nude lilac creme with pink undertones, for the petals and leaves. Both colours' formulas are just as great as Boxer Shorts, even and opaque. I just may have to pick up the other three colours from this collection since these ones are so stellar. As for the design, I used a dotting tool to make elongated petal rounds, and a slightly dragged out dot for the leaves. This can also be achieved with a bobby pin if you don't have a dotting tool. I finished this manicure off with Seche Vite, as usual.

To add an extra pop of sparkle, I put large silver hexagonal glitters that I hand-placed in the center of each flower. I used the largest glitter pieces in Color Club - Platinum Record, which is a mix of small to large silver hex glitters in a clear base from the Holiday 2011 Backstage Pass Collection. Overall, this is a simple and girly mani, but it's a little more special with the added glitter.

Unfortunately, I believe this will my last mani for the 31 Day Challenge. I know, fail. It's actually extremely difficult to come up with something creative, especially set with such strict limitations on your design. I sometimes found myself just completing a mani for the sake of posting for this challenge, even if I wasn't 100% satisfied with it. That's why I won't be continuing. I feel that I owe it to myself, as well as all my readers, that I stay true to my standards and offer swatches and manicures that I'm whole-heartedly proud of. From now on you'll only see quality swatches and manicures that I am fully happy with accompanied with 100% honest reviews on polishes, and I hope you guys will honour that decision.

As always, thank you so much for reading!

My First Blog Giveaway!!

2012-09-16T13:30:00.001-05:00

Want a chance to win two amazing polishes? Well here's your chance to win the ever elusive, extremely rare, and hard to find OPI - Black Spotted, released only in France Sephora with the 2012 The Amazing Spider-Man Collection and Orly - Rock Solid from the Fall 2011 Mineral FX Collection, a dark charcoal, almost black base with silver and holographic glitter!

One winner will receive a mini-sized OPI bottle decanted from my own bottle of Black Spotted and a full-size Orly polish in Rock Solid. This contest will be open as of now until October 16th 12AM CST. All you need to do is be a follower of this very blog and you will automatically be entered in a random drawing for a chance to win. That's it!

However, there is a second option to be entered as well. In conjunction with my Instagram account (@kimberlymaranan) #beinspiredcontest that is open until October 16th as well, just comment in THIS POST with your Instagram username (ie. @examplehere), and with verification of having at least ONE valid entry in my contest on Instagram, you will be entered an ADDITIONAL time (only once per account) into this random giveaway! So each person can have a total of TWO entries (one blog follower entry and one Instagram username entry) for this random drawing for the two polishes listed above.

Each commented Instagram username with a valid contest entry will be assigned a number on the closing date of the giveaway based on succession of comments, and that will be your number in the random drawing. Each follower as found through my blogger.com account will also be assigned a number on the closing date of the contest in succession as found on blogger.com, and that will be your number in the random drawing.

This contest is open internationally, with your country's shipping laws in consideration, and open to all ages (winner, if under 18, will need proof of parental permission). I will be making a post on October 16th announcing the winner, and the winner will then have 24 hours to contact me via email at kimberlymaranan@gmail.com with their shipping information. If the winner fails to comply with any of the rules or does not contact me within the specified amount of time, another winner will be chosen again by random draw using random.org

Any further questions, please comment them down below. For now, good luck to you all!

IMPORTANT! Please do not comment your Instagram username unless you have first submitted a VALID entry for the Instagram contest.

31 Day Challenge - Day 13: Animal Print

2012-09-16T10:56:00.001-05:00

This was one of the challenges I've been dreading the most to do. Let's just say, it was definitely a challenge for me. So much so that I actually had to redo it after not being happy with the turnout of my first attempt. I am pretty satisfied with the end result.

I started off the nail look with 2 coats of OPI - Take The Stage from the Holiday 2010 Burlesque Collection. This polish is a beautiful burnt orangey red, filled with orange flecks of glass shimmer in a slightly jelly-finish base. It is extremely easy to work with, and there is very minimal streaking once the second coat is applied.
I then took a Kiss nail art striper polish in Gold Glitter and made random sized and shaped blobs all over the nail, makin sure not to place them too close together. I then used a dotting tool with some black nail polish and made uneven, unclosed outlines and "C" shapes around the gold. To fill in some open spaces, i added small dots and "C"s to finish the overall leopard spot look. The more sporadic the look, the better. To even off the surface of the nail, I used a generous coat of Seche Vite top coat.

The first time I did this design, I used a black striper to do the outlines, and it just was a sloppy look that I didn't much care for. With the use of a dotting tool (you can also use a tooth pick or the end of a bobby pin), I was able to have much more control of the shapes I was creating.

Overall, I do like the finished outcome of this design, even though I don't feel like animal prints will ever be my best. I still think I did a pretty good job, and I get brownie points for redoing it to make it better right? Haha.

Thanks as always for reading, and keep an eye out later today for the next challenge up on the block: flowers!

31 Day Challenge - Day 12: Stripes

2012-09-12T23:04:00.001-05:00

As you can see from the title of this post, the challenge for today is stripes, and I have to say, I think I knocked this one out of the park. With complimenting tones of peach and coral, with black, white, and silver glitter, this manicure is definitely a stand out.

For this nail design, I started with a base colour of Whimsical Ideas by Pam - Georgia Peach Fuzz. This is a warm light peach jelly/creme base with rose gold micro and medium hex glitters suspended within. This polish is a breeze to apply; there's no need to fish or place the larger glitters, they just evenly disperse on the nail with each stroke. I used 3 coats of polish to get to this opacity and used a top coat to seal it in and add extra shine.

I added in the stripes using Essie - Tart Deco a warm coral creme, and Kiss nail art striper polishes in Silver Glitter, Black, and White. You want each nail to have a nice balance and mix of each colour, and it's also pretty when none of the nails are exactly alike.
It takes a lot of practice to achieve perfectly straight (or as straight as possible) by doing this freehand on top of the nail. The curve of your nail also makes it harder to get the lines straight. Another, slightly easier, method to do this manicure is to paint varying sized lines on a Ziplock bag with each colour you want to use, and wait for those to completely dry through. Next, peel them off of the bag and place them on your nail. You can cut them to fit your nail with cuticle scissors.

Stay tuned tmrw for my animal print challenge, which I am really not looking forward to because animal print is definitely not my forte. Thanks as always for reading! Follow if you like my posts :)

Gluttony & Lust

2012-09-11T22:24:00.001-05:00

Taking a mini break from the 31 day challenge to swatch a couple of indie franken polishes. Fans of @feliifel on Instagram will know about her fabulous line of nail polishes aptly named Nail Sauce. The two polishes I am reviewing today are from her Se7en Collection based on the seven deadly sins.

First we have Gluttony, a cool toned pink creme base with tiny rose and fushia hex glitters and large sky blue hex glitters made to resemble a yummy cupcake.

This formula is slightly sheer, but buildable to full opacity in 3 thin coats. You could also layer 1 layer of this over a similar-coloured pink polish for the same effect. I didn't need to fish out the larger glitters; what you see on the nail is what came out with each stroke. I did, however, place the blue hexes around the nail a little to create an even spacing of them. This polish dries rather quickly, and it also dries with a semi-matte finish. For a high gloss shine, I just added a coat of Seche Vite top coat, and this also evened out the slightly raised texture of the glitters to a smooth surface.

The next polish is Lust, a mix of medium red hex glitters with silver holographic and red heart glitters. Yes, heart-shaped glitters! These are suspended in a sheer black jelly base.

I decided to use this as a topper over a black creme polish and the glitters become the stars of the mani. What you see on the nails is two thin coats. I did have to fish in the bottle to pull out the heart glitters. I'm fine with that though since you can control how many hearts you have on each nail and you are able to turn them in the direction you want them to face. Since the larger pieces of glitter lay straight across the nail and don't follow the curve of the nail bed, you get a little bit of a raised edge. This is fixable with a thicker coat of Seche Vite, and the top of the nail is nice and smooth.

Overall, I am very pleased with the quality of these polishes. They were fast drying and easy to work with. They can be purchased from Felicia's website www.nailsauce.com along with other Nail Sauce polishes. She is having her final restock of her polish Space Junk tomorrow, so be sure to check that out so you don't miss out!

Thanks as always for reading, and come back tomorrow for my day 12 manicure using another indie brand polish!

31 Day Challenge - Day 11: Polkadots

2012-09-11T11:37:00.001-05:00

Yes, I'm pretty crazy about this manicure. Anyone who has been a follower of mine on Instagram (@kimberlymaranan) knows that I'm such a sucker for any pink creme polish. Combine that with glitter? Well, now that is a stellar mani in my books.

I have channeled my inner yogi with this beautiful, universally flattering rosy pink creme from Essie's Fall 2012 Yogaga Collection called Marathin. This polish is so amazing, even though I think that the name perpetuates the "thin is in" mind set, but I digress. Every woman can wear this colour; it's girly and sophisticated, neutral enough to wear every day (which I would if I didn't have so many polishes), and just gives the nails an overall polished look. If the fabulous colour wasn't enough, the formula on this polish is also superb. It's opaque in one beautifully even, leveling coat. This polish also dries very quicky for an opaque creme polish. If you slap some Seche Vite over it, your mani is done in 5 minutes tops.

Now that isn't even the star of this manicure, it's the polkadots of this amazing glitter. Cynthia Rowley brings us this beautiful polish filled with tiny blue glitters with some hot pink and hold glitters thrown in as well. The mix of colours is fantastic and so unique. If it wasn't for the hot pink glitters, this would be a pretty perfect dupe for OPI - Absolutely Allice. The glitters are very densely packed in the clear base, and if applied all over the nail, this polish would be opaque with two thick coats.

For the polkadots, I actually used the rounded end of a bobby pin to dot them onto the nail. It was a pretty perfect tool for the job, giving small even dots. While doing this mani, I found that it is ten times easier dotting with a glitter polish than a creme one. It's much easier to control the amount of polish you are applying to the nail, and therefore you are less likely to get blobs of polish instead of tiny, little dots.

So hopefully you're as swept away by this mani as I am. I know that I'll be sad to have to remove it so I can do tomorrow's challenge, but I'll enjoy it for as long as I can. Thanks as always for reading, and I hope you stop by for tomorrow's mani!

31 Day Challenge - Day 10: Gradient

2012-09-10T23:46:00.001-05:00

Since I posted a gradient for a previous challenge, I wanted to change things up slightly. And because I don't think I'm good enough to tackle more than a two-colour look, this is the manicure I came up with.

This angled gradient creates a chevron effect across the nails which I personally have never seen before. Due to my fading lighting (sorry, the sun was going down), I had a ton of glare off the super shiny top coat so please excuse that as it skews your view of the actual design. For this nail look I used Revlon - Posh as an all-over base to start. This is a fantastic bright, summery green with a formula that is to die for. A one-coater, smooth and fast-drying, it's definitely one of my favourites that the brand has to offer.

I then painted some of Posh and some of China Glaze - Smoke And Ashes from the Spring 2012 Hunger Games Capitol Colors Collection onto a sponge. Smoke And Ashes is an almost black green base with beautiful green-blue-gold multi-chromatic shimmers throughout. Obviously these pictures do this polish zero justice to its beauty in real life. I then transferred the polish from the sponge to the nail by dabbing it on the nail at a 45 degree angle, and redoing this step until the China Glaze colour was opaque at the base. I repeated this step for each nail, alternating directions so as to create the chevron. I then finished the look off with a coat of Essie - Good To Go top coat, just to even out the the surface and add a beautiful shine.

It may be that these polishes don't look great together, or together as a gradient, but whatever it is, this definitely is not one combination that I'll be trying again. I do love both polishes separately, so we'll experiment with them in different looks for the future.

Thanks as always for reading, and be sure to check out my post for tomorrow because I'm completely enamoured with it!

31 Day Challenge - Day 9: Rainbow

2012-09-10T13:05:00.001-05:00

Darn, and I was doing so well with posting one every single day! Oh well, hopefully this one was worth the wait. I chose to feature a rainbow confetti glitter for today's challenge, and this one is gorgeous.

A shot in direct sunlight

Nancy's Birthday from Whimsical Ideas by Pam is a multicoloured glitter of varying sizes in a cool pastel pink jelly base. There's silver, hot pink, sky blue, kelly green, orange, and sunny yellow glitters in there. This nail polish is basically a party on your fingertips! Application is a breeze, with a tone of glitter in every stroke. You don't need to do some strange dabbing technique for the glitter to be placed evenly over the entire nail, so that's pretty terrific. To top that off, the amount of glitter on my nails is achieved with only two coats! The base colour is still slightly sheer, with a hint of visible nail line showing through, which I personal like. If you want it completely opaque, just add a third coat.

A shot under indirect sunlight

With such large, chunky glitters, you would think that the surface of this polish when dried would be extremely bumpy and uneven. Well compared to some others with this amount of glitter, that is not so. The glitters actually do a good job of laying flat on the surface of the nail minimizing the uneven texture. A thin layer of Essie - Good To Go top coat and the surface is smooth like glass. I think this would be a great polish for many skin tones, because although the base colour leans slightly cooler toned, it's still a very flattering colour on warm skin-toned gals like myself.

Whimsical Ideas by Pam polishes can be purchased through her from her Facebook page, just search Whimsical Ideas by Pam. Shipping only provided for the US. Stayed tuned for my next challenge mani a little later today, and thanks for reading!

31 Day Challenge - Day 8: Metallic

2012-09-08T22:09:00.001-05:00

Well as you can see from a few of my previous posts, I've already dug into my metallic polish stash. But I was specifically holding out on this one nail polish for today's look. Of course though, the beauty of it just will not capture in a photograph (at least not on my camera). Nail polish blogger problems, right? Haha!

~~This is another unknown Color Club polish. I'm so sorry for using so many without knowing the names, I swear I tried googling them, but alas no luck!~~I found out the name thanks to a reader! This is Color Club - Snakeskin from the Fall 2010 Umtamed Luxury Collection. The colour that it shows up as on camera does this polish absolutely no justice to its real life colour. Yes, the base colour looks like this dark slate gray as pictured, but the khaki green undertone and tiny flecks of gold shimmer throughout, really sets this metallic gray apart. The formula on this polish is also as stellar as the colour itself. I believe the shimmer helps to control the streakiness, which metallic polishes are notorious for, and there was little, if any, streaking at all when I applied it. This is also beautifully opaque in two thin coats. I'm sure you could get away with just using one, that's just how pigmented it is.

Another shot in indirect sunlight

Overall, from all the metallics/foils from Color Club that I've been using, I'm pretty blown away by the quality of them. I've used a few too many duds in the past that turned me off of using metallic polishes, but I must say that these gems that Color Club have put out are quickly changing my mind. I'm absolutely in love with them, and I'm sure they will be staples in my fall/winter go-to polishes.

Thank you as always for reading, and we'll see you tomorrow for what I think will be my most difficult challenge post to date!

31 Day Challenge - Day 7: Black & White

2012-09-07T15:41:00.001-05:00

With such a visually striking colour theme, I decided to keep the design as simple as possible; I'd like to think it was a great success. This manicure is very much girly yet sexy, classic but modern, edgy and sophisticated all at the same time.

I used two coats of each Essie - Blanc and Wet n Wild - Ebony Hates Chris to achieve an opaque base. It's extremely difficult to find a great opaque white polish that isn't too runny, too thick, or too streaky, but Blanc does a pretty great job at not being any of those things. In contrast, a black opaque polish is easy to come by, and even in less expensive brands such as Wet n Wild, the quality is still great. So why not save a few extra dollars with a drug store brand?

For the stripes, I used a black and a white Kiss striper polish, which comes with a very long, thin striping brush. This look can also be achieved by using a separate striper brush and just using the black and white polishes name earlier. I had the Kiss polishes on hand, so that is what I used. I do, however, find that the striper polishes tend to dry out much faster than regular polishes, and it's extremely difficult to make thin, crisp lines with thick, goopy polish. I added a few drops of a nail polish thinner to mine just to get a nice consistency to paint with.

I think out of all my challenge nail designs, these are my favourite this far. They're so simple yet striking, and so easy to accomplish that anyone could master this design with a little practice.

Thanks for reading, and see you tomorrow for the next challenge: metallic nails! Haven't I done some already? Haha, whoops.

31 Day Challenge - Day 6: Violet

2012-09-06T23:49:00.001-05:00

A beautiful, dimensional polish from Whimsical Ideas by Pam is the feature for today's nail challenge. I didn't feel the need to do any nail art or add anything else to this polish, well because let's face it - it's stunning.

Peanut Butter and Jelly is a gorgeous plumy purple creme base with a cooler toned purple sheen with micro and large hexagonal gold glitters. This was opaque in two coats, although under full direct sunlight, it does look somewhat patchy.

This picture is under indirect sunlight and it looks much less patchy. I am very impressed with the quality of this polish. The glitters dispersed on the nail evenly and there was absolutely no need to push or place the glitters around the nail. Application was smooth and easy, no streaking or patchiness at all, and the polish dried evenly with no grittiness. As with all my manicures, I used Seche Vite as a top coat for maximum shine and durability.

All in all, this is a great polish and the quality is extremely impressive. These polishes are available for purchase from Pam on her Facebook page, Whimsical Ideas by Pam. Unfortunately, these are only available for shipment within the US, but a friend was kind enough to mail these to me since I live in Canada.

31 Day Challenge - Day 5: Blue

2012-09-05T23:07:00.001-05:00

This is another one of those manicures that is more beautiful because of its imperfections. A gradient using foil polishes is anything but easy; especially the clean-up, now that was a pain. Hopefully though, you think it's as worth the hardships as I do.

I used two polishes from Color Club's Fall 2011 Foiled Collection called Lumin-Icent, which is a light, icy blue metallic foil, and Cold Metal, a mid-tone cobalt blue metallic foil. Both of which were nicely opaque and only need one coat in a regular manicure. It's best to take you're time when applying them however, since like most foil/metallic polishes, they can be very streaky if not applied carefully.

What is a foil nail polish? Basically it's like if a metallic polish and a shimmer polish ever had a baby, a foil polish would be it. Another example would be if you have ever seen a sheet of metal leaf (used primarily for crafting), a foil polish, when dried down, gives the same effect. It's just as finicky as a metallic polish when applying, since you see every mistake and imperfection on your nail. It also shines like a shimmer polish, not as pronounced, but just as pretty. Foil polishes also tend to have a silver shimmer base to them, as these and all the others from this collection that I have do.

Since I chose to create a gradient using the sponging technique (I explain how to do this in my Goodbye Summer Gradient mani), the texture of the sponge left a kind of "crumpled" look to the polish. As if you had balled up a bunch of aluminum foil and then tried to smooth it out again. You'll never get it perfect, but the texture that's left is gorgeous.

I'm so pleased with this manicure, and I'm excited to try it with some of my other foils polishes in the future. See you tomorrow for my purple mani. I hope everyone had a wonderful Wednesday!

31 Day Challenge - Day 4: Green

2012-09-04T18:21:00.001-05:00

This is not the best I've ever executed a manicure before, and the type of polish is partly to blame, but this colour combination... now that is something I am proud of. A deep chevron scotch tape mani is what I chose, and I feel like it shows off these two colours spectacularly.

Both polishes are from Color Club, but unfortunately I do not know the names of them, yet again, since they were ones that came in a set. The base of three of the nails is a golden blonde nude metallic (I found out the name! It's called Antiquated from the Fall 2011 Foiled Collection). Very pretty colour, but extremely streaky as most metallic polishes are. Every mistake I made was highlighted and emphasized further with this polish, so that was a big downside. I'm sure this would make a great stamping polish though, since it's opaque in one coat.

Now the green for today; wow. It's a dark blue-toned emerald green shimmer. I'm so in love with this colour, I can't even begin. Now because this colour has a blue tone to it, my camera is making this colour more teal rather than emerald. But trust me when I say, it's stunning in real life. This too was a one-coater, with an even, smooth-like-butter application. Too bad I don't know the name of this polish, because I would suggest everyone own it for the upcoming fall season!

To create the chevron cut-out, I just placed a piece of scotch tape cut as close to a 90 degree angle as possible, and placed the corner at the center of the nail pointing downwards. I gently pressed down the edges of the tape, so as to remove all gaps and bubbles from the edge (to prevent bleeding through of polish) and then quickly painted a coat of polish over the area that the tape did not cover. I then remove the tape immediately, pulling in one direction. You need to pull the tape off while the polish is still wet because if you pull as it's starting to set, the edges will pull up along with the tape and the line will not be clean and crisp. You can also play around with the positioning of the tape; move it up or down the nail bed, and even turn it over for an inverted chevron. If you are successful, you will create the perfect chevron.

I guess you all can tell by now that I am completely into fall with the colour choices I have been making for this challenge. Autumn colours are always my favourite. So rich and luxe; the jewel tones make my heart flutter and I don't think I'll be turning back!

See you all tomorrow with my blue mani! Thanks for reading! Xx

Re-done and I feel like the quality on this one is much better than the original from earlier. Much less streaky and no balding on the ring finger.

31 Day Challenge - Day 3: Yellow

2012-09-03T03:52:00.001-05:00

I'm absolutely loving everything about this manicure! It's a great transitional design to do with the seasons about to change. The tribal/Ikat nails and print were huge this spring/summer, and the colour theme is very summer appropriate. The mustard yellow colour is also a huge trend for this coming fall season, so it would be easy to wear this any time in the next few months as well.

I started with a base colour of China Glaze - Kalahari Kiss from their Fall 2012 On Safari Collection. It's a smooth and opaque creme polish, really fantastic formula on this one, that is a great nude with very yellow undertones. The name suits it extremely well since I think of desert sand when I see this polish. I used two coats for this look, but you could really get away with just using one.

On top of that sandy base, I painted two coats of Matisse Ellite - The One on only half the nail. You want it to be as even as possible, but this need not be perfect since I covered the middle where the two colours meet with Kiss black striper polish. For this I used small thin, feathery strokes to create that torn fabric look at the intersection of the two colours. I finished off my design with a fast drying, high gloss top coat: Seche Vite, which I use to seal all my manicures with.

I'm really happy with the turn-out of this look, and it was so easy and simple. It didn't even require perfection since the little mistakes in the black feathering add interest to the overall effect. I hope you give this mani a go!

Happy Labour Day, everyone! Have a great day off from work ;)

31 Day Challenge - Day 2: Orange

2012-09-02T01:44:00.001-05:00

I had a much easier time with this mani than I did with yesterday's challenge. Don't you just love it when you have an idea in your head, and it turns out looking exactly as you had planned it to look? Yeah, pretty awesome feeling.

This is a "jelly sandwich" technique, where you literally sandwich a glitter polish between an opaque polish as a base and a jelly polish on top. The effect it creates is one where the glitter looks suspended under a gelatin surface. I used Essence - Wake Up! for the base colour, a mid-tone bright orange creme which was opaque in pretty much 1 coat, but I used 2 here just for full opacity.

To that, I then added a coat of a Color Club polish which I don't know the name of since I purchased it in a duo set and those never seem to have the names on them. It's very much along the lines of OPI - Rainbow Connection although in this one, all the glitter pieces are the same size. This glitter was a little difficult to work with. Although a lot of glitter was distributed on the nail in one swipe, the glitters tended to bunch up together as you stroked the brush on the nail creating two edges of glitters on each side of the brush. I had to push around and place the glitters a fair amount to redistribute them evenly across the entire nail bed. If anyone knows the name of this polish, please post it in the comments below!

I then topped it all off with OPI - Y'All Come Back Ya Here? from the Spring 2011 Texas Collection. It's a jelly polish, or what OPI likes to call them "sorbet" polishes, which lends a stained glass-type effect to the nails. This is two coats, and the polish gives a translucent, stained look without being streaky or patchy. I personally love jelly-finish polishes.

Overall, I really love the end result of this mani. Because I put the translucent orange OPI polish on top of the multi-coloured glitters, it gave the glitters almost a duo-tone look of green and gold glitters only. It lends this manicure a very fall-time theme instead of looking like confetti at a birthday party.

I hope you all love this look as much as I do, and I'd certainly love to hear your feedback on it. Thanks for reading, and see you all tomorrow with my yellow-themed look!

31 Day Challenge - Day 1: Red

2012-09-01T23:10:00.001-05:00

The 31 day challenge is definitely just that - a challenge. It takes you out of your regular niche and makes you choose colours, styles, and patterns that you may not necessarily try or do otherwise. After many a failed mani, I landed on this one for the first day; a simple glitter gradient that is perfect for the upcoming fall season.

So after putting on and removing maybe three or four colours before this one, I finally decided on a shade of red that didn't look too trashy on me. Unless I'm in the mood to wear red, I feel like certain shades on my skin tone and with my length of nail, it just looks inappropriate and gaudy. So this one is Essie - Fishnet Stockings. This has a great formula; it's a one-coater! The colour is a darkened brown-toned brick red. I feel that even though this colour is very vampy and sexy, its without being too over the top and trashy-looking. It's the perfect colour to rock for the fall and winter seasons.

Instead of just doing a simple colour swatch for my first day of the challenge, I added in a little glitter gradient for some extra interest and to break up the red a little bit. I threw on Klean Color - Tango, depositing the polish onto the tips and dragging slightly upwards in soft strokes so as not to pull up the large holographic hexagonal glitters. I felt that leaving those at the bottom instead of working their way up the nail added more of a gradiation to the glitter.

With that is the first manicure for the 31 day challenge! It's definitely not my best and brightest, but at least the designs and manicures can only go up from here! Leave me a comment with any suggestions of what you think I should do for a certain day.

Have a good Septembrrrr, everybody! Xoxo

Goodbye Summer Gradient

2012-08-28T21:28:00.001-05:00

With back-to-school where I live starting on September 5th, this will undoubtedly be our last day at the beach this summer *tear*. So in celebration of such an event, I did a simple and easy sponged gradient with a twist using all Essie polishes.

I first started off this manicure with a coat of Blanc to act as a clean base for the colours I use on top to be better shown off. If you want a light, bright, or neon polish to be even more vibrant, just put a base of white "underwear" on beneath the coloured polish!

After the underwear has fully dried, I put a generous swipe of both Navigate Her (pastel pistachio green creme) and To Buy Or Not To Buy (light white-base pastel lilac creme, with purple shimmer in the bottle but those mostly disappear once on the nail) on a makeup sponge directly beside each other.
I slowly apply the sponge to the nail bed, with the center of where the two polishes meet with the center of my nail. Then I move the sponge in the slightest up and down motion on my nail to gently blend the two colours seamlessly. This should give you a perfectly blended gradient effect, and you can stop there with a coat of fast drying top coat.

To add an extra bit of oomph, I topped my gradient of with a coat of Pure Pearlfection top coat from the Luxe Effects Collection. It's gives just the right amount of subtle silver sparkle without being over the top.

I hope everyone had an amazing summer... I know I sure did! So who else is really looking forward to wearing dark, vampy, and rich colours for fall/winter?

Girly & Edgy: Ballet Meets Black Magic

2012-08-27T22:29:00.000-05:00

This manicure is prima ballerina mixed with punk rocker. Pretty and feminine, but with enough edge to make it interesting.

A base of OPI - Care To Danse? from the NYC Ballet Soft Shades Spring 2012 Collection. It's a sheer but buildable, very pale lilac with a white base; it seems more pink-toned on the hand as apposed to the more purple hue in the bottle, but very pretty none-the-less. It took 3 coats to build the color up to this opacity - still not fully opaque, with visible nail line showing in direct sunlight. It dried quickly and leveled-off very nicely on its own.

On top of that, we have an indie polish, XOXO Nails - Black Magic. 1 coat displays the small square, and medium and large hexagonal glossy black glitters perfectly. The glitters are suspended in a clear base, and spread out evenly with minimal pushing and placing of the glitter particles. When dried, the glitters are slightly raised from the surface of the nail. However, with a coat of Seche Vite, it smoothed that out to a shiny, glossy finish.

And with that, is the conclusion of my first blog post *phew*! I'd love any and all feedback with regards to the "voice" I've taken with this blog, what you would like to see in future posts, etc.

I hope this was a happy ending to your Monday blues!