OPI Skull & Glossbones

I recently picked up OPI Skull & Glossbones thinking it would be a good base for something - maybe marbling or some type of nail art. I painted it on to one nail to see the color and I was amazed at how much I LOVE this. It's so simple, and it's not a color I would ever have thought I'd be wearing on it's own, but it's just chic and beautiful.

What polishes do you have that pleasantly surprised you?

Blue Ombre Nails

I've seen lots of photos of ombre manicures. Maybe this isn't a TRUE ombre since I didn't just use different shades of the same color, but I like how it turned out!

The colors I used for this one were Essie Go Overboard, Revlon Chic, Ulta Bam-blue-zled, China Glaze For Audrey, and a light blue Petites polish I picked up specifically for this.

Go Overboard and Chic are two of my favorite polishes in my collection, so it's always nice to get a chance to wear them!

Blue Water Marble

I recently did my second water marble, and I tried out some blues!  This time I got some distilled water to use instead of the bottled water, and I felt like it made a huge difference with getting the polishes to spread better.  I have had a lot of trouble getting those nice loopy shapes that show up in most water marbles, and I had a better time this time.  Here it is!

 

My thumbs turned out two of my favorites, nice loopies!  But I still wasn't getting as many rings of color as I would have liked, so the sections of color are thicker than I would have liked.

For the base, I used Ulta Bam-blue-zled. The colors I used for the marble were Bam-blue-zled, Pure Ice Oh, Baby!, Pure Ice All Night Long, Ulta Dance Teal Dawn, and Ulta Alter Ego.

Zoya Bevin

Today I have some good old fashioned swatches for you. Zoya Bevin was on my wishlist for a while, and I finally picked it up last month.  It's a super pretty kind of minty/dusty green.

 

Love it!

Bottle Spam!

Sorry for the sudden absence from this blog!  I got to the end of my scheduled posts and then I got sick and had bare nails for over a week because I had to blow my nose every 5 minutes and couldn't have wet nails!  It was crazy.  So, I have some fun stuff coming up that I've been wearing and hopefully that will get me back on my regular schedule! 

Today I have some fabulous bottle spam... stuff I've gotten recently!  I got my hair cut last week at Hairmasters, and the location I went to had a bunch of OPI polishes 60% off AND buy 1 get 2 free... what?!  How could I resist?  I got Skull & Glossbones, I'm Suzi & I'm a Chocoholic, and Jade is the New Black.  I didn't have any idea it would happen, but I am in LOVE with Skull & Glossbones!  I will have some swatches of that coming up.

 

The other day I was in Big Lots and decided to check out the beauty section for polishes, and they had a whole bunch of two packs of Revlon polishes including the glittery scented polishes.  I got Grapefruit Fizz, Colada Fizz, Pineapple Fizz, and Apple-tini Fizz.  Each pack of 2 was only $2!

 

Lastly, I picked up one of the polishes from my wishlist - Zoya Ki.  Look how pretty that duochrome is!  And a boring old white from L.A. Colors since I didn't have one.

I was also shopping at Fred Meyer the other day and started looking at the Essence display there.  I did not have any Essence polishes, but I have heard they're not bad.  Then I realized that they have a bunch of nail art stuff.  It's super cheap, and I haven't really had a chance to try it out, but I thought it might let me see what things are like even if it doesn't work as well as the really quality stuff.

I picked up a gem-placer/dotting tool, a magnetic polish and magnet, two stamping plates and a stamp, and some stencil stickers with stars.  I'll post more about these as I use them!

 

In closing, here is a random shot of my polishes where I keep them now... I may need a new system soon, it's not very organized and the bins are getting full!

 

Ice Queen Glitter

Just a quick one today, I'm about to hop in the shower then head down to Seattle for a (hopefully mostly dry) visit to the zoo with friends.  Spring Break!  So, today I have some shots of Sally Hansen Ice Queen glitter.  It's a clear base with large silver and turquoise glitter and small silver and holo microglitter.  It looks really pretty in the bottle, but I found when I put it on my nails it was more sparse than I would have liked.  Here I have it layered over Pure Ice Silver Mercedes.  It's pretty, but less impressive than I originally hoped.  

Nubar 2010

I'm not sure where I first saw Nubar 2010, but as soon as I saw it I knew I HAD to have it.  I added it to my wish list, and the next time I ordered from Amazon I added it to my cart.

I was so excited when it arrived!  The first time I wore it, I put it on over a deepish red - Sally Hansen No Chip 10  Day Color in Endless Claret.  I was slightly disappointed by my choice at first because the Nubar didn't stand out as much as I'd hoped.  But when I went out in the sunlight the next day, it popped!

Love!

The second time I wore it I did a little Google search to look for ideas, and saw it over some blues and purples.  I decided to go with a really dark shimmery purple - OPI Russian Navy.

It really stood out!  I even got a shot of the range of colors - the flakes really morph between red, yellow, and green.

I recently wore it on it's own, which can also be cool for a bit of quick sparkle if you don't feel like doing a whole manicure.

I love the look of flaky holos, and I am totally coveting the Finger Paints Special Effects Collection that came out in Winter of last year.