Candy Corn and Sugar Skulls

First Halloween manicure of the month.

Not sure I'll do another one until Halloween itself - I just really wanted to try this one.

Candy corn is my favourite Halloween treat, and sugar skulls are very pretty.

I saw a whole manicure of sugar skulls dinner with different coloured fimo flowers, but I only have the yellow ones - so I figured they would go well with candy corn nails.

Then I saw a manicure that used OPI's spotted topcoat over orange, and thought it looked great. The polish was super limited, and I'm not sure if it was available in Canada at all, so I don't have it.
Thankfully, you can recreate this look by floating black polish on water (as if you were going to do a water marble) and then spritzing it with rubbing alcohol, before dipping your finger(s) in.

Polishes used:

Sinful Colors Snow Me White

essence wanna be your sunshine

NYC Pumpkin

OPI Black Onyx

essence tattoo nail art pen

Claire's fruit Fimo wheel - flowers

Deep Breath

Saturday is the premier for Doctor Who series 8 - Peter Capaldi is taking over as The Doctor, and they're doing a feature length episode (called "Deep Breath")

Of course I had to do themed nails to match!

I don't have my usual tools, so these aren't as great or clean as I wanted, but I still like them

Polishes Used:

essence Black is Back

essence Flame Fatale

essence nail art Tatoo pen

essence French Tip pen

Color Club Blue-topia

Orly Galaxy FX Gravity Bound

China Glaze Holographic Cosmic Dust

China Glaze Frostbite

Ardene Tigers Eye

- Thumb is a TARDIS, as usual.
- Index finger is continuing companion, Clara - based on her Christmas outfit, which I believe carries over for at least part of the new episode.
- Middle finger represents the 12th Doctor's new costume.
- Ring finger is, as usual, a Dalek, because even though I don't think they'll be in this episode, they're a huge part of Who (and I love doing Dalek nails …)
- Pinky is simply Orly's Galaxy FX polish, mainly because I couldn't think of anything else to add!

Radiant Orchid

I had some technical difficulties with this one - I originally tried to update from my phone, and it refused to save (the original is still sitting there "saving")

This year's Pantone colour of the year is a lovely purple called Radiant Orchid. I love the colour, so I had to check my collection to see if I had anything in the same family.

Turns out, I have two!

The one I chose for this manicure was Violet Voltage - it's on the lighter side and has a pink shimmer.

I will show the other one (Pep-Plum, also by Sally Hansen) another time.

I had a lot of people think I used stickers or stamps for this one - but it was all freehand. Nail art pens are a godsend.

Polishes used:

2 coats Sally Hansen Violet Voltage

3 coats Revlon Nude Beige

essence black nail art "tattoo" pen

Original idea found at Dressed Up Nails

I'm Back!

I know I've been gone for a while. I have been painting my nails the w whole time, but there are very few I've been willing to share. Nothing was working quite right.

I've got a few saved, and I seem to be back in the groove, so I want to start sharing again!

I'm going to trial updating without the use of flickr, just to make updates easier for me, but I'll still upload things there later, to have a gallery all in one place.

I will be keeping my nails short going forward, because I'm trying to learn ukulele, and long nails don't help!

So, without further ado, here is this week's manicure!

Polishes used:

3 coats Essie Sunday Funday

3 coats Sinful Colors Snow Me White

essence black nail art "tattoo" pen

Design originally found on Pinterest

Valentine Mix

I'm pretty late posting this - but this is what I did for Valentine's Day:

We don't celebrate Valentine's Day - both TheHusband and I feel that romance should be spontaneous, not expected.
But It's a good excuse to do fun nail art, so yay!

Thumb, middle and Pinky finger all started with a base of Sinful Colors Snow Me White. Over top of that, I added two coats of Sally Hansen Digital (from their HD line from a few years ago). Digital is, as you can see, a hot pink. It's fully of shimmery frosty goodness. I'm not a big pink person, I was actually planning on using red for this manicure, but I hadn't used Digital yet, and I thought I should.

On my thumb, I used a dotting tool to create a pattern (from an image I saw on Reddit), and applied a gold heart charm.

On my middle finger, I used my trusty Claire's striping polishes to add racing stripes down the side of my nail.

On my pinky, I added random dots using a dotting tool - first in black, and then white over top.

For my index and ring fingers, I started with a base of OPI Black Onyx.

On my index finger, I applied a coat of Claire's High Maintenance - a mini polish that is a fuchsia jelly base filled with fuchsia glitter.

Finally, on my middle finger, I created a french tip using Sinful Colors Snow Me White, then applied two coats of Sally Hansen Digital. I cleaned up the line using the Claire's white striper, and applied a black heart jewel.

It was a bit time consuming (and I actually redid my middle finger - I had it completely different, but it didn't fit in at all), but I liked it for a couple of days :)

Let's Talk About Gwen Stefani

So, one thing I'm a fan of, that I don't talk much about, is No Doubt.

Loved them since Tragic Kingdom came out (I was 13!). After listening to that album to death, my cousin and I had to find their other albums that were available at the time (No Doubt, and Beacon Street Collection), and I've picked up every album since - including Gwen's two solo albums (

When I saw in the Sally Beauty flyer that Gwen Stefani teamed up with OPI to put out a line of polishes, I knew I needed to at least check it out. I went to a different local beauty supply store - one that actually supplies for salons, so the prices are MUCH better. I grabbed two bottles.

I painted all my nails with two coats of 4 In The Morning (a song from Gwen's second solo album, The Sweet Escape). It's a beautiful satin-finish black with a hint of shimmer to it. Satin finish isn't quite matte, and it's not a gloss. Unfortunately, you can't really use a topcoat with it, so I had some tip-wear within a few hours (cooking dinner and all that), but it didn't get too much worse over the next few days.

On my ring finger, I applied a coat of Lay Down That Base (missed opportunity to use "Underneath It All"?) - a special baecoat included with the next polish. I left an outline of the black.

After Lay Down That Base was dry, I applied two coats of Push & Shove (from No Doubt's latest album of the same name).
This is a special polish - it's an ultra shiny chrome silver. Back in the day, Sally Hansen released a line of chrome polishes. This is that but both better and worse.
The finish on it is amazing, super shiny and smooth. It does show every imperfection in your nail, and apparently, it doesn't work over other types of basecoats - maybe use a ridge-filler and then Lay Down That Base?
Anyways, it's also worse than Sally Hansen's old line, in that it's advertised as one-day wear. You aren't supposed to use a topcoat on it. Other bloggers seem to have had good luck with applying a topcoat, so next time I use this polish, I'm going to give it a shot.

The other shades are:
Love.Angel.Music.Baby - a satin finish gold
I Sing In Color - a dark oxblood shade
Hey Baby - a hot pink
In True Stefani Fashion - holo glitter. This one has square glitter!
Over And Over a Gwen - classic red - this one only comes in a box-set with nail studs and gems.

There is a mini box-set that includes Love.Angel.Music.Baby, I Sing In Color, Hey Baby, and 4 In The Morning - I may pick this up, but I kind of want the full size bottles. I just can't justify buying anything other than the satin finish gold, because I have something like all the other shades already.

Revlon Selects and Christmas

Revlon Selects sent me some of their Revlon by Marchesa 3D Jewel Appliques, and I saved them for my company Christmas party.

I used Gilded Mosaic - a very pretty gold and silver mosaic pattern.

Last time I tried the appliques, they only lasted a day before peeling up, and I kinda got frustrated with them. I had used a basecoat, which I think was part of the problem. 

This time I followed a how-to blog post from someone else (I forgot to save the link, and now I can't find it), and didn't use a basecoat.

The how-to said to use a "feather touch" when filing off the excess sticker, and ... yeah, these are so thick that you need a little pressure. I was still being gentle though. Some of the ends were still ragged - though I think that's a product of the design on these ones and my nail length - some of the jewels popped off at the ends of my nails.

I touched up the ends and wrapped the tips with some gold polish, and because the ragged edges were still bugging me, I went over it with a topcoat (it had to last a couple of days, because I was working the day of the party).

On my ring finger, I used Avon Matte Concrete, Essence Black is Back and Bundle Monster stamping plate 323 to create a nail that matched my party dress.

Now, the nail sitckers actually lasted several days this time before the design started to wear off, revealing the white base. 

I followed the directions, and peeled them up from the cuticle edge. Every finger except my thumbs (both hands), went well.

Here is what happened on my thumbs:

It peeled off a layer of my nail in some places - this was the better of the two. My other thumb had much larger sections peel off.

So, next time - basecoat for SURE.

---

After letting my nails rest for a few days, I decided that I needed to do something Christmas-y

I used Color Club Red De Rio, then applied Claire's Cranberry scented polish from last year's scented holiday collection (it didn't really smell ... I think it's faded now). It's a fine red glitter with slightly larger gold glitter strewn throughout.

On my ring finger, I used a tutorial from Nailside to make a Christmas tree. I used China Glaze Winter Holly for the tree, and applied a gem to the top.

Winter Holly is a fun colour - packed with fine dark green glitter, and I think I spotted some gold and silver in there too.

My only complaint is the base of the glitter somehow caused the red to soak through my basecoat and stain my nail.

The Day of The Doctor

I've already established that I am a Doctor Who fan, so I have definitely been looking forward to today - the 50th anniversary of the show.

I figured I should do a manicure that would be appropriate for today.

I think I am most proud of my ring finger - it turned out pretty much exactly how I wanted.

The TARDIS on my thumb:

• China Glaze First Mate - for the base
• It's So Easy Stripe Rite Blue Metallic - for detailing
• It's So Easy Stripe Rite Black - for detailing
• Claire's White striping polish - for detailing
• Sinful Colors Snow Me White - for the windows and the door sign

The 10th Doctor on my index finger:

• Revlon Chocolate Truffle - for the jacket
• It's So Easy Stripe Rite Blue Metallic - for the pinstripes
• It's So Easy Stripe Rite Black - for detailing
• Claire's White striping Polish - for the shirt
• Chine Glaze First Mate - for the tie

The 11th Doctor on my middle finger:

• Icing Skinny Dipping Beauty - for the jacket
• It's So Easy Stripe Rite Black - for detailing and pants
• Claire's White striping Polish - for the shirt
• Sally Hansen Celeb City - for the buttons
• Ink Nail Art Dark Red - for the bowtie

A Dalek on my ring finger:

• Revlon Vincent Van Gold - for the base
• It's So Easy Stripe Rite Black - for detailing
• Claire's Gem Wheel - yellow rhinestones - for the "Dalek bumps"
• Claire's Gem Wheel - silver rhinestones - for the eye stalk.

A Cyberman on my pinky:

• Claire's Celeb City - for the base
• It's So Easy Stripe Rite Black - for detailing

Also ... I just finished watching the special. So. Good.

Flakie Comic Nails

I wanted to do comic book nails again, but I thought it might be fun to add some flakies to it.

Two coats Color Club Love Links - this is a red with just a hint of orange. I picked this one up a while back on clearance from a local nail supply place. I was going to buy OPI's My Paprika Is Hotter Than Yours, but spotted this bottle for $1.99. It looked pretty close in the bottle, except the OPI had a slight shimmer to it. I was mostly looking for the shade, and I love a bargain, so Color Club won.

I added a coat of Icing By Claire's Rave Royalty - I really wish this one photographed better. The flakies are an iridescent orange-gold.

I applied a black outline using It's So Easy black striping polish and the "shine" detail using Claire's white striping polish. I think I could have left out the white, but it still looks good.

Catching up Part 2

I was looking up autumn nail trends, and found a couple of shades that I thought would really work well together: navy blue and chocolate brown. I also wanted to use the striping tape that I bought at a local Asian night market, so I thought diagonal two-tone would be fun.

I used China Glaze First Mate for the blue and Revlon Chocolate Truffle for the brown. The striping tape is a holographic gold.
My topcoat picked up the brown and deposited it on the blue on a couple of nails ... oops.

---

Oxblood was another autumn trend, so I thought it would be a good choice.

I used two coats of Sally Hansen Burgundy Child for most of the fingers, and two coats of Nabi 3D Rainbow Effect in Tawny
The Nabi polishes aren't bad - I get them 3 for $5 at Urban Planet, and while not super strong, they do have a slight linear holo effect going on.

---

I needed some orange for Thanksgiving / Halloween:

3 coats Nabi 3D Rainbow Effect in Bronze (mine is mislabeled as "Brone" - hah!) and I did a "sideways Fench" with Avon Golden Twilight - a black with gold glitter.
Fuzzy image for the slight holo effect:

---

Finally, for Halloween, I decided to do something different on every finger.

- Thumb was a vampire mouth: Color Club Red de Rio for the base, Claire's black detail polish in the middle and detailing at the top, Claire's white detail polish for teeth and a "shine" on the bottom lip.
- Index finger was a jack-o-lantern: Revlon Nude Beige base, NYC Pumpkin for the pumpkin, Claire's black detail polish for the face and outline, I used a no-name green glitter detail polish for the stem.
- Middle finger was one of my favourites - a ghost. I used Sinful Colors Snow Me White, added Wet n Wild glow in the dark topcoat, then created the outline with Claire's black detail polish - I used a dotting tool for the bottom and the eyes.
- Ring finger was my other favourite - a blob of slime. Revlon Nude Beige for the base, Nabi 3D Rainbow Effect in Green for the slime, Claire's black detail polish for the outline.
- Pinky was done by applying a layer of Sinful Colors Snow Me White, a layer of Sally Hansen Sun Kissed and finally a layer of Sally Hansen Mellow Yellow. I outlined it all with Claire's black detail polish to create the triangular Candy Corn shape.

phew!

Catching Up

Since I got back from the UK, work has been crazy, with terrible shifts, and when I'm not at work, we've been going out a lot.
It's just been a crazy summer, and I haven't been able to keep up here.

I've still been doing my nails though - so here's what I've got:

Polka Dots:

This was a base of Sinful Colors Rain Storm
Dots were done using two sizes of a dotting tool and China Glaze Holographic in Cosmic Dust and Galactic Grey.
This was for the Reddit challenge "Polka Dots"

Neon:

I started with Sinful Colors Snow Me White to give the neon a solid base.
Three coats of Ardene Neon Yellow - this is a highlighter yellow. It's ridiculously bright.
Over top of that, I dabbed Icing By Claire's Shredded. This one is pretty neat, it's not really what I'd call flakies, but it's shredded black glitter. The clear base has a slight blue tint to it, so it unfortunately changed the yellow a bit. I tried to do a sort of gradient with it, and reversed the gradient on my ring finger.
This was for the Reddit challenge "Neon"

Secret Periwinkle:

oops! this was my 100th manicure on here.
um ... I'll try to remember to do something fancy for 150?
I bought China Glaze Secret Periwinkle, because periwinkle is an awesome colour. Not quite blue, a hint of lilac. This is a really nice polish - 2 coats. I will be wearing this often.

Green Mermaid:

Three coats of Wet n Wild Fast Dry Sage in the City.
For my ring finger, I poured out a small amount of hexagonal glitter on to a piece of tin foil, and added a dab of topcoat next to it (not fast dry!). I applied a coat of the same topcoat to my ring finger, and then used a toothpick dipped in the topcoat to pick up the glitter and applied it one-by-one to my nail. This didn't take as long as you'd think - but I don't know that I'd have the patience to do my whole hand. I had to apply two coats of a thick topcoat to seal it off, and even then, there was some texture.
This was also a giant pain in the butt to take off, even with the foil method.

Jeans:

My friend bought me a bottle of Maybelline Color Show Denim Dash - it's a pretty blue polish with fine silver glitter that dries matte. I used two coats for this manicure.
I added a stud to my ring finger, to look like the button, or the rivets on jeans.

Gorgeous Bling Bling:

In honour of the cooler weather these last few days, and inspired by the pumpkin body lotion I just bought from Bath and Body works, I decided I needed to use an autumn shade on my nails.
This colour is essence Gorgeous Bling Bling (what a terrible name!), but it really is a gorgeous colour. Rusty orange with teeny tiny orange-gold flakies.

phew. OK, I'll try to keep up with this a little better.

Hard Candy Black Tie Optional

Everyone is going crazy over this polish.
I get it now.

After failing with China Glaze Whirled Away a second time (no pictures were taken, but it was bubbly, lumpy and did not dry for /hours/), I grabbed a bottle of Black Tie Optional from my local Walmart.

Now, everyone says they have a very hard time finding this polish, but I've seen it every time I've been at Walmart. In fact, when the Hard Candy display was mostly empty, BTO was one of the only bottles left.
I guess the nail polish fanatics in Vancouver don't care for the black & white glitter trend? or they don't venture into Walmart?

Anywyas ... The black and white glitter thing started with indie polish makers. They were hard to find and often out of stock - when they came back in stock, they would sell out very quickly. Then everyone jumped on the bandwagon. Here is a not-so-complete list, because companies are still releasing new ones - I've seen new offerings from Maybelline, Claire's and a few others.

For this manicure, I applied two coats of Barrielle Joytini, a peachy-orange almost jelly polish. I got this in a box set of polishes at Winners. The box said "New York Style", but when I looked up that set, Joytini wasn't in it (though, there was an orange), and there were other shades I didn't get. I guess it was random polishes thrown in the box. Not too surprised, because that's what happens with other sets at Winners. I've only actually seen one complete set. Not a big deal, I grabbed the set, because I liked the shades I saw, not because it was a specific set.

After those coats were thoroughly dry, I applied  a single coat of Black Tie Optional.
How was it? 
It was PACKED with glitter, so you can apply it like any old polish. And yes, that is only a single coat in the photo. Unlike Whirled Away, there was no dabbing was required. It is also super quick dry, so I could  apply a topcoat and be on my way without fear of denting or smooshing. I will say I had to dig a little bit to get the big hex glitter, but nothing like Whirled Away, where you had to dig for any glitter.

Reddit Challenge - Summer and Galaxy

This is proving to be a busy few months!

I have two weeks for you again.

First up is Summer ... I actually received an email from Butter London with a video tutorial on how to achieve this look using their summer shades. I picked 3 similar shades from my collection and went at it. I'm not that great with my dotting tools yet ... but I'm sure I'll get better at it.
Super bright and super cute!

1 coat of Sinful Colors Snow Me White
1 coat of Essence Wanna Be Your Sunshine
Blue dots with an unnamed blue from an Ombre set I bought.
Pink dots are Sinful Colors Dream On

---

After I took off the above manicure, the nails on my left hand started to peel really, really badly, so I had to cut and file my nails down to nubbins ...

Next challenge is Galaxy - I wanted to do a single galaxy on all my fingers - I think it worked.

This was done using mostly Essence polishes, so I'll just list the shades.
2 coats of  Black is Back
Using a sponge, I dabbed on (in order) Choose Me!, Walk on the Wild Side, Let's Get Lost, Grey-t To Be Here, and Date in the Moonlight.
On top, I dabbed a bit of KiSS Big Break Blue #3 (glitter in a very sheer blue jelly base) from their blue Gradation kit.
Then I finished it off with Quo silver glitter from their "Nice" Christmas nail polish pack.

phew!

Reddit Challenge - Pastel

I bought some nail studs, so I wanted to do something with them, and came up with this little pattern:

I think it looks a little bit art deco -ish

Anyways, the colours I used were
1 coat of Zoya White (to create a base for the pastel)
2 coats of a miscellaneous pale aqua colour from an 'ombre' set I bought (I'll show the set at a later date)
1 coat of Essence Black is Back, applied with a nail art brush

I pressed in the studs while the polish was still soft, and then I topped it all off with a clear topcoat.

The first stud fell off after around 24 hours (and chores), and I picked the rest off the following day.

It was fun while it lasted!

Reddit Challenge - Yellow

Ok, something simple this week.
I actually have several yellow polishes. This is a bit surprising, because I really am not a big fan of yellow.
They're all different too - pastel creme, scented bright yellow creme, sheer super shimmery yellow and opaque slightly shimmery yellow.

I used my opaque, slightly shimmery yellow for this one - Essence Wanna Be Your Sunshine
Since yellows can be difficult to apply, I started with a coat of Zoya White. After the white was dry, I applied a generous coat of the Essence polish. I really like this one. I probably could have gone with two coats, but one worked.

After the yellow was dry, I topped it off with a coat of China Glaze Whirled Away.
One of the many popular multi-sized black and white matte glitters ("matte glitter meaning it's not metallic - it's still shiny though ...)

I had a bit of an issue with this one. It might have been that I put on Whirled Away too thick, or I put on Out The Door (quick dry topcoat) before everything was dry enough, but I got bubbles. You can see them in the photo.

When I removed the manicure, You could really tell it went all the way through the polish!

The rest of the manicure came off really easily with the foil method.

Reddit Challenge - Inspired by Food

I was sorting through ideas for food related manicures, and settled on watermelon.
This is another super easy and cute manicure you can do.

1 coat Wet n Wild Lavender.

1 coat Sally Hansen HD Digital - Like the other Sally Hansen HD polishes, this is a sheer shimmery polish. Digital is a hot pink.

1 coat Color Club Green Scene for the french tip - this is a very pretty bright minty green. I got a mini bottle on clearance at a beauty supply store.

Seeds were added using Essence Black is Back and the small end of the Essence dotting tool.

I know I said way at the beginning that I didn't want to spend the money on dotting tools, but at $2.50, I figured I would give this one a try. It's not bad. I still say you can get the same effect with other tools, but it does what it's supposed to (I actually used it for painting something not-nail-related before I used it on my nails.)

My friend actually did a watermelon manicure as well - we were talking about the next thing we wanted to do, and we both said watermelon! The green on hers is up the side of her nail - super cute!

Next week's theme is Yellow. I'm going to go with something pretty simple.

Time And Relative Dimension In Space

Before Christmas, I decided that I was going to finally sit down and teach myself how to knit, so I could make a Doctor Who scarf (4th Doctor, Tom Baker).

Fan Expo also came back to Vancouver for it's second year last weekend, and I decided I wanted to try and finish the scarf in time for the convention. To make it even more fun, I figured that I should keep an eye out in my travels for other pieces to make a Femme 4th Doctor costume.

Well, I managed to finish everything and find the costume pieces just in the nick of time, and I couldn't just go with any old manicure ...

Ardene Elektronika - two coats on each nail.

China Glaze Cosmic Dust - two coats on top of the blue. Yep, I finally managed to track down some holographic polish. I absolutely love it. I grabbed this one (silver) and Galactic Grey (gunmetal). New favourite polishes. The holographic effect is strongest in bright sunlight, but you can still get a bit of a shine under artificial lighting. Neither is completely in your face holographic like some of the other polishes out there, but it's definitely there. This one also doesn't seem to dull under topcoat, as I've read about other holographic polishes (it does at first, but once the topcoat is dry, you're good to go).
Someone described it as appropriately 'wibbly wobbly'.

To create the tardis, I just used my striping polishes in white, black and metallic blue. I wasn't originally intending on using the blue, but I felt the nails needed a little more definition.

Also ... one of the dealers had a Tardis set up for photo ops, so ... I just had to.

Reddit Challenge - Animal Print

I grabbed another clearance polish a while back, this time from a salon. China Glaze Desert Sun. It's a lovely light orange-brown shade.

When I saw an Animal Print challenge was coming up, I knew I wanted to do freehand leopard print, because I had never done it before.

I also didn't just want to do plain leopard print.
I liked this tutorial, but didn't want to recreate it exactly, so I improvised and modified.

First, I started with two coats of Desert Sun near my cuticles. I didn't do my whole nail with it, because I didn't want to wait for too many layers to dry.

Then, I went over it with two coats of Essence Nude It!, leaving the Desert Sun visible to create a ruffian.

Once that was dry, I used Desert Sun to create little blobby dots all over the Nude It!.

Finally, I used  It's So Easy Stripe Rite Black to finish off the leopard print.

Normally, I'm not a big fan of animal prints, but I really like how this one came out!

Revlon Selects News and Wild Child

First up -
As you may know, I was selected as one of 500 people to receive a box of goodies for review under the Revlon Selects program.
Now, when I entered the contest on facebook, figured it was a one time thing and thought, it would be cool if they sent more stuff later, but never really expected anything else.
Well, yesterday I got a lovely surprise in my mailbox - a square box with a Revlon Selects sticker pasted on the side. I opened it up and much to my delight were two full size bottles of nail polish and a box of nail strips. Apparently they selected a group of people at random from the first batch of 500 and sent out another box.

I got a bottle of Revlon Colorstay polish in "Nude Beige", new Revlon Chroma Chameleon polish in "Gold" (a very popular green-gold duochrome shade) and a box of Revlon 3D Jewel Appliques in "Floral Fatale" (hot pink, white and black floral design with a silver geometric pattern. - they're a bit textured, hence the "3D")

Stay tuned for some photos of the products in action!

---

In other news ... A manicure!

I found this one on clearance at my local Shopper's Drug Mart and decided I wanted to get it.

It was really hard to get a photo of this one that shows all of it's elements.

The base is a black jelly polish filled with gold micro glitter.
Then, it has tiny silver holo hex glitter. In the bottle I have, this was all settled at the bottom and I had to turn the bottle upside-down and shake like mad to get it blended in at all.
Finally, it has a light scattering of small hex glitter in orange, teal, lime green, gold, purple, blue ... there might be other colours, but I'm not sure.

Since it's a jelly and I didn't want to use too many coats and muddy up the glitter, I did a base coat of Avon Licorice - a black creme - to provide a base, before adding a couple of coats of Wild Child.

The coloured glitter was a bit difficult to get out of the bottle, you'll see I only have one on my pinky and two -3 pieces on my other fingers. My thumb got 5 total. But it's enough as long as you shake the bottle before each coat. I checked out google images to see if I could find any other pictures of it, and you couldn't really see the coloured glitter in any of them.
Too bad, because this is a gorgeous polish, but since it was on clearance, I assume it has been discontinued.

Reddit Challenge - Stripes

This week is stripes - they are probably some of the easiest nail art you can do!

I wasn't really sure what to do, so I just grabbed some colours, tried a couple of things and finally settled on this:

Two coats of Color Club Wild Orchid - a medium grey with a pink-ish shimmer. In sunlight this polish looks purple. It's really pretty! The first coat was a little patchy, but the second coat fixed it right up.

Off to one side, I did a single thick stripe of Essence Fortune Cookie from their Cherry Blossom line. It's kind of a mustard yellow with a very slight simmer to it. I had to do two coats to get good coverage over the grey.

Then I outlined the yellow stripe using my Stripe Rite black polish. I didn't think it was quite done, so I added a stripe down the middle of the yellow as well.

I keep thinking it looks like a street.