Galaxy FX Gradient

Here is the second ORLY Galaxy FX polish I bought - Intergalactic Space.

I wanted to try a glitter gradient with it - I wasn't sure if it would work, since the polishes are all so packed with glitter, but I had to try.

I started with a base of Sally Hansen Firefly, from their Lustre Shine collection - two coats on all nails except my ring finger. This polish is a very pretty bronze to blue/green/grey duochrome. The colour shift isn't very strong on this one, but I still like it. If I was wearing it on it's own, I'd probably go for 3 coats, because it's pretty sheer.

I applied Intergalactic Space to the tips of my nails, then a second coat starting about 2/3 of the way up my nail. On my ring finger, I simply applied two coats.
This is a pretty complex polish - It's a grey jelly base with blue microglitter, small purple and bronze hex glitter, with a light scattering of medium round white glitter.

I love this one, I don't know how to describe it.

As with Gravity Bound, this polish is packed with glitter, so it can be a little bit goopy if you don't work quickly. Some reviews complained that the white circles were difficult to get. I only wanted them on my ring finger, and I had to wipe the circles off the brush while I was doing the gradient. There aren't many, but I probably could have had one per finger if I wanted to. Maybe I lucked out and got a good bottle?

Also, I just realized this manicure is pretty much perfect for ...

ORLY Galaxy FX

I saw these on a trip to Sally Beauty Supply, and grabbed two of them right away.
ORLY's Galaxy FX are jelly (or crelly - creamy jelly) polishes that are absolutely jam-packed with glitter. Oh my God the glitter.

This one is called "Gravity Bound"

The polish is a dark blue jelly base with fine blue glitter, small purple hex glitter and large white hex glitter.
This is two coats.

The polish is very thick, so it can be a bit goopy if you don't work fast.

Because of the glitter, it's a bit gritty as well. I had to apply two coats of my fast-dry topcoat that normally smooths everything out in one coat.

The polish is gorgeous, and I couldn't stop looking at it. It really does look like it was inspired by outer space - a nebula and stars.

Only drawback?
I guess the thick glitter and two coats of topcoat caused the polish to just pop right off:

Thankfully, this was after about 4 days of wear, so no big deal.

The other one I picked up is called Intergalactic Space - which I will post photos of another time. I have something in mind I'd like to try with it.

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!

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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.

Easter Nails

Inspired by my jelly sandwich from a few weeks ago, I did some Easter themed nails.
I decided to make it a ruffian manicure to incorporate some chocolate brown into it as well.

I used 2 coats of Revlon Chocolate Truffle to create the base for the ruffian. I only painted it near the cuticles, because I didn't want to create too many layers.
I went over that with a thin coat of Zoya White to create a base for the lighter colours.
From pinky to thumb, I used Zoya White, Fascino Blue, Sally Hansen Mellow Yellow, Sally Hansen Pink Blink and Ardene's Stereo Love. Two coats of each.
Once those were mostly dry, I added Ardene's Paris Nights multicoloured glitter. It's in a slightly green tinted base so it did alter the pastels a little bit, but it's super pale and sheer, so you don't notice it once the manicure is done.
Once the glitter coat was mostly dry, I went over it with Sally Hansen Polar Bare to mute down the colours and matte the glitter.
Topcoat to even everything out and protect it and voila! speckled Easter eggs!

The Ardene's polish and the Sally Hansen Polar Bare both take ages to dry, but it's a super cute effect.

I wore this over to a friend's house and once they saw it they said "you have Easter eggs on your nails! Chocolate ones!"
I think the concept was a success.