Fun with Salon Perfect Halloween glitters!

Oh my gosh, you guys, I still have TWO MORE Halloween nail art posts to share with you.  I'm so sorry that I've been lagging behind my regular schedule lately!  I guess working 3 days a week has been harder on me than I thought it would.  I do absolutely love my job, but usually on my two days off I just feel like lazing around instead of doing any blog work!  Anyway, I'll probably post the next 2 Halloween manis in the same week so I can start posting some more seasonally appropriate nail art!

Last year, Salon Perfect and Nail It Magazine teamed up and gave away 100 sets of Salon Perfect nail polishes.  And I was one of the lucky 100!  I got 4 Halloween-themed glitters, a clear top coat, and green, orange, purple, and black polishes.  None of the glitters made it in to last year's Halloween challenges, but I wanted to feature them this year since I wasn't sticking to any specific challenges!

I couldn't settle on one design for these polishes, so I pretty much used all of the designs!

I was super, super happy with that purple-to-green gradient!  I almost wished I'd done it on all of my nails, but I do rather like the solid nails, too.  The larger glitters on my first 3 nails is called Witches' Brew, while the tinier glitter on my pinky is Wicked.

I'm pretty sure the Halloween glitters were limited edition last year, but Loopy Lime and A Royal Affair (the green and purple) are part of Salon Perfect's core collection.

Are you ready for this?  You're about to see my Cinderella hand!

I was too impatient to use the other glitters to wait for another full manicure, so I did a different mani on my right hand. :)  Traffic Cone, Oil Slick, and Sugar Cube (the orange, black, and white) are all core collection polishes, while the glitter, Trick or Treat, is once again limited edition from last year and no longer available.  I tried using the other glitter that I won, Spider Legs, but it had far too many black glitters for it to show up, even over this gradient!

Which of these two looks do you like better?  What did your nails don for Halloween, the most awesomest day of the year?  Let me know (or show me your nails) in the comments!

KBShimmer Be Scareful

KBShimmer's Be Scareful released in Fall 2015.  I got it a few weeks ago from a destash sale - I forget whose it was, but she had a lot of awesome indie polishes up!  I limited myself to one, and of course I chose a Halloween themed polish.

I applied Be Scareful using the sponge method.  First I brushed on one thin coat, to get an even coverage of the white crelly base, and then I sponged on two more layers of the glitter.

Isn't it so fun?  It looks like Halloween threw up on my nails!  I'm definitely glad that I used the sponging method.  The crelly base applies nicely, but the glitters are large enough that it's tough to brush them on.  I highly, highly recommend that you try out the sponge method!  Of course, if you do, you should protect your cuticles with some kind of peel-off barrier, because you'll get glitter all over your skin without it.

As you can see, it's not completely opaque - there's still some noticeable VNL.  I could have tried out one more layer, or layered this over a coat of solid white, but I wasn't all that concerned with getting full opacity.

Look at those tiny little orange glitters floating in there!  They're not super noticeable to the naked eye, but once you get this close up, it's hard to miss anything.

Oh, and when I went to bed after applying this polish, I got a pretty big surprise...

Be Scareful GLOWS IN THE DARK YASS!  I love a surprise glow in the dark nail polish!  I'm always like, "what's that weird light coming from - IT'S MY NAILS?!" and then I shove my hands in Derek's face and he's a bit concerned for my sanity.

Because it's Halloween, and because I still have plenty of the water decals that I used last Halloween, I decided to do some art on top of this!

I just love these decals!  They're so cute.  I mean - scary! :)

My friends at my crochet group were particularly thrilled with the spiderweb decal on my thumb.

Be Scareful isn't available anymore, but KBShimmer has an AMAZING lineup for autumn 2016!

What do you think of this polish?  What are your favorite KBShimmers?  Have your nails been celebrating Halloween all month long like mine have?  Let me know in the comments!

Blingy mermaid scale nail art

I can't even with these nails!

Almost literally!

This is the first time I decided to use a makeup sponge to apply a glitter polish.  Using a sponge gives you craaaaazy glitter coverage as the sponge absorbs the jelly base, so you end up dabbing on tons of glitter at a time!  It's awesome and probably how I'm always going to apply glitter from now on.

The glitter that I used is Zoya Vega - from the Ulta Pixie Dust line.  Which means it's suuuuuper sparkly with bunches of different sized holo glitters.  Because of how textured Ultra Pixie Dust is, and how densely the sponge allowed me to apply the glitter, I had to use about four coats of top coat.  As much as I love the look of Pixie Dust, I kind of hate the feeling of sandpaper-glitter nails so I prefer to smooth it out!

You've seen my background color, Nicole by OPI Candid Cameron, a zillion years ago in my Fifty Shades of Blue post.  It's one of my favorite pre-polish obsession polishes!

What do you think of this look?  Are you secretly a mermaid?  Let me know in the comments!

October nail art challenge Day 22: Critters

This design ended up being quite hodge-podge, but those are sometimes the best kind, right?

The most Halloween-y critters I could think of are bats and spiders, so they're all over my nails today!  I even have cobwebs on some of my nails!  Ahh!

My darker bat nails that you can barely see in these pictures have a fun surprise - they're glow in the dark!  I found Sinful Colors' glow in the dark top coat from their Halloween collection at Target the other day and I'm super excited about it!  Some of the bats are shadows in a glowing sky, others glow in a dark sky - because there's nothing creepier than glowing animals.

The glowing photos didn't turn out super great, and I couldn't even have the bottle in the shot

 because it glowed so bright that it outshone my glowing nails!!

This was a fun design in which I used mostly indie polish.  The black glitter is Heather's Hues Witches & Werewolves & Ghosts, Oh My!, the purple is another Heather's Hues from the Monster Mash Mani of the Month box that I got last month, called Vampirette.  It's soooo pretty!  I kind of wish I hadn't covered it up with so many bats.  The green on my thumbs is Creative Cuticles Nail Polish Ooze on the Rocks, and the neon orange that I used is a commercial brand - ORLY Ablaze.

The bats also come from the Monster Mash box - they're vinyls by Nails Redesigned.  And once again, the decals I used are by Naildrobe.

Here's the challenge image for you once again!  The clock is ticking on this one, with only three designs left!

Harry Potter release party nail art!!!

OH MY GOSH, YOU GUYS, THERE IS A NEW HARRY POTTER BOOK COMING OUT TOMORROW NIGHT!!!!!

Okay, it's the script to a play, not a true novel like the rest of them, but IT'S HARRY POTTER AND IT'S WRITTEN BY JK ROWLING SO IT'S CANON SO AHH I'VE BEEN PEEING MY PANTS LIKE ALL WEEK.

My favorite local bookstore is having a midnight release party for which I am SUPER pumped.  I haven't missed a Potter midnight release since the fifth book came out (book #4 had a morning-of release party, a bit more kid-friendly).  There's going to be a costume contest and, thanks to the inspiration of my friend Joanna, I'll be dressing as a wizard masquerading as a muggle.  Or, I guess, a no-maj since we're in America.  But anyway I have a super silly outfit planned, parts of which came from the thrift store, and I decided to do my nails to not-really-match.

You've seen all of these polishes on the blog before: they're the Houses and Horcruxes and We'll Take the Lot collections by Twisted Colors (who has tragically stopped selling polish).  I debated only using the Houses and Horcruxes collection since they're more recognizably Harry Potter themed, but decided to use all 8 of my Potter polishes because how could I leave the others out? <3

Since these have all been featured on the blog before, I won't go into detail about their names or their coverage.  Follow the links above for more details on each specific polish!

I actually kinda messed up the order on my left hand!  I meant to paint them on in the order of which House I most relate to: Ravenclaw (that's where I've been sorted on Pottermore), Hufflepuff (where I always kinda felt I'd end up when I was a kid), Gryffindor, Slytherin.  But I accidentally reached for The Sword before The Cup so there we go.

On my thumbs, I painted Deathly Hallows symbols over white with Fairy Dust because holo sparkles = magic.

This part of the manicure totally doesn't show up on camera, but I used a scented top coat by Dream Polish so that my nails could smell MAGICAL!  One Good Jump on my right pointer finger is chocolate scented, so that is also magical and just makes me smell delicious as I sit around.

It's super fitting that this midnight release is happening so close to my blogiversary, because I got to look back at my old photos and sort of see how far I've come.  I first swatched them all in my first year of blogging, and while the photos look fine, it's nice to have a redo with my new lighting setup and macro lens.  So I'm going to force extra photos down your throat, including some of the old ones.

This is, to this day, one of my favorite nail polish photos I've ever taken.  And it was only in my fifth-ever post!  I just love the depth of field on it, and the way I have my fingers positioned against the bottle.  This was long before I had a soft box for my lighting, so the glare is super harsh.  I don't even think I was wrapping a white pillow case around my LED lamp at this point! :D

Back in the day, my idea of a macro shot was to take a picture with the best focus possible and crop it tightly to one nail.  It technically worked, but it certainly doesn't capture the depth of a polish the way an actual macro lens does!

Oh yes, it's time for a storm of macros.  Here we go...

My macro lens isn't perfect - it is so very macro that I have to hold it about 1-2 cm away from my nail, and its depth of field is so narrow that I often struggle to get a good plane of focus on my very curvy nails.  Still, it clips on to my cell phone's camera and it only cost like $15 on Amazon, so it's pretty decent.  And it definitely has more of a true macro look than simply cropping a regular photo!

The silver glitters in The Locket are holographic, which you can especially see when you look at the ones in the bottle.  LOL I CALLED THEM "SHINY" IN MY ORIGINAL POST DID I NOT EVEN KNOW THE WORD "HOLO" YET?

 

That "perfectly stacked 90 degree angle" hand pose was so uncomfortable for me.  I almost feel like you can see the discomfort in the photos.  My current slanted hand pose is so much more relaxed and natural-looking for me.  Back then, I was trying to emulate some other bloggers' poses, but eventually I learned that I had to find what was comfortable for me, because when a hand pose feels better, it looks better.  And, doesn't my watermark look so much better wrapped around my middle finger's cuticle than crammed randomly between whichever two nails?

Well, that's enough reminiscing for now.  I may or may not do some more looking back and re-creations over the next week or two, who knows?  In the meantime, be sure to enter my blogiversary giveaway first thing on Monday!  And please, no calls on Sunday.  I'll be reading some new Harry Potter content all day <3

Zoya Seashells: Cece and Bay

So, remember how last January Zoya announced that they were discontinuing the Pixie Dust texture?  As it turns out, what they meant was "we will not create new Pixie Dust shades for a year and a half."  I'm pretty sure it was just a marketing gimmick to get people to buy Pixie Dusts like crazy that month.

Anyway, the bright summer shades that they released in Pixie Dust texture are really great!  I snagged two of them in minis during a recent sale (because not waiting for a sale is silly.  There's always at least one every month!). 

Cece

Cece  is a bright, grassy green.  It applies very smoothly, and it was opaque in two coats.  A third would probably deepen the sparkle, but I was happy with two coats.

I love the yellow-gold undertones in this!  It adds depth that some of the original Pixie Dusts didn't quite have.

Bay

Bay was also a smooth application, but the lighter color required three coats.  The blue sparkles remind me of clear, sparkling waters and make me want to go to the beach!

Bay also has a goldish undertone, although I don't think my camera quite caught it.  It adds to the image of the sun sparkling on clear blue water!

There are four other Pixie Dusts in this year's summer collection, plus six matching cremes that are supposedly one-coat wonders.  I did snag one of those cremes, and it will be featured on the blog soon, so we'll see if Zoya's claims of OCW are true!

What do you think of this summer's collection?  Do you own any of them yet?  Let me know in the comments!

Polish Addict Nail Color: Beatles Thermals

My Beatles fan side is definitely happy today!  Polish Addict Nail Color first released these two shades last summer, and re-released them this May.  The second I saw their names on Instagram I knew I had to own Hey Jude and Strawberry Fields Forever - especially Strawberry Fields Forever!  (If you've been around for a while, you'll be familiar with my inherent need to own strawberry things and all things related to that song.)  But because funds are limited - and so is space in my Helmer! - I got mini bottles.  I've left my pinky out of shots because a) 3 fingers looks less crowded on a mini bottle than 4, and b) my pinky nail is still too short to shape and I think it looks weird next to my other long nails.

Hey Jude

First off, I have to say that I really like the glitter density of Hey Jude.  The amount of glitter in the first coat matches the amount that I see in the bottle!  Very nice.  And the glitters applied very nicely, as smoothly as if they weren't even there.  The yellow and green glitters are most noticeable in the photos, but there are some teeny tiny gold holo glitters that really make this polish special.

Two coats of Hey Jude was enough to be opaque.

Hey Jude is a thermal, but I barely noticed a difference even when I plunged my fingers into ice water.  My camera definitely wasn't able to pick up the transition.

Based on the transition photo in the shop, it looks like my bottle is stuck in the warm phase.  I've heard that heat can damage thermal polish, and it was hot when my order was in the mail, so maybe the heat killed it?  But Strawberry Fields Forever is still very reactive, so I'm not sure.  An older review of Hey Jude also said that she couldn't see much of a difference in hue, so maybe the thermal formula is just odd on this polish.  But thermal or not, I still really like the teal color!

Strawberry Fields Forever

Like Hey Jude, the glitter density of Strawberry Fields Forever gets a round of applause.  The amount of glitter on my nails matches the amount that I see in the bottle perfectly and effortlessly!

Also like Hey Jude, two coats of Strawberry Fields Forever is great for opacity.  In fact, I think it was almost a one-coat wonder!  But I do prefer the look of two coats, especially since it's a glitter polish.

The thermal color changes are wayyyy more noticeable than with Hey Jude!  Strawberry Fields Forever is yellow in its warm state and berry-pink when cold.  When it's transitioning, it kind of reminds me of a half-ripe strawberry!

I actually had a hard time photographing this while cold or even transitioning because my hands were so warm that it kept turning yellow before I could get the focus right!  Summer is hard.

I love, love, love this polish.  It definitely meets my standards for strawberry themed things!

The multitude of gitters are fairly holographic, which is gorgeous.

I'll say one thing for my stubby pinky nail - it looks pretty nice in macro shots! 

I plunged the bottle into a bowl of cold water to get it to transition a little bit for this bottle shot.  Because why not?

Sadly, these two polishes are now gone from the shop (why do I always put off publishing reviews until the polish is gone?), but their Beatles-related sister Abbey Road is still available in the shop!

What do you think of these polishes?  Are you a Beatles fan too?  Let me know in the comments!

All Mixed Up Lacuqers: Nail Chicks Be Like... Collection

Okay.  I'm supposed to be on a no-buy.  For everything.  Until I find a job with reliable income.  But, obviously, that's not really happening because the indie nail polish world is so amazing and tempting!

This is my first time using All Mixed Up Lacquers.  I saw a collage of this collection pop up in my Instagram feed, and I went to the profile to investigate (I guess I need to stop doing that if I want to follow my no-buy) and found that this is a 10-piece collection made as a collaboration with bloggers Bethany of Hosuewifenails and Mercedes of Manicutie, inspired by things that nail polish fanatics say.  And you guys know how much I love buying nail polish because it has a cool name, so yeah, I had to have the whole collection.

To my surprise, my order was delivered while the collection was still in pre-order mode!  I kicked myself into gear so that you could feast your eyes on these 10 gorgeous babies as quickly as possible.

Warning: TONS of pictures ahead.  But that's the best part of a nail polish review, right?  And my pinky nail is still short and awkward so it's not going to be in the photos.

What No Buy?

Ha, yeah, of course this one would exist!  I see other ladies talking about breaking their no-buys alllll the time.

What No Buy? is a holographic glitterbomb.  The base is clear but quite dense with holo dust, and there are lots of small-to-medium shiny glitters in pink, orange, green, and blue.  I have two coats over white, one coat over black, and two coats over my naked nail.  You can see that the base is dense enough for semi-opacity in just two coats over naked nail!

 

Just look at all that holographic glitter!!!

This Looked Better in My Head

I've definitely said this, either to myself or in a post, about a lot of the nail art designs I've done!  Nail polish can be finnicky and it's hard to get the image in your mind to turn out exactly on your nails.

This Looked Better In My Head is a bright fuchsia jelly with matte purple flakies and some very fine holo microglitters, although I'm not sure those ones picked up on my camera.  From pointer to ring finger, I have two, three, and four coats on my nails.

My camera really flattened out the color, so I did my best to edit it on the computer.  The brightness of the fuchsia is most accurate in the macro shot above.

One Coat Wonder

Every nail polish lover covets a one coat wonder!  They save a ton of time end effort.

One Coat Wonder is supposed to be an actual OCW itself, but that wasn't really the case for me.  Partly because of the tiny brush in the mini bottle, and partly because of how long my nails are - they require a lot more polish than your average shorter nail!

I did use only one coat on my ring finger, and I thought I did it nice and thick, but while editing the photos I realized that no, it was a little streaky.  I decided to show my bum pinky nail because, again, I thought that with its shortness I'd be able to get away with one coat, but again, nope.

But don't get down on One Coat Wonder!  Even if it always needs two coats, it's still such a gorgeous mint-teal-turquoise color with more superfine holo dust.  I highly recommend buying this one in a full-size bottle if you want it to live up to its name!

Look at My Holo

Holo sparkles are the best sparkles.  If you're friends with a nail polish fanatic, she's eventually going to shove her holographic nails in your face and say "LOOK AT THEM SPARKLE!"

Look at My Holo is a neon pink crelly with TONS of holo dust.  I have two coats on my pointer finger, three on my middle, and four on my ring finger.

Once again, my camera really muted the neonness of this one so I did my best to edit the colors on my computer.  The color accuracy is best in the sunlight and macro photos!

#nailmail

Getting nail mail is one of the most exciting things in my life, and it has been since the time I discovered the indie polish scene!  And using the hashtag on Instagram is a must so that I can share my happiness with everyone.

#nailmail is a white crelly base packed full of holographic glitters of many colors - soft and hot pink, teal, lime green, navy...  It's like the explosion of color and happiness that you get whenever you open up your nail mail!

I have three coats on each finger in the photos.

The glitter density here is great - it's quite easy to get the same amount of glitter on your nails as you see in the bottle.  I had to do a bit of dabbing to get glitters to apply evenly, which is normal for glitters of this size; still, it might have been easier if I had a full-sized bottle with a bigger brush.

#mynailsandmydrink

Here's another popular hashtag for polish lovers!  I usually see this when people have exciting drinks like Starbucks or artisan beer/pop or even just a really cute thermos.  I myself usually use this hashtag when showing off my fancy artisan pops that I like to try out every now and then.

#mynailsandmydrink is a beautiful pink-toned beige crelly with holo dust in the base, and beige small-to-medium chunky glitters.  The base color is one of my favorite browns that I've worn - it's a lovely cream-in-my-coffee brown.  I don't think my camera really captured the pinkish undertones, though, so once again I did my best to edit the photos and that's why my skin looks extra pink!

I have two coats on my pointer and ring fingers, and three coats on my middle finger.

Just like #nailmail, the glitter density is really good and I had to dab it around a little bit, but not infuriatingly.

I was drinking boring water in a boring glass when I swatched this, so here's a more exciting picture of my nails and my drink!  The totally awesome cup actually came with my order of this collection (I have no idea if it was a pre-order special or if it will come with all orders).  My totally awesome drink is a ginger ale float spiked with my apple pie moonshine that I got when I was in Tennessee, and my totally awesome mani will be featured on the blog next week so stick around for more details on that!

Matte All The Flakies

If you've been following me long enough, you'll know that this isn't actually something that I'm prone to saying.  Matte is a great effect and all but I usually prefer my nails to stay glossy!  But using a matte topcoat over a flakie polish can look really, really cool.

Matte all the Flakies is a clear base with white holographic flakies and, of course, superfine holo dust in the base.  I was all prepared to take glossy photos and then use my matte top coat for some matte pictures, but THIS ONE DRIES MATTE!

I have three coats over naked nail and two coats each over black and white.  The holo-ness definitely didn't show up as well over naked or white, but it looked AMAZING over black!  I suggest always using this over a darker color so that the holo can really pop.

Buy All The Polish

Now THIS is definitely something I say all the time!  Screw everything, buy ALL the nail polish!

 

Buy all the Polish is a super festive glitterbomb.  Purple, teal, soft pink, and hot pink glitters all float around in a clear base.

The glitters applied pretty nicely, but I definitely needed to dab them around.  I'd say that the dabbing was a little more intense than with the two crellies above, but still not infuriating.  And I didn't have to fish around for the glitters, which seems to happen more often in a clear base for some reason!

I have three coats over naked nail, two coats over black, and two coats over Sally Hansen Blue My Mind.  I honestly can't decide which look I like best!  They all look like a party on my nails.  I think I'm gonna need to incorporate this into my next birthday mani.

Look at this bottle shot macroooooo you can see so many layers of glitter floating around in there <3 <3 <3

It's So Squishy

I think this about every jelly-based glitter that I've used.  I don't know what it is about jelly polish that looks so squishy even when it's days dry, but it definitely does!

It's So Squishy is yet another glitterbomb with tons of different colors, sizes, and shapes of glitter.  The base is somewhere in the realm of sky-aqua-teal-blue, which makes it look even more squishy.

I have two, three, and four coats from my pointer to my ring finger.  Once again, the glitters applied nicely with a bit of dabbing and no fishing.

#nailporn

This is another phrase that I haven't really said before, but I've seen it used before on Instagram and I would definitely say that this post constitutes as nail porn.

#nailporn is a neon-lime green crelly packed with holo dust.  It's barely less holographic that Look At My Holo, and just as neon.

This one was opaque in two coats and I didn't see a need to build up to three.  It applies super smoothly and evenly, even on a mini brush!

As you can see, my camera had a hard time with this one yet again.  The color is most accurate in the sunlight photo!

So, that's the end of this incredibly gorgeous collection.  I hope you enjoyed it, I hope that you're as tickled by the polish names as I am, and I hope this post doesn't cause a problem for you if you're on a no-buy!

Which polish is your favorite?  Do you find yourself saying any of these phrases all the time?  Let me know in the comments!