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!

Neon vertical gradient holo nail art happyfuntimes!

As much as I'm excited for autumn and cool weather and pumpkin spice and Halloween nail art, it is still summer.  Technically autumn doesn't begin until September 22; it doesn't feel like autumn begins until at least October here in Maryland.  So, behold, I have more in-your-face neon nail art for you!

This is pretty similar to the last vertical gradient that I did, except this time I used a white base and focused on neon polish rather than holographic polish.  (But don't worry, I still added a holo top coat because YASS.)  Also, this time I didn't go in the order of the rainbow, but in the order of however I felt like it.

 

My nails almost-flawlessly transition from Essie Strut Your Stuff to Salon Perfect Loopy Lime to Sephora Brazilian Sun to ORLY Ablaze to OPI No Doubt About It to ORLY Hot Tropics.  Admittedly, the OPI to ORLY nail could be a bit brighter, but I got impatient after 3 sponged-on coats and didn't feel like doing 4 or more.

 

dat holo <3

Half of these polishes dried matte, because they're neon and apparently that's a thing with neon polishes.  I don't really know why.  Is it because science?  Do super-neon colors work better as chemicals if they have a matte finish?  Someone who knows things about making polish please tell me.  As fun as a half-matte, half-glossy nail would be, I chose to go all glossy because China Glaze Fairy Dust has a glossy finish.  And this manicure NEEDED to be holo because ALL manicures should be holo.  (I think my new-found obsession with Simply Nailogical's YouTube videos just may be turning me into a holosexual.  Cristine, be proud, you've converted another one!)

After a few days, I decided to add to the magic that is this mani.  How else to add to this besides a trippy vinyl design? :D

I didn't really feel like getting out my macro lens, but I took a sort-of macro with my regular camera.

My edges got a teeny bit sloppy, because I laid the black polish on thick and it smeared a little when I lifted off the vinyls.  A bit disappointing, but still an incredible mani, don't you think?

I still have a couple of bright summer-y manicures to show you over the next few weeks, so stay tuned!  Are you getting sick of the brightness and looking forward to deeper autumn manis?  Personally, I'm SUPER stoked for autumn, but neon polish is my favorite so I'm going to stick with it as long as I feel like it.  And by that, I mean until I start thinking of great Halloween manis!

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!

October nail art challenge Day 4: Candy Corn!

Oh boy!  I love candy corn!  And I have the absolute perfect colors for it.

Sally Hansen Orange Zest, China Glaze Happy Go Lucky, and Salon Perfect Sugar Cube paired up for a great candy corn gradient.  My nails look good enough to eat!  In fact, they smell good enough to eat, too.  The Mani of the Month box that I got for September is Monster themed, and Dream Polish put in a scented base and top coat.  The scent is called Zombie Food, and I can't quite place it, but it smells delicious!  Scented polish technology has certainly come a long way from the nasty grape stuff I had when I was a kid.

Here's the challenge for you!  It's not too late to start playing along, so start thinking about what pattern you'll do for the 7th if you'd like!

Watermarble Nail Art!

When I started really getting in to nail art, it didn't take me long to discover the art of water marbling.  I tried it once, but the polishes that I was using didn't marble well.  After a few attempts I gave up and would all but growl at every water marble tutorial video that I saw.  (This How Not to Watermarble tutorial by Simply Nailogical resonated really strongly with me.)

Then, for whatever reason, I recently decided screw it, I want to give this stuff another try!  I had this amazing neon mani planned out in my head, with negative space and utilizing my KB Shimmer zig-zag nail vinyls.  I've been fairly obsessed with neon manis lately, in case you couldn't tell.

Blessed by the Nail Art Gods, it actually worked this time!  The marbling worked so well that I wound up bummed that I had cut off half of my nails with the vinyls.  This mani looked a bit better in my head, but I'm still super happy with it because it's my first successful water marble!

I used my favorite neons that I own for this: Sephora Pink Bikini, Papaya Daiquiri, Brazilian Sun, and Caipi Freeze.  The last two, the yellow and green, are so similar that you can't really tell them apart in the marble.  I just love the way these polishes pop over white!

What do you think of this design?  Should I do a video next time I try water marbling?  Let me know in the comments!

Polka Dot nail art recreation

Whenever I'm feeling a bit of a nail art slump, I turn to other bloggers and nail artists for inspiration.  This week, I found an awesome design by Nessa of @nessas_nails_ that I decided to (mostly) recreate! 

Here is her original design, which she did for a nail art challenge back in May:

 

And of course, I'm super in to my neons lately so I chose to recreate Nessa's look using a neon orange - Deborah Lippmann Don't Stop Believin'.

I don't have any large charms like Nessa's, so I used a small gem from a set that I got as a gift a few years ago (I don't know the brand).  My white base, as always, is Salon Perfect Sugar Cube.  I used the white base beneath my solid orange nails as well so that it would perfectly match the tip of my middle finger.  Don't Stop Believin' is fairly sheer, which is common for neons, so a white base is always a good idea.

I had a lot of fun recreating this look!  Laying down the striping tape was tricky, because I'm not used to it, but I made it work - even on my right hand!

What do you think of this look?  Which color scheme do you like better?  Let me know in the comments!

China Glaze Let The Beat Drop

As I browsed the clearance polishes on a recent visit to ULTA, I debated buying up every Zoya shade (they were $4.95!), but decided against it since all they had was a few shades from the Matte Velvet collection, which I was never even really tempted by.  Then, I noticed this glitter from China Glaze's summer 2015 collection on clearance for only 97 cents!  I would practically have been cheating myself if I didn't buy that one.  So I got it!

The base of Let The Beat Drop used to be clear.  Many swatchers painted this over white last summer, and their white polish is still white.  But the base in my bottle has drastically changed to not just a tint but a straight up pink jelly base.  That's probably why this was on clearance for less than a dollar.  I have no idea if this is a fluke in my bottle, or if the color bleed happened to every bottle after a year.  I'd be really interested to know if this polish has a shelf life, so to speak.  If anyone reading this has had this polish since it came out, please let me know if your base has changed color!

Even with the base color change, I still enjoy the neon glitter.  It does make some of the glitters harder to see, but that just makes the dark magenta glitters stand out that much more!

I couldn't decide on one color to show under the glitter, so I went with a bunch.  My pointer finger has two coats over naked nail; middle has two coats over white; ring has two coats over black; pinky has one coat over China Glaze I Brake For Colour.  The pink base doesn't really show up over black in the photos, but in direct sunlight in person it looks pretty weird - slightly-pink-tinted-black just isn't my cup of tea, I guess.  But in dimmer and artificial light, it looks great over black!

I really like the glitter density of this one!  Application was nice - the base wasn't goopy or runny, and the glitters didn't cling to the brush or stay globbed together on my nail.  I wasn't left with any bare spots at one or two coats, either.  Because my pinky nail is so skinny, I got more density over the nail on one coat than I got on any of my other nails, which is why I didn't bother adding a second coat on that nail.

I tried Let the Beat Drop out on top of a neon green and a neon yellow on my right hand, and blech.  The pinkness of the base did not blend well with those colors, so much so that I didn't even want to show it on the blog.  I bet it would have looked great over those colors when the base was clear, though!

What do you think of this glitter?  Do you have it? if you do, has your base color changed from clear to pink over time?  Please let me know in the comments!

(This swatch is a few weeks old, from before my pinky nail broke off.  It hasn't sprung back to life in the last week, which would be awesome!)

Because it's basically summer already: Neon Gradient nail art!

I freaking love summer.  Pool time, beach time, barbecues and cookouts, sunning, everything is green, the neon fashion trends.  Especially the neon fashion trends.  The first day it hits above 70 - which here in Maryland was in April, can you believe it - I'm like, ditch the muted winter tones and bring out the poppin' neons!

I've also always been a fan of gradient nail art, because it's one of the few types of designs that I've found to be as easy as the tutorials make it look.  It definitely takes some technique in terms of speed and amount of polish you saturate the sponge with, but that technique happened to come easily to me!  So I decided to don a neon gradient, even though it's still technically spring.  Memorial Day may mark the start of summer for many people, and it has passed, but I actually did this a week before Memorial Day because yay neon!

The colors I used are my favorite little neons that I own: Sephora Pink Bikini, Papaya Daiquiri, Brazilian Sun, and Caipi Freeze.  They're from a collection called Paint Rio that came out about two years ago and I just love how they all look when used together!  Brazilian Sun and Caipi Freeze, the yellow and green, are both so similar that I'm not entirely sure you can tell the difference between them when they're sponged on.  To help the neons pop, I painted on a coat of Salon Perfect Sugar Cube before doing the gradient.

You can definitely look forward to seeing more of these four neons throughout the summer, because they're awesome and they're kind of the only plain neon cremes that I own!

What do you think of this design?  Would you like to see more tutorials for designs like this?  Let me know in the comments!

Zoya Pixie Dust Halloween nail art

Remember a few months ago when I shared my collection of Zoya Pixie Dusts, and I said that three of the colors would be perfect for a Halloween manicure?  Well, right before I discovered the nail art challenge that I've been doing all month, I combined those three colors for a fun stripey mani.

Zoya Beatrix, Carter, and Dahlia turned out to be absolutely perfect together for Halloween!  I used a makeup sponge to put them on for a gradient look.

I realize that I could have used this for the challenge theme on the 7th, when the theme was patterns, but that felt a little like cheating since I had painted this design over a week before.  So you guys get a bonus mani this month!  October is fun. :)

What is your absolute favorite manicure design for Halloween?  Let me know in the comments!

October nail art challenge Day 19: Pumpkins

Oh boy, was I ever excited for this theme!  Partly because of the awesome water decals that I have, and partly because I finally found a good rusty orange, my pumpkin mani is totally en pointe.

OPI It's a Piazza Cake is my favorite orange nail polish ever.  It's such a realistic pumpkin orange!  For the white backgrounds, I turned to my favorite white, Salon Perfect Sugar Cube.  And the green stem and vines on my middle finger is Finger Paints Monet Money.

I originally wanted to use the pumpkin string decals as a French tip border, and I considered either doing orange nails with white tips or vice-versa, but I decided against that when I tested it out on a piece of paper.  A dual-layer string of pumpkins still looked great to me!

The only thing I wish I could have done differently about this design is to make it glow in the dark.  Just imagine how great it would be if the jack-o-lantern faces could glow out at you, just like a real jack-o-lantern!  But the only glow in the dark polish I have is Dr. Franken-sparkle, which you saw in my ghosts mani, and that wouldn't really work for a pumpkin face.  Maybe I need to find a clear glow in the dark top coat...

Anyway, here's the challenge image as always!  Which design are you most excited for?  I still need to research how to do my nails as a historically accurate flapper...

October nail art challenge Day 10: Trick or Treat - plus #mavenmeetup!

What is the number one most important part about trick or treating?  Candy!!!!!

There are all kinds of candies on my nails for today's theme.  You've got Skittles, candy corn, Reese's Pieces, M&Ms, Nerds, and (attempted) Twizzlers.

Then, on my thumbs, I have a house (is it haunted? is it the house all the kids avoid while trick or treating because it's just too scary? or is it the coolest house on the block because the owners go all out for Halloween? who knows!) and a dark tree in front of a mist-covered moon.  Because nothing says trick or treating like the creepy house down the street and a full moon in a misty sky!

The house, tree, and candy corns are water slide decals from Naildrobe.  I used Julep Bunny as a background for every nail, with a coat of Sally Hansen Big Smoky Topcoat on my thumbs for a darker look.

I used a whole bunch of polish for the candies:
Zoya Tilda (green)
Sally Hansen CSM Red My Lips (red)
Finger Paints First Edition (purple)
Zoya Darcy (yellow)
OPI How Great Is Your Dane? (Reese's brown)
Zoya Nyssa (M&Ms brown)
Sally Hansen Orange Zest (orange)
Finger Paints Margritte's Masterpiece (blue)
Essie Strut Your Stuff (bright blue)
Sally Girl Peace (neon green)
Sally Girl Crazy (neon orange)
China Glaze I Brake For Colour (pink)

And to seal it all in, I used a super-thick coat of Out the Door to avoid streak marks, then Zoya's matte top coat - because candy is more matte than glossy.

Today's challenge is yet another one that forced me to really think outside the box and get creative - and, most importantly, trust in my nail art skills.  I'm having so much fun with this year's Halloween challenge; possibly even more fun than last year!

 

Here's the challenge image for you - I really hope you'll join in on the fun, even though it's already the 10th.  This challenge has been a lot of fun for me so far, and there are some really fun themes coming up!

This past Thursday, Jane Park, CEO of Julep, hosted a meetup for Julep Mavens right here in Washington, DC!  I only heard about it like three days beforehand.  We met at the W Hotel in DC for drinks, sneak peeks at November's new polishes (hint: they're AWESOME), and sneak peeks at some other amazing beauty products coming out in the next few months.  I'm honestly not sure if I'm allowed to talk about them, but they're awesome, too!  I don't usually get excited about non-polish beauty products, but what Julep has in store for us is great.

The ladies swatching the new polishes - yes, we got to open them up and play with them!  Wee!

Jane also chatted with us for a while, and she told us about her family's history in Korea and her own history with starting the company.  It was tons of fun, and it was so nice to meet the CEO of a company in such a laid-back, casual setting!  Jane is incredibly sweet and down-to-earth.  

We got to ask Jane questions about polish maintenance, how Julep polishes are conceptualized and created, and all sorts of other polish- and beauty-related tips and tricks. 

I wish the lighting was better in there!  We're so grain-y!

I really hope that there will be more Maven Meetups in the future - both in DC and all over the country!  This was a really really fun night.

October nail art challenge Day 7: Pattern

Today's nail art challenge was another pretty open-ended one.  There are tons of different patterns that one could apply to Halloween!  I opted to go for a witch sock-type pattern.

 

I love, love, love these chevron vinyls from KBShimmer.  They made this pattern so easy!  The purple I used is Sally Hansen CSM Trouble Maker, the green is Spoiled by Wet N' Wild Green To Be Heard, and the orange is the most absolutely perfect orange.  I've been searching high and low for a rusty orange creme for months, and all I've been able to find is either a metallic or far too bright/neon.  But FINALLY, OPI has come out with a lovely deep, rusty orange - It's A Piazza Cake, from their fall 2015 collection called Venice.  Finally, the black that I used is Nina Ultra Pro Black.

I've been making a point of watching Halloween-related things while doing these polish challenges.  While I did this design, I watched an episode of Psych called Shawn (and Gus) of the Dead - it's not strictly a Halloween-themed episode, but it's about a mummy, so that's close enough for me!

Here's the giveaway image for you.  Have you been participating in this challenge? or are you thinking about jumping in late?  Let me know in the comments!

Neon Dotticure Nails!

I have a super fun manicure to share with you today!  As you all know, I love neon polish and I love abstract nail art.  So I decided to check off a manicure that I've been meaning to do for a while by combining both of those things into a neon dotticure!

This look was semi-inspired by an Instagram photo by Emily of lacquerologist, quite almost an entire age ago.

I absolutely love this look, so I decided to do my own adaptation of it.

My favorite part about the dotticure is that it takes so little planning and thought.  Sure, I chose which size dotting tool to use for each color, and I tried to keep an even-but-random distribution of the colors, but overall this design just flowed out of my brain and onto my nails very smoothly.  There was no second-guessing myself, no slip of the hand causing outrage or frustration.  Just lots of dots and fun!

I used a whole slew of colors for this manicure.  I actually had to force myself to not use any Zoya polish, because I feel like I've been neglecting my other brands for the past few months.  And aside from one indie polish that I just got a few months ago, I ended up using all polishes that I bought last summer: Essie Strut Your Stuff, Sally Girl Peace (I love Sally's eensie weensie little minis!), ORLY Saturated, ORLY Ablaze, and Sephora Brazilian Sun.  The one indie that I used is CDB Lacquer Passionate.  Such a fun cluster of neons!  And the white background is Julep Bunny, which I adore for its super-subtle gold shimmer.  I can barely see the shimmer on my nails in person, and it definitely doesn't get picked up by the camera.  But a macro photo actually picks it up in the bottle pretty well:

 

As you can see, the shimmer is made up of gorgeous gold flecks.  While the macro (and even the bottle in person) makes the shimmer look pretty intense, it's much more subtle on the nail.

The shimmer doesn't show up as much in this photo, but if you know it's there than you can kind of see it!  I'd be more disappointed in how invisible the shimmer becomes if I wasn't so in to magic and secrets. ;)  But the shimmer of Passionate, the pink dots, really stands out in this macro shot!  I love how well you can see each and every color overlapping.

What do you think of this type of blog post?  Do you really wish I'd made a tutorial of this look?  Let me know in the comments!