Red Coat Tuesday

Everyone has bad nail days and today was one of mine. It was like everything went wrong from painting to clean up to smudging a nail a few pics in so this was pretty much the best I got. It's a total fail but in the spirit of Pretty Little Liars I am just going to blame A. I used Zoya Blaze on on my fingers except my ring finger where I used Zoya Chyna. I used a french tip image from Bundle Monster plate 216 at the top of the nail using MASH stamping polish. On my ring finger I drew an A using a dotting tool and acrylic paint. It's definitely not my best but I am still happy that I tried.

Nail Art for Nubs Monday

I seriously have a love hate relationship with Mondays but this challenge is part of what makes me love Mondays. I always look forward to trying something new and check out the other great nails that the girls who participate come up with. Today I am keeping it simple and going with two of my favorite things: Hello Kitty and Cult Nails. I started with two coats of Cult Nails Nevermore on all my nails. I stamped on a Hello Kitty skull pattern on all my nails except the ring finger using Cult Nails Tempest and Fab Ur Nails FUN plate 9. For my accent nail I went with a skull and crossbones Hello Kitty. I know it is supposed to be the Hello Kitty equivalent of a pirate skull and crossbones emblem but all I see when I look at is is Nick Fury. Maybe it's just me though...either way I love it! I finished it all off with a coat of Seche Vite.

Sinful Colors Black Cherry

Today on the blog I have Sinful Colors Black Cherry. Black Cherry is a deep dark red that is so dark it basically looks black. It is probably the darkest a red can get without actually being black. The perfect vampy color! 

Formula on this polish was pretty good for a matte. You want to make sure to let it dry a bit between coats because dragging was a bit of a problem on the second coat at the top of the nail near the cuticle. It was an easily fixed problem but I needed three coats total because of this. I was happy that I didn't have any problem with streaking and brush stokes like some other matte polishes. 

A friend of mine was kind enough to RAOK this polish to me because it was a Rite-aid exclusive polish. But...yesterday when I was at Walgreens I spotted it in a new display so keep checking any stores near you that carry Sinful Colors. 

Red Coat Tuesday

So even though I am really far behind on Pretty Little Liars and really need to catch up, I thought I would still participate in Red Coat Tuesday. Just for the fun of it! Well, I'm also a huge PLL fan too! I started off with two coats of Zoya Sooki which is one of my favorite reds ever. It's so easy to work with and has a fantastic formula. I decided to add a little kiss and some leopard print with black so I used MASH stamping polish and Bundle Monster plates 221 and 303. I topped it all off with a layer of Seche Vite. Besides inspiring me to paint my nails today I think this is inspiring me to really catch up. I feel a PLL marathon coming on this weekend!

Nail Art for Nubs Monday

So sorry for the almost week long absence but it was my birthday last week so I kinda took a lazy week. Well not super lazy I worked a ton but I tried to relax and just spend time with my family which was really nice. So today I am just keeping it super simple for the nubs challenge. I started with two coats of Sinful Colors Pistache and then stamped some cute gators using MJ plate XII and Zoya Hunter. I finished with one coat of Seche Vite. Please  make sure to check out the rest of the amazing ladies participating in the challenge!!

Turquoise-ish

So this was a major fail but I thought why not go ahead an share it anyways. I wanted to create something that resembled turquoise but fell a little short. I started with two coats of Essie In the Cab-ana and then did one coat of Sephora by OPI It's Real 18K gold topcoat. That didn't have large flakes like I had hoped so I continued on. I did stamping with Pueen plate 45 to try to get a pattern like you would see on turquoise stone and it was close enough. Next I used a dotting tool to add little spots of Maybelline Bold Gold in random spots. I definitely want to try again sometime to actually get what's in my head onto the nail. It's not what I wanted but I'm not disappointed either. It was a good attempt and I learned alot from it. This mani was inspired by a Pinterest pin found HERE.

Nail Art For Nubs Monday

For today's nails I decided to do some stamping over Avon Saturn with one of my new plates from Vivid Lacquer VL019. At first I thought the image on the plate was a fox but now I'm not really sure anymore. I am just going to go with it's a fox because it matches the color scheme. At some point I will use the stamp for some wolf nails. On my index, middle and pinky fingers I used the image that looks sort of like rainbows and stamped that using Cult Nails Fetish. Next on the thumb and pinky I used the grass image to create a french tip. Next I placed a large fox on my thumb and the small one on my ring finger. I topped it all off with a coat of Seche Vite. Make sure to check out all the amazing art work from the girls participating in this!!

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Avon Saturn

Saturn is another one of the polishes I picked up from the Avon Cosmic collection. It is a rust orange scattered holo that applies like a dream. I only needed two coats for it to be fully opaque. The formula was great and I didn't need to do much clean up at all. I chose not to use a top coat in the pictures because I was planning on doing some stamping which I will show tomorrow. I really can't wait for fall to roll around again because this will be perfect around Halloween time.

NOTD Matte on Matte

Just going to post a super quick NOTD today. I already had on three coats of Sinful Colors Taupe It Off and decided to do some matte on matte stamping. I used Cult Nails Fetish and stamped on some swirling dots and then dandelions on the accent fingers using Vivid Lacquer VL006 and VL020. I didn't use any top coat at any point in this mani. I kept it simple but I love the contrast in the colors. I can't wait to try out some more combinations with Taupe It Off. I think next time I will try adding a top coat to it because the swatches I have seen show a gorgeous sparkle with top coat.

Sinful Color Taupe It Off

It looks like the Sinful Colors collection has been re-released with a few new additions that may be Rite-Aid only exclusives. Taupe It off and Black Cherry are the new colors in the collection and Black Cherry is for sure a Rite-Aid only exclusive. I don't even think I live in the same state as a Rite-Aid but I was lucky enough to have a sweet friend RAOK it to me. Taupe It Off is of course a taupe polish that is leaning more towards the olive green spectrum of taupes with little glass-like flecks. I have no complaints on the formula. I was able to get it completely opaque in three coats and didn't have any problems with brush strokes showing like some matte polishes. If you are not big into mattes I think that the little glass flecks take away the flatness of the matte and make it very wearable.

Avon Starburst

Well this is a little funny and awkward. Yesterday on the blog I had Starburst and today on the blog I have Starburst. I literally didn't put that together til I was writing out the blog title and was like, wait, I know I've done this before. It's a completely different brand and color though with the same great name. Today I have Avon Starburst from their Cosmic collection of scattered holos. Starburst is a berry red scattered holo. The formula on this was nearly perfect and only required two coats for full opaqueness. I barely needed clean up that's how easy it applied. I finished off with one coat of Seche Vite. I am going to need to try this again out in the sun because I didn't find it very holo even for a scattered holo. I was mainly just using it as a base for nail art so I just took some indoor pictures. Hopefully this weekend I will have a chance to try it again and the weather will cooperate and not be negative 30 degree wind chill. Even without a strong holo I still really loved this color!

Orly Starburst

Sally's has Orly on sale right now BOGO free so I had to take this chance to pick up some of the awesome looking new polishes from the Galaxy FX collection. The main one I was after was Starburst but I also picked up three more from the collection which I will review soon. I really love how this collection feels a little more like something you would expect from the indie brands with glitter bombs and milky glitters.

Starburst is a mix of large gold hexes, medium orangey copper hexes, small red hexes and large silver circle glitters in a milk white jelly base. Application was a tiny bit tricky because this polish is so super packed with glitter. No fishing required because you will get tons of glitter every time. Because it is so densely packed it goes on a little thick and patting it in places is necessary. Still once you get it down it is pretty easy to work with. Make sure you give a little time between each coat though to avoid dragging. I needed to use three coats to get full opaqueness but you could probably get the same look with a coat of white polish and one or two coats of Starburst. Even though it has so much glitter it didn't seem to be a top coat eater which was great. I just used one coat of Seche Vite to finish it off.

Vivid Lacquer VL019

For Christmas one of my best friends got me three new Vivid Lacquer plates and I was just in total shock! Vivid Lacquer is quickly becoming one of my favorite stamping plate indie brands. Tonight I was playing around with one of my new Orly's, Starburst, when an idea using one of those plates popped into my head. So here is just a little mini review of Vivid Lacquer plate VL019. I didn't use all the images on the plate but I did quite a few of them.

To start off with I used three coats of Orly Starburst on all of the nails which I will have a full review of tomorrow. I topped all the nails with a coat of Seche Vite to create a more even surface for stamping and also just in case I made a mistake I could quickly remove it without messing up Starburst. I decided to do all the stamping in black using Cult Nails Fetish to create a shadowy silhouette type look against the glittery background. I created a  French tip using the blades of grass design from VL019 on all of the nails. On each nail I created a different magical and woody type scene. On my index I stamped the small sized unicorn and the small bell shaped flowers. There is a bigger version of each of those which I use later. The middle finger has the small mushroom that just seems big because my nails are such nubs right now and the fairy that is in the sitting position. I tried to get her actually sitting on the mushroom but she is floating just a little above it. I'm just going to go with she's a fairy and magic and that's just what they do. The ring finger I used the design that has butterflies, thistle, and extra blades of grass to create a meadow. On my pinky I stamped the other fairy and the little starburst pattern behind her wings to make it look extra magical. On my thumb I stamped the large bell shaped flowers and the large unicorn.

All of the images stamped great and I didn't have any trouble picking up the images. I can't wait to play around with this plate even more and create a whole new scene. I definitely want to try out the little foxes next and some of those amazing full nail designs. Vivid Lacquer plates can be purchased for $8 each from their Etsy store HERE.

Nail Art for Nubs Monday

Last weekend I was building another nail polish rack and everything was going along just fine until I ran out of duct tape with only three shelves to go. I went back to Rue21 where I had purchased to tape only to find out that they don't even sell duct tape anymore. All my searching online has turned up nothing either. So that was really disappointing and I am going to have to find something else that is close so I can finally finish it up. That duct tape was so pretty though so this weeks Nubs mani is going to be dedicated to that out of reach duct tape!

Here is the inspiration.

I started off with two coats of Avon Starburst and then stamped using Pueen plate 27 on all of the fingers. I topped it all of with two coats of Seche Vite. It's not exact and its a more shiny version but to me it's close enough. Now if I can just find something close when it comes to tape to finish that rack =) As always please remember to check out the other girls participating in the link up!!

Sally Hansen Sugar Shimmer - Work of Tart

Over the weekend I went to Ulta to pick up my free birthday item and also was on the hunt for Maybelline Baby Skin. Whenever I'm at Ulta though I always have to check out the clearance section. I found one of the Sally Hansen textures Sugar Shimmer in the color Work of Tart. It was only .99 cents and looked similar to Sinful Colors texture Treasure Chest that I have been looking for everywhere with absolutely no luck. At that price and that potential I had to buy it!

I am just going to say this right up front that I am not very happy with this polish at all and glad I didn't pay full price for it. Work of Tart is a aqual/teal texture that looks like it has a yellow undertone to it and some slight shimmer. I expected the polish to have a shimmer that was on par with the shimmer in say a Zoya Pixie Dust polish but it's not even close. It's a very fine micro shimmer. The formula was not the best either. I used three coats and still had some spots that were too sheer. Dry time was pretty bad with this polish. I had let it dry for at least forty-five minutes and still got a huge smudge when I hit my thumb on something. I've had it on for less than six hours now and already have some huge chips on a couple of the nails. The hunt for Treasure Chest will continue!!

Rainbow Penguins

A while back my friend sent me a link to a video and just two words, "Do this!" I'm a huge penguin addict so it wasn't hard to convince me. The video was by professionalDQ and is a tutorial for rainbow penguin nails inspired by toesocks. Please go check out her video HERE because she is just so talented! I'm still getting used to working with acrylic paints but I am so happy with how this turned out. Next on my to-do list is to find those toe socks!!

For the rainbow I cleaned off a striper polish brush and created stripes using all Zoya polishes. I used Zoya Jolene, Sooki, Darcy, Josie, Breezi, and Mira. After creating the rainbow I used a layer of China Glaze Fairy Dust on all the nails. Everything else was created using acrylic paints with paint brushes and dotting tools. The only thing I changed was I added little dots to the bow for the girls. I am very proud of myself for this recreation because it really pushed me and now I can't wait to try out more.

Zoya Dahlia

Dahlia is a polish that I got when it came out and it has sit on my shelf since then and I have absolutely no idea why!! Out of the first collection I think it was my most anticipated polish and yet it was an untried until now. I still can't get over the fact that Zoya actually was dark enough to name it (Black) Dahlia. Huge points for that level of twisted Zoya!

Zoya Dahlia is a black pixie dust polish with lots of silver glitter and sparkle to it. It reminds me of a highway with asphalt glittering in the summer heat. Yes, that is a compliment. It's absolutely stunning! It's dark but the sparkle makes the black totally wearable and appropriate. It almost leans more towards a charcoal black/grey with all that sparkle. It only took two coats of Dahlia to reach complete opaqueness and like all pixies I have tried so far the formula was an absolute dream. I still haven't been adventurous enough yet to try putting top coat over it but maybe someday. I just enjoy the texture so much as is and feel that top coat defeats the purpose but still some day I will try it.

Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds

Don't get me wrong I really do love all the holiday themed manis and everything but I am so glad they are over for a while. I couldn't think of a better nail palette cleanser than to go with a classic horror movie, The Birds. I started off with two coats of Zoya Carey on all nails. Next using Zoya Sooki and a straw I created blood spatter on each of the nails. I used MASH black stamping polish to stamp birds on each of the nails except the thumb using Messy Mansion plate MM14 and Vivid Lacquer plate VL018. On the thumb I used white acrylic paint to write The Birds but had a hard time capturing it because of the angle. I topped everything with a coat of Seche Vite.

Happy New Years!!!!!

Happy New Years everyone!!!! I hope everyone had a fun and safe New Years Eve. Another year has come to a close and I am so sad to see it go! I haven't exactly decided on my resolutions yet but I have all day for that. One I do have that is nail related is that I am going to try my best to use base coat every time I do my nails. I'm so terrible at that and have to stains to show for it.

For my New Years Eve mani I used a TON of polish and created a huge mess but it was worth it in the end. I guess the best way to list everything I did is to break it down by nail. On my index I started with two coats of Cult Nails Fetish. Next I added China Glaze Techno towards the cuticle and finished with a golden kiss stamped with Maybelline Bold Gold and Bundle Monster plate 303. On my middle finger I used three coats of China Glaze I'm Not Lion and stamped streamers and a kissing couple using Cult Nails Fetish and plates BMH14 from Bundle Monster and Winstonia 102. On my ring finger and thumb I started with one coat of China Glaze White on White and did a gradient using Zoya Kieko, Lara, Arizona and Creamy. I stamped on a city skyline of building using Cult Nails Fetish and Bundle Monster 414 and added some fireworks with GOSH Holographic Hero and plate BM H14. On my pink I did two coats of Zoya Storm and stamped a little good luck Buddha in Maybelline Bold Gold using Bundle Monster H14.