31 Day Challenge - Day 29 - Supernatural

Again, I'm going out of order, but just deal with it. I'll cover them all in the end.

A unicorn is supernatural correct? I'm taking it from the definition of  "being seemingly against the laws of nature." This is Buttercup the Unicorn from Toy Story 3.

This is the sweetest supernatural thing I've seen in...... maybe forever. 

I first painted my nails with China Glaze Lemon Fizz, then China Glaze Crackle Lightening Bolt. Then I did a coat of Sally Hansen Glass Slipper for an extra magical quality. I freehanded Buttercup with acrylic paints.

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Pure Ice Review - Part 2

(these polishes were provided for review)

Crackle - Show Stopper

This is my first experience with Pure Ice's crackle line. I could not find them locally. I have to say that this is my favorite crackle I've tried! It applies easily, doesn't dry too fast, and cracks with big defined cracks rather than stings and shatters. This is the look I prefer.

Show Stopper is a red crackle. It applies like a creme when applied over a creme polish. It appears to have a jelly finish when applied over a glitter polish.

This is one coat of Show Stopper over 3 coats of Pure Ice Platinum.

 This was my first test with one coat over a white creme and a yellow creme.

3 coats of Platinum.

Platinum is a metallic white that is a bit frosty. Thin formula, but builds easily for full coverage.

Last but not least is Oh Baby. This polish is entirely clear on it's own, so even a thousand coats wouldn't be opaque. It's got tiny glass fleck glitter that looks nice and wintery over white. But it comes alive when layered over black! It has a teal/purple duochrome effect when over black polish.

Click this picture to enlarge and you can clearly see the shift of blue, teal, and purple in the glitter!



So that's it for my Pure Ice review. Thanks again to Bari Cosmetics for providing these for me to consider.

More about → Pure Ice Review - Part 2

Crushed Candy Crown

I wanted to layer a crackle over the intense glitter of OPI Crown My Already! I used China Glaze Crackle Crushed Candy.

I just love the light teal of For Audrey/Crushed Candy. China Glaze did it right!

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Cracked Glitter Bomb

I wore Sparkle-icious alone, but wanted to tone it down from all that bling-tastic-ness. I added China Glaze Crackle Black Mesh and it made for a really eye-catching end result. It had me intrigued and I kept staring at it.

Super zoomed in Macro-ness.

I think it looks really cool, but the part I don't like is that from far away it looks so dark!  I would prefer if it were larger glitter sections showing and less black.

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Crackled Neon Gradient

I added a layer of OPI Black Shatter the next day to hide some tip wear. And to shield my eyes from the brightness. ;)

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Crushed Mint Candies

I know the color scheme is similar to "Dots on my Swizzle Stix," but just humor me. I'm really feeling this kind of combo.

This is two coats of China Glaze Refresh Mint with China Glaze Crackle Crushed Candy.

Twice I messed up two nails on my right hand and had to redo them. Don't you hate that?! To try and be so delicate to remove the messed up nail polish without damaging your other fabulous nails.... Ugh, just one of the many annoyances polish-aholics go through on a regular basis. ;)

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Fractured Foil

I didn't indulge in any of the new OPI Pirates collection. None of them really caught my eye, but I did get Sally Hansen's Fractured Foil to get a silver shatter fix. (I wasn't dying to get my hands on it, but after seeing swatches... I was intrigued.) I recently layered it over Zoya Marley to see for myself what silver shatter looked like over a pastel. It's pretty cool! I like that it ends up looking quite subtle. Could definitely pull this off on a day when I need a more demure nail design.

I took a pic to show you the comparison of topcoats. Fractured Foil dries almost matte (like other crackles) metallic. A matte topcoat dulls the effect even more. It reminded me of the dull side of alumninum foil. ;) Topcoat is still my favorite way to wear this because it makes the silver "pop" that much more!

This is a reference for those that are curious about my cartoon nails I've been doing. This is the relative size. They are acrylic tips that I leave the original length. I only file off any rough edges. This is size "1." I've already used up all of the size "0" which fit on my thumb. I'll progressively go down to the smaller sizes, I'm just taking advantage of the larger canvases while they're available. ;) These are not wearable in my opinion. It's too long and tacky for my taste, that's why they're being used on my larger art project. Please refer to how I adapted cartoons for wearable manicures in some of my past looks on my natural nails.

Thanks for reading!

More about → Fractured Foil

I Wish I Could Always Have Paris...

I'd love to travel there someday, but I'm too much of a scaredy cat to ever go on my own. Maybe I'll go when there is no threat of crime and violence. :)

We'll Always Have Paris Suede is what I mentioned earlier that Rebecca sent me. I didn't get to swatch at the time, so here we go:

LOVELY:

FANTASTICALLY HEAVENLY, THE PRETTIEST POLISH EVER WITH TOPCOAT:

I found the Sally Hansen Crackle Overcoat display at my local Walgreens and originally wasn't that interested. I also didn't want to buy OPI Silver Shatter because I wasn't too impressed by my bottle of Black Shatter. When I saw that the Sally Hansen ones were a few dollars cheaper, I thought what the heck and bought Fractured Foil. I have to admit, it's pretty darn cool. 

And why haven't I heard others rave about these bottles yet? They're so cute and rectangular! I love square bottles that will store so easily and stay organized!

Thanks a million Rebecca! I love it with my whole heart! ;)

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A day in the life of Leslie

Well, not really the whole day. Just the exciting nail polish related parts! Yesterday I spent some time with two of my fave gal pals. We went shopping, then they came out to my house and I did their nails. With their permission of course, I wanted to post them here. I told them to pick an "alter-ego" to go by. Without further ado, here are Coco Puff & Cali G! :)

Coco Puff decided on what she wanted. Black, white, red, zebra print, and a kiss print.

We used BM 02 for the kiss print, and BM 223 for the zebra print. I love this NEW Bundle Monster zebra print. It has a finer print than the first generation plates! I printed the kiss with Sally Hansen Quick Color Chrome pen in red, then filled it in with Milani Red Sparkle. Added a few white highlight lines to make them juicy! Highlighted some of the zebra print with Red Sparkle to tie it all together. Very cute!

Cali G's nails came after we discussed what she likes. She loves wearing bright colors and the more colors, the better! So we recreated my Neon Rainbow Crackle look here.

Before Crackle:

I love how this pic accidentally turned out! The colors look so bright against the dark shadows.... And her hand in the background even pops!

After Crackle:

We also did pedicures, but those were slightly less exciting. And I thought I'd spare you the toe pictures. Lol

They were very pleased, as was I. I always have a great time with them!

Wanna see what I got when we went shopping? I hit a great deal at Trade Secret where they had all of their Essie polishes buy one, get one free. (They don't have many great ones, mainly really old stuff that's already separated and evaporated. Lol) Even a few OPI were BOGO! So I racked up with these pretties:

• Essie Ridge Filler & Good to Go Topcoat (curious to test this out)

• Essie Carousel Coral (such a great spring color I don't have and needed!)

• I also got another Essie that I bought for my sis but she got it before I took the pic! (Don't worry it was a boring pink jelly anyway!)

• OPI Meet Me on the Starferry (I've had my eye on this since my obsession started. I'm so glad I got it for such a great price!)
• OPI The Color to Watch (lovely!)

Check out the swatches!

 Looks crazy awesome layered over black!

 Thumb is layered over black, pinky is layered over brown (I was just experimenting!)

I went ahead and swatched Not Like the Movies while I was at it.

Layering experimentation
Thumb - 1 coat over Zoya Gemma
Index - 3 coats by itself
Middle - 1 coat over Zoya Mira
Ring - 1 coat over China Glaze Recycle
Pinky - 1 coat over black. (Why is it no one has shown this to me before!? Looks crazy cool!)

If you've stuck with me through this entire post you deserve a taste of cuteness! 

Check out my apprentice. 

As I was sitting on the floor doing the girl's pedi's, Wally got on the bookcase behind me and was watching closely, taking notes. ;)

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99 Balloons

They're not red balloons, and I technically didn't count them to verify if it was actually 99... but whatever.

I was going for a look similar to my Pastel Bubbles, but with neons. It ended up reminding me of that movie "Up" with the little old guy whose house flys with balloons. Or it kind of looks like a bubblegum ball machine.

So then I wanted to see what it would look like with various crackle colors on top.

I took the pinky out because I used my CoverGirl Crackle on it and I didn't shake it enough... it never crackled. Lol

I really like the middle finger! That was using China Glaze Black Mesh.

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Shattered Glitter Glass

This is another Robin Moses. I attempted to follow her tutorial on Shattered Glass Graffiti Crackle. 

I had bought all the stuff as you can remember. I first experimented with them in Holo Glitter Tips. This time I went full force Robin Moses impersonator, and it wasn't that difficult at all!

 As LemonyEmily of Emily's Nail Files so hilariously put it: "I've got a bad case of glitter herpes" from the Inaz Glam Rock glitter. This was another three nails only experiment, so I just took some quick pictures right after the topcoat. If I were doing a whole mani I would definitely have to use a good hand scrub once it was completely dry, before taking pictures! ;)

 Some flashy holo goodness! Enjoy!

(I used the same products as in Robin's tutorial. Black polish, the foil glue, glitter, then black acrylic paint for definition.)

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Put on Your Sunglasses

This is a bright one! I love it anyway. Crackle polishes are such a fast way to generate a complicated look. Any normal person (that's right ladies, as polish hoarders we are far from normal! Lol), takes one look at your nails and is impressed by all of the time that must have taken. Little do they know it's just another layer.

 I layered China Glaze Crackle - Broken Hearted over Hard Candy - Splendid

 Splendid by itself took 4 coats before I could get even coverage! What is it about yellows that make them so streaky?!

More about → Put on Your Sunglasses