when you can't decide what to wear...

When you can't decide what to wear... You keep layering.

And it doesn't always turn out fantastic. Here's an example of that.

Orly - Halley's Comet
One of my faves! Good start.

Color Club - Clean Break
Yes! White Crackle that works! All hail Color Club Crackle!!!

piCture pOlish - Peacock
...Not as I had hoped.
I thought the purple base and green glitter of peacock would create something magical over the blue and white base but really it just got kinda lost.

It's nice but not the best combo I've ever done.

I should have stopped with the white crackle because I loved this look! It kinda reminded me of icebergs floating in the ocean. And have I told you how much I love Color Club crackle polishes...?!

Did you guys notice that my watermark now proudly says rebeccalikesnails.com? I've finally made the jump to my own domain!
The whole blog should be transferred over within 3 days so if you have any issues with my blog right now, it's most likely due to this change. Please be patient. :)
I feel very official, owning my own .com site. Now all I need are business cards and I'll be a regular pro.

P.S. Have you entered my Zoya giveaway? Just 2 days left!

More about → when you can't decide what to wear...

Shimmer Polish - Linna & Cassandra

Here are 2 more Shimmer Polishes from Cindy. Check out her Etsy shop, her website, or her facebook for more information on purchasing. Or you can always email her directly with your paypal address and the colors you would like to purchase: 

shimmer484(at)gmail(dot)com

Here is Linna

This is my favorite of the whole bunch! I am a sucker for anything in the teal family and this is just wonderful. :) The primary color is teal, but there are hints of red, blue, and silver. For these pics I used just 2 coats. The glitter coverage is really good and doesn't require specific placement. The glitter goes where it should. 

 I think it would be cool to stamp a fish scale stamp over this.... mermaid nails all the way!

Then there is Cassandra

Does it remind you of China Glaze Snow Globe? It did for me... but in a comparison, the glitter particles in Cassandra are noticeably larger. Here is 2 thin coats of Cassandra layered over a variety of colors. Pinky Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Bubblegum Pink, Ring Sally Hansen Insta Dri Lightening, Middle Revlon Royal, Index China Glaze For Audrey. It's best to use it as a layering polish because it just has a clear base.

So magical and pretty!

 Here is 3 coats of Cassandra on it's own so you can see how it builds up.

 I had the worst sinkage with Cassandra. Just minutes after I finished shaking the bottle, the glitter had already separated and sunk to the bottom. But again, Cindy is working on these issues and has tweaked her formula since these were made.

More about → Shimmer Polish - Linna & Cassandra

Shimmer Polish - Cindy & Vanessa

I have some fun indie glitters to show you! Indie nail polish makers have been popping up a lot lately, and they all manage to deliver something unique and eye catching. "Shimmer Polish" is no exception. Cindy really knows how to serve up a good glitter bomb! Check out her Etsy shop, her website, or her facebook for more information on purchasing. Or you can always email her directly with your paypal address and the colors you would like to purchase: shimmer484(at)gmail(dot)com

She graciously sent me 10 polishes for review. I chose to break it up into several posts so as to not overwhelm you with pictures. :)

She has named all of the polishes after herself and her closest friends. (Maybe one day she'll have a Leslie!)

First up is Cindy 

I am in no way going to be able to describe all of the many different glitters.... Cindy is primarily red with some gold and holographic thrown in the mix. It applied very easily. Glitter polishes can often times be very thick and difficult to apply. Shimmer Polish Cindy went on evenly and this swatch photo is 3 thin coats.

Next up is Vanessa

 Vanessa comes off primarily charcoal with hints of red. 

Composed of black, silver, red, holographic bits, etc.

Same story..... Applied evenly with 2 coats of this polish. Glitter disperses well across the nail without having to be "placed." The formula was not too thick or too thin. Wonderful!

Cindy of Shimmer Polish has told me that she's made some changes to her formula lately. We all know that the indie polish makers are learning and get better each day, so she's improved her mix to suspend the glitters better. Of the 10 polishes she sent me, 7 of them had sinking glitter. Some worse than others. Not that it makes the polish un-usable or anything though! Just give it a shake and you're good to go. But so you know, she is aware of this issue, and is changing things accordingly.

More about → Shimmer Polish - Cindy & Vanessa

connect the... diagonal neons?

Afternoon everyone!
Here's the mani I mentioned in yesterday's post about Lynnderella's Connect The Dots - a fun neon mani with CtD on top!

Tada!
I think CtD is best over a neon color... And even better over two of them!

This mani started out with two coats of Julep - Hayden, one of the few Julep colors I love.
I then painted half my nail with Color Club - Poptastic, which I had to do 2 coats of to make it even.
I added 2 coats of Lynnderella - Connect The Dots on top.
And this fun neon mani was born!

I got a ton of compliments on this mani just because it is so eye catching!
Several people were really confused as to how I "did" the black and white - they don't believe it's just glitter.

What do you guys think of neons + black and white glitter? I basically can't get enough.

More about → connect the... diagonal neons?

Lynnderella - Connect The Dots

Hey everyone!
I neglected posting all day today just because I'm lazy so I decided to do a quick little post before I go to bed so I don't feel guilty for not posting 2 days in a row... Haha!

A few weeks ago I got a bottle of the infamous Lynnderella's Connect The Dots.
Black and white glitters are all the rage and there is really no questioning why. They're just so freakin' cool on your nails!

I layered CTD over two OPI polishes I wore just to try some layering combinations! I'll show those to you tonight along with one small comparison.

Lynnderella - Connect The Dots over OPI - I Don't Give A Rotterdam!
I loved this combo, the muted blue color really looks nice with the crazy glitter and added shimmer of CTD. I think CTD is best over bright colors but I like seeing it over more soft things for a change. It's versatile.

Lynnderella - Connect The Dots over OPI - Paint My Moji-toes Red
I tried out CTD over a coral red, seeing as coral/tangerine is supposed to be the color of the year, or whatever that nonsense is. As usual, it looks great.

My one complaint about Connect The Dots is the bar glitter. Good grief, the bar glitter likes to poke out of topcoats and annoy the crap out of me. I end up picking most of them off with tweezers in a few hours. They lie flat at first... And then go rogue.

You may remember my post before about Cover Band - Sticks 'n Stones, an amazing creation made to resemble CTD.
If you're not crazy about polish, you would probably think these are identical. But for us polish lovers, you can totally see how these are different when they're next to each other. and I love them both in their own way. I don't think I could part with one, like I previously thought I might.
Here's a quick comparison I did:

CTD has some pretty shimmer going on and overall more glitter, but overall smaller glitter. I also found my CTD to be pretty heavily white.
SnS has no shimmer, lots of big glitter pieces, and a pretty even black/white mix.

They give two different looks. You know, if you've got polish-eyes. I can't pick a favorite.
I saw this picture on Pinterest earlier and thought it would be appropriate for this post:

Photo from Like A Candy Shop. Soooooooooo true.

If this black-and-white-glitter-post wasn't enough to fill your glitter appetite, please head over to Chalkboard Nails and check out her massively huge comparison post.

Tomorrow I'ma be posting a neon CTD mani I wore last week sometime. It's a good one. See you then!

More about → Lynnderella - Connect The Dots

prom nail wheel

Hi everyone! Sorry for being so inactive this week - I've been working a lot at a new job but after this week it'll slow down! (Thankfully because if I keep working this hard I might die! Haha!)

I don't have time for a long post so I'm gonna show you guys an awesome nail wheel that I made for my cousin Megan who was having me do her nails for her prom. Her dress was black and her shoes were red, so I stuck to those colors and added some silver and gold for accents. Before she came over, I made this wheel so that when she came, she could easily pick what she wanted!

Tada! It was a lot of fun making this wheel.
I'll put a list of the polishes I used, but if you have any questions about a particular nail, leave 'em in the comments and I will answer you later tonight after work.

OPI - Comet Loves Cupid (all the reds)
Essence - Black is Back (all the black)
OPI - Getting Miss Piggy With It (red glitter)
China Glaze - Blonde Bombshell (gold glitter)
Essence - Make It Golden (gold glitter)
Urban Decay - Superfreak (gold)
China Glaze - Millennium (silver)
Milani - Gold Glitz (gold glitter)
Deborah Lippmann - Happy Birthday (rainbow glitter)
Essie - As Gold As It Gets (gold flake)
Glitter Gal - Red Sparkle (holographic red)
Lynnderella - Connect The Dots (black and white glitter)
Color Club - Nomadic In Nude (nude)
OPI - Black Shatter
OPI - Red Shatter
Sephora by OPI - Blasted Gold Shatter

Phew! That was a lot of polishes.
Megan chose to wear Glitter Gal Red Sparkle and a black accent nail with a row of red rhinestones. It looked great!

Doing wheels like this really help get my inspiration going. I hope you guys like it!

More about → prom nail wheel

Revlon Nail Art FrenchMix - Moonstruck

Good morning all! I have a super quick post for you today because I have a busy day ahead!

On a recent trip to Walmart I spotted these new Revlon dual-ended polishes. The purple stood out to me, of course, so I took it home with me.
And then I was seriously disappointed.

Revlon Nail Art FrenchMix - Moonstruck
The formula on these polishes was just so bad. So so bad. Do not buy this duo.
The shimmer polish was still sort of transparent at four coats, and the glitter polish was just such a pain to apply and I've shown it here at three coats.
The brushes were bad... The formula was awful... Bad all around.

I think there are about 8 colors of these duos in the display, and the others might be better than this one, but I haven't tried them. I'm totally turned off of these now. Yuck!

More about → Revlon Nail Art FrenchMix - Moonstruck

more China Glaze swatch spam

Good afternoon and welcome to yet another swatch spam post from yours truly!
I'm making my way through swatching and posting all of my polishes and these swatch spam posts really help me get it all done!
For some reason I really like doing swatch spam. I hope you guys don't mind it either!

Today's spam is China Glaze. Some blues, some crackles, some sheers, and a brown. Nice and random.
One or two of these swatches were done at different times so some are older and crappier but hey, they'll do.

China Glaze - Blue Sparrow (Neon)
Blue Sparrow is not exactly neon as the name says, but it's really vibrant and fun to wear! It's full of blue glitter, and dries a bit matte like most neon pigments do. This is 2 coats. Love it!

China Glaze - Dorothy Who?
This is a stunner that I think everyone should have in their collection! Two coats of lovely blue jelly packed with glitter.

China Glaze - Frostbite
This is an intensely vibrant blue shimmer that's almost metallic but not quite. This was one of the first CGs I bought because it really stands out in the big display at Sally's!

China Glaze - Cracked Concrete (Shown over Essence - Walk On Air.)
This is the slate gray crackle from CG, shown in the first photo with topcoat and the second photo without. It dries matte, as usual. Works pretty well! I don't think I've actually worn this one, I can't seem to think of a color it would look fantastic over. Undecided.

China Glaze - Lightning Bolt (Shown over Essence - Gleam In Blue)
Ah, Lightning Bolt. Somehow I got it to mostly work for this swatch!
The last time I tried to use it, it did not work at all. See here for that fail.  I am holding a grudge against this polish because of that fail. And now I have a white crackle that works amazingly, the one by Color Club. I hate this one so much that in fact I might even dump it out and use it for a franken bottle. Take that!!

China Glaze - Haute Metal (Shown over OPI - Paint My Moji-toes Red)
Sally Beauty put their crackles on clearance a month or two ago, and I picked up two of them. It was a useless purchase really because I don't think I'll be using them very often. Oh well, they were $3. 
This is the pink crackle from the Crackle Metals.
It worked pretty well, and I bet it would look nice over black. I like this one more than the next.

China Glaze - Latticed Lilac (Shown over OPI - Vampsterdam)
This is the purple Crackle Metal which really isn't very purple at all. It's basically silver. And as you can see, it didn't even crackle on two of my nails. I think I needed to shake it some more - it's like the pigment drops and you're left with basically clear polish in the top of the bottle. So it's sheer and weird. Meh.

China Glaze - Below Deck
A "purple-taupe" creme polish that covers in 2 coats. Sometimes I like this color and sometimes I don't. The formula is nice and it's always good to have neutrals.

China Glaze - Rainbow
This polish is certainly not a rainbow. It's a super sheer shimmer. The polish is a milky white in the bottle and gives just a hint of white on the nail, with a lot of pink shimmer. I've shown 3 coats here so I could capture it better in a photo, but if you're going for just the sheer look of this polish you could wear one coat. My mom wears one coat of this on her nails almost all the time. She likes the pink shimmer without really being able to tell she has polish on. (She likes to pick at polish if she can see it. She's bad.)

You can also layer this over other colors to give them a wash of pink shimmer, but you also add a milky look. Not my fave. (Shown here over Below Deck.)

China Glaze - White Cap
This is another sheer, totally packed with gold shimmer. I've shown it here at 3 coats, which is kind of a weird look. I don't love it on its own. But it looks really cool layered!

Shown over Essence - You Belong To Me. It adds a nice golden shimmer. I bought this after seeing a manicure with it on another blog that I wanted to recreate... But I've totally forgotten where or what.

WAIT! I remembered. It was here on Colores de Carol! Damn, I love that mani.

There we go - another 10 polishes posted. I've only got what, 400 more to go? Ha!

More about → more China Glaze swatch spam