glad in plaid!

Good afternoon darlings!

Today I have a really fun tape technique to show you. Instead of using tape to create relief patterns, you use the tape to make your own nail stickers!
I saw this cool mani on The Beauty Department, which is a really fun site that I am guilty of stalking.

Can you spot the tape? Haha! The trick is to paint some tape, let it dry, and cut it into shapes to put onto your nails. It helps you create super even and straight lines, which is a good thing for me because I am awful with a striper brush.

I broke up the intensity of the plaid with a solid accent nail, which I think looks pretty cute!

I took a whole bunch of pictures of this mani because I was really proud of it!

It can be kind of difficult to cut the tape into small pieces so take your time, and then once on the nail, use cuticle nippers to clip the edges. I also used a file to smooth the edge of my nail a little, to stop the tape from hitching.

The polishes I used are:
Urban Decay - Superfreak (gold)
Urban Decay - Woodstock (pink)
OPI - Fly (teal)
Essence - You Belong To Me (light blue/green)
The base color is a light gray franken I made.

What do you guys think of this fun way to use tape? I think I'll definitely be trying it again!

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Sephora by OPI swatch spam!

Second post from me today because I want to keep rolling out these swatch spam posts! I paused earlier for my Topbox review, but now we're back!

Tonight I'll be showing you the remainder of my Sephora by OPI polish collection, apart from the two new Betsey Johnson ones I got on vacation (which deserve their own post anyway.)

Let's get right to it!

Sephora by OPI - Hell to the No
This was one of my most wanted polishes for a long time! Until the lovely Rhonni found it for me in a blogsale and saved the day.
This gorgeous purple is from the Glee collection that came out last year. I wish I had all the Glee polishes! This is the only one I needed though.
It's a grape purple with gold shimmer! 3 coats to even out all bald spots.
The above photos are a little bit dark, check out the one below:

It's more the color of the bottle in this photo.
It's really amazing and I love it. A lot.

Sephora by OPI - Blasted Gold
As you can see, this is a gold shatter polish, I've layered it here over Hell To The No. It's interesting because it has some bigger gold sparkles amongst the metallic base, which are visible in the last picture especially.
I like the extra sparkly look, and it worked pretty well, so this is a winning shatter!

Sephora by OPI - Teal We Meet Again
Love love love. A deep dark teal shimmer. Great formula, just 2 coats for full coverage. 

Sephora by OPI - Blasted Opalescent
Here's something different, a sheer shatter! (Well, it was different, until they released the same polish in the Nicole by OPI range, too.) I layered it over Teal We Meet Again.
It has this awesome shimmery purple look to it, but still more subtle than usual shatters. It's cool as hell.
I found this one on clearance at the end of April in Sephora so take a look for it! (Or Opal Texture from Nicole.)

Sephora by OPI - Fancy Schmancy
I love the name of this one, it's silly. A sheer pearly white shimmer, shown at three coats. You could probably layer this too for a cool effect, but I think it would be kinda frosty.

Sephora by OPI - Go With The Flow-er
This is a hot hot red/pink glassfleck polish, which is super shiny and sparkly. It's kinda sheer and you need three coats to build it up.

Sephora by OPI - Mermaid to Order
Holy crap I love this. A teal/turquoise metallic that is so reflective, it freaked out my camera. It's a little bit streaky but I can totally forgive that for the color payoff! I adore it. Such a fun color! 2 coats to cover completely.

I'm a swatch spam machine! One day I hope to have every polish in my stash posted on this blog so I guess I'll have to do more swatch spam weeks in the future. I hope you guys don't hate these kinds of posts!
See you tomorrow with Nicole by OPI spam.

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Cover Band - Sticks 'n Stones

Sticks 'n Stones may break my bones... But black and white glitter excites me.

Cover Band - Sticks 'n Stones
You. Need. This. Plain and simple.

If you're "in the know" in the polish world, you'll know that this polish is meant to be similar to Lynnderella's Connect The Dots, to give people a way to get this look without a) having to pay the Lynnderella price and b) having to deal with Lynnderella's drama.

Duping polishes within the indie polish community is really a drama-filled topic so I won't say much about it other than "the more the merrier" and "it's just nail polish."

I've actually got a bottle of Connect The Dots on the way to me right now. I committed to buying one but then assumed I would never actually get it once Lynnderella shut down her blog and all that.
I then bought Sticks 'n Stones to get my fix.
...And got invoiced for the Lynn the next day.
So that was annoying, but I bought it anyway. And now after comparing this one to swatches of the Lynn, I like this one better! Maybe I'll swap the Lynn when it comes.

Anyway, after all that rambling, onto the rest of this post.

I started this manicure with probably the stupidest combination of colors. Stupid because they are so hard to photograph.

This is a mixture of four Color Club polishes.
I started with a base of Peppermint Twist and let that dry.
I then added a quick coat of Peace Out Purple, and swiftly used a tissue to blot most of it off.
I did the same thing two more times with Mrs. Robinson and then Disco Dress.

That's what your tissue will look like when you're done! I really like this technique, it gives a cool blend of colors.
And if you don't add topcoat, it leaves a cool texture too! (But I can never go without topcoat.)

None of those photos accurately show the colors, though.
Only one photo I took (out of like 100) shows the colors right.
And it was taken with my iPhone. Go figure.

Super bright, super fuchsia, and super awesome with Sticks 'n Stones on top!

Here's a bottle shot:

Sticks 'n Stones, as you can see, is a glitter polish that is packed with white and black glitter in all different shapes and sizes.  There's also a tiny bit of iridescent glitter floatin' around in there.

I'm still wearing this mani as I write this post, and it is still distracting me. I keep stopping what I'm doing to look at my nails.
I realized just how many times I was being distracted when I was in the shower, washing my hair, and I stopped to look at my nails. Really.

...I just did it again.

The mix-y base color combined with the different shapes of black and white glitter is just so eye-catching and fun to look at. It almost looks like a splatter effect, but without the mess of actually doing a splatter!

The one issue I had with the polish is that sometimes the bar glitters will not lie flat. I had to pick off three pieces with tweezers because I couldn't stand feeling the edge of them sticking up.
But that's a pretty minor (and obsessive compulsive) problem.

For some reason I decided to do one accent nail on my right hand, and I'm going to show it to you, but be warned that I am awful at taking pictures of my right hand! And vacation was not kind to my right hand, so the nails are looking a little sad.

My accent nail is China Glaze - Turned Up Turquoise. I adore this color but it is another pain in the butt to photograph. Having one accent nail is pretty random but I dig it.

As I said earlier, you need Sticks 'n Stones because it is fantastic.
You can buy it from the website Ninja Polish which I am proud to say is ran by two of my friends!
Sticks 'n Stones is currently sold out, but there is a nice feature on the site that will email you when it is back in stock!

Have a lovely day, everyone!

More about → Cover Band - Sticks 'n Stones

as seen on... Candy Coated Tips

Hey guys! My scheduled posts keep on truckin' along, wowing you with my recreation skills I'm sure. ;)

Today I'm showing you a crazy skittles mani from my friend Jacquese at Candy Coated Tips.
In February she did a crazy mani with a bunch of colors she had just received. I had all the same colors, and adored the combo, so I went for it too!

This is such a fun type of mani to wear and all the colors go so well together!
I added some dots to the thumb because I was impatient while waiting for the other nails to dry before I could add the shatter.

Here's all the colors used to create this look:
OPI - Fly (base of index and small dots)
OPI - Dit It On 'Em (base of thumb and ring)
OPI - Absolutely Alice (middle)
OPI - Turquoise Shatter (ring)
China Glaze - For Audrey (pinky and large dots)
China Glaze - Crushed Candy (index)

Crushed Candy didn't crackle very well. I think it needs some polish thinner.

I adored Turquoise Shatter over Did It On 'Em! I'll be wearing that as a full mani soon.

I should do skittles more often. I think I'll be doing a similar mani in pink and purple!
Thanks for the great combo idea, Jacquese!

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Color Club - Blossoming Collection - swatches and review

Hey everyone! Good news, I'm all done exams and they went amazingly well! Now I'm free until September. I'm so excited!

Guess who's got another Color Club collection to show you lovely people? That's right, me. Because I buy all the Color Club.

This is the Color Club Blossoming Collection.
I actually won two of these in Color Club's Valentine's Day contest! You can tell which ones because they've got the salon tops and not the smaller ones.
The others, I found at Winners, in sets of two for $7.99. That's way more than I like to pay for these collections because normally you get the whole thing for $13.99 but I have a feeling those sets won't be showing up this time around.

This collection has 5 nice creme pastel shades and a cool topcoat that's made of holographic shards.
This post is gonna be picture-heavy so click to keep reading.

 

Color Club - Blushing Rose
Do you like my handmade labels? Hah!
This is a night light pink creme polish, the formula is a bit thin but it covers well in 3 coats and levels easily.
My only issue with this color is that Color Club puts out way too many light pink cremes. Get A Clue... Vintage Couture... I Believe In Amour...
Too many.

Color Club - Diamond Drops
This unique topcoat gives a cool look over these light pastel colors, and I'm sure it would rock over dark colors too! I'm a big fan of this. I like the shards, though it can be a little difficult to get even coverage on your nail.
I'm gonna show this over all the colors because I really love it. Haha!

Color Club - Sweetpea
This is a really lovely dusty pink creme, and this one is actually pretty unique, I don't think I have anything else like it!
The formula on this one is lovely and covers great in 2 coats. My mom and my aunt were watching me swatch this collection and they both loved this color! I love it, too.

And here it is with Diamond Drops.

Color Club - Lavendarling
Pretty dusty purple creme, not the most original but always a pleasing shade! This one covers in 2 coats as well.

And here it is with Diamond Drops. I love the look of the shards in the last picture. They do sparkle very nicely in person.

Color Club - Hydrangea Kiss
A nice dusty blue creme. Don't think I've got anything quite the same. 2 coats!

And again with Diamond Drops. You may remember some of the colors from Backstage Pass had these shards in them. I'm glad they released a shade with just shards because like I said, I dig the look!

Color Club - Blue-Ming
Nice shade, but it ain't blue! Haha. This is a super bright and clean minty turquoise. I don't think I have any dupes but it is definitely in the same vein as all the usual minty turquoises. I think this one is a touch brighter.
You need 3 coats to level this one out fully but the formula is easy to work with.

This one looks great with Diamond Drops! I think this is my favorite combo.

Overall, I adore these colors, which is expected from me because of my love for pastels.
My favorites are Sweetpea and Blue-Ming but I really love them all! And of course, Diamond Drops is a big winner for me. This is a nice addiction to my massive CCC (Color Club Collection!) Hahaha.

Guess what? I've got another Color Club collection to post tomorrow. The newest one. And it is beautiful. Keep an eye out for that!

More about → Color Club - Blossoming Collection - swatches and review