Glitter Gal Marine Blue vs. Enchanted Polish Marge's Blue Beehive

I got some fun nail mail over the weekend and I was excited to open my package from Enchanted Polish! I love blue and I love holo, so I was really excited about Marge's Blue Beehive - but I immediately wondered how close it was to Glitter Gal's Marine Blue. Ready for a bunch of pictures?

bottle butts - GG left, Enchanted Polish right - looks almost exactly the same in the bottle

blurry bottle backs - GG left, Enchanted Polish right - the Glitter Gal was a lot more holo in bottle

 GG left, Enchanted Polish right - with flash, seems similar still; the holo particles in the GG are a smidge bigger and 'rainbowier'

GG left, Enchanted Polish right - the GG looks a smidge greener, while the Enchanted Polish has a dusty 'denim' quality to it in the shade

Sorry, these pictures go the other way - just a little confusing!

Enchanted Polish left, GG right (see, slightly greener?) ((with flash))

Enchanted Polish left, GG right (see, slightly greener?) - and the GG is a little less opaque (you can see it in the bottom right corner of the nail)

Glitter Gal Marine Blue

• more holo-y than Marge's Beehive
• a little more green-toned blue (hence 'Marine Blue', eh?)
• clearer color (the other one is a 'dustier' blue)
• less opaque; I did two for the nail swatch, but I would probably need three for my own nails (or maybe just wear some undies and then 1 coat)
• a third coat could possibly make it closer in tone to Marge's Beehive, but could also make it more pronounced 'greenish'
• more expensive for less product - but I do love the little square bottles (I can fit more of them into my Helmer)

Enchanted Polish Marge's Blue Beehive

• pretty blue color; but sort of 'dusty' (the holographic particles lend a silver dusty quality to it, like denim)
• less holo-y than the Glitter Gal
• rather opaque - pretty great in 1 coat, used a second for the nail wheel swatch 
• more expensive than other holographic frankens from indie brands (my Dollish Polish holos were $9.50)

Which one would I pick? Tough call. I don't know that I can really pick one without having used them for all my finger bits first, but there are some obvious pros and cons to each with my first encounter! I like the holo-ness of the GG more, but I like how opaque Marge's Blue Beehive is. I guess I should probably just keep both for now *shrug* *wards off crazy looks from critics*

hopefully this doesn't take ten minutes to read :D

Price and Availability

Glitter Gal - from Ninja Polish $11.50 for a 9ml bottle - currently in stock! yay!

Enchanted Polish - from esty $12 for a .15mL (full-sized) bottle - not available right now, but it's a new shade so it should be available on her next restock

LOSTathon Re-Cap

Oof, what a week! I hope that you've enjoyed re-living all the different seasons of Lost vicariously through my nail art :D Out of all my nails, I think my favorite was my season 3 hand, but I also really loved seasons 2 and 5 as well. Now that this whirlwind week is over, I have two distinct feelings - 1.) Watch LOST all over again this summer and 2.) I love doing nerdy nail art based on things I love - I'm planning to do more challenges like this in the near future (something about the odds being ever in your favor and perhaps another challenge about a Chosen One...)

My LOSTicures by season: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

This would not have been as much fun had I been doing this challenge alone. It was great to do it with such a talented and awesome group of internet lady-friends! Seeing which things we picked that were the same, and things other people had picked that we had maybe forgotten about made it a really great experience. I don't know if Debbie could have organized a better group of LOST fans/friends to do this! So, here are my favorite manicures by the other people in this group.


Bee is by far the most knowledgeable LOST fan in our group. Her quotes and attention to detail made her manicures extra interesting; there were a lot of moments she chose for her nails that I hadn't thought of or remembered! While all of her nails were great, I thought her season 5 mani was pretty extra awesome! The Aljira flight nail really gets me. You can see all of her Lost posts by clicking here.

Debbie is a great writer! I always find her blog posts to be entertaining and her summaries of Lost really let me re-live all the moments of the show. I really enjoyed both her season 3 and season 4 manicures, but maybe because I enjoyed season 3 so much I felt biased towards it. Her season 3 mani was sort of subtle, but that's why it works so well! She made a much better beard than I did! I really liked her bits of rust on the cage, too. You can see all of her other Lost posts by clicking here.

Kirsten's season 6 mani is probably my favorite of her's! The extra spookiness that's included in it makes it creepy, but spectacular! I also really loved her season 3 mani because of the 'authenticity' of using a Sharpie (and the fact that I really ♥ Charlie). You can view all of her other Lost posts by clicking here.

Kerrie did a great job of being inspired by each season of Lost, and making a really cool, wearable hand of nail art based on it. I loved her season 2 numbers mani, and her season 3 van-inspired mani. My favorite of her's is season 5 because I'm pretty partial to the plot of that season and her fun, bright tie-dye mani is super succesful! You can view all of Kerrie's other Lost posts by clicking here.

Sarah is a master-stamper, as everyone knows! I really loved here posts explaining in detail how she does her great backgrounds. I was a huge, huge fan of her season 3 mani but I also really loved her season 1 mani. I thought Vincent was such a great character! And it was so great that Sarah remembered to include him (I *ahem* did not). You can see all of Sarah's other awesome Lost posts here.

Thanks to all the ladies!

Bee at Bee Polished

Debbie at The Crumpet

Kirsten at Geeky Owl

Kerrie at Pish Posh and Polish

Sarah at Spellbinding Nails

And thanks for all the lovely comments about this series! I'll be back soon with another fun series.

LOSTathon: Season 6

Season 6 is the last season of LOST. It picks up where season 5 left off - after Jack detonates a hydrogen bomb left on the island in an attempt to change the past, the remaining people left in the 1970s are flashed-forward to the present day on the island. The Man in Black, mostly still in the form of Locke, is scheming his way off the island after murdering Jacob. Ilana and the survivors of the Ajira Flight 316 scramble to figure out who to follow and what to do upon discovering Locke's dead body. Lots of weird twists later, and it turns out Desmond is a secret weapon! Then some of my favorite people die and everyone cries. And in the end, the island is limbo and everyone can move on together.

Other LOST ladies:

Bee at Bee Polished

Debbie at The Crumpet

Kirsten at Geeky Owl

Emma (meee! *waves*) right here at Manicurity

Kerrie at Pish Posh and Polish

Sarah at Spellbinding Nails

natural light

pointer - the Source (the Heart of the Island) - meant to represent the light coming from the Heart of the island - also where Jacob puts his brother's body that turns him into the smoke monster

middle - Smoke Monster/Man in Black

ring - sad attempt at re-creating Claire's crazy, crazy wild-lady hair

pinkie - the Temple

thumb - a really pretty 'explosion' to represent the submarine's explosion and all the deaths by explosion in this season

flash - really wanted to show more detail of my MiB finger

Hoorays about Season 6

• Learning more of the backstory of Jacob and his brother
• seeing Jacob tied to all the other moments and episodes (like the pilot when Locke holds up the two pieces and explains backgammon to Walt)
• I don't really know that I have a ton of 'hoorays!' about this season; I appreciate everything that happens, and I feel mostly satisfied, but still pleasantly confused

Nays about Season 6

• Sun and Jin die :'(
• Sayid dies :'(
• Jack dies :'(
• Creepy, crazy Claire

Remember...?

• that scene where Ilana makes Ben dig his own grave? Whoa, powerful!
• the ashes
• Sayid being brought back to life in the Temple
• all the cool ancient stories/the MiB + Jacob backstory
• all of the excellent flashback and flash-sideways storylines

I have had so much fun doing these with the other talented ladies! This challenge definitely makes me want to watch LOST all over again. I think all of us are a little sad with our last season mani because it's soo hard to say goodbye all over again, and to truly convey how important the show, and final season, was to each of us. Thanks for sticking around!! Enjoy this bonus pic of my thumb :D

Technical details for polishes

pointer - Catrice Goldfinger + Revlon Lunar

middle - Nubar Wildlife as background with black and grey sponging

ring - Nubar Classic Camel background with SH Mellow Yellow and Lightening hair bits

pinkie - Essie Case Study with black striper pen

thumb - Essence Wake Up! (red-ish), SH Lightening (yellow), and OPI In My Back Pocket (orange)

LOSTathon: Season 5

No big surprise, but most of us focused on the 'Lefties' - those of the Losties that were left behind and had to travel through jumps in time after the wheel at The Orchid station gets stuck. I was really enamored with the storyline of the 'Lefties' being left in the 1970s - which also happens to be the same time that Jack and the Oceanic 6 (minus Aaron + Locke's body + Ben) return during. We get to explore time travel and the ancient history of the island during this season; I really loved the time travel in this season quite a bit! We also get to know more about the 3 new characters brought by the freighter - Daniel (an incredibly smart physicist), Miles (who can communicate with the dead), and Charlotte (a cultural anthropologist who actually lived on the island with her DHARMA Initiative parents when she was little). There's a lot of other details we get to learn about the characters, which I also enjoyed.

Other LOST ladies:

Bee at Bee Polished

Debbie at The Crumpet

Kirsten at Geeky Owl

Emma (meee! *waves*) right here at Manicurity

Kerrie at Pish Posh and Polish

Sarah at Spellbinding Nails

pointer - Charlotte's nosebleed

middle - Juliet's DHARMA mechanic jumpsuit in the 1970s

ring - me using Sawyer's new identity as LaFleur as an excuse to use a new glitter polish :p

pinkie - 70s inspired needle drag

thumb - the frozen wheel

Hoorays about Season 5

• Sawyer (or LaFleur) + Juliet = yay!
• this season is especially cool, because you get to put together a lot of interesting puzzle pieces and watch the Losties in the past trying to survive (like Kate delivering Claire's baby)
• Jin is alive :D (and now Sun knows it!!)
• Jacob's appearance in everyone's lives 
• Locke is ~*magically*~ alive on the island again [after seeing below - Ben totally strangles him]

Nays about Season 5

• Juliet dies, and Sawyer (LaFleur) is le sad :'(
• Ben kills Locke!
• Ben also kills Jacob :(

Remember...?

• Bernard and Rose have been living happily on the island :D
• Daniel gets shot and killed by his own mother :o/

"Thank you, namaste, and good luck."

bonus! wonky thumb detail 

Technical details for polishes

pointer - Essence Nude It! and OPI Pepe's Purple Passion for blood drips

middle - Catrice Hip Queens Wear Blue Jeans, with gold striping tape and Catrice Goldfinger for little dot patch

ring - OPI In My Back Pocket + Sonoma Nail Art 'Mustard Fields' glitter (omg, so pretty)

pinkie - Orly Fresh (green), OPI In My Back Pocket (orange), SH yellow

thumb - SH Whirlwind White background, Nubar Wildlife sponged on, Misa Grey Matters, black striping pen

Nostalgic 'Gluttony' vs. Sonoma Nail Art 'Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence'

YAYYYY! I got some excellent nail mail today. Once I said "glitters don't count, I can have as many glitter polishes as I want because they go on top of things and they never look the same" and my boyfriend was all "but we're running out of space in our office..." So we tip-toe around the Helmers, and I buy all teh glitters :D

Today I received Nostalgic Nail Lacquer's 'Gluttony' from the 7 Deadly Sins collection, as well as Sonoma Nail Art's 'Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence'. For maybe 15 seconds after I purchased 'Gluttony' I felt, well, like a glutton for buying it when I knew SoPI was on it's way to me and they seemed similarly rainbow-y. But now that they're both here, I feel no shame! No regret! They're both beautiful and different and I don't care that 3 Helmer drawers (out of 12, mind you) are glitter-ized!

Now, I was practically drunk with excitement, so these pictures are a smidge blurry.

Yes, maybe I did nick the front of one bottle with the scissors while ripping the package apart.. maybe...

This is, of course, switched from the bottle shots - SoPI on left and Gluttony on right in this picture - one coat of each. I've seen so many excellent swatches of glitter over yellow, so it's what I thought of to try first (also, I just double checked and Gluttony is swatched over yellow in NNL's swatch photo - hmm)

I love them both!! I think the more dominant colors are different in each one - SoPI having more prominent blue hexes and purple squares, while Gluttony's red squares stick out to me the most. SoPI is more sparse, but the shapes are bigger and it looks more refined overall. Gluttony is, as it's namesake, very full of all colors, shapes, and sizes. The little white glitters in Gluttony are a great addition, just like the hearts in SoPI are a great hidden surprise (there are none in this quick swatch). I'm really feelin' Gluttony over yellow, but not so much SoPI over yellow - I'll have to find the perfect base for when I actually wear it, which will be ASAP (probably after LOSTathon is over). 

Gluttony was limited edition, but you can check out more Nostalgic Nail Lacquer here
Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence is not limited edition, but Sonoma Nail Art won't be restocking until May 15th 

PS. As always, I leave my photos mega-huge so you can click on 'em and get all up in that glorious detail :p

LOSTathon: Season 4

For my season 4 nails, I decided to focus on the Oceanic 6 that get to leave the island. At first their lives seem great, but then they start to unravel and things get really crazy. This season is the one that is foretold during the flashforward at the end of season 3 with Jack crying "we have to go backkkkk" - but will they? This season also introduces some new characters that I really like, but I'll talk about them more in season 5's post (Dan, Miles, and Charlotte from the ship).

Other LOST ladies:
Bee at Bee Polished
Debbie at The Crumpet
Kirsten at Geeky Owl
Emma (meee! *waves*) right here at Manicurity
Kerrie at Pish Posh and Polish
Sarah at Spellbinding Nails

pointer - one of Hurley's outfits from being in the mental ward (a shirt and a robe)

middle - Kate's engagement ring from Jack (I realize it wasn't green, but I wanted a big stone and it's the only one I could find)

ring - Jack's nasty, scraggle beard

pinkie - Jeremy Bentham - who?? haha

thumb - Oceanic logo

Hoorays about Season 4

• Sawyer sacrificing his way home for the others in the helicopter - so cool of him! But also sad
• Penny and Desmond reunite!!! YAY!
• Sayid is reunied with Nadia!! YAY!
• Hurley gets to talk to his dead friends - kinda cool

Nays about Season 4

• We find out how Jack and Claire are related
• Michael trying to kill himself over and over :'(
• Desmond's concious time traveling & the need for this constant
• Jin is presumed dead :'(
• Sun is so bitter :(

Remember...?

• Sayid becomes an assassin
• Kate seems to have it all - she doesn't go to jail, her mom loves her again, she has a son, Jack wants to marry her (for like a DAY)
• Do we like Charles Whitmore or not?!

"Dude, I've been having regular conversations with dead people."

Technical details for polishes

all of my main fingers are Essence Colour & Go in Nude It! (current super fave nude color)
pointer - Essence Walk of Fame for the mauve, and Misa Spaced Out for the robe
middle - Maybelline Chrome for the silver and a giant gem from the craft store
ring - Zoya Codie and China Glaze Mahogany Magic
pinkie - SH Whirlwind White with black striper details
thumb - SH Whirlwind White background, Wet n Wild Lavendar creme for pink, A-England Gallahad, and Pure Ice French Kiss

LOSTathon: Season 3

Season 3 of LOST starts out with Jack, Kate, and Sawyer being captured by The Others, and only gets more complicated and action-packed from there. The first two seasons of the show are sort of slow and mysterious, building suspense and confusion until this season when a ton of action and betrayal (and more general confusion) occurs. The plots and intentions of all the characters get really twisty in this season - more than before [duh duh duhhhh]. Desmond does a lot of time traveling in this season, there's also more flashback stories and the first flash forward occurs at the end of the season. The end of  season 3 is also when Jack calls the people on the freighter, while the audience is informed that it is Not Penny's Boat

Other LOST ladies:
Bee at Bee Polished
Debbie at The Crumpet
Kirsten at Geeky Owl
Emma (meee! *waves*) right here at Manicurity
Kerrie at Pish Posh and Polish
Sarah at Spellbinding Nails


pointer - abstracted corner of the DHARMA logo from the van that Hurley and Charlie take a joy ride in (I love this little story so much)

middle - diamonds and the Medusa spider on some sand (you know, for burying people alive in...)

ring - a (semi-crappy) tape manicure of the radio tower on the hill for the end of the season

pinkie - Ben's white rabbit and explaining the device in Sawyer's chest to him (this nail is supposed to be textured and 'furry' seeming, btw)

thumb - NOT PENNYS BOAT (pretend this is written on the wittle hand I managed to draw)

Hoorays about Season 3

• Charlie's 5 greatest moments of his life [also, see: "all the tears I cry all season are because of Charlie"]
• Juliet - I actually really like her and her smug smirk and her know-it-all-ness; I think she plays all of her roles really well (her flip flopping sides back and forth forever entertained me)
• I love to hate the Nikki & Paulo story arch! It's one of those small things that I think about all the time; the fact that they get buried alive haunts me

Nays about Season 3 - mostly I found this season really stressful and sort of upsetting

• Jack's weird storyline about the tattoos in Thailand - meh
• Jin's flashback stories about dealing with Sun's Dad's drama :(
• Eko dies :'(
• Locke loses faith in the island, has weird visions, and is mute for a bit = strange
• NOT PENNY'S BOAT :'(  - omg Charlie - I might be tearing up right now writing this...
• Kate + Sawyer does not please me; I almost don't like her with anyone because even with Jack she's annoying. I guess I appreciate her as a lone woman (she's so badass!), not when she gets emotionally tied to people in romantic situations (her conflicted feelings just seem to annoy me)

Remember...?

• Karl getting brainwashed - redonkulous
• finding out that there are two islands - Hydra Island and the Losties' island
• the fight at the Flame station
• getting introduced to the sonar fence
• that crazy [pretend?] thing they implant in Sawyer's chest
• Naomi (getting a knife in the back) and the freighter
• Ben freakin' shoots Locke and leaves him in a mass grave - what?!
• Alex meeting her biological mother (finally)
• Mikhail. Ugh. Mikhail.

For some bonus macro picture shots and the technical details of polishes, follow the jump!

"See you in another life, brother."

LOSTathon: Season 2

There's so much that happens in every episode of Lost, let alone a whole season! For season 2's manicure, I wanted to do a design that I could abstract across all of my nails and I immediately thought of the awesome black-light map that pops up on the blast door in the Swan station during Locke's lockdown (during the episode entitled "Lockdown" - ha). Since this episode is pretty far into the second season, we've already been inside of the hatch (and pushed the numbers over and over), been introduced to the Dharma Initiative (and watched the video), had some run-ins with The Others, and even experienced most of the story arc including the few members of the tail section. 

Other LOST ladies:

Bee at Bee Polished

Debbie at The Crumpet

Kirsten at Geeky Owl

Emma (meee! *waves*) right here at Manicurity

Kerrie at Pish Posh and Polish

Sarah at Spellbinding Nails

Hoorays about Season 2

• Shannon + Sayid = adorable
• Hurley + Libby = adorable
• the capture of Sawyer and Michael by 'others' that are really just 'others' from the plane
• finding more Dharma stations

Nays about Season 2

• Shannon dying :'(
• Libby dying :'(
• Claire and Charlie not getting along 
• the Others being super tricky over and over (the huts, the beards, inhabiting the Dharma stations)

Remember...?

• Henry Gale, from Minnesota
• Michael kills Anna Lucia and Libby for the Others to try and get his son back
• Sun is pregnant! But Jin is infertile...?
• Desmond fleeing and returning
• the Swan station blowing up at the end of the season
• the call to Penny that says "we found it"

BONUS PIC! Weird glowy fingers!!!

Technical details - polishes by finger(s)
base color - Cult Nails Blackout, then details painted with white
neon pinky color - unnamed Color Club pink + purple neon mixed together
neon bluey color - Essie Barefoot in Blue (Toms color) + Color Club Pure Energy
question mark on thumb - unnamed Color Club pink neon

PS. These are my fave LOST nails so far :D

Blog Sale!

Hi all! Just wanted to let you know that I've started to use my 'blog sale' page - with my very first blog saleeee! This is a trial run for me + blog sale-ing, so hopefully it goes well :) I've got some Juleps and some other fun things for you to check out [> right here <] 

LOSTathon: Season 1

So as you might know by now (I've hinted here and there about this "six girls, six seasons" idea) - I'm part of a challenge to do nail art inspired by the TV series LOST! Each day of this week I, along with the other ladies, will be posting a manicure inspired by a different season. Today is season 1! I'm probably the last in posting this, but I wanted it to go up at 8:15 (nerd nerd nerd). The rest of the posts should be more timely - following a particular numerical pattern you might be familiar with 4...8...15...


Other LOST ladies:

Bee at Bee Polished

Debbie at The Crumpet

Kirsten at Geeky Owl

Emma (meee! *waves*) right here at Manicurity

Kerrie at Pish Posh and Polish

Sarah at Spellbinding Nails

I watched LOST long after it aired; I watched all six seasons last summer on Netflix, so I might have a different view of it all than the other ladies. For instance, I knew Ian Somerhalder as a vampire before I knew him as Boone, but I'm still majorly fond of the series.

So, my nails are pretty obvious and summarize the first season - the beach, the caves, a POLAR BEAR?!?!, and the hatch. Generally, the first season focuses on the crash of an airplane and their fight for survival - choosing between living near the beach or in the caves by a source of water. Then the mysteries start to enfold - why is there a polar bear on a jungle island? Why is there a metal hatch marked 'quarantine' in the middle of no where on this same weird, jungly island with polar bears...!? What IS that smoke monster thing?

Hoorays about Season 1

• everything about Charlie - I both love and hate him so much
• Hurley is the best!
• Kate is maybe the most beautiful human woman I've looked at - she's so pretty! And I still liked her in season 1 lol
• Sayid is super smart and awesome
• Sawyer - another person I can't help but love and hate

Nays about Season 1

• freakin' SHANNON. I cannot watch anything with her in it now without immediately being annoyed. Her and Boone = ughhh
• Boone dying :(
• Locke totally creeped me out for the most part of season 1; I was so skeptical of him and that one time he made Boone have a weird hallucinations - what?

Remember when...?

• even in the very first episode, we're talking about "We have to go back!"
• that scientist guy blew up at the Black Rock? Holy crap!!
• that moment you find out Sun totally knows English?!
• meeting Rousseau by following the cable
• Claire being kidnapped, Charlie being hanged - ick
• Michael's raft and The Others taking Walt
• the hatch finally opens at the end of the season....

Now enjoy a video of the polar bear scene!
 

Technical Details - polishes by finger

pointer: SH Duchesse Lace for the beach, Pure Ice French Kiss for the water with some white striping polish swirled in

middle: Cult Nails Blackout with Misa Spaced Out sponged on, Orly Fresh for jungle-y vines

ring: ManGlaze Mayonnaise as the base, with plain white for the eyes, black striper details

pinkie: Misa Grey Matters with some white and black stripers for the hatch door, and Essence Nude It for hatch window details

Do you believe in magic? Fairy Nail Art!

I was fiddling around with my supplies and came up with a fairly fairy-ish franken the other night - it was unintentional, but so very pretty! So I knew what I needed to do to complete a fairy-themed manicure - which would be a great entry for Lindsey's nail art contest - her theme is 'Do you believe in magic?'. This is probably the most complicated and time consuming nail art I've done yet, but it was really fun to do and I'm so pleased with the results! I combined frankening, water-marbling with duochromes, stamping, rhinestones, and glitter! I only took like 150+ pictures trying to get the right one, too :D Strap in, this is a little picture heavy

The below picture was pre-stamping; just showing off my water marble and wanted to make sure I snapped a pic in case I ruined it with the details.

 

Middle and ring fingers - one coat of Milani Devoted 2 U (dark, sparkly purple), then water-marbled with some of the Hits Mari Moon colors Trendy and Cutie Pie on my middle finger and Cool and Cutie Pie on my ring finger. 

Ring finger - one coat of Sparitual Golden Gleam with individually placed hex glitters + one gold holo star shape. I put a layer of Seche Vite over the glitters, and I think it might have changed the color of the glitter.

Pinkie (and thumb) is a franken + some different sized orange-gold rhinestones. This is my first time wearing rhinestones and I actually love them! They are so shiny and pretty and I love touching them!! I thought the texture would freak me out, but it's the opposite - I want rhinestones all over all the nails all the time.

I did some stamping and details with Kleancolor Metallic Fuschia over my middle and ring fingers to make them look like fairy wings. I mixed some of the Kleancolor fuschia with white to make a lighter purple for small details.

Here's one last pretty picture!

An extra thank you and shout out goes to Jeanie at Midnight Manicures - I used a lot of the nail art supplies she sent me in my Secret Valentine package!! Thanks!

Quick Pic: Sinful Colors Cinderella

Just wanted to share some quick pics of Sinful Colors Cinderella! I don't really do swatch posts because I don't feel that I'm that great at them and I'm not usually able to snap great pictures in sunlight, but I was lucky today!!

Let's all take a moment to congratulate my left hand on taking a picture that, while not necessarily in focus, looks rather pretty!

There's no nail 'art' yet, but my ring and pinkie have Cinderella layered over Essence You Belong to Me, which is a really subtle change that I absolutely ♥! I was lucky enough to find Cinderella back when the internet was all abuzz about it, but didn't try it until yesterday. I love it and it's different colored flecks - so very, very pretty (and I knew I would love it because of that blue thing).

Here is a smidgen of bottle spam showing off shimmer, etc.

[I promise the tips don't look bad like that in real life !!!]

oohhh silver shimmer, yummm

*whew* Now that I have recorded the pretty for myself, I can add more things to my nails! I have a great idea - and if it is a great idea, you'll see it soon :)

Blue Monday - Eek! Faces

I was inspired by Debbie's new Monkey See Monkey Do idea, and picked something fun to try from Pinterest. I also really wanted to try out some of the new blues I have acquired recently - some of these I bought in hopes of fulfilling each other as lemmings (funny how that works out...) - BUT I am happy to say that they are all different! Even my boyfriend thinks they're not too dupey (which is a pretty awesome). So here are my 'Eeek!' faces - or as I was thinking, shocked faces saying "I can't believe you're wearing that!" to each other (because I thought the colors would be a lot more similar than they are).

They're cute! But I think the mouths look too much like noses, probably because they're too high up. I tried it with red first and somehow that looked more like noses to me...so I went back and did it with black. This is something I'll definitely have to try again because I'm not totally pleased with it this first time around. The first two faces are pretty good, though - but maybe I should've just left it as shifty eyes?!

And here's a shot of the base colors before putting faces on them! I am especially excited that the pinkie shows a little bit of the hidden shimmer

• ring = Gosh 'Blue Monday' (lolol) (over Pure Ice French Kiss)
• middle = MAC 'Ming Blue' (over Pure Ice French Kiss)
• pointer = Girly Bits 'Denim Diva'
• pinkie = Catrice 'Hip Queens Wear Blue Jeans'

Now I shall gift you with one last picture, a slightly blurry photo of the pretty, sparkly bottles! This is in reverse of my fingers because duh

The MAC and Gosh colors are, indeed, very similar in some ways - especially to people that don't love polish or blue the way that I do. But they're different enough that I have no qualms about buying them both on impulse from the same blog sale - one is sheer, but more vibrant, and the other is subtle and stunning. I keep staring at my nails and declaring "I LOVE blue!" like a creep right now.

love you + love blue
xx
Emma

PS. I changed my blog design a bit - it's blue, too :D

The Return of Stamping Sunday!

I've been using glitter as 'nail art' instead of doing any actual nail art. But I have some fun nail art series planned for the near future, so I thought today would be a great day to dust off those stamping plates and get into the groove of things! There was a tie in the vote for today's theme in Stamping Sunday so today is a triple threat - gradient, multi-stamp and animal print!

For my base, I did a jelly gradient using 3 polishes I frankened and this method from Layniefingers. Then, to make it 'multistamp', I used three different animal print images from my Bundle Monster plates. I used the zebra, cheeta-zebra combo, and cheetah prints, alternating across my fingers in Konad white (and matching them up a bit with the different patterns, too).

My jelly frankens -  the first two are more like 'crellies' because they're very creamy and fairly opaque in less coats than usual jellies, the last one is more sheer like a typical jelly. The first two frankens were obviously made with Wet n Wild polishes, 'Blazed' and 'Sunny Side Up', and the one on the end was made with Sally Hansen XtremeWear 'Mellow Yellow'. 

This was so easy and fun! I used a brush to swipe Vaseline wherever I didn't want polish from the gradient or stamping to make clean-up easier on myself, and it worked really well. That's probably my favorite trick for water-marbling or other nail art (using Vaseline) - I'm too lazy to tape my fingers, and the Vaseline is somewhat moisturizing in the process.

[PS. As always, you can click on the pictures and open for more details!]