Lazy 15: Gradient

Hello out there! Happy Monday... just kidding. No such thing ;) Today I'm back on the challenge bandwagon!

Today is gradient nails. Now... let's be honest. I haven't gotten this technique down. I tried really hard... but for some reason, my gradients barely are showing up when I sponge them on. So I tried, I really did, but you couldn't even see the gradient on my white underwear. I need some more practice. Not to let you down, I did a gradient of dots in the same colors I'd chosen for the gradient originally (no, there's no picture, because it just looked like white nail polish with sponge-shaped dents in it).

I started with a base coat of Hits Hello Kitty Sweet, which is a perfect coral-orange creme. (I have 6 of these Hits and I love them all, so you'll see the swatches of these as I use them for underwear for manis throughout this challenge.) 

Because I can, here's a bottle shot to show how RIDICULOUSLY cute these are. I love Hello Kitty!

Then I added a gradient of yellow-purple dots using Barry M Lemon Ice Cream (yellow), Orly Frisky (blue), and Barry M Berry Ice Cream (purple).

Once I was done, I added matte top coat and this was the final result:

What do you think? I'm a bit disappointed I didn't do a "normal" gradient but... call it going outside the box! I loved it matte!




xoxo,
Amanda

Halloween Week Part 7: Halloween!

Happy Halloween!! This is my favorite holiday so I'm pretty stoked for today. I am handing out candy at my boyfriend's house so I'm fairly excited for that. Enjoy trick-or-treating! (Fun fact: there are no documented cases of strangers poisoning or putting razor blades in candy, only by parents... oddly enough.)

So the holiday called for something special: My first gradient! Megan sent me some cosmetic sponges in a swap, so I decided to use those and make something epic. And, um, I was close? Here's the colors I picked (the wand is my Migi pens, which unscrew to be normal, one coater polish!):

OPI Atomic Orange, OPI Funky Dunkey, and Migi nail art pens.

My base was plain white and I made a gradient going from white, orange, purple, to black, and I was mostly successful except the black didn't come out very much, and where it did... it stained my cuticles omg. I really liked the subtle effect though, it was really cool and I wish I had a good up-close shot to show you how it came out! (Although, if you're really curious, you could just enlarge the photos...)

And there you have it! Happy Haunting, Ghouls!

xoxo,
Amanda

Halloween Week Part 6

Hi all! Today's post is vampire themed nails. And, if you need reasons why (I bet you don't, but you're getting them anyway dagnabbit!), here are my best three:

1. I wanted to use Candy Lacquer Vampire Kiss.
2. I am a Twilight fan (keep your mouth shut if you don't like it. ;) You still love me, suck it up.)
3. An excuse to use some fimo canes, FINALLY.

So, for vampire nails, I started with Sally Hansen Sun Kissed on all my nails except my ring, which I added red from one of my Migi pens (hey, they were out, it was a one coater...). On the orange nails, I added Vampire Kiss which OMG IT'S BEAUTIFUL AND REQUIRES INTERNET YELLING DON'T JUDGE ME. I even got a red heart on my pinky which is <3 <3 <3. Then on the red nail, I added a fimo stick with vampire fangs! How cute is that?! Unfortunately, I cut this one a bit thick so it sticks up a little but it served the purpose.

Public Service Announcement: Sometimes, you're doing a manicure. Sometimes, your adorable kitty will walk by you, directly INTO your lightbox. And you will gently pet her and, um, forcibly push her out of it. And you'll look at your nails and think, "wow! I didn't get any hairs from her on my nails". And you will be proved wrong when you see the pictures on your computer. (So let's ignore those, mmmkay?)

So, anyway, in case you didn't catch on... I love this.

xoxo,
Amanda

Halloween Week Part 1

Hi there ladies and gents! My post title MIGHT be a lie... the 7 manis I had for a week of Halloween were good, except for one. That one mani (which would have been yesterday's post) was all sorts of a hot mess once I saw the pictures and I couldn't bear to post it. Does that ever happen to you, a perfectly good mani until you see it photographed? Humph. Anyway, six days until Halloween, and it'll be seven if I do one more! Weeeeeeeeee!

For this mani, I started off with three coats of Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Sun Kissed, which is a beautiful orange creme, although it has some jelly tendencies so we're going to call it's a crelly. Then I put Wet n Wild Tangled in my Web from the elusive On The Prowl collection on my index and ring fingers and the pumpkin purple glitter on the other fingers. 

I LOVED the way TIMW looked, but not so sure about the shiny purple. I think my brain just doesn't seem to recognize shiny glitter anymore since I buy so many mattes now. (Side story: the other day I bought a shiny glitter and when I was trying to look at swatch pictures, I was literally thinking, "oh my god, this is TOO BRIGHT" because the light was reflecting off it.)

So there you have it, a VERY simple Halloween mani (hey, don't judge me because I can't freehand whatsoever!). Happy early Halloween!

xoxo,
Amanda

OPI Coral Reef

Hi girls! I'm writing this post live since I just realized all my scheduled posts are all gone! Oopsie! Hope you're all enjoying your weekend! I had a really hectic, stressful week and I had to work Friday all day (usually I'm off or only work until 2 or 3) so my weekend feels stunted. I have so much to do today but I feel like doing nothing at all! I'll probably do the latter and then regret it later ;)

Today I have for you an oldie but a goodie, OPI Coral Reef. This is a linear holo from OPI's It's Summer For Shore collections from a few years back. I got this in that giant haul of old salon OPIs along with her sister, Sand-erella. Unfortunately, it wasn't particularly sunny on the day I wore this, so you just have to imagine the linear holo in the photos below.

Coral Reef is actually shockingly opaque for a holo, I only used 2 coats here. You do have to be careful with dragging, though, so make sure each coat dries completely. I added topcoat which did not dull the effect and I'm wearing my normal base coat, not an aqua base.

Overall, Coral Reef is gorgeous but I was a little disappointed. It's not as outrageously holo OR coral as I'd wanted it to be, but it's going to stay in my stash anyway for a rainy sunny day. I'm not sure it compliments my skin tone but I don't usually care about that anyway ;) Here's one last bottle shot to show you some of the holo:

xoxo,
Amanda

Halloween Part One: Cougar Attack!

Hi ladies! With Halloween being my favorite holiday, I'm shocked I have yet to post a Halloween mani! All the posts I show you guys are NOTDs so for a while, I thought it was too early for Halloween... then the end of the month snuck up on me! I'm having a party this weekend and I'm so excited! And that is why this post is scheduled: I totally slacked on preparation and I'm spending the day prepping! haha

Anyway, here's my homage to Halloween part one, Wet n Wild Cougar Attack, which was part of this year's hard-to-find On the Prowl collection. This applied kind of awkwardly, this is three coats which was perfect for opacity but some nails were okay in two. The brush on Wet n Wild is perfectly sized to cover my whole nail in one stroke but that means sometimes I get pooling on the edge of my nails from the brush pushing excess over there, if that makes sense? On to the polish.... first, without topcoat.

And with topcoat...

In my opinion, this absolutely requires a great topcoat. It will dry on its own fine, but it will be dull and lack dimension. Once I added topcoat to this, I LOVED it (I usually take my pictures pre-topcoat so you guys see what it actually looks like, not what the topcoat adds). Very Halloweeny, no?

xoxo,
Amanda

OPI Flit a Bit

Hello my dears! Quickie post today since this is an oldie and I'm sure you can find a bazillion swatches online ;) I bought OPI Flit a Bit for $3.25 at my local salon, as I mentioned recently, and I decided to wear it because I felt like wearing a bright summer color for my Cape Cod vacation. However, this was less summer and more Nickelodeon to me and I wore it barely a day before I thought it was too bright, too loud, too bleh for me and took it off.

What do you think of Nickelodeon Orange... I mean... Flit a Bit?

xoxo,
Amanda

"I'll be back... and I am back"

Hi all! Hope some of you caught "The Office" reference in my post title ;) Anyway, it's been a few days. My explanation? I have been so busy with work that I haven't painted my nails since the last post. Yup, you read that right. Epic Winning came off, and my nails became epic fail of nakedness. Since I'm trying to work some exercise into my daily life, it's been kinda hectic (although I can proudly report I learned to ride a bike this week!).

No more excuses though! I bought an orange no-name crackle from Rite Aid... I was feeling down, needed some retail therapy, and this is what called to me. It's Nickelodeon colored orange and pretty bright, but I kind of like it. Not sure I could do my whole mani in this, but it would be a good summer color crackle.

The brand is Republic Nail, never heard of them before but it came in packaging, much like mascara would (with the cardboard backing and everything!). Kind of weird for a polish.

These three are over Nina Ultra Pro Purple X-ing, ChG Lemon Fizz, and OPI Planks a Lot with NYC In a Minute topcoat over them.  This crackle actually worked pretty well. As you can see, it can vary in crack sizes much like the more expensive brands, but it wasn't clumpy at all. Even when the bottle was exposed to air for a little bit, there wasn't any sign of thickening. Kind of impressive!

Also, my China Glaze crackle Metals came in (!!!!) the other day, and I have been meaning to experiment more with them. I only bought the 3 colored ones (in order in the picture below: Oxidized Aqua, Latticed Lilac and Haute Metal) because I feel like the neutral colors are getting a bit overdone and I like my colors! I guess since the polish ends up looking predominantly the color of the crackle, I'm sick of having gray, black, white... it's a bit bland, to me. What colors would you like to see the colored crackle metals over?

(Did you notice I got an "oops" bottle of Oxidized Aqua? Instead of the Crackle Glaze logo, I got the normal ChG logo with "Crackle" stamped on the left side of the bottle, which you can see vaguely.)

Above, I stamped the ChG Metal Crackles over some skittle swatches. From left to right:
-Haute Metal over ChG Lemon Fizz
-Oxidized Aqua over OPI Planks a Lot
-Latticed Lilac over OPI Sparrow Me the Drama
-Oxidized Aqua over Ulta Blue Streak

xoxo,
Amanda

Ulta Mermaid in Heaven

Hello dears! How is your weekend going so far? I have Fridays off now and three day weekends every weekend, which is weird but awesome.

I also have some great news: my color at Lex Cosmetics won! They're going to make Tuilleries :) Thank you for everyone who voted and helped me win, I won by a landslide - about 50% of the vote between 6 or 7 polishes :)

Today I have for you one of the Ulta minis from their Under the Sea set. I asked for a mani suggestion on Twitter and someone suggested an orange or yellow, so this is what they got! This is about 3 coats and topcoat, and this is on the second day of wear.

(Excuse the tipwear, it chipped off right as I went to take this picture!)

I really enjoyed this color. It was super shimmery, summery, and it had that "lit from within" look to it. Even my supervisor complimented me on it (she happened to be wearing orange nail polish too and she said "I like yours much more!"). 

What do you think? Do you like? What would you like to see more of?

xoxo,
Amanda

Swatches Galore

Hello my dears! I couldn't hold out any longer... here are some swatches. One was Mad as a Hatter, which I couldn't wait to do anyway, but a reader requested MAAH and the Ulta set swatched, so here we go!

I couldn't make a decision about MAAH, so I decided to try layering it over a few polishes. I used varying degrees of purple. From left to right, we have MAAH on its own, MAAH over Ulta Celebutante, MAAH over China Glaze Harmony, MAAH over OPI Not like the Movies, and over OPI Have You Seen My Limo?. This is two coats of MAAH over all the bases.

On its own, MAAH is too sheer for my taste and the more coats you add, the easier it chips. I decided to use ChG Harmony because that seemed to look best, although I realize it makes MAAH look more purple than it really is.

Here's my mani with MAAH over ChG Harmony... sorry for the messy cleanup. No matter how much you clean up with glitter, there's always some pieces left behind that are impossible and I didn't see these little pieces until the pictures were on my computer :(

So what do you think? I loved this. The base color plus 2 coats MAAH was perfect: beautiful, sparkly, and not chippy! Exactly what the doctor ordered.

Next up I have the Ulta Under the Sea swatches. These polishes are gorgeous, I'm so glad I impulsively bought them. For $8, these aren't too bad although they are minis (but I never use full bottles of polish anyway, so...)

Left to right: Tip the Scales (purple), A Tail of Two Cities (pink), Mermaid in Heaven (orange), and Don't Be Shelfish (green - best name of the collection!).

And, above, here they are in the sun. You can see the glass fleck shimmer much better in this picture and how radiant they really are. They're a little sheer (these were 3 coats), but they do build up. I'm wearing Mermaid in Heaven as my mani and it's adorable! What do you think?

xoxo,
Amanda

Graduation nails

Hi ladies! Life has continued to be a little busy... for a number of reasons. I still had to finish hours for my practicum placement, then I started transitioning to an employee (started getting paid Monday!), I had graduation, and next week, I leave for BERMUDA! So life has been a lot of planning, packing, re-planning, running around, and generally going through the stages of becoming a grown-up. But I'm not going to let this blog die, don't you worry!

For graduation, I really wanted a nude, neutral color because I didn't want my nails to look crazy and unprofessional in the pictures. I searched through my many (correction: three) nudes and was unimpressed. But then I had an epiphany! A nude holo I purchased on a whim when I fell in love with Color Club's holos! And so my graduation mani was born: Color Club Love 'Em/Leave 'Em:

This was two coats with no top coat. To say Color Club does a nice holo would be an understatement. I'm afraid if anyone had noticed the holo (it was cloudy on my graduation) they would have stolen the show ;) Okay, maybe I'm exaggerating. But seriously, this was a gorgeous color and I don't know why I procrastinated so long. I thought it would be boring, but it was really beautiful and totally work-appropriate. Definitely scoop up a bottle of this if you haven't already: it's a great way to made nudes not so boring but still appropriate.

And next is my current mani, which is Bermuda inspired to get me through the rest of this week. This is Sally Hansen Sun Kissed, which could have also been called "Nickelodeon orange". I love it anyway!

Application was a little tough: bald spots, thin areas, the brush kept leaving brush strokes in the polish, but this is about 3-4 coats with Seche Vite and it looks great! I'm a little wary of it being very work-appropriate but... I'm leaving on vacation on Sunday, who cares?!

So what do you ladies think? Was Love 'Em/Leave 'Em the best pick for graduation? What would you have chosen? For Bermuda, I'm planning to try out those Sally Hansen nail sticker thingys, since they supposedly last up to 10 days and I don't want to bring my stash of polishes with me on my trip. So you're either going to have a very favorable or very negative review of those (either way, I'm bringing nail polish remover... just in case).

xoxo,
Amanda