My Flocking Fish Egg Mani

I know, long time no blog, but hey, life happens! I'm back now, and with some awesomeness! Two of the biggest things I've been seeing in the nail art blogosphere right now are flocked/fuzzy nails and (of course) fish egg/caviar nails. I've been dying to try both of them, and last night I finally got to Michael's to find the flocking powder and microbeads that I needed. And lucky for me, they were both on the same display, literally one on top of the other. Both came in packages of 6 colors, and the price listed was $6.99 for each package, but they rang up 50% off at $3.49 each! How awesome is that?! 

Since I couldn't decide which one to try first, I had the amazing idea to combine them into one epic mani!

My nails were already painted with ManGlaze ILF (which is freaking amazing by the way!), a gorgeous shade of tealish seafoam green. And the packages of flocking powder and microbeads both happened to have a similar shade in them. So I just alternated nails, one flocked, one fish egged, etc. 

I know it's not a practical or durable mani by any means, but it looks pretty cool, and I'm happy with the way it turned out. What do you think?

Now I want to go back and see if I can find a package with the black, white, silver, champagne, etc. color beads in them, so I can try out a genuine caviar mani with all black beads. Although I do think I'll love playing with all the bright colors in the packages I bought this weekend. 

FYI, while I've seen both flocked and fish egg nails and tutorials on many blogs recently, I was inspired by these lovely ladies: The Nailasaurus, The Swatchaholic, OMG! Polish 'em!, Let Them Have Polish!, Polish Art Addiction, The PolishAholic. Thanks for the inspiration and instructions, ladies! 


Thanks for reading!
Crystal

My Movember Mustache Mani

Last Monday, The Trace Face Files posted about Moustache Mani Monday in support of prostate cancer awareness month. And she invited all of her readers to participate along with her. I didn't get mine done til this weekend, so I'm posting it today for my Mustache Monday. Also, today she posted pics that her readers submitted, and mine is included! You can check it out here, or right here:

Orly Sheer Nude with L.A. Colors Art Deco Black

Bonus pic of me having fun with my mustache! 

After a few drinks, my friends and I end up drawing mustaches on the sides of our fingers and holding them up above our lips. Ah, the crazy fun we have with finger-staches! That's why I had to do my mustache upside down, so that I could have a little fun with it!

Thanks for reading!

Crystal

My First Dupe and a Comparison of Olive Cremes

When I saw that a couple of my local grocery stores started carrying OPI polishes, and even had some of the Pirates Of The Caribbean collection that I never saw anywhere else, I picked them up several times, but always put them back thinking that I probably already owned something similar. But I kept seeing bloggers post pictures of manicures that included polishes from the collection, and I thought, I've just got to get at least a couple of them. Also, I had talked about having a POTC movie marathon with a few friends, since none of us have seen all of them. And I thought it would be fun to do pirate-themed manicures for us girls while we watched the movies. So having a couple of the polishes from the collection would just be perfect! 

So I did some research and decided I wanted to get Steady As She Rose and Skull And Glossbones. But when I went back to the store, they had already sold the last Skull And Glossbones : (. But for some reason I still wanted to get two polishes, so I got Steady As She Rose and Stranger Tides. Unfortunately, when I got back home, I realized that Stranger Tides looked a lot like another polish I already had in my stash that I had bought just a couple months earlier, Sally Hansen Nailgrowth Miracle Creamy Olive. So I decided to swatch them both in a direct comparison.

(Sorry for the bad cleanup! This has been sitting in my Drafts for a while, and I've gotten much better at it since I took these pictures!)

Can you tell which is which? This is 2 coats of OPI Stranger Tides on my pointer and ring fingers, and 1 coat of Sally Hansen Nailgrowth Miracle Creamy Olive on my middle and pinky fingers. The formula on Stranger Tides is thinner than Creamy Olive, which is why it took 2 coats to reach the same level of opacity. Because of that, and the higher price on OPI, I prefer Sally Hansen Creamy Olive much more to OPI Stranger Tides. In fact, I'm a little disappointed that I spent the extra money on it when I already owned a cheaper dupe with a better formula. If that weren't the case, I would probably be just as happy with Stranger Tides as I am Steady As She Rose. But, oh well. It happens. 

I do think it's funny that I can't find Sally Hansen Creamy Olive anywhere now, though. It must have been part of a Spring or Summer collection. I just picked it up at Walgreens the first week of August when I was first really getting into my obsession with nail polish and nail art, just because I thought it was a pretty color. Which must have been what I was thinking when I decided to buy it again as OPI Stranger Tides. At least I have it for my POTC party. Or maybe, since it's only been swatched once, I'll use it as part of my first giveaway, when I hit my first big milestone : ) 


Thanks for reading!
Crystal

My Frankenstein Water Marble Halloween Mani

Okay, just a real quick post to show you my last Halloween mani, what I'm wearing today. Frankenstein & water marble nails!

 Sally Hansen Limestone with Tic Tac Green Litter, Wet n Wild Black Creme, French White & LA Colors Art Decco Black Liner

I've seen a bunch of Frankenstein manis this month, so I decided to try my hand at it. Again, I wasn't so sure I could pull it off on all 10 nails, so I opted for accent nails, with water marble on the rest. He didn't turn out quite as good as I hoped, or as good as my practice nail. So I must show you my nail wheel of practice Halloween nail art!

 Here's a closeup of my practice Frank, he turned out so good!



I'll come back later and give more info on each one, inpspirations and polishes used, but for now, enjoy the pics!

Thanks for reading and Happy Halloween!

Crystal

My Blood Spatter Halloween Mani

I remembered that I had Konad plate m21 with the paint splatter image (that I loved, but hadn't even used yet!), and I wondered if I used it with red polish if it would look like blood spatter... for Halloween of course... and it does!

Orly Dazzle stamped with Konad Red & Black and m21 & m28

I've seen quite a few "bloody" Halloween manis this month, and most of them have either a white, off white, or nude background, but I wanted to try something different. So I started with a silver foil background of Orly Dazzle, which I really love. 

I tested a couple of different reds, thinking that a darker red would look more like blood, or at least fake blood. I even picked up Sally Hansen Cinna-snap at the grocery store thinking it might be more perfect than anything I already had. But when I tested it on paper, it looked more purple stamped over the silver. Then I tried Sinful Colors Ruby Ruby, but it looked more like hot pink. So I actually tried my Konad Red Special Polish as a last result, and it turned out the best. I think because it is thicker and obviously made for stamping, so it actually stamped the truest red than my previous two attempts with regular polish. The other two polishes still stamped well, just not the color that I wanted. 

Sinful Colors Ruby Ruby, Konad Red Special Polish & Sally Hansen Cinna-snap

I wanted more than just blood spatter, and I wanted to use the other stamping images I had bought specifically for Halloween just one more time. So I stamped the skull and crossbones on my middle fingers, and the spider on my thumbs, both with Konad Black Special Polish, and both from Konad plate m28. I tried purposely stamping the spiders at an angle this time rather than perfectly centered. I got the angle part right, but they both ended up further to the side of the nail than I wanted. And my top coat smeared it just a little bit. But it still looks good though. I love these little spiders in black! So fun for Halloween!

Thanks for reading & Happy Halloween!

Crystal

My Second Halloween Mani

Glow in the dark ghosties! I got this idea from Sarah at Chalkboard Nails. She did a whole mani of these cuter-than-scary ghosts. But I wasn't so confident in my abilities, so I decided to just do an accent on my ring finger. 

First I painted a base of Sally Hansen Wet Cement on all nails. Then I used a dotting tool and Sally Hansen French White to draw the ghosts freehand on my ring fingers. I had just picked up a mini Sally Girl Glow In The Dark polish at Sally's, so I dabbed it on top of the white ghosts. I also painted it over the Wet Cement on the rest of my nails, hoping it would show through the crackle, but to the naked eye it didn't glow. Then I painted the eyes and mouth on the ghosts with a dotting tool and Sally Hansen Black Creme. Sadly, they got smeared by my top coat (Damn you Seche Vite!), but since it's a Halloween mani, it kinda works, right? : ) Since I didn't want to paint ghosts on all nails, I wanted to try out Sinful Colors Black Crackle I had just bought at Walgreens, and even though I am a little over the crackle phase, I actually like it with this mani. And I think Halloween is probably the most appropriate time of the year to use black crackle, don't you? Oh, and I did try one more coat of Glow In The Dark over the black crackled nails, just to see if it would work. It didn't glow in the dark, but it did add the slightest sparkle to the black crackle. You can see it more in the pictures than in real life. 

 With the Camera Flash you can see more of the Glow In The Dark sparkle over the Black Crackle.

In the Sunlight it looks a little like fresh asphalt.

 Here it is glowing in the dark! And with the Twilight setting on my camera, you can actually see it glowing under the Black Crackle!

One more glowing shot where you can actually read the Sally Girl bottle.

These are so cute and so much fun! I'm loving Wet Cement so far this fall, more than I thought I would. And the fact that I can use it for Halloween makes it even better!

Thanks for reading!

Crystal

My First Comparison - Julep Miranda and Amy

Two of my first Boho Chic selections from Julep were Miranda and Amy, and at first glance they seemed similar. I saw some bloggers wonder why Julep wanted to send them Amy one month after they received Miranda in their Julep Maven boxes, when they both appeared to be in the turquoise family. This is kinda true, but I still decided to get them both because I like this family of colors anyhow. And once I had them both, it was clear that they are just as different as they are similar. So I wanted to do a direct comparison to show you just how different they are. 

Miranda is on my pointer and ring fingers, and is more of a seafoam green. 2 coats and gorgeous! Amy is on my middle and pinky fingers. It is a beautiful turquoise blue. This is just 1 coat and perfect opacity! It is a little lumpy on my middle finger, but that was just me. Sorry, I really should have re-done that finger, but I didn't really notice it til I was looking through the pictures, and since these are just swatches for color comparison, I didn't bother. 


Anyhow, I absolutely LOVE both of these colors, and the formula of these cremes is just to die for! I love them both. My husband thought I was wearing a full mani like this! I didn't, but maybe someday I will! Or maybe next summer I'll mix and match my fingers and toes, that would be fun! 


Thanks for reading!
Crystal