W: Whirled Away and Re-fresh Mint, China Glaze

Well. I had some ambitious plans to do a water marble mani for W, but that failed at that. So here was my back up, a glitter, from the Cirque du Soleil collection.

Whirled Away, China Glaze.

Re-fresh Mint, China Glaze.


Below is my failed attempt at water marbling.  I had tape all the way around my finger, but I had it on so long I got tired of it and took it off.  Now I know why everyone tapes the sides of their fingers.  Anyhow. I spent an hour trying to get a suitable marble pattern in the water.

My problem was the polish kept setting too quickly.  I don't know if it was the polish or I was just not working fast enough..... I watched a bunch of videos, and tried a bunch of different polishes, no luck. I also used room temperature tap water, then tried room temperature filtered water.  It did not seem to make a difference.  I had to give up.  I may try again later.

I have new found respect for ladies that can water marble!

The base color is Orly's After Party in case you are wondering.  Sinful colors Savage is the marbling color I really wanted to work with.

Well that is it for today.

V: V-french with OPI Skull and Glossbones

Hey there!

Quick post... we are on V for the ABC challenge and I did a simple V tipped french, some call this a chevron french as well.  This is OPI Skull and Glossbones as a main color with China Glaze Call of the Wild for the tips.

I love grey and brown together, it's what I wear when I get tired of black.

I did this free handed but you can easily use tape if you want.  I did a tutorial on v-tipped french manicures a while back with tape.  Click here to see the tutorial.

Don't forget to check out the other lovely ladies in the challenge!

T: Tape Mani with Re-fresh Mint by China Glaze

Hey there! For the letter "T", I did a tape mani inspired by mint chocolate candy canes. I used Re-fresh Mint and Call of the Wild, both by China Glaze.

Below is the striping tape I used.  It's foil tape, I ordered this from eBay a while back, they're super cheap.  I got 8 rolls for $2.

I still had paint seepage under the tape, but it is hard to find thin strips of tape to use for nail art so I don't know of any other kind of tape to buy. Cutting scotch tape into skinny little uniform strips is a pain in the butt!

In order to get thicker lines I just place two or three strips of tape side by side.  The pattern of thickness the I used here, is one stripe, then three, then one, then two, then one.  Much easier than cutting tape.

This mani requires a lot of time and patience... something I'm a bit short on these days, so it will be a while before I do another one of these.  Or I'll just do one accent nail next time.

I also found it a bit annoying, after pulling the tape off, the tape kept sticking to my other hand, arm, sleeve... and they had brown nail polish on them so I got brown specks of polish everywhere.... what am I saying?  Have a large area set aside (and time) to work in and designate a spot to place the used stripes.

Overall though, the effect is nice, my husband was excited to see the finished nails.  He said they looked like candy.

Well, that is it for today.  I hope everyone is having a nice weekend!

Razzle Me Dazzle Me - China Glaze, Glitter Tips w/ Fresh Paint Coconut

I have to say I've been loving this manicure.  

This is Razzle Me Dazzle Me, just on the tips and accent nail.

Below is a bottle shot.  Various black and light gold glitters.

Below is my right hand, with glitter on all the tips, no accent nail.

AND..... a simple swatch of Fresh Paint's Coconut.   Two easy coats, very nice formula, thick and pigmented. Coconut is an off white with peach undertones.  This makes my skin look really tan and the polish looks really bright, stark almost.

Fresh Paint can be found at Five Below, a junk store where everything is $5 or below. Color Club, or Forsynthe Cosmetics is the maker of Fresh Paint.  These are cheap around $2 a bottle, technically they are 3 for $5.

Enjoy!

K: Kinetic Candy, China Glaze

Today's ABC challenge features Kinetic Candy from last year's Spring, Electropop collection.  I wore this last year but I didn't take pictures of it.  I was surprised to see that KC has a trace amount of grey in it, just a trace.  The formula is fantastic, creamy, not chalky.  There was no wait time between coats therefore really easy to work with.

Here's a simple swatch of two coats.

Then I added glitter.  Santee's M89, Gift Sparkle, such a generic name.  

And... a quick comparison.

Well that's it for now. I hope you enjoyed this post!

China Glaze - Budding Romance

Happy Saturday!

Today I have an olive green beauty from China Glaze's Avant Garden collection to show you! Budding Romance is a cream jelly hybrid polish, which is a totally unique, well at least to me it is.  Formula is sheer, but builds nicely; below is three coats.

If your not into bright greens this is actually a nice toned down green with yellow undertones.  I was surprised at how wearable Budding Romance is.  I'm so glad I gave this one a chance!

My bedroom is stuck in a stand still right now. Our miter saw stopped working and I had to order some parts for it, so once the saw gets repaired we can get going again.  It will probably be Christmas time before you see the finished product, so God help us.

Well that's it for now. Enjoy your weekend!

G: Grape Juice by China Glaze

Letter "G" this week is represented by Grape Juice by China Glaze.  My husband picked out this polish... I would have never gotten this on my own.  It's not too bad, Grape Juice is a sheer, but super sparkly purple shimmer.  I think this might be good to layer over a bright blue creme polish... Anyhow, this is my first time wearing it and today I'm just posting a simple swatch.

I picked up a couple of new Revlon glitters from Walgreens a couple of weeks ago and decided to test them out on Grape juice..... only the big glitters stood out, the small glitters just got lost in the shimmer.  Oh well, fail.....

Below left to right is Hearts of Gold Fx, it has holographic heart glitter suspended in micro gold glitter.  In the middle is Celestial Fx which has holographic star, moon, and diamond glitter in micro holo and silver glitter.
Last is Grape Juice.  The Revlons were $5.99 each.

Here is how the room is coming along.

Here is two coats of Benjamin Moore's Ballet White.  I still have to paint the trim in oil, but I was thinking I should wait for the window sills to be fixed.  Next we rip out the nasty carpet!!  More to come!

OPI Don't Talk Bach To Me

Happy 2013! - Hopefully....

I'm starting the year with an off-beat color, pale yellow leaning green - OPI, Don't talk Bach to me. This is really a pretty soft Dijon mustard color with a slight silver shimmer.  I paired it with Nubar's white polka dot glitter.

I decided to compare DTBTM with ChG's Trendsetter, from last fall's Metro Collection.  Trendsetter is one shade darker, richer and has a stronger shimmer effect than DTBTM.

For fun, I dug around in my fridge for some mustard.  See if you agree, they are pretty close analogies.

Looking at these are really making me hungry, especially the Maille mustard.  I'm going to go find a pretzel and I'll see you guys soon!

Ruffian Gone Wrong

Hey Guys!

I really love this color combo, but need to find another way to wear it.  Rose gold with Tiffany blue.... I tried to do a ruffian with Anise's Wildcat and China Glaze's For Audrey.  Maybe Wildcat wasn't thick enough?  I don't know....

Below is one coat of Wildcat.

I wasn't impressed with Wildcat's formula, it was actually kind of sticky and I kept pulling the paint off with my brush... goes on like a pastel.  One stroke and leave it alone, can't go back over painted areas or else it just pulls off and clumps.  Anyone tried anything from Anise?  They're available at DSW shoe warehouse for $6 a bottle, but they are always BOGO 1/2 off.  This is my first bottle from them. 



You MUST CLICK ON THE VIDEO, before you leave, it is only 3 seconds long!

China Glaze - Jolly Holly

Hey there lovely ladies!!!

Another quicky, but beautiful swatch to show you today.  This is Jolly Holly from last year's China Glaze's Holiday Collection.  Two coats with Revlon's Quick Dry top coat.

Isn't it a gorgeous blackened, shimmery, green?  Must HAVE!

If you missed the blue version of this click to yesterday's post, here.

Halloween Night! China Glaze - Ghoulish Glow

Yep, yep... everyone is out trick or treatin and I'm at home posting..... a Halloween mani from hell.

Does this look scary?  No... oh, okay.

Happy Halloween!!!

Here is three coats of Ghoulish glow all by itself.  It is translucent, kind of foggy looking.



And in the DARK!  The more coats you put on the higher the glow intensity.

Then I added some nail wraps.  These were a total bitch to put on right!  I'm not doing this again.

You can go ahead and tell me - "Ummm, Jenni, this looks like a five year old did your nails.."
Go ahead.  I won't be offended.  I might get defensive, but I won't be offended.  Plus my hands look terribly dry!  I'm cringing!

Horrible, horrible, horrible.  It took me an hour and half to apply these wraps and there was no way this was going to be wrinkle free.  The cashier at Sally's warned me that they were horrible.  She advised me not to go all the way to the edge because of peeling issues.  Well they started peeling at the cuticles instead.  On top of it, after apply Seche Vite, the entire nail wrap just start to pucker.  Testament to the Seche Vite shrinkage theory.

Here they are in the dark!  Neat, huh?

I painted black tips to hide all the wrinkling at the tips, which worked out okay.
But they still look bad to my standards.

In the dark again.

See the puckering from Seche? 
Black tips are Sinful Colors Black on Black.... an excellent black to own, I might add.

Here are my nails without the bottle so you can see how they really glow.

Well that's it for now!  I hope everyone is having a nice time tonight. 

Thanks for all the caring comments in previous post.  My hubby, animals and I survived the storm.  All of us are intact, no damage to anything or anyone.  I am content indoors with electricity and heat!  There are many things to be grateful for right?

Funky French with Bare Bones and Brownstone

Hey there!

I don't know if I'll be around the next couple of days.  Hurricane Sandy is suppose to make landfall tomorrow morning and I'll probably be out of power, thus no Internet....   so God help us!  The grocery stores have been ransacked and there was crowd at Lowes madly grabbing at the generators.  There were three large stacks (36 generators) and I looked at them, walked away, got some outlet covers. (I'm painting a spare bedroom.) When I came back, my husband says.. "Look! One whole stack is gone already!!!"

So I said, "Do you want to get one?"  (They were $649).

He answered, "What's the wattage output?"  What kind of answer is that?  Silly goose!

"Beats me?"  I said back to him.... I think he started panicking because the crowd was, then he started to frantically read the side of the boxes.  I can see how the panic is contagious.  I started hoarding canned ravioli at the grocery store, just because other people were hoarding food too.  I put a few back.

Well, we didn't get one.  I hope we don't regret it, but I can live without electricity for a day or two and the environment might feel a little relief if some of us can actually stop burning some fossil fuels for a day.  I really start to get concerned when the water gets shut off.  The last time that happened was 2003, with Hurricane Isabelle.  Well we have two, 50 gallon rain barrels so we can at least flush the toilets.

Anyhow, I leave you with this funky french to have a gander at.

There's Bare Bones, my most visited swatch.

Bottle shot of Brownstone.

Revlon's Bare Bones is my number one, most visited post of all time, which amazes me.  It is a nice color and all but the formula is not the best.  It's from the colorstay collection which I have come to conclusion that the extra cost is not justified.  I don't think it lasts longer than regular polish and they take forever to dry.  Plus they don't work very well with my China Glaze top coat.  I had some bubbling issues (after applying top coat) and the paint started to run all over the place too (also, after I applied top coat).  I forgot I should have used the Revlon quick dry top coat instead.  Oh well...

Brownstone is from last year's China Glaze Metro collection.  Don't be a smart ass and ask me uptown or downtown because I don't think that matters. haha  Anyways, its a nice rusty brown and the formula on that is superb.  My bottle has been sitting around for over a year and I didn't have to shake it, it still looks new.  Where as bare bones,on the other hand, the pigments were separating and it needed a good shaking and inversion for a couple of hours before I decided I could paint with it.

Soooo, if your in the Mid-Atlantic or Northeastern U.S.,  (Shout out in the comments section!)  I will be hunkering down to ride out the storm with you.

Otherwise, I'll see you after the storm passes and the sun comes back out!

China Glaze - Black Mesh

I've got another Halloween themed mani to show you.  Your going to see more of these, because I'm having way too much fun.

Right hand

Left hand.

Underneath.  Here's what it looked like before I added Black Mesh.

What's nice about this mani is that you don't have to be neat, just slap on some colors in an alternating pattern.  Then add Black Mesh and you can't tell that underneath its messy.... its probably better that is messy.

Here is what I used.  L to R, Gelous as a base, It's Alive, Burnished Bronze, Fall of Surprises, Santee purple glitter, Sinful Colors I Love You, ChG Black Mesh, Jelly Pop top coat.

Last year I did not get into the crackle craze.... kind of a shame because I'm really enjoying it!  Now I want to buy a bunch of crackle polishes on eBay now!  So silly!

China Glaze - It's Alive!

Hey everyone!

It's Alive!!!  I guess for Halloween's sake it, whatever it was, is suppose to be dead....

Anyways, are you excited about Halloween?  I am!   I have a quicky swatch to show you, from last year's Halloween collection. ChG's It's Alive, a swampy green glitter bomb.  I wanted to add black tips to this but I ran out of time.  I really love this glitter, I think you could wear this now and throughout the winter. Heck, why not?  Here it is, two coats.

Love, love, love!!!

This is a bit gritty, so I used two top coats, Gelous from American Classics, and China Glaze's fast forward top coat.

Did you have a Halloween mani to share?  Feel free to leave a link in the comments section with a brief description.

That's it for now.  Thanks for stopping by!