Recently I haven't done anything that I felt was exciting enough to make a whole post on, with the exception of one mani which is coming up next. I have, however, been using and discovering a lot of pretty colors, and I'd like to share those with you now.
First up is an unnamed creme purple from Cosmetic Arts topped with Wet n Wild Caught on Sapphire. I grabbed the bottle thinking that for $1.99 it might be nice to have a large bright blue glitter. When I swatched it, though, it came out much more complex and intense than I'd anticipated, and I was so in love with it that I left this "plain" mani on for almost 3 days.
It's got the larger blue hexes, which almost seem luminous in certain lights, as shown above, as well as a microshimmer that's sort of blue and purple iridescent, which shows better in the photo below. Unfortunately, this polish was a bit hard to use. You certainly don't have to worry about the glitter being too sparse--the application you see here was the result of much effort to end up with a light sprinkling of the large hexes. It's suspended in a rather thick base, though, so when you finally get just a few pieces on your nail, there's very little chance that they're spread nicely, rather than in a single clump on the side of your nail.
I knew that I wanted to use Color Club Snowflakes over something, but I wasn't quite sure what. I swatched it over several colors from purple to red to green before deciding to try it over a dark navy, Rain Storm by Sinful Colors. The result, in my humble opinion, was utterly stunning, and I put the chevrons, in Salon Perfect Gold Leaf, on it just so I could call it nail art, after I considered stamping it but didn't want to obscure the gorgeous opal-esque finish.
Aaaand for some reason, I'm currently obsessed with chevrons. Or striping tape. Or maybe both. Inspired by a design I saw a while back, but sadly lost the link to, I used striping tape to create this design of Pure Ice Jail Bait (???) over Sally Hansen Shoot the Moon, a color I've had on my mental wishlist since I first saw it, and finally decided to buy on Friday.
As you can see (maybe), I messed up the index finger and smoothed it back out in that picture, and I'd ruined my thumb beyond saving, so I took it off later that evening and put on Color Club Kismet for spending Saturday afternoon in a sunny park. That evening, I couldn't leave it alone, though, and ended up attempting the double chevron design again with NYX Girls Charcoal Pearl. Someday, I will learn to get my stripes uniform. Someday....
I think the fishtail design looks really cool, but I hate hate HATE when polish is just "piled up" on my nails, and this mani is a particularly bad offender for obese nail tips. I did this one yesterday, and I really loved how it looked at a distance (i.e. looking at my hands in a mirror), but I didn't like how it looked up close. The color combination was really nice, though, Sally Hansen Blue-Away (not Blue Me Away), Mint Sorbet, and Coral Reef.
Finally, this is my current mani, which I'm really in love with, but also wanting to take off to try other designs. I bought this gold, the same Gold Leaf color from Salon Perfect I used in the flakie mani earlier, for use as the "half moon" color in half moon manis, so I guess it's serving its purpose quite well. Over it, I painted Sally Hansen Pink Pong, then dotted Mint Sorbet. I think it's just complex enough to be interesting, without being over the top and "too busy."
Well that's all for now! Hopefully I'll find some better inspiration for some actual nail art sometime soon, but in the mean time I'll try to share more in depth reviews of the polishes I'm using, especially ones that have recently come out and/or are still in stores. (A personal pet peeve of mine is when someone reviews products or colors from a line that was discontinued years ago and no longer readily available anywhere.)
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