Happy New Year's Eve!

I hope you have a fantastic (and safe!) holiday. I decided to re-create my glitterbomb manicure for New Year's Eve. I went a little nuts this time - I used a full eleven layers this time around, not including base/top coat or a little bit of brightening.
So. I can't exactly remember what order I went in, but I started with a base of China Glaze Frostbite. I used China Glaze Meteor Shower, Essie As Gold As It Gets, Kiko 261, China Glaze Snow Globe, Confetti Ice Ice Baby, Finger Paints Asylum, and Island Girl Island Volcano. Whew. Then around the bottom, in a kind of U shape, I added an "accent" of BeYu 209. I then topped everything off with China Glaze Fairy Dust.
Although it didn't come out really thick - I did use thin layers - even with a fast dry top coat, it took forever for this baby to dry.
I have pictures in full sun for you to get an idea of the bling, and the last shot is in low light. It's probably nowhere near as awesome as it looks to me, but you'll get an idea of it anyway. I really, really love how this turned out.

Is that crazy nuts or what? Hahaha, I love it. Have a great evening!

Glitterbomb

I was working in the lab, late one night...nah, just kidding. Getting into the spirit of the season early. I was up super late one night, browsing through my dashboard and I came across this awesomesauce post by Marisa. I thought, I don't have all of those but I have similar stuff, surely I can pull this off! Seven layers later, I had something different, but I still love it.
Okay, I used Taunting Teal by Sonia Kashuk as my base. I know I've got a deep navy somewhere but I couldn't think of one, so I picked this off of my desk and thought it might be similar enough to achieve the results.
My layering went like this: Sinful Colors Green Ocean, Island Girl Mahalo Dream, Nubar 2010, NYX Girls Aqua Glitter, Pure Ice Busted, and Sinful Colors All About You. Whew. The flakie/glitter iridescence going on here is amazing - it flashes so many colors and it just glows. Mermaid scales! You'd think seven layers would dry slowly, right? Nah, it went pretty quickly since I used thin layers. I was pretty shocked myself. I think the next time I try this I'll be more careful in my placement, and maybe go for more of a gradient effect.
On to the photos. I think this looks a lot better in person, in my opinion, but hopefully you'll get the idea!

Really, it doesn't feel as thick as it looks here, especially my pinkie finger. Also, this is surprisingly smooth - the mylar opalescent flakies in Mahalo Dream can be sticky, but smooth out well with one layer of top coat.
I wish I could capture how much more magical this looks. If you decide to try this, please let me know, I'd like to see!

Pink Wednesday: Island Girl Island Treat

Oh, I'm long overdue for a Pink Wednesday post! Far too long, I think. Island Girl Island Treat is a polish that Jen from The PolishAholic picked out for me - she did good! This is stunning. It's a deep raspberry pink foil - raspberry jelly base, lighter pink and silver metallic foil shimmer. It's gorgeous. I used three layers here for opacity. It's not as much of a top coat eater as the Milani One Coat glitters are, but it's got potential, so I doubled up on the shiny top coat.

Umm yum yum! I just love this. Perfect. Are you wearing pink today?

Island Girl Oahu Paradise and Island Volcano

I've had a couple of great packages over the last few days! So, let me show you the first one, which is from Jen of The PolishAholic. When she went to Las Vegas for Cosmoprof she offered to pick me up some of the Island Girl polishes - and she sent me six beauties!

Okay, so from left to right are: Mahalo Dream, Island Volcano, Oahu Paradise, Hawaiian Volcano, Island Treat, and Island Sunset. Mahalo Dream and Island Volcano are very much like OPI I Lily Love You and Color Club Covered in Diamonds, in that they have those odd shaped mylar opalescent flakies! These two both have glitter as well. Oahu Paradise is an emerald green jelly, Hawaiian Volcano is a duochrome shimmer (!), Island Treat looks like a raspberry pink foil, and Island Sunset is a deep grape purple with holographic glitter! Great choices for me, all of them! Thanks so much Jen!
So the first thing I did of course, was open up that Oahu Paradise and slap it on. I thought it might be a creme but *swoon* jelly! Naturally, it's sheer, being a jelly. It's very close in shade to my beloved New York Summer Amaranth. I thought I'd recreate the jelly sandwich - with flakies! It worked wonderfully and I got an ABSOLUTE TON of comments on this. As a matter of fact, I took a bunch of ladies to the Britney Spears concert last night and they were all raving about it - they were trying to guess which brand, OPI, Essie, China Glaze - and of course, it was none of those, so I explained about Island Girl polishes, and they thought that was really neat. I really should get some business cards for Nightly Nails, as many questions as I get about my nails. Anyway, so what you see below is one thin coat of Oahu Paradise, one coat of Island Volcano, and another thin coat of Oahu Paradise. Awesome! I want to play some more with both of these flakie glitters. Island Paradise covered very well in one coat, by the way - but it is sheer on its own.

I'm excited to play with the rest of these! So pretty. I also got a package yesterday from Zara of Never Unpolished. I won her Zoya Smoke and Mirrors giveaway! I was super excited, because it's such a pretty set.

Umm, ignore my weird thumbnail color. It was a layering experiment gone horribly wrong! Thank you so much Zara, I can't wait to play with these. I can't even decide which one to put on first!
Okay, if you're burning with curiousity, I picked up OPI Greece Just Blue Me Away. It's an older polish, very thin and watery on its own - with what seems to be a slight duochrome. I've been trying to figure out what best to layer it over and I still haven't come up with anything! I then slapped one of the Island Girl flakies on top of that mess, and that's what you see.
Wow, this post is extra wordy. Bravo, if you made it through all of that! Thanks for bearing with me.