28 November 2012

Lustre Shine 'Scarab'

Sally Hansen Lustre Shine 'Scarab'

This is two coats (!) of Sally Hansen Lustre Shine in 'Scarab' with CND Stickey as a base coat and Jordana Quick Shine top coat.

One word for this: LOVE!

I don't know why it took me two months to wear this bad boy, because it's absolutely gorgeous. Sure, it's not very duo-chromey but I am more than okay with that. Now, I know I wear lot of blue polish. I have more blue nails posted than any other color. But I don't wear a lot of shimmery polish. For some reason, this one just spoke to me. I love the silkiness of Scarab. The downside? It chipped like cuh-razy! Chrome-y polish never lasts very well on my nails. I'm not sure if it's body chemistry or what. We'll see if it's the same for some of the other polishes in this collection.

Have you guys succumbed to the lure of the Lustre Shines? Which ones are your favorite?

26 November 2012

RCM 'Dress For Success' over black

RCM 'Dress for Success' over Gelish 'Black Shadow' - one coat

RCM 'Dress for Success' over Gelish 'Black Shadow' - two coats

RCM 'Dress for Success' over Gelish 'Black Shadow' - three coats

Shown above is Red Carpet Manicure 'Dress For Success' over Gelish 'Black Shadow', with one, two, and three coats.

Thanks to whomever requested this! I know it's how it was intended to be worn, and it looks fantastic! My favorite is just one coat.

23 November 2012

Black Friday black nails.

Gelish 'Black Shadow'

Gelish 'Black Shadow'

Gelish 'Black Shadow'. Once again I used regular base coat (CND Stickey this time) and no dehydrator. I still use the Gelish foundation gel. This seems to work great! I get no chipping but it's still very easy to remove. (Using the dehydrator and no foundation gel let to chipping on the edges but still hard to remove gel in the middle.)

This is the first time I've done plain black nails since early high school, ten-ish years ago. I love it! It's not very interesting in terms of blogging, but plain ol' black cremes are my favorite nails to do. As great as stamping and glitter are, sometimes you need some simplicity!

17 November 2012

Simple Election Day nails. (plus how to scrub in glitter)

Election Day nails by TartanHearts
Election Day nails, a photo by TartanHearts on Flickr.
(late to post them, I know. I put them on facebook and nowhere else.)

This is two coats of RCM 'Midnight Affair' with Wet N Wild Fantasy Makers glitter scrubbed in on my ring fingers. I used Nailtiques 2 as base coat and did not use the nail dehydrator. Removal is so much easier that way! No scraping.

If you are doing gel and have not done scrubbed in glitter DO IT NOW! I mean, unless you hate glitter or something. Which is fine, no judgement. (more for me!) If you do gel and like glitter and haven't done this technique, let me tell you: IT IS SO EASY!

I was thinking I'd have to ... do something complicated to achieve this. Nope! Let me go through the steps for scrubbing in glitter:

1. Choose a relatively jelly-like gel color. Most gel is fairly jelly-ish, so this shouldn't be hard.

2. Do your nails as usual, stopping before you apply the gel top coat. After curing gel color for the last time, get your glitter.

3. Using small paintbrush, pat glitter onto nail. It will stick to the cured gel, which is tacky.

4. Paint over glitter layer and cure that layer in the lamp. You can use a colored gel here or just clear coat/top coat. I've seen suggestions to wipe off any glitter that sticks or have a specific clear coat just for glitter. I am not that particular. You may be. Proceed accordingly.

5. Finish manicure as you usually would with top coat and then wiping/spraying with alcohol.

6. PROFIT!

Basically, let me sum this up: tap glitter onto your cured gel sometime during your mani.

This will not be the last time you see this technique from me. I love glitter, and I love that the removal for this is just as easy as regular gel removal (which rivals removing normal glitter in terms of time). I'm considering doing some pretty cool stuff with this technique for Christmas. Maybe that tape mani to make a tree with multi-size glitter scrubbed in as ornaments. How neat would that be?!

11 November 2012

the final Halloween manicure

twee and honey 'Viscera' over black.

twee and honey 'Viscera' over black.

This is one coat of Sinful Colors 'Black on Black' with a coat of twee & honey 'Viscera' over it. Base coat was Nailtiques 2 and top coat was Jordana Quick Shine Top Coat.

I love this. I loved it enough to actually take off one nail, after it chipped, and replace it with the exact same thing. 'Viscera' is amazing and the best part was that it had teeny little hearts! I didn't see them in the bottle and they were a wonderful surprise! There aren't words to describe how awesome this was. And it was perfect for when my GIANTS WON THE WORLD SERIES!

Also, this gorgeous mani matches my blog! I didn't plan it, but it's perfect!