Kleancolor Chunky Holo Black

There's been tons of posts on this color, mostly because it's cheap and so widely available.

I don't like it. It smells REALLY bad and never dried for me. I was able to just wipe it off once I finished taking these pictures. But since I already took the pictures, I'll still share with all of you.

Candeo Colors Sprouse

I love Candeo Colors polishes. They are beautiful, well-made, not impossible to get, and apply nicely.

For this mani, I used Essie Marshmallow as my base. I had to use 3-4 coats to get it not streaky and full coverage. And then it never dried even though I waited in between coats and even used a fast dry top coat between the final 2 coats.

I put 1 thick coat of Sprouse over it which made this mani beautiful! Sprouse contains tiny holographic glitters (kinda like what is in INM Northern Lights, but with TONS more), small white and black hexes, bigger white/silver/blue hexes, and black and white bar glitter in a clear base. With the glitter on it, Marshmallow took on a grey tone, but that's okay with me since I love grey polish.

On with the pictures including a close-up of the glitter fabulousness.

LA Colors Radiation

I have a lesson for you all today: don't judge a polish based upon what it looks like in the bottle.

Take for example this bottle of LA Colors Radiation that I found. It looks gorgeous in the bottle.

And then I put it on. I end up using 3 coats, and it looks boring like this. What happened to the pretty color?

So I decide to layer it over black, and OMG is it amazing! The polish completely changes and now I REALLY like it. The best part of all of this: I got it for $1 at a dollar store :)

Watermelon Nails

I decided to have some more fun with neons as well as include nail art which I haven't done in a while and a new polish. Whew. That'ss a lot of stuff!

The neon pink base is a color I won from a promotion through Cosmopolitan magazine last summer called Wild Thing. I used 2 coats here.  The glitter you see on my nails is Orly Mermaid Tale from their new Glam FX collection.  It's a beautiful glitter that looks awesome over black, but I wanted to try something different. The green glitter pieces definitely pop though it is a bit harder to see the blue pieces.

I finished everything up by painting a simple watermelon on my accent nail. I won't list the colors I used here, but if you want to know then just ask!

China Glaze I'm With the Lifeguard

Neons seem to be the new big thing, and they are really great for summer (or those days that you just feel blah). I'm not super big into the colors, but they do look great on my skintone.

Today, I have for you China Glaze I'm With the Lifeguard. I only needed 2 coats of this polish. I added OPI Fly on my ring finger on as a accent, but I wish I hadn't done it so dense so you all could see what it looks like better.

Enchanted Polish Across the Universe

I snagged this lovely polish during Llarowe's birthday sale. I really thought Across the Universe was beautiful, but it's hard to catch on Etsy ($12 there) and it's more expensive on Llarowe's site ($15). However, with the code for 40% off one item for Leah Ann's birthday, I managed to get this for less than $10, shipping included!!!

Across the Universe is multi-chrome polish that with holographic glitter mixed in. Gorgeous! The dry time on this was really long though. I put on one thin coat, waited 1/2 hour, and checked on it. Still very smearable! I decided to forge ahead so I applied the 2nd coat, waited another 1/2 hour, and used my go-to top coat (Sally Hansen Insta-Dri). Well, the polish was still easily prone to dents 3 hours later. If I pushed hard with my nail, it was still leave a mark 7 hours later. The wear time was super good though. I'm really hard on my hands/nails, and my polish will usually chip on day 2/3. I put Across the Universe on last Monday and didn't have any chips until Friday when I only got minor ones on my index and middle fingers (the ones that get the most use). So dry time sucks, but the wear and color are amazing so I'm keeping it!

Sorry for the long review, onto the pictures!

Candeo Colors Jellybean

Jellybean is the other Candeo Colors I managed to snag when she had a sale on her full size polishes. However, I've since received the 2 minis I've also managed to get in her latest sale which was minis only (I also got 5 others, but those were for some of my blogging friends).

Jellybean is a such an amazing indie polish. The base is wonderfully opaque.  The glitter is very nicely suspended, and I never had to dig it out. It wasn't goopy and had a good dry time. Candeo Colors certainly know what she is doing in creating her indie polishes.

This closeup is awesome (other than the Seche Vite pull) because it shows the layers of glitter. I love how some are brighter and right on top and some are more sandwiched in the middle and paler. It creates a really nice looking polish.

Zoya Phoebe . . . with stamping!

I decided to play a bit with Phoebe. First I added some sparkle using Pure Ice Strapless. It's a very pretty blue microglitter that is perfect for layering.

I decided that I wanted to stamp too so I browsed through my plates and decided on Mash-11 and Mash-08. My stamping is a bit off on placement with Mash-08 on my ring finger though :(

I really like how this turned out though even if my stamping is a bit wonky. I think this would have been perfect for Memorial Day or even in the future for 4th of July.

Zoya Phoebe

We've been having some seriously goofy weather here in Wisconsin. This last weekend, it got up to 99F here! That's damn hot for us. Then yesterday it was 54F as a high, that's a 40 degree difference in a matter of days. But that's pretty normal. The weather has also been super gloomy and cloudy lately. Because of that, I decided to pull a bright color from my untried pile to use.

Zoya Phoebe is a neon blue with micro shimmer. It dries matte. I love the formula on Zoya, but they can be a bit thin. Phoebe was thin (but not watery!) and took a few coats to apply. I ended up used a base coat, 3 coats of Phoebe, 1 coat of top coat, and 1 more coat of Phoebe. 3 coats were needed for opacity, but I always do topcoat sandwiches with my matte polishes to make them last longer.

My photos are pretty photo accurate, but the sun was setting as I took these so Phoebe should be just a tad more neon/bright than in these photos.  Onto the pictures!

OPI Shatter the Scales

I apologize for not posting (again!), but life has a way of sneaking up on you. A friend from New Mexico is back in town so I've been spending some time with her which is awesome! This is the last week of school so I've been busy dealing with lessons/grading/crazy discipline issues. Next week I'll be off the whole week, and this summer I'm only babysitting 1-2 days a week and teaching a short summer school class in July so I'll be plenty free to do my nails/nail art and share it with all of you!

On to today's post. I wasn't originally going to get OPI Shatter the Scales, but I came across a Bloom.com deal so I decided to go for it!  I layered it over Rimmel Grey Matter.  On my pinkie and ring finger, I used a thin layer and did a thicker one on my middle and index fingers.

Shatter the Scales dries sort of matte looking just like all other crackles, and it doesn't look like much then. But add a top coat, and BAM! The teal color pops along with all the gorgeous glitter.  This is one unique crackle.