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.

Candeo Colors Poison Frog

A little bit ago, Candeo Colors had some more polishes set to sell. I managed to snag this one and one other (I'll leave you all in anticipation of that one) even through all the chaos and madness! Snagging indie polishes is tough but so worth it. 

Poison Frog is a bunch of different kinds of gold glitter (tiny squares, tiny/small/medium hexes, and diamonds) all mixed together in a sheer olive green base filled with tons of gold micro glitter.

Poison Frog is shown here with 3 coats. It went on beautifully, and I didn't have to fish glitter out of the bottle.  The base on it is sheer though. I was hoping it would build up more, but it didn't do that for me.  Next time I will layer it over a green or even a gold.

Monday Mani: Sponging

I loved using Hits Hefesto for the mani in my last post so I decided to incorporate it along with this week's Monday Mani theme: sponging.

For my base, I used 2 coats of OPI Stranger Tides.  Next I sponged on some Nicole by OPI Khloe Had a Lam-Lam, my favorite color of all time. I'm still working on my sponging skills.  I followed it up with 1 coat of Hits Hefesto which made this mani AMAZING!

Onto the pictures!

Zoya Sooki Holo-fied

I actually did this mani last week for Mother's Day. Red is my mom's favorite color so it was inspired by her.

I started off with 2 coats of Zoya Sooki. It's such a beautiful true red. I planned on layering this so I left it at 2 coats, but I could have used a third as you can see you VNL here.  There's no clean-up here since I planned on layering it.

I decided to pump up the volume and layered 1 coat of Hits No Olimpo Hefesto on top. Hefesto is a sheer silver holo that makes it great for layering over other colors to holo-fy them.  I think I need 12 more bottles of it.

The only problem with Hefesto is the brush is kinda large and hard to work with. On the left is a China Glaze brush, middle is Hits, and right is O.P.I.  I have small nail beds to large brushes are hard for me to work with.

Okay, onto holo picture spam!

And a close-up to show all that holo glitter. I apologize for the bit of mess. Sooki is super pigmented (though thin) so it was hard to get the red off my skin!

ManGlaze Fuggen Ugly

This is the other ManGlaze polish that I ordered.  The color is called Fuggen Ugly, I so don't think it's ugly at all!

I need two coats to get complete coverage with this polish. I layered 2 coats over my base coat, put on a top coat, and put another layer of polish on top. This topcoat sandwich is the best way to get matte polishes to last longer.

The sun didn't want to come out and play this day, but Fuggen Ugly has some beautiful micro shimmer to it. I meant to show what it looked with topcoat but totally forgot to take pictures! Oh well, it just means I'll need to wear it again soon!

Revlon Blue Mosaic Gradient

Oh, wow! It's been 4 days since I posted. I totally didn't mean to go that long. What's worse is that I actually have done my nails a few times and have even taken pictures. I just haven't written up the posts. Well, here we are!

Today, I decided to incorporate a few more polishes that I haven't used yet on my blog.  First, I used a base of Disney Villains #11. It's a super light silver that took 3 coats to build up.  Then I put on Revlon Blue Mosaic on top using a gradient effect.

I totally love how bling-blingy this turned out. My freshman were super impressed!

ManGlaze Santorum

I was itching to buy polish the other day, and one of my polish friends suggested ManGlaze. What was even better is that they sell on Amazon and I had some gift certificate credit to use! I ended up getting two. Today for you I have Santorum.  It's a wonderfully easy to apply matte polish with a bit of shimmer to it. It wore longer on me than the OPI Suedes normally do. I can wear those for less than a day before they chip. Santorum wore for 2 days before it started to chip pretty badly. Very exciting!

I adore how this color looks on my skin tone too. My husband says it's ugly, but what does he know?! Lol.

Revlon Whimsical

I got Revlon Whimsical in my Spring Surprise package through PAA. It's a very sheer polish so I decided to layer it but not over the traditional blue. I ended up layering 2 coats of Whimsical over 2 coats of Rimmel Wild Orchid.

Whimsical tamed the purple of Wild Orchid a bit and made it milkier. I really like the effect. However, I didn't such luck with Whimsical. The base is thin and watery making it difficult to apply. Since the base is so thin, glitter just falls right back into the bottle and doesn't want to stay on the brush. I ended up sorta globbing on some glitter and ended up with TONS of bubbles all over the place. I'm going to try this polish one more time, then it's going to end up in my giveaway pile.

Monday Mani: Flowers

I know, I know! I haven't done one of these in forever! Well, I'm back to it. Today's theme was flowers, and I decided to incorporate stamping since I haven't done that in while.

For the base, I used two coats of China Glaze Trendsetter. Then I used BM-224 to stamp on the flower image. I know some people are huge fans of Trendsetter, but I love it. With the stamping on it like this, I think it adds at retro 70s look to it that is great.

Orly Fowl Play

I got this polish a bit ago but haven't really had a chance to show it until now.  I did 2 coats of the polish all on its own without underwear ;-) Fowl Play is a pretty flakie/glitter mish mash polish set in a dark purple base.

I did have a long drying time with this polish, even though I waited between coats, used my regular fast drying Sally Hansen top coat, and waited for quite a while after. If you look close, you can just make out a smooshing on the tip of my ring finger.

You also may notice me little shorties. I was getting out of the car the other day and noticed that the nail on my ring finger had snapped off kinda far down. I shortened the other nails but didn't make them even with my ring finger because that would be way too short.

Finally, onto the pictures!

Nails Inc. Trafalgar Square

I'm so glad I go my hands on this one! I swapped and got this and Floam in the exchange.  This magnetic polish works awesome, so much better than Nabi magnetic polish that I bought at Walgreens. Sure, Nails Inc.is more expensive, but I rather have a super awesome looking polish for more money than a dud for less money.

In these pictures, I have one regular coat of Trafalgar Square followed by 1 coat which I used the magnet on. I only need to hold the magnet for 15 seconds. The magnets are really cool on the Nails Inc. bottles because they are a cover on the cap so they are much easier to manage.