Blue and Green Glitter Mani

Today I have a gorgeous glitter mani to share with you all:

Mix and Match Mani

Today's manicure has a little bit of everything - I used crème polishes, metallic polishes, glitter polishes, nail stamping, light colours, darker colours, and two different but complimentary manicures on each hand! 

Purple and White Manicure

Today's manicure is a mix-match of purple polishes, with a white polish and some holographic glitter thrown in for good measure!

The inspiration for this manicure came from the NCLA's 'Let Them Eat Cake', the polish that I am wearing on my ring finger. I purchased this polish several months ago after becoming hopelessly smitten by the gorgeous mix of purples in its glitter colour palette. I remember being so eager to try it out when I first got itbut unfortunately, I just never got around to doing it. For this manicure, I decided that enough was enough - I resolved to design a manicure around this amazing polish in order to finally take it off my untried list! 

Light Purple, Blue and Teal Mani

Today's manicure was done using two KB Shimmer polishes that I purchased recently, which I absolutely adore!

The main polish, 'I'm So Sweet Pea' is a beautiful light purple crelly-based glitter polish with teal, purple, soft pink and mint glitter particles. This polish was part of KB Shimmer's spring 2015 collection.

Essie Summer Neons Collection 2015

Today I have a quick review on Essie's Neon collection for Summer 2015. I purchased these polishes a few weeks ago, but now that I have gotten a chance to use all of them, I wanted to share my thoughts on the entire collection.

Essie Neon Collection 2015
‘Vibrant Vibes’	‘Melody Maker’
‘Groove is in the Heart’	‘Make Some Noise’
‘Coacha’Bella’	‘All Access Pass’

I love wearing bright, vivid colours on my nails so these polishes are right up my alley! Now, most of these polishes aren't traditionally what I would think of when I hear the word neon, but I do see how these colours fit into a broader interpretation of neon colours. I would say that the light green polish 'Vibrant Vibes', and the light pink polish 'Groove is in the Heart', are pastel neons, while the remaining four shades are medium-dark toned neons.

Pink Floral Pond Mani

For today's manicure, I decided to try out a 'Pond' manicure for the first time. This style of manicure involves sandwiching designs between layers of tinted jelly polish, to create a submerged item effect.

I decided to do a monochromatic look, so I used a medium pink jelly polish for the base, and then used a repeating four-petalled flower design, made using a dotting tool and two shades of pink polish.

I really like how this look turned out - it is super-girly, fun, and vibrant! I also really like the polishes I chose. I used 3 Essie polishes that were newly released for summer 2015. The two crème polishes, 'Coacha'Bella' and 'Groove is in the Heart', were from Essie's Summer Neons collection, while the jelly polish, 'Blush Stroke', is from Essie's Silk Watercolor collection. The other polish I used was one of my silver standby's: Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear 'Celeb City'. I really love how sparkly, and reflective this polish is. I use it quite frequently as a silver base polish underneath my nail art.

Polishes Used

Essie ‘Blush Stroke’

Essie ‘Coacha’Bella’

Essie ‘Groove is in the Heart’

Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear ‘Celeb City’

This look has really inspired me to try out more pond manicures. There were a couple really notable jelly polish collections released this summer: OPI's 'Color Paints' collection, and Essie's 'Silk Watercolor' collection. Since I purchased both collections, I have a lot of options for creating some lovely pond manicures, and I can't wait to try them out!

Here are some more shots of the completed manicure.

Light Purple Mani with Orange and Blue Accents

Today's manicure was designed around an awesome polish that I recently purchased, KB Shimmer's 'Mauve on Over'.

'Mauve on Over' is a light purple crelly-based glitter polish from KB Shimmer's 2014 Winter collection. It contains a mixture of aqua, navy, and orange glitters. I honestly can't believe how much I love this polish! It's a slightly unexpected colour combination that totally works.

I distinctly remember my first impression of 'Mauve on Over' when I came across it while shopping for polish on line. At first glance, I was completely thrown off by the orange glitter in the mix, as it seemed like it didn't belong. However, I found myself being drawn to the polish. I remember moving on, and then coming back to the same page to look at the polish again and again. Eventually I decided that the polish was absolutely perfect, exceedingly gorgeous, and that I simply had to have it! LOL!!!

I love when something challenges your expectations, and then manages to change your perceptions of what is beautiful!

Here is a picture of the two polishes that I used to create this look:

Polishes Used

KB Shimmer ‘Mauve on Over’

Color Club ‘Diggin’ the Dancing Queen’

Earlier this summer, I did a post about some of the colours in Color Club's Poptastic Neon Pastel Collection. I mentioned that I was unable to get one of the polishes in the collection, as the site that I purchased the order from was sold out of it. The missing colour was 'Diggin' the Dancing Queen', and as you can tell by today's post, I finally managed to get my hands on it (and get it on my hands, too!). It was so worth the wait - this colour is ridiculously beautiful. It's such a soft, feminine colour, but so bright and eye-catching all at the same time. The entire collection perfectly embodies that intriguing mix of soft and loud. I am so psyched to finally have them all.

Here's a shot of the completed collection:

Color Club Poptastic Neon Pastel Collection

Color Club ‘Feathered Hair out to There’

Color Club ‘Hot-Hot-Hot Pants’

Color Club ‘Disco’s not Dead’

Color Club ‘Under the Blacklight’

Color Club ‘Til the Record Stops’

Color Club ‘Meet me at the Rink’

Color Club ‘Diggin’ the Dancing Queen’

Overall, I a really love today's manicure. It's always great when you get to wear two or more polishes that you really love, and they also happen to look great together!

Cute Monster Mani

Today I have a cute monster manicure to share.

 

Polishes Used	Plate Used
OPI ‘Nein! Nein! Nein! OK Fine!’
China Glaze ‘Pelican Gray’	Konad M11 (cute monster image)
Quo by Orly ‘Limelight’	Konad M57 (leopard print pattern)
China Glaze ‘White on White’
Konad Special Polish in Black

The Konad M11 plate that I used to stamp the monster image featured in this manicure has been around for quite some time, however I just bought it on sale recently. I just couldn't resist the adorable cartoon images on it! 

I really love the colour combination of nail polishes that I used for this manicure - it's nothing super complicated, but I just think the bottles look so good lined up together!

The base polish I used is 'Limelight' from Shopper's Drug Mart's store brand of polishes 'Quo by Orly'. It's a neon pastel yellow polish, and I absolutely adore this shade! After choosing such a bright base colour, I wanted to tone the look down a bit, so I used black, white and a couple shades of gray for all of my embellishments. For the dark grey leopard spots, I used ‘Nein! Nein! Nein! OK Fine!’ from OPI's fall 2012 Germany collection. I dotted the inside of the leopard spots with China Glaze's 'White on White' (core collection). The monster is coloured in with China Glaze's 'Pelican Gray', from their Spring 2011 'Anchor's Away' collection. The monster's black outline was done with Konad Special Polish in Black.

I really like how this manicure turned out! It's so bright, whimsical, and cute - perfect for summer!

Neutral Manicure with a Twist

This manicure was designed around two polishes from the Nicole by OPI Carrie Underwood line of nail polishes. The colours were 'Southern Charm', a magnificent pinky-tan neutral shade, and 'Carrie'd Away' a slightly textured gold glitter polish. These polishes were released in early 2014. I think I bought them sometime around last summer, but I'm only getting around to trying them out now!

Polishes Used	Plate Used
Nicole By OPI ‘Southern Charm’
OPI ‘Midnight in Moscow’	Pueen Buffet Leisure Collection:
OPI ‘Chick Flick Cherry’	PUEEN97
Nicole By OPI ‘Carrie’d Away’

Design-wise, I kind of just threw this look together. After painting my nails with the two main polishes, I decided I had to add a little more visual interest to the look, so I added the stamping and colouring on my middle finger, and the dotting on my thumb. 

Overall, I like the finished look. It's not one of my favourite manicures ever, but I do think it turned out OK. Also, I was really impressed by 'Southern Charm'.  This turned out to be an extremely natural looking neutral shade for me, as the colour is quite close to the colour of my natural nail bed. It's so fantastic! 

Pink and Blue Double Stamped Mani

Today's manicure is a reconfiguration of a manicure that I did earlier this year. During the 2015 Crackle Polish Challenge, I did a manicure called the 'Shattered Heart Mani'. It featured a crackle polish decal, glitter, and double stamping over a translucent polish base. Even though the main concept behind the manicure was to showcase the crackle polish decal, the feature that I ended up liking the most was the double stamped design that I used on my thumbnails. I even mentioned in that post that "I may have to do an entire mani like this!". Well, I finally ended up doing it!

Polishes Used	Plates Used
Nfu-Oh NFU JS30 (Royal Blue)	Bundle Monster Secret Garden Collection:
OPI ‘On Pinks & Needles’	BM-721
OPI ‘I Saw… U Saw… We Saw… Warsaw’	Pueen Love Elements Collection:
Sally Hansen Insta-Dri ‘Presto Pink’	PUEEN41

In order to switch things up a bit, I used a blue jelly polish from Nfu-Oh's Jelly Syrup Series as the base, and a dark blue polish ('I Saw...' from OPI's Spring 2013 Euro Centrale Collection) for the first layer of the stamping design. Also, for the first layer of stamping, I used a different stamping plate from the one I used the first time around. The polish and plate that I used for the top layer of stamping were the exact same as the original manicure.

I wanted to do something a little different for my ring finger, so instead of stamping the pink top layer over the blue base, I used an awesome pink matte glitter polish from OPI's Brights 2015 Collection called 'On Pinks and Needles'. The shade of pink of the glitters, and of the stamping polish are almost a perfect match!

I really love how this look turned out! I don't like to repeat looks, but I don't think I'm quite done with this particular style just yet. I would like to try a version with brighter colours, and perhaps experiment a bit more with different combinations of patterns that will work well together!