Essie 'Gel Couture' 'Bubbles Only' Swatch

Today I have a swatch of Essie Gel Couture 'Bubbles Only' to share. I really love this shade of red. It's deep enough to look sophisticated and elegant, but light enough to not read as burgundy. I also really liked the formula on this polish. It applied smoothly, dried quickly, and didn't chip for the few days that I wore it... I'm very pleased!

I think this polish looks stunning under most lighting conditions, but I noticed that under fluorescent lights, it starts to take on a bit of a brownish tone. Of course that's not really the polish's fault, but it is something I'll keep in mind for future use... I'll probably avoid wearing this one to the office in the future, because that's the main place in my life where I encounter fluorescent lighting!

Blue and Silver Stamped Manicure featuring China Glaze 'Dorothy Who'

Polishes Used

China Glaze ‘Dorothy Who?’

Sally Hansen Color Foil ‘Sterling Silver’

Stamping Plate Used

Maniology/Bundle Monster ‘Chic Peek’ BM-XL476

ÜberChic Beauty Love and Marriage – Plate 02

Here's a little mani that I threw together with a glitter polish that I had handy, and some nearby stamping plates! This is the first time that I've used my bottle of China Glaze's 'Dorothy Who', so I'm glad I was able to take this one off the untried list... It truly is a lovely shade of blue! 

After painting my nails with the polish, I wanted to jazz the look up a bit with a little stamping. I had used the ÜberChic Beauty Love and Marriage 02 plate for my last manicure, the Burgundy and Gold Stamped Mani, and had not put the plate away yet, so I decided to use it again for this manicure. The negative space heart stamped image on my middle finger is from that plate. On my ring finger, I stamped a textural image from my Bundle Monster Chic Peek BM-SL476 plate.

Burgundy and Gold Stamped Mani

Polishes Used

Essie ‘Spiked with Style’

Sally Hansen Color Foil ‘Liquid Gold’

Stamping Plate Used

ÜberChic Beauty Love and Marriage – Plate 02

Today I have a really quick and easy manicure to share. It was created using a base of a gorgeous burgundy creme polish from Essie's Gel Couture line called 'Spiked with Style'. I then embelished my thumbs, middle and ring fingers with some images from ÜberChic Beauty plate 'Love and Marriage - 02', which I stamped in one my favourite gold polish for stamping, Sally Hansen's 'Liquid Gold' from the limited edition Color Foil line. I reviewed this line for my first ever post on this blog, back in July, 2014.  Aaaah, the memories!

My favourite part of this manicure is the elegant negative space heart with filigree background image that is stamped on the thumbnail...  it is so precious! The image is designed so beautifully - I just love it! I think that the colours I chose work really well with the design, and I'm also really impressed that I managed to centre the image quite nicely on the nail (well, at least I did on the hand that I photographed!  😉).  

Below I have a few additional shots of the manicure, arranged into a photo collage... Enjoy!

Glitter Mani Featuring 'Party of Five Glitters'

Polishes Used

Wet n Wild Fastdry ‘Party of Five Glitters’

OPI ‘Never Have Too Mani Friends!’

Today I have a quick and easy glitter manicure to share featuring a Wet n Wild glitter called 'Party of Five Glitters'. I've had this glitter for several years now, and recently decided to try it out again. Honestly, I've been thinking of decluttering it, and wanted to see how it looked on my nails to help me decide.  I decided to wear it over a black polish since it really helped the glitter mix to stand out.

There are 5 different colours of glitter in this polish: red, green, purple, light blue, and silver. I remember this collection contained polishes with names inspired by various TV shows. So this polish was named after 'Party of Five', a prime-time drama series from the nineties. I used another polish from this collection 'Saved by the Blue' (Inspired by the teen comedy show 'Saved by the Bell'), in my 'Australian Aboriginal Art Themed Mani', which I blogged about here.

Sadly, I'm not a really big fan of 'Party of Five Glitters' anymore. I rarely get that excited about glitter polishes in general, nowadays, but this one in particular is really not my cup of tea right now. This is mainly because I don't particularly care for  the mix of colours. 

Funnily enough, I remember being really excited about the polish back when I bought it, as multi-coloured 'glitter bomb' polishes like Deborah Lippmann's 'Happy Birthday', and OPI's 'Rainbow Connection' were all the rage at the time. At the time, this seemed like an affordable, comparable version of that look.  You can even see that there is quite a low fill line - the bottle is about one quarter empty! This really goes to show how one's tastes can change a lot over the years...  

I think I may try one more look with the polish, before making any decisions: I want to try the polish on it's own, with as many coats as it takes to get full coverage.  Perhaps it might look nicer as a solid block of multi-coloured glitter, as opposed to being used as a glitter topper.

Verdigris Mani 3.0

Polishes Used	Stamping Plates Used
China Glaze ‘Too Yacht to Handle’	Lina Nail Art Supplies:
Essie ‘Lady Godiva’	- Make Your Mark Plate 02
Essie ‘Say it ain’t Soho’	- You’re a Damasque! Plate 02
KB Shimmer 'Funky Cold Patina'

In my last post on KB Shimmer's 'Funky Cold Patina', I mentioned that I had plans to do a look inspired by that polish. 'Funky Cold Patina' got me thinking about some manicures I had done in the past based on copper patinas. Now, I typically don't like to repeat the exact same nail art manicure more than once, but for today's look I have decided to do the third incarnation of one of my favourite manicures ever - the 'Verdigris Mani'. I'll include a link to a post where I talk about the two previous versions that I did, and give a little more background on the manicure, right here.

This time around, I wanted to do a copper relief effect for the base copper parts of the manicure, and then put little spotches of light teal over it, to simulate copper relief art that has just started to develop a patina. To make the copper relief effect, I stamped a damasque pattern from Lina Nail Art Supplies 'You're a Damasque!' plate 02 using a chocolate brown polish, 'Lady Godiva', over an amazing copper polish, 'Say it Ain't Soho'.  I then double stamped a texture image from Lina Nail Art Supplies 'Make Your Mark', plate 02 in light turquoise to create the verdigris effect. The other nails are painted with 'Funky Cold Patina'.

I really like how the manicure turned out, but if I could do it again, I would find a way to incorporate some of the copper polish onto some or all of the turquoise nails: perhaps making the ring finger an accent nail that incorporated both looks on one nail, or even just having 3 copper/effect nails by painting the pinky finger the same as the index and middle fingers... Below, I've included a couple additional shots of this manicure.

KB Shimmer 'Funky Cold Patina'

Today I have a swatch and brief review to share of a fun polish from the indie brand KB Shimmer. The polish is called 'Funky Cold Patina', and it is a turquoise crelly polish with copper, shades of blue, and purple hexagonal metallic glitters of various sizes. It was initially released in the KB Shimmer Spring 2015 collection.

First of all - I love the name! As a punny play on the title of the 1980's Tone Loc song 'Funky Cold Medina', in my head, I can't help but say the name of the polish in the same cadence Tone Loc uses when he says the verse in the song! 

Second, I love the concept. The polish is clearly inspired by the patina formed by copper oxidation:  verdigris. I've done a couple verdigris manicures in the past, and my next post will be another version of a verdigris manicure, featuring and inspired by this polish.

As for the polish itself, it applies beautifully, has a great formula, and is absolutely gorgeous. I also really like how this shade of turquoise looks on me. In addition, I've noticed that the polish has held up really well over the few years that I had it, with no bleeding of the glitter colour into the base, and the polish consistency remaining perfect for smooth application. To me, this appears to be a great testament to the quality of the materials being used by the brand!

All in all, I'm really happy with this polish, and I can't wait to play with it in the next look that I create... stay tuned!