Red, Black and Gold Glitter Mani

Now that the summer is over and I've been spending less time in the garden, I managed to get some nail art done! 

The inspiration for this mani all started with me wanting really bright red nails.  After scouring my collection for the brightest reds, I finally settled on Essie's 'Fifth Avenue'.  I then came across Pure Ice 'Studette', a gold glitter polish with small amounts of red glitter mixed in.  I decided to pair the two by making a gold glitter decal in a fun shape, and applying it over the red polish on my ring finger to accent the nail... I really just wanted to do a simple look after not having done a lot of nail art for a couple months!

I decided to go with a thin gold glitter triangle that stretched from the tip to the base of the nail. I executed the design perfectly, and was in awe at the stunning accent! Unfortunately, I would only be able to enjoy the design for a few minutes - while it was drying, I accidentally smudged my nail while reaching for something!  I was so disappointed! I decided to try to salvage what I could, and to take the opportunity to push the design further. 

Luckily, the decal itself wasn't ruined, just the red portion on one side of the decal was smudged. I carefully removed the red polish from that side, and masked the (now dry) unblemished portion of the nail. Then I added a black polish, 'Never Have Too Mani Friends!' from the original OPI 'Hello Kitty' collection. It worked, and looked even better than the original design! I'm glad I didn't give up! Inspired by the new improved accent, I then went on to add more black and gold accents to the rest of the nails to tie everything together. In the end, I am so pleased with how the final look turned out!

The final look reminds me of the face cards in a deck of cards - it's all of the bold geometric shapes and the combination of red, black and gold. This mani would be a great look for a poker tournament! If I wanted to run with the playing card theme, a matte topcoat, and maybe a club, diamond, heart or spade nail stamp on the thumb instead of the gold and black circle would have been a nice touch... Wow, looks like once those creative juices start flowing, they never want to stop - here I am still designing the mani, after it's already complete! 😂  

Above, I have a collage of the polishes used, and below, I have a collage with some additional shots of the manicure.

Christmas Glitter Mani 2021

I fell behind with posting, but I really wanted to get this Christmas Mani up on the blog (even though there are a few older manis that I have yet to post! 😅), as it's becoming a bit of a tradition for me to do this same mani at Christmas-time:

I talked about the first two times that I did this manicure in this post from December 2018. I'm pretty sure that this is actually the fourth time I re-created this mani, as I distinctly remember wearing it during the holidays in 2019, however, it looks like I didn't take any pictures of it that year.

One change that I made from the original version, is that I am using a different gold base polish for my middle finger. In the first two versions I used Orly 'Luxe' as the base coat, which is a bit more of a true gold colour. This year (and I think last year too), I started using OPI 'Dazzling Dew Drop', which is a bit more of a brassy, yellow-toned gold. I think that this shade of gold works a little better with this bright, playful look. For both versions, I used Orly 'Halo' as the glitter topper over the gold polishes.

Once again, I love how it turned out! This manicure was so much fun to wear, as it instantly put me in a festive mood!  

Happy Holidays to all!

Gold Glitter Mani

Today I have a really simple glitter manicure to share. The manicure was done with Sally Hansen Gem Crush nail polish in 'Big Money'.

I've had this polish sitting around in my stash for years. I used a little bit on my accent nail for my Neutral Mani, but this is the first time that I've used it for a full manicure. It has neutral gold glitter particles paired with slightly larger soft pink/lavender metallic glitter particles. It's truly quite pretty. The close up shot of my thumbnail below really captures the individual glitters that make up the mix.

Spotlight on 'Project Polish' Polishes: OPI 'Glow Up Already!'

For today's 'Spotlight' on one of the 16 polishes that I have included in my 'Project Polish', I have a swatch of OPI's 'Glow Up Already!' to share:

'Glow Up Already!' from OPI's Holiday 2010 'Burleque' Collection

This glitter polish is from the OPI 'Burlesque' collection from Holiday 2010. The 'Burlesque' collection was a cross-promotion with the Cher and Christina Aguilera movie of the same name. If I recall correctly, I remember glitter polishes being really big at the time, and a plethora of fun glitter polishes and glitter/glitter-heavy collections were being offered by several nail polish manufacturers. It was a fun time in the world of nail polish!

A lot of the legendary glitter polishes like OPI's 'Mad as a Hatter' and 'Absolutely Alice', China Glaze's 'Emerald Sparkle' and Deborah Lippmann's famous series of glitter polishes (eg, 'Glitter in the Air', 'Bad Romance' etc.) were all released around this period of a few years.

I remember being totally mesmerized by so many of all of the pretty glitter polishes that were coming out. I was completely on board the glitter band-wagon at the time, and I bought way more glitter polishes back then than I do now. However, as I mentioned in my last post, I've been using my glitters less and less these days. Typically, when I do use a glitter, I will just paint one nail with the polish as an accent nail. But even this is only occasionally, as a lot of the time I'll accent certain nails using other methods. Consequently, I'm not surprised that most of my project polish polishes are glitter polishes. 

I'm really looking forward to the challenge of finding new ways to incorporate glitters into my nail art. Perhaps I can adapt all of the methods I came up with for using my 'Crackle' polishes during my '2015 Crackle Polish Challenge'!

For now, I'll leave you with some additional shots of 'Glow Up Already'.

My First Blog Anniversary!

Today, I decided to do an extra sparkly manicure to celebrate the first anniversary of this blog!

First Anniversary Mani!

The polish I used for this manicure was Orly's 'Halo'. I also added a rhinestone to accent my ring finger. It's a pretty simple look in terms of techniques and embellishments, but this polish delivers so much in the way of sparkle and shine, that the finished look is still really high impact. I absolutely love it!

Orly's 'Halo'

I really can't believe that it's already been one year since I started chronicling my passion for nail polish and nail art! It has been so much fun to share something I really enjoy doing with all of you! Thanks so much to anyone who has ever dropped by to check this blog out - I hope that you have enjoyed reading it as much as I have enjoyed writing it!