The Evolution of My July 4th Mani!

Good afternoon!

So I'm about to take this mani off, but I keep putting it off since I have about 9 layers of polish and some serious glitter on my nails and I know it's going to be awful. Here's how my Fourth of July mani evolved!

First, I painted my nails with two coats of Revlon Plum Baby, a mauve/purple cream. I didn't take a picture of this alone; I only intended it to be the base for the next polish I used. Next, I used three or four thick coats of Icing Bird of Paradise on top of the Revlon. Bird of Paradise is a wine-colored jelly with a ton of iridescent glitter. I wore it like this for about 5 days:

Revlon Plum Baby topped with Icing Bird of Paradise

I did like this even though the color is a little tame for my taste, but the glitter kept it interesting.

Then, I was going into NYC and wanted more sparkle, so this mani was topped off with two coats of Cover Girl City Lights, which is your typical silver holo topper. No picture of this, but you get the idea.

This past Saturday, I wanted red, and since I was dreading taking this off, I layered one medium coat of China Glaze Phat Santa, a red, I guess, jelly, over it, just to see how it would look. I ended up LOVING it, so this was the next stage of my mani =]

The glitter shows beautifully under the red. I guess you can say this is my "half sandwich" manicure.

And yesterday was the fourth of July, so I decided to incorporate some nail art onto this red, even though I didn't really go anywhere celebrate. On accent nails, I painted half my nail on the diagonal with China Glaze First Mate, a gorgeous navy cream. I also got out my stamping plates and used BM21 (many stars and swirls) and BM05 (the big star) along with Design-a-Nail polish in Frostbite, a plain white. I actually really love the result, even though it took all of 3 minutes and came out a bit sloppy. It served its purpose. After that, I topped with one coat of an old Wet n Wild 413, which is just a clear polish with very fine silver glitter. Here's the final mani!

So, yeah, all in all, I think there are about 10 coats of polish on my nails, lol! But I got absolutely no chipping throughout the whole week or more I've been wearing it. Pretty impressive! Oh well, time to take it off now!

Do you ever "recycle" manis like I did? Or keep layering until your end result is completely different from your first mani? I ended up really liking how drastic the change was despite the thickness!

Thanks so much for reading!
Janna

Zoya Ivanka

Hello!

(Sorry Guys...I definitely posted this, but blogger's been down...you know.)

This is Zoya Ivanka - It was one of my three-free Zoyas along with Charla and Pinta. This color is the absolute PERFECT St. Patrick's day green, so that's what I wore it for =] This is three coats. Ring fingers and thumbs are stamped with a Champagne/gold Stripe Rite and BM plate 03!












What do you think? Sorry for the extreme lateness!

Janna

Random October Manis

Helloooo. Finals are overrrr and I'm home!

How's everyone?! What have I missed?!

Well, I do know a lot of things I've missed, and I definitely missed showing you my October manis! Let the madness begin!





Milani Hi-Tech. I painted my nails this color for Depression Awareness. Amazing green holo! 3 coats I believe.

Next, one of my favorite manis of all time. This is Polar Bare from the Sally Hansen Salon Manicure line. I bought this thinking it was a stark white, but it's actually a jelly, sheer white. I hated it at first and was going to return it, until I realized that just one coat made my nails look really clean and fresh. Here it is with 4 coats:





After a couple of days, I stamped it with BM plate 21 and Design-a-Nail polish in Voodoo. How amazing is this?! I got so many compliments each day I wore it, even from one of my professors!







Finally, my Halloween mani! I kept it simple for this one: 3 (I believe) coats of an unnamed Color Club obnoxiously-neon orange. If anyone has any idea what this is, let me know! I posted this in one of my haul posts, and it might be Wham! Pow! from their Spring '10 collection (EDIT: actually it's more likely to be Orange Revenge!).





That's all for now! Thanks for reading!


Janna

A Trip to NYC with OPI Glitzerland!

Let me preface this entry by saying that I live about 3 and a half hours away from New York City, and I've still, to this day, never visited NYC without being on a school trip. My school is much closer to the city, and on the 18th, I went into the city to see the King Tut exhibit!

This was my first time in the 19 years of my life that I've walked down Broadway and been in Times Square =] Here are a couple pictures:




Times Square!


Broadway!!!!!!

On my trip, I wore OPI's Glitzerland from the fall Switzerland collection. I did swatches previously here, but here it is as a full mani:




This shot shows the glitter like a thousand times better than any of my other pictures.


Nails on a countertop at a Starbucks in NYC.

A woman on the trip asked me what color I was wearing, and I told her, and she started describing it to her friend on the phone as a "goldish, grayish shimmer." She wanted to get it for herself =P

After a couple of days, I stamped it with BM plate 19 using Glitzerland's sister from the Swiss collection, Lucerne-tainly Look Marvelous.







Sometime later, I added one coat of Matte About You on the ring finger.


I loved this look =] It came out pretty much how I intended, but maybe the stamping could have been a little darker.

What do you think about this? How often do you go to NYC, or have you never been? Please let me know!

Thanks so much for reading,

Janna

PS. I'm working on a post for BCA/DA. Stay tuned!

Del Sol Calypso with Fauxnad

Hello!

Posting at kind of an odd time for me today. Yesterday I painted my nails with Del Sol brand polish in Calypso. If you're not familiar with this brand, I'll tell you a little about the store. Basically they're located at a lot of beach locations (that's where I've seen them); I've been to the ones at Virginia Beach and Myrtle Beach. Their gimmick is that everything in their store (clothes, accessories, toys, and of course NAIL POLISH! =]) changes color in the sun. The store is filled with UV lights so you can go crazy trying things out and seeing how they change. =]

So of course I had to grab a nail polish when I went to the Myrtle Beach location last year. The price was a tiny bit high for me personally, $9, but I guess they DO change color in the sun, so you get a little something extra.

Here's pic spam, cause, well, IT CHANGES IN THE SUN. =O




Bottle pictures. Bottom picture has flash.



This is what it looks like most of the time, pretty color accurate =]


This was taken right after I got outside. It starts changing pretty quickly but takes a little less than a minute to reach the full color.


Darker midpoint color.




This is the full color change!

The color is a pink with a little bit of a "melon" or orange kind of color as an undertone. The "sun color" is a pretty medium warm-toned purple. I picked pink to purple cause it was one of the ones that had the most obvious change. It's a frost finish, brushstrokes are crazy. This is two coats. It's not opaque, but I was using it as a base for a Konadicure (fauxnadicure?) so two was fine.

This is topped with a stamp from Bundle Monster plate 21 and Design-a-Nail polish in Voodoo. Then I freehanded a french tip in Rimmel's Black Satin. I couldn't get any sun shots of the fauxnadicure, but you get the idea =]





My stamping skills aren't that great in my opinion, but these came out straight for the most part =] even though the thickness/darkness of each stamp is different, the effect is still there.

That's it for now. What do you think of this look?

Janna

PHD Nature Challenge Mani: Oh, What a Night!

That was my tribute to Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons (loooove).


This week, Polish Hoarder Disorder hosted a Nature themed challenge, and since there is so much to choose from, I went with each of the four seasons (summer, spring, winter, and fall). Obviously lol. I'll post the link to the gallery when it's been posted.

Here's the picture I submitted:


I did my thumb too, which was all four of the seasons on one nail, but I hated how it came out. Here's a full picture:


Aaaaand here's what I used. It's a big long list.

Thumb: 3 coats of Avon Mirage
Design-a-Nail Frostbite on BM 01
Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Blue Me Away! on plate BM14
SH Xtreme Wear Emerald City on plate BM05
Emerald City and Color Workshop in Nude Pink on plate BM03

Summer: 2 coats of a G.N.C. white polish
2 coats of China Glaze Kiwi Cool-ada
Orly Royal Navy on plate BM 17
Design-a-Nail Frostbite and Sinful Colors Dumpling on plate BM01

Spring: 3 coats Revlon Plum Baby
Design-a-Nail polish in Frostbite on plate BM16

Winter: 3 coats of Revlon Top Speed Chrome in PetalChrome
Revlon Top Speed Chrome in LilyChrome, SH Blue Me Away!, and Orly Royal Navy on plate BM14

Fall: 1 coat of Aziza brown
1 coat of Pure Ice Iced Copper
ChG poetic on plate BM19

I also used my newly purchased Seche Vite topcoat on all nails (and I'll never go back! =])

So that's what I did, and I finished at 11:15, just enough time to resize the picture and send it in =] If you haven't entered a PHD challenge, it's really fun and you definitely should!

Until next time,

Janna

PHD Vampire Challenge Mani

Hello Everyone!

I've noticed I've been getting into a pattern. I'll do two posts in one day, and then nothing the next, then two posts the next day. . . sorry if that's annoying =]

The deadline for Polish Hoarder Disorder's vampire challenge is in half an hour, and thankfully I got this manicure done days ago. When I first saw it was a vampire theme, I was a little hesitant to enter, but then I started getting some really cool ideas.

My very first idea was to file my nails to a point because I thought that'd be really edgy and definitely vampire-like....vampirish? But I felt that A) my nails weren't long enough to look good like that, and B) I didn't want to sacrifice my nails. So I worked with what I have.

I tried to pull off a classy, gothic vampire look. Vampires (at least the original kind, that DON'T sparkle) are pretty sophisticated, in my opinion. Originally, they were going have a red base instead of the purple, but I really think the purple is what makes this whole look. I actually wore a lipstick that color when I dressed as a vampire for Halloween a couple years ago. lol =]

Here's the picture I submitted:


I was pretty proud of this =]

Here's what I used:

The plum is a no name polish from The Color Workshop. French tip done in Rimmel's 399 Black Satin, and Konad done using Rimmel's 414 Insolence with Bundle Monster plate BM12.

The plate:


Here are some more pictures if you like. It was hard to get the camera to focus on the subtle design.







Flash


Pre-Konad and Pre-Cleanup




So that's my challenge mani. It was my first PHD challenge that I've entered and I can't wait to do more. I'll post a link to the Challenge Gallery HERE once it's posted.