Winter Penguin Nails

I decided to try my hand out a Penguin mani, I think it came out pretty cute.

Swatch - Funky Fingers Snakeskin

This is Funky Fingers Snakeskin. I think this is such a beautiful color! It is a dark silver chrome, with gold shimmer that peaks through giving it great depth!
I don't have Chanel Graphite, but I really wonder if this would be a dupe of it. If anyone has both and can compare, please let me know!

Swatch - Sinful Colors Fiji

This is Sinful Colors Fiji. It is a dark purple color and the photo is a little lighter and bluer than real life.

This photo is more color accurate. It s a nice dark purple and applies nicely, although mine is older so it was a little thicker.

I added OPI Black Shatter over it and they go very well together!

Here is a purple eye look I did with the Stila color pallette and LA Splash Cosmetics glitter eyeliner.

And a close-up to show the glitter liner better. I really love the liquid liners from LA Splash, they come in sooo many colors and are AWESOME!

Halloween featuring Lynderella She Lived in a Swamp and Orly It's Not Rocket Science

I added Orly It's Not Rocket Science, from the Cosmic FX Collection, to my Funky Fingers Wild Child manicure. This is 2 coats on all but my accent finger.

I then added 2 coats Lynderella She Lived in a Swamp to my accent nail.

These are 2 close-up shots to see all the glitter and bling in this Lynderella polish. I think it's really pretty and really does look swampy!!

Swatch: Funky Fingers Wild Child

This is Funky Fingers Wild Child. I couldn't really get a very color accurate photo, unfortunately. Maybe there is something I can do with my camera to fix that? Not sure. But it is actually really more bright in real life, like a bright crayon green.

I really like this color and as usual it applied very well. I really like the Funky Fingers brand!

Glow in the Dark! with Funky Fingers scented Tortuga

This is Funky Fingers Tortuga and it is scented. Sort of smells like a mix between Bubbleyum and Play-doh. It's just a really wierd smell. I have no clue what it is "supposed" to smell like, perhaps tanning oil or something, but at least this doesn't last very long. I figured I'd go with a very bright, almost glowing color since it will also be glowing in the dark.

This is what it looked like once I put the Icing Glow in the Dark on it. I really did not like it, because it took 3 coats to get it right, but here it is nonetheless.

This is it glowing in somewhat darkness, pretty bright and the green is cool.

Here are my nails in total darkness. It glows, but you really need to "charge" it a lot by holding your hands in light first.

Here's a picture of the bottle glowing in the dark.

October Poker with OPI Absolutely Alice

I used Icing Gargoyle as the base. It is a matte grey. Great for a Halloween poker manicure. Every few months or so my group of friends get together and we have a fun night of poker. It's a $5 buy-in and I usually lose it all by the end of the night, but I actually won $0.40 last time! LOL I only had 30 minutes or so before the evening began, and this is the manicure I did.

I then used the Fauxnad Big Plate B I got on eBay and used Konad white to stamp on the image of the playing cards. I this this in order to fill in the white background so the cards would like white on my nail. I then took Icing Chrome Navy Blue to stamp on the image of the playing cards over where I painted in the white. This was my first time doing this and I learned a few things. First, make sure the bottom color is dry (I got a smear on my other thumb). Second, try to line it up better. And, third, make sure to do the scraping more accurately. I ended up with some of the blue over the white.

I then took OPI Absolutely Alice (which I recently acquired and REALLY wanted to try) and put it on my accent nail. This is a close-up to see the pretty glitteriness!

And a close-up of the Icing matte Gargoyle. See the little hint of shimmer? Makes the grey have some nice depth.

Frankenstein!

This is Finger Paints Chrysanthe-Mum's the Word. It is a nice opaque light green color. I am starting to think that all Finger Paints are really goopy and hard to work with because this sure fit that description.

I then added Nubar Reclaim (my first Nubar experience!) on the accent finger. It is a dark green linear holo. I also added OPI Black Shatter to my tips because I have always thought that it would be great to use as "hair" if I ever did any faces on my nails.

Here is the finished product! It is my Halloween Frankenstein manicure and my first foray into painting faces on my nails. I used a dotting tool with black, white and yellow to make the faces.

Some up close shots of the holo-iness of Reclaim, isn't it pretty!

Finger Paints Dahlia My Number Swatch

I decided to create another orange and black Halloween manicure using these 3 polishes: OPI Black Shatter, Finger Paints Dahlia My Number and Revlon Orange Fizz.

Here's a swatch of Finger Paints Dahlia My Number all by itself. It is a pretty color, but very sheer. It would probably work best layered over another polish.

I added Revlon Orange Fizz as my accent nail and then put OPI Black Shatter over it. I then addesd another coat of the Revlon because I really like that shiny orange hue it gives to the black.

My First Kleancolor!

I found a local beauty supply that carries some Kleancolor and I really wanted to try one out to see what all the buzz is. I must say, that now I am a lover of Kleancolor too!!

I started out with Sinful Adventure Island from their dupe of the OPI Pirates Collection. It is a very pretty green color and looks really good on my long nails. Unfortunately, the day I wore this was for my birthday and my middle finger snagged while I was getting out of bed and broke right at the nail bed. I had to reduce the length of the rest of my nails so it didn't look so wierd, but they are a bit better now.

And now, for my favorite! This is Kleancolor Peaceful Heart. It is green holographic glitter with large holographic green hearts. Sooo pretty and beautiful in light. It went on nicely and stunk really bad (as Kleancolors are known to do). But I was able to look past the smell and really like that I got such a nice polish. I think a major Kleancolor haul will be in my future ;)

And.... I was holding my hand really wierd here; but you can see the pretty bunny ring that I also picked up at the beauty supply store. It was only $1.99!

Swatch - L.A. Girl Rock Star Addict

Today, I have a swatch of a nice Fall color. It is from the brand L.A. Girls and part of their Rock Star collection. This shade is called "Addict." I really like the glitter and it flashes gold in the bottle, but that doesn't show up that well on the nail all the time. It appears that it is a gold flaky sort of thing, micro-flakes perhaps? And the base sort of murks it up when you put it on the nail, but it's still very pretty and nice for fall!


Here is a close-up so you can see the gold.

Halloween Manicure - Ode to Skeleton

I really like the way these designs turned out! It really reminds me of a skeleton, so that's why I called the look that. I think it is a great combo for Halloween.

I started with Revlon Black Star all over my nails. I then took Konad White and put a full nail design from plate BM19. Since it did not cover my whole nail, I then did my tips with the Revlon Black Star and topped it all off with a coat of Seche Vite.

The Foil Method for Removing Nail Polish

Sometimes, nail polish just doesn't want to come off. This is most apparent with very heavy glitters, or, in this case, many different layers for a glitter design.

This is my first tutorial and I hope that it is informative and there are enough pictures explaining the foil method.
First, you need pieces of foil and some cotton balls. I just use leftover foil from baking.
You take the cotton ball and get nail polish remover on it (in some cases may need acetone, but I have never tried/worked with pure acetone). You then take the cotton ball and put it against the foil and wrap your fingertip with it like the photo below:

You do this to all 10 fingers. I like to do one hand at a time because it can get tricky putting the foil on the other hand. Wait a few minutes, five is the best to be sure it is all ready. Then you just slide the cotton in the foil off the fingernail and you will see this:

This photo shows that the nail polish will come off just as it appears on the nail. The nail is now clean, but there may be remnants if you didn't leave it on long enough. Just get another cotton ball and clean up the bits left.

That's all there is to it, pretty easy and much better than rubbing for 10 minutes on EACH nail trying to get it all off and then staining your fingers. You know what I'm talking about, lol.

Anyways, hope this tutorial was helpful and explanatory enough with the photos.

What *NOT* to Do With Seche Restore

So, I tried to be slick and decided that I would bring back a bottle of CoverGirl crackle to life. Yeah, didn't work!! At first it appeared to be working, but then the green crackle started getting spongey and is now hard again and just nasty. It didn't work on that, probably because it is a different formula than regular polish??

I just wanted to let everyone know DON't use it on the old CoverGirl crackles because it will NOT work.

Review: Seche Restore

Seche Restore is a nail polish thinner. This means that it will help bring old polish back to life!! How does it do it? Well, as nail polish gets older some of the chemicals evaporate out of it which causes it to thicken and get hard. This little beauty will solve that problem and bring it back to the lovely that it once was.

I used this on a few REALLY old Wet N Wilds that I have and it worked nicely. I also used it on a Sinful that I've had for a long time and it made it not as hard to apply since it is no longer super super thick. I got this at Ulta, and it was pretty expensive, but it did what it purported to do and I am satisfied with that.

There are other nail polish thinners on the market, check Sally's, but I haven't tried any of them yet.

Funky Fingers Crackle Swatches!

These are quick swatches I did of each of the new Funky Fingers Crackle Collection. There are six colors, just like pretty much every other crackle collection.

The colors are:

Blue Scales- It is on my pinky nail in the photo. It only had a few cracks in it, so overall I am not that impressed. But I do really like the color!

Gold Scales- On mypointer finger. This one I really didn't like much at all because it only had one crack line and was rather sheer even after I did a pretty thick coat.

Silver Scales- This is on my thumb. I really liked this one and it pretty comparable to OPI Silver Shatter. I liked the amount of cracks and the opacity of the polish.

Fuschia Scales- This is the second photo (only have 5 fingers, lol!) I liked this one too, it cracked nicely and wasn't too sheer like some can be.

Black Scales- LOVE this one! It cracked awesomely and I just really love the look of it dry. It's pretty matte, but not that sort of vinyl matte like OPI Black Shatter. This is a asphalt-like black finish.

White Scales- LOVE this one as well. Cracked very nicely and I think it would make a nice Halloween manicure.

Overall, I liked these. They are $3.99, so comparable to China Glaze online pricing, and half the cost of OPI. My store did not have all 6 at first, they had 5 and I heard some stores only got 2 or 3. They added the Fuschia Scales later. These are limited edition, so get them while you can!

Revlon Siren + Revlon Orange Fizz Scented Nail Polish

This beautiful coral cream is Revlon Siren. It looks really good on me (Corals usually so). It was a little wierd to apply, but not sure if that might be due to the cutical oil I had just put on or if it's normally that way. I put 2 coats and felt like it was a little thick so didn't want to push t with a third t get rid of some of the VNL remaining. But, overall, the color is awesome!

I recently got the Revlon scented nail polishes that have been out for a few months and HAD to try one. I decided that since I love the smell of orange candy to try Orange Fizz first. It smelled really good, except the scent does not last as long as the Funky Fingers :(

It is a sorta flakey/glittery jelly and it applied very evenly and nicely. It is also smooth on the nail., No chunky bumpy at all. It is really shiny too as you can see in the pic, I didn't put any top coat over it.

Of course I needed to mattify it! I aplied Hard Candy matte top coat on the nail on the left and nothing to the nail on the right. You can see it looks pretty matified as well. Although I might like this non-mattified better.

And, finally: shattered it with OPI Black Shatter!! I decided to also put another coat of orange fizz over the shatter and it really popped. I LOVE the way this looks and it would make an awesome Halloween manicure. The orange jelly over the black made it seem brighter and more joyful, which is pretty cool.

Overall, lovin' both Revlon Siren and Orange Fizz!!