Julep Polishes - Eloise and Jessica

 

 

For this manicure, I started with 2 coats of Julep's lovely Jessica polish.  Jessica is a very pretty pastel blue.  It's a tad bit lighter than it shows in the photos.

Next, I stamped the design from Cheeky plate CH6 with Julep's Eloise.  I really like this polish for stamping.  It is dark enough and covers well so it shows up, but it's a little more interesting than a plain black.

All in all, I think this turned out pretty nicely.

What do you think?

Chirality - Dahmer Crunch and Special BTK Swatches

 

 

Today I have 2 polishes from Chirality. I was planning to wear just Dahmer Crunch but instead of putting on 3 coats of it, I decided to try layering 1 or 2 coats of it over a white undie. The effect wasn’t bad, but it really wasn’t what I was in the mood for. It had a very stark effect; black and white with no shades of gray. In a different mood, it would have been perfect but I just wasn’t loving it at the moment. So I decided to try putting a coat of Special BTK on top and I think the resulting look is stunning!

I’m very glad I bought both of these at the same time. Later I picked up the small size bottles of Raisin Gein and Bundy Berries, but I may need to get the full sized bottles of those, as well. These 4 polishes are really great and when I consider all the possible combinations of layering them together! Wow! It’s like making your own frankenpolish the super simple way.

 

 

 

I also tried out Nail Pattern Boldness Glitter Food to smooth out the roughness of the glitter.  Worked like a charm!  I'll be using this over glitter all the time going forward.

 

You can find Dahmer Crunch and Special BTK at Chirality's etsy shop and Glitter Food at the Nail Pattern Boldness etsy shop.

Strawberry Manicure

Today's manicure was created for the Sweets challenge on the Facebook group She Who Does Nails.

 

Strawberries are sweet? Aren't they? I know the rest of the participants are doing more commonly thought of sweets, such as candy bars and cupcakes, but I've been dying to try out making my own stamping decals and this strawberry design seemed like a perfect stamp to start with.

I started with 2 coats of All That Glitters polish - I Luv Me.  This polish comes from the Bitter Hearts collection and can be found at the All That Glitters etsy store.  This glittery polish is so pretty and the perfect background for my strawberries!

 

Next I made decals using the strawberry from Cheeky plate CH13.  For the pink berries, I used Essie's Splash of Grenadine and for the red - Sally Hansen Cherry Red.

Not too bad for a first attempt, I think.

Check out all the other amazingly sweet manicures for this challenge!



 

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Smitten Polish Hocus Pocus Plus Glitter Food

Today I have a beautiful polish to show you.  This is one of those polishes that make me concerned about my driving.  I can just see it now.  Officer - 'why did you hit this light pole?'  Me - 'well, you see officer, just look at this nail polish.  I was so mesmerized by it in the sunlight I forgot to watch the road.'  Yeah, it's that pretty!



I used 3 coats for the swatches below to get the level of opaqueness I wanted.  Next time I might try layering it over black to see what it would be like.  (Please excuse the shrinkage.  My bottle of Seche Vite needs a little thinner.)

This polish dries a little bumpy and with a more satin-like finish.  I just got a bottle of Nail Pattern Boldness's Glitter Food so I decided to give that a try.  I hadn't realized it dries to a matte finish, but it does.  The beauty in that is that it dries super fast.  By the time I had finger 10 painted, finger 1 was dry.  Love it!  It also smoothed out the lumpiness very well.  I'm going to be trying it with all my other glittery, bumpy polishes and I'll let you know how it works.  Lastly, I added a quick coat of Seche Vite to make it all shiny.

This photo is a little out of focus on purpose to try to capture all the holographic goodness.

You can find Smitten Polish's Hocus Pocus at their Etsy store or at Llarowe.  Last time I looked Hocus Pocus was still in stock at Llarowe, but not Etsy.  Glitter Food is available at Nail Pattern Boldness's Etsy store.  Both of these products are must haves in my book!

Julep April - It Girl Swatches

I got 3 beautiful polishes in my Julep box this month and I created a stamped manicure with 2 of them.

First I put on a coat of a cream colored polish to cover over my stained nails.  Considering the stains are yellow this may have been unnecessary but I wasn't sure what color I was going to start with, so I put the base coat on first.

Next I did one coat of Abbie.  I'm really impressed that I only needed 1 coat.  If I had been planning to wear it without stamping I would have applied one more just to even out a few places but 1 coat covered surprisingly well.  All my other yellow nail polishes take at least 3 coats to give a reasonable finish.  So if you are looking for a good yellow, I definitely recommend this one.

Then I used the purple polish, Eden and Pueen stamp 19.

The stamp messed up a little on the pointer finger - user error.  But aside from that I really like the effect.

Here's a picture of all 3 polishes I got in my box. The green is called McKenzie and I really love it, as well. I'll do a swatch of it soon.

 

The first polish, Eden, photographed much more blue than it actually is.  It's really a deep, rich purple.  Very pretty.  It deserves a swatch of it's own, as well.

I have to say I've only been doing the Julep Maven box for a couple of months but I've been very happy with what I've received.

If you are interested, check out Julep Maven Program.
Note:  I paid for these polishes myself and I'm not affiliated with Julep in any way.

Hope you are enjoying your weekend!

KB Shimmer Oh Splat Swatch

I was very excited to get my hands on 2 polish by KB Shimmmer.  Today, I'm going to share my pics of Oh Splat.  I just love this polish!  It's so happy and pretty without looking too young.

This is 3 coats.  I could have gotten away with 2 but I wanted to place a few more pieces of glitter in particular places.

I just cannot stop staring at my nails!  They are so delicate! 

I got my bottle at KB Shimmer's Etsy shop.

 

 

Removing yellow stains

So yesterday when I removed my manicure, I discovered the most unattractive yellow stains on my nails!  I know that this happens, but it's the first time it has happened to me.  Not sure how I made it so long, but I did.

I immediately tried a few things I had read on the web - lemon juice and soaking is dishwashing liquid.  No change.  So today when I went to Walmart I checked to see if they had anything to help and I found a product in the beauty section!  I was quite excited.

Well, perhaps it sounded too good to be true.  After following the instructions, here are my results.

I really don't think there has been any improvement.  Maybe the slightest bit?  Package said to use several times in first week and then once a week afterwards.  I'll try again, but I'm not holding my breath.

What has worked for you to get rid of stains on nails?