Essence Wanna Be Your Sunshine + Daring Digits Before Color

Hi again! I am going to try to finish up some of my backlogged posts before I leave the library, my internet at home sucks (it's Clear, pay-as-you-go internet, and my house is far away from the signal tower, so I can't upload pictures at home). I have Essence Wanna Be Your Sunshine and Daring Digits Before Color! 

I looooove wearing colors "out of season". So bright yellow in the middle of winter is definitely up my alley lol! I will probably wear Nicole by OPI Ladies in the Limelight next, I love those kinds of colors when they are unexpected, when everyone else is wearing dark navy blue :) Essence Wanna Be Your Sunshine is one of the best yellows I have ever used! I used very little of the 5 mL bottle as well, because the color was so pigmented! It has gorgeous, subtle shimmer but is mostly a creme, and goes on perfectly in 2.5 coats. I could have used just 2 coats if I had applied it more carefully, but I used the extra coat to cover up any bald spots. 2.5 thin coats, I might add, which is pretty much unheard of for me when it comes to applying yellows. 

I remember the last yellow I wore was Daring Digits Pink Lemonade, and this was in the summer (I don't know if I photographed it or not, it's been a while!). I am not a frequent yellow wearer, but I do love it when I wear it ;) Essence Wanna Be Your Sunshine is definitely my go-to yellow now! 

I only have Daring Digits Before Color on my thumbs because I did not want to deal with glitter removal and I was kind of in a hurry to do my mani, so the glitter topping would have taken too long to dry had I put it on all of my nails. Before Color has black circles and smaller white hexes. I loooove that combo! I adore big circular glitter, so this one was perfect for me :) You can get Daring Digits' colors at ddpolish.com. She has great prices and awesome glitter combos!

Super Belated Holiday Patchwork Mani!

I'm back again! I have pictures of my Christmas/holiday patchwork mani I did this year. I didn't want to take it off, but the tipwear was getting on my nerves! I snapped the pictures on day 3 or 4. It lasted a while! I looooove patchwork manicures! They are easy to do (which is why I do them) but tend to be time consuming because I have to wait for things to dry and it usually takes me a few hours because I don't always do them, usually 5 times a year max, and only for holidays (so I can break out the color schemes). 

I did the same color scheme as I have in my previous years of doing the Christmas patchwork mani - red, white and green, with a red and green glitter topped over the white. This year I used Sally Hansen Red Carpet (amazing red glitter in a jelly base, dupe for China Glaze Ruby Pumps), Elianto Racing Green (beautiful foil green with gold glitter), Sally Hansen White On (one of the best whites I have ever used, hands down), and Sephora by OPI Good Tidings We Bling! as the glitter topper. I wish the $OPI didn't have a slightly dark base, because it muddied the white and made it less prominent than I had wanted. Click the pictures to enlarge! 

And please ignore the time stamps, I was night kayaking and capsized, with my camera in my pocket to take night photos. To my surprise it survived and still works fine, but it reset itself and so the time stamp does not match the actual time, and I use the SD slot in my computer to transfer pictures so it can't correct itself :)

Hope everyone had great holidays!

Zoya Gilty 18K Real Gold Top Coat over Cult Nails Coveted

I'm back! For a brief period of time, at least. I'll probably be blogging until the start of school, and then blog then as a form of procrastination/tool to keep me sane lol. Anyways, I have a backlog of pictures of some manis I took and will be posting them soon!

I have Zoya Gilty for you today, the 18K real gold top coat from Zoya, which I bought with the set when the released it the second time, for $35 (they keep increasing the price because gold is a limited commodity, but it still hurts the wallet :/). I purchased the Sephora by OPI one a while ago but didn't like it and returned it because the gold was sooooo sparse that I needed a magnifying glass to see the flakes haha! The Gilty one seems to have the most prominent gold flakes out of all the ones I have seen, and they really shine, no matter the lighting! I got so many compliments on my mani, and everyone was surprised I had real gold on my nails! 

It is definitely a stunner and I highly recommend it for those days when you feel like you want luxury on your nails! I wore it over Cult Nails Coveted (which is absolutely gorgeous with it's green flaked-jelly goodness), and didn't want to take off my mani because I wanted the gold to stay on! 

Sorry for the tipwear, I wanted to wear Coveted alone for a few days but didn't get to snap pictures of it before I layered Gilty over it! Have a great day!

Sassy Lacquer Color-Changing Funky French

I love the Sassy Lacquers colors (found here)! I know a lot of artisan nail polish makers have color-shifting pigments in their colors, but so far I've only tried Carrie's color-shifting polishes, and I love them! 

In this funky french manicure, I used Pegasus Jizz (red orange shift) for the main part of the nail, and Electric Eel (green blue shift) for the tips. It looks so amazing! I used a dark green base for it, Chelsea Psycho Green (it looks black most of the time, so it sufficed). The colors change the closer you hold it to the light. I didn't notice a big change in colors for Electric Eel (it looked like a dark teal/blue shimmer most of the time), but the next time I wear it by itself as a mani, I'll definitely keep my eye out for it to change colors, from blue to green. Pegasus Jizz was amazing, and in natural sunlight, it sparkled and shimmered! In my office, when it was closer to the light, the bronze/red pigments shifted to green/gold, and it was just amazing to stare at when I didn't have any work to do lol :P

I didn't get to take pics of it while outside, so these are pics from the office, taken in my cubicle. Most of the time it looked like bronze/red with green around the edges. It's amazing even under fluorescent lighting! 

With flash (below). You can see the bronze color, and the green on the tips! I didn't get a chance to get outside, natural lighting pictures because the polish chipped fast on me since Psycho Green is older and doesn't have great polish chemistry with me :/

Neon Rainbow Nail Art

This is my attempt at rainbow nail art. I don't really do it much because it takes me forever whenever I try, and usually doesn't end up as perfect as I wanted it to be. I have no patience for painstakingly painting Spongebob on my nails, leaning over and straining my neck for four hours! I did this time though (it isn't Spongebob however) because it was part of my costume. 

Every year my school has a festival to celebrate the end of classes, and this year the theme was "Genesis". Some people went as the game console Genesis (remember that? So long ago!), and some people dressed up as Abe Lincoln (I didn't understand the connection lol). I dressed up as a rainbow! I had a friend who went as a rain cloud, and we just happened to match together. 

I did my nails with neon colors, using a white base (RBL Underwear) and a bunch of bright, neon colors to represent the rainbow! I can't remember exactly what I used, but I remember using OPI Big Apple Red, Revlon Royal, Color Club Disco Dress, some Essie neons, China Glaze In the Limelight, a neon orange from Color Club. I apologize for the weird stains on my hands, there was a small Holi celebration and I got pigments all over myself!

Pictures using flash:

This is my left hand. I made different patterns on each finger on both hands!

My right hand:

If you were wondering how I did my nails this way, I used a small dish filled with pure acetone, and a very thin nail brush and just dipped and painted, like I would with watercolor. It turned out pretty neat! I even got some compliments from guys who were stunned and mesmerized by how intense and cool looking my nails were!

 The picture below is most true to life to what my mani looked like:

 That's it for now! I'll break up my post so there won't be a ton of pictures to load!

Chanel Quartz Swatch and Review

This is Chanel Quartz. I went crazy and bought all three of the Chanel polishes from the Fall 2011 collection, and wore all of them last summer. This was the most demure out of the three, IMO, but still very pretty. It's like a taupe-pewter color with small iridescent sparkle. My pics didn't effectively capture them, but they are definitely visible in the sunlight. I can't really think of similar colors to it (except the Jessica dupes), but I'm sure they're out there because it isn't particularly unique and neither are the other two Chanels anymore. I normally do not reach for these colors, but I like this one for the brand (I admit I'm a polish snob!) and the tiny sparkles that twinkle in the sun!