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!

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!

Claire's Lime Yours Review

Hi again! Second post of the day! 

I have for you Claire's Lime Yours. It's a really cool looking polish in the bottle, very neon. I don't classify it as a neon myself because I have high standards for a neon lol. Before I call any polish neon, it has to burn my retinas first! Otherwise it's just bright, or really really bright. Lime Yours is really, really, really bright. For others, it is neon. For me, it is simply BRIGHT!

It's a bright neon green color, unlike the other neon greens I own because it has more yellow in it than the others. It makes it pop more and look cooler! It looks pretty plastic too. I remember Orly had that Plastix collection, of satin/matte colors, but this is totally plastic. It's a weird jelly, plastic kind of color. I had to add a top coat to make it look shiny because it dried kind of satin, since it's so bright.

The application was a PITA. I wanted to hit the bottle, scream at it, and throw it across the room   and smile gleefully as it cried neon green tears as it dripped down the wall. But I restrained myself, because that behavior was not appropriate when watching Antiques Roadshow (three hours of it!!). 

It's a really hard polish to apply, even harder than some glitters I've tried, and glitters can be horrible, with all the dragging. This was worse, because it wouldn't even out, no matter now thick of a coat I put on my nail. It took about three hours (yes, I watched three hours of Antiques Roadshow on Saturday night, in fact I do that every Saturday night. I love it. Don't judge) and four coats to even out. It really didn't completely even out until I put on my Poshe quick dry topcoat (why does every use Seche? Poshe all the way!). THEN it looked fabulous. It was like, BLAM! In your face green. If you use very thin coats, and layer on 5-6 coats, it will still look like VNL crap nail polish from hell. You need to load it up on the horribly thin Claire's brush and just apply. And hope for the best. 

Despite its shortcomings, it photographs beautifully, and very brightly! Definitely eye-catching since it's pretty neon, especially in the shade. Wish the application was better. I'll keep this for now, but it will be a long time when I put this on, probably when "winter is coming" (haha just had to insert a Game of Thrones reference). 

Onto the photos!

Pics of LY in the shade, against the fern-plant things (took these in the parking lot of 24-Hour Fitness). It matches! 

Hope you guys have a great day!

Comparison post! Essie Da Bush vs. Sinful Colors Seaweed

Last summer, when Essie came out with Da Bush, I bought it immediately because I love these weird camo green colors. I love OPI Who the Shrek Are You (I've worn that 3 times, 2X to see Wicked, and once for St. Patrick's day in a patchwork, and it's rare for me to wear a polish twice!), and am dying to get Finger Paints Sexy Sundress! When I saw Sinful Colors Seaweed at Walgreens, I bought it immediately, but I had a feeling I'd seen it before. I dug out Essie Da Bush and found what had caused my deja vu! I didn't get Stranger Tides, so I couldn't say if they were dupes, but had I known that Sinful had pretty much duped the whole OPI Pirates of the Caribbean collection, I would have gotten all of them and not bought any of the OPI ones!


From left to right: Essie Da Bush, Sinful Colors Da Bush, Sinful Colors Adventure Island





Essie Da Bush is on the left, SC Seaweed on the right (sorry for the ugly nail wheel, I ran out and painted over other colors!):



A close up to show the differences, but they don't exist! They are complete dupes. I think the Sinful Colors collection that Seaweed was a part of was limited edition, so I don't think it is available anymore :/