Purple Fade Out

Nail polish websites NEED to stop putting things on sale! A England went on sale for a few days, and Adina makes some of my favorite polishes, so I just and to grab a bunch! I don’t know what I was thinking, I already have >10 untried polishes sitting around. I am a mess!

When I was looking for which colors I wanted (since I already have 10 or so A England polishes) I ended up buying half the Elizabeth & Mary collection. The two I wanted and this third one, a purple! In retrospect, I should have passed on the orange/red glittery one. That being said, THIS polish is stunning and I am glad it caught my eye!

This is two thin coats of Crown of Thistles, a pretty red-toned purple holo. The sunlight photos are the most color-accurate, the others make the polish look more blue than it really is. Crown of Thistles is a bright magenta-purple with copious scattered holo shimmer and a pink-purple shimmer that almost makes the polish look like a duochrome. I am impressed! Even better, it is basically a one-coater. If I had just been a little more careful, I would not have needed two coats at all.

I ended up applying a gradient stamp over the polish, which worked out better than I expected but doesn’t look great in the photos. I mostly needed something to blend in…I am getting tired of having to think in terms of what I can wear in the hospital! Just a few more months I can put whatever I want on my nails again.

Colors:
~ Purple holo: A England – Crown of Thistles
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Purple: Zoya – Malia
~ Stamp: EdM – 22

At this point, I also have 9 (!!) Disney-themed manis built up that I’ve been working on over weekends (when I am free to do what I want with my nails). Do you guys want to see them soon, or should I keep going until I can do a whole month of Disney? 😀

Dark Tribal

I think green-blue-purple might be my favorite gradient to do. It looks both lovely and mysterious! Unfortunately, the makeup sponge I used to apply this particular gradient was past its prime, and it left me with a bunch of small bumps on my nails. Regardless, I think this came out quite well!

I started this mani with two thin coats of Tilda by Zoya, a very pretty medium-light green! This polish self-levels nicely, but dries about half a shade darker than it looks in the bottle. I am quite happy with this polish. I ended up getting two green cremes from Zoya (Tilda and Jace) and found Tilda to be far superior to Jace (I’ll have to do a comparison after I post the mani with Jace). This polish is even, opaque, and a very nice color.

I went ahead and added the gradient to dark purple, and then a fun geometric stamp to round it out! I think if i had used a lighter blue and purple that this would look more Spring-themed, but honestly I painted it in the winter and I personally just like darker colors.

Colors
~ Green: Zoya – Tilda
~ Blue: Zoya – Sia
~ Purple: Zoya – Monica
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Stamp: EdM – 11

I’ve started switching up how I take my photos just a little, and am taking bottle shots with most of my manis at this point (since many of the photos that I like best from other nail artists show them holding a bottle of polish, or some other wrap-around prop). I still don’t think I’m quite the best at positioning! Oh well.

Hope you enjoyed! Happy Friday!

Sapphire Divided

I bought this particular polish on a whim, mostly because I wanted another polish in this collection and felt like placing and order for a single polish was silly. Jokes on me though…I actually like this one even better than the one I initially wanted! That always seems to happen :-p

This is Sapphire by KBShimmer, from the birthstone collection (I also got Ruby…which I posted about back in December). I cannot resist polishes that are jewel toned, saturated with metallic silver shards, and have holo in them. I now own 5!!! Sapphire is probably the darkest and most pigmented one in my collection though, since the other three non-KBShimmer ones are gold/silver/rose gold in tone.

This polish took two thin coats to cover (I probably could have gotten away with one if I applied it thicker). It dries down remarkably smoothly given all the glitter in it as well! The best part: removal wasn’t even that difficult! Maybe it’s because the glitter is in shards rather than hex shapes, and so catches my removing pad better? I don’t know why, but I am grateful! Regardless, Sapphire is a beautiful deep blue-jean/sapphire blue. I should have taken a photo with my  sapphire engagement ring! Whoops. Either way, it is stunning.

I am a bit sad that I added the rhinestones before top coat though, they always go from hexagonal and shiny to looking matte with regular top coat. I think I’ve finally figured out a work-around for this problem, but since I actually painted these back in October I wasn’t thinking too deeply about it a week before the wedding. Whoops!

Colors
~ Blue glitter: KBShimmer – Sapphire
~ Silver: A England – Excalibur
~ Stamp: EdM – 03

I didn’t want to cover too much of the polish with a design…so I turned to my best pretty-but-minimal stamping plate (EdM 03) and just picked one. Ta-da! Hope you enjoyed!

Cresting Blue

Blue and sparkly, yay! Also, I think this might be one of my favorite single stamping images that I own. And I own a lot. But I’ve used this stamp a whole bunch of times!

Anyway, I wanted to create a blue shimmery gradient and then a stamp that almost only shows up over the lighter tips. Goal achieved!

For reasons unknown, the sun was not cooperating with me, so there is only one sunlight photo and it isn’t that great. Sorry!

Colors
~ Dark blue: OPI – Yoga-ta Get This Blue
~ Blue glitter: Nicole by OPI – A Lit-Teal Bit of Love
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Stamp: EdM – 17

Hope you enjoyed! Next post: pink and boring.

Smooth Array

I did a series of blue-grey nails while I was wearing scrubs in the fall (since they matched my scrubs). I was thinking of putting them all up over one week, but I think you guys would get bored so I am spreading them out!

This was probably one of my favorites, but it was barely sunny so you can’t see much of the awesome holo base 😦

This past year was all about buying muted colors that I might be able to wear in the hospital…I hope I can convince myself that its ok to buy a few more vibrant ones this year! I was looking through other bloggers “top 10 polishes” lists, and really I only saw a few polishes that I wanted and only one badly enough to keep my eyes on it (Nine Zero Lacquer – Singer’s Auto Salvage). Oh well!

Colors
~ Blue glitter: ILNP – Timeless Vow
~ Pastel blue: Zoya – Blu
~ White: Wet n’ Wild – French White Creme
~ Stamp: EdM – 22

Hope you enjoyed! Happy Friday 🙂

Flowering Walls

LAST PINK MANI. Maybe for this entire month. I am sick of pink. Even if this is more of a peachy-pink than a true pink like the rest of this week.

Honestly, work-play-polish, back when she posted, used to manage to make even work manis fun! Although she was able to grow her nails to a decent length since I don’t think she was wearing double-layered gloves on a daily basis :-p. Someday I will figure out how to make work-appropriate manis that are stunning.

On the plus side, even though this design is super simple, I actually like it! I keep forgetting how subtly fun the Nabi holographic polishes are. Indoors this was not particularly exciting, but all I had to do was go stand in a window and my nails were instantly more fun. The rest of the designs this week…not so much

Colors
~ Pink holo: Nabi – Cinahon
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Stamp: EdM – 17

Happy Friday! And happy first-day-off-in-two-weeks to me tomorrow 😀

Golden Hued

So, golden-red-copper totally counts as Thanksgiving-themed, right? Maybe? Who knows. All I can really say is that I am SPEECHLESS by this polish!

I’ve been staring at Enchanted Polish for years. Who wouldn’t? They make ridiculously pretty and ridiculously expensive polishes that I could just never convoke myself were worth it. Usually, I’d find one I wanted after looking at 52034820 swatches, and it would be sold out forever. So….when I saw that three of the polishes I’ve wanted for a very very long time were available (thanks to Cathy, whose recent swatch sent me over to the EP website) I had to get them. These were actually basically a wedding gift to myself, because I just cannot justify spending $50 on three polishes otherwise!

Honestly, this might be the oddest chameleon of the three that I got, and I love the colors that it goes through. It is also appropriately fall-themed! This is I Am The Walrus by Enchanted Polish. It covered well in three thin coats, and dried nicely. Although there were brushstrokes when I applied it, they disappeared when it dried! Looking through this, I can see primarily wine red in direct light and a golden-copper in indirect light. It goes through some crazy mix of magenta-wine-copper-gold-green. It really looks like wearing two different polishes depending on the light, since the magenta and the copper-gold are different tones. It also, of course, has scattered fine holo shimmer throughout, so in sunlight it is ALSO a rainbow! I still feel bad for spending so much money on one polish…but try to tell me this isn’t amazing.

The design I went with was Inspired by MaryMaxNail. I decided to leave my middle finger more nude than my 4th finger as would be expected because my fourth finger has a little discoloration on it. Ergo, it looks a little funny! Still a fun mani.

Colors
~ Gold multichrome: Enchanted Polish – I Am The Walrus
~ Nude: Sephora X – Marvelous
~ Light pink: L’Oreal – Boho Babe
~ Stamp: EdM – 22

I am still drooling. I wish I could get away with wearing colors like this to the hospital, but I think people would pay more attention to my nails than to what I was saying! Which would maybe be a good thing, but probably not. Oh well, happy almost-Thanksgiving!