theBalm Hot Ticket nail polish: Call Me Iridescent

Today I wore a pink. And not just any pink, a nuuuude pink. But wait? What's that? GLITTER. Delicious silvery glittery in a nude base with a strong pink flash. This is a nude I could get into. (giggity). I got this polish on HauteLook.com. However, you can buy them any time at theBalm.com, and they retail $10 a piece. Formula on this was a little sheer, and a little thick at the same time. These swatches are with four coats of polish and one coat of Seche Vite.

Click on the picture for closeups! 

Butter London Victoriana and Flakie Goodness

I've had Butter London's Victoriana sitting in my stash for months now as an untried. It's a little too green for my taste, the shimmer reminds me of a formica counter top. It is very pretty. But not really me. Here is two coats plus a coat of Seche Vite.

Wasn't thrilled so I added some flakies: FingerPaints Motley and Asylum.

And then because I saw Chloe's awesome blog post here, I stopped at Five Below and picked up Funky Fingers Teal Scales, a super cheap crackle polish! Mmmm.:

Mars Star Power! ... a franken

Continuing with the Sailor Moon theme, I have another franken for you, Mars Star Power! I've been wanting to franken something similar to OPI's La Boheme for awhile. I've also been wanting a vampy pink. Yes, that's right, a vampy pink. So what I did was decant a little of one of my precious OPI Man of La Mancha polishes, added a drop of Sally Hansen Instadry Night Flight, and about 50% NYS Hot Purple. It has that awesome red to green color shifting pigment, and looks super vampy. This is three coats of MSP over one coat of Night Flight.

Ulta Jaded and NYC GCS topcoat review

I don't have to work today, so I decided to give one of my easy to find untrieds a chance. I got Ulta Jaded during their $2 clearance sale. It's such a pretty duochrome in the bottle: mint metallic green to light blue metallic. What I'm pleasantly surprised by is the super small gold shimmer particles that pop up in bright light. Mmmm. And then after all the reviews I read on MakeupAlley, I bought a couple bottles of NYC Grand Central Station quick dry nail polish topcoat. I'm hoping this topcoat will work better with my Zoyas, since Seche Vite is a total fail with them. Grand Central Station dried really quick to the touch, and while it's still dentable an hour later, it has similar dry time to Seche, great shine, and at $1.99 a bottle, you can't go wrong! This is four coats of Ulta Jaded with one coat of NYC Grand Central Station topcoat.

Hits Artsy, in all its glory

As anyone who has seen my nail polish closet will tell you, I have a LOT of nail polish. Among my most precious are my Sally Hansen Nail Prisms. I am always hesitant to use them because they are very expensive to replace. But when I found out that Llarowe sells the Hits Mari Moon polishes I got so excited. Almost all of the Mari Moon polishes are dupes for either Ozotic multichromes or the Nail Prisms. Today I'll be showing you Hits Artsy, which is a dupe for Sally Hansen Nail Prism Garnet Lapis, one of my faaaavorites. So many colors, like an oil slick. So I'll do my best to document them all here for you.

Artsy is also a dupe for my new shiny earrings from Macy's!

Hits no Olimpo Ares w/ funky french (red HOLO!)

So... a red holo is a rare and beautiful thing to find. Especially under $15 a bottle. They always tend to be too pink or too orange. Here is the beauty that is Hits no Olimpo Ares, a gorgeous red jelly holographic polish that just looks juicy and sparkly and awesome! I did one coat of Ares over one coat of Lancome's no. 22 red jelly. The formula on Ares was nice, thick but not gummy. The brush was eeeevil incarnate: little prickly bristles sticking out everywhere. Rawr.

 

Yikes! My nails are getting long. I was gonna cut them down a bit, until someone at work complimented on how they can't be real! :) We like this.

Although the version my work people saw was with french tips of OPI Take the Stage. I was trying to figure out what color would compliment the red that wasn't Christmassy, Valentine-y, or gothic, so I chose ORANGE.

You can get your own bottle of Ares at Llarowe's website . Where you can get all those hard to find holographic and multichrome polishes. A wonderland of polish goodness!

Franken and Jessey's Girl Confetti

I made a franken forever ago when I thought I was gonna start working at the Origins cosmetic counter. The executive had told me that they only wore light natural colors, and not black (which is what I wore in the interview ^_^). So I bought a ton of neutrals and started making more natural frankens. I ended up NOT getting the job because I was very pro-me in the interview, what-evs, and so today is the first time I've worn this color. Since then I became the manager at the Lancome counter, now I can wear what I want!

I have nooo idea what into this franken, but it's a lavender with gold sparkles. Slightly pearly. This is four coats here. Another of my Sailor Moon collection:

Chibi Moon:

And of course I had to spruce it up, so I added a previously untried Jessey's Girl Confetti:

Saturn's Scythe: a multichrome holo franken!

I found an oolllld bottle of Sally Hansen Nail Prisms Burgundy Orchid hiding in my parents house in my old underwear drawer (random), so I took it home and decanted a little bit and added course Spectra Flair! Here is two coats over Ulta Wild Night (a one coater blue). Looking at it makes me feel like I'm looking into the galaxy @.@. As another one of my Sailor Moon themed collection, I'm naming this one Saturn's Scythe.

And here are some pictures of Sailor Saturn, one of the least seen Sailor Moon characters, and one of the most powerful. She can end worlds with her scythe.

This last picture especially reminds me of Burgundy Orchid because of the purples, pinks, golds, and variety of colors :)

Essie Cocktail Bling + OPI Turquoise Shatter

For the life of me, I just can't keep a creme plain. Just can't do it. Cocktail Bling is a lovely blue tinted grey. The formula on this one is so far my favorite of my Essies. Almost opaque in one coat, but I did two to even out. Not runny, only had to do minimal cleanup, yay! So here it is on its own:

 

Then I added a coat of Nicole by OPI Make a Comet-ment, a sheer holo topcoat, blurred to show sparkle. Mmmmm:

Then, I shattered it with OPI Turquoise Shatter! Haven't done a shatter in forever. Usually I'll crackle a mani right before I take it off.