It's franken time!

Hello all! I recently got a bug in my bonnet about all the Spectraflair I had left, so I decided to mix up some colors. My first creation I'm gonna show y'all is Peritwinkle.

Ahhh. That's what I'm talking about. My perfect periwinkle with a holographic shimmer. I got disgruntled because I'm always looking for a bright lilac periwinkle and it's so hard, so I experimented until I got something I liked. The recipe for this baby was about a quarter Sally Hansen Pacific Blue, about an 1/8 of Circus Tight Rope, but any neon purple would work. And then a bunch of white to lighten it up. Then I added about 3 tiny scoops of Spectraflair and shook it a bunch. 

Weeeellll, I learned quickly that this much creme polish just about obscures all holo particles. So I literally used up about two bottles of clear trying to thin it out. And then you could just baaaarely see the holo. So these pics above are Peritwinkle plus a coat of home-made Spectraflair topcoat. 

Ain't she a beaut? This is about 2 mini scoops of Spectraflair in 3/4 full bottle of NYC Grand Central Station. We shall dub thee, Rainbow Road! So there's the scoop. My two newest frankens, got one more to swatch later, a vampy holo. 

NOTDs... past and present

Hello my friends! I am very sorry that I haven't been around in months. Nothing has really gotten my juices flowing enough to bother you all with it. Suffice to say I've had a lot going on: going back to school for nursing, dealing with housing crises of friends, broken NOTD camera and of course, Macy's. I've still been painting the nails, just not taking pics as often as before, and not spending much time on nail art. Well, I'm starting to get inspired again, so we'll see what happens. This post is gonna be a photo dump of some of the manis I have managed to capture on film in the last couple months. These pics are using my Iphone 4, so please bear with me (or bare with me ;p )

I'm gonna say this NOTD was maybe American Apparel Peacock... not positive. All that really matters is that that is Lilacquer Lycanthrope on top, and what a beauty she is. Green bronze shift to blue. So sexy. And for fun I topped it with a franken of mine that's just multi-iridescent squares in clear.

I'm pretty sure this is Hits Artsy, even though at this angle the flash almost makes it look like SH Turquoise Opal. Always gonna be a top 20 polish. Soooo sexy. 

And Zoya Aurora! How I love Zoyas holographic polishes. Just the right amount of fire to keep it gorgeous, but not too much to overwhelm the base color. Aurora makes me start singing the opening theme to Disney's Sleeping Beauty "Hail to the Princess Aurora!" Yum.

Aaaand a not-so-successful dotticure using Zoya Storm. Storm was okay, but not nearly as pretty as my favorite of the collection, Blaze. Not enough sparkle for me. So of course I went overboard and sparkled that shit up. I think I used Jade Mystic Gold and Urban Outfitters Green Holo for the dots. Got tipwear super-fast on this one, but wear time was pretty good for Aurora and Blaze.

If you like old, sorta gramma-y nail polishes, I suggest hitting up your local Dollar Tree! I found some ooold two packs of Almay nail polishes, mostly pinks and mauves and frosts but some had a really cool hidden shimmer. This light beige-y color is called Dusk and it has a pretty coppery pink shimmer. Of course I bedazzled it with Essie Shine of the Times and an accent of Layla Mermaid's Spell.

And that's the end of today's nail journey. I hope to be back soon with more pics of my nail exploits, but my new nursing classes must take priority! Thanks for reading :)

Long time no see... Spam

Hello there all you lovelies! October was one hell of a crazy month for me. I just couldn't get myself to sit down and edit some nail pics. But there are a few layering combos and Halloween manis that I really enjoyed, and would love to share with you all!

First up is Butter London Wallis. I wore a bunch of these olive-y greens in October, and got compliments every time! I was pretty surprised because I wouldn't have thought that this murky green would be appreciated by anyone other than nail nerds like us. Of course Wallis is gorgeous, just look at that warm green/gold shimmery goodness.

Now this mani was inspired by someone's combo on MUA who used Wet n Wild Creepy Pumpkin over black. I wanted to kick it up a notch, so I did one coat of Creepy Pumpkin over two coats of an Essence navy jelly. The sparkle was gorgeous and had a gold to green shift! And I stamped a pumpkin on top from the second Bundle Monster set for fun.

And next up, Nubar Raspberry Truffle with Orly Godiva glitter on top. I loved this mani soooo much. Depending on the lighting, it could look more brown or purple in the base, but I loved the contrast with the pinky/gold shimmer and the bronze-y brown glitter in Godiva. It was twinkly and subtle but awesome. I hadn't worn this Nubar for like, two years, and I'm super glad I pulled it out, it's lovely!

And this was my day after election celebration mani. This is a franken that I made using a pink shimmer Sinful, and then loose matte yellow and orange squares, raspberry small shimmer, and orange hexes. Mmmm. Juicy. Then I added OPI Take the Stage tips because I had horrible shrinkage from Poshe topcoat.  Very cheerful mani. Me likey.

And my mani for election day, featuring China Glaze Ride the Waves, Revlon Slipper gitter, and the starry Kleancolor. This was a thick non drying mess, but I loved the final result. Sparkly! And I like the contrast between the red glitter in Slipper and the blue base.

Speaking of election day, the voting process is completely messed up. It took me and my friend three + hours of waiting in line at the first polling place, being told we didn't exist in the system and had therefor never  registered... Well guess what, I have voted in every presidential election since I was legal, and they're telling me I didn't exist. So they told us to go to a different school that matched a previous address of mine. Got there, still not found, still not allowed to vote, provisional or otherwise. Had one of the election helpers call their voting masters and they told me to go back to the original school. OH THE RAGE. It is ridiculously hard to carry out your civic duty when the voting gods are against you. But the original school did let me vote provisionally, but it was so frustrating. Anyways, here's my mani!

Fall-o-ween Franken

It's the most wonderful time of the year! I'm busting out the Halloween manis as early as possible this year, since my collection of Halloween polishes is bordering on the ridiculous (-ly awesome). I wanted to show you all my franken that's based on an old China Glaze polish that was a Sally's Beauty exclusive, Spellbound. I was never able to get a bottle of Spellbound, so I made one! Of course it's not exact, but it's close enough for me. I just mixed a little of a Sally's silver glitter mini polish with an LA Girl Addict Flamboyant polish. Shown here is two coats over Maybelline Cool Couture.

Fall-o-ween!

Hare Afterglow on steroids

I finally got my first Hare polish! I picked Afterglow because all the other ones seemed to have a lot of the same glitters in them with different base colors. But Afterglow is just gorgeous. It has a deep blue jelly base, slightly dusty, with purple microglitter and pink, purple, and orange small glitter hexes. I do wish it had more of a variety of sizes of glitter, but other than that, I like it!

The formula was a little on the thick side, but no more so than some of my other indie polishes, easier to spread than most. The glitter didn't always disperse evenly however, so I did end up having to do four coats to get a good opacity and glitter spread. Also, the blue base seemed to kind of grey out the glitter under the surface of the blue, so you don't get that awesome jelly sandwich effect that you usually get from these types of polish.

So being me, I had to glitter this suckah up! I layered a coat of Kleancolor Chunky Holo Bluebell as well as a layer of my franken green to red color shifting shimmer topcoat. Enjoy!

Sexy beast! I actually wore this for two days!

Sunday Night Spam! Franken, a China Glaze Bohemian and a German OPI

Here's a little catch up spam I've been saving for you all. Work has been totally insane lately and when I get home, all I want to do is pass out. But I have been doing my nails. So first up is a franken I made using Revlon Royal, clear, suspension base, and Spectraflair powder. This swatch is two coats over Essie No More Film.

And this next mani I wore all of five minutes. Chromes seem to be impossible for me to apply without serious bubbling and brush-strokiness. China Glaze Deviantly Daring is one of the less duochromatic colors in the China Glaze Bohemian collection, but I think it's still a pretty color. This is two coats and one coat of Poshe. 

OPI Every Month is Oktoberfest.. .how I wanted you to be more magical. In the bottle it is fantastic! Purple-red shimmer in a deep navy base. On the nail it looks almost black unless it's in direct sunlight.*sigh* This is two coats with one coat of Poshe. Easy to apply, and one of the easiest cleanups I've ever done on a vampy. Definitely a gorgeous formula. 

My goal is to franken this with OPI Germanicure and red to green shifting pigment to make something awesome similar to OPI La Boheme.

I know, a lot of pictures, but I was hoping to catch some magic!

Franken - Inner Space w/ Cherimoya Electric Heaven

Hello all! Someone on Makeup Alley once posted a franken similar to this one, with the instruction of Orly Space Cadet + white nail polish. How easy is that? And how gorgeous is the result??? Smooth jellified dusty green/teal with coppery pink shimmer. I love this so much! I named my version Inner Space.

 And then I topped it with Cherimoya Electric Heaven for some extra sparkle. Ugh, I loved this mani so much.

Hope you enjoyed! :)

Franken Funky French + stamped

In honor of Lancome's new fragrance "La vie est belle," I made a franken inspired by the perfume's box. Unfortunately I couldn't get a good picture, but the box is white with a layer of red iridescent and yellow and green iridescent glitters, and then the edges of the box are a holographic copper. Awesome! The fragrance itself is a little heavy for me, but I hope it does well (so people will buy it at my counter, lol.)

The franken I made is just a white jelly base with red to green color shifting glitter and mini iridescent yellow/green glitter with a dash of spectra flair. Most of that wouldn't translate to pictures, but here you go! I did two coats of my franken over three coats of a creme jelly, then I added a funky french with OPI DS Vintage, to represent the coppery holo edges on the perfume box.

Please ignore the bubbles, me and white polishes don't get along.

And theeeen, because you know I can't leave anything alone, I added a fauxnad stamp using Sally Hansen Magical Nail Makeup in Mystical Mandarin and stamp number m20 from the Mash set.