Happy Easter!

  What better time than Easter Weekend to rock a fun pastel skittles mani?  Unfortunately it makes me wish I had some candy in the house, since they look like little candy-coated Easter chocolates.  Oh well.  :)

Outdoors, overcast

  For this mani I used the following colors, from thumb to pinky: China Glaze Re-Fresh Mint, Essie Lilacism, Orly Lemonade, China Glaze Kinetic Candy, and OPI Pink Friday.  I used Konad Special White stamping polish and plates BM-211 (flowers) and m19 (tips) to add the designs.  I topped each nail off with a coat of China Glaze Fairy Dust for a slight touch of holographic glitter and was done!

Close-up for detail

  Hope everybody has a fabulous Easter weekend!

Fowl Play

  I am sure most of you know this polish well by now, as it has been out for quite awhile and received a lot of hype a few months ago for being a close-but-not-quite-dupe to OPI Merry Midnight.  However, I was finally able to get my hands on it and now it is time to add my own pictures to the collective, haha.  Besides, it is hard to see too much of this one, in my opinion.  :)  This is one of those polishes I definitely recommend giving a click on the pictures to see up close!

Outdoors, natural light

  Orly Fowl Play is from their Birds of a Feather Fall 2011 collection.  It is a sheer deep purple base full of all kinds of goodies - silvery and bright blue microglitter as well as red flakies with a gorgeous green-gold flash.  There is so much going on in this polish, it is just stunning!  This was three thin coats and it had really nice application.  Below you can see a bit more of the flash in the flakies.

Outdoors, natural light

Indoors, artificial light

  I had been lemming OPI Merry Midnight for a long time, but this took care of that problem for me - even if it is not a dead-on dupe it is really darned close.  I am really glad I finally was able to add this one to my collection!

Vinyl Nails

  I have had this polish for over a year now, and as gorgeous as it is, I have put off using it due to my general lack of ability in applying mattes nicely.  However, I decided it was finally time to give this pretty a go!

Outdoors, shade

Outdoors, sun

  This is two coats of Orly Viridian Vinyl, a matte turqouise polish.  It is a bit shinier than traditional matte, and really does have a vinyl sort of finish.  I really loved the effect of the finish.  I did get a couple of bumps, most likely due to my inexperience at applying these super-fast drying matte polishes, but overall it was fairly smooth.  I also wore this without topcoat, and although I only wore it for a couple of days, I was pleased with the wear in those days.  I'm glad I finally tried it out, and now I am looking forward to trying a few more mattes I have been saving in my stash.  I also finally ordered a matte top coat, and am really excited to play with that!

Layering with Nfu-Oh 55

  Ever since I saw my first swatches of Nfu-Oh flakies, I have been kind of obsessing about getting my hands on some.  Becky got me a gorgeous one for Christmas and I got to play with it a couple of weeks ago!

Outdoors, shade

  Since I had seen on a couple of other blogs that this polish was fairly sheer, I decided to play with layering on this one.  I started off with two coats of Orly It's Up To Blue, a shimmery turquoise.  I then added two coats of Nfu-Oh 55, which is a great sheer green full of gold flakies.  I love this combination together!  It reminds me maybe of a mermaid.. or something along those lines.  This was just gorgeous, and I got a lot of compliments on it!

Indoors, artificial light

  After a couple of days of wear, I was ready for something a bit different... but still not done enjoying this combo!  So I tried something new, and randomly slapped little pieces of blue painter's tape on my nails, painting the exposed areas with China Glaze Little Drummer Boy.  Unfortunately all I have is this late night picture in kind of crappy indoor lighting, so it looks almost black instead of pretty dark blue.  I thought the blue looked nice with the combo I already had on, and the random design was kind of fun.  I may try something like this again in the future.

  I am loving my very first Nfu-Oh, I think I am going to have to get me some more of these pretties! :)

Space Beetle? Orly Space Cadet vs Hard Candy Beetle

  A couple of weeks ago Becky got a bit of a Hard Candy haul.  One of these polishes was Beetle, which looked very, very familiar to me... we decided we had to do a comparison!

Orly Space Cadet and Hard Candy Beetle

  As I am sure most of you are aware, Orly Space Cadet was one of the most popular and unique polishes from the fall Cosmic FX line.  Now Hard Candy Beetle seems to be a dupe in the bottle - so we tested it out to see if it could hold up to Space Cadet's amazing duochrome shine on the nail!  These were done on Becky's nails.

One coat each

  Above, you can see one thin coat of each polish, showing that they share the same greenish base color and very similar looks glittery shine.  So far, these are looking pretty similar to me!  I continued to add thin coats, coming up with a grand total of four coats of each polish - opacity continued to be the same for the two brands.

Outdoors, shade

Indoors, artificial light, no flash

  As you can see, both polishes share the same amazing duochrome effect, looking pink at one angle and a greenish gold the next.  Application and finish were the same on each.  I feel safe in declaring these two polishes dupes!  I still absolutely love this color, it is a great one!  So, if you had a hard time getting your hands on Space Cadet, I suggest you go find yourself some Hard Candy Beetle!  That being said, if you do already own one, you definitely do not need the other.  This worked out well for Becky and I, because she has been wanting to borrow my Space Cadet for some time now.. :)  To check out my full review of Space Cadet, click HERE.  More Hard Candy polishes coming up soon...

  *Edit: Changed the name to Space Beetle, sorry Becky.  It is better anyway.  :)

  Also, there are only two days left to get your entries in for my second giveaway!  If you have not entered already, I suggest you do it fast! :)

Click Here To Enter

Purple Mist and Swirls- Older Konadicures

I realized today that I never got around to showing you my nails, or my sister's toenails, from when I was down visiting last week!  So tonight I will share these with you.

Outdoors, partial sun, no flash

This is three coats of OPI The Color to Watch, a gorgeous shimmery lilac purple.  I really love this color a lot; it is very pretty on the nail.  The application and dry time was very nice as well.  Over this, I used Konad plate m64 with Nicole by OPI Positive Energy, which I have found to be a great stamping silver.  I was still experimenting with Konad here, and on this mani was trying to find the perfect scraping strength to apply to get the best results.  Therefore, the Konad is a little messy here since it was all experimental.  But still I found that this looked very pretty, and was a delicate wispy pattern and color combo.  I enjoyed it a lot!

I also did my sister's toes while I was visiting.  Toes are harder with Konad, since there is no way that the pattern is going to fit on a big toe (at least not any of the people I have tried so far!) so you have to put the pattern on multiple times.  I think for the most part this worked out for me, although there is a tiny bit of a gap.

Indoors, artificial light, no flash

Outdoors, partial sun, no flash

For her toes, I used three coats of Orly Out Of This World (two probably would have sufficed), which is a gorgeous dark purple with duochrome effect.  The duochrome in this polish is less than with Space Cadet, but it is still very gorgeous.  It is harder to get pictures of, especially on toes, and with the Konad pattern - I will be using it on my nails soon, I am sure!  I used Konad plate m65 with Konad Special White for the pattern, which I mostly got lined up on that big toe!  This was done very late at night when I was very tired as well, so it is a tad more messy than usual, but oh well!  Overall some very cute toes.  I am sure she is probably still wearing these.  :)

Don't forget to enter my giveaway if you haven't already (see below)!  Thanks to those who have entered so far.  I have some really great ideas for some larger, multi-winner giveaways in the future if I get more followers as well, so spread the word, I really appreciate it!

Orly Sweet Marbling

Today I was excited to try water marbling for the first time.  I also was thrilled to find the Orly Sweet collection still hanging around my Ulta - I have been looking for it for several weeks now!

Outdoors, partial shade, no flash

For this manicure, I first used my base coat of NailTek, followed by a coat of Sally Hansen Xtreme White On, to give the colors a nice base to go onto.  Then I used Orly Lemonade, Orly Snowcone, and Orly Pixy Stix for my marbling colors, and topped it off with two coats of Seche Vite.

Sweet!

Colors in the water

The water marbling process was fun, although a little (or a lot) messy.  I did get a few bubbles on my nails, which I am not quite sure how to get rid of (advice welcome, of course).  I also don't really have any sort of coherent pattern on the nails, it is just whatever I ended up with.  I may try for a bit more of a pattern next time I marble.  Another thing I noticed, and that you can see in the pictures, is that the application was a bit weird over my silk-and-glue bandage on my middle finger.  You can see quite a lot of white showing through there. However, I think it was a decent first attempt at marbling.

Outdoors, full sun, no flash

I also LOVE these colors!  I know it is a bit pastel for going into fall, but I was just super excited to give them a try.  Besides, sometimes a bit of springtime can be cheerful and fun, even if it is not currently "in season," heh.  I think these colors are very cute together.

What do you guys think?  Do you like it?  Any water marbling tips from the experts?

ALSO - I bought the polish for my very first giveaway today, and I will be posting it very soon (tonight or tomorrow).  It will be followers only, and if you are already a follower when I post it you will automatically get an extra entry if you sign up!  :)

Orly Cosmic FX Space Cadet

Time for my very first actually polish post!  Today I have for you one of the polishes from Orly's new Cosmic FX collection, Space Cadet.

Orly Space Cadet, 4 coats plus top coat - Outdoors, shade, no flash

Space Cadet is a green polish that is full of pink/gold duochrome foil.  This color is AMAZING!  There are so many possible colors to see in this polish.  The majority of the time I would say it is either a pinkish/purple color or a nice warm golden color, but you can also see warm pink, copper, bronze, and even the green of the base showing through.  This is one of those polishes you will just stare at on your nails.  Unfortunately, it is difficult to photograph, so these pictures may not be the best ever to show off the true effects of the polish, but it is stunning!  My mom actually asked me last night "What color is it supposed to be?  Pink?  Green?  Gold?  Purple?"  To which I replied "All of them!"

Here you can see more of the pink effects (Shade, no flash)

Here you can see more of the gold effects (Indoors, no flash)

This was my first Orly polish, as well.  Up until now, I have always used almost exclusively OPI (and Nicole by OPI), as well as a few Sally Hansen.  I am branching out!  I used 4 coats for full coverage, but it was fairly opaque in three coats.  I used Nailtek I as a base and OPI Fast Dry top coat.  I was very pleased with the application!  It went on nice and smooth with fairly fast drying time.




Overall this is a gorgeous polish, and as far as I am concerned, the big superstar of the Cosmic FX collection.  It is truly duochrome, and constantly changing with the slightest movement of your hands.  I also purchased Out Of This World from this collection, and hope to buy Lunar Eclipse soon - you will be seeing those reviews shortly!