Aqua Floral Stamping Mani

I just can not seem to let summer go..all I want to do is use bright colors. Is that wrong? I played around with one of my favorite techniques..sponging. I love layering different colors over top of one another. It gives it this tie dye appeal I feel like. My aqua stamping polish from Mundo de Unas was just calling my name so I figured what better color to put it over then purple. I laid down my darker purple first before I went in an sponged on the lighter color. To give a little more depth I sponged the darker color on top as well. Finished it off by stamping then adding top coat.

Polished used: Duri Rejuvacote, China Glaze Lotus begin, Color Club Pucci-licous

Stamping plate: Ga30 with Mundo de unas #24 aqua

Top coat: Inm Out the door(after purple polishes)and G;isten and Glow Hk girl

Hope you all are having a wonderful day!

-Samantha

Frenchie Sea Shell Mani

Without top coat on accent nails

I want to apologize for being a little random with my postings lately. I am working on something new and exciting so it is taking more of my time than I had thought. I'll be sharing it soon, I just have a few more kinks to work out. Now enough blabbing on with the nails.

Without top coat on accent nails

Polishes used: Duri Rejuvacote, Opi's My dogsled is a hybrid, China Glaze Teal the tide turns(accent nails,) Opi's Black Oynx for tips

Stamping plate: Mo-You London Sailor #04 with Konad Black

Top coat:Inm Out the door

Without top coat on accent nails

Top coat on all

Top coat on all

As you can see unfortunately my black smudged. I am continuing to have that problem with my Konad black. I think it is time to find a different black stamping polish.

Hope you all are having a wonderful day!

-Samantha

Orchid Skittle Mani

Polishes Used:

Duri Rejuvacote

Color Color Poptastic

Opi Eurso Euro

Rica Whiteout

Mundo de Unas #55 Orchid

Glisten and Glow Hk Girl

Plates used:

Mo You London Sailor #04

Mo You London Pro #07

 

 

China Glaze The Giver Polishes

I'm sorry for the lack of posts lately. We had company staying with us and that made it impossible to do anything Nail related. Thanks for sticking with me. Now on to the polish.  I picked up a few of the colors from the new The Giver collection from China Glaze the other day while I was in Sally's. Unfortunately they didn't have all of them so I picked a few that appealed to me.

 First up is Friends Forever Right? It is this very light pastel pink. It borderlines white with a pink tone and an actual pink color. I happen to really like how it looks with my skin tone. The formula was streaky on the first coat but after the second it evened out. This will be great as a base for nail art.

Up next is New Birth. It's pretty much the blue version of Ffr? It does have a slight grey pull to it but I happen to like it. Once again formula was streaky until second coat. I don't have anything like this in my collection.

 Release is quite possibly my favorite out of the whole set. To me it has so many different subtle undertones. It's a mauve, purple, grey mix. It's hard to really label it. Unlike the others the formula on this was superb. I used two coats but the first one was pretty opaque on it's own. I want to put this on my toes immediately.

Capacity to See Beyond is a bright turquoise color. I have been wanting to acquire a turquoise for a while so I figured why not go for this one. It kills me to say the formula was the worst on this one. The pigmentation almost seemed to separate from the base liquid. I had to really shake to get it to mix back together and even then it went on super streaky. I had such high hopes for this color and while it looks great on the nail it takes a lot to get it presentable.

Up last we have Boundary of Memory. This bad boy is gorgeous for fall. To me it just screams Halloween. It is not like your other typical glitters. Bom is made up of tiny mini glitters. They range in color from brown's to black. It is a very opaque glitter. With two careful coats you can completely cover your nail, eliminating a need for a base color. I will warn you though when you go to take this off be prepared for a fight. Even after I used a nail brush to scrub my fingers I still have little glitters stuck in places like under my cuticle. Also when applying the polish I noticed you had to be really light handed or the brush would push the glitter creating a bald patch.

A closer look at the size of the glitter

Overall I think that the formula of the colors I got is what I have become to expect from China Glaze. Sadly I don't mean that in a good way. These are not beginner friendly. You have to float the brush over your nail to avoid having bald patches and streaks. With that being said I think the colors are unique and worth the extra effort. There isn't a single one that I will say that is just too much of a hassle to use. I am looking forward to using these in upcoming looks.

Please excuse my swatches this week. Not painting for a few days seems to have thrown me off my game completely.

Hope you all are having a wonderful day.

-Samantha

Euro Cherry Blossoms

Words can not express how beyond THRILLED I am with this look. I love the look of a navy blue with a bright pink. It is such a great contrast in colors that it somehow makes both colors really pop.

My love affair with my Mo-You London plates is still going strong. This is using Pro plate #07. I have the hardest time right now even looking at any other plates. What can I say they are one of the best for a reason.

I started with my beautiful blue which is Opi's Eurso Euro. It has the ability to be both bright at dark at the same time. Which makes no sense I know but just look at it. I stamped it using Mundo de Unas pink stamping polish #55 Orchid.

As it is 3 am it is probably best that I turn in for the night.

Hope you all are having a wonderful day or night where you are.

-Samantha

Shark Fin Nails

I won't say a lot about these but I just had to share my nails for Shark Week. Everyone is doing the same look with a open mouth shark. I kind of wanted to do something a little dark and not the norm.

When I googled shark fins I came across a few photos where it had just the fin visible with a nighttime background. Instantly I knew it was something I wanted to try.

My sharks are the white tipped sharks. I like how they have this white little cap on top of their fin. The great white will forever be my favorite thanks to Jaws but for the sake of this look I wanted to do a lesser known shark.

Each nail shows less and less fin, it is supposed to look like the shark is submerging underwater. The look didn't quite turn out how I had imagined in my head but it is pretty darn close considering this was my first attempt.

With glossy topcoat

It is hard to explain what I did to achieve this look. I went back and forth with Color Club's Bell Bottom Babe and Opi's Eurso Euro with a sponge to get this night sky/water look. The rest was all acrylic paint. Once done I added a regular topcoat to seal in everything but I decided it would look better matte.

Polishes used: Duri Rejuvacote, Opi Eurso Euro, and Color Club Bell Bottom Babe as base colors
Top coats: Inm Out the Door and Essie Matte About You

Hope you all are having a wonderful day

-Samantha

Whimsical Tangerine

As soon as I saw the bottle for Rica's Squishy Tangerine I knew that it would be the first polish I would use for nail art. I didn't want to do anything that would take away from the color of the polish itself.

After I scrolled through all of my stamping plates I decided to go with my tried and true Winstonia 2nd generation collection.

While stamping I tried to tilt the dandelion more and more with each nail. I like how it looks like they are floating down from the air.

Polishes used: Duri Rejuvacote and Rica Squishy Tangerine as base colors
Stamping: Plates W205 and W212 with Rica White Out
Top Coat: Inm Out the Door

Hope you all are having a wonderful day.

-Samantha

Rica Squishy Rainbow Collection Part 2

Today I am posting the second set of colors from the new Squishy Rainbow collection by Rica. You can see my first posting here. The first set I posted were all in the reddish family. Today is a bit more random.

Hands down Squishy Tangerine is my favorite color from this collection. As soon as I saw the bottle I just could not wait to apply it. It is this gorgeous peachy shade. I liked it both with 3 coats on it's own and over the white base. I will definitely be doing some nail art with this.

Squishy Lime surprisingly has this microshimmer to it. I was not expecting it since all but one other are plain. I haven't really decided if I like it or not. This polish is amazing over the white base. It turns it into this bright pastel shade of green. It will be great for leaves or stems using the leadlight technique. It is pretty bright on it's own with 3 coats.

Squishy Blueberry is really the only one that I felt like if it didn't go over white that it was pretty hard to see. Even with using 3 coats it is pretty sheer. You could possibly build it up a little bit more with a few additional coats.

Squishy Lemon is the other color that has a microshimmer to it. It is so faint you wouldn't see it unless you had it under bright light. Lemon is the most opaque color out of the bunch. You can see looking at how much pay off you get with just one coat. This is another one that I both like it on it's own as well as over white. For some reason I really want to use this to paint pineapples. I foresee that mani in the near future.

Like I mentioned in my previous post the formulas on these are very different from your typical jelly polishes. They are thicker which allows you to have better control of where you apply it, resulting in less flooding of your cuticles.

I did use my usual Duri Rejuvacote base coat but I left off a top coat. They have a very nice gloss on their own. I would recommend using one just to prolong your mani.

Unfortunately right now the collection as a whole is sold out but you can still buy individual polishes. Be sure to periodically check out her store for when they are available again. If you are a big fan of jelly/tinted topcoat type polishes you really need to get your hands on these.

Hope you all are having a great day.

-Samantha

Rica Squishy Rainbow Collection Part 1

As soon as I saw that @justricarda was going to be selling a new line of jelly like polishes I knew it was time for me to order from her. I had been eyeballing her white and black polishes for a while but I kept talking myself out of it for some reason. She describes them on her website as "This squishy/jelly polish is NOT opaque in one coat. They will not work for stamping. This polish is like a sheer tint that looks squishy/jelly when you put a few coats on it." They are great if you are looking to do a jelly sandwich or something like the leadlight technique were you just tint your polish. She has swatches on her page of them on a nail wheel. I wanted to show what they looked like on real life nails. Each pictures shows the polish applied once, twice, three times, and over white to give you an idea of what they look like once built up. Now on to the swatches.

 First up we have Squishy Strawberry. It is a very accurate name. It is a sheer strawberry like color. This would be perfect to use over a floral stamping image. Please excuse my white unevenness. It took me a few tries to get use to the consistency of the white polish. I will be doing a full review of her white polish as well.

Next up is Squishy Grape. This is my second favorite color from this collection. I actually prefer it as 3 coats on it's own instead of over the white. Maybe if I had done two coats over the white it would be a little brighter. This color makes me want a popsicle.

Squishy Plum is a very rare color. I have only seen a very few sheer darker colors like this one. I did not see a lot of difference between 2 coats and 3. Over white I feel like it changed the tone of the polish. I would probably say use this on it's own like the grape one.

I broke this collection up into two posts. I wanted to put the reddish tones in the first one and I will do the more random colors in the next post. Overall I have to say that I am very pleased with this collection. I do want to praise the formula of these. With it being a thicker polish you can go in with a heavier coat then normal and not worry about flooding your cuticles. I had to do very little clean up due to having such control over the polish actually applied. I have quite a few jelly polishes and they all tend to be a bit watery.

I did use my usual Duri Rejuvacote base coat but I left off a top coat. They have a very nice gloss on their own. I would recommend using one just to prolong your mani.

Hope you all are having a wonderful day.

-Samantha