Seize the Sparkle

Rather than just stick to one sparkly element, I decided to combine a bunch of my favorite sparkly things into one manicure. Glitter, ultrachrome flakies, sparkly gradients, and water spotting. Consider this my official Christmas manicure...  Polishes Used:  1 Coat Fingerpaints Smooth Over Ridge Filler Essie Leggy Legend KBShimmer Owl Miss You Orly Gossip Girl Pahlish Autumn People Pahlish Gumdrop Rooftop 2 Coats SinfulColors Clear Coat 1 Coat Seche Vite Guys, I'm seriously drooling over my nails right now. I love how these skittles turned out! And yes... I actually did manage to water spot my nails and live to write about it!  To start out this mani, I painted two coats of Leggy Legend onto my left ring finger, my right thumb, and my right ring finger. All of the other nails got 4 coats of KBShimmer Owl Miss You.  For my water spotted nails, (left middle, left thumb, and right middle) I applied a coat of Seche Vite over Owl Mis

As another year comes to a close, I've found myself reminiscing, reviewing, and recapping. It's hard for me to imagine just how many new nail polishes that hit the market in any given year. Thousands? Hundreds of Thousands? I'd love to know the actual number!  Nail polish trends change so quickly from season to season, and they also vary between brands. For every traditional collection out there, you can almost always expect a random collection with colors that we all love, but aren't really seasonal. In addition to experimenting with colors, there's also experimenting with different finishes. From bar glitter and contrasting shimmer to textured and holographic glitter, we've seen a lot of variation in 2015! Out of all those polishes, only a select few really get the nail world buzzing. And so much can happen over the course of 12 months! Gel polishes really became a thing, two popular brands went out of business, and a PR nightmare resulted in a huge c

When I first saw Autumn People by Pahlish, it was love at first sight. So, when Pahlish announced their December Monthly Duo Confectioner's Castle would feature a multichrome topper... I knew I had to have it. It was the only nail polish related purchase I made during Black Friday weekend.  Surprising, huh?  Since the two of these polishes came together, that's the way I decided to showcase them first. Pahlish Gumdrop Rooftop over Gingerbread Baker...  Polishes Used:  1 Coat Fingerpaints Smooth Over Ridge Filler 3 Coats Pahlish Gingerbread Baker 2 Coats Pahlish Gumdrop Rooftop 2 Coats SinfulColors Clear Coat 1 Coat Seche Vite This is the second time I've order from Pahlish, but the first time that I've taken part in a Pre-Order. To say that I was anxiously awaiting the arrival of the Confectioner's Castle Duo is probably the understatement of the year. With Holiday shipping in full swing, the tracking didn't upda

Wet n Wild Color Icon Collections usually make me stop in my tracks. Aaaand then proceed to buy every polish on the display. This year, I showed tremendous restraint and only purchased two. But I've been eyeballing what's left every time I walk by the display.  Los Feliz Navidad has a huge sparkle factor, and that's what initially drew me in. But then I noticed the gorgeous slightly purple blue color and gold sparkles. It looked familiar, but I bought it anyway because I was curious about the formula. I'm definitely glad I picked this one up, because it is a gorgeous glitterbomb of a shade, perfect for this time of the year!  sunlight natural light natural light natural light natural light sunlight Polishes Used:  1 Coat Fingerpaints Smooth Over Ridge Filler 3 Coats Wet n Wild Color Icon Los Feliz Navidad 1 Coat Orly Gossip Girl 1 Coat Wet n Wild Color Icon Los Feliz Navidad 2 Coats SinfulColors Clear Coat 1 Coat Seche

In retrospect, 2015 has been quite a year. Lots of growth and changes, both personally and on the Blog! Growth is something that I actively strive for, and in April of this year, I finally joined a Facebook group for nail bloggers, Hobby Polish Bloggers. It's a great group of women who genuinely support each other and I'm really proud to be a member.  So, when it was time to sign up for the HPB Secret Santa, of course I wanted to participate! Melissa turned out to be my Secret Santa, and when my package arrived on Friday, I couldn't wait to tear into it!!! Fleece Navidad made it onto my nails first, then last night, I added accents of Whole Lava Lovin' for a look that reminds me of candy canes...  Polishes Used:  1 Coat Fingerpaints Smooth Over Ridge Filler 4 Coats KBShimmer Fleece Navidad 4 Coats KBShimmer Whole Lava Lovin' 1 Coat SinfulColors Clear Coat 1 Coat Seche Vite Now, I know that candy canes are white and not hologra

When it comes to nail art, I'm generally a simpler is better kind of girl. Mainly because I'm not an artist. But that hasn't stopped me from accumulating a whole bunch of nail art tools, most of which are dotting tools. This particular kind of dot manicure is one that I've wanted to try for a while now. So, I put a little festive Holiday spin on it... Polishes Used:  1 Coat Fingerpaints Smooth Over Ridge Filler 4 Coats SinfulColors Nirvana China Glaze Glittering Garland China Glaze Holly-Day China Glaze Pointsettia China Glaze Ravishing Dahling! 1 Coat Seche Vite In my head, I pictured this as more of a gradient dot manicure. It didn't exactly turn out that way. I also thought that Nirvana would be a great base for my Christmas dots. Looking at my photos, it's a little dark and cool. While Nirvana is a bit warmer in person, I wish I would've chosen a lighter polish for this nail art. I think that would've made all th

Happy Saturday! Since the beginning of December, snowflakes have been bombarding my feeds on Instagram and Bloglovin '. So I finally caved and painted stamped some snowflakes on my own nails. Sadly, with the tropical heat wave hitting the East Coast right now, these little flakes are probably the closest thing to real snow that I'm going to see for a while... Polishes Used:  1 Coat Fingerpaints Smooth Over Ridge Filler 2 Coats Essie Haute Tub Bundlemonster Plate BM-H01 SinfulColors Snow Me White  1 Coat Seche Vite So, in addition to the lack of snow, there was a lack of sunshine on the day I painted and photographed these nails. It was a gray, rainy, stay-inside-under-the-covers kind of day.  I would love to say that's the reason why Essie Haute Tub appears to look black, rather than the lovely navy blue with purple to gold shimmer that you see in the bottle. Sadly, this is just one of those shimmers that doesn't translate as brillia

Okay... so you had to know this one was coming! Thanks to today's Fishbowl Friday prompt of CHINA GLAZE ... it's happening even sooner than anticipated!!! And yes, that is actually the prompt this week. I was a little bit confused last week. But no worries! just a lovely Christmas Seriotype that is overflowing with glitter... natural light natural light natural light sunlight natural light sunlight Polishes Used: 1 Coat Fingerpaints Smooth Over Ridge Filler China Glaze Glittering Garland China Glaze Holly-Day China Glaze Mingle with Kringle China Glaze Pointsettia China Glaze Ravishing Dahling! China Glaze Twinkle Lights Pahlish Autumn People SinfulColors Holiday Rebel 2 Coats SinfulColors Clear Coat 1 Coat Seche Vite Has it really been over a month since my last Seriotype? Almost two months?!? WHAT?!? How in the world did that even happen? Probably something to do with NaNoWriMo... Going into the 12 Manicures of Christmas, I want