It's about time...

It's been soooo long since I posted. I finally got around to doing a "fancy" manicure.  This is a base of China Glaze "Agent Lavender" with the mesh stamped in "Sci Fi" and the flower in Konad Special polish in dark purple.  I find the Khromes ("Sci Fi" is one of them) from China Glaze so awesome for stamping!

Do you like how it looks to layer two different patterns on top of each other?

Lightning Bolt Crackle

I went to Sally's this week, just in time to grab a few of the only bottles of China Glaze's crackle collection that they got in stock. Sadly, these collections come out later in Canada than in the U.S., and they seem to be in short supply.

I used the white crackle called "Lightning Bolt" and though I've seen great swatches on other blogs, I was a bit disappointed with this polish. I applied it over Sally Hansen's "Grass Slipper" and it turned out looking yellow or light green instead of staying true white.  I'll have to give it another shot over other base colours to see if I can get it to stay looking white.

In the end, the effect looks cool, but I wanted it to look true white. I even applied a second coat of it after the first coat finished cracking, but it still appears yellow. The bottle I got seemed really watery too.

So far I like the Barry M special effects crackle polish I have in black much better than China Glaze's version, but I would still like to experiment a bit more with this polish and also try some of the other crackle polishes by China Glaze before I give up on them.

Has anybody else had this problem?

Glitter for glitterM

It's been too long since I posted. I have had many manicures but have been too busy to photograph them!

Anyhow...here's the mani I've been wearing for the past few days, and it has held up really well!  I layered 2 coats of Sally Hansen Hard As Nails Xtreme Wear in "Rockstar Pink" over 1 coat of China Glaze "Grape Pop".  A coat of Seche Vite QDTC helped smooth out the texture and bring out the bling!

I don't usually like layering polishes, but I really like how this turned out. The glitter on its own is too transparent for my taste, even though it is densely packed with pink, blue and gold glitter.  I love how it looks over the purple base.  In sunlight it is truly dazzling, but these photos were taken with indoor lighting.