St Patricks themed Crackle nails

So tomorrow is st. Patricks Day, Which means I have to work at my moms bar, hang out with lots of friends and family and drink like a fish work my but off and hopefully make some Money!

So in honor of tomorrow, today I decided to do a green with green glitter under white crackle, just to see how it would look. It looks great, except that I always think when I use any of my crackle nail polishes my nails look dirty. I guess I like solid colors and shiney nails more than anything. I put American Apparel's Hunter as a base color, (over my base coat of course!) then I put Butter London's Henley Regatta on top, which is a green glittery amazing polish. And over that I put China Glaze's white crackle nail polish, and Tada!

I must say that although this crackle looks messy, I get complimented on it every day, girls always want to know how I did it, and where to buy the polish, so if your thinking about it but cant find it anywhere, look at sally beauty stores and Amazon. I bought my six pack of China Glaze crackle there.

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China Glaze Crackle nail polish!

So I ordered all six of the crackle China Glaze polishes because after seeing swatches online I knew I had to have at least four of them- but they ended up being cheaper if I bought them all. I must say, maybe its because i'm exhausted from a long boring day, but I was disappointed! I don't like the way the polish crackles- Although its much easier to manipulate than Barry M or OPI. what I mean by this is that you can make it look different depending on how much crackle polish you put on. If you put on a thick coat of crackle , there won't be too many cracks, but they tend to be slightly bigger, revealing the underlaying color. If you put a scarce amount of polish, you will have more cracks throughout, and both colors will show almost equally on the nail. So yeah, i'm not really disapointed, i'm just exhausted. Here are some swatches, enjoy!

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Black Shatter vs. Barry M review

So my Saturday ritual has turned into making a big breakfast, then sitting around and attempting a fancy Water Marble or Konad Manicure. eventually I get tired and bored of repeatedly cleaning up and changing polish due to my extreme perfectionist demeanor. That being said, today I tried and tried to work a water marble and I did fairly well on my left thumb and index finger. Then I lost the magic. I REALLY need tips in doing this because I would do it every day if I could. I love water marbling so much. ugh. I also want to buy the proper Konad plates and polish so I can do a proper Konad design manicure. But alas I am broke.

So I decided that I would do a review comparing OPI's "black shatter" and Barry M's "Nail effects".Both have the same idea, black chunky crackle nail polish that allow for your base color to really come through. I put Barry M on my left hand and OPI's black shatter on my right. I used China glaze's electric blue called "Sexy in the City", and Finger paints electric blue glitter "Laugh my art off" as a layered base color. It looks AWESOME.

The result? well they are not the same polish by any means! Barry M's Nail effects give a chunky, almost fat square like chunks of the crackle, while OPI's black shatter gives longer squares, making your nails look longer because its like vertical stripes. The chunks in OPI aren't as fat, they are thinner and run up the nail.

Anway, enjoy!

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Vegan version of my Favorite color- Violet creme

When I was younger I would spend fifty dollars a week to get my tips filled and painted a creme violet color. A few weeks ago, I found the same color for $5 at a beauty store by me in Queens. My boss a few weeks before that day bought a few Spa Ritual nail colors, nail polish that is completely vegan, with no animal gelatin or anything like that. My boss keeps nail polish in her guest bedroom and this is one of the colors, its called Thunder Road. Its similar to my favorite Essie polish color - name to be updated- but its a slightly darker shade. Still a great creme that can be worn all day during the office, and can be spiced up w a shimmer or glitter on top, or even a crackle nail polish. Enjoy!

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Matesse Lapis- one of my fav Blues

I love Matesse. I love Rickys. And I love this color. This color really stands out on my nails and makes me feel pretty in one of the girliest ways I can think of. I like its color, tone and especially how it mutes shine slightly, which makes it a great, unique creme.

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Leprachaun & Watermelon nails

Today at work I loathed the mani I had on. I'm not going to say what brand it is, but its a reputable brand and last night in my exhaustion I failed my nails and didn't give a proper manicure, leaving my nails all smudged and polish everywhere. So I cleaned them up and realized I had some of those Love and Beauty stickers in my bag in GREEN. I will definitely rock this on st. Patricks day, but I had an hour to kill at work, so I went ahead and put them on. I know that they are three dollars, but they peel so easily and move around on the nail. Later on tonight I literally peeled them off and gave myself a watermelon manicure.

Watermelon mani- I saw this on some website somewhere but cannot find it for the life of me- but you can find different watermelon demos all over the internet so don't worry. Here are my simple instructions.

1. clean your nails, then put two coats of base coat. Then take a pink color ( I used OPI's too hot pink to hold em, because well its perfect). Paint this pink color on half, or on the tips of your nails if your blessed with long ones. Let dry completely

2. Take a nail art pen in white and draw a line underneath the pink you applied. Let dry

3. Take a nail art pen in green and draw a line underneath the white line you applied. Let dry

4. Take a nail art pen in black and draw a bunch of dots on the pink part to make them look like seeds. let dry

5. Take an acrylic or strong top coat and paint 2-3 coats, letting each coat dry completely. and your done~ Enjoy

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Konad Failure, Nail Tips

So the other day I tried, and tried, and tried to create a cool design using my ghetto konad image plates and stamp. I never seem to be able to get the polish quite right, so I'm seriously considering purchasing some things from their site, but I don't want to break the bank. I must have done my nails at least five times each, but I wasn't focused and by the end of it I was so tired I didn't know where my nails ended or began. Anyway, I googled some easy designs after that and decided to create a two color design, one side glitter and one side my favorite violet Essie shade. I painted my nails the whole color, then drew a diagonal line and painted from that upwards, diagonally dividing the nail into two colors, then I put glitter on the top color, and it actually didn't look that bad based on the fact that it took me five minutes.

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Konad nail design & more

Okay guys, I really want Konad nail polish & nail plates. They are up-the-wazoo expensive, but I think I may buy some polishes and plates anyway. Every time I try to use my nail polish on the design plates I own, it doesn't work because the polish wont stay on. So I realized I should try some of my 99 cent nail art pens/polishes and well, it wasn't half bad! The base coat here is 3 coats of OPI's Too hot pink to hold 'em. I used a baby blue nail design pen that I bought at a 99 cent store, but I know that tons of beauty supply stores sell these in any color, so I'm sure you can find them.

You can buy konad nail plates and knockoff ones on amazon.com. I don't have any actual konad plates because my ass is broke I haven't had the time, nor am I sure of which plates I want. The thing is, this manicure alone took me so long, and you really need a lot of materials, cotton balls, polish remover, q-tips, napkins, including whatever colors you want, your image plate(s) and the stamp and scraper. After each finger is done you must clean all your tools and do it again. Its fun- but by the end your finished, especially if you have made a mistake and need to start all over again. I had the OPI manicure on all day before and I didn't feel like changing polish, so I went ahead and put the design on top, which saved time, but with drying time and all that- your looking at one long manicure. That being sad, I love design nails, and thats why I love nail design stickers... so fast & easy.

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Subway spotting: black shatter done right

Its not often that I ask a random stranger to let me photograph their nails. Okay I lied. Anyway this girl knew what she was doing with black shatter, she contrasted it over an electric blue, which compliments her skintone and really stands out. I really liked the shape of her nails, and how well the over all manicure looked on her. I liked it so much that I asked her from across the subway car if I could snap a photo. Send me your photos if you ever want to be featured! Fioalways@aol.com

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OPI's texas collection-Sorbet/Jelly finish

so OPI is really rocking it in terms of nail styles and having the "it" colors and techniques in nails this year. First they come out with some banging glitter polishes in line with the Burlesque movie ( I love those polishes, LOVE them) then they teamed up w Katy Perry and created some killer shades and glitter polishes AND black shatter. Because of all these distractions, I actually didn't realize that they created some cool Jelly polishes in their texas collection. Jelly polishes are colors that are see-through, and really shiny, they may take a few coats to reach an opacity, or they may not, this finish, when mixed with a cool or poppy summer shade or when in sun, look amazing. Definitely summer, beach nails all the way.

Here are some photos of the shade Guy meets Galveston, but I REALLY love too hot pink to hold 'em. I think these sorbet-finish lacquers are really great even though they took a while to warm up on me. As you can see, in some lights this color comes off as a lot more red than in florescent lighting. But I think that adds to its versatility. They REALLY shine in the sun! They remind me of the Butter London Jelly polishes, which I will now have to pick up and try :)

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