OPI Red Shatter Swatch!

So OPI has released their silver, blue, white and red shatter, and I decided to only go with the red shatter because broke as fuck I don't like the silver or the blue, and I already own China Glaze White crackle. I must say that I REALLY like China Glaze's white crackle, and I was looking forward to the red Shatter by OPI, but I was VERY dissapointed. Its sheer, kind-of like their texas sorbet finishes, you can see through to the base color way too much, and I just don't like that. I want to be able to have strong contrasting colors with my crackle- and China Glaze's white offers me this. Here are some swatches- the white China Glaze crackle is over American Apparel's Downtown LA, one of the best red polishes period. The Red Shatter is over a sparkly blue, a white, and Sally Hansen's Insta dry Silver sweep. I figured these three polishes would work well with a strong red shatter, but because it isn't a solid color, as you can see it doens't work well. I need to play with this more, otherwise I might actually just return it. especially since my ass needs cash

So, We have swatches here of American Apparel's Downtown LA,

And swatches with White Crackle by China Glaze over Downtown LA

Plus Swatches of Red shatter over a silvery glitter, a blue chunky glitter and a matte white

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China Glaze Crackle + Katy Perry OPI collection colors

I'm having a rough day today- rough end to a long rough week! So to cheer me up I played a little with a few nail polishes I had on my person. I brought the China Glaze crackle polishes Pink (broken hearted) and purple (Fault Line) and Katy Perry by OPI's Last friday night ( blueish clear with sparkles) and Teenage dream (pinkish clear with sparkles). I did two combos that I thought would look cool, the Last friday night with fault line on top, I tried to move the crackle around, painting it horizontally and vertically and every which way to see how it affected the crackle effect, but overall I ended up not liking the color combination, i'd much rather like to see a contrast here, but the Last Friday Night didn't show through as much as I wanted, maybe I should put a white base underneath.

The second color combo I did was the Teenage Dream with China Glaze's Broken Hearted on top. it looked rad enough for me to keep it on for the night. From afar it simply looks like hot pink, but then the shiny sparkly comes out through from underneath pretty nicely. I must try other combinations soon- any suggestions?

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OPI-I'm not really a Waitress

SO I have heard this color all over, supposed to be one of the biggest OPI colors. When I came across the bottle, I thought to myself that it reminded me of Sephora by OPI (go figure) curve-acious. The red tone and Glitter looked EXACTLY like the Sephora bottle I own (and would wear over and over and over two summers ago). So here are some day-shots of I'm not really a waitress. I think its a lovely color, perhaps too strong for my skin tone, plus I definitely out-wore a dupe of this two summers ago, when I was all about the Sephora polishes.

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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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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 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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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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Opi Black Shatter, vegan nail polish & more

So this will be a multi-polish review. The other day I FINALLY came across the full Katy Perry collection at Rays beauty supply NYC (tell them thedailymanicure sent you). So I picked up the OPI black shatter, Last Friday Night, Teenage Dream and The One That Got Away. So tonight I decided I would do a manicure with 5 different colors on my nails and black shatter over them. I chose the following:

Sally Hansen Quick dry- Silver sweep, a chrome-like silver fast drying polish. This color is awesome, high shine & chrome, and I only needed one coat.

OPI- Last Friday Night- sheer blue polish w silver chunky & micro glitter- I really love this color but I wish it wasn't so sheer, it comes off as very middle school to me, but I love this color the most with the black shatter.

OPI- Teenage dream- sheer pink polish w silver chunky and micro glitter - I like this color also, again I wish it wasn't so sheer. I would definitely use this over a pink or a sheer creme to give a better glitter effect.

OPI- Too hot pink to hold 'em- sheet hot pink w "sorbet" finish. This is from the texas collection by OPI. Which is a very over-looked collection. I've grown to really like the sorbet look, a manicure with this color is ideal for long summer days because it shines soo much. The sheer-ness needs some getting used to, but I missed this color when I took it off my whole manicure a few days back. So beautiful.

SpaRitual- Emerald City- Vegan nail polish! My boss bought it for me, who knew? I like the color, but it goes on very sheer and you need several coats to get it opaque, and on top of it the brush is small so it gets annoying and confusing to create proper coverage without it overlapping on you.

So I applied them to my nails and placed the Black shatter over them, and I have to be honest I'm almost disappointed in black shatter having used BarryM's nail effects. The nail effects are much clunkier and give more of both colors, where as this didn't, making all the nails look too similar. I'll try again and see if the effect is the same, maybe it was the way I applied the polish. Anyway, those are my thoughts on these polishes, enjoy.

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tonights haul + my valentines day mani

So after we accidentally flooded our apartment and the three apartments below ours this afternoon, my husband and I made a trip to the queens center mall where I treated myself to some earrings and a few new shades of polish. We went to Urban outfitters where I found some pretty glitter polishes, a black and a smokey pink with small and chunky silver glitter. And I also found two cute polishes at forever 21. A hot purple color, purrrfect for spring and summer months, and a nice teal green color with gold micro glitter, also good for spring and summer. Earlier today, before the flood I gave myself a mani of one of the colors my husband bought me, OPI's lucky lucky lavender, and it looked really nice. A great color for the office or the job scene, really pretty yet not too flashy, very feminine. Then later on when I got home I decided to put the smokey pink glitter on it, and well, as you can see it looks bomb. The glitter polishes are by a company called NYX, obv you can get it at urban outfitters. The two summer colors I bought are by Love & beauty, sold at all Forever21 stores. The NYX sold for five, the Love & beauty for 3$. I know, super cheap. I should do a blog of all my fav colors by them.

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Fiercely Fiona- My Husband buys me clearance nail polish

Yesterday I was babysitting and I had a craving for this OPI nail polish called fiercely Fiona from their pastel Shrek nail collection last summer/spring. I knew that my husband was nearby a Rickys and I asked him to go pick it up. When he got to the Rickys store he found the polish, which is kindof an ugly green yellow color, on clearance for two dollars. Which was awesome. He also surprised me with several other colors that were on sale for 2$ each also. They are all cremes except for one, and while they aren't the best colors in the world to wear right now, they will be excellent to wear for spring. I rocked a bunch of cremes and poppy colors last spring and summer and I'm going to do it all over again. Heres what I got

Matesee- Neon 15 power pink

Matesse- Mint Ice cream

Matesse- Neon 16 sunburst

OPI- lucky lucky lavender- reminds me of new Lancome color

OPI- Wing it- red with glittery red sparkles

OPI- Fiercely Fiona (named after me)- Green yellow

I will, hopefully do another manicure featuring fiercely Fiona for you by tomorrow, but its superbowl and I have to get the laundry done and myself on my way to the party. you know you know.

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Shatter nail polish fiasco

So, you guys have seen the awesome Barry M black shatter top coat. It creates thick cracks and reveals the color you put underneath, and over all it is truely fun and looks good on most nails. OPI went ahead and made a dupe which was released this month for Serena Williams playing in the US Open and Katy Perry, the Serena Williams collection came with a shit green color, so I'm not really interested in that, however Katy Perry's collection was pretty awesome and the whoel digs and awesomeness on these two lines can be seen below.

http://www.refinery29.com/check-out-what-the-katy-perry-serena-williams-and-shatter-black-nail-polishes-look-like-on.php

Now, I couldn't wait for this to come out so I ordered two Barry M's from England, which were fairly cheap and exactly like the black shatter. And I've been peeking around recently to see if any of the NYC drugstores like Duane Reade, Rite Aid or even a Ricky's beauty supply might carry this, and they don't! I read on the OPI facebook page that there are some JCpennys that sell it, but a lot of girls have had altercations with the staff because those bitches went ahead and bought the nail polish before anyone else could. Anyway, I just wanted to say that I think that this product, because of its hype and its new-ness and all of that, should be sold on a grand scale, and its no wonder OPI was bought out or taken over.

Anyway, I have included some pictures of me and my friend Sachi doing our nails while our men played rock band and drank Four Loko. She should probably be a hand model and make lots of money doing that because her hands are really well put together and slender, plus her nails are very slender as well.

I'm also including photos of another product that another girlfriend of mine purchased with me. These Sally Hansen nail polish stickers. Now, there are TONS of products like these out there, Hello Kitty, Sephora, Glam, just to name a few, have created different nail stickers with the idea that you put them on, file them down and they should stay on for a bit. I have red mixed reviews about the Sephora ones, and my cheap ass definitely sampled a whole container of them when they left them out to be testers at a Sephora on the east side last year and they peeled off in a day and I was happy I didn't spend the heavy fourteen dollars on sixteen stickers. These Sally Hansen stickers however, which we bought at rite aid for nine dollars did not come off my friends nails for over a week, and we are both nannys, so we do a lot of cleaning and dish work in addition to being vomited on by children(part of the reason why I still give myself a daily manicure even though my lazy ass isn't blogging). So I highly recommend this product and when I finally start making the big bucks again I too shall go out and buy it and treasure them.

Now, apparently my coworker friend, (Gaby is her name) put on the Sally Hansen Chrome pen first, so she did put a polish down on top of these, as you can see from the pics, and it was really awesome. So I recommend playing with it, but you'll have to buy two because again they only give enough for 1 manicure, around 16 stickers.

(Just to clarify for these images, the one with the leopard design is the Sally Hansen stickers called Sally Hansen Nail effects, and the black on white is Barry M nail Effects, only available online at Barrym.com, but OPI black shatter is a dupe of this product but at the moment isn't available anywhere really.)

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i'm Back

Well...

Hi

1. Some douche stole my laptop. And a bunch of jewelry, and if your reading I hope the universe turns on you.

2. I also got married

3. I also had inlaws and finals at the same time.

However, the main reason why I have not been posting was because I was without my mac. Now that I have taken care of that situation, i will try my best to continue posting my daily manicures in addition to older pictures I took during my month plus absense. Please pray for my old macbook pro that it returns to my hands, cracked screen and all, and that of course the universe turns on the person who broke into my apartment and scared the shit out of my cat.

Anyway, tonight I put on high intensity Nail color by Jessie's girl in some sort of lavender color with Barry M's instant nail effects on top, and it looks baller.

Since I've been gone, like I said a lot has happened, i have a lot of wedding pics and wedding nail pics. And let me tell you something, although my manicure was always perfect during our three day wedding affair, the actual process would drive you to drink (and did it.. ha). I will never get married again, and I actually did none of the work for my wedding. These types of things, including being a full time student and working full time just puts too much stress on people. I love my husband, he is the best ever and he is totally worth every tear of sweat during the process, but that doesn't take away from the fact that we were both shitting our pants. We got married at city hall on a Friday, had to work the whole day after, partied with our friends on Saturday night, and had the reception with the family on Sunday. I have to say the parties were awesome. All of the family seemed to enjoy the food and drink, so it wasn't all in vain.

Also I didn't do as badly in school as I thought I had had. Even though my papers, along with my non-backed-up mac were stolen and I was totally fucked, I still managed to get an A and a B and passed my essay class ( its either pass/fail so don't think I got a C).

Anyway, here are tonights nails, again, Jessies girl (buy one get one free at 2.99 at rite aid till sunday) along with Barry M's nail effects. The new OPI shatter is exactly like this, and they are attempting to stock all the stores, I have yet to go buy a rickys and pick one up because I can barely pay my rent and am living off food stamps, so i'll tell you how it is once I get out of my computer/spending way too much on nail polish debt.

Oh, and yes i know I double posted the pictures of the bottles, give me a break, I havent posted in over a month ;O

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Crackle nail polishes official post

okay, so for weeks i've been obsessing over the new collection that OPI is making w Serena williams and Katy Perry, the Katy Perry colors are awesome, and the SHATER POLISH that both collections will include is a must have for anyone at all who enjoys nail polish. This polish is black, and it goes over a base color, and it shatters, revealing some of the color on the bottom. It crackles into chunky black pieces, looking like an awesome design and never coming out quite the same. Here is a link I must have watched two hundred times showing off the Katy Perry colors w the Shatter. Amazing.

http://cosmochikscoterie.blogspot.com/2010/10/opi-shatter-polish.html

These colors do not come out until January tho, and I simply cannot wait that long. I read on several blogs that BarryM makes a dupe called Nail effects, and there are several crackle polishes on Ebay that remind me of the old covergirl crackle polishes I had when I was nine. They even have other colors except black. I bought one of these off of ebay, and youll notice that the cracks are much smaller on this one, but it is still a very very cool effect.

Oh and as usual don't hate on the paint on my fingers, I know i'm a lazy manicurist, and most of these pictures are shiny because I put some nice lotion I got at sephora, every girl needs a little moisture, right? oy.. that came out wrong

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