30 Manicure Challenge - Manicure #1

I recently found a 30 Day Manicure Challenge floating around some blogs and decided to give it a go myself.  I am making one change to it though, instead of it being 30 days, I'm making it 30 manicures.  I wanted to this because I might not have the time to change my mani each day, and if I do something I really like I'd like to wear it for more than one day.  Here is the challenge:

(click to enlarge)

I think this will be good, and fun to do because it will challenge me for some of the patterns/inspiration, and make me think a bit more out of the box.  It's also good to challenge yourself once in a while :D .

Manicure #1 is red.

(without flash)

I used China Glaze Poinsettia as a base (one coat), then put Color Club Feel The Beat over top (one coat), followed by Sally Hansen Hidden Treasure.  I personally am not a fan of red on my nails, hence why I dressed it up with flakies.  In fact, I own more pink than red, and I hate pink :P.  I guess I just haven't found "my" red yet.

Do you guys have a favorite red?

*PS.  I just noticed that I forgot to mention that I used Essie Matte About You as a topcoat.

Tinsel Revamped

In the usual me style for day 2 of wearing Tinsel Town I wanted to change it up a bit.  I recently bought some new shatters, and decided to add Navy Shatter (OPI) on top.

(with flash)

I honestly wasn't impressed by the results.  I think Tinsel Town looked better on it's own.  I will have to experiment some more to find colors that go well with Navy Shatter.

Tinsel For Your Fingers

I present you with China Glaze's Tinsel Town from their current winter collection.

It's a greyish silver glitter with fine glitter and some slightly bigger hex glitter.

 (without flash)

(with flash)

I fell in love with this glitter from the moment of application.  It went on smoothly, with no hassles.  It only took two coats for complete coverage.  This is like dream glitter for me, and I wish China Glaze had a whole collection of them, even part of their regular collection, of a rainbow array of colors.  This will definitely make it into my lists of go to glitters for quick easy manis.

Ultra Violet Revamped

I decided to make my Color Club Ultra Violet mani a bit more interesting after a couple days of wear.

Base is Color Club Ultra Violet, glitter is Funky Fingers Hyperi, crackle is China Glaze Crushed Candy. You still got to see the blue flash under it all :D

Ocean Marble

I have some nail art for you today, in the form of a water marble mani.

I did two coats of white as a base, then used Essie Aruba Blue, Essie Trophy Wife and China Glaze Sexy in the City.
I accidentally double marbled my right hand ring finger, and purposely my right hand index (to cover white spots).
It reminds me of water in the ocean. The pictures didn't pick up the shimmer coming from the Trophy Wife sections.

Rouge Braise Refreshed

Since this beautiful polish wears at the tips like nobody's business, I decided to add to it to wear it for one more day.

China Glaze's Fault Line over Lise Watier Rouge Braise. I finally got my Fault Line to crackle nicely. I was having the same issue with it as a lot of other bloggers seemed to be having, it would barely crack. I did a thin fast coat. I like how it made the Lise Watier polish look more orange, it refreshed the manicure even more.

Neon Shatter

After the awesome neon coral shattered mani I decided to try another neon color.





This is China Glaze's Kiwi Cool-Ada. The color is not properly represented in the second photo. It is much more neon. It was a very nice combo as well, it grew on me over the days that I wore it. This color does however apply very streaky, and I did 4 coats and still wasn't fully satisfied. Neons bring some bright happiness to counteract the 7 feet of snow we have, and that keeps growing, outside.

New Fave Mani

I think I've found my new favorite mani.




You even get to see both hands! There are a lot of coats in this mani. Base is two coats of Finger Paints Papier Mache, then 3 coats of China Glaze Flip Flop Fantasy (my fave from the collection, surprisingly), one coat of OPI's Shatter, and 2 coats of Seche Vite top coat.

This mani is so bright, and contrast between the neon and the black are awesome. So very eye catching, I cannot stop staring at it. Sadly I have tip wear showing and a chip on my thumb, so I will have to change my mani very soon :(

I am loving the shatter polish, very fun. My only complaint with it is that it dries too quickly. I do one stroke on one side and before I can get to the other side it's dried and cracking. Really bad on bigger nails (like my thumb).