The 12 Days of Christmas Nails: Day 8 - Christmas Glitter

So I decided to go crazy and combine my two favorite Christmas glitters: China Glaze Twinkle Lights and Party Hearty!

China Glaze Twinkle Lights w/ Party Hearty

I LOVE this combination so much. It is SO blingy and blinding! It's not quite as yellow as it shows in the pictures, because they were taken in very low lighting. It's more of a soft gold color in person, and super shiny and sparkly. Needless to say, this was the biggest pain in the butt to take off... glitter EVERYWHERE!

The 12 Days of Christmas Nails: Day 3 - Spice Drops

This was a manicure I had in mind since Mrs. Claus and Mistletoe Kisses came out last year in China Glaze's holiday collection. I wanted them to look like various flavors of spice drops (you know, the ones you decorate gingerbread houses with?). So here they are!

Spice Drops - CND Sugar Sparkle over various bases

For the bases, I used CG Grape Juice, CG Mistletoe Kisses, CG Mrs. Claus, Ulta Sun-sational, and Revlon Powder Puff, then I topped each with two coats of CND Sugar Sparkle.  This is what I was going for:

I love these candies, but only the ones that are flavored like spices (not fruits).  If you haven't had them, you should try them!  Some of the flavors are anise (purple), spearmint (green), peppermint (white), and cinnamon (red).  I can't remember what the orange and yellow ones are...  ginger might be one?


Do you have any favorite Christmas candies?

Milani Jewel FX Re-swatches

I swatched these last year, but since then I've acquired two more and I wanted to show them all together.

Here are all of the Milani Jewel FX polishes:

Milani Jewel FX - Gold

This one feels so very Christmasy because of the rich mirror-like gold finish. Granted, this look is a bit of a PITA to achieve. This is two "coats." For the first coat, I sort of just dabbed on the glitter and tried to push it around to form nice edges, and the second coat was more or less brushed on with a little coaxing here and there. But the effect is wonderful!

I did have an issue with wear on this one though. When I wore it for a full mani, it ended up peeling of in sheets pretty much the next night. Oh well.

I've seen this one at Target even recently, so it's readily available.

Milani Jewel FX - Silver

Such a beautiful simple silver. VERY shiny mirror-like finish that would be perfect for New Years Eve!

This one is a bit harder to find. You can order it from Cherry Culture and from Milani's site directly, but I've never seen it in stores. Still, it's totally worth it.

Milani Jewel FX - Gems (w/ purple)

I believe that this is the most common version of Gems. I'm pretty sure it's the closest dupe I've seen to Deborah Lippmann's Happy Birthday (see this comparison). Very pretty, but it's not my favorite of the bunch.

Milani Jewel FX - Gems (no purple)

This, however, IS my favorite of them all. I LOVE this color combination for some reason. It feels like Christmas toys to me, and it reminds me of a train around the tree or of a nutcracker.  Last year, I wore this on my toes for Christmas and I decided that if I had to wear this one polish on my toes for the rest of my life, I'd be perfectly happy.

I wish so badly that I could find another bottle of this without the purple, but I haven't seen one like this since the first release of the collection I found at CVS. I actually like my swatch from last year better because it shows off the colors more.

So there you have them... ALL of the Milani Jewel FX polishes. All of them are shown at two "coats" (one "placement" coat and one coat brushed on almost like normal). They really are stunning, even if they are a pain to put on and take off. So fitting for the holidays!

Butter London - West End Wonderland Swatch

I'm pretty sure I've found my new favorite gold glitter. I don't know what it is, but warm gold looks wonderful with my skin. I saw Butter London West End Wonderland on Alexandra RC the other day and knew I had to go straight to Ulta to pick it up (and usually I think twice about most polishes more than $10 each). Check out how beautiful this is!

Butter London - West End Wonderland

Wow.  Such a stunner.  I'm pretty sure this will be one of the few polishes I don't want to take off.  I love this gold.  It's mostly warm light gold micro glitter with a few pieces of copper micro glitter mixed in.

I already can't wait for the holiday season, and this is just so festive it feels perfect for my mood!

My first thought was that this looks somewhat like Milani Gold Glitz (my picture of it is a little bit too saturated), but this is lighter and less orange/copper.  They have similar formula, going on in two easy coats.  I'll try to remember to do a comparison before I take this off.

OPI The Berry Best Swatch and Review

This beauty surprised me. In the bottle, it looks like a red with some pink flash and gold shimmer, but on the nail it's a glowing magenta/fuchsia with a very slight duochrome of copper/gold. It looks somewhat metallic, and very bright and cheery for the winter/holiday season!

OPI The Berry Best

Do you have any of the Ulta exclusive OPIs? What do you think if this one?

Some Holiday Manicures for the Festive Fingers Contest

After reading about Nicole by OPI's festive Fingers contest, I REALLY wanted to find the perfect holiday mani to submit. Here are a couple that I really like:




This is China Glaze Mommy Kissing Santa with Orly Hair Band as a glitter gradient on the tips.



This was the beginning of the following manicure - gold French tips done with OPI Glitzerland. Then I stamped the holly leaves in Jolly Holly using a Bundle Monster plate and dotted the berries first in OPI Royal Rajah Ruby then in China Glaze Red Pearl.



Which one is your favorite and which one should I submit to the festive fingers contest? Help me decide!

Milani Jewel FX Swatches and Review

After I saw this collection reviewed online, I knew I just had to have these crazy polishes! These are from the new Milani collection that includes One Coat Glitters and Jewel FX, and every single one is stunning!

Milani Silver Dazzle

The first is Silver Dazzle, and I think it's my favorite of the glitters. It is a cool-toned charcoal grey glitter that really sparkles with a topcoat. It actually looks pretty cool without a topcoat as well - it has a gritty, matte look which looks very wintry to me. It would also probably look neat with a topcoat and a matte topcoat (to get rid of the rough glitter finish). This is two coats shown.

Milani Gold Glitz

The other glitter I picked up was Gold Glitz. This is ONE COAT! I love warm-toned golds, as they tend to look better on my skin, and this one is perfect. It's a very beautiful holiday color! I didn't pick up the red, purple, or blue glitters because I have some similar, and I'm trying not to buy nail polishes that I have near dupes of (but the One Coat Glitter formula is pretty awesome, so it might be worth it!). If you'd like to see swatches of those, check them out here!

Milani Gems Jewel FX

There are two Jewel FX polishes in the collection, and the first one is called Gems. It is a whole bunch of multi-colored glitter in all different sizes. While the One Coat Glitters contain a whole bunch of microglitter, this has only larger pieces, and it makes it a little easier to clean up (though still hard to remove). It is rumored to be a dupe of Lippmann's Happy Birthday, but it's actually missing the pink/purple glitter (you can see a swatch of it here). Other than that, it's VERY similar with the different shapes, sizes and colors of glitter. This one reminds me of a nutcracker for some reason, and feels like a holiday color, though you could wear it year-round. This is three coats, though the last coat was more of a "touch-up" to cover any bare spots. The glitter in this has to be controlled a little to "place" it in the right spot, but it's not too hard to do.

Milani Gold Jewel FX

This is Gold Jewel FX, and I think this is as "mirror-like" as you can get without having Minx. It is truly spectacular in person. It's cool-toned gold, but luckily it still looks nice on me, and I will SURELY be wearing this one (I don't even care how painful the removal will be). This was two coats, and again it's best to push around the glitter to place it where you want it, especially on the second coat. It was SO easy to clean up (I took it off before it dried) because the big glitter pieces don't get EVERYWHERE like the microglitter does. Here's another pic to try and show off this "mirror" finish.




These could all be a horror to remove, but if you remember the foil method for glitter removal, then they shouldn't be too bad. Just soak a cotton ball in pure acetone or acetone polish remover (I usually split the cotton balls in half so I don't use as many), place it on the glitter polish and wrap it in aluminum foil (so that it doesn't evaporate). Wait for about 5-10min before pressing down and sliding it off. Be sure to moisturize your fingers after soaking them in the acetone!

I can't decide what to put on my fingers and toes now! I kind of want to do Gems on my toes because it'd go with anything I could think of to put on my fingers :o)

Do you like these new glitters? Are you willing to put up with crazy glitter removal for these beauties?

Another Holiday Manicure

Here's a quick post of a holiday mani I did last week. I saw a similar manicure by All Lacquered Up using Orly's new holiday collection here and loved it, so I figured I'd recreate it as best I could. I used China Glaze Phat Santa and CND Sugar Sparkle to get this look.

China Glaze Phat Santa w/ CND Sugar Sparkle

I love the effect Sugar Sparkle gives - I think it makes it look like a sugary Chrismas candy! I'm thinking of making a "gumdrop" mani with CG Mrs. Claus, Mistletoe Kisses, and Grape Juice. Are there any other colors you think I should add into the mix?? This over each one might give them an even more sugar-coated appearance.

Any holiday mani ideas that you'd like to see?