Blue Rays: Update of my Revlon Royal franken mani

Hi everybody! Well, it's coming down to the wire and if you're still a Google Reader user, you have just a couple of days to transfer your blogs over to another reader before it shuts down on July 1st. There are plenty of options available. My blog is available on Bloglovin, which is a popular site but I just switched mine over to Feedly. The transfer process was painless and so far, I do like the layout as well.

Today's post is just a quick update on my last mani, the Revlon Royal and Jessica Iridescent Eye franken. I decided to stamp over it and then fill in some of the gaps with glitter. The inspiration for this mani came from this manicure by Dagadelic and this mani by In Jeeb We Trust.

The polishes used were China Glaze Adore for the stamping and the glitter used is Pure Ice Watch me Go. I filled that in with a small nail art brush.

This is the same mani in the sunlight. And since I loved this mani when viewing it at different angles due to the jelly like quality of Revlon Royal, here are a few pictures of just that!

What do you think of the update? I love Revlon Royal. 

Franken Fun Friday: Revlon Royal and Jessica Iridescent Eye

Hi all!

Remember when I did my insta-franken tutorial post a little while ago? I decided that I get ideas to have crazy mixes of my various polishes so many times that I should just start doing them as full manicures and post the results here as part of a little experimental series.

This one was one of the creations from that particular post. I saw my bottles of Revlon Royal and Jessica Iridescent Eye sitting next to each other and I just started mixing them! For details on how I franken without wasting any polish, read my tutorial!

To do this particular mani, I painted two coats of Revlon Royal and then finished up with a third coat of a mix of Royal and Iridescent Eye. I wonder if I had painted two coats of the mix, how much different it would have looked. Maybe another time!

Here it is showing the green shift that comes from Iridescent Eye.

And here it is in the sunlight, in my car.

Cool, huh? I love how the combo is so different from each of them by itself. The possibilities are endless!! What do you guys think of this new series? Can you get behind it?

Spoiled Are Mermaids Real? with Funky French Dots

Hello lacquered ladies!

So, I realized a long time ago, I have a thing for purples. If there is just a slight variation of one purple to another, I have to have it. How thrilled was I when I realized that something as complex and fascinating and just plain pretty as Spoiled Are Mermaids Real? was available easily in any CVS store!

It is a medium purple jelly base with a complex fine gold shimmer. This combination gives this polish such a depth! Despite the jelly base, I didn't need more than a couple of coats for decent coverage. Because of the jelly finish, I did have some pulling at the tips after topcoat, which you can see above.

The dots at the tips were done with a large and small dotting tool and the colors used were Sinful Colors Tempest and Revlon Copper Penny

And now for more pictures....

I like these jelly colors with the shift in the depth of the color depending on which angle you view it at.

Here is a picture of it without the dots in a lightbox.

Are you guys as much a fan of purple as I am? I thought the dots added visual interest and I really like it with them. Hubby wasn't so sure. This one got a 8/10 without the dots but dropped to a 7/10 with them. I guess he liked the simplicity of a plain mani!

Sally Hansen Diamond Strength Black Tie and mylar flake accent

Hi fellow lacquer lovers!

I blinked and a whole week was gone! Well, not quite that easily. The first part of the week was hellish and might explain why I've been gone for so long. I lost my ability to sleep! I've been finding it more and more difficult to stay in any horizontal position for a good length of time. I was getting bad rib cage and back pain that was waking me up and needless to say, I started feeling more and more like a zombie with each day. I finally got fed up a couple of days ago and took myself off to the guest bedroom with all the pillows I could get except for one for my husband. I made a pillow fort in the guest bed and pretty much sleep partially sitting up. I feel normal again! I know what all the mothers out there are saying right now. No sleep? Get used to it. I'm just praying it's never that bad all the time.

I'm really excited to show you my manicure for this post. This was a very unassuming bottle of Sally Hansen Diamond Strength Black Tie that I picked up from a clearance bin because, honestly, I think it just got caught up with a few other bottles in the heat of the moment. I didn't think much of it in the bottle. I had an idea for a mani that I wanted to use a near black color for and I picked this up to try. Once I actually put it on though, whoa! Duochrome goodness! It's not a super obvious duochrome but enough that non polish lovers noticed the fact that there were multiple colors present.

The first picture was in my light box at night. Duochrome is not too obvious. All the pictures after that are taken outside in varying depths of sunlight. This one above was taken in the shade.

A little more sunlight....

A lot of sunlight!!! Look at all the shimmer....

A distance picture. The accent nail was done by painting a couple of coats of black. Then when the last coat was still wet, I took pieces of mylar flakes from a dollar store nail art package and individually layed them down near each other. I did struggle with this part a bit because the pieces were a little too stiff and kept sticking up all over the place. These pictures show this mani with about three coats of topcoat. It was still slightly uneven. I'm glad I did just an accent nail because the removal was a bit of a pain too. I would do it again, though. I loved the result!

The package of mylar flakes I used. I actually only used the one on the top left. It was still iridescent enough to show all those different colors over black.

My husband loved this one. It got a 10/10!! What do you guys think? Love it? Would the flakies drive you nuts?

Julie G Gumdrops Sugar Rush with triangles

Happy weekend everybody!

Hope everyone has been having a good weekend so far. I guess it's time for another post! For this one, I busted out another one of my many textured polishes that I seem to be collecting these days. This one is Julie G Gumdrop Sugar Rush. Apparently a dupe for Zoya Destiny (which I also have now) and OPI Jinx, which I resisted buying. I don't need to literally own ALL the textures, right?

Ahh, Sugar Rush. It's such a perfect name for this type of polish. I always think of sugar crystals when wearing these polishes. I had to take these pictures indoors with my lightbox since it was night time so the color may be a wee bit more orange than usual. I really should invest in a better lamp, I think.

For a little design, I taped off a couple of triangles and painted them with Julie G Hot Cinnamon and Tangerine Dream.

I did include a couple of sunlight pictures so the color can be seen better. This is also after a couple of layers of topcoat.

A England Dragon

Hello all!

Ok, I totally forgot that I was going to show you guys A England Dragon by itself. How could I forget!? This polish is magical, especially in the sun. After I wore this, I went online and ordered more of the A England holos. Some of the older ones. I know they came out with a few new ones but I have not nabbed those yet. Some lemmings need time to grow in my head.

Less talk, more pictures.

Sigh, isn't it gorgeous? Forest green scattered holo one coat wonder. One coat!!! I'm so glad I have this in my collection.

Pink Stripes! L'Oreal Check me Out with Barry M Pink Silver Glitter

Good morning everyone! How are all the northern hemisphere folk enjoying the summer? For me, this is pretty much the best weather. When I'm at home, I leave the windows open and let the house adjust to the temperature outside. It's always just a bit cooler inside, which is great because we don't even have to turn the air on! 

The increasing warmth outside finally begged me to wear something bright on my nails. I picked L'Oreal Check me Out! The name is fitting because this bright pink really does beg for attention! For the accent, I chose Barry M Pink Silver Glitter and did some stripes with striping tape. The pictures where the pink really pops are all from my iPhone. That seems to be the only color correct camera I own!

I wore this on a sunny, sunny Sunday and I went outside in my PJ's with my morning coffee to take these pictures. I was not using any of my fun cups that day.

This was a picture taken inside with the light box and my regular camera. You can see how the picture quality is great but the color is all off. I also tried to freehand an accent nail here but I did not end up liking it as much. Hence, the stripes.

So, what do you all think? I'm slowly transitioning to brighter colors now. Still trying to figure out how to wear work appropriate neon!

This one got a rating of a mere 7/10 from my husband. I loved it way more than that!

Deadly Sins Challenge Day 13: Pride - Finger Paints Tough Art to Follow with Studio M Covered in Diamonds

Hi everyone!

Another Deadly Sins Challenge mani today. This week, the theme is Pride. The prompt for this one was "Recreate your own work to make it even better". One thing I am proud of is how far I've come with respect to nail care, polish application and the quality of my manicures in general. One of the very first manicures I was really proud of was this simple manicure of Sinful Colors Last Chance and Studio M Covered in Diamonds. Right after I wore that mani, I swore to myself that I would wear it again soon because I loved it so much! Two years later, I still hadn't recreated and I thought this would be the perfect opportunity. I really didn't change the essence of the manicure at all. I just figured with how far my nails have come, it's bound to look even better. 

The base I used for this was an untried. I used Finger Paints Tough Art to Follow.  A deep forest green almost jelly. It was a little uneven with application and I had to pain about two to three coats to get it looking nice in real life. In pictures, it looks like it could have used another coat. I went ahead and used Studio M Covered in Diamonds again. Color Club has the exact same polish with the exact same name. This polish is not for everyone. Those mylar flakes do tend to clump and stick up here and there and it takes careful maneuvering to get it even and sitting properly. Even so, I love the effect of the shards.

Here is FP Tough Art to Follow by itself. 

This is the one picture of that mani I loved so long ago. Despite the stubby nails and lack of clean up, I still love this picture. Look at those shards glow!!

I forgot to ask my husband to rate this one. I guess we'll never know...

See below for what the others have done for this challenge!

Deadly Sins Challenge Day 12: Envy (A England Dragon with Jessica Iridescent Eye stamping)

Hey hey! This is one of those rare weeks when I'm actually going to have both of the manis for this week's challenge done! This is the next to the last week and I'm actually going to be really sad when the challenge is over. I liked having some guidelines for what to do for my nails. For today's mani, the prompt is "Let the 'Green Monster' guide you to some enviable nails". I went all out with the green for this one. Green for the base and sorta green for the stamping. Even the names of the polishes together remind me of a green monster: a green dragon with iridescent green eyes!! I took way too many pictures to show what A England Dragon looks like by itself so I'll make that another post. This is A England Dragon with Jessica Iridescent Eye stamping. The stamp design is from the Cheeky XL plate B.

These first three pictures are taking with my lamp indoors. It shows you how subtle the stamping looks under those lighting conditions.

The next two pictures are shown under sunlight and under shade. The sunlight picture shows the holo of Dragon. In my next post, you'll see Dragon by itself and you can really see the holo then.

These last two pictures I took on a cloudy day because that seems to be the best time to see the color shift!

So, by now you guys must have realized when I really love a mani, I have a hard time limiting myself to a couple of pictures. I hope that's ok with you all. I use Chrome every where I go and I have no trouble getting my pages to load so please tell me if you guys are experiencing difficulties getting my pages to load for any reason.

Also, can't leave a post alone without giving the hubby rating for the mani now. This one got an 8/10. He really liked it :-)

See below for what the other ladies have done for this challenge.