Shimmer Trisha gradient over L.A. Colors Dark Brown

Hello, hello!!

I'm here with another post! I forgot how somewhat time consuming creation of posts can be, and time is a hot commodity these days! For those who care, my family and I are adjusting to life with two little boys fairly well. It's still too early to have have come up with a solid routine but there is a decent one we've settled into that works for now. It will all change again when I have to go back to work so we'll see what happens then.

My post for you today is a simple glitter gradient with a Shimmer polish glitter called Trisha over L.A. Colors Dark Brown. It looks more like a burnt orange color to me and Trisha has orange glitter in it along with a multitude of other colors so that worked out well. I love love love how complex the Shimmer glitters are. I wish I could afford to just get every bottle they have but I contended myself with three...for now. 

I thought I'd bring some extra visual interest (aka, I was bored), by adding some dotted flowers to the ring finger. I think I should have just left it alone now and done the whole nail with glitter or just stuck with the gradient. I love how the glitter pops over black so maybe next time, that's what I should do. 

Hope you enjoyed this mani and thanks for looking!!

Salon Perfect How Dare You! with Pure Ice Cheatin'

Hi again!!

I'm so excited to start showing you (hopefully) regular manis again! Let's kick it off with a layered combo that not only works well color wise but name wise as well. Coincidences like that always make me extra happy! This is Salon Perfect How Dare You! with Pure Ice Cheatin'.

How Dare You! is a bright metallic purple. The formula was okay, this took two coats, I think. It was somewhat streaky so I didn't like it by itself a hundred percent. I don't have a picture of it on it's own so you'll have to take my word for it.

The Pure Ice glitter is super pretty. I haven't tried wearing it on it's own but I'm sure it could be built up in two to three coats. As you can see, it has fine purple and blue glitters in a clear base.

Thanks for looking!!

New goals, new manis and new additions!!

Wow, so another long absence!! Let me show you the reason for that...

As I'm writing this today, he is a little over two weeks old and between him and his older brother, we are being kept very busy!! However, I am slowly starting to find some time to sit and work on blog posts so hopefully you will be seeing a lot of manis coming up in the next few weeks. I have been keeping up with painting my nails but instead of trying to get nail art done, I've been satisfied with just painting my nails uniformly with a single color and experimenting with layering and mixing polishes. Someday, I will have time for nail art again! I've also been trying to swatch all the polishes in my collection on my nails so once in a while, you might get a deluge of polish swatches you may or may not care about.

I obviously must show you guys what I was wearing on my nails when this guy was born. I was wearing Sally Hansen CSM Indigo Waves and I have terrible pictures of it. I never got around to taking good pictures because I wasn't sure I liked it, I smudged the index finger, wasn't happy with the application etc. Of course, now there's no question of me keeping it :-) It's grown on me and I'll have to wear it again and take better pictures next time. But for now....

This first picture was taken on the way to the hospital, when I realized this was it. The next picture was taken almost a week after I put it on. You can see the growth at the cuticles and I'd filed off some tipwear but it held up pretty well! I thought there would be some duochrome to be seen based on what the bottle looks like but it's hard to see on the nail. I was trying to find it in the above picture.

I have a new favorite regimen for base and top coat. Base coat - Finger Paints base coat. Topcoat - first Revlon Colorstay Topcoat (discontinued, which is why I bought a bunch on Amazon) and Seche Vite immediately afterwards. This combination has been really really good to me so far.

Ok, well thanks for making it this far and hopefully I'll be back soon!