New Year's Nails

So, I don't really celebrate New Year's.  I mean, I do, I guess.  But I don't get all jazzed up and go out on the town in a glittery dress and high heels.  That's just not me.  But...there should be a little glitter on New Year's, right?  So it might as well be on my nails.

This is the manicure that I wore on New Year's Eve.  It's not exactly the Times Square Ball but that was sort of my inspiration for this look.  The bulk of the glitter in China Glaze Ray-Diant has a kind of green-gold-silver look to it and reminds me of the metal framing of the Times Square Ball.  It's mixed with a bunch of glitter in all different colors, which reminds me of all the different colors and patterns the ball is able to display once the lights are turned on.  The framing on the actual Times Square Ball is a triangle pattern but a diamond pattern was as close as I could get after sorting through all my different stamping plates.  This pattern is from Bundle Monster plate BM-310.

I started out with two thin coats of Orly Dazzle as a base for two thin coats of Ray-Diant.  The first time I wore Ray-Diant, it chipped like a son-of-a-bitch the very next day.  I was not very pleased.  I decided this time to try laying it over a solid color instead of using as many coats of just the glitter to get it opaque.  I had just done this a little earlier with OPI's Spark De Triomphe, which is about the same consistency as Ray-Diant.  That manicure lasted 4 days, zero chips and I could have worn it longer except I took it off to do these nails instead for New Year's.

The glitter was a bit bumpy so I decided to top coat before stamping to try and get a smoother surface to work on.  I applied one coat of Gelous and then one coat of Seche Vite.  I'm not entirely sure it makes much of a difference but sometimes when I stamp on top of a rough glitter, the bumps in the glitter can show through the stamping.  So better to just add a little top coat now just in case than be mad later that I didn't try it.  The pattern from BM-310 is stamped using Konad Special Polish in black.

After stamping, I finished everything off with one more coat of Gelous and a coat of Seche Vite.  I did the stamping on Monday but I've actually had the glitter on since Sunday and still have no chips.  So I think using less coats of glitter over a similar base color was the way to go.  I'll be sure to try it anytime I wear any of the other glitters from the China Glaze Prismatic collection.  So that was my bling for New Year's.  I hope everyone had a great night Monday ringing in 2013.  Happy New Year!

Nail-Venturous Floam

In my last post, Sunday night, when I mentioned I had something equally awesome to Lynnderella's Connect The Dots to share, I was referring to Nail-Venturous Floam!

I first saw Floam on The PolishAholic's blog a few weeks ago.  You can read her post about it here.  It's such an odd polish.  A simple polish really, but complex at the same time.  The glitter is not your typical glitter.  It's not shiny or metallic like you would think of when someone mentions glitter.  The polish is made up of very tiny glitter particles that overlap each other in just the right way.  It really looks like actual Floam!  As someone who completely geeked out over the real Floam as a kid, I couldn't resist this polish.  And I just found out they still make Floam too, http://www.floam.com.  Who knew!?!  Almost twenty years later and I still want to buy a tub of that stuff, lol!

I bought my bottle of Floam from Ninja Polish, along with a pair of A England polishes.  I plan to write up a small haul post about them later in the week, along with my new Zoya polishes that I picked up during the recent Zoya Spring promotion sale.  You can also buy Floam straight from the official Nail-Venturous Etsy site, Nail-Venturous Lacquers.  As of this posting, Floam is out of stock on both sites, but they both give you the option to sign up to be notified via email when it's back in stock.

I had almost no problems with the application.  It is a bit on the thick side, but is still extremely easy to apply.  I used three coats of Floam to achieve almost full coverage on my nails.  The only issue I came across was the glitter on the very tips of my nails would get pulled off at the end of each brush stroke, resulting in a few bare spots.  But I would just pat the brush onto my tips and the glitter built back up and surprisingly leveled out.  To top it off, I used a thick coat of Gelous followed by a generous coat of Seche Vite for a smooth finish.

Nail-Venturous has a bunch of other awesome glitter polishes that I hope to one day get my hands on.  Unfortunately, when they do come back in stock, they then sell out within seconds.  She just restocked her store tonight and I think in less than 30 seconds, everything was gone!  I witnessed it and trust me when I say that indy-polish buying can almost qualify as a competitive sport!