OPI Muppets World Tour and the Unintentional Wedding Nails

This is a look I did way back in June, and the pictures have been stowed away on my computer ever since.  There were no plans for any particular design when I started, I just wanted to finally use OPI Muppets World Tour and just kind of winged the rest.  I never intended to make any type of "wedding nails" design, but when I was finished and gave my nails a look over, they definitely gave off that type of vibe to me.

The base of this manicure was 2 coats of OPI My Vampire Is Buff.  I then layered 1 coat of Muppets World Tour over it.  Here's a few shots of how that looked.

Very pretty, kind of beachy/sandy but it just felt like something was missing to me.  That was when I decided to stamp over it.  After a quick flip through my stamping plates, I decided on a design from Bundle Monster plate BM-406.  To stamp, I used China Glaze 2030.

I really loved the way this turned out.  It almost felt a little too elegant for me, ha ha, but I wore it for the entire week.  The blue and pink glitters in Muppets World Tour were the perfect little pops of color against the neutral base and gold stamping.

OPI Taupe-less Beach and Floral Double Stamping

Here's an older mani I hadn't gotten around to posting yet.  I put a pic of this up on Instagram about 3 weeks ago, and I actually had worn it about a week before I posted it to Instagram.  This was another one of those designs that I didn't really have planned out ahead of time.  I just started by picking a polish that I wanted to wear anyway, then browsed through my stamping plates and messed with some ideas while my base color dried.  What I ended up with was this floral look, the result of some double stamping using 2 different designs and colors over OPI Taupe-less Beach.

Taupe-less Beach went on very smooth.  I had just picked it up not that long before at Sally Beauty.  When the Brazil Collection was first released, I started out only wanting, and only buying, 2 of the shades.  But thanks to a few sales and grabbing 2 more here and there, I've come to realize that I now own almost the entire collection, lol.  Taupe-less Beach is definitely one shade that I do not regret picking up though.  It is a great neutral color and was perfectly opaque in just two thin coats.  For the design itself, I started with a leafy pattern from Pueen plate PUEEN33, which I stamped using Konad Special Polish in white.  Over that, I used Konad Special Polish in dark purple to stamp part of a flowery design from another Pueen plate, PUEEN59.

A pretty simple and quick design, but I think this is definitely one my favorites so far in 2014.

KBShimmer Early Summer Collection 2014 - The Holos

Press Sample

Today I have some of the new holographic polishes that KBShimmer will be releasing this Friday, May 23rd, as part of the Early Summer Collection 2014.  There are 6 holo polishes in all.  I have the 3 more neutral colors to review for you.  For each shade, I am showing 3 coats of polish without top coat.  All 3 of the holos had quite smooth formulas, and I had no issues with application.  First up is In Bare Form.

This post will be a bit more picture heavy than the previous post, so follow the jump for the rest of the swatches.   

OPI My Vampire Is Buff Hidden Dotticure

If you follow me on Instagram, you may have seen I had a little trim about 3 weeks back due to a crack on my index nail.  But a little while before that, when my nails still had some length to them, I wore this Spring-like (maybe, sorta) design over OPI My Vampire Is Buff.  However you may categorize it, I was happy with the final look.

It started as a dotticure, in my head anyway, but on the nail it wasn't quite what I had originally pictured.  So I decided to stamp over it to try and hide/salvage it.  The final mix of designs and colors really worked well together, and I liked the end result so much more than I thought I was going to.  The dots were made using two China Glaze City Flourish Collection polishes, Grass Is Lime Greener and Metro Pollen-tin.  The swirl design was stamped using Konad Special Polish in pastel violet and an image from Nailz Craze plate NC02.

Color Club The Wanderlust Collection

I have a few manicures saved on my computer that I just never got around to posting before and this is one of them.  I think I mentioned these back in November yet when I posted my autumn pumpkins design.  The manicure itself is even older than that, I did this back in September using all 4 polishes from The Wanderlust Collection by Color Club.

The Wanderlust Collection is a Birchbox exclusive.  I stopped my Birchbox subscription quite a while ago, but I had some points built up on my account and I really loved the swatches I saw online when this collection came out.  I had missed out on it when it first was released, but it eventually came back into stock, so when it did I used my points towards buying the set.  I ordered two sets actually, since the bottles were minis, and I'm glad I did because I love all 4 colors.  The nude color I used for my base is called Mod in Manhattan and this was two coats.  

For the design, I just used two different sized dotting tools and randomly dotted the other 3 colors in the collection.  The neon coral color is called Reign in Spain, the lavender shade is called Pardon My French and the bright green is called London Calling.  Once the dots had dried, I topped everything with a coat of Seche Vite.

And here's a rare shot of my thumb because this was my favorite.  I did my thumb first and tried to repeat the general pattern on the rest of my nails, but they didn't quite have the same curve as on my thumb.  I chalk that up to my thumbnail being wider than the rest of my nails, so I had a little extra room to work with.

Application was super smooth for Mod in Manhattan.  I haven't worn the other 3 colors yet, other than in this design, but I really need to soon, especially that green!

Autumn Pumpkins

Have you ever had an idea for a design but it didn't work out the way you had wanted it to?  That's what happened with this manicure.  Except that what I thought was a problem at first, ended up making the final design even better than my original idea.

The plan was to take a design from Bundle Monster plate BM-H11 and place green polish over the leaves, two different shades of orange over the pumpkins and scrape, then stamp.  I've mixed colors when scraping on other designs, so easy, right?  Well...not so much.  At first, the colors kept mixing each time I scraped off the excess polish.  It was annoying me in the beginning, but after a few test stamps on a piece of paper, I started to like the way that each pumpkin looked a little different.  So I decided to just go with it and try it on my nails that way.

When I was stamping my right hand, I played around a bit starting in the middle of the design instead and scraping from the middle of the design outward to the edges.  It took about 2 to 3 scrapes in different directions, but it did prevent the colors from mixing so much.  But as it turned out, I really liked the pumpkins with the mixed polishes more.  The pumpkins where the polish mixed looked more natural.  They reminded me of real pumpkins that still were in the process of ripening.  Some had a few green spots, some were mostly orange and "ripe" and some were almost completely green.  I think my favorite pumpkin turned out to be one on my middle finger, which was almost all green with just a hint of orange running horizontally through the center.

It was a reminder to me that not everything has to be perfect.  I was getting frustrated in the beginning when the green was bleeding into the pumpkins each time I scraped the plate.  But the blending of the orange and green polishes is actually what made me love this manicure in the end.

For the stamping, I used Konad Special Polishes in green, dark orange and pastel orange.  The base color used for this look was Color Club Mod In Manhattan, from the Birchbox exclusive Wanderlust Collection, which I purchased this past summer.  I have a design from back in September, using the whole collection, that I have yet to post.  But you can expect to see that uploaded soon, along with a few other designs from Sept/Oct that I had skipped over.