Battle Of The Birthday Glitters

Hi again!

So I was looking back at my entries, and I realized I never posted the comparison for Milani Gems and Deborah Lippmann's Happy Birthday that I promised to. Since that first post I have gotten my hands on 3 potential dupes for Happy Birthday: Milani Gems, Ulta Pinata-Yada-Yada, and Wet N Wild Party of 5 Glitters.

I know that Gems has added large pink hex glitter since I bought my bottle, so it's now even closer to HB then this photo shows. Pinata-Yada-Yada is the closest color match to some of the colors of HB. Party of 5 Glitters is not even close, but it's the cheapest at $1.99 a bottle, so if your care more about price then true duplicability, it's a definite contender. All of these "dupes" have hex smaller glitter, while HB has square, also HB's small blue glitter is a bright royal blue, while the others are more of a cyan color. Of them all I prefer HB, but Gems and Pinata-Yada-Yada are tied for me as the best dupe (both are available for about 5 dollars).

Until next time!

Bad Blogger, No Cookie.

Hey There!

Yes, I know I am a very bad blogger, but unfortunately (and fortunately I guess) I've been working crazy crazy mad hours this month since a girl at my work quit and I've been covering everyones' shifts...  I'm planning on getting on a blogging schedule as soon as the month is over and my hours normalize again, so bear with me... In the meantime, I have a couple of different manis to show you today... one of my photogenically fail mani from this morning (that in person was STUNNING... stupid photo fail), and one of the current shiny non-photo fail mani... so here we go...

This was Sephora by OPI (SOPI)'s Who Let The Dorks Out from the new Glee collection, a super gorgeous metallic teal with a slight purple duo-chrome, topped with Jesse's Girl High Intensity nail polish in Firefly, a slightly milky whitish jelly base with gold/green/blue glass flecks... In reality it had this light underlying purple flash and depending on the light those gorgeous little gold flecks looked spring green, but alas this was the only photo I could get of it that was even half way decent so I took it off this morning. 

Now on to current events... OPI's Show It & Glow It from the Burlesque Collection

This is a super pretty mostly purple and silver glitter polish with bits of orange, blue, yellow, and a teensy bit of green thrown in. Two coats to be completely opaque, dries in a flash, miserable to remove, needs thick topcoat to be smooth, but is so very very pretty.

Giving Me A Technicolor Whirl

Ok so the title of today's blog is random, but this polish always reminds me of that old Disney Channel movie Zenon: Girl of the 21st Century, which I must have watched a hundred times or so growing up... and to be fair it totally fits with this polish.

This is China Glaze's Nova, one of the 50 glitters they put out a few years ago, and it's pretty amazing. It's lots of silver and holo hex glitter shoved in a clear base. Super shiny, super sparkle-y , super pain to get off, but totally worth it if you want crazy crazy glitter nails. So here we go...

^Direct Sunlight^

 ^Direct Sunlight, Blurred to show the ubersparkle^

^Indirect Sunlight^

^Indoors with flash^

This is 3 coats with two coats of Seche Vite for a smooth finish (but with a little shrinkage, alas). 

Thanks for following, I'll see ya soon.

I Wore My Black & White Dress For

Hello all,

Today I just have a quick swatch of a franken I made at 2 AM this morning during yet another bout of crazy crazy insomnia that I call The Birthday Massacre (named after a band, with a song that the title of todays blog comes from).

Now, I was going for a Big Sparkle-y Glitter in a black base, and overall I'm marginally satisfied with my results, though I think I added a bit too much black and not enough clear to the base, because this is SUPER opaque in two coats with not enough glitter shining through for my complete satisfaction... anywho, to the pictures

^ Multi-colored large hex, medium green square, and micro gold, blue, and green glitter in black ^ 

^Sunlight, showing some of the micro glitter^ 

^Sunlight, showing the full opacity^

So that is it for now... promise to get to some other lovely choices now that the weather seems to be improved.

Gems for Trixie

Hey there!

Today I have my very first Nail Of The Day... A blindingly blingy combo which was described by my brother as "a clown exploded on your nails" composed of one coat of Zoya's Trixie covered by one coat of Milani Jewel FX in Gems.

 Gems is a fantastic glittery explosion of medium sized silver, orange, gold, and green hex glitter, and small blue, green, silver, gold, and red round glitter in a clear base. I think this could be totally opaque on its own in 2-3 coats, and it is relatively smooth for a glitter this chunky.

Look at that bottle... sooooo pretty.

^ Indirect Sunlight ^

^ Uber-sparkle in sunlight ^

To my layman's eye this looks a heck of a lot like Lippmann's Happy Birthday, which I will do a comparison of once my bottle of Happy Birthday arrives. The main difference I can see is that Lippmann's hex glitter seems larger in other swatches I've seen, as well as having more colors of glitter, and possibly being less opaque, but if these things aren't super important to you and you're looking for a less expensive alternative, Gems is a real winner.