King Tut- Inspired Fishtail Nails

Hello Lovelies!

Back again today with a new favorite kind of nail art... fishtail braid nails! I have been seeing tutorials for these these pop up  lot lately and have been loving coming up with new and exciting color combos. Today's colors were inspired by my ipod shuffling and coming up with this:

Which of course, led me to this gorgeous color combo:

Which quickly became this:

This super shiny look was made using 2 coats of OPI Goldeneye on all nails, with Orly Sweet Peacock and Wet N Wild Black Creme free-handed to make the fishtail braid pattern on the ring finger and thumb. As you can see in the above pictures, Goldeneye is an incredibly reflective gold fleck that gives a great foil appearance. Sweet Peacock is an equally bright cerulean blue foil which shines so beautifully against the gold and black.

Until next time,

HeatherS

OPI Designer Series: Design & Extravagance

Hello Lovlies!

Finally some sun to swatch! I've decided to start showing two polishes at a time, because I will never get through them in a timely manner at the rate I'm going. Today I have the last of my stronger linear holos, Design, and my favorite of the non-linear holos, Extravagance.

Design is a gorgeous linear tan holographic polish. In person, this is a perfect match to my skin, so I get holographic mannequin hands, which I find so very pretty. The above swatches are 2 coats, and there is no visible nail line in person, but for photos I could have used 3.  

Extravagance is a rich raspberry scattered holographic. Photos don't really do this polish the justice it deserves. The first one above only hints at the kind of lush, subtle holographic goodness I see in person looking at this color. Coverage on this is wonderful... the above are 2 very thin coats, but 1 thick one would probably suffice. The only downside to this one is visible above... it's tough to clean up, and like many in the red family, it tends to stay visible in cuticles.

Until next time,

HeatherS  

OPI Designer Series: Original

Hello Lovelies!

Today's OPI Designer Series polish is Original! Original is a pretty lilac holographic polish that covers beautifully in 3 thin coats as you see below.

They say you always remember your first, and Original, as the name would suggest, is the first holographic polish I ever got, so I can thank it for starting my holo obsession. Of all my holos it's seen the most wear over the years. I attribute this to it's versatile color... it's subdued enough to not be completely off the wall, but it's still purple and funky and different. 

Until next time,

HeatherS

OPI Designer Series: Signature

Hello Lovelies!

Continuing on with the OPI Designer Series today is another classic holo: Signature.

Signature is a lovely rose pink holographic that is definitely more cool toned than warm toned. It's very understated in low light, looking a bit plain and mauve. It has one of the strongest holo effects of all the old DS polishes.

Now, I'm not really a girl who likes pink polishes... in fact pretty much every other polish color outnumbers pink in my collection, but this is a really pretty one. 

Until next time,

HeatherS

OPI Designer Series: Glamour

Hello Lovelies!

Alright, today I have my absolute FAVORITE of the OPI Designer Series... Glamour. My amazing mother got me this polish for my birthday 2 years ago and I've been head over heals with it ever since.

*swoon*

It shouldn't really come as a surprise that I love this color so much, its a rich royal blue holographic polish that appears a bit indigo in low lights and applies like a dream in 2 coats. This is definitely high on my list of favorite blues, and it would probably make the list for favorite polishes.

Until next time,

HeatherS

OPI DS Diamond

Hello Lovelies!

Continuing the OPI DS swatches today is Diamond. Diamond is a bit of a holographic ugly duckling. It's too silver to be a purple, too purple to be silver, too dusty to be lavender, with a touch of taupe in certain lights... I've determined it's probably best to call it a thistle color. The holo is strong, but not super linear, and it really doesn't show well in the bottle.

 Initially when I bought this color I was sort of underwhelmed. Yes, it's a fairly strong holo, yes it's unique, but it was sort of... safe? Something about the kind of dusty thistle color of it didn't really appeal that much to me, so into the drawer it went, never really brought out again until it needed swatching. Then something odd happened... I put it on, and it was like a completely different color than I remember. It suddenly seemed chic, and a little edgy with it's dusky looks. I honestly didn't take it off for about 3 days, and so many different people commented on how pretty it was. I sort of love when a polish surprises me like that.

Have you ever had a polish that deserved a second look?

Until next time,

HeatherS

I'm Back!

Hello All,

It has been a crazy year for me. Between opening and subsequently having to close a business, family issues, and a vast array health issues it's not surprising that I haven't been able to keep up with my blogging. I am very happy to return to it though, and I have lots of lovely new manicures planned to show everyone!

Today I have a pretty combination of two of my favorite OPI's... What's With The Cattitude from the Shrek Collection and  You Don't Know Jacques.  WWTC is a beautiful bright sky blue that covers in 3 coats, and YDKJ is a rich chocolate-y taupe that's perfect in two. To get the design I used the Cheeky XL Jumbo Plate C which I got in a 3 pack available on Amazon. I have had the XL plates for less than a week and I'm already so in love with them... I've become very addicted to full nail images, and these have so many different patterns, and I never have to double stamp because the images are considerably bigger than Konad or Bundle Monster.

Are you a fan of nail stamping? If so, do you prefer subtler combinations or in-you-face contrast?

Let me know!

Until next time,

Heather.

I'm Cracking Up!

Hello All!

How is everyone? I've been crazy busy, but ridiculously happy.

Today I have a quick photo of a super pretty crackle polish combo... it reminds me of a venetian glass necklace my mom had when I was growing up and I'm super smitten with the different finishes contrasting.

This is OPI's Rising Star (a super rich, almost copper leaning gold) topped with China Glaze's Crushed Candy (a bright turquoise crackle polish).

  
I'm not a huge fan of gold or turquoise, but somehow the combination is very appealing to me. As I said, the real beauty of this manicure is the differences in the finishes, with that rich gold metallic shimmer that glows underneath the creamy turquoise when light catches it.

Until next time!

Chaotic & Colorful

Hey All,

Sorry I've been gone for so long, work had our manager fired and another girl quit on the same day, so I've been covering both of their hours. All the chaos at work though inspired today's manicure, a super bright and crazy colorful water marble.

This is my 4th water marble, I'm finally getting the hang of it. This was OPI What's With The Cattitude, Who The Shrek Are You, Zoya Mira and Areej, and China Glaze Happy Go Lucky.

The thumbs are my favorite.

Are you a fan of nail art? If so, simple, crazy or both?

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.

Designer Series Sapphire

Hey there!

In case you couldn't tell by the blog's name, I love holographic polishes. Like shout it from the rooftops, introduce them to my parents, ghetto-blaster above my head playing "In Your Eyes" in love. With that in mind, today I have the one holo in my collection that I am merely in like with, OPI Designer Series Sapphire.

 ^ Direct Sunlight ^

  ^ Indoors w/ Flash ^

^ Indirect Sunlight ^

Now don't get me wrong, this is a pretty color... it's just not what I expected. In real life it's not as blue as almost all these pictures make it out to be. The closest picture color-wise is the last one which shows how icy and almost silver this color is, but it doesn't show the slightly pinkish pearl effect that appears in low light. I love how holographic this color is, and it's surprisingly opaque for a color this light (all pictures above are 2 coats). 

Like I said, in like with this holo, but not in love.