JADED LEAVES

This is my franken with konad on it. I used ChG in Cherish (the bottle I'm holding in the pictures) for the stamping. I thought it matched well with the green of the franken and love how this turned out - very spring-y.

Don't forget to vote at the top for a name for this franken - the poll is at the top of the blog.

FRANKEN - HELP ME PICK THE NAME

Here is my latest franken attempt. This didn't quite turn out the color I was going for, but I still like it. I was going for a a jade color. Don't know if you know this, but there are probably 50 different shades of jade, so the the one I was going for is the more light greenish blue one. I have a picture below of what my inspiration was.

I used clear, Loreal Waters Edge, Color Club White, Klean Colors green. I think I made mine a little too green. I also used Carolyn NY clear and after it was too late realized it was a quick dry. I think using the quick dry made this polish a little bit more of a pain to apply.

SO as always, I ask you all to help me name my frankens. I have come up with two names that I like and have a poll at the top of the blog for you to vote on the name. Thanks for help and hope you enjoyed my franken.

I still might try to perfect the jade look I was going for in the first place this weekend :)

FINGER PAINTS SAPPHIRE SHIMMER OVER LOREAL WATERS EDGE

Here I layered Sapphire Shimmer over Waters Edge to see what it would look like. I like the outcome, I think it looks really pretty.







SAPPHIRE SHIMMER on it's own


WATERS EDGE on it's own

LOREAL - WATERS EDGE & HIGH TIDE

HIGH TIDE
A grayed out blue with silver shimmer. This applied pretty good and the shimmer showed up. I was pleased that it did, but then I thought it ended up looking a little frosty with all that shimmer. I like it though, a very calming blue shade.




WATERS EDGE
This color looks like the really blue water you only see in tropical pictures. It is a little bit green, and it shows more green in real life than it looks here in these pics. This is three coats and it applied fairly nice.

I made a franken using this color and will have it up shortly for you all to see.

FINGER PAINTS

Look who was on their swatch game last night!! I got a little extra time by keeping Banana busy with a busy bone - wooot! Also my Mom has been keeping him during the day and he was super tired out when I got him last night, "Granny" must have put him to work!

Anyway - I have these swatches, plus the Loreals, plus a franken PLUS a konadicure - that's right, I'm the sh*t!!

WICKED GLITTER
This was fairly dense glitter, but I think it would work best over a base color. Shown is four coats, but I think with a base coat you could get away with 3 maybe 2 coats of this. I liked it, but I wasn't wowed by it. I think I'm more of a solid color glitter than with 2 or more glitter colors - it starts getting distracting at that point.





SAPPHIRE SHIMMER
Hmmm - not what I expected at all! Shown is four coats - so this isn't buildable on its own. This is also a jelly base. At first I was majorly disappointed but after the fourth coat I kind of liked the way it looked, VNL and all. I did layer this over a base color and will show that to you in another post today.




ART APPRECIATION APRICOT
Wow, that name is a mouth full! I liked this color and it applied really nice. I love the gold shimmer that goes throughout. A very nice color, and I'm pleased I snagged it for $1.99.
***MOM - this is the color that I think might be what you are looking for for your upcoming pedi.




BLISSFULLY BLUE
This was very difficult to work with and I think you can see it in my crappy application. I think it was too thick and I should have thinned it down and then applied it again, but time wasn't on my side. Thought the color was just ok, I was hoping for something a little more pastel and a little less bright, but it is still a nice color.

GASP!!! I NEED ONE IN EVERY COLOR!!!

Maybe not one in EVERY color - but this green one sure would fit the bill!!!!


FOUND VIA RING-O-BLOG
PURCHASE HERE THROUGH ETSY!

NEW NAIL POLISH COLLECTIONS

Hey there gals! Got some new nail polish collections I wanted to spread the word on. I just renewed my Sallys card, so I had $5 bucks to blow, plus Sallys has all their nail polish buy two get one free - great deal, huh!

I noticed that Finger Paints had THREE new collections up, one was all neons - nothing to unique or special, so I passed on those.

Then a had a two bottle collection of glitters - so DUH, I got both of those! Don't they look really familiar to a certain Alice in Wonderland collection put out recently?? Not exact dupes, BUT very close in similarities.

The third collection was based on Heaven or Clouds or something, with about 4 blues, a opal type glitter and a silver. I got a baby blue that looked interesting to me.



Sapphire Shimmer, Wicked Glitter, Blissfully Blue, Art Appreciation Apricot

Then I saw that Loreal has a 3 polish collection of blues. I picked up two of them. What you can't see in the pics is that lighter blue (High Tide) actually has micro silver shimmer going through out it!! I'm just praying it shows up on my nails.

I just happened to notice the shimmer because as soon as I get to my car I always pull out my nail polish purchases and look at them in the sun, lol, do you all do that? Well when I did, the shimmer was super noticeable - so wooot!

I also have a great franken idea for the greenish blue one (Waters Edge) that I hope I can pull off tonight and show you all in the morning.


Waters Edge, High Tide

Have you ladies seen these collections? Have you gotten any yet?

NEW NUBAR RELEASES!

I just got word that these babies are on their way to me for review - woot! I can't wait to get these and show you all how awesome these are going to be!

NIGHT SKY COLLECTION

This bronze one has my mom's name written all over it!!


NUBAR 2010

nubar celebrates ten years of creating safe and innovative nail lacquers free of DBP (phthalate), formaldehyde, and toluene with nubar 2010. This fantastic shade consists of flakes of reflective glitter in a polychromatic base, and displays its many shades when worn alone as a sheer polish or layered over other nubar nail lacquers for a dramatic effect. The limit to nubar 2010's possibilities is your imagination!
Like all nubar products, nubar 2010 is free of DBP (phthalate), formaldehyde, and toluene, and is vegan and cruelty free.

NINA ULTRA PRO - PURPLE XING

This is one of those polishes where a picture is worth a thousand words!
PERFECTION!!

SOME SWAPPAGE :)

I did a recent swap with SKULDA'S CLAWS and got these two polishes in return from her. She did a great job of picking colors that I like and that suit me! I totally forgot to get the names of these - whoops! I will try and remember to get the names to night!






MANGUE

Finish it up! 25 different nail polish finishes

Hi guys! How is everybody doing? I've been very busy lately (and that includes having a playdate with my mom, Natasja, Michelle from TheLacquerFiles and Daphne from Nailswatches. It was so much fun, I've never seen so many polishes at once, they even danced around in my head while I was trying to sleep!).

Anyway! since I've lost a lot of swatches thanks to my evil evil MacBook, I didn't really have decent material to post here. But hopefully I can make up for it with this post, since it took a LOT of time ;-). For today I decided to put together an overview of all finishes that are available nowadays. Please let me know if I forgot one!

A creme is one of the most popular finishes we know. This is just a plain color without any glitter, shimmer, etc added to it. The finish is glossy and smooth.	A jelly is just like a creme, but the main difference is the substance: more jelly-like. They tend to be sheer but they make up for it by being xtremely glossy.	The shimmer finish is a colored base with shimmer added to it, most of the times that color is silver but we're seeing contrasting colors more often.	Glass flecked polishes look like they contain small glass particles, often mixed in a jelly base. The finish is very smooth, yet sparkly.	You could say neon describes color, not finish. But most neons do have a particular finish, very bright colors that often dry semi-matte.
A frost is a very fine shimmery polish with obvious bruststrokes. These kind of finishes are losing popularity and mostly seen in older polishes.	The pearl finish is quite similar to the frost finish, but it has a more pearly sheen to it.	Foil polishes often have a metallic base color with very fine glitter added to it. The finish is very smooth yet sparkly.	Metallic finishes make your nails appear like metal. Metallic polishes are especially popular in copper, gold or silver.	Glitter is one of most flashiest finishes. These glitters are often put in a jelly base. The amount of glitter can vary a lot. Sometimes you'll need top coat to smoothen the surface.
Mostly glitter in a clear base so they're often used as a top coat. String glitter consists out of glitters in rectangular shapes, often in silver or iridiscent colors.	Just as string glitter, these are mostly used as a top coat. The glitters in this clear base are round shaped.	Another glitter top coat, but with glitter in the shape of squares.	A very popular glitter shape: hex or hexagonal. These are very popular and more common these days. Often used in regular glitter polish as well.	This is a very special glitter top coat, in this picture you see stars, but there are also glitter top coats containing hearts and diamonds (rhombus).
This finish dries completely matte, no shine whatsoever. These dry quickly and sometimes end up being streaky. Handlotion is to be avoided because it decreases the matte effect.	Satin finishes end up matte as well, but not entirely matte. There is still a slight shine, but not enough to classify it as glossy.	Just like mattes, suedes are completely matte. Suedes contain shimmer though, so that's what sets them apart from regular mattes.	Holographic polishes contain rainbow colored glitter, which changes color on the reflection of light. This finish is very obvious in sun light.	Holographic glitter in a different color base. The glitter is often more sparse and while it does change color upon different light, there is no rainbow effect to be seen.
Flakie polishes consist out of a jelly base with very fine opal (often duochrome) particles in it. They're mostly used for layering as the jelly base is often sheer.	Duochrome polishes change color on the reflection of light. True duochromes are very obvious and often show 2 colors, but sometimes even more.	This finish is often confused with duochrome or shimmer. An iridiscent finish is a color that flashes a different color. These are not obvious enough to be a duochrome.	This is a half transparent finish, often used in French manicures to show off the white tips. A lot of sheers are salmon, nude or pink.	This is a strange and not that well known finish. A water finish resembles the characteristics of a jelly, but is less opaque.

Pfew I think I got them all! *wipes off forehead*. I hope you liked this post, what's your favorite finish?
Thanks so much for reading and till next time!
- Michèle