Orly Frisky & Frolic Gradient & MASH 45

Hey beauties! Today I have a gradient with some stamping to show you. I haven't done a gradient in awhile and thought I'd do one today. I did the gradient using Orly Frisky & Orly Frolic and then stamped using MASH 45 in Konad White. I love the way gradients look with a full nail design stamped over it!

Orly R.I.P. Swatch

Happy Halloween! Today I have a perfect polish for the occasion. This is one coat of Orly R.I.P. over OPI Black Onyx. R.I.P. has a sheer black jelly base so I didn't have the patience to build it with multiple coats. I think it looks perfect for Halloween, especially if you don't have the time to do nail art. Does anyone have any special plans for Halloween? Whatever they are, hope you all have a safe evening!

Mermaid Nails

Happy Sunday beauties! I'm super busy right now with my school work so it's another short post today. Here are some mermaid nails using 2 coats of Orly Mermaid Tale over 2 coats of Zoya Ivanka stamped using Konad M34 and MASH 39 in Konad White. Too bad I'm not doing the 31 day nail challenge right now, I could've so used these for the day inspired by a color! I wanted to try the glue base coat on these, but I decided not to because I used Zoya Ivanka before the glitter. Has anyone tried using the glue base coat with some colored under wear before applying the glitter polish? I'm super curious if it works.

Zoya Layla and Orly Flash Glam FX Sashay My Way

Happy Tuesday! Short post today. It's my first day back to nursing school today and I have to leave soon. I'm super bummed I won't be able to do my nails as often especially because we're not allowed to wear nail polish to clinicals. Here's a palette cleanser for me, it's still very bright, but there's no nail art. Very weird for me! Here's Zoya Layla and Orly Flash Glam FX Sashay My Way. I put used China Glaze GR8 as a base for the gold in case I had any bald spots. Glad I used it because I do if you look closely =P

31 Day Nail Challenge--Day 14: Flowers

Hi readers! Today's theme is flowers and I wanted to do something much cooler, but when I was sponging different colors over my base, the light green I used turned into a gross color so I just started over and left it plain. I used Orly Flirty and stamped using BM 224 in Konad White. I added orange dots using China Glaze Papaya Punch. Does anyone else love this pink as much as I do?!

St. Patrick's Day Mani #1

Hi lovelies! This is my first St. Paddy's Day mani I came up with. I have another one for you all tomorrow that I assure you is nicer than this one lol. My husband was on his way home from work and I tried to do this one real fast before he got home. I used Orly Fresh and Milani Jewel FX Gold. I usually like to use a sponge for any kind of 'gradient', but for this one I just kind of dabbed the brush on my nail and spread around the glitter with the polish brush. It was quick, I know it's not my neatest, but I still think it's a cute look if you're short on time!

Orly Charged Up & BM 207

This is my first monochrome mani! I've been meaning to do one, but I'm always second guessing myself because I think the stamp might not show up. Anyways, I read China Glaze's Romantique polishes work really well to stamp so I bought 6 of them. I used Orly Charged Up as a base color. I stamped using BM 207 in China Glaze Harmony. The purple base color photographs a little different than it looks in person, but I really like how this one turned out and yes, the Romantique polishes are awesome to stamp with!

Orly Cosmic FX Lunar Eclipse Swatch

Last, but not least from the Cosmix  FX collection is Lunar Eclipse. I kept saying this with each polish, but this one was really the hardest to photograph lol. I think it's because this is a blue and purple duochrome and blue and purple are really hard to capture on camera. Purple usually ends up looking blue which is really frustrating. The base of this color is such a vibrant, rich blue that I would totally wear it just like that. To make it even better, there is a ton of purple glitter, giving it a cool duochrome effect. Like I said, it was hard to capture, but I hope you can tell. I used 3 coats, no topcoat.

Outdoors, shade with flash.

Outdoors, sunlight with flash.

Indoors with flash.

Indoors with flash.

How the polish looks in the bottle.

Orly Cosmic FX Galaxy Girl Swatch

Galaxy Girl is another dark polish from this collection that I'm not very fond of. It may just be my least favorite of them all. I don't know, I guess there just wasn't anything really special about this one to make me like it. It has a plum base with blue glitter. I used 3 coats, no topcoat. It was quite difficult for me to photograph this one. I'm debating whether or not I should get/build a lightbox. Do many of you nail bloggers out there use a lightbox, do you recommend using one? Well off to bed, tomorrow I have to go to an orientation for the nursing program I will be starting in September. Wish me luck!

How the polish looks in the bottle.

Oh yea, after orientation I'm going on a nail polish haul adventure! I heard of this store called US Nails Supply where O.P.I. are $4.25 each, China Glaze are $3 each (only $2.75 if you buy 10 or more), Essie is $3.50, so forth. Basically I'm gonna try not to go nuts there, I'll post some pics =]

Orly Cosmic FX It's Not Rocket Science Swatch

I love green and I especially love this color! It's Not Rocket Science has a medium green base and bright green glitter. At some angles the glitter appears green, at others it appears gold. This color was the easiest to photograph from the Cosmic FX Colletion! I used 3 coats, no topcoat.



Sunlight with flash.



Shade without flash.

How the polish looks in the bottle.

I only have 2 more to show from this collection and then I'll have some nail art back up! At least I finally got around to these. It was a good time for me to try them anyways because I've been feeling ill all week and these didn't take much of a toll on me.

Orly Cosmic FX Out of This World Swatch

Out of This World was an okay color for me. I'm not a fan of really dark polishes, but aside from me being partial to bright colors, this is still be a pretty polish. The base for this color is a really dark purple, almost black, and then there's tons of purple glitter! At some angles, the polish looks almost black, at other angles, you can definitely tell it's purple. The purple glitter looks gold at some angles. I used 3 coats. Sorry for all the lines on my nails, I went to bed after doing this and I wanted to show these swatches with no topcoat.

How the polish looks in the bottle.

Orly Cosmic FX Halley's Comet Swatch

I didn't realize this until recently, but I have a lot of untried polishes I really need to start swatching. I'm going to go through all of my Orly Cosmic FX polishes first and hopefully that makes a dent. Today I have Halley's Comet. It's a beautiful blue/green with greenish gold glitter. I've read it's a dupe of Zoya Charla, which is a bummer because I own both, although I haven't tried Charla yet. Oh well, at least it's a pretty color and not an ugly one!

How the polish looks in the bottle.

Orly Cosmic FX Space Cadet Swatch

I got all 6 Orly Cosmic FX polishes sometime last month and I haven't used any of them. I finally decided to start swatching them. The first I chose is Space Cadet because I've read other blogs and it seems to be the favorite of the collection. I took several pics for this one bc it was a little difficult to capture the different colors of this beauty! I used 3 coats for opacity. Click photos to enlarge.

How the polish looks in the bottle.

Pirate Mani 3

So as you guys know, there are mermaids in the POTC movies, so of course I had to have at least one mani with a mermaid. Too bad the fauxnad plate I own with a mermaid totally sucks and I could only get a clean pick up of the image once =[ For the base color I used Orly in It's Up to Blue. It's pretty sheer, I used two coats, but three would be better for complete opacity. The mermaid is from fauxnad M72 and the fish are from fauxnad M14. I stamped using Sally Hansen Insta Dri in Silver Sweep. I wanted the tips to look like mermaid tail scales, but my fiancee thought they were waves so I'll have to do another mani that actually looks like a mermaid's tail, but for the design I used BM 217 and also stamped in Silver Sweep.

I went to bed before topcoat and I got lines all over my nails =|

The mermaid! Too bad she didn't want to cooperate with me.