Fourth of July Manicure

Happy Fourth of July!

The manicure I did for today was definitely a test of patience. Lol.

I have dabbled with nail vinyls once before and didn't have a huge issue, however, this time I was about to give up if the 3rd time I went to use them wasn't going to work.

I couldn't decide what to do for this year's 4th. After scouring Youtube for hours, I finally just did something simple and went with stars and stripes with a dotticure accent nail. Lesson learned, I am not good at dotticures at all. I have a horrible time figuring out placement and I always tend to overdo it. It still came out okay but it's not something I'm very good at.

 For this mani, I  used several polishes. Blue - Bettina with a Zoya holographic layered on top. Red is a Zoy with a drugstore brand "holo" layered on top. White accent is Glitter Gal with OPI layered on top for opaqueness. The white for the stripes is a Sinful Colors striping polish and the white for the stars is the same Glitter Gal polish. The silver holo glitter is China Glaze from the Color Pop collection. (I'll look up the names later.)

Bettina Polishes - Crazy Dog Lady

Hello ya'll! Long time, no see. :) I've been sort of making a small comeback into the nail world but I know I still won't ever have the time to fully delve back in. 

I've been watching a lot of nail videos on Youtube and Instagram and I got inspired to get back into the nail art side of things. I've become a bit of a crazy dog lady so these nails are inspired by that.

Base polish is Bettina's Orchidea, which is a light pastel mint green. The stamp was a fail gradient using Bettina's PepperMint, Aqua, and Indigo. I used the Bundle Monster stamping plate # BM-S160 (link) for the designs and used the double ended glass stamper (link).

The downside to stamping is smearing the design when you don't wait long enough to apply your fast drying top coat. -_- Otherwise I'm really happy with this design. It's the first time I've ever stamped on all my fingers (and actually the first time I've ever really been successful with stamping lol). It's trial and error so just keep on trying!

Nail'd It — Dragon Scales

What is this? A second post?! Yeah, I know. Things have been crazy so that's why I've only been having one post a week. Between work, my social life, and my mom having major surgery a couple of weeks ago, things have been crazy.  It's starting to get a little better but getting back into the swing of doing swatches or just having the time to take pictures of my manis has been really limited.

The past couple of months I have been really bad with buying polish. I keep seeing all these awesome indie brands being featured on blogs and of course have to take advantage of them, because you never know when they're going to blow up or disappear.

So when Amy from I'm Feeling Nail-venturous posted about Nail'd It polishes, I just FELL in love and bought a few of the ones that jumped out at me.  This is the first of the three that I ended up buying.

Dragon Scales is a multi colored mix of matte glitter in a clear base. It's fantastic!

This is 1 coat of Dragon Scales layered over 2-3 thin coats of Bettina Orchidea. I absolutely love this combination. I honestly think this is one of my favorite manicures ever. Wear on this was fantastic. The formula on Dragon Scales is really great, the glitter was easy to go on and there wasn't any pushing or globbing it on at all.

As much as the indie glitter polish scene is starting to get a bit old for me, I'm definitely going to keep an eye on Nail'd It's polishes.

You can purchase them from her Etsy store for $8.50 ea for a full 15ml bottle.

Until next time~ :)

Bettina — Sand Blast

Here's the base to the post I posted yesterday.

Bettina Sand Blast is a part of their Jeans collection. This is a light grey creme. 

Below under artificial light, no flash.

Application was good. I used two medium coats and at first I thought I'd need a third, but the second coat leveled itself out. This is a bit on the thick side but it's not hard to work with and nothing a little thinner can't fix.

This is such a great neutral color. It made my nails look SOOO much longer than they actually are. Lol. I wore this for close to 5 days and have just some tip wear. It wore really well. :)

Until next time~ :)

Nail mail & haul post!

I know I said in my last haul post that I wouldn't have another big haul post for a while, well I got my second nail mail from the lovely Vanessa of Confessions of a Polishaholic and I just had to share!

 She sent me a ton of Bettina polishes, which are a brand native to Puerto Rico. They are fantastic!

 

First up is the Flori collection.

L-R: Magnolia, Orchidea, Ortensia

L-R: Tulipani, Giacinto, Gladiola

Jeans Collection

L-R: Sand Blast, Vintage, Indigo

L-R: Gems Amethyst, Resort Flip Flops, Resort Pink Bikini

L-R: Bettina Matte, Glamour Allure, Festive, Art Deco Aqua

L-R: Hard Candy Beetle & Matte-ly In Love

L-R: Sally Hansen Pacific Blue, Rockstar Pink, Essie Barefoot in Blue

She so sweetly sent me Barefoot in Blue since she ended up with 2 when they did the Toms giveaway. I completely forgot to enter in to win!

L-R: OPI DS Temptation, OPI Rainbow Connection

She also sent me a bunch of delicious candies which I have been slowly devouring this past weekend. Lol.

When I was shopping for nail mail to send to Vanessa, I picked up these two for myself. Lol. I couldn't resist!

L-R: Spoiled Use Protection, Spoiled Shuffle the Deck

Then I cheated and bought some indie polishes from 2 lovely indie polish makers. >.>

KBShimmer is an indie polish makers who also specializes in artisan soaps, 

bath bombs, sugar scrubs, and more. Check them out!

L-R: Newsprint, Robin, Lilac Dreams

  

 Whimsical Ideas by Pam is another indie polish maker. You can order from her through her Facebook page and you can also check her page to see what polishes she's currently offering.

L-R: Hatched, Seuss, Kismet's Pajamas

And that is all for now!  

I apologize for not posting much this week but I have been SOO busy with RL and work and I've just been worn out! I do have some things that I need to edit and get posted so hopefully expect a couple of posts to come this week. I'm not sure I'll be posting 3 times a week like I was before but definitely expect to have more than one update (hopefully) a week. I definitely have enough polish to keep me busy for a while. Heheh.

Until next time~ :)

Easter Mani Watermarble!

Happy Easter Sunday!

Today I have a skittles mani with a couple watermarble accent nails.

I used the Bettina polishes that the lovely Vanessa of Confessions of a Polishaholic sent me a few weeks back. :DD

Right hand — best marble on this hand!

Left hand — first marble on this hand. Not so great.

These two are before I added the glitter coat from Lacquistry.

Polishes used were:

China Glaze White on White (base for marble)

Bettina Cotton Candy

Bettina Birds

Bettina Ocean

Bettina Grape

Bettina Peppermint

Lacquistry Frosty Marrow

I marbled my left hand first and didn't have the best time of it. I tried to dip 2 fingers at a time but because I have stupid fingers and the polish was too dry (and my cup probably wasn't big enough) it didn't exactly turn out too successful. This did however come out pretty well considering I have NEVER done a watermarble before and didn't even practice before sitting down to do this. What you see is my very first attempt. Lol.

After I was done, I wanted to do something to add a little oomph to it, so I added Lacquistry Frosty Marrow to my nails. It's an iridescent white glitter top coat. I almost added it to all my marbled nails too but didn't really like it on them so that's why only my middle left nail has it on. XD

I did mess up my left hand though and only half of my index finger got marbled at first, but I did a coat of China Glaze White on White on top of the half nail and redid it.

Half marbled index finger. Lol.

Before the mess began. :D

It was a very fun trial and I plan on trying my hand at this more. Not sure I could handle doing one nail at a time though so I need to figure out how to do more than one at a time without that first time fail happening again. Hehe.

Until next time, my lovelies~ :)

Another haul post! :D

I have another haul post for you guys. I've been on a buying spree recently, especially when it comes to indie brand polishes.

Firstly I have a few polishes that I got all individually and put them together. I didn't realize until after that they all have the same color scheme minus the first one. Lol.

L-R: Jessica Iridescent, Revlon Popular, Lynnderella Nosegay, Elixir Lacquers Bad Kitty, & Sinful Colors Cinderella

I also got in The Hungry Asian polishes a while back and never posted about. Kae has regular and mini sized polishes available in her Etsy shop. They're awesome!! And the little drawings on the labels are too adorable.

L-R: Sneeze Breeze, Strawberry, Sea Creature

Next I have fabulous nail mail from the lovely Vanessa of Confessions of a Polishaholic! :D

She packaged the box all cute like an Easter basket. I was all giddy when I was opening it. Thank you sooooooo much!!!!

You can see more from this package and the rest of my haul post under the jump! :D