Shimmer Polish - Tape Manis - Week 2

Hi Everyone!! We talked about last week how my name comes from my love of tape manis, so here we are again, with week two featuring Shimmer Polish!! And since Cindy, the owner, was kind enough to send me 10 different beautiful polishes, we will have a new tape mani every Friday for this 10 week event! I am so excited!! Aren't they gorgeous!?

Today, we'll be looking at Julie!  I have a friend named Julie :-)  And she is sweet and colorful like this polish!  Here are a couple bottle shots.

You can purchase Shimmer Polish HERE on Etsy. You can also visit the
Shimmer Polish Blog! for information and lots of swatches! And you can also stay up to date with
Shimmer Polish on Facebook and on Twitter - @ShimmerPolish.

I started with Sinful Colors as my bases, using 2 coats of each of (top to bottom) Sugar N Spice, Sweet Tooth, Sweet Nothing, and Unicorn.  I found these at my local Walgreen's store.  I then applied KBShimmer Clearly on Top to help the polish to dry very quickly!

Once that is dry, probably about 20 minutes or so, it's safe to use the tape! Of course, the longer you wait, there is less of a chance for smudges! If you are going to do a tape mani after wearing the polish for a day or two, I recommend reapplying the top coat to prevent the tape from pulling any of the original color with it!

When I do a tape mani, I apply the tape to my hand a few times to remove some of the tackiness of the tape. I lay it diagonally on the nail and with the clear tape, you can make sure the edges are flat against the nail. I do each nail individually with tape, then apply the polish. Once applied, I remove the tape and move the next nail. By the time that is finished, I add top coat and this is how it turns out!

I love all the glitters in Julie!  With Easter coming on Sunday (already?? lol), I decided to go with something bright and creamy, but the added glitter almost makes me think of decorated eggs!!  I love how this turned out!

Of course the beautiful thing about multi colored glitter, is that it looks great with almost anything, which is what I wanted to also show!  I think each base brings out the different glitters.  I love the versatility of Julie!

And some close ups!!  Don't drool too much ;-)

In case you missed last week's mani, here it is!!  You can see more information about it HERE!

I hope you are enjoying the Shimmer Polish tape manis so far!! Please check back next week for the next tape mani! ;-)

In case you missed above, you can purchase Shimmer Polish HERE on Etsy. You can also visit the
Shimmer Polish Blog for information and lots of swatches! And you can also stay up to date with
Shimmer Polish on Facebook and on Twitter - @ShimmerPolish. 

Have a great weekend!!!  Happy Easter!!!!

Much Love,
Crystal




*This polish was sent to me for my honest review. All thoughts and opinions are that of my own.*

Zeus and Valentino

Zeus - 2 Coats, no top coat

Oh do I have a combo for you today!! I actually had a mani from last weekend to post, but this was just too beautiful to wait!!  The other day I was at Walgreens and stumbled upon Zeus by Sinful Colors.  I do believe it's new, but I could be wrong.  Either way, I fell in love!  It's a dusty blurple (blue and purple) with a hidden pink shimmer!  I'm so glad that it translated onto the nail!  This was a little thick to apply and was opaque in 1 coat, but I opted for two for a smoother nail for pictures.  I knew I would be layering, so I didn't bother with a top coat.  It's actually extremely shiny without one anyway!  Overall a great buy for only $1.99!

Saturday I received the other beautiful polishes I ordered from Chelsea's shop, Pretty & Polished on Etsy.  You can find it HERE.  From what I can tell, she does a fabulous job of keeping everything in stock!! She also is creating new things every time I check there, lol which is great, but overall my wallet gets a little mad ;-)  I loved 3 Golden Rules, but it was only in a mini size, and Chelsea was so kind as to make me a full size one!!  (I prefer a full size to a mini any day! haha)  I also purchased Chelsea Chelsea Bling Bling, which those other two will be posted here soon!  I'm SO excited to try them.  Onto the combo for today!  I used Valentino, which is even more amazing than I thought it would be.  Which seems silly, because as much as I loved the first 3 I ordered (Swing will also be shown soon), I maybe just thought it was too good to be true.  But again, this formula for Valentino shocked me.  It applied extremely well, and guess what - no top coat in the pictures below!  Amazing, right?  I did apply 1 coat of Wicked Fast later though, just to help maintain this gorgeous mani and it made it so smooth, like I wasn't even wearing glitter!  Anyway, Valentino has large, medium, and small white hexagons, large black hexagons, and them some amazing small black hexagons that flash almost a purple color.  To be honest, I didn't even notice the hexagons flashing at first because my bedroom had low lighting.  As I was pulling the bottle off my polish rack, I was like "Oh wow! What's that!?!" haha It's like tiny little sparks in the bottle as you turn it.  It does slightly show up on the nail if you are moving in the light, and I think I have a photo below that I will caption.  There are also tiny black and white dots floating through and all of this is in a grey jelly polish.  That is why the Zeus base will be a tad darker.  Enough of my rambling on and on about this...on to the pictures!  This is only one coat of Valentino over Zeus.

Valentino - 1 Coat over Zeus - 2 Coats, no top coat

My pointer finger shows a black hex shining!

I am completely impressed with this line of polish and will continue to purchase, as I have many more I hope to buy!  If you want to find this polish, you can find it HERE for full size for $8 or HERE for a mini for $4.50 plus shipping.  Here is her update for her shop:

3/4/2012 - I am re-stocking the shop tonight. What is listed is pretty much all the polishes I have made until Wednesday. If you are waiting to purchase something that will be back in stock on Wednesday please message me and I will hold your PURCHASED polishes for you until I can list the other item/s you are wanting.

Our labels are being updated right now so you may receive a bottle with a new label or an old one.

Custom orders will be handled in the order they are received. All custom orders will now have a $1 fee for each bottle ordered and need to be paid in advance.    

I hope you enjoyed all the pictures as much as I do ;-)  Happy Monday and hope it's a great week!

Much Love,

Crystal         

I'd be BLUE without YOU!



OPI I Have a Herring Problem with Sinful Colors Deep Blue Ocean

I can guarantee a lot of blogs will have Valentine's Day manis with pink, purple, red with hearts or anything else like that.  Instead, I went a different way.  It's not that I don't like that, because I definitely do!  And I may even do another Valentine's Day mani to post tomorrow ;-) lol But the other day my hubby was looking over my polish racks and pulled out Sinful Deep Blue Ocean and asked me to please use that. 


So we looked around for a color to pair it with and decided on my new OPI I Have a Herring Problem.  I had both bottles sitting on my vanity since probably Wednesday or Thursday last week....Oopsie!  So today I tribute this post to my amazing husband, Mr. CC, who I'd be blue without!  He truly is the most amazing man and I am SO very lucky to be his wife!  This will be our 9th Valentine's Day together, but our first as a married couple.  Not that it changes too much, it's just a special day out of the year to take extra time out of the day to say, "I Love You."  So, since my Hubby reads my blog - Honey, I love you.

Ok, sorry...enough mushy talk and on to the mani!!! I Have a Herring Problem is SO beautiful.  It has a dusty blue quality to it, but I almost see hints of dusty teal in certain lighting too.  The gold shimmer that shines through just adds a beautiful quality to the polish.  It makes this color unique to my collection.  This is from OPI's new Holland collection.  There are a lot more I love, so hopefully I'll be able to get some in the future to show you!

Can you tell how much I love this color!?  I have such a thing for blues.  Some of the pictures are blurry to show the shimmer.  I also apologize that it almost shows up as silver, but I promise you, it is gold!  I did do 3 coats because I felt 2 left some bald spots.  I probably could have more carefully done it in two, but the formula is a tad goopy, so I had cuticle drag.  Also, it starts out with one coat being almost sheer.  I honestly think 3 coats bring it to the perfect bottle match.

So then I took one coat of Sinful Colors Deep Blue Ocean over top.  This polish is amazing.  It is a jelly that is slightly tinged blue with opal blue/purple glitter and plastic flakie pieces.  They are iridescent, so when the light hits just right, they blaze!  I had a few nails that had tiny pieces sticking up, but I just Seche Vite top coated them the best I could.  I think if I used this again, I would take the extra time to lay them down with the brush.  Overall, most nails had no problem!

I think this color was extremely hard to photograph!  It doesn't have that goldish tinged quality to it in real life.  The camera picked it up, when in reality it wasn't visible when looking at it.  You really only see the flashes of bluish/purple.

 

Probably my favorite picture of natural outside light!

I hope you enjoyed my unique Valentine's Day mani!! Spend the day with those you love - it does not have to mean a husband, wife, boyfriend, or girlfriend - it's just a day of love.  I think you make it what you want it to be.  :-)  So to all the people that take the time to read and support me, thank you - I wish you lots of love for the love you shown me!  I'd be blue without you too!

Much Love,

Crystal