OPI I Lily Love You

Hello! I am back!! :)

     It was getting a little tedious blogging especially in the summer so I had wanted to take a little break. But today I tried another untried of mine and I thought I would share it with you all! It is a lovely chunky flakie from OPI called I Lily Love You. This came out recently in the summer 2011 Nice Stems collections. Although I am sure this was greatly posted by many other bloggers the second it came out, I figure one more post won't hurt. 

     As you may know, I love blingy nails and flakies go under that category lol. When this first came out, I knew I had to get it. It is a purplish-pink jelly with flakes and glitter suspended throughout. Very pretty. The flakes are different sizes and some are downright BIG! But I think overall it adds more character to my nails and I am thinking of getting a back up (my first if I do!) since it seems like this can be used up so easily.

    Enough babbling, and onto the nails itself! I started with one coat of NK Burberry. It is a bright raspberry red. Then added a thick coat OPI ILLY. And finished with a coat of Seche Vite.

Thanks for looking!

Forever 21 has flakie polish!!

Oh em gee!! On my recent trip to Forever 21, I found flakie polish in their bins of polish! I was very excited to see them, although I think I might have bought the last one. It is Love & Beauty in Light Green and is different shape flakies suspended in a light green jelly with shimmer. Quite pretty and for only $2.80 USD, it was quite a cheap thrill. (I hope I come across more colors!)

Now onto the pictures!!

I used a base color of Sinful Color in Envy. It is a green that borderlines on dusty green. I used two coats.

Then topped it with my lovely flakies, and Seche Vite.

Look at those flakies!!

Sorry for so many pictures! As you can tell, I love this find. 

Have you found flakies at your Forever 21? Did you find them in a different color?

Thanks for looking!

Nailtiques formula 2 ... day four

I haven't posted in a few days because I am tending to my nails. The tips of my nails peel often especially on my right hand - I guess because I use that hand more often. I have heard of Nailtiques formula 2 and of Nailtek 2 and thought I would give it a try.  Formula 2 is for weak, peeling nails which is explains what I have.   Whats worse is that when I see peelage, I start picking and peeling it off which results in thin weak nails in that area which causes my nails to split and break. Its sad, I know. 

They are expensive for such a small bottle (1/4 oz ) and you use it everyday so it runs out quickly. I bought mine at a beauty supply store for $9 but I have heard they run close to $14. 

I started my treatment on Monday and today is day four of TLC. I kind of see a difference in the peelies but I still have peeling which pretty sucks even though I know I haven't used it for long and my nails haven't grown out yet. I guess I'm desperate for improvement lol. I also have not painted my nails with any color polish because it does say that it may not work as well and that using polish with hardeners can possibly end up damaging your nails. 

I guess I will wait it out and see how it goes, but I don't think I can last another day with naked albeit shiny nails. So I will use this as a base and follow up as a top coat the next day. :)

Have you used this? What were the results? Love / Hate?

cupcakes galore!

As you know, I love nail art. One that I think is simply adorable are cupcake nails. So I gave myself some today :)

I started with three coats of OPI Isn't That Precious? Then did the tips in Essie Castaway. I used a striping brush and made lines on the tips with NK Really White and using the white, I.made cupcake tops. After that, I used a dotting tool to make confetti dots on my cupcake with Essie Castaway. Last but not least, I made my cherry a sparkly one using a dotting tool and Wet n Wild Sparked.

Isn't it adorable?

Love & Beauty Blue Green

Forever 21 has been producing nail polish for awhile now and this is the second polish I have purchased there. I think the quality is pretty good and the price is perfect at $2.80 USD. They have an array of colors which is great when you have a design in mind but don't want to spend too much money. Their best are their multi chrome colors. Blue Green is one of them and its the only one I saw and knew I had to get. Its a multi chrome of shimmery glass flecks. It reminds me of a mermaid's tail. Although in the bottle, you can see the two colors clearly, on the nails you mostly just see green. In certain lighting though, I do see the purple blue tint but I couldn't capture it on camera.


It was a little sheer so this was applied in three coats. The first picture shows the multi chrome in the bottle and the last picture kind of shows how sheer this color can be.

China Glaze Sea Spray French Lightning Bolt

Lately I have been getting inspired by many nail blogs. Just the other day, I discovered a fellow Makeup Alley Nail Board user who started a lovely blog - http://nailside.blogspot.com/ . She is famous for her awesome nail artistry and especially for her lightning bolt tape manis.

I usually suck pretty bad at getting crisp, sharp lines when using tape but I decided to give it one more shot. It worked pretty well this time! So I will definitely be doing tape manicures more often!

I started with two coats of China Glaze Sea Spray. It is a dusty grey/blue color with a very slight shimmer to it. Such a pretty color. I fell in love with this color when it first came out but the first time I used it, I almost wanted to rip my hair out. It was my first time using China Glaze (I don't live near any Sally Beauty Stores), and I thought my nails just weren't a fit for their brand - it was very goopy. I even put in polish thinner. But this time, I didn't use a base coat and it worked as fine as any other brand I own.

Anyways, I then followed Nailside's directions (which you can get here: Tutorial - Lightning Bolt French ) for the french lightning bolt. I wanted to do the double lightning bolt but I figured it required too much tape, and I wanted something more simple for trying tape manicures again.

For my funky french, I used NK in Satin Silver. Then applied SV after I removed the tape. 

It took forever to take pictures of the silver. It kept catching in the light and wouldn't show up sharply and clear. So I weeded my shots out and this is what I was left with:

How do you like tape manicures?

Fourth of July mani

Tomorrow is fourth of July so I figured today is just a good a day to do my patriotic nails. I'm not a fan of flag colors so this may come off midday tomorrow. But hey, at least I was patriotic for a day right?

I used NK in Really White, Brucci in red but the label fell off so I don't know what the name is called, and LA Colors in Wired. For this design, I used a striping brush to make my red stripes and a star nail art sticker that I had found laying around.

I started with three coats of NK Really White on all my fingers except my ring finger which I used LA Colors Wired. The I used a striping brush to make vertical stripes on the white and placed the sticker on my ring finger. Next, I completed the look by lining my tips with LA Colors Wired and Brucci on the ring finger.

The end results reminded me of Uncle Sam lol. I guess its cool but its a bit much for me. I've never been a fan of flags as decorations outside of the flag itself.