Category Archives: Manicure Monday

Manicure Monday: Pink Spring Mystery

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Welcome back, reader! Happy Monday! Today’s manicure was done with a chunky springtime glitter and a mystery polish. Spring is springing in Florida, and I get closer with every pastel polish I wear. For this look, I used Model City Polish‘s Breath of Spring and a Sally Hansen mystery pink, as well as a coat of Seche vite top coat.

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Next to knowing that the mystery polish is from Sally Hansen, I know absolutely nothing about it. This is one of my older polishes, a leftover from when I had a terrible habit of peeling the labels off of things. I really did a number on this one; I’ve stripped it of anything identifiable. I also remember buying this polish to match a pair of glasses I was wearing at the time. Despite everything, I actually really like this polish, and it’s a shame I can’t tell you anything about it, because I almost want to recommend it. The product consistency is on the thin side, and it took three coats to reach full opacity, and it took ages to dry… Maybe I don’t want to recommend it after all. It had the most gorgeous shine after it dried, though. I feel like that’s not very common. Though it was fiddly to apply, it didn’t need top coat at all, and I was really impressed. It’s kind of a shame I covered so much of it up.

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Breath of Spring kind of took over this mani. I wanted just a small but concentrated bit of glitter at the base of each nail, but because of the variety of shapes and colors of glitter, it looked uneven, and by the time I got the look I wanted, it took up half the nail. I think it’s still a cool look; the glitter comes in bright but seasonal colors, and there’s just a hint of holographic goodness in the base. It’s a beautiful topper that would look fantastic over anything. I really enjoy this combination.

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Breath of Spring has been discontinued by Model City; other Model City Polishes can be found in theiretsy shop. Sally Hansen, and maybe even this polish, can be found in stores nationwide.

I bought these polishes myself.

Manicure Monday: Green Glass Gold

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Happy Monday, reader! I have to admit, I’m not all that pleased with the way my mani turned out today. Have you ever paired two polishes together thinking they’ll look great together, but then they don’t? That’s exactly what happened today. For this Manicure Monday, I’m wearing Color Club’s Fly With Me with The New Black’s Textured Gold Leaf Foil. All nails are topped with Seche Vite top coat.

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Fly With Me is gorgeous, right? It’s a translucent green with green-to-gold shifting flecks. I really loved this collection because the shifty flecks give these polishes a finish all their own. I don’t have anything else like them. The end result is part metallic, part shift, all shine and glamour. I love it.

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You can see the green shift best here.

You can see the green shift best here.

It’s the Textured Gold Leaf Foil that I don’t love. I mean, there are things about it I love: I really love that the glitter pieces are inconsistent; some are really chunky, some are fine. I love how reflective it is; I can see myself in that really huge piece on my middle nail. However, when it says it’s textured, it means the chunky pieces, either due to the pieces piling up on themselves or to just plain being chunky, tend to stick up in places, leaving bumps on the surface of the mostly-smooth nail. Even two coats of Seche Vite wasn’t enough to smooth it down. It also doesn’t stand out enough from the gold flecks in Fly With Me, that’s really the problem I have with it here. It blends in too well and just looks odd. I shouldn’t blame the polish for my mistake, I suppose. Not every combination can be a hit, and sometimes we don’t learn that until it’s too late.

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Sunlight photos! You can really see the translucence of Fly With Me here; note the visible nail line on the index finger. Also, the Gold Foil is really shiny here. You can see my striped sweatshirt.

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Fly With Me is discontinued by Color Club; other Color Club polishes are sold on colorclub.com. The Textured Gold Leaf Foil is sold as part of the Shattered Demi Lovato set; that’s available at the-new-black.com.

I bought these polishes myself.

Manicure Monday: Virgo Supercluster

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Happy Monday again, reader! This week’s Manicure Monday is also a Wacie Nail Company release! One of the first polishes I ever made found itself in my polish queue, and it felt appropriate to do a mani with it and a release at the same time. This polish is called Virgo Supercluster, and I’m wearing it at three coats without top coat. Photos were taken both indoors and outdoors in direct sunlight.

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So if you’re a longtime reader of wacie.com, you’ll might remember a Wacie Wednesday feature, when I wore a new prototype I made every week. Virgo Supercluster was one of the first Wacies to make their debut there, so check out that post as well. In that post, you can see what this polish looks like with top coat; this week I decided not to use top coat to capture its gritty textured finish. Whether you choose to wear top coat or not, this polish is still insanely sparkly, and even without top coat, it does still have some gloss.

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Every time I write a post like this, I’m just so excited. I’m not only writing a blog post about a nail polish, but I’m bringing a new polish into the world. I’m putting a part of myself out there. And, should it ever make its way into someone else’s hands, I hope they love it as much as I do.

 

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Though most of the photos I took were indoors, I did get out for a bit this afternoon to take some in the sun. This polish absolutely looks best in the sunshine, because you can see every bit of the holo glitter shine. Indoors, it’s still pretty, but it’s muted. In the sun, the colors are brighter and richer, and just make the polish. I think the texture pops more out there, too.

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Virgo Supercluster is available from the Wacie Nail Company etsy shop. My bow is from Daily Charme.

I made this polish.

 

Manicure Monday: Prototype BVS 9.2

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Happy Monday, reader! Manicure Monday this week is a simple one, because I just didn’t want to cover this polish up with anything. This is Blue-Eyed Girl Lacquer Prototype BVS 9.2; I’m wearing three coats with one coat of Seche Vite.

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Prototype BVS 9.2 is a cool taupe linear holo with green flash. I’ve swatched this polish before, but as that post is two years old, it’s good to revisit it. This was one of my very first holo polishes, and wearing it again gives me a really special feeling. Sometimes I get distracted and daunted by the loads of new polishes I have, and the older ones get left behind and forgotten. It’s a shame, because even though this polish suffers a bit from ugly bottle syndrome, it’s still as pretty as the day I got it.

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This is a really soft look, neutral enough to be professional, but still sparkly enough to satisfy a glitter fiend like myself. I added the studs because I wanted something extra, but nothing that would interfere with the delicateness of the polish. I’m pretty happy with how it turned out.

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Prototype BVs 9.2 was a one-off prototype; there are no others. Other Blue-Eyed Girl Lacquer polishes are available from their online shop, though they are temporarily closed.

I bought this polish myself.

Manicure Monday: Walk Through the Tulips

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It’s the first Manicure Monday of the year! We’re doing it up right today by wearing a very special polish, a custom polish made for me by Blue-Eyed Girl Lacquer. This isn’t the first time it’s been on the blog, but I’m always excited to wear it. This is Walk Through the Tulips; I’m wearing two coats with one coat of Seche Vite and one coat of Ciate’s Mattenificent matte top coat.

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I did a proper swatch of Walk Through the Tulips way back in 2014, so if you want to know some of the particulars about the polish, take a look at that post. Not much has changed since then; I still cherish this polish because it reminds me of why I love indie polish and how much fun it can be to work with the person making my polish to ensure I get exactly what I want. That, and it’s still freaking pretty.

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This time around, I used only two coats instead of three, and I used a matte top coat to make it a little different from the swatch. I like it at two coats; it’s just shy of opaque. I can still see nail lines, but just barely. The glitter isn’t as dense as I would have liked, but it gives a cool speckled effect. The matte coat gives it a unique finish. I am having a ton of fun wearing this, and I’m not looking forward to taking it off.

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Walk Through the Tulips was custom-made for me by Blue-Eyed Girl Lacquer; BEGL does not currently accept commissions for customs, but their full line of polishes is available from their online shop.

I bought this polish myself.

Manicure Monday: Sundown

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Happy Monday, reader! This is the last Manicure Monday of 2015. I cannot believe another year has gone by and I’m still blogging. The wacie.com anniversary, as well as the anniversary of Wacie Nail Company, are coming up, and I have some really fun things planned, like new polishes! For now though, let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves. For this final post of 2015, I’m wearing Pretty & Polished‘s Sundown; this is three coats with one coat of Seche Vite.

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Sundown, as you can see, is an orange-to-yellow thermal creme polish with glitters in orange, yellow, and pink. The polish coverage is on the opaque side, so glitters from previous coats don’t show up so well in the finished look. That’s especially true for the orange/cold stage; since the yellow/warm stage is much paler, and the darker glitters do actually show through a little. The transition occurs easily. Application was okay; the creme went on beautifully, but the glitters were few and took some manipulating to get them just right. The polish dries with a satin finish.

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I bought this polish in 2015, and I’m actually surprised it still transitions. I’m thrilled with it, really. A lot of the thermals I’ve had that long — even a few I bought more recently — have stopped altogether. I was really unsure of what to expect from it. It’s beautiful, though, isn’t it? It’s so strangely appropriate for this post, and in so many ways: obviously the name is appropriate, since the sun is setting on such an exciting year. Today’s high was 83 degrees, and so the colors are unseasonally seasonal. It’s not a NYE glitterbomb, but it’s a really cool polish to see me through the end of the year.

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Sundown is no longer made by Pretty & Polished, but you can find other polishes (thermals!) on both their etsy store and their official website.

I bought this polish myself.

 

Manicure Tuesday Morning: Winterland Hottie

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Happy Monday! My post is late tonight because I just got back from a Christmas party, where these wintry nails were a huge hit. I know I said I never do seasonal nails, but I had the opportunity today and I took it. For this look, I’m wearing Indigo Bananas‘s Klein Trink Wasser as my base and Sinful Colors’s Hottie on top. All nails are topped with Seche Vite top coat.

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So last week I talked a bit about drugstore glitters as a gateway drug; back in the ’90s, Sinful Colors was where it was at. I don’t know if you remember, but Walgreens used to sell it, and they came in indie-style bottles, the barrel ones with the black caps. My mother felt uncomfortable buying something “sinful”. I wanted every color. It’s fun how some things never change; I love these glitter polishes as much as I did when I was younger. The polishes haven’t changed much, either; they’re the same iridescent glitter mixes they always have been. There’s something really nice about that. It might be the same glitter, but it’s a ton of fun finding new and grown-up ways to wear it.

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I love that indie cremes are becoming a thing. That’s not to say Klein Trink Wasser is a new polish; I actually bought it last year, and this is the first time I’m wearing it. I just mean that, even with a seemingly basic color like this one, you’d think that there’d be no more creme colors left without mass market dupes. As surprising as it seems, I don’t have anything like this polish in my collection. All my dark blue cremes are really dark, and all my dark blues are shimmery or glittery. It took me a long time to find a creme in this particular shade. Anyway, I think that the indie creme trend is amazing. Between the Creme a la Mode box and the Pipe Dream neons and brights, there are a ton of exciting cremes without mass market dupes. It’s really cool.

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I’m not sure I’ve ever worn striping tape on its own on the blog; usually I just use it like a vinyl strip. I’ve definitely never worn loose glitter, and that’s fun, too. The snowflakes were bigger than I wanted and they’ve been getting snagged on things. It also feels a little weird wearing snowflakes on my nails when I’m wearing a tube top and shorts. One more thing: I made a scented top coat to wear with this mani. I had a little vial of winter gardenia fragrance oil, so I made a top coat with it because it seemed appropriate. I’ll have these listed in the shop soon, along with a new Wacie Nail Co. collection.

Klein Trink Wasser and other Indigo Bananas polishes are sold on their website. Hottie and Sinful Colors are sold in stores nationwide.

I bought these polishes myself.

Manicure Monday: Confetti Dreams

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Happy Monday, reader! This week has all the hallmarks of being a holiday mani without actually being one, and might just be the closest I get to one all year. For this look, I used Julep’s Alexandra as the base color, Octopus Party‘s Universal Loner as the tip color, and LA Colors’s Confetti as the glitter topper, all with one coat of Seche Vite. Here we go!

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I think that, until this mani, I forgot drugstore glitter toppers were a thing. I mean, how could I; after all, they were my gateway to glitter addiction. Even now, I have tubs of them. It’s just that every glitter topper I’ve worn for the past year or so (at least) has been an indie polish, and I’ve gotten used to that sort of polish. Indie glitters just have so much going on: big glitters, small glitters, shimmer, flakies, crazy shapes. This one, though it was a pretty cool polish when I bought it, I’m having a hard time finding a word other than quaint to describe it. I’m not trying to say it’s bad, I’m really not, it’s just that glitter polish has come a long way since this one. This is two coats of glitter, by the way.

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I chose Alexandra for the base because it was neutral, and I needed a color that wouldn’t interfere with any of the glitter colors. I ended up adding the red tips as an afterthought, hoping to tie everything together. That, and I already had it out to put on my toes. Both of these polishes performed very well; Alexandria had a bit of streakiness left after two coats, but the glitter hides it well. Universal Loner went on really easily; I didn’t have to deal with any coverage problems. It’s my first OPNL, too, yay.

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I think it all came together really nicely. Like I said, red and glitter usually means a holiday mani. I actually plan my manicure combinations out way in advance, so it’s lucky it landed on a day so as to be seasonal as well as pretty.

LA Colors is sold nationwide, as is Julep. Octopus Party Nail Lacquers are sold from their etsy store.

I bought these polishes myself.

Manicure Monday: Sweetie

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Happy Monday, reader! Here’s my mani this week. I used a textured polish alone, so it’s simple. It’s Sweetie from Sally Hansen; I’m wearing three coats without top coat.

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Sweetie is a flat yellow textured polish. There’s no glitter or shimmer; it’s just a yellow creme with bumps. I really like the color; I like these cool light yellows a lot. I’m having a hard time getting into the texture, though, like is it truck bed liner, or is it polish? Don’t get me wrong, I like the way the texture feels, but the look is just lacking. The absence of glitter just makes it look like thick nasty polish.

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I’m trying to make the best of it. Honestly, I don’t hate it or anything. I just had really high hopes for this polish. I wanted more. I at least wanted sparkles.

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Sally Hansen polishes are sold nationwide. My bow charm is from Claire’s.

I bought this polish myself.

Manicure Monday: Freehand Grey

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Welcome back to Manicure Monday! As you noticed, I took the holiday weekend off from swatching, so we have some nail art to check out this week. My base color is Wet ‘n Wild’s Gray’s Anatomy, and my freehand painting was done with a striping brush and OPI’s We’ll Always Have Paris. All nails are topped with one coat of Seche Vite top coat.

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I’ll just get this out of the way: I don’t know how I feel about the freehand. I’m a little embarrassed that I still suck at hand-painting, but in a way, it’s sort of charming. I wanted something simple but uniform, but it’s a bit irregular. It doesn’t look as irregular in real life as it does in photos, so I feel a little weird about that. I never do this stuff, so it’s really no wonder it’s not perfect. Maybe it’s okay that it’s not perfect. It looks arty-crafty and like it was done by a real person.

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We’ll Always Have Paris lends a lot to the DIY mani look. These burgundy/wine polishes are always a little translucent, and I guess that’s why there’s a lot of unevenness. I just wanted a dark color, something that was as severe as black, that would complement the color shift in the base polish. I think this one worked pretty well.

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The shift in Gray’s Anatomy is the focus of this polish, as it should be. You can totally see past the wonky freehand painting and really enjoy the colors. The writing on the label wore off a long time ago, but I almost forgot this is a Wet ‘n Wild Polish. I paid two dollars for it at the most. Not bad for two dollars!

I bought these polishes myself.