Tag Archives: nail charms

Manicure Monday: Hors d’Oeuvres

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Hi hi! It’s Manicure Monday! Today’s look is one I kept simple, but it’s still over the top. I used Essie’s Hors d’Oeuvres and a diamond charm from Daily Charme. It’s kind of insane.

Hors d’Oeuvres is a challenge to photograph. There’s so much shiny; the strong gold shimmer and embedded silver hex mix means a lot of light bounces off it and makes it hard for the camera to focus or get a good white balance. (I shoot on auto, sue me.) It’s also very reflective, which is a cool finish. I’m really enjoying it.

I ran out of super glue, so I decided to see if Seche Vive was enough to hold the diamonds on. It did, for a while, until one mysteriously disappeared. I still have yet to find it. I pulled the other one off to risk losing it and put on a second coat of Vive. Speaking of which, have you guys tried Seche Vive? I was skeptical, since I’ve never used any of these gel-effect polishes or top coats before, but I really like how this one feels. I used multiple coats and haven’t noticed any of the bad effects from multiple coats of Seche Vite, so yeah. It’s too early to tell yet, but I might be a convert.

The sunlight is probably where Hors d’Oeuvres looks its best. You can definitely see how reflective it is in these photos; that glare is out of control. This set of photos were taken in direct sunlight outdoors.

This one is actually in the shade.

Hors d’Oeuvres and other Essie polishes are sold in stores. The diamond charm is from Daily Charme.

I bought these products myself.

Manicure Monday: Blast From The Past

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Welcome back, reader! Manicure Monday is a simple look this week. I’d actually planned something a little more intricate, but now that I’ve cut my nails down, I simplified it. I’m talking like there’s something wrong with just color and glitter, there’s totally not! For this look, I used Sephora by OPI’s It’s Bouquet With Me over Orly’s Rio Nights.

Originally, I’d planned a gray to purple gradient with Rio Nights. When I’ve got a multicolored glitter like this, I like to pick colors out and find cremes that match it, and that way everything is cohesive. With nails this small, though, there just wouldn’t have been room for it.

I love this mani, though. It’s making me all kinds of nostalgic. I was a hardened nail biter when I was younger — hell, until I was 23 — and this was what my hands always looked like back then. I liked wearing polish, but it was never a biting deterrent, so I always had these tiny little nails. I also feel deeply for purple glittery polish; the first nail polish that was 100% mine was a gift from my sister, and it was a purple glitter, right around the time unconventional colors and glitter polishes were getting popular in the late 1990s. I wore that polish until it was gone. This look channels that polish so hard.

I regret that I didn’t get any sunlight photos of this look. There’s been some inclement weather in the southeast, and the sun didn’t shine for more than five minutes at a time, and I could just never catch it. Also, when was the last time I wore a bow charm? It’s been ages!

The Sephora by OPI line has been discontinued; I actually found this particular one at Big Lots. Orly polishes are sold in stores nationwide. My bow charm is from Daily Charme.

I bought these polishes myself.

A Look Back at 2016

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Hello reader! Now that 2016 is behind us, I wanted to look back on some of my blog highlights and share my favorite nail art looks, and maybe share some of my 2017 blogging goals with you. I guess I could have waited to do this on my blog-versary in March, but it feels more appropriate to do it now.

January: Elevated Gradient

February: Neon Satisfaction

You’ll notice these photos are tiny. Why? Because in March, The Great wacie.com Server Crash of 2016 happened! My webhost had a hardware failure, and for whatever reason, several months of posts were lost and had to be pieced back together with images and text cached by Google. It was an extremely frustrating and embarrassing time for me.

March: Spring Hibiscus

I miss these long nails.

This is probably my favorite look of the year.

Third Anniversary Do-Over

I mentioned earlier that my blog’s anniversary is in March. For last year’s anniversary, I recreated the first-ever mani I posted on my blog. I don’t know yet what I’ll do for my fourth year, but it’ll probably be awesome.

April: Dusty Watermarble

May: Neon Splatter

I went to Hawaii in May. As a result, this is my least active month on the blog for the year.

June: Orange Jello Sandwich

My first Empties Roundup post was also in June.

July: Beyond

August: Ombre Hearts

September: Popples

October: Stripey Blue Frosting

This was a look I did to celebrate my birthday.

November: Ruby Opal

December: White Snow Blue Lava

So there’s my year! This was probably the busiest year for the blog, since I broadened my sujects quite a lot. I did tons of swatches and nail art, but I also ventured into product reviews and makeup talk. I don’t think this will ever become a full lifestyle or beauty blog, but I’m definitely having fun with it in this format. I’m kind of excited to see what it’ll evolve into in 2017. Here are a few beauty goals I have in mind, though.

1. Write more
I wrote 175 posts in 2016, averaging about 14 per month. It doesn’t sound like much to me, like I did way more work than that, especially when it started to feel stressful. That said, I’d like to do at least one more post every week.

1b. Write on my other blog more
I have a second blog that I want to start posting to more. It’s been so long since I’ve bothered with it that I don’t even remember the login credentials. I still want a place to talk about myself and my life, a place to seem like I have a life away from my nails.

2. Build a real skincare routine
I still feel insecure about my skin. I’m frustrated that I’m 31 and I still get acne. I want to take every preventative measure I can against wrinkles and anti-aging. I also want to try a 10-step Asian beauty routine. If you’re over 30 with oily skin and hormonal acne, I want your recommendations.

3. Stop competing
I know one of the big rules of blogging is not to compare your success with others’, but I feel so competitive about it. At the risk of sounding whiny, I always look at other bloggers who’ve been working on their blogs for about as long as I have, and watching their blogs grow faster than mine is kind of frustrating. I don’t want to feel like that anymore.

4. Do more real nail art
I love glitter toppers and I think I use at least one every week, but sometimes it feels lazy. I want to go back to the basics: watermarbling, gradients, dotting. I love my glitters, but it’s starting to feel like a cop-out.

I think that’s it! Anyway, I think 2017 is going to be an exciting year, and I’m looking forward to the good times, the challenges, and the time we spend together. Thanks for reading!

Manicure Monday: Lavender Glamour

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It’s Manicure Monday again! It’s Halloween, but I’m kind of glad to have the Halloween manis behind me. Lavender doesn’t scream (heh) Halloween, and I’m cool with it. For this look, I used LA Colors’s Bliss (lavender) and China Glaze’s Full Spectrum (microglitter).

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When I paired these two polishes together, I was originally just going to use Full Spectrum as accent nails and leave the Bliss nails alone. I love Bliss on its own, and I love cremes, but my recent sort-of resolution to do more nail art inspired me to do the glitter swirls. For these, I just dipped a thin nail art brush in Full Spectrum, did a wiggly thing on the nail with it, and then more wiggly things in the leftover spaces. I put dots to fill up whatever space was left. The design is a bit clearer on the thumb nail than the others, but it’s still cool on the others. This was a mani where I could totally shut out the perfectionist and just be happy with however it turned out.

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I kind of wish I was wearing Full Spectrum on its own. There is so much going on with this microglitter; though it looks silver primarily, there are fine glitters in many colors, as well as an allover purple shimmer. It’s just beautiful. I’ve had this in my collection a long time, and I’m glad I’m finally using it. There are blue and green versions of this polish, and I can’t remember if I have them or not, but I need them if I do. This is super beautiful.

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In the sunlight, the glitter takes off. The colors are brighter and much easier to detect. These photos were taken in direct sunlight.

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thumb, index, ring fingers

LA Colors and China Glaze are sold in stores nationwide. My bow charm is from Claire’s.

I bought these polishes myself.

Birthday Mani Digest 2016

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Welcome back, reader! As you know, I took a bit of time off these past couple weeks to celebrate my birthday. It was only supposed to be one, but the arrival of Hurricane Matthew led to everything being postponed. That madness is now over, and now I’d like to show you what my nails were up to during the downtime. If you follow me on Instagram, you’ve seen most of these lovelies already. I promise I will not be mentioning my birthday again until next October.

Birthday Mani #1: Pink Frosting With Sprinkles
Essie’s Good Morning Hope with Lynnderella‘s Icing Glass Garland

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The first birthday mani was a fun warm-up with an untried Lynnderella topper. I had a lot of fun wearing this; Icing Glass Garland was a lot more interesting in real life, however. There is a lot of iridescence and color-changiness. It doesn’t look like much over Good Morning Hope, but it still made for a fun and dainty look.

Birthday Mani #2: Cupcakes
Blue-Eyed Girl Lacquer‘s Eleanor, China Glaze’s White on White, LA Girl’s Black, Orly’s Water Lily, P2’s French Kiss, Ciate’s Pillow Fight

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I always do cupcakes to celebrate my birthday, and this year’s mani was actually done in the middle of the hurricane. Even though the hurricane was an unwelcome birthday event (thanks, universe), we still had a good time. A lot of our friends live in evacuation zones and came to stay with us when the call came to evacuate, so we still had a party and ate food and played board games. It was not the worst experience.

Birthday Mani #3: Hello Dalek
Digital Nails‘s Hello Dalek

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This was last week’s Manicure Monday post, but I’m including it for continuity. Monday was my actual birthday, and it was a ton of fun to wear a party on my nails as well. When your birthday is on the worst day of the week, you have to party any way you can.

Birthday Mani #4: Glitter Frosting
Digital Nails’s Pandorica, Model City Polish‘s Sheena is a Punk Rocker, Wacie Nail Company’s Your Daring Escape, Blue-Eyed Girl Lacquer’s Walk Through the Tulips
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This look includes the polish I made myself for my birthday! Your Daring Escape is a silvery-white holo with holographic glitter and pearl pink and metallic silver flakies. I wanted a holo-meets-glitter-gradient look, but as the sun never came out that day, a lot of the beauty got lost.

Birthday Mani #5: Stripey Blue Frosting
Literary Lacquers‘s Bluestocking Romance, Hard Candy’s Sky, China Glaze’s Mosaic Madness

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This was the mani I got the most compliments on for sure. I’d always wanted to do this moving stripes design, and this was the day I felt like dealing with the striping tape. It came out so much better than I expected it would, though I’m a little disappointed it smeared a little with the top coat. I’d totally do it again.

I also want to take this time to share some birthday manis of years past. I realized at some point that I’ve been doing the annual cupcake mani for five years now; the annual cupcake mani predates wacie.com, even. I love doing little retrospectives like this; if I’ve learned anything from this, it’s that my cupcake painting skills have gotten only marginally better.

2012
Colors Unknown, but probably all Sinful Colors

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Look at this. I almost don’t even want to share this, but we all have to start somewhere, right? I do remember waiting practically all day for the dots to dry, and they still smudged when I put the top down. Not only was this before wacie.com came to be, but I think it was also before the days of quick-dry top coat. Those dark, dark days.

2013
Sally Hansen’s Mint Sprint, OPI’s Eurso Euro, P2’s French Kiss, Sally Hansen’s Hard to Get, Blue-Eyed Girl Lacquer’s Floppy. Hoppy. BUNNIES!

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These look more like mashed potatoes than cupcakes. This was my first birthday post on the blog. Going back and reading the post, about it, I completely forgot all that stuff happened! I do remember doing this mani in Boyfriend’s tiny Atlanta living space, trying not to bother him and his roommate with nail polish smell. I got acetone on his desk and ruined the varnish. I still feel bad about that.

2014
Blue-Eyed Girl Lacquer’s Dawn Breaks and If You’re a Seascape, Indigo Bananas‘s Moonlight (Clair de Lune), P2’s French Kiss, American Apparel’s Neon Pink, Essie’s Fiji, Ciate’s Candy Floss

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That P2 polish finds its way into every birthday mani, doesn’t it? I loved this look a lot. I totally wore it to a fancy restaurant. Here’s the post!

2015
Blue-Eyed Girl Lacquer’s Ocean Warmed by the Sun, Digital Nails’s Purple Reign, Nails Inc.’s Pudding Lane, Hot Topic’s Light Blue, Estee Lauder’s Black Plum

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This is last year’s mani, and the mani that celebrates the big 3-0. This was also one of the last photos I took on my phone before Drunk Me left it on top of the car and broke the camera forever. Good times!

Again, a huge thank you to everyone who wished me a happy birthday; I cherish all of you! Thank you so much for tolerating all of the birthday posts.

Pretty sure I bought all these polishes myself.

HPB Presents Glitter Forever

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Hello, reader! Welcome to the Hobby Polish Bloggers Link-Up for September! Each month, this Facebook group chooses a theme, and participants can do whatever mani they want, so long as it fits the theme. This month’s theme is glitter toppers! For this look, I used American Apparel’s Galaxy and Nicole by OPI’s Confetti Fun over LA Colors’s Whipped, as well as Seche Vite and a bow from Daily Charme.

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I usually try to use one untried polish in every HPB mani, and the untried in this one is Confetti Fun. It’s the finer of the two glitter mixes; I paired it with Galaxy to fill the empty spaces. Galaxy is nothing but the really chunky glitters, and wearing them both together gives them both what they need for a complete look.

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It’s kind of a cop-out to use nude as a base for glitter, but I like it. It’s coverage without color; it’s the best way to let all the colors show without being obvious. Black and white get too dramatic; nude is just right. I regret not using an untried nude, because I do have so many. It does the job.

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I love metallic glitter in the sun! It’s absolutely blinding. All of the colors are brighter and better. I don’t know why I didn’t just take all the photos in the sun. Look at the flare on the macro!

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Galaxy and other American Apparel polishes have been discontinued. Confetti Fun and Whipped may be discontinued by Nicole by OPI and LA Colors, respectively; other NOPI and LA Colors polishes are sold in stores nationwide. My infinity bow is from Daily Charme.

I bought these products myself.

 

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Manicure Monday: Popples

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Happy Monday, reader! Today’s polish is so bright and happy that I’m cool with it being Monday. This is Pretty & Polished‘s Popples; I’m wearing three coats of Popples with one coat of Seche Vite and a bow charm from Claire’s.

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So this is super cute, right? This is actually one of the first indie polishes I ever bought. It wasn’t one of the very first, but in the grand scheme of things, it was a pretty early etsy purchase. It doesn’t seem like it, but 2013 was a long time ago! I can’t believe I’m just getting around to trying this polish. I love the neon glitters popping out from the white crelly. It’s one of the cutest things I’ve worn in a while.

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White crellies are my favorite polishes to buy (and make, sometimes) because the possibilities are really endless. There’s very little that doesn’t work with the crelly + glitter formula. I’ve always loved neons and white together, so this is really up my street.

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I took some photos in the sun, which were not really necessary. The colors pop just as much outdoors as indoors. Still cute though!

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Popples and other Pretty & Polished products are available in their etsy shop. My bow charm is from Claire’s.

I bought these products myself.

Manicure Monday: Sunburned Sunrise

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Welcome to Manicure Monday! Today’s manicure looks like it was inspired by Reese’s Pieces, but I promise it wasn’t. For this look, I used Blue-Eyed Girl Lacquer‘s Sunburned Siren, Smokey Mountain Lacquers‘s Electric Sun, and Digital Nails‘s Enterprise, along with Seche Vite and Essie’s Matte About You matte top coat.

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So when I was planning this look, Sunburned Siren was my main color choice. I totally fell in love with it the first time I swatched it. I wanted a nail art look, something that’s bright and fun like the Siren but doesn’t take away from it. I got Enterprise out because of the wild shift; it goes from a deep magenta to a cool gold, embracing the colors of the Siren’s shimmers but also exaggerating them. I added Electric Sun to work with the sunrise motif, to work as a cool shimmery yellow. It’s only just occurred to me that their names work together. I wish I hadn’t added the yellow, because that’s what makes it look like Reese’s Pieces, but it helps the sunrise look like a sunrise, so it works out.

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I used Enterprise as shifty sunrays, and I wish I’d used a gold glitter as well. I used an eyeshadow sponge as my application method; I also used it on the all-glitter accent nail. Enterprise is definitely more suited as a topper than a full-coverage glitter, so I did two brused coats of Enterprise, which gave me good but not complete coverage, and just used the sponged coats to cover what was still showing of my nails. I’m surprised it was able to cover so much. And, of course, what’s a wacie.com manicure without a bow? I love how many of you comment on the bows I use, it makes me feel like people really are seeing my stuff.

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In the sunlight, this mani was exactly what I wanted, even if it didn’t turn out the way I’d envisioned. It’s bright, warm, and fun, but it’s also accidentally autumnal, which works out, since the first day of autumn is in just a few days. These photos were all taken in direct sunlight.

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Sunburned Siren was a BEGL limited edition and has since sold out; you can buy other BEGLs from their online shop, though they are currently on a break. Electric Sun was a Beauty Quartet Box exclusive and is no longer available; other Smokey Mountain Lacquers are sold on their website. Enterprise and other Digital Nails polishes are available in their etsy shop. My bow charm is from Claire’s.

I bought these products myself.

Manicure Monday: Jennine

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It’s Monday!! This Monday means a manicure featuring Julep’s Jennine! This is my first time using one of Julep’s Stardust Finish polishes, and I’m always excited to wear a textured polish in general. For this look, I used three coats of Jennine without top coat.

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I know textured polishes aren’t the trend they used to be, but I still love them so much. They just have such a distinctive glitter look, something that microglitters alone can’t quite pull off. Jennine is a mermaidy crust of glitter on the nail, something cool and tranquil but also sparkly and fun.

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The texture of Jennine is finer than that of other textured polishes I’ve used in the past. I thought that since there were no chunky glitters, it wouldn’t achieve a texture as well, but once I had it on, it looked the way it was supposed to. There is some texture, but it’s not gritty or snaggly. It’s really nice to touch.

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As you might have guessed, Jennine is gorgeous in the sun. I love the allover sparkle and dimension. I look down at them every chance I get!

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Jennine is out of stock, but other Julep polishes are available at julep.com. My bow charm is from Daily Charme.

I bought this polish myself.

Manicure Monday: No Place Like Chrome

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Happy Monday, reader! I hope you guys like shiny silver, because that’s all I’ve got today. This is Essie’s No Place Like Chrome without top coat. Silver for days!

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I love the Mirror Metallics collection from Essie. I have them all, but I’ve only ever used two of them, and No Place Like Chrome is the only one I’ve used twice. I know metallic polishes come and go, everybody makes them at some point, but I’m so glad I’ve got these. The finish is so fun and unique, making any mani stand out. I’ve only ever worn this polish by itself, but someday I’ll get around to using it as an accent with something. Mirror polish makes any mani striking.

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The last time I wore this bow was with another strong silver mani. I am actually really surprised by how easy these are to wear. Sure, it’s big, but it rarely gets caught on anything. It’s about as wide as my finger, so someone with thinner fingers might have trouble, but I love wearing these bows. It’s like wearing the biggest, tackiest engagement ring, except it’s glued to one of my nails.

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In the sunlight, the metallic effect is just as apparent. It’s actually kind of blinding. The bow is especially ridiculous. Check out the flares on it.

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No Place Like Chrome and other Essie polishes are sold in stores nationwide. My bow charm is from Born Pretty Store.

I bought these products myself.