This was the final mani I ended up with for Saturday night.

 These first two pictures are taken in early morning light and I also tried to "auto-enhance" them, which is why they look a bit kooky.  Sorry for that!

 What is it, you ask?  I used a coat of Illamasqua Boosh as underwear.  Then I used two coats of Lynnderella (click on her name to go to her blog) Thank Blue! followed by a coat of Piggy Polish Sunshine on Snowflakes, one of my favorite holo toppers.

 I used a coat of Gelous and then Seche Vite at the end.  Everything turned out super smooth and just lovely.

 I was a little worried about putting anything over top of a Lynnderella polish (somehow seems sacrilegious or like overkill), but I'm glad I took the chance with SoS.  I love how it looks!

 This mani reminds me of a way less cool blue glitter look I did about a year ago, here.

I also get the slightest bit of a Deborah Lippmann Across the Universe vibe...but I gotta say that this takes the win for me.

Thank Blue!, Lynnderella, for this amazing blue glitter polish!  And a Happy Blue Year to all!  :P

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 This is my first time wearing magnetic polish for my mani!

 I started with a single coat of Illamasqua Boosh.  Then I added a coat of Layla Magneffect Velvet Groove.

 I forgot how the magnet orientation worked, so I accidentally ended up with vertical lines.  It's all good, though!

 It reminds me of pulled sugar or taffy or some sort of confection (I am not a candy maker, but maybe you know what I'm thinking of).  :)

I only wish my nails were flatter, maybe, because I wish more of the cool effect would hit the sides of my nails.  Is that weird?  I ordered this and some other colors from Amazon.

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 For this manicure I used just one coat of Illamasqua Boosh and then just one coat of SKINFOOD Party Tox #03 Black Party.

 This is my first time trying a SKINFOOD polish!  I am so happy to have some now!  I found them on Ebay.  It took a long time for them to ship to me, but it was worth the wait.

 Black Party does have a black jelly base and I debated just wearing it by itself and doing 2-3 coats.  I'm glad I put the black polish under it, though, because it's so dense that while I think it would be insane on its own, I also think for ease of removal and whatnot, the way I did it was just as well...you know?

This time, there was, FOR REAL, a party on MAH nails.  :)

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I am so happy to say that I now own Nails Inc. polishes! I've waited a long time to have these.

I couldn't quite decide what to wear for my first Nails Inc. mani, so I picked two different 3D glitters to put on over black. I alternated every other nail with Bloomsbury Square and Connaught Square.

Connaught Square is the blue, green, and purple. Bloomsbury Square is the pink and purple. Each is shown at one coat over two coats of Illamasqua Boosh.

I used the Kensington Caviar base and top coats (two coats of top coat because these glitters at top coat eaters!). The wear was pretty good for me with some chipping on the third day (yes, sadly that is pretty good for me). I do feel the top coat dries a bit slow for my taste, but to be fair I will try it again and report back.

In the future with these 3D glitters, I will definitely do a coat of Gelous after the glitter and before my quick-dry top coat.

The whole "3D glitter" thing cracks me up because how are they 3D? But I do love them anyway and think that they are all pretty unique in my vast collection of glitters.

I got these two and several more Nails Inc. polishes at Sephora. Only certain Sephora stores will be stocking them and not all of those stores have them out on display yet (they are not visible to the public yet at my Sephora store). I'm really happy that they are available more easily now in the U.S.!

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This manicure features Illamasqua Baptiste and Sephora by OPI Traffic Stopper Copper.

I used two coats of Baptiste, which applied perfectly (of course!), and a thick-ish coat of Traffic Copper Stopper.

Baptiste is gorgeous. Traffic Stopper Copper is gorgeous. What's not to love?

I topped everything with a coat of Out the Door top coat. I haven't used this much yet and am trying to decide if I like it. First off, it was not doing a good job quickly drying the thickness of the glitter polish. Eventually, I gave up and added a coat of Poshe over everything. Within minutes, all was well and dry (enough to sleep, at least).

The end result? Super shiny, very hard, extra smooth beauteousness.

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I very recently wore two of my Illamasqua Toxic Nature polishes. I started with two coats of Stagnate.

Stagnate is a mauvey brown creme. It kind of reminds me of chocolate milk, just a little.

I decided to pair it with the ever fugly yet awesome Bacterium!

It turned out pretty cool.

Bacterium is a frosty iridescent and therefore requires slightly more patience and care in applying.

The overall effect looked kind of green, kind of brown, and sometimes a silvery gray, too, depending on the light! And there's also the bit of blue flash to Bacterium.

I was bracing myself to receive negative comments from people when I wore this, but I actually got a few compliments! Score for Toxic Nature!!

Do you ever get the urge to put on fugly colors and just wear 'em proudly?

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I recently ordered some Illamasqua polishes from the UK website. Last night I wanted to try out Raindrops.

Here it is at three coats.

Application was a breeze, although I did have a moment fearing that my stains would show through!

This is a soft gray with a pinch of blue. It's a jelly texture with small silver flakies and I believe teeny blue shimmer (can't seem to see it now, but I saw it when I was painting them).

Initially, I didn't think I was going to buy any of the three fan created Illamasqua polishes. Perhaps I was feeling bitter that my idea didn't get chosen. Perhaps I wasn't "wow-ed" by any of the shades.

I'll tell you what happened, though. I am mad about this brand of polish. And I kind of feel like I need them all. :) Well, almost all. There are maybe two or three that I don't own yet and one of them I have no plans of ever purchasing.

In any case, this goes nicely with the pastel theme I seem to be digging as of late.

I am trying out the Palladio quick dry top coat just for fun. It dried pretty quick and is nice and shiny. It also had a good, thin texture going on. I'll let you know what I think!

Time to run. I need to get ready for work. I would much rather not be working today!

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This is my Gamma mani. I used two coats of Illamasqua Gamma and then one coat of CND Effects Sapphire Sparkle.

Gamma is a bold neon orange - however, it doesn't dry matte like most neons.

I can't say that my pictures accurately portray the color, but it is close. It looks more neon and less pumpkin in real life, if that makes sense.

The CND sparkle effect is pretty cool and also did not get accurately portrayed here, either! It's got a blue/pink flash.

The funny thing is that I fully intended to put a purple sparkle over Gamma, thinking that that would look really cool. I was rummaging around in my clear-ish sparkly-glittery drawer looking for one, came upon Sapphire Sparkle, and decided it looked pretty good (perhaps thinking that the combination of the pink and blue looked purple!).

After I put it on, I kind of thought, "Gee, I wish it was actually purple!" But, nonetheless, it looks pretty cool and somewhat purple.

Also, I want to say that Gamma does not really flatter my skin tone one bit. But that has never stopped me from wearing a polish before in my life. :)

There certainly could be worse choices and I think it was a fun change of pace.

Do you like to wear obnoxious oranges? Once in a while the mood strikes me, but overall I don't tend to reach for them as much.

A coworker of mine tried this on and she has golden tan skin. I gotta tell you it looked so stunning on her!

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