This was my mani today. It's three coats of pa AA36. I only got this one decent pic this morning as I was rushing out the door on my way to work.

The coats were a little tricky to work with because they were a bit thick and the big chunky pink glitters tried to misbehave on me! I love the way it looks, though. Next time around I'll probably opt to put this over a couple of layers of another colored polish - maybe a dark gray or just black.

I hope you all have a safe and happy night!

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I got a pa haul in the mail yesterday. HOO-ray! I am so excited! I had a bit of a dilemma deciding which to wear first, but rather easily settled on this perfect beauty.

This was just two coats! It applied nicely, and I do believe I heard angels singing in the background while the glitter flowed onto my nails.

This is purple, silver (several sizes), and blue glitter all in a blue jelly base. Holy hotness!

My pictures aren't accurate because the purple isn't showing as much as it does in real life. Can you tell it's there?

I really love this one.

So, I decided I need to get nail wheels so I can quickly and easily swatch all my new pretty glitters. I don't have the guts to swatch them all on my own nails and then remove all that glitter!

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Last night I was pondering what to do about my awesome Smokin' Hot mani, which was slightly beaten up (more than I care for), and cleverly decided to look at my CND Effects collection.

I settled on Emerald Shimmer, added a coat, and voila!

It's SO nice. I absolutely love the result. I was worried that the shimmer might look streaky, but it applied so perfectly.

I also applied a coat of regular top coat over, and it took too long to dry, so I ended up with some dents and sheet marks. Sorry about that! In any case, I am definitely going to be playing with my CND Effects more in the near future. They rock my world. :)

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This is my second time wearing Smokin' Hot, by Essie. I didn't get pictures the first time around, though, because it was kind of a disaster.

I think it just had to do with the particular combination of base and top coat I used with it the previous time, but it took forever to dry and bubbled like crazy. It was massively fugly.

At any rate, this is two coats, and it applied so beautifully! This time I used two coats of BB Couture for Nails Hard On Nail Strengthener as my base, two coats of Smokin' Hot, and a coat of Seche Vite. Presto magico - everything turned out great this time.

I don't usually use Seche Vite as my top coat, but I decided to go for it because I wanted it to dry as fast as humanly possible (I had to hang up laundry and also needed to go to sleep soon) and also because I was worried about bubbles and SV seems to do a good job stopping, lessening, and/or preventing them.

I needed a good break from all the Christmas colors and glitter, too, so this was a very nice, refreshing change of pace. I adore this color! It's dark, but it's not black. It's almost gray and almost purple (two awesome colors), but not really clearly one or the other.

This mani pretty well survived a busy day at work, so that's great! I only have a small chip on the very edge of the tip of my right middle finger nail. I think it's passable enough that I might wear it again tomorrow.

Maybe I'll throw on a coat of glitter for funsies, though. We shall see.

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I hope you all are having or have had lovely Holidays filled with family, peace, joy, and love.

This is what I'm wearing...on my nails...right now. Success! I have caught up!

It's three coats of OPI Merry Midnight, which was untried until now. Holy hawt, it's pretty!

I pretty well killed the pretty with major japanese glitter bling bling. It's a random Dear Laura pa polish. I think I threw out or misplaced the box and it doesn't seem to say what number it is on the back label.

It's just one coat of the pa. I tried to do it lightly, so as not to entirely cover up Merry Midnight, but it just wouldn't happen!

If you know which pa this is, feel free to leave me a comment and I'll edit the post.

You can still just barely see the flakies in Merry Midnight. I needed a break from red and green, I think. And right now, I'm seriously thinking about taking this mani off to do a new one for tomorrow. Merry Christmas everyone, and have a great night!

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I'd never used it before, but I tried China Glaze Emerald Sparkle for the first time two days ago.

Here it is at just two coats.

Gorgeous! Stunning!

I decided to top it with Revlon Slipper.

Slipper has little silver and red glitter as well as large silver holographic hex glitter.

I did not bother with the hex glitter at all, which is why there are only a couple specks of it on my nails! It just didn't want to come out of the bottle.

I counted the hex glitters on all ten of my nails and there were literally eight.

I still really like how it turned out.

It looks a bit like a classic, simple Christmas Tree, I think.

Have you done lots of red and green combinations this season?

Weirdly, I feel a little burned out on reds and greens right now, at this point. I'm not sure if I'll be wearing either for Christmas day!

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My dear best friend, Kup, suggested that I do a purple with red and green glitter combination the other day. The idea for this combo popped in my head while I was in the shower. Behold:

It's two coats of Milani Purple Gleam with a coat of China Glaze Party Hearty over top.

It turned out pretty hawt!!

In case you don't already know this, the Milani one coat glitters are nearly matte, left to their own devices.

Perhaps worse than that, they actually consume the shiny of your top coat. I am not lying. I didn't believe it was true until I saw it with my own eyes!

So, what on earth do you do if you want a shiny mani, you ask?

You can put on a ton of top coat and hope for the best. That would probably work but might take forever to dry.

An amazing and wise MUAer has discovered that if you top your glitter with either Sally's Gelous or something like it (for example, Sally Hansen Nail Quencher, which is now very hard to find but some of you may have this already), and then do your top coat or top coats, it helps prevent the Milani glitter from "eating" your top coat's shiny factor.

Sorry, that was a really long sentence! You are a genius, Eve. :)

With this mani I think I actually took a risk and just let Party Hearty act as my barrier. Then I used CND Air Dry, and followed with a coat of Poshe. It worked out fine! Hooray!

If you are just going to rock out the Milani one coat glitters by themselves, I would definitely recommend throwing on a coat of Gelous before your top coat.

If you like the matte look, though, then no worries at all!

Does Party Hearty remind you of tasty Italian spices?

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I'm in the mood to crank out these last few posts that will officially catch me up to real time! The goal is to actually post pictures of the manis that I'm currently wearing at the time. Cheer me on, Nation, I'm going to go for it!! (I love to throw around the word "Nation," because I just adore Stephen Colbert and he says it all the time on his show).

This is two coats of $OPI Looks Like Rain, Dear with a coat of W&W Prancer over top.

Looks Like Rain, Dear, is very similar to last year's Worth My Weight, only it's lighter and paler. It was a bit thick and I had to thin it by the second coat.

I love all the glitter and holo. I debated a long time what to put over top of Looks Like Rain, Dear. Prancer ended up being perfect.

The red glitter makes me think of Christmas Tree ornaments/balls.

I wanted to try a green glitter over this, but I'm really glad I went with the red. I think the green could have easily looked pukey or strange.

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Here is $OPI 212 over Illamasqua Boosh. I only used one coat of each, so another super quick and easy mani.

Below is a picture I took indoors right after I painted them (at night). It's not the best picture, but it kind of shows the golden greenness of the shimmer over black.

The shimmer really pops over black.

I probably should give my bottle a good shake to get some of that holo glitter moving around in there!

I love this polish because it's unique, ugly, and beautiful all at the same time. I would love to see more versions (different colors) of this type of finish (I would call it the garbage can finish).

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