Good Girl Black and White Dress

Hello, Fireflies!

On the days that I dress up to teach, I love having a mani that matches my dress.  I think I got pretty close on this one, but you be the judge!  I would prefer, though, if you were more of a Paula Abdul judge than a Simon Cowell, one, though, ok?

I started with Deborah Lippmann Good Girl Gone Bad.  I love this color, but I have to say, it's so similar to a couple of others from her - Razzle Dazzle comes to mind.

I know they're not the same, but they're *similar*... 

I took Cult Nails Tempest and Nevermore, and with an almost dry brush, painted over the raspberry glitter.

In the dress, the purple is 'hidden' underneath the white and black, so that's what I tried to do in the nail art.  The glitter catches the light, too, which makes is fun to put underneath the black and white.

Bottle shot:  Deborah Lippmann Good Girl Gone Bad, and Cult Nails Tempest and Nevermore.

Pretty easy nail art, right?  Almost too easy.  I can see this looking great with so many glitters underneath, too.  If you'd wear this, what would you put underneath?

Oh, Orly FX, Part I

Oh, Orly.

I wasn't going to buy any of your new bottles, because they irk me.  But, it's just packaging, and is really *is* what's inside that counts.

And what's inside these FX polishes is TEXTURE. I bought 4 of these lovelies, and I'd like to show you two today with a little demo of a neat trick, and 2 tomorrow with some nail art.

Black Pixel.  Black and silver glitter.  Not as smooth as a Zoya Pixie Dust, but fairly comparable. Not as gritty as a Julie G Gumdrop, or OPI Liquid Sand. 

I had read on the Interwebs that layering any polish over a texture would then make that polish look textured.  Well, yes and no.  Let me show you what I mean.  I layered Julep Isla, a metallic white, over Black Pixel.

There is some texture, but it takes a while to appear, and it's less noticeable from a normal viewing distance.

Rose Pixel. This is a light champagne gold, very shiny and pretty.

I layered different colors and textures over Rose Pixel.  Pointer:  Nails, Inc Baker Street (cobalt blue creme); Middle: Cult Nails Morning glory (magenta matte creme); Ring:  Zoya Pippa (yellow creme); Pinkie:  Color Club Over The Moon (blue linear holographic)

Mor

Most of them got bumpy, though it took forever.  The Cult Nails was the smoothest, likely because the matte finish dried before the texture could appear.  Zoya Pippa showed the most texture, while Baker St showed the least.  The holographic was interesting - no more linear rainbow, but the color and the silver sheen are still there.

So, if you wanted to try and make your own shades of textured polish, I'd recommend a light-colored one like Rose Pixel, and polishes with a thin, slower-drying formula.  Would you try it?

Mentality Polish - Shifty and Reserved Collex

I spent a few days playing with these two new collections from Mentality - you know how I love my holos.  These are all subtle, scattered holos.  The Shifty collection has three polishes that have a blue/purple flash duochrome, and the Reserved collection has five warm-toned holos that have a metallic, chrome-like finish to them.  Application for all was really great - most were one-coaters if you were careful, though I almost always did two out of habit.

I have a three looks to show you today, using a mix from both collections.  Tomorrow, I'll finish posting the rest of the looks I created with these polishes.

Dapper.  This is a light gold, really clean and bright and shiny.

I saw this video from Robin Moses called Teal Sands, and I thought I'd try a version with the pinks in these collex.  I free-handed half of a chevron tip with Sly, a magenta holo with purple flecks.  

The other half was supposed to be wavy.  I used Finger Paints Black Expressionism.

Bottle shots of the other colors I used.  Wily is a light pinkish purple duochrome.  Refined is a bronze metallic, and Prim is a plummy brown.

I used a teeny-tiny art brush and painted little 'pebbles' of Wily, Refined, and Prim over the black.  I'm really happy with how this came out!  I didn't think I'd be able to pull it off.

Demure.  Charcoal-grey metallic holo from the Reserved collection.  Pretty hard to see the holo in this one, really, but it perks up with topcoat.

I saw a Pinterest pin for this Pixie Polish video and I tried to faithfully copy it.  This would be so cute for Valentines' Day!

Wily.  While Sly is a hot pink holo, Wily is a soft pinkish-purple.  They both are part of the Shifty collection and both have a purple/blue flash to them.

This is another look I saw on Pinterest by Simona Leucht.

I hadn't done a corset nail art before, so I thought it would be fun to try.  I free-handed the corset in Prim, and then dotted eyelets first in Dapper, and then with Wily.  I used Finger Paints Black Expressionism for the laces.

Both of these collections were created with stamping in mind, but they also worked really great for nail art.  Really nice texture and opacity.  Do you like any of these colors or nail art?

If you'd like more information about Mentality, you can find them on Facebook, and on their Big Cartel store.

The Makeup Show - Orlando!

The Beauty Bloggers of Central Florida were invited to the Makeup Show in Orlando this year - as press!  I wish I could gone for the Blogger preview, and Sunday, too, but I could only go on Monday.  It was an amazing, fun experience!

Well, I had to do my nails special, right?  I started with Pure Ice Draped, a magenta suede.  I had no idea it was a suede until I put it on!  So pretty.

Here's where my camera and I disagree about what I actually wore to the show.  Sure, I started out with Smitten Polish Hocus Pocus.  Look how pretty it is!  And, it looked good with my outfit.  The purple microglitter... so awesome.

But, then I realized I would be helping out at the Cult Nails booth, so I took this off and put on the Draped again, but with Cult Nails Seduction over top. My camera...well, it didn't take that pix.  Or something.  It was a similar color scheme, but with flakies, instead of glitter.  Very classy.  You'll just have to trust me.. or, better yet, get yourself a bottle of Seduction.  It's the near-dupe of Unicorn Puke, but it was made once they couldn't get the green - gold flakies anymore.

The Makeup Show was held in the Peabody hotel, and the first celebrity sighting I had was of the famous Peabody ducks.  Every day at 11am, the ducks ride down their reserved elevator and walk down the red carpet to their fountain in the lobby of the hotel.  Every night at 5, they have another procession back up to their penthouse suite in the hotel.  Fancy!

I also got to see some amazing makeup artists at work.  Toby Sells is currently one of the makeup effects artists making zombies and such on one of my fave TV shows, The Walking Dead!

He was so nice, and we bonded over his 4 dogs - Chihuahua/Papillion mixes, and Jack Russells. 

I also got to meet Roy and Laura from Face-off.  I thought Roy was going to win for sure.  I was so disappointed when he didn't!

 Another funny and handsome makeup guru - AJ Crimson.

I was sorry to have missed his branding yourself workshop.  He made quite an impact on the Beauty Bloggers of Central Florida who did go.  Also, he looks a bit like a young Eddie Murphy.

So many interesting things to see and do - and BUY - at the show.  Many artists were doing special effects makeup, both horrifying and beautiful.

 Amerikan Body Art had a Nail Polish Frankening station, and I made my first Franken-polish!

They had many different colors of mica, and different glitters to choose from.  I couldn't resist this light blue, and some holographic sparklies.

In truth, the best part was seeing other beauty bloggers and meeting new friends at the show.  These ladies are all so gracious with their time and knowledge, and I am so happy to have them in my life!

 Kim from Libbie's Pink Vanity, and Alyssa from Pretty Little Bottles

 Kari from Once Bitten

Brianna, Maria from Cult Nails, and LaShon

Maria and I.  I'm cracking up about something silly.

 Safia from Lipstick Mixtapes.  I'm trying to emulate her fabulous 'do.

 Me and gorgeous, bold Phyrra

Meeting Judy from BeautyJudy.  

So many of the artists were awesome to meet.  Sure, I scored some deals on Crown brushes, Eye Kandy glitter, and some Cult Nails, but the people were the best part!

Random Holo Roundup

To finish off this holo week, I want to share with you some other random pretties. 

This is Ozotic 513.  The thumb is 1 coat over black, the others are 3 coats alone.  I do seem to have a thing for purple holos, don't I?  I don't think I realized how many I had until I was swatching this week!

And this is Ozotic 531, a multichrome holo, or a 'mish-mash'.  Copper/pink beauty.  These two are part of the discontinued line, but you can still find a few floating around, I think.  I'm sure there will be some on e-bay.

The Brazilians have a lot of beautiful holos.  The Specialista No Olympio collection is stunning, and so are the holos from UP colors and Ludurana.  There are swatches many places for those, but I wanted to share a couple that I have and enjoy.  This is UP colors Multi-Magenta.  I find that most holos labeled 'magenta' are more pink, but this one at least has some magenta flashes in the holo.

This is Ludurana Notavel.  Every holo collection has a silver.  I didn't think I needed them all, but apparently I have collected my fair share.  I picked this one up at a sale on Llarowe, I think.

This is a polish I haven't seen much of, but it's starting to crop up on nail blogs.  Missha has a cosmetic line, and also makes some nice BB creams, if you're into that.  I picked this polish up on their site with a couple of other polishes and the BB cream.  It's the mysterious and beautifully named, "JBR01".  Isn't that romantic?

Cute, heart-shaped bottle.  I told you it was romantic. :)  And it's brown.  I love brown!  I've never seen OPI My Private Jet holo version in person, but I've heard tell that this is close to it.

And, finally, a few from Glitter Gal, one of the first holo lines I heard about.  I picked up these on sale at Llarowe.  They are the SMALLEST polish bottles out there, so be aware that you are likely paying more per ounce for this polish than a fancy steak dinner.

GG Fuchsia.  Really?  Looks like a baby pink to me. 

 GG Copper.  I  really liked this color, but it doesn't read copper to me.  Maybe a rose gold.

GG Marine Blue.  I am such a fan of blue polish, and blue holo polish has me jibbering like an idiot.  This is so pretty.  I don't know if it's worth the money over say, a Jade blue holo, though.

I remember when I first discovered holos and this next one was the Holy Grail of them all.  You couldn't beg, borrow, or steal a bottle of Lizard Belly.  It's a dark teal base with a beautiful rainbow.  There are others I like better, but this is still a unique color and a very nice polish.

Well, I hope I haven't bored you to tears.  I'd love to hear your recommendations for holos you love.