MOTD- Claire's Nail Polish "Surprise Party"

Hi everyone!

I don't know about where you live, but in Delaware, the weather was fantastic today! I don't think it got above 80 degrees, and there wasn't a cloud in the sky the whole day. I babysat my 3 and 1 year old neighbors, and we just ran around and played outside for hours. I love these kinds of perfect summer days! I wish we had more of them!

Such a beautiful, sunny day called for a beautiful, summery color. And what better polish than a glitter polish to represent the shine of the sun?! I also had a huge purple craving today, so my new Claire's polish seemed to quench all of my polish thirsts!

"Surprise Party" is a deep red-purple jelly base (sooo squishy, it'd be great on it's own, too!) with all sorts of colors of moderately sized hex glitters. The glitters sort of rise to the top of the polish on the nail, so with one coat, it looks like the glitter is a separate nail polish on top of the purple. However, after a second coat, the glitter gets more of a "3D" appearance, with some of the glitter being "sandwiched" in the purple jelly. Just a warning to people who hate rough textured nail polish, this will dry somewhat roughly due to the glitter density (and the density/placement of the glitter is pretty spot on with 2-3 coats). To fix this, a few coats of top coat should solve your problem. Two coats of Sally Hansen Diamond Strength Nail Color in "Flawless" did the trick for me!

Overall, I'm a big fan of this polish. I actually got it for free from Claire's as part of a "buy 2 get one free" deal about two weeks ago (and it might still be running at some locations). It's a great, bright, and bold color perfect for the liveliness of summer. Below are pictures of sunlight and indoor lighting with 3 coats of "Surprise Party" and 2 coats of Sally Hansen Diamond Strength Nail Color in "Flawless", no base coat.

 

Sunlight

 

Indoor light

 

Sunlight

Sorry for the messy cuticles, I had a cut on one of them and didn't want to get anywhere near it with acetone! 

So what do you think of this jelly glitter bomb? Will you be wearing a fun, sparkly color to celebrate August and the lazy days of summer? Leave your thoughts in the comments!

~Beth~

Nail Art- Water Marbling with my Mom!

Hi everyone!

Today I have a special treat for all of you. Over the weekend, I got the opportunity to practice my water marbling technique on some very willing test subjects, er, willing volunteers. :) I did manicures on both my mom and one of my good friends, Tory, but today I'll just be showing you my mom's, and saving Tory's nails for later (solely because I'm too lazy to download those pictures to my computer right now, lol).

For my mom's nails, I wanted to do something bright and bold, since she loves summer colors. I chose her favorite bright blue, a bold green, and a hot fuschia. The colors I used are as follows:

White (for base): Sinful Colors "Snow Me White"

Blue: Wet N' Wild Fast Dry Nail Color in "Saved by the Blue" (what a great name!)

Green: Rue Beauté in Color 040

Pink: Ulta Salon Formula Nail Laquer in "Fuschiamania"

To do the water marbling itself, I generally use room temperature, or slightly warm, bottled water. I just find that works best for me. I draw the designs using pointed toothpicks, since I am not a fan of using orange sticks, or something like that. I use tape around my cuticles to prevent excess polish from getting on my skin, and remove any mess around my cuticles with warm water in the shower (it peels right off and is less drying than using nail polish remover or acetone, in my opinion). Below are pictures in artificial light, no topcoat, of course, with my beautiful mom modeling for me! She makes a great hand model, no?

 

I'm extremely proud of how this nail art turned out, I think my water marbling technique is greatly improving! What do you all think? Are you a water marble fan? Are you going to try a bright summer manicure? What nail art designs do you want to see from me in the future?

~Beth~