31 Day Challenge: Combo! Days 7 & 8

Another Monday is upon us! They should really just turn Monday into the 3rd weekend day, right?!

I decided to combine challenge days again! Day 7 is skittles or ombre, and day 8 is holo, flakie, or duochrome - so I decided to do holo skittles! I only own a few holos, and I used them all for this mani!

Thumb to pinkie:

Color Club Harp On It

Color Club Angel Kiss

Color Club Blue Heaven

Layla 04 Ultra Violet

Color Club Halo-graphic

The Color Clubs are from the Halo Hues collection from last year. I absolutely love these polishes! There is a second holo collection for this spring, so far I've only seen it on transdesign.com, but it's sold out right now. If anyone sees these in stores, please let me know! I am patiently waiting for the purple holo! Speaking of which...

About the Layla purple holo... I hate to say, I do not like it at all. The only reason I bought it was because it was in the clearance section of Ulta for only $6.99 (original price is $15.50!). You would think for the price, this would be an amazing holo! First of all, holo or not, $15 is ridiculous to spend on such a tiny bottle - it is only 10mL, compared to Color Club which is 15mL and costs less than half the price. The other issue I had was the formula - super watery and very difficult to build up. It took 4 coats to be opaque, and still dried dull and almost gritty looking. I didn't use a top coat for any of my other fingers except this one. You can see how dull the holo effects are compared to the Color Clubs. 

Sorry about my little Layla rant, but I think as consumers you should know what you're buying, before you pay for it!

XOX

Jess

Color Club Halo Hues - Finally!!!

Sorry for the lack of posts recently, but this one today is well worth the wait! I finally got my pretty little hands on my first real holographic polishes... ladies, I give you my picks from the Color Club Halo Hues collection! And can I just say, for the record, I am obsessed!

(left to right)

Blue Heaven, Halo-Graphic, Harp On It

Blue Heaven

First up we have Blue Heaven. This is a really light blue, I was actually expecting it to be a bit darker. I wore this today for World Diabetes Day.

I used two coats of Blue Heaven for my pics. For my accent nail, I used Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Blazing Blue, and Cheeky stamping plate CH26. I only used topcoat on the nails with stamping, because I didn't even want to chance having the holo diminished in any way!

Halo-Graphic 

Halo-Graphic might be my favorite of the three I bought. It's so beautiful!!!! A nice shade of rose pink with uhhhhhmazing holo going on!!! I used three very thin coats for these pics, no topcoat.

 Harp On It

Harp On It is a classic silver holo. So incredibly pretty.

For the stamping in the last pic, I used Cheeky plate CH26, and Wet N Wild Black Creme. I really like the look of this polish with the stars :)

So what do you think? Do you already own some of these?

I bought my bottles on transdesign.com for $6.95 each(currently they are out of stock, but keep checking back!). I also noticed them for sale at a store in my mall called XSRE, for $9.95 each. These are more pricey than your average Color Club, but totally worth it in my opinion. 

Color Club has flown to the top of my favorite brands list with this collection! After seeing swatches of all 6 polishes around the interwebs, I think I may also have to pick up Angel Kiss, which is the turquoise-looking color in the collection. Or maybe I will just go ahead and get all 3 that I don't already have....

China Glaze Turned Up Turquoise / Atlantis!

Hi there! Short post today. I am in sparkle heaven with this combo! I used two China Glaze polishes, Turned Up Turquoise and Atlantis. 

I finally remembered to take a pic of my base before adding a layering polish! This is two coats of Turned Up Turquoise. It applied pretty well, the first coat was streaky, but evened out very nicely on the second. It dried to a satin/matte finish (since it is technically a "neon") and my pic below is without a topcoat. 

Sorry about my messy cuticles, I always clean up at the very end!

After that I added three coats of Atlantis, which is an unbelievable holographic glitter! I seriously cannot even being to describe how pretty it is. The first pic is blurry on purpose, so you can see the sparkle, for some reason it didn't translate well in my outdoor shots.

A coworker told me this combo reminded her of The Little Mermaid, and I can totally see why! Hope you've enjoyed :)

Sinful Colors Let's Talk and Funky Fingers Sand & Stilettos

Today's manicure was inspired by yesterday's post! I'm a bit purple obsessed at the moment, and I think this might be the first time ever that I have the same polish on both my fingers and toes! 

First of all I have to forewarn you and say how disappointed I am by the pictures! For some reason it kept coming out more blue than purple.

 The base is two coats of Sinful Colors Let's Talk. I really like this brand, usually if you use a nice thick coat you can get away with just one, but since I tend to do thinner coats I used two. And bonus, they are less than $2 a bottle! (This week they're on sale at Walgreens for 99 cents!)

The sparkles are a great holographic glitter from Funky Fingers called Sand & Stiletto. The only place I've ever seen Funky Fingers is Five Below, and they're 3 for $5. 

If you don't have a Five Below near you, this glitter polish is an exact dupe of Color Club Sugarplum Fairy:

(left to right)

Color Club Sugarplum Fairy, Pure Ice Spitfire, Funky Fingers Sand & Stilettos

Orly Miss Conduct & Be Brave

Hi everyone! Sorry for the lack of posts this Labor Day weekend, I hope you've all been enjoying your days off as much as I have!

Today I have for you a pink Orly combo. Funny little side story to start with... I was talking to my 19 year old cousin about the different brands of polish, which are thicker, require less coats, etc, etc. I told her Orly was one of my favorite brands at the moment, but I pronounced it "o really?"... she looked at me weird and said she's never heard of that brand! So I spelled it out for her and she said in a very gentle tone... "Jess, you know that's not how you say it, right? It's OR-ly?" I laughed so hard, because I know exactly how its pronounced, but to in my head I always think 'o really?' ... maybe this is because I text too much!? Anyway, we had a good laugh about it. Onto polish!!!

My base is Orly Miss Conduct, which is my favorite from the new Naughty or Nice 2012 collection. Its a beautiful magenta-ish with very very fine glitter, and the more I stare at it, the more I want to say its holo glitter. The bar glitter goodness is Orly Be Brave, which is a Flash Glam FX polish, and also part of this year's Breast Cancer Awareness package. I am falling in love with bar glitter!! This is definitely holo, I find myself blurring my eyes and just staring at my nails! :) Two coats of each, and I am loving the results!!! Both pictures were taken outside, I can't really say the first one was in "sunlight" because it is awfully cloudy here today! But for the sake of differentiating.... first pic in the sun, second in the shade!

I purchased Miss Conduct along with the entire Naughty or Nice collection from transdesign.com, I've only ordered from there a few times but they're really great! They seem to have new stuff before stores do (I don't even see this collection on orlybeauty.com yet), and shipping is pretty quick too! As soon as I saw the new Orly I just had to have them, plus it was only $25.50 for the set of 6 bottles! That is what I call a great bargain, especially considering the retail prices (the Flash Glam FX collection retails $10 a bottle, regular Orly polishes around $7.50/$8). 

Hope you enjoy! And always remember, share your great money saving tips in the comments, I'd love to hear from you!!!