Exactly, My Shooting Star

The Polish:
BC: OPI - Nail Envy
Color: Rainbow Polish - Shooting Star sandwiched between layers of OPI - My Pointe Exactly (NYC Ballet collection)
TC: Seche Vite

And now for something delicate! I just love my delicious Ballet jellies, and the grey may just be my favorite, even though it doesn't look awesome with my skin tone. Or maybe Don't Touch My Tutu... oh, I give up! Who am I to choose a favorite among her children? Hehe. But I do know that Shooting Star, despite being my very first indie, doesn't get enough love from me because the stars always drive me crazy. So I wanted to try to give it some more affection in a yummy jelly sandwich.

Shooting Star actually requires minimal fishing. I got one star out without trying and the second after dipping and swirling maybe twice. So! We'll see how well this mani lasts before the points of the stars poke out relentlessly enough for me to rip them off. Hopefully it's at least a couple of days!

And here's my rarely seen right hand. It typically gets at least one coat of polish less than the right hand, just because I'm not taking pictures of it. (And also probably because I'm right handed and want to paint as little as possible with my left hand.) After doing my left hand, I wondered if I had overdone it with the glitter, so I gave my right hand a simple accent. Not sure which I prefer, actually! Both are nice. But at least it was a relief not to have to glitter all the fingers left-handed, hehe.

Wear: A bar glitter was sticking up and had to be pulled immediately. Everything else lasted three days until I could take the pokies no longer! Next time I wear shape glitter, I'll have to remember to put at least one layer of Gelous on before the Seche Vite.

Beluga Blizzard

The Polish:
BC: Duri - Rejuvicote
Color: Two coats of Sea Lore - Beluga Blizzard (Wintry Friends collection) over Sally Hansen - Fog (Smooth & Perfect line)
TC: Seche Vite

I had seen Sea Lore's Wintry Friends collection on Facebook, but honestly I didn't like them enough to buy at the time and probably wouldn't have gotten Beluga if I hadn't seen it on one of the swap groups. Its previous owner agreed to swap, so I decided to give it a shot.

Blizzard is a very apt term for what is happening on my nails right now. Beluga is a very shiny mix of small matte white glitters and silver shimmer. At one coat, you can make out the individual glitters, and that's probably all you need for everyday wear, because at two coats, everything blurs together in a shimmery blizzard of white and silver. It's a super wintry polish, but I know that won't stop me from wearing it at random times in the year anyway.

Wear: Four days, then peeling. Unfortunately, I was at work when I noticed the peeling, and in a fit of stress, peeled EVERYTHING off. I felt horrible about it afterwards and moisturized constantly throughout the rest of the day.

Skyline Hottie's Satin Confetti

The Polish:
BC: Duri - Rejuvicote
Main Color: Sinful Colors - Hottie over two coats of New York Color - Skyline Blue
Accent: Two coats of Confetti - Pink Confetti over Sally Hansen - Satin (Smooth & Perfect line)
TC: Seche Vite

A mani featuring iridescents, to feed my addiction. I'm actually not as big of a fan of how the pinks turned out, but I loooove the blues! When Hottie is over Skyline, the new shade that they make is just the perfect blue, and the iridescents... it looks so dreamy! It's like curling up in your pajamas with a pillow and a teddy bear and falling asleep just as the sky begins to fade and stars begin to twinkle...

... Alright, alright, enough hyperbole. It's just really pretty, alright? It makes me actually want to keep Skyline, since wearing it with Hottie is probably the only time I wear it. Skyline is super streaky. Glitter makes it better, though!

Wear: Four days, and then the peels.

Shimmering Sand

The Polish:
BC: Duri - Rejuvicote
Color: Shimmering Sand, a franken, three coats
TC: Seche Vite

In preparation for a meeting with a prospective new employer, here's a subtle nude interview polish, Shimmering Sand. It's a franken made from Sally Hansen Smooth & Perfect - Dune, a dreadfully dull nude pearl, and Sinful Colors - Out of this World, a boring silver shimmer. The two of them mixed together created something completely new and elegant, and I love it.

The color has somewhat of a grey tint to it from the silver, according to a male friend, but it's still definitely nude. It's quite sheer, too, but three coats was perfection. The first picture was the only one that came out color accurate, but my camera cut it off! Grr, why can't you just do color accuracy, camera phone? So here are a couple others that aren't quite as good but still do a nice job at showing off the polish.

Wear: Removed after four days with minimal chips.

Travel in Color

The Polish:
BC: Nail-Aid - Extreme Steel Hardener
Color: China Glaze - Travel in Color (HoliGlaze collection), two coats
TC: Sinful Colors - Quick Dry

After the awfulness that was my last mani, I desperately needed a palate cleanser. Thankfully I had Travel in Color untried, so I nubbinized, put it on, and then breathed a sigh of relief.

Travel in Color is a sheer, shimmery white with bright pink flash and just a touch of green shimmer, too. It's meant to be a topper, but alone it was great for the simplicity I needed. Speaking of flash, by the way, I've recently learned via the nail board that any polish with a flash is actually considered a duochrome, and the things that I was considering duochromes, like WnW Grey's Anatomy, for example, are actually multichromes. I guess it makes sense--this one has two colors, white and pink, while, if you look at the bottle in the swatch of Grey's Anatomy, you can see three colors, blue, purple, and green. Well, alright, then. So Travel in Color is technically a duochrome.

About that flash, by the way, it just refused to be photographed. It's startlingly bright in person, just wouldn't show off for the camera. Grr, frustrating. I still think I prefer my sheer whites with gold flash, like Calla Lily and White Cap, but pink will be fine every once in a while.

Wear: Removed after three days.

Sugar Galore

The Polish:
BC: Revlon - ColorStay basecoat, under accent only
Main Color: OPI - Pussy Galore (Bond Girls collection), three coats
Accent: Sugar - Sugar Rush, three coats
TC: Seche Vite, over accent only

I wanted to give this post a different title, using the first word of each of the polishes, but then I chickened out, haha. Okay, anyway, here's my Valentine's mani for this year. It's so... pink! Grah! But it's okay. I was kind of saving Sugar Rush for spring, but then I realized that the color matched traditional Valentine's day candy, so I caved. And I'm glad I did. I'm not sure I could take a full mani of so much pink, and it just gives the whole thing a better look overall. You can't see it here, but my left hand actually has the accent nail on the pinkie. I've never done a pinkie accent, and it certainly wasn't intentional. I accidentally started applying Pussy Galore to my ring finger and only noticed it too late. I didn't want to take it off, so I just put base coat on the pinkie and accented that one. The asymmetry is actually cuter than I imagined, so I might wind up doing it again on purpose.

When the Bond Girls collection came out, Pussy Galore was one that I really wanted, both because of the name and because light pink is a color I enjoy. This pink isn't quite what I expected, though. It's a little... too pink. I suppose the light pinks I prefer more are sheer ones. It's got the same issue of strange texture as it's sister, Solitaire, where the texture seems a little to sparse, and I'm expecting it to wear off awkwardly, as well. Again, I'm glad I only got minis of them!

Sugar is a brand whose icon I've seen before. Apparently they mostly sell shoes, and they've recently started selling cosmetics at Kohl's. When I was there around Christmas time, I noticed Sugar Rush looking like a dupe for Nails Inc's Sweets Way, which was on my wishlist at the time. Sugar Rush has pink, blue, and white hexes in a sheer white base. Obviously it's only a near dupe, since the glitters are more sparse, even at three coats, but it's close enough for me.

Wear: Removed after three days. I just couldn't take the pink any longer, and, as I expected, it DID start to wear in an awkward way.

Celestial Spritz

The Polish:
BC: Duri - Rejuvicote
Main Color: Gap - Pink Spritz, two coats
Accent: Black Cat Lacquer - Celestica, one thick coat
TC: Gelous, followed by Seche Vite

Here's my pre-Valentine's mani, just a dash of pink. A friend bought me a bottle of Gelous, which I was so exited about because it meant I could finally use some of the polishes I've been holding off on for a while because of their formula.

I found Pink Spritz at a thrift store for fifty cents, and I couldn't ignore the pretty iridescent glitter. It needed a bit of thinning and was still a little gloopy, unfortunately. It went on streaky, but the Gelous did wonders on evening it out.

And ah, Celestica. Our first time together was quite a mess, wasn't it. So I've been waiting until I had some Gelous until I wore you again. And my, what a difference it made! She evened you out to a nice, smooth shine, didn't she? And now I'm excited to wear you again! Plus, taken inside, I can see just the faintest of weak linear holos in your pictures. How cute!

Wear: Four days. I did such a good job not picking the peeling polish on day four, yay!

Light as a Peach

The Polish:
BC: One coat of New York Color - Matte Me Crazy over Duri - Rejuvicote
Main Color: The Devil Wears Polish - Suck My Peach, three coats
Accent: Glitter Gal - Light as a Feather, three coats
TC: Seche Vite

Here are two holo but very subtle polishes. When I started putting on Suck My Peach, I realized that a whole mani of it wasn't going to cut it for me. I picked out second holo that I hadn't worn in a while to be my accent color, but it turns out that Light as a Feather was just as subtle and not too very far off, color wise. Oh well. We'll be subtle for a while.

Suck My Peach is a nude linear holo. It's very sheer at first but builds easily. I'm glad I only have a mini bottle of it because a whole bottle would probably be too much for me. Whatever, it's pretty, though. I'm sure I'll wear it every once in a while. It's just so very plain, even with the holo. It might look very pretty with some stamping over it. If only I could stamp.

Wear: Four days.

Tomoko's Starlight

The Polish:
BC: CND - Stickey, under accent nail only
Main Color: Zoya - Tomoko (Pixie Dust collection), two coats
Accent: Blue Eyed Girl Lacquer - Guided by Starlight (Holiday 2013 collection), two coats
TC: Seche Vite, over accent nail only

Guided by Starlight is the Christmas polish from Blue Eyed Girl Lacquer's Holiday polishes. It's a white crelly with a mixture of gold shape glitter, including stars, diamonds, and circles, as well as a few silver and holo glitters. I've been holding onto it for a little while because when I first tried to put it on, I made a mess of it. I didn't really want to play with it again, but considering it in this mani, as an accent for Tomoko, made me determined to get it right. I had to make sure my coats were extra thin and apply it very carefully, but it turned out nice. I love the combination of it with sparkly Tomoko!

Wear: Four days