Woohoo! 1L done Glitter Spam! :)

Yay for my 1st year of law school being finished! Although by the time this posts, it'll have been over for 3 weeks and I'll be 2 weeks into summer school, it still calls for a celebratory glitter spam :) These are just some of my favorite glitter combinations within the past year or so. I'm leaving out the indie brand glitters because I'm making a separate post for that soon :D

And so here it goes!

my first try at layering glitters!
For the gold, I used CC Sultry
then Sinful: Call You Later
then NYX Girls: Turks and Caicos
then Nicole by OPI: Nicole... Spotted!
my base was NYX Girls Sea of Cortez

LA Splash Golden Seahorse + Brownie gold glitter thing (Japanese) + Milani FX Gold

American Apparel Hassid + OPI Divine Swine + LA Girl Glitter Addict Nostalgic

Butter London: The Black Knight + Butter London Tart with a Heart

Fingerpaints: Vintage Velvet + LA Girls Glitter Addict: Provocative

OPI Warm & Fozzie, Spoiled: Jewelry Heist (the bronzey glitters) & Essence: Edward (green glitter)

Piggy Polish: Among the Stars + Color Club: Very Merry Berry

OPI: Lucerne-tainly Look Marvelous + OPI: Crown Me Already! on ring finger

Nerd Lacquer: Warrior Ethos + NYX Girls Frizz Spots gradated

Hope y'all enjoyed seeing those as much as I enjoyed wearing them!

layers of blue: Milani Blue Flash, Revlon Radiant, LA Girls Jostle

I recently went out with some friends to celebrate a friend's birthday -- I knew that her favorite color was blue, so I wanted to do a blue glitter mani. Little did I know I would be running SUPER late and had to do a mani in 10 minutes.

I had to think fast! And saw Milani Blue Flash on a side table and knew I should use it and so I did. It dries really quickly and is opaque enough in a couple of coats, so I'm really glad I picked it! Slap on a couple of coats of NYC Grand Central Station (my favorite topcoat) and we have blue sparkly goodness. Cleanup wasn't a pain, either.


What I originally wanted to do before was a glitter layering mani involving blue, but not quite sure what. I had Revlon Radiant to use but when I tested it out, it didn't show up too well over Milani Blue Flash. Then I saw LA Girls Glitter Addict in Jostle, a dark blue glitter, on the floor (lol)! And an Idea was born!

I did more of a gradient type with Jostle, so about 2 coats, and 1.5 coats of Revlon Radiant (dotting on more of the green/silver bigger glitters) and then dotted Jostle to let more of the dark blue show.


Lots of dabbing with these glitters, lol. But so pretty!

LA Girl Copper Alloy

Another gorgeous polish from the reader donated box. Thank you! I love this one  - it's got a duochrome red/copper quality to it and it's so firey and glowy. This ended up being four coats for reasons explained below, but three was fine, and it dries quickly so it's much less of a hassle than that sounds.

What I do not love is seche vite. Oy vey. I poured two bottles together so I could actually use the dregs, and it applied OK, but it shrunk so badly! It's pulled in 2-3mm on the sides and taken the polish with it. So I apologise that this mani isn't as pretty as it should be :(

Does anyone have any suggestions for top coats that don't shrink so much? I've really had it with SV ruining manicures...

A lot of big "meh": some LA Girl Glitter Addict swatches

I really love LA Girl polishes. They are generally inexpensive (especially if you catch a good Cherry Culture deal) and awesome (even if a little slow to dry sometimes). So I was ecstatic when I heard about the Glitter Addict collection. Ordered the whole thing on impulse before I saw many swatches. And I'm kind of annoyed at myself because now I just have a lot of new layering polishes (and I don't really like layering polishes). Without exception, all the glitters are suspended in clear jelly.

LA Girl Synergy over Orly Frisky

Gold hex glitter shows up as kind of holo in the bottle but is very sparse. And the holo doesn't really seem to show up unless in direct sunlight. Two layers. 

LA Girl Celebrate

Celebrate... what exactly? Sparse multicolored small and large hex glitter. The above is... I think it was five layers? At least it was interesting to look at and might be cute over a black or white polish. 

 Closeup of Celebrate

 LA Girl Euphoria over Sally Hansen Lavender Cloud

Lavender glitter with lavender and holo hex glitter. This one looked fabulous in the bottle: the combination of lavender and holo was stunning. On the nail, not so much. Four layers. 

LA Girl Flamboyant over Orly Fresh

I actually liked this one a lot. I'm not sure why. Maybe it's because it looked like an ordinary orange glitter/orange hex glitter combo in the bottle and maybe because by this time, I had my expectations dialed down to zero. So when this came out looking as expected (two sizes of sparse orange glitter), I wasn't disappointed. Four layers.

How to drive a manicure over the edge: Orly Rock Solid... with LA Girl Inspire... with Color Club Smash Hit

This is what happens you're lazy and easily bored like I am. Let this be a lesson to you all. 

Orly Rock Solid

Part of Orly's Mineral FX collection, it looked so promising in the bottle. Black with strong silver shimmer and a heck ton of holo glitter. HECK TON. Yet it was kind of flat (and somewhat gritty) on the nail. The black shimmer ate the glitter almost entirely. Three coats. 

Closeup of Rock Solid

LA Girl Glitter Addict Inspire over Orly Rock Solid 

But I really wanted a glitter manicure that day, yet was loath to take off Rock Solid. So I decided to try out one of the LA Girl Glitter Addicts on top of it. (Btw, that collection was the most disappointing LA Girl collections ever but we can discuss that another time.) There seem to be two types of pink glitter: magenta and this old-fashioned rosy pink that seems to be the go-to pink glitter. Inspire was the latter and, as is usual for this type of pink glitter, it doesn't look so hot. I figured the polish wasn't going to be opaque so I might as well have a bit of contrast going by putting it over a dark polish, right? (Wrong.) Turns out, Inspire was even more sparse than anticipated: the above is three coats and the Rock Solid is still very visible. 

Closeup of the mess

Color Club Smash Hit over LA Girl Glitter Addict Inspire and Orly Rock Solid 

Having NOT learned my lesson -- and now having the double disincentive of removing a dark polish AND glitter -- I decided that I might as well layer on a polish that was sent to me by Color Club: Smash Hit, a black crackle. And I actually liked it better with the crackle than without. Still and all, it was pretty damn fug. 

Closeup of the coup de grace...

At this point, I had eleven layers of polish on my nails (bc, 3 Rock Solid, tc, 3 Inspire, tc, Smash Hit, tc). Well, this was just ridiculous. And kind of very unattractive. After I took this photo, I waited for the entire thing to dry and then peeled off the monstrosity off of all ten nails. (I know, I know. Gross. When you have that much polish on, once dry, it really just pops off with a little nudge.) Would it have been easier to just remove Rock Solid when I realized that I didn't like it? Probably. 

The reason I have so much polish: LA Girl Glitter Addict Explosion and OPI Crown Me Already comparison

I wonder sometimes why I have so much nail polish. And when I go to de-dupe my collection, it is very obvious to me why I do. 

LA Girl Glitter Addict Explosion & OPI Crown Me Already

Looks pretty similar, right? Silver hex glitter and silver glitter suspended in clear polish. I figured I could get rid of one of them (if not both). 

LA Girl Glitter Addict Explosion (index/ring) & OPI Crown Me Already (middle/pinky)

over Orly Rock Solid

When I applied them side by side... sigh. I see them as very different creatures. Not only do they contain different sizes of small glitter and hex glitter (Explosion has bigger glitter than Crown Me Already), they apply very different as well.

Closeup of Explosion

Explosion is pretty clumsy and clumpy. It doesn't go on that smoothly (because it has bigger glitter) and it takes a bit of finagling to get even vaguely consistent coverage. The above shows three coats. If I wanted it to be opaque, I could've added one more coat... and spent an extra ten minutes finagling.

Closeup of Crown Me Already

In comparison, Crown Me Already goes on very smoothly (due to the smaller, more easily manipulated glitter) but is much more suited to being a layering polish. The above shows four coats. If I wanted it to be totally opaque, six coats would probably do it.

Another really striking difference is that when I went to remove the polish shortly after taking these photos, Explosion was still entirely wet and came off easily. Crown Me Already actually needed a little muscle to be removed.

My final verdict? They are different. I like them both. Therefore, I need both. ...and this is how one accumulates too much nail polish. 

Oh dreary winter...

It has been a very dreary winter here in the north east. Since the new year, it has snowed every week so far :( I am very very tired of digging my car out of the snow. Last week I actually had to use the shovel ON my car, that's how much snow we got!! To cheer myself up, I decided to do a bright and summery mani instead of reaching for the winter/fall colors that I still haven't tried. I found this random LA Girl polish in my untried pile. It's really bright in your face for this time of year and definitely fit the bill :)


Not sure what the name is, because it didn't have one! I do remember buying it from Forever21 over a year ago. eek so sad! I have nail polishes that I haven't used from a year ago. Pretty ridiculous. I am sure there are polishes that I have only used once from over a year ago. I guess that tells you something about my nail polish habits................. but I'm still in denial over that haha!

And because I didn't want to remove it after a few days, I decided to make it matte with China Glaze's Matte Magic:



I love how using a matte top coat can give nail polish a whole different personality!

What is your go to nail polish when you need a bit of cheering up?

Some LA Girl Metal swatches: Pink Steel, Millennium and Metallic Olive

This is one great -- and affordable -- collection for those who like foils and other shiny things. You can generally find these for about $3; they are often on sale on CherryCulture.com.

LA Girl Metal Pink Steel

I don't think the photo properly expresses the awesomeness of this polish. Did you know that every nail polish collection HAS to have a BURNING HOT PINK FOIL? Because I did not know that I needed one until I swatched this beauty. My collection had been unknowingly bereft without it! Three coats here, could have been fine with two. Very smooth application, which is typical of foil polishes. It's retina-searing in the sun. Does not dry glossy though, which may bother some but I like the Suede-like texture of it.

LA Girl Metal Metallic Olive

Dark shimmering green made of nearly-black dark green shimmer, gold shimmer and lighter green shimmer. Three coats. A dark, dusky color that brightens in the sunlight. Me likey. :)

LA Girl Metal Millennium

I liked this one the least out of these three polishes. I guess I'm not a big purple person but there just wasn't anything too special to me about this purple foil. It applies very well though. Two coats.

September 29th (15m cardio).

Some old swatches: LA Girl Disco Fever (and with Wet n Wild Gumdrop)

Some old swatches I found from what I generously call "my archives" (i.e. the bottom of one of my photo folders which has unlabeled photos).

LA Girl Disco Brites Disco Fever

Anyone who enjoys a jelly should own at least one polish from the LA Girls Disco Brites series. It's all brightly colored jellies. This one happens to be a cheery cherry red. Three coats, glossy and squishy. :) Please excuse the uneven nails...

LA Girls Disco Fever with Wet n Wild Flirt Gumdrop

I haven't yet been wowed by the WnW Flirt line which offers slightly smaller polishes (0.29fl oz vs the normal 0.5fl oz) at $2 each. This one was just a normal sparse bronzy glitter. Eh.

Some previously unposted NOTDs that could be classified under gold: OPI DS Glow, Lippmann Nefertiti, and LA Girl Antique Gold

Three different types of gold at three different types of prices! Proof that awesomeness comes at any price. Also proof of the insufficiency of broad color labels.

Let's do the cheapest first.

LA Girl Metal Antique Gold

I haven't seen too many swatches of the new LA Girl Metal nail polishes yet. So far, what I've seen, I've liked. A great way to spend three bucks, imo. :) This is called "Antique Gold" but I think of it more as a shimmering moss green with gold highlights. Up close, it looks like very densely packed thick shimmer. Really gorgeous when the sun hits it: it just bursts with golden light. Three coats.

Lippmann Nefertiti

Got this one for an absolute steal (somewhere in the range of $10, though it usually retails for $16) on eBay. SO glad I did. This is one is AMAZING. It's a very pale gold that looks like it's just shiny, shimmering gold goodness on the nail but when you look close, it's actually made up of gold and silver (and some bronze) shimmer. Definitely one of my favorite pale golds so far. Three coats.

Close up of Nefertiti

OPI DS Glow

Okay, this is more of a copper than a gold and DS polishes sometimes cost more than what I paid for for my eBay'd Lippmann. This is still a stunning color though and I'm glad I got it. I didn't know how it would play with my skin since warm golds (and anything resembling orange) tend to just clash with me but this one was truly lovely. It's not the most flattering color for me but the aptly named Glow that seems to be made up of very dense copper and gold microglitter that really stands out. Looks like textured foil on my nails. Also three coats.