4th Of July Manicure

Happy 4th of July to all of my American readers! Do you have any fun plans for the holiday today? My boyfriend and I are going to visit with his family before catching some fireworks at a nearby park in the evening. Should be lots of fun! I've mentioned this on my blog before, but the 4th of July also happens to be my grandparents' wedding anniversary. They've both since passed on, but I always thought it was cute they got married on the 4th, especially since my grandpa served in the Navy during WWII.

I always like to have some fun with my nails on holidays, which can be a bit tricky sometimes if you're trying to avoid nail art. Earlier this week, I posted a 4th of July-themed mani for Twinsie Tuesday. I wasn't 100% happy with the results, so I wanted to give it another try for my actual 4th of July manicure. I decided to use some star glitter and a bit of shatter polish to mimic the look of the American flag on my nails. Here's how it all turned out!

I started with a base of China Glaze Skyscraper, a deep blue jelly filled with absolutely stunning silver glitter. Skyscraper had been in my untrieds for a long time now and I really don't know why I waited so long to try it. It's gorgeous! I'll have a full post about it later this week. Then I topped Skyscraper with one coat Lynnderella The Stars In Her Eyes... to create a star-spangled effect. To finish it all off, I did an accent nail on both my thumbs using OPI White Shatter over the classic China Glaze Ruby Pumps. I'm especially crazy about the combination of Skyscraper and The Stars In Her Eyes... It's full of so much gorgeous, glittery goodness. Talk about instant galaxy nails!

Well, that about wraps it up for me today! I hope you all have a safe and happy 4th of July! Did you do anything special with your nails for the holiday?

Twinsie Tuesday: China Glaze Oxidized Aqua

Crackle. Shatter. Texture Coat. No matter what name it goes by, we all are familiar with these types of polishes by now. Virtually every brand has their own take on the shatter phenomena, so much so that many of us quickly grew tired of the trend altogether. I haven't worn a shatter or crackle polish in ages! But me and the Twinsie Tuesday girls will be dusting off our long-neglected bottles for this week's Twinsie Tuesday theme: crackle/shatter (if you hadn't guessed already). I decided to go with China Glaze Oxidized Aqua, a metallic blue shatter, over Essie French Affair, a light pink creme.

The formula on China Glaze's metallic crackles is probably the best I've ever tried. They go on really smoothly and they don't get all gunky like OPI shatters tend to.

I was surprised how much I actually liked this mani. In fact, the pictures you see here are from day three of me wearing this! I was ridiculously busy moving into a new apartment over the past few days, so I didn't have time to paint my nails, and I liked this combo enough that I didn't mind wearing it a little longer than I normally would. As you can see, it also held up quite well and survived many hours of packing and cleaning without any chips or really even any tipwear either. While this mani may not have filled me with a newly renewed desire to stockpile crackles, it was still surprisingly fun to return to something I hadn't tried in so long.

Will my fellow Twinsies enjoy the crackle nostalgia like me or be reminded of why so many of us ditched this trend in the first place? Check out their blogs below to find out!

Amanda: http://amandalandish.blogspot.com/
Anna: http://goingtotheshowing.blogspot.com/
Anne: http://grapefizz.blogspot.com/
Ashley: http://artevolve.blogspot.com/
Brandi: http://thecollegiatenail.blogspot.com/
ChiChi: http://beautystarr1009.blogspot.com/
Cordia: http://srslyswatched.blogspot.com
Jenn: http://allthatisgorgeous.blogspot.com/
Jenna: http://www.jennafroggy.com/
Katherine: http://hauloffame.blogspot.com/
Marisa: http://marijonails.blogspot.com/
Meredith: http://polishandcharms.blogspot.com/
Nory: http://fiercemakeupandnails.blogspot.com/
Rachel: http://topcoatit.com/
Sarah: http://seesarahswatch.blogspot.com/
Tara: http://polishyoftruth.com/

Nicole by OPI Spring 2012 Preview

So in addition to the latest installment of Kardashian Kolors, it looks like we'll be getting (at least) two more collections from Nicole by OPI this spring. First up is their annual set of Target-exclusive shades. I'm not sure when these will be released.

Great Minds Pink Alike

Look At Me, Look At Me!

That's Totally Red-ical

Purple Yourself Together

Next up we've got some more "texture coats," NOPI's name for shatters. This bunch includes some glitter shatters as well as regular ones. No word on an official release date for these yet either.

Opal Texture

Amethyst Texture

Aquamarine Texture

Quartz Texture

So what do you think? Personally I don't see anything that screams "must-have" to me, but maybe I'll change my mind once I see these in person. Which upcoming collection (NOPI or otherwise) are you looking forward to most?

China Glaze Early 2012 Preview

So China Glaze announced two early 2012 collections the other day. The first is a line glitter crackles and the other is an all-glitter collection called Prismatic Chroma Glitters. I'm not sure if the Chroma Glitters will have anything different about them than regular glitters. Maybe there will be some holo goodness in the mix? I guess we'll just have to wait and see. Here are the press shots!

Jade-d

Glam-More

Gleam Me Up

Luminous Lavender

And now on to the Prismatic Chroma Glitters...

Optical Illusion

Full Spectrum

Prism

Liquid Crystal

Polarized

Ray-diant

 

Glitter sure has been everywhere lately, hasn't it? Still, I'm a sucker for anything glitter-related so I'll be keeping an eye out for swatches of these. I could maybe even be persuaded to buy a glitter crackle or two, even though like a lot of you I'm kind of done with crackle/shatter/texture coats/whatever it is we're calling them now.

Did any of these spark your interest? Or are you all glittered and crackled out?

OPI Navy Shatter

So I thought I was all shattered/crackled/textured/crackled out, but then I started seeing lots of pretty combinations with OPI Navy Shatter and I decided to give it a try. I only have a few other shatters, but it seems like they are EVERYWHERE lately!

For my silver base, I used Sally Hansen Celeb City, which I wore yesterday (and you can see swatches of it alone HERE). I saw this silver/navy combo on some other blogs and it is what made me finally decide I wanted this shatter. Now that I have it, I'm really glad I got it. These two are so pretty together! The navy is just the right shade; deep and rich but still visibly blue rather than black-toned. I think this looks really sharp on the nail and you could layer it with just about anything.

The formula isn't as thick as OPI Black Shatter, which is amazing but tends to get a little gunky. I also like that when you use Navy Shatter, a little bit of the base color peaks through from underneath the colored shatter pieces. This isn't a jelly-esque shatter like OPI Red Shatter, however.

I'm a bit surprised at just how much I like this! I've also seen some nice pairings of Navy Shatter with OPI Teenage Dream and some neon yellow polishes, so I may have to try those out in the future as well.

Nicole by OPI Gold Texture

I'd been wondering for a while when OPI would inevitably introduce a gold shatter to go along with the current shatter/crackle/texture craze going on right now. So I was pleasantly unsurprised when I saw the new Nicole by OPI shatters at Meijer the other day. I'm not sure why OPI is calling these "texture coats" instead of shatters-they apparently have the exact same formula as the regular OPI shatters, just with a different name and a slightly lower price-but I'm not complaining.

I didn't have the bottle handy, so I made do with a classic pose. I give you: THE CLAW.

Nicole by OPI Gold Texture over OPI Quarter of a Cent-Cherry

The formula on Gold Texture was really great. This picture doesn't do justice to how shiny and sparkly it is! As much as I like OPI Silver Shatter, I can't always get it to crackle as much as some of the non-metallic ones. But I didn't have that problem with Gold Texture. Definitely snap this one up if you can't wait for the regular OPI one or if you can't get your hands on one of the China Glaze medallion crackles, which are great too.

Also, if you're looking for a classic, one-coat red, check out OPI Quarter of a Cent-Cherry! I used two for my base coat here, but it's practically opaque with just one. Normally I consider red polish kind of hum-drum, but this is a great shade to use when you need a last-minute, can't-be-bothered mani!