Sexy Gradient Nails

I wanted to do something a little more sophisticated for my next Halloween nail. Not everyone likes little pumpkins or spiders on their nails and I wanted to do something that could be worn to work (albeit not a super conservative workplace) and be festive but not so literal.

Thus, I give you- sexy blood red gradient nails!

Can you imagine how cool this would look with a vampire costume on Halloween? My nails are kinda short right now but it would look even better on long nails.  If you're wondering how many hours it took and that it must be a super difficult technique- fear not! It's so easy to do!  It took me maybe 15 minutes per hand and I got the tutorial here:

I'm so happy with the results. My nails look so cool, I hope you guys agree!  My skin and cuticles on the other hand... well combined with the dry Calgary weather and lots of attempts at figuring out something sexy and wearable have wrecked my hands. As soon as this is posted I'll be slathering on the moisturizer.

Here's a list of the polishes used:
Essie Lollipop (bright red creme)
Essie A-List (medium dark red creme)
China Glaze Midtown Magic (shimmery brown)
Essie Licorice (black creme)
Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Red Carpet (red shimmer)

These nails. So hot right now. Hansel. I mean...These nails.

Sondra

Zoya Charisma + China Glaze White Cap (and mountains!)

Did you see this combination coming a mile away?  I just had to see what Charisma and White Cap are like together.  Yup, I'm kinda obsessed.

It looks great in the pictures, but honestly, I wasn't blown away.  I felt it wasn't super flattering against my skin tone.  The gold glitter was pretty but I felt like the milky-ness of White Cap didn't look nice over top Charisma.  Meh, or maybe I just wasn't feeling it that day.  I don't know.  I ended up taking it off and trading it for Midtown Magic.

In non-nail polish news, today was especially clear and crisp so I decided to take a walk.  Ten minutes later, I snapped this spectacular view of the Rocky Mountains!

Click to Embiggen

I just love love love my city so much!  I can't imagine ever getting tired of seeing the Rockies.  To my husband and his friends (lifetime residents of Calgary) it's just kinda old hat.  To me... well you'd think I had just seen each mountain individually flown in via helicopter and strategically placed right in front of me.  It's just magical!    I've had to fortune to live in three vastly different locations in the last 2 years. They all have their own beauty and have a special place in my heart that won't be replaced.  Yet it sure is hard to compete with snow capped mountains outside your door!

Sondra

Essie Turquoise & Caicos + China Glaze White Cap

China Glaze White Cap is a milky gold color that looks amazing layered.  Today it's layered over Turquoise and Caicos from last post.  The result is beautiful mermaid-esque nails! I'm so excited to try White Cap over lots more colors.  I'm not feeling super verbose today (I'm still recovering from my really fun and really busy 1st wedding anniversary yesterday!) so I'll let the pictures do the rest of the talking.

s

Sondra

China Glaze Metro Urban-Night and CG in the City

China Glaze's Urban-Night is a creamy eggplant color.  While the color is nice, it's not particularly special and I didn't feel like the application was very easy.  I had to really work with the polish to not end up with patchy bits.  It turned out fine as you can see with the picture but it was a pain.

The color dries about a shade darker than it look in the bottle.  It still reads dark purple most of the time but in low light it definitely looks black.  Personally, purple is one of my favorite colors but with this I feel like it's just boring.  Maybe it's after wearing all those glitters the cream finish just seems flat.  Nothing to seek out on its own, I'm sure there are plenty of others that are similar and probably with better application.

However, I can see WHY they added Urban-Night to the collection. It looks super pretty with CG in the City!

Folks, it's like its enchanted with fairy dust!  China Glaze CG in the City is a clear based dusty purple/little bit of taupey gold.  It's very pretty layered but doesn't really work by itself.  I'm excited to try it on over Essie's Merino Cool which is a taupe with a  purple tinge to it!  In fact, I'm sure this glitter would look great over a lot of things!  If you're someone that can get bored with a manicure quickly it's nice to have a pretty glitter to coat over it and make you appreciate it for a few more days! :)

So that's my review of the mini pack of China Glaze Metro Fall 2011 collection!  Overall it's a really great collection and I love the minis because honestly- unless you LOVE a color you're not going to finish a whole big bottle of polish so it's great to be able to try out a bunch of colors with less mL's.  Midtown Magic was my surprise favorite, Skyscraper and CG in the City was love at first sight.  Urban-Night was the only 'meh' color but goes great under CG in the City.

China Glaze Skyscraper

China Glaze Skyscraper is a gorgeous glittery royal blue color.  It was made to resemble the night sky in a city and boy does it deliver!

The silver glitter is just packed in!  I was a little worried the blue base would be very sheer from the first coat, but after two it was opaque and stunning!  The application was great and as with all the glitters in the Metro collection it dried super fast.

Generally I'm not drawn to full on blues.  I feel like it makes my hands too ruddy and red.  However this color is beautiful and something I wouldn't mind wearing... a lot!

China Glaze Midtown Magic

Midtown Magic is described as a burgundy base but to my eye it's black/dark brown with bronze-y glitter.

I wasn't sure about this polish at first.   It thought I'd swatch it for the blog and take it off immediately after.  However I found myself really enjoying it and plan to keep it on for a few more days.  In the bottle I thought it just looked like the kind of polish that belongs in a Halloween collection. However now that it's on my nails I think its complex enough that you don't need to be wearing a witch hat to pull it off.  You still have to be comfortable with black nails because from a distance it reads as a simple black. However when you look closely the bronze and gold glitter make it a special color.

Pretty Glitter

Sorry for the messy thumb swatch!

That's all for now!  I'll be back later with more review of the China Glaze Metro Fall 2011 collection!

China Glaze Metro Collection

I had no intention on getting into the China Glaze Metro 2011 Fall collection but after seeing post after post of amazing glitter I had to cave.  So I got the mini pack which had everything I was interested in from the collection.

From Left to Right- Skyscraper, CG in the City, Urban-Night, Midtown Magic

This is hardly a 'mini' pack, especially compared to OPI's mini.  Good value for your dollar, I like it. Also my compliments to CG for their cute packaging.

From Left to Right- Normal sized China Glaze, Mini China Glaze, Mini OPI

I'll swatch these all in a bit but I couldn't wait- I put the dusty purple-y toned glitter CG in the City over yesterday's Essie Sexy Divide.

Uh-May-Zing

Seriously stunning right? I'm so excited to try the others!  Go China Glaze for some seriously stellar glitters in your collection this year!

The glitter polish itself was really a pleasure to apply.  That's one coat in that picture and I feel like after three coats it would give you pretty full coverage if you wanted to wear it by itself.  It also dried SUPER FAST!  It ended up with a really smooth texture too which I was worried about because the glitter looked pretty chunky.

That's all for now! I'll be back tomorrow with more review on the Metro Mini Pack