Cosmo... The Perfect Drink and the Perfect Pixie

I have to admit, textured polishes aren't always my favorite.  But, I had never tried Zoya Pixies and I finally bought some a couple of months ago.  It was so hard to decide which one I wanted!  I ended up choosing Cosmo from the Magical Pixie Dust Spring 2014 collection.  Now it is taking all of my will power to resist buying the rest of the collection!  

This is more than a glitter bomb, this is like a disco ball on steroids in a bottle.  Zoya Cosmo is a silver textured polish with large iridescent hex particles.  Textured polishes can be tricky to apply smoothly but this applied nicely with minimal effort.  I applied 2 coats for full opacity.  

The mint shade is my favorite summer polish, Essie Absolutely Shore.  I love how these two polishes pair together.  To create the gradient accent nail I used an eyeshadow applicator to dab on the glitter polish then smoothed it out with topcoat.  I did not use topcoat on the middle finger in order to maintain the textured look.  

The best thing about this particular Pixie is that it can be paired with almost any shade.  But I think I want to try one of the others too... maybe Lux?  If you haven't tried them yet, I totally recommend them.  I got so many compliments on this mani.  I think the glitter really caught their eyes.  You can see this stuff from space! 

What is your favorite Zoya Pixie Dust?

XoXo Vicky

Nail Addicted Sisters

Cobalt Blue Glitter Gradient

So I finally got my SensatioNail gel kit. It was super easy to use and because I only used it as a base, no color, it took very little time to apply and cure. I've had it on since Thursday, almost a week now and most of the tips are chipped and peeling. I'm glad I can repair them myself, but I was hoping to see no chipping for at least 10-14 days. Bummer. I'm going to soak it off and start again and add more coats and see how that goes. Anyway, I'm still waiting for some growth in a couple nails that broke super low before I post them. I really want to show Picture Polish LE Aurora!!! Till then I have this mani that I've been hoarding from a few weeks ago. :)

Cobalt blue is by far my FAVORITE polish color. I have far too many in my collection, but every time I see one I have to have it!

The beautiful bright base of this mani is SinfulShine Most Sinful . I love this polish because it is an almost exact dupe for Essie Butler Please AND, my personal favorite, Nails Inc. Baker Street. Of course I have all of these! LOL

I used Butter London Inky Six to add a glitter gradient. I love a subtle glitter gradient because you can use the brush to pull it off in most cases. I haven't ventured into the messiness of sponge gradients and water marbling. Ain't nobody got time for that! 

Sephora by OPI Social Climber is the perfect silver for stamping. I almost got this one straight!! It's amazing how quick and easy stamping is once you get the hang of it.

I hope you have all had a chance to enter our current giveaway! There are some amazing prizes to be won. Check it out here.

XOXO Nail Addicted Sisters

~Erika

Seafoam & Grey Gradient

This mani is my way of transitioning to Fall.  The seafoam green represents the bright color of the ocean that I will miss swimming in until next summer and the grey is the impending gloom of fall and winter with the bare trees, cold nights and (gasp!) snow.  Okay, maybe I'm being a little dramatic, but I hate being cold!  I'll try to be positive.  Fall isn't so bad, we have the changing leaves, pumpkin beer, apple picking, and a lot of candy for Halloween.  

The colors I used are Essie Where's My Chauffeur? and Zoya Dove.  I'm totally digging this color combo.

I learned my favorite gradient method from this video on YouTube:  HannahRoxNails gradient tutorial.  I like it because you don't have to pour out a ton of polish and it's not as messy as using a sponge.  If you have avoided the gradient look because of the messy sponge method, I highly recommend you try this one out.  I buy 12-packs of soft-tip eye shadow applicators from CVS for $2.99 and they work great.  

How are you all handling the cooler weather?  Unless, of course, you live somewhere that's always warm and in that case, I am jealous!!   xoxoxo ~V

We're not Irish, but our nails are!

We're showing our Irish pride this weekend with lots of green glitter!  

I chose a green/black gradient design.  I used Forever 21's Love and Beauty nail polish (which is surprisingly nice!) in black and emerald green.  I painted all of my nails black and used the sponge method to create the ombre gradient look.  I like using eyeshadow sponges to create this design, it's much easier and neater than using the larger makeup sponges.  Here's a link to a great tutorial for this technique: Gradient nail design tutorial from Pixie Polish.  I added a slight sprinkle of emerald green glitter on the tips for some extra pizzaz. 

Erin Go Bragh!!

I chose a glitter look as well! I had been waiting for St. Patrick's Day to use my Zoya Rina. It's a stunning green glitter with some bar glitter thrown in for good measure. I found it a little difficult to apply for a few reasons: 1) it was really thick and goopy. 2) the bar glitter made it hard to apply evenly and it stuck off the top of the nail.

 For my accent finger I used Sally Hansen Complete Manicure Golden Rule. OMG! This polish is amazing. It was just the kind of gold glitter I was looking for. It looks similar to an Incoco nail sticker I once had and have been trying to find in a polish FOREVER.

I used 3 coats of both of the polishes and topped it off with 2 coats of Seche Vite. You can imagine that with all that polish this started coming off in chunks the very next day (today:( ). Oh well, just another reason to start another fabulous mani!!

Happy St. Patrick's Day everyone!! 

Glitter Gradient

This was my sad attempt at a glitter gradient. My biggest issue with this mani was that my main glitter polish (Rockstar Pink) was WAY thicker than I though it was. I thought it had a sheer base, and it does, but it is so packed with glitter and REALLY thick that it can be used on its own and cover completely. Usually when I do a glitter gradient I can get away with just using the brush and not have to use the sponge technique. In the case of this polish, I should have used the sponge. 

My base color is Zoya Sweet, a perfect bubblegum pink. Then I tried to layer the Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Rockstar Pink, a purple/pink/blue micro-glitter. To add a little extra bling, because you know I love bling, I put some OPI G-listen to Your Heart near the base of the nail, a chunky hex bright pink glitter. Unfortunately, the color of this glitter doesn't stand out enough against the Rockstar  Pink; even in the sunlight you can barely see it.

I like that this mani is sparkly and I really want to try Rockstar Pink on its own.