American Apparel - Army Jacket VS. ABOP Franken

APPLICATION: Smooth on both (a little smoother on franken)
COATS: 1 of each
TOPCOAT?: Not till outdoor photos with polka dots.
SOURCE: American Apparel, ABOP Franken using Orly colors
COMMENTS: I was excited to try Army Jacket because it's one of my favorite shades of green to wear. But then I noticed the color looked familiar. What?! I already have this! It's the same color as my franken from October based on a paint chip! Can you tell which is which in the photos? The last photo has the answer.
Excuse the bumpies - my base coat is thickening. Also, polka dots done in AA - Hunter.

Happy New Year!

ABOP Franken - Red holo

APPLICATION: Smooth
COATS: 2
TOPCOAT?: See below
SOURCE: Holo glitter from a nail supply store, red polish -- Savvy - Mistletoe, a few drops of black, Love My Nails - Dazzling to keep the glitter suspended.
COMMENTS: I grabbed Savvy - Mistletoe (shown at 2 coats on the ring finger with one coat of the franken on the tip) on sale for 99c and decided to use it to franken. The glitter used is the holo one I showed in this post. The glitter lightened up the red a bit, so I added a few drops of black to deepen the color.

Before topcoat - the Savvy polish is so shiny without topcoat, wow!:

One coat of topcoat(Ruby Kisses [not so] quick dry):

After second coat of topcoat (Beauty Secrets Fast Finish):

Props to Enamel Girl

I know I've mentioned her in my last posts about foils, but Enamel Girl's foils manicures are really amazing.  I decided to link to her posts on foils - click HERE to see them (yaay for her labeling her posts!). She has foils from multiple sources AND includes a tutorial post that's helpful.

Definitely check out the rest of her blog as well, it's full of inspiration!  Her recent holiday manis were super!

Nail Foils - update

COMMENTS: I realized it would probably be helpful to show how my nail foils are holding up. I applied them on Sunday afternoon and took these photos this morning (Tuesday).  I did throw on another layer of topcoat on Sunday evening. Last night, I spent about an hour washing up dishes, pots and pans from all my cooking over the weekend, and I don't use gloves to wash. Here is what they look like now:

My right hand - which takes the most abuse - mostly tipwear on my index nail.

My left hand - again some tipwear on the index, but not as much as on the right.

Still looks pretty nice, and I've gotten quite a few compliments (though it's hard to explain to people that it's not nail polish...). I'll probably take it off tonight though - I've got that itch to see something different on my nails

Nail Foils - Roman Marble

APPLICATION: Better than the last time, though I put the glue on all my nails at once instead of doing one hand at a time - oops!
TOPCOAT?: See below
SOURCE: www.dollarnailart.com
COMMENTS: With OPI - Glitzerland as a base, this foil is soooo shiny! I mistakingly ended up with more black sections of the foil strip on my left hand, so I'm showing photos of both hands (note that I didn't do any cleanup - washing my hands throughout the day usually takes care of any mess left on my skin). I took Enamel Girl's advice about using a very thin coat of topcoat with as few strokes as possible, and it looks like it worked! Still some wrinkling, of course, but that's not noticeable from afar.

BEFORE topcoat:

AFTER topcoat:

UP NEXT: A new red holo!

OPI - Glitzerland

APPLICATION: Smooth
COATS: 2
TOPCOAT?: No
SOURCE: JCPenney Salon
COMMENTS: Not much to say about this color. It's nice, but I actually put it on as the base for something else, so didn't bother getting attached to it. I do still have some visible nail line, and would probably add an extra coat if I planned to wear it on its own.

UP NEXT: Another foil mani - here's a sneak peek:

Festive mani for holiday party at work.

COATS: 2 coats INM Northern Lights silver holo topcoat
TOPCOAT?: Yes, 1 of Beauty Secrets Fast Finish
SOURCE: Victoria Nail Supply
COMMENTS: I wasn't planning to do any holiday-themed manicures (there are more than enough of them out in nail blogland now), but a co-worker asked me to do one. I had planned to use more color, but a headache that night said 'No', so I had to keep it simple. I simply stamped snowflakes over my base coat, threw in some rhinesones, slapped on Northern Lights, sealed with topcoat and called it  a night.

UP NEXT: I was going to do something red, but I'm a little tired of seeing red and green, so maybe something else... maybe another nail foil - who knows?

Nail Foils - African Jade

COMMENTS: So, even though I hadn't yet sorted out my topcoat dilemma, I went ahead with my foil mani. I used one coat of Nyx Girls Algae as my base color and then used a foil named African Jade which I purchased from DollarNailArt.com.
The first photo was taken before topcoat. You can see what a difference there is between that and the next photos. I did get quite a few compliments on my nails, so I guess they at least looked good from a distance!
Enamel Girl has advised that I put the topcoat on in a very thin layer next time. She and Tarteofraises have some of the best foil manis, so please check them out!

UP NEXT: Holiday party mani.

Nail Foils - Testing Topcoats

COMMENTS: I know from visiting some blogs that figuring out which topcoat to use over foils can be complicated, because they get all wrinkled/crackled if the wrong one is chosen. I decided to test out a bunch of my clear and topcoat polishes to see if I could find one that wouldn't destroy the foil. I still haven't found any. These looked so pretty before the topcoat! However, I didn't get any before photos. Here's what the polish did to the foil - I actually used a different one over each nail.

UP NEXT: A half decent foil mani...

American Apparel - Cameo Blue

**I had to file my nails down again. The corner of my middle fingernail broke (you can actually see it in the last two posts) and I wasn't liking the way it looked, so they're all shorter.)
APPLICATION: Smooth
COATS: 1 (oh yes!)
TOPCOAT?: On photos without dots: No; On final mani with polka dots: Yes, 1 coat of Beauty Secrets Fast Finish (I'm really liking this topcoat - especially in the large 2.5oz bottle)
SOURCE: American Apparel store in LA
COMMENTS: Gorgeous 1-coat blue. It was difficult to photograph, so these photos aren't the best of the lot, but are the closest I could get  to the real color. Oh, and of course we've got some dots - smaller ones and more spaced out.

UP NEXT: Trying out nail foils.  Do you have any polish requests? See my spreadsheet.

Nabi - Green Glitter, Pure Ice - Oh Baby!

COMMENTS: I just couldn't leave my mani of OPI - Jade is the New Black alone. The next day I layered it with one coat each of Nabi - Green Glitter and then Pure Ice - Oh Baby!

UP NEXT: American Apparel - Cameo Blue