More Gradients with Splatter Topper

I picked up Color Shows 'White Splatter' from their Street Artist collection sometime ago and been wanting to wear it ever since, but been distracted by other bottles!

So finally got round to doing a whole mani with the polish and not just an accent nail. 

I googled it first to decide what colour I wanted to layer it over, it looked good over black, maybe a purple, lots of grey and teal colours too. So not being able to decide I thought I'd layer it over at least three in a gradient type of way.

I used, for the grey; Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure in 'Dorien Grey'. For the teal; Sinful Colors 'Savage' and for the purple China Glaze 'What a Pansy' from their latest City Flourish Summer 2014 collection. (One of three I picked up on a recent and secret trip to Sallys)

I used the sponge method to layer and overall happy with the end result, although the teal colour did over power the grey and purple due to pigment and formula being much stronger than the other two polishes. Just going to show that Sinful Color polishes being the cheapest of the three are a top notch brand, and I wish they were more available over here, along with their Sinful Shine range.

Teal Ombre Manicure

After my trip to the States and reflecting on the polishes I bought, there are two clear colours that I lean to. Blue and Purple. So in the last week I've started swatching my polishes and grouping them into colour types to review where I have duplicates and also identify polishes that I can use for an ombre manicure.

The above seems to work really well, although the lighter shades are very subtly different. For this look I used:

Thumb - Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure in Fairy Teal

Index finger - Sinful Color in Savage (This dry's matt so will need topcoat)

Middle Finger - OPI in Can't Find My Czechbook

Ring Finger - Vivo in Someday

Little Finger - Essie is Where's My Chaffeur

I'm pretty sure I can also do a similar manicure in purples too. Overall I'm happy with the effect, even though the last three nails are very similar at first glance. What I'll try next time too is using the same polish only with white added as per this post I came accross on Pinterest.

  

USA Haul

So a couple of weeks ago I went to the states for the first time, and I was excited to see what polish I could pick up over there, and at a better price in the UK.

I was limited somewhat as we didn't have a car and were reliant on public transport to get around. So I was unable to visit Target or those kind of places that tend to be on retail parks.

However we spent sometime in New York and Boston, and I was able to visit a CVS, a DUANEreade pharmacy and most importantly when in New York a Sephora! 

So then, not too much excitement on the nail front. I acquire three new polishes on my first shop at Walgreens. Two Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicures polishes (above) in 'Mermaid's Tale' and 'Black and Blue'. You can get these at home, but slightly cheaper in the States and I've had my eye on 'Mermaid's Tale' for a while.

The third was a Sally Hansen Lustre Shine Polish in the colour 'Scrab' (pictures on swatches here on the left). Gorgeous Duo Chrome that shifts from Blue to Green, great for a Mermaid manicure topped with 'Mermaid's Tale'.

My next polish purchases were from Sephora and I picked up a Deborah Lippman polish from the new 80's Summer Collection called 'Video Killed the Radio Star'. An amazing bright blue polish (below). Formula fantastic and wore really well, although I didn't base coat it as I had none with me at the time, and it stained some of my nails pretty bad.

I topped it with my other purchase Nails Inc ' Floral Street Mews' on the accent nail. I've not had a great experience with Nails Inc polishes before, but this one is a glitter with light pink and white glitter and blue and white flowers. Also swatched above on the right swatch at the front.

The last four polishes I bought were from DUANEreade and were, OPI's ' Yoga-Ta Get This Blue' (Right back in the swatch picture). In the bottle looks like a duo chrome that shifts from blue to purple but this doesn't translate on to the nail unfortunately. 

Next Sally Hansen's 'Save The Date' which is a dark plum/purple metallic with very fine shimmer (Left back in the swatch picture). 

A Milani polish, which I have never seen over here in the UK, called 'Sugar High' (Left front in the swatch picture). It has gold, peach, lime green and blue glitters. It looks like sprinkles for a cake.

The last polish I bought was Sinful Color's 'Mint Apple' a cool Blue/Green polish with a slight shimmer. Perfect from Spring/Summer and I used this for the manicure below topped with a blue/green glitter from Technic.

So all in all, 9 polishes purchases and I'd say nothing really out of the ordinary and apart from some of the Sally Hansen and the Milani nothing that you can't really get over here. 

However I did spurge on some make up at Sephora, I'll do a separate post on these. My nail varnish addiction seems to be now expanding to make up in general. I also found out that Sephora ship to the UK too for not too much money, this is bad, very bad...