First Ever Gradient!

Good evening readers! I'm especially excited about tonight's post because it's the first ever successful gradient manicure that I've ever done! I've tried doing gradient manicures so many times and always failed. I tried a wet sponge, a dry sponge, white base, colored base, you name it! I could never get both colors to show up on my nail. However, I was determined to succeed and finally did!!

The colors I used for the gradient were Lime Crime's Peaches & Cream and Once in a Blue Mousse. I started off by using two coats of Peaches & Cream with a base coat underneath. I waited for that to dry. Then I used a dry makeup sponge and painted both colors horizontally on the sponge allowing them to overlap. I sponged it on the nails a few times and kept adding more of Once in a Blue Mousse onto the sponge and just focused on the top part of the gradient.

I found that if I squeezed the sponge a little more, that the polish would come out more opaque and thus helped the blue stand out in the gradient. I also recommend switching to a new sponge after one hand. Once I finished all my fingers and let them dry, I added a coat of China Glaze's Fairy Dust to make it stand out a little more (because who doesn't love glitter?!).

I love this manicure! It's so pretty and reminds me of a sunset! I know it's not perfect, but it's my first successful one! With practice, I know that I'll be a gradient pro! I was also dealing with staining from Orly's Kristoff He Goes from the previous post so that was annoying and didn't help in achieving the perfect lines that I want to have. How do you feel about gradients? Do you love them or want the trend to go away?

Orly Elsa Collection

 Happy Saturday everyone! Today I have on the blog four of the polishes from the newly released Orly Elsa collection.

This collection is exclusive through Walgreens, so you'll only able to find it there. I had been on the hunt for these polishes for a few weeks until I finally found them! There's a total 12 polishes in this collection. They can be purchased individually or in packs of two. It's actually cheaper to purchase them in the two pack because they're $11 in the two pack and $7 individually! On to the swatches:

First up we have the movie's name sake polish Frozen! This is a frost polish and I'm wearing one coat of Frozen over a coat of OPI's Black Onyx. I'm not using a top coat in this image because when I tried putting on a top coat the polish started wrinkling! I'm definitely not a fan of frost polishes because of the difficulty that comes in applying them, so this one definitely wasn't my favorite.

My second least favorite was Free Spirit. The color is a gorgeous magenta and would be perfect for warmer weather! However, the formula wasn't the best. It was a little too thick for my taste. You'll need very light coats with this one.

Kristoff He Goes is a beautiful dark teal blue. I love this color! I swear I probably have a million bottles that look exactly like this one, but the colors is too beautiful to pass up!! The formula was great on this one and could probably be a one-coater if a thicker coat was used. I'm wearing two coats in the photo plus Glisten & Glow HK Girl top coat.

My favorite of the four was definitely Watch Out, Or Elsa!. It's also a magenta but this time there's little gold flecks! The formula on this one was also excellent and again I'm wearing two coats in the photos. I love how the flecks give the color more dimension and make it a little more magical, which is befitting for Elsa!!

All in all I liked the collection. I wish it was more Frozen or Elsa themed, since there seems to be a lot of Summer-y colors, but there is a pretty wide variety of colors. I also wish that these were sold other than Walgreens, mostly because Walgreens is so wishy-washy as to when they stock which stores, and also because Walgreens doesn't even carry Orly! Will you be picking up this collection?

EDIT: Turns out that these colors are not exclusive to Walgreens. They are actually already part of Orly's Color Blast line that is sold in multiple stores. It appears that they were only renamed in order to create a Frozen/Elsa theme.

Nicole by OPI - Scarlett & FUN Stamping Plate #9

Good evening everyone! Up on the blog today I have a nail polish that had zero expectations from me. This polish is Nicole by OPI Scarlett. I actually received this polish during Secret Santa this last year and put it away in my Helmer to be forgotten. The only reason I reached for this polish was because I received my FUN #9 Hello Kitty themed stamping plate. I wanted to do a pink and white manicure with my stamp to embody Hello Kitty's colors. When I looked in my Helmer to pick out my pink, this was one of the first polishes I saw and I thought, why not? Turns out, this is a gorgeous polish!!

The name of the polish is Scarlett, which I would assume to be red, but it's actually more pink in reality. It has these beautiful shimmer flecks that reflect in the light and gives the polish this really beautiful dimension. This color was part of NOPI's Selena Gomez collection from 2012. I used two coats of Scarlett for these photos. The white polish that I used was Wet N Wild French White, which is my go-to white.

As for the FUN stamping plate, this was my first time trying this brand of plates. I was shopping on Llarowe.com when I realized that this plate was Hello Kitty themed. Those of you who know me in real life know that I am Hello Kitty obsessed, so I obviously had to have the plate! I was also wonderfully surprised by this plate because it stamped really easily and the image was super crisp and clear. The stamp you see in the photo was on my first try with this plate. The black polish that I used was from Mundo de Unas. The only unfortunate part of this plate was that it was a bit pricey coming in at $18. Why are all the awesome stamping plates so expensive?!!?

All in all this is definitely one of my favorite manicure's that I've done this year. It pays an homage to my Hello Kitty obsession while not being super obvious. The color was also a really unexpected surprise and I can safely say that this one is staying in my collection!