Wet n Wild How I Met Your Magenta and CoverGirl Pink Twinkle

How did your weekend go? Mine was pretty boring but I was able to watch some movies, which is always nice. I've realized that I haven't been giving my mainstream polishes much attention, so today I have a mani featuring two mainstream polishes. It's girly and sweet and could double as a Valentine's Day mani, so here it is!

This is Wet n Wild How I Met Your Magenta, a pink jelly with gold shimmer, with CoverGirl Pink Twinkle, a shimmery pink flakie layered on top. I tested these polishes together to see what they would look like first and I really loved how it turned out. I've worn How I Met Your Magenta before and did a post on here a while ago. As for Pink Twinkle, it's a really old polish in my stash. I've probably had it since my high school years, maybe even earlier, and from the looks of the bottle, I apparently loved it! Though, I can't recall wearing it. Both polishes are easy to apply. How I Met Your Magenta is somewhat sheer, even at two coats, but it's a jelly, so that's to be expected. Pink Twinkle on the other hand only needed one coat and it was really dense. I really like how the shimmer in How I Met Your Magenta and Pink Twinkle compliment each other.

Here's How I Met Your Magenta by itself. It's a little more bright in person.

I really love these together! I just love playing around with my polishes and creating new and beautiful looks like this one. I hope you like it as much as I do!

Orly Fowl Play

I finally got one of my biggest lemmings last weekend! I have been wanting Fowl Play ever since it came out. I managed to find it at T.J. Maxx in an Orly two pack, for about $7.99, which is an awesome deal. I painted my nails with it on Thursday night, but I was so tired from my overnight shift, that between each coat, I would lay on the couch, waiting for it to dry and ended up falling asleep each time. After the second coat and the second nap, I decided to call it a night. I ended up finishing the mani the next afternoon. Here are the pictures!

I loveee Fowl Play. It has a lot of great things going on. It is a dark purple jelly base that is filled with flakies that shift from green to orange, and blue micro-glitter. I can't stop staring at my nails. The flakies are gorgeous and truly take this polish to the next level. It's also a perfect dark shade for fall. I'm sure most of you already know that Fowl Play is a dupe of OPI Midnight Merry, which isn't the easiest polish to get your hands on. The formula was pretty great, it was really easy to work with. It was sheer on the first coat and a little patchy, but I already expected that, being that it's a jelly. The second coat covered everything up quite nicely and the third made it completely opaque. The drying time was decent as well. I did get a few small dents in my nail after my first coat, but the blanket I fell asleep with on the couch is to blame. None of them are evident now, thankfully. I topped everything off with one coat of my Orly top coat.

And just because here is a picture of Carter, now 5 months old and 38 pounds! I still can't get over the fact that he's mine.

Anyway, I can't believe it's taken me this long to get Fowl Play. Now that I think about it, I really don't know what was stopping me from going out and buying it, but I think the wait was definitely worth it! It's such a gorgeous polish and aside from its dupe, it's quite unique. I love it.

OPI Live and Let Die

The truth is, I didn't plan to wear anything on my nails for St. Patrick's Day. However, I did find three beautiful polishes later in the day. I ultimately ended up wearing one, which turned out to be St. Patrick's Day appropriate, at least in my opinion. It is OPI Live and Let Die, from the James Bond collection.

Excuse my super short nails. I stupidly broke my middle finger nail about a week ago and immediately went and filed the rest away. I hope they'll grow back fast.

Anyway, Live and Let Die is a dark forest green with golden green flakies. It is so gorgeous! I love how rich it is. At first I didn't buy it because I thought it was close to China Glaze Glittering Garland, but it's actually a lot different. It's much darker. 

Formula wise, it was very easy to apply and opaque in just two coats! That makes me incredibly happy.

Live and Let Die is definitely a new favorite of mine! Any green lover should have this beauty in their collection. 

NYX Gilded Glitter

I went to the mall on Thursday and at Sephora I sampled the Sephora by OPI 18K Gold Top Coat. It's pretty but I don't know if I could bring myself to spend $30 on a bottle of nail polish. Instead, I took home one of my first NYX that I found in a clothing store for $1.99, Gilded Glitter. It's a cheap, alternative version of the OPI and while it's not made of real gold, nor is it a dupe, it's good enough for me. I layered it over Sinful Colors Rise and Shine.

I absolutely love how it looks! The effect is amazing. It really adds something special. It's slightly tinted so it changed the look of my base, but I don't mind that much. While it can't compare to the look of the real gold in the OPI, it's still beautiful.

It was a tad thick, but easy to work with. It was dense enough at one coat, but I wanted to use a second. The pieces lay smooth and there was hardly any texture at all, but some random pieces stuck out. One coat of top coat took care of that.

In the shade:

I'm in love with Gilded Glitter! It's really awesome. I can see myself using it a lot in the future. It's a good option for anyone who wants a gold flake polish but don't care if it's not the real thing and don't want to spend a lot of money either.

Valentine's Day Nails!

Sorry about the late post, but I hope you all had a great Valentine's Day! I'm single, so I stayed home and watched the movies, Drive Me Crazy, Ever After, and Tristan + Isolde. I even got a movie, a nail polish, and cuticle cream from my parents. I tried to make cookies, but my cookie cookbook sucks! I've used it before and each time I follow the recipes to a tee but I always get dry/crumbly dough. It's never happened to me with other books. My mom, who is a great cook, has had the same problem. It worked after adding shortening (not listed in the recipe) and I finally got my heart sugar cookies yesterday! They're so yummy. But let's get to my Valentine's Day nails!

I almost wore red since I never do. I don't know, I'm just not a big fan of it on me. Instead, I went with Color Club Hot Like Lava, a bright and vivid hot pink foil. I love it! I don't wear pinks often, but this one is super pretty. I only needed two coats. I then layered one coat of OPI I Lily Love You, which is a sheer pink jelly base with flakes and glitter. I love the end result! It's very girly.

Pictures! This looks better in person, I think. Can I just say that I'm in love with the Burt's Bees Cuticle cream I got!? My cuticles look so much better. I want to try Lush Lemony Flutter, but this is great for the time being and cheap.

And here's one in the shade to show the flakes better. 

Like I said, I don't wear pink polish often. I like the color but I only have a couple in my stash. I think it's because I got bored of seeing a million of them. But I love this mani! Maybe I'll try more pinks in the future.

Flaky experimenting & Vampire's Blood revamped!

Last night I was bored and experimented with the flaky polishes I have! I own FingerPaints Asylum, FingerPaints Flecked, OPI I Lily Love You, and CoverGirl Pink Twinkle. It's not much, but I'm glad to have them! Aside from Flecked, which I didn't use, I wanted to see how they looked over the current polish I'm wearing, Vampire's Blood.

Here's my right hand and boy, was it hard/awkward to shoot this way! Yes, my nails on my right hand are short but growing. I know I should make them all same length, but it's hard to part with my long nails. I might do it eventually! 

Left to right: CoverGirl Pink Twinkle, OPI I Lily Love You, and FingerPaints Asylum.

Here they are in the sun!

Pink Twinkle is the most dense of the three. It's beautiful but compared to the other two, it's not super exciting. I love how I Lily Love You looks! It's cool to see all of the colors come to life. Last but not least, Asylum! It looks amazing! I love it so much. The colors are beautiful!
 

Asylum is my favorite, with I Lily Love You as a super close second! I love Pink Twinkle but like I said, not as cool next to the other two. That being said, I layered two coats of Asylum over the rest of my nails, hence my revamped Vampire's Blood manicure!

I cannot stop staring at my nails! The flakes are beautiful and I love seeing the different colors. It's even awesome in the shade! Why did I wait so long to own a flaky polish!?

China Glaze Midtown Magic

Midtown Magic is the only color besides Skyscraper that I got from the Metro collection. It grabbed my attention immediately.

It's a darkened, almost black, brown base with gold and red flakes. It's a color that looks beautiful in the shade because of how the flakes stand out, but in the sun, it glows. I absolutely love it! It's completely unique to my collection. I have nothing like it, nor have I seen anything like it before.

It's darker then shown in my pictures below, due to my Color Club Vivid top coat, which is slightly tinted. It altered the color. I didn't realize how much until I was standing under fluorescent lighting and one nail that was drying and had no top coat was clearly dark, while the rest were murky looking. I had a feeling that it altered some of my previous manicures, like China Glaze Frosty, but I wasn't sure if it was just me. I decided that I'm just going to be using it over glitters from now on.

So I hate the pictures I have of it. It's extremely beautiful and I didn't do it justice at all. I waited too long before taking pictures. I not only have tip wear, but my top coat started to fade and peel in some areas. I really hate how it looks. I almost didn't want to post this.

 

Hope the pictures weren't too bad! Trust me, it's a million more times beautiful than I was able to show. If you don't already own this, go and get it! You have no idea what you're missing. Thanks for reading!