Halloween Costume Nail Art

Hi guys! So you would think that the manicure I actually wear on Halloween would be Halloween-themed, but I decided to match it with my costume. I'm going as a female gangster. 

Here it is: 

The base color is Space Cadet by Glitter Guilty, made specifically for me for my first Glitter Guilty Pleasures Box. 

When I first got this color I wasn't thrilled with it. It's pink crelly base with holographic orange microglitter, magenta and white circle glitters, and white bar glitters. This was my first indie polish ever, and the glitter was all in the middle of the bottle, so didn't really get any out on my first try. This time, I had the bottle upside down on my rack for the past week, and I thought that the polish was really pretty when you put it all together. It works as a great girly or "Barbie" color. 

Dollar signs were made with Mash Image Plate M32, and the diamond were from Bundle Monster BM09. I stamped with green and black Konad stamping polish. Since I wanted to green to show up on the pink, I stamped each dollar sign twice. 

Just have to hope that I can get through 5 hours of work without peeling/cracking/chipping! 

Happy Halloween, enjoy and stay safe! 

EDIT:

Here's a picture of the full costume :) 

xoxo,

Belle

Polish Addict Mystery Box

Hi guys! So today I got my Polish Addict October/Halloween mystery box.

The deal was 5 full sized polishes for $20 - these polishes are either discontinued, not yet for sale, prototypes, or currently available. There was also some Halloween-themed extras and candy. 5 full size for $20 is a REALLY good deal, so I couldn't pass it up. Apparently it's the biggest sale for each month! You also have the option of letting them know which colors you already have so you can avoid getting those again, which is really awesome. 

Here is what I got:

The colors, from left to right, are Rainbow Concrete, Neon Nights, Robot & Monster, Something Blue, and Mad Hatter's Tea Party. There was also candy, a mini cat nail file, and halloween-themed fimos!

I love that they're Halloween and that they're already pre-cut. 

Here are the colors swatched on a nail wheel from left to right: Neon Nights, Mad Hatter's Tea Party, Something Blue, Robot & Monster, and Rainbow Concrete

Close-ups of Rainbow Concrete, Robot & Monster and Something Blue 

Close-ups of Something Blue, Mad Hatter's Tea Party, and Neon Nights

The same, with flash

I actually think all of these are really pretty. I might not have picked out any of them for myself, but I don't hate any of them and I can see myself wearing each one. I'm really happy I didn't get any purples or glitter toppers. All of the pictures are two coats by themselves. I believe they're all crelly with glitters. I'm at a point in my collection where I really don't NEED to by buying any mystery polishes. That being said, this is such a good deal that I will probably buy one every month if they offer one.

And I wanted to go on a no-buy for November. For serious this time. Except that I <3 Nail Polish is coming out with some REALLY pretty colors November 1st, and if you pre-order at least 3 they throw in a special color that you can't get otherwise, so i might HAVE to start my no-buy on November 2nd :)

That's all for now <3

xoxo,
Belle

More Halloween Nail Art

Hi guys!

Let's take a moment to remember Arielle's long nails. R.I.P.  :(

Anyway. 

I'm going to a Halloween party today and I'm probably not going to dress up (saving my costume for Halloween) so I figured I would at least dress up my nails:

The base color is Exits on Your Right by Essence. I wanted to do a zombieish green color instead of the traditional white background for blood spatter and I figured this was perfect. 

For the blood spatter and the stamping I used Catherine by Julep. 

To do blood spatter, you take a little plate (or anything you can dispose of later to put nail polish on) and put a decent amount of nail polish. Then you take a straw, dip one end of it in the nail polish and move it around (you want to get some of it in the straw). Then, hold your finger a couple of inches away from the straw and blow hard into the straw. If your finger is too close to the straw, you're going to get big blobs of color instead of spatter. Also, if there's not enough polish in the straw, nothing will come out. Sometimes you might have to do each finger more than once to get your desired look. You can also touch up with your base color if there is too much "blood" in one area. 

The bloody hand print is from Mash image plate M69, and the hazmat guy is from M67. I was really excited when I saw these images when I got my new plates. 

I put one coat of regular top coat to dry and two coats of Ghoulish Glow by China glaze. I couldn't get a good glow in the dark picture, and it didn't look as cool as my glow in the dark ghost. 

Happy Halloween <3

Belle

Wedding Nail Art and Ellagee Haul: Stained Glass

Hey guys! I went to a wedding last night and I did some nail art to celebrate the occasion:

It was a gay wedding, not that that matters, but in case you were wondering about the rainbow. 

My Stained glass nail polishes from Ellagee came the night before the wedding, along with my stamping polishes from Born Pretty Store. It was fate. Although, I don't know if ill be buying from BPS again any time soon. It's free international shipping, and you get things really cheap, but they took FOREVER to come. I did email them, and they said that a lot of packages were held up in Hong Kong and to wait 10 more days. They came on like the 11th day. Also, as soon as I opened the package I smelled nail polish, and I saw that two of the polishes had leaked in the package. I wasn't too happy :(. 

Anyway...

If you didn't know, Ellagee recently released a collection called Stained Glass, which is meant for layering glitter, nail art, decals, and stamping. Basically, you do your base coat, one coat of polish, one layer of stamping, another layer of polish and another layer of stamping. I believe that the polishes are made with top coat, so you don't actually need to use a top coat in the end, but I used one just to protect my nail art. I think that this is a really cool and unique idea, I haven't seen anyone else do this and I knew immediately that I had to have them. Here is what I ordered: 

From left to right: Ruby Glass, Obsidian Glass, Selenium Glass, and Sulphur glass. 

I ordered minis because, let's face it, I will never use up an entire bottle of polish in my lifetime. I also got them on sale with a coupon code. 

Laura usually ships orders really fast, but she had received misspelled labels, and had to wait for new ones to come in. Since her customers had to wait a little longer to receive their orders, she threw in an extra gift. Here is what I got:

It's called Rainbow Syrup, and, unless I'm mistaken, it's a holographic top coat. This is really cool because I dont have one of these, and the only holos I own are the Color Club Halo Hues (although you don't really need any other ones if you own these). I think it's cool because now any color that I have can be holographic, and I don't have to spend money on more bottles of nail polish that I probably won't even use that often. 

Back to the manicure:

I started, as always, with my Orly Bonder as a base. Then I did one layer of Obsidian glass. 

The first layer of stamping: (All done with Mash Image Plates and Konad Stamper and Scraper, and Konad brand white stamping polish from Born Pretty Store). 

Thumb: M54 plate: it's the word Love written in script over and over, you can't really tell in the picture

Pointer finger: also M54: just a bunch of hearts

Middle finger: M13...I call them barbed wire hearts...they're slanty lines with hearts randomly placed. I LOVE this image, and I was really happy to see it because it's on the Bundle Monster plates (which do not work for me, which you already know if you've read any of my previous posts about stamping). 

Pinky: M38: different layers of hearts faceing different ways, I love this one too :)

Then I did another layer of stained glass, and another layer of stamping. Second layer:

Thumb: M54 the LO VE 

Pointer finger: Winged Heart (Ill double check on the plate for this, I forgot to write it down and I'm not at home right now) 

Middle finger: M28: one solid heart with two hollow hearts on either side

Pinky: M17: three hearts going in a curvy line

I covered it with a layer of China Glaze No Chip Top Coat. 

For the accent nail I attempted to do a rainbow ombré with the sponge technique. I used base coat and a layer of white polish from Julep (once again, I'll double check on the name) 

I put all 7 colors on a makeup sponge (various Juleps, China Glazes, and nail art brushes). 

Here's the thing...I'm REALLY bad at sponging. Every time I try to sponge, the polish comes off. I usually just roll the sponge onto the nail two or three times. I had to touch it up a little because some colors didn't show up as much. I just went over it with whatever colors needed touching up and then put a layer of Seche to smooth it out and make it shiney (I'm still waiting on my HK Girl top coat, which I ordered a few weeks ago and hasn't even processed :(). 

As you can see, this didn't come out nearly as good as I wanted it to. The stamps aren't lined up perfectly in the middle, the clean-up isn't completely done, the ombré is a hot mess, etc. I'm lazy and imperfect. This isn't going to be one of those nail polish blogs where the images are perfectly manicured/edited/cleaned up. I'm not a nail technician. I'm learning, and I want to share the creative process with you, both when it looks really good and when it doesn't look so good so you can learn from my mistakes. 

Back to the manicure....

I really like the stamping polishes and the whole layering idea. Something I'm not loving, however, is the fact that it started chipping the next day, BEFORE I even got to the wedding! Granted, in the car on the way I was trying to open a box (of nail polish, ironically). I don't know if it was because of all the layers or because you aren't supposed to use top coat and I did. It makes a really cool effect, it just didn't last that long for me. I'll try without a top coat next time. I'm changing my nails tonight anyway ( going to a Halloween party tomorrow) so it's not really a big deal. 

Buy your stained glass at ellagee.com!

Finally, welcome to our new readers/followers! We appreciate all of your comments and the fact that you read or follow our blog. There might be a giveaway in the works once we reach a certain number of followers, so stay tuned for that! 

xoxo,

Belle

Halloween Nail Art Part I Don't Even Remember

Hi guys! So I did some more Halloween nail art that I wanted to share:

I was definitely inspired by Arielle's ghost post.

I started with Glitter Daze's Super Smooth Basecoat. I have a tear on one of the nails on my opposite hand, and I used the tea bag method to fix it (apparently I didn't do a very good job because today it's pretty flimsy again.) Anyway, this particular basecoat is ridge-filling, and I wanted to be consistent, so I used it on all my nails. 

The base color is After Midnight by You Polish. This might actually be one of my favorite nail polishes right now. It's a black base with orange, purple and silver microglitter. At some angles it looks like there are green glitters as well. It looks so pretty in person. At first, I put it on my toenails (which i didn't take pictures of, because feet are kind of a weird thing...some people really hate them and some people REALLY like them). I kept looking at them and decided to use them as a base for Halloween nail art.

The skull and the bat are Cala nail decals that came in my most recent Nail Art Society kit. 

The spider is from one of my Mash image plates. If anyone actually wants to know what plate it is, I can find out, I've just temporarily misplaced my plates. 

Mash actually has a new set of plates out, which I got for my birthday (they came out like RIGHT before). I also bought the first set (i only had the middle one), so now I have all of them. I'm really excited because, not only are there some REALLY awesome images, but some of them are the same as the Bundle Monster plates, but unlike BM plates these ones will probably work. 

I'm also waiting for stamping polishes that I ordered from Born Pretty Store, but it's been like a month and they're not here yet. I emailed and was told to wait 10 more days. 

Anyway, I added a red rhinestone to the spider's back. Not gonna lie, I'm pretty sure this isn't an original idea and that I saw this on facebook somewhere. I think that white spiders are the scariest (like the ones that are on the outside of you car window but you don't realize it's on the outside and you start driving and almost crash into a tree...

Moving on...the ghost is something I did freehand with a nail art brush and white acrylic paint from Michael's. I was originally going to use a ghost nail plate image, but I couldn't get it to come out that good (it was an outline of a ghost rather than a whole one). I really didn't expect it to come out like this. I have no artistic ability whatsoever. But, ghosts don't really have a well-defined shape, so they're pretty easy to freehand. I put black rhinestones for eyes and drew a little mouth. I think it came out really cute :)

The accent nail, or rather non-accent nail, is two coats of Tatiana, my favorite Julep ever. 

Over everything I put China Glaze No-Chip Top Coat and then two coats of China Glaze Ghoulish Glow. I was expecting each nail to just have a general glow to it. What I was not expecting was this:

The ghost glows like INSANELY by itself. I have no idea why that happened, but it's FREAKING AWESOME. I considered stamping with glow in the dark top coat to make glow in the dark ghosts, but I wasn't sure it was going to work. This is seriously WAY cool....and I was not expecting it. 

Today at work, my nails chipped like crazy. Friday mornings at my job are really busy, so maybe it was because I was doing everything fast. I touched everything up and decided that my "accent" nail was too boring. I decided to try out Don't Bite The Heart That Feeds You by Glitter Daze (it's so pretty and halloween-y I couldn't resist). 

More nail art is definitely coming soon, I have a wedding and two Halloween parties coming up!

Thank you to all of our readers and subscribers, and if you like what you see please press the follow button <3

xoxo

Belle

Glitter Daze Daze of the Month Ultra Box October 2013

Hi guys! Today I present to you the contents of my Glitter Daze Daze of the Month Ultra Box for October 2013:

Full sized A Garlic A Day Keeps the Vampires Away:

This is a white to red thermal polish with red microglitters, various sized black glitters, and holographic micro glitters. I was REALLY excited to see this in my box. I actually saw this polish on the Glitter Daze facebook page a few days before the box came, and the "I-need-this-polish-to-live" switch went off in my brain. However, the rational part (it's still in there somewhere) said that I should wait until I get my box. I'm glad I did! 

Mini Dont Bite the Heart That Feeds You:

This is a clear glitter topper with holographic silver, purple, and black glitters in various shapes and sizes. This is REALLY pretty, when I swatched it I couldn't stop moving the swatchie-thing from side to side.  

Bat decals! This is the extra gift this month for the Ultra box. 

Glitter accessory: These are earrings made with nail polish that match the mini polish for this month. They're really pretty, but they're kind of big. One thing I learned about myself recently is that I apparently don't like big circles. I wore them to work though and they looked cool & didn't bother my ears (I've been having problems with earrings lately). 

Here are some swatches of Don't Bite the Heart That Feeds You and A Garlic a Day Keeps the Vampires Away (cold) - this is two coats no top coat

DBTHTFY and AGADKTVA (warm)

I was so excited about this polish that I peeled off my other nail polish at work so I could put this one on. This is what it looked like after the topcoat dried. 

Also pictured is the Mini Super Smooth Top Coat, which I used in the mani pics. I used it with my super smooth base coat that I got in my last box. The top coat made a huge difference in shine, it would have looked kind of matte and dull without one (which you can see in the swatch)

I didn't actually touch anything, it just started to get cold in my room...

...and then it got really cold.

I decided to add one of the bat decals literally like five minutes ago. 

When AGADKTVA is changing, it kind of looks like you ripped someone's heart out with your bare hands. Which is pretty sick for Halloween. For the mani I layered one coat of My Boyfriend Scales Walls by OPI (my go-to white coat). I think it looks kind of weird when it's cold with the white around the edges, so next time I would try to do 3 layers of the polish by itself instead of putting white underneath. This is gonna be fun to wear at work. 

I might actually keep this sub for more than 3 months. My first polish is glow-in-the-dark and my second one is a thermal? I'll probably just subscribe for of the smaller boxes when my first three months is up. 

Can't wait to see what's up for next month :)

Subscribe at http://glitterdazenp.com/

xoxo,
Belle

More swatches of She's a Pirate by Glitter Guilty

So as I predicted, my last manicure didn't last very long. It chipped, I touched it up, it chipped even more. The only nails that weren't chipped were the ones with She's a Pirate by Glitter Guilty on them, so I decided to do a full manicure with it:

One thing about having the skulls in a colored base is that you have to get the nail polish off of the top of the skull glitters or they blend in. I did this with one of those orange sticks that I bought like a pack of 100 of. I pressed them down and put on a coat of Gelous over them to keep the glitters from sticking out. 

I kind of love the fact that no one has this polish except me :) 

xoxo, 

Belle

Some Halloween Nail Art

Hi guys! Just a quick Halloween Nail Art mani that I did:

Pinky is 2 coats of She's a pirate by Glitter Guilty. Ring finger is 2 coats of Bump in the Night by China Glaze [textured] with a spider web stamp from Bundle Monster plate BM13. I used White by Kleancolor to stamp with. 

Middle finger is 2 coats of You're a Hoot by China Glaze...which is one of those fuzzy coats. 

Pointer finger is two coats of Toe-Tally Textured by China glaze. Over that I used a nail brush with black acrylic paint to freehand (in case you couldnt tell) the face. 

Thumb is two coats of Brit by Julep, which is described as a "matte suede finish." On the tip of my thumb I put on some Helen Gurley Brown by PISTOL polish. Then I used an Emori nail art brush in green to do the grass, and a really pointed and thin nail art brush with black acrylic paint to write the letters. 

I'm not really LOVING the way this came out...i feel like I should have used black skull glitters or used Jack Skellington by Sick Lacquers because it has a milky orange base and matches more with what I did. I'm also not loving the fact that I can't use a top coat because it kills the textured effect. I was at work for ONE day and every nail has tip wear/chips except the ones with the Glitter Guilty polish on them. Oh well, I'll probably touch them up for now and do a new mani on my next day off (Monday, or Sunday night.) I'm thinking blood spatter/zombies/glow in the dark (:

Until next time,

Belle

Glitter Guilty Pleasures Box October 2013

Hi guys! So today I received my third Glitter Guilty Pleasures box. I have to say, this is my FAVORITE one. 

When I saw the tag on my "monthly me," I saw that the polish was called She's a Pirate, and I just knew it had to be awesome. And then I took it out of its little individually-wrapped bag, and I was blown away. 

This polish is seriously amazing. It's a white crelly base with pink and black skull and crossbone glitters, orange hexes and shards, small black circles, and even some holographic microglitter! In other words, everything I love in a nail polish. 

When I got my first Glitter Guilty box, I wasn't really thrilled with my monthly me. Some of the glitters were magenta (a color on my hate list) and I just wasn't impressed. 

Now, when you sign up, there's a little profile that you can fill out, stating your likes and dislikes. When I initially filled it out, I wasn't very specific. I put a few colors I liked and a few colors I didn't. About a month later I was going through the message boards at makeuptalk.com, and someone posted that you can make your likes and dislikes as specific as you want. Not just color, but also type of polish and finish. You can also change it as often as you want. When I got my second box, I liked the color of the polish, but it was a glitter bomb, and I'm not the biggest fan of them because you need to layer them over other polishes, and more layers = more chipping. (I actually didn't have a problem with chipping, however. The mani I did with the black and white with Neon Lights over it lasted over a week, with minor tip wear from work. The formula is excellent.)

This time, I put in my likes that I wanted "Halloween, orange, black, skull and crossbone glitter, holo, creme or crelly finish." In my dislikes, I put "all browns, maroon and magenta, yellow, and glitterbombs." I was very specific, and it paid off! 

The monthly mini that everybody received this month is called Something Wicked, a very dark purple jelly base with purple shimmer, and green, purple and yellow hex glitters. I thought I wasn't going to like this one (I have a very odd relationship to the color purple...I HATE middle purples, but I like lavender and amethyst) but it's actually really pretty. 

Yay! Chocolate! Included in the box is a chocolate-covered Oreo and graham cracker. Can't wait to try it! 

Here are some swatches of the nail polishes: 

God they're pretty. 

This is actually going to be my last GGP box. I'm did 3 of these and I'm doing 3 Glitter Daze...after that I'm trying to get my subscription addiction under control (because it's not like I don't buy polishes I see that I like anyway). 

That being said, this is really a one-of-a-kind box. You get a custom polish, a mini, and some kind of artisan chocolate, all for only $15.99 a month. Jessica, the owner, is very sweet and gives amazing customer service. 

She actually just announced that, due to recent personal circumstances (I don't feel right mentioning the specifics in a blog post), she will not be able to do a custom polish for everyone, but rather will do 10-12 each month from now on and you will receive one of those, or you can pick a color from her shop. I think 10-12 is still a pretty good number of options, still way more than you get with other subscription services. 

Also I wanted to take some time to thank our readers, followers and commenters, especially The Nail Snail, who has a really awesome nail art blog (http://the-nail-snail.blogspot.com) and Elizabeth Breygel, who had a really cool beauty blog (liz-breygel.blogspot.com)...check them out! 

Also, I just added a couple of "follow" buttons, so please feel free to click on them :)

Peace, love and polish, 

Belle

PISTOL polish October 2013 Duo

Hi guys! It's that time of the month again! (Eww well not THAT time of the month). I mean the time when the PISTOL Polish duo comes in the mail!

PISTOL polish is a subscription service where you pay $17.99 a month and you get two polishes delivered to your door, based on current season trends. 

Here are October's colors:

On the left is Like a Boss, and it's a gorgeous baby pink with silver shimmer. This is one of those colors that you could get away with wearing at work. Here is the description on the information card for this color:

"Who's the boss? YOU! Sure, you may clock in for The Man but you're the CEO and President of your destiny, and that's what truly matters. And a sparkle-packed, dusty rose mani means it's time for a raise! Go get 'em."

I love pink, and I love shimmer, so this color will definitely be making its way onto my nails soon. 

The color on the right is called Helen Gurley Brown, and it's a milk chocolate brown. Here is the description:

"We've always loved PISTOL Woman HGB's catch phrase: "Good Girls go to heaven, bad girls go everywhere." This spiced mocha hue proves that a little rebellion can work wonders; Wear our milk chocolate shade and everyone will melt in your hands." 

I don't think I've ever painted my nails brown, but now I might. This color is perfect for fall, and is also subtle enough to wear to work without drawing too much attention. 

The swatches:

On the swatches, Like a boss looks more silver than pink, especially in the dark. That's cool though, because the pink is like a sweet surprise in the sunlight! 

PISTOL polish might be my favorite nail polish sub. I SO look forward to my duo coming every month, and they're usually the first subscription to arrive. Once again, I got colors that I don't already have in my collection (which has between 200-300 polishes). Love love love them, get yours at www.PISTOLpolish.com!

xoxo,

Belle

Subscription Review: Nail Art Society September 2013

Hi guys! So today I have for you a review of my second monthly Nail Art Society box, this time for the month of September.

If you didn't already know, Nail Art Society has a subscription service where you get a curated kit of nail art supplies delivered to your door every month. When I joined, the price was like $9.95 plus shipping, so it ends up coming out to like $14.90. I think they raised the price slightly within the last month, so now it's $11.95 plus shipping, but if you're grandfathered in, you still pay the original price.

I knew my box was supposed to come today, but I didn't recognize if right away. Last time it was in a dark purple bubble bag (like Ipsy). However, this one came in a normal, nondescript brown box. I opened the box and found this: 

A mysterious (although reusable) black bag! All these goodies were inside of it: 

Featured product: Gold and Silver Flake:

I've never worked with any kind of flakes before. They seem really interesting, and when I opened the little bottles I noticed they are REALLY delicate! NAS has been posting pictures of manicures featuring the goldflake, so I actually have some ideas of what I can do with it. This is cool  because   I don't own anything like these

in my collection! I'm excited to try them out. 

Nail polish! Yay! This is from the brand Jessica Cosmetics. The color is called Cinnamon Kiss. This color IS fall. It's a gorgeous "blackened" red with metallic shimmer. It's just sexy. 

More Cala Nail Decals! I was happy with the ones I got in the previous box (not so much with the butterfly theme, but with the fact that they are very easy to use and look beautiful). This one includes crowns, lions, crosses, very England royalty. I love crowns so I was excited to see these.

More decals! And they're Halloween themed! There are skulls, moons, lightning bolts, bats, and anchors (which I love, even though they have nothing to do with Halloween). There is so much more variety this time than in the last kit, and I wonder if NAS took customer feedback into consideration while putting this kit together. 

Adoro brand clear teardrop rhinestones: Never heard of this brand before. There are 6 of these rhinestones, they're very sparkly and probably look awesome in the sun. They're kind of big for natural nails, but they look pretty interesting. 

Adoro Elements circle rhinestones: almost all of these are gold, except two that are a really pretty iridescent color that looks different from every angle. They match the whole golden royal theme of the box. 

Finally, two information cards, one about the Jessica Cosmetics nail polish and their Night at the Opera Collection, and one about the featured nail art guru who curated this month's kit, as well as pictures of manicures using the items. 

All in all I think this month's kit is a big success. I really like the Halloween/royalty theme, and the silver and gold flake seem pretty interesting. I'm also glad the kit included nail polish. I have A LOT of nail art items, so it's nice to have things that I didn't previously. Can't wait to see what NAS comes up with next! 

You have until the 15th to sign up to get your October kit, so get yours at http://www.nailartsociety.com

xoxo,

Belle