Sea Spray is my favorite color from China Glaze’s new nautical Anchor’s Away collection. I am such a sucker for everything nautical, especially because my bestest friend is in the Coast Guard. I have to go back for a few more colors, but I knew I had to have this gorgeous grey-blue-sky cream as soon as I saw it. It’s the color of a pretty cloudy sky, a greyer tone but with a lot of blue. I love looking at my nails with this on.

If I were to speculate, even though I don’t own any other polish like it, I would guess that Eyeko‘s Rain Polish is a great dupe for Sea Spray.

Application with this polish was really perfect, and drying time was QUICK! This is two coats.

(Just wanted to remind you that my FLIRT! Giveaway is still open for entries until December 20!)

I love Forever21. It’s a cheap, trendy company that I’ve been familiar with for years, but for the first time in my life, I live near one! Actually, the new city I live in has several in and around it. AND THEY SELL NAIL POLISH! CHEAP NAIL POLISH! It seems that the only brand they carry is one I haven’t heard of before called Love & Beauty. I saw a huge bin of them on display in the store yesterday, so of course I had to check it out.

This is Indigo:

The name of this polish describes its color: it’s an opaque indigo jelly polish, could definitely be a one-coater if you’re careful. I don’t have any other polishes in my collection like this (MAC Blue India is much more dusty, and greener) so I was excited to get this–especially for $2.80!! It also applies as smooth as a dream, with a thin, long brush, and has good drying time. This is only two coats, too!

A few things about the polishes.. if you check out the Love & Beauty line in store or online, you may notice that there are several different polish bottle styles. I’m still not completely sure what that’s about. Though it appears that some of the styles are for unique finishes, it seems to be more of a novelty thing than a rule of thumb for identifying like polishes–does that make sense at all? I just mean that I thought that one bottle style was for all glitters, but then there are some in that bottle style that aren’t glitters, and some that are. So maybe they just like their items to not all look the same? Maybe they’ve transitioned a few times and can’t decide which one they like? Not sure.

The only unimpressive thing I’ve found about the polishes so far are that the names really suck, haha. I think their creative marketing team has only just been started up, with super unique and descriptive color names like “Blue,” “Gold,” and “Pink.” :P

One last note about the thumb decal I used, that is a purchase I made a few months ago, one that I’ve been meaning to use in manicures. They are the Ornament Nail Art Stickers by Essence, which I got at ULTA. I was super excited to use them, and I’ve found that they’ve been really easy to use! They last as long as my manicure, and are thin enough so they easily stay flat along the curvature of my nails. They’re cheap ($1.50) and come with 10 or 11 different designs. I was so happy I actually jumped back in shock when I saw the Essence end-cap at ULTA that day. I grabbed a couple of their Colour & Go nail polishes, too, so look for those coming up soon!

Today I’m bringing you some nail art inspired by one of the season’s trends… tartan!! I felt a little bad about bashing MAC’s holiday nail set, so I thought I’d show appreciation where it’s due. Also, I think it’s appropriate that I welcome December with some tartan loveliness! :)

USED:
Layer 1: Gelous Base Coat
Layer 2: Asiatique Nail Lacquer
Layer 3: mixture of Icing Jaded & MAC Blue India
Layer 4: MAC Blue India
Layer 5: China Glaze Lemon Fizz
Layer 6: mixture of China Glaze Lemon Fizz & Confetti White Wedding
Layer 7: Seche Vite

I started by painting my entire nail with one coat of Gelous. I let it dry for a few minutes and followed it with a coat of Asiatique. Next, I painted half of my nail with the layer 3 mixture. Then, I painted a small spot of Blue India over the red half, right on the border of the green half. Next, I painted a line of diagonal stripes horizontally and vertically with Lemon Fizz. Lastly, I painted two vertical lines with the layer 6 mixture around the dot of Blue India. Finished with a coat of Seche Vite! I used a very thin, short-bristled paint brush from an art store for all the steps after Asiatique.

This nail art was clearly inspired by the promo image for MAC’s A Tartan Tale collection.

Mystic Lilac is so beautiful. It’s a light lilac colored polish with a gorgeous, subtle green shimmer–almost an aqua color–that really sparkles in sunlight. It’s a pretty sheer polish, but builds up well. These are 3 coats.

Close up of the yummy aqua shimmer!

The aqua was hard to capture with the camera. It’s more evident in real life.

I’ve had these pictures sitting in my RAW folder for a while–I’d almost forgotten! But here we have one of the new SHXW colors, Purple Gala. It’s an awesome deep purple and gold foil polish with lots of dimension, which you’ll see in the several pictures below.

From China Glaze’s holiday collection, ‘Tis the Season To Be Naughty & Nice, is Party Hearty, a multi-colored glitter topcoat for the Christmas season. The polish is clear based with small silver and gold glitter, medium green glitter, and big red glitter. You can do several coats of this polish on its own over bare nails, or layered over other polishes. Here are some layering ideas for you!

China Glaze Party Hearty over OPI Who the Shrek Are You?

China Glaze Party Hearty over China Glaze Mistletoe Kisses

China Glaze Party Hearty over MAC Nocturnelle

China Glaze Party Hearty over China Glaze Mrs. Claus

China Glaze Party Hearty over Confetti White Wedding