Day 3: Yellow

I find it kind of funny that today's color is yellow, and it's rainy and gloomy outside. I don't particularly mind the weather, though - in fact, I tend to enjoy weather that most people consider miserable (rain, snow, general cloudiness and muckiness) and dislike weather that most people enjoy (days involving heat)...but that's beside the point. For today's yellow, I continued the crackle theme (at this rate, I think I might as well give up and call it crackle week, because I'm planning on doing a green crackle tomorrow) with Seventeen 1006, a yellow crackle, layered on top of Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Pacific Blue (no top coat). By the way, if you don't have Pacific Blue and you live somewhere where they sell Sally Hansen, what are you doing?! It's a fantastic color and I can't praise it enough. Anyway, here's my sunny manicure on a not-so-sunny day:

natural light

By the way, I retouched my hangnail again today. It's much better, but still slightly icky - in fact, that's why I also have a rather ungodly amount of cuticle gap. I'm trying to avoid aggravating it with polish remover as much as possible. Anyway, I'm off to class now - have a great day, and remember, it's almost Friday!

Here are some of my fellow bloggers doing the challenge (for those who have already posted for today, I linked to their post; for the others, I linked to their main page):

Aly Loves Lacquer

Manicure Addict

Dees Polish Endeavours

Bright Lights, Big Color

P.S. In case you were wondering, I'm holding my umbrella in the photo. :)

Day 2: Orange

Hello there, and happy hump day! Sorry today's post is later in the day - I had a doctor's appointment this morning, or I would've had it up then, and I didn't write it last night because I wanted to get at least 8 hours of sleep...though I doubt that will last long this month. Today's theme makes use of a fantastic polish that I got in Greece at the end of July and for some inexplicable reason hadn't used yet. It's Seventeen "Shock" 1001, an orange crackle. I layered it over two coats of Ulta Sun-sational.

 sunlight

artificial light

artificial light

What can I say? I'm a huge fan of this crackle, and I can't understand why U.S. companies are only making crackles in a limited range of colors - no green, no orange, no yellow...come on! I also have Seventeen's yellow crackle, so I may use that tomorrow for Day 3.

On a side note, I receive Dr.'s Remedy's latest collection today in the mail, and I'm working on swatching it now. I should have it posted tomorrow or Friday.

The other blogs doing this challenge:

Aly Loves Lacquer

Manicure Addict

Dees Polish Endeavours

Bright Lights, Big Color

SLU Crackle

Hello there! I've worn two different manicures since the layering in my last post (a Harry Potter mani and Orly Fowl Play), but unfortunately, they both chipped fairly badly before I got to take a picture. C'est la vie. Today, however, was homecoming, so I switched to SLU blue and white before the soccer game (which we tied 1-1). I used three coats of Revlon Royal, one coat of China Glaze Lightning Bolt, and Sally Hansen Insta-Dri top coat.

indoors, artificial light

Isn't it gorgeous? I thought Lightning Bolt cracked especially well this time. You know how sometimes crackles don't crack in the most aesthetically pleasing way? That definitely didn't happen, so I guess it was my lucky day. Sorry about the glare; the combination of Royal's jelly-ness and the top coat was just too shiny for my camera to handle. I think that's about all I have to say about this one, except that I'll definitely be wearing it until it chips - though, honestly, that's been the case for pretty much any manicure since I got to college, as I don't have time to change my nails on a mere whim anymore. Taking 6 normal and 10 honors credit hours tends to do that to a person. I hope you're all having a great weekend!

China Glaze Cracked Medallion

Hello there! I don't have a Pink Wednesday polish for you today - instead, I'd like to show you what I added to GT No. 9, China Glaze Cracked Medallion. When I first saw the press release for China Glaze Crackle Metals, Cracked Medallion was the one that I knew I had to have. While I ended up deciding that I wanted Tarnished Gold as well (and fortunately I got that one to review), I searched high and low for Cracked Medallion until I snatched it up at a Sally Beauty Supply. One of the reasons I was so excited about it was that it's bronze, and as a Ravenclaw, I need a bronze crackle to make a Ravenclaw crackle mani. Yeah, I'm a geek. However, I also just think it's a gorgeous, and would complement most, if not all of my favorite colors. This is one coat over the green plus one coat of Sally Hansen Insta-Dri.

outdoors, shade

outdoors, sunlight

Lovely, no? I really love jewel tones, and I think that pretty much any jewel-toned or richly colored polish would go well with Cracked Medallion. Once again...I think I'm gonna have to take this one to college. Speaking of which, I should probably wash my sheets. Bye!

China Glaze Oxidized Aqua

Hello there! I meant to get this posted yesterday, but I spent all afternoon uploading my pictures from Greece to Picasa Web Albums and didn't end up having the time. Oxidized Aqua is the other metallic crackle I received to review from China Glaze, and to be honest, I didn't plan on buying this one. I've never been a huge fan of "colored" metallic nail polishes - those that aren't gold, silver, or copper. In fact, I think I only own one, Orly Rage. So what do I think of Oxidized Aqua?

 outdoors, sunlight

outdoors, shade

I like it! Though not as much as Tarnished Gold, I do like Oxidized Aqua, and I'll definitely be keeping it. I used it over Wet 'n' Wild White Creme to make sure the blue came out and that it didn't just look like a vaguely bluish silver, but I'm anxious to try it over darker colors to see how it turns out. I had a few moments where I was a bit iffy about Oxidized Aqua, but on the whole I'm glad I have it - and if you do like colored metallics, definitely try this!

China Glaze Tarnished Gold

Hello there! When I got home from Greece Sunday, I had the pleasant surprise of finding a package from China Glaze containing Oxidized Aqua and Tarnished Gold, two of their metallic crackles. The funny bit about this is that I had actually stopped at a Sally Beauty Supply store on the way home from the airport hoping to find Tarnished Gold, but they were sold out - which was a good thing, as it turns out! I decided to combine today's Pink Wednesday with my review of Tarnished Gold, so I used it over two coats of Essie Exotic Liras.

 outdoors, sunlight

outdoors, shade

I never wear Exotic Liras much on its own, but I think it looks great with Tarnished Gold, don't you? I prefer this color of gold to that of the Sally Hansen gold crackle, as this one's a bit darker, warmer, and richer. Application was a breeze and it cracked quite nicely, as you can see. I'll definitely be using this a ton in the future, and, yep - it's going to college with me. There was a bit of wear because I didn't add top coat, but the bits that wore off were actually Exotic Liras and not Tarnished Gold. If you don't have this one and you're not sick of crackle yet (I know some are), I'd definitely recommend getting your hands on this one.

Tarnished Gold was provided to me for review by the company's PR, but this did not affect my review. For more information, see my disclosure policy.

Pink Wednesday: Cracked Pink Dots

I know, it's a terrible post title . . . however, it's a pretty good mani, if I do say so myself. It's a pink version of a manicure I did back in April, while I was on a choir trip. This time, however, I added the crackle right away instead of wearing the dots on their own for a while. I've forgotten precisely what pinks I used (I've been really bad about writing this stuff down lately), but I think I used Essie Exotic Liras, Love My Nails Tropical Fruit, Sinful Colors Beautiful Girl, and Sinful Colors Pink Forever. I used a base of Wet 'n' Wild White Creme and added China Glaze Black Mesh on the top.

indoors, artificial light

This ended up looking a bit like pink camo, which wasn't what I intended, but it makes me want to try it with green. For that matter, I'd like to try it with just about any color combination - I imagine silver and gold dots with black crackle would look cool as well. I really like the idea of covering nail art in crackle in general, too; I think it's a good strategy for people who are new to nail art, for a quick mani refresher, or for when you want to do something that looks complicated but don't have much time. At any rate, I think Regina would approve, don't you? Have a great day!

Silver Crackle Comparison

I know some of you out there are tired of crackle and wish it would go hide in a hole somewhere - if that's you, skip this post. I got Sally Hansen Fractured Foil a while back and thought that would mean I didn't need to spend the money on OPI Silver Shatter. Then I kept seeing Silver Shatter in stores, and I thought, "You know, I'm pretty sure that's a darker silver than the Sally Hansen." And so, of course, I inevitably bought it. And you know what? They are different! I was delighted. I compared them first over a dark color (I used Cult Nails Living Water, because I was wearing it already and it's practically black) and then over white (Wet n Wild White Creme). No bottle pics, because the ones I took turned out horribly. Both pictures were taken indoors under artificial light.

pointer and ring - Fractured Foil, middle and pinkie - Silver Shatter

As you can see, there's not that much difference here, though Silver Shatter does look slightly darker. The contrast showed up more in real life, but it still wasn't remarkable. But when you put them over white...

pointer and ring - Silver Shatter, middle and pinkie - Fractured Foil

Okay, now there's a big difference! Silver Shatter is closer to a gunmetal silver color, while Fractured Foil is a pale silver. Since I'll be wearing these over light colors as well as dark, this definitely justifies owning both of them for me. If I manage to get my hands on the silver China Glaze crackle, I'll do a new post comparing them all, but I'm not holding my breath - the only reason I got my hands on the original set of Crackle Glaze is thanks to the lovely Jasmine of Colour Coated.

Do you own either of these? And which do you prefer?

Yellow Doll + Crushed Candy

*headdesk* Fail fail fail fail faillll. I'm sorry I wasn't able to post for the past five days - I really thought I'd have time, but as it turns out, I didn't. On the upside, I am now all registered for college! I'll be taking University 101 (a kind of "welcome to college let's get acclimated" course), Intro to Sociology, American Youth Movement in the Post-War Era, Communicating in Arabic I, Honors Politics of the Developing World, and Human Communication and Culture. It'll be 16 credit hours, and I'm hoping to have a part-time, on-campus job. Who knows how much time I'll have for blogging, but hopefully I'll be able to post on a regular basis.

Anyway, today's manicure is GOSH Yellow Doll and China Glaze Crushed Candy. I think this combination is absolutely perfect, and just looking at the pictures makes me want to do it again.

 outdoors, sunlight

 outdoors, shade

indoors, artificial light

Before I remembered this, I was thinking about doing a neon yellow with blue crackle for my next manicure. Clearly, I am a creature of habit. Or something. Sorry for the crap pictures, by the way. I think they're a result of a combination of my shaky hands and my camera being all, "holy crap that's bright." Like I said...or something. At any rate, sorry.

Oh, and for a completely non-nail-related ending to this post...POTTERMORE. *flails*

Unoriginal Crackle

This is pretty much the least original crackle manicure that I've done - black and gold. I tried it out quite a while back when I first got my crackles, and unoriginal as it may be, I really like the combination. I used Orly Luxe and China Glaze Black Mesh.

indoors, artificial light

I know you've probably seen this look ten zillion times by now, but I figured I had worn it and might as well post it. So, now you've seen it ten zillion and one times! :) Sorry this is such a short post, but there's really not much to say about this combination except that I really, really like it - which I already said. Until next time!

Mint Candy Lightning

This is a manicure I did quite a while back, so I don't have a whole lot to say about it. I wanted to try a crackle combination that was softer than some others I've tried, so I used a coat of China Glaze Lightning Bolt over two coats of Essie Mint Candy Apple. It's a little more contrasting in real life, though still subtle. In the second picture, I've added Essie Matte About You.

 indoors, artificial light

indoors, artificial light

I really like this combination, and I'll have to try some more in the future...What do you think? Do you like it, is it too subtle, or are you over crackles altogether? I know I'm not! :)

Grey-Blue Gradient

Happy Memorial Day! If you're American, be sure to take today as an opportunity both to honor the courage of those who serve in our military...and to eat some great food. :) If you're not American, then happy Monday! Today I have my next-to-last National Brain Tumor Awareness Month grey mani, and my next-to-last fact: "As many as 69% of children with brain tumors will survive, but they are often left with long-term side effects." - Miles For Hope My mani for today is, as I'm sure you deduced from the title, another gradient. This time, I used OPI Skull & Glossbones for the grey, American Apparel Peacock for the blue, and different mixes of the two for the colors in between. I finished it off with a coat of Sally Hansen Insta-Dri for the top coat.

indoors, artificial light

I took pictures of my right hand this time because I thought it looked better than my left, and I am incapable of holding a nail polish bottle in an appropriate picture-taking pose with my right hand, so you just get those three fingers today. Later in my mani's lifespan, as I often do, I added some crackle - in this case, I used Sally Hansen Fracture Foil.

indoors, artificial light

It looked much cooler in real life, I assure you, but my camera was so distracted by the shininess of the silver that it didn't do such a great job at picking up on everything else. I imagine gold, white or black crackle would also look very cool over this. Until tomorrow!

Kelly Cracked

Poor Kelly...it was just too much to handle. She couldn't help it - she cracked.

I'm not talking about a person, of course, but Zoya Kelly, a cool dark grey that is not only gorgeous, but a dream to apply in two coats. I couldn't resist seeing how Kelly's cool blue tones would contrast with Sally Hansen Antiqued Gold, so here we are. But first, a fact! (I feel like an infomercial sometimes...) "The cure rate for most brain tumors is significantly lower than that for many other types of cancer." - Miles For Hope And now, the manicure:

indoors, artificial light

I'm definitely a fan of this combination. The gold really pops against the dark grey, and since I applied Antiqued Gold over a slightly tacky layer of polish, it cracked much better than when I tried it over Skull & Glossbones - I may have to revisit that combination at some point. What do you think? Is there hope for Kelly, now that she's gone round the bend? ;P

OPI Skull & Glossbones

National Brain Tumor Awareness Month fact: Brain tumor symptoms often mimic other diseases, often making them difficult to diagnose.  - American Brain Tumor Association

I promise this IS a grey, but it pulls green on me when it's on its own. It's a very pretty color, though, and one of the two colors I knew I absolutely had to get from the OPI Pirates of the Caribbean collection, the other being Stranger Tides. I clearly have a thing for weird colors; what can I say? I found the formula of Skull & Glossbones (which is kind of a stupid name, in my opinion, but that's what I've come to expect from OPI) to be excellent: it required two coats for me, but it went on wonderfully and dried fairly quickly as well. Unfortunately, I didn't manage to take pictures until after one nail had already chipped - the day I wore it, I did a lot of cooking and made homemade lemonade (the work-intensive kind where you cook the syrup and stuff), and I didn't have a chance to take a picture until afterward. Fortunately, there was only one small chip, so I didn't feel obliged to re-polish that nail for the picture.

indoors, artificial light

Even though I was about to take it off due to the chip, I couldn't resist playing around with Skull & Glossbones. I'd found the Sally Hansen crackles at Walgreens the day before, and I got Cherry Smash, Distressed Denim, Antiqued Gold, and Fractured Foil. I was eager to see how well the metallics would crackle, so I went ahead and put a coat of Antiqued Gold on over Skull & Glossbones.

indoors, artificial light

I do like the effect of this, but it didn't crack much - I discovered later that it cracks better if you put it on over polish that's still a bit tacky. I'll have another grey with gold crackle on top for you Saturday (since tomorrow's grey-free Friday), and I like that combination much better. Care to guess what it is?

Pink Wednesday: Pink and Grey Crackle, Part 2

Earlier this month (May 4, to be exact), I did a pink and grey crackle mani for Pink Wednesday/National Brain Tumor Awareness Month. And that's the last Pink Wednesday I did. *hangs head in shame* However, Pink Wednesdays are officially back with this combination - OPI Skull & Glossbones (which I will show on its own tomorrow...I intended to today, but took an unexpected day trip instead) and China Glaze Broken Hearted. (I actually didn't intend to do a crackle mani, but more on that in a minute.) But first, a brain tumor fact: "A “benign” brain tumor can be life-threatening because of its location or behavior." - North America Brain Tumor Coalition This is something that some people don't realize - even if a tumor isn't malignant, it can still be very dangerous.

indoors, artificial light

Me like! You like? ;P I've always had trouble getting the China Glaze crackles to even out, regardless of what top coat I used, but I finally got this mani to lay flat by using two coats of Wet n Wild Clear and then one coat of Sally Hansen Insta-Dri.

So, I said I didn't intend to do a crackle mani. And I didn't. This was supposed to be a dotty pirate Pink Wednesday - that is, I intended to do a dotting manicure with OPI Steady as She Rose on top of OPI Skull & Glossbones. And I did. And then I realized that the two colors were so close together that I could barely see the dots when I stretched my hand out an arm's length from my face. So, I just added the crackle on top. You can probably see some of the Steady as She Rose dots, but only if you're really, really looking for them. I guess that's all for today...until tomorrow! 

Cracked Jade

Sorry to have disappeared on you all like that. For the past couple weeks, my life has pretty much consisted of sitting and doing nothing while I'm at school, and running around like a chicken with my head cut off when I'm not in school trying to do everything that needs done. Therefore, I haven't had any time for blogging or for reading blogs. I'm not sure when this state of being will end, but I do have time for a blog post today, fortunately. Here's my brain tumor fact for the day: "More knowledge about brain tumors has been gained in the last ten years than in the past hundred years." - American Brain Tumor Association

 indoors, artificial light

 outdoors, sunlight

outdoors, shade

To create this manicure, I used OPI Jade is the New Black, China Glaze White Cap, and China Glaze Cracked Concrete, all topped with a coat of Seche Vite. I guess that's about all I have to say about this...I liked it, but not as much as I hoped to, and I didn't wear it for long. Now, hopefully it won't be a week until my next blog post!

P.S. I graduate next Thursday. :)

Pink and Grey Crackle

Only two new treatments for brain tumors have been approved in the past 25 years. - North American Brain Tumor Coalition


Today I have a combination of a Pink Wednesday manicure and a grey National Brain Tumor Awareness month manicure. I used one of my favorite pinks, Color Club Yachty, Yachty, Yadda, and I topped it with China Glaze Cracked Concrete. Sorry for the shoddy cleanup - I always think I've gotten everything, and then I take the pictures...and I haven't. Whoops.

indoors, artificial light

I hope you don't mind crackle two days in a row, because I couldn't seem to come up with anything else that appealed to me. Don't worry, though, tomorrow will be something else (and I'll give you a hint...it's related to what's happening Friday)!

In other news (and if you don't want to hear about my personal life, stop now), my kidney stone is gone! Well, it's in a zippy bag on its way to the urologist...but it's out of my body! I am so thrilled - this is the best early birthday present ever. :) Have a great day!

Inverted Crackle

Even though survival rates for some childhood brain tumors have increased over the past 30 years, survivors often suffer from lifelong side effects of treatments such as surgery, radiation and chemotherapy. -Pediatric Brain Tumor Foundation


Yeah, I'm looking forward to that...anyway, my second grey May manicure came about when I realized that not only are China Glaze Crushed Candy and China Glaze For Audrey almost the same color, I also have a regular grey polish that's nearly the same as China Glaze Cracked Concrete - Pure Ice Kiss Me Here. The natural result of this realization? An inverted crackle mani.

indoors, artificial light

Sorry for my gross dry fingers... :( Anyway, even though I really like the way this turned out, I didn't end up keeping it on. I'm not sure why, but I just wasn't in the mood. Until tomorrow!

Easy Peasy Lava Nails

Today I have a decidedly non-Eastery (well...unless you're going for a Good Friday/Holy Saturday look, I suppose) manicure to show you. I've been intending to do lava nails for some time, and I finally did. Fortunately, I absolutely love them! I can't stop looking at my nails, which, while vain, is how I know when I've done something I'm really satisfied with. For your benefit, I took pictures along the way and did a little tutorial. First, here's the finished product:

indoors, artificial light

I think it looks pretty cool! My favorite thing about this manicure, though, is that it's stupidly easy to do. I kid you not - all you absolutely have to have that some people might not is a black or grey crackle nail polish. Here are the steps, and you can click on the pictures to enlarge them if you like. I left them as small as possible to avoid making the post a bazillion miles long.

1) Apply base coat - this is especially important because you're using colors that tend to stain - and a red base. I used Ulta Silk Wrap Base Coat and one coat of OPI Red My Fortune Cookie, which is my absolute favorite red. I'm not sure what the black dot on my nail is, but I left it alone since I knew I'd be covering it up anyway. Also, sorry for my gross-looking fingers throughout this post.

2) Splotch on some orange. I used a dotting tool and OPI A Good Man-darin is hard to find, but you could use just about anything since you're not going for perfect, round dots - a pencil eraser, the head of a pin, a toothpick - use your imagination if you have to. :)

3) Splotch on some yellow in the same fashion. I used Nina Ultra Pro Like Butta. As you can see, the design kind of looks like crap at this point, which is the beauty of the whole thing - this really isn't nail art.

4) I clearcoated the whole nail with Wet n Wild Clear to keep the final product from looking quite so lumpy and to ensure that the crackle would crack properly, but that's really a matter of personal preference. You can probably skip this if you choose.

5) Crackle time! I used China Glaze Black Mesh, but you could use any other black crackle, and I imagine China Glaze Cracked Concrete would look good as well. As with any crackle manicure, try to work quickly and use even strokes.

6) Clean up your fingers with polish remover, add top coat (I used Seche Vite), and ta da! You're done. *looks around for obnoxious red button* *pushes* That was easy! Now go show off your fierce lava nails to all your friends.

A Bit Dotty

The title of this post pretty much sums up the past week...my brain has been all over the place! At the choir festival, my school entered our concert choir, chamber choir, women's choir, and men's choir - I'm in all of them except men's choir - and all of our choirs won first place! That makes four years that all four of our choirs have won first place, so of course all the seniors were especially excited. :) During the trip, I wore the same manicure for all four days, though I added crackle after the first two. I pretty much copied Nail Polish Art Addiction's 99 Balloons manicure, except mine ended up a bit different. I used Sally Hansen All Fired Up, Sally Hansen Sun Kissed, Nina Ultra Pro Like Butta, Sally Hansen Green With Envy, Zoya Robyn, and Orly Purple Pleather for the dots, and Wet n Wild White Creme for the base.

indoors, artificial light

After two days, I had chips on a couple fingers, so I added a coat of China Glaze Black Mesh (I'd thought ahead and packed it specifically for that purpose). Sorry for the super crappy picture - I took the first one at home before I left, but I had to take this one in the hotel room, and the lighting was so dim that I couldn't get a clear picture. I thought I'd share it with you all the same, but be warned...it sucks.

indoors, artificial light

I added a coat of Seche Vite after I took the picture, and the crackle lasted until a few hours before I got home. I was really happy with this manicure, and I've already planned some variations, so look for more cracked dots sometime in the near future! :)