Royal Snowcone

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Royal Snowcone

I've finally pulled off a manicure with the dotting tool that I really like :) Hooray!!
 I started off with Orly - Snowcone. I really love this color, although I haven't used it in a really long time (I just posted about it this week, but that mani was from this summer.) The application is great and it is opaque in one coat.

For my dots, I decided to use OPI - Alpine Snow Matte and Revlon Top Speed - Royal. This was a really good use for the Alpine Snow Matte. I don't love the application when using it as a base color. It is streaky and balds really easily (more reasons to add to list of why mattes are hard to deal with). However, as a dotting color, the matte worked wonderfully!
I was really happy with the outcome. I decided to go with the ring finger and the thumb since I loved the look once I did an accent nail and had to add another. I definitely surprised myself :)

Please excuse my ridiculously dry hands!

Outside by the snow

Taken with a flash outside

~ Nailed by Ericka ~

Heartbreaker...You Got the Best of Me

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Heartbreaker...You Got the Best of Me

Although I love painting my nails, it usually takes a super long time. I'm really indecisive or get great ideas in my head that do not translate well into real life. I also struggle coming up with titles for my posts. Some days, I spend more time naming it than I do typing the words! (this is sad, I know). However, today, thanks to Mariah Carey and her catchy 1999 hit "Heartbreaker", I had a little help naming this one :)

For my weekend mani, I decided to use one of the lovely colors from the Color Club Poptastic collection. I layered on 2 coats of Twiggie. (I used Twiggie before in my Green with Envy post.) I wanted to add something else to this so I put a layer of Hard Candy - Break Up. The end result was a bit too flashy for me so I finished off the mani with a matte top coat (also from Hard Candy).

Outside in the shade

Sunlight

Sunlight

I hope you enjoyed the link to Mariah's music video. I only hope it gets stuck in your head as well today so I'm not the only one out there singing out a hit from 1999 :)

Have a great weekend!
~ Nailed by Ericka ~

Matte-ly Busted on Park Ave.

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Matte-ly Busted on Park Ave.

So I just couldn't wait to try out the new matte top coat that I picked up yesterday.  Last night I decided to try out three of the new polishes that I accidentally purchased yesterday :)  I started with 2 coats of NYC- Park Ave. This is lovely taupey, putty color.  I really liked the color alone, but I keep getting bubbles on my nails.  I think its due to the climate conditions in  my apartment. 

Taken inside with flash

After letting that dry (while as much as it would because our apartment doesn't have central air, and our little wall unit can only do so much) I applied 1 layer of Pure Ice-Busted.  This polish looks purple in the bottle with a duochrome shimmer (greenish-pinkish).  Its really pretty looking in the bottle, and equally pretty on the nail.  I was a little surprised by how sheer it was, but it made it great for layering.  Here is a picture of it over top of Park Ave.

I really struggled to get a picture of this polish and all of its glory.  This was also late last night, taken in my kitchen with a flash.  I tried a couple of pictures, but none were truly successful.  I figured that this picture did give a sense of the shimmer and multi-colorfulness. 

To complete the look, I topped it off with a coat of Hard Candy-Matte-Ly In Love.  I really liked the way that it came out.  While working today, I just keep staring at my nails.  It was fun to watch the different colors come out depending on the light and way I was moving my hands.  There is a beautiful purplish-pink shimmer color that shows up, but I just couldn't get a good picture of it.  I'm adding a few photos to show off this manicure, but nothing truly did it justice.

Probably the best photo to give you the true effect of the matte and duochrome.  This is taken with natural light on my windowsill.

Taken in the shade outside.  You can see the duochrome effect.

Direct sunlight.  It has a silver shimmery look here.

Overall, I really loved this and will hopefully wear it again, but considering I just bought lots of other equally pretty polishes, I will play fair and try out another new one tonight :)

~Nailed by Brittany~