Vault 106: L'Oreal Pink Shells

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L'Oreal Pink Shells, two coats. Nice, glowy fuchsia jelly with hot pink glass fleck. These pics are from last summer, so I don't remember much about application or wear, but I do remember that it bubbled on me. I don't have many L'Oreal polishes, because they don't seem very exciting or unique, including this one. I'm a sucker for glass flecks and glowy polishes, though, and I must've gotten a really good deal on it, otherwise I probably would've skipped it.

Vault 106: Life of a Manicure, Deconstructed

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It's not uncommon for me to get bored with a mani quickly, but I'm too lazy to remove it and it still looks okay, so I just add something. Yes, I confess to polish ADD. This time it turned out alright, if a bit thick. Here's the final manicure after about 5 days. This shows the stamping, using plates BM03 and fauxnad M96. The blue is Sally Hansen Navy Baby and the white is Love My Nails White.

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Sans stamping, this layer shows one coat OPI Big Hair... Big Nails. Mmm, jelly sandwich, anyone?

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Here we have three coats Sinful Deep Red Ocean. Starting to look a bit thick already. But SO sparkly!

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Back to the beginning, this is two coats China Glaze Flip Flop Fantasy alone. It's a typical neon, so it dries matte, and I liked it that way. It's so bright! Love this one.
Whew, that's a lot of layers! Did you follow all that? Are you polish ADD, too?

Vault 106: $OPI Run With It Shattered

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Sephora by OPI Run With It, 2 coats with topcoat. I remember really lemming this polish, then being a bit disappointed by it. It kinda gives me corpse hands, and the shimmer is not nearly as visible on the nail as it is in the bottle, but it does have a sort of textured look to it. It certainly isn't flat or chalky, it's just a bit blah on me, kinda like Minnesota weather in February.

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And a coat of OPI Turquoise Shatter livens it up! I loved this because it makes me think of water washing over a white sand beach. What I wouldn't give to see that in person right now!

Vault 106: franken Fishin' in the Dark

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I made this franken last year, using ½ Wet n Wild Teal of Fortune + ½ Rimmel Black Satin. This is 2 coats. So awesome! As you may recall, Teal of Fortune is one of many polishes that were nearly identical two summers ago: Zoya Charla, Orly Halley's Comet, OPI Catch Me In Your Net, etc.

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The glass fleck shows up better in the lightbox, and I matte-ified the middle finger here with Essie Matte About You. You can also see that the black doesn't completely overwhelm the base - it's a really dark navy blue.
And one of my all-time favorite songs:

Vault 106: OPI DS Coronation Cracked

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This is three coats of the lovely and elegant OPI DS Coronation. It's essentially large fleck holographic pigment in a clear base. As you can see, it's not a linear holo. I suppose it's similar to the China Glaze Kaleidoscopes, but a cousin not a sibling. As some of you may know, there were two different holo pigments used in OPI Designer Series polishes - linear and non-linear, and they seem to use each in the same color bases. For example, Coronation is to Shimmer what Fantasy is to Glamour. I'll have to do a swatch post of my DSs someday, to show what I mean. Regardless, the holo (both linear and non-linear) DS polishes are all old/discontinued and hard-to-find, but SO gorgeous! If you ever stumble across any, BUY THEM! You won't regret it!

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Gorgeous as Coronation is, when I found a new-to-me brand with this gorgeous purple crackle, I had to try it out! This is one coat Nabi New Purple crack with topcoat. It's less blue in real life.
I found Nabi polishes in a little neighborhood discount clothing boutique, and needless to say, I bought a bunch. They were only $1.50 each, even the crackles, which is still the cheapest crackle I've ever seen.
Are you sick of crackles yet? I'm not, mostly because I use them somewhat rarely, and they're still really useful for covering up tipwear and other manicure sins, regardless of trends. I'm not buying many more, just because I have a nice selection, but I will continue to use the ones I have. Honestly, I'm more sick of everyone else saying 'I'm so over crackle'.

Vault 106: franken Hello, I Love You

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Last summer, I ordered SpectraFlair from a certain eBay seller, and I've never looked back. This stuff is SO FREAKIN' AWESOME! For this one, I added 2 tiny scoops of SpectraFlair to Essence Ready For Action. I bought a half-dozen or so Essence Colour & Go polishes just for this purpose, and most of them worked perfectly! It did fade the red a tiny bit (it's a silvery-gray pigment), so I added a few drops of LA Colors Transformer (deep, vampy red) to bring it back to a true cherry red. You'll see the others I made as I wear them, just need more sun to fully appreciate all that delicious holo.

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I couldn't resist stamping this with lips, cuz I'm seriously in love. ♥ I used the black holo franken I made with Essence Fabuless and BM02.
The namesake song:

Vault 106: Zoya Faye + comp

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The glorious Zoya Faye! This is a beautiful mauvey-pink with that lovely golden glass fleck that the whole Zoya Sunshine collection contains. I didn't take notes,  but I think this might be 2 coats, and definitely no more than three. So sparkly!

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The gold sparkle really comes to the forefront in indirect lighting.

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When I first saw Faye, I thought it looked a bit  familiar.

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If you ignore the copious gold glass fleck in Faye for a moment, you can see that it shares a base with Zoya Pru. Pru is also gorgeous, and has some sparkle, but not in-your-face like Faye. So, if you find Faye's finish overwhelming, go with Pru. If you can't live without bling, get Faye. But you probably don't NEED both. Hope this helps!

Vault 106: Pink Marble Flowers

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Best water marble I've ever done, before or since! And I blame Colette over at My Simple Little Pleasures. When you click the link, you'll see I totally ripped off her design (right down to 3 of her 5 color choices), but you'll also see a tutorial on how to do it yourself.  For my rendition, I used (in order from dark to light): Savvy Red Caviar, OPI Let Me Entertain You, China Glaze 108 Degrees, China Glaze Strawberry Fields and Savvy Fairy Twinkle.

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I really loved her matte version, too, so I copied again after a few days' wear. One difference that makes it my own is that I slapped on a coat of sparkly stuff ($OPI Wild About Shimmer) before the mattifying stage. The sparklies looked better in person, I think. I wore this mani for a whole week, and it was a wrench to finally take it off! Now that I've pulled it out of the vault, I will definitely have to do it again - maybe purples this time.

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I also used a different base under the marbling: Essence Hang Loose, probably 2 coats, but I'm not positive. Gorgeous color, and I'm a bit mad at myself for frankening most of it, as it was limited edition. Anyone know any dupes?
Incidentally, you must follow My Simple Little Pleasures, if you don't already! This is just one of MANY fabulous nail art designs, and she specializes in water marbling and video tutorials. Besides, Colette lives in my area, and I always support the local chicks. Hi, Colette! 

Vault 106: Tiger, Tiger

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I did this manicure last spring, when I was playing with different uses for crackles. For this look, I used OPI Black Shatter over Zoya Rica. I started with very little Black Shatter on the brush, and pulled it from each side of the nail towards the center. I really liked this, and I've used this same technique a few times since then. It looks best with a very thin layer of crackle, and if you don't quite meet in the middle.

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Zoya Rica on it's own. I didn't record how many coats, but it's most likely two. Gorgeous color! I bought this whole collection (Zoya Sunshine) last year, because I adore the gold fleck/foily finish and the stunning colors.

Vault 106: Last Valentine's Day Mani

I was going through my photos (I have too many just waiting for editing and posting), and found last year's Valentine's Day mani. I broke out the fake nails, because my real ones were horrible stubs, and I wanted something GLAM for a change. First, the finished product:

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What you see here is 2 coats of China Glaze Sugar High, topped with one coat of LA Splash Be Mine, stamped in white with the rose from BM14, and OPI Black Shatter diagonally across the tips. (Remember those days when crackle only came in black? And only OPI? Yeah, WAY back then! XD)

These are the Broadway nails I used. They were on super-ultra clearance at Ulta last year, so I doubt you could still get the exact same ones. I'm still a n00b with press-ons, only using them maybe 2-3 times a year since my nail fetish started a few years ago. These came out pretty well, and lasted much longer than I expected (about a week, I think).

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Here is just the China Glaze and LA Splash layering, pre-art and pre-chopped. I had planned on cutting/filing them down immediately, but Hubby liked them this long, so I painted and wore them for a day. Hey, it WAS Valentine's Day, after all! LOL
Anyway, I really loved the hearts, even if I only got a couple, but the sparkle was definitely the main attraction. It may not look it from my photos, but the bling factor was out of this world! And it actually flashed green as much as gold. If you passed on this LA Splash collection last year, but now NEED this polish (everyone does!), they're still available at Cherry Culture.

Vault 106: Insane Neon Glitter!

Okay, so picture in your head mac n' cheese powdered cheese. Got it? Good. That's the exact color of the this Hot Topic polish:

Hot Topic Marigold. 4 coats. Eye-popping light orange neon. I should have put this over white, because 4 coats is always excessive to me - and, look! you can still see VNL! And do I need to mention the horrible mop that Hot Topic calls a brush? Yeesh. Too bad the bottles are so cute. This is not a unique color, so you can skip it in favor of one with better application.
This is shown with top coat, because it does dry matte, like all neons. I liked it matte, but after the fourth coat, it started to bubble - so I panicked and threw on Seche Vite, which does seem to cure bubbles handily. (I'm finally starting to get along okay with SV, learning its quirks and stuff. See, there's no shrinkage this time!)
So, what do you do when you have VNL, but you know another coat won't build up? Go for the bling, of course!

Sinful UFO. 2 coats. Sheer orange jelly with huge bling factor! Nice. It does bring the neon glow down a notch, but WOW. I loved this! So HAWT! I think this is what UFO was made for - these two together should have been one polish! I'll be doing this combo again this summer, for sure.

Here's a bonus sun pic, because it almost makes me look tan. LOL.

Vault 106: Nyx Sparklies

FYI, Vault 106 is a gamer reference; if you're not a gamer, you could probably Google it (from Fallout 3, if your curiosity is running rampant. Thanks, Toxin, for the idea!). Suffice to say, it fits, so that's what I'm calling my photo folder with manis that I didn't get around to posting when I was wearing them. You'll probably notice all different nail lengths and shapes when I pull from the Vault.
Anyway, let's get on to the pictures:

Ta-da! This would be a great, simple mani for a sporting event. In fact, I wore it for a Superbowl party, even though it was neither team's colors - my Wisconsin roots are showing, perhaps! LOL.

Nyx Juliana. 2 coats over white. Bright yellow jelly with opalescent glitter. I tried this on it's own, but it's way too sheer for my comfort level. Besides looking a little sickly and jaundiced - it really needed the white to retain the pretty bottle color.

Nyx Lime Sparkle. 2 coats over white. Lime green jelly with copious gold glitter. This didn't need the white quite as badly as Juliana did. I think three coats on its own would have been good, but I put the two together and wanted to be consistent. Look at that glow!

A little side story about these polishes, just so y'all can say "Awwww". My DH went on a business trip to New York, and had a little time to shop - so what does he shop for? Nail polish for me! Isn't that sweet? These were two of the colors he picked up. It was so cute - I get a phone call that started something like this: "Hi, Honey! I'm in this neat little drugstore, and they have Nyx polishes. Are there any of those that you want?" Hmm, how to answer that... ☺ I mentioned a couple, and guess what? They were already in his hot little hands! Did I mention that he has good taste? What a great guy!