I recently ordered this purple scattered holo… and now my L.A. Girl collection is complete! Buauuuahahahaaa!
I know I’ve posted about these L.A. Girl holos a gazillion times (well maybe not a whole gazillion)… but this 3D Effects collection is great! I had every color except this one. It’s called Purple Effect but I recently picked it up from Cherry Culture. 🙂 Isn’t it beautiful??
Nail polish like this makes me forget about nail art. Who needs it? I got purple magic on my nails!
I recently received the 6 piece Zoya Zenith collection from nailpolishcanada.com. One of the clear winners of the bunch is the scattered dark blue scattered holo called Dream. It’s stunning, but yet it kind of reminds me of another polish that I’ve had for about a year now. Could Zoya Dream be a dupe of last year’s L.A. Girl Brilliant Blue (old swatch found here)? Let’s look!
indoor lighting
Can you tell the difference? Honestly, I cannot. I asked my boyfriend (he has a trained artist’s eye) and he thought that Zoya looked more green in the bottle, while the L.A. Girl looked more purple. But once I got them on the nail I could not tell them apart. He agreed.
I’m wearing no base coat, two coats of blue, and no topcoat. I’ve seen other bloggers say they needed three coats of Zoya Dream, but I definitely only needed two. Same with the L.A. Girl-two coats does the trick. The formulas on both are very similar, but if I had to pick my favorite I’d choose the L.A. Girl. But I’m partial to bigger brushes, so I found application easier with that one.
outdoors in natural light
If you’re interested, Dream can be found here on the Zoya website. Meanwhile, the old L.A. Girl 3D Effects collection is still available at cherryculture.com. Cherry Culture has low prices on these and China Glaze. Their shipping is a lil bit of a mystery though since I don’t think they emailed me when my order was on it’s way. But I’ve placed some big orders and they are always accurate, timely, and are packed up really well. So just have faith. Check it out! They have a coupon code (JTV14) for 20% off your entire cherry culture order through Feb 6 2014. Brilliant Blue is on sale right now too so after the discount code it’s only $1.92 ! I’m tempted to buy a back-up bottle of the Black Illusion since I love it so much! Feb 6th is almost here so hurry up.. and happy shopping!
UPDATE on Feb 6th, 2014— I just bought more L.A. Girls online woot woot ! Ground shipping within the U.S. was $6.85… but be aware that international shipping is pricey on cherryculture.com!
I just read online that if you are over 40 then it’s recommended to get your breasts checked every year. If you are under age 40 then you need to get them checked every 3 yrs. This is typically something that your gyno can do quickly when you have a pap exam. Or you can always ask your general doc if you’re getting a regular physical. It’s also recommended to do self checks in between. I was gonna include a nice pictoral of how to do a self breast exam… but the pics had too many nips and I have to keep this G rated. Instead, here’s a link to a really informative video: Breast Self Exam.
We probably all know that the best detection is available via mammogram. Not sure how it works in other countries, but in the U.S. mammograms are typically only available if you 1) have insurance or are a zillionaire and can pay out of pocket and 2) are over 40 yrs of age. I heard that they’re trying to change it to 50 yrs too! So if we’re under that ‘mammogram age’ then it sounds like we gotta look out for ourselves! Better check out that video right now!
Oh yeah, I’ve also painted my nails….
To make my awareness ribbon I free-hand painted the shape in black nail polish. While the black was still tacky I carefully positioned some loose glitter on top. It’s not hard to position glitter- you simply dab a toothpick or dotting tool in a teeny amount of clear polish. That makes it sticky so you can use it to pick up and then place your glitter. (I used craft glitter that I got at walmart.) The glitter looks great against the silver… I love the disco-ball effect! Oh, I also put one coat of seche vite on top which worked really well to lock down and smooth out my glitter. Do I neglect to mention topcoat in a lot of my posts? If so, you should know that I use seche 99.9999% of the time. 🙂
You should do a pink breast cancer awareness mani too! You have the whole month of October to submit for Nail Art Ideas Linkup. Here are the links to the other Breast Cancer Awareness Manicures:
My Craftynail blog is about to have it’s one year blogiversary! This year went by so fast!! I’ve done over 200 nail posts and have enjoyed every minute of it! I only wished I started blogging earlier.
To celebrate my one year mile mark of being crafty- I’m having an international giveaway! I’ve got two different prizes, one for my readers in the United States, and one for my international gals (outside the USA). If you follow me on facebook, pinterest, twitter or bloglovin you can win free chances at a cool prize! Just click one of the raffle links at the bottom of my post to enter.
United States Prize– A collection of five L.A. Girl 3D Effects Hologram Nail Polishes!! If you read my blog regularly you may have noticed that I use these polishes A LOT. Like A LOT, a lot. They are the bomb, and I hope you win them so you can fall in love too! Here are the five shades I’m giving away: Sparkle Ruby, Purple Effect, 3D Silver, Teal Dimension, and Dazzling Pink.
International Prize (Outside the U.S.)– A fun collection of nail art things that do not have lacquer in them (for shipping reasons, of course). I’ve got a Konad stamper and scraper, two Konad plates (M63 and M57), a Sephora Perfect Manicure Nail Protector, Essie Sleek Stick Nail Strips in a design called ‘Stickers and Stones’, an OPI Cosmetic Bag, and some L.A. Colors 3D nail stickers.
The winners will be selected on the day my blog turns 1 year old which is Oct 11, 2013. The winners will be notified via email and will need to respond within 72 hrs or new winners will be selected. Good luck!!
Please do not enter BOTH raffles, you’ll only qualify to be in one of them based on where you live (US vs. outside the US). I will verify all raffle entries and will delete any cheats. Fair is fair! Thank you and best of luck!
The final week of August’s Nail Art Ideas Linkup (NAIL) challenge is A GREAT READ. If you’d like to do a manicure for this theme here’s more info and you can submit your design up until Sept. 1st! Oh, and did you vote for last week’s NAIL Genius yet? Everyone gets three votes! Cast yours now!
A Great Read? Well, my most recent favorite book is from the Hunger Games trilogy. It’s book #2 called Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins. It usually takes me a few months to finish a book. But not this one- I whipped right through it (just like with the Hunger Games)! After I finished book 2 I started book 3, but I stopped. Duh, right?! I dunno, sometimes I like to wait to read a book ’til RIGHT before I see the movie. It’s fun to have it fresh in my head when I go to the theater. But that’s kinda dumb- I should go read Mockingjay like right now!!!!
I started this manicure the night before by preparing DIY nail stickers. I’ve never made my own decals before- but I’ve been itching to try them and they’re perfect for a night when you wanna play with nail art but don’t wanna do an entire manicure from start to finish! It turns out that these DIY nail decals were a lot of fun and they applied so much better than I expected! Here’s how I did it…
I taped a plastic snack baggie to a heavy piece of cardstock so the bag wouldn’t move around too much. Then I painted some mockingjay emblems on the baggie using a detail brush and cheap black nail polish. I also tried gold, but that didn’t work well as you can see (there’s wiped-up gold smudges in the above picture). Anyway, when I was done painting my mockingjay symbols, then I painted over top of them with enough clear topcoat to cover the design and maybe a little extra around the corners. I let it dry overnight. The next day I was afraid they’d stick… but instead, my stickers lifted right off the baggy. They peeled right off without a hitch! Then I cut them with scissors a little bit ’til they looked like they’d fit my nails well.
Once I had my nails all clean and bare, I was ready to paint them and test out my diy stickers. I used one coat of Nail Envy and then three coats of L.A. Girl 3D Effects Nail Polish in Electric Coral. When my thumbs were still tacky I placed my stickers on top of my orange polish. Because my stickers were big they felt kinda wrinkly when I tried to wrap them around my large curved thumbnails. But after a couple minutes they seemed smoother somehow. Go figure?! Then I covered them with a coat of seche vite and they looked so nice & shiny. WIN! For my other 8 nails- I stamped a flame design using Cheeky 52 plate (it only seemed right given the name of the book- Catching Fire). I think they look wicked.
I can’t wait to try my own DIY stickers again! Weeeeeeeeeeeee!!
Check out the other manis for this theme here:
A Great Read- links open ’til Sept 1
Hi y’all! Ready for some holographic goodness for day 17?? I absolutely love my L.A. Girl 3D Effects polishes and I’ve used them 5 times already on my blog. Here comes L.A. Girl holo post # 6 for today’s GRADIENT theme!
I usually do my gradient with a small sliver of sponge and my ‘dabbing’ technique (see my technique here) because I find it clean and effective. But for today’s look I went with the standard gradient technique that I usually see online which is to apply stripes of polish on a full makeup wedge. Even though I applied glue around my nails to help with cleanup- pressing the makeup wedge onto my nails made my cuticles get covered with polish- so I’ll probably switch back to my dabbing technique next time! If you’re interested in the glue I use to help with cleanup you can view my old post here.
Here’s the polishes I used:
Orange ♥ L.A. Girl 3D Effects Electric Coral
Red ♥ L.A. Girl 3D Effects Ruby Sparkle
Black ♥ L.A. Girl 3D Effects Black Illusion
View the other participants’ GRADIENTS here:
17. Gradient :
It’s day 7 of the Oh Mon Dieu! It’s the Rather Awesome 31 Day Challenge Giveaway! Woot woot! The theme is HOLO so day 7 is all about holographic nail polish. I don’t know why, but I had the darnedest time coming up with a design on my own for this one! So I asked the boyf to pick two colors. He said blueish teal and orange- I think he said it’s Aquaman’s colors or something and he thought it would look summery? IDK. But once I had those two colors picked out then the design just kinda happened… I’m calling it a splash design. I think it came out awesome! I don’t wanna take it off! Can I please wear it a lil longer? Pretty please…..
To start off I’ve got two coats of L.A. Girl Teal Dimension. I cannot say enough good things about these la girl 3D Effects holos! I use them a lot and they are just amazing! The formula on this one was great.. nice and smooth and covered well with two coats. Then I made three orange dots on each nail using a large dotting tool and AVON Orange Creamsicle. I hope y’all don’t mind that I use the same polishes over n over again! Then I took a skinny but stiff nail art brush and dragged down lines of polish in a sweeping motion to make the splashes come to a point. I can’t believe how easy and clean they came out! I hope you like it too! It’s one of my faves designs now. Don’t be surprised if I incorporate more of these splashes into my future nail designs. They would make good flower petals too! ~Long live Aquaman!~
View the other holo nail designs here:
7. Holo :
Craftynail 