Kickin' it with Mary, Susan & JENsations...

Glittering end to a perfect day! ( Me in pink, Susan in orange and Mary in silver)

"I can't remember the last time I had my nails painted!" ( And she's a natural hand model to boot!)

"Orange is my favorite color!" ( And she rocks it with style...)

JENsation's Happy Birthday- a cacophony of multi hex and bar glitter in orange, blue, silver, pink, red and green

JENsation's Diamonds are Forever- elegant silver and holographic hex and diamond shaped glitters

As I said in my last post, I was waiting for a shipment of polish from Etsy. JENsation's fabulous creations did not disappoint! They are chock full of color and texture and easy to use. 

I had my dear friends, Mary and Susan, come over yesterday and told them they were going to be victims... err.... models for my blog. 

I have to say, for two manis knocked out in 15 minutes total, they didn't look bad at all.

First up, Mary... I had a bit of fun with texture juxtaposition on this one. Using the following:

Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear 460 Wet Cement (cool grey creme)
Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear 013 Celeb City (silver metallic)
JENsations Diamonds Are Forever
Sephora by OPI Matte Top Coat

I painted the entire surface of all her nails with Celeb City, two coats. ( Note: This is a great one coat color if you need to throw something on and get out the door fast. ) On the pinky and ring fingers, I did a french with Wet Cement, while on the other three I did a coat of Diamonds are Forever. To push it to the next level I added a coat of matte top coat to the French manicured nails.

On Susan, I went a bit more basic, but super fun and vibrant non-the-less. Using the following:

Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear 150 Sun Kissed ( mango orange creme)
JENsations Happy Birthday
Sephora by OPI Matte Top Coat

I have to say I was kind of surprised with the effect of matte on Sun Kissed. It looks like a rubber finish very similar to Illamasqua's new releases. It is very different than when I used the top coat on Revlon's Fashionista ( so cool) or Essie's Turquoise & Caicos ( an awesome summer night go-to). Those colors truly matted. 

So, back to Jen's amazing nail polishes. I am so loving Happy Birthday. It's kind of like the love child of OPI's Rainbow Connection and Lynnderella's Kabbalah Bracelet ( minus any "intentionally bleeding glitter"). You can layer this as thick or thin as you want and there is a ton of depth in the color and variation.

Diamonds Are Forever is f'awesome! I am excitingly anticipating all things Bond ( especially the OPI Skyfall collection) this fall and this definitely is holding me over. The holographic glitter is amazing and applies on the nail with out needed to coax the larger pieces out of the bottle- super important.

Other items of note, Jen's prices are fair and her shipping was super fast. Keep up the awesome work!

Much love to my girls for supporting me in this. They will be making more guest appearances, since I am still rocking the never ending gel manicure...

UPDATE: In my rush to get this post up I totally forgot to add Jen's Etsy shop link. http://www.etsy.com/shop/JENsations Stop what you are doing, go now, get out your credit card and buy- you know it's good for you!

The first of many... (DVA's C8)

After admiring so many other blogs, I figured why not try my hand at it. ( Ha, ha.) The above manicure is somewhat of a bold departure for me. It's been about seven years, since pink graced these nails. I picked out my pedi color first ( OPI's Meep Meep Meep with a top coat of Nicole's Rainbow in the S-Kylie- to be shown in a later post) and wanted something in gel form to coordinate. I ended up with DVA's C8. I am pretty sure this is the first blog swatch of this color. It is a fun glitter, super pigmented, and this is only two coats. During my vacation to Florida in July, I wore DVA's C10 for 19 days straight! No chips! ( For color reference- kissing cousin to OPI's Swimsuit. Nailed it!)

I look forward to future posts where I can wax poetic about matte top coats and glitter gradients. Also, I have my first indie polishes coming in from Etsy. I am super excited to use them and of course to share them with you.

( I am also a jewelry junkie, so for those who were wondering what I am wearing in the picture here it goes: Alex & Ani textured hematite bangles and Stella & Dot Tribute bracelet)