NOTD - Flaky Sandwich

Glitter/jelly sandwiches are something I've been wanting to try for a while, ever since I saw the trend start popping up amongst other nail blogs. If you are not familiar with this term, it means a layer of a jelly (sheer) polish, a layer of glitter, and then another layer of the jelly polish. It creates a really cool effect, and makes the glitter less blingy, which is a little more my style.

I've seen a ton of glitter/jelly sandwiches using nice bright colors, but it's still winter so I wanted to do something more subdued. I have this really cool Ulta brand polish called Lav-ish, which is a murky, muted sheer lavender with a fine bit of gold shimmer to it. I did two coats of Lav-ish, and then decided to amp up the gold shimmer factor by doing a layer of Essie As Gold As It Gets, a gold flake in a clear base. Then another layer of Lav-ish on top of that to finish it up.

I love AGAIG straight-up layered over another polish, but adding a sheer wash of that murky lavender over the top really made it something different and interesting. What do you think of this combo? Would you try a flaky/glitter/jelly sandwich like this?

NOTD - Coral and Gold

We had some weird weather in Chicago this weekend. On Friday, we had our first major snowfall this winter. I think it was about 8 inches by the end of the night. Then, last night, we had a rain and thunderstorm. Whaaaa? This morning, almost all the snow was melted, leaving huge gross muddy puddles, and the sky was gray and misty. Gloom and doom all the way. I needed something to remind me that we are on the other side of the winter solstice and spring WILL be here soon, darn it!

Flash - It's not really this pink

I thought that OPI I Eat Mainely Lobster, a bright coral with subtle gold shimmer, would look gorgeous layered with Essie As Gold as it Gets, a gold flaky topcoat. I was slightly disappointed the first time I ever wore Lobster because the gold shimmer didn't really translate onto the nail, but with a coat of As Gold as it Gets over the top, it becomes everything I ever wanted it to be!

I had a hard time photographing this polish! Under the flash, it came out looking pure pink, and you couldn't really see the gold flakies. In artificial light, it looks closer to its true color, although it's brighter than it looks in the photo. I'll have to try it outside tomorrow, if we have any sun. Pleeeease let there be sun tomorrow!!

On a side note, I just realized that twice in the past few days, I've layered an Essie luxe effect over an OPI polish. I guess they make a good team :)

Artificial light - This is more true to color

NOTD - Sunrise at Sea

Just a quick NOTD - I call this one Sunrise at Sea because it reminds me of orange sunlight reflecting off calm waves on the beach in the morning :) I started off with two coats of OPI Stranger Tides from the Spring 2011 Pirates of the Caribbean collection. I absolutely love this polish - it's a very unusual, yet soft and gorgeous, murky sea foam green. I layered one coat of Essie Shine of the Times, an orange-green shifting flakie, over the top. I did not start getting into nail polish until after the original Sally Hansen Hidden Treasure was officially HTF, so I was over the moon when this Essie dupe came out. I prefer it over pastel colors such as this because I think it brings a softer, more ethereal look to the flakies, as opposed to the harsher color shift I see when it is layered over dark colors.

I love this mani! Have you snatched up this Essie polish yet? What is your favorite color to layer under it?

NOTD - Orly Fowl Play

I was loving my NOTD from yesterday, but for some reason the finish looked so dull already today that it was bothering me and I had to take it off. I have to fulfill another request - from my boyfriend, who wanted purple.

Flash

Purple is probably the color that I have the most of in my nail polish collection, so it was a little hard to decide which one I was going to do. Would it be dark purple? light purple? bright? muted? I finally landed on Orly Fowl Play, which I searched several Ultas for and finally snagged, only to wear once since then. It's a really awesome polish that I need to wear more often! It's a dark royal purple jelly with holographic flakie glitter in, as well as some silver shimmer. This polish builds up to opacity after two coats.

This polish is seriously one-of-a-kind. As soon as the first coat went on, I felt like my nails were becoming a work of art. The flakes shift from orange to green in the light. Against the shimmery dark purple base, it looks like a galaxy. It's one of the few Orly polishes I own, but I highly recommend you pick this up if you still can!

Artificial light to show the flakie color shift