Riveting and Charla- glass fleck amazingness

I am the proud owner of the entire Hunger Games polish collection and hadn't used a single one of them until this mani! For some reason I was feeling like orange and teal so out came China Glaze Riveting and Zoya Charla. All I can say is what an amazing combo! I need more glass flecks like these in my collection (aka hoard!) The best part is these are both one-coaters! Also, my elusive right hand AND the sun make an appearance! Enjoy!

52 week challenge week 2, French mani

Week 2 challenge is French mani. Now I'm not normally a big fan of French tips but I saw this on Copy That, Copycat and decided that this was French I could do. Well, it turns out I'm not so good at French manicures and really I just sort of half-a$$ed it after I realized that. I started off with Julep's base coat followed by a coat of Nail Envy. I then covered the yellow of my nails with Zoya Bela. For the tips I started off with Zoya Charla then dabbed Sally Hansen The Real Teal followed by Wet n Wild Blue Wants to be A Millionaire. It was pretty but not very mermaidy. It was also at this point I realized this is NOT nail art I'm good at so I said meh and finished. I used my Bundle Monster plate with Orly Silver polish for the scales. Topped it all off with ProFX Quick Dry Top Coat (which deserves its own post) and there we have it. Quite possibly the sloppiest french anyone has ever seen!
Til next week!
Loves!

How it all got started

Let's begin at the beginning (I have always hated this, where else would you begin?). As a little girl I sometimes painted my nails. In high school in the mid 90s I found some unusual colors at Claire's. I'm talking a lavender, dark green, navy blue. I had only once seen colors out of the pink/red/nude spectrum before and that was on my older neighbor in the 80's. I grabbed these new colors up and proudly sported my crazy nails. They got tons of comments, especially the green. Then on a college scouting road trip my dad slammed the trunk of the car and shattered two of my bottles. It was devastating.
Flash forward about 12 years. My polish collection was minimal but I still was mostly keen on the non-traditional colors. I was a bridesmaid in my best friends wedding and she paid for the bridesmaids to get manis and pedis. The salon had an OPI the likes of which I'd never seen before. It was a light lavender with a holographic sparkle. I fell in love and scoured eBay for it. Of course I didn't think to write down the name so I ended up buying about 10 bottles of different shades of lavender violet and purple from eBay until the ONE, the precious, showed up in my mailbox. It was Sand-erella and it quickly became my favorite polish.
About January 2010 I discovered Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure polishes and loved them! They actually stayed put on my nails! I have about 30 of these now and they are amazing!
The downfall of my habit was when I discovered nail polish blogs! What? Are you kidding me that people actually get lacquers to review from the companies? And there are so many brands I didn't know about but suddenly needed? How do I get in on this? Well, here I am.
I need to find a good spot and time to snap photos of my nails, I redo them every three days or so. Part of the problem is I work graveyard so I tend to sleep through most of the sunlight daily. I promise to start posting more pics soon. Until then, make do with today's nails, Zoya Venus topped with Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Strobe Light. As you can see, I'm still fascinated with the holographic glitter! (please excuse the cell phone pic!)
Loves!