Happy First Birthday, Polishology!

  To celebrate my blog-o-versary/ the first birthday of Polishology, I did a fun celebration manicure!  I had a lot of different ideas for celebration manicures, but in the end I really like what I came up with!

  For this manicure, I started off with two coats of Zoya Areej, a gorgeous medium pink creme.  I added white swirls using Konad Special White polish and plate m63.  I then added one coat of Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Cherry Punch, a really pretty reddish pink with silver holographic round and bar glitter.  Finally, I added cupcakes using BM14 and Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Brisk Blue and Konad Special White.  For the finishing touch, I added a cherry on top using red rhinestones!

Fuzzy artificial light pic for holo glitter effect!

  I really love how these turned out.  A wonderful way to celebrate Polishology turning one!  I still can't believe it has been a whole year.  Come back Friday to see how things have changed in the past year - including never-before-seen first konadicures! :)

Christmas Roses

  Tonight I wanted to share with you all two different manicures based on the same theme - white roses on red nails.  I find this to be a very classy combo, as well as very festive for the holidays!

Outdoors, shade

   The first manicure I did based on this theme was on my Mom's nails, for another Christmas party that she and my Dad attended.  For her nails, I started off with two coats of OPI Affair in Red Square, followed by roses from Konad plate m65 and Konad Special White polish.  This is one of my favorite red polishes (if not my absolute favorite red).  I am not a huge red person in general, but I love this one!  Great application and coverage. The red on white contrast on these nails is really nice.  This looked great with the red shirt she wore to the party!

Outdoors, shade

 The second manicure was one I did on my own nails just a few days ago, using a polish I got as a Christmas gift from my lab's Secret Santa exchange.  This is three coats of China Glaze Mrs. Claus, which is a reddish pink with lots of pink and silver glitter.  While this isn't a true red (and in certain lights looks very pink), it is still a gorgeous holiday color!  I love all the glitter as well.  Two coats was almost enough here, but three covered up any VNL.  Dry time was very quick, so this definitely made up for the three-coater.  It was also just a tad bumpy but the top coat took care of that.

Outdoors, full sun

   I added a rose to the ring finger using Bundle Monster BM14 and Konad Special White.  There was a little spot on my plate that doesn't pick up polish (you can see it near the bottom of the rose) - is this common for the BM plates?  At any rate, I really loved this polish and enjoyed wearing this!

Christmas French Manicure

  One of the suggestions I got from the giveaway was to do a holiday french manicure, using bright colors.  I thought this sounded like a really fun idea!

Outdoors, shade, no flash

  For these nails, I started off with one thin coat of OPI Glitzerland, just to give a nice touchof that sparkly champagne color to the nail.  After letting that dry, I applied tip liner stickers and used alternating red (OPI Affair in Red Square) and green (China Glaze Paper Chasing) to apply the tip colors.  I used two coats of each of these to get full coverage.  Finally, to give it a final Christmas look, I added holly bundles from bundle monster plate BM14.  I topped it all off with a coat of Seche Vite!

 For the most part I really liked this mani, although I kind of wonder if it was maybe... too much?  It is definitely very festive, but I am not sure whether it crosses the line or not.  I would say about 90% of the time wearing it I really liked it, the rest of the time I was not so sure.  What do you think - bright holiday tips, a french do or don't?  :)