April Charity Polish

The April Charity Polish is now available at spellboundnails.com in both full size and mini bottles!!

Racing Into Our Hearts is a butterscotch colored holographic polish with midnight flakies inspired by the stunning beauty of the brindle greyhounds. A portion of every sale will be donated to Allies for Greyhounds in honor of April being National Greyhound Adoption Month.

*I apologize but my nails are in such bad shape right now! Not even my faithful Biotin can stop them from breaking so these pictures were taken while wearing fake nails. That said, I'm not all together displeased with them ... a little better sizing and some more shaping and you might be seeing fakes on me more often. They certainly make fore some pretty pictures. :)

Disney Challenge: Tangled

Hey everyone! Sorry for dropping off the face of the Earth. My slight cold turned into a full blown cold and has me still sniffling, sneezing, and coughing. In an effort not to fall behind in the Disney Challenge, I've decided to skip The Lion King and simply come back to it at the end of this challenge. I've also decided to keep today's mani for Tangled very simple.

Like I said, I kept today's nails very simple. One of my favorite parts of the Tangled movie was when Rapunzel finally saw the lanterns in person. The absolute awe and amazement on her face is priceless. So I tried to recreate what she saw. I used Revlon Enchanted, Rimmel I Lilac You, Petites Color Fever Periwinkle and China Glaze First Mate for the night sky background. Then I used a very small piece of sponge to dab on some of the flakies from Essie Shine of the Times. I think these flakies create the perfect lanterns!!

For those of you who haven't seen the movie, this is the scene I attempted to recreate. :)

Up next in the Disney Challenge: 101 Dalmatians! I already have this one sketched up. :)

Up next on the blog is another mani for the Time Periods Challenge. This one Imperial China. I'm stumped on this one. :(

Goodbye April. Hello May!

O is for ...

This one took a lot of thought and still feels a bit like a cop out. With Christmas on the brain and O being the letter of the week in the ABC Challenge I knew more than a few of my fellow challengers were likely to do ornaments. I strive to be different in this challenge—to think outside the box. However, what else was there for O that still fit into my holiday themed posts?

O is for Oh Christmas Tree.

Shade

I used OPI Tickle My France-y as the base. This was my first time using this color and I'm left wondering why I never used it before. It is so beautiful!! On top of this color I used my brand new bottle (bought on Amazon with a gift card from Swagbucks.com) of Essie Shine of the Times. Can I say wow? These two colors are amazing together! They create a very elegant and glamorous look. I will say Shine of the Times looks best (in my opinion) in the shade. It's the reason for such a dimly lit picture.

From there I used two pieces of tape to create a triangle on my ring nail, filled that in with China Glaze Winter Holly and topped it with a red star dug out of Wet n Wild Fergie Hollywood Walk of Fame.

A Week of Glitter: A Pop of White

Welcome to day 2 of 'A Week of Glitter'. This one is A Pop of White.

Draw attention to yourself and your nails with a base of white. Then, wow them with glitter.

I don't think I managed to wow anyone with this glitter however. As you can see from the pictures the purple glitter is Glitter Addict by LA Girl in Eutopia. I also added a few flakes of Luxe and Lush from the China Glaze Capitol Colours Collection, nearly unseen in this mani and only then if you know what you're looking for.

I'm sure if I tried this mani again I would add much more glitter, probably using more than one shade of glitter as well. The theory is sound though. Attract attention with white nails and then hit them with glitter!

The Luxe and Lush of Pink

Finally, we come to the end of the polishes I own from the Hunger Games collection. This last one was the hardest to find. I scoured the local shops and finally had to give in and order it online, paying the extra for shipping. Thankfully, I had a loyalty card and got an extra discount in conjunction with the already low price. In all, even with the discounts and sale prices, I paid the full price for this polish but it is so worth it.

This glitter does not picture to its full potential. I tried everything! Direct sunlight, indirect sunlight, shade, artificial light. My eyes saw the awesomeness of this flakie but my camera lens saw something completely different. It frustrates me to no end when this happens.


However, if you want to see at least some of the true potential of Luxe and Lush I recommend heading over to The PolishAholic's post: China Glaze Luxe and Lush

The flakies are in a very thick base. This makes it slightly hard to control where and how thick the glitter goes on. This is my first flakie polish so I'm not sure how this measures up to other flakie polishes. The flakes themselves flash many colors. I've seen green, blue, gold, pink, and a purple color at some angles. My favorite is the way the pink and gold flashes sometimes mix and create a perfect creamy peach or even a light salmon color. It makes this polish look expensive and ethereal. I can definitely see how Luxe and Lush relates to District 1, the district of luxury.


It was these peach/salmon flashes that made me choose to layer Luxe and Lush over a pink base color. And though the pictures don't show it too well, I think it was a really good choice.

I also want to mention how well Luxe and Lush removed. It was so easy to get this glitter off my nails. It took a bit longer than removing a few layers of simple nail polish but was nowhere near the ultimate hassle of removing glitter. Most of the flakies just sloughed right off and those that didn't came off with a few extra swipes. After that, my pink base polish was super easy to remove.


Polish Used

• Borghese - Brilliante
• Sinful Colors - Beautiful Girl
• China Glaze - Luxe and Lush
• Sally Hansen - Insta-Dri