Shatter Polish Love!

Okay, I have a selection of shatter/crackle polishes.  One of my last posts was with a crackle polish.  But in reality, I have not really liked these since day 1.  The first two I bought were actually Christmas presents for my 11 year old and I was not impressed.  Fun, but there's a lot more interesting things to do that I can control more.  But my birthday was this weekend, and one of the things we did was use deals I had for a lot of beauty places.  I had a $10 of $20 for Sally's so that was our first stop where I found the last few China Glaze Hunger Games polishes I didn't have and a bunch of CG Shatters all clearanced for $0.99!  Up until now, all my cracking polishes were creams and I've bypassed others I've come across since I hadn't been excited by them.  But these intrigued me.  I was curious how they would really come out, would you really be able to see the cracking?  I was wondering if I was just wasting my birthday deal on polishes I would hate though.

The next day, I was very short for time.  I only had enough time for a color change.  No time for art or even proper manicuring (hence my awful cuticles!), heck I didn't get to do any clean up until today, thank goodness the restaurant we went to was dark!  So I didn't have time for much, and I had just spent way too much time on my make-up.  I matched my outfit to my make-up and decided I wanted my nails to match too!  I had green eyes and pants and pink lips and shirt.

I went with Revlon Sassy (this one shows up a lot in my manis, I am a sucker for this kind of green) underneath and China Glaze Glam-More for the shatter coat.  Turns out it works really well!  AND it's a great thing for some interest when there's not enough time for actual art!  I love this way more than the cream crackles I have.  The only downer is that the glitter sucks up top coat like crazy, this is two thick coats of SV and it probably need 2 more. I have read about using a ridge filling base or Gelous between the glitter and top coat, I really need to remember to try that since Gelous is the base I use.  But otherwise, I was really happy with the glitter load, the shatter, and the sparkle!  YAY!!!  I wish I had been able to get a picture of my whole look, but I forgot.  Bummer.

Do you have a favorite quick "cheat" for nail art when you don't have time?

Water Marble!

I really, REALLY tried to put this technique off until my nails were a bit longer, but I just have no patience.  This was so much fun, there was very little learning curve to it, and it really didn't take that long for the results that come out of it.  I had originally planned to just do it on accent nails, but it was too fun and easy, I'd do two, top coat it, and within an hour, I was doing another pair of fingers!  I ended up with a full mani that's impressed everyone.

I started with a base coat of Gelous, 2 coats of Sinful Colors 24/7, and 2 coats of Seche Vite.  I know, we've started this off with a lot of polish already!  I probably could have just used one coat of the 24/7 since it's just underwear, but the 2 coats of SV is really necessary because if you get a bad marble, you can use your clean-up brush and some acetone to brush off the marble without bringing the underwear with and then slap on more SV and save starting over from scratch!  Since I had this happen 3 times (I was trying for a certain design, otherwise this has a much higher success rate), it seems to have been a good plan.  I topped the marbling with at least 4 coats of SV.  This is good and bad as you'll see later.

Sorry about the weird color balance, these pigments are very hard to correct for, the nails are pretty true to life, my hands are not that color ;P

     

Sinful Colors 24/7 and Dream On, China Glaze Riveting, NK Really White, LA Colors Black Velvet

I think Riveting has become a serious favorite of mine. Can you see on the middle finger of the picture on the right how it's swirled over the black?  AMAZING!  I'm going to have to stock up on it since it's already hit the clearance racks and will be HTF soon!

This is the best home mani I have ever had!  Here's how my left hand looks 6 days later.

Overall standings:  Day 3 one finger's full plate of polish popped off, I saved it and re-glued it once I returned home (ring finger in this picture, looks the same as the day I put it on, that white at the edge is polish, not chipping);  Day 5 another polish plate fell off, I re-glued it (pointer finger in this picture, my aim was off, it's glue too far back so you can see some exposed nail at the tip, oops);  Day 5 a not so small, but not huge chip on my right thumb, not very noticeable though, I can live with it;  Day 5 same thumb polish plate popped off, re-glued it and it looks just as good as new except that chip.

As you can see, Day 5 seems to be hitting the limit, but I'm going to try to wear them through Friday to show off at a gathering I go to on Fridays, that will mean over a week with the same polish!  AMA-ZING!  That pop off on Day 3 was my nail snagging and ripping at something, frankly I think the polish saved my nail from breaking, so not too shabby.  The thickness caused by all the polish plus my excessive coats of SV creates a lot of strength and depth which I like, but it's a catch 22.  The thickness saved my nail plus allowed the "plates" to pop off in a repairable way instead of chipping or peeling, but it may have also led to them popping off in the first place, maybe they wouldn't have popped off if I didn't put so many layers on?

One thing I noticed and am really frustrated by:  When the nails came off, I got to see what my nail plate looks like after nearly a week with the same polish on, and they're quite stained.  24/7 isn't all that well pigmented, obviously while Gelous is providing the strength I need to grow my nails out, it's not protecting the plate from staining.  I'm working hard at staying well-hydrated to prevent as much as I can, but what's your favorite base coat?  Does it do a good job at preventing stains?