Guest Valentine Blogger- Fabulista

I mentioned that one of my friends was inspired for a Valentine's day manicure in her dreams.  Well here she is in her Castinails debut, miss Fabulista!

Fabulista created this look by starting with Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear White On.  I saw her while she was wearing this polish on its own, and it looked stunning.  For V-day she added a French tip in Sinful Colors Pink Forever and topped it off with Nicole by OPI S2TBOM<3.

Great job miss Fabulista!

Kiss From My Shattered Black Heart

So I was serious when I said I wanted to do Valentine's Day heart manis all week.  After being frustrated this morning by nose-picking students who don't pay me, I'm in a don't-effing-mess-with-me mood.  OPI Black Shatter called to me, and I wanted to pair it with something strong to counterbalance the frivolity of the Bieber hearts.  Deborah Lippmann Kiss From A Rose is my favorite empowering merlot so I decided on two coats of that topped with Black Shatter and then S2TBOM<3.

Deborah Lippmann Kiss From a Rose, OPI Black Shatter, Nicole by OPI Step 2 The Beat Of My <3

Deborah Lippmann Kiss From a Rose, OPI Black Shatter, Nicole by OPI Step 2 The Beat Of My <3

 Since this is the beginning of my foray into swatching my left hand, I tried:

 A Useful Trick From Ji Baek, owner of Rescue Beauty Lounge.  

• First Prep nails and apply base coat as usual.
• From then on out, isolate each hand.  Paint left hand, let dry.
• Paint right hand, let dry.

This way there's less danger of smudging, and I could use my unpainted right hand to tidy up my swatching hand.

All in all I liked Kiss From A Rose best with just the shatter.  But for one day I can wear this.  Another exciting manicure in the works for tomorrow!

OPI Pirates of the Caribbean for Spring 2011

Ahoy mateys!  To go along with the new movie Pirates of the Caribbean On Stranger Tides, OPI is releasing a collection of the same name.  The collection will consist of six dusty spring pastels and a silver crackle polish.  Shiver me timbers!  Let's take a look:

Silver Shatter top coat:

Mermaid's Tears:

Stranger Tides:

Planks A Lot:

Sparrow Me The Drama:

Skull and Glossbones:

Steady As She Rose:

Photo credit: The Beauty Bite 

Wow!  These all look beautiful.  With the exception of Stranger Tides, none of them really scream "Pirate!" to me.  But I love the Eastery hues and am especially excited for:

• Mermaid's Tears- shades of jade always look so fresh and unique
• Steady as She Rose- looks like a wonderfully delicate, sophisticated pink creme
• Skull and Glossbones- GAH!  I bet this pale taupe is going to be stunning

Which ones call out to you?

OPI says this collection will be available in May.  You can buy OPI polishes from ULTA.

Step 2 The Beat Of My Paradoxal Heart

Happy Valentine's Day!  When my good friend shared a dream she had about a manicure with hearts on it, I told her about Step 2 the beat of my <3, one of the new Justin Bieber polishes from Nicole by OPI.  She indeed caught the Bieber fever and rushed out to buy it, and it was too cute for me to pass up so I ended up buying it too!  Step 2 the beat of my <3 has multicolored regular glitter and pink and purple heart glitter in a clear base.  It a HUGE pain to get the hearts onto the brush.  It took a lot of time fishing for me to get even just a couple on my nails, but the effect was worth it.  I layered one coat of Step 2 the beat of my <3 over two coats of Chanel Paradoxal and topped it with seche vite to make sure the hearts didn't go anywhere after a couple of days.  I LOVE the way this turned out.  Paradoxal looks gorgeous as always and the pink hearts and flashy glitter are the perfect girly romantic touch.

In these swatches you'll see that I had a rather unfortunate incident with my right hand.  I decided to go a week without wearing polish and two terrible things happened:  I got really sick, and I broke two nails.  When my nails split and peel I can't help biting them, and now my right middle finger looks horribly maimed.  I didn't have the heart to file all my nails down to that length, so I think my left hand will take over as my swatching hand for the time being.

S2TBOM<3, one coat over Chanel Paradoxal

 My left hand in its Castinails debut!

S2TBOM<3, one coat over Chanel Paradoxal

 Heres a closeup in sunlight.  Look at the holo effect on the hearts!  Love it.

S2TBOM<3, one coat over Chanel Paradoxal, direct sunlight

 My original idea was to layer S2TBOM<3 over a silver foil.  I think I may do that later this week and put up swatches.  I'm so in love with this polish I plan on wearing V-day manicures all week!

What color would you layer this over?  And more importantly, have you caught Bieber Fever?

OPI Teenage Dream

OPI released a recent collection of polishes in collaboration with singer and nail icon Katy Perry.  From the collection I decided to buy Teenage Dream, a bubblegum pink with holographic glitter.  It was love at first site!  I used three coats of teenage dream and my nails look like they've been coated with a teenage girl's birthday cupcake sprinkles.  The shimmer on the glitter is fantastic, in the sun it's mesmerizing.

OPI Teenage Dream, three coats

Glitter polishes like this are pretty much fool-proof.  If you're in the market for something along these lines I highly recommend running out to ULTA and picking up a bottle.  And it's also great on toes!  Overall I think it perfectly captures the essence of its namesake and I foresee wearing it...all the time.