Dark Red French Tips with Red Glitter (Gradient Effect) with a small tutorial

I want to clarify something first: the integrity of this manicure and condition of my hands greatly diminished as I was taking these photos. I underestimated the drying time of the top coat before smashing my hands into my boxing gloves for my Boxing class. Since I have sensitive skin on my hands, all that punching reeked havoc on them. Please bear with me. :(

After seeing several of 'Chelle's French tip gradient manicures: here and here. I was feeling quite inspired to create my own without having to purchase any new polish! I decided to sorta make a small tutorial just in case there would be any questions as to how I did the gradient effect.

I decided to take pictures with flash and without flash because as you know, flash makes a huge difference on the actual color of the polish and the manicure as a whole.

• Dark Red French Tips (looks black): OPI's Midnight in Moscow (Swiss Collection). This is an extremely dark red color when it is in the bottle. I noticed that when I painted it on my nails, it was more of a black with red glitter in it.
• Red Glitter : Ozotic's 203 (which I got from 'Chelle from our Swap. Thanks again!). This is sheer red glitter with silver strips? or flakes? Not sure what they are called. Very pretty color though.
• Nude Glitter: Essie's Cool-Lots. I totally forgot to include this polish during the photo shoot! It is an extremely sheer nude glitter polish which I mainly use as a polish topper.

As you can see with the flash, you get a better picture of how dark the OPI Midnight in Moscow is. But with the flash, the red of the Ozotic Pro 203 is just a little too bright.

However, without the flash Midnight in Moscow looks reddish-brown and 203 is more on par with what the color really looks like.

This is just a close up of Ozotic Pro 203, you can see the little silver strips/flakes which I must say is what I love about this polish (besides the fact that it is a glitter polish). As you can see, the flash makes the red super bright!

Now here comes the small tutorial: How to create the "Gradient Effect".

So what I did here was create guidelines to show where you are suppose to apply the glitter polish. They are pretty self explanatory: first layer goes on first (black area), second layer goes on second (red area) and third layer goes on last (white area). Make sure to let each layer fully dry before applying!

I hope that small tutorial made sense! You can easily re-create this look any sheer glitter polish for your French Tip manicures. Let me know if this works out for those of you who tried this small tutorial!

Thanks to 'Chelle for the Ozotic Pro 203 and the inspiration to create this manicure!

Purple and Pink Manicure

I have been super lazy when it comes to my blog. I've been working on a lot of mini projects to relieve some of the stress from work and my research projects. I guess you can say that it helps me from going crazy and pulling out my hair. :)

I'm at 48 posts since I've started this blog. I'm thinking about doing a giving away when I reach 100 posts or MAYBE 50 if I'm motivated to, so stayed tune! :D

This is a quick and simple manicure I did because I was feeling lazy. :) I used my new polishes I kindly received from 'Chelle from Cosmetic Cupcake from our Swap!

• Purple: Ulta3's Pearly Grape (which is the perfect color I've been searching for!)
• Pink Glitter: Ozotic Pro's 601. There isn't a color name for it, so I assume that they label their colors by numbers because the red gliter of Ozotic Pro I also received from 'Chelle is also labeled by a number. This polish is a somewhat concentrated glitter polish so it wasn't as clear as I through it would be but it is nonetheless a beautiful color!

It was nice to try another brand of polish that I wouldn't be able to purchase here in the states. But thanks once again, 'Chelle because if it wasn't for you, this post would have never existed. :)

What do you think?

Swap! with 'Chelle from Cosmetic Cupcake

I was able to do a nail polish swap with the lovely 'Chelle from Cosmetic Cupcake. I had a pleasure getting to know her through our love for nail polish and blogging. She is such a sweet gal with so much talent in nail art. I was really fortunate to be able to do a swap with her because I knew she was already doing so many other swaps with fellow bloggers. So, Thanks to 'Chelle for swapping with me! I really appreciate it! :)

Here are all the goodies she sent me! I was so excited to receive so many Aussie polishes that I'm not able to purchase in the States here.

I've actually been wanting to try Ulta3 ever since I saw it featured on 'Chelle's blog. She sent me purple colors, one of my favorites!

I was also able to receive wonderful selection of greens and glitters!

I was so excited when she sent me a bottle of BYS cracked polish because I've been wanting to try it ever since I saw her post about it! Now I have a bottle of my own. :)

She also sent me a wonderful selection of yummy candies and cute nail stickers!

Although I wasn't able to make a comment on each bottle of polish featured here, just know I love them all! Such wonderful colors which are now part of my nail polish collection. :)

Thank you so much 'Chelle for your wonderful package and for swapping with me! It was a lot of fun.

Christmas and New Years Manicure!

lHappy New Years Eve!

Since I wasn't able to do a post on my Christmas manicure, I decide to do a Christmas and New Years combo.

Btw, please excuse my nasty cuticles. They have been really dry due to the weather. I guess I didn't realize how dry they were! :(

Christmas Manicure:

• Red: OPI's You Rock Acapulco Red
• Gold: Rimmel. I can't remember what its called at the moment and I'm too lazy to dig for it through my nail polish stash
• White: Non-toxic (yes, I had to put that) acrylic craft paint from any craft supplies store

I originally wanted to do the candy cane design on all my nails, but I figured it would be excessive. So I decided to improvise and this is what I ended up with. I tried to keep it simple, but it just came out very gawdy and christmas-y. But hey, it never hurts to be in the Christmas spirit right? It only comes once a year so I thought, "why not?"

New Years Manicure:

• Bright blue: OPI's Suzi Says Feng Shui (Spring/Summer Collection)
• Blue glitter: OPI's Simmer & Shimmer (Burlesque Collection)
  

For some reason I thought blue would be a good and festive color for the new years. But again, it came up quite excessive but hey, its all for fun. I used the same white craft paint from my Christmas manicure and a dotting tool to make the white dots. I used tape to make the straight edges. Believe it or not, tape has been my best friend in nail designing. It works wonders.

Tell me what you think! Thanks. :)

Versatile Blogger Award!

While I was away on my unannounced hiatus, Kay of Gurly Things awarded me with the Versatile Blogger Award. Aw, so sweet of her. :)

Rules:

1. Thank and link back to who gave you the award.

2. Share seven things about yourself.

3. Pass it along to seven blogs you've recently discovered and enjoy.

4. Leave you recipients a note, telling them about the award.

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7 things about Alice:

1. I took one lesson in Muay Thai. I got so frustrated with the instructor because he kept picking on me that I started crying. It was quite embarrassing. Don't get me wrong, I had fun, but it was that intense. Luckily I was paired with a girl so it wasn't as awkward-- she was very understanding and nice. :P
   
2. I bring my boyfriend with me when I go shopping and or buy nail polish because he seems to have a better sense of what looks good. Which works out for me because when he goes shopping once in a blue moon, I can pick out better clothes for himself than he can. Weird right? He can pick out better girl clothes than I. But can't pick out guy clothes for himself. :)---which brings me to my side story. Remember how dark blue nail polish was in style for fall about 2 years ago? Well I remember asking him what colors he thought would look like nice. He suggested dark blue. I told him, "you got to be kidding me". A few days later I was reading the Los Angeles Times---lo and behold there was an article in the fashion section indicating that dark blue was the new in color! I saved that article because I thought it was funny. I'm thinking about framing it. :)
3. I bought my first pair of heels about 2 months ago for a wedding. I'm 23 years old and I never bought heels for myself until now. I've had the luxury of borrowing shoes from my older sister until she moved to San Fransisco.
   
4. I have a strange hobby of keeping old letters, notes I wrote to friends during class in high school and Christmas/Birthday cards from people. I don't know why I keep them. I especially like to go back and read the notes I wrote during class and laugh at how stupid I use to be.
5. Although I make a lot of Hello Kitty stuff when I do my crafting/nail art. Chococat is my all time favorite. :)
6. About 60% of the music in my mp3 player belongs to Frank Sinatra. As my great history high school teacher would say, "His voice is like butttttttttttahhhh" (butter).
7. I've never left the country before, which is quite sad. I've been stuck on USA soil my entire life. :(

Okay, so I'm going to be a rebel and break the 3rd and 4th rule because I haven't recently discovered any new blogs and it would be cheating if I tagged blogs that I've been reading for awhile. Sorryyyy...:(