Stunning Blurple

And now for the real Mani of the Week, since my namesake polish failed me after just two days! I'd been looking for the China Glaze Wicked lacquer colors, their Halloween collection, and they just weren't showing up in my local stores. About a week ago, I found a place online that was selling the 6-bottle collection for a very good price, so I jumped on it. Naturally I went into Sally Beauty the next day and there they all were, but I saved a lot of cash by getting them online. Enough to buy the Ghoulish Glow separately and still feel like I got a bargain, even. Get on with my frugal self!

When it came time to choose my color, of course I was drawn to Bizarre Blurple. Purple is my favorite color, and I tend to favor purple or blue nail polish. Bizarre Blurple was perfect. But I wanted to jazz it up. I do love the sparkle, yo.

I believe I've mentioned before that I favor a white base coat, rather than the clear actual base coats. I have less peeling, better color saturation in less coats, and more accurate representation from bottle color to nail color. It's like using a white canvas rather than a pink-peach one. I usually use Sally Hansen's Hard to Get, because I've never had a problem with it peeling or staining or chipping too much. So I applied the white, and then the Bizarre Blurple.

with flash

natural light

As you can see especially in that first picture, I needed two coats for opacity. After the second coat, I applied Sally Hansen Insta Dry and left everything alone overnight. 

I had plans of adding a gold glitter topcoat to sparkle up my manicure, but the next day, while digging through the box to find an appropriate gold glitter, I came across a silver and holo glitter topcoat made by Revlon, called Stunning. It's a clear base with tiny silver glitter and slightly larger holographic hex glitter. Then I remembered a gorgeous nail polish design my friend Sara had recently posted on Pinterest and I was inspired! 

I took pieces of Scotch tape and cut gentle curves along one edge. 

Forgive this awful picture. It was an afterthought, and the best that I could do!

I then applied them to my fingers, leaving a narrow band along the side of each nail exposed. I went for between one third and one quarter of the nail. After taping off all ten nails, I painted the exposed section with the Stunning holo glitter.

I removed the tape while the polish was still wet in order to avoid tearing or peeling.  Add a heavy top coat of Seche Vite, and voila! the Stunning Blurple Mani of the Week!

inside, natural light--before I cleaned up the glittery edges

outside, full sun

I've gotten all kinds of compliments on this design. Even the girl handing me an iced tea through the McDonald's drive up window told me how cute my nails are! Let me tell you, that just made my day =-D