Show Me Your Nails 2.0

[Tamara76]

Due to some technical glitches with the original Show Me Your Nails Thread, I am starting a new thread with @vegchililover78's blessing (She says "hello," by the way!).

Please share your nail looks, nail art and manicures!

...And don't forget to check out @Beadshopgirl's Nail Stamping Thread for stamping inspiration! ❤️  

https://community.sephora.com/t5/Nailed-It/The-Nail-Stamping-Thread/m-p/3328865

[CynthieLu]

This is Lyn B Designs in 🩵🤍

Onism - A teal base with a strong purple shift and blue flakies.  This is like a jelly and sheer, I did 2 coats but one more and I imagine it would have been fully opaque. I did 2 out of curiosity. I have to remove this for work in 2 days so I didn't want to go for 3 coats 😉 but I liked it sheer too with just one coat

Kat-Eidascope (Accent Nail)- is a topper with rainbow flakes and fine silver glitter throughout. I did 2 coats and I'm in love with this one! 🌈 I did it over my light colored base coat. I really want to see this over top a darker colour now. Its incredibly fun 😻

 

(Unfortunately it is grey and snow-raining today, no sun shine shots of this mani)

[Saradestin]

I love LynB Designs polishes. These look gorgeous @CynthieLu! Beautiful mani! 💙

[itsfi]

These make a pretty pair @CynthieLu. Loving the sparkle on that accent polish. 😍

[CynthieLu]

Thank you @itsfi I'm curious to try it on a darker base, I liked it alot too.  IRL it's kinda rainbowy 🌈 🤩

[ather]

@CynthieLu  These are so pretty! I love the colour combo!! 

[CynthieLu]

Thank you so much! @ather 🥰

[Mellmars1185]

@CynthieLu These shades goes well for a rain/snow day....Any day really! LynB Designs is honestly the best nail polish I have tried. You picked some great shades and paired them really well!

[CynthieLu]

I am a big fan of her polishes, too, @Mellmars1185 , and her sales are phenomenal. 💗

Also, for across the border purchases all the way up here to Canada, it has been completely pain-free 😁

[RGbrown]

@CynthieLu 

Gorgeous polishes and I love them together! 💙✨

[CynthieLu]

Thank you 🥰 @RGbrown 

[WinglessOne]

@CynthieLu  Glad you grabbed Kat-Eidascope before it disappeared for good! It and Onism are lovely on you. 

[CynthieLu]

I was lucky to get that one @WinglessOne  I had talked myself out of it awhile ago and regretted it.

When the Magic sale rolled around I snapped it up. I am glad I did it's very pretty 🥰 Thank you!

[Samtian]

@CynthieLu Those are really pretty!

[CynthieLu]

Thank you @Samtian 😄 

[Titian06]

Both of the are sooo pretty, @CynthieLu ! 💙🤍💙🤍  Kat-eidescope is on my list to get.  I love seeing it on a real person with real (and short) nails! 🥰

[CynthieLu]

Thank you @Titian06 I can't get them to grow long without breaking or chipping 😅 especially if I'm working alot, it's a rough environment for them.

I really like the rainbow-y effect in Kat-Ediscope, it's so pretty!

[WinglessOne]

In case you weren't lured in by Orly's other recent sales: 

Cannot be combined with other codes or offers.

Not a huge selection of polishes on the promo page, but worth checking out if you don't already have much Orly. I threw 3 things in a cart just to see how the discount applies, and it seems to be $6 off any polish listed on that page. EDIT: I forgot to include the page url for folks who aren’t on Orly’s mailing list. [Orly’s site] /collections/polish-party-lacquer

[CynthieLu]

@WinglessOne  @RGbrown  If i bookmark it, I might not be able to resist a purchase  🤗  I'm weak lol and I love the sales.

[RGbrown]

Y'all bookmark that page...Orly doesn't advertise it on their front page or list it on the menu all the time, but every time I randomly check it, it's got polishes on it. The selection changes from time to time, and I'm vaguely annoyed that it requires a code now (they used to just be marked down to $5 automatically, but now you can't combine it with another code-based promo), but they do seem to keep this promo going pretty regularly!

[WinglessOne]

@RGbrown  This reminded me that I should’ve posted the url. 😂 Edited my post to include that info. 

[WinglessOne]

2 days ago, I wound up using more polishes than I meant to for a manicure. To simplify things, I’ll describe each polish first and then explain which ones I put on which nails. 

Polish descriptions: 

Spoiler

786 Cosmetics: 

• Granada - dusty purple cream that's nearly grey. 
• Xi’an - deep steely blue cream. 

This is my first experience with 786 polishes. Xi’an is the shade I wanted most from the brand, and I kinda built this mani around it. 

All Mixed Up Lacquer Grape Slushie - deep purple plain jelly. It looks very blue in the swatch photo, but in person it’s a very grape purple jelly.  

Born Pretty: 

• Astral Realm - magnetic that shifts claret > antique gold > aurora borealis green. 
• Lightning - magnetic with a gold > olive > pine green shift, plus a little warm reddish taupe at extreme angles. 

On the swatch sticks, the nails have a black base coat. These polishes are from a set of 6 and might’ve been the first magnetics I ever bought, now that I think about it. 

Cirque Colors: 

• Haze Jelly - lilac plain jelly. 
• Navy Jelly - navy blue plain jelly. 
• XX - topper of various sized & shaped glitter in holo and various colors. 

EDK Arya Stark - ocean blue jelly base packed with mauve shimmer and scattered rainbow holo glitter. 

KBShimmer Kinda Shady - black based cobalt blue that shifts violet or blackened blue, depending on the angle. 

LynBDesigns I Drain to Live - deep midnight blue base with a red copper shift and linear holo rainbow. From LynB’s What We Do In the Shadows collection. (WWDITS is one of my favorite TV shows, spun off from one of my favorite movies.) 

Whats Up Nails Eyegazer - magnetic grey and silver with a linear rainbow pull. On the swatch stick, the nail has a black base coat. This polish never does what I want, so using it was another “why do I torture myself like this” experience. 

Zoya Vega - sand-textured sky blue matte full of large holo glitter and holo & silver pinpoints. This is one of Zoya's Magical PixieDust polishes. 

The manicure: 

Left hand. Photos taken in my warmly lit bathroom and temperature/tint adjusted for color accuracy.Right hand. More warm bathroom lighting.Flash photos to bring out any holo glitter that wasn't already showing off.

Mani details: 

• Left hand: 
  
  Spoiler

  Thumb: Zoya Vega. One coat would’ve sufficed but I needed a second coat to mask an underlying patch. No top coat needed for this PixieDust. 

  Index: 786 Xi’an base (2 coats), topped with a sandwich of Cirque Colors XX and Cirque Colors Navy Jelly. I should’ve used one of my black jellies instead but was afraid of fully obliterating Xi’an—which mostly happened anyway with Navy Jelly, so what I really should’ve done is mixed Navy Jelly with a black jelly and then applied that (instead of Navy Jelly) over XX. Lesson learned. Xi’an applied smoothly and self-leveled nicely. It’s the first 786 polish I’ve ever used. Could’ve stopped at one coat, but I accidentally bumped this nail while it tried and needed a second coat to smooth things out. 

  Middle: LynBDesigns I Drain to Live (2 coats). One of the best behaving polishes I’ve ever used: not too thin or thick, so I had no clumping/gooping or sidewall flooding. 
  

  Ring: 786 Granada (2 coats) topped with Cirque Colors XX. Then I covered everything with a coat of Born Pretty Lightning and used an S magnet to pull a straight diagonal band. This is my favorite nail of the whole manicure. I wish I could post a video to show this and other nails in motion. (Yeah, I won’t create and post animated gifs of my nails again; way too much image degradation.) It’s too hard to convey the depth of layers and visual textures via still photos. 

  Pinky: 786 Xi’an topped with Whats Up Nails Eyegazer. Didn't work well because of course it didn’t, because I can never stop Eyegazer from clouding up my whole nail. I had plan B ready: conceal the crime with a coat of Cirque Colors Haze Jelly. That was kinda interesting: some white foggy Eyegazer clouds appeared beneath Haze Jelly in an almost velvety magnetic way. But I decided that result wasn’t enough for the overall mani, so I added a coat of Born Pretty Lightning and used the S magnet to kinda randomly push and pull the metal bits around. 
• Right hand: 
  
  Spoiler

  Thumb: KBShimmer Kinda Shady topped with Cirque Colors XX, then topped again with a coat of All Mixed Up Grape Slushie. I didn’t add another coat of XX atop Grape Slushie because I wanted some of Kinda Shady’s black > blue > violet shift to show through all the scattered holo glitter. My photos don't convey how ridiculously rainbow-sparkly this nail is. 

  Index: Cirque Colors Haze Jelly and Cirque Colors XX… I think I did 2 coats of Haze Jelly + 1 coat of XX + 1 coat of Haze Jelly + 1 sparse coat of XX. 

  Middle: EDK Arya Stark (2 coats). This is another patched nail, and I was too impatient to file/buff the patch down enough to not leave an obvious bump on the nail. I almost swapped Arya Stark for a purple PixieDust to hide the bump, but I wanted to see this polish in action. I’m happy with my decision, though that bump taunts me. Arya Stark applied well with no issues. 
  

  Ring: KBShimmer Kinda Shady (2 coats) topped with Cirque Colors XX. Then I topped everything with a coat of Born Pretty Astral Realm and used the S magnet to pull a straight diagonal band. This is my second favorite nail in this mani. Kinda Shady’s blue to purple shift is subtle, but it’s in there. 

  Pinky: All Mixed Up Grape Slushie (2 coats) topped with a coat of Born Pretty Astral Realm and pulled with the S magnet into an X pattern. 

How about another mani? Here’s the deep sea inspiration I wore on my nails from March 18-28: 

Top row: indoor lighting. Bottom row: flash photos to highlight holo and other sparkles.

A few details: 

Spoiler

I didn’t take notes while applying this mani and I’m pretty sure I was deep in some insomnia stupor at the time. I’ll skip most details and just list the polishes. Assume everything’s 2 coats unless otherwise stated. 

Thumb & ring: 

• Left - Picture Polish Saphira. This wasn’t nearly as sparkly on the nail as I expected, and it was thick. I should’ve thinned it first. 
• Right - Besamé The Raven. The linear holo appears only in bright light, and even then it's subtle. 

Index: Cirque Colors Olive Jelly (probably 3 coats), with dots of The Raven. 

Middle: a messy marble of Cirque Colors Olive Jelly and Orly Oasis Jelly. I do recall how I did these 2 nails: base coat of Olive Jelly, then I dripped on 2 blobs of Olive Jelly and 1 blob of Oasis Jelly, and let my hand hang down (nails pointing downward) and occasionally rotated my finger/hand so gravity could create a marble pattern. 

Pinky: Orly Oasis Jelly, partially topped with Saphira (left) or The Raven (right).