Rainbow Favorites-- RED!!

Happy Sunday Everyone!!  Hope your weekend is going well.  I usually don't post on Sundays, but I joined Lacquer Dreams A Rainbow themed week of favorites nail challenge.  The concept is quite simple.. Each day, post your favorite color of the rainbow starting with RED.  Tomorrow will be orange, then yellow, green, blue, purple, and finally ending with pink!!  So, it's really hard for me to pick my all-time favorite of each color, so I'll just post my "current fave."

Today we have RED...

China Glaze Salsa:

Salsa is a gorgeous blue-toned semi sheer red.  Pictured above is two coats.  I really love this red paired with my skin-tone.  Cool colors agree with me and red is the color I notice the most between "warms" and "cools".  Warm toned reds look hideous on me.  Here is a helpful link to determine your skintone.

Of course, I had to layer something over Salsa..  I chose Whimsical Ideas by Pam Butterfly Kisses:

Butterfly Kisses is a gorgeous clear-based polish full of medium red and silver hex glitter, silver bar glitter and  silver micro glitter.  I love all my "whimsies."  You can like Whimsical Ideas by Pam here on her facebook page.  You can email Pam at pea422000@yahoo.com to place an order for her polishes and she will send you an invoice when she's ready to ship your "whimsies." :)

Hope you enjoyed my "red choice."  I'll be back tomorrow with orange.  :)

Check out the other bloggers who are participating in this fun challenge:

~on beauty stuff and what else’s...~
9ml Universe
atlcatsmeow
Captivating Claws
Fancy Phalanges
Fe’s Nails
Follow the Yellow Polish Road
Football and Fingernails
Fresh Air & Fashion
Happy Nails
Kelly’s Kolors!
Lacquer Dreams
Lacquer or Leave Her!
Liesl Loves Pretty Things
Light Your Nails!
Manicurity
My Life in Polish
Nail Polish Lane
Nailpolish is Alive
Nubbin Nails
Of Color n Music...
Sincerely, Obsessed With Polish
So You Think You Can Paint
The Rantings of a Nailpolish Hoarder
To Polish or Not?

Fishtail/Chevron Essie Mani

The weekend is here... yay!!   I have my first attempt at a chevron/fishtail mani to share with you.  I followed this post/tutorial by Sarah at Chalkboard Nails.  Sarah does some super-duper awesome nail art and now she's starting to post video tutorials on youtube.   She makes everything look so simple.  Let's see how well I did..

An Essie Fishtail/Chevron:

No too bad for my first try.  I used all Essies for this mani.  I started with two coats of  Fear or Desire (orange), after that dried, I used  two coats of  Mojito Madness (mint), and finally three coats of Off the Shoulder (Pink).  Off the Shoulder probably wasn't the wisest choice for the final coat because it's a lot more sheer than the other two and the layers were getting thick toward the end of the manicure, but I really love this combo of colors.  Essie has been impressing me lately with their "less bland" newer colors.

Just for the heck of it, I added Essie's Matte About You the second day I wore this mani.  I like this look also :)

Thanks again to Sarah at Chalkboard Nails for the awesome tutorial.  I'm going to try this ruffle manicure next!!  :)

Have a wonderful weekend.. I know I will!  My husband and I are celebrating our 5th Wedding Anniversary today <3

SoFlaJo Sandy Shoes

Happy Friday Everyone!!  Today I have a beautiful indie polish to share with you from a very talented lady also named Jody (with a "Y" though lol) over at www.soflajo.com.  This shade is called Sandy Shoes and it's from SoFlaJo's new Life's a Beach Polish Collection...

Sandy Shoes (alone 3 coats):

Sandy Shoes is a beautiful golden shimmer with subtle hints of blue here and there.  It really does remind me of a beautiful beach.  Pictured above is three coats of Sandy Shoes followed by one coat of Sally Hansen Insta-dry topcoat.  It's such a pretty color to wear with a nice summer tan :)

Take a look at Sandy Shoes over a black creme:

Ahh.. I love how the shimmer stands out over the black!!  Jody at SoFlaJo says this reminds her of the famous black sands of Hawaii, I think it's just absolutely stunning!!  This is one coat of Sandy Shoes over a black creme followed by Sally Hansen Insta-Dry.  The finish of Sandy Shoes is super smooth and the formula is sheer, but awesome!!  I really like this one layered!! :) 

**You can like SoFlaJo here on facebook.**

**Sandy Shoes and the rest of the Life's a Beach Polish Collection can be purchased here on Jody's blog and here on Etsy.**

Have a wonderful weekend Everyone!!

**Sandy Shoes was sent to me for swatching and review**

Weekly Water Marble 6/21/12

Happy Summer Everyone!!  Today is the first full day of summer!  I love summertime.. I wish it could last forever, but sadly, here in Ohio we probably only have three more months of nice weather..

It's time for another water marble..  I did a swirl marble once before and really liked how it turned out, so I decided to try another..

An Essie Swirl Water Marble:

Kinda appropriate for the first day of summer??  I looks like waves.  I used all Essies for this marble.  I started with a base of She's Picture Perfect.. and for the actual marble I used She's Picture Perfect, No More Film, Turquoise and Caicos and Go Overboard.  The polishes worked nicely together.  Like I've said before, using polishes of the same brand for a marble seems to work best for me.  I don't think mixing these with OPIs or CG would have turned out so great.  Essie's formula is thicker.  It's kinda reminds me of Zoya's formula.  I'll have to try Essies with Zoyas sometime and see how well they mix.

Enjoy your Thursday!!

A Guest Post From Sincerely Stephanie..

Happy Wednesday Everyone!!  Today I have a guest post from Stephanie.  Stephanie asked me to do a guest post for her while she's on vacation in August and I was on vacation last week, so I thought it would be fun to ask her to return the favor.  Her mani is gorgeous.. take a look...

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Hi Captivating Claws readers!

I'm Stephanie and I run a little Canadian nail art blog called Sincerely Stephanie. I love any and all things nail polish related most especially freehanding nail art. I'm so honoured to be here doing a guest post for Jodi while she's away on vacation. I truly do admire her gorgeous nails! 

When I first started thinking about what I could do I immediately thought of a water marble, because well you all know Jodi is the watermarble queen, but since freehanding is my favourite thing to do I decided to go with that. This is what I came up with!

I started off with 2 coats of China Glaze White on White and then using a striping brush and Essence High Spirits and Alter Ego Penny Pincher I created the triangle/geometric designs. 

Geometric designs are one of my favourite things to do! There are so many possibilities and they are rather easy to create with just a striping brush! 

I hope you liked my geometric print nails! And a HUGE thanks again to Jodi for asking me to guest post! I hope her vacation is fabulous! 

Thanks for reading! Hope you all have a wonderful day!! :)

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Good stuff, right?  Be sure to check out all of Stephanie's creations on her blog, Sincerely Stephanie.  Thanks for a great post and I hope to create something equally as nice for you in August!! :)

SpaRitual Provocateur (and a quick Zoya Pedi pic)

Happy Tuesday Everyone!!  While on vacation last week, my sister-in-law and I went to a spa and I got a manicure.  I was kinda hesitant at first because I'm picky about the shape of my nails, but I had just broke two nails earlier that day, so I figured they couldn't look much worse.. ;)  We went to a cute little spa called "Aqua" in the the town of Duck that overlooked the sound-side of the Outer Banks-- it had such a pretty view!  Anyway, this spa used SpaRitual products and I chose Provocateur for my manicure..

SpaRitual Provocateur:

Ahh... As you can see, the nails I broke were my index and middle.  She gave them a round shape which I don't like, but I do like this color.  Yep, of course it's pinkish.. did you think I'd pick anything different?? ;)  A berry pink creme.. my favorite.  The nail tech tried to talk me in to a shimmer, but I declined.  I love my cremes.  I had to buy the bottle of  Provocateur so I could touch-up my nails as the tips wore.  The formula and durability of Provocateur were both great. This is two coats.  I'm happy to add this one to my collection and I'm sure I'll wear it on my toes soon.  It looks nice with a tan :)

Sorry if feet gross you out.. I wore Zoya Zuza on my toes all week.  I love her!!

butter LONDON Big Smoke and Elixir Lacquers Kind of Connery

Hey Everyone!!  It's Monday and I'm back from my vacation in North Carolina.  I had such a nice time with my family, but the weather wasn't the greatest.  Anywho.. back to blogging.  All my posts from last week were scheduled a week ahead of time, so I really haven't written a post in a while.  I wore these two gorgeous blues together right before vacation.  Take a look.

butter LONDON Big Smoke:

Big Smoke is a beautiful glossy metallic dusty navy blue.  Application was no problem and full opacity was reached with three light coats.  This one was way shinier than it looks in the bottle and I really like it.  I own about ten butter LONDONS and they all really have a great formula and application!

Hold on to your hats... up next is Kind of Connery by Elixir Lacquers.  I've done posts on With a K and Supa Sugar Bee, both by Elixir Lacquers, and I absolutely love them!  Kind of Connery doesn't disappoint either..

Kind of Connery over Big Smoke:

Kind of Connery has: "blue, green and silver micro glitter, plus light blue, silver, lime and white hex glitter, suspended in a blue jelly base."  I really love the lime glitter in this one.  When you catch it in the right lighting, it's so beautiful.  Kind of Connery was kinda hard for me to photograph, but it's gorgeous!  

All of my Elixir Lacquer Polishes are remarkable!!  Nicole at Nail Polish Wars is such a talented Indie Creator!!  Hurry over to Elixir Lacquers and pick up some of her beauties now!! :)

**Have a great week!!*