Devil's Blood, or Tiger's Candy? A Red Jelly Sandwich

Good morning! Today's manicure is one that I came up with while swatching endless layering combinations of jellies and glitters on my nail wheels. I initially thought that Revlon Devil's Candy would be way too opaque for a jelly sandwich, since it is solid in 2 coats, but turns out it does work alright if you use a thin coat! This is 2 coats of Devil's Candy and 1 coat of Icing Tiger's Blood, topped off with a final coat of Devil's Candy. I did use top coat in these photos.

It doesn't have as much depth as a regular jelly sandwich, but it does vaguely remind me of what I was hoping RBL Poppy would be. I saw the bottle shots and was ooooohing and aaaahing over the shimmer flecks, but it doesn't often translate onto the nail that way...Poppy is no exception.

Here you can see the glitter a bit better. It's definitely different from what I'm used to, but I don't think it was an entirely unsuccessful experiment. Just more bold than I'm used to, haha.

Thoughts? Have you ever tried a jelly sandwich?

Thanks for looking and commenting, and have a great week!

Illamasqua Rampage and Verity Aqua Blue

Lazy blogger is lazy....and also procrastinating :( Not looking forward to my presentation tomorrow...freakin' DNA sequencing, man.

Anyway, let's talk polish. I have no idea when Illamasqua Rampage was released, but whatever. This is my all-time favorite green. It's dark, but never black, and it's a jelly. Perfect in 3 coats. Squishy, glossy, jelly awesomeness.

In direct sunlight:

I'm pretty sure Rampage has a permanent spot in my Top 5. Illamasqua also has my favorite bottle design! Well, at least before they changed the bottles....they are not as nice and angular anymore. :(

On a slightly related note, once, I commented on someone else's blog post and said something about the bottle change...the blogger had no idea what I was talking about and was like "uhhhh ok" and she had bottles of both types featured in that post. Aaaawkwardddd.....

tl;dr this is the best green ever and if you like greens and/or jellies you need this

As for Verity Aqua Blue...I don't know much about Verity polish, but they caught my attention thanks to the lovely jyj and her swatches! Thanks to her, I got this green, and Deep Violet, which I will show you some other time.

Despite the name, as you can see, it's pretty clearly green. Similar to Rampage, but more blue-toned, and the formula is not as nice. This is 4 thin coats over a ridge filler. I do like Aqua Blue, but I think it'll be used more for tinting frankens.

Thanks for looking and commenting, and enjoy the rest of your week!

Illamasqua Rampage + Lynnderella All Hallow's Eve

Good morning! Today's post is a little bit out of order, considering I haven't even shown you Illamasqua Rampage (which is so amazing it deserves its own post) on its own yet, but it's worth it! I am so ridiculously excited about this one. It's a Lynnderella. If you haven't heard of her, where have you been? Google her, NOW. At any rate, All Hallow's Eve is a truly spectacular green glitter. It's my first green glitter, and honestly? I think it will be my last. I am a green lover, but I don't think that there are any other green glitters that will pique my interest quite like this one.

I love the look of glitters suspended in jelly bases (eg. Deborah Lippmann Ruby Red Slippers and Revlon Facets of Fuchsia), but rather than tamper with All Hallow's Eve, I elected to layer it with Rampage, a deep green jelly. It's an open-faced jelly sandwich of sorts. I layered in this order: 1 coat of Rampage, 1 coat of All Hallow's Eve, 1 coat of Rampage, 2 coats of All Hallow's Eve (though I really could have just gone with one). This way, I still get the look of glitter embedded in jelly, and it's still super sparkly. Now, enough with the talking. I have photos to show you!

A picture in my usual style:

In indirect light. This one's a bit blurry (sorry about that), but it gives you a pretty good idea of how this mani looks indoors:

At an angle:

At another angle:

And here is a macro shot of my thumbnail. This one is not color-accurate, but the colors are edited such that it is easier to see the different types of glitter in this amazing polish!

And now, I'm off to do Chemistry work...have a great week!

Purple Jelly Sandwich!

Jelly sandwich manis (glitter sandwiched between layers of jelly polish) have been pretty popular on the Nail Board lately. They're super shiny, super sparkly, and they have lots of depth. This is my first try at one. If you'd like, click to enlarge!

This is 1 coat of Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Purple Pizzazz, 2 coats of OPI Last Friday Night, and 2 more coats of Purple Pizzazz.