Catch Up Post! Vintage Roses, Neon Gradient & [Early] Swatch Tuesday!

Clearly I suck at keeping up with my posts on here.  I'm so used to posting on IG all the time as soon as I'm done with my manis :( Anyways, I FINALLY attempted vintage roses that turned out VERY successful in my opinion!

Vintage Roses

Vintage Roses

I used a crazy amount of nail polish for this.  Ya ready?

Yellow Base: Milani Yellow Whiz

Roses: Essie Mod Square, Cascade Cool, and Fiji

Leaves: Essie Pretty Edgy and Navigate Her

Pink Holo Accent Nail: Color Club Miss Bliss topped with Milani Jewel FX Hot Pink

When I get a little better I hope to do a tutorial for this look! 

I also did a kick ass neon gradient!

I used China Glaze Yellow Polka Dot Bikini and Japanese Koi over SC Snow Me White.

ChG Neon Gradient 

ChG Neon Gradient

ChG Neon Gradient

Like my sweet new black light?!

Gradient vs. Ombre: What the Fuck is the Difference??  IS there a fucking difference?

The answer is YES THERE IS A DIFFERENCE!  and no its not because ombre is a trendy hipster term.  Damn hipsters.

I digress.

The difference between a gradient and ombre is as follows:

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Gradient uses two or more DIFFERENT colors...such as mine above.

Ombre uses different shades of the SAME color...such as fading from light green to dark green.

Think of it like this: GradienT, differenT; OmbrE, samE

**********

Annnnnd it IS Swatch Tuesday after all [tomorrow], so enjoy this swatch of SC Dream On.

Two coats Sinful Colors Dream On

Two coats Sinful Colors Dream On

I did two coats Dream On, no undies, no tops.  Its a beautiful vivid purple that dries squishy-matte.  I am so in love!  BUT it chips so easy!  I did this late Sunday night and I had three fingers chip before I even got to work at 8:30 this morning! :(  I'm sure it had to do with the fact I didn't topcoat it, but I loved the matte look.

So apparently I can't stick to a certain "schedule" with my manis and posting, so I'm just going to post on my blog as I do my nails.  I'll still do drinks [obviously ... TIPSY Tips lol] but it might just not be specifically on Friday any more.  And Swatch Tuesday might happen on a Monday or something.  We shall see.  Life is hard when I have to decide between cooking myself dinne [or like, showering or drooling over Don Draper on Mad Men] and doing my nails

As usual: follow me on Pinterest & IG [@nauti_mermaid].

"Danger Berry" Martini and Paisley Stamped Nails

Hello Loves!  Happy Friday!! Today I have a deliciously dangerous pomegranate martini recipe and a subtle stamped mani.

I found out about this recipe from one of the girls I follow on IG.  I’m not exactly sure what she called it, but I have affectionately renamed it a Pomegranate Danger Berry Martini.

You’ll Need:

Stirrings Pomegranate Mixer

Bacardi Dragon Berry Rum

Ice

Stirrings Pomegranate Sugar (optional for the rim)

Make It!

Rim a martini glass with the sugar.  In a shaker with ice add one shot rum and two shots mixer.  Shake and strain into the martini glass.

These are soooo good!  I call the rum “danger berry” because it’ll hit you like a ton of bricks!  One minute you’ll be fine, the next, you’re five drinks deep, on the floor, drunk texting all the boys in your contacts list.  Happens to the best of us lol. Drink responsibly!  ;)

Paisley Nail Stamping!

Two coats O.P.I. Suzi Says Feng Shui
stamped with Bundle Monster plate BM315
in Sinful Colors Blue By You
(outdoor light)

Heck yes!  I’m keeping the nail art coming!  I’m trying to knock out all the stuff I hate doing first lol.  I don’t necessarily HATE stamping, but I’m super OCD about it.  If all the designs don’t come out exactly perfect it’ll bug me all week.  Anywho, I did two coats O.P.I. Suzi Says Feng Shui and stamped with Sinful Colors Blue By You using Bundle Monster plate BM315.

I picked up this O.P.I. at Ulta last weekend.  I had my eye on it for a while.  It’s a very pretty blue (shocker!  Seriously, I need to stop with the blues!) crème polish that leans more toward the teal end of the spectrum.  The outdoor sunlight pictures are more true to how it looks in real life.  Formula is amazeballz, like all O.P.I.s.  The first coat was a little streaky on some nails.  Perfectly perfect in two coats. 

Two coats O.P.I. Suzi Says Feng Shui
(indoor light)

I stamped with Sinful Colors Blue By You.  For some reason, I thought it would have shown up darker.  It’s a jelly glitter base, so I don’t know why I thought that way.  I painted it on my toes first (I’ll spare you the feet pics) and it was dark, but then again, that was two full coats.  Either way, I’m happy with it!

Two coats O.P.I. Suzi Says Feng Shui
stamped with Bundle Monster plate BM315
in Sinful Colors Blue By You(outdoor light)

Two coats O.P.I. Suzi Says Feng Shui
stamped with Bundle Monster plate BM315
in Sinful Colors Blue By You
(outdoor light)

Two coats O.P.I. Suzi Says Feng Shui
stamped with Bundle Monster plate BM315
in Sinful Colors Blue By You
(indoor light)

I’m (temporarily and reluctantly) on a Seche Vite strike because it shrinks my manis, so I bought Out the Door quick dry topcoat to try out.  Ugh.  Does NOT compare to Seche.  At.  All.  It’s not as glossy, very thin, made my design streak on some nails, and dry time took about five minutes.  The pictures shown obviously have no topcoat.  I didn't want to picture streaky stamping :( It will do in a pinch, but I'm not a huge fan.  I purchased it at my Sally Beauty Supply.  I forget how much it was and can't find the receipt, sorry :-\

A fellow nail junkie on IG informed me of the "wrapping technique" to prevent shrinkage.  I am definitely going to try it next time, because I don’t want to give up my Seche! ;(

Okay lovelies.  Like I said earlier, I’ll be shutting down my Tipsy Tips Facebook page tonight, hopefully, if I can figure out how to. 

To keep in contact, you can...
* Follow me on IG: @Nauti_Mermaid, where I’ll be posting all manis, swatches, and other personal everyday things;

* Follow me on Pinterest: miss_best, where I have My Nails, Nail Polish Whore (inspiration/ideas), AND Drink Recipe boards, among other stuffs; and/or 
* Follow me on Twitter: @LittleSweetTea.  If you follow me on Twitter, do so at your own risk.  I can be pretty inappropriate, or completely boring...depending on the day ;) 

If you don’t want to do any of that, I’ll still be posting here Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. 

Have a great weekend!  See you back for Swatch Tuesday.  I’ll be posting a few different swatches each Tuesday to try to get my untried polishes down to an acceptable number!

New Years Nails

HOLY NEON!! Happy New Year!  I celebrated at home with champagne and pizza rolls!  Hope everyone had fun!

Colors used L->R
Wicked Polish Pox
Wicked Polish Gangrene
Spoiled Permission to Proceed
China Glaze Sun Worshipper
China Glaze Shocking Pink (Neon)
Orly Passion Fruit
Nicole by O.P.I. Make a Comet-Ment
Sinful Colors Snow Me White

Swatch Tuesday! Wicked Polish * Frostbite, Pox, & Pink Eye

Well, with my Wicked Polish Pestilence collex finally complete, I bring you the last of the babies you haven't seen from me yet: Frostbite, Pox (!!!!!), and Pink Eye.

First up: Frostbite.  It's a clear base with pearly white shimmer, small holo teal and silver hex, and small to large matte white hex glitter.   

Two coats Wicked Polish Frostbite
over one coat Essie Where's my Chauffeur?

Two coats Wicked Polish Frostbite
over one coat Essie Where's my Chauffeur?

I layered two thin coats of Frostbite over one coat Essie Where's my Chauffeur?  I didn't have any application issues.  I thought it would be globby for some reason.  I've had a few indies that were shimmery that were kinda gloopy.  But not this!  Went on perfect in one coat, but I wanted more glitter, so I added the second coat.

Two coats Wicked Polish Frostbite
over one coat Essie Where's my Chauffeur?

Two coats Wicked Polish Frostbite
over one coat Essie Where's my Chauffeur?
blurred to show the holo

Next: The highly coveted POX!!!!!  The cousin of Gangrene.  This polish is so bad ass!  Loooooook!!

Two coats Wicked Polish Pox
over one coat Sinful Colors Snow Me White

Pox has a slightly orange "crelly" base - love this description!  Not quite cream, not quite jelly...Crelly! - packed with tiny orange neon hex and varying sizes of pink and orange neon hex glitters. The glitters are kind of translucent, so when they get painted over each other it gives it a really cool effect!  I layered two coats Pox over one coat Sinful Colors Snow Me White.  No application issues, though I did flip the bottle over for a couple minutes before applying because the larger hexes settle to the bottom.  

Two coats Wicked Polish Pox
over one coat Sinful Colors Snow Me White

Two coats Wicked Polish Pox
over one coat Sinful Colors Snow Me White

Last but not least: Pink Eye.  This is a hidden gem.  I think it might be one of my favorites (like anyone would ever dare ask me to pick!)  

Two coats Wicked Polish Pink Eye
over one coat O.P.I. Pink-ing of You

Pink Eye is pretty much it's own jelly sammich in a bottle.  It's got a light bubble gum pink jelly base with different sizes of the neon hex (like in Pox), different sized matte white hex, and a little bit of silver hex glitters.  I layered it over one coat of O.P.I. Pink-ing of You (which is very light on its own) It's so girly, I'm gonna die! :)  I love it.  No application issues.  Wicked Polish definitely has a great formula down.

Two coats Wicked Polish Pink Eye
over one coat O.P.I. Pink-ing of You

Two coats Wicked Polish Pink Eye
over one coat O.P.I. Pink-ing of You

As usual, bottles are $10 each + $3 flat shipping.
This concludes my Wicked Polish obsession posts.  Until they come out with more!!! :D

Like Wicked Polish on Facebook,

Check out Wicked Polish's Etsy Shop (although they are temporarily sold out and the lovely Rylee is on vacation), annnnnd

Follow @WickedPolish on IG for updates on restocks!

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Like Tipsy Tips * Nails & Cocktails on Facebook and

Follow @TipsyTipsNailsandCocktails on IG!

Swatch Tuesday! Different Dimension * Rock, Paper, Scissors, Lizard, Spock

I decided I’d give you a break from my Wicked Polish obsession – even though I got Pink Eye and Pox in the mail the other day!!  I figure I’ll swatch the rest all at once and condense it into one post because I have SO many untrieds and I don’t want to annoy y’all.  But if you’re annoyed by it, you should probably just leave.  Now.  ;P  Anywho, I’m rambling.  On to the swatch!  And look.  It’s blue!!

I’ve had Rock, Paper, Scissors, Lizard, Spock by Different Dimension for a while (and from now on, I’m going to call it “RPSLS” because ain’t nobody got time to type all that out!).  I picked it up when they were having a great sale - $5 for almost all polishes.  This polish is jam packed with so much glitter!  There is silver, white, baby blue, and translucent light green hex glitter along with micro white squares in a blue tinted base.  I layered two thin coats RPSLS over two coats of Sinful Colors Cinderella.

Let’s talk about Cinderella first.  You kinda get two swatches in one!  Whee! 

Two coats Sinful Colors Cinderella

Cinderella is a light blue translucent polish with a pink/sliver shimmer.  It was thin and gloopy at the same time.  Sounds weird, but if you have it, maybe you know what I’m talking about.  I’ll try to explain.  It was thin and streaky, I could have definitely used three coats if I was leaving it plain.  But at the same time it was gloopy because it ran to the tip of my nail and globbed  up.  So there.  Thin but gloopy.  A girl on IG suggested using white as a basecoat (you go @teijas_nails !) and I will most definitely do that when I use it again. 

Okay now to the main attraction: Rock, Paper, Scissors, Lizard, Spock.  

Two coats SC Cinderella two coats Different Dimension
Rock, Paper, Scissors, Lizard, Spock

Look at all the glittahhh!  I had no real application issues.  It got a little thick on my pointer because I didn’t get enough excess polish off the brush, but you can’t really have an excess of glitter, soooo yeah!  ;)  You can see on my thumb the blue tint to the base (there are no undies). 

Two coats SC Cinderella two coats Different Dimension
Rock, Paper, Scissors, Lizard, Spock

Two coats SC Cinderella two coats Different Dimension
Rock, Paper, Scissors, Lizard, Spock

Two coats Different Dimension
Rock, Paper, Scissors, Lizard, Spock, no undies

Be sure to check out Different Dimension’s Etsy Shop.  Full sized bottles of most polish go for $8.50 + shipping.

Like Different Dimension on Facebook to keep up with all their awesome sale announcements.

Follow @missibarry on IG.

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Like Tipsy Tips * Nails & Cocktails on Facebook.

Follow @TipsyTipsNailsandCocktails on IG.

Follow my other blog Nauti Mermaid Lacquer for updates on my indie polish!
:)

Summer Fun! Mojitos and Cotton Candy Nails

Wheeeee for the weekend!  And its OFFICIALLY summer (not technically here in Florida, cuz let’s be real – it’s ALWAYS summer here).  It was suggested that I post a mojito recipe.  What better time to give it to you than the first weekend of summer!?  Here is my friend’s recipe (thank you, Danny) and my own recipe. 

For Danny’s Cuban Mojito (he uses REAL measurements – WTF?)

You’ll Need:

•  2 oz. Light Rum (Matusalem Platino)
• 8-10 Mint Leaves
• 1 oz. Simple Syrup
• 1 oz. Fresh Lime Juice – keep the leftover lime for garnish
• 2 oz. Soda Water
• Crushed Ice

Make It!

Place mint in a glass along with simple syrup and lime juice, muddle gently.  Slice the remainder of the lime and add along with crushed ice.  Add rum and soda water.  Stir – don’t shake.  Garnish with sprig of mint.  Enjoy.

For My Extra Sweet “Gringa” Mojito

You’ll Need:

• Light Rum (I like to use Bacardi Limon or Bacardi Dragon Berry)
• 8-10 Mint Leaves
• Lime Juice
• Sprite
• Ice

Make It!

Pretty much the same as above – Muddle the mint and lime.  Add a few glugs of rum, Sprite and ice.  Stir it up, drink it up, and relax.  I don’t mess around with the garnish of mint and lime.  I usually strain the muddled leaves out anyways since I always seem to forget they’re in the glass and choke on them.  Haha =\

I’ve mentioned before, I LOVE sweet drinks.  So if you’re more traditional, you should most definitely go with Danny’s Mojito.  I was never a fan of soda water, so I always used Sprite instead.  SO GOOD GUYS!  And if you’ve never tried the Bacardi Dragon  Berry…get to a store now and buy some!  It’s strawberry flavored.  Delish.  Adds more flavor to a plain mojito.  It’s also great in Ginger Ale and Coke.  BUT you don’t have to get all fancy with the flavored rum.  Plain Bacardi works perfect too.  Or whatever you want, I don’t care.  Sorry, no picture this time because it only looks like a glass of Sprite - boring.

Fun Cotton Candy Nails

I really wanted to quit boring y’all with my blue polish obsession so I went with something more girly.  I went to the store looking for some nice bright summery colors and stumbled on this gorgeous bubblegum pink Essie that was on sale.  Duh, I had to get it!  Then I was all ohh hey look at this cutie blue too!  I couldn’t help myself and threw in a blue pedi.  So be warned: my gross toes are pictured below!! 

Two coats Essie Cascade Cool; Two coats Sinful Colors Snow Me White
Dotted with Essie Bikini So Teeny and Cool Cascade

I used two coats of Essie Cascade Cool on four nails and two coats of Sinful Colors Snow Me White for my accent nail.  This was a girly enough mani, but I wanted to make it even more fun.  I bought this dotting tool from Sally Beauty a month or so back and was finally brave enough to try it out.  I dotted on (took me like, four tries – SO annoying!  My hands kept shaking) Essie Bikini So Teeny and Cool Cascade in a little sort of half moon shape.  I did the same on my toes but switched the colors as seen below.  It reminded me of cotton candy, hence the post name. :)

I didn't even realize, but the Bikini So Teeny has cute little sparkles in it!

Close up

On the Toes: two coats Bikini So Teeny dotted with Cascade Cool and Snow Me White

Of course, Essie is my favorite brand, so I don’t have any complaints about how the polish went on, no chips, no bubbles, blah blah.  The Sinful Colors got some little cracks, but didn’t start to chip off until Thursday.  I didn’t even put a topcoat on. 

Have a blast this weekend y’all!