Essence Choose Me! with Gold Stamping

I had a lot of fun with this mani!  This particular polish, despite being glittery, wears well on me.  I paired it up with some other colors to achieve the final look.

Zoya Frida - Funky Fingers Platinum Record - Essence Choose Me!

Layering goes as follows:

1. Nailtek II Foundation
2. Two coats Choose Me!
3. Stamped: BM 204, FF Platinum Record
4. One coat Zoya Frida
5. One coat OTD

I'm super happy with how this came out! Bonus: the gold gets a bit purposefully "lost" in the manicure, the stamping doesn't need to be perfect. 

I used the floral full nail design right above BM204 for the stamping.

Giveaway! Funky Fingers Jawbreaker

I saw this at Five Below and thought it'd be a great polish to giveaway.  It's got a lot of indie influence as you can see.  Want to win this polish? Follow instructions below!

L to R: One coat, two coats, three coats - one coat TC on each 

L to R: Three coats, two coats, one coat - one coat TC on each

a Rafflecopter giveaway


Additional Rules:
1. OPEN INTERNATIONALLY* 
2. The winner has 48 hours to reply; in the event they do not, a new winner will be chosen.
3. You can tweet the giveaway once per day to earn extra entries!

*Excludes Saudi Arabia - I've had multiple packages that never made it to their destination.  In order to continue to do giveaways on an international basis, there needs to be this little caveat.

Good Luck all!

NEW Funky Fingers Duochrome Swatches

I picked these three duochromes up at my local Five Below.  There was a fourth, called Primrose, that just wasn't my style and just.. fugly. So it didn't come home with me. These are three I did get: Venom, Pink Pixel and Mood Ring.

Venom is a violet based duo with a green shimmer, the most stunning of the three I feel. Shown on all swatches is 2-3 coats (it varied per nail, per color) over Orly Bonder and Sealed with Out the Door.

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Mood Ring, a teal/turquoise base with gold shimmer. I'm pretty terrible at describing duochromes, so I apologize for that.

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Pink Pixel, a pink base with gold shimmer.  The least complex of the three, not really a duochrome so much either as the shimmer didn't really show two different colors.

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Funky Finger polishes are 3 for $5, or $2 a piece available at Five Below.  I've got a ton of them, personally.  These however weren't my bag, so I gave them away.  The formula on these was a little bit runny but totally workable.

Funky Fingers Mermaid Lagoon

Usually I pass on glitters like this, they've got a long history of sheeting off my nails within hours.  I figured for $2 I could take the plunge since it is so unique and interesting, at least from what I've seen or owned. I'm incredibly happy I did - I actually had to use the foil method to get this off my nails.  That NEVER happens.

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This is two coats of Mermaid Lagoon over Orly Bonder and sealed with Out the Door. No undies were needed, it catches the light so nicely that you really don't even need anything underneath.

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Funky Fingers bottles are the wonkiest things, I clearly, however, am an expert at holding them.

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There's little purple hexes, larger holo ones (which I normally detest holo glitter), and shimmer-y dust in a clear base.  It really looks like someone put a mermaid in a blender and then bottled it, and I'm not complaining!

Funky Fingers Glass Fleck Collection

I picked up this set at Five Below.  There may or may not be dupes in these from the Color Club Take Wing collection. The Funky Fingers polishes are named after fairy tale and princess-y type stuff.  This set consists of five glass fleck sort of polishes. I used Orly Bonder and Brucci Nail Dryer for all of the swatches.

Prince Charming - Mirror, Mirror, Pixy Dust, Kiss the Girl - Belle

Prince Charming was the sheerest of the bunch needed a total of 4 coats.

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Bottle Macro

Not only was it the sheerest, it's the most difficult to describe. There are hints of blue and pink in there too.  And it's a bit glowy! The macro shot of my nail captures best what you can really see in real life.  It's got multi-dimensions to it. It loses points though for being a 4-coater, but you could probably get away with three.

Mirror, Mirror is a fun, vivacious blue that also is a bit glowy.  This is only 2 coats of polish in these pictures but I think if I applied slightly thicker coats that the bare spots or VNL you might be seeing would be eliminated.

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I was thinking this could possibly be a dupe for Color Club Sky High but upon closer inspection, I'm not so sure.

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 This one did stain though, just a warning.

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Pixy Dust, which I think is a nod at Tinker Bell, is the second sheerest out of this collection. This is 3 coats and could've used a fourth. I didn't really like how it looked on me that much. I'm sure there's an audience for this color, I'm just not a part of it.

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The next one, Kiss the Girl, is my favorite from this set.  Not just because it's pink, but the formula is incredible.  This is ONE coat of Kiss the Girl.  Out of all of them, this one has the most "glowy", least "metallic" look. It was slightly difficult to photograph. It behaved like a neon when I tried capturing it.

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Belle is the one I thought I'd like the least but it actually is pretty impressive for a yellow.  It's a direct reference to the Disney princess, Belle from Beauty and the Beast and I think they nailed it.  I stopped at 3 coats here. For as fun as this color is, I'm surprised I don't have one like it already.

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 I'm pretty sure this is a dupe for Color Club Daisy Does It.

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Yeah, it looks pretty bad on me but it's such a cool color. I love yellow so much, just wish I could wear it.

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So my overall take on these is that they're pretty awesome.  I got all of these for $9 and I'm pretty impressed with some of them. I'll run down their qualities again.


Prince Charming: Super sheer 4 coater with lots of depth.
Mirror, Mirror: Opaque 2 coater that stains.
Pixy Dust: Sheer green at 3 coats, not the best color.
Kiss the Girl: Super opaque one coat wonder that glows.
Belle: Decent opacity at 3 coats for a yellow. Has a CC dupe.


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China Glaze Sea Spray & Funky Fingers Accent Nail

My friend Gaby suggested doing this mani, I'm so glad I did! Instead of gold glitter, though, I used a gold foil. It's so beachy!

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This is two coats of Sea Spray over Orly Bonder and sealed with Sally Hansen Diamond Flash. Which sucks, LOOK at the bubbling. No fan or air was blowing at me when I did my mani, so.. I'll give it one more shot one day, maybe.

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For the accent nail, I used Funky Fingers Down to Earth. This is two coats as well. I really wanted to do white horizontal stripes on the blue nails but they chipped before I had a chance to. Sadface.

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I really loved how this turned out, minus the damn bubbles. Thanks Gaby!

Funky Fingers Kelly

I broke this one out of the stash because I realized I didn't have many greens, and since my options were limited, I went to the back of the FF drawer in my Helmer.  I bought this at Five Below a long time ago, I found it in the discount bin all by itself.

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This was NEARLY IMPOSSIBLE to photograph.  It's rare I have to alter the settings on my camera, but this one had me discovering feature I didn't even know my camera had! I'm not sure there is a color accurate photo in the 50 or so I took, so I'll show you the nonsense I was working with.

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I don't even know. Cellphone pic under my lamp, maybe.

This is 3 coats of Kelly over CND Stickey without topcoat.  It's a bizarre polish, somewhat of a suede.. jelly? Is that possible? I don't know what I'm working with; I've never encountered a polish like this.  Perhaps there's a hint of neon in here somewhere.

Taken with my cellphone.

Flash

It's not matte, but it's not shiny.  It's not a jelly but it's not a creme.  It doesn't photograph well and it looks like 5 different shades depending on the setting.  When I wore it to school, it looked neon.  Right now with my bedroom lighting, it looks like a forest green.  The very first picture is probably the closest to reality, maybe? Maybe the flash picture. I DON'T KNOW.

Jessica Disco Diva & Valentine's Stamping

With the lover's holiday approaching, I thought it'd be cute to add some themed stamping to my dazzling previous manicure.  I seriously can't get enough of Disco Diva, the linear holo is so incredibly strong!

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I used Funky Fingers Monster Ballad for stamping and Klean Color Metallic Blue for the dots as well as Monster Ballad.  The finishes of the colors (foils) played so nicely with the base (holo).

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For anyone wondering, the rose is from plate BM09 and the kissy lips are from plate BM02.  I used a dotting tool for the dots, of course!