Glowy Blue Embers

Every once in a while I'll layer some polishes together and fall in love and want to set up residency on my fingernails, hahaha. I'm currently wearing one of my favorite polish combinations ever and I'm super excited to share with you!

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This is one coat (!) of Zoya Song, with one coat Hits Phenomena Afterglow and one coat Finger Paint Asylum.  The layerings are over a coat of Orly Bonder, sealed with a coat of Gelous and then Out the Door. There's like, a circus-y carnival on my nails.

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Holographic Accent Nail Mani (Layla & Hits)

I was looking forward to writing this post all day!  I wore this mani for two days and it still is beautiful. That never happens, uh, ever.  I got Layla Flash Black in a swap with my friend Melissa and Hits Apolo from Llarowe's 49% off sale. They're such a cute couple.

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This is two coats of Hits Apolo and two coats of Layla Flash Black over the Jessica Hologram Base Coat. I sealed these off with NYC Grand Central Station.

Flash

I took these photos after an 8 hour shift at the daycare and after my shower (hair washing included). No chips! I was not expecting such awesome wear-time.

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Both had really nice formulas, Apolo was a little bit runnier, but not in a bad way - it just made it easy for thin coats.  Both applied so nicely and wore so well.  They were shiny and sparkly and holo-y! As with most holos, they both dried really fast.

Flash

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I am so happy to have these in my collection! I want to play with more holos really soon :D

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Hits Phenomena Afterglow

I ordered this from Llarowe's 49% off sale she had for her birthday recently.  The swatches I had seen along with my previous positive experience with Hits lead me want to try another polish from them.  I'm really glad I did; this is a glitter that wore really well on me!

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Afterglow is a color-shifting glitter in a clear base best worn over darker colors.  It turns purple, gold and blue, maybe pink too.  It depends on the light and the angle you're looking at it from.

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This is one coat over one coat of Brucci Heavenly Julia.  Chances are it wore so well because aside from base and top coat, it was only two coats of polish total.  I used Orly Bonder and Out the Door.

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These pictures were actually taken after an eight hour shift at work (daycare work, so lots of hand washing and glove changing) and after a shower and hair washing!  It's not just that it didn't peel off, it didn't chip, either!

Galaxy Nails!

I wanted to give galaxy nails a try after seeing so many wonderful examples.  Mine, unfortunately, look uh, much better at a distance.  They're not awful but I hope to do better next time.

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I used a previous mani to build on, click HERE to go back and see it.  That explains what I built on, since it was also a layered manicure.  It can be seen below.

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Upon that manicure I used a couple different things to create the effect.
-Hits Zeus (sponged over)
-Hits Demeter (sponged over)
-WnW Black Creme (sponged over)
-Finger Paints Asylum (sponger over)
-Acrylic paints in various colors (used to make the "galaxy" design)

I used paint brushes with the acrylic paint and a make up sponge for the nail polish.  I knew I wanted it to contain orange for contrast reasons.  The dots were done using  a dotting tool with paint, not polish, to make them irregular.

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Flash

Have you done galaxy nails? I'd love to see your examples!

The Best Layer Combination Ever!

This post is about the greatness that I discovered by layering to polishes but I want to make sure Hits Zeus gets its own glory, too.  The layer combination will be further down the post.

This is 3 coats of Zeus with no topcoat.  It's so much more holographic in real life but my lamp kind of killed that effect.  Considering how dark it is, and how I normally dodge dark polish, I'm really blown away with how much I love it.  It's divine! (Pun intended, ha!)

Flash

My camera flash helped capture some more of the rainbow though.

Zeus is more of a black than a charcoal, which seems to be more common lately. If you're looking for an actual black linear holo, this is it.  While the linear effect isn't super strong, it definitely isn't scattered - they do pull to create the coveted linear effect.

Blurry macro nail shot to show the rainbow.  I'm so happy I splurged on the Hits!

So that fancy layer combo I was talking about?  It's incredible.  My Secret Santa spoiled me and sent a package with some fantastic polishes, Nabi Iris Jumbo Glitter being one of them.  I put one coat over my existing Zeus manicure and almost keeled over.

!!!

LOOK AT IT.

It's an instant galaxy effect.  My nails looked like a photo of the Milky Way.  I'm in love!  My first Nabi and holy cow is it a good one.  I sealed this manicure with one coat of Out the Door, by the way.

Hits Haul & My Greek Kitties

So I ordered some Hits polish from Llarowe earlier this week and they arrived today.  That was fast.  :D There was some reasoning behind ordering these particular polishes, aside from them being magically delicious.  I've mentioned them previously, but we have some cats.  And most of them are named after Greek deities.  So when I saw this collection I knew that somehow, some way I needed them.  I'd never spend this much regularly for a polish but they are quite fantastic.  Anywhoodle, this is what I got:

Artemis - Atena - Demeter - Zeus

I ordered these four specifically because they share a name with my kitties, but the only one I wouldn't have wanted/purchased aside from that is probably Demeter.  It's orange, but I had to.  My cats wanted to make an appearance, so I said OK.

Artemis (Quiddle)

Athena (Neener)

Demeter

Zeus<3

Our cats have picked up a few nicknames along the way, but those are their actual names and the names used on their vet papers, etc.  I wish I had a better picture of Demeter but shes so skittish so that's all I got. And my little Zeus, I miss him so much.  Ugh he was just adorable and the sweetest little man. Do you see why I had to get these?! Do ya?!

Well anyways, I was thinking about my other cats and the polishes and I had a storm of thoughts: 
-My other cats: Frank, Ralph and Nyx.  The boys aren't godly but Nyx is the goddess of darkness and night, and our Nyx is a little black beastly thing.  I wish they had made her one in black.
-And Zeus should've been silver 1. because my Zeus was white and 2. I envision Zeus' grey beard.
-I also see Artemis as being yellow, not silver.
-Atena makes sense as pink, and a lot of the others are aptly named I suppose. 
-Demeter makes sense as orange as shes the goddess of the harvest, and I think harvest colors = Thanksgiving = orange.
-Also, we used to have a cat Pandora, she died years ago, and I'm not even sure if Pandora was a goddess but it would've been nice to have a full weird cat/np collection.

But I wasn't on the design team so my input means nothing.

I also got my Black Friday Milani order (Finally, they never sent a shipping notice. It just showed up.) and didn't feel it deserved a full post so I'm tossing it in here as this is a "haul" post.

Dude Blue - Fresh Teal - Cyberspace - Hi-Res - Dressmaker

On that note.. Dude Blue..?? Really?