Dot Mani

Vintage Rose Manicure with Sally Hansen Miracle Gel Polishes

9:00:00 AM


Good morning polished world!  How are you all today?  I'm doing quite well!  I'm actually quite proud of myself that I'm getting this post up today.  Usually when I go through and do a batch of photo editting, I decide to skip the post and give myself a day off.  For some reason though, I have a spurt of blogging energy and am here with another post!

Today's post is a manicure I did with three of the Sally Hansen Miracle Gel polishes.  I have seen mixed reviews in regards to this line, but was really eager to try them.  As a person who tends to keep their manicures on for 3-4 days, I'm always looking for something with longevity that also has a wide variety of colors.

Today's rose manicure I'm sharing with you was done before Tuesday's blue daisy manicure using Tidal Wave.  I can tell you that my first experience was great and I'm excited to use them more often! Especially for nail art!

Let's take a look at my manicure!




Colors Used:
  • Sally Hansen - Pink Cadillaquer
  • Sally Hansen - B-Girl
  • Sally Hansen - Wet My Thistle
  • Sally Hansen - Fuchsia Flare
Let's start off talking about B-Girl.  Such an awesome light blue/mint tinted polish.  Really something I do not own in my collection and I'm thrilled it is part of it now.  Applied evenly in two coats with a really brilliant shine without top coat.

Pink Cadillaquer is such a pretty pale pink polish.  Applied evenly in 2 coats, if you are light when you apply coats, you might need to do three for full coverage.  I didn't have a problem though with two.  It also worked great as a nail art polish.  It covered over B-Girl and the white lines perfectly for the base of the roses.  It also didn't dry too fast so it was easy to work with and to get the shape I wanted to in regards to the rose.

Wet My Thistle is an awesome light green polish which I can see myself using a lot for floral manicures.  It reminds me of FingerPaints Grassy Knoll which has become one of my favorite greens.  I'm very happy to have it as part of my collection because you can never have too many greens that are this shade.  I'll for sure be using it as a base for a manicure in the near future.


When it came to top coat, I decided to use both my INM Out the Door and the Miracle Gel top coat to test the longevity of the polish.  My index and ring finger had Out the Door, and my middle and pinkie had the Miracle Gel top coat.  After three days, the wear on the nails were identical.  There were no major chips, and the edges didn't shrink.  I preferred my Out the Door because it dried a lot quicker than the Miracle Gel top coat.

What do you think?  Fan of this manicure?  Used the Miracle Gels?

The Sally Hansen Miracle Gels are currently for sale at major retailers.

Until next time, <3.

Flowers

Twinsie Tuesday: Inspired by Your Car

9:00:00 AM


Good morning polished world!  How are you all doing today?  I'm sitting here in shock that it is yet again another Tuesday.  Seriously people, where is the time going??  Didn't I just post a Twinsie Tuesday post yesterday!?  Sigh.

This week for Twinsie Tuesday we are sharing manicures which are inspired by our cars.  Now my car is "Magnetic Grey Metallic" which is a very pretty color.  I love it so much that it is definitely going to be the color of my next car.  Now, I even though I love my car and the color of it, I didn't really want to match my nails to it because my life is so busy that I do not have time to do swatching of plain polishes and I didn't want to have gray nails for 3 days.

So I went on Pinterest and I searched "Fun cars" and came across this pin.  You know me and my love of florals.  I would totally drive a daisy car around town, especially a blue one.  So I decided to match my nails to that pretty daisy vehicle.

Let's take a look!




Colors Used:
  • Sally Hansen - Tidal Wave
  • Acrylics
Tidal Wave from Sally Hansen is from the Miracle Gel collection.  Goodness this polish is perfect.  Two coats and it was full coverage of the most gorgeous blue ever.  I love the brush in these bottles.  I only have to swipe twice to get full coverage across my nail.  Love love love.

Now, I kind of cheated and used my own quick dry top coat instead of the Miracle Gel Top Coat because I was in a hurry and wanted to go to bed.  Well that was a mistake because it kind of shrunk the tips.  I don't know if the quick dry topper is to blame or if I didn't let the base dry enough.  I literally slapped this manicure together in a matter of a half hour.


I love the little daisies.  The more I look at the photos, they kind of look like weird sunny side up eggs.  I swear they are daisies!

What do you think??  Like this look?  Think Tidal Wave is gorgeous?

 Don't forget to check out the other Twinsie's posts!


Amanda at Amandalandish
Amanda at Fashion Footing
Amber at Nails Like Lace
Bridget at A Painted Nail
Chelsea at Nailed Blog
Jessica at Blue Velvet Lacquer
Lakeisha at Refined and Polished
Marisa at Polish Obsession
Róisín at Cuti-CLUE-les
Savannah at Addicted to Polish
Tiffany at Polished To Precision

Somewhere Amanda from Fashion Footing is shaking her head that I didn't match my nails to my own personal car and instead cheated and used a Pinterest car.  Oops.

Until next time, <3.

FingerPaints

Purple Floral Nail Art

9:00:00 AM


Good morning polished world!  Happy Sunday.  Goodness, another Sunday.  Where did the weekend go??  I feel like there aren't enough hours in the days anymore.  Time needs to slow down!

Well, Spring is in the air, and I'm not upset that winter months flew by.  Now that it's Spring, I've been addicting to floral designs.  I have had to stop myself and remember there are other types of manicures other than floral ones!

Today I am sharing with you a purple floral design I did a few weeks ago.  I want to call them roses, but they kind of look more like carnations.  Regardless, I love them.

Let's take a look!  




Colors Used:
  • Sinful Colors - Snow Me White
  • OPI - You're Such a Budapest
  • NYC New York Color - Jacaranda Flower
  • FingerPaints - Grassy Knoll
  • Zoya - Josie

See how they kind of look like carnations and not roses?  I think that is because of the complete outline that I did around the flower.  Typically when I do roses, I just do a few messy lines to resemble the petals.  This design has more of a uniform look which makes the flowers different.  I really don't know how to explain it.....


I think all these colors worked wonderfully together.  Each polish is magnificent for nail art as well.  I was pleasantly surprised that I was able to use Jacaranda Flower to create the dark purple details because it is a quick dry polish.  Typically quick dry polishes get goopy and are really hard to work with when it comes to making lines.  I am now sold on these In a Minute NYC polishes for nail art.  Cheap with dozens of colors = one happy nail art Alaina.

What do you think?  Fan of this manicure?  Roses or carnations?

 Have a great day!  Until next time, <3.

Dot Mani

An Orly Dry Brush Mani

9:00:00 AM


Good morning polished world!  How are you all today?  It's yet again another Friday!  We all know how much I love Friday!  I will ignore the fact that it snowed yesterday and that it is again freezing all because it is Friday and I can sleep in tomorrow!

Today I am posting a manicure I did a month ago but never got around to posting.  I kind of fail when it comes to editing photos.  I have a folder that fills up and I typically only begin to edit photos when I literally have nothing to post.  So as you can guess, I ran out of posts and sat two nights ago and editted so many photos that I don't want to do it again for awhile.

This manicure was one of my favorites that I've ever done, so I'm kind of upset it took me so long to get it on to the blog.  I am a huge fan of Orly and I have always had my eye on Skinny Dip, a fun neon blue polish.  Sally Beauty was having a sale on Orly's a few weeks ago so I decided to finally purchase it along with some back up bottles of Liquid Vinyl, and a new-to-me color Purple Crush.

Of course I was itching to use them all together, so I came up with this manicure.  Let's take a look!




Colors Used:
  • Orly - Skinny Dip, Liquid Vinyl, Purple Crush
  • Sinful Colors - Snow Me White
Let me take a minute and beg Orly to create a white polish that isn't that dang French Tip White one or whatever it is called.  As many of you know, Liquid Vinyl is my all time favorite black polish, and I know that if Orly created a regular white polish with a normal brush, it would be just as perfect as Liquid Vinyl.  Honestly, all of my Orly polishes are perfection.  The formulas are consistent, and they never dry up.



I'm so happy that Skinny Dip is part of my collection.  It's such a pretty, bright, neon blue.  Until I purchased the Electric Nights polishes from China Glaze, I did not have a single blue like this one.  It is different than the China Glaze ones because it does have a slight shimmer.  I almost prefer the shimmer because it is unique and really goes perfectly with the shade it self.  I used 2 coats and added a shiny top coat because like most neons, it dries matte.

What do you think?  Fan of this manicure?  Do you love Orly as much as I do?

Until next time, <3.