Graduation Nails! (Zoya Phoebe + Jordana Funky Gold Town)

Hey guys!
Firstly, sorry about disappearing again. The past two weeks have been taking care of last minute things, prepping for graduation, and going to senior stuff, and it was way busier than I could have imagined. Don't worry though...school is over for real for real and I'm not employed (working on it though), so I will probably be a much better blogger for the forseeable future lol.


But anyway, Saturday and Sunday were my graduation dates (yes, I had two graduations lol), and of course, I had to wear something festive on my nails to celebrate. Since my school colors were buff and blue and time was short, this is what I ended up with:

I started with two coats of Zoya Phoebe, and then applied one layer of Jordana Funky Gold Town on top.

Then I applied a layer of BYS's Matte Topcoat to finish it off.  Super easy and quick. :D 

Sunlight, no flash.

Natural light, no flash.

Sunlight, no flash.

      Even though it wasn't what I originally wanted, I really liked how this came out. The glitter looked pretty against Phoebe's shade of blue, and I appreciated how easy Funky Gold Town was to put on. With chunky glitter, there tends to be placement issues, but in this case, I swiped on the polish and the glitter went exactly where it was supposed to, which was nice. However, I need to go to one of these meetings where they decide the names for polishes. Funky Gold Town? Clearly, everyone there was drunk.  

And unrelated, but I think I'm gonna go back to square nails. The pointed ones were fun, but I've been scratching the hell out of everyone (never myself though oddly enough), and soon, nobody will want to be my friend anymore. Plus, I think they look prettier on my hands. So back to squares I go. 

But that's all from me today! 

Thanks for reading, and have a happy hump day!! 

Chinese Giant Salamander

Hi guys! So today's animal is definitely not a good-looking one. I know I said that about the condor yesterday, but even it had its redeeming features, like the bright colors on its head, its glossy black feathers, and the cuteness of its babies. But today's animal really doesn't have anything that people would like to look at, unless you like big slimy things that creep about in the night. However, ugly creatures should not be wiped off the planet just because they are ugly. They deserve help too. So the animal we're gonna look at today is the Chinese Giant Salamander:

I wonder why this one is peach-colored. I also wonder why it's smiling like that.

    The Chinese Giant Salamander is kind of cool because it's actually the biggest amphibian in the whole world. It can grow up to six feet, although most adult salamanders today only make it to about 3 feet and 66 pounds. Which is small for the species, but still scary big for a salamander. They spend most of their time underwater in mountain streams, are nocturnal animals, and eat insects, frogs and fish. But sadly for them, they  are coming awfully close to extinction because they are losing their habitats due to pollution and development. This has forced them into smaller places, which is partly why they never really grow into the magnificent giant salamanders that they are supposed to be. They are also seen as a delicacy in China, so people will overhunt them to use in presumably delicious dishes. They actually can't see and hunt by feeling vibrations, which makes it extra unfair, because people can just kind of run up on them and snatch them up before the salamander even knows what's happening. It's like kidnapping a blind person. Poor salamander, right? :(

So here are my Chinese Giant Salamander nails. I tried to replicate the splotches on the salamander's skin:

Sunlight, no flash.

Ottlite, no flash.

Sunlight, no flash.

     To do this, I started with two layers of OPI Bling Dynasty. Then I used Sally Hansen Sequin Scandal and a dotting tool to apply random splotches and dots to my nails. Last thing was to carefully apply topcoat, so the pattern didn't smudge and that was that. 

    Overall, I like how it came out. When the design is supposed to be random, it's easier to get away with stuff lol! My only thing is that I wished I had done a few more splotches and maybe made it matte. It would have looked really cool matte.

P.S. If you're wondering what happened to my nails, I broke a large chunk of corner off one of them in a horrible collision with my desk, and in a fit of rage and maybe madness, I filed all the rest of my nails into pointed nubbins. It's weird not having square nails anymore since that's been my nail shape for the past...three years. But it's cool too, and I kind of want to see what happens with them as they grow out. 

But that's all from me today!

Thanks for reading, and I hope everyone has a wonderful day!

China Glaze Electrify

   Hi guys! For today, I have the second (and last) polish that I got from China Glaze's Colors from the Capitol collection, Electrify.

Electrify is a bunch of small, bright gold and slightly larger red hex glitter in a clear base. There's alot of red, but more gold. 

Sunlight, no flash.

Sunlight, no flash.

Sunlight, no flash.

Sunlight, no flash.

Ottlite, no flash.

Ottlite, no flash.

Sunlight, no flash.

Sunlight, no flash.

        Electrify was named for District 5 (which is in charge of giving electricity to all of Panem) and happens to be my absolute favorite polish from the collection. At the most superficial level, I love this because it's ridiculously sparkly and fun, and ya'll know how I feel about GLITTAH. But I also like that you can see how the district fits in with the polish, and I can also see some other Hunger Games stuff in there too, like the girl on fire costume and even the cornucopia. My only sadness is that more of the collection didn't come out like this, but I guess my wallet is relieved about that. But bottom line, Electrify is magic. Get you some. 

    Formula-wise, Electrify was good. I used three coats for the pictures and was really happy with the coverage. However, Electrify does dry gritty and dull, so to get the most out of it, I needed two layers of topcoat: one thick layer of Gelous and another thick layer of Poshe on top. It was hellish to remove, but at least everything dried lightning quick and was absolutely gorgeouss. 

But that's all from me today!

Thanks for reading guys, and have an awesome Thursday!! ^_^

BYS Through the Looking Glass

  Since my last post was all about fire and gold and THE HUNGER GAMESS, I thought it would be nice to show an icy kind of color. Just to mellow everything out. So here's BYS Through the Looking Glass, which I won in a Bec's Beauty Buzz giveaway. 

Through the Looking Glass is a bunch of small sapphire blue hex glitter interspersed with even smaller gold glitter bits, all in a clear base. 

Sunlight, no flash.

Ottlite, no flash.

Sunlight, no flash.

This picture is probably the closest to what this looks like in real life. 

Sunlight, no flash.

Sunlight, no flash. 

     I really like Through the Looking Glass. The blue glitter is so richly colored, and the pops of gold glitter in there are so gorgeous and look super luxe. It's not quite as sparkly as my beloved Absolutely Alice, but with AA being so rare and Through the Looking Glass having such a similar color scheme, I'm happy to have an alternative polish to use when I get the urge to wear it.

   Applying Through the Looking Glass was pretty much trauma free. I used a thin layer of China Glaze Blue Sparrow as a base, so I could conserve polish, and then put two layers of Through the Looking Glass on top.  After two coats, there were no naked patches, so I just added a layer of topcoat to make the glitter smooth and that was that. The whole thing dried really fast and was quite beautiful, yea verily.

But that's all from me today! Thanks for reading, and have a happy Monday! ^_^

Hunger Games Stuff!!

      Hi guys!!
So yesterday, I got to go see The Hunger Games in IMAX, and it was a super-glorious experience. Like all film adaptions, it didn't quite match up to what I expected from reading the book, but I really did enjoy it. Except for in Effie's case, I think they could have been a little more creative with the makeup and wardrobe, I wish they had paid closer attention to detail (they forgot President Snow's rose a few times for example), and I wish they had stayed truer to the book because they cut out some parts that I felt were important, but despite those quibbles, it was definitely worth seeing.


Also, I was really pleasantly surprised by Peeta! When I heard who was playing him, I was like no no no nooo this shit is not going to work. But Josh Hutcherson did a really good job...once he started acting, I forgot my complaints and started being able to root for him the way that I did when I was reading his character in the books, so that was a relief. Nothing is worse than watching a movie and having this one character ruin it for you LOL. But enough blabbing about the movie...I don't want to spoil it for others. I will just say that it was great, and if you are still on the fence about seeing it, I think you should do it. I'm sure you won't be disappointed.


But anyway, for this momentous occasion, I of course had to do a girl on fire mani. I suck at free-handing or making nice-looking flames (I know because I tried), so I just did a little konad stamp-on thing.

Sunlight, no flash. 

Ottlite, no flash.

Close up of the design.

Sunlight, no flash.

    This was pretty simple to do. I did two layers of China Glaze Electrify (I'll review that by itself soon), and put a layer of topcoat. After letting it dry, I used Color Club Where's the Soiree? to stamp on a vaguely flame-y pattern from one of my random knockoff konad plates. Then, I put a red gem in the gap at the top of the flame-y pattern, sealed it all in with topcoat, and that was it. So yep, very easy. 

    I was also really happy with how it came out. The black flame-y thing pops out great against the glittery base, and the gem pops out nicely from the black. And in sunlight, the base is so sparkly that it really does look like my nails are on fire. I don't really like how the pictures look (toooo much detail lol), but in person, it's beautiful and didn't look like Beetlejuice at all for once. I was so proud of myself ahahaha. I also got compliments all day, and some people were even able to guess that I was going to see/had seen the movie that day, so that was nice. 

I also did my eye makeup like one of my favoritee characters in the whole series, Cinna. I know, I usually don't show makeup and will most likely never do it again, but I was so excited that even with my makeup ineptitude, I didn't come out looking crazy LOL. So I wanted to share. 

Here was the original look:

And this was my version:

This was also really easy. I used a thin liner brush to put some primer and then some Fyrinnae Pixie Epoxy close to my lashline. Then I used a little water and glycerin to apply Shiro Cosmetics Triforce  over the Pixie Epoxied part of my skin. On top of that, I did a thin line of Wet n Wild's Creme Eyeliner in black. Then, put some pencil liner on the inner lids, both top and bottom. The last thing I did was to curl my lashes and apply Cover Girl Lash Blast Volume. 

   I was nervous that I would look like a freak, because the gold was very bright and intense, but I actually got alot of compliments, which was nice because no one ever compliments my face lol. So yep, it was an all around good day. 

And that's all from me today! Thanks for reading and I hope everyone has an awesome weekend! And if you've seen the movie and want to talk about it, please comment! I'd love to hear what ya'll thought about it. 

Shooting Shoots

       Sorry about missing yesterday! I was languishing in the cool air (heat wave begone!) and literally did nothing all of that day. But today, I have the final installation of Barielle Week. Huzzah! But since I didn't have a new color to show you guys (only had six colors), I decided to do some quick and simple nail art with one of my favorite Barielles, Shooting Star.

Sunlight, no flash.

Natural light, no flash.

Sunlight, no flash.

Sunlight, no flash.

Sunlight, no flash.

           To do this, I started with two layers of Shooting Star and then used China Glaze 2030 to stamp on the bamboo shoot pattern from Konad Plate m66. I wanted to use a bronze polish, to match with the glitter, but it turns out I don't really have one. *softly weeps* But anyway, even though I feel like this looks a little unfinished (like there should be something else on there), I'm still happy with it and I think it looks pretty darn good.

And with that, Barielle Week is all done! Thanks for reading, and have a happy day!

No Two Are Alike!

            First off, I'd like to give all of you a big hug and thank you, because The Phalanges Files reached 400 readers last night, which is...surreal to me. I'm kind of broke at the moment, so it may take a little bit of time, but I'm going to figure out something that I can do to celebrate the occasion and thank you guys.
        After enjoying Milani Molten Rock on its own for a day, I wasn't in the mood to get rid of it, and decided to mess with it a little bit. Also, I took these pictures on a rather overcast day, so all the pictures are in natural light. 

I used China Glaze 2030 to stamp on the snowflake pattern from Konad plate M20. Then I put in two blue rhinestones in random sunflakes, and sealed everything up with topcoat. 

 

     I really really like how this turned out. But for some reason, I had a ton of trouble getting the whole snowflakes on the stamper...little chunks would just not pick up. I tested it with other paints too, but it just did not work. Maybe my plate is defective or I was scraping it wrong. But most of it got on there, so whatever, I'm happy. LOL. 

Finally, don't forget that today is the last day to enter my Lady of the Lake giveaway! It ends at 11:59 EST, so if you'd like to enter, please go sign up soon! (The graphic in the sidebar will take you to it.)

And that's all from me today! Thanks for reading, and have a great Monday!