Cosmic Nails!

I've been contemplating doing some holiday themed nail art, but the end of December really crept on me! So I have something else thats super fun!

Hah! Love them. Definitely enlarge this to get more detail. 

Close up of my thumb.  I like how swirly it came out, like a real galaxy. 

I used a slew of different things for this:

1. Manglaze Matte as Muder for the base

2. OPI Alpine Snow

3. OPI Siberian Nights

4. Orly Frisky

5. Sinful Colors Nail Junkie

6. Revlon Silver Dollar

7. Forever 21 Silver (small holo glitter)

8. A tooth pick

9. A makeup sponge

10. A top coat (I used Seche Vite)

So, what you have to do is first do the base coat, then use the makeup sponge to make the galaxy looking shapes. I first used Alpine Snow for the shape, then Frisky and Siberian Nights to kind of outline the shape that was in white. Then I moved on to the glitter, also with the make up sponge, Silver Dollar then Nail Junkie around the colored outline. Next,  I used the Forever 21 holo glitter polish and sponged it all over the nail. Then I used a tooth pick to make the white dots that represent stars. Finally a coat of Seche to smooth everything out. So that's the gist or it, I know this is probably pretty confusing without pictures to go along with the instructions, so I can do a tutorial if you guys so wish. 

This was my first try, and it's pretty easy and comes out really cool. Just a note, if you want to use Silver Dollar like I did, definitely be careful with not putting too much on because it's pretty opaque and can muddle the overall look. So there you go, cosmic nails. Totally awesome!

Happy Halloween! Ke$ha Nails!

Happy Halloween everyone! I love halloween, but sadly I didn't get home until 10:30 today so I had to completely miss it. :( But I did celebrate the halloweekend as Ke$ha! And I thought I would share my official halloween mani!

I love them. Everything here is pretty basic: Sinful Colors Black on Black, Revlon Silver Dollar, Manglaze Matte-astrophe, Revlon Golden, OPI Sanguine and OPI Simmer &Shimmer. For the Simmer & Shimmer, I used my blow pen technique. The only semi complicated thing is on both my middle fingers. On the top photo my middle finger is completely covered in gold leaf, and on the bottom photo the tip of the nail is gold leafed. I was inspired by this photo.  

In terms of the gold leaf, I bought a bag of gold leaf flakes at the craft store, not sheets of gold leaf. I first applied a base coat on my nail and while it was still wet I dipped my finger in the gold leaf and let them dry a little then smoothed it out. I did top it with Seche Vite, but it didn't do much, it was still rough after two coats. But it's really easy to do (even though the flakes tend to fly around everywhere) and looks really cool.

Until next time,

The Wicked

Manglaze Mayo!

I was going to continue on with the OPI Spookettes, but then my Manglaze consolation prize came in the mail on Monday and it came with a mini of Mayo! I was so excited because I've been wanting to buy it since it was released but just never had the effort. But now I have it!

First, bottle shots! I always love the Manglaze bottle art.

(finally a good picture on the first try!)

Mayo, four coats. Kind of reminds me of a white wall, pretty cool. When you apply the polish it looks pretty iridescent and shiny, but then it dries and loses most of that. You can kind of see the sparkle in really direct sunlight, but just slightly. 

The formula was slightly sheer, that's why it took so many coats. I was debating about leaving it at three coats, but I kept looking at my nails and I could still see my nail beds which was just annoying so I had to do the fourth coat. Just to warn you, you need to let each layer dry before applying the next one or it will take forever to dry. Even though it may look dry because it becomes matte right away, it probably really isn't dry. So just beware of that.

But I couldn't break my all Halloween nail challenge, so I had to add to the Mayo! I was going to do a ghost but then got lazy and did candy corn instead! The yellow is Sally Hanses Insta-Dri in Lightening and the orange is OPI He's My Boo, from Spookettes. I did it all free hand pretty quickly, so excuse any not completely straight lines. Should I do all my nails like this? Hmm, I think its really cute. Definitely like it more than I thought I would.

So next the nest post will be He's My Boo. After I used it today, I'm pretty impressed and excited about really testing it out. 

Until next time,

The Wicked

Manglaze Matte-astrophe vs. Essie Wickedly Matte

I've been putting off this comparison/ keep forgetting that I have to do it. hah. So, here it is finally! The matte top coat comparison!

Index- Manglaze

Middle- Essie

Ring- Manglaze

Pinky- Essie

I did one coat of each matte top coat over my previous one coat of Zoya Anja (which I think looks awesome matte!). The finish is the same and the application is also the same. Each dried very quickly and lasted the same. I had it on for two days and neither wore off or anything. Overall, I didn't find any major differences at all. The only difference is where you can buy them and the price. So, if you like the matte finish, either of these will work for you. I might have to do a longer testing period to see if one wears off.

Until next time,

The Wicked

Hot Mess and Black Shatter

So a change of plans for today, I'll be doing the next 2 Orlys on the next post and today I'll be showing you guys my current mani (I've grown very fond of it).

This is 3 coats of Manglaze Hot Mess (in retrospect I could probably have used one coat of Revlon Silver Dollar, oh well). Then when that was dry I used OPI Black Shatter and then after that was completely dry I decided to matte out the whole thing and so did a coat of Manglaze Matte-Astrophe. Its kind of hard to see that its matte because Hot Mess is so sparkly, but it really is I promise. 

Until next time,

The Wicked

OPI Skull and Glossbones: Matte and Comparison

I've been meaning to try a lighter color with the matte top coat, but I don't have many light colors. I think this might be the only one besides white lol

Left to right:

no top coat

no top coat

matte top coat

It's easier to see if you enlarge the picture. This is the same manicure as the last pot, but I added Matte-Astrophe to 2 fingers. And I have concluded that it looks just like a beige wall! Not that it's a bad thing or anything, it's kinda cool, but it does look like a wall.

I also decided to do a side by side comparison with Brucci Alexandra's "Hot" Gray

Left to right:

Hot Gray

Skull and Glossbones

Hot Gray

Skull and Glossbones

So, as you can see, the Hot Gray is a cooler stone, more like a stone gray, while Skull and Glossbones is a warmer, beigey gray. I love them both, but I thought the comparison was worth showing.

Until next time,

The Wicked

Essie Dive Bar and Manglaze Matte-Astrophe

Here is the first real swatch of Manglaze Matte-Astrophe.

This is Essie Dive Bar, really nice color, especially in the sunlight. It's a deep tealy color, it changes from blue to green and sometimes even purple depending on the light. It has really pretty shimmer that totally elevates the color in the light. This is either 2 or 3 coats, 2 coats is fine, but 3 is better. It's a pretty sheer first coat, but don't worry, another coat will fix it. This is actually my first Essie polish, believe it or not. 

So, I decided to add Matte-Astrophe, just to see. A tip for everyone! Make sure that your nail polish is completely dry, if it's not the top coat will crackle. I mean it could be cool, but it just bothers the crap outta me. I swore my polish was dry, but lo and behold, freaking cracks! It's not that noticeable here, but in person it was veryyyy prominent. So definitely give yourself plenty of HOURS for your polish to dry.  

Other than that, I love the top coat, it's really really cool. It works super quickly and takes only a few minutes to dry. I definitely think the idea of a matte top coat is great. You can make all your polishes matte with one polish! It pays for itself in no time if you like the matte look, like I do.

Until next time,

The Wicked

New from Manglaze!!

While I'm on my Manglaze kick, I thought I'd share their newest colors!

This is Blue/ Fuck off and Dye (yeah I know). Anyway, It's obviously not blue, gotta love the humor of Manglaze. It's a hot pink, has some of that signature shimmer and is completely matte. Very cool.

This is Royal Matterimoaning! Even Manglaze celebrated the royal wedding by creating this royal blue polish. Love the name, love the color, love the humor. Love it. 

These are available online on their website. If you're a fan like I am, I suggest following them on facebook. They post new stuff all the time, and you find out first from the source! 

Until next time,

The Wicked

Manglaze Top Coats!!

Finally! Yesterday I received my Manglaze top coats!! Woohoo!! 

This is Hot Mess, it's their bling top coat. Its completely matte, but has a TON of glitter. It's kind of amazing. I wanted to show you all the  awesome art work (even though it's a little hard to see) that goes onto every bottle, these are even numbered! I felt special. 

This is Matte-Astrophe, the regular matte top coat. It's really awesome, literally takes a second to 

matte-ifiy everything.

Here I wanted to compare Matte-Astrophe, Hot Mess and the regular polish that I used. 

Left to right:

1 coat Nicole by OPI Razzle Dazzle and a coat of Hot Mess

2 coats Milani Charmed 

2 coats Milani Charmed and a coat of Matte-Astrophe

(same as above)

I used Milani Charmed that came out a while ago for their halloween collection. It was a bunch of black based polishes with different glitters. There was blue and red and purple, but this one has silver glitter.

The top coats are amazing, it only takes a few seconds for everything to become matte. The application is super smooth, even smoother than some matte polishes. Manglaze has really perfected their craft. It's impressive. They are totally worth it, especially if you like matte polishes, I say its better to get a matte top coat than a matte polish. With a top coat you can make ANY polish matte.. endless possibilities!! I love it. Awesome. I'll definitely have more swatches to show you soon!

Until next time,

The Wicked

Matte Nail, Glossy Tip

A few weeks ago a friend of mine mentioned to me that she saw someone on the train that had matte nails with glossy tips, so I decided to try it out and dedicate it to her!

Obviously I used Manglaze Matte is Murder, as you can tell from the bottle. I wanted it black rather than grey so no to Fuggen Ugly and I didn't want to waste my OPI Obscurity since it's a tiny bottle. For the tips I just used Seche Vite, but you can use any top coat you have. It's better to use one thats on the thinner side. Seche is pretty thick, so you have to make sure you keep the coat thin enough that it won't be lumpy. 

When I get my matte top coat I'll probably try the opposite manicure, glossy nails with matte tips. I like the look of it with the different textures. I think it would also look cool with the OPI Suedes.

Until next time,

The Wicked

Double Manglaze: Free Hand French

Originally I was going to test out the Black Shatter over Manglaze, but I couldn't decide which one to use. After I finally decided on Fuggen Ugly, I suddenly didn't want to use the shatter. So, the dilemma continued, especially when I saw that most of tips of my nails got smudged. And so the idea for french tips was born!

Its a coat of Fuggen Ugly, and the tips are Matte is Murder. I really love how it turned out. Yes, my tips are somewhat uneven, I'm still working on it, but other than that it's awesome if I do say so myself. I've been thinking of getting tip plates, but now I don't think I need them. Woo! I'll probably try out some more tip combinations, maybe a shatter tip or matte nail with glossy tip!

Until next time,

The Wicked

Manglaze meets Konad

I tried the Konad on OPI Obscurity a while back, and it just didn't show up as well as I would have liked and I vowed to try it on Manglaze. And I did! And it turned out pretty awesomeeeee.

Fantastically is came out just as I had hoped. The Konad polish retained its shine without a top coat and looked awesome with the Manglaze. Here I have one good coat of Matte is Murder and then I used the Konad M57 plate. I used Konad polishes for all the designs, obviously black for the leopard and white for the zebra. I think I'm going to have to get larger plates soon, my nails are getting too long for the Konad ones, which kind of upsets me.

When I was putting on Matte is Murder, I realized how beautiful the color actually is. There is so much depth in the color. I love it. I was reluctant to put anything over it, but I sucked it up and continued on.

I think I'm going to try it with the Black Shatter, as my experimenting continues, and I'll report that back to all of you.

Until next time,

The Wicked

Matte is Murder!

First and foremost I want to show you guys a better comparison.

From to top to bottom:

Matte is Murder

OPI Obscurity

Fuggen Ugly

You can see that the Obscurity is more of flat black while the other 2 have shimmery undertones. The Matte is Murder looks like wrought iron, straight up. It's pretty damn awesome, I'm not going to lie. 

This is the bottle:

So awesome. I love the bottle artwork so much. It's kind of hard to see, but the bottle has the artist's signature. In case anyone was wondering, the artist is Jason Atomic. Props to him.

So here it is! These have a really nice matte finish, especially because they do have that slight shimmer, it definitely gives the polish more dimension. This is 2 coats and a base coat. The application is great, really smooth and has great coverage. Any mess ups are easily covered with another coat. Unlike Fuggen Ugly, Matte is Murder isn't as sparkly when its wet so what you see when you're putting it on, is what you're going to end up with when it's dry. The drying time is really good on these, they dry fast but it can be kind of hard to tell if they're fully dry because the finish becomes matte within seconds of application and I always get scared that I'm going to mess it up lol. 

I really love the MANGLAZE polishes, I really do and I've seen pics of their top coat and it is amazing! As far as I've seen from pictures, it looks like the best matte top coat that I've seen. I'm debating whether to buy a bottle, and I might (probably will) when I come across some more money lol. I'm kind of dying to see OPI Unripened as a matte polish, I think it would look really cool.

I also wanted to experiment what would happen if I put a top coat on Fuggen Ugly. I wanted to see if the shimmer would come through. 

Obviously, it didn't. Everything stayed exactly the same, besides the glossy finish of course. It kind of resembled a Sally Hansen polish that I have, it's called Gunmetal I believe. 

So here's the link to buy MANGLAZE directly from them http://manglaze.com/buy.html. Again, I really suggest these to anyone who likes the matte polishes. They really are fantastic! So buy some!

Until next time,

The Wicked

The MANGLAZE Revolution!

Yesterday my life changed. My MANGLAZE arrived! Of course, I had to test it out.
This is Fuggen Ugly aka Death Tar:

Ok seriously, Fuggen Ugly should be called Fuggen AMAZING! I am in love with these freaking polishes. So, this one is the grey shade, it looks more like a concrete grey in person. These polishes have a very very smooth application and dry pretty quickly. Here I have 2 coats, but a 3rd probably wouldn't hurt. When wet it looks really shimmery and sparkly which I wasn't expecting, but it dries with only a really really really slight shimmer while being completely matte at the same time. It's just too awesome for words.

Some people are kind of confused by the name MANGLAZE, but I love it. If you're a dude and you love to rock out and wear nail polish, this stuff was MADE for you. Literally. So buy it, just don't let your girlfriends do your nails (thats weird).

And I have to show you guys the art that is the bottle:

Freakin' amazing. How many bottles are literally works of art? ALL the MANGLAZE ones! I'll definitely be keeping the bottles once I run out.

I also ordered Matte is Murder, which it their black one and I'll be doing a separate post on that. But in the meantime, I did a comparison of the 2 MANGLAZEs and OPI Obscurity.

From left to right:

Matte is Murder, OPI Obscurity, Fuggen Ugly

The flash on my camera kind of fudged the colors, so I'll put up a clearer comparison with my next post. But you can see that the slight shimmer in the MANGLAZE opposed to the OPI.

Anyway to sum it up, if you like matte polishes you NEED these. Seriously. Just buy them, you won't regret it. On MANGLAZEs website you can get these 2 for $6.66 a piece and I hope everyone sees the humor in the pricing. Anyway, in stores they're $13 each ( not inclusing tax!) so its much cheaper to buy them online, even with shipping you save about $4 each.

The website is http://manglaze.com/. Everyone should check it out. After trying the 2 that I bought I can only imagine how awesome their new matte white, called Mayonnaise, is. And they have their own matte topcoat, Matte-Astrophe which is probably freaking kickass ANDDDD they have a blingy topcoat called Hot Mess. If you make your own polishes they have bottles called Franken Juggs that have freaking amazing art work on them. I'll have to get my hands on these. If I don't I may actually die.

But before I die, I want to show you what I did to my nails before MANGLAZE came and took over.

You can see it better if you click on the picture and enlarge it. I used OPI Obscurity as base color and then I took my trusty Konad and used the fishnetty looking pattern from the M57 plate with the black staming polish. I was inspired by this converse sneaker I saw at Famous Footwear, but the stamping didn't stand out as much as I'd hoped and I felt like it actually started to blend in or fade. But it looked pretty cool when it caught the light. 

So to sum everything up: BUY MANGLAZE. ITS AMAZING. I love it so much and I can't wait to show you guys Matte is Murder!

Until next time,

The Wicked

OPI Obscurity!

This is the first one of the OPI Go Goth minis that I decided to try. I really like the idea of matte nail polishes, I have for a while, and I was excited to try the matte black. 

Because of the flash, it looks like the polish has more shine than it does in real life. I really loved this polish in general. The formula was great and the application was super smooth as long as you had enough polish on the brush. There were no streaks and it was really easy to cover up any mistakes and flaws. This picture was taken 3 days after the application and it really hadn't started chipping yet. Obviously, there was no top coat because that would void the matte finish. The only downside to this was that because it is in a mini bottle, the applicator is shorter and can be a little harder to manipulate. 

Since I put this on I've really been liking the black matte look and my obsession for Manglaze has been rekindled. I'm definitely getting some soon, probably Matte is Murder and Fuggen Ugly. When I get those I'll do a side by side comparison. 

Also, I'll be trying out and putting up the other Go Goths.

Until next time,

The Wicked