No More Waity, Katie by Butter London

I loved by first Butter London experience so much that I knew I needed more. After perusing the website for almost an hour, agonizing over each gorgeous shade, I found this beauty. Inspired by KATE MIDDLETON herself, it certainly lives up to its name. The base color is a deep lilac, and the silver glitter is incredibly fine. The coverage was outstanding, and the manicure lasted a full week before I had to force myself to move onto the next color. Really though, between the brand and the namesake, how could you go wrong??

Rating: A+

Kim by Julep

As you guys might remember, I recently enrolled in the Julep Maven program. When my first order finally arrived I was so excited to try out the colors, and Kim was first up to bat. On the nail the color becomes a dark silver, almost charcoal, metallic. This was perfect for me. I can't get enough metallic, but the classic silver metallic can sometimes appear juvenile and more often than not looks cheap. Julep's take on the color successfully avoided both pitfalls. My only complaint is that the brush is on the thicker side and therefore proved a bit unruly. Since I'd grown a little tired of just one color being on my nails I decided to spice this manicure up with a stripe of OPI's DS Magic across the top of my nail. This is a color I adore, but we'll get to that full review down the road. 

Rating: B-

Custom Glitter Franken

Another one of my spur of the moment glitter concoctions, this combination of black, silver, and copper glitter turned out better then I'd hoped. I initially feared that the overwhelming black glitter would be too harsh, but I love the finished product. This picture shows three coats of the polish in direct sunlight. It reminds me a bit of OPI's Metallic 4 Life in the newest Nicki Manaj collection, but the glitter in mine is much more fine. 

Rating: B+

Glitter Frankens

Last Christmas I gave nearly every female in my life custom frankened nail polishes. Then today, while I was supposed to be writing a paper, I was struck with the brilliant idea of frankening my own glitter polishes. I mean, there's no such thing as too much glitter, and how great would it be to able to specifically select my own color combinations?? Turns out, it's pretty freaking great.

It being Sunday night, Michael's and Sally's were both closed by the time I went out to buy supplies. That meant I was stuck with the selection at Target. I was stoked about being able to find bottles of clear polish for just $2.50 (Xpress Nails), but a little bit less than stoked about the lacking choices of glitter. I settled on a pack of six tubes (copper, gold, white, silver, and black) that was just $3.80. As you can tell, one of the biggest draws to this idea is the affordability. When I got home I got right to experimenting, and I made sure to capture every step!

Step 1: The supplies

glitters, clear polishes, index card, Scotch tape

Step 2: The funnel

Use the index card and Scotch tape to create a funnel that will fit into the mouth of your polish bottle. This gives total control of how much glitter you put in at one time.

Step 3: Setting up

Take your brush out, making sure to get as much excess polish off as possible and set it aside. Then fit your funnel securely into the bottle. Select your glitter start adding in small intervals. 

Step 4: Shake, shake, shake

After each little bit you add, put the top back on and give the bottle a good shaking. Mixing progressively like this makes it easier when your bottle is entirely filled with glitter. This is especially important if you'll be using more than one color of glitter. 

Step 5: Having gorgeous new glitters

These are my finished products. The bottle on the left is just copper glitter; I used less glitter in this bottle so that I could use it to layer with other polishes. The one on the right is a combination of black, silver, and copper. I absolutely love how they both turned out and I can't wait to wear them.