Sally Hansen Gem Crush gets taped!

I have been dying to do this mani for awhile now and finally found the time. As I mentioned in a previous post, I am just loving scotch tape manis at the moment.  Between those and water marbling, my nails have been looking pretty fab! In fact, when I wear a plain color I feel like I have slacked off, ha ha! I will say that I have a swatch post for tomorrow that is full of colors that are so awesome, they just have to be worn by themselves! But being me, I have plans for 2 of the 3 colors already.

I actually did this mani yesterday morning, so forgive the pushed back cuticles please! It has been snowy and dark here, and this morning was the first glimmer of decent sunlight so I took the opportunity to take pics of this mani. My lightbox pics just didn't show as much of the color as I wanted, and this combo deserves to be seen!

For this mani I used Sally Hansen Gem Crush in Showgirl Chic as my base. I love this glitter! It's already well known that this is a dupe for China Glaze's Lorelei's Tiara from the Eye Candy Collection, and IMHO it's a great alternative if you can't get your hands on the China Glaze. Showgirl Chic is a serious glitterbomb, absolutely loaded with glitter on even the thinnest coat. This polish is jam packed with small silver glitter (and in very low light it flashes a tiny bit of holo!) and larger blue hex glitters. The blue/silver combo is one of my favorites, and alone (damn! I wish I had taken pics of this one on its own!) it looks like a winter wonderland on your fingertips. However, it's rare that I'm able to leave a polish alone and I just had to see what it would look like with some Cobalt Blue! Since Showgirl Chic is a bit of a thirsty glitter, I topped it off with a coat of Gelous and 2 coats of SV, then I taped off my nails and added Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Blue It. I'm very happy with how this mani turned out, even if my lines aren't perfect!

This is indoors in natural light:

And a night-time shot with flash:

Isn't Showgirl Chic awesome? I love dense glitter, and this did not disappoint. This was 2 glitter packed coats. Application was fairly easy for such a dense glitter, the only problem area being the very tips of my nails - lots of drag there.  I need to pick up Lorelei's Tiara to compare formula! Gem Crush is available at CVS for just under $7.00.

I really like how this turned out, and can't wait to try out some more checkered manis. The combination of the bright Cobalt Blue and the sparkly glitter is so eye catching that it has caught me off guard a few times!


Happy Polishing!
-Kimber