Random Manicure

Inspired by Chloe at Chloe's Nails I decided to do another patchwork manicure a few weeks ago. I wanted to mix up finishes, so I went glossy glitter and matte black. Take a look, and I'll tell you how I did it:

Again, please excuse my cuticles, the winters here are brutal to my skin. Also, I just got that nubby ring finger to grow out to a normal human length, and wouldn't you know, the middle broke!

Anyway, I started with Color Club's "Bewitching" which is a vinyl matte black. I didn't care for the finish as much as I thought I would, so I topped that with a coat of Hard Candy's "Matte-ly In Love" top coat, and waited for it to thoroughly dry. With my nails dry and matte to my liking, I carefully taped off alternating sections (I didn't want every nail to be identical) and applied Finger Paints "Easel-y Entertained", a stunning blurple glitter in blurple jelly. Yes, blurple. I said it.

After my patches of "Easel-y Entertained" were dry, I taped off yet another section and applied Studio M's "Fast Play". "Fast Play" doesn't seem to have a Color Club equivalent, at least, not a current one. It's a translucent purple jelly with irridescent gold glitter. That's what's responsible for the green sparkle in the indoor-lighting picture.

After that, I carefully applied Out The Door to just the glitter polished parts, and voila!

R.E.I.T. approves of this manicure, saying, "Is sfarkally!" That's her new favorite kind of polish. The sfrakally kind."

Today is a very special day...

TODAY IS HALLOWEEN CLEARANCE DAY!

Oh, and yes, it is R.E.I.T.'s birthday! Happy second birthday, big girl!

Now, I'm not kidding about it being Halloween clearance day. If you love nail polish, and if you have a Meijer by you, you owe it to yourself to stop there today. Here's our haul:

These are five minis from Phantom Frights, which I must assume is a Halloween cosmetics company, because I can't think of any other day someone might buy a cosmetic meant to make them frightening. The pink, magenta, and orange are really not at all frightening. I quite like the magenta! The orange is the exact same color as Studio M "Orange Hot". The black and white are standard, I would say, and one of those blacks is a more sheer black with silver glitter, which is suitable for layering. The original price was $4.99, but I got it for $1.24!

When I saw the remaining pumpkins, I couldn't resist. They're so cute. One is a sheer, green-tinted glow-in-the-dark glitter, and the other is a clear base with green micro-glitter and large silver hexagonal glitter. Both were $2.49 originally, but came home with me for $0.62. The coffin-shaped polish came home for the same reason... it's so cute. As it turns out, it's a pretty nice berry red, so I wasn't just buying the bottle. The company is Fright Night and the color is "Bloodshed". It was originally $2.99, but I got it for $0.74!

Now, even though that last one up there isn't necessarily a Halloween polish, it was in the Halloween clearance, so it counts. It's one of Blue Cross Beauty Products' color-change Mood Struck polishes. I've seen people play with these on their blogs, and since it was marked down to $0.99 from $3.99, I figured it wasn't too big of an expenditure for curiosity's sake. It's supposed to change from that coralish pink to a creme, but I haven't tried it out yet. I'll have to report back with results.

This is my crowning achievement of this Halloween season. Color Club "Cast a Spell" set. This one is "Bewitching". Four polishes and a set of Halloween decals. From left to right, "Hocus Pocus", which looks to be a holo glitter, "Spellbound" (Hey, that looks just like Studio M "Orange Hot"!), "Charmed I'm Sure" which is such a beatiful purple it was worth buying the whole set just for it, and "Bewitching", the absolute coolest, plastic-finish black. It's like coating your nails with black vinyl! I know you can see it in the picture, but I want to say it anyway: This set was marked down from $7.99 to $1.99.

So, that's $6.20 for thirteen polishes (some minis) and some nail art decals. Not too bad a haul, even if you subtract the two oranges that look exactly like Studio M "Orange Hot", a color I already owned (Studio M is made by Color Club, as I am guessing these minis were, as well), that's still 11 polishes for $6.20, which is about $.056 a piece. And I would have gladly paid $6.20 each for "Bewitching" and "Charmed I'm Sure".

Did anyone else go out and get spectacular deals today? Let us know in the comments!