Hi, Lynn again. Over the weekend Phyrra let me know that one of her readers requested some bright nails with glitter tips. Hey, I’m not going to back away from a challenge, so I gave it my best shot. I’ve never done glitter tips before, so there was some serious trial and error here.

My first attempt turned out okay, and actually looked better in person, I wore this out on Saturday night. I started out with Orly’s ‘Bonder’ (as I did in all of these manis) and went on a search for my bright colors. Sadly I found that nearly all of my neon shades are still packed from my move in November, so it was kind of slim pickins. I ended up with OPI’s Strawberry Fields, a color I’ll admit to buying mostly for the name, as I do sometimes. It’s a bright pink shimmer from the Psychedelic Summer collection from 2007, and is discontinued, though you can still find it on Ebay. Then I decided on a tip color, I went with Cult Nails Captivated, a pretty coral glitter which is great for layering. I don’t see it listed for sale on their site, but it’s also not listed as ‘discontinued’, so I’m not sure if it’s just sold out.
I free-handed the tips (as you can see) and it was not too bad, Captivated did tend to get a bit thick but I’m chalking that up to user error.

My next attempt is nothing short of a complete fail. I guess I thought I’d get ‘creative’, and it didn’t work out. I chose Claire’s Paradise, I have no idea if it’s still available, but it makes a suitable replacement (not a total dupe) for Orly’s Hot House Flower, which is pretty hard to find.

Paradise is a neon coral shimmer, and it dries to sort of a satin finish. Oh, and it dries fast, which may have contributed to this disaster (that’s what I’m telling myself, anyway). Feeling crafty, I decided to try a loose glitter, so I grabbed up some green glitter I bought as Sally’s sometime in December, no clue if it has a name or not. I just dipped the tip of my nail in the glitter while the polish was still wet(ish, it dried pretty fast) and ended up with this monstrosity. No amount of Gelous or Seche Vite was going to smooth this mess out. I must have known it wasn’t going to work, because I only did one hand. That’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it. I fear I will be finding green glitter all over the place for years to come.

Feeling down but not defeated (I may have been removing that last ‘mani’ as I was looking at the pictures of it, couldn’t get it off fast enough), I decided to try one more time. I played it a little safer this time. I grabbed Jesse’s Girl’s Wild Thing, a neon red toned purple, which is still available on their site for $2.99, bargain! Being neon, it did dry pretty matte, just fyi. Then, since I wasn’t feeling as adventurous anymore, I picked up my handy bottle of Love My Nails’ Dazzling. I heard Walmart wasn’t going to be carrying these anymore, so I may have cleared out my local store of every last bottle It is showing on their website as ‘available in stores’, so maybe some still do carry it. I think you can still pick it up online from other etailers. Anyway, it’s a super-fine holographic glitter in a clear base, and it’s the best thing ever available for 99 cents! Okay, maybe not for everyone, but in my opinion it is.

Again, I free-handed the tips, and this time things turned out fairly well, although pretty subtle. The color is more accurate in the straight-on shots, but it’s a bit darker. Purples are so hard to photograph. This is the manicure I’m wearing now, I’ll keep it for a day or two, I even did both hands this time!

Well, those are my glitter-tipped adventures. I did mention that I’m not terribly handy at the nail art, didn’t I? So this was a fun challenge for me. How do you think I did? Did I ‘nail it’? (Sorry, couldn’t resist) Or did I miss the mark? Anyone have any advice on glitter tips they’d like to share?

Thank you, as always, Phyrra! <3