Cirque Colors Metropolis Collection Swatches: September and October (Glossy & Matte)

Cirque Colors Metropolis Collection Swatches: September and October (Glossy & Matte)

blue burgundy cirque cirque colors creme essie grey indie polish matte

Cirque's newest offering is their Metropolis collection: a series of creme nail polishes inspired by New York City. There are new polishes added to the line every month, and today's swatches cover the September and October releases. These polishes are all normal glossy cremes, but since I'm obsessed with all things matte, I wanted to share the shades with a matte topcoat as well. I think they all translate beautifully to matte.

NYFW was the release in September. It's a gorgeous, rich deep cobalt shade. It's a little darker than some of the other cobalts in my range. The formula was great and it covered nicely at two coats.

I've used Essie Matte About You as the matte topper in the second swatch.

Concrete Jungle is a concrete grey creme. Nice formula, covered evenly in two coats. This is a great and versatile shade, and would be a great manicure choice to complement any fall wardrobe!

La Vie Boheme is a black cherry creme. I wore this one as a full manicure, and I kept trying to pin the name of the color throughout the day... Was it plum? Was it raisin? Then finally... BLACK CHERRY! It was the perfect descriptor, to me. It's a very deep shade, looks very dark on the hand, but never so dark as to look black. Two coats.

The Metropolis collection is available now on CirqueColors.com, where each shade retails for $13. Be sure to keep an eye out for the November release, which should be hitting blogs soon!

Bright-to-Vampy Sexy Pink Gradient

Bright-to-Vampy Sexy Pink Gradient

american apparel black burgundy essie gradient nail art pink sponging

If you follow me on Instagram, you saw a shot of this manicure quite a while ago. It took me a bit to get it up on the blog because of the Challenge, but here we are! This girly-yet-vampy gradient was a huge hit when I previewed it, probably because it's hard to resist the moody gradient with a pop of color.

Nail polishes used:
Essie Too Taboo
American Apparel Berry
American Apparel Hassid

There's not too much to this to explain; I used a triangle makeup wedge to sponge on the gradient. I grabbed a burgundy color to bridge the gap between the bright pink and the black shades.

Don't get discouraged if your gradients are coming out less-than-snazzy! You probably need to keep adding layers of sponging until you reach the desired look. I probably did four or five rounds of sponging to achieve the opacity here. Just be sure to give each round a moment or two to set before you begin on your next layer.

I loved this look and wore it for three or four days. What are some of your favorite gradient combinations?

70's Style Polka Dot Floral Print

70's Style Polka Dot Floral Print

31DC2014 american apparel burgundy color club diosa dots floral flowers green grey jessica cosmetics lvx nail art orange yellow

This 70's style, fall-appropriate floral is my polka dot nail art for the 31 Day Challenge. It looks fairly complex at first glance, but it's simple when you start to break it down! I just combined dots together in different sizes and colors to create a simple floral pattern. It feels very vintage, don't you think?

Nail polishes used:
DIOSA Dime Piece (light grey)
Jessica Cosmetics NY State of Mind (dark grey)
Jessica Cosmetics Meet at the Plaza (olive green)
Color Club Je Ne Sais Quoi (mustard yellow)
LVX Roux (coral)
American Apparel Berry (burgundy)

This nail art was really very simple, it just took a bit to put all of the unique dot floral pieces together! I used four different dotting tool sizes: my large flat rhinestone picker, a large dotter, a small dotter, and a pinpoint dotter.

I was just about ready to mattify this, but I've been using matte topcoat on so many things lately. I decided to let it rock the glossy look.

Check out more of my polka dot nail art:

• Ladybugs
• Polka dot pyramids
• Punchy dot mix