Playing with Polish! 3 Manis in one day

First off, I'd like to mention Zoya's promotion, which will go live the 7th, for 3 free nail polishes if you pay the shipping price of $10.  The details can be found here.  I'm still deciding if I want to let this count for my "one" January item.  On one hand, I'd intended to buy 3 of their polishes I've wanted for a while when they did the $20/3 offer a month or two ago, then decided that was still a bit too much.  For $10, I'd be totally willing to buy them, but I don't know if I'll find anything else during the month that I also "need."  I guess I've got a few days to decide.

Today's mani is actually several, as I've been playing with quite a few of the new polishes I got from the Rite Aid clearance, and CVS.  The first was a scallop design that I actually loved the color combination on, but smudged half my thumb nail off absentmindedly playing with my hands.  Oops.

Base: CQ Silver Taupe (Rite Aid Clearance)

Green: Revlon Entice (CVS)

Shimmer: Chameleon Mist

Silver taupe was incredibly sheer.  4 coats and you can still see through it a bit.

The next mani is currently on my left hand.  I was going to just do Entice topped with Mist on all my nails, after realizing that I loved them together--very mermaid-y.  I decided to do a bit of a dot accent nail on my index finger, though, but I think it would have worked better with a darker polish on a lighter one.

Finally, currently on my right hand, is a gradient with Entice and Mist.  While I'm not sure how soon I plan to get back to it, I definitely want to use this again.  After not being sure what to wear Mist with when I bought it (but for 75% off, I couldn't pass it up, apparently), this was the perfect color.  Entice on its own is also a gorgeous color.  My skin tends to be much too yellow to really wear the typical light mint green shades, and this is more of a seafoam shade.

I've concluded that shimmers and glitters are best for gradients, because it's harder to tell how bad I am at maneuvering a sponge to where I want the color.  In case you couldn't tell from my past few manis, I'm rather obsessed with gradients at the moment, while a couple months ago I found them impossible.  My main "trick" that I rely on is ripping the sponge (I've also heard of using non-cosmetic sponges, so they have larger holes to begin with) so the edge you're sponging with is a bit more jagged and doesn't give you a perfect line, as I still have not mastered the "repeatedly apply two stripes of different colors on a sponge, then to the nail" method that most people seem to use.

I hope everyone's new year is off to a good start.  I'm not sure how well I'll manage to stick to my resolutions (hey, at least I left gym use unspecified....), but I hope you all are as successful as I'm determined to be!