Ruby Red Glitter Nails for My Birthday

I have grown accustomed to wearing red on the day of my birthday. Red is such a happy color and it makes my birthday feel all the more special and exciting! Also, for the Chinese, it symbolizes good luck and fortune.

Erica, my friend and classmate from kindergarten all the way to college, and I, would dress up in red on each other's birthdays which are just 2 days apart! I was born on the 7th of September, and she followed on the 9th. So when we were in college and we didn't have to wear uniforms anymore, we wore red on our birthdays! In retrospect, we were probably like flashing signs of "greet us, it's our birthdays" and people got confused over whose birthday came first! Haha!

At first, I thought about doing cupcake nails. They're so popular and everybody seems to be doing it for their birthdays. But after some reflection and after listening to my inner calling, I decided. On birthdays, we wear red! I saved the cupcake nails for our birthday party to happen the following week.

And so, I ended up with amped up super shiny and shimmery ruby red glitter nails! 

This is not your ordinary red glitter polish! This is actually made of real loose glitter, the one you can get from your local supplies store.

I started off with Orly Star Spangled, a very nice glitter red polish, as my base color. It's one of the first few bottles that I bought from Polished Inthecity. :)

I then layered a coat of clear polish, before sprinkling on the red glitter powder. I suggest you use something that you're not afraid of ruining. The red glitter could easily transfer to the polish. Here, I used Face Shop's top coat because I was ready to dispose of it. Good thing I still found a use for it!

I did 2 rounds of clear polish and then glitter sprinkles to make sure that the whole nail is covered. When cleaning up, you can use some sticky tape to remove the excess glitter on your fingers and around your nails.

Orly Star Spangled, Leeho Red Glitter Powder, Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Anti-Chip Top Coat

 You can really see how nice and sparkly the glitter is from the close up shot below.

Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Anti-chip Top Coat was the perfect top coat to even everything out. I know that I have commonly used Seche Vite in my past entries. However, for this purpose, Sally Hansen was thicker and had a glossier sheen which made it the best finish to go with this design.

I found this tutorial on youtube with instructions on how to do it yourself. I didn't exactly do it this way, but it's more or less similar if you want to try it out!

What's your birthday nail art of choice? :)

* UPDATE: I forgot to mention that this manicure dried rock solid. After a few days, I filed my nails short and it didn't chip, not even one bit! I ended up keeping it for a full week. I bet you can keep it for longer, which makes this a good manicure for traveling and for low maintenance and upkeep. Just a warning though, taking this off was a nightmare. Hehe! So, enjoy it for as long as you can! :)