Shimmer Polish Karina with half-frame swirl nail art

Hey lovers! A couple weeks ago I got an email from Cindy of Shimmer Polish asking if I'd like to review some of her polishes. I was immediately like YES I WOULD LOVE THAT because I love every Shimmer I've ever seen. Only a few days later, on Christmas Eve no less, five beautiful Shimmers showed up in my mailbox! I unwrapped them with my sister Summer and we literally gasped as we pulled each one out - they are all sooo pretty. The one I'm gonna show y'all today is Shimmer Polish Karina.

This isn't the one I was most excited about when I first received the polishes but when I sat down to paint my nails the other night it was just CALLING to me for some reason, so I obeyed. I'm so glad I did because JUST LOOK AT THIS POLISH.

Karina is a glitterbomb in a tinted reddish-pink base. It's filled with red microglitter, small red hexes, HOLO microglitter and BLACK CIRCLE GLITTER. Be still my special-glitter-loving heart. I thought since the base was fairly sheer that I'd need at least three coats for opacity but this pretty baby was opaque in just two. It was a little thick but nothing unworkable - it's like China Glaze's full-coverage glitters that way, where I'll probably use it a couple times and then thin it after that. Also like the ChG glitters, it was VERY thirsty. I used two coats of Seche Vite for a nice glassy shine.

I managed to get pictures of this polish that satisfied me but believe me when I tell you they still don't do it justice. It glows in real life. Even my dad and brother were examining all the different aspects of it yesterday haha!

I wore Karina on her own for a day and then last night decided to spice her up with some nail art!

I knew I wanted to do a design using Zoya Ziv, since I hadn't tried it yet and I really wanted to use gold with this red glitter. I thought about it off and on for a while and finally decided I wanted to do something swirly. I considered doing a more intricate filigree pattern or some swirly leaves or vines or something but then the idea of these half-frame swirls popped in my brain so I decided to go with it.

I did the swirls on my thumb first to make sure I liked them - I do this a lot because I always figure if I don't like it I can leave my thumb out of the picture, haha. I ended up liking the pattern a lot so I went ahead and did all my fingers with it.

I used my medium-length striper brush to freehand the designs. Ziv painted on beautifully and it's so pretty against this red glitter backdrop!

This design was fairly simple to execute but I love the way it turned out. The gold against the red, while it looks a little holiday-ish, is really pleasing to me and I love the simplicity of the half-frame scrolls!

What do y'all think of this Shimmer and the design? I'm happy that I was able to keep the design simple enough to still show off the base polish while making a day-old mani interesting again. I usually have a problem with simplicity and keep adding stuff to my nails but last night I managed to keep it at bay haha!

P.S. You can find Shimmer Polish on Etsy and the listing for Karina is here. :)