NOTD - Nicole by O.P.I - "Nothing Kim-pares to Blue"

Ugh. I hate that I like so many of these Kardashian colors!! I don't want to support these people in any way. Why is Nicole always doing this to me. First it was Justin Bieber, now the Kardashians. I don't even want to know who is next.

Nothing Kim-pares to Blue is my favorite light blue shimmery polish I have. I have others by Milani, essence, Revlon, and Sinful, just to name a few, but this one is the prettiest, in my opinion. This is 3 coats.

NOTW - Sephora by OPI Naughty is the New Nice & To the Glitter End

Here's my nail of the weekend. I was sick and in the hospital for a while, hence the lack of posts. I've finally just been up to doing my nails and makeup again.

You can see reflections here from my black shirt and red camera.

This is a better representation of the color. I love this combination.

To the Glitter End is one of those super huge glitter that you can't really brush on. I just kind of pat it on so the glitters are where I want them, and then go over it after it's dried a little to get the extra liquid stuff off, because there seems to be a ton of it in there. Definitely have to cover this up with Seche Vite, otherwise I find the Sephora by OPI polishes in general chip pretty easily on their own.

32 Spoiled by Wet n Wild - Part two!

OK today I have 12 more Spoiled swatches for you! Let's get started.

L-R: Toad-ally Amazing, Distant Memory, Deeper Dive

The rest are after the jump!

2 Dupe Options for Zoya Phoebe

I am assuming that Phoebe has been discontinued, since it's no longer on Zoya's site and I've seen it clearanced out at a few Ulta stores. But if you didn't get a chance to grab one I found a couple ways to duplicate it.

Phoebe can be recreated by using a matte topcoat over either Sally Hansen Insta-Dri in Brisk Blue or SH Xtreme Wear in Blue Me Away! Blue Me Away! Is definitely a more true dup, the Brisk Blue comes up a little lighter. BTW I am using Hard Candy Matte-ly In Love over the two Sally Hansen polishes.

So there you see. If you didn't catch it while you could but you want the look of Zoya Phoebe, you now have a couple of easy drugstore duplicates! And even though there is an extra step it's actually a little easier. I had to apply 4 coats of the Zoya, but did 2 coats of the SH polishes topped with one coat of the matte topper.

Sally Girl Series: Luv It 812049

I've been wanting to get swatches of all my Sally Girl polishes out there. I love these little things. They have some great colors, and at $.99 a piece they are a great way to try out colors that you might not want to buy a full bottle of. The only thing I don't like about them is that the name of the polish is not on the bottle, just the SKU number. I usually go through the list at sallybeauty.com to match the number to a name. I will just randomly pick a color each time and post about it. Enjoy. First up is Luv It, sku 812049, a glittery blue.

Luv it is very sheer, so you need a few coats to make it really stand out.These fingers took at 5 coats to get it even this.

On my thumb I tried my new holy grail color to use under sheers and glitter , Powder Puff (I have a whole post coming on that soon), and then 3 coats of Luv It.

Looks better and more even to me. And that's my first Sally Girl polish post. More come!

Christmas Haul polish part 3: The end....?

OK and we are almost done with the polish posts!

First off we have the China Glaze polishes. Sally Beauty had a beautiful holiday collection out but I only got a few of them, but the ones I got I absolutely adore!!

China Glaze L-R Love Marilyn, Crackle Glaze in Haute Metal, Laurlei's Tiara and Some Like it Haute

This is my first crackle purchase (actually my 2nd, but I returned the 2012 stuff that was total crap). I'm just not that into the crackle look. I'll keep it around if I'm ever in the mood for it, but I don't think I'll be reaching for it that often.

Sally Hansen's Gem Crush line has duplicates for many of these colors. The red one is almost exactly the same jut the red is a little brighter, however the glitter in it is spot on. Gel Crush also has a straight on dupe of both Lorelei's Tiara and Some Like it Haute.

Up next are just some random glitters I got:

These polishes are (L-R):
Spoiled - Shuffle the Deck, Nicole - Love Your Life, Nicole - Rainbow in the S-Kylie, Nicole - Snow-Man of my Dreams, Sinful Colors Nail Art - Fashionista and Spoiled - Trust Fund Baby.

These next ones are some new ones I got from the Spoiled by WnW line at CVS. These retail for $1.99.

Colors L to R are: Shaken Snow Globe, Magic Carpet Ride, Black Mamba and Plenty of Fish in the Sea.
I normally don't care for black polish but I love Black Mamba, it's got enough shimmer in it to lighten it up into something very wearable for me. All the colors I have tried so far have very easy application and wear well (though I usually change my polish too often to really test that factor). Here's a swatch of 2 coats of Black Mamba.

Next is just some random polish I had either left over or got (I had some major extra bucks to spend) o were given to me after I took the other pictures:

 
The first polish is Essie luxeffects in Pure Pearlfication, essence @holographics.com in Gagalectric, SH complete salon manicure in Purple Pulse, Wet n wild megalast in Caught Red Handed, and Revlon in Radiant

I have one more picture to take of a few things i got since my last shopping trip. I swear I have go on a no-buy for a while after I get just a couple more thing i have been looking at.

Here we go (L to R):
Revlon Temptress (75% off at CVS)
Sinful Colors Nail Art in Bad Chick
Sally Hansen (75% off at CVS)
L'Oreal nail color in Eiffel For You
Revlon Top Speed in Pink Lingerie (75% off CVS)
Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure in Wine Not
Sally Hansen Hard as Nails in Sturdy Sapphire
Salon Perfect Steel Rose
Salon Perfect in Silver Mint
and
Revlon in Dreamer

So that's it for the holiday nail polish haul. Between Clearance, gift certificates and CVS Extra Bucks I actually didn't spend too much! Now it looks like I've got some manis/swatches to do.

I hope you all had a lovely holiday and have a wonderful New Year!!

Pure Ice - French Kiss

Until now my nail collection has been pretty much anything in the pink family. If it's glittery, even better. If it's not, I have several glitter top coats I can put over it.

I have been out of work after surgery so I don't have a huge budget right now. Once I do I will be getting new shades from new various collections to review. But for now I am doing what I can on a budget to get out of my comfort zone and try some new things.

The first thing I learned is that taking pictures of certain polish colors is not easy!

And here is the picture on the nails...2 coats. It's obviously blue in this picture, but in real life you have to look closely to see that it really is a dark blue.

Next I'm going to jazz it  up with some of what I have in my collection right now, including my oldest bottle of polish, which, interestingly is one that is in the best shape. I've tried to find out when this line was released but haven't been able to, so if anyone happens to read this and knows, please tell me.

One disasrous nail day.

First, today was just a bad mani day at my house. First I used For Audrey by China Glaze. I don't know if it's always like this but it was so hard to deal will. I could not get it smooth, even smooth-ish to save my life. It was streaking everywhere, globbing everywhere else. I love the color and thought it would be really cute with some Konad stamps. But I got so frustrated I took it all off in a fit.

Then comes the next attempt. I was using Essie cote azure from the Essie collection at Walmart. I've never been a huge Essie lover, I don't hate her stuff and I have a few pinks that I really like but this stuff was a nightmare.

This is the best I could get my left had even after starting over a second time. Yes, I look like an even worse manicurist than I am. In these pictures my frustration was so built up, but if it turned into what I wanted it would have been great and I'd have cleaned up everything around a little more.

Now the pinkie and pointer finger weren't terrible, but the middle and ring were soooo bumpy!! Adding to my frustration you might notice that I spilled my bottle all over the floor and the bottle itself. Ugh. But I am coming along learning how to Konad so that's cool. I just have plates 2 and 3 and I am about to order 4 more and some more special polish.

Then I feel asleep for a while and woke up a punk Papa Smurf with a Mohawk who either made his beard a goatee and died it blue or is throwing up blueberry rum.

 

Happy Nail Days to All!!

My first Zoya haul!

I had never heard of Zoya until I got really "into" nail polish and started reading nail blogs, watching tutorials, etc...

So I decided to get myself an early Christmas present and jump right in with my first order! I'm still not really sure what's going on myself but here it is to take a look and I'll get things labeled. Of course then I'll have to play around with it. I guess what I'm saying is get ready for a lot of Zoya posts coming up here.

Pure Ice - French Kiss

Until now my nail collection has been pretty much anything in the pink family. If it's glittery, even better. If it's not, I have several glitter top coats I can put over it.

I have been out of work after surgery so I don't have a huge budget right now. Once I do I will be getting new shades from new various collections to review. But for now I am doing what I can on a budget to get out of my comfort zone and try some new things.

The first thing I learned is that taking pictures of certain polish colors is not easy!

And here are a couple pictures on the nails...

Next I'm going to jazz it  up with some of what I have in my collection right now, including my oldest bottle of polish, which, interestingly is one that is in the best shape. I've tried to find out when this line was released and the closest thing I can find is somewhere in the mid-90s. I have no doubt this is when I bought it. It still holds up... kudos to them.
So, the first finger is the French Kiss covered with two coats of Street Wear. The second, middle finger is just an experiment I did where I put a teal cover on the tip. The third (ring) finger had a pink
tip which I decided to cover with rhinestones. Pinkie finger is just a bit bigger tip with a light

blue nail polish I have. I apologize that the teal and the light blue don't have names, they were just some samples I bought at Sally's to start experimenting with new colors. I apologize for the poor manicures, it's something I've been working on. Also I just ordered some manicure tape from Ebay so I can do better tips. It's all a learning process, but one I hope you can enjoy and maybe get something out of.

Welcome to my blog

I've been reading all kinds of other nail blogs and while I didn't think that there was really anything missing out there in the nail and beauty blogosphere, I still thought I'd add my own.

I haven't really got started yet, but in the meantime, here's a picture of some random stuff I did with my nails while I was playing around with my stash. You'll see it's not perfect, but it will give you an idea of my love of rhinestones.

And while I'm on the topic of rhinestones and nail art in general, you have to check out Ebay. I just did a search for "nail art". There are some GREAT deals to be had over there. I ordered a wheel of 1800 rhinestones in various colors for like $1.50 and free shipping. Much better than the one I got of about 150 at Sally's for about $10. They have other things like stickers, other gems and nail art brushes all at great prices so if you like that kind of stuff, definitely go take a look!