My First Jelly Sandwich

It's been a while since I've posted a manicure and I do apologize. My camera doesn't take very good pictures to begin with and by time I get around to it my nails have grown out a bit or I've already gotten tip wear. But enough excuses...

My first jelly sandwich! I've seen pictures online of this type of technique and had to try it.

Zoya Ibiza

I've been wanting this polish for a while and finally got my little hands on it!

Ibiza is from the fall 2009 collection, Dare. It's a very pretty inky deep blue. The application was pretty good but when I got close to my cuticles it flooded them so I had to take it extra careful.  It's such a dark color that I thought some metallic stamping would look nice. Using Pure Ice Silver Mercedes, I stamped with Bundle Monster plate BM-224.

with flash

natural light

I'm really happy with how the stamping came out, I've been trying for so long to find a silver polish that stamped well without having to buy the konad silver.  I'm trying to find a drugstore gold polish that stamps well, any suggestions?? 

Thanks for visiting! :D



NYX Las Vegas (I like Emerald City...)

After seeing some posts on other nail blogs I had to hunt for the old NYX bottles. Mostly looking for NYX Jungle, which is a duochrome greenish blue gold polish, I stopped at one of many many beauty supply stores here in the city. This particular chain has each store with its own individual name and they mostly have hair products and lower end cosmetics. But they all have old NYX products.

So I find the display and see the old rounded bottles of NYX polishes at the bottom. No Jungle.. darn. Then I see a dark, very glittery green. I turn it over, no label. Grab the one behind it.. no label. A lot of the bottles are so old the labels fell off. After several bottles slide to the front I finally find one with a label.. haha! Las Vegas. After the last bottle slides to the front, I gasp to find it's one lonely Jungle hidden behind a slew of Las Vegas! A trip well worth the traffic!

Even though the entire reason I went to this place was to find Jungle, the other looked so interesting I had to try it.. all I can saw is wow. It is an emerald green JELLY with emerald and blue microglitter.  LOOKIT!

indoors no flash

You can see the blue duochrome of the glitter peek through.

indoors flash

indoors no flash

outdoors shade

outdoors sunlight

indoors no flash



Sorry about the bare tips, I used Seche Vite as a top coat and it shrank the polish. These pictures really don't show this polish at its best, it is so beautiful in real life. I don't know why they named it Las Vegas, if it's gotta be a place I think Emerald City would have been better! haha!

I will be wearing Jungle soon and will post that when I do, until then, on to more hunting!! Thanks for visiting!









L'Oreal VIP Status & Luxeffects Set In Stones

I am so excited to be back! I haven't so much as logged into my blog for about 5 months and now I have the motivation to get back into the swing of things! Around mid July things got pretty crazy for me and a month later I uprooted myself from a small quiet town to a very large city and am with my husband trying to get our lives on track. I start a new job in a few days and basically am ready to put 2011 behind me 'cuz believe me, you can have it..

With all the craziness of the last few months I have hardly painted my nails at all. Considering that I would paint my nails a new color every 2-3 days, I can say I was extremely stressed and depressed and bad things were coming up one after another but things are looking up and I'm feeling a lot better. So with all that being said I feel so happy to be back in my little corner of the internet.

Here is my first manicure of the new year! L'Oreal VIP Status with one coat of Essie Luxeffects Set in Stones

natural light

with flash

And coincidentally this is also my first try with a new basecoat. I swear by Nailtek, their ridgefiller is the best! But it's expensive and thickens around half way through the bottle. On a whim I bought Orly Ridgefiller because it was $3. It dries smooth which I don't care for since Nailtek dries with a rough texture. When I applied VIP Status it went on patchy so I don't know if it had to do with the slick surface of the ridgefiller or the polish itself. This is only my second purchase of a L'Oreal polish so I'm not familiar with their formula. I don't ever give drugstore brands anymore than a glance over but I was at my local Wal-Mart yesterday and I saw a brand new display with about 25 polishes. For some strange reason there was only one of each color and this shade caught my eye.

It's a very pretty steel greyish blue with a silver microshimmer to it. In the bottle it has a slight purple duochrome but it didn't show up on the nail. It did brush on a little goopy as well but after the second coat it levelled out just fine.

The Essie top coat, Set in Stones, applied really well. I didn't have any trouble getting the glitter even on the nail and I like it a lot more than I expected to. It's full of hex shaped and very tiny silver glitter particles. Soo sparkly..  This is part of a 5 piece collection of gorgeous effects topcoats which I received from my very dear friend Natalie as part of a Christmas gift, she is beyond awesome!!

Here are some photos of the polish alone:

with flash

full sun

in shade

I have several pictures of nail art I've done in the last few months so in between manicures I will be posting those. Hopefully I can stick with this since I really do enjoy it and I've learned a lot from many other nail bloggers I've come to look up to. Thanks for visiting and happy new year to you!

China Glaze Crackle - Metals: Cracked Medallion

I got these new Crackle polishes at my favorite Sally's Beauty Supply location. The ladies there are super nice and know me by name and always know exactly what I'm there for. Haha!  But anyway.. I haven't had a chance to wear them all but will be trying as soon as I can. The colors I got from left to right are -

Cracked Medallion (copper)

Oxidized Aqua (teal-ish light blue)

Latticed Lilac (lavender)

Haute Metal (pink)

Tarnished Gold (light gold)

The only color I didn't get was Platinum Pieces, the silver one. The reason I didn't was because 1) I already had the OPI version and 2) the Sally's ran out..  But I'm sure I will, in time, cave since I have this hoarding problem and hate having incomplete sets!

This is the first color I've worn so far, this is over the Nubar Purple Rain Glitter I was wearing at the time:

Please excuse the tip wear.  Seche Vite does have a reputation for shrinkage. All in all it came out really nice, the application was better than I expected, better than the OPI silver version I had tried recently. These really are a fun quick way to mix it up a little if you're bored of just a plain jane manicure.  Very easy for those who aren't into trying their patience with nail art also. Will be posting the other colors soon because I'm excited to try a few color combinations I have in mind, thanks for visiting! I appreciate it so much! :D



My nails threw up independence...

Here is my 4th of July manicure!

This was a lot more difficult than I expected.. but it turned out more or less how I wanted. I used the splatter technique that I've seen a lot of other bloggers doing so I thought why not? Thanks to the burn ban and fireworks being cancelled this would be as close as I was gonna get!

This was my first try, using a regular old drinking straw and a plastic paint palette plate.  Doing one hand at a time I put a couple of coats of China Glaze White on White. For the splaterring I used China Glaze China Rouge and OPI Yoga-Ta Get This Blue.  I figured this would be messy... like marbling.. so I put tape on my finger around my nail to keep clean up to a minimum then I put 4 or 5 drops of of China Rouge in one of the wells on the palette. I dipped the straw into the polish and, not directly over my nail but at a bit of an angle, blew a short puff of air into the straw. After getting the effect I wanted over each finger I repeated with the other color. Sealed it all with a coat of Seche Vite.

Here are a few more pictures:

I've had this on my nails the past 2 days and luckily has not chipped at all. I'm pretty happy with this manicure over all, I hope to try other color combinations soon. Thanks for visiting! :D

My week long nail polish haul!

Within the past week and a half I've been finding nail polish like crazy... not good for my pockets.  But most were either on sale or clearance or less than $2 a piece so I don't feel too guilty! I'm pretty sure these have put me well over the 500 bottle mark now lol.

Here is what I got starting toward the left:

1. Wet n Wild: Sagreena the Teenage Witch w/ bonus top coat

2.Revlon: Black with Envy

3. Maybelline: Blue Brilliance

4. Milani: Precious Metal

5. Sinful Colors: Verbena

6. Sinful Colors: Tapping Nails

7. Sinful Colors: Oh La La

8. Sinful Colors: Bali Mist

9.  Sinful Colors: All About You

10. Sinful Colors: Pinky Glitter

11. Sinful Colors: Gorgeous

12. Sinful Colors: Ciao Bella!

13. Sinful Colors: Frenzy

14. China Glaze Crackle Metals: Oxidized Aqua

15. China Glaze Crackle Metals: Tarnished Gold

16. China Glaze Crackle Metals: Cracked Medallion

17. China Glaze Crackle Metals: Latticed Lilac

18. China Glaze Crackle Metals: Haute Metal

19. OPI Shrek Forever After: Fiercly Fiona

20. OPI Shrek Forever After: Who The Shrek Are You?

21. OPI Shrek Forever After: Ogre The Top Blue

22. OPI Shrek Forever After: Funky Dunkey

23. L.A. Color Craze mini: Sea Siren

24. L.A. Color Craze mini: Current

25. L.A. Color Craze mini: Phenomena

26. L.A. Color Craze mini: Splash

27. L.A. Color Craze mini: Magnetic Force

28. Orly mini: Otoile

29. Sally Hansen HD: Hi-Def

30. Sally Hansen HD: Lite

31. Sally Hansen HD: BLU

32. Sally Hansen HD: Hi-Res

33. Finger Paints: Amethyst Atelier

34. Revlon Scented: Orange Fizz

35. Revlon Scented: Apple-tini Fizz

36. Revlon Scented: Grape Fizz

37. Revlon Scented: Watermelon Fizz

38. Revlon Scented: Pineapple Fizz

39. Revlon Scented: Mint Fizz

40. Revlon Scented: Colada Fizz

41. Orly-French Manicure: Sky Blue-Pink

42. Wet n Wild fastdry: Hannah Pinktana

43. L.A. Colors- Color Craze: Morning Glory

44. L.A. Colors- Color Craze: Black Pearl

45. L.A. Colors- Color Craze: Twilight

46. L.A. Colors- Color Craze: Cactus

These three I bought yesterday, the first completes the revlon scented fizz collection :)

47. Revlon Scented: Grapefruit Fizz
48. L.A. Colors- Color Craze: Merlot
49. L.A. Colors- Color Craze: Dark Denim

Hopefully someday I can wear all of these colors, I know I have enough polish to last a couple of lifetimes. I would love to post a picture of every polish I own just to get an idea of how much I really have, haha! Tomorrow will find me a few more since OPI is releasing a few polishes that are exclusive to ULTA. I will be there bright and early with my $3.50 off coupon in hand and take advantage of their buy 2 get 1 free on top of that so, again, I don't feel too guilty. Thanks for visiting! :D