Friday, September 30, 2011

OPI Funny Bunny

Hey gals. Today I have a swatch of OPI's Funny Bunny because I saw swatches and wanted to wear it sooo yeah. I'm in a very eh kinda mood just because I have two peels on my right hand and one on my left, meaning I have to cut them again. Thing is, the one on my pointer finger on my right hand starts a little above the nail bed meaning I have to wait a little to cut it, and even then I have to cut it down to the nub. Whatever. Anyways, here's three coats of Funny Bunny.



If you like it but can't find it, no worries. Essie's Marshmallow is a dead on dupe.

What do you think? Love it or hate it? Have you ever had to cut your nails due to peels? Let me know! Thanks for reading.

Thursday, September 29, 2011

My favorite fall color.

Hey gals! So today I have what has to be my favorite fall polish :) If I said that about any other polish, I LIED. This is hands down my favorite. The funny thing? It's a brown. I generally don't like browns on my nails. But this one is goooooooooooorgeous. (Yes, I am aware of the grammatical and spelling errors in that sentence :b ) I love it. I'm gonna show it to you before I tell you what it is :)




I kinda like posting pictures of both of my hands :) Anyways, have you guessed it yet? It's Tease-y Does It by OPI. I LOOOOVE this polish. Click the pictures to see the amazing duochrome glass fleck that shifts from gold to red... it is SO pretty. I am in love with this color. It kinda of looks like a vampy red in my pictures but it's brown. I promise. It's pretty though. Super ultra mega pretty. :) 

I also have a nail fail picture today. It looks great in pictures but IRL it was horrible. See, I got me some glow in the dark top coat and layered it over OPI Fiercely Fiona... BIG MISTAKE. It takes about two coats of the top coat to get a good glow which would be fine except that FF takes about 3 coats to look remotely decent... and I couldn't get a picture of the glow, so here's a picture of it in the light: 


I know, it's pointless to show a picture of glow in the dark polish in the light BUT I feel the need to document all of my nail doings on this blog SO there you have it. 

What do you think? Do you like Tease-y Does It? What's your favorite fall color? Let me know! Thanks for reading!

Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Pink Wednesday Nail Art!

Hey gals! I'm so happy to be doing a Pink Wednesday again! I haven't done one in a while and to make up for it, I did some nail art! I loooove skittle manicures so that's what I went with. I also used three kinds of pinks :) And an awesome silver glitter...let me stop talking and get to the pictures!




The base I used is Essie Knock Out Pout on all fingers except my ring fingers, which are OPI Crown Me Already! The rest of the colors are Art Deco stripers. Not perfect, but I like it :)

What do you think? Do you like skittle manicures? Let me know what you think! Thanks for reading!

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

I can't leave manicures alone, can I?

Hey gals! Super quick post today because I just wanted to share some awesomeness with you! After I did my ombre manicure, I got bored quickly and remembered that I had Milani HD...needless to say, I layered it and OH BOY was it a good idea! Here you have my ombre mani with one layer of HD over it.


Check out that holo! It was holo even indoors under dim lighting. Of course, not a super strong holo but holo nonetheless. I loved it! I took it off today, though, to prepare my post for tomorrow. It's Pink Wednesday and I did some nail art again :) OH, let me show you what came in the mail today:


My new moisturizing base coat! Anything to prevent curling nails!

Well, that's all for today. I'm off to prepare my post for tomorrow, which will be scheduled because I'm not gonna have time to post it the ol' fashioned way.

What do you think? Did I make my manicure better or did I ruin it? Have you tried the Complete Care base coat? Let me know! Thanks for reading!

Monday, September 26, 2011

My Stash.

Hey gals. I know, I know, I already posted today BUT I have pictures of my stash! Well, the vast majority of it. I finally got around to organizing it by color...kind of. I tried to organize it by color but there's too many bottles to be super spot on with the color organization. I have two melmers, stacked on top of each other, so I'll just go down in order of drawers. Also, these are some pretty annoying pictures, the flash was a pain in the butt. Here goes.


Drawer #1: Reds, Corals, (some) Pinks, Oranges, Yellows.


Drawer #2: Purples (I need more purples!), (more) Pinks


Drawer #3: Blues, Teals/Turquoises, Greens (I need more greens, too!)


Drawer #4: Whites, Blacks, Greys, Neutrals, Vamps, Metallics


Drawer #5: Shatters, Glitters, Top/Base Coats (the ones I don't use much), Nail Art Polishes


Drawer #6: Tools.

Sooo there you have it, my stash. I am in no way trying to show off, I just want to share with you guys because I know we all share the same passion. Trust me, I know there are people with MUCH more polish than me, I only have about 400 bottles, but I wanted to share anyways.

What do you think of my stash? Do you have a post about your own stash? Link to it, I'd love to see everyone's stashes! :D Thanks for reading!

Grey.

Hey gals...so today has been a HORRIBLE day so far...I won't get into detail because I doubt anyone reads nail polish blogs for anything other than polish. Today I wanted to paint my nails grey to match my mood and when I opened my black/white/grey/neutral drawer I got inspired to do an ombre manicure and here is the result:




Colors from light to dark are: Zoya Dove, China Glaze Recycle, Essence Movie Star, China Glaze Concrete Catwalk, and China Glaze Liquid Leather.

I used two coats of each polish for this manicure, even though some could have used more (Liquid Leather & Dove) and one was perfect with one coat (Concrete Catwalk). I like it, a lot. Also, I must remember to let my lotion/cuticle oil soak in fully before taking pictures. Whatever.

What do you think? Do you like it? Hate it? Let me know. I sincerely hope each and every one of you are having a better day than I am. Thanks for reading.

Sunday, September 25, 2011

China Glaze Zombie Zest + Drugstore Find

Hey gals! Today I have pictures of a super quick manicure I did with China Glaze Zombie Zest. I love this color, it's very sparkly :) I can't wait for Halloween! Anyways, here is 3 coats with a coat of Poshe. The manicure honestly took like 5 minutes to do, because I was in THAT big of a rush.


Also, last night I was looking through pharmacies trying to hunt down the Fantasy Makers Halloween collection to no avail, but I did find this beauty:




Milani 3D Holographic in HD!! I gave up hope for finding this, actually and I found it by surprise! It was the last one, too :) I can't want to use it! :)

What do you guys think? Do you like Zombie Zest? Are you excited for Halloween? Let me know! Have a great day :)

Saturday, September 24, 2011

Essie Limited Addiction

Hey gals! So what's a nail polish collection without one awesome red nail polish that you are completely and totally in love with? I know, reds are SO overdone and not everyone's cup of tea BUT it's good to have at least one amazing red that you love in your collection. In my search, I tried plenty a red polish, but I finally found one that I love so much, I have two bottles of it. And that's Essie's Limited Addiction. It's amazing and I love it more than any other red in my collection. I feel SO classy wearing it. It's a jelly that applies like heaven and it's a chameleon in the fact that it changes depending on the lighting. It goes from a darker red to a cherry red, depending on the lighting. We haven't been getting sun the past couple of days here so I can't show you pictures of it in the sun, but I managed to roughly translate what I mean into pictures. Here is two amazingly smooth coats with Essie's Good to Go top coat (I could have gotten away with one, it was streak-free at one coat!) :


This is how it looks most of the time indoors. It's super pretty BUT WAIT, it gets better. Here it is with a rose my younger sister picked from our bushes outside. It matches it a lot more IRL:



See how different that looks? It looks like a totally different red! I love it SO much.



Now I was just having too much fun with the camera haha :)

So here you have it, my most favorite-tist red nail polish ever :) and for someone with about 400 bottles of polish, having a red be one of my favorites says a lot about the red in question, in my opinion. :)

What do you think? Do you like Limited Addiction too? What's your favorite red? Let me know!

Friday, September 23, 2011

EUREKA!

Okay gals, I have a huge (well, huge for me) find today... Does anyone here besides me suffer from nails curling inward? If you don't know what I mean, I used my mad photoshop skillz to point out what I mean below: 




See how horrible that looks? Well, I found the culprit! And it's ... *drumroll, please* DRY NAILS! 

For me specifically, what was making my nails dry was Gelous base coat. I read reviews about it being drying but because I didn't experience peeling, I figured I was just lucky and escaped from the evil clutches of the dryness that Gelous causes. I was WRONG! When your nails curl in like this, it's because they're dry. That's why you'll notice that your nails seem wider when they've been in water. They're like sponges. And it's okay for them to curl a little when they're dry. It's normal, it's supposed to happen. BUT when they curl too much, like in the photos, it's because they're excessively dry. SO ladies, if you experience this, try switching to a moisturizing base coat. If that doesn't work, it could be something more serious, like a vitamin deficiency, but it's better to rule this out first. Also, beware of using pure acetone too often, as that can dry out your nails too. 

I just thought I'd share my findings in case anyone else was experiencing the same issues. If I helped at least one person, I'll be satisfied. :) 

Did this help you out in any way? Did you already know this? Let me know! Have a wonderful weekend, ladies! I'll be posting tomorrow with some supah classy nails :) 

Thursday, September 22, 2011

I feel pretty, oh so pretty.

Hey gals! So this is the second time I paint my nails today because I just CANNOT get OPI DS Sapphire to work. I was in the mood for something light and pretty and then I remembered my mini Essence haul and decided that Enchanted Fairy would be the perfect color to fit my mood. I did two easy peasy coats and decided that I wanted to top it with China Glaze Fairy Dust. It's SO pretty :) I love this combination so much :) Let me stop talking and show you what I mean:


I feel like a little girl, my nails are so cute :) I really like Essence polishes, too. I need to go back to Ulta and pick up some more, they're fabulous. The formula is great, the color selection is nice... And for 99 cents a pop, who can resist?

What do you think of this combination? Are you loving it as much as I am? Let me know! Thanks for reading! :D 

Monday, September 19, 2011

Watermarble!

Today I have something awesome to show you. Its... *drumroll, please* ... WATER MARBLE! :) I was so hesitant to try this because of the huge mess... believe you me, this makes a HUGE mess... below are my nails after 2 clean ups and a shower and there's still polish everywhere so please excuse that. We all know I hate messy cuticles but I honestly can't help it. Let me stop blabbering and show you the awesomesauce that is my manicure:



awkward shot of both of my hands.

Colors used: Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear: White On, Blue It, and Celeb City, and a Brucci polish named Victoria's Blue Eyes. 

What do you think? Are you loving these? Let me know! Thanks for reading! 

Sunday, September 18, 2011

Why I LOVE Revlon.

Hey gals! Soooo I'm gonna make this short and sweet. Yesterday at Target, I found Revlon, Facets of Fuschia and I HAAAD to buy it...because I love the look of Bad Romance but my wallet hates the look of its price tag :) And here are two lovely coats of it with Seche Vite:


And here's an awkward shot of my right hand, because I never show it.


I hate Seche Vite, btw. It shrinks SO much! ):

Anyways, here it is with Essie Matte About You:


I love it! :)

Here is what happens when I get bored in my Teaching Students with Disabilities class:


And here is a piggy bank that I got at Target :)


What do you think? Are you loving this Deborah Lippmann Bad Romance dupe? What do you think of it matte? Thanks for reading! :)

Friday, September 16, 2011

Color Club Warhol

Hey gals! So in class today, I peeled off my manicure because I was so bored... shame on me, I know, buuuut that gave me a chance to put on another color so meh, it's not too bad. I actually have a picture of the peeled off polish, if you want to see, haha. Aaaanywhos... Here is one of my faaavorite polishes ever, Color Club Warhol. It is sooo bright and in-your-face and lovely. It's not quite pink though...it's a neon...magenta? I'm not too sure what to call it except gorgeous. Here is two coats with Seche Vite, since because it's a neon, it dries flat. The pictures make it look streaky but I promise you it's not, it goes on like butter...hot obnoxious inedible butter. Observe:




The last picture is more true to color but I put the first two up to show you how glow-y it is...it's amazing. I love it so much. Also, don't mind the red icing on my fingers... I couldn't wash it all off after I decorated a cake for my mom's boss.

What do you think? Are you loving this as much as I am? As always, thanks for reading!

Thursday, September 15, 2011

Essie Nice is Nice + OPI I Juggle...Men

Hello gals. So my recent nail-cident caused some major nail depression and I haven't painted my nails since the last post (I took off the polish shortly after I posted it). Today I decided that I wanted to paint my nails a light purple color... I had OPI Do You Lilac It? in mind but I couldn't find it in my unorganized melmers sooo I found Essie Nice is Nice and since it's a nice light purple I figured, why not? I did two coats for the swatch below:


I then grew very bored of it and I wanted to add something to it that wouldn't completely change the look of my manicure, because I like how soft and delicate it looks. That's where OPI I Juggle...Men came into play. Here is one coat of it over Nice is Nice:


I tried to get the blue and pink shimmer to show up better but it looked silver in my pictures and this is the best shot of it I got. I like it, I think it looks very nice and delicate and pretty :)

What do you guys think of this combination? Hit or miss?
Thanks for reading! Have a great day! :)

Monday, September 12, 2011

Worst. Day. Ever.

Hey gals... I broke another nail... on my car door... it was too much to file down so I had to cut them... they're even shorter than they were the last time I nubbinized them... I'm too upset for words. Here's a swatch of China Glaze Midtown Magic. IOU a better picture.


Two coats, with Seche Vite. And a nice smudge on my pinky. I hope everyone's having a better day than I am.

Friday, September 09, 2011

Essie Status Symbol

Hey gals... so to cheer myself up from the last post, I decided to paint my nails bright pink... I like pink :) Here's 2 coats of Essie Status Symbol. On a side note, does it bother anyone else that Essie is spelled with a lower case e? It bothers me because I'm very much into being grammatically/politically correct...and I can't bring myself to NOT capitalize a proper noun... anyways, on to the swatch:


This is color accurate, which is hard to do with jellies sometimes. This is a jelly-creme... it applies like a jelly but builds up to full opacity like a creme. It's a good color to have if you don't have a good bright pink. On a side note, I absolutely adore CND Solar Oil... it's amazing. It makes for some really happy cuticles.
Anyways, thanks for reading :) Have a great weekend! :)

THIS. IS. TRAGIC.

OH MY GOSH you guys... I broke a nail. I know I sound like a whine-y, complain-y brat but you guys should know how horrible it is to break a nail... here's a picture of the damage:


Crappy cell phone picture because I didn't have my camera and I wanted to show you a picture before I filed them down... Oh, and to top it all off, the file that I bought today to fix this (because I refused to wait to go home to fix it) ... yeah, it broke... as good as crystal/glass files are, they break SO easily. UGH. This day def goes down in worst nail day history... anyways, rant over. I'll probably post later on tonight when I paint my nails... thanks for reading.

Thursday, September 08, 2011

Revlon Perplex + One of My Biggest Pet Peeves

Hey gals! Today I have a fall color from last year that was VERY popular but that I didn't get my hands on until recently. I'm talking about that dark, taupe-y, mushroomy color with a purple shimmer only visible in direct lighting. AKA, Chanel Paradoxal. Of course, being the trendsetters that they are, a lot of dupes of this color were made, one of the most popular being Revlon Perplex. I absolutely love that Revlon does dupes of high end polishes. Please, Revlon polish gods, make a Peridot dupe! Anyways, on to the swatches. What you see here is two coats topped with Essie Good to Go Top Coat.



It's gorgeous and I'm glad I have it... now on to one of my BIGGEST PET PEEVES EVER... messy cuticles. If you're going to go through the trouble of doing your nails with a gorgeous color or even do amazing nail art...why leave it unfinished? It's almost as if you don't care about your hard work... it doesn't take very long to do, and the results are amazing. Here, I've taken a before and after shot to show what I mean:


You don't have to spend forever on it to make it perfect, but at least smooth out the edges... I mean, do your polish and hard work some justice! Okay, my rant is over.

Thanks for reading! Happy polishing! :)

Tuesday, September 06, 2011

Zoya Valerie + My Melmers!

Hey gals! So today it's raining a LOT here where I am and it made me want to wear a very fall type color... I don't know why but that's just how my brain works. I was looking in my stash for a LONG time before I made up my mind and chose Zoya Valerie. It's a gorgeous burgundy type base with gold and wine duochrome glass fleck... I only wish I would have caught that on camera! Anyways, here it is:





I tried reeeeeally hard to capture the shift but I just couldn't so here's a pic that shows the fleck colors well in the bottle:

Also, I got new melmers! For those of you who don't know what melmers are, they are JetMax cubes that can be bought at Michael's, Target, AC Moore... I got mine at AC Moore. Well actually, my boyfriend got them for me because I was in class when they were having a sale. They sell for $35 each but because AC Moore had an earlybird type special, my boyfriend got them at $15 each! Of course I paid him back but he was kind enough to wake up early to go for me :) Anyways, assembly was NOT 15 minutes, as it states on the instructions page. It took me longer because I decoupage'd them as well, something I learned about through Rebecca's tutorial, but I doubt that it will take anyone 15 minutes to assemble, unless you're some sort of powerdrill/Speedy Gonzalez hybrid... anyways, here they are:


I hope you like them! :) Thanks for reading!