Ulta Haul + RAOK + Nail Mail + A Review

Hey girls! So I don't want to take off Mint Candy Apple just yet because everyone's been complimenting my nails and sometimes I can be a bit of an attention seeker so I want to keep it on for another day...but I do have a nice little post for you guys today. I made another trip to Ulta with Mr. ATPP and I got a few things. I guess I'll do the polishes first:

Left to right: Jaded, Bam-Blue-Zled, Moody Blues 

Jaded is actually a multichrome but my camera refused to pick it up. It's green, but the bottle edges are purple and blue. It's so faint in the bottle that I doubt it'll show up on the nail... I really hope the polish proves me wrong, haha. Bam-Blue-Zled is a pretty light blue creme with some purple thrown in... it reminds me of China Glaze Secret Peri-wink-le but I'm not sure if they're dupes, I have to check. Moody Blues looks awesome in the bottle, I can't tell if it's a jelly or creme but it's a nice dark royal blue. Can't wait to get these on my tips!

I also got a new-to-me product because it was on sale. It's the OPI Avojuice lotions. Take a lookie:

I got two Jasmine ones because these smell AMAZING! OMG I am in LOVE with them. A quick review: these are very light lotions but not too thin where it feels like I'm washing my hands or putting hand sanitizer on. They're thinner than say, Bath and Body Works lotions, for reference. They make your hands ridiculously soft. The smell? DIVINE! If you have Aquolina Pink Sugar perfume, this smells EXACTLY like it after it's been on for a while. It's sweet but not overpowering, and the scent lingers for a while but it's not something that you'll smell unless your hands are by your nose. It's wonderful. No headaches, nothing. I love it. I am buying the bigger bottle once I run out of these. I haven't tried the regular one but that's because I'm in love with the Jasmine ones. Also, I got the Jasmine ones for $1.95 each! And the other one was $2.50. Girls, GO CHECK OUT THE CLEARANCE SECTION OF YOUR ULTAS! They had a whole bunch of goodies. The two smaller polishes I got were two bucks a piece! Love love love Ulta. I just wish it wasn't half an hour away from my house. #firstworldproblems.

Also, Mr. ATPP's mommy gave me a gift, a random act of kindness, or RAOK if you will. I forgot to picture the other polish she gave me, Avon Urban Grey but here is Avon Jade. Also, I got China Glaze Emerald Sparkle in the mail :)

Jade is a great color, it reminds me of a darker version of China Glaze Re-fresh Mint. I'll have to test that theory later. Emerald Sparkle is just amazing, totally worth the hype. Dark green with bright green sparkles...delicious! I can't wait to do a mani with these either!

What do you think? Do you have any of these polishes? How about the lotions? Thoughts? Questions? Have a great weekend, girlies! Thanks for reading! :D

Essie Mint Candy Apple Swatch + My 2 Cents on Pastel Application

Hey girlies! Sorry for my short absence, my internet was cut off /: I wanted to do my Liebster blog award post but when I went to do it, my phone and internet stopped working and the guy came today to fix it. So, I still have to do that post but I wanted to share swatches of what I'm wearing today. I waited until my internet was fixed to do my nails because I'm a loser like that. Good thing it got fixed today because Fowl Play was chipping... anyways, here we have Essie Mint Candy Apple, two coats, with some Seche.

This is a very very pretty color and one of the few colors that I have a backup bottle of. It's a blue leaning green...green leaning blue...it's gorgeous and I love it. I think that I want to call it green just because it has 'mint' in the name. My pictures show it a bit too blue though, so picture it a few shades greener, but not much. It's a gorgeous color, and I love it. You do have to be very careful with application because as with all pastels, it can be streaky.

 I have almost mastered pastel application. My method is to apply it as if it were Seche: A big blob, then spread it, and don't go over the same spot twice. Don't let the brush touch your nail, just maneuver the polish over your nail without touching it. Also, wait at least 2 minutes between coats, including after your base coat. I didn't wait two minutes to put top coat on because I find that Seche helps level things out. I think this method works rather well, considering I only used two coats for this polish whereas I used to take 3-4 coats to apply starky pastels. Hope that helps anyone having trouble applying pastels. That's just my two cents.

Also, my younger sister came up to me and told me that my nails are 'perfect' and that she wishes hers were like mine. I know my nails aren't perfect at all but I felt sooooo proud when she said that. I feel like we spend a lot of time on our nails, filing them right, polishing them right, treating them right...and it feels good to have someone else notice it. I just thought I'd share this little thing that made me smile this big: :D

What do you think? Do you like Mint Candy Apple? Do you have a special way of applying pastels? Let me know! Thanks for reading! :D 

Orly Fowl Play Swatches

Hey girlies! Today I have some swatches of Orly's Fowl Play, the most popular color from their Birds of a Feather collection, due to the fact that it's a dupe of OPI's Merry Midnight. I don't have MM but from what I've seen, these are dupes, except that FP has a darker base. I like the darker base, it means less coats for full opacity. I'm sure you've seen it a million times but I'm trying this new thing where I actually describe the polish I'm blogging about... Yep, I'm evolving into a true blogger haha. It's a deep plum jelly base with flakies a la Sally Hansen Hidden Treasure / Nubar 2010 and some smaller blue flakies AND some silver microglitter. I love it, I love it, I love it! Here are some pictures:

The first two are accurate base color-wise, but the last one I included to show the sparkly flakies! This is three coats, with some Seche on top. I love it!

(I know I said I would swatch Galaxy Girl first but I waited a day to do it and it had already chipped! -__- #firstworldproblems)

Sidenote: I REALLY want Wet n Wild Tangled in my Web and I can't find it anywhere! Is anyone willing to sell me one? Please? Help a blogger out! Haha :b

What do you think? Do you have this? Do you love it? Let me know! I know there are much better swatches out there but I hope I was able to capture at least a teensy bit of its beauty. Thanks for reading! :D 

Two swatches, some nail mail, and my first jack-o-lantern!

Hey girlies! I have a very picture heavy post for you today. So a few days ago I tried on OPI Animal-istic from the Muppets collection and I fell in LOVE with the color! It was so pretty and amazing and ... pretty haha... let me show you what I mean:

It's a gorgeous coral foil, and I love it...except that it chipped on the first day... like, 3 hours after application. Then it chipped on the pointer nail but the little piece of polish was hanging on so I used my emergency method (covering it with the clear nail polish that I MUST have on hand at all times) until I got home and changed it into this:

China Glaze First Class Ticket. It's very pretty and it reminds me of Essie's Sexy Divide only blue leaning rather than reddish leaning...idk what I'm saying but hopefully that made sense. Anyways, I got home today and found some nail mail waiting for me. Here is what I got in the mail:

Wanna guess what they are??  Here are individual shots:

Give up? This isssss (drumroll, please):

And here's the second one:

The picture is deceiving, there's a strong blue flash in this one that my camera didn't pick up. Anyways, it's (another drumroll, please):

YAY!! I was incredibly excited for both! I'm going to use Galaxy Girl first hehe :)

Anyways, today while with Mr. ATPP, we went pumpkin shopping with his brother and we saw something that looks like this:

And of course, I wanted to carve it because I'm weird and rather than carve an actual pumpkin, I choose the weird looking thing. I thought it looked like a ghost so that's what I made it. Introducing, Ghouletta! :D

I tried to get a picture of her in the dark so that you can see her eyes glowing but I couldn't /: but you guys get the point. She's a cutie pie and I'm very proud. I'm probably going to drag my boyfriend to buy an actual pumpkin to carve it :) I love it :D

What do you think? I know this was a lot to take in but does anyone have any comments on anything? Do you like Animal-istic? How about First Class Ticket? Did you like my nail mail? How about Ghouletta? Let me know! Thanks for reading! :D 

ATPP does Frankening!

Heyloh girlies! So I didn't want to take my manicure off soooo I decided that to pass the time, I would franken up some polishes. I've wanted to franken for a while sooo this is exciting :) I got a set of Martha Stewart Craft Glitters and went to town with old polishes that I didn't really like, or polishes that I liked and wanted to spice up, or clear polishes... anyways, I made 5 frankens. :) Let me show you what I did:

In the picture above, the mini swatch on the far right of each little color group is the finished product. If you guys want swatches, I'll gladly do them. Here are individual bottle shots:

So what I learned from my frankening experience was that if you're adding glitter to a clear base, even if you add some color, it WILL sink. The ones that were a colored base, the glitter didn't sink in, but the two that I used the clear base in (the white and the blue) did sink. I also realize that I need some ballz. I want to order some but I'm not sure yet. I like the fine glitter in these, it makes for a very subtle glitter look and I like that.

What do you guys think? Do you want to see swatches? Want to help me name them? Thanks for reading! :D 

Frankenstein Nails!

Hey girlies! I realized that I allllways start my posts with "hey gals!" so I wanted to switch it up a bit, I hope you don't mind. :b Anyways, I'm starting to feel the Halloween spirit, and I wanted to do some Halloween nail art :) I love the Frankenstein nails I've been seeing all over the place so I decided to give them a shot. If I'm not mistaken, this is the video that started it all. I used it as my inspiration but mine didn't come out as good as hers. I still like how they came out though. Here they are:

I don't know why my camera refuses to focus when I try to take a picture of both of my hands... GR! Anyways, the base color is Sally Hansen Hard As Nails in Limestone. I used white and black Art Deco polishes for the details. I like them :) I think I'm gonna do Dracula nails next, based on another one of GoldieStarling's tutorials... She's awesome ^-^

What do you think? Do you like them? Let me know! Thanks for reading :D 

Essie Pretty Edgy for Depression Awareness

Hey gals. So today I wanted to do a creme polish because it often gets outshined by its siblings shimmer, glitter, glass fleck, etc. I also wanted to do a green because it is Depression Awareness Month...and I do suffer from depression... It's not something I like to talk about much but I do believe that awareness is beyond important because too many times, depressed people get told to stop moping and to get over it... It's very difficult to deal with and it bothers me when people tell me to cheer up because it's not that I choose to be depressed... I have no control over my sadness... But I won't ramble about it. Like I said, I don't like to talk about it, ever. There are some great posts on it already, so I won't get into detail. Anyway, I chose Essie Pretty Edgy for my manicure and I think it's perfect. Here are two coats with Seche Vite:

What you see in the background is a box I decoupage'd. Anyway, I think this color is wonderful. I love it :)

What do you think? Do you love it or hate it? What's your favorite green polish? Let me know! Thanks for reading :)

ABCs of ATPP :)

Hey gals! So I haven't painted my nails yet so this isn't going to be a nail polish post but I was reading blogs and Desiree of Gorgeous in Wonderland posted a little ABC thingymajiggy and I thought it was cute soooo let's get to know me! :)

A – Age: 19

B – Bed size: Twin (I'm a little person, I don't need a huge bed hehe)

C – Chore you hate: Hm... I'm not sure, I actually don't mind chores. OH! Taking out the trash is a PITA!

D – Dog’s name: Don't have one anymore, but I had a Yorkee named Winnie.

E – Essential start your day item: Coffee...preferably a grande Caramel Macchiato :)

F – Favorite color: Hmmm... Pink? Purple? I'm gonna sound cheesy but all of them :) 

G – Gold or Silver: Silver :) 

H – Height: 5'1... I think. Possibly even shorter. 

I – Instruments you play: I can play the Rugrats theme on the piano...and I'm learning how to play recorder for my music class...ah, the perks of being an Elem Ed major... haha. 

J – Job title: Full time student :b

K – Kid(s): None...yet? 

L – Living arrangements: Unfortunately still living at home. 

M – Mom’s name: Sandra. 

N – Nicknames: Rini is the most commonly used one. 

O – Overnight hospital stay other than birth: None, thank goodness.

P – Pet Peeve: Way too many to list. 

Q – Quote from a movie: "No. No, you can't... STOP. Please don't go away. Please? No one's ever stuck with me for so long before. And if you leave... if you leave... I just, I remember things better with you. I do, look. P. Sherman, forty-two... forty-two... I remember it, I do. It's there, I know it is, because when I look at you, I can feel it. And-and I look at you, and I... I'm home. Please... I don't want that to go away. I don't want to forget." - Dory, from Finding Nemo. I cry like a baby when this happens...but then again I cry a lot during most movies lol.

R – Right or left handed: Right handed.

S – Siblings: 2 younger sisters and an older half brother who has always lived across the country.

T – Time you wake up: Usually 5:45. 

U- Underwear: ...should be changed every day. :b

V – Vegetable you dislike: Hm...I like veggies... I guess... oooh squash, I don't really like squash...

W – Ways/Reasons you run late: Usually other people, because I try to always be early. I'm very anal about being on time. 

X – X-rays you’ve had: Noneeee.

Y – Yummy food you make: I cook a lot of things... rice and beans, pasta, steak, chicken... I also bake a lot... cupcakes are my thing lol :) I'm hungry now...haha.

Z – Zoo favorite: Emus! :D 

So there you have it, a little info about me :) If you do this, link to it! I'd love to read everyone's ABCs :D 

OPI Warm and Fozzie + Muppets Mini Haul

Hey gals! So I finally got my hands on some of the polishes from the OPI Muppets collection! I'm SO excited. I was most excited about Warm and Fozzie so I swatched it first and I'm glad I did. It's SO pretty! I just can't get it to show up well on camera. It's a duochrome foil with what looks like gold, bronze, and pink foil pieces in it and it looks green depending on the angle. It's a GREAT color. I read many reviews that said this was sheer, but it only took me two normal coats for opacity. The formula was great, too. It wasn't too thick but it wasn't too thin. It was somewhere in between, meaning it was close to perfect. I predict that removal will be a pain in the behind because clean up was a little messy because the foil particles got everywhere but I don't mind because it's pretty :) Here are some pictures:

Try as I might, I could NOT get the green duochrome to show but it is there. Not a strong duochrome but it's a pretty one. Doesn't this make you feel warm and fuzzy? I love it. :) Here I used Seche Vite because I'm trying to rekindle my relationship with it...I read that shrinkage can be reduced by thinning it out and wrapping the tips...but I always wrap my tips so I thinned mine with like, 10 drops of Seche Restore so let's see if that helps some. Oh, and here are the other polishes I picked up from the collection in my mini haul. I plan on returning for more, specifically Excuse Moi!

Warm and Fozzie, Meep-Meep-Meep, Animal-istic, Rainbow Connection

I know I said I wouldn't pick up Rainbow Connection because I have Deborah Lippmann's Happy Birthday but I caved and bought it anyways. I can't wait to try Meep-Meep-Meep :D 

What do you think? Do you love or hate this? What colors have you picked up from this collection? What other colors should I get? Let me know! Thanks for reading! :) 

Deborah Lippmann Across the Universe

Hey gals! Sorry for the little absence, I was a bit uninspired. It's been happening a lot lately. I definitely need to go nail polish shopping. Anyways, to make up for my absence / get me inspired again, I pulled out one of the most expensive polishes I own: Deborah Lippmann Across the Universe. See, I don't really like the thought of paying $18 for nail polish but I needed this one... I mean really? It's gorgeous. I'll stop talking about it because I know we've all seen it a million times so I'll just show you a picture:

There she is, three coats of gorgeousness. The last time I wore this polish, I layered it over OPI Blue My Mind and I kind of like it better layered just because I prefer a darker base. Here it's still...sheer? I'm not sure how to put it but anyways, she's gorgeous and I do NOT regret paying for this polish. It's sooo pretty :)

What do you think? Are you loving Across the Universe? Do you have it? What layering combo looks best? Let me know! Thanks for reading :D