MORE Essie Luxeffects Shine of the Times Swatches!

Happy Thanksgiving, girlies! I'm very thankful for my well being, family, friends, boyfriend, blessings, etc., but I'm also thankful for YOU! My readers mean a lot to me and I love reading comments. I'm thankful that I'm able to share my hobby with people...that actually care! Thanks so much.

Today I have more swatches of Essie Luxeffects Shine of the Times, which I've shown you before here. It's a great flakie, and I knew I would wear it today because the colors remind me of leaves! Red, gold, green...sounds very much like falling leaves to me! I love it. Here I layered it over OPI Suzi Loves Cowboys, which is a dark brown (but not black looking) jelly-creme. The swatches below show two coats of that and one coat of Essie Luxeffects SOTT, with topcoat, of course. Behold the beauty that is my Thanksgiving manicure: (I left the pictures HUGE, so click on them to see them super close up, it's amazing.)

Here's another shot in different lighting to show some color shift:

Here's a macro shot:

Sorry for the blur, this flakie freaks my camera out! I love it though, I'm pretty sure I'm going to layer it over everything! I hope you like it!

What do you think? Do you like this combo? Let me know! Happy Thanksgiving! Thanks for reading! :D

OPI Excuse Moi! for Pink Wednesday

Hey girlies :) So I'm super excited today because I got a few new polishes AND because tomorrow I'm going to see The Muppets Movie!! Of course, I painted my nails with a Muppets color from OPI, and I chose Excuse Moi because I'll be wearing it tomorrow, which is Wednesday, meaning I should wear pink :) I haven't done a Pink Wednesday in so long, and I know it's still Tuesday but I won't have time to do my nails or post tomorrow and I don't want to schedule this post for tomorrow because I'm a loser. OH! I went to a beauty supply today, and they charged me $18 for some swatch spoons! $18!?!?! I'm returning them...that price is ridiculous. Also, I snagged up two of the China Glaze 3D glitters! Those swatches are soon to come, I can't wait to put those on my nails! And I got a backup bottle of Essie Luxeffects Shine of the Times, which I showed you guys here. And Essie Luxeffects Pure Pearlfection because althought it didn't seem like much when I first saw it, I saw some swatches and TOTALLY loved it, so I bought a bottle. I'm allllso trying a new top coat today! Nubar Diamont. I've heard awesome reviews so let's see how this holds up! It doesn't dry as fast as Seche or Poshe for sure, but that's probably because I did put a coat of Gelous before it to combat grittiness... anyways. Swatches. I did a coat of my base coat, two coats of EM! and a coat of Gelous because it was gritty...it could have used two, actually... and a coat of Nubar Diamont. Here are the results:

Macro shot, because I'm still excited that I finally figured out how to do it!

I like it. I like the different color/sized glitters in the jelly base. The formula was great, too. It dried quickly. One hand was dry by the time I finished painting the other. It does dry matte, so you'll need a top coat. I'm SO EXCITED for the movie! I'm sure Ms. Piggy would approve of my manicure ;)

What do you think? Do you like/have this? Are you going to watch the movie? Let me know! Thanks for reading! :D

Essie As Gold As It Gets Swatches

Hey girls! Today I have a swatch of the other Essie Luxeffects polish I got, As Gold As It Gets. It's a gold flakie. No duochrome like Shine of the Times, but it's still gorgeous. I swatched it over OPI's Road House Blues, a new to me color, and it's not what I hoped. I wanted a true gold over dark blue look but this blue is too dark, so it looks like a charcoal or something. I still like the combination, but I'm going to try it over a lighter blue later on. Here you have it:

Isn't she purty? Here's a different angle:

My cuticles are so messy! Ugh I'm gonna have to clean up again... my OCD won't let me leave this alone. Nothing shows you how messy your clean up was like close ups. Speaking of which...

Oh yeah, I learned how to take decent macro shots on my crappy camera. BOO YA! I honestly never thought I'd be able to but I proved myself wrong. Sorry for the horrible clean up, I swear they look fine in person. Anyways, I like this flakie, a lot. It has irregular sized flakes and it really gives your nails more depth. I love it. Again, I can't wait to layer it over everything. :D

What do you guys think? Do you like it? What should I layer it over? Thanks for reading! :D

Essie Luxeffects Shine of the Times Swatches!

Hey gals! SO I'm BEYOND excited to show you Essie Luxeffects Shine of the Times! I found it accidentally. I went to one of my favorite beauty supplies to get my eyebrows threaded because that lady is the only one who can do them right, and I saw a few polishes and I was looking through them. I had picked up a couple of polishes from Essie's Winter collection and OPI Samoan Sand, which I had been meaning to get for a while. So I go to the register, and there they are, the last two polishes on the display, Essie Shine of the Times and As Gold As It Gets! I snatched those up instead. I got them for $5 a piece! OMG I'm excited. Of course I swatched SOTT first because HELLO, it's a FLAKIE! A pretty amazing one, might I add. It's like every other flakie you've ever seem amplified by 10, then put on steroids... It's amazing and I love it. Here I have ONE coat of it over two coats of Essie Smokin' Hot.

Look at all those magical flakies! *swoons* I am in love <3 It's amazing. Here's a picture where I tried to show the different colors. The quality isn't that great but you can see the colors really well:

I am in LOVE!! It's magical, really. Bear in mind that the colors look dulled in my pictures. The color are MUCH stronger/brighter IRL. I can't wait to try this over...everything! One thing I did notice, though, is that rather than the traditional 0.5 fl oz you get from Essies, this is 0.46... not a HUGE difference, I know, but I did notice it. It's okay though, because with the size of my collection, I don't see myself ever running out of a bottle. I might buy a backup of this though, if I see it again. It's beautiful. I can't wait to try AGAIG!


** EDIT: I posted new swatches of this polish here! There's a macro shot, too. Check it out! 

What do you think? Are you loving this? Do you have it? What should I layer it over next? Let me know! Thanks for reading! :D 

Color Club Who Are You Wearing?

Hey gals! So long before I became a nail polish addict, I saw a swatch of OPI Let Them Eat Rice Cake and I fell in love. Me, being naive, looked it up to no avail. I then discovered that they had discontinued it, so I went out to look for a substitute. I found Who Are You Wearing? by Color Club and thought it was close enough. Naive of me, I know, but I still really like the color. It kind of reminds me of LTERC, but I think that's because the whole reason I got it in the first place was because I was looking for that color. Anyways, here's three coats topped with Seche.

Yup, my nails broke again. I swear, I don't know how I do it but I always manage to break my nails. Anyways, I really like this color, it's chic and pretty. :)

What do you think? Do you like this? Does anyone have LTERC and not want it? ;) Thanks for reading! :D 

Gold to Green

Hey gals! Today I have swatches of one of the polishes up for grabs in my giveaway, which hasn't gotten much love and I contribute that to my lack of pictures. Here I have some swatches of the Gold to Green polish. It's a great polish, it's just DIFFICULT to capture, oh my gosh. It's really pretty though. I tried to capture it, and I got one picture that shows all of the colors that it shifts to in one shot. Here it is:

See how it's gold in the center, then bronze-ish, then green at the edges? Those are the colors this polish shifts to. It's amazing. I tried to capture the green aspect because it's really spectacular, but this is the best I could do:

Crappy lighting and blurry, I know, but it was the best I could do. Here you can see how different the polish looks in different lighting though, so at least I accomplished that. It's amazing to watch it change. I absolutely love it. This is only one coat of that color changing topcoat over one coat of Finger Paints Black Expressionism, which is by far the best black creme I've ever seen, better than the Wet'n'Wild Black Creme. If you're looking for a quick drying, one coat black creme, check it out. It dries shiny, too. But yeah, I hope I did this polish justice.

Like it? You can WIN IT in my giveaway! Thanks for reading :D 

My Apologies

Hey gals! So I owe you guys an apology for being a bad blogger. See, the thing was... I broke a nail. And just when I thought it was long enough to start blogging again... I broke another nail... It is SO frustrating to have broken nails and such and I apologize for the lack of content on here lately. I do have a few manicures from a while ago that I didn't post so I might just post those until my nails grow to an acceptable length. I just wanted to apologize and let you all know that I'm not dead. Also, I want to do a giveaway in the near future, I'm just waiting for a package to get here. It's gonna be a great prize :) hehe, enough of my teasing. Thanks for reading! I missed you guys /:

China Glaze Blue Year's Eve Swatches, Comparison, and Review

Hey girlies :) So yesterday I found the China Glaze Let it Snow! collection at Sally's and I HAD to pick some of the polishes up. The ones I got were Ring in the Red, Glittering Garland, Tinsel Town, and the star of today's post, Blue Year's Eve. I love China Glaze's holiday collections, I think they put out some of their best shades in the holiday collections. I like this collection too, and these four colors are my favorites of the collection. I also want Poinsetta, Holly Day, and Twinkle Lights which all come in a cute little set, but I didn't get them just yet. Anyways, the point of the post, Blue Year's Eve. It's a great polish. Have a look:

It's a gorgeous blue duochrome glass fleck that looks purple in certain lights. I did two coats plus Seche for the swatches. The formula was amazing, and I got the coverage pictured in only two coats. It was neither thick nor thin, it was perfect. Drying time was great as well. Clean up was not a problem so I'm assuming removal will be easy as well. I love everything about this polish. It reminds me of one of my absolute favorite polishes ever, OPI DS Magic. I did a little comparison to show the differences/similarities:

I have BYE on the pinky and middle fingers and Magic on my ring and pointer fingers, two coats each. This picture doesn't show the differences very well, but they are there. Magic is more sparkly, because the glass flecks are larger. Magic also has a darker base and a stronger duochrome, but not by much. They are still pretty similar, and if you missed out on Magic, BYE is a nice substitute. It is by no means a dupe, but they are pretty similar. Do you need both? No. Am I keeping both? Absolutely.

What do you think? Do you like Blue Year's Eve? Did you pick up any colors from this collection yet? Let me know! Thanks for reading! :D