Good evening!
Tonight I bring to you a polish that I've only swatched and not done a full mani with, until today. I'm not really sure why, as I loved the color when I bought it. It's a very soothing color, which we all need once in awhile. To make this post even better, my camera actually took accurate pics of this color this time around. When I swatched it, my camera made it appear more blue than it really is.
The color I'm gushing about is the beautiful Zoya Jo. It's a soft periwinkle blue with a silver shimmer. Jo goes on very easily in two coats. I truly have no complaints about this color :) Very simple mani, topped with Poshe.
I love easy, worry free colors that look great on their own.
Good evening!
So today's Stamping Sunday challenge was themed black and red. Seeing as how I got the latest set of Bundle Monster plates and colors from Zoya's latest fall collection, I dived right in. Right from the start, the color that called to me was Zoya Elisa. This red is soooooo gorgeous! I completely get the whole "lit from within" look that I keep reading about with Zoya's shimmers.
I did two, very easy, amazing coats of Elisa and topped with Poshe. I almost regret stamping over it but alas, that's the whole point of Stamping Sunday lol. The plate I picked to stamp with was Bundle Monster 323, stamped in Wet 'N Wild Black Cream. The end result reminds me very much of brocaded fabric.
I don't know why these pictures didn't come out clearer =\ The mani came out so pretty, too. Even my husband noticed and commented lol.
Also, I wanted to let my dear readers know, I will be starting my nail tech course on August 14th, so I won't be posting much, maybe twice a week. I will be scheduling posts for Mondays that will be dedicated to dupes in my stash. I've already starting posting that as of last Monday, and plan on for tomorrow too. I will try to post for Stamping Sundays as well. I hope you enjoy those posts as I slave away for my course :P
Good evening! I hope everyone is enjoying their weekend. I would be enjoying mine a bit more if it wasn't hot as hell xD
Tonight I bring to yesterday's mani, which I had full intention of posting last night, but time got away from me. I finally, finally did a proper, full mani of my own created dupe of Absolutely Alice by OPI. I call it The Girl in the Blue Dress. I did this mani a little bit differently from my others; since I was doing a glitter, I used Gelous as my base as well as my topcoar, to further prevent chipping.
I must say, I'm quite impressed with how that worked! I had zero chips by the time I got home from work yesterday, which is unusual for a glitter. Over the Gelous base, I did three thin coats of my dupe, one more of Gelous, and a final of SV.
Good morning!
Before I show you today's pink mani, I'd like to pass along some info that has set the polish community to buzzing. This time it's caused, not by and indie polish maker or seller, but by a large and well known cosmetics company.
Earlier in the week, possibly even last week, Sinful Colors debuted new displays and "collections" at Walgreens. Included in the displays were pamphlets showing different nail art techniques and how to acheive them. Now, this is all fine and well, except A) None of the three pictures used belonged to the company, B) not a single SC polish was used in ANY of the pictured manicures, C) the very first "technique" explained isn't even freehand nail art, it's a nail stamp!, and D) they blatantly cropped out one blogger's watermark AND pasted her mani onto a model's hand.
Here are links to two of the bloggers involved:
The-Swatchaholic
Swatch and Learn
Both of those links go directly to their posts explaining their side of it. There is an online petiton that directly addresses this issue. I highly encourage all my readers to sign it.
https://www.change.org/petitions/revlon-and-sinful-colors-stop-stealing-photos-from-nail-bloggers
Ok, now that that is done, on to today's mani!
So, I've been really enjoying people's take on the accent nail trend. I gave it a go last week, and decided to do so again this week. For my colors, I used Pink Friday and Fly from OPI's Niki Minaj collection. I did three coats each and topped with SV since I planned on stamping. The image plate I used was Bundle Monster 224 stamped with Konad Special White and Wet 'N Wild Black Cream. White over Fly, Black Cream over Pink Friday. It looks like I may need to buff my stamper, since the image didn't come out as crisp as I'd like lol. Take a look!
Good evening! I hope everyone's week is off to a good start :)
Lately, I've noticed I have some dupes in my stash, so I decided I'm gonna compare a few of the more obvious ones, starting with tonight's post. I'm gonna try to do this once a week.
My first comparison are these three polishes: Zoya Breezi, and OPI's Ogre-the-Top Blue and Suzi Says Feng Shui.
At first glance, in the bottle, all three look the same. On the nail, though, that's another story.
Left to right: Breezi, Ogre-the-Top, and Suzi Says Feng Shui. Quite obviously, the middle color is not the same as the other two, which are the same.
Breezi and Ogre-the-Top
Ogre-the-Top and Suzi Says Feng Shui
Breezi and Suzi Says Feng Shui
Good evening! I hope everyone has had a great weekend. Mine was rather uneventful, with the exception of running a few errands yesterday, one of which included a run to Sally's. That turned up a couple of great finds, one of China Glaze's On Safari colors and Luxe & Lush =D
So, today is Stamping Sunday, and the challenge for today was your favorite new plate. Well, I don't have any of this year's sets from the big companies, except for MASH's second set that I think was released last year. So instead, I chose just my favorite plate, which is just about anything with butterflies. One, though, I like more than the other I have- Red Angel plate 102.
I started with 2 coats of Zoya Wednesday. I find this particular creme, out of the four I have from this collection, the easiest to apply. I topped it with SV and let it dry. For the stamping, I used Maybelline's Navy Narcissist from the Color Show collection. That color stamps so well, I'm very impressed. A little trick I've learned to minimize smearing my stamping: I clean up my manicure before applying one last layer of SV. That seems to help, at least for me anyways.
Good morning.
It is with a heavy heart that I write this morning's post. By now, most of you have prolly heard about the movie theater shooting in Aurora, Colorado very early this morning. My heart and prayers go out to all those whose lives' were affected by this tragic event. You can find quite a bit of info on just about every news and social media outlet if you don't know what happened.
Reluctantly moving on, I bring you one of my untried, only swatched colors. I've had this color for several months but just hadn't had the opportunity to really wear it, mostly because the weather was just so crappy when I got it. This is the kind of color you want to wear when it's bright and sunny out, because it's a holo :)
I kept this mani pretty simple, so as not to drown out the holoness. All I did were 3 coats of OPI's DS Sapphire topped with Poshe and that was it. Contrary to the name, DS Sapphire is not sapphire colored; it's more of a sky blue than anything. Personally, I think OPI should have switched DS Sapphire and DS Glamour name wise :P
Good evening! Happy humpday and Pink Wednesday!
I bring to you tonight a trend that's been pretty popular in the nail world for several months now: accent nails. Accent nails are a fun way to add some zip to your mani, and the great thing about them is there are no limits on what you can do! Usually, ring fingers and thumbs are used as accents, but it's really up to you which you chose as your accent.
For my accent mani, I picked my ring fingers and thumbs, and kept it simple. I painted my accents with Zoya Arizona, and the other three fingers were done in Zoya Shelby. I applied 3 coats of each and topped with Poshe. That's it!
I seriously thought that this mani would trigger an OCD fit in me, but it didn't bother me as much as I thought it would lol. I really love this color combo, it's so pretty :)
Good evening! I hope everyone has had a great weekend. Mine wasn't too bad, I didn't do anything too exciting.
So, today's Stamping Sunday challenge was themed precious jewels. I almost went with my usual and did something with sapphires, but I went against my norm this time.
I picked a beautiful, untried jewel tone Zoya I've had for several months, Suvi. Now, I'm very particular about my greens; not many of them look good with my skintone. So many of them are too yellow and wash me out. Suvi, however, is a gorgeous, dark emerald green frost. The only thing I don't like about this color is that took 3 thin coats for opacity; that's it. I topped Suvi with Poshe and let it dry while I cleaned up my mani.
Ok, my goal after that was to try to make this mani look jewelry-like, but not gaudy or garish. I started flipping through my binder of plates and found a delicate, chainlink looking, full nail image on MASH 41. I stamped that image with China Glaze's Jingle Bells. On my ring fingers, I added a "diamond". I even managed to not smear my stamping! Take a look!
Now, I did have to use a drop of super glue on the "diamond" because I kept popping it off xD Normally I don't do that but it seems I have to when I use Poshe as a topcoat; I don't have that problem with SV lol.
Have a great night!
Good morning!
I've had an exhausting week, otherwise this post would have been up last night instead of me going to bed early :P
Have you ever found a color that just rocks your socks off? Whether it because of an awesome formula, or you love the color, or something; for whatever reason, it's just a color you can't live without. Well, for me that color is My Boyfriend Scales Walls. I've used this color at least 4 times since I got it 2 weeks ago. There isn't anything that I don't love about it.
For yesterday's mani, I started with 2 easy coats MBSW and topped with SV. Since MBSW is a blue toned white, I decided use my Blue Shatter over it. Wow, Blue Shatter really popped over MBSW!
I love how this turned out!
I wanted to let you know that both my Swatches pages are finally complete! With the exception of a few minis I don't want to waste and some flakies, my stash is there for everyone to look at. Feel free to take a look!
Good evening! Happy Pink Wednesday to everyone! As a bit of warning, as the title of this post says, I have some pedi spam to show you but I will save that for last :) First, though, is today's mani.
So, a few days ago, I got some new glitters in the mail, Sour Apple and Mango Madness from an older China Glaze collection. These two glitters are very like Teedage and Last Friday Night from OPI, with their thicker, colored bases and small holo glitter. From what I can tell, the two China Glaze's aren't quite as thick as the later OPIs and are more manageable. They are quite sheer even after a few coats.
Normally when I do a candy mani, I use a matching or complementary creme base. Another method is useing your jelly polish as the base, which is what I tried today. I started with 2 coats of Zoya Kate. Once dry, I layered one coat of Mango Madness, the Zoya Belle, all topped with SV. This came out more orange than I intended, but it's a pretty orange-pink color.
Ok, now for pedi spam! If you don't like looking at pedis, I suggest you stop reading!
On my last trip to Ulta, I picked my third butter LONDON, The Black Knight. I love this polish! It's a black base with multi colored glitter that's just stunning. It is, unfortunately, a topcoat eater. To cure that, I used Gelous, which I picked up at Sally's, over two coats of TBK. After that, I used SV so it would dry faster.
Good evening! I hope y'all had a great weekend; if not, tomorrow's a new day and can only be better :)
Ok, so today's Stamping Sunday theme was called "inspired by something you love". This was really a no brainer for me lol. I took three of my favorite things and put them into one mani.
I started with two coats of Blue My Mind from OPI. This is one of my first ever OPIs and one of my favorite blues (out of allllllll the blues I own, and I own a lot :P). I then layered 1 coat of Me + Blue from Nicole by OPI. It's my understanding that Me + Blue and the Ulta exclusive The Flowers are Blue-ming! are the same thing, so you don't need both. I can't take credit for coming up with this combo; a good friend of mine on FaceBook did it first and I loved it so much I wanted to copy it. Blue and holo, what's not to love?
I topped that all with SV and waited for my ring fingers to dry enough to stamp on. I didn't really feel up to stamping the entire mani, so I only did accents. I used Red Angel plate 102 and Konad special white for the accents. I absolutely love butterflies and this is one of my favorite images. I only wish it was bigger. One last coat of SV on the accents and done!
Oh, and this is another image where my squishy stamper came in handy. I really only used part of this particular image this time.
Good morning and happy Friday! I hope everyone has had a good week, whether you were celebrating Independence Day or just getting through another work week!
For today's mani, I decided to revisit one of my favorite collections from OPI last year, The Pirates of the Carribean. While I don't own every color from it, I thought it was very pretty and loved both the collex and the movie :) I reached for Planks A Lot and Silver Shatter.
If you're unfamiliar with the collex, let me tell you little about them. All the colors are dusty, muted pastels that fit beuatifully for spring and summer. I can't tell you how many people were disappointed with the colors, but I wasn't one of them. These colors applied so nicely and looked great by themselves or layered with Silver Shatter on top. While I wished for a blue (when don't I? :P), I was happy with what this collex offered. I think my favorite color has to be Mermaid's Tears; it's such a unique color.
Today, though, I was in the mood for Planks A Lot. Two easy coats for opacity and topped with SV for quick drying. Silver Shatter over that and topped again with SV. I have found the trick with Silver Shatter is to apply it thicker so it breaks up better, otherwise it will just look like silver over your color.
I also thought I would a couple pics of my little audience lol. This is Merlyn, she's my 8 year old baby and will sit by the door when I go outside to take my pics.
Hello and Happy Independence Day to my American readers! I hope y'all have enjoyed a safe and fun day. In addition to the holiday, we celebrated my grandma's 75th birthday :)
To celebrate these two occasions, I created patriotic manis for my mother and I. I'm quite proud of how they turned out. For my mother's mani, I simply did two easy coats of My Boyfriend Scales from OPI and topped it with SV on her thumbs and ring fingers, and Northern Lights on the others. For her accent fingers, I used bornpretty plate m-11 stamped in Zoya Sooki and Ibiza. Now, this is the first time I've attempted to stamp with two colors at once, and it came out so nicely. I evem managed to not smear the stamping when I applied Northern Lights over them.
My mani was a little more involved. I started with two coats of Milani's White on the Spot, which is another white I love. It applies like a dream and makes the perfect base for a gradient. I topped with SV and let that dry. Using the damp sponge technique, I then sponged WOTS and Zoya Sooki on all but my ring fingers, which I sponged WOTS and Zoya Ibiza onto. I did that a few times each then topped with SV again. Then, using the same plate I used for my mom, I stamped with China Glaze's Millennium and topped it all with Northern Lights.
So, ok, quite obviously I didn't do a Pink Wednesday; instead, I did a Pink Tuesday. I kept it pretty with Zoya Katy. Two easy coats, topped with Poshe, and done.
