And For My Second Post Today...

Rapture by Mentality.  Although I dearly love my reds and black sparkly nail polish, I've discovered that when my nails are short as they are now, I prefer more neutral colors.  Plus, although no one has said anything to me about my nail polish at work (except the compliments I get from clients) the neutrals are a more appropriate work choice.

Neutral does not have to boring.  I found that out too.  Look at the amazing holographic shimmer in this baby.

This polish applied like a dream and was fairly smooth when it dried, which it did quickly.  I know because I had to chase Ruby and get my remote back right after I finished this and I had nary a smudge. 

This manicure was with a base of Qtica Nail Growth Stimulator, three coats of Rapture and a top coat of butter LONDON PDQ Quick Dry Topcoat.

I think I may be changing my nail polish a lot in the future. :)

More Nail Mail

I admit I went a little crazy with butter London's 30% off sale.  Here is my second order of polish from them.

From left to right: Marrow, Scoundrel, La Moss, Ashton, Branwen's Feather and Fash Pack.

Top to bottom, left to right:  Ashton, Branwen's Feather, Fash Pack, Marrow, Scoundrel and La Moss.  I like how in this picture you can see the hint of red in La Moss.

I think I now own most of the colors I wanted from butter LONDON and won't be buying any more for a while,  We'll see. :)

It's Not Christmas Bells You're Hearing...

...it's the ring of the cash registers taking all my money for awesome indie polishes.

Nail Mail today.  And this is stuff I ordered before I knew that there would be so many Black Friday/Cyber Monday sales in the indie polish world.  I don't even remember what I ordered, so my packages will be a surprise for me.  What I do remember is that I was able to try a bunch of indies I've been wanting but could not (or thought I could not) get at the moment.  So, I am very excited to see what shows up in my mailbox in the next few weeks.

Today I got a package from kbShimmer.  She has beautiful polishes and bath products.  In addition to the polish, I got three Georgia Peach bath bombs I can't wait to try.  Maybe this weekend I will pamper myself with a nice bath and manicure courtesy of kbShimmer.

Anyway, on to the loot.  I picked up four of her holiday polishes along with the bath bombs:

Aren't they beautiful?  I got:

Candy Cane Crush, a clear base with red and white hex glitter and I think there are some fine white and red glitter as well.  Very Festive!

Berry Christmas - a berry base with fine red glitter.  Of course I had to buy a red polish! :)

Cocoa Nut - a chocolate brown with fine red, gold and I think I may see silver or possible green glitter in there as well.  I think this is the one I am most anxious to try.

And finally, We Three Blings - a clear base with gold irridescent glitter.  It looks very glamorous to me.

All of the polishes look amazing and the bath bombs smell wonderful.

More to come as I bought a lot of polish this weekend.  Now I am off to decide which polish to try first.  Decisions, decisions. :)

Happy Thanksgiving!

A few days ago I did a manicure with butter LONDON Yummy Mummy and I posted about how much I love this color.  Since today is Thanksgiving I wanted something that looked fallish and holiday, but I didn't have time to redo the whole thing.  So I grabbed my new polish Minako from Daily Lacquer.  It has a base with a slight orange opalescent shimmer - not overpowering but noticeable with orange and blue glitter, stars and moon glitter and some bar glitter thrown in for good measure.  It's beautiful!

I layered it over Yummy Mummy and it gave me just the extra something I was looking for.

The polish went on nicely and dried quickly.  The surface of the polish was a little rough, but nothing two coats of top coat didn't fix right away.

I didn't manage to pick up any of the stars or moons but I did get some bar glitter.

I did a litle bit of dabbing to get glitter on most of the nail surface.  I think that was me though - I haven't worn very many glitters and I think I did the second coat before the first was completely dry and the glitter moved around a little.



I think this is one of my favorite manicures so far.  As an added bonus the pictures came out better than most of the ones I've taken and I didn't get polish all over my fingers and cuticles. :)

Yummy!

I have a couple of things today.  First off is some pictures of the polish I picked up on Saturday.  I was good and only got two things.  And the Winter Affair set was priced wrong at Sally's, so I got it for $6.99 instead of $8.99.  I'm always eager to save money. :)

Winter Affair consists of Merry and Bright and Snowflakes.  The polishes are supposed to be scented and I've never tried a scented polish before so I'm eager to see what that's like.  They look very Christmasy to me.  The other is Finger Paint's Snow Flakes.  I couldn't resist it.

I had to cut my nails again, so they are practically nonexistant.  I did start using the Qtica Nail Growth Stimulator yesterday, so I'll see if that helps.  I chose butter LONDON's Yummy Mummy for my manicure.  I was a little afraid it would blend into my skin, but I loved it!

The pictures don't show how nice this color is.  Sometimes when I look at it it looks like it has a hint of purple or maybe pink.  Other times it's just a beautiful neutral taupe.  I think it will go with everything and is a perfect polish for work.

Yummy Mummy applied like a dream.  Smooth and shiny and dried very quickly.  It's shown here with the Qtica, BL Flawless Base coat, 2 coats of Yummy Mummy and BL's PDQ topcoat.  I have to say after not being that impressed with the BL base and top coat they are growing on me.

 

 

 
I'm sure this is a color I will be going to again and again.

Massive Nail Mail/Haul

Finally, I can post something without people having to look at my messy polishing skills.  No polish on the cuticles or fingers and no tipwear here.  Just pretty pretties. :)  And picture heavy as well.

First off is my polish from The Daily Lacquerista.  It just came today and I can't wait to try it.  So pretty.  And she has the cutest packaging I have seen so far. 

First, it all came wrapped in this cute pink bag with a bow:

There was also a a business card,  and again so cute.

And the bottles!  Oh my, so adorable.  I feel like I'm babbling but really.  I usually don't care so much about packaging or how the bottle looks.  As long as it arrives undamaged and works well, I'm happy.  This really made an impression on me though, so I feel compelled to babble about it.

Next we have half of my nail mail from butter LONDON's 30% off sale.  I actually went back before it was over and ordered more, but who knows when that order will get here.  These took forever to arrive.  But they are here now. :)

Gorgeous colors!  From left to right in the bottom picture - top row: Posh Bird, Scuppered and Toff.  Bottom row left to right: Fiddlesticks, Yummy Mummy and Blowing Raspberries.  I've developed a great liking for butter LONDON - especially at 30% off! :)

Another indie poish I wanted to try was Mentality and my order also came today.  I was looking for some pretty nuetral colors to wear to work and I think these will work out nicely.  I'm so glad the pictures show the difference in the colors, even if they are a little blurry.

No, I'm not done yet.  Someone should take away my credit card.  I've used Kleancolor Holos before and really liked them, so when I was brrowsing on ebay and saw a pick 12 colors for $18.00, before I knew it I had picked twelve.  I just can't stop my fingers from hitting that buy button.

Let's see if I can get the names right - from top to bottom, left to right: Tiara Gold, Chunky Holo Scarlet, Starry Night, Winter Wonderland, Chunky Holo Black, Titanic, Angel Red, Jewelry, Retro Green, Copper, Chunky Copper and Golden Nightmare.  I need more fingers.

Then there is my Pure Ice haul from WalMart last weekend and the Sally Hansen Lustre Shine polishes I picked up this week.

Pure Ice left to right: Crimson, Grunge, Girl's Best Friend, Draped, Temptress and Iced Copper.  Sally Hansen left to right: Lava, Copperhead and Plume.  I'm pretty sure I bought Firefly also, but I can't seem to find it.

I'm looking forward to trying all of these.  And I'm still waiting on more mail.

Twilight Mania

I am a fan of Twilight.  I read all the books and enjoyed them.  I've seen all the movies and enjoyed those also - even with the horrible acting.  I will probably see the new movie sometime next week after the hoopla dies down.  The release of the new movie gave me the perfect opportunity to try out some more of my polish from Different Dimension. 

I couldn't resist a polish named Sparkle Like Edward.  Or the one named 50 Shades.  So, for my Twilight mani I used both of them.

Sparkles Like Edward is a white jelly duochrome with holographic glitters.  At first I thought it was light gray, but as I applied it I could really tell it was white.  And in the right light it is irridescent and shifts to pink.  Unfortuantely, my camera does not capture how lovely this polish is.  The application was smooth and it was mostly opague in two coats.  I did three because I wanted more holo glitters.  It applied evenly and the glitter was pretty well spread out over the nail.  I haven't applied many glitters so far, so I'm sure my application will get better as I go.  Sparkles Like Edward did take a little longer to dry, but not horribly so and it was only a little bit gritty on the nail.  I used a coat of Gelous and then Seche Vite and it smoothed them right out.

The picture does not do it justice.  I think I am going to have to start penning up the animals so they don't escape and taking my pictures outside.  My lighting in here sucks.

On the other hand I did an accent nail of 50 Shades.  This is a grey jelly base with tons of glitters.  It also applied smoothly and dried faster than Sparkles Like Edward.  It was grittier than SLE when it dried and needed the Gelous and Seche to make it smooth.  I had bare spots but that is due to my application rather than the polish.  I bet this would look amazing over gray or black polish.

I think I like the mani better without the accent nail though.

Different Dimension has great polish and a nice assortment to choose from.  I can't wait to try the others I've purchased from her.

Pure Ice

I was at WalMart this weekend and saw the display for the new Pure Ice colors.  At $2.97 each, I had to stop and look.  I picked up six of them and this one is called Temptress.

I would call Temptress a purple shimmer.  Pure Ice says it looks and feels like velvet.  Well, I didn't think it looked or felt like velvet, but it was still pretty.  I did two coats and two coats of Seche Vite.

The polish applied smoothly and I had no issues with the application.  It did take forever to dry though.  The Seche helped the drying time a lot but I had to do two coats of topcoat because I smudged a couple of them them badly while I was waiting for it to dry.  Next time, I will let it dry at least 3 or 4 minutes between coats.

I am also going to try to remember to take pictures before I use a top coat.  I have a couple more of the same formula still to try.

Overall, I like this polish for the price.  After all, they can't all be Zoya or OPI can they? :)

Blazing

I was in the mood for something festive, so I pulled out the new Zoya Blaze I just received.  It's a deep berry color with holo fleck that turn blue and a little silver for me in the light.  It applied wonderfully, as all the Zoya polishes I have tried have, and I only needed two coats, although some nails got three as I smudged them badly chasing after the escaped cat. :)  I topped it with my old standby, Seche Vite.

I also started using Sally Hansen Nail Growth Miracle serum a few days ago.  I don't know yet how it does with nail growth, but my cuticles haven't looked this good in ages!  It's pricy, but you only need one drop per nail and if it continues to work I will continue to buy it.

 

 

 

I Herd That - Part 2

I added a top coat of China Glaze Patent Leather top coat to my nails to see how it would look.  I love it!  I think I'll have to pick up I'm Not Lion now.

I Herd That

When I did my manicure the other day I liked the color but it chipped really fast.  Last night I didn't feel like redoing the whole thing, so I added two coats of Chine Glaze I Herd That.  I Herd That is a fine goldy bronzy glitter polish with flecks of pink and sometimes I can see flashes of green also.  It's fairly smooth on the nail and applied easily.  It dried in a flash.  Since Zoya Meadow, which I was wearing, it a pink with gold shimmer, I thought they would look nice together.  Here's how it turned out.

This is two coats of I Herd That over three coats of Zoya Meadow.  One coat let more of the Meadow show through, but I really liked the sparkle of I Herd That, so I did two.   I didn't use a top coat on this and I Herd That has a nice matte finish that still sparkles like crazy.  Tonight I might add a topcoat to see how it looks when it's shiny.

The more I look at this the more I like this polish.  It looks like sugar on my nails.

Random Nails

I found some old pictures I took back when my nails were long and lovely and not short little stubs like they are now.  I can't wait for them to grow out - when they are this short I get tipware almost immediately and it's very noticeable in the pictures and I hate it.

Here is the manicure I did yesterday, and yes, I already have tipware.  Blah!  But the color is pretty, not exactly what I was expecting but still nice.  This is Zoya Meadow - 3 coats with a topcoat of Seche Vite:

 

 

It looks more pink in the picture than it does on my nails.  But it does have nice gold shimmer, applied nicely and dried quickly.  I really didn't need three coats, but I seem to be a 3 coat girl.

 

 



Next up is an older photo.  Here i used OPI's Jade is the New Black with a topcoat of Nubar's White Polka Dot.  I loved how this turned out:

 

 

 

This one I managed to turn the bottle right side up:

 

 

 

 

The last one is OPI's I'm not really a waitress.  This is one of my favorite reds ever:

 

 

 

 

 

There's my nail spam for the day.  Have a good one!









Halloween

I finally got some fairly decent pictures of my Halloween manicure.  It's kind of messy and I have tipwear.  I can't wait for my nails to grow longer.  I do much neater manicures when my nails are longer.

For this I used Zoya Raven with accent nails in Zoya Arizona.  I then used some cute Halloween decals I picked up, but I can't remember the name of them.  I think it turned out pretty well myself.

Here is the left hand with bat decals:

 I also did a spiderweb and spider on my thumb:

On the right hand I have a ghost:

The decals were fun and I love the Zoya polish.

I hope everyone had a good Halloween and stayed safe if Sandy visited your area.