OPI Hot & Spicy Kung Pao Chicken

When OPI's Hong Kong collection came out I decided to just get 3 of them to start with. Jade and Suzi were a given, but I debated between Dim Sum Plum and Hot & Spicy for hours, days even! Though I new DSP would look good with my cool-toned skin, in the end Hot & Spicy won out for being a bit more original and for the forecast of coral being very in for Spring. And while I like the shrimpy-orangey-coraly color, I really struggled with the application on this. It was streaky and I got some cuticle drag, but with 3 carefully applied coats it became even. If you were on the fence with this one, I'd recommend searching for a different coral, especially since this color looks really bad with warm toned people (my mom swatched it and HATED it).



While my quest for coral will continue, I'll put it aside for tonight to show you the real reason why I tried this polish today. I'm in charge of stir fry night and picked up this seasoning packet at the store. I lol'ed when I put it in the cart. Only you guys would understand why :D

I know you caught me cheatin'...

Dear Seche Vite,

I know that you know about last night. And I know that you know it was terrible. It was a moment of weakness, I thought there might be something better out there, but I was wrong... so wrong. China Glaze Fast Forward and I are done. Plus their brush was much smaller, and you know size matters... Please accept my apology, because I will never leave you again.

Last night I tried out New York Summer Hot Sky Blue. And it is HOT, much like the others with the same name. It's everything I wanted Dating a Royal to be, a true blue jelly. 3 coats and it was squishy-jelly-love. But look at what Fast Forward did! Weird bubble looking things, hardly any shine, still dentable HOURS later and I woke up with sheet marks, which I've NEVER had before! Ick.


Here's some awesome pictures to balance out the bad top coat! I picked up Sinful Green Ocean today, my Walgreen's had appx 1 million on display. It's my first flaky and so pretty! This quick swatch picture does not do it justice, I see everything from green to purple in the flakes.




And the rest of my new NYS polishes. I need to order more soon!

Worst picture ever of an AWESOME purple

This picture sucks. It's not true to what I'm wearing at all. Not even close. I tried out my new NYS Hot Purple today, and it is LOVE. So. Much. LOVE. It's the most perfect jelly purple ever. With 4 coats, in any normal light, I got perfect coverage with a squishy-looking jelly finish. But in the brightest sunshine ever that's bouncing off fresh snow with the flash of my camera, it shows VNL. No idea why, since I don't see it just looking at my nails. And the color looks kind of blurple-y here, but it's pure purple in person. It's bright and it has a neon-quality to it but it's not a neon.

I've never tried NYS before but it applied really well, and it's a friggin' bargain of a polish! Only $1.60 on TD! I paid a little more since I ordered from a website that still had Amaranth* in stock, but the 5 polishes I got are amazing. While I only have one Nfu Oh, I think the colors and finishes are on par with them on the awesome scale.


*O.M.G. If you even slightly want Amaranth, order it. It's hot. I'm going to rock it for St. Patty's day! I got mine from spabeautysupply.com

Also this is the last day to enter my Who Loves Purple? giveway! As you can see, I love it today :D

Here Today... Arago(r)n Tomorrow

I know this is the Espana collection, not the Lord of the Rings collection, but I still add the 'r' every time I say the name. A girl can dream, right? I put this on Saturday, took pictures, and took it off just this morning, the entire 48 swearing up and down that it was a green cream. Much to my surprise, my camera, which can't pick up an orange and adds too much blue to purple, found the hidden shimmer! Love!

Application was OPI standard, but I was very disappointed that it took 3 coats to be opaque. I'm one of those habitual 2 coaters and adding the extra 90 seconds it takes to coat all 10 fingers just ticks me off, especially from an OPI cream. And then I got chips the next day. What's the deal, man? I put in all that extra time for CHIPS?! Hellz no.



Don't forget to enter my Who Loves Purple? giveaway!

China Glaze High Hopes

There's some quality about the coral family that's so elusive to me. I can see pictures and pictures of coral NOTD's and I always think, "hm, that's pretty," and move to the next picture. But when I actually get a coral on my nails, I immediately want another 10 shades in the same family. I don't know what it is! I've had High Hopes on my desk with the rest of the Up & Away family, but what I REALLY wanted to wear today was Jade is the New Black. But I'm saving my greens for March and St. Patty's day. So I grabbed High Hopes instead. It is the most delicious shade of papaya ever! It's vivid and striking but not in-your-face like a neon. I put this on and it just feels like one of those "drinkable" colors. I immediately wanted a tropical cocktail or a smoothie. This is with 2 coats. I had to thin this one out a bit, the first nail I did got bubbles from being too thick, but after that it applied well. I couldn't get a completely accurate picture, this was the closest, but it's a little more pink in person.

I only have one other coral, Sally Hansen Nasturtium, and it's more orange based than this one. What are some other awesome colors in the coral family I could pick up?

Don't forget to enter my Who Loves Purple? giveaway!

Who Loves Purple? Giveaway

I'm starting my giveaway early, and the theme is PURPLE! These are my 3 faves! We've got Sally Hansen Night Hydrangea for a shimmer, OPI Mad as a Hatter for glitter and China Glaze Grape Pop for an awesome cream.


What are the rules? Gotta be a follower (new people are welcome), and leave a comment telling me how much you love purple! Include an email address so I can notify the winner. I'll close the contest and pick a winner at random at the end of the 24th!

Happy Pancake Day/Mardi Gras!

I'm not terribly religious now, but was raised Lutheran and we celebrate Mardi Gras with Pancake Day. And it is the best non-Christmas-non-Easter holiday EVER. I LOVE PANCAKES! For dinner I'll be making about 60 pancakes topped with chocolate chips, sprinkles, peanut butter, buttery syrup, marshmallows, cream cheese, bacon, almonds, pecans, jam, bananas, blueberries, strawberries... and I might share. Depends on who's nice to me. It's good to be the master of the griddle :D

Back when RBL had their big sale, I had 0 interest in glitters. Now I can't get enough of 'em. And I really regret not getting Locavore, but I'm too cheap to spring the $26 it would cost to buy and ship it. But for just $4 I made a knock off! I started with 1 coat Pure Ice Strapless, then did 1 coat Sinful Frenzy and topped it off with 2 coats of Sinful Call You Later to get all the gold-y goodness. I remember seeing a Pure Ice color that was similar to Frenzy but had darker purple, and I think that probably would have worked better, so I'll probably try that next time. Otherwise I really like my knock-off, and it might not have the prestige of RBL but it gets the job done.





Also don't forget about my giveaway! I'm really hoping to get to 137 followers so I can giveaway 3 awesome polishes!

72 hours with Suzi Says Feng Shui

I don't really ever wear my polish for more than 36 hours, but I went away this weekend, so what I used Friday morning had to last the whole weekend. I picked Suzi Says Feng Shui. It's an awesome blue, and even after 72 hours I wasn't sick of it. Plus I got tons of compliments from my family, which is always nice. I also got a lot of, "(grabbing my hand) OMG are those your REAL nails?!!" And I am now the master of the humble nod and the, "Yes, YES they are real. Nice, right?"

I was super impressed with the lack of wear. There was not a single chip, not even a teeny tiny one, and you can see here the tip wear was minimal. Very nice, OPI! I'm sure I'm late to the game with this realization, but it was my first time wearing OPI for more than a day. Formula was OPI standard, completely buttery and flawlessly creamy.

Follow Me Down the Rabbit Hole...

Hey everyone!

I want to say that I really appreciate every single one of my readers. I know I haven't been around very long, but every time I see that I have a new comment or a new follower, I feel all warm and fuzzy inside. You guys are really the best!

So to show you how awesome I think you all are, I'm going to have a little giveaway! But I do have 1 condition... I need to have 137 followers by the end of next Friday. What's in it for you? 3 of my favorite polishes! I'll keep which 3 a surprise until next week, but trust me, they are AWESOME!

So click the follow button!! Don't make Hanzo and Bebe beg!

Ultimate Sugar High

I love Oreos. And you know what's better than Oreos? Home baked Oreos. I found the best recipe a few months ago and can't stop making it. I flavor the cream filling to be whatever I want and cut whatever shape I want! Today I made plain but tasty vanilla, and tinted it pink to go with the heart shaped cookie. Add a sprinkle of pink sugar to the top and it's the ultimate Valentine's cookie! To avoid over-sampling while they were baking I did my nails with China Glaze Sugar High. Look how cute they are together!

The formula on this wasn't too great, but I managed to get it evened out in 3 coats. I tried to do just 2, but I got bubbles and had to re-do a nail. Also if you apply even a little too much it runs all over your cuticles. Icky. It's a really cute Barbie pink, but if you already have one and you like the formula on it, then you don't need Sugar High.



ETA: Recipe, click here!

China Glaze Flyin' High

I'm still wearing MPJ and loving it, though it'll probably come off tomorrow since the 3 Hong Kongs ordered came today! I can't wait to get Jade is the New Black on my nails. Last week I was wearing Flyin' High for 3 days, it's so pretty! I don't have any colors like it, it's a perfect turquoise. Oddly enough, this picture shows the exact bottle color, but my nails were actually a bit greener than the bottle color. I hate when that happens, but I can forgive this color. This is one of the better ones from Up & Away, the formula was great and look at how shiny! This picture was pre-top coat!

My New #1

I know there was quite the debate going on about OPI My Private Jet. I heard that OPI did away with the original formula, a holo, and did just a sparkly thing. I've never really been that in to holos, but in the last month I felt like I just needed to have one, so I went all out. I tracked down a holo version on stupid Ebay, where the seller, after realizing she had a HTF polish, upped the price by a lot. But it was the only way to be sure I'd get the holo. I've heard a few people recently ordered MPJ from Trans Design and got lucky by getting a good bottle, but I didn't chance it. Well, it was totally worth it. And I am in LOVE with holos. I'm already plotting getting the entire China Glaze OMG collection, plus some Kaleidoscope's and some OPI DS's.

Application was flawless! I did 2 coats of WnW Black first, so I only needed 1 coat of MPJ, no need to waste the pretty! I think I'll be wearing this until it chips so terribly that I can't stand it anymore.

C-O-L-T-S!!!

For the Super Bowl I'm wearing Claire's Chunky Blue! I'm still disappointed that it couldn't be the Vikings, but my favorite quarterback is definitely Peyton Manning! Chunky Blue has just made my top 10. It has a wonderful blue jelly base, but with 2 coats there's enough coverage so there's no VNL. There's a heavy amount of silver and deep blue glitter and large silver hexagons that hide in the base. I love that they're not right in your face, like they're really a part of the polish and not just sitting on top like a glitter top coat. I think with 3 coats you would be able to have some hexagons buried deep underneath, but even with 2 coats you get this amazing depth from the polish. I also bought Chunky Green, which I haven't had a chance to wear yet but I'm sure I will this week. I remember it also came in Chunky Silver, Gold and Purple, and I'm going to go back and get them all! The purple wasn't very purple but I think I can add some blue until I get the color I want. The application on this was really good too, and I was really pleased with the randomness of the glitter distribution. This polish is a big winner!

This picture shows the true color:


And this one shows the awesome chunky glitter goodness:

Next day: This polish came off in sheets. Ugh. I'm pretty pissed. I've only had it on 24 hours, and even though I was sitting in a jacuzzi for an hour, I've never had peeling this bad. I wore this polish with CND Sticky and Seche Vite for top coat, and I use my jacuzzi 2-3 times a week and I've never had this happen. Yuck. I think next time I'll time this so I don't wear it when I use the jacuzzi, because I do love it otherwise.

ETA: Removal was a nightmare... I've been using the foil method for glitters for a long time, and while some need a little bit more time than others, removal has never been an issue. I let Chunky Blue sit for 5 minutes, and while all the blue came off, it left about half of the hexagons behind on my nail every time. And they had to be scrubbed off. And they got everywhere... I definitely need to spend the $2 to get the angry beaver tub for the next time I wear these. Yes, despite all the issues I had, I still love it... I need help lol.

Rockin' It!

Before the Superbowl on Sunday I'm going to a Guitar Hero pre-party, and since I've hardly played since the semester started, I've been brushing up on my skillz. I'm pretty awesome lol. Since it's purple week at MUA and I had the perfect untried purple with the perfect name, I tried it out! I'm wearing Essence Rock It, Baby! and it is divine. The color is a true purple, deeper than what my pictures show, and the shimmer in it is a little blue and a little red, which comes out in bright lights, but in dimmer lights they mix together so it just looks purple. Love it! For an accent I wore Rock n Roll, another perfect name for my theme! It has teeny silver glitter mixed with slightly bigger pieces, so pretty! The purple Essence is from their Color and Go collection and it comes in a smaller bottle. I'm always leery of these things, because our American versions of quick dry (Sally Hansen Insta Dri) really SUCK! I only bought one, and while I like some of the new colors, I'm reluctant to buy them... but this little Essence is amazing. It has a wide brush, but it's more like OPI's Pro-Wide, and while it did dry REALLY fast on my nails, there was still plenty of time for me to swipe it on evenly. And it was really easy to work with on top of all that! I wish I could get these nearby!

More Water Marbling

Here's attempt #2 at water marbling! I used Essie Mint Candy Apple, OPI Sapphire in the Snow and Dating a Royal. This time it came out really watery. I think it was maybe the polish combo that did it? Or maybe I used too much polish this time? Last time I used 1 drop of each and swirled, this time I was using 3 drops MCA to start, then 2 Sapphire because I wanted more purple and just 1 drop DaR for a little blue. On my index finger the polish started sliding down the sides and pooling on the tape around my cuticles, making the swirls I had so carefully made just a blob of color. It's pretty, but not what I made. All the designs came out really undefined, unlike with attempt #1. I still like how it turned out! I'm still to afraid to attempt my right hand, I'm way to clumsy, so I took this off to wear something glittery!