Get Nailed

CND Night Factory Duo

2010-09-17T13:05:00.000-07:00

Everyone knows that I regularly get excited about nail polish. But it's pretty rare that I get fanatic about one. But I am fanatic about this duo. CND's fall "fashion trend" is a creamy teal called Urban Oasis and its effect counterpart is Teal Sparkle. And Teal Sparkle is only the greatest thing to happen to nail polish all fall. I'm so in love with this effect it's not even funny. I've never bought any of the effect, so I ordered all the sparkles. I've been playing with them since the second I tore open the box and they are so much fun! The combination possibilities are endless.

I mentioned before that I'm digging teals this fall, and Urban Oasis is a unique one to me. It has just the slightest hint of dustiness to it, a quality that I'm always crazy about. And I was very pleased to see it was different from the other teals that have come out recently!

Comparison- left to right: Essence Meet You In Budapest, OPI Ski Teal We Drop (dupes to RBL Teal and Sonia Kashuk Taunting Teal), Urban Oasis, and the teal from StrangeBeautiful Volume 4. Urban Oasis is pigmented and smooth enough to be a 1-coater!

And here's the SPARKLE!! All the Sparkle Effects have flecks of flashy sparkle in them, like a flakie but smaller and more uniform in size. The flecks in Teal Sparkle, in direct light, show up blue, green and gold, giving an overall teal-y look. It's... well... amazing!

And as cool as it is in bright sunlight (which I'm SO glad I got today! It was supposed to storm on my Sparkle parade!), it's absolutely breathtaking indoors. When the sparkle catches a hint of indirect light, the whole nail looks like it's glowing. Think a slightly darker Zoya Charla. I love that these look even better indoors, cause we all know that's where we'll be spending more time during fall!

I started trying Teal Sparkle out on a bunch of other colors to see what I like and don't like. It's impossible to make this thing look bad. I've only bought 1 back up of a color ever, but this is back up worthy. Totally getting another bottle in my next order.

Over darker colors the teal color comes out beautifully, and it's best over black. My absolute favorite combination (so far) is over a dark purple, the contrast is epically amazing!

Left to right: OPI You Don't Know Jacques, RGB Plum, Barry M Grey, WnW Black

Here's more of the gold flecks:

Indoors, with flash:
Over lighter colors it looks pretty too, though I'm not as into these for fall.

Left to right: OPI Ogre the top Blue, Damone Roberts 1968, What's with the Cattitude? China Glaze Flyin' High

Seriously, looks SO much better indoors!

If you like teal, or sparkles, even just a little bit, the Night Factory Duo is MUST HAVE.

And a tip for using the Sparkle Effects: top coat between polish and effect is a must, because even if you let the polish dry the effect brush will pick up pigment and turn the clear base colored.

RGB Crimson

2010-09-15T15:00:00.000-07:00

And here today we have the rarely seen dominant hand NOTD picture... shhh, don't make any sudden movements, you might scare her back to her natural habitat behind the camera...

I majorly broke a nail on my left hand so we're going to try this for a while. It's hard. I have never, not even once, done a full and proper clean up on my right hand, so I'm taking on the challenge until I perfect it. I think the clean up turned out okay on this one, but taking pictures with my left hand did not go well. Holding the bottle in my right hand was weird too.

I picked up this polish in hopes of satisfying my intense lemming for OPI Vampire State Building, and I think I lulled the LemBeast into submission! I compared my nails to many pictures online and the color is close enough for me to be happy. And the slightly jelly finish makes me beyond happy with this color. The mani wasn't without trouble though; I got a defective brush from RGB. There were some odd bristles sticking up and having to landscape and trim the bristles on a brush seriously pisses me off. That's a mistake that I feel should NEVER happen with ANY company, especially not from a more high end polish like this. I don't even let it slide with Maybelline. Bad brushes shouldn't happen to good people! Now I have 6 other bottles of RGB that have been problem free, so I'm not condemning the brand by any means, but it does make me question their quality control a little.

Butter London Marrow

2010-09-14T11:45:00.000-07:00

Fall is in full swing for me, I mean take a look at my front yard:

It was fully green just 2 days ago!

I spent an entire evening packing away all my summer shades and pulling out everything I want to wear for fall and lining up all 40 bottles on the top shelf of my desk. So much to choose from! I'm loving teals, vampies, taupes and anything that's really greyed out. I wore BL Marrow a few days ago and it was awesome. I love the hidden shimmer to it, it makes the polish feel a bit like a Chanel, and adds a wonderful depth to a great shade of purple. This wore really well for me, I had 3 full days with no chips!

OPI Red My Fortune Cookie

2010-09-13T12:06:00.000-07:00

I've been so into reds lately, but this one was a disappointment. I was so glad this was an RBL Bangin' dupe, and I'm also really glad I saved myself over 10 bucks because I was not liking this red. It's borderline neon and very in your face, and I didn't get a sexy feel from it, which I expect from my reds. Tossing it into the swap bin!

On a positive note, I wore this for 4 days (that's not the positive part, I was so sick of it lol!) and it still looked great! Check out the minimal wear on this mani!

Goodbye, Summer!

2010-09-09T09:26:00.000-07:00

Summer is over and so are summer mani's, but I'm so ready to move on to fall! These were the last things I wore in August:

Butter London Victoriana, just as amazing as it looks! I think this is seriously a must have.

China Glaze Strawberry Fields, which I got tons of compliments on. I liked it but I'm still not a huge fan of pink on my fingeres.

Essie Turquoise and Caicos. My dear Essie... Why do you make it so hard to love you? I've come to terms with the skinny brush, we're good, we're cool.... but why do you need 3 coats and then take FOREVER to dry?! I don't like having a dented mani. Love the color though.

Essie Lapis of Luxury. Same problems as the above, though this time I scheduled my mani with some downtime so I wasn't using my hands for an HOUR after my mani.... still got dents. Which really sucks, because this color is amazing.

I'm already in to my fall color stash and it keeps growing a little bit every week. I can't get enough of fall colors, but need to use them quick because as soon as OPI Burlesque comes out it's glitters all the way!

Last days of summer...

2010-08-23T08:47:00.001-07:00

Summer is winding down and for the last month I've been going through my favorite brights like crazy! With the last couple weeks I'm going to try and finish all my summery untrieds before moving on to Fall, and Fall-inspired hauls. Yesterday I knocked 2 colors off my list with a fugly-yet-cute gradient mani. I used ALU's gradient method with Butter LONDON Chuffed layered on top of OPI Who the Shrek Are You? then topped the whole thing off with 2 coats of a sparsely dense flakie from Urban Outfitters. I got sick of it by mid-afternoon but it was fun for a little while!

Vampy Sunday: Off With Her Red!

2010-07-25T13:17:00.000-07:00

So it's not really a vampy color, but after seeing last weeks True Blood preview I thought this would be the most appropriate color seeing as how the Queen of Louisiana is making an appearance tonight. Seriously, is there a better Sophie-Anne color? She wears red herself and the name couldn't fit any better. I'm seriously in love with red creams right now, this one is no disappointment. It's slightly tomato-y and a perfect pin-up color. This was 2 coats and a trouble-free application. And look, so shiny!! What's not to like?

New Butter London's

2010-07-22T13:15:00.000-07:00

Butter LONDON announced their new shades last week and I could not wait to buy Marrow. I've been hyped about it since it was shown during fashion week. I have an extreme passion for dark purple! So I ordered that and, oops, the other 3 new shades jumped in my cart too! I'm so excited to do full mani's with these, but I needed a small taste of them today so I did a quick skittles. They clash with the other 6 fingers still being pastel blue, but it's okay to have an ugly-eccentric nail day every once in a while!

From left to right is Marrow, Victoriana, All Hail McQueen and Bumster. Marrow is a deep purple with a whisper of shimmer. You have to know it's there to even see it, and even then it really doesn't show, but it does add a certain depth to the color. Victoriana is, color-wise, dupey to RBL 360, except this baby is loaded up with silver shimmer, it's so pretty! All Hail McQueen is the total star of this collection. It's a holographic neutral, something that I normal wouldn't even look twice at. It's not that I'm not a huge holo or neutral fan, I just never really go for them. But together they make the cutest little taupy-holo baby! I'm so glad I did with this one, I think it looks great with my skin tone! Lastly is Bumster, which confuses me so much. It is gold. I wish I could just leave it right there. But without a shimmer it doesn't really seem gold, it seems like a caramel color. But it really is gold! Not sure if it goes with my skin tone too well but I'm still going to rock it because the color is so interesting to me.

It was cloudy today so I didn't get the best pictures to show off the holo. When I do a full mani with it I'll pick a sunny day! But for now, here it is with super flash:

And no flash:

OPI What's with the Cattitude?

2010-07-21T19:28:00.001-07:00

Okay. I'm not even going to be humble about it. This polish looks friggin' amazing on me. It's like a cashmere sweater for my fingers. Sadly, it's not a very "me" color... one of my friends even grabbed my hand and asked me if I'd fallen and hit my head before doing my nails! Even though What's the with Cattitude doesn't really go with my personality, I love, LOVE the color. It's amazingly cute, and with the buzz about the upcoming Chanel, it's looking like it's going to be a trendy color. This was with 3 coats; 2 thin and 1 thick, and it applied really well for a pastel shade.

Vampy Sunday - Mrs. O'Leary's BBQ

2010-07-18T13:27:00.000-07:00

Now I see what all the fuss is about. I've seen OPI Mrs. O'Leary's BBQ on so many 'must have' lists but never thought twice about it. I picked it up just because I don't have anything like it, and it's changed my view on colors like this. Now I'm super excited about the Swiss collection, there are a couple colors in there that are on my 'must' list after seeing how much I love this one!

This color is awesome. It's a deepened berry-ish red with just a hint of a brown undertone to it, a surprise to me that I'm really liking about the color. This was with 2 coats, which dried with a high gloss shine. I think I got an older bottle because it didn't have the Pro-Wide brush, and while it wasn't the worst brush I've ever used it really isn't as nice as the newer ones.

Vampy Sunday is going to be my new thing, in honor of new episodes of True Blood on Sunday nights. It's the best night of the week in the Summer! I only have a few more untried vampies, so this is the perfect excuse to haul some more!

China Glaze Orange Marmalade

2010-07-16T15:16:00.000-07:00

I know orange really isn't the most flattering color on me, but I can't help but love it. Especially when it looks like this. I wish China Glaze would come with a glass flecked collection once a year so that I could get this formula in every color imaginable! Orange Marmalade just glows... I love it. This was with 3 coats and there's still a bit of a VNL, which I can forgive, and you really need 2 coats of TC to make the shimmer sing, but I can also forgive that.

Color accurate picture:

Glass flecked sparkle awesomeness:

OPI Yoga-ta Get This Blue

2010-07-15T19:17:00.000-07:00

Seriously, you do! I don't even have words for it. It's bottled blue shimmery perfection!

For only the second time in a year, I cheated on Seche Vite, but this time it was with the notorious Poshe. And wow... I might be a convert. It's less thick than SV so I didn't get any bubbles (though I rarely got them from SV I was still always paranoid), and I'm on day 4 of this mani and it still looks exactly like day 1, not even a bit of tip wear! The only downside to Poshe was that it wasn't as shiny as SV when I first used it, but what really makes it better is that it hasn't lost any shine like SV does and it hasn't scratched up from normal day to day abuse. It still looks exactly like I just put it on. Poshe, I do believe this could be a forever kind of relationship! I need a few more trials runs before I dump SV though.

I also have Russian Navy, and considering how much I love this one was thinking about tracking down Ink. Thoughts? Is it worth it if I already have the other 2?

OPI Lincoln Park After Dark

2010-07-12T20:50:00.000-07:00

While I like vampies much better in the fall, I've been so absorbed in vampy TV (True Blood sucked me in... haha, get it?... I know, I'm terrible) that I had to switch it up. Sadly Lincoln Park After Dark, a much loved OPI, is a miss for me. Let's face it, it's black. That's all well and good, but I was hoping for a deep rich shade of purple, and while I see it in the bottle it doesn't translate on the nail. I hope to have better luck with my next vampy...

Chanel Paradoxal

2010-07-09T10:00:00.000-07:00

I was really unsure about why I dropped so much cash on this polish. Chanel is hyped up and I'm never sure if I should buy in to the hype or not. This time around though, I'm really happy I did. Paradoxal was worth it! I love the smoked out feel to it and the light shimmer. Sadly I hate the application. Since I'm paying top dollar, would it kill Chanel to design a better brush? And maybe add a little more shine to the polish? I'll forgive you once, Chanel, since this color is so pretty! I don't think I'll be wearing this much in the summer though, it's definitely a fall color.

OPI Keys to my Karma

2010-07-08T09:11:00.000-07:00

What's more perfect for 4th of July then a bright red? I've had a ban on almost all reds from entering my collection for a long time... such a big ban that I only owned 1 red (Ruby Pumps of course!) for the last 2 years. I refused to buy them thinking they were so cliche. But recently something in my snapped and I've gone red crazy. I ordered 8 reds I was curious about, and I have to say, I'm quite happy about them. OPI Keys to my Karma was the one I was most excited about and it did not disappoint. It's a perfect maraschino cherry red with a yummy squishy jelly finish. I swear, I wanted to dip my finger in a glass of 7-Up to see if it could sweeten the drink a bit, that's how good this polish looks! Application took 3 coats like most jellies do and it applied perfectly.

G-Rated Lohanicure

2010-07-07T18:58:00.000-07:00

Dear Lindsay Lohan,

You were once super cute. I remember watching The Parent Trap maybe a dozen times when I was a kid. You had talent and a bright future. You should really grow up, kick the addiction and take your career seriously again.

Best of luck to you!

Unless you've been living under a rock, I'm sure you've heard that Lindsay Lohan has to do some time in jail. As an aside, my heart weeps for the fact that this made the national news... seriously, Brian Williams? Must have been a slow news day. But her nails, while slightly profane, were seriously cute. She was wearing a pastel air brushed design with a secret message to the judge. I used that as inspiration this morning. I'm not much in to nail art so I didn't have a clue what I was doing, but I actually thought it turned out super cute! I used 2 coats of OPI What's with the Cattitude as a base, then sponged on China Glaze Grape Pop, Heli-yum, and a bit of Essie Pretty Edgy. I used Lincoln Park After Dark and a toothpick for the message.

And really, aren't puppies cuter than the F-bomb? (There's a Friends reference in there for anyone who's a mega-fan :D)

Can't wait to wear Cattitude on it's own, it's a really pretty color!

OPI Ogre the Top Blue

2010-06-26T14:25:00.000-07:00

Continuing the theme of brights, I put on Ogre-the-Top Blue yesterday. This one is definitely an eye catcher. It's bold. It's a cute color but I'm not sure how much I'll really wear it. Too bad since the formula was amazing! OPI has really stepped up their game. This one is so pigmented that I nearly got away with one coat, but I ended up doing two to even out some slightly bald spots. It also applied perfectly, of course, since it's OPI. I'm a little disappointed with the lack of shiny-ness; Seche Vite can add a good amount of shine but I like a polish that can contribute to that factor. Though I may be a little biased since my last mani of Pretty Edgy was sooo shiny. As a side note, can't wait to wear that one again. I actually didn't want to take it off, which is rare for me since I love to change things up!

Essie Pretty Edgy

2010-06-23T13:31:00.000-07:00

After having naked (and sad) nails for a week, I needed something bright. Essie Pretty Edgy arrived yesterday in the mail and I seriously couldn't wait to put it on. And I have to say, this color really pisses me off, and the reason is because it is so awesome... and it's Essie. Honestly, if Essie came out with colors like this (and the Resort collection) and added a new brush, she would dominate. I wouldn't even mind shelling out full price on a regular basis. But as it stands, her hits, while amazing, are too few. But I guess I shouldn't complain, because I really love this color. I dare say it might be the most perfect kelly green in existence. It's bright, bold, and feels crisp and fresh. It was perfectly opaque in 2 coats, which is always a crowd pleaser, and this color is so me it's not even funny. I even have a pair of Wayfarer sunglasses that match it almost exactly! Sadly, with this revelation, Jade is the New Black has been shoved deep into my OPI drawer... I only have room for one green on display on my desk and Pretty Edgy is now the reigning champion of that title.

I could add to my Essie rant, talking about how funny her bottles are to hold when taking pictures... and how my fingers never quite settle on them in the right way... but I'm just gonna let it go because I seriously can't stop looking at my fingers!

Back... with many pretties

2010-06-18T19:46:00.000-07:00

I've been gone waaay too long. I took a long vacation to Oklahoma (did you know it's hot there?), and while it's nice to get away I couldn't be happier to be home. The hotel I stayed at had a Dollar Tree right down the street, and a Sally's just a block from the local Wal-mart. Both of these I have never been to, and both of these I hauled from.

Sounds like a fun trip, huh? Not so much. I got bit by a rattlesnake, and yes, it got me with some venom. I was in a car that was headbutted by a pissed off bison. And I had a tarantula the size of my shoe jump at my legs, which elicited a scream that is only heard by those who are in mortal danger. Okay, so I'm not an out doorsey kind of girl... that much I think anyone can see. And while I did get a few manis in (within the safe, air conditioned sanctuary of the Holiday Inn), I also didn't get a single picture of my NOTD's (there were only 3, but I'm still ashamed).

The good news is that I came home refreshed, and scared enough of nature to want to stay inside and swatch pretty nail polishes all day. And my fear of nature wasn't helped by the fact that my Minnesota home-coming was completely filled with tornadoes. Luckily I live outside the fray, and I still managed to get in some good pictures!

Other stuff I've been wearing

2010-05-28T21:04:00.000-07:00

So I realize there was a huge gap in between blogs, and it was all due to a really bad break I had on my photographed hand. I still took pictures, but they're only with 2 fingers. I still like to show what I've been wearing, even if I didn't follow through with clean up and it's only half a hand!

RBL Coral was huge on my lemming list for the longest time, but after putting it on I was disappointed. Yes, it is the most true coral shade I've come across, but it's so freakin' bright on my fingers! I have a couple other shades in my stash (OPI My Chihuahua bites and something from Forever 21) that are close to dupes and only a fraction of the price, so this really isn't a must have. I kind of regret dropping the cash on such a not-unique color. And it didn't even hold up, I had chipping within 18 hours.

Much like Coral, Butter LONDON Artful Dodger was has been on my lemming list a long time. A looooong time! I put in an order as a belated b-day present for myself, along with a few other shades. Unlike Coral, however, this one far exceeded my hopes. I fell in love with this the instant I put it on. It's the most perfect turquoise cream ever. It applied beautifully and wore like iron for 4 days.

I took a quick bottle comparison picture just to show the color. Artful Dodger is bluer than China Glaze Flyin High but greener than Essie Shelter Island.

Butter LONDON Fash Pack was the only BL shade I waivered on. There weren't a lot of swatches around for me to check out, and I couldn't tell if it would look good or terrible on me. At the last second I added it too my order and I'm SO glad I did. As if the perfect greigy color wasn't enough, there's a hidden pure gold shimmer to it that adds amazing depth. This also applied perfectly and wore like iron for 4 entire days before I removed it.

The gold shimmer:

Butter LONDON doesn't seem to get a whole lot of love on the NP blogs, but it's really highly ranked for me. They put out amazingly unique shades with cute names and they recently changed their formula. The change includes a bigger bottle and change to the brush. You can now easily remove the top square cap to reveal a round top to grab.

Let's compare the new Tramp Stamp to the old bottle of Portabello Pink.

The new bottle has a sticker telling you that the top portion is removable, the old bottle is pretty much impossible to remove (unless you get all Hulk on it, which I was unable to do...)

Overall, I do think that Butter LONDON is worth the money, but I recommend ordering from beauty.com. I did so, and I received a free bottle of Portabello Pink, free shipping and $10 off my entire order. Even though the free NP isn't my type, I can use the bottle for a franken and I still got a much better deal compared to the Butter LONDON website.

StrangeBeautiful Volume 4 part 3

2010-05-27T11:05:00.000-07:00

Let's start with the most strange of the bunch. A very wrong color choice of a cheap foundation. This color I'm not really getting. It reminds me of caramel popcorn (yum!) but I'm not really sure that's something I want to wear on my nails. I might be liking it in the fall or winter but it's too warm for spring and summer. This was 2 coats.

This is the grey, which I couldn't figure out the name of. It's a pretty standard gray with a slightly brown undertone to it. Not strange at all for the nail polish world! I love any shade of gray, I think this lighter one will tide me over until the next RBL sale when I plan to order the two awesome grays there. This was 2 coats.

An orange turban in a 15th Century Florentine portrait titled Matteo Olivier. This color is amazing. It's the most unique orange I've ever come across. It's slightly burnt but still has a crisp feel to it and it's bold without being neon and in your face like the standard neon oranges that pop up in the summer. I'm making this my official summer pedi color! This was 3 coats.

Overall this collection is really awesome. I can see myself wearing 7 out of the 8 colors over and over again, and maybe I'll eventually warm up to the last one. I'm so glad I splurged on this now, it's so perfect for summer!

StrangeBeautiful Volume 4 part 2

2010-05-26T11:06:00.001-07:00

The poem Lapis Lazuli by William Butler Yeats, aka the blue. I had a hard time getting this to photograph well. It looked fantastic on my nails, all super richly-blue and smooth and shiny, but my camera lightened up the shade and made it look dull and kind of icky. Trust me, in real life, this one is a stunner. As if the color wasn't awesome enough, I did this swatch with 1 coat. Also for reference, this is deeper and richer than OPI Ogre the Top Blue.

Pink color of Rose champagne, the pink. I'm completely smitten with this shade. It's so elegant! I've said it before, but I'm not in to pink polishes. They're a dime a dozen from every nail polish designer out there and it's tough to find a shade that's unique enough to love, but this is one of them. I can actually see myself wanting to wear this more than once. This was with 2 coats and also dried super shiny with no top coat.

Aged Chartreuse, the ugly-but-loveable green. I adore ugly greens. With the new shades from OPI Shrek being so popular I hope this becomes a trend. Maybe Chanel will come out with Avacado, Under Ripe Banana and their own Rich Chartreuse as a mini ugly green collection? I can only hope! When I start applying this I was unimpressed with it's sheerness, but it turned out to be a buildable jelly and only took 3 coats to be opaque yet squishy. Is there anything more lovable than a jelly ugly green? I think not.

And to top it all off, the color reminded me of my favorite guilt-free snack... pickles!

StrangeBeautiful Volume 4 part 1

2010-05-25T14:14:00.000-07:00

I've been so intrigued with StrangeBeautiful for months. The idea of having a nail polish "wardrobe" but wowed and bugged me. While a majority of the colors in their first few collections were, for me, ranging from to-die-for-beautiful to pretty-enough-to-lem, they still had a few ick-I-would-never-wear-that-EVER shades thrown in the mix. But from the looks of Volume 4 they fixed that last problem, I'm totally digging every shade!

I'm hoping to get all of these swatched this week, but here's a first look in to the collection:

Here's the teal shade. I ordered these from Lucky Scent and although the names are listed, I'm still not 100% sure which name goes to which shade. I'm pretty sure this one is called Verdigris, which according to Google is "a common name for a green pigment obtained through the application of acetic acid to copper plates," and according to Google Images looked pretty close to this picture. But anyways. I love this teal. This definitely falls under to-die-for-beautiful. This color is the reason why I typically don't do swatches, because I wanted to wear it for the next 4 days rather than just 14 minutes. It applied flawlessly, was opaque in 2 coats, and I was extremely impressed with how it dried. I did not use a top coat for the swatches, but it dried to a high gloss shine and a full 10 minutes after the swatch did not dent when I ran in to a door. All of that without SV, amazing!

And here's the greige. This name I could not figure out. Greiges have been my thing lately, they're subtle like a neutral from a distance but up close they're surprisingly edgy. This shade sets itself apart from others in my stash with a slightly muddy-browny quality to it. Greige was another 2 coat flawless application, but it dried with just a hint of a jelly finish. Love it!

This was just a quick shot taken of the entire collection. I haven't found anything close to any of these colors in my collection, but I'm still going to do some comparison pictures just to give an idea of how they look next to their cousins (like that olive green and RBL No More War, they're very different!). If you have a request, shout it out in the comments and I promise to swatch them!

I think I should apply for hazard pay...

2010-05-08T21:59:00.000-07:00

So I've had a crazy couple of weeks. I started a new job, finals are going on until Monday, and I have stupid boy problems going on right now. On top of all that, I keep breaking my nails that are still weak from the winter. I filed them all down, which seems to help, but I keep chipping my NP at work. I think I need to apply for hazard pay, lol.

Really though, I love my new job. I'm working as a waitress at a restaurant that just opened, and with the tips I'm making, I just don't feel right complaining... but I'm gonna do it anyways! Chippy nail polish aside, company policy states that nails should be, "Well groomed, short, and no outrageous colors." I do believe that 95% of my collection could be labeled "outrageous" by company standards. I've been playing it safe the last few weeks, and my heart actually broke when I received my new RBL's in the mail. Diddy Mow and 360 are still in their boxes, I can't even pull them out to admire because I really don't know when I'll get a chance to wear and appreciate them.

Back to the hazard pay. Last week I wore OPI You Don't Know Jacques. I tried to take a picture earlier on in the mani but I just couldn't get the light to work. By the time I took the picture, there was damage to my nail. If you look at my middle finger, you can see a crack running through the nail polish. I don't do silk wraps so I took a clipper to it (this is starting to sound like a horror story, lol!) Other than my unfortunate break, I adored this mani., Since I can't wear "outrageous" colors, I need to find a way to by edgy, individualistic and fashionable without being just plain boring with my mani's (more on that later), and this color fits the bill. It's so work appropriate yet unexpected.

The mani I wore this week was OPI Baguette Me Not. This one I absolutely hated. While application was up to OPI standard, the color pulled really orange on me, and not in a good way. Cool toned gals might want to stay away from this one. Sadly I'm still wearing it now, and since I have to work the morning shift I have no time to change it!
This week I hauled from Strangebeautiful and Butter London. Butter London haters do not read any further, because I love them, and you can't bring me down! I adore the little square bottles and I don't think the application or wear time on them sucks. But what I love most is that I can get awesome neutrals that are still edgy and have a fashionable feel to them. The best part of that is the names. How can you not feel awesome wearing a color called Aston? I hauled 4 neutral colors and one bright lemming. Also coming up, whenever I actually get it, is the new Volume 4 from Strangebeautiful. I've been on the fence with ordering from them for so long, just because I would adore 5 shades and be iffy on 3 from a volume, but I loved the look of all 8 from volume 4 so I went for it.

What colors are you looking forward to? Anyone interested in the new Vintage Vixen collection from China Glaze? I'm a little wary since they described so many as frost!

Giveaway Winner!

2010-04-28T19:51:00.000-07:00

Guys, I'm exhausted.

I started working a new job on Monday, and I haven't had a job in a while, so waking up and having to be somewhere other than class in the mornings is tough. And to top it off I worked a double shift today and then came home to bake 8 dozen cookies for a friend, only to realize 2 trays into the baking that I doubled the butter in the recipe by accident. And I'm out of chocolate chips and eggs so I can't make a new batch that doesn't taste like butt. And I broke a nail at work today (where, btw, I am only allowed to wear "non outrageous colors"... I think I have like 4 of those). And the 'z' key fell off my laptop and I can't find it. But I'm super excited that I got to make someone's day by declaring a winner for the Great Barrier Reef giveaway!

And the winner is... Hannah Bumble Bee!

Thanks so much to everyone who entered the contest, and an extra thanks to people who blogged about it!

Now, would anyone like a cookie? Anyone? No?... I'll just call Haz Mat to take them away...

NOTearthD

2010-04-23T08:22:00.000-07:00

Happy Earth day! I hope everyone ignored the oil rig that could potentially leak millions of gallons of crude in to the ocean and did something awesome to help Earth yesterday! I celebrated with a green Jade is the New Black mani, but decided it was too boring so I topped it with Chanel Illusion D'or.

I'm really going back and forth on Illusion D'or. In some light I'm amazed by the little blue-y purple-y holo bits in it. But sadly in most light it just looks like I topped my green mani with a gold frost. And I hate frost finishes. They look so dated and unfashionable. And I really don't like associating Chanel with those two words. Since I took the plunge and splurged on it, I'm not going to give up on it after one try. I'm going to try it over a matte black next time, hopefully my opinion will change. If you're on the fence about dropping so much cash on this, IMO it's probably not worth it. Go for ChG Medallion, there's so much sparkle in there and you won't miss the differences between the holo bits!

2 coats Jade is the New Black, 1 coat Illusion D'or, click for super macro:

Catching up on NOTD's

2010-04-20T09:47:00.000-07:00

I know I've totally been slacking with posting the NOTD's, but I'm still (mostly) keeping up with them between homework. So here's what I was wearing this past week:

The Summer Days collection continues to impress me! I totally love Raspberry Festival. At first I thought it was too red, but it's a perfect raspberry color so I really can't complain. I loved the shimmer in it! This was with 2 coats though I probably should have done 3.

For my birthday last Wednesday I pulled out Essie Greenport, which I was saving in my untrieds for a special occasion. And it made me feel so awesome on by birthday! The color completely lived up to all the hype that surrounded it and totally lived up to how awesome I had built it up in my head. I'm really glad I was able to get the Essie, but I've heard L'oreal came out with a collection of 3 exact dupes for the North Fork collection. I'm still hunting them down to have back ups! This was with 3 curse-filled coats (how much do you hate that teeny tiny F^%@ing brush?!) to cover the initial streakiness. I didn't like the overall look of 3 coats, it always looks to thick on my nails.

And finally the NOTD that I'm on day #4 of, OPI Lunch at the Delhi. I adore this. On my super pale cool toned skin, depending on the light I see red to sometimes orange, but most of the day in normal light It's a perfect dusty warm toned coral. This was 2 coats but I probably should have done 3 here also. I hate how white my nail line is!

Also don't forget to enter my Great Barrier Reef giveaway! You can come back every day for an extra chance to win :D

Great Barrier Reef Giveaway

2010-04-16T11:32:00.001-07:00

Sorry, it's not an underwater snorkeling adventure, but it's the next best thing!

It's giveaway time! Thanks to everyone who voted for a Coral themed giveaway, but the other choices in the poll I had got some love too, so I decided to combine them all. What's a more picturesque backdrop for Summer time than a coral reef? The aquatic life, the waves of the ocean, the mythical mermaids... I used all of these images as inspiration and put together a wardrobe of 11 awesome colors.

So here are the players! Flyin' High, My Chihuahua Bites, Happy Go Lucky

Japanese Koi, Atlantis, Love & Beauty Coral

Hot & Spicy, Caribbean Blue, High HopesCharla and Coral. Pictures taken from Google since these two are being slow in the mail!

How to enter:

1. You must be a follower of the blog to enter! New followers are welcome to join. Just leave a comment with your email address on this post to place an entry. You can enter once per day, so come back for extra chances to win!

2. Blog about it! Mention the Great Barrier Reef Giveaway on your blog and leave me a comment with a link to the post for an entry. You can do this up to 3 times for extra entries.

3. Tweet about it! Click the new Follow Me on Twitter link in the sidebar and retweet the "Barrier Reef Giveaway" tweet. This will count once per day as an extra entry.

4. If you follow me on Twitter, let me know in the comments for an extra entry. This one will only count once.

5. Entries will be accepted from now until the end of April 24. Contest is open to everyone, including international readers. I will pick a winner at random from all the entries!

*Pictures of the reef, Zoya Charla and RBL Coral were taken from Google, not my images!

RGB Haze

2010-04-13T08:27:00.000-07:00

It's so rare to come across a Perfect 10 polish, but this is one of them! It applied flawlessly, the color is so loveably shroomy, and the shine on this is seriously epic. This took 2 coats, and the finish on it is somewhere between opaque and jelly, the only word I can think to describe it is "milky". I absolutely adore everything about Haze! RGB is still a new brand to me, this is my 2nd time ordering from them. I went for Haze and Steel and they arrived in 3 days. A big plus is the company always offers free shipping! I'm surprised they don't get more love, maybe it's because they have a limited color range, but several months ago they did come out with a color for the new mint trend. I'm hoping they come out with more colors soon (maybe a turquoise?), but until then I'm loving my small RGB collection!

Without flash:

With flash:

What happened to that get nailed girl?

2010-04-08T23:51:00.001-07:00

So I know I haven't been the most regular poster lately, but I have an excuse, I swear! I don't like to post without pictures of my latest NOTD and recently it's been harder and harder to work it in to my schedule. I only have 3.5 weeks of school left this semester and for the 1st time EVER I have a solid 4.0 in all my classes. I'm working my butt off to keep those grades! I'm working harder than ever so I have a great GPA to get in to doctorate school, so I hope that's a good enough excuse for y'all to forgive me!

Other than working on my grades, my 2 puppies (who are my babies) have been wanting to spend lots of time outside, which eats at my time because I don't let them stay outside on their own (I'm terrified of an eagle snatching them up because they are so tiny!). I'm also spending some time working on getting an awesome coral giveaway together for my awesome readers! I'm just about done with that, so look for it in the next week or two!

My birthday is next Wednesday, and I know I keep mentioning it like an attention ho, but I'm very excited about it! In my family, holiday schedules are busy but birthdays are a mandatory celebration, so I'm gonna party this one up! It's my big 2-2, and I thought I would order 22 polishes for the occasion but have already gone overboard with 23! Get ready to get spamed during my break between semesters, lol!

$OPI Special Request

2010-04-06T11:03:00.001-07:00

This hasn't been in my untrieds very long, but I'm still sorry I waited! I really liked the color in the store, it's a super bright coral. It's actually really close to High Hopes except, to my excitement, applied jelly! Mmm, jelly goodness.... I'm loving it! It took 3 coats to get a nice jelly finish, which I've already massacred with a knife while cutting a bell pepper. Ugh!

Easter M&M's

2010-04-05T16:41:00.001-07:00

So here's my totally non-unique pastel "skittles", but I call it an M&M's because I like them better! I think like half the nail board did something similar, so even though I'm not an original, I totally loved it. I also went shopping while wearing this and got so many compliments!

These are all from Up & Away, from thumb to pinky: Peachy Keen, Lemon Fizz, Something Sweet, Re-Freshmint, and Light as Air. Lemon Fizz is a complete PITA to apply. It's probably the worst polish I've ever worked with. There were so many bubbles, and even though I got them smoothed out, on my right hand I have a spot where a bubble burst so there's a huge pit mark! I've never seen that happen before! Despite that, I still like the color, but I don't think I'll get to doing a full mani with it anytime soon. Something Sweet was the best of the 5, it applied nicely for a pastel, and I'll probably wear this one a lot because it's so sweet and girly.

My birthday is a week from Wednesday and I ordered a few polishes today so they would be here in time. From RBL I got 360, Diddy Mow and Coral, which I'm SUPER excited about, and then I ordered about 8 polishes from a few other places, 5 of which are some shade of coral since that's what I'm totally in to right now! I'm still on the hunt for more awesome shades, so what are your fav corals?

RBL Patrick Starfish

2010-04-01T07:41:00.001-07:00

I was 11 when the cartoon phenomenon Spongebob Squarepants came out. I loved it so much, but my parents abhorred it! And since I didn't have cable in my bedroom, I would have to sneak in to the living room at odd hours to catch an episode, or set up a recording on a VHS tape. My ninja-stealth act worked perfectly for about a year, but the jig was up one day... when halfway through my dad's recording of a World Series games Spongebob had problems selling Krabby Patties. My dad was less than amused. After hitting my teen years and having REAL problems in my life (you know, boys, makeup, trying to buy the right jeans...) I pretty much forgot about the cartoon world. But when I started living in a dorm and doing "college things", it suddenly become pretty amusing again, lol.

Rescue Beauty Lounges 3 color tribute to Spongebob is so cute. I originally bought Bikini Bottom during the big sale, but kept waffling on wanting to wear it or not. I put it up for swap and got an offer for Patrick Starfish, which I took immediately and I'm so glad I did! I love this color so much! It is such a perfect peachy Spring color, I'm going to be wearing this a lot in the next few months. Application was absolutely flawless, and since this is a super-jelly it took 4 coats to be opaque, but happily I still have that jelly finish with no VNL. I think next time I try it I'm going to layer 2 coats over Something Sweet or Heli-yum to get a pinkish glow to it, since Patrick is actually more pink on the show.

More Purple!

2010-03-28T20:04:00.001-07:00

So I mentioned that during Spring Break I stopped at Ulta, which I had never been to before. I hadn't even planned on going to Ulta, but on the way to the Imax theater we passed by one and after getting tickets and 3-d glasses we had some time to kill. So after convincing 2 men that there would be guy stuff too (there wasn't), and after crossing the stoplight-less and pedestrian-awareness-is-apparently-optional Highway of Death, I made it. And it was heaven. So much polish! So much hair stuff! So much makeup! So many sales!!! I bought a bunch of the 2 dollar Ultas. My favorite was the line up of about 6 shades of coral. It's like they heard I was coming and made a display just for me! Today I pulled out a medium purple cream (which I can't remember the name of). It's right in between ChG Spontaneous and Grape Pop, but of course try telling my camera that! It's a true purple, not the blurple you're seeing.

Application was a roller coaster ride of emotion for me. While the formula applied just fine and the brush was neither amazing nor sucky, I had major issues with little fuzzies. After 2 coats the color was perfectly opaque but the finish looked like I had sat like a statue for a week and let dust collect on me! There was much cursing. I reached for the acetone, but somehow talked myself off the ledge and put on SV. And surprisingly, it came out fine. So I'm not really sure if this is what all the polishes are like, or maybe it's just the cream ones, or maybe it was my fault (though I'm discounting that, I'm pretty awesome :P), but since my nails look okay I'm not going to condemn this polish.

The glitter... it's multiplying! Hide the children!!!

2010-03-27T09:36:00.000-07:00

I wanted a quick and lazy mani that I wouldn't have to clean up or worry about the finish on, so I pulled out ChG Flyin' High and Medallion. Cream is usually my favorite finish, but for once I didn't want to have to obsess about my every move just to make sure I get a flawless finish. 1 coat of Flyin' High and 1 coat of Medallion was the plan. I did this late at night, slapped on some SV and went to bed... and woke up nearly blind. I do not remember there being that much glitter! Other than the problem of my glitter mating like bunnies when I'm not watching, I really like this look. Turquoise and gold is so cute!

I love the little holo pieces mixed in the gold!

Lemming List

2010-03-25T11:13:00.000-07:00

Anyone else have frequent dreams about a polish that's on your mind? I keep thinking about how bummed I am I missed the first RBL pre-sale, and last night I had a dream that I was wearing Diddy Mow. Waking up was a disappointment, lol. So I'm not going to post my entire lemming list, because there are hundreds (just like every other nail fanatic lol!), but these are a bunch of new polishes that I keep thinking about:

RBL Surf's Up: I'm still undecided on Bangin' but the other 2 are SO going to be my b-day presents!

OPI's Shrek Collection: I really wanted to like more of it, but the 2 purples look exactly like the 2 from Up & Away. And after seeing swatches on THIS blog I don't know if I can wear Goose Poop (LMAO!). But What's with the Cattitude, Who the Shrek are You? and Ogre the Top Blue all won me over!

Essie Resort Collection: WTF Essie that's not pink or red or sheer or boring?! Sold! Lapis of Luxary, Splash of Grenadine and Turquoise and Caicos are instant winners! I'm really hoping some swatches turn up soon, because I'm little confused why they would call the green Turquoise when it looks not very turquoise-y. I'm still not sold on the other one, Playa del Platinum, because I heard it's supposed to be a sheer, but it might be a nice neutral for summer.

China Glaze Vintage Vixen: When I first saw pictures of Up & Away, I freaked out and declared it Best Collection Evar. But even with this picture being the only thing I've seen, I think Vintage Vixen has it beat! This is the collection for Fall, which is rumored to be coming out in August, and it's all glitter, glitter, and more sparkly glittah!! Based on this picture (found here) and the names alone I need them all. So friggen gorgeous!

What upcoming or newly released colors are you crazy about?

Did NOT fall in a lake...

2010-03-21T20:56:00.000-07:00

It's been a long and fun Spring Break! I'm sad it's over, but I need to get a new mani!! I've been wearing RBL Recycle since Tuesday night. Between St. Paddy's day, going to Minneapolis, then making a trip to Duluth, I didn't have a spare second to even take a picture so I did this afternoon. While putting it on, I wasn't super impressed with the RBL brush, it didn't make application the easiest. But I'm seriously amazed at how this thing wore on my nails. This picture is after 5 showers, a combined 2 hours swimming and another 3 or so hours in hot tubs, PLUS many many hours playing slot machines and all I have some normal tip wear and zero chipping. Very nice, RBL!

I also ventured for the first time in to Ulta and picked up a bunch of the Ulta brand NP, stopped by Sephora (which I haven't been to in 2 years! Far to long) and picked up several $OPI's, and came home to 3 swap packages, so I have too many new colors to choose from... I can hardly contain my excitement!

NYS Amaranth

2010-03-13T09:17:00.000-08:00

I had to switch back to greens for today! One of the bars downtown hosts a St. Patty's day parade and they have green beer today, so I most definitely had to be festive. I debated between sparkles or jelly and jelly won. NYS Amaranth was a big lemming for me for while, partly because of the color and finish, and partly because of the amazing Zulu franken that Dr. Frankenpolish did. Of course shortly after buying Amaranth, Nars announced the fall return of Zulu, so no need to make my own. Works out perfectly since I love this color all on it's own! It's a bit richer in real life, it's a very true kelly green. Application was a little finicky, I got a little cuticle drag because it took longer to dry between coats than I expected, so give it some time when applying. Top coat is a must, there was almost no shine and it took a very long time to dry. Even an hour after SV I got some dents when I was putting on some lotion. This was surprisingly opaque, I could have gotten away with 2 coats but did a 3rd just got get that yummy depth that jellys give.

We interrupt our regulary scheduled greens to show you...

2010-03-12T11:56:00.000-08:00

BLUE INDIA!

My MAC order arrived this morning exactly 7 minutes after I got out of bed. That NEVER happens to me; if shipping says 5-7 days, it always takes 7 for me, and UPS the guy never gets here before 5 pm. But MAC upgraded my shipping for free and I guess the UPS guy owed me one! I could not have been more excited... Until I put on Blue India. I love this color. Love. We are getting married. It's been raining here, and I love the rain, and this color goes with it (I think I should just start coordinating my nails to match the weather). Most people are calling this blue, and it's even in the name, but I think of it more as a moody gray that leans heavily on the blue side. But my camera doesn't feel the same way! These pictures are quite inaccurate, and I tried everything possible to show you the real deal because this polish is amazing. It's much more gray than what you're seeing.

This was my first MAC NP and I've been extremely worried about application. You know you're a polish-holic when you're MORE worried about applying a polish you haven't even gotten yet than you are about your pharmacy unit exam. It's a sickness, people. I literally sat up an extra half hour last night thinking about what I was going to do if this didn't apply well when I should have been concerned about barbiturates. All that aside, I had zero problems applying this. If not for the different brush I could have compared this to an OPI polish. The consistency was perfect and I only needed 2 coats.

Inside, no flash, under an ott light:

Outside with flash:

Are you getting Blue India? Or any of the new Rescue Beauty Lounge's? I want all 3 of them but I vowed to wait for my birthday. I think miss Ji is bluffing when she says she's running out of them!

Oh, and I got an A on the test. :D

Just for lols

2010-03-11T19:37:00.000-08:00

Apple has an OPI app, it's hilarious! You can "try on" any OPI color you want, as long as you don't want to see what the color actually looks like. I scrolled over to Jade is the New Black and took a quick snapshot with the REAL Jade. According to the app it's kind of a minty green. Also everything looks like a cream, there's no shimmer or glitter. I had a good laugh at Mad as a Hatter, it shows up as a cream powder blue! It's a cute idea, but based off this app I wouldn't buy any OPI. They should have made a game, like applying NP as quickly and neatly as possible... it can be a tough game lol!

Greens #10, 9 & 8

2010-03-10T08:42:00.000-08:00

I was trying to save my most anticipated greens for next week, but caved and put on OPI Jade is the New Black today. I was hoping it would live up to the hype, and it totally did! I can tell I'm going to be wearing this one a lot, it's the perfect dusty cream green. It applied flawlessly and was perfect in 2 coats. Also I filed down my nails yesterday, it seems like every 3 weeks my classes all pile up big papers and projects and I do a lot of typing. It's so much easier to do the work with nubbins!

It's raining out today (OMG rain! I've missed you!) so I took pictures under an Ott light. I've never done it before but this picture is completely accurate!

I swatched China Glaze Paper Chasing yesterday. I adore this color, so much so that I wore it for 4 days straight last August. But when I took it off I had terrible stains, so this is another one I'd steer clear of. If that doesn't deter you, it took 3 coats to get this and it chips easily. I was sad about this one, it was one of my most anticipated from the Kicks collection. And green #8 was butter LONDON Thames. I like it, but it's similar to the Essence I wore a few days ago, and I like the Essence much more because it's less blue. I'm swapping it away; I won't miss the color but I will miss the little square bottle... so cute!

Also MAC's Liberty of London collection came out yesterday, YAY! If you're interested in the Blue India NP you can use the code LIBERTY and get free shipping with no minimum amount. My awesome mom placed an order for me last night, along with a bunch of lipsticks I've been lemming. I'm pretty excited!

Greens #5, 6 &7

2010-03-06T16:07:00.000-08:00

I just put on my 7th green and I'm loving this theme month. I've been saving my greens for so long and pulling them out now is so much fun! Yesterday I put on one of the Sally Hansen HD's, Hi-Def. These came out last summer and this green was actually the start of my collection. And it was a big sad disappointment. Streaky, sheer, and so many bubbles! Also since this was the first nail polish I had worn in 8+ years, my family teased me about my "Kermit fingers". They've gotten used to my love of greens now though so it's all good. But even though I didn't like the formula on this HD, I bought another 5 colors, mostly because I didn't know where to buy other nail polish in my tiny town and I still hadn't heard about Transdesign (discovering that was like the best. day. evar.), and partly because the rainbow of 8 colors looked so cute together. Anyways, I pulled it out again yesterday to see if my feelings had changed about it.... Nope. Still hate it. This was with 4 sloppy coats.

I only wore Hi-Def for about 45 minutes before pulling out one of my new Sally Hansens, Going Green. I've never tried Xtreme Wear, but I loved it! Check out this green! I thought it was a cream and was a little disappointed when I brought it out in the sunlight at home and saw shimmer, but after wearing it I was really happy with it. This is with 2 coats. I liked the application with this, the brush was pretty wide but super manageable; this picture was taken with no cleanup! I'm such a klutz and I've never been able to stay in the lines but this polish made it easy.

I've been stalking my Walgreens and even Walmart for 10 days trying to get the new Maybelline Minty. A wonderful NBer read about my plight and offered to swap me her extra, which arrived yesterday. I just put this one on for green #7, and wow. Wow. Wow!! This is my new favorite mint! The application was maybe not as smooth as my all-time favorite, RGB Minty, but it was a lot better than 90% of my other mints. The first coat was streaky, the second evened it out a bit, but the third coat was flawless perfection. I need to go back to stalking the drugstore so I can get a back up!

I also did a quick comparison swatch but I didn't take the time to clean up as acetone is drying out my skin terribly, so please excuse the mess. Left to right is China Glaze Re-fresh Mint, Maybelline Minty, RGB Minty and Essie Mint Candy Apple. MCA doesn't really have anything to do with Minty, but it seems like everyone has MCA so it's a good one for comparison.

I'd also like to let you all know that in addition to being a klutz with nail polish, I'm totally forgetful. Wonderful reader Isa asked me who the winner of my Who Loves Purple? giveway was and I realized I completely forgot to post the wrap up! Reader Caitlin, who is new to nail polish, won 3 awesome purples to expand her collection. Congrats, Caitlin!

I'm planning on doing another giveway sometime in April and was planning on doing a theme of my newest obsession, coral. But since YOU guys are the one winning polish, I'll let you decide! Vote in the poll on the sidebar for which color family you'd like to win! I'm also accepting write-in votes, leave a comment on this post with your suggestion.

Green #4

2010-03-04T07:58:00.000-08:00

No one told me that the China Glaze Summer Days was so completely awesome. I kept thinking they were a shimmer, but according to ALU they are glass flecked. And awesome. These are AWESOME. I tracked down Watermelon Rind to wear for March and it came in the mail yesterday. I'm completely in love with it and am working on tracking down the other 5 from the collection (anyone wanna swap? lol). I used 3 very thin coats of this, I think I could have gotten away with 2 slightly thicker coats but the polish was a little runny at first. Even with 3 coats it dried really fast, I did laundry just 10 minutes after applying Seche Vite and didn't get a single dent (even when my fingers got caught in the little holes of the laundry basket... don't ask how that happened)!

Green #3

2010-03-03T11:12:00.001-08:00

Today I'm wearing Rimmel Camouflage. The entire Rimmel brand has always been hit or miss for me, and this one is pretty good. The brush is a little weird to use, probably since I've been spoiled lately from using so much OPI, but after my first nail I got the hang of it and each nail only took 1 coat! I'm surprised this lived up to it's 60 second promise! I also really love the color on this, it's a perfect true green loaded with green and gold shimmer. I only own one other bottle of the old Rimmels, it's one of the purple ones, and it did NOT hold up well... granted I decided to take it camping last summer since I needed a quick mani in a tent. But I can't BELIEVE a $2 NP wouldn't hold up to the abuse of fire starting, fishing, rock hunting and swimming... okay, in retrospect I was pretty hard on it lol.

In non-np news, I've been back to my regular work out routine for the last week and a half now and I'm feeling great! At the beginning of Decemeber I pulled a muscle in my foot that took until the end of January to heal, and then at the beginning of February I started up again with too much agression and got shin splints. But I've been easing back in to my routine and am now pushing myself every day to my goals. My problem is I haven't updated my workout playlist in about 3 months and I have NO idea what to pick for music now. I'd love to hear some suggestions! I usually listen to upbeat stuff, pop music and some alt rock, sometimes a little metal (if it's not screamy) to get through tough parts. What music do you work out to?

Greens #1&2

2010-03-02T14:00:00.000-08:00

I'm planning on doing greens for the first 17 days of March! A new one every day, most of them untried, right through St. Patrick's day. Yesterday I swatched Mint Mojito but was reluctant to leave it on because I heard it stained. I liked the color, but not enough to risk it, so I took pics and changed to Essence All Access. Mint Mojito is a 2 coater and Essence only took 1. I had great sunlight today so the shimmer really shows on All Access!

What greens are you most excited to wear for March? I'm saving my most anticipated, OPI Jade is the New Black, NYS Amaranth and RBL Recycle, for closer to the 17th!

OPI Hot & Spicy Kung Pao Chicken

2010-02-27T13:20:00.000-08:00

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'...

2010-02-26T13:08:00.000-08:00

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

2010-02-24T14:21:00.000-08:00

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

2010-02-22T10:59:00.000-08:00

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

2010-02-19T11:29:00.000-08:00

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

2010-02-18T16:45:00.000-08:00

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!

2010-02-16T01:00:00.000-08:00

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

2010-02-15T12:21:00.000-08:00

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...

2010-02-12T21:45:00.000-08:00

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

2010-02-11T10:48:00.000-08:00

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

2010-02-10T20:44:00.000-08:00

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

2010-02-09T18:00:00.000-08:00

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!!!

2010-02-07T11:01:00.001-08:00

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!

2010-02-04T15:45:00.000-08:00

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

2010-02-01T09:05:00.001-08:00

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!

China Glaze Heli-yum

2010-01-31T17:11:00.000-08:00

Outside the polish world, pink is my absolute favorite color. If it comes in pink, that's the color I'll pick for whatever I'm buying. My workout shoes are pink, two of my six iPods are pink, my phone is pink, and all of my video game things are pink. But in the polish world, I just don't like wearing much pink. It's so cliche, just slightly less so than wearing red. And it makes me feel like some girly-girl who grew up with too many barbies. And while I am a girly-girl, I grew up with dinosaur toys. Probably why I favor greens so much lol. But anyways. Heli-yum is the most perfectly raspberry pink. And I very much enjoyed wearing it over the weekend, which is a good thing because I've hardly had a spare second so there was NO TIME to change my polish :D

This is with two coats plus SV top coat, and it applied with creamy perfection. I put this on Thursday night and we're still going strong. I can't comment on tip wear because I filed my nails down yesterday, which I'm so happy about because I can finally type properly again!

Water Marbling: Attempt #1

2010-01-28T09:57:00.000-08:00

I've been seeing more and more water marbling manis show up, and they are SO awesome! You could use the ugliest colors from your stash if you wanted and it would still look pretty. So I had some spare time today, and after watching like 14 different tutorials on You Tube, I tried it out. It actually doesn't take that long, and it's SO much fun! I used China Glaze Grape Pop and Flyin' High and Sinful Soul Mate. Just did my left hand because I was afraid of taking on the huge challenge with my right! So here's what I learned:

1: Scotch tape around the cuticles works really well, but left little sticky bits on my skin when I peeled it off. I'm going to try something else next time, either oil, petroleum jelly or painters tape.

2: The first drop of color in the cup really isn't going to show up. It spreads all around the cup, loses it's opacity (check the green on my ring finger, it's kinda sheer), and if you try and swirl around the outside of it you break up the design. This makes it so you get a gap between swirls on your nail. I remedied this by putting in a drop or two of clear polish first.

3: If you put your nail flat into the cup and then pull it out flat, water droplets stick to the nail and leave a mark on the swirls (really obvious on my index finger and tip of my thumb). I got some advice on MUA to try dipping at a 45 degree angle, I'm going to try that next time.

Have you tried water marbling? Do you have any advice for me? I really like doing this but those little water bubble marks are driving me nuts!

Who says a $2 polish can't be awesome?

2010-01-27T09:49:00.000-08:00

Okay, so I'm a little bit of a NP snob. Just barely though. I won't touch Maybelline, and I have 2 Rimmels that I like but don't wear just in case someone says, "OMG I love your polish! Wear did you get it?" and then I have to say "uhm... the drugstore...". And I think Sally Hansen is becoming a huge rip off! What's with her price increase? I can get 3 China Glazes from Transdesign for the price of 1 new Sally Hansen! But I have a soft spot for Sinful polishes. The glitters, oh, the glitters they have... I love them. I usually wait for a sale, but these were on a special display case so I grabbed them, though I do think they are a part of the regular line. Someone on MUA made a comment that Mint Apple and Soul Mate could be dupes for Jade and Jade Rose. So I ran to grab them! But sorry, they're not even close.

But happily, Mint Apple is awesome. This alone made the trip worth it. It's a dusty green with a gold shimmer, and it applied beautifully. Look at the color! I am in love! You definitely get a bang for your 2 bucks.

With flash to show the gold shimmer:

And I took some comparisons with Essie Greenport on my thumb and Misa Dirty Sexy Money on my pinkie. Here you can really appreciate the dustiness. I badly smudged my middle finger so I just covered it with my thumb :)

Soul Mate was the supposed Jade Rose dupe. It's a creamy dusty pink. I'm not really feelin' this one. I don't think it's a very "me" color, though I do like the dustiness. It applied kind of goopy, though it wasn't as bad as the China Glaze's I compared them to.

Between China Glaze Sugar High on my index and Peachy Keen on my ring finger.

And the last new Sinful I grabbed, named Rise and Shine. This one I very much like. I did a quick swatch but took dozens of pictures, none of which came out accurate. It is VERY close to Four Leaf Clover, which is on my ring finger, only Rise and Shine has an added subtle shimmer and it dries neon matte. You cans see the original finish on my pinkie, and I added Seche Vite to my index and middle for the shine. This also brings out the fine shimmer in it. I think this is just too perfect for Spring!

My Walgreens display is ALWAYS half empty! Either they never get new shipments, or they do and someone comes in and picks it over before I get there! So I never get to see what all the Sinfuls look like. What are your favorite Sinful polishes? If I can find them I'd love to check them out!

Essence Groovy

2010-01-26T19:35:00.000-08:00

I love Essence's polishes. Their colors are so wonderfully deceitful! In the bottle, Groovy looks pretty blue, but you put it on and you get these hints of teal... so it's a super blue teal, right? Then you get near something blue, say, your jeans, and that blue makes Groovy look like a slightly-greened blue. It can't make up it's mind, and I don't want it to. And this one is a delicious jelly. I love everything about it!

For fun, I pulled out 2 other polishes that I'm constantly moving from my drawer of blues to my drawer of greens and back again. I can't decide where to put them! On the left we have the lighter China Glaze Flyin' High. This was my first time swatching this color and I am SO excited to do a full mani with it, it is wonderful! And on the right is American Apparel Peacock. I typically keep this one with my teals, but every once in a while I see it in another light and it goes with my blues.

Mint Comparisons

2010-01-26T08:40:00.000-08:00

There's been some debate about how close the new China Glaze mint is to the winter favorite Essie mint. I pulled out my 4 favorite shades of mint his morning for a quick comparison! From left to right we have Essie Mint Candy Apple, China Glaze Re-freshmint, OPI Hey! Get in Lime! and RGB Minty is on my pinkie. Get in Lime was 4 coats and the rest took just 2. All of these apply really well and are different enough that it's easy to justify getting all of them! My favorite mint has been RGB Minty since I got it, it's a very true green mint and isn't super pastel, but the longer winter drags on, the more I'm loving pastels. I think Re-freshmint will quickly take over as my favorite for spring!

What's your favorite mint? I'm totally lemming Illamasqua Milf, so pretty!

Mailbox Haul

2010-01-25T17:32:00.000-08:00

I was in mourning this morning for the end of the Vikings season, but this helped numb the pain! Two swap packages showed up in my mailbox today, one very small and one very big! One contained a single bottle of a HUGE lemming, Essie Greenport! Can't wait to try this one out! A wonderful swapper from Germany ventured out and found me NINE bottles of Essence polishes, and every single one is AMAZING! There are two purple shimmers, one magenta shimmer, one black with a hint of sparkle, a jelly-ish hot pink, a shimmery deep green (reminds me of British Racing Green, I'm so eager to try it!), a cream tealy-blue and a sparkly blue. And see that silver one? It's called Rock n Roll and it is exactly what the name implies. I'm so excited I don't even know what to wear first!

Best. Purple. Ever.

2010-01-24T09:46:00.000-08:00

Grape Pop needs some sort of medal. It is perfection in a bottle. There is not even a hint of blue in this! I like my blurples but they are everywhere. I like to think it's because it's cheaper to make, since way way way back when, purple was an expensive and rare color, so only royalty had it. If you're only going to get 1 from the Up & Away collection, this should be it. Now I'm only saying that today since I've just worn 2 from the collection, my opinion my change later this week lol! Grape Pop applied perfectly opaque in just one coat and flowed super easy on the nail. I skipped the top coat, mostly because I was in a rush, but partly because I want to change my polish again tonight. I'm guessing the Vikes won't win, and I don't need the purple reminder haunting me on Monday! Probably should have worn SV since my nails are too long and I got a dent while I was typing... ugh!

Please excuse the mess, I was in a rush today!

Pre-Vikings Game Yellow

2010-01-24T07:28:00.000-08:00

If you live in Minnesota you know what I'm talking about. Everything is purple and yellow MANIA right now. We want this win against the Saints like you wouldn't believe! So for the pre-game, I was wearing China Glaze Happy Go Lucky. This name is dead on. The color makes me so happy to look at! And I've heard that out of the entire Up & Away collection, this was the big problem child. I'm not gonna call it a PITA, because I try to stay positive. Let's just say there is a learning curve to the application! Once you master it, it's not so bad.

You're going go need 3 coats. The first one needs to be paper thin. If you have a droplet of polish on the brush, you have to much. You should be seeing mostly brush, and it should almost drag on the nail. Super thin! You'll also need to wrap your tips. This is when you take the brush and horizontally drag it across the free end of your nail, so it gets on the top and bottom of the nail. Why? I buffed my tips just prior to put this on, but the polish still found every rough spot and bump and sat on top, so I had very tiny spots at the end where there was no polish, the looked almost like chips. But if you wrap the tips this solves the problem. Your second coat should also be very thin. At this point your nails will look like crap. You'll have two streaky coats that look terrible, but the overall texture should be even. Now for coat three, GLOB IT ON! Take a big drop and quickly spread it across your nail. Now it should be even and pretty! I know it sounds like a lot of work, and it is, but if you like yellow, this is the BEST yellow I have tried yet, so go for it. Also, this color dried very shiny, but of course I still used Seche Vite.

The big Vikes game is at 5, but the pre-game party starts around 2 at my friends house, so I'll need to redo this with Grape Pop pretty soon. I still can't believe that I've watched every Vikings game this season. I used to be the girl who didn't even know who the Superbowl teams were, and now I'm loving football. And for you ladies out there who like to stay out of football (and I know that has its perks), there is good food, beer, and hot guys! I've gotten more dates this year wearing my Jared Allen jersey than I've ever gotten wearing something that shows skin lol!

What do you think? Mint or not?

2010-01-23T12:11:00.001-08:00

I recently swapped with someone for my very first Nubar! After a long, sad week from being disappointed about not getting my Up & Aways, I wore Green Tea on Friday. And the formula blew me away. If all Nubars apply like this one did, then they get my vote for Best Application Ever. The color applied like butter and dried to the touch within a minute, and I could tell since I bumped my TC bottle with one finger and there was no sign of damage! Great for those clumsy people like me. It didn't dry super shiny, but that's what Seche Vite is made for, right?

Anyways, I've been lemming this color because I heard it was mint-ish. But I'm torn... I describe this as a slightly dusty-grass, but in some light, I get the "feel" of a mint, if you get what I mean. Anyways, what do you think? Minty or not?

I took a comparison picture too. On the left is OPI Green-wich Villiage, which is definitely a true green, and on the right I wore my favorite "true green" mint, RGB Minty. But next to Green Tea, Minty looks like Mint Candy Apple did, which is very blue. I really like this comparison because it shows the dusty quality that Green Tea has.

The little marks are from snowflakes getting in the way. Yeah, the weather sucks here today :)

And one last picture for today: MY UP & AWAYs!!!! I wanted to run to the mail box when I saw our mailman put them in (yes, I am a freak who sits near the window and stalks the mail truck), but couldn't risk breaking a hip on the 3 inches of ice in my driveway. There are literally people ice skating on the road right now lol. It's all good though, I'm stocked up on the essentials! Plenty of acetone, chips and beer :)

I'm going to keep them on the upper shelf of my desk to stare at. And yes, those are my Star Wars and Transformers Potato Heads. I'm 21 going on 13-year-old-boy.

Under the Sea

2010-01-20T12:04:00.001-08:00

Over the weekend I was sporting Atlantis for a day, and I LOVED it! For as long as I was lemming it (like 5 weeks?), and for the amount of time I've had it untried (2 months!), it's kind of embarrassing that I didn't try it sooner. I love the color in it, and the sparkle... well, it speaks for itself. Pictures galore because this one is a stunner!

Here's some blur to show the sparkle:

Just look at this color!

Here are some comparison pictures too! From left to right we have Claire's Green Confetti, Sinful Nail Junkie, and China Glaze Atlantis. And I know I just did a tribute to Atlantis, but I have to say my fave is Nail Junkie, but I do think you need both! Atlantis has an amazing color, but Nail Junkie has some bigger sparkles and these amazing blue flecks that peek out in some light. It's best to meet them in the middle; 3 coats of Atlantis for color and then 1-2 coats of Nail Junkie. I don't have pictures, but I did an experiment with them. 1 coat will give you some blue sparkle and bigger chunks, and 2 will give you the perfect amount, but will change the color of Atlantis. I personally like 1 coat better.

Claire's Green Confetti was something I picked up for $1 on clearance, and it's pretty cool. It's more of a standard green, which you can see in the second pic, and it has larger chunks of glitter! Sadly, it's pretty sparse, and while 3 coats will get you a jelly-opaqueness with color, you need at least 4, and really 5 coats, to get enough sparkle. But it does dry fast!

(You can click these two to see them bigger, it shows the color differences much better)

For my mom's b-day I let her pick anything from my collection, even my HTF's and LE's, and did her nails. She picked Nail Junkie, and got so many compliments at her party! Even more than my Absolutely Alice did.... not that I was jealous or anything, LOL!

Parlez Vous OPI?

2010-01-19T14:58:00.001-08:00

After wearing nothing but bright glitters and bold colors for the last week, I decided to switch to something muted, understated, and overall pretty. This OPI is a little older, but new to me, and it's an instant classic. While I applied this I listened to Freezepop's Parlez Vous Freezepop? Just because the name similarities made me smile.

Not sure if it will ever happen but I'm totally waiting for Sprechen Sie OPI?... A German collection from OPI! Come on, OPI, think of the green you could make and call Lederhosen!! I'm sure it would be awesome!

I'm also kind of lemming You Don't Know Jacques from this collection, is it worth tracking down? Most people seem to like it, but I'm so pale that I don't know if I could work it.

Absolutely Amazing Alice

2010-01-14T13:17:00.000-08:00

On the nail board at MUA, this gets shortened to AA, which makes me smile when I see it in some sentences, such as, "I'm so happy I have AA today!" or, "AA is wonderful!" I guess if you had just stumbled over there you would think we're all a bunch of addicts. Which we are.... lol. I applied just 2 coats of this over yesterday's Dating a Royal and you can't see even a hint of the blue that was there. Sadly as you can see there was a bit of shrinkage, though my almost used up bottle of SV is to blame for that. I'm waiting on a fresh bottle in the mail I don't have any polish thinner. One coat of SV barely caused any shrinkage, but the second one really did me in... and you really need that second coat to bring out the sparkle in this one. Alice's blue glitter is extremely fine and the slightest bit of movement really shows it off. Based off this and Mad as a Hatter, I'm pretty much convinced that we all should get together and write to OPI and beg for an entire collection of glitters. These two became instant must haves for me.

As much as I love this, it has to come off tonight! I'm throwing my mom a huge surprise birthday party tomorrow for her big 5-0! And while I've picked my dress, eye shadow, lip gloss and jewelry, I have NO CLUE what to wear on my nails. I'm a bit panicked! My dress is purple, anyone have any suggestions?

The Definition of "Whelmed"

2010-01-13T20:37:00.000-08:00

"I know you can be overwhelmed, and you can be underwhelmed, but can you ever just be whelmed?"

Name that movie!

This quote stuck with me while I was applying my nail polish last night. I've been lemming OPI's Dating a Royal for a long while, and when I read reports saying that it was very jelly, I quickly tracked it down and worked out a swap. And the bottle came, and the color was great. Not as great as I was expecting, but still great. Not to be deterred, I started to apply. And the first coat was magic... jelly blue that flowed over the nail, the perfect watery blue. But then the second coat went on, and I can't believe I'm saying this, but it was sadly buttery and opaque. And that was that. A perfectly opaque lovely shade of blue. Maybe I had put this up on a pedestal for too long, but it's not what I was expecting. Do I like it? Definitely! Do I love it and want to wear it for days on end? Nope. It's already been covered up with Absolutely Alice.

I think my clean up is getting better! I managed to get a clean margin without taking off half my nail polish this time lol!

Is there a bottle of nail polish in your stash that didn't live up to your expectations? I'd love to hear about it, I feel a little bad that I'm putting down Dating a Royal like this...

PSA: Up & Away is out!!

2010-01-12T12:56:00.000-08:00

Check TransDesign!! It's there!

Of course I literally, not an hour ago, bought them off Ebay... I ended up saving $2, but there was so much else I wanted! Oh well, guess I'll just wait for OPI Hong Kong now for a TD order.

What are you getting from Up & Away?

Why You Should Always Go After a Lemming

2010-01-11T21:39:00.000-08:00

I'm still kind of new to collecting, so while I liked Misa's Dirty Sexy Money when it came out, I didn't realize the significance of it. For weeks I saw people's pictures of this awesome green shade, and my interest grew. I had even planned to buy it in a TD order, but kept putting off the order because I was waiting for Holiday collections. And of course, by the time I was placing an order it was out of stock. Everywhere. I could not find this thing for it's original price. And my interest grew to mild insanity as I realized my only options were spending anywhere from 2 to 4 times the original price. Being frugal by nature, that part hurt. But I finally found it on Ebay for a still reasonable price, and though I had to beat out another bidder (sorry if it was you!), it was totally worth it. This is the. best. green. EVER*. I'm so glad I found this when I did because now I can't find it anywhere. And I encourage you, if you're totally lemming something, get it before it's gone! You'll really regret it later if you don't! And if you end up not liking it? Swap for something else on MUA!

*Okay. Not ever. But from the time I won it on Ebay, to the time I got it in the mail, wore it for 3 days, and then took it off for something glittery, it was the best green ever.

OMG, what has MAC come up with now?

2010-01-10T19:39:00.000-08:00

I'm an huge fan of MAC lipstick and lipglass, I own about 45 total! But I have no MAC nail polish. But when Blue India comes out, March 11 as I've read several times, I will! I've heard MAC applies terribly, but for this color, I don't care! This shade is AMAZING in the bottle, I can't imagine what it will look like on the nail. I look forward to seeing the early release swatches!

OMG so pretty!!!

Glitter Fanatic Must Have - Mad as a Hatter

2010-01-08T13:14:00.000-08:00

I'm pretty sure most of us have a special place in our heart for some version of Alice in Wonderland. I loved it growing up, and after hearing that OPI was doing an Alice themed collection I was excited!... until I saw promo pics. 2 reds and 2 super glitters? Yawn. But then pictures of the glitters showed up and I had to have them. I'm still quite disappointed that OPI did 2 reds and did not do anything for the other fabulous characters. No Cheshire Cat, Caterpillar, Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum, White Rabbit, or Jabberwock? Come on! There were so many great things they could have done! But what they did was very well put together. Today I have Mad as a Hatter to show, and it is a MUST HAVE! It's a mostly purple glitter with plenty of silver thrown in, but up close you can see green, orange, gold and red flecks. It's so mesmerizing! And the best part? Every time I look at my fingers I think of Johnny Depp. Nothing wrong with that!

Anyone else super excited for Tim Burton's upcoming Alice film? I'm a huge Burton fan, and IMO Burton + Depp is always pure gold!

Essence Meet You in Budapest

2010-01-07T19:22:00.000-08:00

I didn't know anything about this brand when I first saw this color, but I new I had to have Meet You in Budapest. It's a perfect, so perfect, teal with a super-jelly finish. I managed to track down someone who wanted to swap, and I was so excited! Essence is a drugstore brand from Europe, and I didn't know what to expect in terms of application, but I was completely blown away. It applied flawlessly, and was perfectly opaque in two coats, which for a jelly is amazing! And do you see the shine on this? There is no topcoat. That's right. No Seche Vite, no Poshe, this is all Essence's natural finish. I actually picked this dulled down picture because the rest of them reflected me in my nails! This was a limited edition color, but if you have any super nice European friends, ask them to track it down!

I haven't done any swatch comparisons with this, I'm waiting to get the new China Glaze collection to see if it's close at all to Flyin' High, though the more swatches of that I see, the less similar they look. Possibly similar to RBL Teal? I'll need to compare next time I bring it out!

Sapphire in the Snow...bank

2010-01-05T16:20:00.000-08:00

I am a wonderful driver. I've never been in a crash or fender bender, never accidentally brushed my bumper against something I shouldn't, and have never had a ticket. Yet in the last week I have put my car in a snowbank TWO times! I wasn't going faster than 15 mph each time and the second time wasn't so bad, I just rocked the car out. But it's rather embarrassing to be chastised by your dad when you've had a clean driving record since you got your license.

Putting aside my exasperation with icy Minnesota winters, I'm quite in love with today's NOTD. This is my very first vampy color and I still don't know why I didn't jump on these earlier. Application was great and opaque in one coat, though this picture is two. Unfortunately I was having a terrible lint day and some stuck to the color before I put on SV, but I tried to fake a perfect mani with my camera! Sapphire in the Snow was from OPI's holiday collection, the only one I picked up while they were in stock. I'm so glad I did! I have a list of about 8 other almost-blacks to pick up now, I'm completely hooked.

Minty Fresh

2010-01-04T09:47:00.000-08:00

Today I have more lovely mint shades! I recently found OPI's discontinued Hey! Get in Lime! for what I thought was a reasonable deal on Ebay. And while I generally don't like to buy from the auction site in this case it was totally worth it! While it took 4 coats and seemed kinda watery the end result is beautiful. If you are at all lemming this, pick it up before you won't be able to find it for under $20.

Claire's Dream Catcher is super popular right now. Just google search for "Dream Catcher Channel Jade Dupe" and you'll see why. While it's not a dead on dupe, it's just a touch more yellow based, it's close enough for you to close your eyes and think of Jade. This one is a super bargain too, I think Claire's always has BOGO 50% off on their nail polish. The application was a little finicky but not the worst I've ever dealt with. This was 4 coats.

Essie Mint Candy Apple was also popular this last month but it seemed like the jury was split on this one. You either loved it or didn't. I loved it, but not as a mint. It's more of a robin's egg blue. This is one you have to see in person because almost every picture I've seen makes it look chalky and pastel-ish and it's really not. It's bold and smooth. This applied really well with 2 coats but I needed a third to cover up some bald spots.

So my mint collection is growing slowly! Anyone have any recommendations I should hunt down?

Have a Blingtasticly Happy New Year!

2009-12-31T12:03:00.000-08:00

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Just some quick pictures of my NYE mani, the franken named Happy Unbirthday. Click the pics to see them bigger for all the detail.

Blurred to show sparkle:

Happy Unbirthday - Preview of my NYE Mani

2009-12-30T17:22:00.000-08:00

I'm an all or nothin' kind of girl when it comes to my glitter. My rule is either glitter is all you can see or there should be none at all. So when I saw Lippmann's Happy Birthday it was love at first sight. But I have 2 problems with Lippmann. The price and the condescending designer Lippmann herself. I'm not about to pay $18 for a polish when you're going to tell me I'm applying it wrong. So I went to the craft store and picked up about $8 in multi-colored and multi-shaped glitter and dumped it in some clear polish. This was my first franken and let me tell you I was flying blind. The end result... well, check out the picture. LOVE.

A dupe? Not even close. I think the nail polish wore off some of the colors in some of the glitters, so there's a lot more silver than I originally planned on. No problem! I haven't picked a color to wear under it, but I'm thinking a dark green or teal right now to highlight the colors in the smaller glitters. The amazing saga of the making of Happy Unbirthday, plus the end result NYE mani, will be posted tomorrow!

Neon Horror - Why I'm Never Listening to an Elf Again

2009-12-29T20:24:00.000-08:00

Christmas Eve day I took a journey in a lull of a snowstorm to the least popular mall in town, the only mall that has Claire's. The mall had been open for an hour but there was no one there, and in the hallway stood a mid-30's aged elf. I wondered what she was doing so far from the Santa picture booth, but she followed me in to the store and asked if I needed help. "I'm in search of a nail polish!" Oops. So wrong to say. She was apparently an expert, though from what I could tell it was only in all things neon. "Get this!" she exclaimed. "If only I had your youth, I wish I could wear these neons!" She had so much Christmas cheer that I couldn't resist maybe just trying the neon teal that she had insisted would look great with my skin. The color was interesting and I figured since it was a teal that it wouldn't be glaring on my skin. Wrong. So, so wrong. Don't look directly at my nails, you may go blind. Maybe I could try it with glitter? I don't know. It's scary and in my sock drawer. I don't want it to frighten my other teals.

Claire's Marine Blue

A love affair with a fugly green

2009-12-28T08:54:00.000-08:00

This morning I had a secret tryst is Rescue Beauty Lounge No More War. I cheated on my other greens, and it felt so right. Teals and I will make up by Wednesday, Mints may hold a grudge till the weekend, but that's okay, because today I'm in love with my fugly green.

This is my first time trying out RBL and it was fantastic! The application was smooth, and this color only took 2 coats. I'm hearing a bit of a buzz about more fugs, mostly in the avocado family, for next year. I do hope more fugly greens come out, they are so fantastically unique and really unexpected to wear.

Dorothy Who... cares?!!

2009-12-27T11:43:00.000-08:00

I wanted to like this polish. A lot. In theory it were perfect, in execution... meh. This was 3 coats and still a VNL. The blue wasn't dark enough for me and there was too much silver. I'm hoping OPI's Absolutely Alice can be everything that I wanted this to be. I swapped this polish for OPI Parlez Vous OPI? I hope it comes in the mail soon, because I have a little confession... I've never even tried OPI!

Also, since I don't feel this was a satisfying post due to the sub-par polish, here a pictures of my puppies with their holiday bandannas on. They're so cute!!

Snowflakes & Ruby Pumps

2009-12-27T07:24:00.001-08:00

I hope everyone had a happy holiday and they got every NP they wanted! I've been very busy playing with my new iPod + Nike equipment, along with a few new RBL's and other NP's. My Christmas NOTD was Ruby Pumps and I took pictures outside in a snowstorm while holding a snowball. When I downloaded the pictures, this one had a single snowflake captured in the flash! It's so cute! Maybe not the best picture of Ruby Pumps, but who hasn't seen that a million times?

I have many more NOTD's coming up, including the Jade-knockoff from Claire's!

American Apparel Nail Polish

2009-12-23T09:37:00.000-08:00

I've never really shopped at American Apparel before, but after seeing their new nail polish line I was in love. The shades are hip and cool and very workable. So I took a chance and ordered three nail polishes hoping they'd be okay. And guess what? They're better than that. Much better. They applied so smooth that when I was doing comparison swatches with RBL, I kept thinking, "Wow, these $6 polishes are on par with ones 3 times the price!" The polishes are so pigmented that you can get away with one coat easily and the lacquer flows over the nail in a few seconds without any manipulation from the brush. I think I'll be picking up a few more!

Peacock is a lovely super blue teal. This is one coat.

Office is a dusty mint shade that was instant love. I'm wearing it now and it's subtle but so pretty!

Hunter is a deep dark slightly muddy green. Dried darker than the bottle and is near black in some lights.

And for fun here are some comparison pictures. Peacock next to RBL teal. Teal is much deeper and Peacock almost looks like Muse, but I've seen a few other swatches and Peacock is much bluer.

Here's Office in the middle with RGB Minty on the left and Essie's Mint Candy Apple on the right. Though Minty still reigns as my fave, I love office for it's dustiness! Great addition to any mint collection.

Hunter is a million miles away from RBL's recycle. It's very opaque so it's nice if you want a non-jelly deep green. It has a bit of a bluey-browny quality to it too.

If you have a store near you, I know they sell these for 3 for $15 rather than $6 for an individual. And if you can only order online, do a quick search for coupon codes! They often have free shipping or 10-15% off.

Silver and Gold Glitz

2009-12-21T19:52:00.000-08:00

I'm saving my untried Ruby Pumps for December 24th but have been trying out my other Xmas glitters! First picture is two coats of Tinsel. I really needed like one or two more coats, but it was a rush job and I knew I'd be taking it off in less than a day so I made due with two. The next morning I put on Cowardly Lyin from the Wizard of Ooh Ahz collex, and while I loved the yellowy gold color, the glitter was really lacking. So this morning I added three coats of 5 Golden Rings and it was pure love. Well, it only lasted a few seconds because the mail truck came with a bunch of new polishes for me to swatch! But I snapped a pic anyways, mostly for reference because I think this would look great on me in the Summer when I'm a little bit tan. On to the pics!

A Perfect Polish - Emerald Sparkle

2009-12-19T08:16:00.001-08:00

There isn't much I can say about Emerald Sparkle that hasn't been said. It is one of those perfect polishes that is just so unbelievably pretty that you won't want to take it off. My camera could hardly capture all it's qualities; with the deep emerald green shade, the jelly qualities, and of course all the sparkle, I could only get an average amount of each crammed in to the picture. The full effect in person is memorizing! I highly recommend it to anyone to pick it up, and although I got it really just for Christmas, I know I'll be pulling it out from time to time through out the year. This picture is with 2 coats Emerald Sparkle 1 coat Seche Vite. You'll need a great top coat to bring out the sparkle in this polish!

The beginning of my mint obsession

2009-12-15T16:44:00.000-08:00

As a flavor, I hate mint. It makes me gag. I really like chocolate cake but if I see it garnished with a mint leaf I turn my nose at it. Yuck. But mint nail polish? That's a horse of a different color. I'm obsessed with mint. Yesterday I received Essie's Mint Candy Apple in the mail with my latest TransDesign order. I hadn't tried it yet but today RGB Minty came in the mail. Of course the mail came 5 minutes before my German final and it's all I could think about during the entire test.

RGB intrigued me when I saw some of their early swatches. They have common colors but unique hues, and I've been quite interested in Cognac, Steel and Slate, but Minty was something I had to have after seeing it on a few blogs. The formula was thick, but it applied amazingly well. It was self leveling and I am amazed to say that these pictures were done with one coat of polish. I've heard they wear well, which is good, I don't plan on changing my polish again until Friday. And the color. Well, I'll let the picture speak for itself. It's wonderful. A new favorite!

I also took a comparison picture with Mint Candy Apple and the only other similar color I currently have, which is For Audrey. You can see that MCA is a bit more blue than Minty, but it's still nice. I am looking forward to trying that too.

Minty on my first two fingers, MCA on the ring finger and For Audrey on my pinkie.

Butter LONDON Bezzie Mate

2009-12-12T08:21:00.001-08:00

I love Butter LONDON. And not for their application, which is good. Not for the names of their colors, which are hilarious. I love them because of their tiny square bottles. I admit, holding the square brush head can be a little challenging, but these are the only bottles that I let sit out on my desk because they are so damned cute. BL changed the design on the new bottles so you can remove the square cap and paint like with a normal brush, so really, it's not an issue anymore. The only problem is waiting for a sale. When the next one comes on, I will strike with FULL FORCE and pick up the 11 lemmings that I have for them right now.

Bezzie Mate is one of 3 that I picked up from theFairest.com when they had a sale on them so they were very inexpensive, which was good because I had never tried them before. This color looks bright pink in the bottle and even tried matte like a neon, but after I added Seche Vite it dried super shiny and the color mellowed to a lovely vibrant raspberry shade. I've been wearing this for 3 days and have a little bit of tip wear and one chip, though I attribute that to lots of Christmas baking. The best part about this being a neon is that it will come off super easy when I'm ready to change colors.

On a side note to anyone reading this, don't forget about the Rescue Beauty Lounge sale on Tuesday! (which I'm sure you've heard about, and if you haven't, omg are you living under a rock?!!) I don't own any from them but I'm really excited to pick up somewhere between 3 and 6 colors for half price. My mom will be picking up the tab, hiding the package when it comes, and stuffing my stocking for xmas morning. My definites right now are Teal, No More War and Recycle, and I'm still considering Coral, Dead Calm and Bikini Bottom. I'm thinking I may get just 3 this round because last April they had a half off sale, so I'm thinking next April they will too... wishful thinking but it seems possible!

Sinful Nail Junkie

2009-12-10T19:22:00.000-08:00

I picked this up to quench my thirst for Atlantis, which is still en route. It's quite a bit lighter but the glitter in it is wonderful! There are tiny flecks of pure blue and large chunks of gold, plus a fine sprinkle of aqua that gives it the overall color. The base is slightly aqua color but to bring it out, I layered to coats over a coat of Sally Hansen Honeydew from the Tracy Reese collection. With a coat of Seche Vite this lasted an entire 4 days without a single chip! I'm amazed! Overall it got me through the week but I'm still dying for my package with Atlantis in it.

Hello and NP Survey

2009-12-06T11:33:00.000-08:00

I'm so excited to be starting my own blog!

Two days ago I was caught by my mom staring at pictures of the new Up & Away collection from China glaze. Then a few hours later she caught me staring at them again. Then the next morning, after she found me staring at Re-Fresh Mint for the 8th time, she suggested I start my own blog. You better believe that I'll have pictures of that collection up just days after it's released!

To start off my blog I thought I would start with a quick survey. Fill it out and add it to the comments so I can get to know you too!

Name: Andrea

NOTD: China Glaze Paper Chasing

POTD: none, between pedis

Favorite brand: China Glaze! I love their colors and I really love how they come up with new collections often, and they're always perfect for the season.

Favorite NP: China Glaze Sky High Top

Favorite finish: Cream! Though lately I've been wearing a lot of glitters.

Favorite top coat: Ever since reading this top coat experiment I've been trying new brands. So far I really like Seche Vite, but I'm hoping to buy some "David" soon!

Last NP you bought: I ordered ChG Wizard of Ooh Ahz, Love You Snow Much and a couple of the glitters last week, I'm very IMpatiently awaiting their arrival!! I almost jumped on the mail truck yesterday afternoon asking if there was a package for me!

Estimate # in your collection: around 50 give or take. I know, I know, I'm such a newb!

Current lemming: ChG Up & Away! Ah, such creamy perfection. At first I thought I would just be ordering Re-fresh Mint and Grape Pop, but then High Hopes, Heli-yum, and Lemon Fizz were added to my list... and after Scrangie's post, I decided I needed them all! I wish they were out now!

Wait time after mani before using fingers: If it's a polish I've applied before, about 10 minutes, but with brands I'm unfamiliar with I'll wait 30 minutes.

Fave NP blog: Scrangie! I love her no muss, no fuss, straight to the point style.

Most worn color: Tough one, but for 6 weeks I wore mostly Sally Hansen Night Hydrangea. It's a wonderfully true purple with a hint of sparkle. 2 weeks ago I picked up Sinful Frenzy and added that to the top, which I've now been wearing for 2 weeks!!