StrangeBeautiful Volume 4 part 1

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...

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!

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

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

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

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

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: