Thursday, January 31, 2013

Zoya 3 Free Special: Morgan, Sophie, Ginger

Whenever I buy nail polishes, a lot of the time I pick them based on the name.  Sure I have a bunch of duochromes just because I love the color shift, and I have a ton of blues because I love oceanesque colors.  But in the end if I like the name of the color, I have to have it.  For example, I have a giant lemming for China Glaze's It's a Trap-eze, because of the internet meme based in Star Wars.  Every time I see swatches, all I can think of is Admiral Ackbar crying "it's a trap!"

The same rules apply to names.  Any and every company that has a trio of nail polishes called Morgan, Sophie, and Ginger, I have to have them.  So when I heard about Zoya's 3 Free special and I found the colors, I had to get them.

Ginger was probably my favorite out of all three.  It's a great bright orange with gold shimmer. In the picture I'm wearing two coats, only to cover a few bald spots.



Morgan is a Barbie pink creme that I wanted to love so much, but it fell a little short. It was really thin and needed three coats to cover a visible nail line. It was bright and really pretty, but it started chipping right away.


Sophie was the one that surprised me the most.  It wasn't particularly impressive in the bottle, and this picture does not do it justice, but it got onto my nail and I adored it.  It's a brick red creme, and surprisingly I do not have a color like it in my stash.  I have multiple bright reds, but nothing like this.  I painted on smoothy and like Ginger, only needed two coats.  I topped it with Sally Hansen's Insta-Dri Anti Chip top coat for the glossy shine.


Saturday, January 26, 2013

Julep Cindy Swatch

When I first started getting in nail polish, I spent a whole bunch of time reading blogs, and on Pinterest.  I kept hearing about Julep, and their Maven program.  Come on, $20 a month for at two to three nail polishes that are trendy and chosen to best fit your style?  It's a steal!  Especially considering that they're fabulous colors and good quality.

At some point I got Cindy, I don't remember if it came in a box or as an add on.  I just remember picking it because I didn't have any green polishes and it was sparkly.  For the longest time it just stayed in my nail polish case and for whatever reason I never picked it up.  Well I finally used it and it is fantastic.
Cindy is a grassy green jelly with tiny green and gold glitter, though it is a little hard to notice the gold in the picture.  I had to do three coats to get this coverage because at two I still had a little bit of a visible nail line.
I got a ton of compliments on this color.  My favorite was "I like your nails because they're my favorite color.  Green, like money."

Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Laquerlicious Mini Haul and Swatches


I love Instagram, just saying that off the bat right now.  If I ever get a few minutes, first thing I have to do is check my Instagram feed and see if anyone has posted anything new.  It's kind of an addiction really.
So I was trying to find a good nail polish for Valentine's Day that is glitzy enough to work for Las Vegas, since the boytoy is taking me to Vegas.  :-)  Darcy from Sparrow Nails helped me out on Instagram and suggested Laquerlicious on etsy.  And since I lack self control, I couldn't buy just one.
 
Ocean Treasure and Cherished Cherub are gorgeous sparkly babies that made me really happy.   Both colors are jellies, full of glitter shards and shaped confetti.  Cherished Cherub I'm holding off on using until next month, but I didn't have a problem swiping Ocean Treasure on my nails.
Ocean Treasure is a blue jelly with blue and green shards and little silver stars.  It layers beautifully, leaving the glitter to look like it's at the bottom of the sea.  My only problem was that it was so hard to get the stars.  On my entire left hand I got one.  I tried digging in the bottle, and I just could not find any.
I really do love the color, I just hope that next time I use it, the confetti isn't so sparse.  If you're interested in the polish check out Laquerlicious Unity.

Monday, January 21, 2013

Ocean Zebra Nail Art



Isn't this exciting?  I finally got myself a Konad Stamp kit and of course I pull out the animal print.  I used stamp plate M57 for this and Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure in Onyx for the zebra stripes.  They are on top of Nicole by OPI in Mer-Made for Each Other.

Mer-Made for Each Other is a duochrome that shifts from green to gold to aqua.  If I didn't have an obsession with blue duochrome, I probably would not have picked this one up.  I already have similar colors in brands I like better.  What really got me to buy it, was that this color looked like liquid peacock feathers in the bottle.  As soon as it got on my nails though, it was true to its name, and I do love me some mermaid polishes.  It did paint on a tad streaky, so I ended up needing three coats.

Now that I think about it, I probably should have taken a picture of Mer-Made before the stamping.  I'll remember for next time.

Friday, January 18, 2013

Mani with Essie Fair Play and Set in Stone





I was at the boytoy's house last week and he decided that he wanted to help pick out my nail polish.  So he dug through my bag of nail polishes that I happened to have with me (because I usually have my base and top coats, and a couple colors with me for some odd reason) and he chose Fair Play and Set in Stone to accent. 

Essie's Fair Play I got at ULTA on clearance, which is awesome because I never see Essie on sale.  It is a slate color that started out almost blue when I first put it on, but two days later looked entirely gray.  It went on pretty smoothly, I did two coats on my nails and three on my thumbs.  I guess because they're bigger nails there's more room to have balding?  The color was really pretty on it's own and demure, but I can't leave well enough alone.

Set in Stone is a awesome combination of glitter and chunky, reflective hexagons that I kept getting distracted by.  It sucked to get off, like all glitter, but it is one of my favorites right now.  I'm trying to keep myself from putting it on top of EVERYTHING. 

At the end of the day, I still love Essie.  I think I'm going to do this again after the damage from my acrylics grows out so my nails look smooth and pretty. :-)


Sunday, January 13, 2013

JULEP MADISON AND ESSIE BUTLER PLEASE SWATCHES




It has been brought to my attention that painting two accent nails is the new trend.  To me, that just means that I don’t have to pick just one polish whenever I paint my nails.  :-)
When I got home from work last night, I thought Julep’s Madison would be a good accent to Butler Please.  So at 8 pm I started painting my nails and at 11 pm I jumped into the shower before bed.  Imagine my surprise when I noticed that all of the nails with Madison were smudged.  The Essie polish was perfectly smooth as always, but for some reason Julep failed me!
In the bottle, Madison is a bright pink neon and on the nail it looses some of the rosy hue.  In the picture it looks almost orange, but then that might just be the fault of my iPhone.  I am actually really sad that it took so long to dry because I love Julep.  Some of my favorite polishes have come from Julep Maven boxes and they always seem to last the longest with the least amount of chipping.
Butler Please is probably one of my favorite blues, and I do adore blue polishes.  It is a cobalt blue creme.  It dried with almost a matte finish, but with a top coat it was super glossy and awesome.  I wish I had gotten it sooner and had stamped it with silver snowflakes for a holiday manicure.
In the end, I still love Essie and I’ll give Madison another chance another day.  Hopefully, it’ll dry better next time.