Born Pretty Store Matte Top Coat Review

I adore getting mail.  Anything that is in the mail box with my name on it makes me very happy.  It doesn't really matter what it is, an envelope, a post card, a box.  I love it.  And before you say, "Well Lisa, what about bills?  Do you love getting those?"  I don't get physical bills, that's why I signed up for e-statements! :-P  But that's a whole different topic for a whole different blog.

For a while now I've been seeing a lot of blogs talk about the Born Pretty Store.  It's a great place to get all sorts of neat nail art supplies, jewelry, and accessories for cheap.  It's like eBay, but a lot more controlled and only from one vendor, which is nice.  I finally made an order from them a while ago and bought all sorts of cool stuff, like awesome studs that I used for my Las Vegas Mani, and some neon green glow in the dark polish that I'm going to use for a nerdy mani one of these days.  

I loved everything I had ordered, except for this guy.  Their Super Matte Change Surface Glossy Oil Nail Polish.  It was terrible!  Once it dried, it left my polish all bumpy and streaky.  It also shrunk away from my cuticles, leaving jagged looking edges.  I was not a happy camper.

For all I know, I did it wrong and it works just fine. But then if it's that complicated, it's not worth my time.

Julep Spring Mystery Box and Spring Bunny Mani

Sorry I've been away for so long guys!  I moved, got a new job, and have been stuck in training for the past three weeks.  Things are finally starting to slow down again, so I'm back!

So after having a Julep subscription for five months, I finally went out and ordered one of the their Mystery Boxes.  I talked myself out of the Christmas and New Years ones, which I regret because they had nifty bags and it looked like the stuff people got was worth it.  The Valentine's Day box, from my understanding, kind of sucked.  I guess people got a lot of repeat and similar colors.  So I finally bit the bullet and got the Spring Mystery box.  All in all, I was pretty happy.  I got three nail polishes, Lauren, Camille, and Ashley, face and hand sunscreen, a nail file, nail polish remover pads, and hair ties.  Totally worth the $25 I spent on it.  

I wanted to do a spring mani using the polishes I got and I kept seeing bunnies on Instagram, so I felt like trying something new.  I painted my nails with two coats of Julep's Ashley, a pale orange with gold shimmer and used China Glaze's White on White for some polka dots.   Then I did a coat of Camille on my thumb and pinkie.  I kind of love Camille.  It's a clear chunky glitter  that almost looks holo and totally reminds me of the fake snow in snow globes.  It makes me want to do nail art inspired by the collectable snow globes from Fallout New Vegas.

And finally, on my ring finger I painted a bunny using my dotting tools.  The white is the same one I used for the polka dots.  His little blue eyes are Sally Hansen's Calypso Blue, and his nose and ears are Zoya's Sweet.  I painted on his whiskers with a black striper.  

I was really proud of myself for actually being able to pull this one off.  People kept complimenting them and were surprised that I had done it myself.  :-)

Nails Inc Baker Street Swatch and Comparison

I have a friend adores BBC's Sherlock, like to the crazy fangirl status.  But then so do I, so who am I to judge? 

One day she was shopping and fell in love with this blue nail polish by Nails Inc.  When she noticed that it was called Baker Street, she had to have it.  She let me borrow it.  It was a pretty blue creme that I did two coats.  You can see that there is some balding on my pinkie, so that dissapointed me a little bit.  I also did two accent nails with Pixie's Gold Glimmer from the holiday pack.  Yeah, it really doesn't look gold, but actually silver. 

 

 

The more I looked at Baker Street, the more familiar it looked.  Finally, it hit me that it looked an aweful lot like Essie's Butler Please, which I used in my very first blog post!  

 

 

The only difference that I found was that Baker Street was patchy at two coats and Butler Please was not.  Also, Baker Street started chipping pretty quickly, so that was dissapointing.  But that just might have been me because polish never lasts very long with me.  

Pinata Snow Mani

Today is only a quick mani guys.  I pulled out the polishes with the intention of just something simple for an interview and I swiped on three coats of Sally Hansen's Complete Salon Manicure in Ivory Skull.  Like I mentioned before in the Colorful Leopard Mani, this white isn't my favorite because it takes so many coats to give full coverage, but I haven't gotten around to replace it because I've been lazy.

I was going to stick with just plain white, but then I wasn't paying attention and my bottle of Ulta's Pinata-Yada jumped into my hand and demanded I use it.  This is probably my favorite glitter polish ever, probably because it has a ton of different colors in it.  It has red, fuchsia, blue, green, silver and gold glitters in various sizes.  

What Wizardry is This? OPI and Liquid Sand

So for those of you who don't know, one of the nifty new things in nail polish right now are textured, matte polishes.  OPI was the first to come out with them in the form of four new polishes that were part of their Mariah Carey line.  They were chock full of glitter, which we know I love, but there were also little stars.  Considering how annoyed I've been getting lately with polishes that had confetti, I thought it best to stay away from the Liquid Sands.

Then Zoya came out with their Pixie Dust lines and I thought that they were awesome, unfortunately none of the colors really sung out to me enough that I needed to spend the extra money on shipping, so I controlled myself.   A couple smaller lines came out with textured polishes, like Milani, but they're not sparkly so I'm not interested.  Without the glitter they just kind of look like you messed up your polish while it was still wet and was too lazy to fix it.

Finally, OPI came out with the press releases for their line inspired by Oz the Great and Powerful and I saw this baby.  I NEEDED it.  Usually when I buy polishes, it's either when they're on sale or online and cheaper.  I really hate spending a full $9.50 on a bottle, but as soon as I saw the display at my Ulta on Saturday, I plucked it off the table and clutched it in my little hands.  I was so excited to find it, that I wasn't even upset that Ulta's usual $3.50 off of $10 coupon doesn't work on OPI any more.  Did you guys know that?  I had to pay full price for this sucker, and looking at it now on my nails, I regret nothing!

What Wizardry is This? is a chocolate colored polish with gold glitter and that totally awesome texture feel to it.  It went on in two coats perfectly and dried pretty quickly.  To keep the texture, you of course don't want to add a top coat.  It'll make the polish smooth and shiny, taking away the totally awesome bumpiness and matte look.  Also, sorry about how red my hands look.  I think it's the terrible lighting in the kitchen.

I'm a sucker for the feel of things, and while I do love a smooth and glossy nail, I adore the sandpapery texture of this nail polish.  I even showed it off at work by walking up to people and demanding they rub my nails.  Yeah, if my coworkers weren't used to me they'd think I'm a weirdo or something.

I've had this polish on for three days now, and for me that's a long time.  I don't even want to change my polish yet.  Usually by now the cheaper polishes have peeled off and most others are chipping away, or I get bored with the color and NEED to change it out.  This Liquid Sand color is still holding up strong with only the single chip on my middle finger.  Looking at it now, I might finally splurge on some of the Zoya Pixie Dusts.

Julep Maven March Box

It's that time of the month again!  Julep Maven boxes are being delivered and I got to play with my new colors last night.  The March colors were inspired by a childhood favorite, sidewalk chalk.  The colors are pretty pastels that are great for Spring. 

I chose It Girl this month, partially because I really like Simone and Shanae, but mostly because I didn't want the Rock Star hand cream at all.  I just can not stand floral scents, they just all smell gross to me.  The box ended up including Simone, Shanae, and Teri, along with a Strawberry Mint lipbalm. 

Simone is a lilac color with the barest hint of a blue shimmer.  It's visible in the bottle, but on the nail, the shimmer dissapears.  Shanae has the same shimmer, but in a pastel mint color. Teri is different from the others, only in the sense that it is not quite as pale.  It is creme, coral color.

When I first opened my Maven box, I knew that I had to do something involving all the colors.  Eventually, I decided on just doing diagonal stripes.  First I painted my nails all in Teri, then did a line of Simone, Shanae, and painted the very tips in Teri again.  To give it that complete chalk look, I added Julep's matte top coat and called it a night.  Teri painted on solid in one thick coat.  Simone and Shanae took two medium coats.  I love the way the colors ended up looking together.  Maybe next month I'll use all three again and braid them together. 

To finish this post off, I thought I'd throw in my most prized piece of sidewalk art.  When my mom found it in our backyard, she was annoyed.  But whatever, I regret nothing!!

Las Vegas Nail Polish Haul

So almost two months ago I declared I would not buy any nail polish for six weeks.  The end of the six weeks actually fell on my Vegas weekend, so ever better.  Once I was there and had already done a little nail polish shopping at Sephora and H&M, I walked into one of the two ABC Stores in Planet Hollywood Miracle Mile and was greeted by this display.

So of course I bought some for myself.  Along with some for my mom, my partner in crime, and totally awesome nail mail buddy Megan at You've Got Nail!  This is what I ended up getting through out the weekend, minus two more cuticle oils, one color change polish, and two more regular polishes that were all for Megan and all Island Girl.  I didn't need her seeing my haul picture then knowing what I had gotten her!

As soon as we got home, I HAD to try one of these, it was like an itch that wouldn't be sated until I tried something.  I ended up picking Island Lei, a pink metallic color with silver shimmer in it.  It painted on in one opaque coat and I love the color.  The only problem was that the color came off in huge sheet.  It's okay if you're like me and end up changing your polish ever other day, but for normal people, not so great. 

Just to finish this all off, I'm going to add a picture that has nothing to do with nail polish, but it's nerdy and in Vegas, so it's acceptable.  I went to the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf, all excited for a ice blended mocha, then they charged me $7.  Seven dollars for a coffee?!  I almost threw a fit until I saw their tip jar.

Fluttershy is my favorite pony, ever.