Life. Love. Nailpolish.

Nail Mail

2012-05-25T10:30:00.000-07:00

Because of the current state of my nails, I've had to stop painting my nails and put all kinds of treatments on them. My middle fingernails on both hands keep chipping and tearing so I keep filing them down, but they just repeat the cycle. Also my nails have gotten really soft and flexible all of a sudden, despite the fact that I take Biotin pills daily. Oh well, at least I have pretty nail mail to show you guys. I really wanted the OPI Shrek collection, and I found a seller with the entire collection for a decent price, so I bought it. Then, a bottle broke in transit, and I know how hard it is to find this collection so I almost didn't ask the seller to replace it. But I did, and she was so nice about it, and she has super fast shipping too, so I love it! Here are bottle pics!

That's it for now, I got some more nail mail that I haven't opened yet, so I'll post up pics of those later, just so there's something pretty to look at on my blog. Don't forget, my giveaway closes in a week, so go enter!

Happy Polishing,

UP Colors Verde 360

2012-05-16T09:48:00.002-07:00

Just a warning: my pictures of this color show it exactly how I see it under most lighting. Ok, today's color I purchased from Llarowe, and I thought it would be more holo. It was disappointing in that way. It did surprise me because it wore ridiculously well without topcoat, being a holo and all. I used two medium thick coats, because I didn't want any balding issues. I painted on the first coat, let it dry, then I did the second coat. Easy application, no cleanup. I didn't actually mean to wear it as a full manicure, but I did and was pleasantly surprised at how well it wore, although my base coat (Zoya Anchor) may have had something to do with that. What am I doing rambling? Onto the pictures!

This is about as holo as it gets on my ring and pinky fingers.

Yes, it's a pretty color, but don't rush out and get it if your want super-holo effect. I say, save your money and get a Layla Hologram Effect polish! I still have yet to wear/swatch the six that I own. Shame....

Happy Polishing and Hump Day,

No post today...

2012-05-15T15:06:00.000-07:00

Sorry guys, this Tuesday is exceptionally busy, but I should have a post up tomorrow morning! Hope you enjoyed reading a ton of other nail blogs!

Reminds Me of Apple Pie

2012-05-14T09:15:00.001-07:00

Good morning all! I'm still in bed, lamenting my choice to eat cheese on my chicken tacos last night. But that doesn't really concern you guys, so I'll move on to the NOTD. I really wanted to wear my one and only dark brown polish, OPI Suzi Loves Cowboys, so I started with that. Then I spotted my bottle of LA Girls Sparkling Peach from their Fruity scented collection, so I layered that on top. I wasn't really a fan, but I had a little cleanup to do on my fingers because OPI doesn't know how to make a normal-sized brush, so I did that. Then I effed up my middle finger because my brush wasn't wet enough, so I drew a criss-cross lattices design with a white striper. Voila! I got compliments on this mani, even though I wasn't really a fan of it, so I thought I'd show you guys.

At least the flecks are pretty. But I think I prefer dark brown cremes left alone on me.

Happy Polishing (and Monday),

Apologetic Rainbow

2012-05-12T14:40:00.000-07:00

So I really wasn't planning on posting today, but since I made a boo-boo this morning, I figured I'd oblige you guys with a post. Just be aware, these are really terrible pictures from last summer, taken under indoor light, and I have some chips. Ok, here we go:

I don't really remember what polishes I used, but I know the yellow is by Diamond Cosmetics, the peach is Barielle Blossom, the pink is by OPI, the red is Wet n Wild Red Red, the blue is from the LA Girl Color Addict Line (possibly Idol?), the green is Zoya Apple, and the holo glitter is Covergirl City Lights. I have no idea what brand or color purple I used. Hope you enjoyed!

Happy Polishing,

Giveaway Update: Please Read

2012-05-12T13:01:00.001-07:00

Hey ladies, I don't usually post on Saturdays, but I did something awful today. I went to publish comments by the last 6 ladies to enter my giveaway and I accidentally clicked delete. I went to see the last 6 people who left a comment using the Rafflecopter app, but if I accidentally deleted your comment, I would really love if you could leave your comment again. I'm so sorry again! I might do an apology giveaway after this one to make up for my fumble. :)

Love you ladies!

Zoya Kieko

2012-05-11T10:43:00.000-07:00

It's been a week filled with Zoyas, but I'm sure you guys don't mind. Today I bring you one of my favorites, Zoya Kieko. This polish is seriously sexy. I put it on and couldn't stop staring at my hands because it was so pretty! Kieko is a red-toned purple creme, and I'm in love with it. Pics are 3 thin coats, no topcoat.

I hope you enjoyed Kieko, because I most certainly did. And if you don't own it, get thee to the Zoya Website and order it now!

Happy Polishing,

Zoya Perrie

2012-05-10T05:16:00.000-07:00

Good morning, and yes, I'm writing this at 5 AM California time because I'm at work right now. I hate morning shifts...but at least I got enough sleep last night. Today I'm showing you Zoya Perrie, and sorry for the grainy pics, but at least I got the color down...I'm pretty proud of that. I would describe this color as a lavender of medium intensity, it's not too pastel. And it's super pretty. I used 3 thin coats and no topcoat in the pics - and it dries quickly like the other cremes I've tried from Zoya.

I promise it's not streaky in real life, I just didn't have enough polish on the brush when I painted my pinky.

I think the pics have said it all, so I bid you adieu!

Zoya Zara

2012-05-09T06:13:00.000-07:00

Hello ladies...imagine me saying that in Demitri Martin's voice. If you don't know who that is, google his Jokes with Guitar routine. I'm pretty sure you'll love it. Anywho, I bring another Zoya purple to you today, but today it's not a creme! Zoya Zara was on my wishlist for a while and I bought it during the Zoya Earth Day Exchange Promo this year! It is on the sheer side, but I noticed that's common for Zoya polishes with this finish. The formula is really thin, and a little runny to me, so be careful not to flood your cuticles. It took me three coats to get to opacity, but if you have longer nails, you may need 4 or more. No topcoat in the pics below.

No idea why my camera made it appear to have bald patched on my ring and pinky nails. I told you guys the polish was sheer!

Shimmah!!!!

I'm a sucker for anything with gold shimmer, so of course I love this polish, regardless of how thin it may be!

Happy Polishing,

Zoya Mira

2012-05-08T08:00:00.000-07:00

Purple, purple, why did I not own more of you before? I realized that purples look freakin boss on me this weekend! Zoya Mira is an awesome medium purple that definitely comes from the bluer side, but it's awesome! I think blue-based colors, especially red lipstick, look better on me anyway! Ok, enough of me rambling, I'll just post some pics for you guys to see. And my camera did a totally awesome job at picking up the color pretty accurately...I gotta test out some neons with it soon! The pics are 3 thin coats of Zoya Mira. Those of you who prefer thicker coats will only need two! And I did absolutely no cleanup here!

One more crazy comment, but I noticed that Zoya cremes tend to dry slightly darker than their bottle color. Not that it bothers me, I just thought you guys might like to know. And I'm totally getting used to my nails being short! They're even kinda cute to me now!

Happy Polishing,

Lost In Space

2012-05-07T09:48:00.000-07:00

Happy Monday...Or not. This weekend's mani was an awesome franken I purchased from SparklesbyJulie called Lost In Space. I purchased it using a coupon code that I have no idea if it's even valid, so I won't get your hopes up. Sorry! Lost in Space regularly retails for $10 and I got mine for $8, so it was a good deal to me. I'm rambling, aren't I? Sorry guys, I went through a whole bunch of drama and BS this weekend so I'm trying to stay away from that by incessantly talking about other stuff. My pics of this suck, and honestly, I think my indoor photos did a better job of showing off the polish than my sun pics.

It's a black jelly base with a bunch of teal holo glitter thrown in plus some larger silver hexes. This is two coats, no base color. The only reason I would advise you to layer this over black is because it does have that jelly quality where the tips get kinda see through, and it's really hard to wrap your tips with a glitter polish in the first place. Otherwise, this is totally opaque in 2 coats, and you don't actually need underwear.

Blurred holo goodness at Starbucks!

So I've run out of words for today, so I'll see you tomorrow with some Zoya goodness!

Happy Polishing,

Ongoing Giveaways

2012-05-04T13:06:00.001-07:00

Just wanted to remind you guys to check out my Giveaways page! I update it frequently, and I hope you guys enter for your chance to win awesome prizes! I just added a giveaway from The Posh Polish for some amazing frankens.

This is one of the amazing frankens you could win!

OPI You Callin' Me A Lyre?

2012-05-04T12:30:00.001-07:00

Ugh...OPI is so obnoxious with it's use of punctuation in it's polish names. That's beside the point, though. Today's polish is a gorgeous, delicate pink from the recently released Ballet collection. From swatches I saw online, I thought it was a lot paler but it is pleasantly pink in person in all lighting. This is my first set of photos with short nails :(. But, I am getting used to them. I think they're kinda cute now. What do you guys think? Anywho, onto the pictures. They are all 3 coats of You Callin' Me A Lyre?.

The accent nail is 3 coats of the OPI, 1 coat of Pretty & Polished Valentino, 1 coat China Glaze Luxe and Lush, and 1 coat of NYC Starry Silver Glitter. I love how delicate the glitter looks. Click the pics to see better detail.

I feel like these pics are kinda grainy today, so sorry for that but I was in a rush to take pics. I am using flickr for pictures now, so hopefully the quality is significantly better since Blogger won't be able to distort them to it's liking.

Happy Polishing,

P.S. Don't forget to enter my giveaway here!

Nail Art?

2012-05-03T05:45:00.002-07:00

So technically, this isn't really nail art, but I'm calling it that for now. I started off with 2 coats of Color Club Nomadic In Nude, then layered 1 coat of Deborah Lippmann Glitter in the Air. My rhinestones were just laying there, so I put a column of the blue ones on my thumb and ring nails, since they matched the blue glitter. I only managed to get one good picture of this manicure when I wore it back in late January/early February, so sorry for the lack of pics...and the outgrowth. This pic was taken after at least 4 days of wear.

Happy Polishing,

My First Giveaway!!!

2012-05-02T21:01:00.000-07:00

Hello there to the faithful! This giveaway has been overdue for many months now, so I'm combining two milestones into one giveaway! First off, I passed 100 followers! Yay! Secondly, I made a facebook page for the blog! So I'll be giving away the Zoya La-Di-Da collection which is ~~on it's way to me~~ here, as well as a bottle of Cover Band Sticks 'n Stones, which is also ~~on it's way to me~~ here. Enter via the Rafflecopter widget below! Good luck to you all, and this is open until 9 PM PST on June 1, 2012!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Giveaways

2012-05-02T13:48:00.002-07:00

Hey guys, just wanted to let you know that I will be updating my giveaway page regularly, so be sure to click on the link at the top of my blog to see what giveaways are currently happening. Good luck if you enter!

Zoya Yara

2012-05-02T08:00:00.000-07:00

So these are some super old, super craptastic pictures from last year that I never posted. I really need to reswatch Yara, but the pics are pretty color accurate, so these will have to do....for now. It really is a lovely color, and my pics do it no justice.

Happy Polishing,

Bloglovin...ignore this post

2012-05-01T08:47:00.001-07:00

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Red All Over!

2012-05-01T07:51:00.001-07:00

Today's mani was so much fun to wear that I wore it for almost a full week! I have been obsessed with red as of lately (I'm currently wearing Zoya Sooki on my toes) so this was an awesome mani for me! This post is pretty picture heavy, so it may take a while to load!

I started off with a base of Nfu Oh 551, which is a blood red creme, then added a layer of Nfu Oh 59 over that. Of course, I couldn't stop there so I layered Ozotic Pro 518 over that. Click after the jump to see pics!

I haven't the slightest idea why my nails look lumpy here, but they didn't look like that in person.

Of course, I had to add some shade pics, because in the shade was where you could spot the flakies since the holo wasn't really prominent.

And of course, the gratuitous thumb shot...

You can see the flakies here!!!

So this is probably my last post with long nails, since I couldn't type as quickly with my nails at this length. I'm slowly adjusting to having short nails, but it still looks strange to me. Hope you enjoyed this post!

Happy Polishing,

Nfu Oh 51 + Zoya Neeka

2012-04-26T20:00:00.000-07:00

Soooooooooooooooooooooo.....if you are still out there reading, this is an awesome polish combination. I took a trillion pictures, so I'm gonna put a break in here so people with slower computers can load this page eventually. Click below the jump to see one coat of Nfu Oh 51 over 2 coats of Zoya Neeka.

And, for your viewing pleasure, a closeup.

Happy Polishing,

Sad Day

2012-04-23T17:54:00.003-07:00

Hey Guys,

I took a motherload of pictures of my current mani and realized that I had a huge backlog of pics from the summer that I never edited and uploaded. Only one problem, I cannot find my card reader to transfer my pictures! I think I lost it when I was baking in the dorm kitchen...sigh. My new card reader should be here tomorrow so I'll try to get a new post up by Wednesday. I'll just leave you with this picture of some delicious cupcakes I baked a few weeks ago.

Chocolate & Strawberry Cupcakes!

World's Slowest Blogger. Ever.

2012-04-18T15:51:00.000-07:00

Yeah, I'm slow....I had this mani a couple weeks ago...and never posted it...school is such a bugger. Anyways, enjoy the pics of 2 coats of Zoya Shay with one coat of Pretty n Polished Valentino...because I'm a sucker for nude colors as well as black and white glitter. Sorry I didn't have the bottles on me when I took the pics!

If you still read my blog, you are clearly way cooler than me and you should be reading some awesome blog with awesome swatches... but thank you for reading anyways!

Love Always,

Charcoal Goodness!

2012-04-01T18:55:00.000-07:00

So I was in a super hurry to get supplies for cupcakes today and I had been dreaming of this mani, so I decided to do it today! It was super easy because I only needed one coat of each, and 2 coats of topcoat. Scroll down and see the magical goodness that is Concrete Catwalk topped with Some Like It Haute!

This was the only clear shot I could get with my camera. It was that sparkly!!! But please, enjoy the blurred holo goodness in the next photos!

And yes, I did file down my nails. It took forever! I keep telling myself to file them down before they get that long, but I get lazy sometimes. And I like how my nails look long, but they really aren't functional...especially for typing on my phone's keyboard. Hope you had a great Sunday!

May your nails never break,

Pretty & Polished Comparison

2012-03-29T14:54:00.000-07:00

I'm back with nail photos! Finally! So yesterday Ashley asked me to do a comparison of Pretty & Polished's Jawbreaker and Party on My Yacht. I'm still using my old camera, so this is the best I can do!

At first glance in the bottles, you can see that Jawbreaker's base color isn't as white as Party on my Yacht.

Jawbreaker is on my thumb, middle, and pinky fingers while Party on my Yacht is on my index and ring fingers. Both are shown with 2 coats, after which, you will still have VNL. I don't mind it, though! You can see the slight difference in base colors here, but I promise, it's more apparent in real life.

Sorry, this pic sucks soooo bad! But anyway, the glitter is clearly different in the two. Party on my Yacht has mainly small round glitter with a few strands of bar glitter. Jawbreaker has varied sizes of hex glitter and some microglitter as well as a few strands of the same green bar glitter. Do you need both? Ummmm....I did. Jawbreaker is slightly harder to apply because of the larger glitter, but both apply pretty will without glitter clumping. You can purchase these polishes here when her Etsy shop reopens.

Wow....it was a rough first post, but I'm glad to have something to post!

Urban Decay on Hautelook!

2012-02-06T11:24:00.000-08:00

Just wanted to give you guys a heads up! Urban Decay is on Hautelook today! They have Book of Shadows IV for $29 and the Stash 24/7 Glide On Eyeshadow Pencil Set for $12! They also have the old packaging for the primer potion and the Sparkling Body Powders in Cocoa, Honey, and Marshmallow. It appears that Urban Decay is getting rid of the Body Powders because they are on sale on their site as well. Get them now for $9! OK, I'll stop promoting Urban Decay now, but click here to be directed to the sale on Hautelook.

Happy Monday everyone!