Shine and Polishment

Merry Christmas

2011-12-25T19:05:00.001-05:00

Merry Christmas from Shine and Polishment!

Giveaway Time!

2011-10-30T17:34:00.001-04:00

Check out this great blog-i-versary giveway from Ash-Lilly!!

Swatch the Fourteenth

2011-10-30T17:25:00.001-04:00

Greetings from Panera Bread! (I wonder if I could get sponsorship...?) Halloween is one of my favorite holidays so I have another spooky look for you ghouls this week. This one is sure to be blood curdling:

This is two coats of Sinful Colors "Snow as White" with Sinful Colors "Gogo Girl" for the dripping blood effect. I got the effect by laying a very thick French tip line down then holding my hands vertical to let them drip and using a dotting tool to help form the lines and a few extra drops.

I think the look turned out nightmarish, what do you all think?

Manicure the Eighth

2011-10-23T18:12:00.001-04:00

Holy Cow! I can't believe it's been almost a month since I've last posted. My how time has flown. The hubs and I are all moved out of our condo and our new tenant is all moved in. Our settlement date for the new home is late November so we're bunking with my in laws till the house is ready. There is no wireless at the in laws so my laptop is as good as a paper weight right now. Right now I'm posting for the local Panera Bread. So here is a quick spooky manicure for all you Halloween fans:

This is two coats of Color Clubs in Koo Koo Cahoo with LaRosa Black Crackle over top on three fingers and little spider webs complete with adorable spiders on the other two fingers.

Manicured Monkey Give Away!

2011-09-30T11:56:00.001-04:00

Check out this great giveaway:
http://manicuredmonkey.blogspot.com/2011/09/giveaway-ends-1016-opened.html

Swatch the Thirteenth

2011-09-26T22:41:00.001-04:00

Rainy days make for horrible photographs. And painting your house makes for awful manicures. Both of which are my reasons for the lack of posts lately. And since I'm fairly new to this blogging world I have very little manicure pictures kept in the vault for just such rainy days. I have however managed to dig up these gorgeous shots:

These lovely shots are brought to you by Zoya in one of my absolute new favorite colors, Jem. Jem is from the newest Zoya collection, Smoke and Mirrors. From Zoya's website "A dark red-toned purple base with metallic dark pink highlights and subtle gold duochrome flecks. This shade has it all; bold color, vampy drama, bright sparkle and a glam rock persona." I couldn't had described this color better myself. Application was flawless, opaque in two easy coats and dry time was pretty speedy. This bottle is going straight to the top of my favorites pile. And I can't urge you enough to go out and grab a bottle for yourself before it's gone.

Giveaway Time!

2011-09-19T13:24:00.001-04:00

Check out this great blog anniversary giveaway!!

http://www.polishology.net/2011/08/polishologys-1st-blog-o-versary.html

Swatch the Twelveth

2011-09-15T21:58:00.001-04:00

Earlier this month my company had their big yearly meeting. This meeting is always themed and participants are highly encouraged to dress to match the theme. This year's theme: The 80's. Check out my totally rad outfit.

And of course this totally awesome outfit needs a great mani to go with it:

And to me nothing says the 80's like pink frost nail polish with rounded tips.

This is two coats of Pure Ice in Love with a hot pink stripe done in Pure Ice Flirt Alert and the black stripe done with a nail stripper. It looked great with all my jelly bracelets. So what do you all think? I ended up liking the rounded tips much more than my normally squared off tips so I think I'll be sticking with them for awhile. And I'll be adding some length to them as well. I think it makes my fingers and hands look slimmer and that's always a good thing.

Manicure the Seventh

2011-09-13T07:11:00.001-04:00

Whew! What a crazy couple of weeks! First the earthquake then a hurricane and tornado and then just for some extra fun a tropical depression and flooding. And in the midst of it all hubs and I signed a contract for a new house and began renovations on our condo to ready it for rent. I spent all last week painting and painting and painting and for a change of pace...you guessed it...more painting. Hubs completely reno'd the bathroom and now I have a beautiful new bathroom that I'll probably get to enjoy for maybe a month before we move out to let the tenants move in. Oh well. Here's crazy manicure to go with my crazy week:

This awesome mani was a brand new experience for Tung. Fantastic results for her first time, huh? You would have never guessed the she hadn't done leopard spots before. For the French tips the base is China Glaze in Heaven with China Glaze Ginger Bells for the tips. The full colored nails are done in just the CG Ginger Bells, which went on beautifully in two coats and in the perfect shade of ginger bread and happened to work wonderfully with the look I was going for. The leopard spots are done free hand with acrylic paint in black and gold. You will notice that I also went with a rounded tip instead of my usual rounded square tips. I'll keep that reasoning secret for now and explain in tomorrow's swatch post. For now, enjoy!

Giveaway

2011-09-02T10:41:00.002-04:00

Check out this great giveaway from The TraceFace Philes:
http://the-trace-face-philes.blogspot.com/2011/08/trace-face-philes-because-i-can.html

Manicure the Sixth

2011-08-30T07:11:00.001-04:00

This week's manicure is super simple but results in an amazing dramatic effect. Check it out:

This is two coats of a basic white polish with one coat of La Rosa's black crackle on top and a top coat to smooth it out a bit. The effect almost looks like Dalmatian spots and I even had a few non polish savvy folks that complimented me on them who thought that each little crackle was individually painted on. So what do you all think of the black and white crackle look?

Wednesday Giveaway

2011-08-24T16:53:00.000-04:00

Check out this great giveaway from I'm Feeling Nail-Venturous (my very on recent give away winner).

http://imfeelingnail-venturous.blogspot.com/2011/08/my-350-follower-giveaway.html

Swatch the Eleventh

2011-08-23T22:22:00.001-04:00

Well, wasn't today an exciting day? At least it was for us East Coasters. I'm sure all those Cali folks are getting a good chuckle out of us all making a big deal out of a little ole baby earthquake. Even without the earthquake today was an exciting day. Today, the hubby and signed a contract for a new town home! This will be his second home purchase but my first so I was super gittery, excited and nervous. Of course a special occasion calls for a special polish. I went with OPI's Designer Series in Mystery. This gorgeous vampy color can be deceiving in color. Indoors it can look black or even chocolate when in reality it is a deep dark velvety purple with a gorgeous copper glass fleck. And it demanded a ton of compliments. The polish went on smooth and was opaque in two easy coats and dry time was pretty quick. This polish will definitely be going in my favorites.

Manicure the Fifth

2011-08-21T23:07:00.000-04:00

My apologies to all my followers for the lack of posts recently. I have been under the weather and am just now getting things back on track. This gorgeous manicure was designed with a particular outfit of mine in mind. I chose one of my favorite China Glaze colors, Bohemian Chic, a classic burgundy that I always gravitate towards when I have a desire for a classy and simple look. Tung worked her artistic magic to hand paint some pretty flowers in colors to match my skirt. Check out the fantastic results:

Can you tell I've been practicing my photography? I also purchased some fancy new photo editing software for my iPad. I'm just loving the results. And while my condo's balcony banister needs repair work it does make for a lovely contrasting background. Despite the tremendous amount of rain, thunderstorms and cloudy skies recently, I did manage to get some swatching and photographing done this weekend so posts will resume as normal this week. TTFN!

Giveaway winner!

2011-08-09T22:08:00.001-04:00

And the the winner is: imfeelingnailventurous Congrats! I will be sending you an email asking for your address so be on the lookout for that.

My First Giveaway

2011-08-01T07:42:00.000-04:00

Today is the last day to enter my very first giveaway. Please check it out:

My First Giveaway!

Swatch the Tenth

2011-07-27T11:25:00.000-04:00

I'm sure this is starting to sound really old, but don't forget to check out my giveaway, it ends August 1st!

This week's swatch is a bit of a fail to me. I used two think coats of Orly's Royal Navy, a vibrant shade of blue (and one of my favorites), paired with China Glaze's Black Mesh Crackle. I thought the Royal Navy would shine through a lot more than it did which is really the only reason I consider it a fail. I think I'll stick with neons under the black crackle, they work better.

Orly Royal Navy

With Black Crackle

What do you think?

Check out this Giveaway:

2011-07-27T11:00:00.000-04:00

from Haute Lacquer:
http://hautelacquer.blogspot.com/2011/07/follower-appreciation-giveaway.html

Swatch the Ninth

2011-07-24T19:41:00.000-04:00

And yet another reminder to check out my giveaway.

This week is all about nudity! Kidding of course, but I did go with a beautiful nude color from CQ called Silver Taupe. Why the Silver in the name? Because this nude color was accented with gorgeous silver glass fleck and just the tiniest bit of halo micro glitter. This simple color scored me lots of compliments and it will be making my top polishes list for sure. The polish went on smoothly and was fairly opaque in two coats. There was still a bit of visible nail line after the two coats but with a nude I expect that.

Manicure the Forth

2011-07-20T22:10:00.000-04:00

Before I begin, I just wanted to give you all a quick reminder to enter my giveaway, just a few more days before the winner is chosen! This week's manicure is once again brought to you by LaRosa. This time Tung went with LaRosa's purple crackle (called Purple Rain). It's a metallic purple that cracked wonderfully with one thin coat. I was undecided on which color to go with for the undercoat so, we went with both of the two finalists: China Glaze's Caribbean Temptation and China Glaze's Turned Up Turquoise. Check out the results:

Despite Pink and Purple being such a classic color combo, I ended up liking the Turquoise much better. I think it showed off the purple crackle much better.

Give Away

2011-07-10T19:11:00.001-04:00

Check out this awesome giveaway at Nailasaurus!

http://nailasaurus.blogspot.com/2011/05/800-follower-giveaway.html

Swatch the Eighth

2011-07-10T11:17:00.001-04:00

This is an old mani from a couple of weekends ago. The hubby and I went with friends to see Creedence Clearwater Revisted and I thought the event required a mani full of bling.

This is two coats of China Glaze's First Mate with two coats of China Glaze's Treasure Chest and a top coat of Seche Vite. The First Mate is a deep navy blue creme that went on with ease and was opaque in two coats. Treasure Chest is a gold hex glitter that added the perfect amount of bling and became smooth with just one topcoat of SV.

I got a lot of compliments on this mani and will probably repeat it again.

Manicure the Third

2011-07-04T13:42:00.002-04:00

Got my manicure a little earlier than usual this week since Monday was July 4th.

Tung has picked up some great new polishes in the last couple of weeks, including LaRosa's line of crackle polishes. So, despite it being the July 4th weekend I decided to go with a teal color with a white shatter on top. Check it out:

This is two coats of Verity in Beach Blue with one coat of the LaRosa White Crackle on top. We had no problems with the LaRosa and the Verity was a decent polish as well. The Verity in Beach Blue is a gorgeous shade of teal jelly that was fairly opaque in two coats. I would suggest three if you use it without some sort of top coat effect (like the crackle or a glitter) but otherwise application was a breeze and it dried fairly quick.

Don't forget to check out my giveaway!

Swatch the Seventh

2011-06-30T21:50:00.001-04:00

Here's the promised review of the Nic's Sticks:

I picked up two colors from Tuesday Morning: Red Eye to NY (a red creme) and Baby Go Bye-Bye (a light blue creme). The colors are very nice but the application was horrible and I would not recommend it. The brush is thick and uneven and as a result more polish is needed which resulted in a lack of control that caused cuticle flooding. And watch out for splatter.

Don't forget to enter the giveaway, it's open to Canadians now.

My First Giveaway-Now Open to Canadians!

2011-06-27T09:52:00.002-04:00

Now that the Canadian Postal Strike appears to be ending I am opening up My First Giveaway to Canadian followers. Make sure to you sign up today!

Thanks!