Saturday, December 31, 2011

The TraceFace Philes: The Trace Face Philes 2600 Follower Giveaway!

The TraceFace Philes: The Trace Face Philes 2600 Follower Giveaway!: 2600?!?! As Borat would say... "Wa Wa Wee Wah! Is niiice! High-five!!" There will be TWO winners this time! ONE WINNER WILL RECEIVE: THE...

Friday, December 30, 2011

OPI Save Me, Nicki Minaj Collection

Hi Guys! I really need to get back to work here, I have been neglecting you! Busy is an understatement for my life right now, but I am not going away! This is my little outlet:-) Anyways, I hope you all had wonderful holidays! Mine was fantastic! My sister had a special present on Christmas Eve, a beautiful baby girl! Welcome Lola!!!
Today I bring you a gem my other sister picked out for me, OPI's Save Me, from the new Nicki Minaj Collection. At first this looked a little sheer so I decided to put it over a color, I used Revlon Violet, but this almost covered it completely except for around the edges, and it looked terrible. So here it is over Sally Hansen Celeb City, a silver foil that works perfectly as a base for this.


Save Me has a clear jelly formula jam packed with silver micro glitter that is so dense it almost looks foil with a few coats. The kicker in this is the holographic bar glitter that shines like little rainbows bouncing off mirrors on my fingers. This is made for New Years Eve:-) This was a little thicker than most, but not as gooey as Kissy was (I still think that was a fluke). I put on a thin coat in the regular direction , then a second coat sideways across my nails. This gave the bar glitter a more random look. It does have texture so I used 2 coats of Seche Vite. I love this, its sooo much fun!
All of these pictures were taken inside, so if I manage to get good light tomorrow, I'll snap a few more pictures and update this post.
In case you want to see what Celeb City looks like on its own here it is with 2 coats, no topcoat.


Saturday, December 24, 2011

Christmas flowers with Konad m20

Happy Christmas Eve to all of you who celebrate:-)  I am so excited, this is the first year my husband  has had off Christmas Eve since we have been together! Because it's on Saturday (plus we both have Monday off), we get to spend the next three days together with our families!!! Yay, that's my favorite part of the holiday's:-) Now if we could only get some snow...
Anyways I'm much happier with today's post than my last one! I really like the way this one turned out. I used Sinful Colors white as a base with Maybelline #1 (again, i cannot find a name) over the top to make it pearly. Then at a diagonal I used Sally Hansen Disco Ball which is a clear milky base with small iridescent glitter, on the top portion of my nail. Where the diagonal line was I stamped a strip of flowers from Konad plate m20, using my beloved Chanel Dragon. I seriously am in love with that polish, so beware it's not going away, hahaha!

Now I am not saying that this is perfect, the flowers on my ring finger are more up and down than angled, but that's being a little picky. I just really like it. I think the white is refreshing after so many dark colors and heavy glitters of late.

Friday, December 23, 2011

Chanel Dragon- fishnet style (Konad m57)

Hi guys:-) I was kind of torn on whether or not I should post this, but it gave me such trouble, that I would have felt like I wasted way too much time if I didn't!
I will start by saying the formula on Chanel dragon is possibly the most perfect one I have ever had the pleasure of using! I used a Sally Hansen base coat, then one coat of Dragon. It covered completely, did not streak, was super shiny, and didn't take forever to dry! I loooove this polish!!! I know Chanel is expensive, but for a beautiful red that will never go out of style, this is worth every penny!
Ok, after I had such a pleasant experience applying Dragon, I ruined everything:-(  Well not exactly... but here, I'll explain. I initially had planned on using the lace strip for my tips. I chose an old Sally Hansen Crystal Chrome color that I have in the stash, Petal Crystal. It didn't translate pink except in certain lights, most of the time it just looked silver. Anyways it kept drying before i could line up the pattern on the stamp and was pulling off the nail. So I ended up repainting Dragon on 3 nails after I had to take off the stamp, thus ruining the base. So... onto a new pattern- fishnet. This one worked really well until I got to my right thumb and middle finger. I completely missed squaring up the pattern on the nail. So again remove, reapply, wait... third time is the charm right? Well again I miscalculated... this time I said " it is what it is" and decided as soon as it dried and I got pictures I was going to get it off my fingers!
So it's not the result that I resent its the PITA that it took to get there! So, I feel like I'm doing a lot of complaining here, Sorry! Honestly this was the first difficulty that I've had with stamping. I knew it would happen, being new and all, I just wish it wasn't over such a perfect polish! Part of the reason for doing this blog is to keep a log of my learning curve and bumps along the way:-)I do promise though to show you Dragon again in all it's glory! So now that you know the back story...


Btw, the smudging on the thumb is the result of my impatience to apply topcoat, hehehe:-/

Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Orly- Meet Me Under The Mistletoe and Konad M20

Hello again:-) Thanks for stopping in! I thought I would do a very Christmasy mani using one of the most beautiful greens I've ever seen! Meet Me Under The Mistletoe is what a pine tree would look like if it grew diamonds on it:-) It just sparkles and shines like no other! Just to add to the festive feel I added a vine on an accent nail with some berries and a rhinestone.




Again these pictures are all in different types of lighting.
MMUTM went on surprisingly thin, it was very watery and I had to use a very thin coat so it didn't run all over. That was quickly corrected on the second coat that covered any bald spots. I ended up deciding to do a third coat to add some depth, but that might not be necessary depending on how your coats go on. The dry time was kind of slow and annoying, but so worth it!
For my stamp i used a viney flower pattern on my Konad M20 plate. I was going to do all my nails but I thought this looked a little more understated and pretty. I used Sinful colors white for the stamp, and Chanel Dragon for the berries. I did the berries over the stamp with my dotting tool. A coat of Seche Vite to seal it all up and that's that!
 This stamping stuff is so much fun! I already have like a million plans in my head for combinations of colors and patterns.

Monday, December 19, 2011

Zoya- Kissy

Hi guys:-) Today I have for you Kissy from Zoya's Gems & Jewels Collection. This is what I chose to wear on my nails for my party and brunch last weekend. I know it's not your traditional red or green but I think it is still a festive holiday color, not to mention very unique! I did not have the corresponding base color Izzy, but I had a Revlon polish that was so similar you would never know the difference! Funny story about that one, last Christmas I got 2 Revlon polishes in my stocking, Lava and Evergreen. The day after Christmas I thought i had accidentally thrown them away, I found Evergreen but tore through the garbage looking for Lava to no avail. Soo anyways, this year when I pulled out my decorations and started trimming the tree... ta-da Lava! Ok, maybe it's not that funny, but I got a little laugh out of it:-)
On to the polish! I really loved this one in the bottle and bought it for my sister, who nicely let me borrow it. It looked so amazing until I got it on my nails...booo! The base of Lava was a pleasant surprise, a one coater! It went on like butter, smooth and creamy. Then I went for Kissy... it was a nightmare. It was thick and gooey. It was drying as it went on so you couldn't move it at all. I had to get a blob, plop it on a nail and quickly spread it out. As much as I loved the random bar glitter in the bottle it felt like a furry mess on my fingers. I really did not expect it to be as textured as it was. I don't mind the gritty feel of glitter as long as it isn't catching, but I didn't like this. The color itself didn't look smooth, it looked like I had dented and smudged it a bunch of times and kept painting over the top. I used two coats of Seche Vite and could still feel the bumps. I don't know if this is a fluke and I bought a bad bottle or if some thinner would help? I hope that is the case because these colors are too pretty to be completely unwearable. I have never had any issue with Zoya's formula, they have always been near perfection, so I wont hold this against them!
I do have a plethora of pictures here. I have Kissy, Lava and the Kissy label that is misspelled:-)






Is it funny that after looking at these pictures, I think I may have judged too harshly? I do not take what I said about the formula back, but maybe it doesn't look as terrible as I thought? I always feel bad when I say anything negative about a polish! Kind of like how I felt when I was little and I got rid of a stuffed animal...as if I was hurting their feelings! I'm not right???

Saturday, December 17, 2011

China Glaze- Fireside Glow

Hi guys! I hope everyone had a good week! I'm excited, I have Monday, Thursday, and Friday off next week! That's a good thing since as of today, I only have one present bought! So there will be a lot of last minute shopping going on! As for this weekend, tonight is my family's annual Christmas party, and tomorrow were going with my husband's family for Champagne Brunch:-) So a very fun, and very busy week is ahead!
Today I have for you a polish I scored last weekend as I was wandering through Ulta. It's China Glaze- Fireside Glow. This is an exclusive addition to their holiday Let it Snow collection, available only at Ulta.
There are two exclusive polishes, the other is Ultamate Holiday, a gold with holo glitter, and this one, a rose gold. I didn't pick up Ultamate Holiday and I am kind of regretting it, but sometimes a girl just has to set limits! Right? Anyways... I wore this and couldn't get pictures that did it justice, and I ended up sort of patching it up before taking these. Soooo, I apologize for the sub-par state of the application!
This one is a beauty and I took a ton of pictures. The ones I posted are all in different light conditions so that you can see the way it changes. It really came to life in low light conditions.


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Fireside Glow is a very pretty rose gold, with a smattering of holo glitter pieces. It manages to be both neutral and sparkly at the same time.
FG applied very nicely, it only needed two coats to be opaque. It is a hungry glitter though! I used two coats Seche Vite and it was still not 100% smooth. I do recommend using at least that though, not just because of the texture, but because the glitter tends to look matte on its own.
If you are interested in seeing the other color, Ultamate Holiday, The TraceFace Philes has fabulous pictures! Here's a link:
http://www.thetracefacephiles.com/search/label/China%20Glaze%20Ulta%20Exclusives%20Limited%20Edition%20Holiday%202011
Today I'm going to put on something else for me party tonight...Hmmmm...???

Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Konad m60- Argyle

Hello again:-) I really liked yesterday's polish, but as I was looking at my new toys (stamping plates), I just couldn't leave it alone! I had to stamp! So this is the same Red Carpet and I used Sinful Colors black on m60's argyle pattern. I originally was going to use the plaid on the same plate but I couldn't get the pattern to pick up cleanly. I'll have to play around with that one some time. I REALLY like this!!! It seems so festive! This stamping stuff is awesome, it's so easy to get really fun nails! What do you think?


As I'm looking at these pictures, I am reminded that we still do not have snow! I remember having snow on Halloween where I live, so this is weird! I will be so sad if I don't get a white Christmas. It feels like something is missing..:-(

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Sally Hansen- Xtreme wear- Red Carpet

Hi guys:-) Were quickly approaching the holidays, so I thought I would do as many Christmas colors as I could in the little time until then! Therefore I give you, Red carpet:-) This is a very sparkly red jelly, with tiny red glitter in there to make it glow like lights on a tree! It was another one that was hard to capture on camera, it kept coming out a lot lighter and more transparent in the pictures, when really it covered very nicely in two coats with no vnl. It dried only slightly gritty, and once a topcoat was on it was nice and smooth. I've said before I am not usually drawn to reds, but ever now and then I come around and I like this one a lot.




One of my nails decided to break before I put this on, so again they are shorter. It's ok since I prefer red on shorter nails, and I can grow them out stronger if I cut them down occasionally. This went on nice, but for some reason I have a mental block when applying reds! I never have so much clean up of stray polish as I do when i wear red! I can put on any dark color even black cleanly, but red aways looks like its been applied with a 1" paintbrush! Oh well, practice makes perfect:-)

Sunday, December 11, 2011

Konad m20 nail art- Snowflakes!

Yay, I am so excited today! I have seen stamping before on other sites and had to give it a try. I ordered plates m57, m20 and m60 from nailbeauty4u.com , and also got the original Konad stamper and scraper. I decided for my first attempt at stamping I would try something Christmasy, so we have snowflakes! I am so excited that these came out cute, I had no idea how hard or easy this would be to execute. I am happy to report, not too bad! The full nail stamps might be a different story, but we'll see soon enough!
So I started with a base coat and two coats of Sinful Colors Midnight Blue on every finger except my ring finger where I used one coat Sinful Colors Snow Me White followed by a coat of Maybelline express finish polish in #1 (? I cant find a name on the bottle, but its a pearly white shimmer). Then for my snowflakes I used Sally Hansen Celeb City (silver foil) on each finger and the same sinful blue and white I had used for base colors reversed as snowflakes. The silver didn't show up as well as I would have liked on the white but other than that this is pretty much exactly what I wanted. I have always liked this blue very much, it covers nicely and is a great color. The white I don't usually wear alone unless I use an effect topcoat like glitter or shimmer as I did here, but it also covers nicely in two coats. This Maybelline color is pretty but very sheer so it works best over other polishes.

 For the stamping I brushed a small amount of polish onto the design, swiped off the excess using the scraper, pressed the stamper onto the design then pressed it onto my nail. Pretty simple:-) In between every 3 or so snowflakes I cleaned the plate using a cottonball with remover so that the polish wouldnt dry in the design. I also wiped the scraper on the cotton ball or a piece of paper towel I had under my area. You cannot do the stamping until your base is completely dry or it will ruin your base color. The designs you stamp will dry quickly but you have to make sure they ar also completely dry before sealing them with topcoat, or they may smear.
So how do you like? I am completely addicted so you can expect to see a barrage of stamping manicures in the near future!

Friday, December 9, 2011

Nicloe by OPI- Snowman of my Dreams

Happy Friday guys!!! Here is my second glitter from NOPI's winter collection. I can never get enough glitter, and this might be dare I say it... My Favorite!!!! Oh how I love this polish!! The glitter in this is not as dense as GIMS from Wednesday. This is a clear base, the main color is obviously blue, but there is gold, pink, silver, green and, orange in there as well. I used three coats and two of Seche Vite to get it smooth. On my last post I mentioned that gold was not my color, well blue definitely is! This is icy cool blue glitter goodness!!! See for yourself...



I left the dark one in there so you can see how it glows even in the lowest light! Isn't this amazing:-) If you can still find it, I suggest snatching it up! Actually snatch up all four:-)

Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Nicole by OPI- Glitter In My Stocking

Happy Birthday Mom! And hello readers:-)
Today I have NOPI's Glitter In My Stocking. Let me start by asking, have you ever had something that really doesn't suit you but you love it so much you wear it anyway? Well that is my problem with gold! It does not look good with my skin, except when I have a really good tan, but when do I want to wear gold? Christmas! Anyways... this is beee-u-tee-fulll!!! This is a mess of small gold glitter with a sprinkling of small red glitter in there which makes it pop even more, and sets it apart from any other gold glitter I've seen. You just have to see for yourself...

If you click on the pictures you can see the details better. You know how glitter is to photograph right?!? This was pretty packed with glitter, so it went on a little thick. It was easy to control though and covered completely in 2 coats! That is awesome for glitter, and means less chipping! It dries gritty almost like sandpaper, so you will need 2 coats of topcoat, but isn't it worth it!!! I adore this polish!!! Tomorrow I have another one from this collection, Snowman of my Dreams:-)

Monday, December 5, 2011

Chanel- Khaki Rose

Welcome back:-) You might notice my nails have been filed down, I had some breakage after some hardcore decorating! It's probably good though, it's always really dry here in the winter and they will hold up better at a shorter length.
Today I bring you Khaki Rose from Chanel. It was released with Khaki Vert, and Khaki Brun (military green and brown). I have been trying to figure out where the rose comes in, so far no luck but that doesn't change that I really like this color! This was two coats for total perfection, of coverage and glossiness! I have always heard that Chanel polishes chip, but I wore this 4 days without any. This formula was superb, it went right where i put it, self leveled and looked amazing.

You can see how shiny Khaki Rose is here. I turned the bottle sideways in the second photo, because my camera kept focusing on the writing, and blurring out my fingers.This is kind of a medium muddy brown. Perfect for those who love browns but don't like to go very dark. This color is well balance, and should look good on warm or cool skin tones.

Saturday, December 3, 2011

Orly Rococo a go go

Hello, I apologize for disappearing again! It seems like I haven't sat down in weeks.How has everyone been? We have been gearing up for the holidays and getting in on the hustle and bustle. I guess I've been slacking a little on my duties as a blogger! My nails have not gone unpolished but I haven't really had time to sit down at my computer and get anything on here.
Today I have Orly's Rococo a go go, this is from their Mineral Fx collection. This color was a b!*#h to capture on camera! I cannot tell you how many pictures I took to try and show you its true color. Finally I got some where you can get the general idea, but they still do not come close to doing it justice. This is a wine colored polish that flashes gold and orange, kind of like it has glowing embers inside. You might be able to see it in the pictures if you click them to enlarge. This went on pretty thin, I was surprised at that, but it built up nicely. It almost looked like it had some tiny black particles in it and on the first coat the base looked grayish. It definitely was not a fast drying polish either, but once it was on, built up, and dried, wow:-)
I wore this on thanksgiving and the one thing i noticed, it did not wear well. My tips were noticeably wearing bare by the end of the day, and I wasn't doing any cooking or cleaning!
I guess my feelings on this one are mixed. On one hand its gorgeous.On the other, several coats, slow to dry, not well wearing, and combine that with the higher price tag of the Mineral Fx ($10 I think). You be the judge and see what you think.



Sunday, November 27, 2011

Color Club- Beyond the Mistletoe Preview

Color Club introduces its brightest, shiniest colors yet! Beyond The Mistletoe features six SPARKLING shades that are sure to DAZZLE. Show them off at your holiday party or give as a gift.




These are out now, I dont have any of these polishes yet, but I do plan on snatching them up. If you want to see some beautiful pictures of these in the mean time, oyu need to check out I Drink Nail Polish. Her Pictures are more than pictures, they are art! Here is a link to her site!