120. Orly - Fowl Play

WOW.  I've finally got this polish!  I'm so glad to be getting such a long time lemming at long last.  And it has certainly met my expectations!

In case you guys haven't heard of this wonderful polish, Fowl Play is a lovely red-based purple jelly polish with color shifting flakies (much like Essie Shine of the Times, Sally Hansen Hidden Treasure, etc) with purple shimmer and a sparse blue-purple shimmer running throughout.  It's quite magical and gorgeous and I am in love!  I really love the touch of blue-purple shimmer, it adds a whimsical touch to the polish!

My original lemming wasn't actually Fowl Play though.  Originally I wanted OPI Merry Midnight.  But after discovering that it was HTF and only available on e(vil)bay, I almost gave up hope.  Not too long after, Orly released this beauty, which is almost an exact dupe if comparisons online are correct.

This last picture is an experiment I did.  Originally I did two coats of Fowl Play, but then I wondered how Shine of the Times would look on top.  The green shift of SotT kind of put me off the combination, but then I layered another coat of Fowl Play on top and it almost looked like the original, but with denser flakies.  So if Fowl Play isn't enough flaky goodness for you, you know what to do now :)

Swatch (2nd pic) is 2 coats.  2 coats is good and opaque, but a 3rd coat definitely helps deepen the color and intensifies the magical purple shimmer.

Fall Haul!

Cherry Culture, you finally got me!  I'd been eyeing the NYX polishes on Cherry Culture for at least half a year, but I'm very wary about online polish shopping.  However, about a month ago,  cherryculture.com had a sale on NYX products.  Me, being who I am, only had eyes for the nail polishes (although I hear their other products are very good as well).

I couldn't resist this sale, it was 25% off, on top of the already discounted polishes.  As a result, I got all of these for $2-2.50 each.  Quite the steal!  The only thing that bothered me about Cherry Culture is their long ship times.  I don't know if it was because of the size of the order or if they were backlogged, but it legitly took 3-4 weeks for me to get this order.  But they all came to me safe and sound, and that's what's important :)

However, there's a reason I don't online polish shop...which you will see once you see the pictures.

52WC: Week 10 - Winter

Today I have a nice wintery manicure for you guys!  After a Secret Santa gift-giving session on Thursday, some friends of mine came over and we all did nails and watched New Girl (love that show! Schmidt!).  I wanted to do something simple, and then I realized that I still hadn't done my challenge of the week.  Scrolling through my pinterest, all that I saw in sight were typical winter manis.  However, I wanted to do something different.   When I saw a penguin mani, I knew that I had to have penguins!  But I don't like doing freehand art on all my nails (mostly because I suck at it).  So I just decided to have the penguin in the snow :)

Do you like my ram/sheet/whatever you call this animal?  It's so cute!

To do the penguin, I painted a base of black, then painted a white on for the belly using a nail art brush.  I also did the beak with a thin nail art brush.  Using two differently sized dotting tools, I first dotted the white with a large one, and then the black on top with a smaller one.

For the snowfall, I was actually aiming for a dot gradient, but it doesn't look like it turned out too much like that.  However, it still looks pretty.  I painted a pastel blue base and then used a large dotting tool to dot the tips, and then a medium sized one down the middle portion of my nail, and a small one towards the cuticle.  Then I topped the whole thing off with China Glaze White Cap to give the snow a more welcoming warm glow.

Colors Used:
Wet N Wild - Black Creme
Wet N Wild - White Creme
Zoya - Arizona
NYX Advanced Salon - Pastel Blue
China Glaze - White Cap

Like a Jolly Rancher~

Hey guys!  The end of the quarter and finals have been kicking my ass, but I'll soon all be able to do nails to my heart's content (and play video games, work on DIY projects, read...).  I say this every quarter, but I can't wait for this quarter to be over!  Until then, I will be posting manis from a little while ago.

Now that I've tried a jelly sandwich, I just wanna do more of them!  It's such an interesting look, and so simple to do!

I finally got to try out White Veil, sent to me by the lovely Raechelly!  Thank you so much for this awesome polish :)

I believe that this is 4 coats of Zoya Frida, with a coat of White Veil in between each coat of Frida and one on top.  8 layers of polish, baby!  I really do like how this mani came out :)

119. Zoya - Breezi

Breezi is a bright true blue cream.  I love how long this color makes my fingernails look.  I have many similar colors to this, but I don't care!  They're all lovely!

Formula was perfectly easy to control, not too thick and not too watery.  It covered perfectly in two thin coats and dried quickly.

114-118. Color Club Foiled Collection

This is one of the very few collections that I own in its entirety.  I love how you can randomly find entire Color Club collections at Ross for a mere 8 dollars!  Such a steal!  I mean, you may not always get the latest collections, but sometimes you score a lucky find :)

If I remember correctly, Foiled was released last fall (2011).  Foiled is a collection of 6 intense, saturated foils.  They're so sparkly and great for the holidays!  I think they'd be good for stamping, as quite a few of these are one-coaters.  All swatches are shown with no topcoat.

First is Antiquated, which I reviewed a while ago but am putting in here for consistency's sake.  Antiquated is such a lovely lovely nude, maybe champagne foil!  This is easily my favorite of the collection, and definitely an elegant color that I can't get enough of! Two coats.

Next is Perfect Mol-ten.  Dunno what they were going for with the name, but I can say that this is an interesting color.  This is a very blue-toned green that kind of reminds me of moss.  Two coats.

Hot Like Lava is a saturated bright pink/magenta foil.  As you guys probably know, I'm not too fond of pinks.  However, this one is bright enough that I might wear this one day.  It's quite punchy and almost in that berry color range that I love so much.  One coat. 

Foil Me Once is a pale blue-based pink foil.  Definitely not my cup of tea, but still a nice color (for some other lucky girl).  One thick coat.

Cold Metal is certainly a fitting name for this polish.  This is a very saturated dark blue foil that kind of reminds me of denim.  I actually think I prefer this color as a shimmer finish rather than a foil, it's so intense!  I still like this polish regardless!  One coat.

I keep wanting to call this polish Cinderella, but its real name is Lumini-cent.  This is a light silvery-blue foil that reminds me of the Cinderella Barbie I had when I was 6 or so.  Her dress was almost this exact color, and the foil finish reminds me of the satiny finish of the dress.  Aaahhh, good memories :)  One thick coat.

The formula on this collection was great.  Everything covered well, and the polish flowed so smoothly.  All of these pictures were with no clean up.  Polishes like these are why I love Color Club!  They're affordable and have some really nice colors :)

Catching Up on the 52 Week Challenge!

Hey guys!  Sorry I haven't posted in a while.  School and work have gotten really busy lately, and it's approaching finals soon.  I've still been polishing my nails and everything, just haven't really had the time to go through and edit pictures.  Only 2 more weeks until the quarter's over and then I can do some soul-feeding with nail polish, Assassin's Creed, random DIY crafts, and some self-pampering.  And I need to clean the house...but that's another story.

Anyways!  Onto the nails :)  Previously, I was behind on the 52 Week Challenge, but now I am finally up to date :)  Since I haven't posted in a while, I just decided to let everyone see what I've done over the last couple weeks all at once.  So enjoy!

Week 9: Rainbow

Week 7: Black and White

Week 8: Saran Wrap

More details after the jump!

113. OPI - Don't Mess with OPI

Don't Mess With OPI is a lovely blue-toned green cream.  It's very muted, yet it still makes a statement.  It is also quite similar to Jade is the New Black.  Perhaps a comparison post is in order.

This was a lovely two coater.  Consistency was wonderful, and OPI's brush is always a dream to use.  Shown with no topcoat.

Pardon My French!

Today I just have a french manicure for you guys, but it's a little more interesting because of the colors used.  I feel like this would be a good mani to wear with a LBD :)  The base color is Rehka, a rich red that is actually darker in real life than in this picture.  The tips are AA's Hassid.  I actually tried to freehand the tips, but they didn't look that nice, so I covered the lines with white striping tape in order to make it a little cleaner looking.  Funny how the striping tape is actually a bit transparent.

52WC:Week 6 - Inspired by a Game

I'm a little behind on this challenge, but I am determined to catch up and see this through to the end!  I love the different themes, and this week is inspired by a game!  I chose to be inspired by Maplestory!  While hard-core gamers may scoff at this MMORPG, this game took up a large portion of my life during middle school/early high school.  I spent probably hundreds of hours on this game and made a few high level characters before the game got heavily modified to make it easier to level (I guess due to waning interest in the game).  Here's one of them, my lovely level 131 Ice/Lightning Archmage:

Kinda fugly now, but high level equips generally are.

On the thumb is an orange mushroom, one of the harder monsters a noob can encounter.  On the middle finger are maple leaves, iconic of the game.  And on the pinky is a green slime (cute little monsters, but oh so annoying), on a sparkly green and gold base.  The green and gold base represent the forest of Ellinia, where these slimes are often found.

For the thumb, middle, and pinky nails, I used a combination of striping brushes and dotting tools to create the pictures.  The clouds on the index finger were made with a dotting tool, and the gradient on the ring finger was done with a makeup sponge.

112. Zoya - Megan

Megan is a light lavender-grey cream.  It is from Zoya's Winter 2011 Collection, Feel.  The problem is, Megan does not really stand out in this collection to me.  It's an elegant color, I just can't say it's a very memorable color.

Formula was nice on this polish.  It was fluid, but not hard to control.  This is 3 coats, shown with no topcoat.

111. Zoya - Monica

Monica is almost an eggplant purple, but not quite so dark and vampy.  It's a good medium red-toned purple, a great fall color and very flattering.

Formula was good and opaque in 2 coats.  Monica nearly applied herself, it was that easy to work with :)

110. China Glaze - Liquid Leather

Liquid Leather is one of my favorite black bases to use in nail art.  Not much to say here, it's your basic black.  It makes a good base for sparkle/duochrome topcoats :)

Slightly watery formula, with a little cuticle flooding.  2 coats shown here.

109. Zoya - Shelby

Today I'm showing you guys Shelby, a perfectly bubblegum pink cream.  It kind of reminds me of classic bubble gum, much like Hubba Bubba.  I don't really do pink, but I figured I didn't have anything else in my collection like this, so I went ahead and bought it. :P  Shelby's such a nice girly color, but I might just swap it away, due to the mere fact that I probably will not ever use this again.

Formula was iffy.  The consistency was thick, patchy, and hard to level.  It required 3 coats to get even.

108. Jessica - Pumpkin Delight

Haha, this name reminds me of Turkish delight...that dessert the White Queen used to seduce Edmund to the dark side in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.  Pumpkin Delight is a perfect fall color.  It's a pinkish-bronze foil, with gold and pink shimmer throughout.  Definitely reminds me of the color of falling leaves.  However, I had to take this color off prematurely, due to some spray paint adventures.  In some lights, this polish looks a bit pink, but it is a nice bronze in most lights.

Formula was good, easy to get nice even coats, but a bit slow to dry.  The brush was also kind of big, making it hard to cleanly polish my nails.  This is 2 coats with Poshe on top.

107. Zoya - Evvie

First things first, I love the name of this polish.  It reminds me of:

So cute!

Speaking of Pokemon, I carved a Pikachu pumpkin at a party my PI held last weekend.  It was my first time carving a pumpkin (I truly am a city girl), so it didn't come out as well as my inner craftsman would like.  But it did look pretty decent.  It was fitting for Halloween too, since it looked a little bit creepy (those eyes *shudder*).

Not the best picture, but you get the point.

Usually I'm don't really celebrate/do anything for Halloween (as shown by my lack of Halloween-themed nails), so this was a nice change of pace.

Pokemon fanaticism aside, Evvie truly is a lovely color.  I guess you would call this a dark sage green cream.  I don't know all these special names for colors, but what I do know is that this is a nice, dusty, blue-based green.  I love these dusty colors; they're so flattering on many skin types!

Application of Evvie was much like with Natty:  easy to control, a little more liquidy than most Zoya creams I have, but perfectly opaque in two coats.  No complaints about this polish!

52WC:Week 5 - Giants Won the World Series!

Hey guys!  This week's challenge is orange.  It's especially appropriate because it was just Halloween...AND THE GIANTS WON THE WORLD SERIES!  Ahem, sorry for my outburst there.  Normally I'm not a huge sports fan in general, but my boyfriend follows sports, so I've picked up a few things.  That, and it's my hometown team,  how could I not support them? :)

So for this week's challenge I did a slightly-Giants' themed mani.  I'm a tiny bit late in posting this, but here it is.  I did the SF symbol using a striping brush as an accent nail, and an orange over black gradient on all my other nails.  To make the orange pop more, I did the SF symbol and a gradient in white over the black, and then I filled in the symbol and did a gradient of orange over the white.  Then I coated the orange parts with glitter, because glitter makes everything better! XD

Colors Used:
China Glaze Liquid Leather
Zoya Arizona
Sinful UFO

106. Zoya - Natty

Natty is a faded denim kind of color.  This color kind of reminds me of Baubing for Baubles or Zoya Kelly.  Definitely less dusty and gray than Kelly though, and maybe a hair dustier than Baubles.  I'll definitely have to do a comparison at some point.  I absolutely love dusty polishes in the fall!  It's a pop of color without being offensively bright!

Natty went on like butter.  The formula was a little thinner than most of my Zoya creams, but that's a good thing.  Sometimes Zoya's creams are so thick and a hair hard to control.  However, I was able to achieve nice, thin, even coats of Natty.  This was perfectly opaque in 2 coats, and it is shown topped with Poshe.

105. Essence - Walk on the Wild Side

I may not have a Halloween mani (my Halloween's been pretty lackluster and depressing this year), but the least I can give everyone is a little swatch :)

Walk on the Wild Side is dusty dark olive green with gold and green shimmer.  This is one of the new Essence colors, and let me say that I absolutely love this color!  It comes to life in the sun, and the colors are just so warm and earthy (I've grown very fond of earth tones in the last half year).  I would say that this is a perfect fall color, muted but at the same time, vibrant...if that makes any sense.

This post is kinda pic-heavy, so read more after the jump!

52WC: Week 4 - Gradient

Okay, so I cheated.  I skipped week 3 because it was Reddit-inspired nails, but I had no inspiration.  I've only been a member of Reddit for maybe a month, so I had no idea what defines Reddit, and what I should do for my nails.

So for week 4, I decided to do a little different of a gradient.  For those of you guys who have been reading my old posts, you know that I'm quite fond of gradient manis.  Not only do they look cool, but they're easy and fast to do!  For this gradient, I was inspired by some rainbow gradient mani I saw a picture of on tumblr once (however, I could not find the picture I saw, so I can't show you).

I'm not quite pleased with how the gradient turned out.  It's not blended enough for my liking, and the colors are a bit too bold for the look I was trying to achieve.  Maybe I'll try it again when I have more time.

Colors Used: 

Wet N Wild White Cream (a white base for the gradient's colors to really pop)

Essie Ole Caliente

Zoya Arizona

Zoya Pippa

OPI Don't Mess with OPI

China Glaze Bermuda Breakaway

China Glaze Grape Pop

104. China Glaze - Bermuda Breakaway

Oh goodness, I believe that I am out of old swatches to show you guys.  Hopefully I can do some more manis soon...it's midterms week, and I'm so behind on studying!  Oh well, only a couple more days.

Anyways, Bermuda Breakaway is a lovely, rich cobalt cream.  It looks quite elegant on the fingernails, and it's a perfect color for fall.

Formula was quite nice; easy to control with little to no dragging.  It dries quite glossy as well.  This is two coats, no topcoat.

103. Spoiled - Pet My Peacock

Pet My Peacock is a mix of gold, silver, light blue, green, and purple glitters in a clear base.  I loved how the glitters looked in the bottle, but when it came to applying it, it was not so nice.  The glitter is pretty sparse compared to what I was expecting it to be, and I had to use a dabbing motion to get most of the glitters on.  This was not helped by the fact that the polish was quite runny, unexpected for a glitter.  So I ended up with a thick gloopy layer of polish on my nails, along with air bubbles! :(

I have it here on top of Bermuda Breakaway.  It quite reminds me of bubbles at the bottom of the deep sea. This is helped by the fact that there are actually bubbles in here...

I think I'm going to try to let this polish thicken by leaving the bottle open for some amount of time.  Hopefully that makes it a little easier to actually get glitter on the nails, because I really don't want to purge this (it's so pretty!)

102. Spoiled - Jewelry Heist

Jewelry Heist is a predominantly mostly pink glitterbomb.  Usually I don't like wearing pink, but something about this glitter just called out to me to take it home (kind of like a cute lost puppy).  This polish is mostly pink and silver hex glitters, with tiny blue and green square glitters.

Here, I've layered Jewelry Heist over Color Club's Naughtycal Navy.  I love how the pink perfectly compliments the dark navy base, lightening the color.

The formula on Jewelry Heist was not bad.  I didn't have to use as much of a dabbing motion as I had to for Pet My Peacock.  The base polish was a little thicker, probably helping to suspend the glitter a little better.

101. Color Club - Naughtycal Navy

Naughtycal Navy is a very black-leaning navy blue.  In most lights, it actually looks black.  It was only after I layered a glitter over it that it didn't look quite so dark anymore.

Formula was wonderful on this.  2 easy coats, very easy to control and not patchy at all.

100. China Glaze - Bahamian Escape

100th Swatch!! Woohoo!  (only two-hundred odd polishes to go...) Bahamian Escape (featured as the base of yesterday's post) is a perfectly sky-blue cream, similar to OPI's What's With the Cattitude but brighter and with less white.

This color covers perfectly in two coats.  Formula was good, not too runny or thick.

99. Fergie - Hollywood Walk of Fame

Hollywood Walk of Fame is large, multicolored star glitters in a clear base.  The stars are silver, gold, blue, purple, and red.  The polish also has a bit of tiny silver holographic bar glitter. This is such a fun polish on the nail, but not so fun to apply.  Like Pet My Peacock, it has a very runny formula in which the glitters tend to settle.  You have to fish a lot to even get a few stars, and the runny formula means that you'll just get a drop of clear on your nail instead of a star.

These nails kind of remind me of Rainbow Dash...I've been around too many MLP watchers...

For this polish, I used a dabbing motion to place the stars.  This is shown over Bahamian Escape.

I don't think I will be keeping this polish.  I bet I could probably make a better franken (maybe). :P

52WC: Week 2 - Clouds of Blue

Hey guys!  Here's my mani for week 2 of Reddit's 52 week challenge!  This week the theme is blue (fun fact:  blue is the color that I have the most polish of).  I decided to do a cloud mani (courtesy of Nailside), since the sky is blue, and...yeah I'm not exactly sure why I chose this design, but I like it regardless!  The awesome thing about this technique is that it doesn't require any special nail art tools, just your plain ole' nail polish brush.

Four different colors of polish may have been overboard...you can see that the polish on my thumb is wrinkling.  Even with fast-drying topcoat, this took forever to dry completely.  The final effect of this polish kind of reminds me of My Little Ponies.  No idea why. :P  Come back later for next week's challenge!

Colors used (from lightest to darkest):
Zoya Kristin
Zoya Breezi
Zoya Natty
Color Club Naughtycal Navy

Summer '12 Haul

Happy Friday!  Today, I have a long overdue post for you: my summer haul! (although it has mostly fall and holiday polishes..but w/e :P)

Every time I go to my nail supply, I always say it's the last time I'm buying this much.  ...I should stop saying that because every time I go back, there is always a bunch of new Nubars, a different selection of China Glazes, and all the new seasonal collections!  It's ridiculous how much I spend, even when the polishes are half off retail!  It doesn't help that fall is my favorite season, in terms of colors.  Well my wallet cries, but my nails and my eyes rejoice!

Zoya was the collection I was most looking forward to this season, and it did not disappoint (in the bottle, at least).  So let's start with those!  Full pics and info after the jump!

98. Essie - Navigate Her

I've wanted Navigate Her since spring, but haven't had a chance to get my hands on it until now.  I actually almost lost this one.  I ordered it off Amazon, but I put in the wrong address because I had just moved and wasn't used to my new address yet.  :P  Luckily, I talked to the people who lived at the address I gave and managed to get it back!  Navigate Her is a perfectly pastel pistachio green cream (I love alliteration, don't you?).  It actually looks kind of dirty, but I prefer that because pastels with too much white in it make me look like I've used fake tanner or something.

Formula was iffy.  Make sure to use nice thin coats, and let each coat dry completely, otherwise you'll get dragging.  I usually apply thick coats and am a little impatient with applying polish, so I got some bald spots near the cuticle.  This is 2 coats of Navigate Her.

97. Fergie - Grammy Gold

I realized that I never did an actual swatch of Grammy Gold before/after I did the comparison post on it, so here it is!  Grammy Gold has relatively large foil particles, which gives it that grainy look that I love in foils.  It covers pretty well, so I believe that it'd make a good stamping polish (haven't tried it yet though).  But like I said in my comparison, this is pretty much the same as Golden-I, so you don't need both.

This is one coat of Grammy Gold, no topcoat :)