OPI Designer... De Better

Hello lovely ninjas!

Tonight I've got a super pretty manicure for you that reminds me of champagne and therefore New Years Eve :)  Designer... De Better is from the Muppets Collection for winter 2011 from OPI. This is a really awesome silver foil with flecks of pink/gold mixed in. From far away I think it looks a lot like rose gold which I adore! Seriously, I just bought a rose gold necklace from Kohl's that I'm in love with, it even has rose quartz. ANYWAYS, on to the gorgeous polish. I couldn't stop staring at the shiny reflective surface of my nails while I was wearing it, so be careful driving with it on, you might get distracted. I did thin coats so I needed three for full opacity but this was totally worth it. Since I only have the mini, I have decided I absolutely MUST get the full sized bottle if I can find it the next time I make it out to ULTA.

Belated Christmas Nails

Hello darling ninjas!

Today I've got a neat little combination I put together in honor of the Holiday season. This was meant to be a gradients but the poor lighting in my pictures looks more like a half/half manicure. Anyways, this was two coats of Finger Paints Comet's Collar as a base with a freehand glitter gradient done with FP Santa Kisses. I liked it, it was festive and the people at work thought it was really neat. It was more amusing when I told my ninja co-workers that I had killed an elf with my bare hands and learned that they bleed glitter... Yeah, I'm a weird one!

China Glaze Ruby Pumps and City Siren

Hello darling ninjas!

Sorry for not posting yesterday, it was my last day at my parents' house for the Holidays so we spent the day doing family things. Also,  I got a new laptop for Christmas so I've been busy transferring my pictures and other files over to this computer. Now that I'm mostly done, I should be able to resume regular posting once more :)

Tonight I've got two China Glaze polishes for your viewing pleasure. This is a base of two coats of City Siren from their fall collection. I really like this polish, I got it courtesy of my wonderful MIL from Sally where is was on clearance. This is a great deep berry color that would have been great by itself for a holiday manicure since it reminds me of poinsettias. I also got a very mini ChG bottle of Ruby Pumps which I'm sure they put out with the holiday season in mind. RP is a well known red glitter polish from their core line and a wonderfully vivid top coat when put over CS.

Christmas Nails

Hello darling Ninjas!

After a few hours of making pierogies from scratch this morning, I'm ready for the holidays to commence! Today I've got the most Christmas-y manicure I've worn this month. The base for this manicure is two lovely coats of Time Traveler from Cult Nails. TT is a gorgeous deep blue that reminds me very much of the TARDIS from Doctor Who. Since Dr.Who travels in Time and Space, I thought that the name was very apt for this polish. On top of TT I added nail stickers that I picked up from Sally Beauty on clearance. These were not the easiest stickers to work with and they did stick up a little more than I would like from the nail but for less than a dollar, who am I to complain?

Orly Emberstone

Hello darling ninjas!


Tonight I've got Orly Emberstone for you. This is the manicure I wore after camping in below freezing temperatures. I was just too cold the whole night and I slept horribly so when I went home, I went right back to sleep. When I got up, I wanted something warming for my new manicure and I figured Emberstone was a pretty warm name! Emberstone is a very interesting polish, it seems to be comprised of many different fleck colors that combine to make one incredibly glowy orange polish that sometimes flashes pink. I think the main fleck colors are orange, golden yellow, pink, and the occasional blue. All the colors you'd see in a camp fire :) This polish did take three coats to reach an opacity that I could tolerate but it was absolutely worth it.

There are a lot of pictures of this polish. Sorry! It just had so many different looks depending on the lighting. The last one was taken in the shade. The very first picture is a little blurry but I like how it shows the flecks that make up the whole polish.

Essie School of Hard Rocks Gradient

Hello darling ninjas!

Today I've got my first attempt at a gradient nail design. This is a bas of two coats of Essie School of Hard Rocks from their Cocktail Bling collection for Winter 2011. I was expecting SoHR to come out much lighter but it ended up drying to a nice muted medium teal instead of the more khaki green I was expecting. This was still a very pretty color and an easy formula to work with. If you have a steady hand, you could probably make this color into a one coat wonder but I just didn't want to risk the bubbling.

After the coats of Essie, I did one layer of Orly Twilight on about 3/4 of my nails. My original intention had been to do the gradient entirely with the Orly color but it was just too subtle to produce the effect I wanted. I ended up adding a layer of Sally Hansen Glass Slipper to the tips of my nails to finish off the gradient. The overall effect looks like I dipped my nails in water and let them freeze. I love the frosty look!

I don't think I did too bad for my first try at a gradient, what do you think? Oh yes, I did chop my nails down after a bad break on my right hand. Sorry for the shortness!

China Glaze Glittering Garland

Hello darling readers!

I noticed some blog have different names for their readers. Well I think we could be ninjas if you agree! So maybe it'll be, hello darling ninjas! Anyways, have you picked up on a trend in my recent China Glaze posts? They're all green! Today is no exception as I have for your viewing pleasure Glittering Garland from the Holiday 2011 collection. This is a gorgeous hunter green with a ton of light green glass fleck glitter. I couldn't stop looking at my nails when I was wearing this1 I wanted to go out and buy green tinsel to match my nails. Two super easy coats topped with Seche QD.

Essence Where is the Party?

Hello darling readers!

Today I've got a neat little duo/multichrome for you from Essence. This is "Where is the Party?" which is akin to OPI Last Friday Night and Wet n Wild Grey's Anatomy. I only own the WnW but I can tell you that WitP is much darker and has some slightly larger shimmer particles that give it a more shimmery finish. This is certainly still a metallic polish but in the bottle it looks very different from Grey's. This is two coats over Essie's All in one base and under Seche QD. This dried easily and was easy to work with. I have to say, for the price, Essence puts out some great polishes. I even like the smaller bottles because I find the smaller brush length easier to work with.

A little layering

Hello darling readers!

Today I've got a pretty wintery layering combo for your viewing pleasure. This is three coats of Color Club Shabby Drab from their new Bohemian collection as a base with two coats of Inglot 204 on top. The overall effect was sort of like frost on a lake in the winter and I loved it! The only weird issue I ended up with was that some of my flakies sunk into the base color! I would have preferred a smoother finish but the end product was still really pretty to look at.

Orly Androgynie

Hello Darling Readers!

I've been feeling less than stellar today but thanks to my lovely husband, I have homemade chili to make me feel better. Tonight I've got one of the new colors from Orly's Winter 2011 collection, Androgynie. This color is a black base with scattered holo glitter, various colored hex glitter, and a ton of gold fleck glitter. While this looks amazing in the bottle, it doesn't exactly translate on the nail. What you mostly get is black polish with a lot of gold fleck and maybe one or two hexes if you carefully place them. What also doesn't help is that the base is not a very good suspension base for the holographic particles so they are very sparse on the nail. Add to that a black base that doesn't show hex glitter through it unless it's on the very top coat and you have a basically black manicure. This is two coats with Seche QD on top.

Gift Haul :)

Hello darling readers.

Sorry I missed Saturday's post, Hubby and I went camping and froze! Man was it cold, below freezing and our tent was covered in frost when we woke up. Anyways, to make it up to you I'll post a haul polst today then another swatch tomorrow instead of my usual every other day posting.

The first set of polishes are those I was given by my MIL (or picked up for someone other than myself) while I visited her in NY for Thanksgiving. The Lemon Fizz and second Ruby Pumps mini are gifts for other people while the rest were gifts to me. The two Cult Nails colors are gifts from my husband from her Black Friday sale.

Top L-R: ChG Ruby Pumps, Essie School of Hard Rocks, Orly Twilight, Orly Emberstone, Orly Androgynie, Essie Bobbing for Baubles, ChG Ruby Pumps.
Bottom L-R: Cult Nails Iconic, ChG Glittering Garland, ChG City siren, ChG Lemon Fizz, Cult Nails Time Traveler.

This second set is a prize package I won from The Polished Panda's Holiday Giveaway. She's such a love and a fellow North Carolinean to boot :)

The polishes are Finger Paints Comet's Collar, Santa Kisses, and Frosty Night. I love the peppermint hand sanitizer and lotion, my favorite Christmas scent (even though I can't smell very well) is peppermint so they make me happy. My purse now jingles wherever I go! I haven't tried out these chrome pens by Sally Hansen before so I'll have to let you know how they work out. The black and white floral pattern is actually a super cute clutch that is my new wallet :)

There you have my lovely gifts! However, I broke down after three weeks of looking for Shine of the Times in stores and just broke my no buy last week. I ended up with 7 polishes that I'm sure I'll post later. I'm sorry I failed! Alas, I still don't have my lovely Essie flakies :(

Rimmel Pro Rags to Riches

Good afternoon!

Today I've got a pretty metallic green for you from Rimmel London's Lasting Finish Pro line. This is a preally pretty lighter green foil with a nice extra shimmer in the finish. This is three coats of polish, the formula was thin but easy to work with and it dried quickly. I loved this color, I wore it December 1st with red eyeshadow to be a little festive!

Essence Irreplaceable

Good evening darlings,

Tonight I've got a super pretty neutral from Essence's Color and Go line: Irreplaceable. This is a sort of hard to describe color... It's beige with goldish or light green glitter so fine that it looks like shimmer. Two perfect coats and awesome wear, I loved this polish!

Essence Just Rock It!

Hello darling readers,

As I drink my coffee and fight off a massive headache, I have a very pretty navy blue polish to show you. This is ONE amazingly easy coat of Essence Just Rock It! which is a navy blue that looks like one of those in-between cream and jelly polishes. The wonky tip fading is because my Seche pulled this badly away from my tips as it dried *grr* I added a hard to see coat of Orly Love Each Other on top of it for some pretty subtle sparkle and I loooved this combination.

Zoya Neeka

Hello readers!

Today I've got Zoya Neeka from their fall Mirrors collection for you. This is a super pretty polish that is similar in composition to Yara. Neeka is a nice blue leaning medium purple with a lot of gold flake glitter and a red shimmer that you can only see in some lighting. My co-worker fell in love with this polish when I wore it this week, I actually had to ge ther a bottle because she just wouldn't stop talking about it! This is two coats of Neeka with Seche QD on top.

Claw Polish Phantom

Hello my lovely readers!

Sorry this post is so late in the day, I was super busy with my martial arts classes. This week I graduated to my yellow belt :) I know I'm not the first one to do this polish and I'm also nowhere near October when  it was popular but I still think this was a great find! My husband bought this polish for me on clearance for only .99 from CVS and it's awesome! This polish reminds me a lot of Zoya Tao because it is a medium grey with silver shimmer. However, the shimmer isn't all silver, it also shows flashes of pink and blue similar to Essie's Smooth Sailing from their spring collection. This covered very well in two coats and dried surprisingly fast for a drug store polish.

Red-ical Gypsy and Chunky Holo Scarlet

Hello lovelies!

I hope you all had a lovely weekend and for my US readers I hope you had a great Thanksgiving! Tonight I've got a Color Club polish from their Back to Boho collection, Red-ical Gypsy underneath two coats of Kleancolor Chunky Holo Scarlet. This was an amazing combination that looked like Dorothy's Ruby Slippers!