Essie: Dive Bar

After letting a few of my readers (from a forum I frequent) pick some colors for me to try next, my fiance picked Essie's Dive Bar for me to wear next. This is apparently a color exclusive to the Walmart line of Essie but it's really awesome so I don't mind. I could have gotten away with two coats but have recently been obsessed with doing three coats on every color I try. This is an awesome multi-flash dark blue. The main flash is teal, sometimes green and only in the right light there's a great purple flash. I could only really get the teal in these pictures but this polish is amazing. I had a few compliments on it when I was at work and actually had a customer get me to write down the brand/color name for her so she could get her hands on a bottle of it.

Right now I'm wearing Coat Azure from the Spring collection. I'll get pictures up later tonight or tomorrow.

EDIT: Here's a picture of just the bottle, you can see the purple sort of on the side of the bottle.

Let Them have Polish is doing a Giveaway!

After reaching 500 followers, Cristina from Let Them Have Polish decided to do an awesome giveaway! You can enter HERE to win a bunch of great prizes. The contest closes on March 14th so get to it :)

The Loot:

* Zoya Christinna

* Zoya Ibiza

* Zoya Crystal

* Zoya Ivanka

* Rimmel Climax

* Rimmel Pulsating

* Claire's Glow In the Dark Polish in Blue and Green Glitter

* Stripe Rite White Striper

* 4 Sticker Sheets

* 25 Fimo Canes (THIS is how they are used, it's pretty neat)

Another Guest Blog!

So, I have a lot of friends with dogs. I also have a dog so I think they're wonderful and know way too much about them. One of my dog-world friends has a pug who is very tolerant and is used to getting her nails painted. When she read about my nail polish blog, she took up painting her dog's nails on a more regular basis and has been sending me picture of her ventures! This post is going to be about Izzie the pug getting her nails done by her mom Mandy in Alberta, Canada.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Since I have Gel Nails on my fingers and no one sees my toes in the winter anyways, I paint Izzie's nails. She's trained not to fuss with her nails and sits still while I paint them and until they're dry and I release her. This polish is Metallic by Revlon, I originally bought it thinking it'd be thin and I could put it over a nice neon hot pink for an 80s look. However, it was actually really goopy and only took one coat to cover Izzie's black nails. Though it actually looks quite nice on her nails, very eye catching.

Essie: Chinchilly

I have an interview today for the Shift Leader position at Blockbuster so I figured I should go with a safe, neutral color. Since my shirt for the interview is grey and black, I went with a nice grey from my Essie haul, Chinchilly. It was a toss up between Chinchilly and Merino Cool, I went with Chinchilly because it was the grey that best matched my shirt. I'll take pictures of me in the shirt and my jacket for you later but here's what the top looks like:

And, here are my nails with three coats of Chinchilly on them. This is actually a more taupe-grey that it looks like here. It's very nice, went on easily, and shines great with a thin top coat of Seche Vite. Oh, that reminds me, my seche is in need of a little thinning, any idea on what to use for that without having to buy seche restore?

Huge Haul Post!

So, that lot of 42 Essie polishes I won? Well, they came in today and Oh.My.Gawd was this seller awesome. She included 8 extra polishes as well as other goodies. Ack, it was just like Christmas opening this package...

This entire pink hat box in the middle is FULL OF EXTRAS....

She sent me Chocolate... With Raspberries.... I might have to begin worshiping her.

 Extras: Two Nicole by OPI polishes, Nailtique Formula 2 (Which I'm wearing on currently naked nails), L'Oreal lipstick, Chocolate, anti-aging lotion/moisturizer, and a bag... with more Polish in it!

The total count of extras: 8. Two Nicole by OPI and 6 Bourghese. That puts this package at 50 bottles of polish!!
 

Pile of bubble wrapped Essie bottles and two more freebies I discovered when removing them: fancy schmancy files.

This is so amazing.. I think I might re-arrange them and make a calendar out of it. This is 40 different colors, two were duplicates (I'll be adding them to my giveaway).

The total polish Haul!!

Best package EVER to come home to after a long day of work/school. I now have everything I need for my giveaway so now I just need to decide how I'll do it. I'm thinking 30 followers? Oh, and expect Essie spam.

Jessica V Polish is doing a Giveaway!

For her 200 follower milestone, Jessica is doing a neat Pick-your-polish giveaway! She's letting the winner pick for colors from a variety of brands as their prize if they win the giveaway. This is a great way to get something you really want in a polish giveaway so check it out :)

200 Follower Giveaway

OPI Big Hair... Big Nails.

While she was in town, Justin's mom learned of my new obsession with nail lacquer and of course, fed it. She got me the LASplash I swatched yesterday and also the only OPI polish I now own, Big Hair...Big Nails from the Texas Collection. For some reason, my VNL is dark instead of light like I see in most pictures of the OPI sorbets. Dunno why but it bugged the heck out of me. Short of taking it all off and putting in a white base, I would be seeing my nail line. Oh well. I did 4 whole coats of BHBN and a Seche vite top coat (Seche Base too).

This is a super vibrant coral/orange/red jelly! Look how it reflects light in the last two pictures. Love the neat jelly finish on these. The pictures don't do the vibrancy of this color justice so I found the color it reminds me most of:: Kohaku Koi fish!! The almost neon red/orange patches on this guy is what I think this color looks like.

Guest Post!

Well, sort of anyways. This post is going to be about my friend, Stefanie, painting her dog's nails! She is allergic to nail polish on her own skin (meaning she had to be careful doing her dog's!) so she decided to do Midnight's! I'm not entirely sure what color this is, it's "Avon Ocean something" and I'll be sure to update when I know the actual name of the polish. I'll hopefully get some non-phone pictures too! For now though, here are Middie's painted paws!

LaSplash Golden Seahorse and a Pedicure!

So, my mother-in-law-to-be is in town visiting from NY and she loves taking me with her to get a pedicure (Since she can't do that with her son). I was sad they didn't have any of the corals/oranges from the OPI Texas Collection but ended up getting mine done in an orangey-coral called Modern Girl. This is two coats (not done by me!) with OPI top coat (Yes, I asked the guy doing my toes what he used). Looks a little like their new sorbets.

Then I came home after a great mall trip, a stop at Ulta, and a great dinner at the Melting Pot to re-do my nails. This is LASplash Golden Seahorse with Essie Matte About You on top.  Two coats, nice sea foam color with gold and copper glitter/flakies. Pretty polish but a huge pain to take off and it didn't smooth out with Seche top coat. I took it off right away. You'll get to see my OPI nails tomorrow!

Justin's mom also got me these nail wraps at Sephora and they were just not working for any finger but my thumb. They kept bubbling up and not sticking to the nail properly. This was the lace pattern with Essie Matte About You over top. It's a shame they didn't work, they were really pretty and for $16 I expected a lot more!

Wet n Wild Megalast:: Haze of Love

While I liked the Bijou Blue I was wearing, it started chipping in one day! By the time I was done with work, half of my thumb polish had chipped off and I was just annoyed with it. So, last night I decided I would try one of their Megalast colors that I'd picked up a while back. This is Haze of Love which is a gorgeous mauve that is soooo very close to being a jelly, Super high shine finish that when you add Seche vite to it becomes almost mirrorlike. Three coats of lovely color:

It's a little vampy but I love it!

Sneak Peak!

So, two of my ebay items came in today. I thought you might like to see what you can expect to see in the giveaway I'm planning!

Right  now I'm not sure if I'll split them up and do two prizes or two giveaways or just do one big prize. What do you think?

No Naked Nails Is doing a Giveaway!

After getting a nod from Polishology, I went over to check out No Naked Nails and thought Annelise was pretty rad! After daring her followers to add to her posse to quicken her 50-follower-giveaway into happening, she's currently at over 100 followers! If only I could get 25! Anyways, she's holding a great giveaway including two of the new Crackle Glaze polishes from China Glaze. Check it out :)

No Naked Nails Giveaway!

Sinful Call You Later and Wet n Wild Bijou Blue

Sorry for the absence! I've been busy this week, had two midterms and a paper and work to keep up with! My first swatch is the green and gold SinfulColors glitter "Call You Later" I have the feeling this would be opaque in very few coats and is a super coverage glitter. I did one coat over Hard Candy Beetle and could barely see any Beetle!

Despite the great coverage on this, it was a major pain to remove! Took forever for me to get all the glitter off and you can actually see a piece of it on my pinky in this next picture with Bijou Blue

Bijou Blue is one of Wet n Wild's Shine polishes and I just love how it looks! This is three coats with Seche on top though two coats probably would have been enough if I wasn't sitting under a super strong light. one think I did notice is that it was picking about drying and you'll see on my ring finger that the polish wrinkled under the Seche. This is a great  medium blue leaning towards teal with silver shimmer. Love it!

I won a HUGE lot on Ebay... like, 42 bottle of Essie huge... So, there will be a giveaway in the near future :)

Bidding Bonanza!

So, I've recently discovered the usefulness of ebay when looking for cheaper (As in price, not quality, all I'm bidding on right now is Essie products and L8R G8R) nail polish and now have a ton of bids on lots that are ending in 24 hours.... Needless to say, if I win more than one of these bids I will be doing my first Giveway!!! I'm not sure what I'll do the giveaway for though. Should I do it for a certain number of followers? For a Raffle for a good cause (My favorite causes all involve dogs so maybe a rescue)? Or maybe I'll make it a competition of some sort (Name that polish, only right answers get an entry). Who knows! But, I'm excited :)

Edit: I won two of my auctions already! There will indeed be a giveaway in my future! Now to figure out what kind of giveaway... Leave a comment with a suggestion and the giveaway may happen sooner rather than later.

Beetle in the Shade/Sun

Since my artificial light pictures of Beetle really didn't do it justice, I took a few more today in the car then at the dog park.

Shade:

Sun:

This polish is awesome. It flashes no only purple and gold but also green and orange! Such a cool effect. I keep watching my hands as I type :)

Hard Candy Beetle

Sooo today was Valentine's Day. Since Justin and I went out for our V-day dinner last night, we just sort of hung out tonight after I went to tutoring. We did stop by Walmart though and Justin saw a Hard Candy display that he said looked like everything I would wear. I found an awesome looking polish and he bought it for me! <3

This is Hard Candy Beetle. Three coats with Seche Base and Seche QD on top. This is a multi-chrome glitter/foil? in a dark green jelly that I've read is a dupe for Orly's Space Cadet.

Matte About You V-day mani!

I finally re-did my nails! I had it in mind to do light pink nails in matte with shiny red tips but my nails aren't long enough to pull off a french tip yet. Oh well. I ended up doing a matte glitter mani instead and I LOVE how this turned out!

Three coats of L.A. Colors Cotton Candy over Seche Base to start. I actually like Cotton Candy a lot since it's a pastel pink with gold shimmer but it just would not stop being streaky/patchy looking. Maybe I'll try it over white sometime.

Then I did one Coat of Sally Hansen Strobe Lights and one coat of Seche QD.

And finally, because it was just not making me happy, I added Essie Matte About You over it all and I just loved the way this looked!