Color Club Steel of Night

Hello Ninjas!

Hope you're all having a good Monday! I know that seems like an oxymoron but I actually had a decent day and I wish Mondays could be so good more often.  I'm excited, we're getting a new Point of Sale system at work that will make my life so much easier, very cool. It goes live tomorrow and I have to go in early for training but the way it works should result in much fewer billing errors and keep everyone happy :)

Tonight I've got one of the Color Club Magnetic Force polishes for you. Steel of the Night looks like a dark metallic grey in the bottle and before you hold a magnet to your nail. This is one of the polishes I picked up at Hot Topic for just $7! Much better than the $17 you could pay for a bottle of Nails Inc or Layla Magneffect. The magnet on these Color Club magnetic polishes is identical to the one that Nails Inc uses and is nicely detachable from the lid of the bottle!

I have super short nails in this post, this is what happened after my bad break on each hand. I figured it would be easier to get the magnetic pattern to show up on the whole nail. I love how stark the contrast is between the silver magnetic lines and the black absence of magnetic material. Many people loved this and asked where I got the "3D" nail polish! One coat over a black base polish.

OPI Jelly Sandwich!

Good evening Ninjas!

Sorry about the late post again, just got back from am awesome day! After work, I went and did some archery practice with a group of friends then we had a dojo movie night! We watched the 36th Chamber of Shaolin which is a great Martial Arts Classic movie. I think Fists of Fury is the next up on our Martial Arts Essentials lineup and it will be fun to see what else I've been missing out on. I feel so uneducated in the classics of kung fu movies... Then again, it is a Ninja dojo ;-)

Tonight I've got a sandwich you've probably seen a dozen times by now, OPI My Pointe Exactly and Pirouette My Whistle from the New York City Ballet collection. I was initially skeptical about this collection because I don't like such sheer pastels. It was seeing the really pretty jelly sandwiches that convinced me. I also picked up Care to Danse because I'm a sucker for light purples.

This is two coats of MPE, one coat of PMW, and two more coats of MPE. This was a looot of coats and I probably could have done without the last coat of jelly. Actually, this would have been really pretty with just the first three layers but I had a mission to accomplish!

Guest Post over at Toxid lotus!

Hey Ninjas!

This is a short and sweet post to tell you that I've got an awesome guest post up over at Toxid Lotus. I did some really neat nail art for my guest post; if you're a fan of the Power Rangers, you should check it out ;)

Thursday Guest Post:

Sally Hansen Big Money

Hi Ninjas!

Today I've got a glitterbomb to show you! This is the only other glitter from the Glitz Gal collection that I was actually interested in getting, Big Money. I hadn't planned to shell out $6 for a glitterbomb though since I don't wear them very often. Lo and behold, my semi-psychic Mother in Law sent it in my Easter Basket this year! I was very impressed at her choice of polish for me :) She also sent Illamasqua Phallic which was on my wishlist and I am waiting for a very good reason to swatch.

Big Money is comprised mostly of medium sized light gold hex glitter and some smaller gold square microglitter. The really neat thing is the addition of the medium lilac hexes as a pretty accent. I think I did three coats for complete opacity but my nails were on the longer side for this manicure and I didn't want any visible nail line! Behold the amazing Big Money:

Zoya Tracie

Hello Ninjas!

Tonight I've got a pretty spring green from Zoya's Beach collection for Summer 2012. This was a color I picked to go with the pretty weather we had a few weeks ago. Today it's been super cold for a North Carolina Summer. Seriously, since when is it in the 30's in late April??  Tracie is a cheerful color so I though it would brighten anyone who's dealing with cold weather's day!

Zoya described Tracie as "Faded, yellow-toned pistachio green with delicate silvery shimmer for a frosted pearl finish." This is a very pretty color and only took two coats for creamy opacity. I did have a couple of streaking issues with the silver shimmer but that is to be expected!

Polish was provided by Zoya PR for honest review.

Recent Hauls!

Hello Ninjas!

This is my first post with the new blogger layout and I gotta say, it looks funny! I'm having another sick night so this post is super short a sweet. I'm including hauls from Ulta, CVS, and NinjaPolish. What loot do you want to see me swatch next?

Ulta and CVS Haul

Ninja Polish Haul

BONUS: One Hand Washes the Other Haul

Illamasqua Viridian

Hello lovely Ninjas!

Yestderday two of my nails broke, one on each hand, so I am completely nubbinized! Fear not though, I have quite the backlog of manicures to post for your viewing pleasure. The last time my wonderful Mother in Law visited, we took a short road trip to the nearest mall said to carry Illamasqua in it's Sephora so I could oogle the lacquers. My MIL let me pick out four beautiful colors to take home and the stunning Viridian was one of those colors!

Illamasqua calls Viridian a "peacock green, metallic finish". Not the most descriptive blurb about a nail polish ever and not entirely accurate if you ask me. Viridian is definitely metallic and definitely green but I'm not sure it's vibrant enough to be called peacock. The base for the metallic green shimmer is a pretty dark black jelly so this color isn't a bright as I was hoping after seeing some of the promotional pictures. The formula was amazing though, two super easy coats that nearly applied themselves and I had to do almost zero clean up! This reminds me of a twice as expensive, slightly darker version of Ulta Envy. Do you have anything like this in your collection?

Zoya Zuza

Hello darling Ninjas!

Today I've got another one of Zoya's fabulous summer colors for you: Zuza. Of the Surf and Turf collections, the two colors that most appealed to me were Wednesday and her metallic sister Zuza. I'm a huge fan of all things teal and these beauties are a great seafoam teal color. I was tempted to sponge on white or silver tips with this color to make it look like waves at a beach but I was very short on time the week I wore this (Lots of prep for graduation at work!)

Zoya describes Zuza as " Deep, saturated, oceanic turquoise with gold and silver metallic shimmer and a foil-like finish". I can respect the description of turquoise instead of teal but I'm not so sure about deep. To me, Zuza was more the color of the ocean you see in commercials for trips to tropical locations, a gorgeous blue-green with a bit of mystery. I applied two easy coats for opacity and this wore very nicely with minimal tipwear. Please excuse my pictures, I'm not sure why but my camera did not want to pick up the sunlight very well. This is a gorgeous polish.

 

Products in thei post were provided by Zoya PR for my honest review.

AEngland St. George

Hello Ninjas!

My arms are super sore tonight, I have a feeling my polish application may suffer so I'll have to wait another day to change my polish. But, at least the reason they're sore is super awesome! I went to an archery range yesterday and spent about an hour getting accessories added to my new compound bow and getting sighted in. My dad has been a bow hunter since years before I was born and he let my husband have one of his bows last weekend. Not one to let my hubby have all the fun, I picked up a smaller compound bow for myself so we can get good at archery together! I'm very excited about the shop I found too; they not only repair and sell supplies for bows but they also offer lessons and have leagues! I hope to be proficient enough to join a league next season with my husband.

On to the polish! Today I've got one of the most sought polishes of 2012, AEngland St. George. This is a gorgeous dark teal scattered holographic from AEngland's Legend Collection. Many people said they had luck with St. Georgeas a one coater and I could see how that is but I guess my application was less than stellar so I used two. Two ended up being a great idea because I wore this mani twice as long as usual when I went out of town for Easter with no tipwear! I love how Adina's formula is always perfect, easy to manage and dries super high-gloss <3

Glitters and Bubbles: Pegasus Poop

Hi Ninjas!

Ok, so I know the title of this post makes little to no sense at all but soon you'll understand! The wonderful Amanda over at Glitters and Bubbles has created an absolutely amazing Franken-Polish. This polish is a multi-chrome and a LINEAR HOLOGRAPHIC! After asking for suggestions, Ms. Amanda named her beautiful creation Pegasus Poop, probably along the lines of many of the famous polishes in the lacquer world being named after Unicorn... excretions. 

Since it is a franken, Amanda isn't going to be making this color in bulk, I'm glad to own one of the bottles from the very first batch of PP! I've heard that there will be no more than 50 bottles of this released into the wild world of polish so get yours while you can! Here is the glory of Pegasus Poop in two coats over one coat of Zoya Raven:

Sorry for the picture spam but it's super hard to catch all of the colors in this polish AND get a good picture of the linear holo without having direct sunlight.

Cool new sales over at Apothica/SkincareRX

Hi Ninjas!

This is just a quick, non-swatching post to let you know about some neat deals happening over at SkincareRX.com and it's sister site Apothica.com. They put together the "Spring Beauty Cache" which is a great way to get your skin beach ready and beautiful for summer at a great price:


Beauty Cache

You can also use the code 13YEARS at checkout to save 13% in celebration of their 13th Anniversary! Happy shopping readers, Apothica has some AMAZING polish and cosmetic products.

China Glaze Agro

Hello Ninjas!

Today I've got another Hunger Games polish from the Capitol Colors line for you. This is District 11's color, Agro. Appropriately named considering Dist. 11 is Agriculture. One of the most well known characters in the book, Rue, was from Dist. 11 and her district is one of the most outspoken against the government of Panem.

Agro is a gorgeous forest green with golden shimmer in it. The amount of gold in Agro makes it behave like a duochrome in some lighting. I adored this color, it went on fairly easily in two coats and had little to no tipwear when I was sporting a full manicure of it.

Quoth the Raven

Hello Ninjas!

I hope you all had a great holiday weekend! Sorry I wasn't able to post yesterday, I was out of town with my grandparents having too much fun dying Easter Eggs. I'll have to see if I got any good pictures of them to put up, some turned out really neat!

This look is the one I did for Toxid Lotus' Makeup Challenge: Raven/Crow. I went a little bit more in the literal direction of this and did black makeup in a mask that was almost a raven shape. I also added metallic blue and purple accents but they were really hard to keep vivid on top of the black shadow I did  most of the look with.

I love how this looks in the pictures but it was definitely too costume-y to wear out in public. I might do a super dark night look with similar coloring for a date-night sometime. On a related note, check out these amazing earring I bought from Luna! They're black and green brushed polymer clay with peridot accent stones. They are meant to raise awareness about Lyme Disease and you can check out her similar earwings here!

Zoya Arizona and Chloe

Hello Ninjas!

My newest ailment appears to be a bout of TMJ issues in my right jaw *sigh* I would really love a normal, pain free week!  I'm hoping next week will be better. I'm spending the weekend at my parents' house for a little TLC.

Tonight I've got a combination I was surprised hadn't been blogged yet. I started off with three coats of Zoya Arizona from their Beach Collection. This was a very pigmented bright orange polish but it went on streaky like some neon colors are prone to. Zoya describes Arizona as "Softened bright citrus orange with a muted cream finish." Even though it isn't a complete neon, this color was very bright and did a good job giving me a good mood lift when I wore it!

I wore an orange shirt with this polish because they matched really well!

And then, because I thought this would be an awesome combination, I added a coat of Chloe from the

Fleck Effect Collection. This combination was amazing! The flakies caught the sun and reflected orange and green both; the end result looked like flickering flames on my nails. Hunger Games anyone?

Products in this post were provided by the Zoya PR team for honest review.