HITS no Olimpio Ares

Good evening Ninjas!

It's been quite a week here between graduation and my new running routine. I've now run 14 miles for the year! This week is sort of a holo week for me, hope you don't mind :)

Tonight's manicure is two super easy, opaque, and vibrant coats of Essence Fame Fatale under one coat of HITS no Olipio Ares. If you are in search of a cheap, striking, and easily applied red, look no further than Fame Fatale. I adore this polish and I can definitely see myself wearing it again for a date night. I only did one coat of Ares to conserve polish so the holo didn't show up great in the pictures. The subtle linear holo effect was really pretty in person though and I could have worn this manicure for a week if I didn't have to blog!

Essence Grey-t to be Here

Hi Ninjas! 

Short post, just polish description and pictures today! Tango was up sick last night so I'm running on fumes this evening.

This is the base for my Saw Manicure from this past Monday. Two smooth coats of Grey-t to be here which is a light grey cream polish with a lot of pink/red glass fleck shimmer that occasionally shifts to gold at extreme angles. This is a really nice take on a fall neutral with the surprise shimmer you can see. The shimmer didn't photograph very well but trust me, it's there in person!

October Halloween nail art challenge!

Hello Ninjas!

I spent all weekend learning cool new ninja moves and having a fantastic time with my fellow martial artists. I gotta say, ninjas know how to party; my body hurts more from the dancing on Saturday night than from getting thrown around like a rag doll during training. Good times all around!

This is my first attempt at a nail art challenge. I've joined a great group of ladies with a love for lacquer in a Halloween themed challenge. The first day is Horror Movies! I had these grand plans for a really awesome SAW manicure but it doesn't look nearly as pretty as I hoped. Ah well, that's why it's a challenge! Two coats of Essence Grey-t to be here, ManGlaze Fuggen Ugly to look like saw blades on the tips of the nails, and two art stripers were used to make this manicure. The lighting wasn't working with me so I made one black and white for a little variety.

Essence Chic Reloaded

Hello Ninjas!

It's stripe week again at the dojo so Hubby and I got our first stripe on our blue belts. I also had a lot of fun in my first official Mon Jin (Black Belt Club) class last night. It's a cool opportunity to work with so many belt levels on those nights because it's open to anyone with a black uniform! That ranges from a Blue-White belt to a Fifth Degree Black belt!

Tonight's manicure is two smooth coats of Chic Reloaded from Essence. This is one of their new colors with the new bottle design. Chic Reloaded is a fantastic multi-chrom polish that flashes purple, teal, and gold in the right lights. This has a slightly metallic finish and the base color is a really nice charcoal grey. There are some funky hand angles in this picture in my attempt to capture the colors to the best of my ability.

New Essence and Kiko 600

Hello Ninjas!

Today's post includes two polishes that are from European brands! While Essence is becoming easier to find in the US via the store chain Ulta, I haven't seen Kiko anywhere in person. A really awesome student at work went to London for the Olympics to watch the wrestling events and asked if I'd like a shot glass souvenir. I said I wasn't much in to shot glasses but if he found Olympic nail polish I'd be all over it. Well, as far as I can tell, there wasn't any Olympic exclusive nail polish done but he did pick me up two Kiko colors he thought would go well together. One of them was Kiko 600 which is a light yellow crackle topcoat.

I picked up this new Essence, Gorgeous Bling Bling, at Ulta a while back along with four other new colors with their redesigned bottles and thought it would pair wonderfully with Kiko 600. GBB is a medium orange with gold glass flecks that applied nicely in two coats. I added one coats of K600 over my thumb and ring fingers as a neat accent and really likes this manicure!

Don't forget, my Blue Belt Giveaway ends next week! Hubby and I graduate on Wednesday the 5th so that's when I will be drawing the names (That night after graduation)

Essence Glamorous Life

Hello Ninjas!

School season has started up around here in NC so we've seen lots of new customers at work. Between being swamped at the desk and a few unpleasant people, I wasn't sure I would get to test for my stripe in class! However, Hubby and I did go to class yesterday and we worked up a sweat earning our red stripe! Only 12 days until we're sporting solid blue!

This afternoon's manicure is a pretty fuchsia glass fleck from Essence, Glamorous  Life. This went on in two very easy coats and had a great color payout for just a .99 polish! That reminds me, Essence recently overhauled their polish line to create a new bottle shape that holds more product and add new colors. I picked up 5 of the new colors so hopefully I'll get to show them to you soon!

  Don't forget to enter my Blue Belt Giveaway! There are three prizes to be won!

Essence A Lovely Secret

Hello Ninjas!

Today was a nice relaxing Sunday that all happened to be tax free. I picked up some shoes sans tax and a couple of beauty related things. Probably my best find was the Buy 2 get 1 free on ButterLONDON polishes at Nordstrom. I was able to find the brand new Fall collection in stores so I picked up Dodgy Barnett and Trustafarian which are both holos. For my freebie, I picked up Branwen's Feather. Did anyone else find something cool this weekend?

This is an older manicure from early in the summer. A Lovely Secret from Essence is one of their new to the US colors and similar to Milani's Orchidia. This is a pretty light purple polish with pink shimmer as well as an odd sort of suspended darker purple speckle effect. I don't recall seeing the speckles in the bottle but they certainly showed up on my nails. I wonder if the darker purple was just a reaction to my top coat? Two easy coats for opacity on ALS, it was a nice early summer manicure to wear.

Essence High Spirits

Hello lovely Ninjas!

This week is weapons week in Ninjutsu. Since I'm graduation to the water element next week, I'm technically allowed to use the blue-belt weapon in class this week! Water uses a hanbo which is a 3 foot wooden staff. I'm excited because it's a change from the rubber throwing stars (Shuriken) I've had the chance to use the last 9 months! Anyways, on to the polish!

I picked up High Spirits one of my trips to Ulta about two months ago. I love green nail polish and I didn't have anything that was olive drab with silver shimmer. This is a pretty pretty polish that reminds me of the base color in RBL's Halcyon. Inspired by Halcyon and not able to fork out the money for it, I wore High Spirits with two different shimmer coats by Orly over it. I did two coats of High Spirits with one coat each of Orly Fifty-Four and Love Each Other. I wish the shimmer had turned out better in these pictures, this was a very pretty combination :)

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

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.

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.

Ulta Envy and recent finds

Hello again!

It's been overcast here in NC for a few days now so I apologize in advance for the poor lighting in my pictures. This is Ulta Envy, a lovely jewel toned green with a hint of aqua shimmer. This manicure is ONE coat. I've read other blogs and they all used two coats. I think the reason I got away with one is because I have nubs so there's no VNL to cover up. Still, super easy to work with and a pretty color that looks good on my sad nubbins.

 And here's a few of the polishes I've picked up over the last week. The two Butter Londons are my first from the brand that I picked up at Ulta's BOGO deal. I was happy to get Wallis but I was hoping to get No more Waity Katie instead of Big Smoke. Oh well! I'm excited about the cute little pumpkin polishes tha tI got at Rite Aid because one has black glitter and the other has holo moons!

The two White caps in the back are Orly Fowl play! I found two at Ulta this morning so I picked them up for people who might be looking for it. One is spoken for but the other is up for grabs :)

Essence Choose Me!

Hello again.

I'm not feeling particularly well today but I've got a pretty swatch for your viewing pleasure. This is Essence's Choose Me! Which is a dupe for quite a few much more expensive polishes and very pretty on its own. Choose me! is a jelly-ish teal base full of gold glitter that looks awesome in sunlight. This did take three coats for full opacity but was definitely worth the end product.

Weekend Haul!

So, I can finally do my haul post after a ridiculous UPS mix up >:( Here are the pretties I've picked up between Friday and today. Chronologically listed, of course.

Ulta From Left to Right: Zoya Cynthia, Zoya Neeka, Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Pumpkin Spice, WnW Fantasy Makers Purple Potion, Black Magic (Dud? No glitter), Creepy Pumpkin, and Night Glow

Ulta: Revlon Royal Cloak Essence Where is the Party?, Essence Movie Star, Pixel Polish Public Display of Affection.

Rite Aid: Essie Very Structured, Essie Power Clutch, Jesse's Girl Mermaids Lagoon, Maybelline Cool Couture.

Rite Aid/Target: Revlon Blue Mosaic, WnW Teal of Fortune 2 pack, Revlon Facets of Fuchsia.

Victoria Nail Supply: China Glaze Trendsetter, Brownstone, It's Alive, Ick-a-body, Zombie Zest, and Color Club Love 'Em Leave 'Em.

Lots of pretty colors!

I have to say, Victoria Nail Supply has amazing customer service and helped me find my wayward package today, I would definitely work with them again <3