Wordless Thursday (oops)

*Sent for review*

Polish provided by Zoya PR for honest review.

Wordless Wednesday Ombre

A red ombre done in honor of the Boston Marathon

L-R: Essie Russian Roulette, Essie Forever Yummy, Zoya Rekha, WnW Vamp Red

Wordless Wednesday!

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!

Sparkly layering combination!

Hello Ninjas!

Thanksgiving break has started, the dojo is closed until next Monday so I'll hopefully have time to post every other day as usual.

Tonight's manicure is one I really loved wearing. Despite telling myself I never wanted to own a gold leaf topcoat, I couldn't pass up the Sephora by OPI version when I saw it on clearance at Sephora. To be fair, I tried it on over my existing manicure and it looked fantastic. To make a really dynamic and textured look, I put one layer of the $OPI 18k Gold Leaf topcoat over two surprisingly opaque coats of Essie Leading Lady. I actually expected to have to do at least three coats of LL but the raspberry red jelly that the glitter is suspended in was very easily buildable!

Fifth Degree Nail Art

Hello Ninjas!

Sorry I didn't finish the Halloween Challenge, I had too much going on between the outrageous costume I was doing and work that I didn't have time to do a costume manicure and a repeat manicure of another blogger's design. Maybe the next challenge I do I'll complete!

Tonight's manicure is the one I did for the huge Ninja Festival in Dayton, Ohio way back on September 29th. I replicated the belt that our dojo owner was recently awarded, his Godan or Fifth Degree black belt.  The Godan belts are black with a metallic silver stripe down the middle with the kanji for Toshindo in red on one end and the warrior name on the other end. I did the Toshindo kanji as well as the five gold bars that accompany them to represent each degree. The symbol on my pinky is what we call a kuginuki and is one of the crests of our martial art.

This is Halloween day 30

Hello Ninjas!

We're getting to the end of this challenge! This will be my first challenge ever and if I can stay on track, it will be my first completed challenge as well. I imagine I'll have a little trouble reproducing a manicure for this but I'll certainly try! My main problem will be figuring out how to coordinate this with my Halloween costume.

Same base as yesterday, two coats of Barielle Decadence with various striping polishes used to make the "treats" I did two treat bags in the shapes of a ghost and pumpkin. I think my favorite treat is the devil shaped lolly pop, the piece of hard candy didn't turn out as well as I'd hoped so pay no mind to that!

This is Halloween day 15

Good evening Ninjas!

Sorry I'm running late on this post, had another rainy day so I didn't get a chance to take pictures until I got out of work for the night and re-adjusted my camera settings a bit.

Not the best representation of zombies but I didn't have a whole lot of time for the nail art. This is two coats of Zoya Storm stamped with Sinful Colors Casablana and free handed red stitches done with a striping brush. The plate is Mash m28 and I thought it was convenient that the Skull and Crossbones had stitches in addition to the eye patch to make it a little more zombie-esque.

ManGlaze Fatty's Got More Blood

Hey Ninjas!

It's been a heck of a day at work today! You know how they say when it rains, it pours? Well today that was the literal truth... Everything seemed to go wrong AND the AC unit broke and started pouring gallons of water on the mat. Eesh. Tomorrow has got to be better.

This is an absolutely amazing color! Tonight's manicure is two coats of Fatty's Got More blood from ManGlaze. This is my first ManGlaze manicure and one of the four polishes I own from this awesome company. The guys over at ManGlaze have some fantastic names for their products and I couldn't resist the the amusing "Fatty's Got More Blood" And the label art is fan-fuggen-tastic! There's a bunch of hot vampires eating a fat guy, how perfect! This is a deep red with loads of shimmer than actually look mildly holographic when paired with a shiny topcoat. SO MUCH LOVE...

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.

OPI Fall 2012: Germanicure by OPI

Hello darling Ninjas!

Now that I've finished watching all available Walking Dead, we're on to gladiators! Currently, we're watching Spartacus Vengeance. I'm still pretty upset about the actor Andy Whitfield's death, he was absolutely epic in his role. The new actor, Liam McIntyre, is a pretty good actor but it's just not the same. We're only three episodes in, I'm hoping I'll acclimate to the new face and voice soon. Until then, I'll be happy Crixus is still around and be freaked out by Lucretia.

Tonight's manicure is two easy coats of Germanicure by OPI from their Fall 2012 Germany collection. GbO is a dark brown jelly base with crimson shimmer that occasionally flashes gold at extreme angles. This is a great fall color and the second of my two picks from the Germany collection. A good warm compliment to the purple based Every Month is Oktoberfest, this is just an awesome polish.

Blue Belt Manicure!

Hello lovely Ninjas!

All of the winners of my Blue Belt Giveaway have responded to their emails. Prizes will go out early next week to their new homes. Thank you to all who participated! Hopefully there will be a Red, Green, Brown, and Black belt giveaway in the future of my blog :)

Hubby and I after graduating :)

I had a very specific design in mind for this manicure. I had applied to the Mon Jin (Committed earning a Black Belt) Program before this graduation and knew the uniforms that are given out to Mon Jin members are black with red Kanji on the back. To represent the Blue belt we would be receiving, I used OPI Swimsuit... Nailed it! from last summer's Miss Universe collection on my pinky and thumb nails. Two easy coats for a gorgeous glowing blue foil that personifies the water element we're studying. On my middle three nails I did three coats of the cream version of Black MAgic from last year's Fantasy Maker's collection by Wet n Wild. On top of that, I did the Kanji for To, Shin, and Do on separate nails with a red nail art polish by Color Club. Here's the awesome finished product :)

Left Hand

Right Hand

Mimicking the uniform

My new uniform!

To: Blade

Shin: Heart

Do: Way

OPI Fall 2012: Every Month is Oktoberfest

Hello darling Ninjas!

I've been feeling a little under the weather today which is sad since it was nice and sunny. Yesterday we had some scary storms! I was driving home from visiting my grandparents and it was nearly impossible to see in front of my car is was raining so hard. That was a little scary but about 3 hours in the rain let up. It's weapons week here at the dojo but it is also the first time in a while I've had to do a whole graduation prep by myself. Not to mention we have a large number of new students because the school year has started! Busy busy busy.

Tonight's manicure is a polish I got for .01 from Copious! It's a spiffy site where you can buy things that are hard to find or just unique to the sellers. It's a little like etsy without the use of paypal. This is one of the OPI Germany colors from their Fall 2012 line, Every Month is Oktoberfest. This is a inky purple base loaded with red shimmer. The shimmer gets a deep wine color because of the purple base and it glows on the nail with slightly darker edges. Two easy coats for this polish that is perfect for the coming Autumn!

Don't forget to enter my Blue Belt Giveaway!!

Zoya Designer Collection

Hello Ninjas!

Happy Monday. I spent most of the weekend sleeping, reading, and recuperating from my sinus infection. Now that I can breathe through my nose. I've got a dry cough to contend with. That's alright though, I'll take a few cough drops over a box of tissues any day! This week is set up to be crazy so you might not see another post until Thursday so let's make this a good one!

Today I've got the Zoya NYFW Designer collection for you. The first two colors up I wore as a full manicure and the last 4 I swatched when I got down time tanks to being sick. Yes, I chopped my nails off and squared them last week. I'm still getting used to this length and nail shape. All of these are two coats, the first three with topcoat, the last three without.

First up, Rekha " Bold medium blood red with a glossy cream finish. A custom runway shade created for fashion designer Bibhu Mohapatra."

 Second, Toni "Dark, warm raisin-wine cream with strong purple tones. A fashionable muted purple for a classic vampy nail look"

Third, Monica (This is where I changed my nail shape/length) "Dark, soft blue-toned purple with a glossy cream finish. A bit of vibrant couture color, darkened for a bold, dramatic nail look."

Fourth, and my personal favorite, Natty "Smoky deep steel blue with an opaque cream finish. A standout smoky blue for an unexpected but very wearable runway look."

Fifth, Evvie, "Dark smoky grey cream with strong teal green undertones. A custom-mixed runway shade created for designer Peter Som."

And last but not least, Noot, "Very dark grey cream with strong blue-green undertones. Smoky, smoldering dark grey nails with a twist from the addition of green tones."

Overall, my favorites were Rekha, Natty, and Evvie. The other colors were nice but those three really stood out. I love how vibrant Rehka is without looking like any old red in the crayon box, it's sort of the red of fresh blood which is really fitting for fall when you think of Halloween coming up. I enjoy Natty immensely, I don't have anything like this smokey slate blue in my collection and this is one of the colors that I both swatched and decided to wear as a full manicure after the fact. Evvie is really pretty, another color that is unique in my collection, Evvie reminds me of shade in an Australian forest (C'mon, they called it eucalyptus!)

This is a great collection and you can order it now from Zoya.com!

Polish in this post provided by Zoya PR team for honest review.