L.A. Girl Teal Dimension

Hello Ninjas!

I went running again tonight. Only 1.5 miles but I also did strength training afterwards which made me feel accomplished. I really don't like the running part of my workout and the weights afterwards are sort of like a reward for running. That sounds weird doesn't it? You have to have cardiovascular stamina AND muscle strength to be a well rounded person though. Ah well, at least I'm still running!

Tonight's manicure is two coats of L.A. Girl Teal Dimension. I found the display of these new L.A. Girl scattered holos at my local Rite Aid and was super excited. These look just like the Zoya holos from the Ornate collection but there are more colors! The formula was very nice on this polish, great opacity in two coats and full of large holographic particles scattered throughout a jelly base.

butterLONDON and MASH nail art!

Good evening Ninjas,

Sorry I've been posting a little further apart. I keep getting my timelines mixed up and thinking it's only been one day when it's actually been two. I'm finally done with my antibiotics so I should be better and more consistent in the next few days!

Tonight's manicure was done over a base of butterLONDON Slapper. Slapper is described as "A truly teal nail lacquer, bold and very bright." I really loved this color all by itself, I chose it to cheer myself up after a few less than stellar days. This pop of color was a really nice accessory for more neutral outfits like those I often wear in the winter.

On top of Slapper I added triangular half moons with rhinestones from MASH. You can find the set I used at the MASH website, right here. The stones were very easy to work with and didn't catch on anything with topcoat over them. This is my first ever rhinestone heavy nail art look and I was really proud of it!

Rhinestones provided by MASH for honest review.

Color Club Angel Kiss

Hello Ninjas!

I hope you're all finding this new year to be starting off well for you. Tomorrow is graduation here at work and after the big seminar we just had, it's been hectic. I've been running pretty consistently though and I'm up to 10 miles for the year so that's something.

Tonight's manicure is two coats of Color Club Angel Kiss from their Halo Hues collection. AK is a light teal/blue linear holographic polish. This is probably the easiest linear holo polish I've ever worked with, no special base or topcoat needed and no bald spots or dragging on application. My MiL bought me this along with two more of the Halo Hues collection so you can look forward to those in the coming weeks!

Light box photo, thus the different lighting.

Artificial Light

Artificial Light

Artificial Light

Barielle Decadence

Hello Ninjas!

Sorry for the sporadic posting, my dog sitting job has ended and we've had so much stuff to plan at the dojo I've barely been able to read my blog subscriptions.

Tonight's manicure is two smooth coats of Barielle Decadence. Decadence is a medium teal with a subtle shimmer throughout the cream base. I was worried this might be a hard to see shimmer similar to Purplex or Into Astrono-Me but this one is really awesome and easy to see in any light.

Scherer Chameleon Corona

Good evening Ninjas!

Tonight Hubby and I will be finishing up Spartacus Vengeance so we thought it would be a great idea to go to a local restaurant also called Spartacus. It was a great dinner with flaming cheese and fantastic Gyros.

This manicure is two coats of Scherer Chameleon Corona over two coats of Zoya Farah. Knowing that Corona would be a sheer polish, I wanted to make a great blank slate to highlight it. Crorona is a pink glass fleck polish with light teal and hot pink shifts in the right light.

Farah provided by Zoya PR for honest review.

Wet n Wild Teal of Fortune

Hello lovely Ninjas!

It's a cloudy humid day here in NC and not very good weather for swatching. I was hoping to have the Diva collection swatched for you by now but the entire week has been pretty stormy and grey. With any luck, tomorrow will be nice and sunny so I can get some nice pictures of the pretty metallics in that collection. Until then, lets check out one of my favorite colors, teal, in glass flecked glory!

Teal of Fortune is one of the polishes from Wet n Wild's FastDry line that came out nearly two years ago. Along with the scattered holographics Hannah Pinktana and Blue Wants to be a Millionaire, Teal of Fortune is a gorgeous polish for a very low price. At $1.99 I wasn't expecting a whole lot from the formula on this so I wasn't too disappointed when it took three coats for decent coverage. Considering that ToF is a blue green glass fleck polish suspended in a lovely teal jelly base, 3 coats really isn't that bad. However, since this is a blue/green color, it did have a tendency to stain :(

This is a teal eye look I did using a number of indie eye colors and teal mascara.

Zoya Gloss Collection

Hi Ninjas!

Stormy weather out here in NC, hopefully we'll get through the worst of it without any serious downed lines. Next week is weapons week at the dojo and simultaneously graduation week so I'll be super busy until Wednesday night. Ah well, it's all fun anyways!

This is the Gloss NYFW Collection from Zoya to supplement their Fall line. The set consists of three glossy jelly polishes that were inspired by Peter Som's request for a glaze which lead to the creation of Katherine and subsequently Paloma and Frida!

For each of these, I did an increasing number of coats on each finger starting with the index and ending with the pinky. First off, Katherine "A sheer, dark, red-toned aubergine with a buildable jelly gloss finish."

 Next up, Paloma! Now, Paloma is a name that means dove so I was a little surprised when this wasn't a great. Here's what Zoya says about Paloma, "A sheer deep fuchsia-berry with a buildable jelly gloss finish."

And finally, Frida. Now, the name Frida always evokes imagery of Frida Kahlo for me. She's a really interesting Mexican painter that did iconic portraits. They're not the prettiest portraits and I generally amuse myself picking on the massive unibrow the women sport.

Source: http://arthistory.about.com/od/from_exhibitions/ig/frida_kahlo/Frida-Kahlo---Me-and-My-Parrots--1941.htm

 I've got a fairly ugly little necklace holder that I call Frida because it's not the prettiest thing. When I saw that Frida was a gorgeous teal jelly, I couldn't help but be amused! Zoya calls Frida, "A sheer, dark, warm-toned teal blue with a buildable jelly gloss finish."

 

Gloss Collection provided for honest review by the Zoya PR team.

HITS no Olimpio Hera

Good evening Ninjas!

This week is my last week before testing for my Blue White belt! I'm super excited to be changing elements in Ninjutsu. Blue is our water element and a whole new set of moves to learn :) In honor of that, I've chosen to post one of my deep sea colors I recently wore. My husband picked Turquoise when I asked for a color and Hera was my choice since it was an untried holo from my recent Ninja Polish haul.

Hera is a wonderful turquoise jelly with a linear holographic finish. The color was build-able and was perfect in three coats. I love how this polish dries very shiny! It would probably be fine without topcoat but I wanted to color to last for a while. The color was actually a little bluer and brighter than my pictures were able to capture and the sun didn't want to come out and play when I was taking pictures. The pictures with the best linear effect are taken under a heat lamp for my snakes lol.

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

Essie Go Overboard

Hello Ninjas!

Today I've got Go Overboard from the Essie spring collection of the same name. This is a gorgeous vibrant teal cream that reminds me of all the plants that go into bloom when spring starts. This was a very nice formula, not runny like some of the Essie formulas can be. Two easy coats for opaque coverage here, with a huge color payoff! My new camera really wanted to photograph this much darker than it is so there is a range of pictures to show you as close as I could get to the true color.