Essie: Merino Cool

I'd been holding off on trying this polish because I already knew I would like it. So I put in on when I was feeling sort of blah one night and it was definitely worth waiting for! (Sounds like a corny abstinence poster, doesn't it?)

Anyways, this is from Essie's Fall 2010 collection and is a much more purple take on the usual greige. There are definite grey and taupe undertones to this polish but it is completely creme purple in some lights. I did two coats of this to make it the lovely shiny finish I'm used to seeing in Essie cremes with Seche QD top coat.

Essie pedi

So I was sick this weekend. Sick in the way that I couldn't breathe through my nose if I tried and three different types of allergy medicines and decongestants were not helping me out. I hate pollen, a lot. Anyways, here's a few pictures of the Essie Coat Azure pedi I did to match my new sandals.

French Attempt

I spent something like two hours trying to do my nails one night (Monday night?) and ended up with naked nails the next day. one of the things I attempted was a sheer look using Essie's Sugar Daddy. I liked the way it looked alone but thought it needed a little more... So I tried to add French tips! Uhm, it didn't work out toooo badly but I definitely need to work on my technique!

Three coats of Sugar Daddy with Blanc for the tips!

My First Franken!

I'm calling this Rockin' Robin because I spent most of my time with this trying to get the blue close to robin egg blue. I  originally started this off as a Glitter in the Air dupe but I don't have the right glitter to put in it so it turned into a pretty Easter color. It needs to be thinned out in a bad way and I didn't bother to do any clean up because I didn't intend to keep it on after I took pictures.

This is two coats of Rockin' Robin with no base coat and Seche Top Coat.

Again, this is nooo clean up. so please ignore the horrible mess on my cuticles! Isn't it a neat color though? And no, I am not sure what all went into this lol. I think I used something close to 6 polishes in this franken lol.

NYC: Starry Silver Glitter

I was thinking of letting my nails go naked, and they were for most of yesterday. It was slightly disturbing for me to look at my naked nails and their sad slightly yellowed hue so I had to put something on them! I stopped by the local Rite Aid hoping to find the display of oke Doke still around so I could pick up the pretty blue that I'd see swatches of. No such luck, looks like at least my Rite Aid has stopped carrying oke Doke. They did still have the Jesse's Girl collection though, I allllmost picked up firefly but refrained. I ended up finding this pretty awesome NYC glitter for .99$ and picked up a buffing block too.

This is two coats of NYC Starry Silver Glitter over Nailtiques Formula 2. No base color coat here, I wanted something that looked slightly naked still without showing my sad yellow nails to the world. I love this! The silver background glitter is actually a pretty scattered holo and the big electric blue and lavender hex glitters make me think of Glitter in the Air. I bet it would be great for trying to Franken a GitA dupe.

Milani 3d: Digital

Soooo it's been a few days, sorry! My computer wasn't reading my camera card so I couldn't upload the pictures of this new holo polish! This is a gorgeous dusty rose colored polish. It dried super fast, didn't have any pulling issues between coats but it did take three coats to get properly opaque. Digital is what I expected Tronica swatches to look  like. It has a great linear holo effect and scattered holo flakes too. This is going to be a lot of pictures because I just LOVED this polish! I picked up the lime green Hi-Tech too and will be wearing it soon!

Zoya Summer 2011

(( First seen at Body and Soul and The Nailphile))

Zoya is coming out with a huge collection for this summer! Well, technically it's two collections but altogether, it's one big summer collection to me. There is the Sunshine collection and the Summertime collection. Sunshine seems to have the shimmery/metallic colors while Summertime has neons/cremes.

 

 

Picture via The Nailphile

Here are the descriptions of the two collections from Body and Soul:

ZOYA SUNSHINE COLLECTION

Reva (ZP546) - A cool toned strawberry red with glowing golden metallic sparkle. A very rich and luxurious looking gilded red.

Kimmy (ZP547) - Gleaming metallic candy apple red brightened by gold sparkle. Not your usual red shimmer- this one has a fiery attitude.

Apple (ZP548) - Luminous yellow-toned apple green packed with gold metallic sparkle. A dimensional green that's clean and bright.

Tanzy (ZP549) - Light, bright tangerine orange with yellow gold metallic sparkle. A sunny orange that's easy to wear year-round.

Rica (ZP550) - Warm light coral with pink and orange tones and heavy gold metallic sparkle. An alternative to flat corals for when you want to shine.

Faye (ZP551) - A bronzed mauve with purple and brown undertones flooded with right gold sparkle. A unique gilded shade that will work in any season.

ZOYA SUMMERTIME COLLECTION

Sooki (ZP552) - Bright, clean, crisp cool cherry red cream with a subtle jelly finish. For an irresistible, attention-grabbing red nail.

Tamsen (ZP553) - Medium warm brick red with strong orange tones with an opaque cream finish. A special red that is both enticing and mysterious.

Areej (ZP554) - Pink with an opaque cream finish. A pink for when you want a bold pop of color but not something neon-bright.

Kieko (ZP555) - Warm, red toned dusty light purple with berry tones with an opaque cream finish. A nice alternative to pure pink or berry, especially flattering on warm skin tones.

Mira (ZP556) - Blue toned medium purple with dusty lavender tones and an opaque cream finish. For a muted yet colorful purple that isn't too dark.

Breezi (ZP557) - Soft, dusty, medium cerulean blue with an opaque cream finish. A super chic high-fashion denim look for nails.

In addition to the Sunshine & Summertime Collection, there are three limited edition ModMatte's coming out! No word yet on their finish (shimmer or plain matte) I'm loving the way Phoebe looks, how about you ladies?

Photo via The Nailphile

Wet n Wild Megalast: Under Your Spell

Justin has promised me that I will get a bottle of polish for every sink-full of dishes that I wash without being asked.. Well I did the dishes sometime last week and here is a bottle of polish I picked out at a result (Yes I know WnW are cheap, I ended up getting two lol)

I originally thought that this was a ruby based polish with some shimmer. I turned out to be pretty wrong! This is actually a black jelly based with a toooon of ruby shimmer. This is two coats with no base and a top of Seche QD. This was a hard polish to photograph so the artificial light pictures are the majority because they were the most accurate.

Sinful: Sugar Sugar

Quick short post today: This is a color Justin picked out for me to try. Sinful Colors' Sugar Sugar (from their holiday line?) is a red shimmer in red jelly base that's super pigmented. I know some Sinful formulas require a lot of building but this was only two coats!

Orly Summer 2011

I don't actually own any Orly polishes because I have only seen them at Sally for $6 and I could get them for considerably less online. In addition to that, I still have a ton of un-worn colors! Anyways, these are the two Summer collections set for release from Orly in May and July.

Too bad this one isn't out already! I'd have loved that green for St.Patrick's day!

I like the blue from this collection because it's pretty close to my University's blue :)

What do you ladies think? I don't think there's too much that's unique here but they're still pretty!

(Photos credit to Body and Soul where I first saw this release)

St.Patrick's Day Mani!

So I originally had a ridiculous idea to do green polish, party of five glitters topcoat, and green glitter tips... and I did it but it looks obnoxious... Soooo I went a more simple route! This is one (yes, one!) coat of Jesse's Girl Fool's Gold with Sinful Call You Later on top. It's a neat Pot o' Gold sort of effect and if you look at it quickly the glitter looks like little shamrocks!

Guest post 1.2

So, this is the long awaited follow up of my first Guest Post about Middie the rescue lab. His mom painted his nails with Avon Ocean C3 after filing them down with a dremel.

He's such a handsome dog!

More OPI Crackle

Well, OPI is trying to keep up with the larger variety of colors other lines like China Glaze and Salley Hansen are offering in their crackle lines! Along with the Silver Shatter coming out with their 2011 Pirate of the Caribbean line, they are adding 5 more crackles to their artillery. I'm personally interested in the Red Shatter, what about you ladies?

(First seen at Body and Soul )

Giveaway Winners!!!

First, I want to thank all of you who entered for blogging about my giveaway and spreading the word. I had a total of 117 entries (counting people's multiples). I did have one lady try to enter twice but I caught on pretty quick! I went to Random.org to randomize my entries and my two winners are......

((Drumroll please.....))

#100 Jessica of Jessica V. Polish and #49 Stephanie O. of Have Aussie, Will Travel!!

Congrats ladies, I have sent you both emails and as it works out, you wanted opposite prizes so no one will be disappointed :)

Thank you again to all those who entered. I will probably be doing another milestone giveaway sometime soon (since I jumped up to 50 today!) I'm just not sure what number it will be yet!