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

Cinderella manicure!

Good evening Ninjas!

Sorry I missed Wedesday, I had a party to go to and didn't have any time between work and fun time to stop to post. Sorry about that! If it makes it any better, I specifically brought my laptop to my babysitting job tonight to post once the kids were asleep just so I didn't miss two posts in one week!

Tonight's very pretty manicure is done with a base of China Glaze Fade into Hue which is an awesome periwinkle blue. For some reason the polishes from the Avant Garden collection have been bubbling on me so I added a coat of Essie As Gold as it Gets to mask the bubbling issue. To make this pretty blue manicure a little blingy, I added a spiral of light blue rhinestones that I received from MASH for review purposes. When I posted this look in a facebook group, some of the ladies commended on how it was a Cinderella blue manicure and I agree! With all the shine and sparkle it's pretty princess-y too :)

Rhinestones provided by MASH PR for honest review. Affiliate link included in this post.

Wordless Wednesday

Essie Navigate-her with Funky Fingers Taffy Town

Essie Navigate-her with Funky Fingers Taffy Town

Solstice Nails!

Hello Ninjas!

I hope everyone is travelling safely to an from all of the cool people they get to visit this holiday season. I'll be in NY with my husband's family until New Years which means scheduled posts!

I'm doing Solstice before 4 and 5 because it comes first on the calendar! Solstice was the 21st when the world was supposed to end so I figured my nails for the End of the World party qualified. This is two coats of ManGlaze #Matte is Murder with one/two coats of the Sephora by OPI gold leaf topcoat. I used Essie Matte About You to top it all off.

 I chose this combination because Famine is the black Horseman of the Apocalypse and he is often portrayed carrying golden scales. It applies to Solstice anyways since it looks like a starry night and Solstice has the longest night of the year!

Cirque du Soleil

Hey Ninjas!

I'm feeling a little off tonight so this is will be a post light on words.

This is two really irritating coats of Whirled Away from their by China Glaze Cirque du Soleil collection over two smooth coats of Essie Cocktail Bling. WA was difficult to apply, the clear suspension base was very prone to bubbling, and it was a pain to fish out the white hex glitter to make the black/white contrast happen on the nail. Also, I am more sure than ever that I hate bar glitter. Yuck!

Bright Orange Layering

Hello Ninjas!

The weather has been pretty deceiving around here lately, mild during the day but cold as heck at night. We finally had to turn on the heat today, way earlier than usual for North Carolina!

Tonight's manicure is a bright manicure I did to brighten up my mood with all the cloudy days we've been having recently. I started off with two not-so-even coats of Essie Braziliant followed by a medium coat of Kleancolor Chunky Holo Poppy. Poppy is a pretty color shifting glitter that flashes both a bright sunny yellow and a vivid orange.

Natural Light

With Flash

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!

Essie Your Hut or Mine

Good evening Ninjas,

Still a little crazy adjusting to my new schedule and figuring out how to fill my time with my dogsitting job gone. I keep getting off count with my days so I'll miss a day I was intending to post because I don't remember until I'm falling asleep. So I just wanted to say sorry for the wonky posting schedule!

This manicure is two super smooth coats of Essie Your Hut or Mine from the Resort 2011 collection. YHoM is a nice medium to dark pink with a vivid magenta shimmer that compliments the base color very well. These pictures aren't the greatest but there are enough swatches out there by now that you all know how lovely this polish really is.

Purple Nail Art

Hello Lovely Ninjas!

I hope you all went out and voted if you're in the US. It's been an interesting day here in NC with a lot of back and forth about how our popular vote would go!

This is a manicure I did so I could wear the wonderful two coat purple manicure from this post for a little bit longer. I added one layer of Essie Nothing Else Metals in a cloudy shape followed by Zoya *Toni in the same shape.

* Toni provided by Zoya PR for honest review.

Awesome purple layering

Hi Ninjas!

Monday was crazy, not only did we have the big Grand Opening but I was sick so it was quite a handful! It was great to see so many new people and celebrate this new beginning with our Jiu Jitsu guys :)

 This is a manicure that was incredibly simple to do and looked awesome. This is exactly TWO coats of polish! One coat of the fantastic dark plum purple by Essie, No More Film, covered evenly and was completely opaque on the first try, I was quite impressed. The second coat was one of the pretty translucent purple with pink/gold/purple shifting glass flecks by Pure Ice, Busted. I cannot express how much I loved this manicure and it was soooo easy to do!

Essie Armed and Ready

Hi Ninjas!

Eek, sorry for the late post. Yesterday was sort of a bad day for me so I didn't get the time, or inspiration, to go ahead and do a SotD post. And I have company over tonight so I don't have time to spend on typing one up. Here's a manicure!

This is Armed and Ready from Essie's Go Overboard collection released in early Spring at Target. AaR is a great murky army green with a lovely golden/bronze shimmer. Two coats was perfect for this, he formula was great without any of the watery issues Essie can be known for. One coat woud do it if you had a heavy hand and minimal free nail edge. On to the pictures. The sun wasn't out to play so you miss the glory of the metallic shimmer.

AEngland Avalon and Essie Shine of the Times

Hello Ninjas!

My Inlaws will be in town this afternoon! I'm so excited to see my MIL, she's awesome :) Want to hear a funny story from yesterday? Well, it's not really a story but it was an amusing event that happened when I went dogsitting. I let Mr. Becket out of his ex-pen upstairs and opened the door on to the back deck so he could go frolic.  Since he has a huge yard to play in, I was looking off the deck, seeing where he would run to first (I usually throw toys off the deck for him to fetch) Well, instead of going to play like he usually does, he lifted his leg and PEED ON ME. I've heard people tell stories of getting peed on but had a hard time picturing it.  So yeah, got peed on, had to hose myself off and carry on with my day. I can check that off my bucket list!

Today I've got an incredible combination of colors for you. This is two coats of AEnglands gorgeous Avalon which is a deep red-based purple with reddish shimmer. On top of that is one coat of the multichrome flakie Shine of the Times from Essie. Not many words are needed, just look!

Essie Resort 2012: Pink-a-boo

Hi Ninjas!

Today was my day off so I spent some time relaxing, a little time cleaning, and a lot of time at the dojo! I'm helping one of the students with her black belt demo for her test in July so I'll be practicing that with her each Friday until we get it perfect! This is super fun for me because I get to learn some advanced moves before I see them in a couple years when I'll have a brown belt.

Tonight I've got a super girly pink from Essie's 2012 Resort collection. I picked up Pink-a-boo and No More Film from this collection when I saw them at Ulta last month. I was in need of something simple and girl when my nails were nubs so I went for Pink-a-boo. This is a fairly sheer polish so even with nbbins I had to do 4 coats for decent opacity. Despite being a little labor intensive, this is a very pretty pastel pink color with a ton of blue and purple shimmer in it. My camera had trouble picking up the shimmer so you'll have to take my word that this is a beauty!

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

Essie Bobbing for Baubles and glitter!

Hello Ninjas!

Tonight I've got a quick combination that I produced after asking people on my dog forum what I should wear. Blue won out by majority but there were other bright color suggestions that I incorporated through glitter! The base color is Essie's Bobbing for Baubles from their Cocktail Bling collection for Winter 2011/12. This was a great dusky blue with a wonderfully opaque formula. If I wasn't worried about bubbling, I probably could have gotten away with one thick coat but I ended up with two thin ones. Then I added a generous coat of Spoiled Peacock which is a clear base containing purple/blue/green/silver/gold hex glitters. The end product looked very festive, like something I could have worn for New Year's Eve! I got a lot of compliments on this look and it wore very well.