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.

Wordless Wednesday

The Face Shop RD301

The Face Shop RD301

The Face Shop RD301

Soft Grey Holo

Hello Ninjas!

This is weapons week at work and I have the opportunity to do sword classes with the red belts. Sword was SO MUCH FUN tonight in class! I think I'll really like the Fire Element and there is only a little over a week left until I'm wearing a red-white belt :)

Tonight's manicure was sort of a whim to make what could have been a plain manicure a little more interesting. I used two coats of Smoke Screen from Ulta as a base under one coat of a holo topcoat I received in a nail polish swap a few months back. The result was a very pretty soft grey holographic that looked a little like a wintery slush.

Color Club Revvolution

Hello Ninjas!

Trivia weekend was awesome. I'm still getting my sleep schedule back in order but it was an awesome year for our team. We came in second out of over 50 other teams and only lost first by 10 points out of over 1000!

Tonight's manicure is two coats of Color Club Revvolution which is a black holo polish. This color looked much more black or gunmetal grey in person, I'm not entirely sure why it leans green in these photos. It was really difficult to get a good shot of the holo in this polish, I'm beginning to think that I'll have to use artificial light instead of a light box to properly show off my holos!

Zoya Aurora

Hello Ninjas!

Sorry about the day late posts, I got really sick starting on Friday and I'm just now feeling more human.  With my fever finally broken, I figured I'd take the time to do the final post I had planned for holo week!

Today's manicure is a scattered holo from Zoya's Ornate collection, Aurora. I have always loved the name Aurora and all of the neat things the name reminds me of: the Northern Lights, Sleeping Beauty, and the X-men Storm. Zoya describes Aurora as, "a full coverage, medium sugarplum purple flecked with a high concentration of micro fine diamond holographic glitter." Two very smooth coats made this an easy opaque manicure that lasted 4 days (2 more than I usually wait to change a polish) without chipping.

I love how vivid the blue on this one is that it actually blew out the blue on my camera.

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!

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

Zoya Blaze

Good evening Ninjas!

As this weekend comes to a close, I have to say I'm pretty thankful for the time I've had off and been able to spend with my husband. Right now we're watching Aliens and just relaxing before the start of another work week.

Tonight's manicure is two coats of Blaze from Zoya's Ornate collection. Zoya describes Blaze as, "a full coverage, cool-toned medium mulberry red with a high concentration of micro fine diamond holographic glitter." I'd say that's a pretty accurate description except for the red. This is definitely more of a pinkish berry color, though it does lean towards the redder end of the spectrum. The formula is great, only two coats for opacity. However, this polish did not dry with the same high shine we saw on Storm from this same collection. In the sunlight, you can't tell but Blaze might have benefited from a second coat of topcoat to give a smooth shine.

Sorry there's no label shot this time, my computer corrupted the file and I couldn't recover it :(

Zoya Storm

Good evening Ninjas!

Trying to get back into the swing of posting with an awesome manicure! This is two smooth coats of Zoya Storm from their Ornate Collection. Zoya describes Storm as "best described as a full coverage, holiday black with a high concentration of micro fine diamond holographic glitter." For the amount of scattered holo in this polish, Storm dried surprisingly shiny and smooth, I was very impressed.

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.

butter LONDON Dodgy Barnett

Hello Ninjas!

Over the last couple of weeks or so there has been a ridiculous amount of photo theft from the nail blogging community. As such, I took the time to create my own watermark that you'll be seeing from now on in my pictures. It's fairly small so it shouldn't change the picture quality and it certainly won't hamper your view of the polish. I just wanted to let you all know why I started to add it! Also, do you like my new blog header?

Today's manicure (and actually the one I'm wearing today!) is Dodgy Barnett from butter LONDON's Fall 2012 collection.  I picked this up at the Nordstrom Buy 2 Get 1 Free that happened on Sunday. I love holos and this polish is not exception! Butter LONDON describes this polish as "A highly holographic lacquer in a classic shade that blurs the line between grey and silver. " Which is pretty accurate. When I was looking at it in the sunlight, DB made me think of AEngland's Princess Tears without the strong duochrome effect. I love this, and if you've been lemming Glitter Gal Light as a Feather, this is pretty similar and more accessible!

These pictures are three coats which isn't bad at all for a very light colored holographic!

Layla Hologram Effect Ultra Violet

Hi Ninjas!

I've been AWOL the last few days because I've been off in the mountains having the experience of a lifetime. 30 of the ninjas from my home dojo graduated to some degree of black belt this weekend! 22 went to first degree, 2 went to second, 3 went to third, 1 went to fourth, and our owner went to Fifth! We're so incredibly proud of all the graduates but it's very obvious to everyone that we all feel more special with the head of our dojo also getting promoted. The sense of community on the mountain was incredible and I can't wait to go back next year.

Today I've got a very shiny and sunny polish for you. We got rained on for almost the entire weekend in the mountains so I thought my first post back should be something that was the antithesis of dark and dreary. This is another of the notorious Layla Hologram polishes: Ultra Violet. UV is a nice medium to light blue based purple with strong linear holographic effect. Instead of trying to make this polish opaque on it's own like I did with Mercury Twilight, I put it over a base color in Zoya Carey. Carey is a very pretty pastel purple from the Winter 2011/12 Feel collection and a wonder base color in just one coat! Over Carey I added three coats of UV and a topper of Seche!

Orange Skittles

Hello darling Ninjas!

Two days until I get to leave for NYC! I'm all packed and ready to go but I have one more day to work. I'm sure the day will seem like it lasts foreeeeever. I'm a little nervous about leaving my dogs for a week but they're in good hands with my friend Anna. It's nice that they can stay in the house instead of a kennel. Onward to adventure!

This manicure was initially intended to be an ombre but one of the colors ended up in the wrong position. They looked a lot different under a lamp than they looked in sunlight! Ah well, this was a fun manicure to wear! In no particular order, the oranges are HITS Ceres, Zoya Paz, Zoya Myrta, Sally Hansen Sun Kissed, Essence Wake Up!, and Finger Paints Courder-orange. These were VERY hard to photograph together! It was nearly impossible to get Paz to show neon andhave Ceres show holographic. Ah well, this was fun!

Layla Hologram Effect: Mercury Twilight

Hello lovely Ninjas!

It's a nice mild day here in NC, it doesn't seem at all like a Monday. Alas, I do have to go back to work in a while. That's ok though because it's Stripe Week at the dojo. That means that I'll get to test for my first stripe on my blue-white belt. There are three stripes on each belt so I'll be a third of the way to my next one! Time flies when you're having fun.

Today's polish was a gift from my Mother-in-Law for my birthday. After spending some time together at Ulta, she commented that I couldn't leave without at least one polish. I showed her the Layla display and she let me pick one out. This is the first Layla I've ever owned and it's sort of a signature holographic color, bright silver. This wasn't the easiest polish in the world to work with but I've since read up on some ways to make it more manageable in the future. Since my MiL bought me two more Layla polishes, I'll get a chance to try the tips out. I don't know how many coats this was, I basically kept going until there weren't any bald spots. This polish did wear wonderfully and the holo was great to look at, even indoors. My camera had a really hard time picking up the rainbows though so I apologize for the less than stellar pictures.