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

OPI Liquid Sand Stay the Night

Hello Ninjas!

This weekend is the 15th Anniversary Seminar at the Dojo where I work and everyone is pretty excited. We did a huge group photo today that I hope turns out well, it's hard to smile when it's that cold out and you're wearing a uniform instead of a winter coat!

Today's manicure is one I thought fit the Fireside Glow theme very well. This is one of OPI's new Liquid Sand polishes called Stay the Night. StN is a black base with lots of hot pink glitter throughout the polish. The sandy texture on this is really interesting and actually pretty fun to wear. I did three coats of polish here to cover up my VNL and make sure that the texture really stood out. I chose this manicure for Fireside glow because it looked a lot like burning embers to me :) Sorry for the different quality, I had to use my MiL's camera to take these pictures at her house so I didn't have my new light box with me.

First Zoya Promo of 2013!

STARTS MONDAY, JANUARY 7th 2013
A New Year Calls For New Color! 

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Offer Valid Monday, January 7th (10AM EST) through 11:59 PM EST January 13th ONLY Pick 3 bottles of Zoya Nail Polish for FREE* ** just pay shipping & processing charges of $10. 

Use Code: ZOYA2013
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Receive FREE Shipping*** with any Zoya or Qtica purchase of $25 or more (same code)!
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3. Complete Check-Out, Review & Submit Order.

* Promotion Excludes Zoya Nail Treatments, Gilty Pleasures and Spring 2013 Lovely & PixieDust Collection colors 

** Terms and Conditions 
Shipping & Processing Fee of $10 applies. Valid online at www.zoya.com 10 AM EST, 01/07/13 through 11:59pm EST, 01/13/2013. Continental US only. Not valid in conjunction with other coupons, codes or promotions. Returns or exchanges of promotional items not permitted. Art of Beauty is not responsible for incorrect addresses, credit card entry errors or errors associated with declined credit cards . Code must be entered at the time of purchase. Please allow up to 4 weeks for shipping if volume warrants it. Limit 1 promotional order per account.

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New Year's Eve Nails

Happy New Year's Eve Ninjas!

I hope you're all having a great NYE and that you're all planning some safe fun for later tonight. I don't think I have anything interesting planned but staying warm and watching the Ball Drop on TV, how about you?

This manicure is one I did based on the way confetti looks when it's falling in Time's Square after the Ball Drops at midnight! I used two coats of Zoya Raven for the night sky base and one coat of Cult Nails Happy Ending for the confetti. I actually like that Happy Ending is an applicable name for New Year's! It's a happy ending of the old year and a joyous welcome for the new.

Happy Ending is a really neat shredded type glitter that can be stubborn about laying down on the nail if your base polish isn't dry. I only had problems with 2 out of 10 nails so it worked out! I'll just have to be more patient the next time I use it.

Flakies Galore!

Hello Ninjas!

This week seems to be particularly heavy on the flakies. I'm not entirely sure why that is, I guess all the polishes I recently acquired from Cult Nails have flakies in them. That's ok, that's why I chose them!

Today's manicure is a really pretty purple combination. I used two coats of Zoya Monica as a base for one medium coat of Cult Nails Seduction. Seduction is a sheer purple jelly base with blue and iridescent orange/green/red flakies suspended throughout. I really liked this combination and it was surprisingly easy to apply the two together. I was worried that the number of coats might cause bubbling but when I used Wicked Fast to top it off, the whole manicure dried wonderfully!

 Monica provided by the Zoya PR team for honest review.

Christmas Nails!

Hello lovely Ninjas!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas day with their family. Between the cold, being away from my parents, and leaving my pets behind, I'm a little sad. Ah well, that's what happens when you get married, you have to spend time with a whole new family. I still miss the food and traditions though, this if my first year not getting to see my parents for the holidays :(

Today's manicure is a shimmery evergreen color from Cult Nails: Coveted. I used a base of two coats of Zoya Envy before adding a coat of coveted over top. Coveted is a really pretty deep green polish with a jelly base that suspends green shimmer as well as flakies. Some of the flakies didn't want to lay flat on the nail but overall this was a very pretty manicure for the holiday.

With this manicure I also used the Cult Nails Wicked Fast topcoat and it did a great job of helping even out the stubborn flakes. This was a much easier polish to work with than Iconic which gave me issues. I'm very happy I decided to get the Cult another try :)

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!

More Pure Ice Layering

Hello Ninjas!

I'm happy to see the world didn't end yesterday, aren't you? I went to an End of the World party as one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, I got to be Famine! It was fun, I got pretty creative with part of my costume too. On to the Manicure!

Today's manicure is another one of the really easy layering manicures I've done with a Pure Ice polish. This is one coat of Pure Ice Rio over two coats of Zoya Toni from their Fall 2012 Designer Collection. Rio is a really neat bright magenta jelly polish with duochrome glass flecks that flash blue and purple. This was an eye catching combination and a nice pop of color in the fall/winter months.

Toni provided by Zoya PR team for honest review.

Zoya Lovely - Spring 2013

Here's a little spring press release to warm you up on these cold winter evenings!

Zoya Lovely
Beauty is a lovely state of mind

Lovely, just LOVELY!

Spring is awash in six soft and lovely new Zoya shades including three dewy metallics and three fresh blooms of cream. Poetic in nature, this collection is sure to capture the beauty of the season like no other....

Zoya Lovely – spRING 2013

Piaf (ZP652) - Fresh Forsythia Yellow Metallic - Full Coverage (Originally designed for Fashion Designer Zang Toi)

GeiGei (ZP651) - Blushing Cherry Blossom Pink Metallic - Full Coverage (Originally designed for Zang Toi/SS13).

Julie (ZP650) - Soft Wisteria Purple Metallic - Full Coverage (Originally designed for Zang Toi/SS13).

Blu (ZP653) - Lucky Hyacinth Blue Cream - Full Coverage

Neely (ZP655) - Earliest Spring Green Cream - Full Coverage (Originally designed for Peter Som/SS13).

Jacqueline (ZP654) - Perfect Magnolia Nude Cream - Full Coverage (Originally designed for Peter Som/SS13)

Shipping January 01, 2013

Ultra long-wearing, nail lacquers by Zoya are BIG5FREE - all formulas are completely free of harmful industrial chemicals such as toluene, camphor, formaldehyde, formaldehyde resin and dibutyl phthalate (DBP) that are known to cause cancer and birth defects.

Zoya Lovely $8 (US)

Follow the Zoya Nail Polish and Treatments Blog and stay tuned on Twitter (@Zoyanailpolish) and Facebook for release date updates.

Hashtags: #ZoyaLovely and #nailpolish.

Two in one!

Good evening darling Ninjas!

It's winding down here at work as we get ready to close next week for the Holidays. I've had fun over the last couple days decorating our windows for the Holiday spirit :)

Tonight's manicure is one that served a double purpose. I did my "Inspired by a holiday song" on one hand and "Ugly Christmas Sweater" on the other! The base here is butter LONDON Victoriana which was a gift from my lovely Mother in Law. The accents are done with color club art brushes.

I chose the Dreidel song for my Holiday Song :) I went with a blue dreidel with white characters like this one:

source: http://us.123rf.com/400wm/400/400/webking/webking0511/webking051100250/283514-isolated-blue-dreidel.jpg

Then for my inspiration for the Ugly Christmas Sweater I did something that was reminiscent of this cute little dog sweater!

source: http://www.baxterboo.com/images/products/medium/east-side-collection-christmas-star-dog-sweater-blue-1.jpg

And my customary bottle label shot!

Lawless Lacquer Guest Post!

Hello Ninjas!

Quickie post tonight since I've been going non-stop since 9am this morning and I need a little break. I did a Guest Post over at Lawless Lacquer on Thursday, you should go check it out!

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!

Blue-Black Manicure!

Hello Darling Ninjas!

Last week on Wednesday, hubby and I graduated from our solid blue belt to our blue-black belt in Ninjutsu. If you've followed me for a while, you know that I like to do a manicure to match the belt I'm going to for each graduation. Here's my blue-black mani!

This is a pretty simple manicure as far as nail art goes. This is two coats of L'Oreal Notting Hill Blues with black french tips. My left hand turned out really well since I got to use my dominant hand to do the tips; my right hand turned out much worse and I ended up throwing black crackle over my blue to cover it up! Here's my pretty hand :)