Sweetheart Manicure

Hello lovely Ninjas!

Happy Wednesday and pre-Valentines day! I'm getting more and more nervous as my test to move up from blue-black to red-white approaches so I've been doing more classes than usual this week. Next week is test week, ahhhhh!

Tonight's manicure doubles for both Pink Wednesday and Valentine's day! This is two coats of OPI Care to Danse as a nice soft lilac base and one coat of Savina Hearts over top. I had originally intended to do a jelly sandwich with CtD but the microglitter looked so pretty in the light that I didn't want to over it up with another coat of polish. This is a very girly manicure and it kind of drives me crazy because it's not really in my personality to wear something to soft!

Illamasqua Glitter Gradient

Good evening Ninjas!

Happy Monday, hope you had a lovely weekend. I think the highlight of my weekend was Walking Dead coming back for the Mid-Season premiere! Do you watch that show?

Tonight's manicure is one I really didn't want to take off. This is two coats of Illamasqua Phallic which is, hands down, my new favorite blue nail polish. Illamasqua describes Phallic as a "deep midnight blue, shimmer finish" which doesn't do this polish justice. This polish absolutely glows on its own but I couldn't just leave well enough alone. I did a sponged glitter gradient on the tips of my nails with Finger Paints Falling for You which is a Copper mini and hex glitter combination. This was an awesome duo!

butterLONDON Scuppered

Hello lovely Ninjas!

I hope your weekend has started off well. Tomorrow is a busy day at work between visiting Jiu Jitsu celebrity Royce Gracie, a really neat survival camp out, and a birthday party. Not to mention it's also the Chinese New Year! I don't know if my nails will be all snaked out but I'm sure I'll have some neat reptilian manicures in the next week or so to celebrate the Year of the Snake since I'm a Snake myself :)

Tonight's manicure is three thin coats of butterLONDON Scuppered from their Winter 2012/13 collection. This is the first color from the collection that really caught my eye and I think it was the complex finish of the polish that really makes it interesting. Not only is Scuppered a metallic foil but it also has a slight gold to pink duochrome to it AND emerald green hex glitter sprinkled throughout. ButterLONDON describes Scuppered as, "Opaque, copper shimmer with pink, gold, and green glitter." The only downside to this polish was that it took three coats for opacity but this was a pretty fantastic color to wear.

Winning Layering

Good evening Ninjas!

Hopefully you've been having a good week so far. Tomorrow we'll be over half way through, woooo!

Tonight's manicure is a combination of two polishes I received when I won My Lucid Bubble's giveaway. The base polish is two coats of Ava from Jessica's It's a Girl Thing Spring 2013 collection. Ava (New Kid in Town) is a very pretty lilac that has a subtle silver shimmer throughout. Over this polish I did a thin coat of Shift Happens from Girl Bits just to make this purple even better! I could have done two coats but I didn't want to use up my mini and the light purple of Ava is already a nice Winter pick-me-up.

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.

butterLONDON Shag

Good evening Ninjas!

I hope your Friday was awesome and you're ready to have a relaxing weekend. I'm working tomorrow, as usual, but one of my co-workers is having a Super Bowl party so at least I have that to look forward to!

Tonight's manicure is the one I wore for part of Trivia Weekend until I had to take it off so I'd stop chewing the polish off of my nails. This is two coats of butterLONDON Shag from their Fall 2012 collection. Now that I own this, Trustafarian, and Dodgy Barnet, I've gotten all of the polishes from that collection that I wanted! Three coats probably would have looked a little richer here but with my new shorter square nail shape, two worked out ok. ButterLONDON calls Shag, "A London Fashion Week favourite, this high-shine metallic nail lacquer is a warm orange-burgundy hue. Reminiscent of fallen Autumn leaves. Sigh. " This is a great autumn color!

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 Lovely Day 6

Konnichiwa Ninja!

It's Friday! Hopefully the week wasn't too hard on you darling readers, I'm about to start a weekend of crazy Trivia competition and I'm super excited :) Today's last color of the Lovely collection is Neely, this is the one I swatched last so I could wear it to work. This is actually the only one I wore with base and topcoat for longevity and it was a hit at work.

Zoya describes Neely as, "a full coverage earliest spring green in a glossy creme finish. A fun color in a muted finish gives a cool vintage edge to your look. Originally created as a custom runway shade for fashion designer Peter Som." I really loved this one, two coats for even perfect opacity and a nice formula good at self leveling. I ended up layering Frida over this for a neat ombre manicure, it's a great combination for those who want to extend the use of a color without changing your whole manicure.

 Product sent for consideration by Zoya PR for honest review.

Zoya Lovely Day 5

Happy Ninja Thursday!

I'm not entirely sure why it's a Ninja Thursday but it just seemed like a fun day to belong to those stealthy folks. Here's the second to last installment in the Zoya Lovely series, Blu!

Zoya describes Blu as, " a full-coverage, soft and delicate pale baby blue with a glossy creme finish. A dreamy, calming blue that's both fun and flattering on the nails." This was a nice two coats for opacity. I think I'd like this better of it wasn't so brightly white based. A nice medium grey base would have made this a little more wearable for me. I guess that's why I've got Kristen.

Product sent for consideration by Zoya PR for honest review.

Zoya Lovely Day 4

Hey Ninjas!

I hope Wednesday is treating you well. Halfway through the week and we're on the second have of the Zoya Lovely collection for Spring 2013. We're starting in on the cream polishes now which, I have to admit, were my favorite half of the collection.

Zoya describes Jacqueline as, "a full-coverage, perfect magnolia nude cream. This light creamy beige has slight warm undertones and a glossy creme finish. Originally created as a custom runway shade for fashion designer Peter Som." I was surprisingly fond of this color even though it's a very light butter yellow cream. This was another three coat polish but the formula was nicer on the creams than on the shimmer.

Product sent for consideration by Zoya PR for honest review.

Zoya Lovely Day 3

Hi darling Ninjas!

Day three! This is the last of the three shimmers that came in the Zoya Lovely collection.

Zoya describes Julie as, " a full-coverage, soft wisteria purple metallic. The soft color and subtle shimmer give nails a delicate and feminine look. Originally created as a custom runway shade for fashion designer Zang Toi." This one is a little darker than the others with the same thick formula. It took a little while to even itself out but at least it only needed two coats!

Product sent for consideration by Zoya PR for honest review.

Zoya Lovely Day 2

Hello Ninjas!

It's day two of Zoya Lovely week! I figured I'd go through the shimmers first so here's Gei Gei. I have to admit to being a little confused by the name since my bottle said Gie Gie instead of Gei Gei. Also, how is that name even pronounced? Is it like what you'd name a poodle, Gigi (Jee Jee) or is it meant to sound more Asian in origin Gei Gei would be pronounced Gey-Gey in Japan.

Zoya described GeiGei/ Gie Gie as, " a full-coverage, blushing cherry blossom pink metallic. A shimmery light shade for an always-appropriate natural pink nail look. Originally created as a custom runway shade for fashion designer Zang Toi." I also had to use three coats for this color. It's a very pretty soft pink with silvery shimmer and very wearable.

Product sent for consideration by Zoya PR for honest review.

Zoya Lovely Week Day 1

Hello Lovely Ninjas!

This week will be stripe week at work and I've got to catch up on my running. Because of this and a huge trivia contest I'm part of Friday-Sunday, I'm using this week to go through the Lovely collection for Spring 2013 from Zoya one at a time!

Zoya describes Piaf as,  "a full-coverage, fresh forsythia yellow metallic. A light, cheerful yellow that's soft and easy to wear thanks to the subtle shimmer finish. Originally created as a custom runway shade for fashion designer Zang Toi." Due to the pastel nature of this polish, I ended up using three coats for opacity. The formula was on the thicker side and I'll probably add thinner if I wear the color again. Not a huge fan of yellows but the softer buttercup is actually not too bad.

Product sent for consideration by Zoya PR for honest review.

CQ Rustic Dream

Good evening Ninjas!

I finally went for a run tonight after a week off from running to recover. It wasn't my fastest run but I felt pretty good afterwards so that's a step in the right direction. Next week is stripe week at work and I'm hoping to get my second stripe on my blue-black belt which will put me only one stripe away from Fire!

Tonight's manicure is actually a pretty firey one. This is three coats of CQ Rustic Dream. This is a really pretty multichrome polish with a base color of metallic orange that flashes bright golden yellow as well as light pink. It was very difficult to get a picture of the pink using my lightbox so there is one really icky bright flash picture to try and show you that color.

Finger Paints Go Van Gogh!

Hello Ninjas!

Almost done being sick. Still have a bit of a sinus infection that I'm trying to get rid of but I'm mostly better. It's supposed to snow down here in NC which will be the first time for the season if it does!

Tonight's manicure is two very smooth coats of Go Van Gogh! from Finger Paints. This actually had a surprisingly watery texture for how opaque it was but it held up really well. This is what I was wearing in the worst of my sickness and these pictures are bout four days in so there is a good indication of how nicely it held up against tipwear.