Random Thoughts....

Hiya! So while I should be getting ready for bed (or taking off the face mask I put on over 2 hours ago lol) I'm thinking about what I would like to see this year in polish. We've gotten a ton of flakies, but I feel we are missing a few. I don't know if I'm missing anything that I don't know about - so I figured I'd post and see if anyone has any recommendations.

Flakies:
-We need a hot pink flakie
-We need a purple/magenta flakie
-We need a bright yellow flakie (think bumble bee yellow)

Holos:
-I've never seen a yellow holo (also thinking bumble bee yellow here). Wouldn't that be great and fun for summer?

Just some random thoughts. And I'll be back with a post tomorrow of an international holographic polish (that may or may not be  all that holo lol)

Zoya Yasmeen

Good Morning all! First off, I want to say THANK YOU to everyone who purchased from my blog sale. I was stunned by how many I sold. All of my untrieds were giving me anxiety, so I feel a little bit better about my collection now. All packages will be going out no later than today (I only have 2 left to get in the mail) and everyone should have received their delivery confirmation numbers by now. Thank you, again! xoxo
Today I have Zoya Yasmeen for you. Zoya's website describes Yasmeen as a 'dark blue-toned purple base with very strong red-toned medium purple shimmer and hints of gold duochrome.' This polish is simply stunning. I knew I had to have this after seeing blog swatches, but it's so impressive in person. In my opinion, this looks like a dark maroon. It's like a maroon version of black cherry with slight gold duochrome. I love love love this polish, it really looks lit from within in the direct sunlight. Formula was really easy to work with and it was opaque in two coats.

The photos below show two coats of Yasmeen and a coat of Seche Vite in interior lighting.

Isn't it amazing?? Side note, this post was supposed to be scheduled for yesterday, but Blogger wouldn't let me upload photos. I hate disappearing for more than a day or so, but sometimes I just can't get a second to sit down and post. If only I had a sugar daddy LMAO!! ;)

Finger Paints Twisted

Good morning all! Hope everyone has a good day today. I'm going to keep today's post short because it's already 2am and I'm still awake. Thank you to everyone who has purchased from my blog sale already! I appreciate it!!! Today's post feature's Finger Paints Twisted, one of the 5 new flakie top coats released this January.

The photos below show 2 coats of Finger Paints Twisted over Revlon Black Lingerie. Formula was good and easy to work with. One coat would have been sufficient, but I like my flakies really dense, so I opted for two. It's really gorgeous, even my boyfriend commented more than once how great it was. It reminded me a little of stained glass. I do wish the blue flakies were more prominent, so next time I plan on layering this over blue (or I'll throw on a coat of Motley).

Photos show 2 coats of Revlon Black Lingerie, 2 coats of Finger Paints Twisted and a coat of Seche Vite. Please excuse the chips! I wrapped my tips so thickly that this chipped pretty easy. Photos are indoors with and without flash, and outdoors (yay for sun!)

Massive Blog Sale

It's 2012, and my New Years resolution was to spend much much less on polish this year than I did in 2011. There are mutliple new collections coming out which I need, so I decided to clear out some of my new, used and htf polishes. Check the **Blog Sale** link at the top of the page for the listing and photos.

Thanks for looking :0)

Top 10 Blog Award

Hey everyone! I hope everyone is enjoying their weekend so far.Today is just my lazy day to catch up on things that I've been meaning to for weeks now, and I figured I'd start with an award that Amanda over at Amandalandish gave me back in December (I'm a bad polish buddy lately lol). Between the holidays and family visiting from out of state, I'm not sure where time went!

Amanda nominated me for the Top 10 Award and I'm honored that she even enjoys my blog, because hers is pretty kick ass too. If you haven't checked out her blog yet, do it! You can find her here.

The rules of this blog are as follows:

1. Thank the person who tagged you and link their blog.

2. Put the Top 10 award logo on your blog.

3. List your top 10 cosmetics/beauty/health.

4. Choose 10 bloggers to tag, link their blogs, and let them know.

I'm actually going to skip #4, because I can't even begin to chose only 10 blogs that are my favorite. I've found some amazing blogs, and I can't honestly and fairly chose 10. I feel like my list would be somewhere around 20-30, honestly. I know that Amanda has already tagged some amazing ladies (who I would be tagging for again) and also know that not everyone participates in these blog awards, so I hope I don't offend anyone! Thank you again Amanda, I appreciate it!!!

Now on to the questions, favorite cosmetics:

(I kept Amanda's and also added some of the others I found, I love this stuff lol)

1. Hand/Body Cream:  Hand cream is a tie between Neutrogena Norwegian Formula hand cream and Lush Handy Gurugu hand cream. Lush is greasier and takes a while to set in, so I mainly use this at night. Sometimes, I use a bit of my Lush Lemony Flutter cuticle butter as hand cream.

2. Foundation: Make Up Forever's Matte Velvet foundation. Hands down!

3. Mascara: Benefit They're Real mascara.
4. Make Up Remover: Oil of Olay 2-in-1 daily facial cloths.
5, Base Coat: Nailtek Foundation II.
6.  Top Coat: Seche Vite for life!
7. Nail Polish Brand: Such a hard decision....China Glaze, Ozotic, HITS, and Color Club.
8. Body Wash: Plain old bar soap first, topped with something C.O.Bigelow or Bath & Body Works.
9. Perfume: All time favorites are Moschino I Love Love, Thierry Mugler Alien, D&G 3
L'Imperatice, and my new favorite find is a Hello Kitty roller ball that I literally stopped in my tracks to hunt down the smell of lol.
10. Lip Balm: Maybelline Baby Lips in Peach Kiss or Peppermint. It used to be EOS, but I think they changed something in the last few months and now I'm allergic!  :**(
11. Cuticle Moisturizer: Lush Lemony Flutter Cuticle Butter.
12. Cuticle Remover: Blue Cross cuticle remover.
13. Setting Powder: Make Up Forever HD Powder is pure amazeballs!

Thanks again Amanda!!!

HITS - No Olimpo collection, Zeus

Every once in a while a polish comes in to your life, and you wonder what the hell you were doing without it. That's exactly what happen with Zeus from the No Olimpo collection from HITS. I received this as a Christmas gift from my best friend, who (on top of Zeus) gifted me the most amazing polishes. After we exchanged gifts, I had to nubbinize my nails and I really wanted to wait to wear this, but I figured dark colors look good on nubs so what the hell. I planned on wearing this for 1-2 days and then starting my NYE mani. That's not what happened.....
I wore Zeus for a record S-I-X full days. The last time I wore a mani that long I had OPI Axxium on my nails. I change my polish approx 5 times a week. For the most part, the only mani that lasts longer than a day is my weekend mani (and that's just because I run out of time). I can't begin to explain how much I love this polish. Formula was excellent. It went on smoothly and was opaque in 2 coats. I completely forgot to take photos the first day, so the photos shown are from day #4. On day #4, I only had slight tip wear. On day #6, I still had only tip wear and no chips. Zeus, when not in direct sunlight or light is honestly a little bland. It looks like a dark gray polish, and the shimmer is only slightly apparent. It really comes alive in the sun. For that reason, I included photos of the polish inside, with no flash. I think these are a decent representation of what the polish looks like indoors (although I need to invest in a better lighting system lol). I wish I would have taken outdoor photos. I will remember to take some the next time I wear this polish.

The photos below show 2 coats of Zeus, and a coat of Seche Vite (which did not lessen the holo, in my opinion). I couldn't narrow down the photos, each looked a little different so I decided to upload the best of the photos I took  :0)
Just a reminder, you can purchase HITS from Llarowe.

Zoya Yara

So what happen when Zoya posted the promo links in December?

I stalked Facebook and Twitter for the promo codes alllllll day long. Literally. I'm shocked I wasn't fired that day, because I was glued to my phone more than my work. I stalked Twitter in the morning, on lunch, on my drive home while at red lights. I scored big time. I even pulled over on my drive home so I could input my credit card information. Zoya has been doing amazing promo offers, something I don't see any other nail polish company doing. I love their constant interaction on Facebook and Twitter with their fans, it's really something else. The Ulta near my house doesn't regularly stock Zoya, and the small display they have is usually empty, which is why I only had 3 bottles. Thanks to the December promo (and yesterday's promo) my collection is expanding. In addition to the amazing promo offers, I read they are a vegan company. This is super important to me. I love animals more than anything, which is why I gave up eating meat products over 8 years ago. I would eventually like to weed out the polish companies that continue animal testing, although I know how hard this will be....I love my nail polish lol.

Today's post features Zoya Yara, from the Mirror portion of their Smoke & Mirrors collection. This polish is amazing. It's an olive green with golden glitter/shimmer throughout the base. It's subtle enough not to distract from the beautiful olive base, but enough to stand out. Formula was easy to work with and this was opaque in 2 coats. I was actually surprised by how opaque the first coat was. This is my favorite olive green polish (sorry, Essie...Sew Psyched has taken a back seat lol)

The photos below were taken indoors, with and without flash. Two coats of Yara and a coat of Seche Vite. This is a little photo heavy because I couldn't narrow it down.

My December no-buy..... (plus Zoya promo code for today)

WAS A COMPLETE FAIL!!! lol

OPI, China Glaze (Helllloo Sexagon & Visit Me in Prism <3), Zoya, Duri, A-England, Ozotic,
Kiko (rec'd in swap), Cult Nails, Barielle, Finger Paints, Revlon, Sally Hansen, Nicole by OPI,
GOSH, Revlon, Essie and Orly.....

This doesn't include a bag from a dusty hunt, or my Llarowe order from Friday.....

I think I need rehab. Maybe some of us girls can get together for a group discount? haha!

I'm keeping my fingers crossed for January's no-buy (after I order some Zoya tonight. 2 free zoya polishes when you pay shipping! Code: zoya2012)

China Glaze Seduce Me & Lynnderella Very Pretty Vampire

Good morning ladies! Back to work today; boy do I love 3 day weekends. I'm sad the weekend is over. Enough rambling....I did enough of that in yesterday's post lol. Here is another mani from at least 2+ months ago. I'm becoming more comfortable with my nubbins as the days go on, I'm actually enjoying them so I've started photographing my manis again. Yay!

For today's post I have China Glaze Seduce Me topped with Lynnderella's Very Pretty Vampire. China Glaze Seduce Me is really gorgeous. When I picked it up at Ulta it looked like a vampy red, but once I got it on my nails I found it to be closer to a medium red/berry shade. I thought it would be the perfect 'underwear' for Lynderella's VPV, but I found it to be a little flat once paired up. The formula on Seduce Me was fantastic, an easy and smooth two coater.

I topped China Glaze Seduce Me with two coats of Very Pretty Vampire and liked it, but wasn't in love. I think I would prefer VPV over a shimmery base, something to help the glitter stand out. VPV was easy to work with, but it was a total top coat eater. I used two coats of Seche Vite to get it smooth. Removal was also a beeyotch! lol. I don't know if it was the two coats of top coat, but removal was worse than a regular glitter mani.

I had the absolute hardest time photographing this mani, which is why it hasn't made it's way onto my blog since I wore it. The photos with VPV are not color accurate, and I couldn't get them color accurate no matter where I took the photos (even in broad daylight). The one photo also shows VPV as extremely bumpy looking, where it was smooth to the touch. The other photo makes Seduce Me look jellyish, and VPV to look plain blah. I plan on using VPV again in the future, and I can only hope that I can get better photos.  :0/

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HITS - No Olimpo Collection, Dionisio

Happy New Year to each and every one of you. I hope you had a good 2011, and I hope that you have an even better 2012. Thanks for visiting and commenting on posts in 2011.  I appreciate every single one of you!

Did anyone do anything fun for NYE? Around 6pm the boyfriend & I decided to go into NYC. It was m-a-d-n-e-s-s. I knew we wouldn't make it into Time Square because of the crowds, but the traffic was horrendous as they had already started closing down streets. We ended up leaving around 9:30pm so we could beat the drunks on the drive home.

Did anyone make any resolutions?? I normally make the same one each year, and always fail miserably (pay off credit cards, aka stop shopping). I think I may try to put myself on a bit of a n0-buy and get through my untrieds for at least the month of January. I had a no-buy in December and still somehow wound up with at least 30 new polishes.

Today's swatches are of Dionisio from HIT'S No Olimpo Collection. I swatched this months back, but I'm not too satisfied with the pictures I have of it. This polish is beautiful, and I wish I had better photos to represent it.

If you love purples and holos, you need Dionisio. This is the perfect purple holo. It's a true purple, and definitely leans more cool toned. Formula was extremely easy to work with, and if I remember correctly this is 2 coats. You can purchase this from Llarowe. Her website has become my go to site, and I ordered another three polishes from her this week as a gift for myself lol.

On to the swatches.....
All photos interior with flash. Swatches show 1 coat of Seche Vite on Dionisio.

OPI Mad As A Hatter

Happy Friday! I can't believe tomorrow is New Years Eve already. Has everyone picked out a mani? I'm thinking of doing something silver, and of course glitter. I haven't fully decided because I have HITS Zeus on right now and I'm not really ready to remove it haha. Since I have such nubbins, I'm not removing my polish daily like I was, so bare with me while my nails grow back and get healthy. I have some older swatches, but I'm not really in love with them, if you get what I mean.

For today's post I have OPI MAAH aka Mad As A Hatter. Does this need an introduction? I don't think so. It's increasingly hard to find. Also increasing is the price of this polish. I had glitterphobia when this polish originally came out, and soon after realized I made a mistake not buying it. I picked this up on Ebay for around $38 (including shipping). It's the most I've spent on a polish, but I worried if I waited any longer if I would miss out forever.

MAAH is pure amazingness in a bottle. I fell in love with this over, and over, and over again. Each time I looked at my nails I was impressed. The formula was easy to work with and it was completely opaque in 3 coats. The wear on MAAH is where the issue lies. I painted my nails late on a Thursday night, and went out with my bff on Friday night. Somewhere around dinner I noticed I was missing an entire nail, and that I had quite a few large chips. Like some other glitters, when this comes off it comes off in large chunks or in entire sheets.

The photos below show 3 coats of OPI MAAH and a coat of Seche Vite. Photos with and without flash.

Duri Icicle

Happy Wednesday!  Sorry for missing posts. I'm hoping everything will be back to normal asap. I haven't had a moment to really breathe, and I'm typing this up before I head to bed so I can schedule it for tomorrow morning. I worked 7-4:30 today then had to drive 90 minutes in bumper to bumper traffic (in the pouring rain) to pick up my boyfriend from the airport. It's 11:00 and I'm now catching Teen Mom 2. Does anyone else watch this??

Speaking of rain, we've had absolutely no snow in New York so far. The closest thing to snow I've seen is the ice encapsulating my car in the morning hours. I wanted a snow themed mani, so I chose Duri's Icicle to be my 'snow'. Icile is part of Duri's winter collection, based upon the new Girl With The Dragon Tattoo movie (which I'm excited to see) but I think it may be a re-release because my beauty supply store already had it in with the rest of their polishes.

Duri Icicle is a milky sheer polish, with gold/silver/iridescent shimmer. The formula of Icicle is extremely easy to work with, and I'm in love with the brush. It's pretty sheer, so I decided to layer it over Essie Marshmallow. Essie Marshmallow is a white jelly polish. It's my second time using it, and I really dislike the formula. I find it to be hard to work with and streaky, and it remains streaky even after 2 coats. It's thick, doesn't dry well, etc.

The photos below show 2 coats of Essie Marshmallow, 2 coats of Duri Icicle and a coat of Seche Vite. This mani was so thick (I blame Essie Marshmallow), that I couldn't wait to pick it off. The photos show two coats without polish.
Luckily, I have quite a few swatch photos left, so I don't have to post my pure nubbins just yet! lol

Holiday Nail Spam

Merry Christmas to all those that celebrate, and Happy Hanukkah to all those who celebrate. I hope everyone had a fantastic holiday and had a great time with family and friends. Sorry for falling off the face of the earth the past few days. Between work, my boyfriend leaving the country to visit family, my last minute shopping and family gatherings I haven't had time to hit the computer. I did continue my holiday manis though....so here is a spam post featuring all of the polishes I should have posted over the last few days. I've had some nail breaks, which you will see. I had another break today, so I'm headed back to nubbin-land.

Without further ado.....

China Glaze Mistletoe Kisses (LOOOOVE!)

China Glaze Snow Globe over WnW Ebony Hates Chris

Duri Night Before Christmas (LOVE the amazing formula!)

China Glaze Velvet Bow

China Glaze Twinkle Lights over China Glaze Velvet Bow

OPI DS Radiance and China Glaze Party Hearty (LOVE! My Christmas day mani)