Wednesday, July 11, 2012

Models Own Purple Blue

Every now and then I come across a polish that just blows my socks off. This is definitely one of those polishes.

I had been lemming after the Models Own Beetlejuice collection for a really long time, their duochromes are just beyond magical. The catch though is that they're a UK brand and they're difficult to get here in the US. There are a few online retailers that sell them, but they're kind of pricey and shipping is a killer, especially for a college student. Not too long ago, someone discovered that Urban Outfitters carries 3 of the MO Beetlejuice collection! Unfortunately, the closest Urban Outfitters I'm ever around are usually about an hour away. But lo and behold, they had a free shipping sale going on with their website, where they carry the polishes! So, of course, I splurged on myself and bought all 3. And I am not disappointed.

The one I'm showing you today is Purple Blue. It's a super shimmery purple that has a blue to purple/pink shift.

Models Own Purple Blue, Urban Outfitters $10
This color is just amazing, I can't stop staring at my nails. The formula was a little thick, as you can see in the last photo where it got chunky around the sides. Maybe a little polish thinner would help, but I think just being more careful will help the problem.

I had to go outside to take these photos because I just could not get all of the color shifts in my light box, and I think I did a pretty good job of catching them, but this polish is so much more gorgeous in person.






I tried to capture the blue as much as I could, but it was very hard to get it to show up on camera. The first and last pictures seem to show it the best. The other two show the purple/pink shimmer really well.

The polish held up pretty well, this is about 2 days of wear. There were a few chips I had to touch up, but those were because I had some freak accidents with my nails.

I absolutely love this polish. It is so unique and colorful, definitely pick it up if you come across it at Urban Outfitters, so worth the $10.

ALSO, if anyone has access to Indian Ocean by Models Own, could you let me know? :)

Happy reading!

Sunday, July 8, 2012

I'm back! OPI You Callin' Me a Lyre?

Hey guys! Talk about being MIA. It's been so long since I did a post. I really miss it too! It's been a crazy summer, I've been going to a nearby town a lot to see my boyfriend's band and work has seriously taken a toll on my poor nails. I really hope I can get this blog back up and going and get that giveaway up soon!

So here's a polish that I actually wore a while ago and I found the pictures and decided "I'll edit these and get the blog going again." I haven't been taking pictures of my manis because it was just kind of a hassle, but hopefully I'll get back into the habit of it :) This polish is OPI's You Callin' Me a Lyre? from the NYC Ballet collection. I really really loved this collection as a whole. I know a lot of people thought it was too soft and dull, but I think the shades are SO pretty and they're perfect performance shades.

YCMAL is a soft pretty pink jelly. I love the formula on these. They're so smooth and just apply so easily. They are very thin, but thick coats help build up opacity if that's the look you're going for. 

OPI You Callin' Me a Lyre, $8.50 @ various retailers

I used 4 thick coats of polish for the photos below. I also used my new light box which my AWESOME friends gave me for my birthday! It really needs to be used more!


This is a really good representation of the color! The lightbox does wonders for my photos!

So there we go, a short sweet post to get my blogger mode back on :) I hope I can keep it up and have more posts for you all soon!

Happy reading!

Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Update

Hey guys! I know it isn't another polish post, but I thought I would give you all another update. I finally made it home! My first year of college went really well. Tons of things to do though (hence the lack of posting). I finally got the goodies for the giveaway and since I actually hit 50 followers, it will be my 50 follower giveaway :) I'll try to make a video of the goodies this week and get the giveaway up and running! Now that summer's here, hopefully I'll be posting more polish!

Thanks for sticking with me guys!

Saturday, April 21, 2012

Hey guys!

Sorry again about the lack of posts. The school year is winding down so professors are giving me every assignment they can imagine. Bleh. Well good news, I'm at 45 followers :) AND I talked to Jess from Love For Lacquer about the giveaway package and apparently it got lost or something :/ She's being super sweet and sending me a new package for you guys! So once that gets here I'll make a video showing you all what you can win and how to enter.

Happy reading!

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Giveaway, not yet :(

Hey guys, so I said I would be having a giveaway soon but I haven't received the package from the sponsor yet, so let's keep our fingers crossed that it gets here safely :) Sorry I've been posting so sparsely again, college is so busy.

Thanks for sticking with me guys! I really really hope I can have the giveaway for you all soon.

Happy reading!

Thursday, March 29, 2012

Nail Mail and ANNOUNCEMENT!

I made this video a few days ago but haven't gotten around to posting it here.

One, THANK YOU SO MUCH KARLY!
Two, I have reached 32 followers, so I will be hosting a giveaway once the goodies get here :)



Friday, March 23, 2012

Icing Green Magnetic Polish

Not too long ago I showed you all Icing's silver magnetic polish. Icing had started out with only 4 magnetic colors, but when I went home they had at least four or five new ones! So I decided to pick up their new green one to wear for St. Patrick's Day.

Green Magnetic, Icing $9
Icing always has their buy one get one half off for cosmetics, so I actually got the polish for $4.50. This one came with the stripe magnet.

This was a very frustrating polish, but I think it was my fault. I didn't take the magnet off the top, so the cap was off of the polish making it get thick as I applied it. So always make sure to either remove the magnet part of the cap off of the part attached to the brush or use another magnet so you can keep the top on. I think this is what also caused all of the bumps in the polish. Lesson learned. And this was after 3 days of wearing and moving back to school so my pinky has a slight chip and there is some tip wear. Sorry!!


Indoors with flash





Indoors without flash
Sorry about the application job too, it got difficult to work with as it got thicker. I really love the color though, my nails look like emeralds!

I'm so in love with the magnetic nail polish trend. What do you all think of magnetic polish?

Happy Reading!

Thursday, March 22, 2012

Sinful Colors Cinderella

I'm alive! Yes, I know I promised more posts last week, I just never got around to them :P Keeping up with a blog is hard when you're in college. I've had so much work to do lately. It doesn't mean I'll give up though! I reached over 1,000 page views this week, so that means people are actually somewhat interested in my blog!

Today I have one of my all time new favorite polishes. It has such a hype in the nail polish community, and there's a good reason why. Sinful Colors Cinderella is one of the most amazing blues I've ever laid eyes on. I love it so much that I actually picked up a back up bottle. If you can find it, buy one. Or two. Or every one in the store.

Cinderella is a light blue with small pink flecks in it. One thing I absolutely love is when nail polish names describe the polish so accurately that it's almost sickening. This color really is Cinderella in a bottle.

Sinful Colors Cinderella, Walgreens $1.99
Gorgeous polish for two dollars? Can you say hecka yuh? Sinful Colors has really stepped up their game on colors.They have some really beautiful ones coming out.

For the pictures below I used 3 coats.

Indoors with flash
The flash does nothing to justify the greatness of this polish, the pictures below though show just how lovely it really is.

Indoors without flash





Look at that shimmer. In the last picture, the lower left hand corner really shows the pink flecks in the bottle.

On a side note, I won a free bottle of Navigate Her by Essie! Yes, I know I have it already :P I'll probably keep it anyways because it's one of my favorite greens and I've never won anything before!

Do you guys have Cinderella? Are you as in love with it as I am?

Happy reading!

Monday, March 12, 2012

China Glaze Harvest Moon

Hey guys! Sorry I've been so MIA lately. I had midterms last week so I didn't have time to post any of my manis, and most if them didn't turn out great anyways since they were pretty rushed :/ I'll try to have AT LEAST three posts this week since I'm home and my boyfriend will be gone for most of the time I'm here :( And also expect a huge haul video next week! Coming home can be fun ;)

China Glaze Harvest Moon is from the Capitol Colors collection China Glaze released to correspond with the Hunger Games movie. Harvest Moon represents District 9 which produces grain. I was really excited about this color when I first saw it, but to be honest it was just kind of "meh" to me. It wasn't bad by any means, I was just expecting more personally.

China Glaze Harvest Moon, Sally Beauty Supplies $5.99
As always, if you have a beauty club card with Sally's then the polish will be less than the regular price.

The formula for this polish was good, I used about three coats for the photos below.


Indoor with flash
Sorry about the little traces of Stone Cold in my cuticles, that polish was a pain to remove!

Indoors without flash
I would say the pictures with the flash are a little more accurate color wise. The color is really pretty, but I wasn't blown away with it like I thought I would be. That doesn't mean I wouldn't recommend it or never wear it again. If you're into browns and shimmery colors like this you'll like this color. It's definitely unique.

Sorry again about not posting for a while! I promise I'll have more this week for you all to make up for it!

Happy reading!

Monday, March 5, 2012

Nail mail!

Here's a fast video over some nail mail I got and another package I was so excited about :)



Sorry about the lack of posts, midterms are this week. I promise to have a bunch ready when I go home!


Sunday, February 26, 2012

China Glaze's Stone Cold and My First Video :)

Hey guys!

So I have two pretty fun things to show you today. First is one of the polishes from the Hunger Games collection from China Glaze which I absolutely adore. The books are really good and I could honestly recommend them to anyone and I think they have so many aspects to them that everyone can find something to enjoy.

I decided to wear Stone Cold first because I was really intrigued with it being a matte polish. China Glaze hasn't done a lot of mattes, and this was a surprising one in the collection because none of the other polishes have the same finish.

China Glaze Stone Cold, various retailers $5-$7
This is a dark almost gunmetal gray with lots and lots of silver shimmer to it. The matte look gives it a really nice finish and makes your nails look like stones. The formula was pretty good, I used two coats for the picture below with no top coat so I could see the matte effect.

Indoors with flash

Indoors without flash
See that asphalt look? It's really fascinating. These pictures were taken two days after I applied the polish so there's a little bit of tip wear because I didn't use the top coat, plus the matte started to wear off a little, which is why my nails look slightly shiny. If you want this polish to last longer, I would recommend putting on your normal go to top coat and then put a matte top coat after that. I also noticed that the gray color would start to wear off, leaving just the silver. You can kind of see what I'm talking about around the cuticle of my middle finger in the second photo.

Overall I really like this color, it's unique and the formula was decent.

So I was given some encouragement to go ahead and start making some videos to go along with my blog, so here is my first official one about the polishes I got last week. Let me know what you think, good and bad!

Happy reading and watching!


Saturday, February 25, 2012

Question for my readers

I have a YouTube channel for some nail mail videos I recorded a little while back. I've been debating whether or not I should integrate it into my blog or not. I would probably record and upload videos when I go buy polish or when people send it to me. Reviews would probably still be in written form, but would you guys like to see short videos every now and then?

Let me know what you think!

Happy reading!

Friday, February 24, 2012

Nail Mail!

So I have some really exciting nail mail to show you guys. I ordered some of the China Glaze Hunger Games collection and I have to say woooooooow. I'm in love with these. There are a few more colors I had my eye on that I may just have to go pick up. I also got a Zoya in the mail that was free when I ordered their nail polish remover called Remove+. Unfortunately they found faulty pumps on some bottles of the remover so I haven't gotten that yet, but it was nice of them to send me my polish!

China Glaze Luxe and Lush, Stone Cold, Harvest Moon, Riveting, and Zoya Rica
Pretty pretty pretty! I'll have a swatch of these over the next few weeks. I think I'll wear Riveting when I go see the movie. Hopefully the movie will be awesome. If you haven't read the books, I highly recommend it. They're an easy read and very compelling.

That's all I have today! Happy reading.

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Orly's Rock the World

I really loved the fall collections that came out last year. There were OPI's Touring America collection, China Glaze's Metro Collection, and Orly's Mineral FX  and Fowl Play collections, just to name a few. I got at least one polish from each of those collections, and they're some of my favorite colors. Today I have Rock the World from Orly's Mineral FX collection. I got this polish for a fantastic $2 when Sally Beauty Supply was having their 50% off red tag sale at the beginning of the year. I bought an insane amount of polish at that time but it was all for crazy good deals. It may still be available if you look in the clearance areas of stores and online.

This is a really cool and interesting color. I'm not quite sure how to describe it. It's kind of gold with a purple shift. It looks so textured on the nail too, kind of like a rock. But a pretty rock. Sorry about the blurriness of my nails, this finish of polish does weird things to the focus of my camera. There are a lot of pictures because I wanted to try and capture all of the different colors in the polish.

Orly Rock the World
This is such a weird bottle shot. The best way I can describe it is that it is half accurate. It's really more gold toned in most lights, but when the light hits the color just right it does give off this purple tone.

One thing I love so much about Orly's bottle design is that genius rubberized cap. It gives you such a grip and won't slip if your hands start to get sweaty. Whoever came up with that design was brilliant.



Indoors with flash
This is actually a really really good depiction of how the polish looks in the sun. It has that bronze/purple color to it. Very beautiful.





Indoors without flash
This polish is really both of those colors depending on the lighting, it's very interesting.

The formula was good. This is kind of between a shimmer and a glitter and it's application kind of reminded me of the application of foils. I used 3 coats here. I thought two were enough when I put it on, but there were obvious bald spots in some light. The wear time has been good, these pictures were taken after about 4 days of wear.

All in all this is a really pretty polish with a good formula. If you like it but can't find it, it seems very similar to Zoya's Faye and OPI's It's My Year. Orly is usually around $5-$7 and if you do find this color it will most likely be on sale.

Happy reading!

Saturday, February 18, 2012

Essie Navigate Her

Hi guys!
I'm really excited about this nail polish. I've been obsessing over this polish since I saw a promo pic for it, but couldn't find it in stock in my small town. My absolutely wonderful boyfriend sent it to me for Valentine's Day (after searching for it at 3 different stores) along with other gifts like a bear and cute little note pads :) He's the best.

Essie Navigate Her, $8 at various retailers
The bottle shot isn't very accurate, it comes off as a khaki color in the picture but it's actually more of a soft pistachio green in real life. You'll see in the pictures below. The formula was beautiful for this polish, I did three coats because I suffer from thin layer syndrome (is that real?) but if you apply it thicker then two coats is perfect. This is definitely a lot better than Mint Candy Apple was, much more creamy and not nearly as runny. This picture was taken 4 days after I applied it and there is literally no wear on my nails at all, not even a little tip wear.

Indoors with flash

This is not accurate either because of the flash, but I thought I would include it anyways since I always have at least two different types of lighting in my posts.



Indoors without flash
Now that's more like it. I was so hyped up about this color, and I was not disappointed. I absolutely LOVE it and I think it looks really good against my skin tone. One of the employees at Sally Beauty Supplies complimented me on it too and said it looked really nice on me. I don't own many warm greens, and so this was definitely a unique addition to my collection. I kept looking at this and it kept reminding me of OPI's Skull and Glossbones because of it's tone. Totally different colors but I guess the muted and softer tone is what brought the comparison to mind. I am loving soft shades at the moment. This color is definitely one of my favorites now. Thank you, Andrew!!!!!

On a non-polish related note, I thought I would give you all a quick college update. This semester has started out REALLY well. I had my first tests and quizzes this week and I got all A's on them plus I got the highest grade in the class on all of them. Look at me acting all smart!

And one last item, Amelia, I got all of your goodies and I will be packing them up and sending them to you soon!

Happy reading everyone!

Monday, February 13, 2012

E.L.F Red Velvet

With Valentine's day coming up, I had decided just to do a simple red nail. I have a gig with my new string quintet not too long after Valentine's day and didn't want any crazy designs on my nails if I didn't have time to do them again.

The polish I chose is Red Velvet by Eyes, Lips, Face. I've never used E.L.F. before and so far, I'm not very impressed with this brand. I got this polish in a pack of 5 during Black Friday for $4.50, which is a good deal. I guess for a cheap polish it's not terrible, I'm just use to better polishes.

E.L.F Red Velvet
It's a really pretty color and I like it, but application and wear time is awful. First off, the brush wasn't placed in the cap correctly to I had to hold the cap in a weird position to be able to use the flatter side of the brush. Second, it stained like nothing else! The pictures below are after tons and tons of cleanup and there's SUCH bad staining, it looks like I left polish on my cuticles and skin.

Indoors with flash
Indoors without flash
How bad is that?! Big turn off for me. Since the name is Red Velvet I decided to add a matte top coat and really make it look like velvet. This is where I got annoyed though. I put Hard Candy's Matte-ly in Love over a coat of Seche Vite, hoping it would last until Valentine's day (I applied the polish and SV Saturday and the matte top coat on Sunday) but I already have a lot of tip wear! Even before I put the matte top coat on there was more than average tip wear. And today (Monday) I have even more tip wear. I am by no means hard on my hands at all, I take really good care of them so I don't injure them and can't play my violin. I can only blame the polish on this.

Indoors with flash
 Bleh. At least the staining has kind of gone away. Another strike against this polish is that it's not 3 free and it smells so bad. So far I am not feeling the love for this brand, but I won't give up yet! I still have 4 more for them to redeem themselves.

No me gusta.

Happy reading!

Saturday, February 11, 2012

Orly Fowl Play

I have an amazing polish with some pretty crappy pictures today :P This polish came out this past fall with Orly's Birds of a Feather collection. I was lucky enough to get the Birds of a Feather gift set that Sally Beauty Supply was offering around Christmas time. The set also included Orly's Lucky Duck, Sweet Peacock, and a wristlet with a peacock feather. I really like all of the colors but this one really stands out in the group.

Orly Fowl Play
I didn't post a price for this one because I haven't seen it anywhere since the gift set. You can usually find Orly's at Sally's and Ulta for around $5-$7 depending on the store. If you can find it, buy it. It's a really cool color. Flakies have been really popular and I adore them, and this one is different from my others in that it's not a flakie just for layering (which you could do), it's a flakie you can wear by itself. From what I can tell it has orange flakies with a green shift and then some smaller blue particles along with some shimmer, all suspended in a purple jelly base.


Indoors with flash

Indoors without flash

Macro shot


 Isn't that color wonderful? There's so much going on with this polish. Application was a bit of a pain though, as you can see, my cuticles are far from perfect. The formula is also VERY thin so the flakies can shine through and I had to use 5 coats for the above pictures. Is it worth it? Yes. This is a very unique polish and I am very happy with it. I hope everyone else can get lucky and find it! I love how the flakies in this aren't as in your face as the layering flakies can be.



If you can find this polish, buy it, you won't be sorry. Though the formula isn't what I would like it to be, it's manageable and worth it for this color, sometimes that's all it takes ;)

Happy Reading!

Sunday, February 5, 2012

Wow!

So I have a winner to the "Guess the background" competition! I wasn't expecting that so quickly! The winner is my friend Amelia who with her musical knowledge was able to guess that the background I use is a music stand. Awesome job, Amelia :) I will try to get you your goodies quickly! And thank you to everyone else who guessed and don't worry, I'll have more games like that and probably a giveaway when I reach 50 followers so tell your friends about my blog :)

Congrats again, Amelia, and happy reading everyone!

Zoya Trixie and an Announcement

I love everything about this polish. I love the color, I love the formula, I love the bottle, it's perfect in every way. I love the company too! Zoya is probably my favorite nail polish company ever. They do the most fun giveaways and promos and their customer service is the best and all of their polishes are vegan. And look at how cute their bottles are:

Zoya Trixe, $8 Zoya.com
I actually was able to get this polish for $4 during a promo back in December, which makes this polish even better! Totally worth $8 though. This is such a pretty silver foil, if you don't have a silver foil yet, I highly suggest this one. The formula was the typical foil formula but was very easy to apply. I wasn't sure about this color when I put on the first coat, but the finish result is so beautiful, it's one of my new favorite polishes. I used three coats for this manicure.

Inside w/ flash
Inside w/o flash
It's so shiny! It's practically reflective. Everything about this polish is absolutely fantastic, go buy it haha.

UPDATE: Someone has guessed the background! Read the post here

As for the announcement, last week I posted a question about what I use for a background for bottle shots. I thought I would take it a little further and have a little game where I give you all clues in my posts as to what it is, and whoever guesses it right first will win a little something! (Granted it won't be very much because I don't have much money, but there will definitely be some fun polish involved!) I'll post what I have for a prize once I get something, but here's a little hint to get the game started:
_ _ _ _ _   _ _ _ _ _

That's how many letters it is! To enter you must be a follower of my blog and 18 or older or have parental consent to let you give me your information if you win. You get one guess per blog post so make it a good one :) Leave your guess in a comment below. I'll keep posting more clues in each post, so keep a look out!
 

Happy reading!