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!

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Finger Paints Twisted over Milani Yellow Whiz

So this is something I don't usually wear. I'm not a big fan of warm colors in general and the idea of yellow nail polish just reminds me of how stained my actual nails are. I decided to branch out though and try something I'm not use to. At first I had applied Mellow Yellow by Sally Hansen to my nails, but the formula was so thin and watery and it just became a complete mess. So the next day I went out with some friends and they took me to Walgreens so I could replace my yellow. So I picked up Yellow Whiz by Milani. How funny is that name?

Indoors, no flash
How pretty is that? The formula was ok, but I would say it was good for a yellow polish. A little thin but not runny. I used about 3 or 4 coats if the nail needed it. I think I may have changed my mind about yellow nail polish.

So after I put it on I thought "Wouldn't it be pretty if I put more colors on top and make it look carnival-esque?" Loving flakies as much as I do, I decided to layer two coats of Finger Paints Twisted over it.

Milani Yellow Whiz, $4.79 at Walgreens and Finger Paints Twisted, $5.49 at Sally's
Twisted is the most colorful of the Special Effects collection, it has red, blue, orange, green, and more. The end result was really cute and springy!

Indoors w/ flash
Indoors w/o flash
Indirect sunlight w/o flash
Indirect sunlight w/o flash
The yellow made all of the flakies really soft pretty pastel tones. I will forever love flakies.

POP QUESTION! Leave your answer in a comment here or in a comment on the Facebook post that brought you here. What do I use as a background for the bottle shots?

You never know what might happen if you're the first person to get the answer right ;)

Happy reading!
Jenney