Zoya Tru & American Apparel Meteor Shower

I love American Apparel polishes & I couldn't wait to get my hands on this one. Meteor Shower is irregular shards of gold foil or mylar in a clear base. I didn't have much trouble with application but you do have to push down the larger pieces to get them to lay flat.
I'm wearing two coats of American Apparel Meteor Shower over 2 coats of Zoya Tru in these photos. I followed up with 2 coats of topcoat just to make sure all of the edges were well stuck down. I love the effect and will be wearing Meteor Shower again soon!

Thanks for reading!
April

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Nail School - Day 37

I only have 1.5 days of school left. Can you believe it? I know I can't. This week I've been trying to pamper myself since I know I won't have much time to after I enter the work force.  Today another student treated me to a pedicure with a mud mask and a sea salt exfoliation.  My feet are so smooth that I can hardly walk without slipping! I've still been taking clients because I really enjoy it and I don't want to stop just because I'm almost done. Tomorrow I'm going to do my own nails and Friday I'm hoping to get a facial.

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I'm Opening An Etsy Shop!!!

February 29, 2012

I thought I would share some exciting news!!!! I will be opening an Etsy shop sometime within the next three weeks!!!! I will be selling most of the frankens you have seen on my blog and Facebook page, but also some NEW ones! I have about 15 new polishes in the works!!! I can't wait to share my passion with you!! I will post any updates on my blog as well as my Facebook page.  Throughout the next two weeks, I will be giving sneak peeks of some up and coming frankens that I will be selling!!!! I hope you will stop by my shop and take a look around once I open!

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Lady Bug Spill Proof Nail Polish Holder

February 29, 2012

Today I have a review for you on the Lady Bug Spill-Proof Nail Polish holder!!!! When I first received this product, I initially thought it was not something I would buy. BUT.... this thing is neat. =)

It has three slip-resistant plastic circles on the bottle, which allows the Lady Bug to stay in one place without slipping. 

It can be tipped on its side when polish bottles are low or it can sit straight up. I tried opening the bottle of polish once in the Lady Bug, and it opened with ease.

I did test multiple bottle shapes and sizes to include HITS, China Glaze, OPI, Funky Fingers, Nerd Lacquers, Lacquistry, Cult Nails, and Kleancolor. All bottles fit. The Styrofoam middle piece is flexible, but for some bottles I had to push in with a little effort (such as Funky Fingers), but all fit without a problem.

I also tried to knock the Lady Bug over to simulate a spill, and it didn't knock over. So it did its job!  

The Lady Bug Spill-Proof Nail Polish Holder retails for $7.95 on Amazon. 

This product was sent to me for review, but it did not affect my opinion. 

Will you be buying the Lady Bug?

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Zoya Custom Color Nail Polish Swatches - Bibhu Mohapatra and Peter Som

Zoya Custom Color Nail Polish Swatches!

Custom created by the color expert at Zoya for fashion designers Bibhu Mohapatra and Peter Som. Each color designed to coordinate with the Fall/Winter 2012 fashions the designers debuted during Mercedes Benz Fashion Week (MBFW - NY) and New York Fashion Week (NYFW) recently.

At this point in time, the custom colors have all SOLD OUT but we thought you may still want to see the nail polish swatches of Bibhu's gorgeous Rikha, Parveen and Zeenat plus the beautiful Evvie, Katharine (Katherine) and Audrey that Peter designed... rumor has it that some of the color can be found floating around out there if you really want it. 

See all of the Bibhu Mohapatra and Peter Som - Zoya Nail Polish swatches via the Lacquered Lover blog.

Zoya is the new color of Fashion!

www.zoya.com

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Colorful French Tips

Hello hello!

Who else is ready for a break? I had a dream that I went on a cruise with my husband and since then it's all I can think about! haha

Well for today's mani my husband wanted to play around with the bright colors paired with nude trend again. I have actually seen similar manis around, though hubby thinks he came up with it himself. haha We used OPI Did You 'ear About Van Gogh as the base. The tips from pointer to pinky are all Color Club Poptastic: Chelsea Girl, Almost Famous, Poptastic, Wahrhol, and Twiggie.

Tip: We used stickers to get the perfect straight edge.

And to top it off with a little stamping, a cute bow from a You Mix XXL plate in Konad white.

Thanks for reading!

Pin It

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HITS Powerpuff Girls

Today I have another HITS set of polishes to share with you guys, this time it's from their Powerpuff Girls collection. I couldn't help but LOVE the bottles for these. I used to be a huge Powerpuff Girls fan. Come on, I was like probably 13? Those huge eyes, and they save the townsville ALL the time! Bubbles used to be my favorite, until I realized Buttercup is more badass. The bottles were the reason I bought a few of these polishes in the first place. Let's have a look!

Doce de Leite is a pale peachy creme. 3 coats.


Lovely is a pastel yellow creme. 3 coats. This one gave me so much frustration because application was pretty tough. I'll discuss formula later on.


Docinho is a pastel mint green creme. 3 coats.


Powerful is a teal creme with a semi jelly finish. 2 coats.

OK, cute bottles aside. These got me quite frustrated because of the formula. It was super thick and gooey and super hard to apply, especially Lovely. It took a lot of patience for me to get it to look like that. On a positive note, these did dry pretty fast, being that they mostly needed three coats. It was a bit tough getting them to even out, but adding a top coat did smooth most of the things out. Colors are indeed not unique at all and easily dupeable. I was going to buy Element X but after trying the formula I decided against it and just save my money. However, I didn't have the same problem with Mari Moon Cool. Do I dare to try more polishes from this brand in the future? I'm not too sure, unless a color is like super awesome.

Well these are available at llarowe's for $8.00 a bottle.

What do you guys think of these?

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february haul

Hi there! Happy Leap Day!
Time for the monthly haul of shame. Prepare yourselves... In a good way!

I did so good this month. So good.
Check it out, mom, I did good!

Here's what I got this month:

I got some suedes on clearance for $5 a piece:
OPI - You Don't Know Jacques Suede
OPI - Russian Navy Suede
OPI - Suzi Skis in the Pyrenees Suede
OPI - OPI Ink. Suede

I bought 2 polishes from my favorite Spaniard Ruth:
Flormar Supershine Miracle Colors - U16
Essence - It's Purple-icious!

I bought a franken from Amy at I'm Feeling Nail-Venturous:
Nail-Venturous - Floam

I got a 1-cent Julep box:
Julep - Marisa (which already has a new home lined up with my friend Marissa so this doesn't count)
Julep - Oscar

I got one cool polish from my friend Lori:
Funky Fingers - Teal Scales

Whitney from Elemental Styles sent me two of her franken polishes which she sells on Etsy:
Elemental Styles - Can I Buy You A Zinc?
Elemental Styles - Iron Man-ia

I bought 2 polishes on random shopping outings:
Sally Hansen - Glass Slipper
Color Club - Do You Want A Piece?

There is just one more section to this haul, it is a fairly big one, but a very cost-effective one:

China Glaze - Dance Baby, Optical Illusion, Liquid Crystal, Prism, Drawn To You
CND Effects - Gold Pearl, Copper Pearl, Lavender Pearl, Copper Shimmer, Violet Shimmer, Emerald Shimmer, Ice Blue Shimmer

How much did I spend on all those babies?
$31. That's right. Thirty-one dollars. The CND's were on clearance for $1 each (so I bought every shade they had) and the China Glaze were $3.99 with the exception of the magnetic which was $4.99.
I don't feel guilty about that haul at all!

That's a total of 25 polishes. Which is like, the best I've done since starting this blog, probably.

BUT! That's not all.
I sold some of my polishes this month.
Yes. I sold some. I sold 40, to be exact. And it felt good!
I realized I had a lot of stuff that could use a better home and some lovely local ladies were happy to take some polish off my hands.

Which means, for the month, I am at a total of -15.
Take that, polish addiction! Go me!

Now that I have de-stashed quite a bit, between selling and throwing away old stuff from my childhood, I think it's time to do my collection post. I'll work on that this week!

More about → february haul

Swirls

Ever have a day where you need some nail art, but you have only a few minutes? This was one of those designs. I find that swirls can go on fast and are so free-form that they go with any look. To switch it up a bit, I had the swirls on my middle finger come from my lunula (in non-nail tech speak: half moon).

More about → Swirls

31 Day Challenge - Day 6 - Violet

Today we have Ursula from The Little Mermaid! Such a wicked villain, but a gorgeous purple. ;)

I've done The Little Mermaid before on false nails, and then I've also done an Ariel inspired french tip design. So be sure to check those out.

I started with 2 coats of China Glaze Spontaneous

I did all the details of Ursula's face with acrylic paints.

Then I started adding the tentacles to the other nails. This is Zoya Kieko.

Then Deborah Lippmann Between the Sheets

More black acrylic paint.

Dots of Zoya Areej for the suction cups.

 

Then small center dots of Zoya Mira. A final thick coat of Seche Vite.

I think these turned out wickedly good!

More about → 31 Day Challenge - Day 6 - Violet

Lynnderella - Mademoiselle Violette de Bleu

First, time to pimp my Nail Art Challenge Giveaway. You can win some Lynnderella polishes just for entering, cause two of the three prizes are random draws.  Aussie girls, so far only three entries, your odds of winning Lynnderella's my never be as good as this!

Now, what does ten layers of nail polish look like?  It looks like this.  It's glassy smooth and it's bullet proof.  I didn't realize I had done ten layers until I counted it all up. But, I think it needed every coat.

This beautiful polish is Lynnderella Mademoiselle Violette de Bleu, or MVdB from now on.  This shade is described as a mixture of royal blue, blue violet, navy, holographic royal blue multi-sized hexagons and squares with a touch of purple and iridescent blue hexagons in a sheer blue-violet base.

Another bottle of glitter perfection, Lynnderella, I bow down to you. I'm not worthy, I'm not worthy.  And people, if you think I'm going a bit over the top, just wait until you get your little hands on a bottle of Lynnderella polish and see for yourself. They truly are the best glitter polishes ever. Period!

You really can see the different shades of blue, as well as the violet and purple hexes.  Just look at how those glitters overlap.  They give it so much depth it's like looking into to deep sparkling pacific ocean.

So this is how I came to ten coats.

1 coat  Nail tek II foundation

2 coats Ulta3 Blue Marlin

2 coats Lynnderella MVdB

2 coats glitter tamer - it was a little rough

2 coats Seche Vite - yep still a little rough after one Seche Vite, so I did two.

1 coat Ulta3 Non-Chip (Australian made version) - added the next day as it was textured again in the morning.

I got a teeny bit of shrinkage on the pinky here, but otherwise it was so smooth.  I really expected it to be an inch thick but, I was surprised how thin it still was.  I guess because I allowed it to dry well between each coat, and I only did thin coats, it never go squishy or dents.

I'm slowly making my way through all my Lynnderellas.  Sorry it's taking so long, but I really need to appreciate each one as a full mani, I can't just swatch these beauties.  

Did you notice I started a colour guide for my Lynnderella swatches too?

More about → Lynnderella - Mademoiselle Violette de Bleu

Bugün ne sürdüm? Pastel 42

Scroll down for English...


Bugün Pastel'in şişede görüp aşık olduğum bir ojesini denedim... Daha önce de söylemiştim, mor oje konusunda bir zaafım var. Pembe, mavi, yeşil değil ama mor sürmek çok hoşuma gidiyor. Altında yatan psikolojik nedenleri henüz araştırıyorum... :)

Ojenin rengi parlak, içi ışıltılı bir mor.. İki kat, çok güzel sürülüyor. Üzerine China Glaze OMG kolleksiyonundan GR8 ile baskı yaptım... Bu ojeyi DenizRio'dan almıştım. Çok geniş bir ürün yelpazesi var, bakmanızı tavsiye ederim... Baskı plakam Özgürce Pazarlama'dan aldığım Konad M59... Hani şu tatlı fiyonklu olan... :)

Today I have Pastel #42 on my nails... What a lovely color... It was love at first sight. It is a deep purple with shimmer in it. Opaque in 2 coats and easy to apply. I think I have a thing for purple polish. Pink? No.. Blue? Not really... Green? Not my thing! But purple? OMG Purple... :)

The stamping polish is China Glaze OMG GR8. I used my lovely Konad M59 plate... With the cute bows.. :) I will be trying the bows next time. :)


Thank you for reading...

More about → Bugün ne sürdüm? Pastel 42

Nail School - Day 36

As I said a few days ago when I talked about the goals I've achieved/am still working on, I made some Obele nails! I'm really into shaping acrylics in interesting ways right now. I guess it's a little less boring than just forming "normal" nails. For a first attempt, I think these Obele's turned out awesome! Next time I hope to make my edges sharper. Usually the Obele nail has a much more dramatic stiletto, but I decided to try to make a more wearable Obele. According to this website (which has AWESOME explanations of nail shapes -- Obele is at the bottom of the page), the Obele is usually made from a UV gel. I assume it's usually a UV bonding gel, but at school we only have self-leveling UV gel, which as the name suggests, wouldn't be very good for building upwards. 

The Obele's were created last week, but today I worked more in 3D nail art. Here's a peek at what I was working on: 

More about → Nail School - Day 36

Sation Classical Note & Bump In Beige & Some Quick Nail Art

Sation recently updated their brand & bottles & I have a few of their new polishes to show you. The bottles are oval with thick glass bottoms. The new brushes are great for ladies like me that love wide brushes. The formula on all the ones I've tried is excellent. You can find out more about the brand on their Facebook page.

First we have Classical Note, a dusty berry with a finish somewhere between a creme & a jelly. Great formula & only needs 2 coats. A classic just as the name suggests!

Next is Bump In Beige, a new favorite color that I've already worn twice. It's a beautiful shade of beige with just a hint of rose in the same creme/jelly finish as Classical Note. Often colors like this are hard to work with but Bump In Beige has a dreamy formula.

 

The next day I tried a little nail art with the fan brush that came with nail art brush set. I'm not entirely pleased with the results but it was easy & very fast.

Thanks for reading!
April

More about → Sation Classical Note & Bump In Beige & Some Quick Nail Art