Revlon Colorstay Costal Surf Swatch + Review

FIRSTLY, I must address my absence.  I completed my full time student teaching internship last month, graduated college (finally, holy cow), and just got back from a wonderful vacation from Wisconsin!  I miss blogging, so so much. I hope to be able to make more time for it, truthfully my nails get BEAT UP when I'm working and I get too lazy to take care of them. I miss this, I miss y'all and intend on incorporating it back into my routine.  I've seen some adorable Funky Fingers at Five Below.. perhaps I'll have a homecoming giveaway soon ;)

Anyways! On to the polish!  My dear bestie Brittany and I went to an Ulta out her way and I found this beauty on sale for $1.50! WHAT. Not only was it super cheap, it's super amazing. Excellent formula. This is two coats, but I think one thick coat might even be possible.  The color is so summery and perfect.  Also, I'll be without thumb swatches for a while as I broke the joint in my thumb and can't quite bend it yet although I have gained a bunch of mobility back so far.

I tried a new blur technique on photoshop, which I think only will work for cremes since it doesn't affect the color at all.  Shown is two coats of Coastal Surf over Nailtek II Foundation and sealed with OTD. I'm assuming that since this polish was on super clearance that it might be discontinued. I'm not sure, but if you see it..grab it. It's a new fave!

Christmas Tree Nail Art - Caviar Beads and Striping Tape

A little late on this post but it'll be archived for posterity anyways.  Right before the holidays I was wearing China Glaze Fifth Avenue and decided it needed some spicing up!

Because this wasn't a planned out mani, the color scheme is a little bit off. I'm not a super fan of the mauve and metallic mint but I don't hate it either.

I used scotch tape, striping tape and caviar beads for this design.  The scotch tape was used to make a triangle and the striping tape was zigzagged back and forth and then painted over with Pop Beauty Jade Metal.  Then I peeled both tapes off and applied the caviar beads (which bled terribly by the way with the top coat - these were from the dollar store).  I then applied the stars at the top and sealed with top coat. SUPER simple, took only a few minutes!

Pop Beauty Jade Metal & China Glaze Fifth Avenue

Ulta Eye Popping Poppy with Silver Gradient Design

I whipped out the striping tape to make this little design, which I originally wanted to do on all my nails but realized it was too time consuming.  Whenever I do venture to do any sort of designs or nail art, I start on my ring finger so if I find it too time consuming, it becomes an "accent" nail instead. Clever, I know, haha.

Eye Popping Poppy is super hard to describe.  I could've sworn I reviewed this polish before but I wasn't able to find it on the blog so I wasn't able to reference my previous description, oops.  It's a creme like jelly, it's not 100% either creme or jelly - there's a decent amount of sheerness.  It also lean coral/pink/orange depending on the lighting.  It's BRIGHT too, definitely has neon attributes!  Shown is 3 coats.

I used L.A. Colors Wire for the silver and mapped it out with striping tape, and them used a makeup sponge to dab it on to create the gradient effect. Super easy, just a bit tedious to cut up the thin tape.  Sealed with on coat of OTD and over NailTek II Foundation basecoat.

Sinful Colors SinfulShine in Blue Suede Shoes - LOVE it!

I love this polish. I've worn it three times already and I haven't even had it very long.

The SinfulShine line is a series of polishes with "Gel Tech" that makes them similar to gel polishes in terms of shine and wear.  I'm thrilled with this polish (only SinfulShine I own at the moment), I look forward to getting more.  This is a dense creme, only two coats - could do one if it was thick enough!  The shade is beautiful, too.

I had a bit of an incident while showering and took off a chunk of my nail with my razor )= My index is gonna be a bit wonky for a while but I couldn't manage to cut the rest down to match. So annoying too as my index takes a beating from everyday life and is the slowest to grow. I'm just pretending it matches and invite you to pretend along side me :D

And here's what it looks like with my new Oopsie Daisies polish "Mod" on top of it! One coat of Mod.

Ridiculously late Halloween manicure! Frankenstein!

I've been slacking so bad, that I'm posting a Halloween manicure I did on the 7th of November.  Eek. Enjoy anyways, hehe.

I did Frankenstein! So cute, so simple.  I used Essie Mojito Madness for the green and WnW Black Creme for the black.  For the thumb, I painted my nail green and waited for it to dry.  I used unique shaped nail guides and painted over and then removed the guide.  I dotted on some eyes and pupils as well.  For the stitched nails I used more nail guides and then painted over the meeting point of the green and bare nail with a black striper. It took all of 10 minutes! So easy, so I loved it.

American Apparel Mouse and Water Decals

I love neutrals and I love these nail decals so this mani was a match made for me! Take a look!

I think these colors looked great together! I put a decal on each ring and thumb nail. Click HERE to go to my post explaining the process. For this mani I used 3 coats of American Apparel's Mouse over Orly Bonder and sealed with Out the Door.  The decals were added the next day. 

I did a similar manicure this week (the mani I'm posting now is a few weeks old) and I tried not putting topcoat over the decals.  They remained tacky (the clear borders did at least) and picked up fuzz and dust. So lesson learned: always topcoat the water decals!

OPI Berlin There Done That with Layered Stamping

I decided to spice up a day-old mani with some stamping.  The base of this manicure is two coats of OPI Berlin There Done That, which is a taupey, slightly greyed out creme polish that I absolutely adore. Pardon the tip wear!

This is definitely one of those uh, "looks better from a distance" manicures.  A continual and absolute frustration I've had since I've been polishing is the streakiness of black polishes when doing any sort of nail art. I've waited hours before applying top coat before, I've floated the brush across - but I still get streaks. I usually will just photoshop them out but this was too busy to do that.

I used plates BM206 and BM221 for the stamping designs. I used Wet n Wild Black Creme for the black flowers and L.A. Colors Live for the silver accents. I did do the stamping super quickly because I wasn't planning on wearing it for long. It does look much nicer from a few foot distance, sort of like a tapestry.  The silver stamping was done first, then the black flowers and finally sealed with a coat of OTD.

Zoya Bevin with Accent Nails

Doesn't this manicure remind you of mint chocolate chip ice cream? Maybe it's just me? I loved how this one came together!

For the light mint nails, I used three thin coats of Zoya Bevin (two thick coats would have worked as well), the accent nail is 2 coats of Zoya Dea and the index glitter nail is Sephora by OPI in Only Gold for Me Topcoat, one thin coat.  I did this over a base of NailTek II Foundation and sealed with one coat of OTD.  Excuse the tip wear as this mani was a day old at time of photographing!

 

The Zoya cremes applied wonderfully and the glitter was easy to use as well. I like the sparsity of it as it still lets the base color shine through. Loved this mani!

Sinful Colors - Easy Going - Swatch and Review

First things first: I apologize for my lack of activity here. I feel the void when I'm not actively blogging, as I do enjoy it very much! I've been in a bit of a nail rut, which then carries over into a blogging rut. If I'm not digging my nails I'm not motivated to photograph them, ya know? I consistently paint them, for sure. I've become super critical of my swatch photos lately which has just caused a lull in the blogging process. Anyways, here are my swatches of Sinful Colors Easy Going!

Easy Going is a super light pastel pink creme. I'm absolutely smitten with this and how it looks on my hands.  It makes them look tan without the washed out stark white polish look of "is that white out? or polish?" Shown is three coats, relatively thin, over Barielle Advanced Pro (green bottle) sealed with NYC Grand Central Station.

All of the marvelously creative and complex polishes out there and I lose my cool over a near-white creme.  Cremes just look so crisp and clean and I love them.  Formula on this was a bit on the runny side, but workable.

July 2013 Ipsy Bag Review

Who's ready for another futile attempt at make up swatches from a nail blogger? I got my Ipsy package, formerly MyGlam Bag, today and it's full of fun stuff that I'm excited to share with you!

The first challenge presented to me was trying to photograph a neon, transparent bag with a reflective surface. I think I did alright.  Cute bag, right? I like that it's plastic; nice knowing you've got a make up bag that won't leak in the event of an oops.

The bag had 5 items in it, two of which complicated the positioning as you can see. I tried. Let's get going!

First up is the Nailtini Nail Polish.  It's a creme! I'm excited.  The color included this time was "Mai Tai".

Shown above is two coats of Mai Tai, no top coat. Sort of reminds me of a brighter version of Sinful Colors Timbleberry. I've been wrong before in my assumed comparisons so don't quote me.  I'm going to wear this color though, I love it.

Next is Coola Mineral Sunscreen SPF 20 with tinted moisturizer.   That's it. I didn't take any more photos of it.

Same here, just a bottle shot. Bottle says "beach look with conditioning & texturizing spray with argan oil". I didn't try it yet and not sure if I will but it does smell nice.

Also included was a little trio of eyeshadows from bhCosmetics.

I have no constructive comments on these aside from them being pretty and that Malibu is really metallic and shiny.

Finally we have a popbeauty Pouty Pop Crayon in Fuchsia Flirt. It took me longer than I'd like to admit trying to figure out what this was for, LOL. I didn't associate "pouty" with "lips" right away, so I thought maybe it was an all encompassing eye, cheek and lip tool. Yea, no.

So there you have it, July 2013's Ipsy bag! I was personally pretty content with everything, hope you found this review helpful as well (=

Ulta Heirhead Swatch and Review

I've had Ulta Heirhead for a while now; I keep my Ulta polishes in the back of one of my Helmer drawers so they often get overlooked unfortunately.  I'm quite pleased with this polish however, so on to the swatches.

Heirhead is a basic bubblegum pink creme, which I can never have enough of anyways.  Shown here is three coats over Orly Bonder and Sealed with Out the Door.  The first two coats were a bit streaky but the third coat really evened it all out and made for a nice, shiny finish.

Formula on this one was average; no suprises, good or bad. I like the color though - it's brighter than I anticipated which makes it a little bit different from my other pinks.