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 - 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.

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.

Light and Airy Manicure

I always forget how much I love sheers and sheer jellies.  Sometimes a nice palette cleanser is what I need!

For this manicure I did three coats of OPI Care to Danse over Orly Bonder and sealed with OTD.  For the accent nail, I used OPI Crown Me Already! over two coats of Care to Danse and then sandwiched it under one more coat of Care to Danse.

 

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Anyone else think that the accent nail looks an awful like Revlon Starry Pink/Popular?  I was surprised at the resemblance! 

Liquid Sands: OPI The Impossible

Everytime a new trend comes out, I have to give at least one of them a whirl.  Crackles, magnetics.. although I never did venture into the more extreme textured nails (caviar and flocking),but this seemed interesting enough to try.  I was pleasantly, and shockingly, surprised!

I did one of those panicky UH WHICH ONE DO I GET things at Ulta. I had this one and the purple one in my hands and took forever deciding on one, but finally went for the pink one, The Impossible.  Shown is 3 coats over NailTek II base coat, no top coat.  This polish was surprisingly and unexpectedly neon, way more bright than I had anticipated.

So here is how this played out: I only needed two coats and wore that for a day.  I wanted to add an extra coat for photos, and in hopes of getting some stars which you can see I finally did.  Those were the only stars to come out, just the two - minimal fishing.  I thought wearing this would be horrible and annoying but it wasn't.

Oopsie Daisies Valentine's Day Duo NOW AVAILABLE!

Hi!  I have a new duo of holiday polishes available to share with you :D  This is a set of two polishes, available individually, themed after Valentine's Day. Photos taken under artificial lighting.

Love & Lollipops;
The first Oopsie Daisies with circle glitter, Love & Lollipops is a pink creme base with pink and purple glitters, almost too sweet to wear!  Photos below are three coats over Orly Bonder and Sealed with Out the Door.

Conversation Hearts;
Conversation Hearts is based on the iconic holiday candy hearts; has a light peachy sheer base with pops of color thanks to lots of matte glitter.  Photos below are three coats over Orly Bonder and Sealed with Out the Door.

The Valentine's Day Duo polishes are available here: 

Oopsie Daisies Nail Polish

BK Nail Polish Swatch and Review

Born Pretty sent me this beauty for review.  BK#11 is a bright, neon pink jelly. Shown is three coats over Orly Bonder and sealed with Out the Door. See bottom of this post for 10% off coupon code!

Ah it's so squishy! Shown is three coats and there is some slight VNL but I actually stopped at three because I like how it looked. The BK polishes are available HERE although the #11 they have listed is a blue, so I'm not sure which this one is actually supposed to be.  This one is also 7ml and the bottles on the sight are 8ml.  So that confuses me a bit, but I wanted to share this anyway because I was thrilled with the application. It went on smoothly and dried quickly, but also keep in mind this is a neon, which typically dry fast. There were no patches or bald spots/streaks.

There are a ton of other colors in this brand, $2.95 USD for 8ml and free shipping! Also, you can use code CA10L91 for 10% off your order; if enough people use my code I'll be able to host a Born Pretty sponsored giveaway (=

China Glaze 100 Proof Pink

This polish is incredibly "me"! Absolutely in love with it!

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100 Proof Pink is an older, more hard to find China Glaze that I received as a gift. It's perfect!  It has a bit of a stronger smell since I think it was before the B3F movement but it's not terrible. Shown is three thin coats over Orly Bonder and sealed with OTD.  The polish is my favorite shade of pink in existence with silver shimmers, and lots of them!  Formula was good, just a tad sheer but very buildable.

I wish I had worn this before I compiled my Top 20 of 2012 list, this would definitely be in the top 5 without a doubt!

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NEW Funky Fingers Duochrome Swatches

I picked these three duochromes up at my local Five Below.  There was a fourth, called Primrose, that just wasn't my style and just.. fugly. So it didn't come home with me. These are three I did get: Venom, Pink Pixel and Mood Ring.

Venom is a violet based duo with a green shimmer, the most stunning of the three I feel. Shown on all swatches is 2-3 coats (it varied per nail, per color) over Orly Bonder and Sealed with Out the Door.

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Mood Ring, a teal/turquoise base with gold shimmer. I'm pretty terrible at describing duochromes, so I apologize for that.

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Pink Pixel, a pink base with gold shimmer.  The least complex of the three, not really a duochrome so much either as the shimmer didn't really show two different colors.

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Funky Finger polishes are 3 for $5, or $2 a piece available at Five Below.  I've got a ton of them, personally.  These however weren't my bag, so I gave them away.  The formula on these was a little bit runny but totally workable.

Pink October: OPI Care to Danse? and KleanColor Metallic White + Stamping

I don't think the blog post title is long enough. I needed a palette cleasner so I went for one the OPI NYC Ballets and turned it into a jelly sandwich with some sparkle and added some for-the-cause stamping.

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I started out with two coats of Care to Danse? and then added one layer of Klean Color Metallic White which is a shimmery metallic white flecked polish.  It's very sparkly!  I then added two more thin coats of Care to Danse? and sealed with a coat of Out the Door.  I used Orly Bonder as my base coat.

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You can really see the sparkles from the Klean Color here.  These two colors play SO nicely together and make such a clean/delicate jelly sandwich.

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For the stamping I used Bundle Monster plate BM-321and Konad Special White stamping polish.  For the pink ribbons I used Zoya Lara which is the perfect pink for the occasion!

I'm still currently selling the Pink of Me polish in my Etsy store. Two dollars from each purchase goes towards Men's Breast Cancer Awareness education.  Pink of Me is available HERE. So far $32 has been raised!

Oopsie Daisies Pink of Me

Oopsie Daisies - Strawberry Trifle

I have for you the last polish in the Sweet Treat Trio Collection!  Strawberry Trifle pulls its inspiration from the yummy layered dessert that's full of strawberries.  I really love strawberries, just throwing that out there, haha.

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Seen above is three coats of Strawberry Trifle over Orly Bonder and sealed with Out the Door.  I really could've used just two coats, but I wanted to be sure that the "full effect" was seen in the photos.  Two thin coats might not be enough, I'd suggest at least one of them being a bit on the thicker side.

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1 Coat - 2 Coats - 3 Coats
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Ok! So that's it! This is the final polish this collection. I'm not a serial swatcher, I usually photograph what I'm wearing for the day - it was quite different swatching glitters of all things today but I'm so happy to have gotten them all up and posted.  I've really had a lot of fun designing and creating this collection so I hope you will enjoy it, too!

Before the shop opens next weekend, there is an opportunity to win the full set via the giveaway I am hosting - I hope you enter and best of luck if you do!

Thank you, so so so SOOO much for reading!