Brucci Sparkling Bordeaux

I went out of my nail polish comfort zone with this one. It's dark, and red.. and a glitter.  But it looked so pretty in the bottle.  I liked it on me too, surprisingly.  But as with most glitters, I end up peeling it off in sheets either while commuting to school or being bored in class.

"Natural" Light

This is two coats over Orly Bonder sealed with Brucci Nail Polish Dryer. I saw it and was curious, it's comparable to Out the Door actually.  It dries fast but I can't judge its wear time as I peeled it off.  I probably won't get another bottle of Nail Polish Dryer as it was around 5$ and I can get OtD cheaper.  But I was curious and that curiosity has been appeased.

"Natural" Light

I'm going to be a really excellent blogger right now and tell you that the design is a decal nail sticker that I don't remember where I bought it from or what brand it is.  I'm super informative, I know. I probably got it at KMart on sale, that's the extent of my knowledge on it.  I detach them from the plastic packaging and keep them in a little drawer to save space. Consequentially, I never know where my decals are from.

"Natural" Light

Something else worth mentioning, after I took pics I added another coat of top coat on my nails.  This glitter looks a lot grittier than it felt. My ring finger, in the pictures, has two coats top coat, so that is eventually what it looked like.  It evened out really well with an additional coat.

Jelly Sandwich with Sinful Colors "Gogo Girl" and SH HT

I love the look of jelly sandwiches and I am happy to show you this one.  While I'm not too crazy about reds (mostly because I don't wear them well - I love them on others!) the extra sparkle made this a bit more bearable for me.

When Walgreens was having their 99 cents sale on Sinful Colors, I picked out a few that I normally would dodge and Sinful Colors "Gogo Girl" is one of them.  But I think everyone should have a bright red jelly.

Anyways, for the sandwiched part, I used Sally Hansen "Hidden Treasure".

Two coats "Gogo Girl" - One coat HT - One coat "Gogo Girl"

I had a difficult time trying to photograph this.  The sparkle barely shows through on camera.  It was so attention grabbing in person though.  Maybe two coats of HT would've been more effective but I don't want to waste that beauty.

You can see it a little better here, but barely.  The sun was setting and all.

So the Hurricane Irene will be full force here in a few hours.  I think the anticipation is exhausting.  It's Saturday night and I've been waiting since Thursday afternoon (that's when I started hearing about it frequently).  Just sitting and waiting, it was quite ominous outside today.  The air was heavy, the sky was kind of dark.

watermelon mani and a confusing haul

HELLO! It's 2:00am. Ever just wanna type in caps? I really do right now, I want to yell this post at you. But I won't. I just want to megaphone this whole post. But again, I will do no such thing.  I wanted to make two separate posts but decided to make on mega post because it felt right.  I will be covering a haul and a watermelon inspired manicure. Onward!

WATAMELON.

It's "inspired", therefore not a direct representation of a watermelon.  I've done the watermelon manicure on the kids at work: red base color, green french tip and black polka dots.  It's actually cute but it wasn't working for me this time so I dodged it.

2 coats of Essie "too too hot" (red)
3 coats of L.A. Colors "Energy Source" (white)

My biffle, Coryn, gave me the Essie.  SO WATERY. It flooded my cuticles before I even knew what happened.  But for once, it didn't take 42 coats like all my other attempts with Essie have, so can't complain!  It's really pretty though, once I realized it was watery I just used less polish and it was fine.  Then I added black and white dots with my dotting tool.  The watermelon shapes I got at Sally Beauty Supply for $5.50 along with a bunch of other fruit shapes.

They're flat. My nails are not.  A tiny bit of practice and I'll be able to get them to lay flush in no time!  Super cute designs though.  They also had a flower wheel but I was really drawn to the fruitsies.  OK HAUL TIME.

So it's official.  My drawers used for polish are PACKED full.  So any polish I've been purchasing lately just sits on my desk.  Right now I count about 25 just sitting here.  I can barely move my mouse anymore.. so what does this girl do? DUH - SHE GOES TO A DOLLAR STORE AND BUYS A TON MORE.

"dizzy" - "yellow aura" - UGH THE STICKER IS GONE.

"Hallucination" - "Nude" (wtf?) - "Floral Wind"

"Hallucination" looks like glass slippers to me, love that!  The middle polish is a clear jelly base with holographic glitter, stars and moons. So, naturally, it's "nude"?.....?? This dollar store brand takes their business seriously as you can clearly see.  Also, the random decision to capitalize some polish names and leave others makes me "lol".  One I have from a month or so ago actually has a typo and is "royal puple". NOT A WORD.

"Broken Hearted"- "Black Shimmer" - "Planet"

 WRONG. WRONG. IT'S ALL WRONG.  First, this picture sucks. It's really dark; my bad.  Second, "black shimmer" is actually black glitter. It LOOKS like its in a black base, but oh no, dollar store scammers got me this time.  Its CLEAR. It's black glitter in a clear base.  And it's not even glitter, it's just tiny black plastic squares, lol. In this case, I got what I paid for. So now I have 9 new polishes to add to my desk.  Nice, I'll just keep my diet coke on my head.

Sinful Colors - Timbleberry

What? Is a Timbleberry an actual thing? I don't feel like googling but going on Sinful Colors history of ridiculous color names I really am leaning towards "no".

Four Coats of Timbleberry. Three would've been enough!

A rich deep coral red orange creme. lol.

I like this color, which is weird considering it is very close to orange.  This one STAINED MY FINGERS REALLY BAD. Heads up.  Might want to use the foil method when removing this color if you ever decide to wear it.  I like it very much! Fantastic formula, didn't NEED four coats but I did it anyways.  So that's it. Simple post today.

But I made a very pretty springtime franken I will share with you all very soon. I LOVE IT.

OPI DS Ruby and a mini haul

Yesterday was a fabulous day as far as nail polish is concerned.  I went into my local Harmon Discount (like a Sally's but more random crap) and found OPI DS polishes for 3.97$!!  I bought two, but I will be going back for sure because I am in love with the two I got.  Normally polishes on sale are the ugly ones nobody wants; not the case this time around!

Anyways! I couldn't wait to try them out so this post is all about OPI DS Ruby.

OPI DS Ruby with Funky Fingers Moonwalk

"Rich, jeweled red" according to the brochure.
It's a magnificent deep pink holo!

GORGE.

Standard blurry shot for details. Click to enlarge.

& one more for good measure (=

OPI DS Ruby & Vintage

You'll only benefit from clicking to enlarge these pictures.  Ruby is absolutely stunning!  It's like a circus on my nails.  Pictures with the french tip have a topcoat on them (couldn't help it LOL) but the ones with just Ruby only have Nailtek II as a basecoat.

I also picked these up in a 4-pack for 5$ at Five Below.
I love purples.  What a fantastic shopping day!

Pretty sure OPI DS Vintage is going to be my next post; maybe.. maybe not - we'll see :D

guest nails x3

Well I haven't posted at all this weekend, so to make up for that and to ease my guilty conscience, I am posting 3 guest nails that I've accumulated over the past few weeks.  I took the pictures right when I was finished but not showing them til now. I hope you enjoy these pretties!

These are the roomie's nails.  A base color of Funky Fingers "Mad Hatter", three coats I believe.

Pretty blues (=  We topped it off with two coats of a sparkly topcoat of China Glaze "Blue Hawaiian".

As cute as this was, it chipped the next day when she was washing dishes.  Not just a little chip, but basically sheeted right off her nails.  Sad sad!

These are my sister's nubbins.  She expressed interest in growing them out and asked me how to.  I explained to her she needed a constant manicure and before she knew it, they'd be longer than she expected!

This is 3 coats of Funky Fingers "Cheshire" and I used some Art Club polishes to the little designy lines on her ring finger.

Last but not least is my BFF from grade school.

This is two (or three?) coats of China Glaze "Ruby Pumps" with Orly "Liquid Vinyl" for the tips.

Incredibly, I am only 3 followers away from my milestone making 50!  As promised, there will be a giveaway once 50 is reached.  However, it will have to be scheduled around my pay period, lol.  So if 50 is reached before I get paid again, then I will make a notice about the giveaway being stalled a little bit until that day comes.  I have most of the stuff for the giveaway already, but I've never sent nail polish before and I haven't a clue how much shipping will be.  It was also be a USA only since it is my first and I don't want to overwhelm myself quite so soon!

Also a TOTAL DOLLFACE from MUA sent me a polish I've been FIENDING for!  Much more then a lemming, much much more.  I'll keep you on the edge of your seats until it arrives.

Thanks for reading & as always, images are clickable for enlarged detail!

maybelline; punked plum notd!

Well, this color really isn't my bag at all.  But I got it for 50 cents so I can't complain, really.  It came in a two pack with a clear polish I want to franken with, plus it does look pretty in the bottle, on the nail as well, but really not my style.

This is 3 coats of Maybelline Salon Expert "Punked plum".  I do see the plum, but I see burgundy, too.  I associate plums with purple, and burgundy as having more of a red hue.  It has silver and dark red shimmers in it and the formula is really surprisingly pleasant!

I had a difficult time capturing all of the shimmers, because it is very sparkly in real life.  The photos don't do it justice.

Here are some more feeble attempts of me trying to capture the sparkles.  The color is actually pretty true to life.  Of course its a little bit darker without a flash but it's not far off from reality.

6 more followers til my first giveaway, yay! (=

disney on ice; snow white inspired mani

Today I took my sister, old roommate and her 3 year old daughter to Disney on Ice.  We had such a good time and her little girl, Amaya, absolutely looooooooved the Snow White part and went NUTS when the 7 Dwarves came out.  I actually did a mani the night before inspired, somewhat abstractly, by Snow White's iconic dress!

Three coats of China Glaze "Lemon fizz" for four nails and a base color of Funky Fingers "Alice" on the accent nail.  I freehanded the red diamond with Art Club's red nail art polish and that's it!  It was somewhat recognizable, but not an entirely gaudy and obvious reference to the dress itself.  I loved it :D

(These are not my photos, love the Photoshop job on the first one LOL.)

Sadly we were running a bit late so we got there as the first scene was going and we were so enthralled and distracted I took maybe only two pictures of my own!

hot blooded by L.A. Colors

I bought "Hot blooded" by L.A. Colors Color Craze line at the Dollar Tree last week for, you guessed it, a dollar.  "Hot blooded" is a deep red jelly based polish that REFUSES to photograph as such.  For a more accurate description, think of the last time you were bleeding and how it changes from deep purple, to dark red to bright red (as it oxidizes).  Basically, "Hot blooded" is the middle stage of the color transformation.  Not purple, but not the bright red everyone associates with blood.

Now, you're all going to think I'm nuts because this is bright freakin' ketchup red.  Regardless of sunlight, flash, no flash and shade this color photographs as BRIGHT RED.  And it's not!  Not in the bottle and not on the nails! 

Color sample from the website.

 

 I actually really like how it's not bright red but unfortunately it's nearly impossible for me to capture, so I tried my hand at color correcting it in Photoshop.

This is what I came up with, lol.  It's more accurate than any picture I could take.  But not exactly what it looks like in actuality.  I google image searched the color and all of the swatches I saw looked bright red, too.  C'est la vie!