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.

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.

Sinful Colors Sail La Vie Swatches

I went to Walgreens yesterday and saw the Sail La Vie Collection; I bought just a few of them, though.  This one is actually titled Sail La Vie as well.

Shown here is two coats over Orly Bonder and sealed with Out the Door.  Formula was great, as it is with most Sinful Colors creme polishes.  The first coat was streaky and I didn't think two coats would be enough.  I was impressed with how nicely the second coat leveled out and a third coat wasn't needed.

Sinful Colors Diamond Lust Sighting

I went to Walgreens to peruse the polish and found something that was new (to me at least!)  The Sinful Colors Diamond Lust polishes are a glitter collection with diamond shaped glitters of various colors with other types of glitter as well.

Just thought I'd share these with you guys.  I'm always taking pictures of stuff I see in stores and never do anything with the photos, so I thought a change was in order.  That being said I'm pretty underwhelmed with them, which goes for pretty much anything I see released by mass production lately.

Simple Seasonal Sponging and Stickers

Plus five points for the alliteration (;

"Natural" Light

For this manicure I used a makeup sponge to apply the polish but I also dabbed polish onto my nails and used the sponge to spread it out as well.  The polishes I used were Sinful Colors Go Go Girl, China Glaze Ruby Slippers and Oopsie Daisies With A Cherry On Top, in that order.

"Natural" Light

"Natural" Light

I used Born Pretty's snowflake stickers which are so intricate but long-lasting as well. I really love all of my born pretty stickers although I wasn't 100% happy with the final result; I think the mani needed some gold or silver for some contrast!

Sinful Colors Leap Flog + Born Pretty items!

I saw somewhere that Sinful Color had a new collection with all repromotes except Leap Flog, which is new. It's more of a fall color and I probably won't use it again until then but I am just smitten with it.

"Natural" Light

The photo above is 2 coats of Leap Flog over Orly OtD. I used a dried flower from my recent Born Pretty order.

"Natural" Light

For the $2 price tag, Sinful Colors really does impress me. I added the flower over the tacky Leap Flog and it adhered just fine.

"Natural" Light

I added Essie As Gold As It Gets (another favorite!) and decided it was a complete look with that last touch. This is just one coat of Essie, with another coat of top coat. I did put a layer of Instant Artificials over the flower since it is textured.  It smoothed it out a little bit, I had to wait until it was tacky and almost dry and then I was able to flatten it out a bit better. Some parts of the flower were sticking up before I did that.

I ordered a wheel of the dried flowers from Born Pretty as well as a wheel of half pearls. They have decent prices and free shipping but it took about 3 weeks to arrive from China.

Edit 7/23/12 - I just realized that this polish is actually Leap Flog, not Leap Frog. I edited this post accordingly. But seriously, what's a leap flog?

Seaweed vs. Da Bush vs. Stranger Tides Comparison

I noticed I had a few of these murky, washed out greens so I decided to do a side by side swatch comparison only to realize they're really almost identical.  The pictures really do speak volumes so the comparison is between Sinful Colors Seaweed, Essie Da Bush and OPI Stranger Tides.

"Natural" Light

This is three coats of each over Orly Bonder and sealed with OTD.

Flash

"Natural" Light

 The OPI and the Essie appear to be dead on dupes; Seaweed appears to be the slightest more green. Maybe. I can't tell what the difference is but it comes off more.. vibrant?  If you own one, you don't need the others. All three formulas were fine; they needed three coats but my coats were thin. Hope this helps!

Free Hand Shamrock Tutorial

Since I posted my most recent giveaway with an input space for suggestions, I've noticed the most requested thing was tutorials.  So I had to think about what I know how to do that hasn't been said a million times, and most likely better than I could describe it.  I use this little technique to make free hand hearts and since a shamrock is just three hearts with a stem, I figured I could share this with anyone who doesn't have or use stamping plates.

What You'll Need:
-A polish of decent contrast to your base color (I chose Essie Navigate Her over Funky Fingers Kelly.)
-A dotting tool
-Something to practice on (I use paper plates or the back of older Bundle Monster Plates, before they put the backing on them.)
-Acetone to clean off your dotting tool in case it gets goopy
-Something to wipe your dotting too off on (I use cotton rounds, but they can shred. A paper towel would work.)

What You Do:

Make sure your current manicure is dry.  It helps if you've already put your topcoat on and had that set, too.  If you mess up and have your topcoat on, sometimes you can swipe off your oopsie without damaging the base color.

1.

Put two little dots of polish.  This is also how I make free hand hearts.  If you use a tiny dotting tool, you can drag the pooled polish into a point, creating a heart shape!

2.

Add two more little dots on the side.  Do this quickly as you'll need to drag the polish from the dots to fill in the space at the end.


3.

Repeat on the opposite side. 

4. I really didn't know how to photograph step four since its a motion, but all you do is use the dotting tool to kind of push the polish into the center to fill in the space while keeping in mind what a shamrock looks like.

5. Use your dotting tool, you may need to re-dip to get more polish for this, to make a tiny little line at the bottom of the shamrock for the stem.

As you can see in the very first picture with my dotting tool and acetone glass, you need to practice it a few times to get it down.  Practice, in my case, didn't make perfect but it made "good enough", haha.  Given the fact you'll probably be using greens and it is nearly St. Patrick's Day, even a rough shamrock should be a discernible one!

Since I'm not so good at this, I only used one for my manicure as an accent nail.

"Natural" Light

"Natural" Light

Flash

Just am FYI, Sinful Colors Green Ocean does not play nicely with FF Kelly.  It clashes, I feel.  This is two coats over my FF manicure from the previous post.  If you try this, I'd love to see your results! Post your attempts in the comments section if you'd like (=

My HG Combo & Sinful Colors Cinderella

I was happy to add this beauty to my stash for not only a dollar but because of its uniqueness!  I don't have any sheer powder blues with pink shimmers.  I've seen this make perfect underwear for Glitter in the Air/Whimsical, too.

"Natural" Light

It's so light and fluffy and springtime and perfect.  I'm a bit sad, this took three coats.  It is sheer but it does build pretty evenly so it wasn't a hassle.  I dented two nails so I had to redo them, which sucks a bit when its a three coater.

"Natural" Light

"Natural" Light

Tell me you're not in love.  I won't believe you, lol!  This is three coats over Orly Bonder and sealed with OTD.

"Natural" Light

 I had a hard time capturing the shimmer but you can see it in the close up, even more if you click to enlarge.  It's fairly obvious in real life, I'm just a bit not so good at the photographing part sometimes.

Flash

And if you're anything like me, you've been searching for your HG (Holy Grail, your ultimate, favorite, best working product) BC and TC match. I'VE FOUND IT! It's been uh, a few years but I figured it out!

***Orly Bonder & Out the Door***

I've been using both as a pair for a few weeks now and I've had the best results compared to any other combo of BC/TC yet.  I'm sticking to this. I'm THRILLED!  Bonder is a bit expensive, almost 9$ anywhere I've seen it so far.  But my topcoat is relatively cheap compared to some others, so it balances out.

I've been plotting and thinking about what I'm going to have for my giveaway for 250 followers... I've got a pretty good idea.  Once I secure all of the polish, I'll post! Can't wait (=

Sinful Colors Grecian Sun & Neptune

I was on my way to class today when I realized I needed some lotion.  I *thought* I put my Aveeno in there yesterday, turns out I did.  But when I reached in, I grabbed my Aquaphor and I didn't want to rub that all over my hands.  So I made a stop at Walgreens (pre-realization that I did, in fact, have my Aveeno) to pick up a travel sized lotion.  My local Wags doesn't and hasn't had any of the new Sinful displays, so I got quite giddy when I saw that this one did. Fate!!

Grecian Sun went on like butter, butter I tell ya!  This is two coats, I probably could've done one if I had that kind of dedication.  When I got home I though, "Uh oh.. Savage repromote?"  Nah, I checked, my bottle of Savage is more green. Phew!

This is two coats of Grecian Sun (Why are you blue? Is the sun in Greece blue?) over Orly Bonder topped with OTD.  Excuse the boo-boo on my ring finger. I got anxious in class the other day and took it out that.  It was a bleeder.

It photographs very.. blue.  Under my room lighting it appears much more like Funky Fingers Cottage Stripes.

And then I added Neptune as an accent. Ooooooooh! So pretty. Kind of in loving with the pairing. *Toots own horn*  I actually schlopped Neptune over Grecian Sun.  Then more OTD.

I'm sure this has been said before but.. Neptune is a Roman god.  I thought this was a Greek themed collection.  Granted, this is from the company that has two polishes of the same name (Pink Forever/Pink 4 Ever) and a shimmery orange named Cloud 9.. but.. who is in charge there?  I've also spotted a typo on a bottle of I Miss Yuo.

Beyonce Countdown Inspired Manicure

Sooooo Beyonce is probably one of my favorite singers ever.  I've been wearing her new album out and when I found out Countdown was going to be a single I got really excited at the prospects of what the video could be. It's such a fun song and the video really lives up to that.  I love the colors and patterns in the video so it inspired me to design a manicure.

And this is what I came up with :D

 I took some still screenshots of the video so you can see where I pulled the inspiration from. I used a ton of different polishes for this manicure so I'm going to list them accordingly.

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China Glaze Four Leaf Clover

China Glaze For Audrey

China Glaze Lemon Fizz

Sinful Colors Verbena

WnW Black Creme

Index Finger

Funky Fingers Platinum Record

Funky Fingers Stage Dive

Middle Finger

Ulta Sweetheart Pink

Orly Green Apple

Ring Finger

China Glaze Snow

WnW Black Creme

Pinky

 Sinful Colors Cloud 9

Phew! That was a lot! I used CND Stickey as a basecoat and OTD for a topcoat.