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.

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.

Oopsie Daisies Nail Polish - Unlikely Hero

I wanted to dress up my previous Ulta Blue Streak mani so I added one of my own polishes for a little liveliness!

 

Shown is two thin coats of Unlikely Hero over Ulta Blue Streak, sealed with Out the Door.  This manicure reminded me of pajamas for little boys, haha.  The primary colors I think did it topped with the preconceived concept of "super heroes".

Ness, from Earthbound, the inspiration for the polish, is the epitome of an Unlikely Hero!

Unlikely Hero is still available, along with the rest of the Earthbound Collection, for $8.50.

 

Ulta Blue Streak Swatches

Another blue creme today!  This one is actually really pretty and I think after wearing it, I don't need to get a recent released polish that comes close that I've been eying. Breaking into my untrieds was a good idea!

I did this mani a bit differently. I was wearing it for a few days and had some tipwear so what you're seeing here is three coats of Blue Streak over NailTekII and sealed with OTD, then another fresh coat of Blue Streak with no topcoat.  Formula was nice, but required three coats.

 

This is one of the older bottles from Ulta but the polish is still available as far as I know, just repackaged.  I bought a ton of these when they were switching over for only $2!

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Just a friendly reminder: holiday polishes are still on sale for $6 - this includes Carols by Candlelight, Festivus for the Rest of Us and Keepin' It Kosher.  There are also currently some last chance polishes available from the Planetside 2 collection. Happy Shopping!

Ulta Moody Blues Swatches

I can't believe this was left untried for so long. I've had it for ages, but I think having my Ulta polishes in the back of one of my Helmer drawers causes me to forget about them.

Moody Blues is a navy/dark blue/-almost- blurple creme.  Shown is two coats over NailTekII and sealed with OTD.  I'm not sure what caused the bubbling; it's been a while since I've dealt with bubbles so I wasn't even on the lookout for them.

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Ulta 'Tis the Season: mini set of four polishes

I picked up this little set at Ulta for a mere $2.99 when they were having their holiday sale.  I've always had good experiences with Ulta nail polish and I love the little sets.  Their brushes are decent, too.

I couldn't figure out the pink one being in this set, though.

Put On the Glitz: a deep shimmery burgundy red.
Nice List: a bright magenta creme.
Glam I Am: a super fine shimmery gold.
Naughty List: a dark blue creme, almost jelly like but not completely.

Nail wheel swatches seen below are all three coats except Put On the Glitz, which needed four.  Keep in mind these are clear nail wheels, which sometimes take more coats than you would use on real nails.

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Ulta Carnivale Four Piece Mini Collection Swatch & Review

This mini set from Ulta has a little something for everyone. Four different colors with four different finishes was an interesting selling point in this for me.  Most mini sets have the same finish with various colors, I liked the variety in this one.  My friend Melissa got this for me as a gift for passing my Praxis II (yay!) test a week or so ago. This was one of those items I pick up and put down time and time again so it was good to have someone pull the trigger for me. All swatches have CND Stickey for the base coat and Brucci Nail Dryer for the top coat.

Cha Cha, I Want Samba That, Masque-parade, It's the Rio Deal

I'll start with Cha Cha, which is a yellow creme.  I was hoping this one wouldn't suck, but it's a streaky standard yellow 4-coater.  It does look pretty, I like the shade but I don't like four coats.

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This one was most difficult to apply and had the worst formula from the bunch. I've never had any really bad experiences with Ulta brand polish but yellows seem to be everyone's Achilles heel.

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I Want Samba That, whose name is a pun that goes right over my head (I want some of that?), is a green grass fleck, very sparkly!  The formula on this one was decent, 3 coats shown.

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 I recently swatched a Funky Fingers green grass fleck; I prefer the Ulta shade much more.

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Masque-parade is a purple shimmer polish with pinkish-purple shimmers.  The formula on this one was great! So smooth, very opaque. Two coats.

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The shimmer, seen below, is super subtle and hidden, I had some difficulties capturing it.

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It's the Rio Deal is almost a creme. It's got some jelly-like attributes to it, as well.  It falls somewhere right in the middle as there was still some VNL even though I felt it was adequately covered.  The formula for this one was pretty good too actually. Two thin coats.

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It's a fun, very bright red that leans a bit neon. It's a bit of a all-in-one polish considering how many finishes it manages to have.  It reminds me of tomatoes and while I'm not a big fan of reds, this one is certainly memorable.

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The Ulta Carnivale Four Piece Mini Collection is available at Ulta for $7.99 - I'm pleasantly surprised with the outcome of the swatches except for the crappy yellow. It's such a pretty happy shade but the four coats is a deal breaker for me. Which is your favorite?

Ulta Aim to Squeeze & KleanColor Chunky Holo Candy Jelly Sandwich

The Ulta Aim to Squeeze polish came in a set of minis comparable to the OPI Texas Sorbets.  I used the orange one from the Ulta mini set and put 3 coats, one coat of KC Chunky Holo Candy and then one more of Aim to Squeeze, a fun orange jelly.

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This is over CND Stickey and sealed with OTD, of course.  The three coats of AtS on their own were.. quite ugly.  It's a fun polish to sandwich with but in my humble opinion, fugly on its own.

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Its just not my style and there was some bare spots (my fault) on the tips, but they were covered by the rest of the layers.

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Definitely click to enlarge to see the detail. Candy is INCREDIBLY subtle buried in the jelly.

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Thanks for reading! (=

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.

Scrapbook Punch Out Thingy Tape Manicure

Hey gurlfran! I've been so sick this week.  I thought I'd kind of "walk it off" but I really didn't.  I waited too long to go to the doctor which prolonged my misery.  I went on Friday, finally, got some medication and I'm getting much better now, yay!  I literally did NOTHING this week. Seven straight days of pure crap.  Anyways, when I wasn't curled up sleeping, I had some energy to play with my nail polish. I revisited an old idea.

Sometime early this year, I used a scrapbooking punchout thingy with scotch tape, tutorial seen here.  This time I used different colors;

I started out with two coats of Ulta Tutu Cute.  Perfect formula and application, really.  I couldn't have asked for a better application.

IT'S SO PRETTY RIGHT? I love purple (=

I used China Glaze Four Leaf Clover for the green and blue painter's tape.  It's much easier to work with than scotch tape as it doesn't peel and shred as easily when removing it from the punchout thing.

Sealed with a coat of Out the Door TC and done! Groovy, baby!