If Dorothy's Shoes Were a Color....THIS would be it!

Hi guys! How's everyone doing? Good, I hope. So, like I've mentioned before...my friends all have different colors that they like to see on me. One of them particularly likes reds, she says it reminds her of her mom :D A while back she mentioned that she saw someone with a red that looked like the exact color of Dorothy's shoes so I went on a frenzy looking for it, but nothing even came close according to her. I even shelled out $18 for Deborah Lippman Do Ya Think I'm Sexy? (aka...Jessica Rabbit) which so far is proving to be a total BUST because I can't think of a proper way to even swatch/wear it. It's such a PitA! Such a dissapointment! I ran into Walgreens the other day to pick up a few things and I saw the WnW Ice Baby display kind of picked over and what else do I see?? A bright red glitter staring at me! (Remember that book "Brown Bear Brown Bear, what do you see?"). They only had this and the two purples, so I only got this.

Rockin' Rubies is a small red micro-glitter in a clear base with rainbow (not holo, I'm not sure what this is called) glitter. It is crazy sparkly!! Think....Dorothy's Shoes times 100!

Since I didn't want to fuss with trying to get the clear base to be opaque, I applied one coat of Zoya Sarah as my base and 1 coat of Rockin' Rubies. Easy, right? WRONG! The ONLY bad side to this polish is that it is SUPER top coat hungry! This is 3 coats of SH-Insta Dri and it's STILL not completely smooth. I really don't like the way my nails look with thick polish, so this is a minus for me. It also doesn't help that I'm back to nubs since I had a chip at the pumpkin patch this past weekend. Hay rides are not a nail's best friend, make note of that! My nail kinda got caught on some wood and broke. :(

Ya'll ready for the pictures??

My camera had a heart attack with these, it did not want to cooperate. These are the best ones I took...and they're not all that great either.

Pick this up NOW if you don't have it. $1.99?? You CAN'T beat that!

Speaking of deals (good and bad)....if any of you have DL-Do Ya Think I'm Sexy? and have been able to actually say you LIKE it...please tell me how you wore it, I just can't get on board with this. That sucks! I wanted to love it so so bad!

:(

You Don't Know Extra-Va-Vaganza

Hey everyone!! Today I'm going for a more subtle "Halloween" mani. Ok..this is more of a fall mani :) This is OPI You Don't Know Jacques. YDKJ is a taupe-y brown (not gray based like alot of other taupes) creme. This kind of reminds me of a mix between Essie Mink Muffs and Hard Candy Mushroom. It's not as red as MM, but not as brown as Mushroom; good combination. I actually hard to use 3 coats, I had alot of "bald spots" with 2 coats for some reason.

The accent nail is Extra-Va-Vanganza from the Burlesque collection. The whole glitter line from this is pure genious. I love them all!! It's mosly a silver and orange glitter in a clear base, but if you look really closely...there is pink and green glitter too. 3 coats of this (and a few more on TC...it ate it up like crazy!). This is a nice way to spice up a "mom mani"

When I don't know what to wear, a combination like this is alway my go-to choice. I feel like I can't go wrong with something like this.

What's your "safest" color combo??

Gemma was a Fairytale

In keeping with the fall green trend, I took out another one of my unuseds. This isn't technically a very "fallish" color. Actually, I think this would be more appropriate for Spring. Zoya Gemma (http://www.zoya.com/) is from the Intimate Collection. It is described as a "light muted olive green with an overlay of blue and violet duochrome shimmer." It kind of reminds me of those clay masks you put on at spas....ahhh those things feel amazing!! This is 2 coats.

I also picked up DL Today Was a Fairytale (which I won't go into great detail about because I want to try and do an ombre mani with this...so stay tuned!!) But the blue base in this complemented Gemma's blue shimmer pretty nicely

DL, you are my guilty pleasure!!!! What's your favorite nail indulgence??

Nothing Says Fall Like Browns....

And OPI Holiday Glow is GORGEOUS! I was recommended this color by a friend who said I just HAD to have this color. So I bought this on Amazon and hoped for the best. I had seen some mixed reviews, so I wasn't expecting too much. I got this in the mail pretty quick (less than a week) and off the bat I knew:

1. It was gonna be hard to work with
2. It was gonna be watery
3. I would need at least 3 coats

Well....yeah...that about summed it up. BUUUUT....I also forgot to mention that:

1. The color is gorgeous
2. It has so much depth
3. The work is totally worth it.

This is in fact 3 coats of Holiday Glow because it was really watery and streaky. It's a medium chocolaty brown with tiny silver and gold glitter. I tried my best to capture it properly, but thse pictures do not do it justice. (This explains the picture overload, sorry!!)

My nail polish starts chipping pretty fast when I apply too many coats, so I wonder how long I could wear this before it starts chipping...

Thanks for looking!!

PS....Have you entered my giveaway?? The drawing will be held on November 1st, so HURRY!!

Let's Go Across the Universe

 I'm really resisting temptation here! I REALLY want to get the "Get This Party Started" set from Deborah Lippmann :(

So, to resist temptation (or maybe to convince myself I NEED it) I finally brought Across the Universe out from my untrieds. It's a dark blue jelly with blue glitter and blue & green hex chunky glitters (that's alot of glitter). This was the first "high" end nail polish I ever got, but never actually wore it. I read on several blogs that the base could be a bit sheer (it's a jelly after all), so to avoid that I used OPI Ski Teal We Drop as a base. I was wearing this the day I got AtU, so when the SA swatched it, she just applied a coat over it. I fell in love! So, I just did this again...this time 1 coat of STWD and 2 of AtU.

Look at all that glitter??

UGH! After this...I think I really need to get this party started :)

Have a great weekend everyone.

I'm Having a Bad Romance...

Hey everyone! So the weirdest thing happened with this whole Blogger downtime. My last post is completely gone! UGH! And it was super long too. Bummer. Anywho...I will try and recap what I wrote.

So I haven't been on much lately (a week seems like a looong time to me) for 3 very good reasons:

Reason #1. I've been swamped with work. As I'm typing this I am downing a coke and a Chocoloate Cream Pie because I need to stay awake.

Reason #2. I'm having some remodeling done in my house so it's a total mess there right now. We have no hot water and there's stuff everywhere (even my router is MIA). I am so excited for the renovations being done and I can't wait to see then end product. I have some update pics if ya'll wanna see :D

Which leads me to...

Reason #3 (more like Reason #1, actually). I have no nails! I literally gnawed all my nails off. It sucks, but I must admit....it was the BEST stress reliever EVER! Like...EVER!!! I not only bit them, but it seems as though I peeled off some layers of nail. It's awful and I totally regret it. Oh well!!!

I will dig in the vault and find some unposteds to show you in the meantime. Speaking of...why haven't I posted Bad Romance before?!? It's so gorgeous!

.::EDIT::.

This is what they look like now

Anywho, thanks for enduring this crazy rant! I will finish off this amazing pie (this is also not the best of stress relievers).

What do you do to relieve stress?

My Favorite Pair of Shoes

I have a thing for Converse! I'm on a mission to own as many colors as I can, so far I'm up to 6 pairs, but the teal ones are by FAR my favorite of them all! A while back I did a Chuck mani on MUA

My nails were much shorter back then (this was in December I think). The closest color I had to match my shoes was OPI Suzi Says Feng Shui. SSFS is a gorgeous blue, and I love it...but it doesnt quite match the color of my shoes. Then alooong came Sally Hansen Blue Me Away. It is a perfect match!! So I decided to recreate this mani, I even added an additional accent.

The white tip on the ring finger was done with Scotch tape. For the laces and black trim I used Sally Hansen Nail Art pens like these, and just applied rhinestones to the lace holes. For the thumb I used my dotting tool and freehanded the star with OPI Simmer and Shimmer.

I'm even having a separate pair of Chucks custom painted. I can't wait for them to be ready so I can show everyone! This took me a while because I was watching DWTS...yes, still Kirstie FTW! The cleanup took a while because blues are just a total PitA to remove, they stain horribly! I'm sure you can see it in my cuticles. my accent nail is actually horribly stained :( Oh well, I still love you BLUE!

Thanks for looking :)

Pink Wednesdays

I saw this on Chloe's blog (she does some amazing stuff, btw) and was super excited. I LOVE pink and this is a great way to get through some of my untrieds.

Here is the breakdown of Pink Wednesdays (taken from their page):
"Once Upon A Time….
A couple of nail bloggers decided to let their love for the movie Mean Girls manifest itself in the form of  wearing pink manis on Wednesdays.
In the movie Mean Girls, “The Plastics” always wear pink on Wednesdays. And while we’re not mean girls at all, we loved the idea so much that we tweaked it a little and made it our own.

 And thus Pink Wednesdays were born!"

Click here to read up on it.

I used Wet 'n Wild Black Creme (1 coat) and OPI Show it & Glow It! as an accent. I finally used my little heart rhinestones (aren't they cute?) I looove pinks! What's your favorite pink?

Butter London No More Waity, Katie

So, I've been half-dead all week (one of the perks of having a toddler is that you are guaranteed to catch any sickness they get). And this was definitely a pick me up. I pre-ordered No More Waity Kaity a couple of weeks ago (along with Victoriana). These are my first 2 BLs. I LOVE the bottles. I saw this a while back on people.com and was pretty intrigued by it. I hadn't really taken the time to look at Butter London's too much, even passing them up at Nordies a few times. When I first looked at them I thought the brush was gonna be a huge PitA because of the big rectangle, but I was happy to find out it was just for decoration :D

I was pleasantly surprised at how much glitter this had. I also had no idea this was a jelly, so with all the recent talk about jellies, I was pretty happy to try it.

I was a little underwhelmed with the application. The formula was a bit chunky, so it made the application a little tricky to get even. The glitter went on evenly, so that was a big help. This is 2 coats of NMWK and 1 of SV. The base is a plumish-gray color and the glitter is more of a lavender (although in the first pic it had a bit of a blue tint to it). I only needed one coat of SV, which isn't normal of many glitters (another plus).

Deborah Lippmann: Glitter in the Air Review

I'm a total sucker for blues and pinks. I called 2 weeks ago and GitA was out of stock...I was pretty bummed. I got lucky today, and they had just been put out. Yay for Nordstrom's!

I had mixed emotions on buying this because I had not seen one swatch of it that caught my eye...the color looked a bit off in pictures. I got it anyways...thinking if I didn't like it I could always swap or put it up for a givewaway later down the road. But...I think this one is a keeper. I read that GitA was inspired by Pink's 2009 VMA performance. Same song, Glitter in the Air. I LOVED that performance. She did a trapeze act wrapped in ribbon and then somehow ended up wet (I can't remember where the water came from though, lol)

How crazy is this?!?!

After reading how many coats it took to get this opaque (and still hating it), so I went with Kleancolor Pastel Bleu since it resembles what the base coat SHOULD look like.

When I used the tester at Nordy's, I had Revlon Coconut Crush on the tips, and I did two coats over it. The VNL looked way better. If I ever decide to wear it alone, I'll definitely do something to my tips. This looks sad!!!

I actually really like this! It reminds me of squishy yogurt. I applied one thin coat of PB (hence the steaky mess). The application was a bit tricky because the bigger flakes were hard to get on. I had to move them around to the desired spots. This was 3 coats. Plus 1 coat of PB and 1 of SV.

I absolutely LOVE how the glitter from the bottom layers blend in to the background and only a few are in the foreground. I think this was the whole "glitter in the air" effect DL was trying to accomplish.

Close-up of the glitter. It looks so "whimsical" and a really nice break from all the pinks and corals. When you look closer, you can see flecks of purple, green, orange, and red. (Although I'm looking at the bootle and I don't see them)

I actually really like this color. I have seen a bunch of "hate" towards it, and although it's not the PERFECT color, I think for me it works. Not as out there as AtU or Happy Birthday, but a more subtle variation of it. DL can do no wrong in my book. Except...for Maneater? I got it free with my purchase today and I was stoked about the name...I'll have to try it on...stay tuned :)

Deborah Lippmann, you.are.a.genius.

xox...L

Texas Mani

Hi! Happy Wednesday :) Here is my Texas Mani. I totally think I'm gonna rock this veryyy soon. I got my tickets to see Brad Paisley today, so the countdown to Rodeo is officially on...

Thumb, middle and pinky: Suzi Loves Cowboys

I HAD to go back for SLC from the Texas Collection. The brown looked sooo pretty in the bottle; I had NO IDEA that a brown jelly/sorbet was even possible. I was extremely surprised to see how smooth this went on.

Index: Extra-Va-Vaganza! (Pictured above so you can see the glitter)

Extra-va-vaganza! also came in the mail today (along with Simmer & Shimmer) so I couldnt wait to try it on. Gahhh...I love this whole line of glitters SO much. This one has mostly orange glitter with silver and very few turquoise flecks in there. This went on a little thinner than Show it & Glow It! which is a bit dissapointing. I had to apply 3 coats to get even coverage. I think MAYBE it's because it has less strong colors than Si&Gi. Not discouraging enough to wear it again....because I really liked it

Ring: Essence- Just in Case

This is one of the best spent dollars in a long time. I wish I had bought a backup of this because this was the last bottle when I got it (so keep an eye out for me). I was afraid that my skin tone (NC40) would not compliment it. But I was wrong! I really liked this coppery/brown color. The application was extremely even and 2 thin coats were enough. I also used Konad S5 plate. I'm still polishing (no pun intended ^_-) up my stamping skills, so this was not at all in the middle of my nail..wahh!!

All in all....I'm pretty happy with it :)

Have an awesome night....xox