Pure Ice Purple Reign

Don't you just LOVE when you can find the best colors for the least amount of money?? High end companies should really take a cue from these store brands sometimes because in my opinion, they sometimes have the widest selection of colors. I've only seen Pure Ice at Walmart, and they have a pretty good selection of colors and shimmers....not to mention they're super cheap!

One of their best colors is Purple Reign. It's a mauve-y smoky purple with coppery-gold shimmer. Indoors it looks like your typical purple mauve office shade, but in the sunlight you can really see the shimmer. This kind of makes me think of cooking Thanksgiving dinner as a "mom". You know..the kind of mom's that don't wear blue nail polish and cook in a dress and heels. Haha! Weird huh??

Thinking of turkeys...

Monster Mash...

Hi everyone! As I'm typing this, the length on my nails is really irking me :| I'm a pretty loud typer, so I feel like I'm slamming down on the keys (I have a very quiet office). I was really planning on growing my nails out a bit more because I want to try and make them super-squared....let's just hope I don't have any chips/breaks.


For this mani I used:
-Thumb: Revlon Tangerine and WnW Black Creme
-Index: OPI Funkey Dunkey (I LOVE this purple)
-Middle: OPI Green-wich Village
-Ring: WnW Black Creme and OPI FD


I did 3 coats of Tangerine and Green-wich Village and just 2 of FD. Tangering was a bit thin, so in order for me to get full coverage I went with 3 coats. For my thumb I started with orange first then just brushed the black on. For the ring finger, I did the opposite; started with black then added the purple. This was one of the easiest manis I've done in a while since the "hair" didn't have to be perfect.

Bells really liked this mani, she wanted me to try and do it on her...but she won't stay still!!


Speaking of Bells...here she is a few weeks ago when I took her to the pumpkin patch.

Orly Fowl Play

I have tried to majorly cut back on my polish purchases lately..and so far, I've been doing pretty good. I've gotten a few, but only of colors I REALLY like. This past weekend I stopped by Ulta for some hair products and I saw this. It's gotten lots of hype on MUA and after I saw it for myself, I picked it up. Fowl Play is from Orly's new Birds of a Feather collection. This is really the only color that grabbed my attention, so I passed on the rest.

Fowl Play is a red-tinted purple jelly (it reminds me of the color of grape slushes) with red flakies and purple, red, green, and gold micro glitter. The formula seemed a bit thick so I put a few drops of thinner. It was completely opaque with 2 coats. Unfortunately, I think I applied them a bit too thick, so I had some shrinking....BOO SV!!

Besides the shrinking...I like this color. I don't love it...but....I really like it.I keep looking at my nails trying to figure out why I don't absolutely love it, but I can't figure it out. This fall is a great season for new colors, and maybe the fact that there are so many choices is why I'm not wowed with this. I will definitely wear this again though :)

Purple Rain

Happy Hump Day everyone! I'm home sick and just woke up from a 12 hour nap...I'm trying to sleep this cold off...so far so good :) I've been meaning to post this since Monday, but with this cold I haven't had the energy to do much. Remember a while back when I posted my franken, Black Rainbow? Well, if you remember the recipe, I used up 3/4 of a bottle of DS Sapphire. I had an unused fourth of Sapphire and it just sat there for a while.  I was looking for my A-England Lady of the Lake one day and for the life of me, couldn't find it. I have literally looked EVERYWHERE for it...still NOTHING :( While I find it, I decided to make my own, so I used the 1/4 of Sapphire and mixed it with maybe about 1/3 of Zoya Pinta and I came up with Purple Rain (ha! Cheesy, I know)

The holo on this is alot more noticeable than the one in Black Rainbow, I wonder why? Maybe because there was no black added to this (as the WnW Black that I added to BR). I love everything about this color. The base is nice and rich and the application was great, just two coats and it was opaque.

I really need to pick up a few more bottles of Sapphire to see what else I can cook up. What colors do you think would look great with a little holo added??

Tutorial: Penguin

Happy Sunday everyone! Thank you to Aimee for this tutorial request. I was already wearing Kiss Soft Purple (it came from the nail art pens and I just decanted into an old SV bottle).


How pretty is this color?!

 Supplies:

-Acetone
-Dotting tool
-Small, thin brush (this came in a set of art brushes I got at Michael's)
-Heart Rhinestones
-WnW French White Creme
-WnW Sunny Side Up
-Sation Black
-SH Insta Dri Top Coat

I use a Ziploc bag to pour out all the np I will be working with. I poured out about 3-4 drops of the white onto the bag. With the brush I drew the outline of the body

I filled in the rest of the body with the regular brush (I tried to fill in in with the thinner brush, but it was really streaky).

The edges weren't so clean afterwards. I already had a coat of TC before I started so I dipped my brush into acetone and cleaned up the edges. That's really how I get all my lines cleaned up. It's much easier to clean up lines when there is a layer of TC, the color doesn't smear.

Next I poured a drop of the black on to the bag and with the smallest end of the dotting tool (for the eyes)

The smallest end works the best:

I used the brush to make the beak and feet. I just did 3 horizontal lines. 

I applied another coat of TC and cleaned up the white from my fingers with my regular clean up brush. I applied one of the heart rhinestones on my pinky. 

Here is the end result again:

Hope everyone is enjoying their Sunday! :)

From the Vault: Nubar Treasure

Happy Friday everyone! So a while back I bought the Nubar Prisms Collection. I think this was the first time I bought an entire set, who could pass up a set of holos? I told myself these would be as amazing as Reclaim. But, unfortunately...they're not. I've tried 3 so far and I like them....I'm just not wowed by them. Here is Treasure. It's a light purple holo.

It's similar to China Glaze Gamer Glam, except a lighter purple shade and holo-ier (is that a word??). Actually, it looks similar to GG indoors, when you go outdoor you can really tell the difference between the two. The purple is a lot more pigmented. So as I'm writing this, I keep telling myself that this color is alot prettier than I'm giving it credit for. Soooo...I take it back. I REALLY like Treasure. I will definitely have to reswatch this to give it a proper description.

What are your favorite holos?

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?

Sally Hansen Lively Lilac

I totally missed Pink Wednesday yesterday, UGH! I just came home and layed on the couch and dozed off. I got up kinda late and wanted to watch American Idol, so I knew I needed a one coater to do a really fast mani. SH Insta-Dris to the rescue!

I love this lilac. It's darker than most of the lilacs/lavenders that I have and I love the silvery shimmer that it has. Is it possible for this to be a creamy shimmer? That's what I would best describe this as. I actually tried this once before and did 2 coats. When I applied SV over it, it wrinkled up for some reason. So from now on, Insta-Dris are strictly one-coaters. Besides...I love the color as it is. No streaking or gaps.

I'm still undecided on my Earth Day mani. Have you thought of what you're gonna wear tomorrow?

Funkey Unicorn Pee

For a looong time I did not get the hype about Clarins 230. I thought it was just overrated. Boy, was I wrong! I got this off a blog sale and it had been sitting for a while in my untrieds. My index finally grew out to a decent length/shape. I WANT to try and wear this at least 2-3 days...wish me luck! I wore this once before for a few hours over Zoya Pinta but I thought it was too dark (at least for the Spring). I went with a lighter purple. Funkey Dunkey to the rescue!

Warning: PICTURE HEAVY

(I'm sorry, I just couldn't help myself)

Be still, my heart!!! I know it's alot to spend on one polish, but I have NO regrets about this. What is the most expensive polish you've gotten??