I crossed the pond and it was SPICY!

Thanks to MUA and to a wonderful swapper I got my hands on my first international polishes. This pretty came to me from across the pond. I NEED more UK polishes! This was a super exciting swap for me. I most looked forward to Accessorize Pink Spice. I have yet to find MAC Bad Fairy :( I do have Claire's Poison Apple but I just wanted another go at trying to find the "next best thing" I went a bit crazy with the pics because honestly I am in LOVE with this polish! As I'm writing this I look at it and it looks like a straight magenta foil. When I was applying it, it looked more orange-y and when I took pics it looked more reddish gold. All of these make for a great duochrome foil. I applied 3 coats because it's a bit sheer, but maybe I think I will apply 2 thicker coats next time. This picture is the most color accurate...





Gold and Pink





So sparkly!

 

Gold

Gotta love the duochromes! What's your favorite duochrome?

 

Zoya Tamsen

I swatched the rest of the Zoya's on my hands to see which one I would wear today and this one just called to me. Tamsen is described as Medium warm brick red with strong orange tones with an opaque cream finish. Please excuse the dark residue underneath my nails. A full mani is in desperate need.

I am in love with this color! I have been really feelin' reds lately, but I don't have anything like this in my stash. It's not a true red, yet it doesn't pull too orange or brown either. This would look great in the fall. The first pic is more color accurate. I really wish you guys could see the acrobatics I do to take NOTDs. I will make that my next project, haha!

Where do you ladies take your NOTD pictures?

Barielle Elle's Spell and TGIF!

So this has officially seemed like one of the longest weeks in a while! I have almost given up on the idea that I will be finishing the nail art challenge which is a total bummer. Bella will be going to school in the fall and I am having a home visit tomorrow (why on a Saturday when all I wanna do is rest??) so I've gone crazy cleaning my house (-_-). Needless to say, it has taken a toll on my nails and yesterday I had to file them all down. I had chipped two of them and kept picking at the sides, so they ended up really deformed. I figured they're gonna grow back fairly quickly so....I have nubbins :D

I am a bit late to the game because this is by no means a new release. Elle's Spell was a part of the Winter 2010 Holiday Hustle Collection. I recently got this on Amazon because I looked at a few Ulta's and had no luck finding it. Barielle has a monthly contest. This month's is to win the entire (6) holiday collection. You can find more info and register here.

This shows off the flakes. Seriously, how gorgeous is the bottle color??





This is more true to what the red actually looks like.



Up close of the flakies



Elle's Spell is described as a jelly red with multi-colored foil flakes. This is 3 coats and 1 of SV. I like that with 3 coats it's completely opaque (covering any VNL) but yet it retains its "jelly" properties. It gives the color/flakies alot of depth. I did a little reading and saw that some people were applying a dark base under this to bring out the flakies more. I tried this on a piece of paper (I will make an edit to show this) and decided that I'm just not in a vampy mood. I'm sure that a dark base under this will make for a great winter color.

Have a great Friday ladies and wish me luck on our home visit!!!

Laura :)

China Glaze Virtual Violet

So after my less than great experience applying Gamer Glam, I made up my mind that I HAD to make the Tronica line work for me. I seriously doubt I will ever actually see the OMG in person, so this has to be the alternative and I am determined to like these. Virtual Violet is another purple, a bit darker and it looks more pigmented in the bottle.....annnddddd I actually like this one! :D



I found the formula to be a bit thick in GG, so I put a bit of thinner in this hoping it would fix this problem. I wasn't really sure if thinner would mess up the holo-ness, so I started off with about 5 drops...then increased the amount until I was happy with its consistency. To my surprise, the formula was not affected at all which made it way easier to work with. I think you can see the holo-ness alot more in VV than in Gamer Glam (another plus). I tried to be artsy by taking the pic against a mirror. I was feeling creative ;) There's still a bunch of Tronicas I need to try, so I will keep you updated. Thanks for reading :)

China Glaze Gamer Glam

Happy Monday everyone! I got a few nps from the Tronica collection. This was the first color that I've tried on from this line.

I was really excited about this line because I heard it was supposed to be similiar to the OMG collection (which I have yet to see anywhere), and thought this would be a nice alternative to it because I've yet to jump fully in to holos. But, after trying this first one on....I REALLY hope the rest of the line is a bit more holo-y and easier to work with. The application was a bit difficult because the formula was pretty thick and gloopy (is that even a word?). It did not go on even and I was afraid to put thinner in it so I managed as best as I could and hoped it wouldn't look too streaky. This was 2 coats of GG and one of SV. The end result is really nice and subtle and I really like the color of the purple base. Here you can see the suble holo.



How ugly do my cuticles look here!?!

I will try Virtual Violet next. I'm pretty excited about that one because the purple base looks really pretty. I will let you know how it turns out. Thanks for looking :)

 

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).

Huemorista In Bloom Collection

Happy Tuesday everyone! Today I want to show you Huemorista's Spring Line.

I got 3 out of the 4 (the only one missing is "Kiss the Tulips").

I tried to pick a favorite, but I honestly can't. I was so impatient to try them on that I didn't let the glitter come off the bottom, so the lack of glitter in these pics is purely my fault. I've turned them upside down and will remember to be a bit more patient next time :|



The best way I can describe Hidden Rainbow is a grayish Greige (it's more gray than beige). It kinda reminded me of Glitter in the Air, or more like what GitA should've been like. This is only 2 coats, so I think that with another coat, it would've been completely opaqued out. Again, my shotty application. But, I'm sick and I had taken too much medication, so that's my story and I'm sticking to it! It has big silver hex glitters, with smaller red, green, orange, and blue glitters.

I was most excited about Dewed. It is a beautiful Jade color with tiny holo glitters. The application was super easy and with 2 coats there was no VNL. I think if I had to pick a favorite, this one would be it. I have a lot of minty greens, but nothing like this!


Here you can really see what not waiting for the glitter to unsettle can do to application. There is a ton of glitter in Puddle Hop that I missed out on for being so flippin' impatient! This is a really cool blue, a bit darker than Bubble Bath; it's way more of a summer color. I went a little crazy with the Photoshop and gave myself crazy manequin hands. They look so weird! 

Click Here to visit Huemorista's Shop

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