Peppermint Swirls

Happy Friday guys! It's almost Christmas and I'm starting to get excited underneath all the present wrapping stress. How is the apocalypse today treating you?

Today I have a mani I just couldn't help but try, I knew as soon as I saw this adorable look created by A Girl And Her Polish. Take a look at my version below:

Natural light

Polishes used:

• Seche Rebuild base coat / Seche Vite top coat
• Sinful Colors Snow Me White
• Sinful Colors Ruby Ruby
• Zoya Logan
• Confetti Lots O Dots
• Red Angel stamping plate RA-110

I learned a few things while making this one. Firstly, I learned that while Essie makes lovely colors, I will never again pay $8 for a white polish. I finally finished my bottle of Essie Blanc and when I opened this new bottle of SC Snow Me White I was kind of amazed at the difference. If I was more careful I bet I could have made this a one coater! Secondly, I am way out of stamping practice. This is the first time I used any of the half moon shaped plates but man I had the worst time trying to line them up in any kind of decent fashion on the nail. Hence the dot garlands across the top lol. The ring finger came out the way I imagined but the others are all a bit off. I love the look anyways. It keeps making me smile every time it catches the light and all the little holo sparkles light up ^_^

I guess I need to get back to stamping work cause man am I rusty. Do you guys have a type of stamping image you just do not get along with?

Swatch Day - Essence Gorgeous Bling Bling

Wednesday everybody! I have a sore throat and it is icky. I need cough drops like whoah. 

Today I have a lovely color to show you and it's my very first Essence polish. Let's take a look at one of my absolute new favorites, Gorgeous Bling Bling!

Shade

Shade

Sunlight

Sunlight

Close up golden flakie shot!

Polishes used:

• Seche Rebuild base coat / Seche Vite top coat
• Essence Color & Go Gorgeous Bling Bling

Just like my other two new to me brands, I am now a huge Essence fan. Firstly, I loved the brush on the Color & Go bottle. It wasn't quite as huge as the Sally Hansen Salon Manicure brushes or the Wet n Wild Megalast brushes but it WAS wider than a normal straight brush with a nice rounded end. On my pinky it was a one swipe brush, who doesn't love that? Formula wise, also no disappointments. All pics are three coats but I could have easily done just two and reach full opacity. This is such a gorgeous color, I guess that's why they put it right in the name lol. In person and in low light it comes across as a really beautiful burnt orange type color and it gets a nice bright almost brick tone in the sunlight where the gold flakies realy shine through. It would have been nice to have around in the beginning of the fall but I still feel like this is a very winter appropriate color. I have holiday mani plans for it already! Wear time so far has been great as well, these pics are after a few days with still no tip wear. I really have nothing like it in my collection and at only $1.99 I really won't feel guilty getting a back up bottle. My only problem with this polish is that it doesn't retail closer to me haha. 

Orange tones may not be traditional around this particular holiday but dang it I like it! What kind of non-traditional colors do you guys like this time of year?

It's About Time!

Happy Monday everyone! Yes, it really is a happy one because this weekend my best friend got engaged!

I've known my best friend for 12 years now, and for at least 9 of those years she has been dating one of my other best friends (who I call my brother and he calls me his sister). So if you're wondering why the title of this post is "it's about time", it's because that's what pretty much everyone who has ever known them said when we found out the great news haha. So of course this called for celebration nail art!

Polishes used:

• Seche Rebuild base coat / Seche Vite top coat
• Essie Master Plan
• Sinful Colors Firefly
• Heart shaped rhinestones from the dollar store
• One piece of loose hex glitter from Born Pretty Store

Pardon my winter/overworked hands. I've gone through like a half a tube of lotion in the past few days to no avail. Yellow and gray are one of my friend's favorite color combinations so that part was a given. When I first got the assorted shaped rhinestones from the dollar store I was all like "wtf who makes hearts yellow" but I guess I owe the dollar store an apology cause these were immediately what I thought of when I started this design. The one piece of loose hex glitter photographed dark but it's a bright shiny silver and is supposed to be the diamond on the band of the ring. The pics and my rough hands make this look a lot thicker and rough than it is, in person it comes across as a really sweet and delicate mani and I'm totally loving it. That little piece of glitter really catches the light and sparkles like a little itty bitty diamond and we all know I love anything sparkly so this is a winner!

CONGRATS TO MAH BESTIE AND MAH BRO! I love you guys!

Swatch Day - Butter London No More Waity Katie

Happy Friday all! I am taking a break from abusing my hands making holiday jewelry gifts to make hot chocolate ice cream cones for an office party for my mother. Yes, they are as awesome as they sound. If you are intrigued and in need of a last minute cute thing, I highly recommend taking a look at Designs With Heart for some basic instructions.

Look how cute they are! I use craft scissors to cut the tops of my bags all fancy like and some cheap holiday colored ribbons.

These things are taking over my life (and kitchen table) >.<

Now on to the swatch of the day! One of my never tried before brands that I picked up at Ulta was Butter London. Until now I had only been able to drool over the many shades from afar. When I got there in person I had a reaaaaaally hard time choosing one color, but in the end it was No More Waity Katie that called out to me the loudest. She is a stunner!

Polishes used:

• Seche Rebuild base coat / Seche Vite top coat
• Butter London No More Waity, Katie

NOTE: I really don't feel like my pictures do this polish justice, so go check out the review of this at The Polishaholic, you will not be disappointed by her gorgeous photos.

I bought this polish solely on the look in the bottle. It wasn't until I got home and read some reviews that I learned a lot of people had issues with the formula. I will admit, I was like oh crap what did I just do to myself. However, I was very happily surprised! I had pretty much none of the application or formula issues that I had read about, such as bald spots and streaking. This polish is very much on the sheer side and both pictures are with three coats, though I think I could get away with two thick ones if I had to. I am so in love with this gorgeous grayed out dusty purple and those bright purple sparkles are perfect! The glitter was nice and even, no fishing needed. The only real problem I had with this was (again) taking decent photos of it. It did get a little gritty with all the glitter and it is a bit top coat hungry, I would recommend whatever method you prefer for removing glitters with this one. I have seen it layered over Zoya Caitlin to get amazingly close to bottle color if you don't feel like using a full three coats. I will be planning to layer this over quite a few things in the spirit of experimentation. I think I am now a Butter London fan, now to hunt down Wallis somehow.

I hope you all have a great weekend, I will be elbow deep in hot chocolate mix and using my jedi mind powers to will my poor broken nails to grow.

Swatch Day - Zoya Logan

Happy Wednesday guys! Anybody else seriously dragging butt today? I am sleepy!

Due to recent dog sadness, my super awesome husband was kind enough to brave a trip into Ulta and he bought me three new polishes. Now that's love! All of them are from brands I have until now never gotten my hands on. One of those happens to be today's mani.

Polishes used:

• Seche Rebuild base coat / Seche Vite top coat
• Zoya Logan

This gorgeous green foil is Zoya Logan, my very first Zoya polish! I can now say I understand the Zoya love, this polish is a stunner in every aspect. I was looking for something in the Christmas green realm since my only other dark green is on it's last legs, boy did I find one! Foils entertain me almost as much as sparkles and holo polishes so the fact that this turned out to be a foil was an unexpected bonus. The formula was a dream, pictures show two thin coats but I probably could have gotten away with one generous coat. The pigment is nice and rich on this one. No signs of gritty texture like some foils have and one swipe of top coat made it nice and super shiny smooth. I am now ridiculously curious about Zoya cremes but I'm on a no buy for a while after these new three and all my birthday polishes. I was totally eyeing up Zoya Kelly while I was there cause I love gray and come on, it had my name on it! Alas, she shall have to wait. Logan will be plenty to keep me occupied for a while, I really think I would be hard pressed to find a better Christmas green. Speaking of which, you know I couldn't leave this plain!

Glitter tips! For these I added a coat of Essie As Gold As It Gets over Zoya Logan and then I placed red glitter from the Born Pretty Store on the tips. I called it my Christmas mani warm-up. So far I've had Logan on for a few days with minimal tip wear. Zoya has lived up to the hype for me, I'm a fan! Have you guys ever tried a new brand and fallen in love?

Swatch Day - Pure Ice Girls Best Friend

Happy gross rainy Monday everybody! Well, it's gross and rainy here anyways. After life being a total jerkface for the past week and a half I think it's finally safe to say I can blog again! YAY! Before I start I'd like to say a very big thank you to all of your kind words on my last post, I know Schaden would also say thank you for helping me feel better.

Today I have one of my birthday polishes to show you, Pure Ice Girls Best Friend. It's a very appropriate holiday cranberry sort of red with a lovely little sparkle thrown in. Ready to look? Yeah you are!

This is the most color accurate photo for most lighting.

It matches my blood, now THAT'S how you accessorize!

In bright, direct light this polish turns a gorgeous  bright cherry red. 

Stamping fun!

Polishes used:

• Seche Rebuild base coat / Seche Vite top coat
• Pure Ice Girls Best Friend
• Zoya Logan for stamping

There is one thing about this polish that bothers me. The name has no apostrophe. Yes I know that's really got nothing to do with the way the polish wears but dang it I had to go back and edit this to take all the apostrophes out and for that I am irked. Aside from the grammatical issues, I really like this little number. Girls Best Friend is from the Metro Chic line and I found mine in Walmart on a crazy disorganized shelf that you would come to expect from Walmart. I was drawn to the dark cranberry in the bottle and it just looked like nothing I had in my collection.The top two pictures are very color accurate to what they look like in person, a nice deep sparkly red. If you get closer to a light source (or you suck at taking pics like me and have an issue with the flash) you will see it lighten up quite a bit to a cherry sort of red. You may notice a red mark on my index finger, it is not stray polish. I whacked myself with the chasing hammer while making jewelry >.< If nothing else the fact that it matches the polish should really give you a nice illustration of what a perfect blunt force trauma red this color really is. The formula was pretty good, all pictures show two fairly generous coats. For the amount of sparkle in it I really expected it to be a little more gritty and top coat hungry but it was pleasantly neither. I will however say that it started to wear and chip after a day of hard use. Also, like all reds, it decided to stain my nails a tiny bit even with base coat. I don't know what it is about me and reds but every freakin time, I swear. Overall I still call this one a winner in my book and you will no doubt be seeing it much more as Christmas fast approaches. I had been really kind of jonesing for China Glaze Ruby Pumps but now with this in my collection I feel like I can wait. It's by no means a dupe but it's in the same general idea and it's close enough for me. For now. Oh god I have a problem.

Thank you again for all your kind thoughts and words, you guys are super awesome. As a token of appreciation I give you a smiley cat.

Is it too late to copyright the term "blunt force trauma red"? I feel like Crayola needs to know about it.

For My Schaden

Unhappy Friday everyone. I hope you all had a much better Thanksgiving than I did.

I hope you will pardon the lack of nails today, I really just don't have it in me. Last night we had to take one of my best friends ever, our 13 year old Keeshond named Schaden to be put to sleep. It was time and we didn't want her to suffer any more than she had already begun to. 

Goodnight my sweet Shady Lady, I will never ever forget your gentle spirit that always made me feel better no matter what.