Drugstore Haul and Some Avon

As I was on the way to a baby shower on Saturday, I realized I didn't have a card for the mom-to-be. I stopped at a Walgreens to get one and I took a peek at the nail polish. I should know better... I ended up walking out with all of these. lol.

Here are some closer pictures of each:

From left to right, Sinful Colors in Neon Melon, Dream On, and Frenzy.

Essie Smooth Sailing and Licorice.

Pure Ice in Taupe Drawer and Spit Fire.

In addition to my drugstore haul, I also got some polishes that came in from Avon on Thursday . I haven't bought any nail polish from them in about 7 or 8 years but I remember I liked them a lot. The bottles were different back then so I'm interested to see if they're the same as before or if the formulas have changed with the bottles.

From left to right, SpeedDry Mink, Nailwear Pro Sunshine, and SpeedDry Mambo Melon.

I'm really looking forward to trying out all of these and I'm seeing some great color combos here. I've been brainstorming some ideas and can't wait to share them with you all. :o)

Thanks for reading!
- Kim

NOTD: Wild Thing, I Think I Love Ya!

I love my Konad M57 plate but I have neglected to use it for a while. I decided to break her back out tonight for yet another leopard mani. I've only used wild colors with this plate so far sooo I thought I'd try something new and keep it neutral. :o)


I just kind of winged it and I really like out this turned out. I ended up using a bunch of different polishes... more than I expected. I started with my usual Seche Clear base coat followed by a coat of Essie Jazz. I topped that with China Glaze Cyberspace. (I did this since the Cyberspace takes at least a good 3 coats to get any kind of coverage.) Then I used OPI Black Onyx with the Konad stamp since it doesn't come out super dark.


Now this is where I had to get creative. I planned on using Orly Prince Charming for the accent color but it was too plain Jane brown. I needed something leaning more towards yellow or orange but I didn't have the color I needed. I have this tiny bottle of Sally Girl orange polish... I looked all over the bottle but I couldn't find a name. It's just a bright orange with mild shimmer. I made a 50/50 mix of the two to get that orangy-brown and I just used a regular detail brush to paint spots throughout the leopard print. I also find that the Bundle Monster plates make great "mixing trays"... just flip 'em over and mix away and when you're all finished, just wipe it clean with a cotton ball and some polish remover.

So that was all I did... I also just realized I used 5 different brands of polish, 6 if you count the top coat. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or bad, lol. Anyway, I think I'll wear my nails like this for a day or two and when I start rough up the tips, I'll go back and do a wild color french tip. I'm thinking hot pink or lime... oh yeah!

NOTD: Green Eyed Girl

I tried to do a water marble for the first time ever and I just didn't care for how it turned out. I had this whole pastel Easter themed idea going and it just ended up falling flat for me. I think my colors weren't the best choices and then my marbling was supposed to be a flower petal design. It was nowhere close! I believe it looks more Rhianna than Peter Cottontail. What do you think?


So I kept this mani on just long enough to take the picture and then I took it off. I decided since I spent a good 45 minutes on the Easter Fail, I would just do a simple one color mani and went with Zoya Gemma. This is actually the only Zoya polish I own. I have no idea why I don't have more... the color is unique and I love how it glides on so smoothly.


It has this interesting shimmer that's visible in the bottle as this sparkly purple ribbon but once painted on, its not as obvious... there's this slight purple undertone and I think it's very cool. And there's one more thing about Zoya Gemma that I find to be super spiffy...

IT'S THE SAME COLOR AS MY EYES!

Now, I just need to see if the DMV will change my eye color from green to "Gemma" on my driver's license. :o)

NOTD: Cherry Blossoms for Spring

Wooooo! It has been a looooong 4 days! I'm in North Carolina and we lost our internet when all of the bad weather came through the other day. Thankfully, my city only got heavy rains and some wind unlike the Raleigh area which is a bit further east from here. They suffered the brunt of the storms and it's just been crazy with all the relief efforts. But moving on...

I fell in love with Nail Utopia's Cherry Blossom manicure and just HAD to make my own version. I love her flowers so much! Mine's a little more neo-impressionist... my blossoms came out more round than I would have liked but it still worked and I got a ton of compliments on this one!

1. I started off with two coats of China Glaze "For Audrey." (My favorite polish! <3 )

2. Then I painted my branches using Essie "Little Brown Dress." I used a regular size zero paint brush to do this. I would recommend using a smaller brush than that to get the finer lines. My branches are kind of chunky. lol


3. After that, I dotted on spots of Sally Hansen Insta-Dri "Petal Pusher".

4. Then I marked the centers of the blossoms with Sally Hansen Insta-Dri "Flashy Fuschia" and Essie "Little Brown Dress".

5. And of course, I wasn't satisfied with all of that so I added some Sally Hansen Insta-Dri "Whirlwind White" to the petal edges. I was hoping it would has some depth to the blossoms... it was just kind of meh.

6. And of course, no mani is complete without a coat or two of SecheVite. :o)

I wore this mani for two days before I started chipping and had to take it off. So sad! But that always happens when I have this much polish on my nails. And aside from that, I'm weird about my nails matching my clothes and this was a hard one to match over and over, lol. But here is a portion of my outfit from Monday... I wish I had gotten a full picture because my heels were straight up awesome!!

I wore a black tiered dress and a cropped cardigan, both from Old Navy. And then my jewelry and flower pin are all made by me cause I'm a crafty something. :o) Also, I'm going to make it my goal to actually start fixing my hair everyday... I have got to get out of this horrible rushed ponytail habit. lol

Thanks for reading!
- Kim

NOTD: Chocolate Milk Mani

I had picked up a couple of bottles of Orly Prince Charming and Essie Little Brown Dress a while back and I wanted to see how they looked on my nails. I did a swatch of each, one on my thumb and one on my pointer finger. This progressed into me adding Essie Jazz into the mix creating a bit of a fade. I've wore this for about 3 days now and it's time to take it off but seriously, all I can think of when I look at my nails is chocolate milk.... nom nom nom...

NOTD: I Like That Bieber Kid... He's Swell

I went out and bought a bottle of One Less Lonely Glitter all because of this one particular blogpost by Chloe's Nails. I never paid the Justin Bieber polishes much mind until I saw this beautiful mani by Erika. I had to have it! So here's my version... The only difference is that I used Black Onyx by OPI as my base.

NOTD: Leopard Electric

I picked up a bottle of Sally Hansen HD - LCD and decided to try it out tonight. Overall, I liked the look of it but it took four coats to achieve this depth of color and it's still translucent. So I would recommend layering it with another polish if you don't want to go through putting on that many coats. (Maybe some Orly Soul Mate would look nice?)


Then I wanted to add something else to this color and I thought black tips would look great until I effed up my finish with tape. I waited about 15 minutes before that attempt which is usually plenty of of time but that whole 4 coats thing got me. To hide my boo-boo, I whipped out my Konad M57 plate and Leopard-ed them up. And with me never being satisfied, I felt it needed more so I added some Sally Hansen Green with Envy. Awesome. :o)


Thanks for reading!

~ Kim

NOTD: The Storm Came Rolling In

I tried Revlon's Top Speed in Stormy today and let me tell you, my manicure was very apropos for the weather. We've had these ominous looking dark storm clouds hanging heavy overhead all day. I kept waiting for the bottom to fall out but thankfully it never happened; we only had a light shower here and there.

I would definitely say that the name Stormy is perfect.

I really like this polish! I know it's been out for several months now but this was my first time using Top Speed and the consistency is really great. I'm sad that I haven't tried it sooner! It slides on smooth and just kind of goes where it needs to without a lot of fuss and muss. I would describe the color as being "graype." Yeah, I thought that was clever when I first came up with it too but it's just corny now, lol. Anyway, it's a really nice medium shade of gray with purplish undertones. I used 2 coats and a top coat of SecheVite and I was completely set and dry in about 10 minutes. Awesome! So at under $5.00 a bottle, I would say it's a great value.


I also want to try some of the other colors in the Top Speed line... I'm thinking Hazy, Espresso, and Golden will be my next buys. Have you guys tried any these colors? What do you think about them?

NOTD: Cybertronic Spring

This years weather has been confusing me to death. I don't know if I need to go ahead and switch out my summer/winter clothes or wait a little bit longer. Just to put things into perspective of how odd things are, it has been in the 60's and 70's this past week but at this time last year, we had SNOW and lots of it!

It seems that I'm not the only one confused by the unseasonably warm temps. I have tulips and flowers popping up in my yard and while I was walking outside at work today, I noticed the trees are starting to bloom.

These trees are absolutely gorgeous when the buds turn into flowers. They get these beautiful cotton candy pink blossoms on them and after a few days, the petals start to fall away and coat the ground... it's just an amazingly scenic sight!

But enough about the weather! Last night, I didn't have a lot of time to work on my nails so I decided to try a quick coat of the China Glaze Cyberspace I bought yesterday. I ended up using 3 coats and a top coat of SecheVite. I took pictures outside to see if I could capture the holo effect but I think I waited too late. The sun was already starting to set so it didn't get the full effect. The holo in this particular polish is very subtle so if you're looking for something that is truly holographic à la OPI Paris Couture for Sure, this one may be a disappointment. Personally, I like the overall look... it has a nice neutral metallic appearance so it's fun but I won't get weird looks at the office. :o)

Sally's Haul!

I gave my little brother a ride home from work today and he conveniently works right next to a Sally Beauty Supply. Yay! It was a win-win situation for us both!

While I was waiting for him to get off work, I popped into Sally's to see if they had anything interesting. To my surprise, they actually had China Glaze Crackle! Yes, in the store! I've seen so many people complaining online that it's sold out everywhere, I really didn't expect to find any. And to make things even better, all the China Glaze polishes were on sale 2 for $10. Soooo, I stocked up!

Crackle Glaze in Lightening Bolt and Broken Hearted

Tronica Collection in Hologram and Cyberspace

Flirt Collection Spontaneous and Ecollection Tree Hugger.

I'm really excited about the crackle glazes and I can't wait to try them... I just have to decide which color to do first! So, what about you guys... have you tried them yet or have you had any trouble finding them in stores?

NOTD: Funky French Manicure

I came across the wonderful blog Chloe's Nails by fellow polish addict Erika. She has some really great (and easy to follow) tutorials. I absolutely LOVE her Funky French Manicure and I was amazed at how easy it was to do! I also added some Konad stamping for a little extra flair as inspired by That's So Fresh. I got started by getting my supplies together...


To copy this mani, you will need:

• Essie Jazz
• OPI Black Onyx
• base coat/top coat
  
• good old fashioned Scotch tape
• Bundle Monster plate BM20
• Konad Stamper set

I painted my nails with Seche Clear base coat and then 2 coats of Essie Jazz. (This polish has to be my absolute favorite neutral color!) Then I added a layer of SecheVite top coat. After that, I played Angry Birds on my phone for ten minutes while it dried and then I proceeded to use Erika's instructions for the scotch tape. I used the OPI Black Onyx as my second color. Once aaaaaaall of that was done, I added the designs to my ring fingers using the Bundle Monster BM20 plate and sealed it all in with a final coat of SecheVite.

It seems like it would take a long time but it took me about 30 minutes total including the 10 minutes of Angry Birds/dry time... not bad at all!


Please ignore my hideous cuticles... I need to fix that. And definitely follow Erika's advice about working quickly with the tape. I hesitated on the first nail and my line turned out a bit wonky. That's okay though...

Click to bigify, friends!

I really had fun doing this mani and I want to try other colors... I have them all planned out in my head! I'm tempted to redo them again but it's been less than 24 hours since I painted them. I think I need to try let a mani last at least 2 days or so before painting again. We'll see how long I can hold out...

NOTD: All Cracked Up!

I've been really curious about the crackle nail polish that's been so popular as of late but I haven't seen it at ANY stores in my area, not even Ulta had it. So I finally hunted some down on eBay and ordered. I try not to order things like nail polish via eBay since I've heard so much about "knock-offs" being passed as the real deal. I just got tired of waiting and figured that if it sucked, I'd be out a whole $7 bucks. So on to the polish...

I finally got out the real camera to take some picture and yes,
my bathroom walls are the same color as the polish. It's not an illusion!

I had only seen the crackle in black until China Glaze posted some of their new colors on their Facebook page. The moment I saw Crushed Candy I knew I had to have it. It's almost identical to For Audrey which is my all time fave China Glaze polish. Love it!

For the "under" color, instead of the typical black I keep seeing used, I decided to use the mini Ulta polish I got in my free make-up kit last week. It's called Dance Teal Dawn and works marvelously with this shade of the crackle polish... it's like a little nail polish earth quake happened and you can see all the fault lines! Here is my handy work...


I really, really like the ease of this mani... it's a lot of effect for minimal effort. I used a base coat of Seche Clear, then I painted 2 coats of Dance Teal Dawn, followed by a single coat of the Crushed Candy Crackle. The crackle appears amazingly quick... it amused me thoroughly to watch the cracks and lines appear! Then after a couple of minutes, I sealed it all in with a coat of Seche Vite. Here are my left and right tips for comparison.

As always, click to bigify the picture for more detail.

I honestly love, love, LOVE this polish and I think will order some of the other colors, especially Black Mesh and Lightening Bolt. They just look so awesome!

So have you tried the crackle polishes? If you have, do you prefer a certain brand or do you have any great tips, tricks, or ideas you'd like to share?

And on a final note, I realized I totally match the bathroom today. Oops!

NOTD: Oooh Shiny! Half Moon Mani

I started out with a reverse french manicure using Sally Hanson Hard as Nails Xtreme Wear in Gunmetal and OPI Black Onyx. I felt it was a little too plain so I added some Kiss Nail Artist Paint in Silver Glitter. C.U.T.E!

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New OPI and a Big Ulta Haul

I like orange. It's number 3 on my top colors list. I picked this orangy shade up at Ulta today on clearance. It's called Chop Sticking to My Story by OPI. I just love earthy brown undertones that make it an orange my pale complexion can live with.

I also picked up a bunch of other things at while I was at Ulta...




The first picture is what I spent the most money on. The polishes are the OPI and the 3 Ulta brand colors from left to right are Bombshell, Glitter Top Coat (I guess they ran out of names, lol) and Fuchsia Crush. I also got some powder and an eyebrow pencil. The can is another awesome product I discovered a little while ago and can't live out. Who ever invented dry shampoo is my hero!

Now to the super-awesome part! Ulta has a promotion going on that if you spend $17.50 on Ulta brand products, you get this awesome makeup kit free. That's right... EVERYTHING in the second picture was free including the cute little bottle of Dance Teal Dawn polish which I lurve.

I love getting a great deal and not to toot my own horn but *toot toot*! This was a steal! For just under $37.00 I picked up all of this stuff and I have all NEW makeup to wear. That is something that definitely makes this girl happy!

Lots of love,
Kimberly

P.S. -- I also promise to start taking real pictures with a real camera. The cell phone has made me lazy because everything is all there together but man, the picture quality sucks!!

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