Sinful Colors Under 18

Quickie post!

Sinful Colors Under 18, sun


A orangey-red with golden micro shimmer (click for the bigger picture to see that). Strange name. Two coats, kind of sheer but not as noticeable as some of their other colors.

Borghese Bella Berry

Alrighty, last post of the day and then I'm off to finish wrapping presents and making merry this Christmas Eve. I'll keep it short =)

Borghese Bella Berry, sun


My shade picture gave me ghastly undead hands that I couldn't bear to show. Into the trash it went. Let's see...this was a swatch, so no base or top coat. Two coats had bald spots so I added a third. Otherwise no problems with application. A base coat would probably have helped with the bald spots.

Bella Berry is one of the colors of the Borghese Fashionista collection, this year's spring release. These seem to be popping up in Ross stores across the country, so if you have access you might want to check it out. I also found Stellare Notte, Plumaggio Plum, Mezzanote Blue and Almondine at Ross for a fantastic price of $1.99 each. Can't pass up that kind of bargain!

I meant to keep this short so...Happy Holidays!

Wet n Wild Blue Moon

About a year ago, the last drugstore to sell Wet n Wild nail polish in my area stopped carrying it. I was devastated. (Okay that may be an exaggeration, but I was certainly sad.) Wet n Wild will always hold a special place in my polish heart because it is the first nail polish brand I ever bought. I still have that bottle, actually. Anyway, for a brand that provides 99-cent nail polish, they still produce some excellent polish. I thought I would never have access again (outside of the internet). Imagine my joy when a new location of that drugstore opened and they were carrying Wet n Wild again! I almost had raptures. Ask my husband, he was there (and probably laughing at me).

Wet n Wild Blue Moon, sun


I adore this blue. If you click the picture to see the larger image, you can see the green shimmers. Did you ever have that Midnight Blue crayon in your box of Crayolas? That was my favorite crayon and this reminds me of it. Two coats of color with base and top coat. My only complaint was it had a lopsided brush. I forgot to check the bottle in the store.

Wet n Wild Blue Moon, shade


Beautiful in the shade too. I want to experiment with layering, marbling, stamping...I am smitten. My sincerest apologies for the dent. There was an *ahem* accident with my camera strap. Happy Holidays!

China Glaze Mrs. Claus

I've been feeling tired and worn out, due in no small part to the massive amounts of vog in the air the last couple weeks. Vog is short for volcanic smog, sulfer dioxide and other yuck being pumped out of our active volcano. If you're interested in learning a bit about the volcano I live with, you can read about it here.

China Glaze Mrs. Claus, sun


Mrs. Claus is from this year's 'Tis The Season winter collection. Three coats over base coat and cover with Poshe. No application trouble although it is a bit sheerer than I expected. Next time I think I'll layer it over a red jelly like Misa Cherry Topping.

China Glaze Mrs. Claus, shade


I know I've been lax in posting but to make up for it I have two more posts already lined up for later today. And more pictures on my camera waiting to be downloaded. Happy Holidays!

Revlon Powder Puff

I've been procrastinating again. There are presents to be wrapped, presents to be made, presents to find (Yes, I already lost something I bought. If you have any ideas I would be grateful!) and presents to mail. I've also been procrastinating getting photos edited and uploaded to blogger. It's just that every time I log in I get distracted reading everyone else's new posts...

Revlon Powder Puff, sun


I'm not usually one to wear white, but when I saw the great photos on other blogs I was intrigued. White with blue shimmer? Sign me up please!

Revlon Powder Puff, shade


Let's see...*consults my notes*...this is three coats, no base or top coat. I went for opacity, but if you like your polish sheer two coats would have been fine. Very smooth application. The bottle says matte (hence no top coat) but it's not a flat matte, more of a suede-like finish (which I like).

More sun, just because


This is a perfect snow-type color to me, a white so bright it shines with a blue tone (says the girl who doesn't live in snow...you must think me I'm nuts XD). I did balk a tiny bit a the price though. It wasn't on sale and I had no coupons so I paid about 5.49 for this. I was miffed but I sucked it up and paid because hey, it's limited edition! (They get me with that every time...*sigh*)

OPI Windy City Pretty

My computer is dying. It takes about 20 minutes to finish booting up and then is horribly sloooow at doing certain tasks. Dear Husband says its not worth trying to fix anymore due to how old it is (dinosaur!). *sigh* He put together another computer for me as a temporary measure until we can decide on a what to get next. I was really hoping my computer would hold out until the system requirements for this is released. Oh well...

OPI Windy City Pretty, sun


I picked this up at a nail salon in the mall that I've been afraid to go into since they opened last year. My one foray into another salon to inquire about purchasing polish did not go well and I never tried again. But a few weeks ago this salon had a display at the entrance with a sign proclaiming a "Sale" so I gathered my courage and dug through what they had to offer. (I ended up with this and China Glaze Party Hearty.) I even managed to ask the owner if he would sell the used polish in the racks on the walls. He looked perplexed but said Yes. I think I'll go back soon. Mmm, black label OPI.

OPI Windy City Pretty, shade


This is 3 coats without a base or top coat. Slightly streaky but it evened out well. The third coat was necessary to reach opacity. The shimmer you can see in the sunlight is less noticeable in the shade. For some reason I find this color soothing. Maybe it's the association of a good memory chasing away the bad nail salon experience. =)

Thanksgiving...crisis!

This isn't about nail polish. It's about cats. Just wanted to give you fair warning. Every year, I'm in charge of making the pies for our family Thanksgiving dinner at my sister's house. Usually around eight to ten pumpkin pies. (Oh, and sucky cellphone pics ahead. I was camera-less on Wednesday night.)

Let me introduce you to one of the newest family members. This is Snowflake. She belongs to my nephew and lives at my mother's house.



Isn't she cute? She's less than a year old. (She's a foundling so we don't really know her age. Just that she was tiny when found.) Snowflake loves playing. She ran around under the kitchen table while I had pies baking and cooling. Pies number five and six were in the oven. I was sitting down grating soap (making this) when I heard a clatter...

...and found this on the kitchen table.


Yes, those are her paw prints in my pie. Unphotographed were the pumpkin paw prints across the kitchen floor, the pumpkin splatters on the table and the pumpkin crumbs on the wee little kitty chin. Lucky for her that pie wasn't hot. Snowflake went (forcibly) out the door to play outside and I sat down to laugh and cry. (It was about 10pm and I still had four more pies to bake.)

Annie said this is what comes of having little ones around.


I said she was never this naughty when she was little. Annie said she was never that little. Hard to argue with a cat.

I finished my pies and cooled them and stashed them away safely without further incident. In the morning I started loading them into the car to take to my sister's house. The last two were on the kitchen table waiting when Annie announced it was time for her breakfast. LOUDLY.

I obliged.

And came back to this! Kitty Krueger strikes again!


And again!


All I can say is, it's a good thing she's so cute.



Snowflake had a busy night. Time for her Thanksgiving nap!

Orly Mistletoe

Orly Mistletoe was one of my very first lemmings. I stalked eBay until I found it (along with some Orly a la Modes) for a reasonable price and then it sat in a drawer unswatched for, hmm, about a year. (I had a *moment* where I decided it needed to wait for Christmas). Luckily I had forgotten about it because this meant I didn't build up all sorts of anticipation only to be disappointed. Because I'm rather *meh* about this one.

Orly Mistletoe, morning sun


This is three coats (no top coat) and you can still see bald spots. Maybe it's just my bottle (and coming from eBay it could be), but the polish consistency is very thin. I could have added a fourth coat. I could have worked with it until I was satisfied. But Nars Zulu was sitting there waiting too. And I'm still a bit miffed with Orly's price-raising shenanigans. I went with the gorgeous green jelly.

Quirius Deep Denim

I was supposed to get this post up yesterday but ended up stuck downtown with a flat tire. Talk about ruining your day! I did get some pretty glitter polishes from Hot Topic out of the whole ordeal though. Anyhow! On to the polish!

Quirius Deep Denim, morning sun


I love the richness of this color.



Only two coats. Two ridiculously easy coats. If I'd been more careful, I wonder if I could have gotten away with one.



I used my usual base/top coat combo of Nailtek/Poshe. Application was dreamy. These are the kinds of polish that make me want to order more from a company. (I still want to put in another Quirius order but got derailed by China Glaze's holiday collection!)

Introducing Art Club GLAM

Wow, I've been crazy busy the last few days! Shopping for Thanksgiving (I'm in charge of pies, lol), getting crafty, cleaning house...the list is endless. I've had the same polish on for four days now and haven't even thought about changing it! When I finally got to checking my email and saw this press release from Color Club I thought I could really use some now...

Introducing Art Club GLAM

Fashion-forward nail designs are a cinch with GLAM. The high-quality, amazingly self-stickable decals lay right over nail, and a layer of top coat seals the deal.
Mix and match patterns, use on natural nails or embed them in gel, or over polish – it’s all up to you!




We seem to be seeing more of this type of full nail sticker coming from different companies. I think its a good thing, giving us plenty of options on design and availability. I for one am definitely interested in trying these. I'd like to see how well they fit on my nail. I've never tried false nails before because they are generally too short to cover my natural nails without cutting my nails almost to the quick. (Painful!) These appear to have a nice range of sizes to play with. =)

Golden Rose Multi Dimensions #10 (layered)

I was loving the bright and cheery orange, but had a strong urge for some shimmer and I remembered this little polish I had ordered from Golden Rose. Alone it's pretty sheer but I thought it might look good layered...

Golden Rose Multi Dimensions #10, morning sun (layered over Wet n Wild Sunny Side Up)


In the shade


Awesome. Layered over a bright yellow-orange it looks almost like the bottle color. More substantial. I love the subtle purple duochrome in the shimmer. I used one good coat of the Golden Rose and topped it off with Poshe top coat. (Eek, I totally missed polish on the cleanup...)

Wet n Wild Sunny Side Up

It's raining again. I think I'm going to have to pull out my lamp if I want to get any decent swatch pictures. All this rain is making me feel dull and dreary. Even the prospect of Nars Zulu (at the post office!!!) isn't enough to keep me excited for very long. My soul is dragging its feet. So, from the other day, Wet n Wild Sunny Side Up (I do like that name...)



Let's see...no base or top coat. Taken in the morning before the clouds rolled in, this was three coats. Sunny Side Up is a nice color but didn't want to play nice. Actually I think the brush was too stiff and caused the streaking that lead to the third coat. Wet n Wild brushes can be like that but for 99 cents I'm not going to complain. They make one of the best one coat black cremes out there. I'll love them forever for that. (Can you tell I'm sparkling today? *sigh*) I only wish a had better access to the brand. Until next time...*waves*

Diamond Cosmetics Chainmail Charm

I had meant to get this posted on Monday night after work, but ended up feeling feverish and leaving work early. I didn't expect to spend the next few days in bed! Now I'm feeling much better and have some catching up to do. =)

Though a bit delayed, here is Chainmail Charm from Diamond Cosmetics. Of course the day I put it on the sky poured rain all day. I ended up resorting to standing with my fingers directly beneath a light bulb to get a decent picture.



From another angle. Two coats (plus base and top coat).



Application was good, smooth and with a thin consistency. If you wanted to stretch your bottle you could layer one coat over a gray or black. Overall, more than worth the $2.25 it cost me. You can purchase Diamond Cosmetics directly from their website here.

*I was just double-checking the link to Diamond Cosmetics website and realized that they have a notice in the nail polish section about Chainmail Charm. Apparently there is a production problem and so the color is currently unavailable. Hopefully it will be corrected soon.

OPI Lucerne-tainly Look Marvelous

I bought OPI Lucerne-tainly Look Marvelous because it looked so pretty in the bottle.



And in the sun it does sparkle. Very sheer though, this is three coats and you can see through it under strong light. I'm not loving it on me.



In the shade I loved it even less. The sparkle dimmed to a muted shine and under the fluorescent lights at work it looked downright dull. Bah. Hmm, my nails are approaching "talon".



So I chopped them off! Surprisingly, this made me like Lucerne-tainly Look Marvelous more. But not enough to say I love it. Dry time and application were fine, I'm just not feeling it. Maybe its too similar to something I already have...anyhow, I felt a need to layer...



...and ended up with this! (Which I promptly smudged.) That's one patchy coat of Claire's Fresh Water (another extremely sheer polish). Fresh Water is very glowy, but the camera wouldn't capture that. The picture shows patchiness yet in real life its not so noticeable. Sort of vibrantly distressed and foil-ish. It lasted all of a day before I felt the need to change it. Which you'll see next time!

OPI Flit A Bit for Halloween

I just wanted to show you something I did for Halloween!

OPI Flit A Bit, overcast


I love how even though its a grey-grey day, Flit a Bit still shows up a rich orange!Flit a Bit is from OPI's 2010 Summer Flutter collection. Three coats plus Poshe and the nail art was done with Konad special polish in black and white using the Bundle Monster plates (BM13, to be exact). See you all next time!

Water Marbling - Attempt #2

I don't know if any of you recall my first attempt, but it was *meh*. I think I did a bit better this time.



Next time I'll work on consistency of design. This time I was just trying to not make a mess!



My base color was the Claire's Mood Polish Peaceful/Confident. I wanted to keep it simple so I only used two colors for the marble part, OPI Ski Teal We Drop and Wet n Wild Black Creme.

Overall, water marbling is pretty fun! The main thing is to make sure you're prepared before you start. Don't have your fingers in the water and realize you don't have something to swirl the extra polish away at hand! If you want to learn how to water marble, My Simple Little Pleasures is a great blog to study. Colette creates fabulous designs and posts great video tutorials on how to do them yourself. Check it out!

OPI Show It and Glow It!

A quickie post before I'm off to work! My dear, darling brother assisted me in getting an order from Transdesign without it costing me ridiculous amounts of money. *love him to bits*

OPI Show It and Glow It!, morning sun


This was actually from last week, I just haven't had time to edit pictures. Two coats of Show It and Glow It! over OPI Red My Fortune Cookie (I couldn't be bothered to take it off in my excitement to try out the new glitter baby, lol). Application was decent (hey, it's a glitter) giving sufficient coverage in two coats. If I didn't have a base color underneath, I think I would have used three coats.

How did I like it? Outdoors Show It and Glow It! is wonderfully sparkly. Indoors, I wasn't as pleased. The different colors of glitter didn't seem to work as well together and the sparkle was much diminished. However I have to add I'm basing this on where I spent most of my time while I was wearing Show It and Glow It!, which was at work under blah-blah fluorescent lights. Indoors at home had a nice subtle shimmer. So your mileage may vary. I also think a different base color (or none) will affect the overall result. The red creme probably wasn't providing the proper contrast. I will definitely be giving Show It and Glow It! another try. (After I try my other new polishes, of course!)

Next time: water marbling, yay!

Revlon Glitter Winner!

The entries were written out (I don't know what possessed me to do it by hand!) and placed in a box. *No nail polishes were harmed during this procedure...just evicted for a little while.



I mixed them all up...(eek! hairy arm alert!)



...reached in while 5 pairs of kitty eyes watched intently...



..and drew out a name!



Congratulations to Chaosbutterfly (aka Chi-Chi of The Phalanges Files)! I've sent you an email, so check your inbox!

A big thank you to all of you who entered! This was such fun I already have an idea for another giveaway simmering. Next time: glittery goodness...

Contest Winner to Be Announced Soon

Well the entries are all in and I'm prepping them all up to have a winner drawn! Hopefully sometime today, but definitely tomorrow if the work schedule gets rough. (Gah, I'm sooo excited! Isn't that silly?)

In other news, I just read that Ange of Scandalously Polished found a dupe for MAC's Bad Fairy. You can read about it here. I am completely thrilled! Now I have a second option to hunt down. I've been wanting Bad Fairy, but was irritated by my local Macy's MAC counter. Story time (you can skip, its not really relevant):

So being so busy at work I almost missed the release date. I wasn't expecting to miraculously find Bad Fairy, but the day before release I had a few minutes on my lunch break and so I stopped at Macy's to see if they had come in yet since sometimes we get things very late. The guy who was working the counter told me that they had got them in but they wouldn't be selling them until the next day. (I know that, that's not what I had asked.) Then he informed me that they were told no presales. (Insert faint glimmer of hope here.) So I asked him if there was any way something could be held until my lunch break the next day since I only wanted one bottle of nail polish. He replied "Oh no, the nail polishes are all sold already. Nail polish always sells out fast." Wait, what? Didn't he just tell me they weren't doing presales? *sigh* I just thanked him and left. Did I completely miss something? (Probably yes, lol) The whole encounter frustrated me for days. To know there's a dupe out there makes it better.

Anyhow, keep watching! A winner to announce and at least two more polishes have been photographed and sit on the editing table as I type!

OPI Red My Fortune Cookie

Today is the last day to enter the Revlon Glitter giveaway! I can hardly wait to pull a name. Until then, nail of the day time! From the Hong Kong Collection, OPI Red My Fortune Cookie...

Bright morning sun


From another angle


The color is richer than the picture shows. I think the sky was reflecting off my topcoat too much and caused the color to appear washed out. Red My Fortune Cookie is a beautiful red creme, but hardly unique. Still, if you're looking for a good red, this one applied well and required only two coats.

Pure Ice Purple Reign

First things first, let's go straight to the picture.

Pure Ice Purple Reign, crack-of-dawn sun


I was freezing my tushie off when I took this picture. It's a whole different kind of awesome being up that early and having Popsicle toes. I can't swear by color accuracy in this photo because I'm working on someone else's computer, but I believe it's pretty close, maybe a shade darker due to the early morning light.

Oh you want the technical details! Let's see, for the base I used Nail Tek Foundation II, then two coats of Purple Reign (Yes, that is one coat on my pinky. No, I don't know where my brain was.) and topped it all off with a nice coat of Poshe. Application was fairly easy, uneven on the first coat but filling in nicely on the second coat. Who am I kidding, I'd love this even if it was a pain to apply. I adore that coppery shimmer. Go buy it. You know you want to.

Okay, now I want to apologize for abruptly going missing. (And while I have a contest going, sheesh!) A lot of things happened at once with work and cars and hubby and I watching two different houses for friends on vacation (at one point simultaneously) as well as trying to keep our own house and critters cared for, among other things. I sort of shut down inside in self-defense and let go completely of all things Internet-related. (Boy oh boy, did I miss reading up on my favorite blogs. I have a lot of catching up to do). Things are turning around though and even the supposedly "temporary" work situation may be resolved soon. So, watch for my next post and don't forget to enter the Revlon Glitter giveaway if you haven't already!

Icing Purple-A-Licious

Some days I hate work. And generally I love my job. I get to play with books all day. But it's only Wednesday morning and all I can think about is how long Friday is taking to get here. The supposedly temporary (since March) job assignment is stretching on with no end in sight. Luckily I have a hobby to distract me! (lol)

Icing Purple-A-Licious, overcast


Mmmm, don't you love purple? Purple-A-Licious was opaque in two coats. This swatch was done with no base or top coat and it dried in thirty minutes. I ended up adding a top coat and wearing it for several days before I had any tipwear.

Icing Purple-A-Licious, overcast


I do love Icing nail polishes. So rarely has one disappointed me. At first I thought this was going to be a purple creme, but was pleasantly surprised by the subtle shimmer. The clock is telling me I need to get dressed for work. Bah. I do have one bright spot to look forward to! My brother has mailed me a box of lovelies to play with. They should be arriving any day now! Oh, and don't forget you can enter my giveaway here! Last day to enter is October 24, 2010.

Revlon Glitter Giveaway

I promised a giveaway last month and finally it's here! Now this is just a little giveaway but the opportunity presented itself to pick up the the recently released limited edition Revlon glitter top coats and I thought I'd share them with one of you!



Well, its not the most color-accurate picture in the world (the sun was just coming up) but you get the idea, hehe. =) Okay, rules...hmm. Yes, this is open internationally. *prays this won't break my wallet, lol* Giveaway ends midnight HST October 24, 2010.

To enter fill out the form below with the following information:

.....Your name and email address (1 entry)

You can earn bonus entries by entering in the correct spaces:

.....If you follow with Google Friend Connect, you GFC name. (1 bonus entry)

.....The name of your favorite polish of all time (because I'm curious). (1 bonus entry)

So that's it! Good luck!


Edit: I didn't realize until after I posted that the form would be so large. Sorry! I don't know how to fix that. If you can't get the form to work properly, you can leave your answers in a comment on this post.

NYX Girls Woman

Today is a red day, so I want to show you another of the NYX Girls polishes I picked up recently.

NYX Girls Woman, bottle pic under "daylight lamp"


This swatch is 2 coats with no base or top coat. If you click to enlarge the picture you can see the different colored glitter are suspended in a reddish jelly base.



Application was great, very smooth and rich feeling. It's really gorgeous in sunlight, but I had no sun that day. *sad*

Okay, it's time to be off to work. Next post: giveaway time!

NYX Girls Chocolate Taupe

Last month I showed you a taupe polish called The Taupe from NYX. Today I have another taupe polish from NYX called Chocolate Taupe.

NYX Girls Chocolate Taupe (left), The Taupe (right)


NYX Girls Chocolate Taupe, "daylight" lamp


This swatch is with no base or top coat. I used two coats of polish. Polish consistency was great. Application was easy with the polish doing this funky self-leveling thing even though at first it looked like it was going to be streaky. And look how shiny it is without top coat!

NYX Girls Chocolate Taupe (index & middle), The Taupe (ring & pinky)


I've heard that Chocolate Taupe is very similar to OPI You Don't Know Jacques, but sadly I missed the boat on that one. I don't have any other taupes in my collection (or do I?...hmm) to compare to but these two were well worth the money.