I Made It!

Hi everyone! Thank you so much for your patience while I am adjusting to my new home. Actually, it is my old home. My family is in New York, and I am back! It was a long drive from Chicago, but I made it with boyfriend and puppy safe and sound, and surprisingly, I didn't break even one bottle of nail polish! Whew. I have however destroyed my nails, but I am trying not to dwell. How about some of my recent manicures to get us back in the swing?

This one I had on last weekend. It is Sally Hansen - Pacific Blue with CND - Jade Sparkle on top from their Effects line. It 's a duochrome gold/green shimmer. I liked this so much but it chipped almost instantly. Too bad. I never find things so chippy. I wonder if it was the Sally Hansen or the CND...

This is the amazing China Glaze - Four Leaf Clover + Hard Candy - Sugar Daddy + Sinful Colors - Call You Later painted as a gradient. This was on for the whole packing and drive portion of my move and I couldn't wait to change it. It was pretty and all but after so long and after all the moving chipped it up real good, it had to get it the heck off!

And this is what I did when I got here. I needed to relax after all the madness so I put on Rescue Beauty Lounge - Dead Calm. So fitting. Then to spice it up I add NYX - Sapphire, a awesome holo, silver glitter top coat.

Hard Candy - Lava. Needs no introduction. And no need to layer anything over it either. Hott.

Nailene Bedazzle Nail Decals

Hello everyone! Hope you are having a wonderful Friday and that you enjoyed my little joke post yesterday! April Fool's is so fun! I didn't get any major scams played on me, thank goodness.

I have had a really cute little mani on for the last few days and I thought I'd share. I was going to save this post until I did a few more test manis, but that probably isn't necessary and I just have to show you this.

This is NYX - Aurora, a mellow yellow shimmer, topped with the green flower decals. I have had this on for a couple days and I love it! And the flowers have held up great. Here are some pics of all the decals that come in this set:

The whole package. One thing I love about the package is that it is an easy open and resealable. So nice.

This is the sheet I got the flowers from. There are blue, sky blue, green and white. They also have a smidgen of iridescent glitter on them. I love these!

This sheet has pink and white decals in butterflies, stars, swirly things, and silver bullions.

This sheet has Greek letters and some sort of mythological pictures, maybe?

This sheet is all silver decals with a slight prismatic effect. There are stars, hearts, circles and moons. They remind me of stick-on earrings from when I was a kid.

Here are a couple other things I have done with these this past week:

This is the flower again on Color Club - Pucci-Licious. The other nails are Essie - Lilacism.

Here is the other hand from that mani. I used the silver bullions from the 2nd sheet. I love idea for this but I should have put on a topcoat to seal around the circles.

This is the flowers redone adding a shimmery sheer and topcoat. Notice how this looks more uniform and like the decals are really a part of this mani and not just a sticker ready to fall off. I had to redo the first one because I messed it up by not putting a topcoat on.

This is one of the pink butterflies over Revlon Streetwear - Drab. I thought the pink would make a nice contrast against the camouflage green. I think I was right! Again, should have put on a topcoat. It looks far too detached. And actually ending up cracking without a topcoat on.

Final Verdict: These definitely get a solid "A" from me. I love these! They are super cute and easy to use. It's just a sticker. Peel it off and put it on! The only negatives I found (and these are small) is just that they are brittle and will snap in half if you don't put on a topcoat. Plus they could catch things and peel off but this is easily remedied by putting on a topcoat. That's what I did for the yellow/green mani and its been holding on very well. The other negative is that the very small stickers can be a bit difficult to work with because they are tiny, but I remedied that. When I did the small silver circles I scraped them off the sheet and picked them up with an orange stick like I would do with rhinestones and positioned them where I wanted. Easy peasy.

You should be able to find these at drugstores and where Nailene products are sold. I believe they retail around $5-$6.

What do you think?

Disclosure: The products featured in this post were furnished to me by the manufacturer or PR company for review. For more information please visit my disclosure policy.

Brown Polish SPAM

I can't recall ever posting much about brown polish. Maybe a couple here and there but it seems I don't wear it enough. I guess it seems to "common" and I need the bright and unique, uncommon shades to feel comfortable, but I wear brown so little it makes it seem like brown is the unique shade around here. Here are a few:

Revlon - Chocolate Truffle - This is a brown, milk chocolate creme. I love Revlon's thin formula. It's thin and fast drying but still pigmented. This is 2 coats.

Essie - Priceless - I think this is a bit more rare than Chocolate Truffle. This is a redder brown with irregular shaped, silver shimmer.

NYX - Secret - Oooh. This is a deep, reddish brown shimmer. So pretty! I should be wearing this right now!

OPI - Holiday Glow - This is from this past holiday collection from OPI: Holiday Wishes. It is a dark chocolate shade with red, gold and silver sparse micro-glitter.

What cha think about brown NP?

A Very Merry Un-Birthday

Here is a little something I rocked over the weekend. I started with a base of NYX - Dancing Queen, then I did a glitter gradient of OPI - Mad As A Hatter and a gradient of Lippmann Collection - Happy Birthday. I call it "A Very Merry Un-Birthday"!

The gradient wasn't very difficult to do. I started at the base, and with less polish on the brush than I would need for the whole nail, I made a couple of swipes only on the bottom third of the nail. Then I pushed a little bit toward the tip to get those few loose looking pieces. I did this with both glitters. Once the glitter was where I wanted it, I added a top coat and viola!

NYX - Dancing Queen, OPI - Mad As A Hatter, Lippmann Collection - Happy Birthday

Have a great Monday!
-Elaine

NYX - Sheer Pink

This color cracks me up!!! The name is "Sheer Pink". This is neither sheer, nor pink. I rather like that! I believe that was my motivation for buying it in the first place. It's a nice light to medium gray with a silver shimmer. The formula is smooth and this swatch was 2 coats. I did smudge it up a bit though. Oops!


Here is how it compares to some other shimmery grays that have come out this past year, Essie- Sag Harbor and Orly - Pixie Dust.

Have a great weekend!
-Elaine

Green NOTD

Yay! I found some pics today of a mani I haven't shown you! It was my first try at using painter's tape, and cutting the painter's tape with wacky craft scissors. I can not take credit for this genius idea. That came from The Hungry Asian.

I started with a base of NYX-Lime Sparkle. I used Kae's trick and cut the painter's tape cut into strips with a cool patterned edge with craft scissors. I put down the tape diagonally and painted half the nail dark green with Sinful Colors- San Francisco. I wanted to add cobras with plate M28 and white polish, but the white was not picking up well for some reason no matter what I did, and the green did, so I used green, but it didn't stand out very well. (Click for the enlarged pic. You can see the cobra better. It's on the ring finger)

Cool non the less!

NYX - Glitters

I swatched my NYX glitter polishes. I received them a million years ago, but I always wanted to swatch and post them as a set. So here they are! This is however, not all the glitters that NYX has. Just the ones that I have. I should have received another one that never came now that I think of it. Hopefully it will show up one day!Lime Sparkle - Lime jelly polish with green glitter. I love the concept of this one, but I don't think it was very flattering on me. 3 coats. EDIT: This is listed on NYX website as "Simple Sparkle". When I first saw it, it was Lime Sparkle. When I got around to ordering it, it was call Simple Sparkle. However, the bottle came labeled Lime Sparkle. So don't be scared if you can't find it.


Dark Red Glitter - Easy naming! I don't think it's that dark, however. Red jelly with red glitter and silver, holo glitter. This is three coats.


Silver Blue - More easy names! Silver round glitter and blue bar glitter. I believe this was two coats.


Asphalt - Black jelly with gold, red, blue, green and silver glitter. It's like birthday confetti! I love it! This is definitely my fave. I was soooo amazed at what I discovered when I shot it macro. The glitter is actually square! I had no clue! For months! I thought it was round this whole time!! And there is also itty-bitty microscopic round glitter pieces too! Impressive. This is 3 coats.

What do you think? Sparkly, no?

POTD - Plus a Bad, but Very Cute Puppy

Hello! I have a hot mani today, but want to share it in my LA Girls - Rockstar swatches I have planned so instead I bring you my feet!! I did a pedi with Sinful Colors-Fusion Neon and layered over it with LA Girls Rockstar-Scandal. Scandal is a light purple shimmery sheer so now my chalky flat neon is shimmery and shiny!
I really like this one. I wish it would show I bit truer in the pic. I think in real life it looks much brighter.

And today you get a bonus, fury-friend post. I don't close the door to the bathroom when I shower because we don't have a fan for the steam. This leaves opportunity for Cash to take my clothes and chew on them, whether it be a sock, underwear, slipper, etc. So last night I come out of the shower to find I am missing a slipper. I go out to find it and him and discover he is no longer chewing on it, but instead has swiped a roll of toilet paper! Look how guilty:It's my fault, really. Earlier in the day I gave him an empty TP tube to rip up and I guess he needed more! He just LOOVVES to rip up napkins and paper towels. Shredding is one of his favorite things to do. It's not usually a big deal because it's not really important stuff. What is great is that he knows it's wrong because as soon as I discover him he is rolling over to submit and say sorry, but he does it anyway! He must be in such heaven while he's doing it. He's just thinking "this is worth it".

Layering with Juliana

I have a new love and it's called layering!! This Juliana from NYX has won me over big time. I never used to be into sheers, but now I see how great they are. Not for wearing alone, but for wearing with so many other colors, the manis you can create are endless! And this post explores just that. So this mani I did a few days ago as a NOTD:It was so rainy and gloomy that day, I decided on a bright mani to pep me up. I chose Sally Hansen Insta-Dri in Lightening, and layered NYX-Juliana. It definately made me feel good! It makes my think of happy things! And as on lovely lady wrote on Makeupalley: "Lemon sugar gumdrops".

Then I tried Juliana over a coral color just on a paper plate and realized it looked amazing! I tried over others, and realized it looked great over orange and green based colors because the glitter in it flashes orange and green.In the pic above, from the thumb: Sally Girl-Amped (layered over white), Rimmel-Camouflage, Milani-Tropical Fiesta, L'oreal-Shocking Green and L'oreal-Sizzling Tangerine
Sun
Shade
Sally Girl-Amped + NYX-Juliana

Milani-Tropical Fiesta + NYX-Juliana, L'oreal-Shocking Green + NYX-Juliana

Rimmel-Camouflage + NYX-Juliana, L'oreal-Sizzling Tangerine + NYX-Juliana