Soflajo True Death

Another quick post since this week is trying to drag me down with it!

This is Soflajo True Death from this year's Halloween collection. It's a perfect polish for a quick post since the pictures can speak volumes more than I can. I like the color, but I really bought this one because I loved the theme. I'm a HUGE True Blood fan, and this polish is based on True Blood.

True Death is a dark greyish brown with shimmer. It's a gorgeous color, complex yet subtle. The formula was easy to work with but a bit sheer, this is three coats.

What I love about this polish is that it was released in a Halloween collection, yet it's something I can (and will) wear all year. Many of the polishes I bought this Halloween season are orange and black glitters, harder to wear all winter!

*Soflajo polishes available from Soflajo.com

Deborah Lippmann Lady is a Tramp

I have so many gorgeous manis and swatches to show you all! I just need to find some time to sort through the 600+ photographs on my memory card. Hopefully that will happen this weekend.

Until then, enjoy this swatch of Deborah Lippmann Lady is a Tramp, a pretty, balanced, red crelly. The formula was decent, this is two coats and there's still a bit of visible nail line, even though my nails are quite short here. I really don't have much to say about this one. It reminds me a lot of Zoya Carmen, both in color and formula. If it hadn't come in a set of minis, I doubt I would have sought it out (and I love red polish).

Do you ever find a polish that you should really like but just... don't? Perhaps I've been wearing so many of this season's gorgeous shimmers to be happy with a creme/jelly!

Darling Diva Polish Soft Kitty

Today I have Soft Kitty from one of my favorite indie vendors: Darling Diva Polish. Carrie of DDP is a fantastic lady and she produces quality polishes that she really stands behind. I have a bunch of DDP polishes, my favorite being either the new Christmas Story, or Ringer, a perfect dupe of Max Factor Fantasy Fire. Check out her Etsy store here.

Soft Kitty is best layered, so this is Soft Kitty over Cult Nails Devious Nature (pink creme). Soft Kitty is loaded with blue shimmer and pastel matte hexagon glitter as well as tiny iridescent hexes. It's a fascinating combination, and not something I'd usually go for but I ended up liking it a lot.

Darling Diva Polish Soft Kitty - just look at that shimmer!

For a glitter, Soft Kitty was nice and dense. I used one coat over Devious Nature, and got a great distribution of glitter. My only complaint was that the glitter liked to clump together a bit, nothing that seriously hindered the application, but something I noticed none the less.

Darling Diva Polish Soft Kitty, here you can see the glitter better.

Soft Kitty Macro Bottle shot!

Soft Kitty is one of the polishes that I purchased purely on the name. I have a tendency to want to own every polish that is themed for TV or movies that I adore. If you don't recognize it, Soft Kitty comes from the TV show The Big Bang Theory, and the fascinating character of Sheldon Cooper.

Giveaway Winner! (Take 2)

Hi everyone! Our first winner did not respond in 36 hours so I've picked another winner... The winner of the Sephora Pantone Universe Tangerine Tango set is....

Aurélie R

Please respond to my email within 24 hours with your contact information so that I can send out the prize! If you don't respond within 24 hours a new winner will be chosen.

Butterfly Nail Art

I've wanted to try the butterfly manicure ever since I saw the tutorial on Pinterest (link here). It's such a fun, recognizable pattern and the tutorial makes it look really easy. I went with a bit of a different color scheme, blue and purple, rather than typical monarch butterfly orange. More like this butterfly.

For the base color I used Ozotic 505 then added details with a small nail art brush and Sally Hansen Black Out and Sally Hansen Whirlwind White.

Butterfly Mani

Butterfly Mani

 The tutorial was really easy to follow and I think it looks just like butterfly wings. Have you tried the butterfly tutorial yourself? Is this something you would wear?

Reader Appreciation Blowout Giveaway!

Well that happened fast! Thank you to all of my readers and all of my new readers! Welcome everyone! :D

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Now, in order to celebrate a couple more milestones it's time for another big blowout giveaway! (I told you it was the season of giveaways didn't I?)

Click read more for prize details and for the rafflecopter widget!

OPI Charge it in Milan

Happy United States Thanksgiving everyone! I'm planning on stuffing my face with turkey and potatoes while missing my family. I'm having Thanksgiving dinner with a bunch of my colleagues, but it's never quite the same as family for the holidays.

I wish I had a fun Thanksgiving-themed manicure to share with you today, but I just couldn't find the inspiration, instead I have a gorgeous fall red, OPI Charge it in Milan.

Charge it in Milan is a red-orange shimmer with heavy brown undertones. It looks a bit more brown in photographs than it did in person. I just love brown toned reds this fall, I've been collecting all of them I can find.

My bottle is a black label, and I'm not sure if they are still making this polish, but it's still fairly easy to obtain. The formula was a bit slow drying, but opaque in two coats (although a third is necessary to reach bottle color).

OPI Charge it in Milan

Sorry for the top-coat shrinkage! I forgot to wrap my tips again.

OPI Charge it in Milan

OPI Charge it in Milan

OPI Charge it in Milan

What's on your nails for Thanksgiving?

Tis the Season for Giveaways: Blogazons Holiday Giveaway

The holidays are a season of giving, so why not keep that up with my second (of three) giveaways happening this season.

As you may know, I'm a member of the Beauty Blogazons. The Blogazons is a wonderful group of nail and beauty bloggers who work together to improve their blogging. The experienced bloggers help the newer bloggers to improve their skills while the newer bloggers probably provide a bit of comic relief and inspire enthusiasm for the older bloggers. It's a wonderfully supportive and friendly group of women I'm proud to be a part of.

This holiday season, a sub-set of the Blogazons are sponsoring a Holiday Giveaway. There will be five winners who each win a $100 visa gift card. Click read more and follow the instructions in the rafflecopter widget below to enter!

(Ends 12/21/12).

Click read more to enter!

Influenster College VoxBox

Hi everyone! Today I have the chance for a bit of a different review. Have you heard of influenster? It's a website where you sign up, review products, share your opinion, and sometimes get the opportunity for a VoxBox, full of free items for you to try out. Since I'm a graduate student, I got the opportunity to try out the College VoxBox!

My VoxBox contained the following items:

ImPress Press-On Manicure (Yay, a nail item!)
NYC New  York Color Show Time Glitter Eye-liner Pencil
Necco Tropical Wafers
Pentel EnerGel-X Campaign
Energy Sheets

Reviews and opinions after the break!

Cult Nails Behind Closed Doors Collection (Photo Heavy)

Today I have the much-awaited Cult Nails Behind Closed Doors Collection to review for you! As you may know, I was extremely excited for this collection, and it didn't disappoint what-so-ever. But enough chatting, on to the swatches!

The names of the polishes fit well with the "Behind Closed Doors" theme, and each and every one of them gave me a little chuckle.

...to see pictures and a detailed review of each polish in this beautiful collection click read more!

Guest Post at SMYTC

Hey Y'all! Tonight I'm guest posting over at the Show Me Your Top Coats blog. This blog is just starting out but it shows a lot of promise, please check it out!

Click to go to my Guest Post

I also want to mention that if anything seems a bit funky around here for the next 24 hours, hang tight! I'm in the process of a blog re-design!

Girly Bits Gentle Ginger

Today is another gorgeous polish from Girly Bits! This is Gentle Ginger, another polish created in loving memory of a boy named Brady Rogers. 

Previously, I described the story behind Gentle Ginger and another polish, Roger That, if you didn't catch that post, be sure to check it out here. 

Gentle Ginger is a bright copper-toned orange loaded with sparkly gold shimmer. This is my idea of the perfect fall orange. The formula was easy to work with but a bit sheer, this is three coats. In my opinion, Gentle Ginger is worth three coats, it's insanely sparkly in the sunlight and quite the stunner.

Girly Bits Gentle Ginger

Girly Bits Gentle Ginger

Girly Bits Gentle GInger

Gentle Ginger is available from the Girly Bits store for $12.50; $5 of each polish goes to the Brady Rogers Bursary.

Jade Holographic Delirio Rosa

I love me a good holo. Most holographic polishes however, are difficult to apply and have poor wear time. Ever since my discovery of the Jade Holografia line from Brazil I haven't worn any other holos. These are so pigmented, so holographic, and have such a good formula that it's hard to go back.

This is Jade Delirio Rosa, a bright bubblegum pink linear holo. The pictures show two coats. It's just so shiny and gorgeous!

Jade Holographic Delirio Rosa

Jade Holographic Delirio Rosa

Jade Holographic Delirio Rosa

*Jade Holographic polishes are available at Ninja Polish and Llarowe.

D'oh! (Belated Halloween Mani)

Want to know how silly I am? I never posted my Halloween mani! Worse yet, I only just now realized that it never published. D'oh! So think back to Halloween and check out my easy orange and black look.

I started this mani with two coats of Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Orange Splash, a bright orange with gold shimmer. Then I added a messy french tip / gradient about half way up the nail using Revlon Sparkle Aplenty, a black jelly with black microglitter and large hexagonal silver glitter.The formula on Sparkle Aplenty wasn't my favorite, a bit gooey and not overly sparkly, but it was perfectly in theme for Halloween!

If I could have I might have passed this mani off as something other than Halloween themed, but there's nothing subtle about this one. :)

Court Jester Nail-Art

I occasionally dabble in nail art, and while I'm not that great at it, it's fun to see what I can come up with. This mani ended up reminding me of a court jester's hat, so I call it my court jester mani, but it really could be anything.

I started with a base coat of Cult Nails Annalicious, then taped off the red and painted the rest black with Essie Licorice. I added a single silver dot at the point of each red triangle to try to disguise the fact that they were a bit uneven, and I think it worked. The silver is Zoya Trixie.

Although it's not perfectly even, I like the way that this turned out. It definitely is different than my usual manis! What do you think?

**400 follower giveaway is coming soon, I'm just waiting for a few more things to come in the mail!**

SpaRitual Solstice

With the holiday season coming, a good gold polish can be a staple to wear alone or with nail art. Today I have SpaRitual Solstice to show you! I'm not sure on the availability of this polish, seeing as it is the only SpaRitual polish I own (received it from a blog sale) and I'm not entirely families with the company. I do, however, love my mini bottle of Solstice. It really makes me want to try more SpaRitual polishes.

I don't have very many golds in my collection, but Solstice is a 2-coat metallic yellow-gold with a foil finish. I really love this one. It's a bit more yellow than the new OPI Goldeneye, but I will try to remember to compare the two when I finally get around to wearing Goldeneye!

I never used to wear golds because a friend once told me that it looked like my nails were yellow and gross, but I'm slowly trying to get over that. Solstice was also featured as the base color for my LOTR themed nails in September. Check it out here.

SpaRitual Solstice

SpaRitual Solstice

SpaRitual Solstice

Is there any color that you won't wear because of something someone said?

OPI DS Indulgence

Today I wanted to share with you one of my new favorite polishes that was released this fall: OPI DS Indulgence. I know many were disappointed that the two new additions to the designer series line weren't linear holos, but I wasn't let down at all.

Indulgence is definitely indulgent, it's a berry-red jelly base loaded with orange-gold shimmer that sparkles more than anything I've ever seen. The color is rich and beautiful and the shimmer adds so much depth to the polish. Somehow the contrasting combination of a berry colored base with warm gold shimmer just makes it so interesting that I find myself staring at my nails.

OPI DS Indulgence 

The formula was amazingly smooth and easy to apply. This is two coats but I ended up adding a third coat the next day to add more depth.

OPI DS Indulgence 

This is definitely one of those polishes that I reach for over and over again. Red is always a classic shade for any season, but Indulgence is rich enough for the holiday season while being bright enough to wear all summer long. Instant favorite!

OPI DS Indulgence 

Indulgence is also amazingly versatile. I used it in a half moon manicure back in September, where I layered it over a dark vampy red. The shimmer showed up more than the base color and turned it into a completely different polish. Check it out, it was gorgeous.

OPI DS Indulgence 

Now for a little story. The day I wore this polish I had to go out on a sampling boat (I'm a marine biologist so we were on a fairly small boat in the Atlantic with the roughest water I've seen in a long time. I was soaked through and severely jostled by the time we made it back to land, but that's another story). I mainly work with men while I'm out on sampling boats, and I usually try to wear dull colors to not draw attention to my being a girl, but this day it was bright red. In the middle of sampling the man I was working with spotted my nails. He stared for a while before awkwardly stating "your nails are so..... sparkly." I could tell he liked my nails but he couldn't figure out how to compliment them without feeling emasculated so he settled for the obvious. Men. So silly.

Cult Nails Seduction

In celebration of the Behind Closed Doors collection pre-sale I wanted to share a Cult Nails polish with you today. I own so many of these polishes but somehow don't post the pictures often enough! I'm more excited for this Cult Nails collection than I have been for any collection so far this year. I love every single color and I can't wait for them to show up at my door.

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This one is from a mani I did a while ago, so my nails are shorter.

This is Cult Nails Seduction (appropriate, no?). Seduction is a blue-purple-red based flake polish in a blurple jelly base. Absolutely gorgeous. In the past I've worn Seduction over a dark base color such as Cult Nails Time Traveler, but that doesn't really capture how this one looks in the bottle or on its own.

It's a bit too sheer to wear on its own for someone like me who hates visible nail lines so I scoured my collection for a purple that matched the purple jelly base of seduction. I ended up using piCture pOlish Warning as my base color as it's a bright violet purple. This is two coats of Seduction over two coats of Warning. The formula is fantastic like all Cult Nails polishes, and it is packed with colorful mylar flakes.

My camera freaked out a bit at this combo..

Cult Nails Seduction over piCture pOlish Warning

The pictures couldn't seem to capture this beautiful and bright combination so I added a matte top coat to show you just how amazing these flakes look. 

Want to know something silly about me? I don't actually like wearing flakey polishes. I don't know what's wrong with me but they never last more than a few hours before I'm tired of them. I'm so mesmerized by how pretty they look in the bottle that I keep buying them to add to my collection!

*Seduction is a limited edition color available from Cult Nails.com for $10.

November 8th No Hate

Today I'm proud to be part of the November 8th no 'H8' movement. 

Bullying is not funny. It is not cool. It is not right. And more importantly, it is not okay. 

Most of us are, thankfully, residents of countries that support tolerance and many of our families have settled in these places simply for that reason. Generations later, it is our responsibility to perpetuate that message of tolerance across our new social platforms, including the internet.

As members of the nail polish blogging community, we all share a love of beauty, color, and lacquer. Other than that, we are remarkably different: from our race to our religion to our hair color...even to our polish application techniques. To marginalize anyone because of those differences is completely unacceptable and today I take a stand against that. I refuse to allow other people's view of "normal" dictate how I behave, believe, and blog.

In solidarity with a multitude of bloggers linked below, my purple manicure represents my proud commitment to the No H8 movement. Today, November 8, I dedicate my post to ending bullying of any kind and to encouraging diversity and imperfection among our colorful community.

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Color Club Port-Folio. Purple base loaded with green shimmer that has a duochrome effect from green to red (which I couldn't capture with my camera). Gorgeous polish for a wonderful cause.

Color Club Port-Folio

Color Club Port-Folio

Color Club Port-Folio

200 Facebook Likes Giveaway!

Giveaway Ended

In order to celebrate 200 Facebook Likes I'm holding a giveaway! 

(Better late than never right?). 

A big thank you to everyone who likes my facebook page and all of my wonderful blog readers. Facebook is a great way to interact with everyone on a more personal basis, and I appreciate all of the support.

To thank you for everything I'm giving away a brand new set of four Sephora Pantone Universe Polishes!
Giveaway has ended.

Post-Election Day Manicure

I've always been a patriotic person. Perhaps it stems from being a fairly young mold-able mind around the time following the 9/11 attacks when our country swelled with patriotism. To my US friends, regardless of who you supported in yesterday's election, or how excited / disappointed you are with today's result, appreciate your right to vote. Although politics get frustrating, we live in a special country my friends.

Yesterday I actually wore two different patriotic manis, mostly because I'm indecisive when it comes to polish. This is mani #2, the blue base is Zoya Song, and the red glitter is the gorgeous Dollish Polish I Wanna Do Bad Things To You.

I love how the blue shows through the glitter, bringing together the red and the blue more than a solid red would.