Zoya Kimmy

I picked this up forever ago at Ulta in the clearance bin. $5 for Zoya, I couldn't pass it up. It has those shimmery bits (that don't photograph well) that I adore about this brand. I was hoping, from the bottle, it would be a little more orangey. But it came out like a tomato. I like tomatoes.

mmm, sparkly ketchup.

Zoya Layla

Another from my "Try 3 Free" haul. This time it's Layla, a semi-neon pink. It reminds me of that particular shade of pink highlighter. I actually love it. I was hoping for a more blue toned pink, but I am still really pleased with this color. Strangely, I even like the weird finish it has. Like a lot of neons, it doesn't dry glossy. But this one doesn't dry matte, either. It's got a really neat rubbery finish. It definitely stands out in my collection for that reason.

direct sunlight. I love this finish!

And now, because it's been in my head, enjoy this song.

More Jelly Toppers

Nichole may hate jellies, but I don't!  I don't wear them on their own, but I love them as a finishing touch for glitter.  They unify the look wonderfully.  Back in October I posted a few jelly toppers (think jelly sandwiches with a non-jelly base) and today I've got a few more.


This started off with Nicole By OPI No Limits, topped with Too Rich For You, then Sweet Dreams, jellied up with China Glaze Creative Fantasy.

If you follow me on Twitter, you've seen this for a little while now as my display photo.  I was so in love with it when I wore it!  I still am, looking at it here.  I bought Creative Fantasy because I *needed* a purple jelly. More on its awesomeness in an upcoming post.

I figured if I'd loved that combo so much, I might as well treat my other Selena Gomez glitter similarly.  This is Nicole by OPI Khloe Had A Little Lam-Lam and Inner Sparkle topped with China Glaze Ride The Waves.

I didn't love this, I just liked it.  Both Ride The Waves and Creative Fantasy are...odd, but in a cool way.  I'm tempted to describe them as dark neons (weird, right?) more than true jellies.  They both dry a bit matte and I liked it, so I didn't top coat them.  They're also not as sheer and deep as jellies.  Still, I love them both!  China Glaze is releasing six neon jellies this summer and I'm already eyeing the blue, purple, and green ones.


This last one is a straggler from the older jelly topper post.  It's from last October, just a few days after that post....it's just taken me a while to have a cluster of them to show you!

I used Finger Paints Black Expressionism, Spoiled Ants In My Pants, and Essie Skirting The Issue.  I flat-out adored this.  It's easily one of my favorites from last year.  When I was out shopping while wearing this, several people asked me what polish it was.  One woman told me I was "sneaky" when I told her it was three polishes layered!  That's probably the funniest thing a stranger has ever said to me about my polish.  I *wish*  it went on like this.  I'd wear it all of the damn time!  Photos can't begin to express how deep and stunning it was.


It's a shame Nichole lives so far away...I'd plunk her down at my vanity and test swatch until I found a jelly combo she'd love.  I know I could!

Orly Haley's Comet

I got a gift card to Ulta for Christmas. I went a little wild this weekend. I saw this color, and even though it had a high price tag ($10!) I had to have it. It looks like I skinned a mermaid! My only complaint is that I think it needs 2+ coats. I did 2 here, and I can still see the dreaded nail line. 

direct sunlight

in my lightbox. It's so shiny!

 And, because I can't leave well-enough alone, I added a coat of Butter London Matte Topcoat. It doesn't look as awesome as I thought, but it still looks pretty damned awesome. Once I added the matte, it immediately reminded me of BL Bluey. It could definitely be related. Not a dupe by any stretch, but I bet they will look great together.

matte-tacular!

Nicole By OPI Inner Sparkle and Sweet Dreams

Nicole by OPI has two new collections out right now, one inspired by Selena Gomez and the other by the sitcom Modern Family.  The Modern Family collection surprised me; partly because it seems a bit random for a "youth line" and partly because I actually kinda like that show.  Nicole by OPI, as much as I love them, has a history of tie-ins to things that I really don't like.  Gossip Girl, Justin Bieber, the Kardasians...  I bought two of the Gossip Girl shades a couple of years ago when they were on clearance at Ulta, but hated myself a bit when I bought my first Bieber and Kardasian polishes.  The Modern Family collection looks nice enough, but I feel like I have a lot of similar polishes already.  Inner Sparkle and Sweet Dreams are from the new Selena Gomez collection.  I don't really know anything about Miss Gomez...other than that she's a singer and she has questionable taste in boys.  Are they still even together?  Dunno.  In the time since those first cringing Bieber and Kardasian purchases, I've learned to see the polish and not the celebrity.  I love Nicole By OPI, no matter whose name they put on the bottle.


Inner Sparkle is a mix of hexagonal metallic glitters; tiny gold, small lilac, and large dusty pink in a clear base.

over Khloe Had A Little Lam-Lam

Nicole by OPI glitters usually apply really well, smooth and even without need for constant dabbing and placing, and Inner Sparkle definitely lives up to my expectations.  I bought it because the blend of glitter is very different from any I already had.  I kinda hate pink on its own, but I don't mind it mixed in with other colors.  I had a tough time pairing it with other Nicole by OPI polishes in my collection, but the dark teal Khloe Had A Little Lam-Lam (I'd be so embarrassed, were I him!) compliments the glitter pretty well.  I liked the combination, but didn't love it.  I usually prefer glitter mattified, and this was no exception.

Sweet Dreams is also a mix of metallic hexagonal glitter; tiny light purple, small teal, and medium silver in a clear base.

over Too Rich For You

Sweet Dreams also applied very well.  The colors were easier to pair up with others in my collection.  I love the contrast of the soft purple and bright teal.  It looked terrific mattified too!

I'd recommend both of these glitters, but I personally prefer Sweet Dreams.  Both applied nicely and didn't take endless topcoat to smooth out like some do.  Very well-behaved!  I had some layering fun with them too, but that's for another post...


Also...holy crap, we passed the 100 follower mark!! When did that happen??  Thanks for all of your support and interest, everyone...our followers here, Twitter, tumblr, Pinterest, Facebook, all of you!

I Think I Hate Jelly

 As I already mentioned, I picked up a couple of polishes from Spoiled at CVS. The first was a lovely rose colored foily polish. The other was this. I think it's official. I kinda hate jellies. I don't like visible nail line. I generally don't layer polishes. They just weren't meant for me AT ALL. I am still undecided as to whether this polish will go into a swap box at some point in the future. I might try layering it (ugh) over a blue, and then adding glitter. Maybe I'll hate it less?

Colors Used:

Spoiled Permission to Proceed

Nicole by OPI Rainbow in the Sky-lie

it  makes me mad just looking at it.  THREE COATS! NO!

I tried adding glitter and another coat. Hello, Xmas Tree!

Revlon Ritzy

Believe it or not, this is my first scheduled post!  I need to do this more often.  This one's scheduled a whopping few whole hours ahead!  (Writing around 7am.)  Wheee!

It's fitting that I'm scheduling this specific post, since this afternoon when this posts I'll be busy getting my car's headlights replaced.  I bought Ritzy on one of those grumpy whims after getting pulled over because...one of my car's headlights is out.  Cop was great about it and didn't even give me that form to send in, but now I've gotta get it done.  Ritzy is another from Revlon's new Bubblegum Days/Urban Nights display.  I'd glanced at it several times, but after Midnight Sparkle, I was a little hesitant about their glitter polishes.  A $3 Revlon sale at Wegmans and a need to buy *something* converged and I wasn't hesitant anymore.


Ritzy is a mix of small black and silver hexagonal glitter and silver microglitter in a black base.

I'll just say...I've been wearing it for over 24 hours (this is one of those ultra-rare times that I'm actually wearing what I'm writing about) and I just can't decide how I feel about it.  Do I like it?  Not like it?  Dude, I dunno! It's tough to photograph, but then it's also just confusing.

No. Clue.  There are black hexes in there, I swear there are, but they get completely lost in the black base to the point that their effect is almost more like negative space than glitter.  I was hoping I could layer it, but that doesn't go well.  The base is too streaky for that, so you have to go with a couple of layers for opacity and that just gets...well...this.  I really just do not know.

I also wore it matte.  I still didn't know.

It may be a renaming of Sparkle Aplenty, but I don't have that so I'm not sure.  I'm just ten shades of unsure in this post, right?


What do you think?  Can you form an opinion for me?  Please?


I might be kinda semi-absent next week too or maybe I'll manage to get a bunch of posts scheduled.  Time will tell.  I'm so happy to have Nichole busily posting away, I can't even tell you!  Thanks, you!

Zoya Casey

Like 3,000,000 other folks, I got in on the "Try 3 Free" promotion from Zoya. I love the finishes of the sparkly polishes from Zoya, but I had never tried out any of the others. I have to say, I like 'em. At $7-$8, they are at the higher end of what I like to spend per bottle. However, the lack of horrid smell and user-friendly formula makes it worth the sticker price.

Anyhow, here's Casey. She is a dark eggplant color. Akin to Chanel Vamp or Revlon Vixen (which is what I was hoping for. It's a little more purple leaning though). It did take 3 moderate coats to achieve opacity, but I am beginning to accept that as par for the course.

I Got So Plastered

No, I'm not hungover. That is the name of this polish by Spoiled. I'm not sure why, I don't really get a hung-over feeling from this polish. I have been eyeing it for a while at CVS, and last week they had a 2/$3.00 sale on the Spoiled stuff and I grabbed it and a color I regret deeply.  

It has a really nice foil (probably? I'm not good with jargon) finish, and was opaque after just two coats. I didn't apply a topcoat here, or do much clean-up. It's easy to work with and shiny as any pricey speciality store polish. When I was looking for swatches online before I bought it (doesn't everyone do that before they buy polish?) I could not find a decent one anywhere. What the hell? So here are a couple of mediocre photos of a lovely rosey polish.

Winter Neon!

On Twitter the other day, Radha of The Polish Owl said she wished for summer because she missed neons. Which made me think, why can't neons be wintery?  I had just picked up some flannel pajama pants (on clearance!) that were HOT pink with snowmen faces. I decided that it would make an adorable manicure. Though I did turn up the neon-osity a bit. Regardless, a very wintery neon manicure!

Colors Used:

Chinga Glaze Purple Panic

Zoya Purity

Sally Girl NEON Orange

China Glaze Liquid Leather

Tools required:

Paper reinforcers (that's how I made the snowmen faces)

dotting tools

they look so happy!

if you try this, use the smallest dotting tool/toothpick. The smiles turn out better.

Pinspiration: Galaxy of a Different Color

I have said before that fuchsia is my favorite color. I love it on everything. If I could, my house would be covered in it. Alas, my husband does not share my love of this awesome color so I keep it to my nails, hair, and clothes. 

I was crusing pinterest for inspiration, and I came across the most tacky, god-awful car. I was in love. Of course, the husband would not let me paint our car like this...and my manicure was born!

My Version:

Colors Used:

Essie Jamaica Me Crazy

Nicole by OPI I'm a Pool for Love

Sinful Colors Let's Talk

Sinful Colors Frenzy

China Glaze Flying Dragon

Wet'n'Wild Hannah Pinktana

Rimmel London Wild Orchid

ELF Fab Fuchsia

Zoya Purity

Butter London Matte Topcoat

My Inspiration:

source

Ok, more shots of what might be my favorite galaxy manicure ever.  

There was some debate in my house on the use of a matte topcoat.  

LOVELOVELOVE this.

Neon Half Moons

Sally's had a sale going on last weekend. I needed more polish remover so I convinced the husband to stop on our way home. I also knew that there was a promotion for Seche Vite. If you bought a bottle, you got a bottle of China Glaze polish for free! I have been having no luck with Poshe lately, so I decided to go back to SV. I can't do non-fast-dry topcoats. I do my nails after the kids go to bed, and I don't really want to be up until dawn waiting for my nails to dry. In addition to the SV and the 128oz bottle of remover (it was $20!), I grabbed a neon pinky-purply color that I had been eyeing since before Christmas.

Colors Used:

China Glaze Purple Panic

China Glaze Liquid Leather

I used those little circle reinforcers to make this happen. I love the look, but hot-damn they are hard to line up. I put a layer of SV on top of the Purple Panic, and I am glad I did. This allowed me to go back in with my clean-up brush and remover and straighten out the arcs. Otherwise I might have given up all together. 

please forgive the tipwear and scuffs. I didn't get around to taking photos for about 3 days. In that time, I took my Christmas tree and decor down and moved a giant entertainment center that I bought on Craigslist. Gotta love SV, I don't think anything else would have stood up to the abuse.

I am seriously in love with this pink. It has the faintest purple shimmer

My Zoya Try 3 for "Free" Haul

I actually have my husband to thank for this haul. He is the one who initially told me about the sale. I love him sometimes. 

Zoya had (has maybe?) a sale going on for 3 bottles of polish for free! All you had to pay was shipping, which was $10. Not too shabby considering that the polishes each cost $8+ depending on where you shop. (Though, if you are in Monterey, I do know a little spa that sells them for $7 each.)

My Colors:

Midori (green)

Casey (super eggplant)

Layla (hi-lighter pink)

they came in a nice little box. I think this would be a good gift.

swatched on a scrap of photo paper because it was handy. One coat each!

I am kinda ridiculously excited about Casey.

The best (or worst, depending on your perspective) part is the catalog. I want nearly everything! I will be drooling over this for quite a while.

the new spring collection. Pastels make me sad.

all the light colors. I need to get one and try for a nude. 

the reds! I love reds!

the deep jewel tones + the pixie dust!

is it wrong that I really want to buy the whole Bold display?

Revlon Heavenly, Trendy, and Urban

Wow...it's been almost a week since my last blog post.  Good thing Nichole's had a ton of stuff up!  My tooth isn't that bad right now, and I'm making the most of it.

I'm not sure if Revlon's new Bubblegum Days/Urban Nights display counts as a LE Spring collection or if it's an introduction to new permanent shades.  I've seen at least some of the new shades in the core display at Rite Aid and I know others have seen this at Walmart too.  Either way, it's an assortment of girly pinks and purples (one's even called Girly) on one side and bolder blues and grays on the other, along with a matte top coat.  I picked up two of the blues, and a milky glitter.  I'd heard that the glitter, called Heavenly, is a dupe for Deborah Lippmann Stairway To Heaven...and I love a good drugstore dupe!  I can never get enough blue creams either.  That's a post of its own, really.


Heavenly is a mix of iridescent hexagonal and square glitter in a slightly milky sheer base.

Heavenly applies fairly well, but does require some dabbing and placing to get good glitter coverage.  The base of Heavenly isn't opaque enough to noticeably change the color of the polish below it.  It looks great mattified, but that's no surprise considering that the display has a matte top coat.  I think they knew how well this would work...

The strong orange shift of the hexagonal glitter makes it a bit tricky to match with other colors.  I tried it over a bright blue and it clashed in a way I really didn't like.  I only liked it over dark blue and black, though it might also look good over a hunter green or warm pink.  I don't have Deborah Lippmann Stairway To Heaven, but I've seen it layered over a dark blue and mattified and it looks almost *exactly* like Heavenly does above.  The only difference might be that Heavenly does have a few cut hexes.  You can see one on my middle finger in the photo above, if you look for it.  Not a huge deal, to me anyway...especially considering that Heavenly is around $5 and Stairway To Heaven is a dizzying $18.


Urban is a dark blue cream.  My camera hates blues like this, so it was a struggle to get anything close to accurate.  I opted for blurry, but almost true-to-color over clear and totally inaccurate.  I couldn't seem to get the best of both.

I never have great luck with Revlon creams.  Something about their formula bubbles on me.  Still, it's easier to apply than some brands and dries shiny...though I did use top coat here.  Two coats for opacity.


Trendy is a medium blue-green cream.

It's a great shade, but it bubbled a little on me like all Revlon creams seem to.  Nothing that top coat didn't cover though, so the end result was fine.  Trendy also took two coats for opacity and was shiny even before topcoat.


All three were good, but Heavenly is the must-have.  I love how it looks mattified!  All three of these shades are being spotted in with the permanent shades and I think they're great new additions.


Hope it doesn't take me six days to post again!  I've done some layering combos recently that I'm dying to show off!  See you soon, maybe...

The Strongest Hairspray Ever

Hairspray is important. I never used to wear it, but now that I'm older and actually have to style my hair on occasion, I don't think I could live without it. My personal favorite is Elnett by L'Oreal. (I buy the unscented. I don't want to smell like hairspray all day. And the smell of the scented stuff lasts as long as the hairspray does.) This stuff is a little pricey, but man-oh-man does it hold.

 I decided to demonstrate the strength of this stuff by using a goofy five year old. She has ballet class every Thursday for one hour. I know it doesn't seem like a great test, but trust me when I say that even five minutes on this kid is a good test for any hair product. She is all over the place all the time. Plus, she has very fine wavy hair that does not enjoy being secured in a bun. (Hence the braided bun. Otherwise it would unwind before we even get out the door.)

Now, since she still has little kid wispy hair, there is a bit of movement going on. Plus she changed clothes and rolled around on the couch a bit before I managed to get her to sit still for another set of pictures. I still think it's a pretty awesome result. If I put gel in her hair while it's wet and then wind it into a bun (like for recitals) it falls down A LOT more. This hairspray is tough. Her bun had no movement at all, which is the important part. 

The best part isn't the hold of the hairspray, it's how easy it is to brush out. A few passes with the hairbrush and it's like it was never there. No flakies, no stiffness, no weird shape to the hair. If you want to restyle it, just pass a brush through it a few times. Which is awesome, because on dance nights, we get home too late to have baths and hair washing.

Hair put up, mostly dry. Sprayed with a moderate amount of hairspray.

about 2 hours later. Minimal movement.

The TL;DR of this: Elnett is worth the price. It defeated the hair of a spazzy five year old. Buy it.

Pinspiration: Champagne Glitter

I was cruising around Pinterest, like always. I love looking at pretty party dresses that I will never have a reason to wear. (I don't get out much, and certainly not to cocktail parties.) If I've learned anything from my minions, it's that sometimes it is fun to play dress up...even if I can only do it on my nails.

Colors Used:

Sally Hansen Smooth and Perfect in Dune

Sally Hansen Gem Crush in Big Money

pretty pleased with the results

The glitter I used isn't a perfect match. Big Money has round lavender bits pretty densely packed into the champagne micro-glitter. But I could not, for the life of me, find a good champagne glitter! I thought about getting Essie's Beyond Cozy, but I couldn't find it. Polish shopping is pretty iffy around here. I think it kinda works with the lavender though. It's not near as noticeable in person.

My Inspiration

source

No way in hell was I going to drop $650 on a dress. Not to mention that I kinda think the actual dress is ugly on the mannequin. I think it's one of those dresses that needs a certain kind of girl to wear it. I am NOT that girl. 

striping tape is my friend

I'm actually still wearing this. I kinda love it.

a small note: I've been testing out a yellow blocking basecoat that I picked up at Sally Beauty. So far, it's working out quite well. As you can tell here (back before my nails were totally stained) Dune is pretty sheer even at 3 coats. If you like wearing semi-sheers, check this stuff out.