A Bit of Nostalgia for you.. Crayola Scented Nail Polish

Okay..so I was in Walmart today, and was in the makeup aisle with the polishes(because I clearly can't go to walmart without looking at polishes XD), and something a little different caught my eye. Over near where the kids sets of nail polish are, I saw this set.

Crayola nail polish. Now, a little something about me, I love Crayola. I loved their crayons as a kid and I still love them now! So, of course, the little kid in me shrieked and did a little happy dance and I knew the set just had to be mine. The colors look so beautiful, all bright and shimmery, and I think that the fact that they're scented is a serious added bonus. I've never had scented nail polish before, although ive always kind of wanted to try it.
Before I show you the swatches I have another little comment that I would like to add about the packaging. While looking at the way it was packaged I thought it was going to be like that awful plastic that they use to package electronics. The type that takes forever to saw through with scissors before ripping it apart, inevitably scratching yourself on the jagged plastic edges.
But I was pleasantly surprised. Turns out the edges aren't fused together, and open up like this

So now instead of being left with destroyed plastic scraps, I have a handy storage case that I can keep the polishes in. Good job Crayola!

Now, without futher adou, here are the swatches!

This one is "Orange", and its, well, an orange shimmer with a little yellow micro shimmer in there too. It's a beautiful bright citrus-y orange. It almost has a golden glow to it thats just gorgeous.

This one is "Green Apple", it's a bright lime green shimmer. I wasn't too sure about the shade when I
looked at it in the bottle, but love it. It really lives up to its name because to me it looks exactly like a green apple lollipop. It smells like green apple too, but not like candy. The smell reminds me of a green apple body spray I used to have. The finish of this one is also more unique then the picture shows. When fully dried is has an almost rubber like feel to it, but in a good way. It really reminds me of candy, and if you choose to get this set you'll be able to see for yourself. :)

This one is "Blueberry", a bright cobalt blue shimmer. It's a pretty color, although not quite as unique as the others seem to be. Ive seen a few blue polishes that have almost the same color. I also had a bit of trouble with the application, which I've said in more detail below in my review. Overall I'm not unhappy with the color, and the scent is nice, its just not my favorite from the set.

This one is "Grape". It's a pink toned purple shimmer, with a sort of blue purple glow to it. It's a beautiful shade, one I've never really seen before. It smells like grape candy too.

And lastly we have "Bubble Gum", a cute..well..bubble gum pink shimmer. I wasn't sure if I'd like the shade but I really do. I think its very cute, and I might even wear it by itself at some point instead of putting it into the box with polishes that I use just for nail art.

And now for the review!

Application

Most of them were opaque in two coats. The one that gave me the most trouble was Blueberry. I found that if I touched my cuticles with the polish at all, it would immediately flood them and stain them so i'd have to take all the polish off that finger to scrub with remover before doing it again. A few of them were a little bit on the watery side, but I have an idea of how to fix that. A blogging friend of mine has the same set, and suggested that I leave them uncapped for a little bit to thicken them slightly. If I do that i'll let you know how that goes. :)

Look

I love the look of these. The colors are so bright and shimmery, and I think they're fairly unique as I haven't seen a finish quite like the ones they have.

Smell

Any time I review scented polishes in the future I'll have this category. I like the smells. They're not chemically, except maybe for the smell of the bubble gum, which does lean a bit that way. Smell wise my favorites are the Orange and Green apple, and my least is Bubble gum.

Price

$4.99 for the whole set. That makes them a tiny bit more then $1 each if you count tax. Although they are mini bottles, at 5ml each, I think thats a great price.

Overall

I love these and would definitely purchase them again. I think they are so cute, and although they are marketed towards kids, I think they have just as much of a place in polishes collections as main stream brands.

So what do you think of them? Will you be getting this set? Are you a Crayola lover like me? I'd love to hear your opinions and comments!
Happy painting! :)

Valentines Day..late again.

Hi everyone! Wow, valentines day really came and went quick this year! I spent the day with my family and..*ahem*..maybe waiting for a call from a certain someone. By the time I realized "Oh no! I haven't done a valentines day post!" It was over. Woops. Another ADHD moment on my part. So..I hope you'll accept it late!
Heres what I came up with :)

I used my new favorite polish, My Cherry Amour by Nicole by Opi. It's from the gumdrops collection, and I figured whats more perfect for valentines day then polish that looks like candy? I did a review on it recently. You should maybe check it out ;)
After that dried, I used a Nail Ritz shimmer nail art pen in pearlized white to make the x's and o's and used the orchid pen from the same set for the heart on my accent nail. I just want to say that these pens are the best things ever. Since i'm not very skilled with a nail art brush, these make it a lot easier for me to do nail art!
So anyway, so sorry for the late post. What was your valentines day like? :)

Nicole By Opi My Cherry Amour Gumdrops Review and Swatches!

Hello everyone :). Today I have a polish that holds a little bit of significance for me. Back when I finally kicked my nail biting habit, this collection was the first collection that made me want to paint my nails after I saw it in a magazine. The Gumdrops collection from Nicole by Opi. My whole love for nail polish began with these polishes. Funny thing was, I never ended up buying one..until yesterday when I found them at CVS. So I have one to show you today. Before I do though, I have to say I faced a crisis last week. I broke the nail on the middle finger of my right hand all the way off..so I had to say goodbye to my long nails..it's why I haven't posted in a few days, i'm still getting used to the change. This will also explain why I may still post posts with long nails pictured because I have some that I took before the break.
So..without further ado..

Hello short nails!
This polish is called My Cherry Amour, it's a beautiful dark pink with tiny holographic glitter that dries to a fine sugary textured finish.

Application

This is my first textured polish, so I wasn't sure how it was going to apply. It applied nicely though, being opaque in two coats. Although I had to do a little bit of touching up, I didn't face any real problems with it.

Look

I am in love with this. Even though its matte it is still really sparkly, and it legitly makes my nails look like gumdrops. Heres a picture of actual gumdrops for comparison(I didn't take that photo I pulled it off google images so I hope theres no problems with that..let me know if I should give credit to someone because I don't know).

Price

About $8. Normally it wouldn't be a price I would go for, but for this its worth it.

Overall

I typically don't like the look of textured polishes, and thats why I didn't previously have any. But I adore this. For some reason i'm attracted to polishes that are named after food or remind me of food in some way. Like kiwi or mint green, chocolate brown, and any polish with food names..like the cover girl glosstini set..and this explains my need for a banana pudding color pastel yellow..wow, serious self realization here.
I guess I just really like food. :P
Anyway, maybe thats why I love this collection so much. No matter the reason, I think this just took the number one spot in my favorite polishes. This might end up being the first full collection I ever buy.

So what do you think? Will this be making it's way into your collection? Do you like polishes that remind you of food?I'd love to hear from everyone!
Happy painting!

Sunflower nail art

Hi everyone! So..im not sure about all of you, but lately i've had a case of the winter blahs. Winter can be nice and all, but I miss spring and its warmth and flowers and everything. So to brighten things up I have to show you some nail art I did a while back then almost forgot about.  I found the pictures and I thought that it was perfect for the occasion! 

Sunflowers! The perfect symbol of warmer weather. I'd redo it on my nails now except for one thing.

I'm not sure why, but this mani gave me so much trouble. It took me multiple tries to get it right, after which my fingers were just about covered in polish gunk. I had to wait till it all came off to take pictures, thus the slight red spot on my index finger in the two later pictures. Please ignore that ;). 

Anyway, I liked the end result, no matter how hard it was for me to get it to that point. I used an unnamed Claire's polish that I nicknamed "Glue" as the base because its the brightest white I have(if you want to see more of it take a look at my review of Maybelline Clearly spotted, you can see what the bottle looks like in those pictures and all that). Then I used Wet n Wild Black Creme for the center of the flower and E.l.f Sunflower for the petals(which, by the way, is my all time favorite yellow nail polish!). I used a toothpick to draw the flower, and that really made me want to buy a set of nail art brushes because toothpicks just don't do the job right. But..i'm procrastinating on that just a little bit. 

So..this post made me realize that I haven't shown you some of my best older stuff yet. So..stay tuned for more pictures! :)

In the meantime, happy painting!

Opi Live and Let Die Review and Swatches!

Hello everybody! Sorry I haven't posted for two days! It snowed in my area and I've been enjoying it! Heres a picture for your entertainment.

Thats my puppy. Isn't she cute?
So anyway, getting back on track. :) Today I have for you a polish that was given to me as a gift.

I'm 99% sure that it's called "Live and Let Die". I received it as an individual mini that doesn't have the color name on it, so I had to do some research to identify it. It's a very dark green that has gold shimmer in it. It looks almost black in some lights.

Application

It applied really well. 1-2 coats. It was a great consistency and I had no trouble with it.

Look

Im not a fan of it personally. It's nice and all, just not the type of color i'd wear. Super dark greens don't flatter my skin tone very well. I prefer emerald green. This one leans a bit blue.

Price

I'm not sure because I didn't buy it, but Opi minis aren't normally super cheap given their size.

Overall

I probably wouldn't have bought it myself. I'm sure that others might love the color but its just not my thing. Plus if i'm going to buy Opi polishes, i'll buy the full size bottle because I think the minis don't give you enough for your money. *Rant mode on* I have about the same issue with them as I do with the Covergirl minis, except Opi has the option to buy the full size version of colors. The only reasons I would ever buy a polish that has less then 4 mls in it is if A. It's really cheap/on a really good sale or B. I want to make sure I like the color before I buy a full size. Otherwise it just doesn't seem worth it. *Rant mode off*

So, do you like the color? Would you buy it? Does anyone else feel the same about super tiny mini bottles as I do?

Happy painting!

Fire and Ice

Okay, so I was looking through the polishes I have to swatch, and I was looking at two of them. One reminds me strongly of fire and the other reminds me of ice, so I thought it would be cool to swatch both of them in a "fire and ice" post!

So here we go. Right now where I live its really cold and theres a 90% chance of snow later. I really want snow because we don't get it very often. Where I live its always dry cold, so i'm excited to finally get something to show for the cold weather. But..at the same time, I keep missing summer. I like heat better then cold. So, I'm going to start with fire so I can have something warm.

This polish is called "Sunkissed" by LA Colors. Two coats. I picked it up at the dollar general for $2. It's not a very well known brand, but I actually really like these polishes. This one is gorgeous. It has a foil type finish except its more with flaky glitter. It has orange red and gold mixed it and its just beautiful.
One thing worth mentioning about this brand, and this is just awesome, is its incredible removing powers. I'm a little lazy about taking off nail polish, so occassionally I'll just get most of the old polish off then apply new polish over the old. It then come backs to haunt me when I have to take all of it off. This is where these polishes come in. If you apply a coat of LA colors polish and let it dry for a minute or two, it will remove any old polish left on your nails when you take it off. Before I put it on, my nails were stained green from my last manicure, and had a few pieces of old polish still practically glued to them. Not a pretty sight. But when I took it off after swatching, this polish cleaned my nails. It got the green stain out and removed most of the old polish in only a few wipes. Its awesome. It works better then actual nail polish remover.

So now onto the ice polish..

This is called "Icedream", and its by sinful colors. Its a silver glitter with scattered blue glitter in it. I wasn't quite as happy with this one as I was with the other. Its a nice color and all, but I was expecting more. In the bottle it looks very densely packed so I assumed it wouldn't be hard to build up the opacity. Wrong. While it did become opaque, it didn't level itself very well so I ended up with patchy nails. I tried to get it even, but as you can probably see it still looks lumpy. I could also tell just by looking at it that it would be an absolute beast to remove. It was only on for a minute or so, but I still have glitter clinging to my nails after removing it. If I were to use this polish again, i'd use a little bit of it in nail art instead of by itself, if I ever use it again at all.

Both of these polishes retail at $1.99, although I got "icedream" on sale at Target for $1.39.

So..are you a fire or an ice lover? :)

Essie Mint Candy Apple Review and Swatch!

Hello everyone! Today marks a milestone for myself. My first Essie polish review! :) In the past, I haven't been too sure about Essie, since they're higher in the price range. But they looked so adorable on the shelf at Target, so I caved and bought one.

Mint Candy Apple, Flash

Mint Candy Apple, Natural light

Mint Candy Apple, Natural Light

This beauty is called Mint Candy Apple, its a soft baby blue that kind of reminds me of baby blankets. It also has some soft mint green tones in the right light. It's part of the winter 2013 collection. It fit with the season perfectly! 

So onto the review..

Application

It went on evenly in two coats. At first I thought it was going to be a little patchy but then it evened itself out! I love polishes that self level, it makes it so much easier.

Look

I think its very cute. I had been hoping to see some more of the green tones in it, but I like it as is now. Its the type of blue thats great for winter, but it could be adapted for other occassions. Its a pretty flexible color.

Price

$9.00. Personally I still think thats pricey for nail polish, but I just couldn't resist it. Essie polishes are just so cute!

Overall

I like the color a lot, although I think i'll take a look at sale boards on pinterest to buy Essie polishes from now on. Or maybe Amazon. They have cheaper prices and you know me, I always look for the best deal.

So what do you think? Do you have this one in your collection? If not, will you get it soon? 

As always, happy painting! :)