My Picks from the Zoya Winter Holiday 2015 Matte Velvet Collection!

Hi everyone! I'm baaack! How are you all doing today? I've been a little busy with school and work, but otherwise I've been good.
So a few days ago I caught wind of a brand new Winter Holiday collection from Zoya. A new Matte Velvet collection! Now, I really liked the last Matte Velvet collection, but back then I had a very small budget so I ended up missing out on most of them. So of course I had to snap these up. I ran out and bought 4 of them. I skipped on Honor (green) and Amal (red). So here we go..onto the swatches!

Sue is a pale champagne gold matte. It has some pretty subtle multi colored shimmer in it. Gorgeous!

Yves is a dark blue matte. This one was really opaque. I did two coats. I did have some minor staining with this one so use a base coat underneath it!

Iris is a warm purple matte. I really want to put a shiny top coat over it. It's got some fuchsia flecks in there that make it gorgeous! 2 coats.

Aspen is a shimmery white matte. I had the highest hopes for this one. This one is my favorite color wise. The crisp bright white looks like snow! But that being said..the formula was a disappointment. It went on thicker than the others and did not want to self level. You can see how it still looks a bit uneven in places. I used 3-4 coats.

Overall, I love this collection! My favorites are Iris and Aspen (although I wish that it had a better formula). Sue is pretty too but I'm not sure if it agrees with my skin tone. What are your favorites? Are you loving mattes as much as I am? Let me know, I want to hear from you!
As always, happy painting! :)

Dance Legend Roz (pic heavy)

Hi everyone! Sorry it's been a while since my last post. I'm back in school now and i've started a new job. Those things combined take up a lot of my time, but i'll keep posting whenever I can.

I’m very excited about the polish I have to show you today. For a long time I’ve had my eye on the brand Dance Legend. They have such gorgeous polishes but since the shipping pushes the cost over $20 for just one..I wasn’t able to get my hands on any of them. Until that is..I was going through a facebook nail polish sale group, and saw that someone was selling some. Naturally I jumped on the opportunity and bought five of them. Today I have the first one I put on to share with you!

This is Roz, a pink, gold, green multichrome from the Chameleon collection. Because it’s a multichrome of course I had to take a ton of pictures..

Now..onto my little review..

Application

Easy breezy beautiful. Haha I think I just channeled Covergirl commercials. But seriously, that's what the application of this polish was like. Two easy coats.

Look

I love it. When I first bought it I was worried that it would be too close to ILNP Nostalgia, which I already have. But it’s actually pretty different. Nostalgia has a distinctly red base and Roz has a bright magenta base. It’s gorgeous. It shifts from pink to gold to green effortlessly.

Price

Here’s where things get tough. These are expensive to buy directly from Dance Legend, since it’s an international brand. That puts the price up over $20 for it, and ive heard that shipping takes a while. I recommend checking out some of Dance Legends other stockists, and check blog sales and destashes on places like storenvy. Ebay also carries it for $19 with shipping.

Overall

I wish these were easier to come by here in the USA, because I’m in love with this brand! I will continue to look through destashes for them, and I recommend that you do too! They're great!

Happy painting!

Color Club Miss Bliss

Hi everyone! So..it’s August already. Wow summer is flying by so fast. It won’t be long before I start my new after school job. I hope that i’ll still find the time to blog!

So, when you think of the brand Color Club, what do you think of? For me, I think Halo Hues. The two collections are the stars of the brand if you ask me. I’m very excited about the brand new collection that’s going to come out sometime this year! Stephanie from Imperfectly Painted has wheel swatch pictures of them here.

So today I was in a Halo Hues mood and thought i’d show you one I have from the collection.

This beauty is Miss Bliss, and it’s a gorgeous pink linear holo. Here’s my short but sweet review..

Application

Pretty much flawless. I used two coats and it applied like a dream. It also dried really fast, which was a nice plus.

Look

I adore it. In low light it looks like a shimmery metallic and in direct light BAM it hits you with rainbows!

Price

$7.40 on Amazon. Also, if you live in Maryland, you can get it for $6 at Maxim Beauty Supply in Hyattsville. It’s where I bought my bottle.

Overall

You need the Halo Hues. They are awesome and a great addition to anyone's collection.
Happy painting! :)

Happy Elephant Nail Art

Hi everyone! How was your week? Honestly..I didn’t have a great one myself. Picked up some sort of virus so I had to deal with that while some other stuff went down in my personal life. So I was feeling pretty down a few days ago, and decided that I needed a pick me up in the form of some cheerful nail art. It took me a while to think of something happy to do, but I finally decided on elephants. Elephants are my favorite non pet animals, and baby elephants are even cuter..so I worked for a while and..

I ended up with an adorable design of a baby elephant making a rainbow. Is this not cute? I’m very pleased with it, and it definitely cheered me up.

The polishes I used were Butter London Petticoat for the base sky color, Sinful Colors Pistashe for the grass, an unnamed light grey shimmer for the Elephant, Sinful Shine Bottoms Up for the water he’s spraying, and the rainbow is made up of Revlon Cherries In The Snow, Deborah Lippmann Lara’s theme, Revlon Sunburst, Ruby Wing Green Peace, Rimmel London Blue My Mind, and Funky Fingers Riot. I also used black acrylic paint to do the Elephant’s outline and the ground.

So, what do you think? Does nail art make you happy?  

Textured American Flag Nail Art

Hi everyone! I hope all you summers have been going amazingly! As for mine, it’s been great. Last week I chaperoned a middle school mission trip, so that was fun, even though I broke a thumb nail working in an urban garden. It was worth the loss to help homeless people though (all the food we picked from the garden was donated to the local food bank), so i'm not complaining. Mission comes before nails. So anyway, as all of you Americans and probably even the rest of you know, yesterday was the Fourth of July. I did up doing nail art for it, but by the time I finished it the sun had gone down so I couldn’t take pictures until today! So here you go! My textured American Flag nails!

So to do this I first made the design in glossy polish, then went over it with textured. I used Sinful Colors Snow Me White, Revlon Cherries In The Snow, and Sinful Colors Endless Blue for that part, then went over the design with OPI Get Your Number (blue), Magazine Cover Mouse (red) and Solitaire (white). I think they turned out super adorable, although next year i’ll try to be more creative with the theme. I saw some amazing designs yesterday. Which reminds me, if you did a Fourth of July mani yesterday, please drop a link in the comments! I’d love to see what you came up with!

So, I hope you all had an amazing Fourth! Happy Painting!

Glitter Placement Strawberry Nail Art

Hi everyone! How is everyone's summer going? I just got back from a trip to Maryland myself. Anybody looking forward to any trips that you're going to take?
Anyway, I figured it's been a while since I've done any nail art, so that's what I have to show you today.
I present to you some glitter placement strawberry nails!

What I did is I painted my nails with a base of OPI Hey Baby, then painted Pop-arrazi Never Too Rich onto a piece of paper and picked up and placed the glitter with a toothpick to create the green top. Then I did the same thing with Elf Dream Maker for the seeds. I think this turned out really adorable. I love fruit nail art!

So, see you next time. Happy painting!

Funky Fingers Neon Shimmers!

Hi everyone! So, how’s your summer been going so far? I love summer. Classes are out, pools are open, and all the summer colors come out, particularly neons.

I have to confess something, I have a love hate relationship with neons. I love the bright colors, but often the formula’s are less than perfect. But I have found two that I love! Not only are they bright and pretty, they’re shimmers! That’s right, neon shimmers!

Behold the glory of these two Funky Fingers polishes.

All The Rave is a neon pink with orange shimmer. It dries to a matte finish, as you can see in the photos. Shown is two flawless coats. It was super easy to apply. I think it’s one of the best formulas out of any polish I own. It is that amazing.

Funky Fingers All The Rave Direct Sunlight

Funky Fingers All The Rave Indirect light

Glowstick is All The Rave’s yellow sister. It definitely lives up to its name. It’s an almost highlighter bright neon yellow with yellow shimmer. LOVE. This color is gorgeous and so bright! The formula wasn't quite as good as All The Rave, but still nice, especially for a neon yellow, which are known to often have formula issues. To get a completely smooth finish you need to do a few things. The first is to watch the brush, I found that I sometimes had to dip the brush into the bottle more than once to make sure I got enough to make a complete coat, if you don't do this it might go on patchy. Secondly make sure to let each coat dry before adding another. Thick coats have a tendency to bubble. Follow those instructions and it looks great! It can be opaque in three coats but I had to use four for a few nails. Note: In the shade picture it looks brighter than it is. It doesn't glow in the dark (unfortunately).

Funky Fingers Glowstick Sunlight

Funky Fingers Glowstick Shade

So, in conclusion, these are absolute must haves for anyone who loves bright colors. Also, good news for those who don’t have access to a Five Below store, these are available on ebay! Go here and here to buy them! I promise, you won’t be disappointed!

So, what are your favorite summer colors?

Butter London Cut Up Collection Swatches!

Hi everyone! I’m baaaaack! It’s been awhile since i’ve done a post here. The story is not a very interesting one. I broke a nail badly and had to wait until it grew back before I could swatch again.

But it finally grew back, and here I am, with shorter nails.

So awhile back I was at Marshalls, and I was excited to see this on the shelf.

Marshalls and TJMaxx sometimes sell Butter Londons, but I'd never seen sets there before. They were selling for $8, so I quickly snapped it and I'm going to show you the polishes included here today!

So without further ado, here's the Butter London Cut Up collection!

First up is Dust Up, a polish with micro gold glitter and small copper glitter in a clear base. This one is the most dense out of the collection, but I don't think it could be quite opaque on its own. I used two coats over LA Colors Delicate for the photos.

Next is Anorak, a polish with black and white hexes and silver and white shred glitters in a clear base. It looks pretty in the bottle and I thought it would be my favorite but then I put it on. The formula has some issues. It doesn’t go on smoothly, and you have to dab it on as you go. Sometimes even then its hard to get it to look even. The glitter clumps up or the base dries on the brush while you’re trying to dab it on and it smears. Yeah, i’m not terribly impressed considering that Butter London is a high end brand. This is what it looks like with patience. I used two-ish coats over a blue creme from Rue21.

Last is Titchy, rainbow glitter with blue micro glitter in a clear base. This one also looked amazing in the bottle but was a bit of a let down on the nail. It didn’t have any formula problems it just didn’t really wow me. Maybe it was the shade of blue I used for the base. I don’t know. It was a bit hard to photograph, but I did my best. I layered it over Maybelline Dayglow Teal for the pictures. I used two coats on my middle and ring fingers and one on my pinky and index to show you the glitter pay off.

Overall, this collection is okay. Not good, not bad, just okay. If I had paid full price for it I would’ve been disappointed, but fortunately I only paid $8. So considering the price I got it for, i’d still say it was a pretty good deal. I’ll have to experiment with other base colors to see what looks best with them (particularly Dust Up).  

Anyway, see you next time here on the blog! Happy Painting!

An Awesome Texture Polish From Finger Paints!

NOTE: This post was supposed to go live LAST Friday. Whoops. Well..I had it all ready..so heres what you would've seen.

Hi everyone! TGIF! I’m so ready for the weekend, and it’s going to be a nice one. I’m headed to Asheville with my family. Should be great! I’m looking forward to doing some shopping while we’re there!

Anyway, back to the polish. Today I have a random polish that I picked up a while back. It’s been sitting around untried for the longest time and yesterday I was like screw it this is getting reviewed right now. I loved it the second I put it in my swatch book, even though it surprised me.

The funny thing about buying polishes from clearance sections is that sometimes they aren’t what you expected. This is especially true with textures. With most of them you can’t tell from the bottle that they’re textures until you try them on(Except china glaze, who seems to label their textures). For a while it seemed like every time I bought a clearance fingerpaints polish from sallys it turned out to be a surprise texture, and that was true with this one. In the bottle it looks like a shimmery metallic, until it dries and hello texture!

This baby is called Rock Hard Lilac, and is from the Winter 2014 Rock My World collection. Now, usually i’m not a fan of metallic textures. I avoided the china glaze crinkled chromes like the plague when they came out. I prefer “sugary” textures, like the Nicole By OPI gumdrops collection. When I think “metallic” I think smooth and shiny. Textured chrome just didn’t sound right to me.

That being said, I found the exception. I adore this. Onto the review!

Application

FABULOUS. It was completely opaque in one coat. I used two because that's just what I do but one would’ve been just fine. It also went on smooth and all in all it was my dream formula. Why why can’t cremes be like this?

Look

This is really awesome looking. The texture is fine and it’s still shiny and the whole effect actually looks like kind of like metal. But I think the thing I like most about it is the way it feels. I can’t stop running my fingers over it. As someone with sensory sensitivities the feel of textures are hits and misses for me. This one is awesome.

Price

Don’t hate me for this, but I actually don’t remember how much I paid for this. I do know that you can still get it and others from the collection from destashes on storenvy and pinterest for pretty cheap.

Overall

I love this. It’s a completely unique texture, I haven’t seen anything else like it. Plus the formula is flawless and it’s just an all around awesome polish. If you like textures, than you should track this one down.

So, what do you think? Are you still into textures or are you ready to move onto other trends? Let me know your opinions, I’d love to hear from you!

Rainbow Drip Nail Art!

Hi everyone! *Singing in a loud borderline obnoxious voice* I’m baaaack! I apologize for being absent. In all seriousness..last week was not a good week for me. Some crap went down in my personal life, and I had a hard time finding motivation to write a blog post when I felt like I was about to fall apart. But now i’m back and staying positive. I even did some awesome colorful nail art for you all to see today!

Rainbow drips! The design itself isn’t exactly the most original thing ive ever done, but I really enjoyed doing it and I think it looks really cute! What I did was I painted my nails with a grey creme, did the outline of the tips in black with a nail art brush, then carefully painted above the line with white and covered that with rainbow stripes. The polishes I used were Nuance Black Dahlia, Sinful Colors Snow Me White, Revlon Cherries In The Snow(red), Deborah Lippmann Lara’s Theme(orange), Funky Fingers Alex’s Lemonade(yellow), Ruby Wing Green Peace, Sinful Colors Endless Blue, LA Girl Muse, OPI Hey Baby, and an unnamed LA Girl grey for the base color.

So, do you like it? I think it has an awesome artsy vibe to it! :)

Rue21 Anchors Away!

Hi everyone! So, spring is finally here! I’m so happy that the weather is finally starting to warm up here in North Carolina. It was weird for a while there. Anyway, spring is all about new things, and thats a good excuse as any to buy more new polishes! Today I have to show you one of new favorite spring and summer colors!

So I was on my polish facebook group, and someone posted about some gorgeous Rue21 polishes. For those of you who have never been, they have the cutest polish bottles ever. Heres a look at the few I had gotten previously from there.

When they posted about some pretty new ones that they have out, I knew I had to make another trip. So I was in the store, and these caught my eye.

These are from the new Anchors Away collection. I’m not usually all in on the cool anchor nautical trend, but seriously, how cute are these? I quickly snatched them up and I used one of them for today’s mani.

Unfortunately it has no name. I searched the website but it wasn’t even listed. The formula was decent, I used 2 to 3 coats. The only problem was that it was a bit thick, and I might add a little bit of thinner in the future to fix that. There was also some bubbling that I noticed, but I think that was the topcoats fault and not the polish. I paired it up with Zoya Ziv for an accent nail.

I think I might have to buy more creme polishes i the future. Most of my collection is shimmers, but i’m starting to love solid colors too! Also, I apologize that this post is a bit short and a day late, I was up really late finishing a research paper.

Kbshimmer Quick and Flirty

Hi everyone! I’m sorry that I missed you guys on Friday! I had a party to go to and completely ran out of time to post! Well i’m back now and have a GORGEOUS polish to show you.

So lately i’ve developed a slight obsession with the brand Kbshimmer. I received two of their polishes in a swap a while back, and this week I got three more for my birthday! Here’s one of them!

This beauty is called Quick and Flirty, and it was originally part of the Spring 2014 collection. It’s a beautiful medium purple linear holographic.

Application

Two easy coats, and they went on wonderfully smooth!

Look

Just look at it. I can’t stop staring at my nails. LOVE

Price

$8.75, if this was a mainstream brand I’d think that was expensive, but for an indie it’s completely reasonable and for the uniqueness of their shades i’m perfectly fine with the price.

Overall

Im going to end up purchasing more at some point. Not even “probably” going to, i’m definitely going to. I love their colors and I want them all!

Zoya Staasi! Beautiful Green For St. Patricks Day!

Hi everyone! So..St. Patricks day is tomorrow! It's my favorite holiday. Mostly because it's my birthday! I also adore everything about Irish culture and mythology, and my favorite colors green! It's the perfect day for me!
So, today I'm going to show you one of my favorite green polishes!

Meet Zoya Staasi, she's from the Summer 2014 Bubbly collection, which you might recall is one of my favorite collections! It's a gorgeous green jelly full of iridescent glitter and gold shimmer!

Application
I used three coats for this. Because it has a jelly base it was a bit on the sheer side, but it built up nicely.

Look
I was worried that it might clash with my skin tone as yellow leaning greens tend to do, but it actually looks good! I love how glittery and metallic it looks! Especially in the shade!

Price
These are on sale at Ulta for $1.99. I couldn't track this one down at my local store so I asked someone to send me it from her store.

Overall
I've been wearing this color for a week and I still adore it! Plus the wear time is great! No chips!

So, what are you wearing on your nails for St. Patricks day? I'd love to see!

OPI The Sky's My Limit

Hi everyone! For you college people, did you have Spring break this week too? I did and I had a lot of fun! For those of you who don't know, last semester I lived with my aunt and volunteered full time in her kindergarten classroom. It was a wonderful experience and this week I got to go back and visit.

But enough about me, back to polish. Sorry about the late post, was on a bus all day long.

Today's beauty is one I picked up at Marshall's (surprise surprise right?). It's gorgeous and I love it. It's from the OPI Summer 2014 Mustang collection, and is called "The Sky's My Limit"

OPI The Sky's My Limit Sunlight 

OPI The Sky's My Limit Sunlight

OPI The Sky's My Limit Shade

OPI The Sky's My Limit Shade With Flash

It's a beautiful blue shimmer!

Application

This gave me no trouble, used 2-3 coats like I usually do with polishes like this. I just wish that OPI's brush wasn't so wide. I have skinny nails so wide brushes don't work as well for me.

Look

I can forgive the brush because of the color. It is gorgeous. It has a ton of gold shimmer in it that sparkles like crazy. You can especially see it in my shade photo!

Price

$3.99. I love Marshall's and TJMaxx.

Overall

I love the color, probably would've even gotten it at a higher price. At the price I got it at, I'd get it again in a heartbeat.

Zoya Dillon Review and Swatch

Hi everyone! So, Spring is finally starting to creep up on us! Here in North Carolina we got a bunch of snow last month, and the weather since has been insane. One week it's below freezing and snowing, the next its 70 degrees. That happened, not an exaggeration. So I'm very much looking forward to Spring and consistent warm weather.  

So, today's polish is a Spring one, and I've wanted it since the day it came out last year. Zoya Dillon, from the Spring 2014 Awaken collection. I bought Hudson when the collection was new, and regretted not getting Dillon. Now it is finally mine and I'm reviewing it for you today.

Zoya Dillon Sunlight

Zoya Dillon Shade

It's a beautiful soft green shimmer. Although it's very cool toned it has gold shimmer in it too.

Here's my review:

Application

This went on easily in 2-3 coats. I had no issues with it at all.

Look

I love how soft and pretty it is. For some reason is reminds me a little bit of decorative soaps, although I'm not quite sure why. I love it. It dries smooth and pretty and is flattering even on my red toned skin.

Price

I got this on sale at Ulta for $1.99, great price. It's worth it if you don't have it already.

Overall

I'm very pleased with this polish and would purchase again.

Back To The Clearance! Nails Inc Sugar House Lane

Hi everyone! Today's post is another back to the clearance! Where I share all the awesome deals I find so you can have the chance to share in the bargains!

I chose to show you this polish because it's still being sold for full price in Ulta, and the change in price from how much I paid for it is huge.

Behold, Nails Inc Sugar House Lane.

This polish is from the Sprinkles collection. It has black and silver glitters in a pastel brown crelly base.

Application

This went on nicely. I was expecting it to be lumpy because of the dense glitter but it actually went on smoothly and evenly in two coats. I was pleased.

Look

It's really cute. It's a nice color for Spring with the cupcake theme they have going on, but it also could work well for winter. I think it's perfect for the cold transition time between Winter and Spring. It did dry a little gritty as you can see from the picture, so you'll want to use a topcoat if you want it to be smooth.

Price

This is the best part guys. Ulta is selling this for $11. I got it for $2. Two dollars. That's a nine dollar difference! TJMaxx and Marshall's are the best stores ever.

This has been another installment of back to the clearance! Tune in next time for more money saving opportunities! Or just to observe me getting way to excited over these things! Either way, it works. :)

Happy Painting!