Sister In Law's Wedding Mani!

Hey y'all! My husband's sister got married at the end of last month near Austin, TX (about 3 hours from me here in Dallas) and I was really excited, not only for her wedding because I was a bridesmaid(!), but also to have several days off work and therefore....nail polish time! :)

I wanted to choose something neutral so as not to stand out (though let's be honest, we all know nobody is looking at the bridesmaids at a wedding, but still I wanted to be considerate and not wear dark nail polish or something flashy!) SO, I went with *my* wedding color, Zoya Stephanie, and I topped it with China Glaze White Cap, which added a gorgeous pearly golden sheen! I loved it and was sad to take it off when the weekend was over!

And I am so proud, I haven't bitten my nails in months, and they've been less breaky since I started using Essie Grow Stronger! They do still peel a bit, however, it used to be if there was a peel, the nail was so weak I'd have to cut it down, but now if there's a peel, I usually don't have to cut it down, so they are definitely getting stronger! They've finally grown to be the same length, yippee!

And it was a really eventful weekend, very fun to get away for a short time! On Friday we drove down and met the wedding party at a great barbecue place called Salt Lick BBQ, which was super tasty! On Saturday, we were so stuffed from dinner the night before that we skipped breakfast and waited until lunch to eat! We went to a restaurant called the Oasis, which overlooked Lake Travis, which was sadly very low due to the dry dry summer/fall we had here in Texas. It was awesome to drive through the Hill Country all weekend, such a change of pace from flat Dallas! Then we had the rehearsal, which went very smoothly, followed by the rehearsal dinner which was held on a boat! We had a lovely sunset cruise around Lake Travis with MORE bbq for dinner, haha! It was great to spend time with all my husband's cousins that we don't normally get to see! Sunday we woke up, got ready, and it was wedding time! It was in a gorgeous room overlooking the lake with floor to ceiling windows! Had a nice lunch reception, packed our stuff, and it was time to drive home. I was very excited to stop at the Czech Stop, a gas station/bakery almost halfway back to Dallas, we stopped and got kolaches, which were delicious! And about 5 minutes after that, I got to experience our first blowout - my husband's driver's side front tire blew out while we were on the highway! So that was a fun 30 minute delay, thankfully my husband was a champ and changed that tire like a pro! And after we drove 90 more miles home going about 60 mph...we finally made it home! So that was our exciting weekend :)

Update!

Hi everyone!

Well, I've been working a ton lately, with very little time to paint my nails. To give you an idea of my schedule, usually I get to do a mani on Tuesday night, enjoy it Wednesday, and remove it Wednesday evening. Thanks a lot Starbucks no nail polish rules! Last week I had to go in to work on both of my days off for various reasons so I didn't even get one day with a manicure :(

So needless to say I don't have very many manicure pictures to show you. I'm not sure when I will have more time, because working 5-6 days a week is my normal at this point. I will continue to paint my nails on my day(s) off when I can and will lovingly share my photos with you guys! I wish it could be more often because a)I love painting my nails and b)I love sharing my photos and thoughts with you guys, but at this point in time with this job, it doesn't allow me to have enough time to post more.

ON TO THE POST!!!!

I'd love to share my Valentines Day manicure with you guys! I actually got to enjoy this as a Day After Valentines Day Manicure, since I worked on Valentines Day! But I painted my nails when I got home to enjoy the next day! My sweet husband got me some pretty peach colored roses, and a thing of chocolate gelato! (I love ice cream, and chocolate!). On Wednesday (day off!), we slept in, then cooked scrambled eggs, sausage, and toast on our new electric skillet, enjoyed some television, took our recycling out (exciting!!! but seriously, it was getting really bad, like piles of water bottles and stuff, HAHA!), and then I went to my adult gymnastics class! It was a really enjoyable day off, and I love that we both have Wednesdays off from work, so we get to spend the day together!

OK seriously this time, here is my manicure! I used a lovely pink holo polish I got when I swapped with Inge at Polish Sis, Teeez 'Smooth'. I was going to do little hearts with China Glaze 108 Degrees, but the pink was too close to Smooth in shade, so I made a little heart on one finger with Zoya Astra, and one with Zoya Trixie! I really really love this shade of pink! Inge also sent me a purple holo which is also amazing, I love them both! Here it is!

This photo doesn't do the holo justice but you can see my cute hearts and the gorgeous shade of pink! AND you can see I've been doing so good getting my nails grown to the same length! I had a little peely thing on my ring finger so I had to cut the corner (I couldn't bear to cut the whole thing!) but oh well...it will grow out :)

Well, I hope you all enjoyed my Valentine mani and I hope you have a wonderful week!!! :)

HARE Polish - A Positive

Hey y'all!! Guess what I have today to show you - HARE Polish - A Positive!

As you can see, this is a goooorgeous raspberry jelly with lots of silver hexagonal glitter packed in!

With flash!

I love this picture! You can really see all the glitter clearly! And how cute are her labels?!

Nikole makes the cutest nail colors! Occasionally she sells them on her Etsy page (HERE) and she also has a tumblr you can see her manicures on (HERE)! Thank you so much for the gorgeous polishes, Nikole! You guys can stay tuned for another HARE mani soon! Next year!!!! :)

Happy New Year!!!

Zoya Renee & Astra!

Hiiii guys! Here is one of my Zoya polishes which I feel so mixed about - Renee. I decided to give it another shot to see how I feel about it, since I haven't worn it since about April. Zoya describes Renee as "Ultra-bright red-toned medium neon pink creme. Bright and eye-catching, perfect for showing off a deep summer tan." I guess I didn't bother to read the description well before I ordered it, because I really thought it would be more along the lines of a nice not-too-bright pink. Well, I also ordered Ali, another neon-y pink color, so I was a little frustrated when I got them (at the same time) and realized how similar they look, both in the bottle and on the nail. They seriously are almost identical in the bottle. Renee is slightly less neon than Ali. 

I will say, though, Ali is very blinding on the nail (in a good way, haha!) and Renee is a little more toned down, which is nice. Renee seems to photograph a little more muted than it really is, so I've made a note by the one which I feel is most accurate to the color in real life!

Seems to photograph kind of muted, but in real life it's very bright and very pink! It shows up a little coral here, which it's definitely not.

This is a fairly color accurate picture, probably the most similar to how it actually appears. Nice and bright. It's definitely grown on me since the last time I wore it. I still don't think you need both Ali and Renee, though. Pick one.

Again, very color accurate. A nice juicy pink! Again I do want to stress it is pretty neon, though. Don't get fooled like I did, lol!

Typical gorgeous Zoya formula, I did three coats here because I felt like I needed that third one, but I think it was just because it dries a little matte thanks to the neon. It was a little thick on the brush and hard to control, so I just made sure to wipe the brush off well before applying on the nail which helped a lot.

Then I decided to spiffy it up a little bit with some tape and Zoya Astra, a beautiful ultra sparkly pink glitter! I've never done a tape mani before so I was a little apprehensive, but mostly this mani is just for a day or so, so I figured it was ok if it didn't work! (But it did, great success!) I cut some random tape strips and did mostly one diagonal line but a couple of the strips were very skinny so I doubled up on a couple of the nails just for fun! My middle finger makes me think of a candy cane!!

One more view of my first tape mani! It looks a lot better in real life, not such a stark contrast between the colors like it seems in the pic. Renee is much brighter in person so imagine it that way :)

And because I saw it in my bag and thought it matched, here's my new Starbucks cup sleeve!!! It's a red glittery fabric and I love it! It was $2.99 with my discount and I normally would have saved my money but we only had two of them and it just called to me! And it matches my Astra :) Here you can see my thumb glitter, which I think is my favorite!

What do you guys think of Renee, Astra, and my first tape mani?! Have a great day!! :)

Sinful Colors Starfish

TGIF Guys!!! I don't know about you but I'm ready for the weekend! Except, working at Starbucks, I usually wind up with two random weekdays off, and usually not in a row, so I don't really have much of a "weekend", and in fact this week I had my day off Wednesday (went to the State Fair of Texas again!) and now I work until next Wednesday! Yuck. But then I have Thursday thru Monday off work to go to Arizona and visit my grandmother with my Mom, so I guess it's ok! And next summer I'll have about 3 weeks off for my London trip so I should probably just be glad my boss gives me 2 days off a week! :P

Anyways here is my post for today - it's Sinful Colors in Starfish! Actually it says Star Fish on the label but...I made an executive decision and turned it into one word. Two is weird! Starfish is supposedly a total dupe for Sparrow Me The Drama, which is great, because I was particularly wanting that one, and had to restrain myself at Ulta so as not to buy it! $8.50 vs $1.79....that's a definite make-or-break for me! I picked up Starfish just a couple weeks ago at Bed, Bath & Beyond of all places! I should note that, in my opinion, although I don't own SMTD, based off the photos I've seen, these two polishes seem to be identical. Hooray!

They actually have quite a nail polish selection (at least the store near me does, a big cosmetics section), they had a big Essie stand, a big Color Club stand, some Orly, Revlon, about 3 different Sinful Colors collections plus some randoms, and some more I can't remember, because I wasn't interested. I also picked up Sinful Colors Pearl Harbor on this trip, a really pretty clear base with iridescent blue/greenish glitter.

For me, this is a total "Barbie" pink. Not too bright which is nice!

A very girly pink! This is with flash here.

It looks really dusty here, which is a word we can describe the whole Pirates collection with - they all seem to have a tinge of gray to them to add some dirtiness! This is in my kitchen under the artificial light. I thought it would be good to show you a variety of lighting so you can see all the different shades it appears as!

This applied really well, I believe I did 2 coats here. You'll definitely want a topcoat as it dried kind of matte. However, I am definitely getting more impressed with Sinful Colors lately, the first couple shades I picked up were very watery and streaky and I didn't care for them at all, but their more recent shades have been a lot better. Normally I hate when people are unoriginal in design ideas but from a price point, I don't really care that Sinful Colors blatantly rips off the OPI ideas - it has resulted in like 4 or 5 straight up dupes at a fraction of the cost! They should probably try to be a LITTLE more creative though...they had the Adventure Island collection which was clearly modeled after the OPI Pirates collection, as well as the Miss Sinful Colors collection, which has a couple that are similar to the OPI Miss Universe pageant collection, but seems to be a "new" collection of old shades they already had - including one with a typo on the name, haha! (It's I Miss Yuo, fyi)

Do any of you guys have any of the Sinful Colors dupes? Or do you have a favorite Sinful Colors polish that I should know about? What do you think of the brand?

OK well I'll hopefully have some new swatches for you by Monday! I am super busy this weekend with work but as I said in my last post I'm expecting nail mail so...I might just have to swatch some if I do get it!! :D Have a great weekend guys!!!

Sinful Colors - Timbleberry

Just a short post today, I think I'm coming down with another cold, can you believe it?! *sigh* Anyways! Here's Sinful Colors Timbleberry. This is a corally/watermelon type shade of pink, with a slight neon tinge. 3 coats shown here. Stupidly, I didn't use a base coat with this one and my fingers were pretty pink after this one, haha! So beware...it will stain.

I really like the color though! Formula was pretty good too, easy to work with just had to make sure I didn't get too much polish on the brush, otherwise it would pool on my nail in the cuticles!

pink pink pink pink!

What do you all think?

PS. I am expecting not one, not two, but THREE nail mails soon! One is a swap I did with Inge from PolishSis, I can't wait to see what she sent me! The second is an order from HARE Polish, I purchased Archipelago and A Positive, two gorgeous shades. Thirdly I'm expecting the Essence Meet Me @Holografics.com from Traci at the TraceFace Philes - I won one of her giveaway prizes! The next couple weeks should be exciting as I impatiently wait for my new goodies!

OPI Too Hot Pink To Handle

Hey y'all!! Hope everyone is having a lovely day! I recently picked up this color from Ulta as an exchange - I originally bought Nicole by OPI Me + Blue (Justin Bieber collection, a bright blue with holo glitter) but I hated the finish on Me + Blue (it was super gritty even after top coat, and the holo wasn't super nice either) so I exchanged it for an OPI!

Without further ado, here's OPI Too Hot Pink to Handle! This is a lovely bright pink jelly ("Sorbet" according to OPI!) from the Texas Collection from earlier this year. (I also picked up Guy Meets Gal-veston, the jellies just called out to me! And by getting a second OPI - I didn't know this at the time but it was a nice perk - they gave me a free base or top coat! I picked base coat! Thanks Ulta!)

This is three coats of Too Hot Pink to Handle. If you have short nails and use thicker coats, you could maybe even get away with two coats! I also included some pictures of Guy Meets Gal-veston for comparison.

See? Lovely squishy bright pink! You can see a teeny bit of visible nail line on my ring finger, but from a couple feet away you can't see it at all, so...I don't really mind.

In a different lighting, artificial lighting in my kitchen! This is very color accurate. When I tried to photograph it under a more yellowy light, it looked much more orangey.

Guy Meets Gal-veston on my pointer finger, for comparison. GMG looks way more orange than it really is under this light, to be honest, but under natural light these two shades looked identical (they're not!) so I wanted to show you guys the actual difference! And no, that's not shimmer in the bottle, I think it's a grocery bag reflection...haha!

Again, the two shades compared. Guy Meets Gal-veston on my pointer, Too Hot Pink to Handle on my middle finger!

I was torn on picking one in the store, and I still have some birthday money from husband's grandmother, so I treated myself to both! While they are sort of similar, I'm glad to have both (for now at least!) And I'll hold on to them both, so I can keep my OPI base coat, haha! Seriously, y'all should have seen me walking around Ulta. I was staring at the two polishes, started to walk towards the register with both, wound up putting Guy Meets Gal-veston back, started to walk to the register, turned around, went back and picked up Guy Meets Gal-veston, stopped to think some more. Tried to convince myself I liked one more than the other. Contemplated swatching on my finger so I could decide, but decided there were too many people around (LOL). Seriously....it was ridiculous. I wound up picking them both up and walking to the register - where I spotted a stray Do You Think I'm Texy? which I forced myself not to even touch, hahaha. So silly!

What do you guys think? Do any of you own any of the Texas collection colors? Which is your favorite?

NYC MoMA

Hey everyone! Today I have for you an old one, well, it's from the beginning of summer anyways! I picked this pretty pink up with the intention of using it for a franken, but do you know what? I never actually used it! I distracted myself with some others that I picked up that day (a black, and Sally Hansen HD in Byte) which I frankened! It didn't turn out so hot.

Anyways, I had this in my untrieds so I decided to see how it looked to cheer myself up, since I was feeling a little sick. (That later spiraled downhill into a nasty cold, which I have FINALLY gotten over as I write this!)

This is NYC nail color in MoMA. I liked the color names, they seemed to have a New York theme, and the price was right too! I remember this was definitely under $3 at Target. It's kind of a deep pink, leaning towards fuschia. Very bright and girly, and had a nice formula too! 2 coats would have been good if you're careful but I went ahead and did 3 to be safe! I always seem to miss the very edge of my nail or something like that, that the 3rd coat helps fix!

It's so funny, I've been growing my nails out a bit but not too long since I have a job where I use my hands a LOT, so when they get longer I feel like they're SO in the way. I feel like they're so long right now, but looking at the photos they don't look very long at all! Maybe if I did a french mani they would look longer, haha! But seriously...I think I won't have them any longer than this, they aren't strong enough right now (but I've been using a strengthener that helps keep them from peeling/breaking) and they just get kind in the way. And they still look nicer than when they are baby nubs! We'll see how long I keep them long!

Hope y'all like this bright pinky color!

OPI Sweet Memories

Hi friends! Today I have a lovely little pink from OPI, Sweet Memories. I originally bought this earlier in the summer to wear under OPI I Lily Love You, but it's a very pretty pale pink on its own too!

Sooo gorgeous!

I think this was two coats. As usual OPI's formula was very good, a tad thick but its easily controlled!

I then decided to top it with a new one I picked up from Walgreens - Sally Hansen Hard as Nails in Rock Candy! It's a peachy colored base packed with lots of iridescent glitter, similar to the glitter in I Lily Love You, but obviously no flakies :( The base color does go on almost totally clear, you wouldn't have to worry about seeing it over a darker color, for sure. I like Rock Candy over Sweet Memories, it adds a little sparkle without being over the top! :)

Wet n Wild - Sparked!

Here is another one from my recent Walgreens haul! It's Wet n Wild Wild Shine nail color in Sparked, a really pretty pink glitter! I recently developed a lemming for Butter London in Rosie Lee, and when I saw Sparked at the store, I immediately thought of it. Now, I don't have Rosie Lee so I can't really compare them but they are both a pink glitter so I thought oooh pretty!!

Here is Sparked by itself, nothing underneath, though I suspect it would look really pretty layered over a darker pink. It is two different colors of pink glitter suspended in a clear/pale pale pink base. I could have left it at 3 coats but I love the golden-pink hue so I went ahead and did a fourth coat! This is sooo pretty, I really like it! It reminds me of a lighter version of Zoya Astra or Nova!

What do you guys think? And as ridiculous as this is going to sound, it was kind of a neutral sparkle! It wasn't like a Zoya Charla or Ivanka, the bright AND sparkly combo, it was nice!!

Franken #4 - Pink Sparkle!

Hi everyone! I'm back with some photos of Franken #4, which I'll call Pink Sparkle. It's a pretty generic name but....oh well! To create this pretty pink, I mixed the rest of my Petites Pretty in Pink with a little clear, and Zoya Astra, which is a super sparkly raspberry jelly-ish polish. Astra is GORGEOUS but I get frustrated when trying to remove the super-glitters, plus I wanted to give it a little solid color to mix in with the sparkle. I like how it turned out! :)

Sorry it's a little messy! I did it in the car while my husband and I were driving to watch a soccer game! :P I love the bright pink shade from Pretty in Pink, and Astra adds just the right amount of sparkle for my liking! :)

Mango Piñata - Franken!!

Hi guys!

OK I am getting totally into Frankens. I may have a problem.....we'll see soon I guess! So my second franken attempt turned out so well, I decided I had to make more! I went to Walmart and picked up some more clear polish, some BB's (to put in the polishes to help them shake up!), and came home and got to work on Franken #3, which I am dubbing Mango Piñata.


I combined:
Approximately 1/3 Wet'n'Wild Clear
Approximately 1/3 Forever 21 No Name Coral color
Approximately 1/3 Ulta Piñata-Yada-Yada
And a little dash of Petites Mango
Plus 2 Balls


I was totally inspired by Cristina's recent Franken (HERE) that had the same glitter polish in it, but decided to go for a saucy bright color! I love her super jelly finish on that one, and think maybe if I replicated Mango Piñata that I might do a tad less color, a tad less clear, and a tad more glitter! A tad is a very scientific unit, you know!


Here is the end result! I like it! Not quite as jelly as Pink Lily Love, a bit more opaque, with a little sparkle from the confetti! I wish that Piñata-Yada-Yada showed up a little better but I think it's just so dense, it's hard to get it evenly distributed in the bottle. Much shaking is needed, I think.

Yay! What do you all think? :)

Pink Lily Love - Franken!!

I was going through some polishes I was going to get rid of, and I found a half used Petites clear, and I thought oooooh franken! I previously have made one other franken that was semi successful but was a pain in the butt to photograph. I'll put a pic up anyways though! For my first franken a few weeks ago, I used some NYC Black polish, and mixed it with Sally Hansen HD in Byte plus a few pink sparkles from a Bonbons polish, but just a few of those! I mixed them with a toothpick on a piece of paper and they looked so pretty, black with a pink shimmer! When I frankened them, it didn't work quite as well, but it does have a kind of nice shimmer to it. The issue with the photography was that I could only capture Byte's blue flash, not the pink, and it was irritating me! I think my real issue with it is that I don't really care for black mani's. I really want to like them, I just am not super hot on them. Anyways, here's a pic of my first Franken attempt. I took about 30 pics of this trying desperately to get the pink shimmer to show up, but this was the closest I got, under an artificial light :-/

ANYWAYS....for my second franken attempt I am mixing Petites clear with a Petites bright pink and OPI I Lily Love You. I hope it turns out gorgeous, because I really like I Lily Love You and don't want to waste it ^.^

EDIT: I'm back! Franken #2 is complete! I am dubbing it Pink Lily Love! It went much more smoothly than Franken attempt #1, I'm pleased to report! (I used a Bonbons bottle for that one and it's tiny neck made combining polishes a real pain in the you know what) But yay! This was much easier - I poured out a little of my Petites Clear (I had already used some of it, I poured it out until it was about half empty/full), then I mixed a generous helping of Petites Pretty In Pink, a few drops of Seche Vite to try and get a little glossiness (didn't work), and then the remaining ~20% I added OPI I Lily Love You! It is so pretty and squishy and I really like it! I actually wish it had a little bit more clear in it to give it a tad more squishiness but...I'll take it :)

This is two coats of Pink Lily Love topped with Seche Vite. On my pointer finger I did just one coat so you can see how it builds. I think next time I would do 3 coats to eliminate the VNL but it was starting to get dark and I was really excited to take a picture haha! Due to the iPhone pics it's a little blurry, sorry. But you can see in the bottle how it looks pretty well :) I love love love the flakies from I Lily Love You!!

I love Pink Lily Love! What do you guys think?!

Just a French Mani!

While I'm stuck on the couch recovering from ACL surgery, and awaiting the delivery of my five new Zoya polishes(!!!!), I decided to give myself a new manicure!

This is Revlon quick-dry basecoat, two coats of Zoya Stephanie, Petites White, and Seche Vite topcoat.

I loooove the creamy white-pinkness of Stephanie, but it does take 3-4 coats for it to be totally opaque. I didn't want it to be super bright so I just did two coats and tried really hard to keep it even and avoid brush stroke lines. Petites White could be a little thicker, but I can't complain about a polish that only costs a dollar fifty! My love affair with Seche Vite continues, the stuff is incredible! It dries pretty quickly and is like glass on my fingers, it's so glossy, I love it!

Hopefully my new Zoyas come tomorrow (NOTE: they didn't :( Delivery date supposedly is 4/1), because I am going crazy on the couch here and the thought of these polishes arriving soon is basically the only thing keeping me sane right now! (PS. I ordered Lolly from the new Mod Matte collection, Breezi, Kieko, and Mira from the new Summertime Collection, and Pippa, which was in the La-Di-Da collection, plus two spoons - Ali and Robyn)