LA Splash Goodies

My last set of nails using my new IMATS nail polish!

 

 

Remember when I thought China Glaze- Surreal Appeal was the perfect coral? Well, I found an even MORE perfect coral!

This is LA Splash- Peachy. And I spiced it up a little by using on of the three glitter pots I got from them in Coral Mania. Here's how the glitter looks:

I originally applied the glitter on individually using a toothpick to make a simple outline of a halfmoon, but the glitter sizes varied too much. So, I applied a top coat all over my nail, dipped one of my new nail art brushes I got from Crown Brush in top coat, dipped it in the glitter, and applied it too the nail. I wish the glitter was more uniform, but I am pleased with the outcome!

As for the actual polish, the formula was so thick and goopy! I have dealt with thick formulas in the past, but this is the first where I actually considered using paint thinner to thin it out. But man the color is so awesome! It could have been a one coater too, but the goopyness ruined that. I used two coats here.

The display at IMATS said this is from their spring collection, but I can't find anything online about it, not even the name of the collection. Their polishes retail for $3.99 and I got mine for $3.00. My ULTA used to carry their polish, but decided to discontinue them, then decided to just stop carrying the entire line and replaced it with the Kardashian makeup -___- Their nail art glitters are $4.99 on their website, and I got mine for $3.00! I am very happy with these glitters and can't wait to use the others I got!

Obsessive Compulsive Cosmetics

Ahhh I totally forgot to do Inspire Me Monday! Next week, I promise, I already know what I am doing for it, it is pretty awesome. I most likely won't do Watermarble Wednesday tomorrow either :(. Well some good news, I have another one of my new polishes from IMATS. I have one more after this, then I will get onto swatching all my polishes I hauled at the super nail supply store I went to down in the LA area. This manicure also features one of those polishes:

 

 Sunlight

 Shade

Sorry for the cut on my index finger. I don't have fancy photo shop to edit that out.

Well as you can see from the bottle, the base color I used is Obsessive Compulsive Cosmetics (OCC)- Something. I planned on getting more from this brand too, but their polish selection wasn't very impressive. I know they have a lot too! I was really looking forward to getting Chlorophyll, but of course they didn't have it. So, I decided to get Something. I didn't go all the way down to LA to not purchase something from OCC! I decided on Something because it was the most unique shade, aside from the doo doo brown they had. I have nothing like it. I did compare it to China Glaze- Sea Spray, which is pretty much the same color, but it has shimmer.

Then I added China Glaze- Bling it On, which is from their new Glitz Bitz 'n Pieces collection for 2013.This is one of the three I purchased from this collection. I applaud China Glaze for this collection because they are going towards the indie trend, and were extremely successful! Unlike Whirled Away from their Cirque Du Soleil collection. I didn't even bother with that polish since there were pretty much only bad reviews on it. Although It's A Trap-eze was freakin awesome!

Anyway, onto the formulas and application. Something was flawless! A perfect creme, almost a one coater. You could probably get away with one thick coat if you are really good at applying polish. The brush is really nice, too. I might also add the bottle shape is pretty cool. I have nothing like it, but i do wish I had one of their older bottle shapes. Bling It On was of course typical China Glaze glitter application, amazing. I applied it pretty thick though. I will try to apply the other two I got a little thinner.

What do you think? Have you tried either of these polishes, or anything from OCC?

Lime Crime!

My second set of nails using my new polishes from IMATS! Let me just start out by saying this manicure was hands down the hardest to capture in photos. I thought holos were hard...I think it is because these are just so bright, so just keep in mind these look 1000x better in real life!

 

Half shade half sunlight

This is the best picture I could get :(. But hopefully you can tell what I did. It is a half moon + gradient! Here are two more photos in weird half sun/shade lighting

 

I guess my camera just couldn't handle the awesome brightness of these polishes. Here are two in the shade:

 

Man now I really regret not having a light box because I am sure these pictures would have been so much better! On to how I did this manicure. First I used two coats of Lime Crime: Crema De Limon for the base color. Hands down, the best yellow I have ever used! Not streaky at all, and applied so smoothly! I let that dry by applying some Seche Vite, then put circle stickers on my fingers to make the half moons. Then using a makeup sponge, I painted the colors Lime Crime- Peaches n Cream (orange) and Lime Crime- Pastelchio (Jennifer Green) directly onto the makeup sponge and simply sponged on a gradient!

I really love how these came out, but of course don't love the photos. I should also mention the bottles are the cutest in the world! Who doesn't like unicorns? You can buy these polishes HERE for $5.99. I got these three at the show for $5. They only had these three and Milky Way at the show which made me sad. I planned on buying them all, but for some reason the white didn't appeal to me very much. But of course I am slapping myself in the face now because I looked at swatches and pretty much everyone says its the best white! Oh well, I will get the rest soon, and can't wait till they release more polish! Stay tuned for more IMATS polishes from me :)

INGLOT!

So, I promised yesterday that my next set of manicures would be using my new polishes I got from IMATS. Today I decided to use my favorite so far, and those are the two Inglot ones I got. Here these beauties are:

 

 

Sorry for such awful lighting. It is raining over here :( I need to just make a light box already!

Can you tell why one of these is my favorite? Jennifer Green, duuuh. I actually passed up on the green and got the blue one the first day, but couldn't resist the second day of the show.

They were only selling their O2M line, which I had never seen before. I just figured they changed the bottle. I am assuming these are better polishes since these retail on their website for $14 for .37 fluid ounces. And their regular Inglot polishes in the shorter bottle are $10 for .51 fluid ounces, so pricey! I got mine for $11, $3 off, not bad I guess.

Onto the colors: These two shades are from their Summer Collection. The awesome Jennifer Green shade is Number 664, I hate when companies number their colors! And the awesome blue is Number 669. The formulas were pretty nice. A little thick, but I prefer thick formulas over thin runny ones. I didn't even realize how special these shades were until I actually took them out of the box after I got home. They have the most beautiful sheen to them! Especially the blue, here is the best picture I could get:

 

Look at Number 669! I about died when I saw it. It has quickly became one of my favorite polishes. I have no blue polish in this shade, let alone with an awesome purple duochrome/sheen to it! It actually shows up on the nail too, if the sun were out it would have showed up in my photos :( What do you think? Have you heard anything about these or tried them?

IMATS LA: My Experience (Very Picture Heavy)

I am back from LA! I love living in Nor Cal because it is just so convenient to drive down to LA for a few days. It is so close, yet so far. So, I have been wanting to go to IMATS seriously for like 3 years, but didn't have anyone to go with. One of my friends has recently gotten into makeup, so this was the perfect opportunity for her to stock up on good makeup for discounted prices, and of course perfect for me to go balls crazy! I have never spent so much money in my life. I know this is a nail polish blog, but I won't be showing many pictures of nail polish. I plan on taking pictures of all the polish I got individually, but haven't had time to do that yet. That is soon to come! On to some of my favorite parts of the show:

Note: All these pictures were taken on the second day (Sunday) Click the page break for all the pictures!

IMATS LA!!!

So, I am sure all of you that are into makeup and all that fun stuff know that IMATS LA is this weekend. I am finally going! I am so excited you have no idea. Usually when I am out of town I try to paint my nails something I know I won't get bored of. But when I am gone 3+ days, I like to use Sally Hansen Salon Effects nail stickers. Here are the ones I decided to wear:

 

The name of this design is Checker Out. This is from their limited edition Spring 2012 collection. I have never bought these for the $10 price tag. Instead I wait till they are on clearance at ULTA for half the price! I have a lot hoarded in my stash right now, it is kind of sad. I have seen the ones for spring this year, they are super cute!

I think I should have wore them sooner though because the edges would not stay down! you can see it lifting on my ring finger. I even redid my index finger because it wasn't sticking at all! I have never had that problem with these. I was gonna do some nail art on these, but I decided it wouldn't look as good as I thought. So, I decided to just throw some glitter on top since I haven't had glitter on my fingers in way too long.

 

Sunlight

 

Shade

This is Cirque- XX, from their Object d'Art collection. I am quickly falling in love with this brand. They have the finest quality polishes, which is why i coughed up the $13 for this polish. This one is JAM PACKED with all sorts of glitter. They describe it as "A rainbow glitter polish made with over 20 different types of holographic particles", so I am not even going to try to describe all the different types of glitters in there. My favorite are the diamonds and squares! It also helped the edges stay down, hopefully they hold up all weekend.

You can find Cirque polishes HERE, and a special exclusive shade on Mei Mei's Signatures site HERE. You can also follow them on facebook so you can get more updates. I can't wait to see what Annie has planned next. But all I know is I WANT MORE CIRQUE COLORS!!!

First Official Water Marble Wednesday

I mentioned in my last Water Marble, that I was considering starting a series called "Water Marble Wednesdays". I decided to just go ahead and start it up! I won't guarantee that there will be one every week, especially after doing this one:

 

NEON! I decided to do neon because Christine May from Nails At 2am is holding a neon themed contest on her instagram. Nail contests are fun, so i thought, why not?

This was such a pain in the butt! I don't know if it is because they are neons or what. The first two fingers gave me no trouble, but then my ring and pinky finger were being evil. I redid them twice because they turned out so awful! I like the final outcome, but the two sets of fingers look like they are from different manicures. I think I should have changed the water because the black on my ring and pinky is all shimmery, but the other two fingers aren't. I actually like how it looks with the shimmer in the black, but it just doesn't go with the other two fingers :(

The colors I used were all China Glaze except the black, you know me! The pink is CG- Flirty Tankini, yellow: CG- Sun-Kissed, green: CG-I'm With The Lifeguard, all three of these were from their Summer Neons collection from 2012. The orange is CG- Breakin' which is from their Kicks Collection in 2009. Lastly, the black is Wet n Wild- Black Creme. 

Let me know what you think! I want to know if you have done a water marble with neons, and if they gave you trouble. I know I won't be using them for a while now!

From the Vault

I have a lot of old pictures of my nails from before I started blogging. So, I decided to looks for some of the better ones and post it! I want to try to blog everyday, or at least almost every single day :)

You can tell how old it is by my nail shape! This is Butter London- Wallis. I think people either love this polish, or hate it. It is one of those ugly pretty shades. I happen to love it! I got this when ULTA had Butters for buy one get one free, which in my opinion is the best deal for anything! I had been wanting it for a while, but they are just so expensive considering how much polish you get. This is totally worth it though!

The color is almost a black base, jam packed with gorgeous olive green shimmer. It is just so unique. And the formula is awesome. It really does glide on the nail like butter. I used two coats and topped it off with Seche Vite.

Then to spice it up I applied a coat of CrowsToes- Voo Doo which was from their 2012 Halloween collection. It has orange bar glitter, orange and purple hexagonal glitters, and tiny blue micro glitter, all densely packed in a clear base. I had been wanting to try CrowsToes for a while, but they were always sold out on Llarowe, like most polishes when they first come out. But finally there were enough in stock for me to snatch up!

CrowsToes can be found on Llarowe for $13, Shoppe-Eclectic for $18, and Overall Beauty for various prices. And Butter London can be found at ULTA, Nordstroms, and various other retailers for $14, although I think they are raising the price to $15 :(

Inspire Me Monday

I wasn't feeling too inspired for today's manicure, so instead I just looked for some new nail art techniques to try on pinterest. I found a bunch of drip manicures, which I really like since it is a fun twist to the french manicure. And I got inspiration for the colors from my bedroom:

 

My room is still pretty high school, so every single wall is a different color. So i chose to use colors that represent the blue and green walls that are next to each other. I also wanted to show case what Jennifer Green is! The green is China Glaze- Def Defying from the Cirque Du Soleil collection. This is my all time favorite color, ever. And I am so happy I finally own a Jennifer Green polish from China Glaze! I have so many, it is pretty much the only color I will buy dupes of because I love it that much. The blue is Finger Paints- Winter Sky. I used this because it is a very thick opaque color, so it worked pretty well for this nail art design.

The way I made the drips was by using a medium sized dotting tool. I made a dot where I wanted the drip to end, and made a thick line dragging it towards the tip of my nail. Then I just filled in the tips and connected the drips to one another. My favorite nails are my pinky and index finger, mainly because the drips are more consistent. 

Kelly from devilish-polish hasn't posted hers yet, but make sure to check hers out if she posts one later! She made this awesome banner, too

Simple Swatch

I wasn't feeling very inspired for nail art today, I am working on that for "Inspire Me Monday" tomorrow. So, instead I decided to showcase one of my favorite Indie Polishes:

 

This is Pretty Serious- Emma Louise. They describe it as "a vibrant violet jelly base with golden green glass fleck, purple micro-glitter, and purple and green hex glitter." The formula is the perfect consistency. It isn't too thick or to or too thin, and glides on the nail like butter! You can definitely wear it on its own, but I wore two coats over OPI- Sapphire in the Snow. It is my go to dark purple creme for layering since it is pretty much a one coater. I feel like this is the perfect glitter to spice your nails up, yet it isn't too BAM in your face glitter.

This polish was made for the companies friend, Emma, and $5 of every purchase will be donated to Cancer research. Pretty Serious is fairly new, and I am quite impressed! I especially love this one since they only made 300 bottles, and I snagged number 29! I got this a couple of months ago and there are still some left! You can find it HERE for $9.95 AUD. I think once Pretty Serious gets more of a cult following, this polish will become very much coveted like Cult Nails- Unicorn Puke, which I wish I had in my life!

Rainbow Water Marble

So, I basically combined the last two manicures I did all into one. I am obsessing over water marbles right now, so expect to see more from me. This one didn't make me as happy though:

 

Sunlight

 

Shade

The pictures don't do these justice...it looks so much better in person. Especially my middle finger! That one was my favorite, and it looks so dull in these photos.

I used all China Glaze polishes, except for the white base which was OPI- My Boyfriend Scales Walls. I used about half of the polishes I used in my balloon manicure. My index finger: Surreal Appeal and Papaya Punch. I love this orange, but it looks so gross on my skin tone. Middle finger: Happy Go Lucky and Gaga For Green. Ring finger: Four Leaf Clover and Electric Beat. Pinky: Gothic Lolita and Urban-Night.

What do you think? I love how bright it is, but it could have still been better I think. I'm thinking about doing a series called "Watermarble Wednesday" maybe? Let me know if you would like to see more, because I really want to master this skill!

The Crumpet Amateur Nail Art Contest: January

Two posts in a day! I am really taking advantage of winter break before Microbiology takes over my life :(. So, I decided to submit to The Crumpet's nail art contest. It is for bloggers who are just getting started, and you just have to do one of the nail art challenges that she created for the new year!

I decided to go with Day 13: Your cheer yourself up mani. Here it is:

Balloons! I define this as cheer me up because when I got my very first yellow polish wayyy back when, I would always do a rainbow skittles manicure. I haven't done one in a while, so I decided to do a little twist to it.

I recently got my favorites from the Color Club Halo Hues collection, and decided to use the classic silver, Harp On It to represent an abstract version of a rainbow in the sky. Then I used a medium sized dotting tool to make the balloon shapes. The colors on my index finger are China Glaze- Surreal Appeal and Papaya Punch. Middle finger: China Glaze- Happy Go Lucky and Orly- Green Apple. Ring finger: China Glaze- Four Leaf Clover and Aquadelic. Pinky: Finger Paints- Winter Sky and Anise- Violet Falls In Love. Lastly I used the white Orly striper polish for the balloon strings.

I actually really like how these turned out! I only wish I made the balloons bigger because the holo kind of outshines the cute little balloons.

You can see other entries for the contest HERE. Voting starts in a few days so it'd be awesome if you could vote for me :)

Polish Days: Something New

My first Polish Days post! Polly Polish created this challenge where basically a group of bloggers set a theme for the month, and choose a day to post it! I missed out on the bling theme for last month, so I made sure to do a manicure in time for January. Here is what I decided to do:

Sunlight

 

Shade

Water Marble!!! This one is just so spring like! So was my previous manicure. I can't wait for all the Spring collections to start coming out, pastels and cremes are my fav!

I think Water Marbling is the first nail art technique that really made me drool. It also inspired me to get into nail art more. When done right, they are just so gorgeous! This is my second attempt at it, and I must say I am very pleased with the outcome. The first time I tried it was almost a year ago, and it was a little worse than this one. I used too many colors considering it was my first time, and I ultimately destroyed every nail while taking the tape off. I won't even bother with showing you the pictures of it. The only flaws on this manicure really are the air bubbles right in the center of my middle finger, and its a little messed up around the cuticles. Other than that, I love them!

I started out with a base of two coats of OPI- My Boyfriend Scales Walls, I am learning to like this polish.The blue I used was China Glaze- Aquadelic which was from their Electropop collection Spring 2012. The green is Essie- Mojito Madness from their Summer 2012 collection. And the purple is Wet n Wild- On A Trip from their Megalast line. I used Mojito Madness in my first water marble and it really is a great polish to use for marbling, I definitely recommend it!

I can't wait for next months theme!

Inspire Me Monday + Special Guest

I am very excited for this post because I just joined "Inspire Me Monday", created by devilishdesigns. There is one other participant as well: Gorgeois, definitely check out her design this week! If you watch Project Runway you will love it! In order to get inspiration I was going through various art books I have, and I came across one of my favorite modern artists, James Rosenquist. I decided to google image his work because he has so many pieces to get inspiration from, plus a lot of color, I love me some color! I went for a very simple piece of work, so here is what I whipped up:

 

 Sunlight

  

Shade

This is my first "Doticure" I have used dots a lot recently, but I decided this was a good opportunity to use a lot! Here is the piece of art I got inspiration from:

 

After I was done I was really happy, but was like "This looks a lot like a clown outfit", but towards the end of the night, I knew exactly what it looked like instead:

 

Butters' Pajamas! If you haven't seen my  South park nails, you wouldn't know I love South park, but Butters is for sure one of my favorite characters. So I guess you can call these my Rosenquist Butters Nails!

Onto the colors I used: The white base is OPI- My Boyfriend Scales Walls, every ones favorite white of 2012. I don't understand the hype of this white. I try to use as few brush strokes as possible, and after the second coat I still have some streaks. I fixed the streaks with the dots so it wasn't that big of a deal...Next I used the largest dotting tool using China Glaze- Sweet Hook for the light pink dots. Then I used China Glaze- Happy Go Lucky for the yellow. For the red I used Zoya- Nidhi, the only sparkly color. I really need to invest in a creme red already. The last color I used was China Glaze- Electric Beat for the blue. After I did all the big dots, I used a smaller dotting tool to fill in the spaces.

You might have noticed the top coat totally messed the design up and made it drag like crazy. I used my CND- Air Dry Top coat for the first time because I am trying to experiment with different top coats, but that was not the right choice. I am going to stick with Seche Vite when I am doing designs from now on.

Now onto the special guest :). As I was taking my pictures, I got interrupted:

My Mr. Sleepy decided he needed to be in the pictures too! My very first post featured my cute little kitty. Expect to see more from him because he really is the best cat in the world!

I hope you enjoyed my first Inspire Me Monday post and I can't wait till next monday now!

Zoya Promotion!

I am sure you have all heard of this if you follow Zoya on Facebook, but I am going to post this anyways!

 

Three polishes for a little more than the price of one? I ain't trippin. I am super excited because this gives me an excuse to get some polishes I have been wanting for a while. I think I am going to get one of the Jellys from their Gloss Collection, and ZUZA!! I wanted that one so bad but could not find it anywhere! I haven't decided on my third one yet, there's so many to choose from. 

Can you suggest some of your favorite Zoya's?

Cirque Holographics

Today I finally got around to actually trying out my Cirque Holographic Polishes! Well I actually painted these yesterday, but I managed to finally get decent pictures this morning, so there is minor tip wear in these first photos. Here these beauties are:

Direct Sunlight

Holographics are so hard to photograph! You can really only admire their true beauty in person. These two are especially linear, opposed to the scattered holographic effect of Zoya- Aurora. 

These two polishes are from Cirque's newest collection called: Object d'Art. The green is Cirque- Lonesome George. Gosh I love this color so much! A green holo will be an A in my book any day. It looks a lot like Nubar- Reclaim, but I put the bottles together and Lonesome George is slightly darker. I might do a comparison of the two. But you can never have too many green holos!

The awesome copper color is Cirque- Cypress. I have never seen a holographic polish in this color, which is why I love it so much. Plus its holo effect is crazy! Much more stronger than Lonesome George.

Here are some more pictures with flash that I took yesterday:

Classic Blurry Shot

These last three have no top coat because I was afraid they would take away the holo effect. I added a top coat later and it didn't blur it out at all. The first three photos are with top coat.

The formula on these were pretty great. Lonesome George was a little streaky, but I got an email from the maker and apparently I got a bad batch, so they are sending me another complimentary one. Their customer service is awesome. Cypress was a little sheer, so when I applied a second coat I made sure it was a little thicker. Lonesome George was two coats as well.

You can get these two polishes plus many other gorgeous ones from this collection here. The holos retail at $15, and the other polishes are $13. You can also like them on Facebook for updates!