From The Vault: Nubar- Reclaim

I am really on a holographic kick right now and if you follow me on instagram, you would know I recently bought A LOT of the new releases from China Glaze and Color Club's holo collections. I knew I had this beauty waiting in my Nail folder on my computer, so I thought what better time to share it than now? Prepare yourself:

Nubar- Reclaim

sdfsdfbsdfjsd! If you have been following me a while, you would know I love green, but this one is super special. I mentioned in my Cirque Holographic post that this is a lot like Lonesome George, but I like this shade of green slightly more. Reclaim was supposed to be limited edition in their Going Green collection from 2009, but you can still get it HERE for just $8. I am sure it is going for much more on ebay and amazon. I lucked out when I got mine because I found it randomly at one of the Nail Supply stores that has ridiculously low prices. It was on a bottom shelf just begging me to pick it up, and only $4!

Onto the polish itself: It is amazing, hands down. 2 easy coats, and no need for a special base coat, and the top coat doesn't take away the holo effect! I wanted to spice it up a bit and put China Glaze- Glitter All The Way on my ring finger. I love this combo! The last time I went to my regular nail supply store they had this shade fully stocked! I think I might get a back up, and maybe one for you guys :)

OPI + Sation

I am sure no one is a stranger to the amazing polishes Sation has been releasing lately. Ever since I saw Let Them Have Polish post swatches of these ridiculous glitters, I had to get my hands on some. I am still using my new polishes I got in LA at the super nail supply store. Right as I was almost done picking the polishes I wanted there, to my surprise there were ALL of the glitters on this hidden nail rack in an aisle. I think I literally screamed. Here it is:

 

LOOK AT THAT GLITTER!

I can't wait for more mainstream brands to start releasing more awesome glitters like this! This is Sation- I'm Not A Cougar from the Glitter I series, on top of OPI- Sprung which is one of the 2 polishes I got from the Mariah Carey collection. It has so many types of glitters: green, orange, and silver hexagons, holographic micro shimmers, medium black hexagons, and silver bar glitters! I am sure I am missing some.

Just for fun I will show Sprung on its own:

 

This is two coats, and a beezy to photograph! I know this combination is a little Fall-esque, but I don't care. I will rock neon nails in the winter, and fall nails in the summer!

The application for both of these was great. Sprung flooded my cuticles if I had too much polish on the brush, so that was easily fixable. And I'm Not A Cougar had great glitter pay off. LOTS of glitter came out on the brush! I topped it off with CND Air Dry and it is surprisingly pretty smooth. On a side note, I really recommend CND Air Dry as a top coat. I am trying to steer away from Seche Vite because I am tired of wasting half the bottle because Seche Restore doesn't seem to work for me :(. Plus I can get both top coats for just $4!

Well, what do you think? I really want some more of these glitters! Or at least try some of their other polishes. I am going to try to wear the second one next, we will see. Enjoy!

Simple Swatch: My Second Barielle, and Probably My Last...

I promised to swatch my second Barielle I hauled in LA, and here it is!

 

This is Barielle- Myrza's Meadow. This shade looks so pretty in the bottle, but looks so gross on my nails! This is probably the first Jennifer Green that I am not really a fan of :(

This polish is like a hybrid of a jelly and a creme, with tiny holographic micro shimmers in it. And it applied in two easy coats. Sounds awesome, right? Not only did it look weird on me, but it was a beezy to photograph, I couldn't quite capture the color correctly. I was going to try to layer it over Jessica- Lime Cooler, (which is one of my all time favorite greens!) but I wanted to get a feel for the polish on its own. The next time I wear it, I will try layering it to see if the shade of green improves. If it doesn't it is going in my "polishes to get rid of" pile

Oh and wear time is not the best. If you use your hands a lot, this isn't the polish for you, same with the other BARIELLE I got. At work the next day, the polish pretty much came completely off my nail. But Falling star is such a beautiful polish! 

What do you think? I have two Barielle's so far, and wear time is just awful! Is that how it is with all of them?

Simple Swatch: My First Barielle

As I mentioned in my IMATS LA post, I not only got a lot of polish from the show, but I stopped by a place that Jen The PolishAholic calls "nail polish heaven" while I was down there. It was only 5 minutes from our hotel so it worked out great! I got like 10 polishes there, and to my surprise they had Barielle! I have no idea where to buy them besides online, so I took advantage of the buy 2 get 1 free deal they had. And I died a little when I found this beauty:

 

 

 

This is Barielle- Falling Star, made back in 2009! It was in a collaboration collection between blogger, All Lacquered Up and Barielle's celebrity manicurist, Elle! I love how so many bloggers have collaborated with nail polish companies, their hard work really pays off. I hope to either do a collaboration or make my own polish line one day! Those are HIGH HOPES. I have been looking into how to go about making polishes though, and I already have a great idea of what my first collection would be!

Okay, enough rambling, and more about this amazing polish. It is a nice thick creme with tiny copper micro glitters evenly dispersed throughout the creme base. I was worried it wouldn't apply evenly through out my nail since the glitters were cluttered in certain spots of the bottle. But I didn't have that problem at all! I applied 2 coats, and they were the perfect consistency, not too thin or too thick. I love that it almost as an indie polish feel to it too!

Hope you love this as much as I do! I hope to wear the other shade I got next. I gave away the third shade to my mom's coworkers daughter. She is being bullied at school so my mom asked if I could get her some fun polishes, and I hooked her up! She even wrote me a cute little thank you card. That was a good deed of the day for me :)

Polish Days: Back To Nature

My second Polish Days. These are a lot of fun! This months theme is Back To Nature since everyone is having a super cold harsh winter. Luckily it isn't too bad over here. There hasn't even been ice on my car in the morning lately! Anyways, here are my nature nails:

As Bob Ross would probably say, "Happy little mushrooms and clouds" But of course my happy little mushroom on my middle finger had to get ruined by my top coat!

I decided to go with mushrooms because they are always fun when they are in bright colors. I wasn't up for doing a crazy tree design or anything. I also tried getting inspiration by looking at some photos from my boyfriend and I's camping trips. We have found some crazy mushrooms! That is the advantages of living so close to the Redwood Forest.

I started off with 2 coats of China Glaze- Sea Spray, which accurately depicts how the sky looks over here right now, therefore not giving me good lighting for my photos!

The colors for the mushrooms are all from the Zoya Surf collection from Summer 2012. One of my favorite collections from last year, and I took advantage of getting 2 more from the Zoya promotion earlier this year! My index finger is one I have been wanting sooo bad, and that is Zoya- Zuza. Such a perfect shimmery blue shade. The other free shade I got in the promotion was the color on my pinky, Zoya- Myrta, a nice coral orange color. My middle finger is Zoya- Rory, and my ring finger is Zoya, Meg. I chose these colors because I used a dotting tool to make the shape, so I knew they wouldn't be runny and go all over the place.

Then I used my Orly Instant Artist striping polishes in Crisp White for the stems, and Hot Green for the grass. I added the grass last minute, I don't like it too much.

And for the white part of the dots on the mushrooms, I used OPI- My Boyfriend Scales Walls. I also used the same shade for the clouds using the watercolor technique.

What do you think? I am already impressed with everyone's designs this month!

Inspire Me Monday

I have had this planned for a while, so lets get right to it!

 

I was obviously inspired by the adorable boxes Lime Crime's polishes come in!

This was the first time I sponged a gradient with more than 2 colors. Man it gave me some trouble! But at least my picture taking hand turned out nice, my other hand is just awful!

I started out with a base color of China Glaze- Light As Air. I love this color. I want to wear it on its own soon! It is the perfect pastel lavender color. Then I used the same color as the lightest sponging color, along with Illimasqua- Jo 'Mina for the medium purple shade, and Anise- Violet Falls in Love for the darkest shade. I was afraid these colors would be to inaccurate, but they turned out to be pretty much dead on!

You can find Lime Crime polishes HERE for $5.99. The only place I have ever found Anise polishes are at DSW stores at the registers. They are really nice polishes!

What do you think? If you want to join Inspire Me Monday, Kelly made it easy to join by commenting HERE. There are only three of us now, so it would be fun if there were more!

Superbowl Nails + Special Guests :)

I did football nails a few weeks ago, and you can see that post HERE. These are pretty much the same, but I like them A LOT more. Here they are:

 

I live in the bay area, so of course I am going to represent the 49ers! 

I started out with a base color of Zoya- Nidhi, which is a ONE COATER by the way! I love that polish. I forgot I was doing an accent nail, so then I painted two coats of OPI- A-Tapue The Space Needle on my ring finger. After that dried, I used the Orly Instant Artist Nail striping polish in Crisp White to make the lines in the football. I think these striper polishes are way over priced! They are more than a normal bottle of Orly, but I am fortunate enough to have a place that sells them for $2.50! 

I was going to use a makeup sponge to do the gradient, but I forgot this polish is glitter, so I just used the brush from the bottle. I used OPI- Golden Eye, the star of the Skyfall collection. It is a really easy polish to work with.

On to the special guests. I took these outside and I usually let my dogs run around. I have featured my favorite kitty, Sleepy, a few times HERE and HERE if you were interested.

 

 Karl and Buddy

Who could deny those adorable little brachycephalic faces? I took this right after poor buddy threw up grass. They try to eat as much grass as possible when they are outside. That is 3 animals down that have been featured on my blog, and 3 more to go!

Hope you enjoy and have fun watching the superbowl! I plan on doing my nails while it is on :)