NOTD - Zoya Kelly

Today I wanted to show you guys one of my favorite nail polish colors to date. It's Zoya Kelly. This color is outrageous.

First, there have been a few changes around here :) As you can see my pictures have changed (hopefully for the better). I have been wanting to mess around with lighting etc.. and I finally got around to doing it. With winter here my indoor pictures where horrible. The light color was too yellowish and everything looked like a hot mess lol. Hopefully you guys like this better.

I purchased a light box way back and finally pulled it out. I'm also using white light from an OttLite that gives a more true color. 

These pictures where only cropped and watermarked. Nothing else was done to them. As you can see my watermark has shrank and is now smack dab in the middle of my pictures. Not that I think my pics are all that and will be stolen, but I just prefer that it's there in an obnoxious place lol. 

I absolutely LOVE this color. In bright light it's a medium grey, but in dim light it leans really dark. 

I used the color lock system and it did not dry on me. Many have complained about it in the same way. I fixed that by topping it with my SV UV topcoat and cured it under a UV light. It gives it a gorgeous shine!

I am so glad I grabbed this color, it is a must have Zoya Color!

Let me know how you like the new pictures. Even though this is indoor light too, the color is really true in these pictures.


 


Thanks for visiting!

Christmas Mani - Dear Santa (outdoor)

Just a quick post today ....

I finally got a small peek of sunlight and went running out my house with camera in hand lol. Lately we have had nothing but dreary dark rainy days. This sun was much awaited. 

My Last post I showed you this same mani (last night) with indoor night pictures. These day time pictures really show the true beauty of this polish so I like to show both aspects when I can. 

This polish has the most amazing dimension to it. When the light hits it, you can see layers of glitter and yumminess. I ended up loving how this looks on the nail.

I take a lot of pictures because the polish looks different in various light levels and I love to show that aspect in my photos. 

 

I try not to edit my pictures at all if possible. Most are just cropped.  When I do do adjustments in Picasa 3 it's usually contrast only - which only darkens my skin color some.

I love this color and it seems to be a HTF. Do you guys own this polish? If so, do you like? I would love to hear your thoughts on this one.

Merry Christmas - Happy Holidays

HAPPY HOLIDAYS 

This is a little late. but I wanted to show you guys my Christmas Mani :) Today I used OPI: Dear Santa. I have had this for awhile, but haven't used it til today. I have A LOT of untrieds and it was nice to wear this one finally.

I haven't thought this completely threw, but for 2012 I'm going to attempt to use one untried - once a week. Not sure what day of the week yet, but it mostly likely be Saturdays/Sundays.  This is the only time I see daylight in the Winter for good blog pictures lol. I will continue to purchase and use new polishes but that can be other days inbetween. It's not fully planned out yet, but before the New Year I will announce the details. 

Back on to my nails :)

These are indoor pictures, but It's the best I can do. I usually hate posting indoor pictures.  I was so excited about using this and all my Nail polish related gifts that I just HAD to post.

I used SV Ultraviolet (UV) Top Coat. Kelly Bought me this for Christmas. 

So Sparkly and Glowing!

I figured this was the perfect named polish for today!

Tomorrow I'm going to attempt to take proper pictures outdoors.


Next gift was my New Helmer and Nail Dryer!!! Whooohoo.

I already had one Helmer, but now I have a second one and much more space too. 

Santa was really nice to me this year.

This nail dryer is amazing. It has UV lights AND a Fan. There are three settings:

1. UV Light

2. Fan (Fan Blowing Only)

3. Have Both On.

It also has a timer for 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 minutes.

I used it tonight (along with the SV -UV Top Coat), and I was floored by it's performance. It cured in 7 minutes, and my nails were completely dry in 10. I was up baking cookies and washing my hands after the 10 minutes, and it worked. I highly recommend this. My Dry Drops, SV,  and Posh are BYE BYE gone.


Thanks for visiting and I hope you and your family are having a Happy and Safe Holiday!

Christmas Week NOTD - Revlon Street Wear GRINCH!

I have been looking very forward to using this polish. I got this in a swap a little over a year ago. It's Revlon Street Wear Grinch :) 

I love the Grinch, and when I found out there was a polish named this - I just had to have it lol. 

Please excuse the tip wear in my pictures. This mani is almost 5 days old.  I wanted outside daytime pictures, and it has rained for 5 days straight since I put this on. I FINALLY got to get real outside pictures of it today.

This polish is so dense and sparkly. I can not stop staring at my hands.

I took this in different angles of light so you can see the gorgeousness.

PRETTY PRETTY!!!

ZOOM :)

Thanks so much for visiting guys and def leave comments. I love hearing from you guys!!

Wet n Wild Black with Models Own Mixed Up

Today I wanted to do something really fun. I was going for a night sky look, and I think I achieved it. I started out with Wet n Wild Black. This is truly the best black to use for layering. It's super cheap and readily available at drugstores. My base coat is Essie 'Feed Me' and then a coat of Barielle's Camo. There is no top coat on this, and look how shiny it is!!!!

I took these pictures indoor.  Not my favorite way to take pictures, but I work full time during the week and it is always dark by the time I get home. Darn winter *Shakes fist at Winter* lol!

The next picture makes me giggle. It looks like I have hair, and other foreign things stuck to my nails, but it's really just the glare off the awesome Shine (and remember this is without a top coat)!

I love how easily this applies and how smooth and shiny it is. This is the perfect black in my book. It is opaque in one thick coat or two thin coats (which is what I have done).

I then topped it off with Models Own Mixed Up. Though the Mixed up looks like it's in an opaque black base, it is not. This needs to be topped on another color. You definitely have to wear underwear with this. So far I have only tested it on black. 

I took these pictures outside once I topped it with the Mixed Up. Since it fell on a weekend I got daylight :) I wonder if I'm the only one that goes outside in the cold with a big baggy coat on to take pictures of my hands lol! I'm greatful I live in the country and my neighbors can not see me running around my deck snapping 100 pictures of my hand holding a nail polish bottle.

This came out sooooo Sparkly. I tried my best to capture this with my photos, but IRL they are amazing!!!

It has gorgeous Holo glitter that flashes so many colors (Silver, Green, Blue, Red etc). It looks like a night sky and has an awesome twinkling star effect.

I am very very very pale. Ghostly White to be honest lol. You can see that my fingers are a little red here as it was getting REALLY cold outside. My hands were freezing LOL! I do not Photo Shop my pictures. I only use Picasa 3 to crop, straighten and sometimes do auto contrast. I usually just straighten and crop as I'm too lazy to do much of anything else - ha. I also add titles when needed. 

I also topped this with a coat of Barielle's Manicure Extender, and it has been shining ever since (I did the Black Mani on Friday and then topped it with Mixed up and Manicure Extender on Saturday and took pictures)

Thanks so much for visiting!

NOTD - Back Alley Deals

I was out in Kansas this past weekend to catch a football game, so I took these pics in my hotel room. I just had to take pics right away lol. I ended up liking this polish so much more than I thought I would. I could not stop staring at my nails lol. 

When the light hit it - it was sparkle goodness!!!

 

I did not use a flash for these pics and I tried to stand near a window to catch natural light. Sorry for the bit of orange overcast. Hard to take pics in a foreign place away from home.

The camera can not capture the true beauty of this polish. LOVE IT!

I hauled a ton of polishes while I was out there and I will share them as soon as I can.

Thanks for visiting, and happy polishing all :)

NOTD - Vampire State Building

This weeks nail color choice was a bit of a mind bender lol. I was trying to think what would be a good fall color for the next few days (before my Thanksgiving nails) and also be a good color to celebrate the release of TWILIGHT :)  A polish for both maybe?

After digging threw over 350 bottles of nail polish (LOL). I came up with my OPI: Vampire State Building.  YIPPEEEE - PERFECT!!! A beautiful fall color and VAMPIRES, combining the upcoming Thanksgiving Holiday and the release of Twilight perfectly.

I can not stress how much I love this polish.  Both the color and the consistency is out of this word. This has to be the best consistancy EVER!!! Out of all my OPI nail polishes, other brands, even Pricey brands (RBL's etc) this beats them all hands down.  This stuff goes on effortlessly. I wish every polish could be like this one. 

This color is so unique. Now I know a lot of you are thinking, "Wait, that's a dupe to MOLBBQ - Mrs. O'learys BBQ from OPI".  I do not own MOLBBQ, so I wasn't sure myself ...so off I went on my quest to find this polish lol.  I wanted to do a comparison swatch to show you the similarities/differences.  I searched high and low, and no luck in my local area.  I guess I want to kick myself for this, in the past I have seen MOLBBQ in my local stores (not too long ago) and passed it up *slaps forehead* lol.  My quest will continue til I find it lol. 

Meanwhile, the best I can do is show you other comparisons that others have done. I found a really good comparison at Keethamina Pretty Ballerina Blog.  At first glance they may look alike, BUT look closer.  MOLBBQ definitely has purple undertones and VSB as brown as it's undertone. As we all know in the nail polish world, dupe is defined as an EXACT MATCH.  That means your eye's can not decipher between the two. I can see a difference, thus not a dupe in my opinion. (PS. Keethamina Pretty Ballerina is an awesome nail blog - a great one to follow - her nails are gorgeous). 

On to my manicure lol (phew that was long) :O) 

It makes me so excited to use VSB , since it's so amazing!!! 

  I used OPI Start to Finish as my Basecoat, 2 coats of VSB, and Start to Finish as my Topcoat.

When I track down MOLBBQ, I will be back for my own comparison!

Stay tuned for Thanksgiving nails :)

Soap Giveaway

Hey Guys,

I'm not sure you saw my haul video on A life Deliberate Soap Haul (2 posts down) but Lori the owner is giving away soaps wooohooo - ones no longer available and that were sold out on her site. Check out the details below. Just follow the instruction in her video to enter to win :)

Video on Nail supplies I use for a Manicure and NOTD!

Hello,

I'm back so soon lol. I decided to update my nail supplies I use when I do a manicure. Once I started pulling out the items I realized I had a ton and this post would have been 10 pages long lol. 

Instead I did a video on all my supplies I use - so much easier and easy to get threw:

PART ONE

PART TWO

Hope you guys enjoy these video and let me know if you wanna see more.  If you are using something that I have not mentioned, would love to know what it is! 

Thanks for visiting.

OPI Route Beer Float

As promised. I got my nails done before the end of this week. Yipeee *Happy Dance*.  Now since I haven't done my nails at all since January of the beginning of this year when I cut my finger bad, I realized I'm wayyyy behind on all the new 'IT' nail polishes and anything new in general lol.  I decided to bring out an old school HTF polish that I have in my stash that I thought would be perfect for the FALL :) 

Please do not look too close at my cuticles or my polish job. This is the first time I have touched them in many many months so the cuticles are going to take some time to bounce back.  I'm going to have to work on my polishing job. This is not like riding a bike, it takes time to get good at painting your nails and lots of practice. In some pics you can tell the cuticles are really red from me poking at them after them not being touched for so long.

I NEVER cut my cuticles but there were 1 or 2 spots that I just had no choice. I figure in a few weeks after I make cuticle oil and creams regular again they will drastically improve.

Now for .....OPI - Route Beer Float

I got this in a swap a long long long time ago. I'm talking years ago  - at least 2 years back.  I don't even remember who I got it from.  I wish I had kept better records. From now on when I acquire a HTF I will be keeping notes.

My fingers are a bit shiny in some shots cuz I have drying drops on. I was so excited that I finally got my nails painted again - I JUST HAD to take pics right away - I could NOT wait lol.

 I got a little small window of opportunity today to run outside on my deck and get some shots outside. It was so windy out there and overcast - I did what I could :) The light wasn't the best at times. It was changing so quickly.

I was trying to get the sun and got shiny finger shots instead lol.

I have to say I love this color.  It was tough to capture, but it's a beautiful deep brown. In some bright light I swear  I almost seem to catch a purple look, and when I look closer its back to looking fully brown lol.  It is soooo super pretty.  In has a vintage look to me.  In Indoor light it's just a gorgeous deep brown. 

I just think this is the perfect fall brown. It reminds me of fall and the brown leaves on all the trees.  It also makes me think of Thanksgiving - so I just thought this was perfect for this week.

I took a ton of pictures - Can you tell I was excited to finally paint my nails again lol!

I even took some pictures inside to show you the different color casts. Plus it was so windy while I took my outside shots I was sure none of those would actually come out haha. I took them near a window to try and get the natural color of the polish.

Thanks so much for visiting today. I think you guys are going to start seeing more of me lol. Now that my nails are polished I can't even imagine how I could have gone so long with bare nails.

No Nails - But Soap Haul :)

Hey everyone, 

I know it has been months and months that I have been here, and believe me  I feel really horrible about it. I had a terrible accident in January that started off my year terrible. I cut my hand really bad and it took most of 2011 to get everything right. I still have nerve damage etc.... and it really discouraged me. I stopped painting my nails, as it was hard to paint them with a none functioning right hand.  That was followed by a bad eye infection, THEN followed by an infected tooth that was weeks and weeks of pain. What a 2011!!!! I will be anxious for this year to be over LOL. Too many bad things that kept me away.

I have fallen so behind in polishes and have missed so many releases and new things that it's tough to catch back up. The last several weeks I have been reading blogs and MU and trying to figure out all I missed - A LOT!!!! HAHAHA. SO MUCH.

I almost painted my nails yesterday and then got unexpected guests. I put a goal on myself that my nails NEED to be painted some time before the end of this up coming week.  I have some ideas on colors that are great oldies but goodies that will do the trick! You guys won't miss it - I promise to take pictures and share :) 

I did do a recent soap haul and I wanted to share that with you all. It's not a Lush one (I know I know lol).  I really wasn't a Lush soap junkie ever (I LOVE  LOVE there bath bombs and bubble bars), just not a fan of there soaps. There SO expensive for so little and a lot of them don't hold there scent well or don't lather well. I started researching Youtube and found several Etsy and Artfire Homemade Soap sellers that are really amazing soap makers. 


The company n the spot light today is A Life Deliberate Soap Company.

I created a youtube video, my first haul of any kind. I sound a little dorky, but it sure was fun to tape. Oh and no razzin me hehehehe, I have NO polish on *blushes*.

Thanks for visiting and still continuing to follow :)

I'm Alive!

I'm alive - I SWEAR!!!! :)

It's been a crazy crazy 2011 and I'm wanting to get back to posting here.  For my followers you all know several months ago I cut my finger (3 posts down). It was s silly cut but it was very painful.  WELL I hate myself for complaining about it....I think what happened after that was pay back for me whining over a small cut.

December 31, 2010 (New Year's Eve) I was in the Kitchen washing glasses. I did NOT have my rubber gloves on. I know I know, I hear the gasps now lol.  Just one of those stupid moves you make when you are in a rush. I was washing a glass and cleaning the rim (all that super awesome lip gloss that ends up on your glass rim LOL).  I was cleaning the rim and the glass popped on me and cut me instantly. I WAS SO SHOCKED (Now, 3 months later, it still shocks me when I think about it). I couldn't even look - All the blood that was everywhere told me it was very bad.  The front of my shirt and jeans where nasty within moments. The kitchen counters and sink where covered in red.

Needless to say I was rushed to the ER, it was that bad.  RESULT: I cut my entire right hand pinky open :( Sliced it completely.  I got 7 or 8 Stitches all up and down my pinky and the side of my hand.  When I think back now I know I was in shock for days after that.  The first few days I couldn't even move my whole arm. That's how bad it was.

Well it depressed me so much that I stopped doing my polish. I actually couldn't :( The first month I couldn't even wash my hair. Thank god for Kelly washing and helping me to fix my hair that whole month else I wouldn't even be able to look normal. The stitches came out after 10 days but the cut was nowhere healed. 

Month 2 (February) was a little better, but not by much. Normal hand functions where complicated. I couldn't write or hold a pen well, I couldn't do any of that normal stuff.  Just managing my hairdryer and hairbrush in each hand was a challenge alone. I do cards and I was struggling for hours to to hold the markers and do my whole process. I just plain ole stopped doing nail polish :( 

It is now month 3 (March) and it's much better, but still not 100%.  It still hurts a lot and gets sore a lot in that hand, but I can do things a lot easier now.  I have been really wanting to get back into polish and pick up from where I left off - YIPPEEEEE. The old habits and urges are coming back! Just before this all happened, I had purchased Wing-it with my Swagbucks money. I got a free polish and couldn't even use it. Now how sad is that?! LOL!!

For those of you who are interested I'm going to include a photo after the jump of my cut finger right after the stitches where put in at the ER. I had my iphone on me and took a snapshot.  

 

PLEASE DO NOT CLICK THE 'READ MORE' LINK BELOW UNLESS YOU HAVE A REALLY GOOD STOMACH AND CAN HANDLE GOREY STITCHES AND STUFF LIKE THAT. THE PICTURE IT IS VERY VERY VERY GRAPHIC!!!!! 

I REPEAT - THE PICTURE AFTER THE JUMP IS GRAPHIC AND SHOWS MY CUT AND STITCHES so I would really appreciate it  - that if you decide to look - you don't get mad at me for posting a graphic gore picture like that LOL!

For those of you that stop reading here, I will be back soon to post more Nails Stuffs - yippeeee.

For the brave souls here - Click the READ MORE link below...