Emily de Molly's Oceanic Forces

Hi there!  Is everyone as ready for the weekend as I am?  It's been a long week and I'm so glad it's finally Friday.  Plus, I got my Llarowe order yesterday.  What was in that order, you ask?  Only the 2 lemmings that complete my trifecta of lemmingness!  Emily de Molly's Oceanic Forces AND Dark Forces (I already own Cosmic Forces and you can see my swatches of it here)!  You really should have witnessed my victory jig when I got my confirmation email...it was awkward lol 

I'm showing you Oceanic Forces today and Dark Forces will come in a few days.  Ok guys, I'm really not gonna type a lot here, but let the photos speak for themselves...cuz they speak volumes of awesomeness!

If you're unfamiliar with Oceanic Forces, it's a deep teal jelly with large holographic teal dots and two sizes of holographic teal hexes.  The formula here is damn near flawless, opaque in 2 coats although I'm wearing 3 here because I always want MORE DOTS!  Said dots were easily fish-able after turning the bottle upside for a bit. 

Gah!  Seriously, I'm so thrilled to own this polish!  The depth and the sparkle and the color...Oh. Em. Gee. the color!  My advice to you is to never pass Oceanic Forces up if you see it anywhere.  It retails for $13 on Llarowe's site and, if you live in Australia (or know someone who's willing to ship internationally from Down Under), you can purchase from Emily de Molly's Etsy store where full size bottles will run you between $5.69 to $10.44.  EdM does not ship internationally at the moment, but maybe you've got a good Aussie hook up...if you do, I envy you! 

Thanks so much for reading!

Glitter Guilty: In a Roundabout Way or OMG! Look at the dots!! Happy Birthday to Me!

Ok, folks, have I got some loveliness for you today!  I'm so excited about this polish...it's so yummy!  I found Glitter Guilty via facebook (I'm guessing from one of the many giveaways I enter weekly) and immediately fell in love with In a Roundabout Way.  Take a quick peek and I think you'll see why.

In a Roundabout Way is a teal-ish blue jelly completely packed with fuschia, pink, purple, holographic silver, green and blue dots in 2 sizes and liberally sprinkled with fine holographic silver as well.  If you don't own this polish, you should look into remedying that shortly.  Trust me, you NEED this one!

I mean, LOOK AT IT!!  It's squishy and sparkly and full of dots!  Plus it's blue.  That pretty much covers all my check list items.  I used 5 coats here with no undies but, if you're not a crazy person like me, you could definitely layer this over many different colors.  Even using that many coats, I had no application problems.  The formula was perfect, dried quickly and I really did not have to fish for the larger glitters at all, probably because there are just so many of them in there!
 

Glitter Guilty is a new indie brand to me and I've got to say, if all her polishes apply like this one, she's climbing my list of favorites.  It's always exciting to try something new that turns out to be so fabulous!  At $8 for a full size bottle, they're not only fabulous but totally affordable as well.  You can stay up to date on promotions and new products on Glitter Guilty's Facebook page.  

Don't forget to enter my Birthdanniversary Giveaway...the last day is tomorrow (July 18th)!  Today was actually my birthday and I had a pretty nice one.  Lots of birthday love from my family, friends, and facebook lol  I hope you all had a lovely Wednesday, even if it wasn't your birthday ;)  Thanks so much for reading!

Game Day Manicure: Gradients and Polka Dots

Howdy, everyone!  I have yet another K-State manicure to share with you guys.  I know you're not all interested in football, but hopefully you're all interested in colorful nails!  In case you were wondering, my Wildcats won today, 27-21 over Iowa State.  It was a nail-biter (not literally, cuz I don't do that any more)!  

Anyway, it's become a ritual for me to paint my nails purple and white to honor my school's colors. Yesterday, I was lamenting the fact that I was going to be up late to finish my nails and my boss said something to the effect of "Well, then don't do them."  I told her that I HAD to paint my nails because, if I didn't and they lost, it would be all my fault!  I also wear my lucky braided pigtails and a specific t-shirt.  Yes, I know it's all superstition, but it's only weird if it doesn't work!  Ok, how about some photos of my manicure already?

...more after the jump...

25 of 31: Nails Inspired by Fashion

Howdy, everyone!  Gosh this 31 Day Challenge is just whizzin' right along, huh?  We're on Day 25 already, I can hardly believe it!  Today, we are inspired by fashion.  Now I have to admit, I don't know from fashion...I like what I like and that's what I like.  Whether anyone else cares for it doesn't interest me much.  That being said, I am an avid Project Runway viewer and I enjoy clothes overall.  Being in love with Pinterest as I am, I looked back through some of my fashion pins to see what jumped out at me.  Here's what I found:

These tights are from an etsy seller, Gal Stern, whose store can be found here.  I love pretty much everything she has listed even though I do hate to wear stockings myself.  For my manicure on the left, I started with 2 coats of MAC's Black Enough?, a  polish with a matte finish.  Then, using Orly's Luxe and my homemade dotting tool, I added some half moon dots and the pattern on my accent nail.  This is really simple, but I LOVE it!  Black and gold is such a great color combo and I think it's a great complement to the tights.  Whaddya think?

Thanks so much for reading and look out for tomorrow's post, inspired by pattern!

Cynthia Rowley Polished Polka Dots

Howdy, everyone!  I'm so excited about the manicure I have to show you today!  Yesterday, I showed you guys the haul I got from Marshall's and Sally's over the weekend.  Here's a shot of the polish I'm using today.

I wasn't aware that Cynthia Rowley even made polish before I saw these at Marshall's!  They had several colors to pick from, but I'm always drawn to blues so I went with these two.  There are no names for the colors on the bottles so I'll be calling the one on the left Turquoise and the one on the right Bright Blue.  And here's the finished product!

This was such a fun manicure to do and really a lot more simple than it looks.  I found a tutorial on Pinterest, but the link is defunct so I'm unable to credit it to anyone.  If you know who this belongs to:

Please let me know so I can credit them with this awesome tutorial!  It's so easy to see step by step how the dots cross over.  I used tape to create the first diagonals on my nails, but if you're surer with a brush you can just do it how it's shown here.  My nails alternate with Turquoise being the top half of the diagonal on every other nail and Bright Blue being on top for the others.  I can't tell you how much I love this mani!  It's so fun and looks like it took forever.  Quite impressive lol 

As far as how much I like the Rowley polish, I'm about 50/50.  The Turquoise is a standard creme, a pretty color but I feel like I have a few of these in my stash.  The formula was a little thick and kind of gloppy but smoothed out with a coat of Seche Vite.  Not my favorite application.  The Bright Blue seems like it might actually be a jelly, though it was hard for me to tell for sure.  The formula was much smoother and easier to apply.  I LOVE the color!  I don't have a blue this shade yet in my stash so I'm thrilled with this one.

Thanks so much for reading!

Orange You Glad?

Howdy everyone!  I got my Maven Box from Julep the other day, so I have a couple of new polishes to show you.  If you've never heard of Julep, they're a monthly nail polish subscription service.  If you sign up for their Maven program, you can receive 3 polishes plus a free gift every month for $19.99.  It's a pretty good deal and you can choose to cancel your subscription or skip a month at any time.  Currently, they have a deal where you can get your first Maven Box for $0.01 (free shipping also) by using discount code COLOR2012 at checkout.  I promise it works, cuz I've done it. 

In any case, my MB this month included Mischa, a red-orange micro-shimmer; Georgia, a peachy-gold micro-shimmer; and, their surprise polish, a very fun red, silver and blue glitter called America-The Beautiful for the 4th of July.  I'm saving that one for tomorrow when I do my 4th manicure :)  Today, I used both Mischa and Georgia, just to see what they'd look like together and here's what I came up with.

I started with 2-3 coats of Mischa as a base.  She has a good amount of sparkle, does Mischa, though I'm not in love with red-orange on with my skin tone.  Georgia is a little more subtle in the sparkle department, so I decided to tape off some diagonals on my nails and top them off with some dots.  Overall, I like the color of Georgia better, but I'm not loving them together or with this design.  This manicure was kind of a fail for me.  And, you can see, I managed to break my middle finger nail back to the quick.  I had hoped to be able to save it, but it was un-salvageable after all.  It didn't hurt, but it made me sad because I'd finally gotten all my nails to the same length on my photo hand lol

Thanks for stopping by today and check back tomorrow for my 4th of July mani!

Cute Chicks

Hello!  I hope everyone had a lovely Memorial Day holiday.  I've had a much needed two days off in a row and I've been using my free time to relax to the best of my ability :)  In addition to relaxing, I finally got to try a product I've had my eye on for a long time!  Sunday evening, I took a trip to Target.  I was checking out the clearance end cap in Cosmetics and came across some Sally Hansen polish strips for roughly half price!  I've wanted to try these strips forever, but have held off because I've been disappointed in EVERY other polish strip I've tried.  They've either been difficult to apply or have not stayed put at all.  I didn't want to fork over the $10 (approximate) for these if they didn't work out.  So far, however, Sally Hansen's brand out-strips them all (if you'll pardon the pun)!  Here's the result.

Cute little birdies!  I'm pretty sure these are more of an Easter pattern (the strips are titled "Not a Peep"), but I thought they were adorable for any day wear.  The strips have a silver background and the chicks are multicolored in yellow, pink, and blue.  I chose to use the strips on just accent nails and painted the others with 2 coats of a franken between Sinful Colors Unicorn and China Glaze Solar Power.  I was attempting to match the yellow on the birds themselves...not sure if I accomplished it exactly but I still like the outcome.  Unicorn is an opaque light yellow and Solar Power has a bit more punch as well as a subtle shimmer. After a coat of Seche Vite on the yellow, I used my homemade dotting tool to create polka dots with Sinful Colors Folly (which is quite possibly my favorite pink polish ever).   

There's a detail view of the chicks/birds.  I'm never sure which direction to place designs on my nails.  I tend to place things so that they're right side up when I look down on them.  I figure I spend the most time looking at them any way, so I might as well get to see them the right way :)  

I'm planning to put a top coat yet on the accent nails, I've heard that it helps the strips to last longer but I'm actually more concerned that the strips don't have a lot of thickness and my nails feel a little naked.  After years of biting my nails and just general poor care, I'm still unused to their current length.  I'm constantly worried that they're going to break like they used to, so an extra coat of polish helps me feel a bit more secure.

I hope you enjoyed this manicure and thanks for stopping by!

Can't Always Get What You Want

I started this evening with an idea for a manicure. This is not that manicure. I was hoping to create a sort of filigree, antiqued copper look. Didn't really happen. However, I'm not unhappy with what I managed to do.


I believe I have neglected to mention that before painting any color onto my nails, I always use a base coat. It's a good idea to use a base coat underneath any polish as it helps to smooth your nail so polish goes on easier. It also helps protect your nails from staining, so it's especially necessary if you're applying dark, opaque colors. So, with every manicure I do, I start with one coat of Seche Clear base coat. I like the way it works with the Seche Vite topcoat, I feel like I have a lovely, shiny Seche sandwich on my nails!

After applying my base coat tonight, I added two coats of Finger Paints Hue Are You?. On top of that, I painted Sinful Colors Athens in three swipes. The first and middle stripe goes almost to the base of my nail, but I left a little bit of space for Hue to peek through. The second and third stripes on either side of the first sit closer to the halfway point on my nails. I repeated that process with Revlon's Minted and added three dots of Hue to finish it. The whole manicure is topped with Seche Vite, of course, for shine and chip protection. Here's a closer look.


I like the layered look of the polish, but it's so far away from what I wanted that I don't love it. Maybe I'll give it another go tomorrow. See, this is why I can't commit to gel polish. I mean, no chips for 2-3 weeks is great and all, but then it's just one color for 2-3 weeks. That's entirely too long to give to just one color!

In closing, I'd like to leave you with this picture of Tulum beach, down in the Riviera Maya. I was there just a couple of weeks ago and I really would like to be there right now. Such a lovely place :) Have a nice day and thanks for stopping by!