ABC Challenge 'N' - Nails Inc. Sweets Way

Hi all!

Still being a pretty terrible blogger/nail enthusiast but I did manage to find a super old post that coincided with this week's challenge so here it is!

This mani was done in a rush for my neighbor's baby shower and while I truly enjoy the braided nails look, for the love of polish, don't ever use a sheer base glitter polish for the braid. This mani would have been so much better if I would have just used a solid white as an accent nail. Oh well.

Two coats of Nails Inc. Sweets Way, Essie Bikini So Teeny and Bettina Cotton Candy.

Thank you all for still being here despite my slightly irregular/sparse posting and I will answer all your comments soon, it annoys me to no end to have unanswered comments! I'm actually  pre-scheduling this and I'm nodding off as I type so I'm off to bed and feeling productive :D

Have a great day!

Mmm, minty.

Hi all!

Time to get some nail art up in this bit....place. It's been pretty long since I did anything other than polish + glitter so I sat down completely decided on doing some nail art again. Admittedly, my first idea was a fail so I went with a favorite, a gradient and stamping.

Started with a base of Essie Mint Candy Apple and gradiented (totally a word) with Essie Where's my Chauffeur? and Bettina Gabrielle. It's one of the smoothest gradients I've done so far but it was a pain in the ass to get it looking decent, I had to sponge it like 3 different times.

Then I stamped with China Glaze Deviantly Daring and MASH-43.

As you can see, I shortened my nails because I have a break on my middle nail. In these pics I actually have a repair with Orly Rescue (that I'm still wearing until I can file off the damage). IRL, they're a great length for me and I'm not stabbing myself but it takes some getting used to in pictures.

Any comments or suggestions on future nail art or tutorials you'd like to see? Let me know!

Have a great weekend lovelies!

B is for I Love NP Babes in Toyland

Hi all!

I'm abnormally excited about this ABC challenge, I keep looking at my stash for possible colors or nail art techniques I can use in the future. For now, let's look at the last I Love NP shade I have for you, Babes in Toyland!

Babes in Toyland is part of the limited edition Christmas collection and its a super fun glitter topper with teal, blue, green, gold glitters and ROUND fuchsia glitters! Yes, I'm still psyched about round glitters. For today's challenge I've layered it over Bettina Gabrielle so I could have more B's in there.

For the coverage you see above I just lightly dabbed and brushed normally, no fussing with the application or placement of glitters and you can see that you get a very decent coating of glitters that way. I know some glitters might look curled but it's 100% reflective curling, it was actually pretty smooth with just one coat of top coat but I added a second for macro purposes.

You can find I Love NP on Etsy and Facebook. Since I found the brand a couple of months ago, her shop is always stocked and she has amazing customer service. She also has a blog where she shares swatches of her polishes as well as regular manis.

Have a great day and check us out, being all organized and using inlinkz!

*I Love NP polish was sent for review. For more information, please refer to my Disclosure policy*

I Love NP - Purple Stuff Swatches & Review

Hey ladies!

Today I'm showing the 3rd I Love Nail Polish (or I <3 Nail Polish) shade that I have, Purple Stuff. Purple Stuff is"purple, wine, periwinkle, and white glitters along with a dash of white bars" (from I Love NP's etsy shop). I've done two coats over Bettina Camila, though you could get the same coverage from dabbing on a thicker coat instead.

Words cannot explain how much I love this polish. I was actually planning on buying this one (and maybe others) when I got the package from Barbra! I just love purple and I can tell this would look great over lots of different colors. Application was a breeze (as with all I Love NP polishes) and now that I have had them sitting around for a while I can say without a doubt that there is no sinking or bleeding glitter in these. Everything about the brand is high-end quality. Including the packaging!

Each polish comes in their own box with an adorable heart cutout so you can see the label on the front. If that's not your style, both the box and the polish bottle also have labels on the bottom! Also, rubberized handles make everything better. I really can't say enough good things about I <3 Nail Polish.

You can find I Love NP on Etsy and Facebook. Since I found the brand a couple of months ago, her shop is always stocked and she has amazing customer service. She also has a blog where she shares swatches of her polishes as well as regular manis.

Have a great day! (Even though its Monday :P)

*I Love NP polish was sent for review. For more information, please refer to my Disclosure policy*

Glitzology Boy Girl Party & Lulu Bonanza - Swatches and Review

Hi all!

Today I have some indie glitters from Glitzology! I was super excited for these polishes and they did not disappoint. I have 4 more to show you, but for now we'll start with Boy Girl Party and Lulu Bonanza.

Boy Girl Party is a mix of various types of matte blue, red, pink and white glitters. I've shown one coat of BGP over Orly Snowcone. Application was a breeze, the polish is jam packed with glitters so there's no fishing required, I just dabbed on the coat and brushed normally to make it smooth. No problem with glitter just accumulating at the tips though if I let the brush dry out too much it could cause some very minor clumping. Definitely not as bad as other glitters I've tried and so worth it for the result. I didn't even know/forgot that this polish had star glitter until I got one on my ring finger so they're not hard to find.

Next up is Lulu Bonanza. "This polish is a mix of emerald green, matte white, silver and holo silver. It features lots of green glitter, matte white glitter, hexes, and bars, as well as silver and holo silver squares and shreds." (Taken from Glitzology's etsy shop because I suck at describing polishes).

Lulu Bonanza was an unexpected favorite for me! The mix of green, silver, holo and white glitter won me over as soon as I put it on. I've shown one coat over Bettina Ocean and Orly Le Chateau. This polish is a bit thicker than Boy Girl Party but you can still control how much glitter you want on your nails. On my ring and pinky finger I did a more sparse coat and for my middle and pointer finger, I loaded the brush with glitter and dabbed it on.

Though neither glitter felt rough or thirsty, I topped both with Gelous and Poshe just to ensure a glass finish for macro mode and they were both smooth to the touch that way. I'm super happy with these polishes, I had been craving some good glitters and these definitely fit the bill. I keep thinking of layering combinations and the jelly sandwiching possibilities are endless! I can't wait to show you guys the other polishes I have.

Glitzology is having a 50% off sale until Friday the 21st! Just use the code DOOMSDAY50 and you can get full size polishes for $4.25! Her shop is stocked and she ships fast so check her out on Etsy and like her on Facebook to keep up with new polish releases and sales. Also, if you're not a fan of bar glitter, just message Stacy and she'll make the polish without bar glitter. How nice is that?!

What do you guys think? Like the polishes?

*Glitzology polishes were sent for review. For more information, please refer to my Disclosure policy*

Swatch Watch: Bettina Sparkles Swatches & Review

Hi ladies!

Today I have a simple swatch for you. About a month ago, I went into Walgreens in a super rush (don't remember why) but as per usual, I walked in through the beauty department and this new rack of Bettinas stood out. I had never seen the colors before and they were named, not numbered as is the custom for core colors. I assume this is probably the winter collection but I haven't seen anything floating around yet. Anyway, I grabbed this little baby (and maybe one more for a friend) and dashed out of the store in a hurry again.

This pretty is called Sparkles. It has an amazingly buttery two coat formula jam-packed with golden shimmer. I consider the color so pretty that I didn't even add anything on it! The pictures seem color accurate to me, maybe a tad greener. It's a very bright teal aqua color (gosh I'm horrible at describing colors) but the shimmer makes it more subdued and ... elegant? I have no idea, it's just pretty to me.

Beware though, this gave me major shimmer herpes and some staining. The staining was taken care of as soon as I removed it with some whitening toothpaste but the shimmer was only slightly annoying when removing as long as you change your cotton bud between nails and avoid rubbing it all over the place. Just leave it soaking on the nail for a couple of seconds then wipe off!

What do you all think? You like?

Have a great day, you deserve it because you're awesome!

My Flag - Una Sola Estrella Libre

Hello all!

If you saw my last post, you might know I had no idea what to do on my nails for today's challenge. I never really wanted to do the flag of Puerto Rico because...in all honesty, I find plastering your flag everywhere a little tacky. However, there is a very important point I thought I should comment on so I decided to go ahead and do my little island's flag.

I used Essie Blanc, L'Oreal Jet Set to Paris and Bettina 197. 

You may or may not have heard that Puerto Rico held elections Nov. 6, same as the US. In these elections we also held a plebiscite to determine the country's status. We could either remain a Commonwealth ("independent" but associated to the US) or we could vote to become a state. This has caused some extreme confusion for the media.

To be clear, WE DID NOT VOTE TO BECOME A STATE. In truth, the ballot was designed by the pro-statehood party and the numbers were skewed by people who filled their ballots incorrectly and thus they were not counted. However, these news have hit and a torrential outpour of complaints have surfaced on the internet. People stating why we are not ready to become a state and how we, us little simple good for nothing island people, would be a drain on the US economy.

To these people I have to say, I understand the misconceptions you may have about the puertorrican people. To any other people still not convinced, your loss. We have awesome food.

In my honest opinion, I don't want Puerto Rico to become the 51st state. I'm not 100% content with the current status either but, this way, at least I get to fill my heart with pride when I see our little flag waving in events like the Olympics or major sports.

I'm sorry this was so long and I am truly sorry if I offended anyone as I was offended in the last few days. I really just had to get this out somewhere and you all suffered the brunt of my hurt. Hopefully, things can take a turn for the better now that we got rid of the douche governor we had. I can only hope we didn't replace him with another douche (although that's usually the way these things go).

If you're still here and you got through all that mess up there, thank you for reading my ramblings. Now go see some more pretty flag nails!

-Kimber at Kimber's Lacquer Korner
-Kat at Hooked On Polish
-Diana at Nails By Diana
-Aly at Wonderland Beauty
-Meredith at Perfectly Polished
-Nicole at The Color Republic
-Kate at The Painted Pony Nails
-Cee at Absolutely Cee
-Sam at Polished Art
-Nail Narcotics
-Nicole at Nicole Gets Nailed
-Shelby at Shelby's Swatches
-Stephanie Louise at All Things Beautiful
-Mixed Mama
-Joanna @ Sweet Polish of Mine
-Patty Greenberg
-Liz and Lisa @ Lozlosa 
-Mari at Nailista
-Miss L at Beauty by Miss L 
-Gini at Sassy Paints
-Chameleon Stampede 
-Pam at Nail-E-Glance
-Me, Myself, and Polish 
- Robin Sparkles

31 Day Challenge Day 20 - Watermarbling (It's a fail!)

Hey....

So we meet again. You, with your cup of water and polish mess. You with your infuriating and unattainable beauty who makes me feel inadequate. It's you....watermarbling!

Lol, sorry, I'm feeling a little dramatic because I've barely slept. Yesterday was watermarble day and I had a test so it was late last night that I was able to attempt some watermarbling. I warn you, it's not great. What has me extra sad is that my last marble was moderately succesful. Oh well, win some lose some.

For this look I started with a base of white and used China Glaze Peachy Keen and Gothic Lolita and Bettina Ocean. 

Meh. This sums up my feelings pretty well:

Please go see some much better watermarbles by my challenge buddies!

-Kimber at Kimber's Lacquer Korner

-Kat at Hooked On Polish

-Diana at Nails By Diana

-Aly at Wonderland Beauty

-Meredith at Perfectly Polished

-Nicole at The Color Republic

-Kate at The Painted Pony Nails

-Cee at Absolutely Cee

-Sam at Polished Art

-Nail Narcotics

-Nicole at Nicole Gets Nailed

-Shelby at Shelby's Swatches

-Stephanie Louise at All Things Beautiful 

-Mixed Mama

-Joanna @ Sweet Polish of Mine

-Patty Greenberg

-Liz and Lisa @ Lozlosa 

-Mari at Nailista 

-Miss L at Beauty by Miss L 

-Gini at Sassy Paints 

-Chameleon Stampede 

-Pam at Nail-E-Glance

-Me, Myself, and Polish 

- Robin Sparkles

Guest Post at Globe & Nail!

Hey all!

I'm not really here right now... What you're seeing is an illusion. Well, technically you're seeing a preview of the post I did for Emma at Globe and Nail! I did this about a month ago and I'm so happy you finally get to see it because it's one of my favorite manis I've done in a while.

Click on the picture to take you to the full post and, while you're there, you can drool over some of Emma's amazing pictures!

Summer Fun Challenge Day 6 - The Big Blue

Hey peeps!

I have been so hurried lately for some reason, I never seem to be able to do my nails before 11 or midnight so it doesn't really leave me much time for experimenting but I was determined to make this mani work! So determined in fact, that I said screw it all and kept polishing until 4:30am. The boyfriend was soo not happy with me yesterday morning. All he wanted was to get to the beach early and all I wanted (could) do was sleep. We eventually got there and had a great time.

BUT... I think it was worth it! I may have done my most successful watermarble mani yet! It is by no means perfect or up to par with some amazingness I've seen from other bloggers (I'm looking at Kelsie's recent watermarble), but it's my best so far. Mostly because I liked the colors I picked.

Since today is day 6 of Lindsey's (Neverland Nail Blog) Summer Fun Challenge and the theme is anything ocean or water related, I knew from day one I would do a watermarble. Wanna see? JK you're probably already looking at the pictures and not even reading this. It's ok, I won't blame you, I babble.

And a (super awkward) shot of my most favoritest thing ever about this mani: my thumbs! It was so completely obviously not on purpose, but I got a mirror image!

I'm getting better but my problem is I just cannot get the same image on all my nails. Just look at poor pinky sticking out like a sore thumb (badumtss!). Lol, but really. Pinky be trippin'. I did have to significantly trim down my nails too because my pointer and middle finger were all peely and stuffs so I had a sad for a while but this mani totally helped my sadness.

Sorry this was so wordy, have a great day and may your nails never break!

A Window Into My Soul

Wee Friday!

I'm excited for this weekend, if everything goes right and the weather isn't a total bitch, I'm going on a boat this Sunday! I love boating, I practically grew up on the beach around water and boats and I used to work on jet skis so, needless to say, I miss the water sometimes.

I totally forgot what I was going to write because I saw a commercial for some (probably crappy) restaurant with some awesome shots of a delicious guacamole and tacos and now I'm hungry. Oh :(

Anyway, I'm pretty excited about this mani y'all! I've been seeing thess around for a while, Hema did a beautiful interpretation on her blog, Rainbow Nails , the master Sarah at Chalkboard Nails also did a kicking neon one recently, but it was Cee from Absolutely Cee who encouraged me and mentioned that it was actually easier than I thought so I gave them a try. Whaddaya know, they're within my (limited) range of abilities! I present to you my window nails. They're also called frame nails, border nails and other stuff I think, but this is my blog and I like 'window nails'.

They're definitely not perfect by any means and I managed to smudge the pinky during the picture taking process but I really like them! I used Bettina Green Apple for the base and L'Oreal Check Me Out for the middle part. I had read that to do these the easiest is to paint your base first, then tape your tips and paint your center, obviously not taking it all the way to the cuticle. I'm too impatient though so I just did the center then went over the tips again with the green. If your polish is too dense you might want to consider taping lest you make your tips look fat.

In summary, I liked this color combo a lot more than I thought I would. For some reason the pink looked darker or more burnt (if that makes sense) and the green looked almost neon in some shots. So yay for late night experiments that work out!

Thank you for looking and have a great start-of-the weekend !

Spring Challenge Day 1 - Love & Life

Hello again! I'm back with another challenge created by Mateja at Purple Glitters. This time around it's all about spring, soft pastel colors with spring like themes. But with a twist! Dun dun dun!

The idea is we have 5 themes to do with 4 different color combinations. Each combination can only be used once and the 5th mani is going to be Rainbow, for which we use 4 different colors (not necessarily from the previous combinations). It might sound a little complicated but it's really not! Check the challenge page for more info, or if you want to join!

For today we have Love & Life, the most abstract of themes in my opinion. I decided to use the Orange and Pink combo because it's the one I liked the least and I wanted to get it out of the way. Fun fact: I only have one orange polish and one pink polish that I purchased solely for this challenge!

I started with a base of Bettina Cotton Candy and lightly sponged some white on the tips so the orange stamping would show better. Then I stamped with Sally Hansen Sun Kissed and BM-202 (heart), RA-119 (butterfly) and RA-115 (tree and grass).

I'm honestly not 100% sold on the mani itself, but it might be because of the colors. I also wasn't feeling terribly creative so I just did the stamping based on what I found appropriate within the theme. The heart represents love, butterflies represent life (and love because I love butterflies), and of course, the tree and new grass represent how everything comes to life during spring!

Thank you for looking and keep an eye out for day 2 of the challenge "Flowers & Stripes" on Apr. 18! As always be sure to check out the other blogs participating:

Taya

Ducky from I love pretty colours

Sue from Creative Nail Design by Sue

Kat from Hooked on polish

Kelly-Ann from Nail Art by Kelly-Ann 
Riley from Pinky to Thumb 
Aylin from Posh Nail Art
Brianna from Welcome To Brianna's World!
Aurora from World of Happy Nails
Mateja D from Mateji ustvarjata
Nail buff
Moonchild
Anna
Colorfulbottle from Colorful bottle's blog
Thalie from Glazed Talons
Hema from Rainbow Nails
KawaiiKagura from Nailpocalypse
Lady-flover123
Nail Crazy
Mimi from Mimi's Vanity Box