February Review

Hey-yo!  What's happening?  Lot of the same around here.

Like I promised last month, here I am with a review of the manis I wore during February.  It's gonna be a long one - hold on tight!

We'll start off the month in review with ChG For Audrey with OPI Pirouette My Whistle.  I lemminged after that glitter for a while - it's perfect for a bit of sparkle on top of pretty much any color.

February is all full of hearts and flowers, and because of that, I went with a couple different pink looks.  This is Zoya Reece.  Gorgeous pink with green-gold flash.  This was one of my first Zoya purchases.  I added the last pic to show how strong the green-gold flash can be.

OPI Black Cherry Chutney - another long-time lemming.  This is such a gorgeous, glowy (in the right light), vampy color.  This mani only lasted one night because...well...it didn't survive a night of pretty rowdy drinking.  And that's all I've got to say about that.

My first Butter London: Lady of the Muck.  Pretty cornflower blue with just a touch of shimmer.  I added pink and white striping for decoration.  The wear on this was decent but it didn't impress me enough to rush out and buy a bottle.

Marble time!  Makeup Zombie hosted a pink and red challenge around Valentine's Day and I knew immediately what I was going to do.  This is Color Club She's So Glam with Zoya Alix.  I topped it all off with ChG Fairy Dust (because you can never have too much sparkle).

Around Christmas when all the good sales were happening, I grabbed a trio of polish from Glitzology.  This one immediately caught my eye: Nebula.  Sheer black jelly with micro holo, hexie holo, AND holo stars?!  SOLD!!  I used two layers over Zoya Noot, a super dark green-grey. 

This was probably my least favorite of the group.  These are Zoya Tiffany (pink-peach) and Crystal (blue).  What I love about both of these is the gold flecks - it really makes the blue gorgeous.

And now, the best two of the month...

AEngland Tristam (royal blue holo) and Dragon (Kelly green holo).  These are gorgeous in person - I could not capture the holo correctly to save my life.  I could see myself wearing these much more frequently if they didn't chip like a biatch...and that's even with using Nfu Oh Aqua Base.  So, so pretty.

Color Club started coming out with some killer holos.  THANK YOU COLOR CLUB!  This is Cloud 9, a gorgeous, super strong pale pink holo.  I've seen the second collection and they're just as pretty as the first.  Want. them. all!!

There ya go...the whole month of February.  Which is your favorite?  Any suggestions/special requests for March?

Misc Nails 2012 - Part 2

Good day, Kitschies.  I'm back for another installment of random manis from 2012 that I found when trying to clean up my desktop.  Good times.

You can find Part 1 HERE. 

And now for Part 2.

Starting off strong with Zoya!  This is Jem and Aurora.  I am so glad that holos are making a comeback because each one is more beautiful than the last.

Pretty glitter gradient using a black creme base (don't remember which one, exactly) and Walking on Broken Glass from the Ulta mini collection Glazed and Confused.  I liked this collection so much that I picked one up for a polish exchange thing I do every month. 

I am embarrassed to admit that I have no idea what this color is.  I want to say it's a China Glaze but damned if I know.  How horrible is that?  *sigh*  I can tell you that I didn't think there was enough little tiny purple glitter so I added a coat of Milani One Coat Glitter in Twinkle.

Maybeline Downtown Brown.  I want to like this color, but I don't.  It's so pretty in the bottle but just does not deliver for me.  It's a red-based brown with a teal flash.  The formula was HORRIBLE and I just couldn't get it to cover completely.  I searched for a month for this color (it was LE) and I am disappointed I found it.

NerdLacquer Event Horizon.  Hello, gorgeous!!  I've heard rumblings of NerdLacquer coming back but nothing concrete.  I hope she comes back - she had the BEST nerd-tastic polishes.  This one finished a little bumpy but an extra coat of topcoat cleared that up, no prob!

This was a second Halloween mani.  I started with a base of OPI Here Today...Aragon Tomorrow, a green so dark, it's almost black, and sponged on Zoya Ivanka for a glitter gradient.  I love glitter gradients (if you couldn't tell).  I wore something very similar to this for Halloween 2011. 

I have a very love-hate relationship with matte polishes.  It seems the only way I can handle them is if there's chunky glitter on top...like this.  The green is actually a matte polish: Zoya Veruschka.  The glitter is one of my faves: China Glaze Party Hearty.  Great combo for Christmas!

Don't worry...there might be more...I have more cleaning to do!  Hope you liked them.

Misc Nails 2012 - Part 1

Hello, again!  I went through some of my manis from 2012 and I thought I'd share some of them with you now. 

Ready for lots of pictures?  I'm splitting this up in to two parts because there were quite a few pictures and I didn't want to overload you all in one sitting.

Part 1

Orly Snowcone with KleanColor Blue Holo as an accent.  I waited a long time to get Snowcone and I have no idea why.  It's super pigmented and *bonus*, it doesn't stain!  A big thank you to Nailstah for the KleanColor way back in 2011.

Zoya Evvy (dark green-grey creme) and Zoya Quinn (deep berry).  The contrast of these colors was really great IRL...couldn't exactly capture it in pictures.

Zoya Bevin (mint) and Zoya Kristen (blue-based grey) with a little NYC Love Letters for some sparkle. 

Color Club Revvvolution (black holo), Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Orange Crush, black striping polish and a bit of silver holo glitter to give it some pow.  Obviously, this was a Halloween mani.  I was feeling kind of uninspired for Halloween this year.

Milani Violet Dash (purple creme) and Milani Jewel FX Lavender as a glitter gradient.  I wore this for the first annual Southwest SparkleCon 2012 as organized by Makeup Zombie.  SO much fun meeting some new sparkle friends!!

A plastic wrap mani using a pale pink (I haven't a clue what it was) and China Glaze Designer Satin.  Super easy mani with maximum bang for your buck.  I loved this one!

And last, but definitely not least, a really pretty water marble using Zoya Anja (purple) and Zoya Midori (green).  This is the first marble I'd done in a while and I was happy how it turned out.  I really like how some of the green faded in to the purple.

I don't usually post makeup pictures but I wanted to share this one.  I did this as my look for a derby bout in October.  This is Fyrinnae Velvet Vampire (red) and Raven's Prophecy (black).  This look took me FOREVER but it turned out just like I wanted it and it was so pretty with gorgeous sparkle (that I couldn't capture). 

Stay tuned for Part 2 - coming soon!

January 2013

I'm not announcing my comeback, I'm just going to say...I have some pretty polishes to share with you.

With everything I have on my plate, I just can't blog like I used to.  I still do my nails (all the time) and I usually take pictures of them, but I rarely get the time to sit down and edit the pictures.  My plan, right now, is to compile my manis over the month and share them with you, in bulk, at the end of the month.  Sound good?  Here we go.  And, like always, all pics are clickable to make bigable!

This was my New Years mani.  It's kinda Christmas-y and it's all Winter.  I started with a base of Milani Juno.  Then, using BM14, I stamped snow flakes using ChG Designer Satin and a random white.  To finish it all off, I applied a layer of ChG Snow Globe for a little extra sparkle.

I picked up this gorgeous polish at Ulta while on a "we gotta get out of the house NOW" trip with the bestie.  I don't usually even look at the Layla polishes because they're pretty pricey, but this happened to be on sale (and I had a coupon).  Layla Ceramic Effects Green Galaxy (CE 54) is a gorgeous, gorgeous deep green jelly with green micro glitter, small round green glitter and big green hexies.  This polish wore like iron - definitely worth the money!

I was feeling in a nail funk when I did this and it snapped me out of it right away!  I started with a base of Revlon Royal (probably one of my top 10 fave polishes ever).  After that, I stamped the pretty flowers using Orly Snowcone and BM224.  I added pretty purple rhinestones in the center of one flower on each nail.

I did this one originially for a "glitter" challenge for a FB group I'm in, but I couldn't get a good picture of it.  You can't go wrong with a classic red nail!  This is Zoya Alix with Milani Glitter FX in Red.  The Milani claims to be "one coat" but for this much coverage, I started with a coat of Alix and then layered 3 layers of the glitter.  That's not what I'd call one coat!  I wore this for 4 days and love it.

This is what I ended up using for the glitter challenge.  Let me tell you...this is a mess polish!  I started with 3 coats of Orly Fowl Play then added a coat of Finger Paints Twisted (I loves me some flakies!).  And because that wasn't enough, I ended up using a coat of Milani Jewel FX in Twilight.  I am NOT looking forward to removing this (can you say "foil method"?).

So...there's January.  Maybe...if you're lucky...I'll post a review of a couple manis from last year later!

Randomness

*peeks out*  Hey, there Kitchies!  How the heck are ya?!  I've been busy (yeah, shocker.  I know.)  I thought I'd take a few minutes and share some random manis with you today!  Ready?  I have no idea when I wore any of these.  Sorry about that.

This is one my top 10 favorite polishes.  Revlon Royal is a gorgeous, squishy royal blue jelly.  I made it jelly sammich with Jordana Pixie Pink glitter.  I loved this!

I caught flakey madness like everybody else did when Finger Paints released their flakey collection.  This is Orly Charged Up with Finger Paints Twisted.  You can't go wrong with a good flakey polish, but this mani was just kinda meh to me.

Zoya Faye.  I want to love this.  Really, I do.  But I just...don't.  I want the rosy purple to show through more.  Most of the time, all you can see is the bright gold glass flecks.  It is a pretty polish in theory.  Just give me a *little* more purple...please.

This was better in my head than it was on the nail.  The green is Sinful Colors Mint Apple.  I don't remember what the blue is, but it's a pretty sky blue with just a touch of shimmer.  Maybe a Milani?  Yep.  I'm pretty sure it's Milani Beach Front.  The flowers are Milani White on the Spot and Yellow Whiz (worst. polish name. ever.).

I don't usually like white nails because they're so stark.  But, when you pair it with a pretty glitter and make it a gradient, it's a win for me!  This is Milani White on the Spot with Fuchsia Jewel FX.  I say I don't like glitter because it's such a PITA to remove, but looks like I use it pretty often when you lump manis together like this.

There ya go!  Hope that holds you over for a little while.  Sorry I've been so sporadic with posting - life doesn't slow down anymore.  Be back soon...?