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.

I Got Purple-itis

Good morning, Kitschies! We tried to take the boys to the snow play area on Sunday but that was a big fail.  The snow area was closed for "unsafe conditions" - I don't exactly know what that means but I'm assuming that meant don't go sledding unless you want to run in to big, hard rocks.  And seeing as I've sledded in to my share of hard, inanimate objects, we chose to sled at another place.  It was cold and windy and we didn't have much fun, but Nate *did* enjoy himself for the little time we were out.

Every week, Polish-aholics Annonymous on FB runs a challenge.  I've been participating in the challenges, but I haven't done a corresponding blog post about any of them...until now.  Today's challenge was ombre/gradient nails.  In case you don't know, ombre means having colors or tones that shade into each other —used especially of fabrics in which the color is graduated from light to dark.  Don't worry...I didn't know the exact meaning, either.  Yay!  We learned something today.  You can go back to bed now. :) 

On to the pics, shall we?

I initially tried a white to black gradient, but it didn't turn out so well.  I had to hand mix two shades and it just didn't work.  So, I went back to my Helmer and dug around a bit - and viola!  Here's my purple gradient nails!

In the previous picture, the index and middle fingers look pretty similar, but IRL and in more natural light, they're not quite as close in color.

You can see here that while they're similar, they are not the same.  IRL, Mira looks to dry a bit darker than what you can see in the bottle.  But in all the pics I took to compare the nail to the bottle, they look identical.  Strange.

This is the first ombre mani I've done and I like it enough.  I just don't care to wear a different color on each nail.  It kinda drives me crazy even though I like the effect.

Here's what I used.  If you click on the pic you can read the color names better.

Pinky

Ring

Middle

Index

I didn't get a good bottle/thumb pic, so check out this swatch HERE for a good representation of the color. 

So...there ya go!  What color(s) would you have used if you had done an ombre mani?

I Loves Me a Glitter Sammich

Happy Wednesday, Kitschies!  I was catching up on my blogs this evening and I came across a pink Wednesday post and it made me realize that it was, in fact, Wednesday.  I've been MIA the last few days because we had our first official Winter storm blow through New Mexico between Sunday and Monday.  As a result, the schools were closed (which is good because the roads were not in good shape) and I stayed home with the boys.  Then we heard that the schools were going to be closed on Tuesday.  OK...the roads are still a little icy, so I guess I can agree with that.  So, I stayed home with Nate and the hubs took Mason to daycare.  I ventured out of the house and the snow and the roads weren't that bad - especially once I got down in to the valley.  And *then* I got a text from a co-worker telling me that the schools were going to be closed again on Wednesday because of "hazardous road conditions on secondary roads".  Seriously?!  WTH?!  Luckily, my MIL agreed to take Nate so I could go to work (for the first time in 4 days, which I'm not *really* complaining about).  The roads were fine this morning - a 2-hour delay would've been fine.  ANYway...Nate had fun with his grandma and he got to go to Explora with his cousins and I got back to work.  It has been a long and short week all at the same time.

Speaking of pink Wednesday posts, it was THIS post by Ice Queen's Nail Parlour that made me realize it was Wednesday.  And it reminded me that I have a similar mani to share! 

I'm not gonna lie.  I have *no* idea when I did this mani.  I can tell you it was in the Summer, but beyond that...no clue.  What I *can* tell you is this is OPI Do You Think I'm Tex-y, a really pretty raspberry jelly.  And sammiched in there is Milani Gems.

This was my first glitter sammich mani and I'm impressed that it turned out the exact way I'd hoped.  That doesn't happen very often.

I can't remember *when* I did this one, but I *do* remember getting compliments on this mani.  I remember "this is your prettiest one yet" being thrown around a time or two.

If you've followed my blog for a while, you probably already know I'm not the biggest fan of chunky glitter, but when it's in a glitter sammich or mattified (like I did HERE), I like it a little more.  In fact, I liked this so much, I ran out and grabbed Revlon Royal.  I had been looking for an excuse to pick that one up for some time and I finally found the excuse I needed! 

Now a question for you, my lovely readers.  What is your favorite jelly polish?

Have a great day!  See you again on the other side.

I'm Blue Over You

Happy Monday, Kitschies!  I had a pretty good weekend.  I got to have some alone time with the hubs on Friday night.  We went to dinner then a bar to see one of his favorite bands (Mr Gnome) perform.  It was a super small place, so no matter where we were, we had good seats.  I enjoyed their set and it's always nice to "find" a new group.  Then Sunday, I got to skate!  WOOT!!  I was supposed to go to practice on Saturday but I didn't have my helmet and the woman who has it wasn't at that practice, so I got caught up on some of my shows.  I ended up skating about 9 miles and my legs feel really good despite not having been on my skates a lot lately.  I fell on my butt trying to walk down a hill instead of skating it and now I feel like I have whiplash (FUN!), but other than that, it was a good outing!  LOL

I have a mani that's been sitting in my pending folder for a LONG time.  I couldn't tell you when I wore this.  If I had to guess, I'd say July-ish?  I know...I'm bad.  I'm trying my best to get all my pics prepped - I'm getting there!!  On to the pretties, k?

This is OPI Austin-Tatious Turquoise from their Spring Texas collection.  It's a gorgeous glass-flecked turquoise with a faint shift of purple.  Sorry this pic is so blurry, but it's the only one I got that captures the purple flash.

Here's a flash pic.  It's such a pretty, pretty color.  The downside?  It's super sheer!  I ended up using a base color (LA Colors Static Electricity - a blue creme) and then using at least 2, if not 3, coats of ATT.

Natural light.  I like that this polish changes a bit depending on the light source.  It looks a lot more blue in this pic than turquoise, but no matter what way you look at it, it's great!  It kind of reminds me of a sparkling blue pool.

What do you think of this blue beauty?  Do you own it?  I only picked up this one and Do You Think I'm Tex-y from the OPI Texas collection.  Though I'm thinking about picking up the orange "sorbet", too.

Have a great rest of your day! 

A 4-pack of FAIL

Happy Friday, Kitschies!  It's been one long ass week and I'm glad it's coming to a close. 

I usually play along with Mamarazzi's Friday Confessional, but I don't much feel like confessing, so I'm going to share some nail fail with you.  I guess that, in itself, is a sort of confession.  LOL

These are all manis I wore but wasn't happy with. 

This is a pretty color, but it's not as great as I wanted it to be.  It's OPI My Address is Hollywood from their Fall collection.  It's a work-safe color with just a hint of shimmer.  Maybe I wanted the shimmer to be stronger?  Whatever it is, it just didn't do it for me.  I added the little hearts to try to change my mind about it, but it didn't work.

I liked the idea of this in my head but like so many nail art ideas, it didn't transfer very well from my brain to my fingers.  The color is a neon pink Nina Ultra Pro and then I added lots of black and white dots.  I think the dots ended up looking like bird poop.  This mani didn't even make it out of the house.

I wanted these colors to be closer and create less of a stark transition between orange and red.  These are Zoya Kimmy (red) and Tanzy (orange) from the Sunshine collection (Summer 2011).  I should've used Tanzy and Rica instead.  Anyway...I did some white nail art on these after wearing it for a day, but obviously it didn't impress me enough to take a picture of it before I took it off. 

And one more...

I was on a French mani kick for a while back in August (?).  The hubs has always said he didn't like the typical French look but I tried to do one anyway.  I started with SH White On on the tips and ChG Whitecap to add a bit of shimmer on the nail bed.  I liked it that way, even though the white was so, so stark.  I wanted to soften it up a bit so I added green star bursts with green star rhinestones.  That's where it went wrong.  I didn't like this one at all.  I don't think this one made it out of the house, either.

So, while these aren't fails per se, they're definitely not my greatest works.  Tell me, fellow nail bloggers, do you post your fails or do you keep them hidden from view?