China Glaze 5 Golden Rings

Hello everyone!  I'm so sorry for my sporadic posting this past month or so.  I don't want to turn into one of those bloggers that just disappears from existence!  Life has been crazy, plus getting ready for the holidays with 2 little ones...I'm sure you all know what I mean.  Thanks again for sticking with me!!!

5 Golden Rings was released last year as part of China Glaze's "I Love You Snow Much" holiday collection.  The collection also contained Ruby Pumps, Emerald Sparkle and Tinsel, which I already had.  Luckily I happened to catch 5 Gold Rings on it's own at Sally's after the holiday.  Sad part is, I didn't actually wear it until a few weeks ago! 

The base is a VERY pale yellow and contains a mix of pale gold shimmer and darker gold glitter.  I have 4 coats on in these images and was quite pleased with the coverage.  The other plus is that the wear was phenomenal.  I think it was about 3 days before I even saw a chip!  This was released as a limited edition last year, but it's still available online at places like victorianailsupply.com or head2toebeauty.com.

Have a great day!

China Glaze Fortune Teller

I think this may be my absolute favorite Halloween nail polish!!!  Fortune Teller was a Sally's Beauty Supply exclusive last year...believe me when I say that I STALKED my Sally's for this!

Fortune Teller has a black base and multi-sized orange glitter.  There is small and large hex glitter, plus regular glitter. 
I'm wearing 3 coats of Fortune Teller and on my accent nail I have 2 coats of Wet N Wild Black Creme and decals from the Cina Nail Creations: Haunted Nights Nail Art Decals pack (picked it up at Sally's this year).  R picked out which decals I would wear.  He's so funny when I do my nails.  He gets really into it and loves to see the colors.  :)
It's a busy Halloween weekend for us...R turns 4 on Halloween, and my parents are coming in to visit.  I hope you all are well...Thanks for stopping!

China Glaze Spellbound

I picked this up last year...not sure if it's still available or not...I'm thinking it was limited, but if someone can let me know, I'd appreciate it. 

Spellbound has large silver glitter (very smooth and shiny) and small and hexagonal orange glitter.  I'm wearing 3 coats in these pictures.  It's meant to be a topcoat, but I honestly like it on it's own...I think it's a bit too dense for a topcoat.  I think I've mentioned it in the past, but my only complaint is that since it's a glitter, the wear (for me at least) is terrible.  I don't change my nail polish everyday...I like to get a good 3 to 4 days before I see chipping...this usually starts chipping at about 2 days.  And it's not little chips...it's more like chunks.  But again, it's a glitter, and that's what they do.  It's really pretty, don't you think?  My camera had a hard time focusing, so these are a bit blurry, but you all get the idea!  ;-)

This for stopping!!!! 

Zoya Ivanka

I didn't get the chance to post yesterday.  I've been so busy this week between school and a Scentsy party I was supposed to do today.  But the hostess called me last night and cancelled.  I was a bit bummed about that I just didn't feel like doing much of anything.

I was looking through my pictures and found these images of Zoya Ivanka that I took over the summer.  I have NO idea why I never posted them on here. 

I have 3 coats on in these images.  Ivanka is a green glittery shimmer with flecks of gold.  You can see the gold sparkling here and there in the above image.  At certain angles you can see a bit of blue duochrome, but I didn't seem to capture it very well.  But the best part?  It's green!!!!  What is it about green nail polish that gets so many of us excited?  :)

You can tell this is older, my nails are longer.  Anyways...Ivanka was released this past summer with Charla in the Sparkle collection.

China Glaze Meteor Shower

Meteor Shower is part of China Glaze's special edition Glitter, Shimmers, and Cremes that came out last year.  There are 50-ish polishes in this collection (please correct me if I'm wrong).  I do have a bunch, but not nearly all of them.  They're still available too!

Meteor Shower has a blue jelly base and TONS of multi-colored, multi-sized and shaped glitter.  It's a chunky glitter...I have on two coats of Nubar Diamont in these pictures and you can still see how rough it is.

I'm wearing 2 coats of polish in these images.  It's definitely enough coverage, any more and you would start to have major chunky chippage.  It's such a fun color, isn't it?

I do want to get more of these, and I'll definitely post them as I do, I'll also have to dig through my stash to see how many other's I have from this collection.  The Nailphile has swatched them all and has a nice page dedicated to them as well.  Take a look!

Thanks for stopping!

China Glaze Cowardly Lyin'

Cowardly Lyin' is a part of China Glaze's Wizard of Ooh Ahz collection.  I was completely unaware of this collection when it was originally released in 2001.  I did not have my current level of obsession for all things nail polish at the time.  I lived in a town that was about 30 minutes from anywhere up in NY...had just gotten married and was sporting *gasp* acrylic nails.  I'm so glad that China Glaze listened to their fans and re-released it!

Unfortunately for me, Cowardly Lyin' just doesn't look that good with my skin tone.  I think it's so pretty though, and I'm not that much into gold nail polish (probably because they look like crap on me)!

Cowardly Lyin' is a very pretty, light gold with tiny gold glitter particles. 

It's quite sheer...I used 4 coats and still had visible nail line, although you can't tell as much in the pictures.  You'll want to click on the images to see the detail of the gold glitter.  Very pretty! 

Thanks for stopping by!

Sally Hansen Laser

This past spring Sally Hansen released 8 more shades into their HD collection.  Laser was part of that release.  This color SCREAMS me.  It's blue, glittery and duochrome!  I wore this polish as a mani for about a week, and had such a hard time NOT looking at my nails!

Laser has a dark blue base, with glitter that gives flashes of purple.  In the right light it looks more purple than blue.  If you click on the images you can see a bit more detail.  I think I picked up the flashes of purple, although I wish you could see it more.  In my pictures you can only see it in the bottle, but in real life it's very evident on the nail as well. 

I needed 4 coats to get even coverage.  The polishes released in this collection are sheer, but buildable colors.  If you are into layering (I'm really not) then you'll love these! 

Thanks for stopping by!

Zoya Charla

Well, I was going through my pictures and found some that are pre-nubbin.  I admittedly didn't take very good care of my nails last week with the fair.  There was some labor involved and I was REALLY tired.  They're probably not going to grow fast enough for me to get them past my tips before I swatch again though.  I guess worse things have happened, right?  :-P

Charla is part of the Zoya Sparkle collection, released this summer.  It's been described as mermaid scales in a bottle.  I think it's pretty darn accurate.

Nothing I can say can do Charla justice...it's SOOOO gorgeous!  I practically drooled over this color once I got it in the exchange.  I accidentally left it home when I went on vacation last month, so it sat here for 2 weeks waiting for me...such a crime! 

I used 3 coats.  Wear was great, as always.  Even though it's glitter, it wasn't a pain to take off...so greatness all around! 

Thanks for looking!

Sally Hansen Hidden Treasure

Sally Hansen's Hidden Treasure is a limited edition polish (part of their Complete Salon Manicure line).  I thought that I would NEVER find it in my tiny town.  We just NEVER get the limited edition stuff here.  But low and behold, a spur of the moment trip to our Rite Aid scored me TWO bottles!  I just couldn't believe it when I walked in the door and found the display completely full!

I wore this recently over Urban Decay's Apocalypse (I plan on swatching this on it's own soon as well).

This is only 1 coat of HT over Apocalypse.  Once I put HT on, you couldn't tell that the polish I was wearing it over was purple, it made it look more black.  I got SO many compliments on this mani...I very rarely have people notice my nail polish, besides students that is.  I was very happy, and I love HT so much that I kept my second bottle.  It's the only polish that I have a back-up of at the moment!

Thanks for stopping by!

Zoya Jo

So I haven't really posted anything this past week.  I've been fighting the flu.  Not fun, let me tell you.  My body always decides to get sick when I'm done with school for the summer.

Recently I wore Zoya Jo as a mani.  I think I've mentioned before that I LOVE Zoya.  I love their colors, and the polish wears so well for me when I use their Color Lock system.  This mani lasted a week with little more than some tip wear.  This is three coats of Jo:

Jo is more of a cornflower blue than this picture shows.  My camera picked up more purple for some reason.  It has a subtle silver shimmer.  So pretty!  Here is a close-up:

I wore this around the time that I picked up Sally Hansen's Hidden Treasure, so of course I had to put a coat on top to see what happened:

The picture is a little blurry because I really tried to get a good close-up, but you get the idea.  Jo picked up some really pretty pink and gold shimmer in the flaky glitter in Hidden Treasure.

I'm waiting for my Zoya Exchange package to get here as well.  I have 12 polishes coming in that one.  I'll post pictures of it all when it gets here.

Have a great Monday!

NOTW - China Glaze Emerald Sparkle

I wanted to be green for St. Patty's day, which is why I chose this mani. I LOVE China Glaze. I get better wear from it than I do OPI, and it's cheaper....can't beat that. This color was introduced with this past holiday season's "Sleigh Ride" set along with the much loved Ruby Pumps and Tinsel. Everyone went CRAZY for this color, as it's a green version of Ruby Pumps and just as amazing. It's kind of HTF, although as far as I know, not discontinued.

Onto the pics. I had a hard time this week finding a nice sunny day, so these were taken in indirect sunlight:

Thanks for looking!

NOTW: Icing Signature Runway

I've own this bottle of nail polish for well over a year, I think I bought it in December 2007 (how I remember that, and not what I did 5 minutes ago I'll never know). This is my first time using it. I usually have problems with Icing bubbling, but not this time. It's holding up very well and still looks great. I did my mani on Sunday, and it still looks almost like new. I'm just now starting to get some tip wear. Can't complain about that. It's a very sheer color, takes at least 4 coats to get bottle color, maybe more, so I layered it over black.

This picture doesn't really do it justice...the red glitter really has a fire-like glow. This has been compared to China Glaze's Lubu Heels, and while I have yet to do my own comparison, I think Lubu Heels is a little more opaque.



























I think this picture shows the glitter a little better:





















Icing nail polish can be found at Claire's/Icing stores.


Thanks for looking!

NOTD - Zoya Kotori

Zoya is one of the brands of polish that the lovely ladies at the MUA board introduced me to. I LOVE the unique colors that this brand sells. The unfortunate thing for me (and I've heard, some others) is that it is notorious for chipping. When I bought my first bottles of Zoya, I also purchased their Color Lock system (minus the new Ridgefiller, it wasn't out at the time) because it has been said that this is the only base and top coats that you can use with success. My thing is that when I used it, I got terrible bubbling...probably because I didn't give enough dry time between coats. That and I'm so used to WONDERFUL Seche Vite that I wasn't prepared for the amount of time that I would need to for my mani to dry. I then tried Zoya with my HG's, Orly Bonder and Seche Vite. It chipped the next day. Badly.
With this mani I again used Zoya's Color Lock system. With a little patience it does work quite well. I DID have to top it off with Posche (I find it doesn't shink dried polish as badly as Seche does) because even after a few hours my nails were tacky. I was afraid to go to bed!
On to Kotori. I LOVE this color!!!!! I'm having a hard time NOT staring at my nails! It's a little sheer, took 4 coats to be opaque, which is odd for Zoya. I can usually get bottle color in 2 coats, a feat for me, the habitual 3 coat-er. I'm also going to show you a swatch of 2 coats of Kotori over black (although 1 probably would have been fine). I love the look. It gives the polish so much depth.

Zoya Kotori - outdoors
























Kotori over black -
























Thanks for looking!