NOTD - New Years Mani~

It is New Years Eve today! I want to wish an early Happy New Year  and a wonderful New Years Eve to everyone! This blog has reached what I consider a milestone...over 1000 views!!!! I feel so grateful for all my readers, thanks for all your support! I just started blogging not long ago and I do it for the enjoyment of sharing my nail polish excitement with the world :)

So here's what I am wearing right now for my New Years celebrations.

Sunlight (a little)

Indoors no flash

I used 2 coats of China Glaze Running In Circles and 3 coats of China Glaze It's a Trap-eze as accent. All had 1 coats of Seche Vite.

What are you guys wearing to celebrate the coming of the New Year? Thanks for stopping by!

Swatch - China Glaze Pure Torture (Xmas Mani)

I have been enjoying my xmas vacation too much as you all can see, since I haven't posted anything in awhile. So here is a long overdue Christmas mani post. China Glaze Pure Torture is what I wore before going away for xmas, since I wanted to wear a less traditional Christmas red. I couldn't remove it until Boxing day (it was killing me...I really wanted to wear the new polishes I got for xmas). I had actually been looking for a super bright orangy-red for awhile now. Finally I came across this polish when I was wondering around a store. I am very pleased about the color, this was EXACTLY what I was looking for and couldn't find in the other reds I had been researching. The pictures below are 2 coats with 1 coat of Seche Vite.

Jan 5 Addition: Just found out that this polish was part of the Voodoo That U Do collection (cute name huh?) and still available at Head2Toe Beauty.

Cool artificial light

Cool artificial light with flash

 Warm artificial light with flash

Under warm light this polish tends to look like a bright orange in the pics, but in reality it's very much a red with warm orange tones. So the cool light pics are more color accurate to real life.

This polish dries very shiny (basically didn't need top coat, but I like that Seche Vite dries fast and harder than regular polish). Pigmentation wise it was a bit on the sheer side, even at 2 coats I can still see a bit of nail line; so I would recommend 3 coats for this baby! The removal was easy and staining was not as great of an issue compared to dark colors.

What do you guys think of this color? Was it too far out there for Christmas or just the right amount of non-tradition?

Mani entry for ChitChatNails Skittlette contest

I entered in ChitChatNails' Skittlette contest and it was super fun to do a skittlette mani (it was my first time!). It took a real long time for me to decide on what I wanted to do on my nails, then I finally settled on what you see below. I apologize ahead of time for the dark pic, since it was taken at night the lighting is much less than ideal.

What was used in the mani:
          Thumb & Middle: China Glaze Wagon Trail
          Index & pinky: OPI Did you 'ear about van gogh? stamped with bow from Cheeky plate CH1
                                   using ChG Wagon Trail
          Ring: ChG Pizzazz

Hope you enjoyed this mani, I sure did. And I hope I have inspired you to go create skittlette mani's of your own. Check out the other entries for the contest here! Thanks for stopping by~

Dec 30 edit:
I actually WON a prize from this contest!!!! When I saw the post I literally kept refreshing the page to make sure what I was seeing was real. I came in second place and received my prize of choice...the Galz Fairy stamping set. I was taken completely by surprise considering how amazing all the other entries were, so I am extremely honored. Thanks again Marta (@ChitChatNails) for holding this contest!!! To see the other winners click here.

Share - Upcoming OPI Disney's The Great & Powerful Oz Soft Shades Collection

Hello everyone~ I saw this today and HAD to share it with all of you. I am already super exciting for the 2 upcoming collections OPI will be releasing in January and February (I saw the Mariah Carey collection in a beauty store today!!). But now we know what's coming out in March. It's the Disney's The Great & Powerful Oz Soft Shades collection. This collection has one liquid sand, 3 glitters and 3 pearly sheer neutrals. Thanks for reading and enjoy the pic below~

Swatch - China Glaze Creative Fantasy (Cirque du Soleil Collection)

Finally I have managed to obtain a couple of polishes from the China Glaze Cirque du Soleil collection. I have been trying to get more from the Sally's store closest to me, but it does not prove to be well stocked...otherwise it's the fact that people are going nuts over the two recent China Glaze collection. It could also be the fact that during the month of December Sally's is having a sale on all China Glaze polishes: 2 for $11 !!! EEK! Everyone calm down and try to make your way to a Sally's store without hurting anyone. Haha. Well I thought it was a decent deal for not having to wait for polishes to arrive in the mail (I like the instant satisfaction :P). Anyway, here is the first of (hopefully many more to come) the Cirque du Soleil collection: Creative Fantasy. All the pics are with flash and under warm artificial light to bring out the purple and reduce the blue-ness of the polish (my camera kept making the polish look blue rather than purple).

 3 coats

 2 coats

Below is 3 coats with and without top coat:

Index & ring: with Seche Vite

Middle & pinky: without TC

Now let me apologize for the first pics, where my polish job is far from perfect. There are all these dents/imperfections and bubbles. This is due to many reasons, but long story short the polish takes super long to dry and is soft when "dry" (not completely dry) resulting in bubbles and dents. 
As you can see Creative Fantasy is a gorgeous dark purple (neon?) that dries to a rubber finish, which I used to hate but I quite like it with this color. This color looks so juicy with top coat on, it is amazing! I have to admit I was really skeptical about this color at first when I saw it in the store, and almost didn't buy it. What a mistake that would have been! Turns out I love the color and don't have anything similar in my collection.

Here are the specs of this polish:
     Sheer: needed atleast 3 coats for full coverage (2 coats still had bald spots)
     Dry time: suuuuper long and when "dry" was easy to make impressions
     Finish: rubber
     Color goes on darker than seen in bottle

Collection swatches: Creative Fantasy, Running In Circles, Surreal Appeal

Another apology for the long post, I did not intend for it to go on and on like it did. So I'm off now! Hope you enjoyed the swatch and thanks for checking out my blog!    

Swatches - OPI Ulta Stuff My Stocking Mini's

I went to Ulta last weekend and came across this set of 4 mini polishes OPI made for Ulta for Christmas. Here are the swatches! All swatches are 2 coats with Seche Vite top coat as opposed to the OPI fast dry top coat provided in the package.

Front packaging

Left to right: Last Minute Shopper, Skip the Gift Wrap, and Gift Cards for Everyone!

Back packaging

I also got all these goodies for free! Just for making a purchase at Ulta.

Last Minute Shopper

A bright reddish pink with glowing shimmer. Goes on nail lighter than bottle color. Much more dark cool-toned pink in real life as opposed to bright orangy-red as see in pic. There seems to be a hint of blue shimmer captures by the flash of the camera, but this blue is not seen in the bottle or on the nail. Dries shiniest out of the 3.

With flash

Warm artificial light

Skip the Gift Wrap

A frosty mid-tone green (cool-toned). This turned out surprisingly sheer considering how dark the color is in the bottle. The color goes on lighter than seen in the bottle. This dries to a somewhat dull finish so top coat is highly recommended. Lastly, this is brush-stroke prone...so beware!

With flash

Natural light
Gift Cards For Everyone!

This is a dark purple with fine blue shimmer particles. The polish would be a 1 coater if it weren't for the mini brushes I think. It dries somewhat shiny, but top coat really makes it shine. The pic makes the polish seem more blue when it is actually dark purple in real life. This is my favorite out of the 3 even though it is not a typical Christmas color. What can I say I love those vampy colors!

Hope you enjoyed the swatches. Have you purchased this set yet? If so, what do you think of it?

Christmas Mani

Hello~ It's December 12 of 2012 (12.12.12)! I know I know you guys have probably been bombarded with the whole 12.12.12. thing all day today. But I just wanted to have the fun of saying it and having my mark on the internet on this day. So I am posting my Christmas manicure I did for my boyfriend's Christmas party. It was an awesome party hosted at the AT&T Park where the World Series winner (San Francisco Giants) play! We even got to bat at the batting cages and check out their locker rooms. Pretty awesome stuff, I had an awesome time! This is the manicure I had for the night:

With flash

I used two coats of OPI Skyfall then did one thin coat of OPI Goldeneye so that the red can come through between the gold particles. This combination was amazing! It added this edginess to Goldeneye up close and from far away. When the light hit the gold it would shine, but then you'd see dark edges of red. It's quite hard to describe, but I think the pic does a decent job of showing this. You guys will just have to try it for yourselves!

New Mani Trend? (with OPI Germany polishes)

So I originally saw this polish pattern on Polish Chest, and instantly fell in love with it! Anything that is different and allows me to use multiple colors of nail polish I tend to gravitate to. Name of this manicure is called "Homa". An interesting name, wondering why it's named this, anyone know?

The pictures are taken during daytime but I realised they are still quite dark since the sun wasn't out. So sorry about the less than good pics. 

With flash

 Left hand (With flash)

 

 Right hand (With flash)

For the Homa manicure you have you index and middle finger as accents, basically; and alternate the color pattern on the other hand. I used OPI Every Month Is Oktoberfest and OPI Unfor-Greta-bly Blue topped with 1 coat of Seche Vite to bring out the shimmer in the colors. Have you tried this pattern yet? What colors did you use?

Share - China Glaze Transitions Swatches by The PolishAholic

As some of you probably know, China Glaze is coming out with the Transition collection that is to be released in January. But the PolishAholic has managed to get her hands on the collection and kindly shown us wonderful swatches. Please click herefor her swatches! Are you guys highly anticipating this collection? Or do you think you will be passing on this one?

News on organization!

So I realised how messy and uneffective I have been doing my posts on the upcoming
OPI Euro Centrale and OPI Mariah Carey collections. Therefore, from now on I will be posting all swatches and news I find in one post, by just keep adding to the post that already exists (link here) . I will be putting down the date to which I added new info, so you guys can keep track as well. There are older posts that already have swatches and bottle shots. Sorry about the messiness! Live and learn as I always say~

Share - Giveaway by The Nail Network

There's an amazing giveaway of the new China Glaze Holiday Joy collection at The Nail Network! Check it out here. Also check out the awesome blog, she does some real amazing nail art! Good luck to everyone!

Share - News on OPI Euro Centrale and Mariah Carey collections!

I found more blogs that shared bottle shots of the OPI Euro Centrale and Mariah Carey collections. Since I do realise that the bottle shots I posted last time were not the best quality (here). So A Beauty Junkie in London has posted very nice bottle shots of the Euro Centrale and Mariah Carey collections. I also managed to find a French blog that had swatches of the Liquid sand polishes from the Mariah Carey collection. Enjoy~ I can't wait until these two collections come out!!

My older posts on these 2 collections:
Euro central: bottle shots, press release announcement, Manicurator swatches

December 6 addition:
There's even more swatches! I found 3 more colors being swatched on ChitChatNails. I don't believe we've seen swatches for 2 out of the 3 colors. Personally I'm not too excited by these colors, because I have dupes in my collection. But you never know, I might just get amazed in the store and end up buying them anyway :P So check out the swatches here!

There were another 3 polishes being swatched from the Mariah Carey collection on Nail & Polish. After seeing her swatches of 2 studio shades that I originally was going to pass on, I think I'm going to have to get the whole entire Mariah Carey collection! My wallet is crying already. A Butterfly Moment turns out to be glowing and gorgeous! And Sprung is this sparkling amazing-ness! Enough of me talking about it, click here to see her awesome swatches.

December 15 addition:
I'm not even going to bother trying to get you guys pumped about this, cause I know you must be if you are reading this right now (hunting down swatches like a mad woman like me!) lol. Enjoy~

Euro Centrale:
Awesome swatches by "Swatch and Learn" for the colors: Vant To Bite My Neck?, Can't Find My Czechbook and My Paprika Is Hotter Than Yours!

Mariah Carey:
Super swatches by Beautezine for the WHOLE collection! Check it out here.
Swatch and Learn also has swatches of A Butterfly Moment and Get Your Number.

December 17 addition:
This is what we have been waiting for for a long long time (at least for me :P). Complete swatch of the ENTIRE Euro centrale collection at Beautezine!!! Check it out here!!

NOTD - New China Glaze Polishes!

I couldn't wait to get started on my newly acquired China Glaze polishes! Here is what I am wearing right now as a manicure. I used THREE new China Glaze polishes that I recently got from Transdesign (haul post here). Can you believe it? Three!! I was so happy :) The 3 were Deviantly Daring, Aquadelic and Snow Globe (layered on aquadelic). Warning: This post leans towards the pic heavy side.

(under warm light, no flash)

Second picture above is most accurate color-wise to real life for Deviantly Daring.

 (With flash)

There next two pics I'm trying to show the magnificence of Snow Globe that is lost in the other pics. It's a wonder mix of colors ranging from blues to oranges, so so pretty!

Hope you liked the post! I really liked this combination of polishes, what do you think? Did I tempt you into getting one or all of these pretties? Muahahaha

Share - More swatches on OPI Euro Centrale collection

I thought I would share these swatches of the blues from the OPI Euro Centrale collection. I'm not sure about you guys, but I'm the type of person who just constantly look for swatches of upcoming unreleased collections. So when I do find swatches I get super excited and just have to share it!

The swatches are done by the Manicurator and here is the link to her blog. Hope you guys enjoy her post as much as I do!

Dec 17 addition:
See ENTIRE Euro Centrale collection swatch here!!

Haul - China Glaze from Transdesign

Hello everyone. I received my Transdesign purchase of China Glaze today! I was going downstairs to the mail room every hour to check if the parcel had arrived, and unpacked it immediately. Then I couldn't wait to share it with all of you, so I took pictures.

This was my first time ordering from Transdesign, and I have to say I am very pleased. They had great costumer service; I had emailed them about my purchase and they responded within 1-2 days. Everything I ordered was received, and the polishes were packaged extremely well to avoid breaking the bottles (this was very important I thought). It just took awhile to get to me (3 weeks!), since I paid with paypal and there were a couple of holidays (Veteran's day and Thanksgiving). Otherwise, I thought this was a great great experience and I would definitely be ordering from them again and recommend them to others. Now for the photos!

The polishes came in a box filled with little styrofoam S's, and as you can see each bottle was but into a China Glaze shipping box (with styrofoam in between bottles).

Here is the line-up of all the polishes I got. There are 10 since I thought I might as well get as many as I can for the same amount of shipping as I would pay if I got 6 or 7 bottles.

 Left to right: Lemon Fizz, Re-Fresh Mint, Peachy Keen

 Left to right: Snow Globe, Fairy Dust

Left to right: Deviantly Daring, Aquadelic, Wagon Trail

 

Left to right: Desert Sun, Jungle Queen

Hope you guys enjoyed the post! Now I gotta go and try to figure out how I can grow extra hands in order to have more finger nails to try all these beauties!

Bond Girl Manicure

So I did THE manicure of the month (as I like to call it since I am a James Bond fan) last week...the Bond Girl Manicure! I had been waiting for Skyfall the movie to come out since I saw the trailer for the movie at the beginning of the year. Then I was even more excited when I heard about the OPI Skyfall collection. So of course I had to do the Bond Girl Manicure when I went to see the movie. Man were the line-ups for the movie crazy, I still managed to get to the theatre early enough to get great seats. Oops, I'm starting to ramble...here are the pics!

 (With flash)

 (Without flash)

For the manicure I used OPI Goldeneye for the bottom side of the nails and OPI Skyfall on top. First I did the underside using 3 coats of the gold polish (letting each coat dry); in order to get opacity for the gold to really shine. This is important since when you put on a dark color like Skyfall on top the underside darkens quite a bit (so then you need the gold to compensate). I really wasn't thinking when I did the manicure, cause I started having pools of gold polish collecting under my nails. Then I saw another blog post a tutorial on the manicure and I face-palmed realising I should have used tape to avoid the mess. *sigh* you live and you learn right?

I love love looooved this manicure. It was my first time doing this type of manicure, I think the name is Louboutan manicure? (Named after the designer shoe brand that I wish I could afford!) So have you tried out this manicure yet? If you haven't watched the new James Bond movie...get your Bond Girl Manicure on and get to a movie theatre! I really enjoyed the movie as you could probably tell...^^

Swatch - OPI Chatters Me Up

Hello everyone, it's time for my first Nail of the Day post!
I picked up this polish at a Chatters salon at home after seeing it on a blog. It turns out this is apparently a HTF polish. Though I think it is quite common in a Chatters salon? Don't hold me to that! But I did see quite a few bottles at that particular Chatters, maybe that's because OPI made the polish especially for the salon chain. Anyway, without further chit-chat by me here are the swatches (somewhat pic heavy).

Natural light:

Warm artificial light:

Chatters Me Up is red/purple shimmer in a dark purple base. In the bottle you can also see some gold shimmer as well, though it is not noticeable on the nail. The polish also dried quite shiny and is extremely pigmented; I tried to show these in all the pictures:

Index finger - 2 coats without top coat

Middle finger - one coat without top coat

Ring finger - 1 coat with top coat

Removal of the polish was harder than creams but easier than glitters, typical for this type of polish. What would you call this kind of polish anyway? Foil? Glass fleck? Sparkle? Don't know, if you know the proper term for this type of polish please let me know!
Hope you enjoyed this posting and the swatch. This is now one of my favorite polishes, the colour is gorgeous! Love love looove!

Share - First Look at Mariah Carey by OPI Collection

Here is a preview of the upcoming Mariah Carey collection that OPI will debut in January 2013.

There will be 8 colours and they are divided into 2 categories: studio and stage shades. The stage shades feature the new Liquid Sand polishes which are textured with a matte finish and sparkle.

Studio Shades:
1)   A Butterfly Moment (This sophisticated and frosty tan nude has us all a-flutter)
2)   Sprung (Fall hopelessly in love with this shimmery copper)
3)   Pink Yet Lavender (This pink glitter with lavender shimmer has superstar shine!)
4)   Anti-bleak (This deep, creamy purple will lift your spirits)

Stage Shades:
1)   Stay the Night (Make it last in this matte black with red glints)
2)   Get Your Number (Wearing this matte blue with sparkles is a great call)
3)   Can’t Let Go (Hold onto this matte purple with dazzling sparkle)
4)   The Impossible (This matte fuchsia with star confetti will never give up)

Here's a more realistic view of the polishes:

 Left to right: Sprung, A Butterfly Moment, Pink Yet Lavender and Anti-Bleak

 Top left to right: Get Your Number, Can't Let Go, The Impossible and Stay the Night

Bottom left to right: A Butterfly Moment, Sprung, Anti-Bleak and Pink Yet Lavender

Below shows what the Liquid Sand polishes look like when on the nail.

Hope you all enjoyed this post! I am very excited for the two Mariah Carey collections, since I'm a huuuuge Mariah Carey fan!!! Which colours are you most excited about? And what are your thoughts about these new Liquid Sand polishes?