Bright Skittles

I hope you are enjoying your Thursday! Most of the pictures you will see over the next week or so are old-ish. This particular manicure is from February. Poor thing is happy to see the light of day. Or at least the light of the blogosphere.

These bright skittles were fun and easy to do. From thumb to pinky: Cosmetic Arts Limelight, Zoya Pippa, Color Club Poptastic, Ulta Blue Streak, and Julep Anne. Each is two coats. The little design on my ring finger is an Essence French Glam Nail Stickers. Each sheet has several designs.

Colorful Leopard Print

I'm back! If you want to know why I was gone, see this post. Its too much to summarize again. Oh my goodness, I missed you guys so much! To all of those who stuck with me during my absence, thank you! To those who left, I hope you come back soon. And to those who are new, welcome!

So many of the upcoming posts are old-ish manicures. However, this one is brand new. I hit the blogs for inspiration and ended up wanting to recreate this gorgeous leopard print by Chalkboard Nails. For mine, I used Zoya Pippa, Essence Let's Get Lost, and Sally Hansen Black Out. Leopard print is an easy design, even for the nail art challenged. I love it!

I'm trying out a new watermark technique. Let me know what you think.

Zoya Nyx

I hope you are enjoying your Monday! Today I have a beautiful textured polish to share with you.

Zoya Nyx is a perwinkle matte glitter with silver sparkle. It literally looks like pixie dust was sprinkled atop a matte periwinkle backdrop. So many nail polish brands are hopping on the textured wagon. The Pixie Dust Collection was the first to really catch by eye. The application is perfection and opaque in two coats. The finish is textured. It doesn't snag on hair or anything else. The directions say to apply with no base coat or top coat. I was a little worried about the wear time with no top coat. But Nyx surprised me. I was extremely hard on my nails the two days I wore it. No tip wear or chips.

Nyx is part of the Zoya Pixie Dust Collection and retails for $9 on Zoya. It also recently started showing up at Ulta for the same price. Zoya is releasing brighter Pixie Dust polishes for the Summer.

Zoya Marina & Stamping

I hope you are enjoying your Monday!

Zoya Marina is a strongly blue toned gray metallic. The application is good and opaque in two coats. Over Marina, I stamped on this lovely pattern with Color Club Gingerbread Man and stamping plate BM-209.

I literally forgot to add that I matted an accent finger to see how the two metallics would look matte. Every finger aside from my ring is topped with Seche Vite, while the ring is topped with Butter London Matte Finish.

Zoya Frida

I hope you are enjoying your Friday! I've started a new weekly post, with this being the second one. Every Wednesday I add new polishes to vote for, and on Friday I post the polish you all voted for.

Zoya Frida is a glossy teal jelly. It starts off very sheer and builds. This is five coats, with ICING After Party sandwiched between the fourth and fifth coats on my ring finger.

Zoya Aurora

I hope you are enjoying your Saturday! I took advantage of Zoya's promo and received my order on Thursday. The sale ends on 1/13 at midnight est. You get three free and just pay $10 for shipping and handling, using promo code ZOYA2013. 

Zoya Aurora is a medium purple jelly with dense holographic glitter flakes. I cannot express how gorgeous this polish is! The application is perfection in two coats. The glitter flakes are small and flat. They do not apply like glitter or remove like glitter equaling easy application and removal. Aurora is a must have!

Zoya Tallulah - In Memorial

December was not the best month. The holidays are stressful, plus working in retail during the holidays. Then it got worse. Very early Saturday morning at midnight my grandma passed away. The visitation was last night and the funeral was this afternoon. I managed to post Sunday, but am literally pushing myself to type at the moment. 

It felt appropriate to paint my nails a color she would have liked. Blue was her favorite color. She preferred sapphire and navy blue. I do not own too many of those shades, so I compromised and chose something we both liked.

Zoya Tallulah is a medium electric blue shimmer. The shimmer in this is beautiful. Mostly blue, but occasionally green and purple. The application is perfection and opaque in two coats.

Zoya Katherine and Wet n Wild The Gold and the Beautiful

I hope you are enjoying your Friday! I have what I discovered to be a popular manicure to share with you today. I wore this for two days and had an usually large amount of people compliment me on it. Some actually reaching to grab my hand to get a better look.

Zoya Katherine is a sheer eggplant jelly. It starts off very sheer and light colored. As you build it, it grows darker and more opaque with each coat. Four coats to reach opacity for me. In person, there is no visible nail line, completely opaque. This polish is a dream to work with. It does not look or feel thick, even after four coats. Given it is a sheer build-able jelly, the layering possibles are endless.

Wet n Wild The Gold and the Beautiful is a clear base filled with small (almost micro) gold glitter flakes. I absolutely love this polish as a glitter gradient! I am so happy I grabbed it to use. It is perfection. It easily gives solid tips, while also making it easy to fade the glitter out.

I originally planned to wear Katherine alone. I painted it on with a fast dry top coat as my last step. However, I did not give it ample time to dry. I ended up with a few exposed tips from push back, a couple of dents, and smudges. All toward the tip of my nails. I did not want to wear a mangled mani to work, but did not want to take Katherine off either. A glitter gradient was my solution. Before work, I quickly sponged The Gold and the Beautiful on. It saved my manicure and turned out so lovely that I am glad I messed up my polish.

Zoya FeiFei and Snowflakes

I hope you are enjoying your Thursday! Today I have a fun winter-y design to share with you. The weather here is warm and not December like at all. But then again, it is Louisiana. Our weather has a mind of its own. I cannot change the weather to be more like winter, but I can make my nails more winter like.

Zoya FeiFei is described as a "medium steel blue base with heavy gold, blue and pink iridescent metallic sparkle." Zoya hit the nail on the head with that description. FeiFei is unlike any polish I own. Its gorgeous! My camera had a hard time capturing all the amazing in one shot. The application is perfection and opaque in three coats.

For my winter manicure, I decided to stamp snowflakes over FeiFei. I used Pure Ice Super Star! along with stamping plates BM14, BM-319, and BM-323. I love the snowflakes over top this polish!

Bumble Bee

I hope you are enjoying your Wednesday! One of my most popular posts (the most popular one until recently actually) is the one about bumble bee nails. I did the design before I started blogging. When I did the  post, I was not really cropping my photos or doing well with up close macro shots of my nails. I decided to redo the design. You can find the original post here.

In all honesty, I think my nail art skills are about the same. But I still love my little bumble bee! I started off with two coats of Zoya Pippa as my yellow base. The bumble bee and his trail were created with a dotting tool, small nail art brush, Pure Ice Super Star!, and Sinful Colors Black on Black. The original design was achieved following one of CutePolish's tutorials. She creates the cutest designs and shows how each is done.

Sparkling Tips

I hope you are enjoying you're Friday! I seem to be solving all my polish related wear issues with glitter lately. I didn't have time to change my nails after wearing Zoya Skylar, so I did a glitter gradient to the tips. It freshened up the look and hid any tip wear. I wish I had decent pictures of right after it was done. I made the mistake of taking them in the kitchen. The lighting made my skin appear yellow and threw off polish color accuracy. I did not notice this until I had already taken my nails through a hard day. So the tip wear is very noticeable.

Despite the wear, I wanted to post them. It was such a sparkly combination. I literally got distracted by my own nails reflection in my laptop screen as I hit a key trying to wake it up from hibernation. 

Over Zoya Skylar, I did a quick glitter gradient with Color Club Beyond the Mistletoe. It is a clear base with light green and holo glitter. The light green complimented the steel blue Skylar rather well in person.

Skylar is part of the Zoya True Collection and retails for $8 on their website. Beyond the Mistletoe is part of the Color Club Beyond the Mistletoe Collection. It retails for $4-8. I purchased mine in a collection set of all six for $8 at Ross.  

Zoya Skylar

I hope everyone is enjoying their Tuesday! Sorry that I have been a little scattered in my posting as of late. I have been so busy with things and a little stressed as well. My polishes have been neglected. But I promise to get back to my regular posting schedule soon. :)

Zoya Skylar is a slightly dusty medium steel blue with silver and gold shimmer. The gold is only visible at certain angles. But adds a gorgeous something to this already gorgeous polish. The application is great and opaque in two coats.

Skylar is part of the Zoya True Collection and retails for $8 on their website.

Rainbow Favorites Day 6 - Purple

I hope you're enjoying your Friday! Today's color for the rainbow challenge is purple. I honestly thought I would have a large amount of trouble picking one. Especially considering I have over seventy purples. But I found myself underwhelmed while looking at my purple nail wheels. Maybe I was having a blah day because I love purple. I only found two that I wanted to consider as a favorite. Catrice Dirty Berry and Zoya Nova. I love the former, but I had not tried the latter and wanted to see it on my nails.

Zoya Nova is a fuchsia purple jelly with dark and light pink glitter. The application is great. I used two coats. From browsing other blogs, it seems most used three coats and got a very opaque glitter packed appearance. I guess I'm digging the jellies lately because I was happy with two coats. In person, I have no visible nail line.

I wouldn't say this is my favorite purple ever, but it is certainly my favorite this week. :)

Nova (UltraGlitter Collection) retails for $8 at Zoya. 

If you want to see what other polishes the other lovely bloggers are choosing, check them out. :)

~on beauty stuff and what else’s...~

9ml Universe

atlcatsmeow

Captivating Claws

Fancy Phalanges

Fe’s Nails

Football and Fingernails

Fresh Air & Fashion

Happy Nails

Kelly’s Kolors!

Lacquer Dreams

Lacquer or Leave Her!

Liesl Loves Pretty Things

Light Your Nails!

Manicurity

My Life in Polish

Nail Polish Lane

Nailpolish is Alive

Nubbin Nails

Of Color n Music...

Passion for Polish

Polish and Such

Sincerely, Obsessed With Polish

So You Think You Can Paint

The Rantings of a Nailpolish Hoarder

Rainbow Favorites Day 5 - Blue

I hope you're enjoying your Thursday! Today's post for the rainbow challenge is blue. My absolute favorite blue is the combo of Essence Belle and Edward. But I've posted those polishes twice, so I decided to give other blues a chance. I narrowed it down to three. Zoya Charla, Bootie Babe Hella Baloo, and Sally Hansen Pacific Blue. Still couldn't pick just one, so I chose two.

I picked Bootie Babe Hella Baloo and Zoya Charla as my favorites. Hella Baloo is a medium blue creme. The application is great and opaque in one coat. Nothing better than a one coat polish. Zoya Charla a dark aqua with teal green glass flecks. The application is great and opaque in two coats.

Choosing favorites has been hard. And I can tell you that if you asked me my favorites a month from now, they would probably be different. 

Hella Baloo retails for $4 (for 9mL) and $12 (for 30mL) on Bootie Babe. According to their Facebook page, the 1oz/30mL bottles are pre-order and will be available in September. Charla (Sunshine Collection) retails for $8 at Zoya. 

If you want to see what other polishes the other lovely bloggers are choosing, check them out. :)

~on beauty stuff and what else’s...~

9ml Universe

atlcatsmeow

Captivating Claws

Fancy Phalanges

Fe’s Nails

Football and Fingernails

Fresh Air & Fashion

Happy Nails

Kelly’s Kolors!

Lacquer Dreams

Lacquer or Leave Her!

Liesl Loves Pretty Things

Light Your Nails!

Manicurity

My Life in Polish

Nail Polish Lane

Nailpolish is Alive

Nubbin Nails

Of Color n Music...

Passion for Polish

Polish and Such

Sincerely, Obsessed With Polish

So You Think You Can Paint

The Rantings of a Nailpolish Hoarder

Zoya Kimmy

I hope you're enjoying your Saturday! Today I have a pretty polish to show you today. I actually got a shot of it in the Sun. It looks like its been set on fire in the sunlight.

Zoya describes Kimmy as a "gleaming metallic candy apple red brightened by gold sparkle." I honestly would not describe this a candy red. More like red orange. But it certainly is a metallic. A gorgeous metallic. The application is great and opaque in two coats.

Kimmy (Sunshine Collection) retails for $8 at Zoya. 

Zoya Zuza, Charla, and a Peacock

Its Stamping Sunday! This week's theme is a plate that ends in 5.

I painted all of my nails with two coats of Zoya Zuza. Its an oceanic turquoise with gold and silver metallic shimmer. I am absolutely in love with Zuza. For my accent nail, I sponged Zoya Charla onto the bottom half of my nail to give it a little extra sparkle. Then I stamped on a peacock with Sinful Colors Black on Black and plate BM15.

Charla (Sunshine Collection) and Zuza (Surf Collection) retail for $8 at Zoya. BM stamping plates are part of a 21 piece set that retails for $18 on Bundle Monster or their Amazon store.