piCture pOlish "Aurora"

Hey everyone!  I'm just going to gloss over the fact that I've been off for two whole days and haven't posted yet...I've been swatching, so there are posts to come!  Today I have the first polish that I put on after a week of nudes and nearly-nudes; piCture pOlish "Aurora":

"Aurora" lives up to its name!  It's an intense blue to purple to green duochrome with some holo shimmer thrown in for good measure.  This is two coats over a black base.  These first two pictures are in the sun.

And these next two pictures are in the shade.  Yes that's the same polish!

This is definitely one of the most intense duochromes in my collection!  I'll have to get the rest of this collection from piCture pOlish!

Thanks for reading!

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NPC: Texture

Whew!  I'm getting caught up!  Mondays NPC called for texture, so I decided to use some new "Liquid Sugar" polishes I got from Icing.  I ended up with a pretty pastel rainbow!

From cuticle to tip, these are "Dreamsicle",  "Peppermint", "Lollipop", and "Pixie Stick".  I love the sugary names!

Thanks for reading!

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NPC: Glow In The Dark

Hi everyone!  Sorry for the absence.  My finals are over now!  Now I have a few days off, then clinical rotations start Monday!  I'm excited, but I do kind of wish I had a little more time in between to relax.  Oh, well, I guess I'll never get a break in the "real world"!

Here is my NPC from last Friday, "Glow In The Dark":

I started with a base of Elevation's "El Cap" and covered a couple accent nails with Ozotic 902.

 "El Cap" is a beautiful bluish purple with pinky-purple shimmer.  Unfortunately, the original formula is not available anymore.  There are two versions of "El Cap II", each more blue than the last.  They are great too, of course, but I loooove the original.  Ozotic 902 is a purple shimmer with a bit of blue duochrome effect.  This is part of the "Sugar" collection, and I love them all.  They look great no matter what you put them over.

For the glow in the dark effect I added Contrary Polish "West Bottoms".  This adds just the smallest amount of green with some glass fleck shimmer.

Unfortunately, I couldn't get it to show up in the dark!  I don't know if I needed more coats or what, but here is the best I could do.  You can see the bottle glowing at least!

This next picture is in the dark with flash, which okay, doesn't show off the GITD effect, but I really liked the way it turned out!

Thanks for reading!

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NPC: Holo

Hi guys!  Not much to chit chat about tonight, I'm still in finals mode and I just wanted to get this up on time for once!  Today's NPC prompt it "Holo".  Holographic is pretty much my favorite finish.  They just glow!  In the sunlight, and some even in dark light!  So today I have for you KBShimmer "Pretty in Punk":

 "Pretty in Punk" is actually a duochrome holo.  It's light green with a purple shift, but these pictures are in dark light, so the color shift doesn't really show up.  But look at those rainbows!

KBShimmer's duochrome holos are AMAZING!!!  I wish I had gotten some sunlight pictures, but I stamped over this right after painting.  I didn't end up liking the stamping though, so you don't get to see it!

Okay, I haven't linked to any brands/stockists while doing this challenge, but I have to give a shoutout to KBShimmer.  I love all the polishes I've gotten from her, and they're such a great price for indies.  AND she has great bath and body products too!  I've gotten samples of her scrubs and soaps which were great, and I always add on a bath bomb to my polish orders!  KBShimmer is a great place to start if you're just getting into indies!

Thanks for reading!

An InLinkz Link-up

NPC Day 11: Least Expensive

Hi everyone!  So I'm a day behind again, but only because I posted my Mean Girls mani yesterday instead of this one!  Yesterday's nail polish challenge prompt was "Least Expensive".  Well I definitely have a few that were gifts or gifts with purchase, but I thought I'd do one of the cheapest that I actually paid for.  Sinful Colors, Wet n Wild, and Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear are all great brands that can be found for about $0.99, so I went with a couple unused Sinful Colors.

"Song of Summer" is an avocado creme.  This was such a great formula for 99 cents!  This is one coat here.  I've been really into greens lately, which is odd for me.  Green and yellow are usually my two least favorite nail colors.  But I feel like this is actually neutral enough that you could wear it to work. 

My ring finger and thumb have a coat of Sinful Colors "Rain Song", a pale purple to green duochrome.  I thought this would turn out more purple, like it is in the bottle, but I guess since I layered it over green, it pulled more green.  Next time I'll have to try it over purple!

Sinful Colors can be found at Walgreens, Walmart, and other pharmacies I think.  It's usually $1.99, but Walgreens often has sales for 99 cents.  What are some of your favorite "cheap" brands?

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NPC Day 8: Boutique

Hi everyone!  I'm behind on my Never-ending Pile Challenge!  I don't even have a good excuse, I've just been really tired this week.  So this post should have gone up Wednesday, and I'm hoping to get another post up tonight.  Two posts in one day for you!

Today's (or Wednesday's) Challenge called for a boutique polish brand.  The definition of a boutique brand changes a bit depending on who you talk to, but to me it means a brand that is not a large wholesaler (so not OPI, Essie, etc), but is larger than an in-house hand-poured indie brand.  So some examples are I Love Nail Polish, piCture pOlish, and Rescue Beauty Lounge, which is what I used!

Here is RBL "Abi":

 "Abi" is a chartreuse creme with a hint of silver shimmer, which did not come across in my pictures.  I was surprised by how much I liked this on me.  I could not get a color-accurate picture of this.  It's much lighter and more yellow-toned than it looks in my pictures.

I decided to add some stamping with MoYou Landscape Collection plate 06 since I haven't done any in awhile.  I used Butter London "Lillibet's Jubilee", a lilac foil.  "Abi" is a bit closer to real-life color in this next photo:

Thanks for reading!  I'll try to get my next post up later tonight!

An InLinkz Link-up

It's My Birthday!!!

Hey guys! I wanted to post my birthday Mani, because I decided to wear a special polish today.  Here is Enchanted Polish "Magical Mystery Tour":

This post is quite picture heavy, so I'll explain why this is special after the jump!

NPC Day 7: Drugstore

Hey girls!  Not too much to say tonight; I am tired.  My allergies have started acting up, so I think that might be why.

Anyway, today's NPC prompt is "Drugstore".  I tried three different manis before I did one I liked enough to share.  So here is a new polish from Revlon, "Mayan Riviera":

"Mayan Riviera" is from the brand-new Haute Rocks Pebbled Texture collection.  I hadn't heard of these, but I saw a display at Walgreens and loooved the glitter, so I picked up a few.

"Mayan Riviera" is a milky-white base with green, gold, pink, blue, and silver glitter.  There's a little bit of everything in there!  This is 2-3 coats.  The glitter payoff was pretty great, but a few nails had some bald spots after two coats, so I added a third.

This is meant to be a textured polish, but I added a coat of Nail Pattern Boldness "Glitter Food" to smooth it out, and then sealed it all with Seche Vite.

 Bottle shot to see all the glittery goodness!

I'm so excited to see a drugstore brand branching out a bit more into fun glitters and textures!

Thanks for reading!

An InLinkz Link-up

NPC Day 6: Indie

Hi everyone!  Today's NPC prompt was an easy one: Indie.  I have TONS of untried indies, so I reached into my way-way-back pile and came up with Darling Diva "Space Beetle" and Colors by Llarowe "Black Gold, Texas Tea".

"Black Gold, Texas Tea" is a rich black holo.  The formula was great.  Could have been a one-coater, but I added an extra for more depth.

I don't even know where to start with "Space Beetle"; there's so much going on in this polish!  At it's base it's a silver holographic, but then there's added duochrome microshimmer, so in different lights it looks silver, brownish red, lavender, or green.

Two more polishes I'm glad I finally got around to trying!  Hope everyone out there has a good weekend!
Thanks for reading!

An InLinkz Link-up

NPC Day 5: Jelly

Hi Girls! Hope you're having a good week!

Today's NPC prompt calls for a jelly. I originally had a totally different manicure ready to show you, but I didn't really like how it photographed. When I put this on, I realized it counted as a jelly too! Here is Contrary Polish "Make Believe Reality":

"Make Believe Reality" is a minty translucent jelly with lilac microshimmer.  Unfortunately, the shimmer didn't come out to play in my pictures, but it's beautiful in person!

"Make Believe Reality" is from the new Love Lyrics Redux collection, and can be found at llarowe.com.

Check out the other bloggers in this challenge below!

An InLinkz Link-up

NPC Day 4: Frost

Hi girls! Today's NPC called for "Frost". I knew I probably had a couple frosts, but I actually had to open my polish spreadsheet and ctrl+F to find them. The first one I found was totally dried out, boohoo. But I did find two other frosts in my Julep collection. Here is "Piper":

"Piper" is a sort of minty-sort of Robin's-egg blue frost.  The formula was really good as far as frosts go.  It didn't show brushstrokes, but did show every imperfection on the nail, as you can see on my index and middle fingers!  These next two pics show off the frostiness more.

I'm sort of conflicted about this one!  I like the color and I think it works with my skin tone, but the frostiness turns me off a bit.

I went to the Botanical garden for a health fair the day I did this mani, so I decided to add some flowers with my other frost, Julep "Sandra", and used Julep "Lexie" for the centers:

"Sandra" is a pink frost, although you can't tell in these pictures.  I can definitely see myself wearing this on my toes this summer!

What do you girls think of frost polishes?

Here is a bonus daffodil picture from the garden!

Thanks for reading!

An InLinkz Link-up

NPC Day 2: Pastel

Hi girls!  Happy Wednesday!  I hope you've been having a good week!

Today's NPC called for "Pastel".  I have plenty of untried pastels, but I knew exactly which one I wanted to use today!

Check out what polishes I used after the jump!

OPI "Peace, Love, & OPI"

Hi girls!  How was your weekend?  It finally started to feel like spring here, but I don't know how long it's going to last...We're supposed to have storms the next few days, and then I think it's supposed to get a bit cooler again.

Today I have for you "Peace, Love & OPI" from the fall 2013 San Francisco collection.

"Peace, Love, & OPI" is a silver duochrome with a purple and green shift.  This is two nice and easy coats.

My ring finger looks kind of brush stroke-y here, but you can't see that in real life.

I think this photo really shows off the pinky-purple duochrome.

So, what do you guys think?  I love colors like this, and I have everything that's even sort of similar.  If I get a chance, I'll do a comparison post!

Thanks for reading!

Rescue Beauty Lounge "Jack" and "Locavore"

Hi ladies!

How is your week going?  It's almost over, and then I have Spring Break next week!  Woot!

Today I have a polish that I picked by randomly sticking my hand into my bag of Gosia's borrowed polishes and grabbing something.  I ended up with Rescue Beauty Lounge "Jack", a beautiful hunter green creme with blue shimmer.  Then I decided it would go great with one of my untried RBL's, "Locavore", and here is the result:

Okay, these pictures are nice, but they don't do justice to either polish.  The glitter in "Locavore" kind of covered up the blue shimmer in "Jack", and my camera just couldn't capture the sparkliness of "Locavore".

"Locavore" is a mix of gold, magenta, and aqua microglitters.  I tried to get a good macro shot, but again my camera was freaking out.

This is ONE COAT people!  You could totally build this to opacity on its own, but removing it would be a bitch!

I didn't mean to do a St. Patty's day manicure, but this would totally be appropriate for St. Pats!  And the mix of glitters in "Locavore" would have been perfect for Mardi Gras!

Do you girls have plans for St. Pat's?

Thanks for reading!

Above the Curve "Husbands Just Don't Understand"

Today's reward for yesterday's workout is Above the Curve's "Husbands Just Don't Understand"