NPC: Most Untrieds in One Mani

Hi everyone.  So I'm late again, is anyone surprised?  Yesterday was such a long day, and I realized that between school and work, today is my first full day off since Easter!  No wonder I've been so tired!

Yesterday's prompt was "Use as many untrieds in one mani as you can", so I started with a base coat of Rescue Beauty Lounge "Insouciant" and then just started grabbing randomly and went at it with a dotting tool!  I ended up using 18 polishes total. Here is the result:

Close up on ring finger:

Close up on thumb:

I forgot how quick and easy dotting is!  I'll have to start using my dotting tools more!

Here are the polishes that I used:

 L to R : Julep "Missy", Jade "Vestido de Gala", Ethereal Lacquer "Ember", Nailtini "Champagne", Deborah Lippmann "Million Dollar Mermaid", Deborah Lippmann "Defying Gravity", Colors by Llarowe "Gizzards & Lizards", CND Vinylux "Gilded Pleasure", Butter London "Thames", and Ozotic 915.

L to R again: Nails Inc "Kings Road", Dance Legend "Sulley", Colors by Llarowe "Love You Forever", Arcane Lacquer "Peace of Mind", OPI DS "Mystery", Julep "Reece", Colors by Llarowe "Smooth Criminal", and RBL "Insouciant".  Whew!

Thanks for reading!

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 3: Random

Hi everyone!

Today's NPC prompt called for a random untried, so I grabbed blindly and came up with Sinful Colors "Faceted", which is a glitter top coat.  So I grabbed randomly again for something to put it over and came up with Julep "Lacey"

"Lacey" is a gorgeous midnight blue shimmer and "Faceted" has bar glitter and small hex glitter that's sort of a gold to teal duochrome color.

I'm so glad I tried "Lacey"!  My clinical rotations start next month (eep!) and I'm definitely going to have to tone down my nails when I'm on site.  "Lacey" is a perfectly professional color that still has something special to it.  I'm sure I'll be using it a lot more!

I was just going to use "Faceted" on my accent nail, but I liked it so much I decided to put it on all my fingers!

 This picture really shows off the duochrome flash of "Faceted":

Thanks for reading!

An InLinkz Link-up

Alter Ego "Beach Comber"

Hi girlies!

I'm so glad this week is halfway over!  My test today wasn't too bad, and we have a quiz tomorrow, but I think it'll be okay too.  I got some exciting news today!  I'm participating in a market research study about cat food, where the company gives me a bag of food to feed to my cat for a month and record any changes in his behavior, health etc.  It's been a week so far, and Mr. Tumnus really like this brand!  It's one that I haven't bought before cause it's a little too expensive.  Anyway, there are different "levels" of the study, and we got a call today that someone from the company is going to come out to our house to see how Tumnus does around strangers, and if all goes well, we'll be video taped next week!  I haven't asked what exactly they're taping for, but Ben is convinced it's for a commercial.  That would be awesome!!  My kitty could be a star!

Anyway, on to the polish!

Alter Ego Nail Enamel is a new brand to me.  I had never heard of it before picking it off of Gosia's polish wall, but I love aquas like this, so I had to give it a try!
Here is "Beach Comber":

"Beach Comber" is a beautiful aqua with a scattered holographic shimmer.  It dried to a satin-matte finish, but I really wanted the shimmer to come out, so I added a coat of Seche Vite.

Beautiful shimmer!!  The formula on this was a little sheer-it took 3 coats for full opacity- but it flowed wonderfully.  Hardy any clean-up needed!

I know I've said on here before that my favorite color combination is aqua and purple, so I decided to add some stamping with Julep "Morgan" and MoYou London Suki plate 06.

Alter Ego Nail Enamel can be found on Etsy and Storenvy.  She has some really awesome colors AND a "Three Spree" where you can pick any three full-size colors for $19.99!  I'll definitely have to take advantage of that once my no-buy is over!

And now, so you can say you knew him before he became famous, is the star-to-be!

This is his "Treats?" face :)

Thanks for reading!

Orchids on "Orchids" for the Orchid Show

Yesterday Gosia and I went to the Orchid Show at the botanical garden in town.  The Missouri Botanical Garden is pretty much my favorite place in St. Louis.  I'm sure I'll do more flower-themed manis as everything starts blooming!

Since we were going to the orchid show, I decided to wear one of my new Colors By Llarowe pretties, "Orchids Are Better Than Roses Any Day" AKA "OABTRAD".

"OABTRAD" is the perfect representation of the Pantone Color of the Year for 2014, Radiant Orchid.  It's a warm orchid with almost golden undertones.  The holographic finish absolutely makes it radiant!

This is two coats of CBL's usual perfect formula.

I decided to try some stamping too!  I didn't have anything with orchids on it, but I thought these flowers from MoYou Pro Plate 06 were close:

I stamped using Julep "Harley", which left me pleasantly surprised!  I wasn't sure if silver would stamp very well, but "Harley" was nice and opaque and my images transferred perfectly!

Colors By Llarowe can be found at Llarowe.com and Julep can be found at Julep.com

Here are some pictures of the orchids from the show:

Thanks for reading!

Valentine's Mani part 5: WTF Camera!?!

Just a real quick post today because I wanted to post the last of the KBShimmer Valentine's trio, but I could NOT get my camera to capture this color-accurately at all!

Just two, horribly inaccurate photos:

This is Julep "Carrie" with RBL "Mismas" and KBShimmer "U Rock My <3 accent="" nail.="" nbsp="" on="" p="" the="">
Carrie is not the weird putty color it looks here; it's actually a bright bubblegum pink.  I was surprised at how much I liked it, since I'm not usually into "classic" pinks.

Mismas is a darkened purple--it is fairly accurate in these photos.

And lastly, U Rock My <3 a="" and="" black="" different="" glitters="" hearts.="" hex="" hot="" is="" matte="" mix="" of="" p="" pink="" sizes="" star="">
Julep can be found at Julep.com
Rescue Beauty Lounge can be found at RescueBeauty.com
And KBShimmer can be found at KBShimmer.com.  Christy Rose also makes great bath and body products.  I buy one of her bath bombs every time I place a polish order!

Thanks for reading!

Valentine's Mani Part 3: Burnin Love

Oh my God, Oh my God you guys!  (Read in the voice of Elle Woods from Legally Blonde the Musical)

Everyone and their mother has been restocking and putting out new collections in the past couple weeks!  Last week KB Shimmer debuted her V-day trio, piCture pOlish restocked on Llarowe on Tuesday, and then Colors by Llarowe restocked on Thursday, and then Elevation restocked and launched her new Patagonia collection yesterday!  Oh, and OPI's new Brazil collection came out.  I was going to hold off on that until I saw the mini CopacaBabies set at Ulta, and it happened to include all the colors I wanted to try from the collection.  I'm excited for all the fun nail mail coming my way, but my bank account is not happy!

Here is one of the polishes from KB Shimmer's new trio, "Whole Lava Lovin'":

"Whole Lava Lovin'" is a red holo with pink undertones.  I'm not normally a huge red polish fan (I know-blasphemy!), but the holo and the pink undertones make this extra special. 

I added on some hearts with Rescue Beauty "Aqua Lily" and Julep "Morgan"

The hearts were totally fast and easy.  You just make two dots next to each other (you can use a toothpick or bobby pin to make dots if you don't have a dotting tool), and then sort of drag the polish down and together into a point. 

"Whole Lava Lovin'" was super-easy to apply and covered completely in two nice coats.  My next mani features another polish from the KB Shimmer trio, so be on the lookout for that!

Valentine's Mani Part 2: All You Need is Love

And by Love I mean Julep's "Love" that went out to all subscribers this month!

 "Love" is a super-shimmery gold with pink undertones and loads of red microglitter.  It almost has a gold to pink duochrome effect.  I tried to catch the pink flash in the next couple pictures:

 

To add to the Valentine's-y-ness, I added a pink heart rhinestone from a pack from Sally Beauty.  Rhinestones are totally easy to use.  You just place them on your nail while your polish is still wet, let it dry for a couple minutes, then seal it on with a thick coat of top coat!

  I love "Love" so much!  I hope Julep puts out more colors with this finish.  The formula was a little thick though.  I didn't have any problems with application, but I might add a bit of thinner next time.

Julep can be found at Julep.com.  Julep's Maven program is a boutique nail polish subscription box.  I'll let you read more about it here.  If you want to become Maven, you can sign up through my link and use the code "FREEBOX" to get your first box free!