NPC: Vampy

Hi girls!  Late again, what can I say?  It's finals week, so I've been kind of distracted.  Hopefully I'll get back on track once finals are over!

Yesterday's NPC prompt was "vampy", so I chose Revlon "Vixen":

"Vixen" is a deep burgundy red with slight brown undertones.  I feel like this is a very classic shade.  I'm sure I will be wearing this on rotation a lot come fall!

Thanks for reading!  Hopefully I'll get the next prompt up tomorrow!

An InLinkz Link-up

On Wednesdays We Wear Pink: Mean Girls 10th Anniversary

Hey girls!  Today, April 30th is the 10th anniversary of Mean Girls premiering in theaters (and I checked IMDB, it actually was April 30, 2004), and it just happens to be a Wednesday, so a bunch of nail bloggers are wearing pink manis today in celebration!  I certainly have plenty of pink polishes, but one sprung right into my mind when I read about this.  Interestingly, this polish is from a collection based on another cult classic, The Princess Bride.  Here is Dollish Polish, "Wuv, Twu Wuv":

 "Wuv, Twu Wuv" is a pepto pink jelly (it looks a little orange here, but it's bright pink IRL!) with pink and red shimmer, hex glitter, and square glitter, and there are even some red circles, though I didn't manage to get any on my nails.

I got this polish in a mystery grab bag and it's nothing I would have picked out myself, but I'm loving it today!  It's so bright and happy!

Are any of you wearing pink today?  Feel free to fill my comments section with Mean Girls quotes!  It'll be so fetch!

An InLinkz Link-up

Superficially Colorful "Turbulence"

Hi ladies!  No tricks today, just a beautiful polish from a new-comer to the indie market.  Jin Jit of SuperficiallyColorful.com has been blogging for awhile, but she just recently released her first two nail polish collections, Remnants of Winter and Mood Swings.  "Turbulence" is part of the Remnants of Winter collection.

"Turbulence" is a reddish maroon with a strong purple and blue duochrome flash and some scattered holographic shimmer.  I was surprised by how much I liked this one!  The duochrome gives it so much depth!

I took photos at multiple angles so you could see the different colors that come out!

The formula on this was great.  It was a little thick, but I had no problems with application.  I borrowed this one from Gosia to try, and I'm definitely going to have to get some of these for myself!

Jin's new polishes can be found at SuperficiallyColorful.com!

Thanks for reading!

Contrary Polish "River Market"

Hi girls!  Sorry it took me so long to get this up; yesterday was a long and tiring day!  Purina came over yesterday to film me and Tumnus.  It was totally fun, but a little hectic!  I was going to post this up last night, but then Ben and I went to run some errands, and when we got home, all I wanted to do is go to bed!

Anyway, this is the polish I finally decided on for the Purina shoot.  They recommended jewel tones for shirts, so I decided to take the same cue for my nails, and went with Contrary Polish "River Market".

I tried to get pictures in a bunch of different lighting, but no matter what I did, this came out way more blue (and more sheer) than it is in real life.

"River Market" is a purple jelly with red shimmer.  I used two coats, which looks fine in real life, but you can totally see some VNL here.

I have friends who live in the River Market district of Kansas City (which this polish was based on!).  It's a really cool area.  There's the river (obviously) and there's a farmers' market with a bunch of good produce and really good local restaurants.  Going through these polishes in the No Place Like Home collection makes me want to visit again; it's been awhile since I've been to KC!  Maybe this spring or summer I'll get a chance...

Lastly, here's a photo of me and my nails from the Purina shoot!  Doesn't my house look nice when it's professionally lit?

Thanks for reading!

Edited to add: Carrie's creations can be found at Llarowe.com.  Love her shimmers!

Jade Holografico "Deja Vu"

Hi girls!

How was your weekend?  I'm going out after work tonight to get sushi with some friends!  I'm so excited; it's been a long time since I've had good sushi!

Today I have another practice kitty manicure:

This is Jade Holographico "Deja Vu".  When I pulled out all my red holos, I noticed this one and KBShimmer "Whole Lava Lovin'" are very similar, so look for a comparison on that soon!  This top photo is the most color accurate, "Deja Vu" is not quite as maraschino-red as the next two pictures.
 

I added a couple little paw prints on my accent nail with some new dotting tools I got off Amazon.  I'm loving these paw prints!  I think they're super cute :)

Jade is a Brazilian brand that can be found, like almost everything, at Llarowe.com.  These are a bit cheaper than most holos tend to be, and the formula is great!  Could have been a one-coater, but I did a second coat just to deepen the color.  If you're looking to try your first holo, and don't want to spend too much, I definitely recommend Jade!

Thanks for reading!

Colors By Llarowe "Dirty Diana"

Hey girls!  I meant to get this up last night, but then I got caught up in the excitement of having the Purina people over (more on that in a second!), and then Ben and I went to Office Depot later and we ended up being there longer than we planned on.  Some shit went down guys, lol.  Basically the manager wouldn't let us use a coupon from the website even though we were making a LARGE purchase (Ben's re-doing his office).  Whatever, we went home and ordered everything online and the manager missed out on a big sale that probably would have helped him make his plan for the night.

Anyway, the people from Purina came over yesterday to see how Tumnus was around strangers (he's a little shy, but he comes around), to discuss what the video will be about, and to see what the lighting is like in our house.  It turns out the video is for an ad that will be on their website and on their banner ads on other websites!  We'll be celebrities! 

I've been trying to think of ideas for manicures that will be a little eye catching, but not distracting on camera.  I don't even know if my hands will make it on camera, but I want to be prepared!  Here is my first test-mani:

This is Colors By Llarowe "Dirty Diana" with a little kitty tail on my pinkie!  I don't think you can tell it's supposed to be a cat tail though; it just looks like a squiggle :-P

More beautiful pictures after the jump!

Comparison: Finger Paints "Twisted" vs piCture pOlish "Festival"

Before Gosia and I went to the orchid show the other day, we went through each other's new polishes to see what we wanted to try :)  When looking through mine, Gosia wondered if piCture pOlish "Festival" was close to Finger Paints "Twisted".  I happen to still have her bottle of "Twisted", so I decided to do a comparison!

First bottle shots:

These are both multicolored flakies (red, blue, green, yellow, even a little purple!) in a yellow-ish base.  The base of "Festival" seems a little lighter, and the flakies seem more abundant in "Twisted".

As an aside, aren't the little sayings on the piCture pOlish bottles cute?  "Come together, flake it, flake it!"

Here is one coat of each over OPI Malaga Wine:

"Festival" on the index and ring fingers; "Twisted" on the middle and pinkie.  So you can see the flakies in "Festival" are more sparse, and it looks like there are bigger particles in "Twisted".
Sorry for the messy cuticles here!  You can see I'm not actually perfect! :-P

And here is two coats of "Festival" compared to one coat of "Twisted":

Two coats of "Festival" on pointer and ring fingers; one coat of "Twisted" on middle, pinkie (and thumb in the last picture).

These seem pretty close!  "Twisted" was part of Finger Paints' Winter 2012 collection.  It is discontinued and very hard to find now!  Luckily,   "Festival" is still available.  It can be found at llarowe.com.  It is out of stock right now, but it will be back!

What do you guys think?  Are these close enough that "Festival" makes up for "Twisted"?

Valentine's Mani part 4: Glitter Overload

Hi Ladies,

Today I have another polish from KBShimmer's Valentine's Trio, "Falling for Hue"

 Check out more pictures and a bonus kittykat pic after the jump!

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!

Elevation Polish "Toubkal"

 Of all the pictures I took of this polish, this was the only one that was even close to color accurate.  It's just a touch darker IRL.

Toubkal is a burgundy wine with copper glass flecks.  This polish has been on my lemming list for a long time, and I'm so glad Gosia lent it to me to try!  This might be my new favorite winter polish!  It's very cozy and warm, and I think it's one of those colors that will look good on any skin tone.  I'll definitely need to buy this polish so I can wear it again! The formula was a little uneven-it took three coats to even it out, but this color is gorgeous enough that I'm okay with that.

Lulu of Elevation polish is a mountain climber!  I knew a lot of her polishes are named after mountains, so I had to look up the inspiration for this polish.  Toubkal is the tallest peak in the Atlas Mountains.  It's located in North Africa, in Morocco.  I'm mystified by people who climb mountains.  After reading Into Thin Air in 7th grade, mountain climbing seems as fantastic as space exploration to me.  Ben and I have half-joked about hiking Taum Sauk Mountain, the highest "mountain" in Missouri, so that we can say we've climbed a mountain.

Elevation Polish is available at their Big Cartel Site, as well as on Llarowe .

Thanks for reading!