NPC: Blog sale AND Discontinued!

Hey everyone!  Look at me, getting caught up!  Wednesday's NPC prompt called for a polish from a giveaway or blog sale.  I never win giveaways (booooo), but I have been buying quite a bit from blog sales recently, so I grabbed one from someone's Storenvy sale.  After I had this on, I looked to see what today's prompt was.  It's "Discontinued", and I realized this polish works for both!  Here is Ozotic 515:

515 is a bright blue linear holographic.  It's much stronger in real life than in my pictures.  Unfortunately, the whole Ozotic line has been discontinued, so I'm glad I grabbed this in a destash!

There are two Inlinkz below since this belongs to two prompts.  Be sure to checkout everyone else's manis from the past couple days!

An InLinkz Link-up

An InLinkz Link-up

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!

An InLinkz Link-up

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 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

a england "Dancing with Nureyev"

Hi everyone!  I meant to get this post up last night, but I spent forever refreshing Llarowe.com trying to get a couple of her charity polishes.  I managed to get three of the four I wanted, so I did okay!  Anyway, after that I was so tired I didn't feel like typing up a post!  Sorry!

Today I have for you a england's "Dancing with Nureyev" from the new-ish Ballerina collection.  I had to google to see who Nureyev was.  He was a Soviet-born ballet dancer, and one of the most celebrated ballerinos of the 20th century.  He defected to France in the early 1960s, and sadly died due to complications of AIDS in 1993.

"Dancing with Nureyev" is a pale lavender holo.

I had a problem with my editing software, so I couldn't get my watermark to show up on the rest of these :/  Oh, well!

 I decided to add some little flower stickers to my accent nail.  I thought this went together really well!

The formula of "Nureyev", like all a england's formulas, was nice and creamy.  I used two coats here. 

a england can be found at llarowe.com.  What do you ladies think of this color?  I am definitely ready for springy pastels!

Thanks for reading!

Comparison: Jade "Deja Vu" VS KBShimmer "Whole Lava Lovin'"

Hi everyone!  How are you doing on this cold Sunday?  Is it cold where you are?  Yesterday it was about 75 degrees here, and then the temperature dropped all through the night.  The high today was 55 at 12:05 AM!  Just after midnight.  And then it was in the 30s all day and there was sleet and snow!  Urgh!!  When is spring going to come and stay for good??

Anyway, today I have a comparison for you.  When I was fishing out all my red holos, I realized that Jade "Deja Vu" and KBShimmer "Whole Lava Lovin'" looked pretty similar.  Here are a couple bottle shots:

Here they look pretty similar.

Here I think you can see that the Jade is a little lighter red, and has a slightly stronger holo.

And here they are on the nail:

Overall, I think you can see that the Jade has a stronger holo effect, and I think that's what makes it look a little lighter.  They're both beautiful though, and they're different enough that I can justify having both!

If you guys ever have any comparisons you want me to do, post them in the comments and I'll do them if I have the polishes!

Thanks for reading!

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!

Holy Holo!

Hey guys!

I officially finished the first week of Insanity!! And it only took me about a week and a half, lol!  I'm actually surprised I was able to stick with it.  Before I started I didn't think I was in good enough shape to keep up. But while the workouts are hard work, the individual moves are actually simple.  I'm not as fast as the people in the video, but at least I'm doing it!

Okay, on to the polish!

Today I have another loaner from Gosia, Speciallita Hits No Olimpio Dionisio.  That's a mouthful, huh?  I always thought this brand was called Hits, and I was pretty sure it was from Brazil.  But while I was looking around to confirm that, I found out the brand is actually Speciallita; Hits is one of their lines; and No Olimpio is one Hits collection.   No Olimpio is a collection of crazy awesome holos named after Greek gods and goddesses.  This is the first Hits/Speciallita polish I've tried!

 Look at those rainbows!!  More pictures after the jump!