Orly: Galaxy Girl

OMG squeeee!  This is the most amazing color!  I had looked at people swatching Urban Decay Bruise and wanted it... but then this came out!  I love purple and this isn't just flat purple, it's awesome!  I love love love love love it.  Did I mention I love it?  HA!

Ok, so application wasn't that great for me.  However, I think this is pretty much user error.  I was sitting in front of a fan that day and that's my own darned fault.  So you can see some cuticle drag, but it's not horrid.  This is 3 coats Orly Galaxy Girl.  Good coverage, not too thick or too thin.  It wasn't easy peasy, but it was pretty good.

This is a good shot of the magenta-purple and the teal flash.  Every angle of this polish looked unique.  I love that kind of shade where you look and it's one color and then you look and it's another color.  And wait, did it change again?  It's mesmerizing, haha.

Another shot just because it's so pretty!  Wow, I can't sing enough praises on this.  LOVE!

Victorian Flowers

I was in a summery mood and wanted to do something pretty and girlie. I looked through my stash and pulled out some decals that I got from Viva la Nails.  They are very elegant roses and I picked a nice peachy orange base to go with it.

This is 2 coats China Glaze Peachy Keen as a base.  I topped that with 2 coats Savvy Magic Pumpkin.  Then I used the rose water decals from Viva la Nails along with some of their small gold rhinestones on the thumb and ring finger.  Topped everything off with Seche Vite.

How pretty is that?  This mani felt very elegant.  And it reminded me of the victorian era, which I love.  I felt very pretty wearing this, hehe.  Application of both polishes was good.  The China Glaze went on nice and smooth and gave good coverage.  The Savvy is really cool looking, but not very pigmented, which is why I used the ChG base.  I just love the shimmer and yellow and green flash it gave the mani.  Made it much more interesting.

OPI: Go Goth!

I talked about Halloween a little bit in an earlier post.  I really like the fall.  For some reason this time of year is just my favorite.  The air gets cooler, crisper... the colors of the leaves, the apples, the harvest.  I don't know, I just love it.  Anyway, Halloween is all a part of it too!  I love horror movies, blood and gore are awesome (just don't show someone up-chucking, I can't stand that).  OPI's new mini set is really cute.  They did a good array of colors and styles.  I will warn, my sun started going away and my outdoor shots started sucking, so only half the post is really any good, LOL!

This is 2 coats of OPI Unripened alone.  This went on nice and smooth, good coverage, no trouble getting it on.  In the bottle you can see a hint of purple in the blue shimmer, but I couldn't capture it on my camera and honestly I didn't really see it on my nails IRL either.

This is 2 coats of OPI Nevermore.  If you have OPI Ink, you do NOT need this color.  I actually have Ink on one of the four fingers shown here (honest!)  Can you tell which one?  Application was good, again, nice and smooth, good coverage, no real issues.  I love Ink, it's purple which blue and magenta and awesomeness!  If you don't have Ink, get it... at least you'll get a full size amount of this beauty.

This is 2 coats of OPI Obscurity.  A nice flat matte black.  Application was great.  It does dry fast, but not too fast to be able to apply it evenly.  It gave good coverage, I can't complain.

This is the most suck-tastic pic of the bunch.  I could not capture this color indoors or outdoors with the lack of sun.  Anyway, this is 3 coats OPI Sanguine.  It's a really nice deep merlot type wine-like red.  It gets really dark in shadow and has a good shimmer in the light.  Sorry my pic sucks so bad, lol.

So overall, not a bad group of colors.  I am disappointed that one is a dupe for a fave of mine.  Oh well.  I think it's cute that they included a little stretch lacey bracelet too, lol.  What they should have done is included black eyeliner!  Then I could get some too-light compact powder and brownish lipstick and relive my highschool days.  Hahahaha.  Just kidding... I won't subject you all to that, don't worry.  Happy Fall!!

China Glaze Vintage Vixen

I took a look at the fall China Glaze Vintage Vixen collection at my local Sally's.  I was tempted to buy them all, haha.  I tried to pick up something that I don't have much of.  I just so happened to pick Christmas colors, red and green, lol.  Oh well.  I actually picked these up a while ago, but they sat there for a bit.  And then I used them and took photos and the photos sat for bit.  Better late than never, right?

This is China Glaze Emerald Fitzgerald.  2 coats!  Of course, Seche Vite on top.  I loved this application because it had great coverage.  The brushes from China Glaze are slim, but spread nicely on the nail.  No cuticle drag or other issues to note.

I love this color!  In these photos it's showing more teal.  In some light it was teal, in other light it was emerald green.  I have no idea why, but that really intrigued me.  I love that it's shimmery and not a true frost.  You can't really see the brush strokes, which is good for me since I suck at that, lol.

This is 2 coats Riveter Rouge with Seche.  Again, application was good, no real issues.  Good coverage and good opacity.

Since this was a deeper red with golden shimmer, I chose rhinestones to make the gold pop.  Check that giant orange one!  Love those over-sized rhinestones, lol.  This polish didn't change color in different light like the green did, but it's still nice and shimmery and pretty.

I loved both these colors and would recommend them!  And hey, if you're looking to do a christmas mani, this might be right up your alley in terms of shade, haha.

China Glaze: Shocking Pink

Oh neon, how I love thee...  There's just something that screams summer about wearing neon.  It makes you look tanner, and you can't be cold looking at neon colors.  It's like Miami or Havana or something else warm and colorful.  And per a reader request, I threw it on my nails!

This is (unfortunately) 6 coats of China Glaze Shocking Pink all by itself.  I can see some VNL in the photos, but I couldn't really see it in real life.  Application was pretty bad, but most neons are.  It's thin and watery and had some horrible cuticle drag.  It's still streaky after 6 coats... so I gave up.  It dried to a satiny type finish.  Of course, neons are hard to capture on camera so these photos are the most color accurate I came out with.

Ewww!  Look at the streaks and drags!  Blech.  I was tempted to keep going with the coats, but I felt wasteful.  Anything over 4 coats is just too much.  I think this would have fared better over white.  Or maybe even a mannequin base.  I think my coats were probably a little thinner than they should have been too.  Plus I didn't use a base coat, so that may have added to the difficulty, lol.  It's a great hot pink, but neons are just so difficult!

Models Own: Purple Grey

To Chanel or not to Chanel... lol.  This is the rip off of Chanel Paradoxal.  I lurve it.  This is 2 coats Models Own Purple Grey and one coat CND Amethyst Sparkle.  Models Own polish is gorgeous by itself, but add in the CND effect and WOW!  I love the application on both of these.  The Models Own Purple Grey is very pigmented and gave nice even coverage.  The effect is nice and saturated so you only need one coat for that shimmer to pop!  I love the fact that the shimmer barely changed the color of the Models Own as well.  It just made the whole thing come to life.

Here's a better shot of the shimmer.  Sooooo pretty!  Love, love, love.  I think I said this in a comment... but I kinda wish I had interchangeable hands and I could just change them as often as I like.  Haha.  It would be fun.  Anyway, I love this color.  I would definitely wear this again.  So simple, but so pleasing!

Viva la Nails Review

So pretty and funky and cool!  How did I do it?  With the help of some goodies from Viva la Nails!!

I heard about a sample package you can get if you blog, so I ordered one!  It's coming from overseas (I'm in the USA), so it took a while to get here, but it was worth the wait!  So much stuff and everything looked awesome.  Here's the haul...

Such a great variety!  Something for everyone really.  I like it all.  I will say, I got a lot of yellow, but that's ok, it's a pretty good color to work with as far as accenting goes.  Gold and silver go with everything, lol.

I immediately picked out the star shaped dazzlings.  For this mani I started with 3 coats of OPI Rumple's Wiggin on all but the ring fingers.  On the ring fingers I used 3 coats of Avon Jade.  I used the Hollow Stars in Mauve on the ring fingers putting one outline and 2 centers on each ring finger.  I put a random number of Punched Stars in Azure on the remaining fingers.  Then I figured it needed some extra bling to make it nice and fancy so I threw on some of the Glitter in Green.

OMG!  It's righty!  Haha.  I don't often show my right hand... usually because it looks ugly... but this time it came out cute!

Right hand closer

Left hand closer

I think these nail art items were super easy to work with.  The dazzlings are thicker, so I put on a good thick coat of regular clear and then 2 coats of Seche Vite on top.  I did still have some corners that were pointy, but I kept the mani on for 4 days and nothing ripped off!

All the nail art items featured in this post can be purchased at Viva la Nails website for under £2!!!

[All nail polish in this post is my own and was purchased by me.]
[All Viva la Nails products were provided to me for review.]

Color Club Bewitching

Let Color Club cast a spell on you!

I just got an email about the upcoming Color Club halloween set (click the pic to make giant)!  I wanted to share this sneak peek with you!  I'm really hoping they are highly pigmented.  I need a good black, lol.  And I love purple!  And maybe that glittery one has some holo in it?  We shall see!

I love halloween.  Mostly because it's all harvesty.  For some reason I really love fall and harvest-like activities.  Hay rides, apple picking, pumpkin carving (or in my case drawing on them with markers)... it's all great!  What's your favorite time of year?