On Purple Clouds

Hello, Fireflies!

Time for another week of this month's NCC Challenge - Purple.  I should be on tenterhooks waiting for your reaction, but I can't help it.. I'm on clouds.  Cloud nailart, that is.

Arm Candy? More like Nail Candy! #butterlondon

Press Samples (except Violet's Revenge).  All opinions are my own.

Hello, Fireflies!

I know I usually post nail art with my reviews anyway, but if you like my nail art, you're going to love today's post! I had the opportunity to try Butter London and Allure's collab collex - Arm Candy, and it's full of great Fall shades, and I did lots of nail art looks, to boot!

On Cloud 9 With Zoya's Mystery Shades!

 Hello, Fireflies!

I love surprises - but only good ones.  So, I was a little hesitant to order the new Zoya mystery minis.  The last time Zoya did this promotion, some of the colors had been released under some special collections, so they weren't NEW colors.  This time, Zoya promised never-before seen Zoya colors. 

Would I like?

Dead Sea - Face Alive!

Press Sample.  All opinions are my own.

Hello, Fireflies!

In my journey to finding balance for my aging, oily skin, one of my favorite tools has been the mud mask.  I confess, I get a little happy just sitting here thinking about mud masks.  Is that weird?

Let's just keep that between us, then, shall we?

#WeekOfLoveChallenge - Valentines' Day Gouged Hearts

Happy Valentines' Day, Fireflies!

Whether or not you celebrate, I hope you take a moment today to appreciate yourself and know that I appreciate all of you who spend a moment here with me.  Hugs!

Today's nail art was inspired by a cloud mani done by Lucy's Stash.  I love the layered look of a cloud mani!

I started with OPI This Gown Needs A Crown, a polish with a unique silver satin finish.  It's a similar idea to the OPI Love.Angel.Music.Baby, but the texture isn't as fine.

I followed up with Literary Lacquers Strawberry Ice Cream Soma, a soft baby pink with a subtle scattered holo.

Next up, OPI Cute Little Vixen.  I loved the berry color.. but I also loved the name for this mani.  Who doesn't look forward to being a cute little vixen (or cuddling up with one!) once in a while?

Last, but not least, Rescue Beauty Lounge Piu Mosso. Lovely, dark eggplant purple with a copper shimmer.  Again, loved the color, but also the name, which means, "more motion."  Wink, wink, nudge, nudge, say no more?

For the hearts, I took an orange stick with some cotton, dunked it in acetone, and rubbed through almost all the layers of polish.  I can't remember who started this, but I believe they called it a 'grunge' technique.  Yeah, my hearts do look grungy.

Topcoat actually worked against me a little - it filled in some of the hearts and made them harder to see.  This probably would have worked better if my hearts were bigger.  Take a note from the Grinch, whose heart grew 3 sizes. 

Bottle shot:  OPI This Gown Needs A Crown, Literary Lacquers Strawberry Ice Cream Soma, OPI Cute Little Vixen, and Rescue Beauty Lounge Piu Mosso.

Being in love usually means being vulnerable enough for that person to be able to hurt you.  I hope that today your hearts are full, and not metaphorically gouged out like these.

An InLinkz Link-up

Ruby White Tips- Oh, the shimmer!

Hello, Fireflies!

I have some really pretty polishes and nail art to show you today.  I'm so excited, I had to bump this up in my scheduled posts!

This beauty is Jane's Lemming.  The base is ...grey? taupe?  Who cares - look at that incredible blue shimmer.  I have a LOT of polishes, and none like this.

I decided to play off the blue, and take a tip from this pix from the Manicurator, and use striping tape and a texture to amp up the mani.  This is OPI Alcatraz Rocks! from the San Francisco collex.

Math sucks! Yes, in my opinion it does, but this polish doesn't.  This berry jelly has lots of blue flecks just swimming in it.

This nail art is a bit outside the box for me, but I just had fun.  I liked how the glitter in NerdLacquer All Of Time And Space went with the berry color in Math Sucks! so I did an accent nail... and then another.. and then tips... and then added a blue striper.  Play with your polish!

If you follow Ruby White Tips' Facebook, you may have seen that this is one of her newest releases, Me O My O.  I received it as a prize *before* it was released! Woot!  She liked my swatch, so now it's on her Etsy page for this polish.  This is my first time that this has happened to me, and I couldn't be more flattered.

I saw Mr. Kitty in a blog sale, and snatched it up.  The shimmer!  Oh, the shimmer.  I couldn't resist.  It's amazing.  Also, this polish is one of the Batworld.Org polishes, and when you buy it from RWT, 50% of the proceeds goes towards helping this bat sanctuary.  Mr. Kitty (and Miss Kitty, his namesake) have a really cool story!  A rescued cat that rescues bats?

Bats eat bugs, especially mosquitoes.  Mosquitoes hurt me and spread disease.  MOAR Bats, please!

I thought that Mr. Kitty and O Me O My O would look great together.  The color separating them in this cloud mani is Illamasqua DWS, a grey creme.

I had a blast playing with these great polishes from Ruby White Tips.  If you'd like more information about Ruby White Tips, you can find her on Facebook, webpage, or her Etsy shop.

I must really like RWT and her bats, because I have two other posts I've dedicated to her polishes.  If you like these, please check out Girls and Bats and Bats and Bill? to see my other reviews.

Ruby White Tips - Girls and Bats

When Ruby White Tips had a sale, I came running to try out her new polishes, and see what these new square bottles were all about.  As Huey Lewis once said, "it's hip to be square' but it may not always be your thing.  If you make it to the bottom of this post, you'll find out why.

Kim.  One of her new polishes from the Custom line, Kim was named after an angry Pomeranian doggie. It's first name was actually Angry Pomeranian.  I understand not wanting to name a classy nude holo after a yippie-bitey dog, but I can't help but think of the dog now when I see this polish!

I decided to pair Kim with another polish from her Custom line, Gracelyn, named for the owner's daughter.  I love these together, but doing nail art with Gracelyn wasn't easy.  It's a very sheer glass fleck, and takes about 4 coats to reach opacity, even over Kim.  So trying to stay in the lines to make my chevron tip was challenging, but oh, so worth it.

These are my new "Princess Nails."  Named for a little girl and a pampered pooch!

Man Eater.  Two polishes named for girls, and one named for a *woman* Man Eater is a red jelly with a glass fleck.  I don't buy too many reds these days, but I couldn't resist this one.  It's really beautiful, and has such interesting depth and shine.  My camera doesn't do it justice.

I decided to do a glitter gradient with Ninja Polish Nebula.  This pairing looked amazing in person.. and later this week, I'll show you Nebula over black in a full mani.  This just glittered and changed color all over the place.  Very eye-catching!

Boo2.  I'm growing quite fond of the Batworld polishes, and the bats they help.  Half of the proceeds of this collection go to help rehabilitate these bats.  Boo2 was born in the sanctuary after his mother was rescued from a bad zoo.

Boo2's polish is a light and ethereal purple scattered holo.  If you liked Dandy Polish's 'Bathed In Light' then you would like this.  It has a misty quality that I love.  I couldn't bear to take it off, so I embellished it with a cloud mani using Cult Nails Nevermore (glossy black) and Urban Outfitters Bandeau (neon purple)

Bottle shot:  Boo2, Nevermore, Bandeau.

Even if you think bats aren't your thing, you should check out Batworld and read about how important they are to our ecosystem.  I have to give props to any Indie that is putting their money where their mouth is and giving a portion of their profits to a charity that is doing good works. 

If you'd like more information about Ruby White Tips, you can find her on Facebook and her webpage and  store.  And now, until May 1st, if you use the code: FROMWITHIN, you'll get 25% off your order!  RWT has decided that the square bottles aren't going to work for her, so she's offering my readers a discount to move the stock out.

Etsy code: FROMWITHIN for 25% off!

The Darker side of Contrary Polish

I love wearing darker polishes.  I know I have li'l nubbins, but I don't care - I'll wear what I want!  I hope you will, too.  I want to show you a couple of Contrary Polishes I picked up that have a bit of a darker side to them.

Mystery.  I think this was part of Contrary's Holiday collection, but I'm not sure.  I found it on sale at Llarowe, and I'm glad I did.  I love brown polishes, and the gold shimmer in this one is so pretty.  Gold and brown are so nice together.

I wanted to do some nail art, so I picked a color that I thought would help bring out that shimmer.  This is Sinful Colors Zincing of You, and the beginning of Nailside's infamous cloud mani design.

I also really love blue and brown together, so I used China Glaze Adore, a metallic blue, to finish the cloud and to add some dots.  I'm loving all this metallic shimmer!

Lopsided bottle shot.  Oh, Blogger, why u no fix this?

Bright Night.  It's actually a bit of a dark night to me, but there is a bright blue shimmer to it, which adds some really pretty depth to this polish.

 

I was inspired by Robin Moses' design for 'Elegant Blue Tentacles" to do this version: 

I even did my right hand:

I used Barry M. Gelly in Blueberry for the 'tentacles', Barry M. Blue Moon for the dots, and added the iridescence with Sally Hansen Sea and Be Seen.  Bottle shot:
 

You like Contrary Clouds or Tentacles?


If you'd like to find out more about Contrary Polish, you can find them on Facebook.  She sells minis via e-mail through her blog, but you can buy full-size polishes through Llarowe, and some other e-tailers (she has a list on her blog.)

Four Julep Suedes

Ok, so the 'Week' of suedes has become sort of a bakers' dozen... I'm sneaking in a couple more days because I just can't resist! 

When Julep announced a matte topcoat would be part of the November Maven's box, the polish world went a little nutty, hoping against hope that Julep would be coming out with their own line of matte suedes, and so they did.  I picked up 4 of them.

The first is a light green suede called Hailee.  This is so very different from Femme Fatale.. this one doesn't even read true green, but more of a hint of sage green.

Formula was the same with all the Julep suedes - just fine.  I don't think there is any appreciable difference in the application of the suedes between Avon, Pure Ice, or Julep. 

I was really looking forward to Julep Nora.  This is a unique purple in my collection.  It's very nearly a steely grey.

I decided to paint one stripe of Above the Curve Don't Call Me Sugar, a lilac holo, right down the center of each nail. 

I love how it almost gives the suede a duo-chrome feel.  If you didn't know it was two different polishes, would it just look like a trick of the light?

Next up is Julep Amber, a champagne gold suede.  I much prefer champagne gold to orange gold tones with my skin color.  This is almost a nude on me - it makes me look really, really pale, but I like it.

The last Julep I bought was Minka.  What a pretty color, somewhere between rose gold and copper.  This is also unique to my stash, and one of my faves of the suedes.

I thought a cloud mani with Amber, Minka, and Hailee would be really pretty.  It's almost a southwestern color palette, but very muted.  I love this combo.

Will you be picking up any of the Julep matte suedes?  At $14 each at Sephora or Julep, I suggest you get a Maven to pick one up for you for $5 when added to her Maven Box, though I don't know how long they will be available.

Creamy, dreamy clouds

I'm not that creative - I take a lot of my nail art ideas from blogs and pinterest.  There is some cool stuff out there, people.  I have been really excited about many of the colors and styles from a blog called Nailside, written by a 20+ year old in the Netherlands.  She did this one mani called 'clouds' that I took this inspiration from.

When I picked up Sinful Colors Cinderella, I couldn't resist a few more colors.  I have been in the mood for green lately.  This is Exotic Green.  The first coat was really yellow, and I didn't think I was going to like it.  Another coat made all the difference.  

Some bottles still had this little stretchy rose ring on the neck.  Silly, but cute. 

I don't know why I picked up this minty-apple green color, it doesn't suit my skintone well. After I swatched this, I took it off and put Exotic Green on both hands as the base coat.

 Call me crazy, but I do love the bottle shape of this brand of polish, though.

I started to experiment with the layering of the clouds.  I added Sally Hansen Made in Jade and Xtreme wear Mellow Yellow to my accent nail. 

All four colors went on my thumbs.

I liked this so much, I did both hands.  This is a happy manicure.