Zoya Ki

Man, I really wanted to love this polish and I really didn't.
I've seen better greeny-purple duochromes. I did get a couple of compliments on it, but I had a really hard time capturing the duochromey-ness on camera.
Here are four pictures. Enjoy! Pardon the tipwear, this was after a couple of days of wear.

Opposite Ends of the Spectrum

My two favorite polishes that I've used lately come from opposite ends of the price spectrum.

I hit the asian beauty supply place and got a few $1 Kleancolors. This one is called "Beach Blue," but it's actually more teal. A lot more teal than it appears in this photo. I probably could've gotten away with one coat, which has been my experience with Kleancolor cremes so far, but I did two just to make it purty.


My other favorite was Chanel Paradoxal. Good lord. It makes me hurt on the inside to think about how much Chanel nail polish costs, but, eh. I consider it a birthday present to myself. This was the last polish I wore before I severely shortened my nails. I just couldn't deal with them being that long anymore.

This was after a couple of days' wear. This color just looks grey or maybe purply-grey most of the time.


But by using the flash on my camera, you can really see the purple shimmer!


I like it. I don't regret spending the money on it because it's a unique color. :)

Cleanin' out the ol' Flickr

Hey! Guess what, you guys! Transdesign has Vintage Vixen up. I decided to take some of my birthday money and order all the colors I wanted out of that collection. I've been stalking Sally's to see when they'll get it in, but it's cheaper to buy from TD (at least, it is if you're ordering enough to justify the $7 in shipping). Just thought some of y'all might wanna know. :)

I have a TON of stuff to post! Today, though, I'm just going to post what's in my Flickr and hasn't been posted yet.

I made another Zoya order before the end of June, and honestly? I shouldn't blindly order nail polish off the internet. A lot of what I got in that second order was nice enough, but wasn't an appropriate shade for my skintone. I have a friend at work who's into nail polish. She's black, I'm white, and I showed up one day wearing Zoya Annie, which SO did not look good on me, but would SO look good on her. So I brought it to her the next day and she brought me some stuff that didn't look good on her. So it ended up okay that I cannot order appropriately for my skintone! LOL.

So anyway, today's post is unposted things, and Zoyas, Part I.

First, the RANDOMS.
So I found this 4-pack of mini Borghese polishes on clearance at Walgreens for $5. I'm pretty sure this was a holiday collection. It had a mini of Stellare Notte, two glitters, and a nice burgundy that unfortunately exploded on me so I never got to swatch it. Nail polish catastrophe, y'all!
Anyway, this is one of the glitters. It is, honestly, one of the butt ugliest, least sparkly glitters I've ever used. A brown jelly base with silver and red glitter that didn't SPARKLE. BLAH.


This is another of those discontinued Rimmel Play Fast polishes in a shade called Push It. It's a little frosty for my liking.


And now on to the Zoyas!
This is Kotori. It's a black, or maybe dark grey, jelly base with tons of blue microglitter. I LOVED this! It's gorgeous! The first coat had me a little nervous, 'cause it was way streaky and gross. I think I used three coats for this, but I was very pleased with the end result.


This is Gaia, which was described as white with gold shimmer. I just wish the gold shimmer had been more apparent, but I didn't hate this color.


And this is Yummy. I really liked this one, too. It applied nicely, but it reminds me a LOT of Orly Snowcone and/or Essie Lapis of Luxury, and I have both of those. I should do a comparison.



And now I'm caught up! So I can dump my memory card onto Flickr and not get confused about what I have or have not posted here! YAY!

Lemmings Fulfilled

So, a few weeks ago, I picked up a couple of colors I'd been lemming from l0verlada's blog sale. Go check her out -- she has a great blog! Dainty Darling Digits.

I got Maybelline's Vanishing Venus and China Glaze Crystal Ball. She even threw in a Sally Girl mini called "Your Majesty." I was happy! I actually wore Vanishing Venus for a few days and got a ton of compliments on it.

It IS a very interesting color. A nice plummy/burgundy shade with green shimmer. I feel like my photos don't do it justice.




And this is Crystal Ball. Another burgundy-ish shade, but this one has holographic glitter in it. It's beautiful!


And this is Your Majesty, a lovely royal purple jelly. I think this was three coats.

Hey you guys!!!

Guess what!
Tomorrow is my birthday, and I'll be 32. Holy CRAP, how did I get to be 32?!


Some other stuff...
I'm trying to do the Dave Ramsey thing, so I suppose that means I should quit buying nail polish. Curses. Or at least not buy it ALL the time, huh? I need to rediscover some old faves, anyway.


And pics! Just some randoms in my Flickr.
Rimmel Play Fast in Street Wear. Pale taupe with shimmer. Pretty, but not as pretty as I'd hoped.


Neon orange! Not really my color, but fun anyway. :)


OPI - Parlez Vous OPI.


China Glaze Orange Marmalade. Another one I didn't like as much as I'd hoped. It just looked so JUICY in the bottle!


Essie Midnight Cami. Holy smurf fingers, batman! This is pretty on, but removal kinda sucks.





ENJOY!


P.S. I should have a shipment waiting on me when I get home. Paradoxal. I hope I love it as much as I love everyone else's pictures of it, not only because it's going to be my birthday mani, but because it may be the last nail polish I buy for a WHILE!

Huge huge huge Dolla Tree post

Lately I've been into old Maybellines. I read too many nail polish blogs. I never particularly liked Maybelline nail polish, but apparently they had some good stuff out back in the day, when I bit my nails.

Our Dollar Tree had a TON of really good stuff a few weeks ago. So I hauled. Is it really a haul when it comes from Dollar Tree? I mean, come on. At most, I spent $10.

Anywho, here's what I got. I must say... as lovely as some of these were in the bottle, the prettiest ones had horrible drying issues (as in, they wouldn't. ever.) and most were three coats. I guess I shouldn't complain about Dollar Tree polish.

All of these are Maybelline except for one Sally Hansen.

This is a Maybelline polish called "Ginger." It's not what I would expect from a Ginger. It was okay. I'll probably never wear this one again.


This is "Jaded Blues." I LOVED this color. Blue with gold shimmer and a green flash? Hell yes. This is three coats and it had drying issues.
This is under fluorescent lighting.


Same color, lookit the flash!


Diva Gold. This was actually completely dried up, but the polishes were 2 to a pack and I really wanted the other color. I put some Poshe Reviver in it and let it sit a couple of days. Voila, revived polish. Too bad it's a butt ugly color. This is so not flattering on me.


Khaki Fringe. I'd lemmed this color for awhile, and was thrilled when I finally saw it at DT! Too bad I nicked this manicure minutes after finishing it. :/


Brown Aluminum. Meh. Grey-brown, and not in that trendy "greige" way either. It's alright. Nothing special.


Toasted Host. This one applied okay, but holy brushstrokes! I really am not a fan of frosty nail polish.


Plushed Plum. I really liked this one, a LOT. The color is good for my skintone, it's just out of season for summer. I could see myself wearing this a lot in the wintertime.


Jean Jacket. Brightish blue with some purple shimmer. This is really a gorgeous color.


I put my hand on my leg to see if it was REALLY the color of denim. It's pretty close! But my jeans don't have purple shimmery stuff in them. :)


And the lone Sally Hansen - Snappy Creme. Since "Creme" actually just describes the finish, should the name of this just be "Snappy?" I've wondered that. I like saying "Snappy Creme," but I also like being correct. Heh. Anyway, you'd think a polish called "Snappy" would be a little more, you know, snappy and less looks-like-a-paper-bag-y.

Nail Art!

Here is some nail art I did recently.


I keep seeing these strawberry nails everywhere, so I decided to do this myself.
I used China Glaze Cherry Pie for the berries, OPI Jade is the new Black for the leaves, and I dotted on black and white with a toothpick for the seeds. I REALLY liked how this turned out. :)



And this is some stamping I did in preparation for a fun weekend. Sadly, this chipped like... three hours later. :( China Glaze OMG stamped with Konad Special Polish in Black with the arrows and stars design from a Bundle Monster plate.

Random Picspam!

So, I'm way, WAY behind on both pictures and untried nail polishes. Good lord, these things (both of them) seem to just multiply... for no reason. My next sentence was going to be "We hit Ulta today, and..." Oops. I guess I just found my reason.

Anywho, most of the pictures I've yet to post can at least loosely be grouped together into semi-coherent posts. Today's post is the random stuff that doesn't fit anywhere else, and it's just been sitting in my Flickr for ages and ages, begging to be posted.

Picspam!

Here is Essie Turquoise and Caicos. I know I used this in a comparison post, but I'd never done a full mani of it. You know... I think Essie, as a brand, is growing on me. I don't hate it as much as I once did, anyway. I really, REALLY liked this color. I think I used three coats, since it's a jelly and a little on the sheer side.


This is Borghese Principessa Ivory. I was still on the hunt for the perfect off-white polish. This one was 75% off at CVS, and I figured I'd give it a shot for $2, ya know? It was streaky as hell, and I think this was like four coats. Must have been why it was on clearance.


This is Sally Hansen HD in Byte. It was okay. Didn't hate it, didn't love it. Pretty sure this was three coats, since it was pretty sheer.


I liked this one! It's a Finger Paints color - Art Appreciation Apricot. I got it on clearance at Sally. It really was a nice orange-y shade (I never used to wear oranges or corals, but they're growing on me). I have no idea why I didn't take a picture of the polish by itself before slapping some Hidden Treasure on top, but I didn't. Anyway, I call these... nails... OF FIYAH!

Happy Fourth of July!

Also, happy 10-days-til-my-birthday! If I'd been born in France, my birthday would be a holiday.

So, here's my July 4th manicure. I wore this to a get-together my husband and I went to last night. We came home with a new kitten. I'm a sucker for baby animals. Our other two cats are... lukewarm towards the new kitty, at best. But we're working on it. We have sweet kitties, so I feel sure that with some patience we'll have them all hanging out together in no time!

Oh wait, I was gonna show you a manicure. Here you go! I used Zoya Blair for the red, unnamed Goldie blue for the blue, and I stamped the stripes from one of the Bundle Monster plates and the stars from another Bundle Monster plate using Sally Hansen Whirlwind White. I had to go back over the stripes with my Art Deco nail art polish in white, because the Sally Hansen wasn't opaque enough.


And check this out. This is OPI No Room for the Blues, which I found on clearance at Trade Secret. ALL of the bottles were marked with this price. I had to ask the cashier, "So, how much is this nail polish... REALLY?" (By the way, it was $4.99.) I should try to sell this on eBay for like $75. I mean, it was ORIGINALLY $120, so clearly $75 is a deal, right?!



And because I can't resist... here's a picture of our new baby. I've yet to choose a name. I really like Jezebel. I also like Dobby because she reminds me of a house elf, and the other HP house elves had stupid names. Also, Dobby was awesome. :)