Holy whoa

I somehow made it to 200 followers! Wow!

I should do a giveaway when I hit 250 or 300... Hrmmm...

Is it inappropriate to give away used nail polish? As in, previously worn, maybe only swatched, but not empty bottles?



The winner of my last giveaway was international, and shipping was horrifically expensive, so I think I may limit this one to US only. Sorry.

Lisa Frank Nails!

Sooo... I totally ripped this off from another nail blogger, and I feel I must give credit where credit is due. It's due here:
http://kroniclesofakonader.blogspot.com/2010/08/neon-and-leoparda-match-made-in-heaven.html

SO, what I did was.. I painted my nails with a white base. I used Sally Hansen Insta-Dri in Whirlwind White. Then I freehanded the stripes using CHG Towel Boy Toy, CHG Pool Party, Essie Funky Limelights, and CHG Flying Dragon. Then I Konaded on top using the leopard print Konad plate. Someone on either my Twitter or Facebook suggested I add unicorns and glitter to make it a TRUE Lisa Frank experience. Well, since I don't have the mad skilllllz necessary to do unicorns, I topped it off with a couple of coats of Cover Girl City Lights.

And I got...


THIS:


I LOVED IT! I actually wore this for a few days before removing.

Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure in Gray by Gray

Sooo... I also found this color on clearance at a random Walgreen's in August. It's weird -- there were a few clearance colors. I only picked up this one and Naked Ambition. And now, at some drugstores, these colors seem to be gone. But at other drugstores, they're still there. What is this I don't even...

I also think I'm going to attempt to do 31 days of Halloween-ish colors for October. I need to go home and raid my stash to see what I have. I'm thinking any black w/shimmer, black w/glitter, or vampy should do it. I LOVE OCTOBER! And Halloween! And Fall!

Speaking of Fall, it finally actually feels like Fall here in Georgia! Hooray! The 90 degree days were KILLING ME.

Anyway, on with the show. I apologize for the tipwear in these pics. I wore this for several days, because I absolutely loved the color, but the tips wore down something fierce.


I was still too lazy to redo my nails, so I just slapped some OPI Significant Other Color on top. Check it out!




I liked that combination, even though it was a bit odd. :)

Essie Little Brown Dress

Yet another of the Essie fall minis. This is Little Brown Dress, a super dark brown. I like it ok, but it's really too close to black for me! I think I used two coats here, maybe three.

Orly Galaxy Girl

I've already posted my photos of Space Cadet. This is the only other color I picked up from the Cosmic FX collection.

I really liked this shade! At first I thought it was going to be dupish to Maybelline Vanishing Venus or Misa Embroidered Emerald, but it really isn't, although they are in the same color family.

Here is an outside shot:


And here is an inside shot (where you can really see what I mean by being in the same color family as VV or EE):

Sally Hansen Naked Ambition

Heh hehehehehe.... naked.

Found this one on clearance at a random Walgreen's in Alabama. It's from the SH Complete Salon Manicure line.
I do believe this was three coats. It's a pinky nude with some shimmer/glitter in it.
Eh.. it's okay. Nothing special. Would never have picked it up if it weren't on clearance. :)

OPI Ski Teal We Drop

Y'all, this is really the only color that appealed to me from the OPI Swiss collection... but I LOVE it!

It's awesome, beautiful, well-pigmented dark teal that was nearly perfect with 1 coat, and completely perfect with 2. Any dings you see are the fault of the manicurist and not of the polish. :)

Random layering experiment

So I was bored one day and decided to layer...

This is Man Glaze Hot Mess layered over Finger Paints Blissfully Blue. I like it, even if it is a bit wintry looking for August!

Claire's Excited/Bored

This is one of the newer mood polishes from Claire's. It changes from peach to coral depending on the temperature. Peach is the warm color, while coral is the cool color. I had a hard time capturing this one, so pardon the indoors photographs with wet hands. :) It was so hot here in August that I would only get the warm color if I took these outside!








In all honesty, this is pretty, but applying it was a hot streaky mess. Gluggy and streaky and just.. yuck. And it chipped within a day. :(

I know I've spent most of the last few months apologizing for my lapses in posting. So I won't do it again. I haven't lost interest in nail polish, but I am trying to keep my spending at a reasonable level, and sometimes it's just a pain to crank out a post. :) But I still have a massive backlog of pictures. Oh well. This is a blog. It's a hobby, not a job (I have a job!) for me, so I'll post when I get around to it. If this blog were making me money, I'd probably be a little more diligent!

Essie Merino Cool and Comparison

I want to apologize for the bubbles in this mani... I have had more issues with bubbling lately, and I'm not quite sure what's causing it. I suspect it's summer humidity, since I've not changed basecoat or topcoat. Yet another reason I'm ready for fall...

Anyway, this is the purply-taupe shade from Essie's fall collection -- Merino Cool.


It reminds me of other purply taupes I have.
This is Merino Cool on thumb and forefinger.
Sally Hansen Commander in Chic on middle finger.
Confetti Moonstruck on ring finger.
Essie Mink Muffs on pinky (yeah, it's WAY different from the other three, but I threw it in there anyway).




Mink Muffs is way more brown than the rest.
Commander in Chic is just a tinge more brown than Merino Cool or Moonstruck.
I think Moonstruck and Merino Cool are dupes, or damn near close to dupes. The formula is better on Merino Cool, but the pricetag is better on Moonstruck ($2 compared to $8).

So there you go!

Orly Space Cadet

Ok, so this is the one color from the Orly Cosmic FX collection that everyone is going nuts over. I can see why. I must say, though, that I am disappointed in the bulk of the collection. Bummer. I had such high hopes for you, Orly Cosmic FX!!!

But this color!!! This color is duochromatic awesomeness. I took a billion pictures and a couple of videos.

The colors, but not the finish, reminded me a LOT of another duochrome I have, Rimmel Zeitgeist. The colors are much the same, but Orly is more glittery and sparkly, whereas the Rimmel is almost metallic.

I will let the pictures speak for themselves.

These are all just Orly Space Cadet on its own.












And here is Space Cadet vs Zeitgeist. Space Cadet is on my thumb, middle, and pinky. Zeitgeist is on my pointer and ring fingers.





And here are a couple of videos to show you what I mean when I say there is a definite resemblance.