NOTD: Easter Manicure!

Hi guys, today I have a quick NOTD to share with you. I decided to do my nails up for Easter. My family doesn't really do any kind of celebrating for Easter but I still like having festive nails even if I just relax at home and no one else but you gets to see them. I decided to do a little water marbling (because apparently that's all I ever feel like doing for holidays lol).

For the marbled nails I used Cult Nails Tempest as a base to help make the light shades of the marble pop. The marbling was done with Essie Fiji, Butter London Keruffle, Essie Turquoise & Caicos and Essie Knockout Pout.

I wasn't too thrilled with how my ring finger turned out on my right hand and I was too lazy to fix it so I decided to just do accent ring fingers instead. For the accent nail I used Essie Fiji as a base and did the dots with Essie Knockout Pout and Essie Turquoise & Caicos!

Hope you all have a great Easter if you're celebrating, or just a good Sunday if you're not!

Lighting: Shade

piCture pOlish Voodoo

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Hi guys, happy Friday! Anyone doing anything fun this weekend? I had all my fun last night, I went and saw New Found Glory, it was a pretty awesome show at a tiny venue and they were recording for their live cd. Who knows,  if you get their live cd you might just hear me singing along horribly off key with everyone else in the crowd haha!

Today I have a pretty vampy shimmer from piCture pOlish called Voodoo to show you guys! Voodoo is a red/brown with a golden shimmer. The shimmer was nice and strong, I could see it indoor in the crappy lighting inside my house which is always nice since most of my time is spent sitting in an office in that kind of lighting. The formula was good, it was a little thick but easy to work with and apply. I used 2 coats for the photos below, all photos are natural sunlight!

piCture pOlish is available at picturepolish.com.au, they also have a ton of etailers around the world to buy from including Llarowe, Harlow & Co and Nail Polish Canada, for a full list of their network members check out the Network page on their website!

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InStyle.com's Inspired by Zooey Deschanel Tuxedo Nail Contest!

Hey guys! Just wanted to do a quick post to let you know about a fun contest that InStyle Magazine is hosting on InStyle.com! I don't normally post about this kind of stuff but I love me some Zooey Deschanel so I wanted to share it with you guys!

InStyle is giving away a basket full of Covergirl Must Haves which includes a few shades from their new Outlast Stay Brilliant line to 3 winners! All you have to do is a manicure inspired by Zooey's super cute tuxedo nails from the 2012 Golden Globe awards. We all remember these nails right? I sure do! I really enjoyed the film strip nails she did for the 2013 Golden Globes also but those look a little more difficult to recreate (at least for me haha!)

For how to enter InStyle's contest along with a really simple tutorial for recreating Zooey's Tuxedo Nails click here or on the photo below!

InStyle's contest is open from March 27th-April 2nd!

Photo Credit: Phil McCarten/PictureGroup.

Nicole by OPI Kellogg's Special K Collaboration Swatches

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Hi guys! Today I have 3 new polishes from Nicole by OPI to share with you, these are part of a collaboration between Nicole by OPI and Kellogg's Special K. Starting in April (for US residents only) you will be able to purchase specially marked boxes of Special K products, then you just have to sign up for the Kellogg's Family Rewards Program and enter the codes from the boxes to receive these! You have to redeem 3 codes to receive Challenge Red-y and if you redeem 8 codes you get all 3 polishes! I think it's a pretty awesome promo, especially if you already buy Special K products!

Check out swatches of all 3 shades by clicking the read more button below!

Nail it! Magazine Guest Post & Interview!

Hi guys! Just wanted to do a quick post to let you know about a couple fun things I did for Nail It! Magazine's website.

First up is a guest post about my 5 Favorite Layering Glitters. Let me just tell you, this was SO difficult to narrow down. I seriously spent about 2 days pulling out and narrowing down all the glitters I love. 

You can check it out my guest post clicking here!

In addition to the guest post above Nail It! Magazine also featured me in their Bloggers You Should Know series. The interview to super fun to do, I've really been enjoying reading the interviews they have done with other bloggers as well!

To read my interview click here!

Essie Sleek Sticks- So Haute! Review

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Hi guys! Today I have a little review for Essie's Sleek Sticks to share with you, this particular design is called So Haute! Essie recently put these out in 12 different designs, you can see them all at Essie's website by clicking here if you'd like. Basically, Sleek Sticks are nail appliques. I have a whole drawer full of these types of things (literally, you can see a photo of it here on my Instagram). I love nail appliques because I suck at 99% of nail art, these are an easy way to make my nails look like a took a lot of time doing them without actually having to take a lot of time to do them.

When you open the package of Sleek Sticks there are 18 appliques on a sheet of plastic, also in the little package is a mini nail file, instructions for application and removal and a thin hard plastic tool which you can use to remove excess sticker after applying them to your nails. There are 9 different sizes of appliques (2 of each size) in the package so it's pretty easy to find one that will fit each nail perfectly, if you have small nail beds and there isn't a perfect size for you it would be very easy to trim these if needed.

Below is a photo of the So Haute! design on the nail. So Haute! is an orangey red with gold dots, these are textured which is a bit hard to tell from the photo.

Lighting: Shade

Application was easy with this set of Sleek Sticks, this is the second time I've tried these out. This first time I tried a pattern called A to Zebra and had issues so I never posted them. The A to Zebra design is one of my favorite pattens available from Essie but the decals are smooth and I found them hard to apply. So Haute! has a lot of texture to it and I think that really helped with the application as it didn't show some of the issues that can happen with nail appliques (like wrinkling or stubborn air bubbles).

Once you find the right size for your nail you stick the applique down and smooth out any air bubbles while making sure it is securely pressed onto your nail. Then you fold the excess strip over the free edge of your nail and file it off. These strips are on the thick side so filing off the excess was something I found to be a difficult which also resulted in the edge of the sticker looking a bit ragged. As far as wear goes I did not have a chance to wear test this specific design but I wore the A to Zebra appliques for 4 days and had some lifting of the applique on a couple of nails. I think wearing top coat with these would probably extend the life of them but I haven't tried it yet.

Lighting: Shade

Overall, I wouldn't say these are my favorite of what's on the market but I do enjoy the designs Essie has. I'm not sure I would go out and purchase any of the designs that don't have texture due to how difficult I found those particular ones to be while applying. I would definetely pick up the more textured designs, like So Haute! again though.

Essie Sleek Sticks are available pretty much everywhere Essie is sold, I know I've seen them everywhere from Target to CVS and Walgreens. The suggest retail price is $10.25 but I've seen the price vary depending on where you shop.

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Ninja Polish Ambrosia

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Hi guys! Today I have Ninja Polish Ambrosia to share with you! Ninja Polish just recently released this as part of their Enigma Collection. Ambrosia is red jellyish base with a really pretty golden shimmer. The shimmer is a bit on the subtle side but you can see it a tiny bit in lower light. The formula was good, a bit sheer and a little on the thick side by I didn't have any application problems. I would suggest waiting a few minutes between coats if you get this though. It kind of felt like I was applying a gel to my nails. I used 3 coats for full opacity! All photos below are in natural sunlight.

Ambrosia is available at NinjaPolish.com, it retails for $11!

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OPI Bond Girls Collection Swatches

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Hi guys, hope you all had a good weekend! Today I have the new Bond Girls Collection to share with you! OPI has teamed up again with EON Partners to release 6 more Bond inspired polishes. All 6 polishes in this collection are OPI's Liquid Sand formula and they are all named after some of the iconic Bond Girls we've all seen in the movies. Check out all the swatches & reviews of each shade by clicking the read more button below!

Saturday Spam: Hard Candy

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Hi guys, happy weekend! Anyone have fun plans for this weekend? I have a bazillion errands to run but nothing exciting unfortunately. Today I have a bit of Saturday Spam for you, all of these polishes are from Hard Candy's new re-vamped nail polish line. They recently came out with 45 new polishes in a bunch of little mini collections. There are a ton of great finishes and colors, really something for everyone in my opinion!

Check out all the swatches by clicking the read more button below!

Friday Favorites #9: How to Follow Blogs

Hi guys! In case you haven't heard (i'm sure you have lol) Google Reader is going away on July 1st 2013, I know a lot of people use it to follow blogs so I thought I'd do a Friday Favorites about other ways to follow once Google Reader is gone. It seems like there are bajillion ways to follow blogs so this might be lengthy, if you use something I didn't mention let me know in the comments and I'll update the post!

Click the read more button to check out the rest of this post!

Cult Nails Swatches!

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Hi guys! Today I have 4 Cult Nails polishes to share with you! I picked up 3 of these at the Cult Nails booth at The Makeup Show a couple weeks back and 1 was given to me by Maria at the show in a little blogger pack! I was pretty excited when I found out Cult Nails was going to be at The Makeup Show because I had been wanting to get a couple more bottles of their top coat (one of my favorites!), you know I couldn't pass up picking up some polish while I was there!

To see swatches & reviews of each shade click the read more button below!

Nails Inc Ice Cream & Sprinkles Collection

Hi guys!! Today I have a little mini set from Nails Inc called the Ice Cream & Sprinkles Collection to share with you. I saw this on the Sephora website a couple weeks back and convinced myself I didn't need it, then I went to order something else and needed a couple more dollars to get free shipping so of course I somehow justified needing this to put me over the limit. I think that's some true shopaholic justification right there, buying a $16.50 mini set instead of paying like $5 for shipping is totally normal...right?

The Ice Cream & Sprinkles Collection is 3 cute mini polishes, 2 are cremes and 1 like the glitters from the Sprinkles Collection Nails Inc released last year. Check out swatches & reviews of each polish by clicking the read more button below.

Inglot O2M Breathable Nail Enamel 664 & 664 Swatches!

Hi guys! Today I have a couple Inglot O2M polishes to share with you! I bought these when I was at The Makeup Show a couple weeks back. Inglot has a couple lines of polish, their regular line and this line which is a bit different from normal nail polish. O2M stands for Oxygen and Moisture and it's called that because the polish is breathable and allows air and moisture to pass through the polish to the nail. When I bought these I had no idea what that meant or why something like that would be useful but a couple of you commented on my Makeup Show post saying that these are very popular with Muslim women due to their pre-prayer rituals. I think that's pretty neat, if you want to read more about it there is an article here, thank you to Catherine who provided a link to that story in the comments of my Makeup Show post!

I wanted to pick up a few more of these but the Inglot booth was a little crazy and the girl helping me couldn't find a lot of the ones I wanted, so I ended up coming home with 2! The first one is 646 which is a dark shimmery navy blue. The formula was nice, a little more watery than I prefer but I had no application issues. The opacity was good at 2 coats but I had a few patchy spots that I could only see in photos so I ended up using 3 coats for my photos.

Lighting: Sunlight

Lighting: Sunlight

Lighting: Shade

664 is a bright chartreuse green with a very subtle green shimmer. The shimmer is barely visible on the nail but you can see it when the sun hits the nail just right.  The formula was good, a little streaky on the first coat but the second coat evened it out without any issues. I used 2 coats for the photos below.

Lighting: Sunlight

Lighting: Sunlight

Lighting: Shade

Inglot polishes are available at InglotUSA.com, the O2M line retails for $14 each. If you aren't in the US you can find their other country/region specific websites by visiting http://www.inglotcosmetics.com. Inglot also has retail stores all over the world, if you live in Orange County like me there is a store at Fashion Island and it's seriously fantastical....a whole wall of nail polish. I sometimes go the long way around the shopping center just so I can walk by and stare haha!

China Glaze Hologlam Collection Swatches

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Hi guys, hope you all had a good weekend. Today I have swatches of the China Glaze Hologlam Collection to share with you! I'm sure most of us have been waiting and waiting for these to finally come out, I know I have! Hologlam is 12 new holographic shades form China Glaze, I think they must have gotten tired of all of us asking for them to re-release the OMG Collection haha! I was a little worried about getting my paws on these, luckily I ended up receiving them for review...I'm sure the guy at my local beauty supply is happy that I wont' be calling every other day now asking if he's gotten them in yet!

For swatches & reviews of each shade click the read more button below!

NOTD: Green Watermarble

Hi guys, hope you're all having a good St. Patricks Day! I have a quick NOTD to share with you, I decided to be festive and have green nails today! I used Cult Nails Tempest as my base for the watermarble and marbled with all China Glaze: White on White, Starboard, Gaga For Green and Glittering Garland. I had some minor problems with water spots but overall I really like how this turned out! Hope you all have a good day!

FingerPaints Spring 2013 Wild About Spring Collection Swatches

Happy Friday! Anyone doing anything fun this weekend? I'm going to try to sleep off my stomach flu, I'm finally starting to feel a bit better so with enough rest I think I can finally get rid of it! Today I have my picks from the FingerPaints Wild About Spring Collection to share with you guys! I haven't paid much attention to the last few FingerPaints collections but I wandered into Sally Beauty last week and  these caught my eye. The entire collection consists of 3 shredded glitters and 3 shimmers. I ended up getting all 3 glitters and only 1 of the shimmers. The 2 polishes I didn't pick up were a pink shimmer and a blue shimmery frost.

Check out swatches & reviews for each shade by clicking the read more button below.

piCture pOlish Tiffany

Hi guys! I have another quick post for you today, I'm still under the weather with some kind of crappy stomach flu...on top of that I went to work for a couple hours today and brought home a gigantic stack of work to read though. Between sleeping and working I  wasn't sure I'd even be able to sneak in a post!

Today I have a pretty piCture pOlish shade called Tiffany to share with you! Tiffany is a light blue/green creme, I have a few shades like this but this one seems to pull more blue with my skin tone than a lot of the similar shades I have. This is a touch more green in person than it was wanting to photograph but it's definitely a blue leaning aqua, at least on me. The formula was good, a little streaky on the first coat but the second coat evened it out. I used 2 coats for the photos below. The first 3 photos are in natural sunlight and the last is in the shade.

piCture pOlish is available at picturepolish.com.au, they also have a ton of etailers around the world to buy from including Llarowe, Harlow & Co and Nail Polish Canada, for a full list of their network members check out the Network page on their website!

Hard Candy Fireworks & Jubilee Swatches

Hi guys! Today I have a couple of the new Hard Candy polishes to share with you! Hard Candy just recently revamped their entire polish line and released 45 new polishes, I pretty much died from the awesome of most of them as soon as they posted teaser pictures on their Facebook page a few weeks back. I have like 20 more of these to post that you'll be seeing soon, I decided to post these 2 on their own together because I have similar thoughts about them that I don't have about the rest of the polishes from the new collections.

To see swatches & reviews of both shades click the read more button below.

Ninja Polish Divinity

Hi guys! Today I have a quick post for you because I don't feel good :(  I don't think I need too many words for this though, it's Ninja Polish Divinity. Divinity is a lot like Clarins 230 except it's opaque on it's own without a million coats so you don't really have to layer it if you don't want to. The formula was good, I used 3 thin coats for full opacity. It did dry a little bit matte looking so I used a coat of top coat to shine it up...I think I used Ozotic Mr Big Top Coat but I'm not 100% sure I didn't make a note of it. The first 3 photos below are in the shade, the last one is just in the regular lighting in my house...I really love the way polishes like this look in that lighting!

The color shift is more dramatic in person!

Ninja Polish is available at NinjaPolish.com for $11, it is out of stock at the moment but I'm sure it'll be back soon!

Nails Inc Soho Mews

Hi guys, hope you all had a good weekend! I did, it was nice and relaxing! Today I have another one of the Nails Inc Leather Effect polishes to share with you, this one is called Soho Mews and it's the tan leather effect. I thought we wouldn't be getting this one here in the US, I had been stalking the Sephora website for it and had pretty much given up, I even tried emailing and tweeting Nails Inc asking if we'd get it here but got no reply (awesome customer service, no?). I still don't see it on the Sephora site (maybe I'm blind?) but someone told me a couple weeks ago that they found it in store so I went to check out my local store.

I've been to a few Sephora's over the past couple weeks in search of Kat Von D's foundation and the 4th Nails Inc Feather Effect polish and couldn't seem to find this polish at any of those stores. I had pretty much given up again but then I wandered into one of the Sephora stores inside JC Penny to take advantage of an Illamasqua sale they were having and managed to find Soho Mews there, I also picked up the red leather effect so you'll be seeing that soon also!

Alright so anyway enough story time with Jen! Soho Mews is a dark tan, it applies like a creme then develops texture as it dries. The only other creme texture polish I've tried so far is China Glaze and this is much more subtle than the texture in it. If you've been unsure about trying out textured polishes because you aren't sure if you'll like how they feel this one might be one you'll want to give a go, even to the touch it isn't super textured feeling. The formula was really really great, I actually wore this with only 1 coat for about 24 hours and it looked fantastic. I ended up doing another coat for the photos but I really didn't need it for full opacity. Dry time was good, much faster than the glitter textured polish I've tried! Both photos are taken in natural sunlight.

Nails Inc is available in the US at Sephora and on Sephora.com, I couldn't find this on their website but like I mentioned in the beginning of the post I found it in store...but only at the JC Penny Sephora store....weird, right? Nails Inc retails for $9.50 at Sephora. 

Ozotic 700 Series Swatches!

Hi guys, happy weekend! Anyone doing anything fun? I am doing NOTHING, call me weird but I am so excited! I've either not been home doing things with friends or I've been busy doing things in LA for the last few weekends so it will be nice to literally not put on real clothes until Monday when I have to go to work haha. I feel like I haven't had time to sit down and swatch for a long time...I have so much piling up that I'm looking forward to tackling the swatch pile!

Today I have 6 of the 8 polishes from the 700 Series by Ozotic to share with you! Ozotic and their polishes like this have a little soft spot in my heart. The first crazy awesome multichromes I ever tried were from Ozotic (back from when you had to find an Aussie friend to swap with to get them). The 700 series aren't cray cray awesome multichome like those but they are very beautiful duochromes which I always like!

Check out all the swatches by clicking the read more button below!

Friday Favorites #8: Nail Polish Storage!

TGIF! Before I get into today's post I have a question for you guys....what do you want to see going forward in these Friday Favorites posts? I have a few ideas but they all require time to swatch things and I haven't had much time for that lately, unfortunately. I'd love to hear about what you want to see! If you've missed any posts in my Friday Favorites so far you can check them out by clicking here.

Today's Friday Favorites is about Nail Polish Storage. I've talked about this the last time I did a nail polish collection type post which can be seen here.  I get a lot of questions about what I use so I thought a new post might be handy for those of you who missed my stash video since it was done over a year ago. Just to be clear, this isn't a nail polish stash post...I am thinking about doing an updated one though, you guys let me know if you want to see it. Keep in mind if I do another stash video/post it's probably not going to be any time soon because I'm in the middle of reorganizing and destashing at the moment, and by at the moment I mean I've been at it for like 3 weeks because I'm lazy when I'm not at work or doing blog stuff haha.

Dollish Polish Big Bang Theory Collection Swatches

Hi guys! Sorry for the lack of post yesterday, I had no internet all day on Tuesday so I couldn't upload pictures or write a post :( It was like living in the stone age, I don't know how I ever survived without internet...how sad.

Today I have some new polishes form Dollish Polish to share with you guys! Dolly just recently released a bunch of beautiful new polishes, you'll see a few more of them soon since I couldn't resist and bought a few as soon as Dolly put them up for sale! These  4 polishes today are part of The Big Bang Theory Collection, I really like the names of these and the glitter combos are great!

Check out more swatches & reviews of each shade by clicking the read more button below!

Venique Acting Is Living & Reels Of Fun

Hi guys! Today I have a couple polishes from a new to me brand called Venique to share with you! Venique is a relatively new brand that contains an ingredient called Sil-Tek which is meant to make the polish more flexible so it moves with your nail and decreases chipping and peeling. I haven't had a chance to wear test these so I'm not sure if they last longer than regular polish, if you have tried these I'd love to know how they worked for you!

To see more photos & reviews of each polish click the read more button below.

Layla Ceramic Effect 39 & Caviar Effect 04

Hi guys! Today I have a quick post for you of a couple Layla polishes! Layla recently put out a ton of what they are calling Caviar Effects which are small microbeads that you sprinkle onto your nail while your polishes is wet. Definitely not a new concept anymore but I still like it, I like all the textures haha!

I used Caviar Effect 04 (Ballet) as an accent nail with Layla Ceramic Effect 39 (Southern Lights). Caviar Effect 04 is very light pink microbeads. The beads last for about a day for me depending on what I'm doing, I don't seal them with top coat (sometimes it can cause the color to bleed so I don't chance it). If you want to see how I apply these I did a tutorial a while back that you can find here. For the non-caviar nails I used Layla Ceramic Effect 39 which is a blue/grey/black shimmer. It's got a tiny bit of a duochrome to it but it was impossible to catch with my camera. The formula was nice, a little thick but easy to apply. It did go on a bit brush strokey but I didn't really mind since it was pretty minor. I used 2 coats for the photos below.

Lighting: Sunlight

Lighting: Sunlight

Lighting: Shade

While I do like the Caviar Effects beads they are not something I'd buy, they are pretty expensive ($11.50 at Ninja Polish) and the bottle doesn't hold a whole heck of a lot of them. It just doesn't seem worth the price since you can get the same kind of beads at the craft store for significantly cheaper. I do like the Ceramic Effect polish though, all of the polishes I've tried from that line have been great!

Layla's Ceramic Effect and Caviar Effect polishes can be found online at Ninja Polish, the price ranges from $9.95 to $11.50.

The Makeup Show LA 2013!

Hi guys, hope you're all having a good weekend! Mine has been great, today I'm just relaxing but yesterday I went to The Makeup Show in Los Angeles. I have a little look at some of the booths from the show along with a peek at what I bought while I was there. I believe that 2013 is the 5th year that The Makeup Show has been in LA, they also do shows in New York, Orlando, Chicago and in 1 in Europe. This is a pro only make up show that brings in all sorts of brands, everything from Inglot to Makeup Forever to Nars and even a great nail polish brand we all know...Cult Nails!

Not only can do you a fair amount of shopping from all the great brands there but there is a lot of education, speakers and demos that happen throughout the day also.  I tried to take photos of a lot of the booths for you guys because I think they are fun to look at but there was so many people there as the day went on that it was a bit difficult, most of the photos are from the booths I wandered past when I first got to the show.

Not pictured but one of my favorite booths was the Cult Nails booth, I was so busy talking to Maria that I forgot to take a photo of their set up :( It was great, it was nice to talk to Maria and meet Alyssa from Pretty Little Bottles who was there working at the booth with Maria!

The first booth I stopped by when I got to the show was OCC. When I was at IMATS last month their booth was a madhouse, you couldn't see anything so the short peek I got at their polishes didn't do much for me. Since The Makeup Show isn't quite as crazy I was able to stop and actually look at the polishes and the lip tars they have. I picked up a few things you'll see later in the post! I really liked their booth, they have so many beautiful glitters and pigments!

To see more photos from The Makeup Show along with everything I bought click the read more button below!

A tiny bit of piCture pOlish spam!

Happy Friday and Happy March! I can't believe it's already March, time is seriously flying by. Anyone have any fun plans for this weekend? I'm going to The Makeup Show in LA this weekend, I've never been but I heard so many great things about The Makeup Show Orlando from bloggers that I decided I should make the trek to LA to check it out! From my understanding it's kind of like IMATS but pro only and with a lot more education...should be a good time! I'm sure I'll share photos from it so you guys will get a peek at what it's like.

Anyway, today I have a teeny tiny bit of piCture pOlish spam for you guys! Only 3 polishes today, but they are kind of in the same family so I thought I'd group them together.All 3 of these are light but bright at the same time, bright pastels. They feel perfect for Spring, it finally started getting warm here so these are the kinds of colors I want to wear. I laugh at myself for saying it's *finally* getting warm here in So Cal, everyone who doesn't live here would probably think I'm nuts considering how warm our weather always is in comparison to other places.

To see more photos & reviews of each shade click the read more button below!