Hello everyone! The organization of this post is going to be a bit bizarre...but bear with me. Today I tried out Zoya Nyx from the new Pixie Dust collection. I never really liked the look of the texture, but I have seen some gorgeous swatches with top coat that made me think I had to at least try one. I'll start off by showing you the final product of my experiments.
PSA: Do not stamp directly over Nyx without adding a layer (or two) of top coat first or you will get that lumpy streaky mess on my index finger. Prior to this, I tried wearing Nyx on its own. I was sort of disappointed with the application. It was quite sheer and took four thick coats to become completely opaque. I prefer two coaters, and will happily tolerate three coaters to smooth things out...but I think four coats for anything but an intentionally sheer jelly is too much. Dry time was longer than usual, but not by much.
Here are the same nails in the sun. Now you can see the difference in texture and the holo a bit better. 
And that was when I decided it was stamp time! So all in all, I'm wearing four coats of Nyx, two coats of Djinn in a Bottle, Konad Special Polish in Black and White with BM-316 stamped on twice, and a a layer of Djinn in a Bottle over the stamps. That's seven coats of polish! I think next time I'm going to skip the textured polishes unless I really intend for them to stay textured...they're just too much work to smooth out!

Sorry for the long post, thanks for reading!

Hey everyone! I've been really distracted playing this new Steam game called The Ship. Has anyone else played it? It's a game where a bunch of people are on a ship and every round you have to kill a specific person with the craziest weapon you can find. It's sort of morbid, but really quite fun!

I know it's not spring yet, but I'm getting tired of winter colors...especially considering all the new spring polish collections that have been coming out lately (that I'm very much looking forward to swatching)! The OPI Oz the Great and Powerful collection is coming out this week, as is the long-anticipated China Glaze Hologlams. My poor wallet...
This is one coat of Color Club Harp On It with Cirque Lonesome George gradiented on top. Then, I took Konad Special Polish in White and used Konad Plate m65 to add the flowers. 

Thanks for reading!

First off, I'd like to say congratulations to the winner the Enchanted Polish Giveaway, Corrinne! And thanks to everyone for entering! I was sad to see that Silver Linings Playbook didn't win many awards, but I'm so glad that Jennifer Lawrence did. She's amazing, especially considering she's my age. Anyway, recently I've invested in some supplies for making nail polish. While waiting for them to arrive, I've been contemplating what my first polish creations will be. My thoughts have been leaning towards jellies with shimmer and/or glitter mixed in. To get a mock representation of what this might look like, I made a jelly sandwich.
This is two coats of China Glaze Purr-fect Plum with two coats of Butter London West End Wonderland on top. I then used Zoya Paloma on top, as well as one coat of top coat. There's a lot more shimmer in person, but it was really hard to capture with my camera. The effect is really quite pretty, but it's not exactly what I'm looking for in my polishes! What do you all think of this jelly sandwich?

Thanks for reading!

Hey all, happy Sunday! I don't know about you guys, but I love watching the Academy Awards. In honor of tonight's event, I painted my nails to support my favorite movie of the year, Silver Linings Playbook. For those of you who haven't seen it, make it happen! The design is inspired by the costume Jennifer Lawrence's character Tiffany wore on the night of the big dance performance.

I used OPI Don't Touch my Tutu as the sheer base. Then, I used a design from the BM-210 plate with Konad Special Polish in White to create the waves. To finish it off, I hand placed silver/holographic hex glitter and put on top coat to keep them in place.

Hey everyone! Today I've got some more Game of Thrones nail art to show you. Sorry if you're sick of it, but I've been wanting to do dragon nails for a long time. At first I was going to use a stamping plate for the scales, but I stumbled upon Candy Glaze's dragon egg nail tutorial and I just had to try them out!
I did my nails a little differently from what she suggested. Rather than applying green polish directly over my nails, I used two coats of Zoya Jacqueline as a base before applying one thin coat of A England Dragon and carving out the scales using a small dotting tool. When it came to finding a green to use for this manicure, I refused to use anything other than Dragon...because, well, it's green and has dragon in its name! Very fitting. I topped it off by sponging on Zoya Frida over the entire nail. The first time I did this I put on some top coat, but it took all the texture away so I decided to re-do it without top coat. I like it this way much better. I'm holding a replica (aka paperweight) of Daenerys Targaryen's green dragon egg. It's the most photogenic paperweight I have ever seen...

I know I'm a bit late to the gold flake top coat trend, but plain gold flakes just weren't my style and at $30 a bottle, I couldn't justify the purchase. When I found out that Ninja Polish was selling a white gold flake top coat for half the price, I finally caved and impulse bought a bottle when they came back in stock.

This is two coats of Ninja Polish He Went to Jarred over Sephora by OPI I Blue my Curfew. He Went to Jarred consists of 12k white gold flakes suspended in a clear base. This top coat is really easy to work with. I had no problems getting the flakes exactly where I wanted them using the brush.

You can find He Went to Jarred, along with a regular gold flake top coat (also only $15!) at Ninja Polish. Thanks for reading, and don't forget to enter my Enchanted Polish giveaway ending February 23rd at 12:00 a.m. EST!

Hello all! Today I tried out a splatter manicure. I've attempted one before using a straw and trying to blow the polish onto the nail, but I never really got the hang of it. Instead, I flicked watered-down acrylic paint from a brush onto the nail. I like this result much better!

The middle picture shows the base colors of the manicure best; it's a gold to copper to silver gradient with black splatter on top. The gold is Enchanted Polish Austin Powers, the copper is Cirque Cypress, and the silver is Hits Artemis. All three of these polishes are holographic, so I included the bottom picture to show you all the pretty holo! As I stated above, the splatter is black acrylic paint. In conclusion, I really love this manicure! I may have watered down the paint too much which led to smaller spatter, but I kind of like the more speckled look. Do you think it would have looked better with bigger splatter?

Thanks for reading, and don't forget to enter the Enchanted Polish giveaway ending February 23rd at 12:00 a.m. EST!   

Hey everyone! Today I have a gorgeous polish from an amazing indie brand to show you! This is Kiss the Sky by Takko Lacquer, and I think it's a pretty convincing dupe for Max Factor Fantasy Fire. Unfortunately, I don't have Fantasy Fire to compare this with...but it's got that same bright blurple jelly with copper shimmer going on. You could see the shimmer a lot better if I left it alone...but we couldn't have that!

Two coats of Takko Lacquer Kiss the Sky and Konad Special Polish in Black with BM-319. Can you tell I'm on a stamping kick? The formula on this polish was perfect, and completely opaque in two coats. Sheryl does an amazing job with all of her polishes, I must say.

For those of you who are interested, you can find Takko Lacquer at Sheryl's Etsy shop. She restocks them every Friday at 1 p.m. EST, but you have to be quick as they sell out almost immediately! Thanks for reading, and don't forget to enter my Enchanted Polish giveaway ending February 23rd at 12:00 a.m. EST!

Hey everyone! Did anyone see last night's season finale of Downton Abbey? I saw it a few months ago, but I'm still a bit heartbroken. On a more positive note, is anyone stoked to have today off work/school? I have everyday off work and school for the next few months, woo!

I recently purchased some nail decorations on clearance at Sally's Beauty Supply, and one of the sets included an adorable set of nail bead things. Naturally, I had to use them along with some of my newer A England polishes.

A England King Arthur and A England Order of the Garter. It's a shame that Order of the Garter isn't holographic like the rest of The Legends collection, but it's pretty nonetheless! I used striping tape to tape off the parts that I wanted to stay blue, then painted over the tape with King Arthur. After that, I added some beads and topped it all of with Butter London Matte Finish Top Coat. 

Thanks for reading, and don't forget to enter my Enchanted Polish giveaway ending February 23rd at 12:00 a.m. EST!

Any Julep Mavens out there looking for a new monthly nail polish box? Square Hue might be the choice for you. I tried out the February box to see how I liked this subscription service. Rather than being sent three half-sized bottles of nail polish or two bottles and a beauty product for $20/month, Square Hue offers three full-sized 15mL bottles of polish per month. At the price of $21/month, the only real downside seems to be that you cannot pick your colors. Unfortunately, the reality was worse than I had imagined. 

High School Crush. Three coats.  It took me forever to get this looking presentable, and even then you can still tell that the polish is lumpy. The application of this light peachy-pink creme is completely unforgiving and not self-evening at all

Wartime Romance. Two coats. Sorry for the horrible picture, it was the only one I was able to take before my camera ran out of batteries. It's a little blurry and the lighting is odd, but you can see the dark pink rose color pretty well. Although it wasn't as difficult to apply as the previous two, the formula still wasn't ideal considering the price. And as a matter of personal preference, this color is just boring and unoriginal. I'm sure most people have a dupe for it in their collections. 

I really wanted to like Square Hue, and even at the discounted price of $15/month that I have for my subscription, I just don't think it is worth it. Right after I swatched these, I suspended my account. It's really a bummer...I was looking for a good replacement for my Julep Maven subscription, but this simply isn't it. Maybe someday it will be, but until Square Hue works on their formula, I'm going to stick with Julep.

For those of you who are interested, you can check out Square Hue's site for more information. And don't forget to enter my first giveaway ending February 23rd at 12:00 a.m. EST! Thanks for reading!

Hi everyone! I am a huge fan of the show Girls, and I've been eyeing this collection for a while. I finally picked these polishes up while visiting New York City. When I saw these at the HBO store, I knew I had to have them. Consider this post part one of my NYC nail polish haul!


All of these swatches are shown with top coat.

Deborah Lippmann Shoshanna. Two coats. According to Deborah Lippman's site, this is a "virtuous vivid violet." It looks a lot like some of the periwinkle leaning lilac type shades coming out this spring, except it has a really subtle shimmer. It's very pretty and easy to work with.

Deborah Lippmann Jessa. Two coats, except the middle finger which has three coats for comparison. A "bohemian burgundy," which is a pretty accurate description of this shade of red. It gets a lot darker with three coats; I personally prefer it with two. Sorry for the weird picture, it was hard to get an angle that showed off the color properly.

I loved Hannah so much that I had to keep it on for some nail art. This is my first attempt at using nail studs. They're a bit off center, but I loved them anyway!

Overall, I really liked Hannah and Shoshanna, but the other two shades were sort of a bust for me... especially considering the steep $45 price tag for the set. These polishes are limited edition and can be found on Deborah Lippmann's site.

Thanks for reading!

I know it's a day late, but I wanted to show you what I wore out on my Valentine's date yesterday. This was an extra special occasion because I haven't had the same manicure on for more than 5 hours at a time in weeks, and this one has been on for more than 24 hours now! Silly thing to get excited about, right?

I think my middle finger is in a perpetual state of string attraction. I can't seem to keep loose string off of it! Oh well... This is two coats of Butter London Pillar Box Red and one coat of A England Camelot on the accent nail. To create the roses, I used Bundle Monster plate 323 and Konad Special Polish in Black. For the love letter accent nail, I used BM-311 with Konad Special Polish in Silver. I know I've done the roses before, but they're so pretty that I had to use them again!

Did anyone do anything fun for Valentine's Day? Sport any lovely Valentine's manicures? Thanks for reading, and don't forget to enter my Enchanted Polish Giveaway ending February 23rd at 12:00 a.m. EST!

Djinn in a Bottle, Photo courtesy of Enchanted Polish

a Rafflecopter giveaway Rules:

• This giveaway runs from February 14, 2013 to February 23, 2013, 12:00 a.m. EST.
• If you are under 18, make sure you have parental consent. I will need your address to ship the prize.
• The winner will be contacted by email within 48 hours after the giveaway ends. Winners will have 48 hours to respond before a new winner is chosen.
• Winner(s) will be selected randomly using Rafflecopter.
• This giveaway is open to U.S. and U.K. residents only. For those of you who live in the U.K., I will be offering an alternate prize of one A England polish of your choice.

Disclosure:

This giveaway is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with Enchanted Polish, Facebook, or Twitter. We hereby release these groups of any liability. If you have any additional questions - feel free to contact me at [email protected].

Thanks for reading and good luck!

Hey everyone! Sorry for the unstable state of my blog format. I'm currently working on revamping the blog so it looks a little cleaner, so please don't mind the gradual changes. I'm done with the 31 day challenge now, yay!! The last challenge is to re-create your favorite challenge, and I chose gradients. Rather than a standard gradient, I tried a glitter gradient for the first time.

Hello again everyone! I'm sorry that I'm late on this post, I had sort of a crazy day yesterday. I'll try to get a post up with my haul from going out east once I'm finished with the challenge. This is day 30 of the 31 Day Challenge, and the nails are supposed to be inspired by a tutorial. I used the Real Feather Nail Tutorial from The Nailasaurus to create this manicure.


This is Deborah Lippmann Hannah from the Girls Collection (love that show!) and Orly Coffee Break with a feather on top for the accent nail. Did you guys know that Orly revamped their polish bottles? They look a lot better now, I'm a fan! You can get an old free bottle at Sally's Beauty Supply (while supplies last) if you spend $3 or more; that's how I got Coffee Break.

I've been wanting to wear feathers on my nails for a long time! I have eight pet birds...maybe I should try using their feathers sometime. Or would that be disgusting...? I'm not sure.

Thanks for reading!

Hello all! Today I am posting swatches of my favorite nail polish of all time (so far)! I am flying back home later tonight, and doubt I'll have time to continue on with the challenge until tomorrow.  I noticed that I never posted these pictures, and that's largely because I did not like the way they turned out. But I hate missing a day of posting, so here they are!


Enchanted Polish Hot Chocolate. Two coats. Is anyone surprised that my favorite polish is holographic? No? I didn't think so. I absolutely adore brown nail polish, and this is my favorite shade of brown...plus holo...mmm. I'll have to take more pictures of this when I'm not taking nail pictures in the middle of the night and there's no sun.

Thanks for reading! More with the 31 Day Challenge tomorrow and some details about my trip! I had an encounter with a Downton Abbey star that I'm very excited about...stay tuned!

Hey everyone! Today's nails are meant to be inspired by the supernatural. The first thing I thought of was ghosts. I decided to try and make the manicure more feminine by adding lace. I'm not sure why I felt the need to do so, but I really love the combination! It makes the ghost look even more adorable.

This is Butter London Stag Do with lace stickers and a cute ghost from the BM-223 stamping plate. I used Konad Special Polish in White to stamp on the ghost. Stag Do has a pretty green shimmer in the bottle, but it doesn't really translate well on the nail. What a shame.

I must say, it's a miracle how well the manicure came out considering these were the instructions I had to follow...
These are the instructions that came with the lace stickers. Thank goodness sticker application is self explanatory, or I might be in trouble. My brother and I had a pretty good laugh trying to make sense of this.

Thanks for reading! I'll be home tomorrow with some pictures from my trip to share!