China Glaze Orange Marmalade

I know orange really isn't the most flattering color on me, but I can't help but love it. Especially when it looks like this. I wish China Glaze would come with a glass flecked collection once a year so that I could get this formula in every color imaginable! Orange Marmalade just glows... I love it. This was with 3 coats and there's still a bit of a VNL, which I can forgive, and you really need 2 coats of TC to make the shimmer sing, but I can also forgive that.

Color accurate picture:

Glass flecked sparkle awesomeness:

The glitter... it's multiplying! Hide the children!!!

I wanted a quick and lazy mani that I wouldn't have to clean up or worry about the finish on, so I pulled out ChG Flyin' High and Medallion. Cream is usually my favorite finish, but for once I didn't want to have to obsess about my every move just to make sure I get a flawless finish. 1 coat of Flyin' High and 1 coat of Medallion was the plan. I did this late at night, slapped on some SV and went to bed... and woke up nearly blind. I do not remember there being that much glitter! Other than the problem of my glitter mating like bunnies when I'm not watching, I really like this look. Turquoise and gold is so cute!


I love the little holo pieces mixed in the gold!

Happy Pancake Day/Mardi Gras!

I'm not terribly religious now, but was raised Lutheran and we celebrate Mardi Gras with Pancake Day. And it is the best non-Christmas-non-Easter holiday EVER. I LOVE PANCAKES! For dinner I'll be making about 60 pancakes topped with chocolate chips, sprinkles, peanut butter, buttery syrup, marshmallows, cream cheese, bacon, almonds, pecans, jam, bananas, blueberries, strawberries... and I might share. Depends on who's nice to me. It's good to be the master of the griddle :D

Back when RBL had their big sale, I had 0 interest in glitters. Now I can't get enough of 'em. And I really regret not getting Locavore, but I'm too cheap to spring the $26 it would cost to buy and ship it. But for just $4 I made a knock off! I started with 1 coat Pure Ice Strapless, then did 1 coat Sinful Frenzy and topped it off with 2 coats of Sinful Call You Later to get all the gold-y goodness. I remember seeing a Pure Ice color that was similar to Frenzy but had darker purple, and I think that probably would have worked better, so I'll probably try that next time. Otherwise I really like my knock-off, and it might not have the prestige of RBL but it gets the job done.





Also don't forget about my giveaway! I'm really hoping to get to 137 followers so I can giveaway 3 awesome polishes!

C-O-L-T-S!!!

For the Super Bowl I'm wearing Claire's Chunky Blue! I'm still disappointed that it couldn't be the Vikings, but my favorite quarterback is definitely Peyton Manning! Chunky Blue has just made my top 10. It has a wonderful blue jelly base, but with 2 coats there's enough coverage so there's no VNL. There's a heavy amount of silver and deep blue glitter and large silver hexagons that hide in the base. I love that they're not right in your face, like they're really a part of the polish and not just sitting on top like a glitter top coat. I think with 3 coats you would be able to have some hexagons buried deep underneath, but even with 2 coats you get this amazing depth from the polish. I also bought Chunky Green, which I haven't had a chance to wear yet but I'm sure I will this week. I remember it also came in Chunky Silver, Gold and Purple, and I'm going to go back and get them all! The purple wasn't very purple but I think I can add some blue until I get the color I want. The application on this was really good too, and I was really pleased with the randomness of the glitter distribution. This polish is a big winner!

This picture shows the true color:


And this one shows the awesome chunky glitter goodness:

Next day: This polish came off in sheets. Ugh. I'm pretty pissed. I've only had it on 24 hours, and even though I was sitting in a jacuzzi for an hour, I've never had peeling this bad. I wore this polish with CND Sticky and Seche Vite for top coat, and I use my jacuzzi 2-3 times a week and I've never had this happen. Yuck. I think next time I'll time this so I don't wear it when I use the jacuzzi, because I do love it otherwise.

ETA: Removal was a nightmare... I've been using the foil method for glitters for a long time, and while some need a little bit more time than others, removal has never been an issue. I let Chunky Blue sit for 5 minutes, and while all the blue came off, it left about half of the hexagons behind on my nail every time. And they had to be scrubbed off. And they got everywhere... I definitely need to spend the $2 to get the angry beaver tub for the next time I wear these. Yes, despite all the issues I had, I still love it... I need help lol.

Rockin' It!

Before the Superbowl on Sunday I'm going to a Guitar Hero pre-party, and since I've hardly played since the semester started, I've been brushing up on my skillz. I'm pretty awesome lol. Since it's purple week at MUA and I had the perfect untried purple with the perfect name, I tried it out! I'm wearing Essence Rock It, Baby! and it is divine. The color is a true purple, deeper than what my pictures show, and the shimmer in it is a little blue and a little red, which comes out in bright lights, but in dimmer lights they mix together so it just looks purple. Love it! For an accent I wore Rock n Roll, another perfect name for my theme! It has teeny silver glitter mixed with slightly bigger pieces, so pretty! The purple Essence is from their Color and Go collection and it comes in a smaller bottle. I'm always leery of these things, because our American versions of quick dry (Sally Hansen Insta Dri) really SUCK! I only bought one, and while I like some of the new colors, I'm reluctant to buy them... but this little Essence is amazing. It has a wide brush, but it's more like OPI's Pro-Wide, and while it did dry REALLY fast on my nails, there was still plenty of time for me to swipe it on evenly. And it was really easy to work with on top of all that! I wish I could get these nearby!

Dorothy Who... cares?!!

I wanted to like this polish. A lot. In theory it were perfect, in execution... meh. This was 3 coats and still a VNL. The blue wasn't dark enough for me and there was too much silver. I'm hoping OPI's Absolutely Alice can be everything that I wanted this to be. I swapped this polish for OPI Parlez Vous OPI? I hope it comes in the mail soon, because I have a little confession... I've never even tried OPI!



Also, since I don't feel this was a satisfying post due to the sub-par polish, here a pictures of my puppies with their holiday bandannas on. They're so cute!!

Snowflakes & Ruby Pumps

I hope everyone had a happy holiday and they got every NP they wanted! I've been very busy playing with my new iPod + Nike equipment, along with a few new RBL's and other NP's. My Christmas NOTD was Ruby Pumps and I took pictures outside in a snowstorm while holding a snowball. When I downloaded the pictures, this one had a single snowflake captured in the flash! It's so cute! Maybe not the best picture of Ruby Pumps, but who hasn't seen that a million times?

I have many more NOTD's coming up, including the Jade-knockoff from Claire's!

Silver and Gold Glitz

I'm saving my untried Ruby Pumps for December 24th but have been trying out my other Xmas glitters! First picture is two coats of Tinsel. I really needed like one or two more coats, but it was a rush job and I knew I'd be taking it off in less than a day so I made due with two. The next morning I put on Cowardly Lyin from the Wizard of Ooh Ahz collex, and while I loved the yellowy gold color, the glitter was really lacking. So this morning I added three coats of 5 Golden Rings and it was pure love. Well, it only lasted a few seconds because the mail truck came with a bunch of new polishes for me to swatch! But I snapped a pic anyways, mostly for reference because I think this would look great on me in the Summer when I'm a little bit tan. On to the pics!

Sinful Nail Junkie

I picked this up to quench my thirst for Atlantis, which is still en route. It's quite a bit lighter but the glitter in it is wonderful! There are tiny flecks of pure blue and large chunks of gold, plus a fine sprinkle of aqua that gives it the overall color. The base is slightly aqua color but to bring it out, I layered to coats over a coat of Sally Hansen Honeydew from the Tracy Reese collection. With a coat of Seche Vite this lasted an entire 4 days without a single chip! I'm amazed! Overall it got me through the week but I'm still dying for my package with Atlantis in it.