Tip Top Nails Review and Swatches

Finally I get a chance to write my review on Tip Top polish!  I had been wanting to try Tip Top so when I was contacted by Joan at Tip Top Nails South Africa  asking if I would like to review some of their polish I was super excited!  The only down side to this offer is that I'm now in love with Tip Top polish and I can't get it in the US. They are only available for purchase in South Africa but I believe they are trying to find a way to sell them internationally or at least in the US as well!

Here is the wonderful selection of polish I received with my awesome polish Caboodle in the background!

L-R Peach Crisp, Melting Marshmallows, Space Cadet, Fairy Dust & Solar Flare



Onto the swatches!  I did 3 very thin coats on all but 1 of these polishes.  I could have gotten away with 2 thicker coats but it has been pretty humid and I kept getting bubbles!

Peach Crisp is a dark peach creme.  This one looks more peachy in the bottle but dries a darker more orange shade.  I think apricot rather than peach when it's dry.  This polishe gave me a new appreciation for wearing orange! 

Melting Marshmallows is a light pink creme.  For me, this is the perfect baby pink.  I have a ton of pink polish but hardly ever wear them.  I've worn this one 3 times since I got it.  It's so pretty and feminine.

Space Cadet is a dark blue jelly with silver glass flecks. The name fits, it reminds me of space and I really want to use it as the base when I do my next galaxy mani.  I only did 2 coats with this one but it was perfect.  The picture does not do it justice.  In natural light it kinda glows and you can really see the blue and shimmer from the glass flecks. The down side to this one is that it does stain.  Even with a base coat I had a bit of staining but it's a dark blue, staining was not unexpected.  Just be careful with application because cleaning up your cuticles will be a pain.  Still, totally worth it!

 



Fairy Dust is a light, kinda dusty lavender.  It's the second most used polish I have from the selection. I wasn't sure if I liked it at first (I'm more into bright, bold colors) but after wearing it I decided I really do love it!  It's another very feminine color and I do so love purple.

And last, but not least there is Solar Flare.  Perfectly named in my opinion because it's a very bold and bright red-orange creme.  This one kinda made my camera freak out.  The bright orange didn't want to photograph so I had to play with the picture a bit to try to get a good representation.  It's not perfect but it's pretty close!



I can honestly say that I love this brand!  The colors are beautiful and very pigmented.  The formula is great, went on like butta.  It was easy to do thin, even coats and dried quickly.  They also have great brushes and don't smell much at all.  I can't attest to wear time because I rarely wear polish for more than a couple days.  I wash my hands a lot at work and am not able to be very easy on them so that usually ruins my mani within 1-2 days.

The only thing I could even think to gripe about was the barcode stickers on the handle of the bottle. The ink on a couple rubbed off onto my fingers and I wish the stickers were easier to peel off. Obviously that has nothing to do with the polish itself, just a observation! Oh, and as I said before, Space Cadet does stain.  Personally I don't mind much because my nails are almost always stained!

Thank you for reading! My next post will be a review about the treatments I was sent, along with some progress pictures I've already taken. So, stay tuned!  While you wait,  go check out the Tip Top Nails South Africa page on Facebook and their website Tip Top Nails where you can check out all of their colors and products.

YaY! Guest Post #2 for Frugal Polish!

HIYA EVERYONE!  Yes, I'm alive and yes, it's been about a month since I last posted.  I've been a bad blogger!  I did however recently write another guest post for Alyssa at Frugal Polish.

I promise I will be posting more once I finally get a sd card for my REAL camera!  Taking pictures with my webcam has become such a hassle that I just never feel like doing it!  It's hard to get the right lighting, focus and a good quality pic.  Actually I did buy a sd card but it wasn't compatible with my camera because the camera is a little older and needs a more basic smaller card!  I will have one soon though and  it will be more fun and easier to take pictures!

Until then, go check out my second guest post for Alyssa here Frugal Polish and keep checking back here because I WILL have a new post up here as soon as possible.

Thanks for sticking around even though I haven't been posting much!

It's a Major Award!

I'm sorry, I've been a terrible blogger lately!  I haven't posted anything in almost 2 weeks.  I just haven't felt up to it.  The last couple of months have been rough and I've just been in a funk.  I hate using that as an excuse but there it is.  I've been painting my nails but I haven't really been doing any new nail art so I felt like I didn't have much to post about.

HOWEVER, I just got nominated  for an award from 2 lovely ladies! One of them is Melanie from Samples By Entaeyen and the other is Alyssa from Frugal Polish.  Thank you, ladies  I really appreciate it, it motivated me to do this post!

The rules for accepting the award:
Post the rules on your blog.  Name five of your most fabulous moments, either in real life or in the blogosphere.  Name five things you love.  Name five things you hate.  Pass the ribbon on to five other bloggers. (Leave them a comment to notify them of their win.)

I liked it, so I put a frame on it!

Five Most Fabulous Moments:

1. Finding all these ladies I can share my polish obsession with!
2. Getting my car running again.
3. Winning Floam! OMG FLOAM!!!
4. Receiving this award from 2 gals I love!
5. Getting to travel to Ireland with my dad.

Five Things I Love:

1. Uh...nail polish, DUH! 
2. Zombies.
3. Watching weird documentaries. (I just watched one on Pinball machines)
4. Singing loudly in my car where no one can hear me. 
5. Legos!

Five Things I hate:

1. The sound of mass chatter, like in a crowded mall during Christmas.
2. Cleaning the tub.
3. Driving with my boyfriend as my passenger. 
4. Messing up a perfectly painted nail.
5. M. Night Shyamalan movies.  I just watched "The Happening" and I was disappointed AGAIN!

ONTO THE NOMINEES!

1. Angel from Mega Nailattude
2. Carrie from Ink & Polish
3. Lou from Tips and Topcoat
4. Jess from Kyoti's Nails
5. Joanna from Polished Dezinez Addict

Oh man, I'm kinda glad that's over!  Choosing was so hard, there's way more then 5 people I would like to award! 

Thank you for reading my blog and a big thanks again to Alyssa and Melanie for the award!

My Very First Guest Post!

I am excited to say that Alyssa from Frugal Polish asked me to do a guest post on her blog!  She held a mini mani contest on her Facebook page for the best manicure of the day and to my surprise, I won!  I was kinda shocked honestly.  I wasn't exactly trying to do anything special, I just submitted my NOTD which was Color Clubs Fame and Fortune.  I just wanted to participate and show off what a beautiful polish it was!  She also ended up buying the polish for herself after seeing how full of awesome it was!

I'm not going to show you the mani I did for her blog here because I want you to hop over to her page too!  Check out the post I did for her blog here at Frugal Polish.

If you haven't seen Fame and Fortune here it is!  This is the mani that won me my first guest post.  If you think it looks good here in my photos then trust me, it looks 100X better in person!

This picture prompted 2 people (that i know of) to buy this polish!  What do you think?  You want it too now, don't you?!

OPI - Just Spotted the Lizard

This is my very first bottle of OPI!  I won it in a giveaway from XO, Noelle. 

I always put off buying OPI because...well because I'm broke right now!  So I usually go for the more frugal options. I figured it didn't make too much of a difference!  Now that I've tried it, I am in lust!  This polish applied so smooth and evenly.  It dried quickly, was opaque in 2 coats but I think I used 3! I love the brush, it made application very easy and the color is just fantastic.  (I've been trying to get a Peridot type dupe.)  I think I will be splurging on some more OPI polish when I get the chance.

Here is is!  Hopefully I will be able to use the camera my friend gave me soon.  I haven't been able to get a memory card for it but when I do you can expect some better pics!

 

I tried to show off the color change the best I could.  That might be easier when I get my new cam working!  This polish looks so cool in my shower, the light in there was able to let me see the blue color change in the polish.

Do you have Just Spotted the Lizard or a similar polish?  Don't you just love looking at it!?

My First Indie - Sticks & Stones

Finally got my hands on a bottle of Sticks & Stones!  It's just...just fantastic.  Let's see if I can get everything in here.  Sticks & Stones has big, medium and small white hex glitter, white bar glitter, big and small black hex glitter, big and small black SQUARE glitter (love square glitter) black bar glitter and just a hit of holographic glitter!   It looks great over all the cremes I've tried it on and on a couple jellies too!  Next time I post about this polish it will probably be in a pink jelly sandwich so stay tuned!

On with the show! Here it is over my skittle nails.  Thumb to pinkie I used Hard Candy Splendid, Unnamed pink jelly from the 99cent store, Unnamed Green jelly from Icing(sorry!), Wet&Wild Blazed and Sally Girl Chillax.  Then I topped them with Hard Candy Matte-ly In Love.

OoOoOo, Aaaaah

My sister said it reminded her of a garage floor!  I think she meant one of those kinda fancy garage floors.  My boyfriend even thought this looked cool, he really liked the bar glitter.

Do you have Sticks & Stones or any other black and white glitters?  Are you as madly in love with them as I am?

Crackle - A Torrid Love Affair

I was thinking the other day about what exactly started my nail polish obsession.  I've always liked polish and I have always kept my toenails painted but I never used to be so into painting my finger nails.  I had a small collection of pinks, a couple reds and some pretty sheer pearly whites but I rarely painted my nails.  Then one day I bought a neon pink, you know the kind that it almost hurts to look at.  Well, I painted my nails with it and I was in love!  Still, I wasn't knee deep in polish addiction yet.

So what was it, what really sent me over the edge? SHATTER!  When I saw the OPI Katy Perry collection in InStyle I went bonkers!  I had to have it.  I looked all over for it but it was sold out everywhere.  Finally one day I found the Icing brand Crackle and of course I bought it right away.  I loved it, I still do!  I've only collected 4 colors but I'm so glad I have them.  While other people lost interest in crackles I remain enamored! I don't use them terribly often but I'd never toss them to the wolves.  Today I decided I needed to show my Silver Claire's Crackle a little love with one of my favorite color combos.  Teal/Silver.  Enjoy!

Did you fall in love with the crackle craze?  Do you still enjoy using them?