Beauty Minions Catch-up

What's that, brain?  Did you say joining a group which does bi-weekly assignments will help me blog more consistantly?  Well, that sounds fantastic.  Thanks, brain! 

*Cut to 7 weeks later*

WELL, that was a bust.  Thanks for the lies, brain!  Okay so it wasn't a total bust.  I'm still doing my Beauty Minions assignments I'm just not posting about them!  So I'm here in the wee hours of the morning to catch up.

The second assignment (In celebration of her 2 Year Blogversary) was to do a look inspired by the header/background of  Heather's Blog; My Husband Ate All My Ice Cream. 

Here is my interpretation!  You can see the rest of the entries for this assignment here Beauty Minions V2. I have to admit, I was really excited when I saw my mani as the first picture on the post!

For my base I used Icing - Riviera Romance. The Skull is Finger Paints - Easel Come, Easel Go!  and NYC - Black Creme.  I did the tips with french manicure strips and sprinkled loose silver glitter over clear polish. Yes, there was glitter stuck to everything for days.  Ah yes, glitter; the herpes of crafts! 


Onto assignment 3.  Theme:  HALLOWEEN!  Halloween is my favorite holiday.  I love everything about it so I was really into this one and excited to see everyones creations! 

Here's mine and of course you should check out the other Minions here; Beauty Minions V3.

 

 

I had painted my nails with Revlon Just Tinted - Desire the day before and while thinking about what I wanted to do I thought about how pink is kinda left out of Halloween.  I love pink and decided that it should be included!  I also used NYC - Black Creme and Finger Paints - Easel Come, Easel Go! in this one.

 

Well, that's all for now, folks!  I'm off to make early morning grilled cheese sandwiches or as my boyfriend calls them, gorilla cheese. 

 

Thanks for reading!  See you next time. Same nail time, same nail channel!

 

 

 

 





First Beauty Minions Assignment!

I recently joined a group called Beauty Minions.  It was started by Heather from My Husband Ate All My Ice Cream.  She's giving us bi-weekly assignments, a theme for us to translate into pretty much anything beauty related.  I will obviously be doing them on my nails because it's kinda my thing.  Check out the first of the Beauty Minions post to see all of the participants entries!

The first theme was 50 Shades of Grey. Now, I have never read this book so my inspiration came solely from the title. I knew right away I would do a gradient with white, grey and black. The black didn't really come out in the end but that's okay since I was just trying to get the different shades of grey.

I was planning on doing the gradient with a sponge but it just wasn't working out.  It was pulling up the polish and making too much texture. I took that all off and decided to try a technique I've seen using a fan brush instead. It was pretty messy but I love how it turned out!  I really like how you can see the brush strokes but the transition is still so smooth.

 

 

I wish now that I had taken some picture of the process but it's pretty simple.  I just put vertical stripes of white, grey and black on some plastic and then swiped the fan brush through it (vertically) a few times to blend the colors together.  I picked up quite a bit of paint on the brush so I could cover the nail in one swipe. 

 

The hardest part was finishing the side of the nail where the brush stroke ends.  At first I kept getting a bare spot. You can kinda see on the ring and pinky finger where the brush stroke stops and I had to fill it in. I also used a little thinner on my brush to help the colors run together and make it easier to work with. 

 

 

Love the look, hate the clean up!  I made a serious mess.  The side where the brush stroke started would be fairly clean but the other side tended to pool up with polish.  I had never done this before so hopefully next time I can find a way to cut back on clean up!

 

I hope you enjoyed this weeks Beauty Minion Assignment.  Go check out the other gals work here and stay tuned for a new Beauty Minions post (and hopefully some posts in between) in a couple weeks!

 

 

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!?