Shaken not Stirred by OPI

Hello!

I have another New Year's related post to show you today.

When I first saw that OPI was releasing a collection of nail apps inspired by the latest James Bond Sky Fall movie, this Martini glass design immediately stood out to me. I knew I had to snag a set to use for New Year's. Like I did for my cozy up mani, I thought it would be cute to layer INM Northern Lights on top. Not to brag, but I absolutely love how this came out!

 

I love the nail apps from OPI, and I honestly don't know how many sets of theirs I've used since they first started making them...I just know it's a lot! LOL. I'm so glad I went ahead and ordered these. I was waiting for one of my local beauty supply stores to stock the Sky Fall collection, but they never received it, so I went to amazon and got them there. 

So, what do you guys think about how these came out? Can you believe 2013 is here already? I can't! Happy New Year! May it bring lots of fabulous polishes your way! ;)

- Tiff

 

New Year's Eve Pedi

Happy New Year's Eve, every one!

I just got back from Orlando. I was there for my baby brother's basketball tournament. It's his senior year, so I want to make to as many of the big games as possible. As soon as we got back home, despite how tired I was from having to wake up super early to get on the road; I immediately started working on my nail looks for New Year's.

The owner of the dance studio I teach at gave me a couple of sets of nail stickers from the brand Kiss, and I decided it was time to finally use them. After all, they have been sitting in my nail stickers stash since she gave them to me last year. The design I used here is called "Bustier", and because these have see-through areas, I thought it would be nice to put them on over a color. I painted two coats of China Glaze "Ultimate Holiday", followed by a coat of Gelous (sold at Sally's) and top coat to smooth out the texture. When the nails were dry, I then applied the stickers on top. The adhesive was very good, and these were easy to apply. The pack comes with 28 stickers; enough for a mani and pedi if you choose. My big toe nails are super wide, so I actually ended up applying them side-ways in order for them to work. LOL. Hopefully you won't be able to notice that too much! ;)

Hopefully the yellow tone and sparkle of "Ultimate Holiday" is a bit more apparent in the close-up shots.

I got these Nail stickers as a gift, so I can not tell you how much they retail for. I can tell you that I always see them at CVS and Bed Bath & Beyond, and that they can't be more than $8. I consider that very good for the 28 stickers that are included in each pack. What do you think about what I did here? What are you planning to do tonight? Be safe, and have fun!

- Tiff

Cozy Up by Incoco

Merry Christmas!

You all know how obsessed I am with the nail sticker thing. Incoco released a holiday collection with some super adorable designs to choose from. I had a very hard time picking one to use, but one really stood out to me when I was browsing through them all. "Cozy Up" is what many are calling a cute take on the ugly holiday sweater. Since I don't own a real ugly holiday sweater, I decided to at least have the concept on my nails! I then decided to top them with INM "Northern Lights" hologram top coat in silver. I absolutely love this look!

See the almost chevron-like design towards the end of my nails? The strips are actually very long in length, so I had to apply these upside down in order for them to land on the nail. It wasn't that difficult to do!

Here, I applied them right side up ;) I got the best of both worlds with this set!

So, there you have it; my Christmas mani. These aren't the most Christmas-y nails out there, but I still think they capture the spirit of the holidays. If you're wanting to get some holiday strips from Incoco still, they have some that will be perfect for New Year's. I hope you enjoyed this post, and have a Merry Christmas!

- Tiff

Holiday Toesies!

Hi polish lovers! Happy Holidays!

I hope you don't mind that I've got a footsie post for you today.

 Yesterday while I was out and about, I made a stop at a Sally's beauty store and walked out with a set of cute nail wrap designs from a brand called Trendy. This design is called "Holiday Flakes", and it comes with 24 different sizes. These are similar in concept to the Minx wraps, but at a much more affordable price. On the package is an image of a hand and a foot dressed in Trendy wraps, so I decided to use these on my toes. I hope you guys think these are as cute as I do... They were on sale for $4.99, so I couldn't pass them up.Oh, and please don't mind my dancer bunions...haha ;)

These were fairly easy to apply for me, as I've used things like this many times before. I didn't see any where on the package where it is recommended to use a hair dryer to activate the adhesive of these while applying them. I actually found that out when I Googled reviews on these before I got started. Using a dryer did indeed help when applying these, as the heat helped them stick better. Like I mentioned above, I got these Trendy ones at Sally's on sale, and I can't tell you how much they regularly retail for. I can say that I see some on sale all the time there, so you're bound to get a set at a good price sometime. What do you think of these? Merry Christmas Eve, by the way!

- Tiff

Lacquer Lust snow flurries

Hi!

I am so pleased to say that I am nearly 100% recovered from that horrible bug I came down with a couple of weeks ago! That was the longest I had been sick since I was a youngster. Glad it's nearly gone!

Today I'm showing you a polish I managed to put on in between coughing my lungs out while I was in the worst shape during the sickness thing. I managed to snag this indie polish, "snow flurries" from Lacquer Lust a while ago, and I'm so glad I did. This is another indie polish that just screams holiday time. Take a look at the photos below :)

The formula of this polish was great. It had a nice consinstency, and dried quite fast. I did not have to worry about "placing" the glitter on the nail, and what you see here is two coats with Seche Vite top coat to finish it off. You can buy Lacquer Lust online, and the polishes retail for $7.50. What do you think about this one? I love it!

- Tiff

KBshimmer winter 2012 polishes

Hello,

There is a very nasty flu bug going around, and I've heard that this is the worst flu season we've had in a long time. I hope you are having better luck than I did in avoiding this thing, because I have had it really bad this past week and a half, and I'm still not 100% better. I went to the doctor, and she gave me some medicine for this lingering cough I have. Keep your fingers crossed for me that it goes away soon!

On to a happier subject... I purchased two colors from KBshimmer's 2012 winter collection. I wanted to buy them all, but could only get two, so I got my two favorites from the collection: "Snow Way!"and "Sugar Plum Faerie". Take a look at the photos below!



Snow Way!: This polish is so adorable! It's a light powder blue, jelly-ish base with different sized white glitter and shimmer. This polish screams winter! I am wearing three coats here.





Sugar Plum Faerie: This polish is so beautiful. It has a purple jelly base with multi colored glitter. I layerd two coats of this over OPI's "Houston we have a Purple" just for kicks. I got so many compliments when I wore Sugar Plum Faerie a few days ago for a dance performance.



As you can see, KBshimmer polishes are amazing. I wish I could buy them all, but I guess it's just a little bit at a time for now. Check out KBshimmer's website for a full view of all of their available polishes and other amazing products they offer. Until next time, polish lovers! ... And sorry for the slacking due to my sickness!

- Tiff

Essence Twilight Breaking Dawn part 2 collection

Hi guys!

Sorry I haven't posted in a while. I've been really sick these past few days. There's been a bug going around here in Miami, and it finally caught up with me. I'm feeling a bit better now, so here are the polishes I wore last week.

A couple of weeks ago I had the urge to take a little trip to my nearest Ulta store to use one of the coupons they sent me in the mail. I almost walked out of the store empty handed until I passed a cute little display of beauty products from Essence inspired by the latest Twilight movie. I've never been a Twilight fan. I saw one of the movies, and that was enough for me. The polishes on the display however, were much too cute to pass up, and at only $1.99 each, I had to snag all four of the colors and a nice red lip gloss too that was around $2.49  ;). I don't like to "swatch" polishes; I like to wear them as a mani for a full day at least before I change colors. Maybe I'll become a swatcher further down the road. Here is how I wore the colors last week!

Jacob's Protection: This super dark blue is pretty, but the formula gave me some trouble. What you see here is actually my second attempt at making the polish go on right. The formula is super thick, and a bit hard to get on evenly. I put a couple of thinner drops in the bottle before giving it a second try, and did it for the rest of the darker polishes as a precaution.

In sunlight...

I love the blue sparkle and how it shows in brighter lighting!

Alice had a Vision- Again: This is the same concept as the polish above, but with mostly purple sparkles. There is also some blue to it, which can be seen in the sunlight pics below.

ooohhh!!!! ;)

Edward's Love: Cute name if you're a Twilight fan...lol. This polish is also similar in concept to the first two polishes, but with silver shimmer/sparkles in it. This one gave me the least trouble formula wise out of the three dark polishes, as it wasn't as thick before I added thinner to it. Out of all of the darker polishes, I would probably have to say that Jacob's Protection is my favorite. I'm a sucker for blues.

A Piece of Forever: I almost left this polish behind at Ulta. It just wasn't speaking to me that much in the bottle. The main reason as to why I grabbed this one was because of the price and the fact that I wanted to feature the whole collection on my blog. It turned out that after applying this color, I ended up liking it a lot more than I thought I would. This is a yellow gold metallic polish. The formula was quite good, and I wouldn't consider this one too brush-strokey... I can see my self wearing this one again.

Overall, I am glad I decided to take these polishes home. The formula of the dark polishes was troublesome at first, but it was nothing a couple of drops of nail polish thinner can't fix. These retail for $1.99 at Ulta, and the Essence Twilight display has other nice makeup products that I would recommend taking a look at. What do you guys think of these? Should I give the Twilight movies another shot? lol...ttyl!

Tiff

Thanksgiving mani!

Happy Thanksgiving, polish people!

Today I have a little post about the polishes I used for a festive look for the holiday. Here I am wearing Bettina "Pumpkin Pie", which was called "#193", and indie polish brand Lac Attack "Mayan Goodbyin'" (I love that name! Lol). I'm not very good at nail art, so no turkey or cornucopia accent nails here :( ... Just colors that I feel go well with the day. I hope you like it! Have a great day!

Jade Holigrafico Vermelho Surreal

Good day to you all!

Today I have another short post featuring one of my favorite holographic polishes, "Vermelho Surreal" from Jade.

I ordered this color and "Mystic Gold" from shop llarowe online. I wore "Mystic Gold", and loved it, and I definitely love this beautiful red as well. I have been wanting to find the perfect red holographic polish, and finally got one!

Jade holographics have a really nice formula that dries fairly quickly if you don't brush on too thick of a coat. Top coat does not lessen the hologram effect at all, so no worries here about that! I used an Orly base coat and Seche Vite to top off my mani in the photos below. Hope you enjoy looking at the sparkly goodness!

- Tiff

OOOOOHHHH... lol ;)

A-England Tess D'Urbervilles

Hi Polish lovers!

Today I have another quick post for you to look at. Here I am wearing a polish from an English brand called A-England. This brand was created by fellow polish and cat lover Adina, and she has some pretty amazing shades in her line-up to choose from. I have quite a few polishes from her, maybe five or six, and I have to say that I love them all. I will have to wear these polishes again and take pics of them, just for you to see what I'm talking about. Adina's latest collection is called "Gothic Beauties", and I have the shade "Tess D'Urbervilles" (not sure how to pronounce that one...lol) in the photos below.

"Tess" is a blackened green base with brighter green shimmer. As you can see, this shade can look black in doors. I was out to dinner with my family the other night, wearing this color, and the moms thought I had on black. No, mom...it's really green! lol.

In sunlight, the green aspect of "Tess" is much more noticeable. I love the shimmer she has!

As far as the formula, it was great. It was a little thick for me, but not so much that I was wanting to put polish thinner in it. I think the thickness of it is what sustains the sparkles and makes them more noticeable against the nearly black base. I did two coats of "Tess", followed by Seche "Vite" top coat (which is one amazing quick-dry top coat!). I ended up really loving this shade, and I can't wait to continue to add more A-Englands to my collection. You could order these directly from Adina at the A-England website, or from a supplier here in the states from shop llarowe owned by Leah Ann Larowe. Hope you enjoyed taking a look!

- Tiff

Soo pretty!

A few weeks ago, a nail polish friend, Erika from Polish Fixation grabbed me a bottle of this polish from a brand called Soo Nails while making a stop at a beauty supply store during her vacation in New York. I am so glad she did because this is the most amazing and unique grey I have ever seen! The formula of this polish was awesome. I got perfect opacity with two easy, quick-drying coats. This polish doesn't have a real name, it just says "#s185" on the bottom label. If I were to give this polish an official name, it would have to be "Grey Gorgeousness" lol ;)

 I was only able to take photos of this look  from my cell phone, so hopefully you can somewhat see the really cool darker grey flecks in the polish from one of these shots. My digital camera is out of commission right now, so it's either my older version iPhone or my mom's digital camera for my nail pics... Hope you enjoy this post, and try to snag this polish for yourself if you're ever walking around in New York!

- Tiff

Obama Nails!

Hello again!

I was a little nervous about making a somewhat political post this week, but my friends told me they thought I should be sharing my Election Day 2012 mani with you viewers. I then decided to share their nails as well!

The company Minx announced they were launching nail designs inspired by election 2012, featuring the faces of President Barack Obama, Governor Mitt Romney, and each party's mascot. As soon as I saw this announcement show up in my Facebook news feed a few weeks ago, I immediately showed my friends at work. I thought the nail designs were super cute, and a fun way to take off some of the stressful edge elections can bring sometimes. Me and two of my friends ordered a pack from the Minx "tasting room" together from their website, and split the pack of 18; giving us six designs each to work with as accent nails. No matter where you stand politically, I hope you only look at this post as three friends coming together in a fun way about the things they believe in, while having cool-looking nails at the same time!

Here is what I did with my nails. I covered my thumb, ring and pinkie nails with the Minx stickers, and then painted my index and middle nails with a polish from China Glaze. This shade is called "Man Hunt" from their 2012 Fall collection. I really love this color and how well it worked with the Minx stickers.

Either I can't believe how nice these cell phone pics are, or I am in serious need of a newer and cooler phone...maybe it's a bit of both. LOL. My friend Libia's nails came out perfect, and these pics definitely show that. 

These nails belong to my buddy, Valeria. She was actually able to cover all of her nails with her six stickers because of her small nail size only needing half of a sticker for each nail. She got great use out of these, and I think they turned out awesome on her!

For fun, I made this cute little collage of all of our manis together using the nifty Pic Collage app. I was able to make this right from my iPad.


 Well, that concludes this post. I hope you guys enjoyed viewing it, and if you have any comments, please keep them strictly nail-related and not political. Thanks!!!
- Tiff