Nfu Oh #116

Nfu Oh #116

When I bought this color, I thought it was more on the side of magenta. As you can see, it is definitely not. The first coat is a semi-translucent magenta (see the edges of my nails? They are magenta) but as you add more layers the color darkens. This application was 3 coats. The result is a dark purple. If you look closely, you can see tiny pink/magenta shimmers. It's a gorgeous color! If I hadn't broke my pointer finger (far left) I'd wear this a few more days.

Yep... I broke another nail. It's actually broken in this picture! I spared it for the sake of this swatch. Sadly, my nails are cut all the way down to my nail beds. I probably won't be posting for a while. The nail that broke is really gnarly and gross! It's going to take a while before it grows to a decent length.

Absolutely Alice

OPI Absolutely Alice

Ooooooooooh, I love this color! Pure glitter. Opaque in 3 coats... 2 if you're really good. You must use a super glossy top coat (Seche Vite) if you want to get the most sparkle out of this polish! Look below... An out-of-focus shot for proof of how awesome Absolutely Alice is!
The photo below has indirect lighting. It shows the 2 colors of glitter: bright blue with a touch of gold! I thought the blue was the color of my favorite crayon as a child, labelled "Cerulean". However, the googled images of it are much more blue than I remember. Anyone have any crayons?

Pretty!

This color is a MUST if you love bright polishes, blues, or glitters! It is GORGEOUS! I don't want to take it off!

Little Blue Box

Little Blue Box Manicure

Well, it's pretty obvious where I got the inspiration for this manicure. Does that explain all the "Tiffany blue"-like swatches I've been doing? Here is Nfu Oh #394...
There were so many other Konad motifs that I wanted to incorporate into this design. However, there just wasn't enough room on my nails! The bow is from M59. The gem and box are from M14. The silver glitter is China Glaze's Tinsel...
Ideally, I would have liked a bow on my pinkie nail but there was no way that was happening! That bow is huge! Also, I wish I had put a bow on my thumb... It's always easier to criticize when you actually see the prints on the nails vs. ideas swirling around in your head! Hope you like it!

My Mannequin Hands

OPI Sand In My Suit

Here is 2 coats of my favorite nude nail polish color... OPI's Sand In My Suit. It matches my skin great and has a nice shimmer to it. It even looks good when my hands are tan in the summer. Makes my nails reflect light like a string of pearls.

Another photo to show the shimmer:

Red Hat Society?

Red Hat Society (Well, that's the look I was trying to achieve...)

I'm sick of the photo quality I get when I upload pictures into Blogger. I tried using Photobucket but the pictures ended up being so big that blogger automatically cropped them to fit within the limits of the post. I hesitate to join Flickr because I have to sign up for a Yahoo ID and I don't really need anymore login names and passwords to remember! Does anyone out there have a better way to post pictures? If so, please let me know!

Anyways, on to the nails. I wanted to use red and purple. I love red and purple! So I thought, "I'll try a Red Hat Society themed manicure". I pictured it looking better than this. What it turned out to be reminds me more of hippie tie-dye! It is better in real-life, of course... but it would be even better with more purple!

I knew right away that I was going to use those feathers on Konad image plate M63. I stamped the design on top of OPI's Dutch Tulips (base color). To add more interest, I used silver AND purple special polish. It's a good thing I did because the purple is barely visible.

Afterwards, I filled the void created by the arched feathers with China Glaze's Ruby Pumps. Then I remembered how hard Ruby Pumps was to photograph... so I went over it with a red glitter Stripe Rite!

Does anyone else have problems with Konad's topcoat getting super bubbly!?! I bet I have over 50 bubbles on my thumbnail alone! I don't shake the bottle... I try to apply it in as few brush strokes as possible... It looks perfect when I'm done. It's not until it really begins to dry that the bumps start showing up. I'm desperate for help/suggestions! :( I feel like such a whiner today!

(7) Seven Random Things

1) Intro and fact #1: I'm kind of... no, REALLY bad at responding to things like chain e-mails or in the blogging world: tags. I've been "tagged" at least 4 times for this one..."7 Random Things About Me". Sorry for you guys that tagged me because you thought I hadn't been yet. BUT thank you for tagging me (!) MeganChair, BabyD, Melinda, and Ange-Marie :) And sorry for taking SOOO LOOOONG!

2) My eyes aren't actually green. They're brown... but I really want colored contacts so they may be green one day. Hopefully!

3) I'd say I'm really good at organizing spaces and I LOVE decorating. I should have gone to school for interior design, instead of graphic design. Hindsight is always 20/20, right?

4) I'm very girly! I love make-up, pink, heels, jewelry, and of course, nail polish! The funny thing is, I have lots of it all but I never wear any of it! (With the exception of nail polish, which is fueled by this blog. If not for it, all of my polish might just sit on a shelf with everything else) It's either too cold or too uncomfortable or I'm just too lazy to either find it or put it on. Oh well.

5) I turn into an obsessive collector when I find something that I really like. My nail polish collection started with ONE bottle of OPI and turned into 105 in a year and a half! Then, the same for Nfu Ohs! I hope I can get this thing under control!! I'm not just this way with nail polish either! I've got a stack of zip-up hoodies, camisoles, Soffie shorts, Mac eyeshadows, and the list goes on and on.

6) I have lived in Houston, TX for one year. My parents moved from Iowa to Houston when I was still in high school. I attended school there for my junior year but moved back to Iowa to graduate with my friends. It's a nice city... nice people... lots of shopping... but everyone is in such a hurry! I just can't be relaxed there.

7) I've never left the United States. I had the chance to study abroad (in Rome) my last year of college but I turned it down. I didn't want to miss anything back in Iowa. I regret that decision sometimes. Maybe I will make it there someday... :)

I'm not very interesting. Just an ordinary girl... or maybe I should say "young lady" since I'll be turning 25 this month! Where has the last quarter-of-a-century gone???

Thanks for reading!

Side-by-side

Here is a picture of the colors (from my last post) side-by-side.

[Left to right] #206, #394, For Audrey, & #172

This gives you a better idea of how they compare to each other. As you can see, #394 and For Audrey are very similar. For Audrey is a little more blue and dusty (grayish) looking. #394 is greener and more saturated. The differences are a even more obvious in real-life. Hope this helps a little better! Thanks for looking :)

"Tiffany Blue" Search (Swatches)

Here are my follow-up swatches for this previous post...

Sorry for the inconsistent lighting. Some colors get washed out (by my stupid camera!) if they are photographed in direct light. I wandered around the house trying to find the best location to take pictures of each shade. I probably looked like a nut. I was all over the place with my face at my camera's display screen. I'm surprised I didn't trip over anything, including the cat!

Here are the shades I started collecting to try to find a Tiffany-blue. Nfu Oh #172, 206, & 394, as well as China Glaze's For Audrey. I bought #172 and #206 based on their color from the pictures online. Once I received them and saw how off I was, I asked Jocelyn (at Fabuloustreet) to help me find the closest match.

#172

This is that color I talked about in another post. It is almost identical to Essie's Mint Candy Apple. A gorgeous color, but not what I was looking for. I'd put this in the range of sea foam greens. The formula for #172 isn't as nice as Essie's. It's kind of streaky. This was 3 thick coats.

#206

I'd seen some swatches of this color online and I wasn't sure if it was truly as dark as in the pictures posted. So I ordered it anyway. It's way too green and much too dark! Pretty color though. The formula for this polish was decent. I'd call this a creme but it kind of had a translucent jelly-like quality. I think this was 3 coats.

For Audrey

I think I had told you that I bought this and then gave it to my sister. Well, she didn't use it so she gave it back! Yay! This is supposed to be a Tiffany's inspired color. It's very dusty looking. Too dusty to settle for this as Tiffany-blue. Is it just me or does anyone else think it needs a touch of green? This was just 2 coats.

#394

I FINALLY gave in and asked for assistance in finding a color! I couldn't spend anymore money on the wrong shade. (...Which, actually, I did. After I got #394, I bought #393 because I thought it would be a little bit better. Oops. Waaaay too blue!) Initially, I thought this was a duplicate of "For Audrey"... but as I should have known, you can't judge a polish by its bottle! When I put it on, I saw that it was much more saturated and didn't have that grayish weird tint to it. I have yet to see if it matches the Tiffany & Co. box but I can say it is nearly a perfect match to the envelope they mail their catalogues in :)

[The first photograph in this post is of Nfu Oh #394]

I Get A Kick Out Of Gold

Essie's Matte About You & OPI I Get A Kick Out Of Gold

This is my favorite OPI gold as of now. I have "Dazzled By Gold", ""Glow", "Curry Up Don't Be Late", and this one, "I Get A Kick Out Of Gold". [IGAKOOG] Nice acronym.

"I Get A Kick Out Of Gold" looks very similar to "Dazzled By Gold". They are essentially the same color. IGAKOOG just doesn't have all that glitter. I like the lack of glitter because it has a smoooooth texture... and it looks really neat with a matte top coat!

Dazzled By Gold vs. I Get A Kick Out Of Gold

Here's I Get A Kick Out Of Gold. No top coat.

I Get A Kick Out Of Gold & Matte About You

Again with different lighting...

OPI Nail Wheels

OPI Nail Wheels (105 colors)

Like I mentioned before, I received some nail wheels for Christmas! Here are all of my OPI swatches! These will make it so much easier for me to choose colors. The hard part will be finding the right bottle from the storage boxes!

Neutrals/Golds/Etc.

Pinks

Yellows/Oranges/Reds

Reds/Magentas

Purples

Blues/Greens

Maybe one day I will get all of these colors swatched on my actual nails ;)

NABiTCOLOR

Looks like a good combo, eh?

I always hack into my boyfriend's Ebay account and put girly things on his "Watch List", usually nail related items. Haha. So this year for Christmas some of which he got me was all of the things I had on the list. Nail wheels! OPI's I Get A Kick Out Of Gold! And these pretty polishes from Nabi:
They look gorgeous, right? I've never used Nabi polishes before but I've seen some on Nihrida's blog so I thought they might be worthy of my time...? I decided to use the pink (actually called "Purple Big Glitter") over OPI's It Color.

This is what I got after 1 coat of the Nabi glitter...

Okay, so where is all of the glitter?! Still in the bottle, I guess. I gave it another coat.

Wow. That is not much better. Then, a 3rd coat....

I'm really NOT impressed. The glitter is pretty, BUT YOU CAN'T GET IT ON THE NAIL! The bottle looks packed with glitter, so why do I only get a glob of clear when I pull the brush out of the polish?? I'm sincerely upset :( ...
[Above] Now seriously, who said that?! "The best nail polish I've ever used"? What a joke. Other reasons I'm disappointed in these polishes: They smell GROSS! When I open the bottle I feel like I just stepped into an auto body shop. It's an awful paint smell. Also, it has a thick, sticky consistency. Yuck! I feel like I have super glue all over my nails! Have you ever tried super glueing your nail back together after it broke? Well, it gets all over. It runs all over your nail and floods your cuticle. That is basically what this polish did to me. I'm taking it all off now!

[Below] Deniz, aka Trincess (from Emerald Sparkled blog) asked how my previous manicure would look if I applied the silver to the tips of my nails. Not bad! Here you go :)

Thank you all for looking!

Purple With A Purpose

OPI Purple With A Purpose & Silver Stripe Rite

I'm always trying to come up with something that I haven't seen before. I think this may be it... I used Purple With A Purpose and a Stripe Rite (silver glitter):

I applied 2 coats of Purple With A Purpose.

Then, I outlined my nail with silver glitter... This was actually kind of tough. I had to be patient and especially careful to make the glitter stripes even (not wavy or sparse in areas).
The outcome is very cool. Haha. That word ("cool") is so goofy but I don't know how else to describe it! Spunky? Unique, I guess...
[Above] I got a new crystal file! Well, I had to. I busted my other one a few days ago. It was on the floor and I knelt on it. SNAP! Oopsy. Since getting my new file, I can tell you that they do indeed wear down. This one is working much better than my old file.

Here is a black and white photo. It shows the contrast of the silver on the purple better than in the colored pictures.
I love this! Maybe next time I will add some Konad... ? Hope you like it!

No Spain No Gain & M53

OPI No Spain No Gain & Konad M53

Here are the nails I stamped while teaching my aunt how to use her new Konad stamping kit. Don't mind the application OR my super dry cuticles. They really don't look this bad in real life! Anyways...

I painted No Spain No Gain as my base color. This is just 2 coats. Then I stamped the flower design from Konad image plate M53 (in silver Special Polish). Notice how I stamped the design on one nail and then turned the design 180 degrees on the next. To add a little more interest, I applied tiny silver beads in the center of a flower on each nail.

How on Earth do you get those itty bitty beads in place?!?... Tweezers!

And another plus: the beads are magnetic!

I got these little guys at Sally's Beauty Supply. I think they were around $3. Thanks for looking!