Weekend Haul

*All products in this post were purchased by me.

Hello everyone! I picked up a few things this weekend at some really awesome prices so I thought I'd do a haul post. :)

First up: L.A. Colors neons. I adore these!! I stopped in at the local Dollar Store to pick up some rolls for Sunday dinner and couldn't resist taking a browse through the nail polish. I found Mint, Hottie, Pink Bubbles, In A Flash, and Tangerine. I was in a hurry or I would have dug out the neon purple I'm sure I saw at the bottom of the bin too. See Pink Bubbles on my toes in the picture collage below. Having a neon polish on my toes is a must for spring and summer!

Saturday, I picked up these pretties from the Rite Aid sale bin ... well, all but the NYC polish; it, and a few other products, were marked at 75% off!! The sale bin seems to be drying up sadly, but I hold out hope that more polishes will be moved there soon. From left to right: Battery Park Purple, Tahitian Green, Strength of Pink, Figi, and Corduroy.

Also on for 75% off was this gorgeous NYC Lip Plumper in Plum Tart. I got this for $0.99!!! I didn't get it for the plumper ... okay, I didn't get it only for the plumper. The color is just so pretty! It's actually much lighter in person. I think of a nude gloss with a drop of plum color mixed in to give your lips a very natural shimmery flush of color. I didn't notice any real plump to my lips but it did have a slightly minty scent and did cause some tingling to my lips. Almost like getting toothpaste on your lips while brushing your teeth; I found it causes nearly the same amount of tingling for me. I found it almost refreshing to be honest.

Also on Saturday I found some really awesome sale items in Boscov's. This white sweater was an amazing find. It is so very, very comfy and is light enough to last in my wardrobe through Spring. And was a steal at $5.99! I also picked up a lovely gray blazer (no pics yet). I love blazers!! They are an essential part of my wardrobe! To find one for $9.99 was brilliant, but to get up to the checkout and have the sale's women scan it up as $5.99 was stunningly brilliant!

The one thing I didn't get on sale was the shoes. I saw them two weeks ago and fell in love � which is odd because I can't stand flats. I've been told many times that I must have been born with my heels because the only time I'm without them is when I'm not wearing any shoes at all. When I saw them this weekend I couldn't let them go again. Especially after trying them on and seeing how comfortable they are. I honestly expected to try them on and have them fit like all the other flats. They would surely feel weird and hurt the backs of my feet, but these lovelies didn't hurt at all and they fit perfectly! They are so me. An oddly fitting combo of nude and neon color with an awesome spiked toe. They were about $17 � which is a steal in and of itself for a pair of shoes today!

And my new shoes match my new neon pink nail polish! I hate feet, abhor them really, but I wanted to show off my neon toes too much. I kept the picture small and hope it doesn't make anyone cringe too badly. And yes, that is snow between the gaps of my porch. Yes, yes I did stand outside in my bare feet to get this picture. Dedication to my blog at its best ... or worst?

*All products in this post were purchased by me.

Read More

Lush Lacquer - Neon Lights

Hello everyone!! I am so psyched to show you the polish I wore all weekend. I was part of a group who recently won their choice of polish from Lush Lacquer's new Neon Collection. I knew immediately which one I would choose. I can't seem to resist neon glitter in a creamy white base.

And oooOO is Neon Lights made of creamy hotness! Seriously, the milky white base is so creamy and dreamy, and the neon glitter scattered throughout just makes it all the better. The glitter is awesomely chunky; I found my first coat was a bit streaky where the brush dragged some of the bigger glitters, but a small and simple side to side swish with your brushstrokes instead of a straight cuticle to tip drag does wonders! And as you can see, the second coat makes everything perfect even without the side to side motion. This is two coats of Neon Lights with two coats of Seche Vite.

The glitter in this so, soooo much brighter. I tried everything I could to get these pictures true to color, but nothing worked. :( Check out Crystal's Crazy Combos to really see the amazingness of this glitter and to see the other awesome neon polishes in this collection.

To purchase these polishes for yourself see the Lush Lacquer Etsy Shop. Each polish is $9. You can also find Lush Lacquer on Facebook.

*This polish was won in a giveaway. I was not asked to do a post on this polish, and all opinions are my own.

Read More

Welcome October

It's the first of October and that means Halloween is fast approaching. Halloween is my favorite holiday, always has been, and I am so excited to get October started right with an awesome post.

This polish has no name or even a brand listed. It just says Pumpkin Nail Enamel. However, I searched for the distributor and found this polish is from the Phantom Frights collection. It's an awesome neon pink and it glows in the dark. Yes, it glows in the dark!! I have been eyeing glow in the dark polish for months, and I am beyond happy with this polish. The only con is that it is very sheer. This is four coats and you can still see my nail line.

It also doesn't glow very brightly with four coats. No where near as brightly as it glows in the bottle. That's okay though because it's not hard to build up. It dries very quickly so I could do a few more coats no problem! I made absolutely sure to keep my coats thin and even to prevent streaking. I've had other glow polishes streak and it carries over into the glow. That was the last thing I wanted!

This is six coats and my nail line has disappeared. The pink has also gotten brighter which I love!

And with six coats the glow is at full strength!! Seriously, I could barely sleep with this polish on my nails! The glow was so bright I had to curl my fingers under my blanket and even then it still glowed through. I was nearly blinded when I had to rub my eye! This polish glows very brightly with very little exposure to light. It also doesn't fade horribly quickly like other glow polishes I could name.

Wanna know something else great about this polish? It only cost me $2.99 where a brand name glow polish would have cost me at least $4.99!

Will you be wearing glow in the dark polish on your nails for October?

Read More

Neon Pink Stripes

I thought I should get all the neon out of my system before I have to pull out the Fall colors. So here goes ...

I am ashamed to say I have absolutely no idea what the name of this pink is. It is my sister's nail polish that accidentally got mixed in with mine. I couldn't resist using it before I gave it back to her. For some reason, she took the name sticker off the bottom. Seriously? Who does that??? Though looking at swatches it may or may not be either Sinful Colors Fusion Neon or 24/7.

The name of this color aside it is a beautifully bright pink. What better use for a pink this bright than doing stripes with China Glaze White on White?

How about taking it one step further? This was done with the help of some weird cut scissors. I put a piece of tape on some wax paper and cut it down the middle with ragged cut scissors. Cutting the tape down the middle let me have enough tape for two nails. I angled the tape just slightly on my nails and painted over with black. I think this created a really awesome pattern. It almost looks like the black is running down my nails in some spots. I can already see a few more uses for these scissors.

How do you feel about using weird cut scissors as part of a tape mani?

Read More

It's Raining Glitter

I've been calling this my raining glitter mani so I decided to use that for the title. I wanted to do something a bit different than the usual glitter tips that naturally happen when I break out the glitter.



So, I decided to flip the glitter from tip to cuticle and drag it down my nails in lines ... or 'rain'. My sister has taken a liking to these nails so I'll probably be doing them again soon on a different set of nails. :)

This mani uses two coats of White on White from China Glaze as a base for the neon. The neon is Color Club's Mrs. Robinson. I used two coats but seeing the pictures, and the white showing through near the tips, I realize I should have used three or maybe even four coats. The glitter is Wet n Wild Kaleidoscope.

This picture isn't the best quality but it was taken in full sunlight and shows Mrs. Robinson more true to color than shown in the first two pictures.

Read More

Watermelon Nails

Wow, is it time for another post already? I was going to use yesterday to get my pictures all nicely resized and watermarked and, if I had some extra time, get a few posts typed up for auto-posting ... yeah, that didn't happen. Lol! I spent the past two days doing extreme cleaning. I don't know about you but cleaning makes me hungry and there's nothing better than a nice refreshing watermelon!

This design was originally done by The Polish Well. I fell in complete and total love with this idea after seeing her nails posted on Beautylish. I debated doing them on my own nails since she had already done such an amazing job on them ... but you should know by now that I have no impulse control. I couldn't resist.

I knew immediately that I wanted to use Funky Fingers' neon Kingston for the flesh of the watermelon. For the skin, I decided to go slightly more realistic by using China Glaze Holly-Day as a base and dabbing on a light speckling of Sally Hansen Green with Envy. I also used this color to draw the squiggles onto the watermelon.

I wish I had had a watermelon on hand (no pun intended) so I could have pictures of this mani next to a real watermelon. My family were amazed at how real they looked when we went shopping while I was wearing this mani.

Read More

Neon Sunbeams

I'M BAAACK!!! Well, I've been back for a week but I needed time to mourn the loss of the beach. I missed it horribly this week. Gasp, I didn't even want to do my nails this week! However, that's over with, and I'm ready to get back into my usual posting schedule. I have a few nail designs saved up for you but I want to share my beach nails in this post. The design for this post was inspired by Neon Rays by Chloe's Nails. I thought they were the perfect nails to arrive at the beach with. And these nails are amazingly easy to do. The hardest part was actually cutting the tape since I don't own any striping tape.

I'm not sure where the idea came from, I remember reading it on a blog somewhere, but the easiest way to cut the tape is to take a strip of the tape and place it on a sheet of wax paper. That way the tape doesn't stick to your scissors and you can get nearly perfect 'beams' every time. Simply peel them off once your base polishes are dry and create the beam pattern. I used the fairly standard beam pattern but you could turn the beams around, do different beam patterns on different nails or even do something else like zigzags.

Speaking of the base polishes, you gals should know by now that I always use two (or more) coats of white to make the neons pop. This time I used two coats of China Glaze White on White. The neon polishes are China Glaze Sun Worshiper, Color Club Yell-Oh! (which looks slightly green to me and these pictures agree), and Funky Fingers Kingston. I didn't do or use anything special to get the polishes lined up on my nails. I tried using a nail art brush but they were simply too small to work with so I used the polish brush and carefully painted stripes on either side of my nail and finished with a stripe down the middle. These colors took two coats and I was extra careful with the final coat to touch up any mistakes I made with the first. It may sound daunting and there is a moment of panic before you begin (how could such a large brush make three lines without overlapping horribly?) but it's really not once you start! Trust me! You will want to be careful with the wider brushes such as some of the Sally Hansen brushes and the Wet n Wild Pro brushes. If you just have to use one of these brushes try tipping the brush in it's side. That will give you a slimmer brush to work with.

Let your base polishes dry. You can add a top coat before taping for extra protection against chips and bleed through and also to give a smoother finish if you like. After your polishes are dry simply tape your pattern. Make sure the tape lays flat and remember to fold the ends of the tape over your nail tips and work it into the creases of your fingers. Coat your nail (and the tips of your nail between the tape) in your top polish. I chose black but again it doesn't have to be black. Once you have your top polish on immediately remove your tape. I use a pair of tweezers to grasp the tape (less messy and a smaller chance of smudging already completed nails) and get best results when I pull the tape slowly and smoothly back over my nail from the tip ... much like waxing in slow motion. :)

Read More

On Safari: Jungle Queen

Hello girlies! Another post, another day closer to my vacation. This just leaves one more post (Friday's post which will be set for auto-post) until I get back. I may post a few beach pictures to my Facebook page if anyone is interested.

This is Jungle Queen from the China Glaze On Safari collection. I love purple nail polish so it really goes without saying that I love this color. It looks stunning in the sun, doesn't it?

It left me a bit wanting indoors. The color is still pretty, a greyish purple, but it lost all it's brightness and shimmer. It was ... dull. With this in mind, I just had to do something to brighten it up.

After painting my fingernails, I moved onto painting my toenails with the standard summer neon - Sun Worshiper. Well, some of that awesome neon orange speckled onto Jungle Queen. It was certainly eye-catching and just wouldn't come off. I had an idea. I thought was barmy at first and tried to resist the urge.

However, the urge to do Jungle Queen's tribal design in Sun Worshiper proved to be too strong. There was no resisting, and I'm really glad I didn't because this looks amazing in my opinion. It adds just the right touch of summer to this fall color.

Read More

Neon Splatter

If there's one thing I love it's neon nail polish. I really don't think there's much better ... except maybe neon splatter nails!!!

Splatter nails create such a unique look for your nails. You'll never get the same design twice even if you use the same polishes. And, all told, they're really not that hard to do. All you need is polish, a piece of paper, some tape (for easier cleanup), and a straw. Tape around your nails, drop some polish onto a piece of paper, dip your straw into the polish and blow in one hard puff over your nail. Be sure to keep the piece of paper under your hand so you don't ruin your workstation. This may not always get a splatter but just keep trying until your straw picks up enough polish.

My problem with splatter nails? I don't know when to quit! I just keep adding more and more splatters until my base polish is practically covered and the splatters are everywhere. I think I managed to reign myself in more than usual with this splatter, but there's still a lot of them.

My right hand is less covered with splatter, but I did have a major drip on my middle finger and couldn't manage to get very many on my ring finger. Also, I somehow managed to smudge the polish on my index nail. I have no idea how. One moment it was fine and then next it was bunched. There was simply no fixing it.

And here you can see the thumb of my right hand. It has a good splatter pattern and managed to get a good splatter of each color.

Overall, I think this turned out really great. I definitely want to do more neon splatter nails. I'm thinking Sun Worshiper would make an amazing base color.

Polishes Used

Color Club - Yell-Oh!

Color Club - Mrs. Robinson

Funky Fingers - Kingston

China Glaze - Sun Worshiper

Read More

Sun Worshiper

Hello girlies! I hope everyone is having a great day. I know I am. I'm so excited to share this polish with you today.

Today's post is a China Glaze color swatch for Sun Worshiper. I'm not sure how I missed Sun Worshiper or the Poolside collection the first time around but Sun Worshiper was recently posted for sale on Sally Beauty. I've been longing for this polish for weeks, even ordered it at the end of April but it was cancelled due to sell out. I was so, so disappointed when I got the email that my order had shipped without Sun Worshiper. However, I saw it was back in stock last week and hurriedly tossed a few things into my cart and placed another order. Well, it arrived last Monday and I couldn't be happier!

I was stunned speechless when I saw Sun Worshiper in person. It was even more amazing in person than any of the blog pictures I found could ever show!

The first thing I noticed is that it is so bright! I knew it was neon but this is beyond amazing. It's like some kind of radioactive material contained in a polish bottle. Sun Worshiper is a stunning neon orange. It has a tint of yellow to it though like the bright yellow orange of a marigold.

I found this picture on Flickr and I think it just captures the color beautifully.

I'll say again, neons are always brighter over white. My pictures of Sun Worshiper are over two coats of China Glaze White on White. And I still needed three coats of Sun Worshiper.

Sun Worshiper is very sheer! I know I read this on many blogs before I purchased the polish, however I didn't understand just how sheer. Most bloggers aren't like me. When they do a swatch they use just the featured polish on their nails. I never use a neon until I have two to three coats of white down first, so I thought it would work a bit better. And it did ... with two coats of white as a base I didn't get a VNL. However, it still took three fairly thick coats of Sun Worshiper to cover the white. I couldn't be happier though. Over white Sun Worshiper is ten times brighter!! I didn't get a bad picture of these nails. It took forever to choose which ones I wanted to use.

Another thing to remember is that neons usually dry fairly matte. Sun Worshiper is no exception, so you'll want to have a high shine top coat on hand when using this polish. Remember to add a coat of top coat every other day to keep your nails shiny and chip resistant.


Will Sun Worshiper be on your list of must have neons for this summer?

Read More

Cracked Neon

Hello all you lovely followers! I hope everyone is doing okay. I was going to have this posted sooner but I got horribly sick this weekend. I'm happy to say that I'm feeling much better now though.

Today's post is a very simple mani, but one that I think is so perfect for summer.

Summer is the perfect time to catch the eyes of those around you, and what better way than with such of burst of color?

The thing to remember with neon polish is that you get the most color when it is layered over white. That's why, for this mani, I used two coats of white polish under two coats of neon before adding one coat of white crackle. This makes the neon color really pop.


Polish Used

• Borghese - Brilliante
• LA Color - White
• Funky Fingers - Kingston
• Funky Fingers - White Scales
• Sally Hansen - Insta-Dri

Read More

Paint Splatter - Image Heavy

Hey guys! I hope everyone is doing great today. It's looking pretty nice here. The sun is shining, there's an Easter egg hunt later, and the kids are off school. Not my kids though since I don't have any�they're my sister's kids and it will be great to watch them hunt for Easter eggs. :)

The mani I have for you today is one I've been dying to try since I did The Hunger Games nails. Paint splatter!! I thought of doing pastels for Easter but I've fallen in love with the Funky Fingers neon orange color, Kingston, and decided to work around that instead. Wanting to give it a chance to really shine I used blue, purple, and yellow with the orange.


This post is very image heavy since I took pictures of nearly every stage of doing these nails. So, prepare yourselves. :p

The first part of doing these nails (after painting your base color) is taping your fingers. This will make cleanup much easier. This is 3 coats of LA Colors white. I've tried many whites (both cheap and expensive) and none have held up as well as this white. The whites I use chip within the day but LA Colors held up for multiple days and are only showing slight wear and tear to the tips. I definitely recommend hunting this polish out if you have trouble finding a good white because not only does it hold up well, I found it at my local Dollar Store.

The next step is gathering your supplies (polish and a regular old straw. I used a bendy one and it worked perfectly) and getting your station set up. You'll need something to put under your fingers while you 'splatter' or you'll end up with this mess all over your work station instead of on a piece of paper. This is just the mess from one hand. I switched papers for my right hand.

Even with the tape your nails will need some cleanup.

Direct Sunlight

Shade

Right Hand

I had trouble getting splatter on my right hand. It came out of the straw in blobs or small sprays, but in all I think it actually turned out better. I'll have to remember that less splatter looks more realistic when I do this again.


So, what do you guys think? Ready to try splatter nails? If you are, I recommend using your cheaper polishes. Splatter nails waste a good bit of polish, both with the actual splatter and with the large drops of polish you dip your straw into.


Polish Used

• Borghese - Brillante
• LA Colors - BCC 561 (White)
• Funky Fingers - Kingston
• Sally Hansen - Blue Me Away!
• Sally Hansen - Mellow Yellow
• NYC - Prince Street
• Sally Hansen - Insta-Dri

Read More