The Ultimate Want

Today, I am sad.  I fear I will never own my own bottle of Clarins 230.  It's a fact that I deal with, day to day.  I get by.  How could a polish so perfect be so freaking discontinued, and goes for over a hundred bucks on ebay.  Oh, the things I could do with the amazing Unicorn Pee.  If you have no idea what I'm talking about, seriously do yourself a favor and google it.  You're not actually doing yourself a favor, because now you want it just as much as I do, and unless you're completely insane you're not gonna shell out the cash.  On the small chance that you ARE that completely insane, could you see if they'll throw in another bottle?

Anyway, so if you can't tell, today I was craving some color-shifting goodness, oh yes.  I'll have to make do with what I have, since I don't have the most precious of all.

note: These pictures were taken weeks ago when my camera was all wonky, and apparently I decided they weren't even good enough to watermark lol

Wow, these pictures are bad.

This is OPI Not Like The Movies from the Katy Perry collection, three coats. It's a weird gray/steel color from afar, but even in the bottle (not pictured) you can tell the color shift from purple to green in different light.  I had commented on another blog's post about this polish, having no idea that it had come out in a different color.  Apparently this version was only made for a short while when it came out, and then they switched to something different, something less duochrome.  So I'm lucky I guess!

I thought China Glaze Liquid Crystal from the Prismatic collection would go perfectly on top! I accented my thumb and ring fingers with it.  It's great because the colors shift from blue to purple, so my fingers are shifting to different colors on different fingers =] On the rest I added China Glaze Fairy Dust, for giggles =] I love the holographic shimmery goodness it adds.

If I can't have Clarins 230, then I'll just make do with what I do have=]

I do apologize for the horrible mess that are these pictures, this post was meant for a few weeks back and it slipped through the cracks of my brain..It really is a very awesome polish in real life.

Summer Challenge: Day Four!

Oh, hey there!  I've been absent..
Not to get into a lot, but my grandmother has just had surgery, so I've just spent my last two days off over at her house helping her out and stuff...and putting off getting together summer challenge stuff!  Family is important though, and that's why i was not only watching over my grandmother, but my two young cousins (8 and 9) and let me assure you, I was not on a manicure rest!  I have been painting, removing, pressing tiny girly looking adhesive nails on, peeling them off, putting different ones on, peeling those off, painting again...and none of it on myself!  Well, okay I did find the time to do my own nails last night, and I think this manicure can double up on my summer challenges!  Not too sure, I may actually want to do a different one for the future challenge day.  I did miss Wednesday's challenge, the theme was summer dots.  I already did a dotting mani earlier that I feel is the perfect summer dot manicure so can I just cheat and lead you to that one..?

Okay, so today's challenge is orange freestyle themed.  And I feel like it could double over onto June 29: Underneath the stars.  If you don't agree, then I hereby surrender myself to the crumpet, and shall take my punishment accordingly.

Picture spam alert! I not only got my camera issues fixed, but I am quite proud of how this turned out!

inside:

outside:

blurry inside:

blurry outside:

emphasis on the thumb inside:

thumb outside:

blurry outside again, just 'cause =]

Galaxy nails! I have been wanting to do these for quite some time, but haven't been able to sponge correctly or use the colors I felt were right for it.  Some of these are obviously blurry to show the awesomeness of the holographic glitter=]
Specs:
Base coat: Sally Hansen Double Duty.
One coat of China Glaze Smoke and Ashes from the Hunger Games collection (the PERFECT galaxy base, in my opinion)
Index, middle, ring & pinky:
sponged on Revlon Dreamer in the middle in oddly shaped circles and stuff
sponged on one side China Glaze Tree Hugger
on another OPI My Address is Hollywood
on another Revlon Not so Blueberry (which is scented, and I'm not sure but I might be okay with that.  Maybe.)
sponged in the center Maybelline Color Show Porcelain Party
sponged the tips with CG Smoke and Ashes, and a bit around the sides til I was happy
To pull it all together, China Glaze Fairy Dust.  I really mean it.  This mani would not be the same without it.  Ever since I first saw it I knew it would be the perfect topper to a galaxy mani.  I've been lookin' around a lot, okay?  I see people all the time free-handing their own stars or dots in white on their galaxies, and I just think it totally takes away from it all, for me that is.  It just looks more realistic with the shimmering holographic bits in there, I think.

For my thumbs:
First, I sponged on Maybelline Color Show Porcelain Party, so the other colors would show up better.  This is an explosion of some kind.  I sponged on Revlon Fearless, and then alternated between that and Kleancolor Neon Yellow and Neon Orange, slowly making my way toward the tip of the nail, finishing with Revlon Fearless.  Then I topped that off with CG Fairy Dust.

Okay, so it isn't all about orange, but I have really been wanting to try this one out for a while, and it turned out even better than I expected!  So I needed an excuse to post it and tie it into the summer challenge lol

What's your favorite galaxy mani?  Am I offending you with my dislike of free handed stars instead of glitter?  Am I breaking the rules of the summer challenge too hard (um because there aren't any, get your facts right!) Wanna whine about it in a comment?  You can whine about anything down there, you know.
I'll read it, and respond in a timely manner with my thoughtfully thought thoughts =]

Summer Challenge: Day 1!

In case you haven't been reading or following any of the blogs that I follow (what's wrong with you?!) then you probably don't know anything about the summer challenge.  Started by Debbie from The Crumpet, it's a reallllllly long, and hopefully reallllllly awesome challenge, and it's my first!

click here to get all the deets on the Purple Crumpet Fairy Challenge fb page!

Today's theme: The Olympic torch starts its journey.

I must say, I haven't kept up with the Olympics for a while, the last one came about the year I graduated high school.  I can't tell you what I was doing (such a hazy memory of that time..) but I can imagine I was celebrating like I had just won the Olympics.  I used to love watching the gymnastics and a few other various parts on TV when I was a little kid though.  Then I got pissed when I found out this awesome show only runs every four years! whaaaat..

So my mani is pretty basic, I'm really only using the colors for the rings for this one. Red, green, blue, black, and yellow which I have substituted gold for.  Aren't I just cool? ha..

This is Sally Hansen Double Duty base coat, two coats of Maybelline Color Show Tenacious Teal on my index, middle and pinky fingers. For my thumb and ring fingers I have painted diagonally with Pure Ice Black Rage, and for the other half Color Club Disco Nap.  On top of these I have sponged Sally Girl no name gold glitter, it's really a simple clear base with small and medium sized gold glitter pieces.  I focused on sponging the entire nail on the thumb and ring fingers, while only about halfway on the rest.  Then, I have taken a dotting tool and made dots in Pure Ice French Kiss, Siren, and Black Rage on my teal fingers.  Topped off with Seche Vite.

So, I hope that I do get to watch this year's Olympics, and incorporate something better than just colors into my manis.  Oh yeah, there are a few more Olympic themes left, as well as a lot of other cool creative ideas to get your lacquered-crazed brains a-goin =]

Here are the ladies who participated in the challenge today:

Zoya True Spring Collection! (super teeny tiny haul)

The other day I realized I had accumulated about 240 Birchbox points and decided I would use them to grab some full-sized Zoyas!  I have two minis that have been sent to me in my Birchboxes over the past year, and recently I received Bevin, which is an opaque sort of teal color, it's not dark but it isn't very bright.  It's dusty!  It really is very pretty=] No pictures of Bevin yet, because to me it's a kind of color that I just haven't been in the mood for lately.. no offense, Bevin!

So I was super excited when the mail ran a couple days ago, and I got my lovelies!  

This is Tru, which is a grape-colored purple, but it's deeper than that.  Not only is it saturated, it has shimmer to it!  The website says the shimmer reflects gold, orange and red, and from what I can tell that's probably pretty accurate, though I see more red than anything. I tried blurring the pictures some, but really I guess you can only tell the shimmer from the bottle pic in that last shot, which actually shows all of the shimmer!  I just loved taking pictures with this one.

Then there's Cho.  Now, I seem to keep collecting nude polishes, but they're always pink toned.  Cho is an opaque nude.  I was shocked!  this is completely opaque in two coats, how cool is that?  Cho basically looks like my skin on my nails.  Now, let me just say that I don't tan.  Not like I haven't tried or that I won't or that I'm a freak about sunblock, (I am) but my whole lifetime of trying to tan has just left me sore and befreckled.  This color is my nude =] I love it so.  It has really fine silvery shimmer in it, I love that added bonus.  Not only is it a super awesome nude, it's got super awesome shimmer!  I have no idea why I love nudes soooo much, but after Cho, I am definitely diving deeper into the nudey pool on the nudey beach =] (kidding) But I will be grabbing up some more beige colors from now on, just to have the variety. =]

Of course I couldn't just leave those manis be!

for my Cho, I left it as is for the most part, only accenting my ring fingers with China Glaze Fast Track from the Hunger Games collection.  I love that color!  You can't really see all of the shimmery goodness that Fast Track has to offer in this photo, and for that I am sorry.. but it's packed with gold shimmers and looks very much like liquid sparkly shimmery gold when you lift the brush out of the bottle.  God, I love it.

For my Tru, I did the same thing, only changing up the ring fingers.  I sponged some CG Fast Track onto the tips, and then Maybelline Bold Gold (I think that's what it was..) on top of that.  Then I used my cheeky plate with a little star design, and stamped twice using the gold color, so that it would fill up the rest of the nail space.  

For my second Tru mani, I went over my ring finger with NYC Starry Silver Glitter with a sponge.  I don't remember but I think I did two layers of sponging on that.  I doubt I will ever use a polish brush to apply glitters ever again! This glitter is freaking awesome!  I did not realize the glitter was holographic until I saw the pics.  It just looks like a light lavender purple and the darker blue circular glitter pieces (as well as super full of fine silver glittery goodness!)  But here you can see more, a darker purple, a lighter blue, and a green.  I also found another picture that shows red and yellow. Again, i tried to blur that pic so that everything could get caught up in the light.  I fail.

All of these manis and swatches are done with a coat of Gelous as base coat, then Topped off with Poshe.

I love these colors! I think if I had to I would pick up Skylar also from this collection, but I would much rather explore other collections since I am still verrrry new to Zoya.  One thing I know for sure, I NEED Zoya Zuza.  soo pretty!

My Birchbox should be here soon!  A few days ago I got an e-mail saying it was shipped, which I thought was weird since they normally go out on the 10th of every month, and that was like the 6th or something when I got that...and there still isn't any tracking info up yet!  Yes, I track my packages, I track them ferociously. Gotta know when my babies are comin' home!


Have a great day =]