Sakura and other lovely florals =]

Hello!  Today my post will be about a manicure that I have been wanting to try out for a while now, and now that I have the right tools I thought, "Why not?"

My inspiration comes from one of my oldest besties who loves anything and everything Japanese.  I took a semester of Japanese in college and uh..I remember the day someone in the class was all "You know, English is actually one of the hardest languages to learn.." I was like...uhh where are you getting your intel, buddy?  I'm pretty sure I read somewhere it's one of the easiest for a lot of reasons, and one of them being that normally all of our words just generally have one meaning, and we don't normally use the same word to mean a lot of different things.  Also the way our sentences are put together is easier to understand.  Someone stop me if I'm wrong!  Needless to say, that class was really hard..

I had been getting my ideas just from googling "cherry blossom nails" for a while now, and there are a lot of variations, so i just used the basics as my base, a nude (or minty blue) background, a branch here and there, and then little pink and white flowers all over the place =] and let my mani lead itself as I went along.

 inside

outside

inside

This is one coat of Gelous, two coats of Zoya Cho, topped with Seche Vite.

I used tape to help make my tips, and painted them in Revlon Minted.  I used my really fine brush with Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Flirt to make little branches on my thumb and ring fingers, starting at either top or bottom (I alternated the starting points on my right hand) and then for my cherry blossoms I used my brush again in OPI My Address Is Hollywood, and Sally Hansen French Tip White for the middles.  Topped off again with Seche Vite.

I loved loved loved this mani so much.  My friends seemed to like it, and my only problem with it is that I think I definitely should've used dotting tools to make the flowers, but I was on a roll with my brush lol I love that thing..

A little something else is another review.  I hope everyone likes reviews, because I think I'll start doing them a little more.  Not a lot, mostly things that I have received in past Birchboxes that I still have (mainly perfume samples)  I promise they won't all always be as long as my May Birchbox Review post lol I tend to get carried away...

Anyway, last month Birchbox sent me a sample of Taylor Swift's new perfume, Wonderstruck.  I love the way this smells! If you love floral and fruity scents, this is something you need to take a whiff of!  At Birchbox 3.4oz of the stuff is $59.50.  The bottle is so magical looking, purple with a gold top, and little golden charms all around the cap.  I don't know how much you guys like Taylor Swift, or country/pop in general, but I can't help myself.  Her songs are catchy, and her voice is great.  And she really seems like the type of girl who still has a good head on her shoulders in the world of celebrities, really girl-next-door-ish.  She brings out the "country girl" in me that I used to stifle and be embarrassed of, but where I'm from it's damn near impossible to not have a little backwoods coursing through your veins.  Also, this "country girl" (ha.) does not pay the high prices for perfumes and stuff..I'm the type of girl, if I don't get it for Christmas or buy it right before Christmas when VS has that lovely "Buy a million lotions and sprays for $this" then I'm not getting any perfume.  If I WERE the type of girl to have money to splurge on such things...then $60 wouldn't be so bad to pay for this lovely bit of goodness..I guess..

What's your favorite smell?

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 =]