Well, Hello there!

I know you guys haven't seen a post on this blog in awhile. But as another long time friend of Erika's, and a reader/ supporter of this blog, I mentioned to her that I hadn't seen any posts in awhile. I do like to support anything my friends do, and have been reading since the beginning. So she asked if I'd like to take part, and here I am!

Now i'm nowhere near as good with a brush as Erika, Renee, and Julie are. More like Ernestina Does A Manicure, in my honest opinion. And I think I may be dating myself with that paraphrased reference. :-P But I do love polish, and have a willingness to get better so bear with me!

I've been buying polish since middle school when all I could afford is a 99 cent bottle of Wet 'N Wild, sadly those hideous colors of blue and metallic apple green are long dried out, but the memories remain (of hideous manicures). Painting something pretty on your nails makes you feel good, and why shouldn't we all treat ourselves to some good feels now and again?

For my first post I decided to post on a polish that was bought for me as a gift from Erika when I went up to NY to visit; Deborah Lippman's Lets Go Crazy. You should know, I'm a HUGE sucker for purple and glitter so this polish was a no brainer for my first Lippman. I've read around  about it, and the consensus is that it's chunky,  the purple is murky... Well you all can google that if you're interested. Also, until I get my camera charger in the mail, I'm stuck with my 2 year old ancient smartphone camera. So no judging on the picture quality until I say so! :)

Rejuvacote, Lets Go Crazy, Out The Door Topcoat. 

Plus showing off some possibilities for future posts :)

First things first, I LOVE this polish. I do think it needs some work to come out well, though. It could be me who knows. But sheer purple, with tons of colored glitter? I'm probably biased as a lover of purple shiny things. 

These pictures will get better I promise. I'll also invest in something to get those bits of polish off by my next post

So this was one coat of Rejuvacote, which is my standard base coat. Two thick coats of Lets Go Crazy, followed by one thick coat of Out the Door. I did have to fish every few nails because the glitter was getting sparse, as well as a quick cap and roll. But despite that, and some streakiness, I still have a big mushy soft spot for this polish. As I get more used to doing my nails more often i'll definitely revisit to see if I have the same issues. Anyone have this polish have the same issues? Let me know!

Bonus: Have any of you seen this link for cute Valentines mani ideas? Now I'd change the pink to purple, as i'm not a pink fan. But that's just me. A solid purple mani, with maybe a red heart on the thumb is as Valentine-y as I get. But, they're all super creative. :)

Revlon Facets of Fuchsia

Hi everyone! After a long and fun summer, I'm back to blogging. I have a bunch of things saved to post, so keep checking in :)

Before I post this picture, I have an announcement to make.. my nails are no longer this long. After a trip to a (bad) manicurist, I had to cut them all off. She did such a bad job that a few of them started to peel, so I had to cut them all off and start over. ::sigh:: Ah well, they will grow back, it will just take time.

Now, one of my past NOTDs- Revlon Facets of Fuchsia. Please excuse the tip wear ^^;; I had to wait a few days for a sunny enough day for pictures. Usually I hate Revlon's formula, but this one was a WIN. Applied evenly, no pooling or dragging. Amazing black jelly color with fuchsia glitter, I can't stop looking at my finger nails. GREAT dupe for Bad Romance (as everyone probably already knows, though they changed the color name to scandalous now.) Revlon, you are really impressing me lately.

Revlon Facets of Fuchsia, a photo by KitaRei on Flickr.

Beauty Concepts Peach Shimmer

I got this polish at Dollar Tree back in March. It was nameless, so I named it.  It's an iridescent shimmer with a super sheer peachy-pink jelly base in a cute rose shaped bottle.  It sounds really pretty, but I learned a lesson, this is a TOPCOAT only.  The peachy tones in it made my nails look disgustingly yellow (I swear they are NOT that color, nor do they have dirt under them) and I'll layer it over white or another polish from now on.  I'm almost too embarrassed to post this picture, but I have to show what this looks like on it's own.  

Beauty Concepts Peach Shimmer, a photo by KitaRei on Flickr.

The label under the bottle says: Distributed by Greenbrier International Inc., Chesapeake, Va. 23320.  It does not say the brand name.
Click to enlarge second picture.  If you do get this, trust me, layer it-it would probably look great over white, light pink or light peach. I'm going to have to try that, I'm sure it will be *much* better!

Long due post!

Sorry about my lack of posts! Its been quite crazy at the house I nanny for and getting on the net (Renee knows) has been a pain. But I am back! And here are a few nail looks that I have done these past weeks:

The first nails are Nailtini color in Stinger, a gorgeous duochrome that goes from teal to purple in the light. With an Inglot Flakie on top. Love this look! I am sporting it right now!

 

This look is from a few weeks ago, it is sand and stilettos from Funky Fingers topped with Crushed Candy from China Glaze. A very fun look!

 

And what Gina, one of the girls I nanny for, calls Cinderella nails. It is just clear nail polish with sky blue microglitter topped with 2 layers of gel topcoat.

 Sorry again for the disappearance! I promise I will be here to bug you with lots of nail posts!

Tata for now!

V-day, two looks. Love and Fun!

Okay, we either like valentines day or hate it. But why can't we just have fun with it? No hard feelings.. I decided to do two looks for vday, one for love and one for fun.

I liked Renee's idea of different looks using the same base color, shows how you can stretch out a bottle of polish if you have a smaller collection. It gave me the idea to do this:

For the love! I used to Fresh paint in Delicious, a gorgeous creme red that screams Valentine's day approved! And for the topcoat I used a super chunky silver glitter from Funky Fingers called Stage Dive. I like to call this one Red hearts and diamond bling (cheesy yes..Do I care.. no!)

Now for the fun, I have had this color from Zoya for a while, called Keiko . It's a creamy gorgeous medium creme purple. For the topcoat I used Luxe effects pure pearlfection by Essie. I love this topcoat! Not as much as fairy dust by China Glaze though, but close;) I just loved how this fun and simple V-day manicure came out, it's still girly but not the expected pink or red.

(thanks http://xxxbeautyredefinedxxx.blogspot.com for image link)

But that's it for now, I hope everyone had a wonderful chocolate filled Valentine's day! tata!

VDay Manicure part 3, all finished!

Happy Valentine's Day! Finally, this three part manicure is all finished. If you remember, I didn't intend on making a Valentine's mani, and I originally started with Barry M Buzz Nail Paint. I felt it could use a little something, so I then used the curly heart design on my Salon Express SE18 plate with Konad special white polish, and got this effect:

After realizing this had great potential to be a Vday mani, I topped this manicure with Revlon Blizzard Berry, a Japanese Revlon exclusive. It's a pretty mixed size holo glitter with a pink tinted base. Finally, I put pink and clear stones on the thumb and ring fingers, and sealed it off with Seche Vite. What do you all think?

VDay Manicure part 3, all finished!, a photo by KitaRei on Flickr.

NYX Girls Royal Purple and Sapphire

Julie gave me this super awesome NYX Sapphire topcoat when she visited last month,(with sapphire being my birthstone, and with the color being a holo, it was love at first sight!) and I was searching for the perfect color to wear it over. My search ended when I found NYX Girls Royal Purple in the mall by me! This is SUCH a pretty color, my swatch pic does it no justice. It's a dark, lovely purple with dark blue shimmer. It is super hard to photograph, the shimmer just doesn't always show up well. First I took a pic of Royal Purple outside:

It looks totally different inside and out. Next, I took a pic indoors with a coat of Sapphire on top:

NYX Sapphire, a photo by KitaRei on Flickr.

Doesn't it look totally different indoors and outdoors? The shimmer really shows up in this one! I love NYX :)

Nautical Mani

Finally, after ages of swatches, a detailed manicure!

First, a swatch of the base color. I used Canmake #50, a navy blue polish.
Oh blue nail polish, why must you be so notoriously hard to photograph?? This is actually a deep navy blue polish, and try as I might I just could not get the actual color to show up. Natural light was even worse, it looked light blue!
I had this planned for months specially for last month when I went to Okinawa(which was AWESOME.) I used Canmake #50, NYC French White Tip, and Homei quick dry Your Person of Destiny

Nautical Mani, a photo by KitaRei on Flickr.
I know I posted several months ago about how terrible the Diamond Nail Homei polishes are. The glitter Homei polishes are actually really good, great colors and tons of multi-sized glitter, and mine even came with a free nail tool. It's the Diamond Nail Line (which, incidentally, I haven't seen recently) that bites. I'll post swatches of both in a later post :)

An Unlikely Last-Minute Unique Combo!!

I haven't been this excited about swatches in a while, hence my lack of posting lately. Boredom, and a bad manicure @ a salon today, and I was ready for something new. I decided to give one of my new Zoya swatches a shot today - Yara. It's a gorgeous color! A deep olive green with yellow sparkles in it. I love it but I still felt it was just a bit dull. Needs something brighter. I topped it off with a new NYX swatch I received from the Hautelook NYX sale a few weeks ago. It's a flakie polish called Pink Avenue - which isn't all that pink, actually. It's clear with gold/green/yellow flakes in it. I don't see pink, but maybe it might show up in the daylight.

It really made for a beautiful combination! I imagine this NYX color would light up just about any color. If you can get your hands on this (where do they sell NYX, anyway? I don't think I've ever seen it in stores) I definitely recommend grabbing a bottle.

Back on the subject of Hautelook...here is the set of 4 NYX polished I received. I am in love with them all! I'm quite impressed with the uniqueness of their colors.

Can we pretend it's Wednesday?

So I wanted to post yesterday for "On weds we wear pink!" but my wrist has been killing me( oh carpel, how I love you so..except not) so lets pretend ;)

 

This is Jillian from NYX. It was a perfect "Adios summer!" color. Not that it's going to stop me from rocking some brights in the fall. But now that fall is under way, I can say to my beautiful rich browns and reds Come to MAMA! I felt so weird wearing dark colors this summer, like it was against the law.

I added a top coat, also NYX called Sapphire. I don't know why it is called that because it's almost holo like. I took a few blurry shots to show. But on the website for NYX, it looks silver. Herm. I love you online shopping, but this is the reasons that it can be a pain in the ass, crap stock photos!

Look at that sparkle!

Speaking of hologram loveliness... I did this manicure a few weeks ago, and completely forgot to post pics. Its of Nfu Oh #61. This color always sells out fast on Fabulousstreet.com so when Julie saw it online, she grabbed it for me. (Mucho Gracias for that, Julie!) I think you can get a bottle now, but be fast, it sells out fast! But that's it for me!

☮+♥,

The Moody Blues - Secret Per-i-wikle French Mani

Hi everyone! Sorry I haven't posted in a few days, my tips are growing out and it looks silly, so I really don't have many manis to show off. But I did attempt a blue french yesterday which I thought looked great. I also have a photo I took a few days ago, as I've been all about accent nails to accentuate my newest accessory :) I promise that as soon as I have my nails filled, I will get more creative.

I used Deborah Lippmann's Supermodel (an amazing glossy red) with glitter tips -

 

Cleo enjoyed attempting to munch on my mani.

And here is my very messy french mani.