Just a quickie! (not that kind..get your head out of the gutter!)

I bought beetle from Hard Candy a long time ago, when it was RARE. Now you see them all the time when you go into Walmart.

The color is just gorgeous! It looks purple, no wait now it looks green.. but wait again.. it's a shimmery brown.

I put the glittery pink topcoat on just to try something. Its not a polish, its just that super fine glitter that came in packets of about 16 colors for 5$ that I scored in AC Moore awhile back( seriously guys, if you go to AC Moore, buy this glitter).

What I did was coat my nails in a normal topcoat and then I dipped my nail in the glitter. I used this awesome topcoat on top of the glitter that I got in Japan called Etti Sais. Renee told me to get this, and I am glad. It makes your nails look crazy nice and shiny.. the good kind of crazy though!

I just tried it on the glitter nail as I had already put my Seche Vite on my other nails. And you can see a huge difference. My ring finger was 3x as thick as my other fingers polish wise. I am very glad I bought this!

Okay, off to bed, it's almost 2am.. Yeesh. Night!

Mint Green and Bubblegum Striped Manicure

I was looking at my Mint Green Dollywink polish that Yoshi got for me, and I know how mint green and pink go so well together, so I decided to do a striped mani :)

Here's a swatch of the Dollywink Mint Green polish:

I know the cuticle on my middle finger and thumb looks..well..doctored.. ^^;; I put a dab of color over it (I didn't try too hard..so it's kinda obvious) so you wouldn't see the cuts on my fingers.

The base color, as I mentioned, is Dollywink Mint Green. I painted the stripes with Hard Candy Bubblegum (remember this one Erika? wink ;) )and I finished the look with Nailene top coat.

Mint Green and Bubblegum Striped Manicure, a photo by KitaRei on Flickr.

Happy Easter Purple And Hello Kitty Brand Decals

Just thought I'd throw in a quick little mani I did this morning. I got these really cute hello kitty brand mani strips and gave them a shot. I love the look! I'm wearing Grape Pop by China Glaze, with Hard Candy on my ringfinger.

The strips are a little tough to stick on and don't stay down. Maybe I will try them with nail glue next time. I also think I attached them upside down! Still cute.

A Vat of Vite and Essie's Mesmerize (Julie)

Wandered into Diamond Beauty Supply today in Oceanside, NY and saw something I've never seen before. A vat of Vite. For $19.99. 4 fl. oz, and a regular sized .5 oz. vite came in the set! And a little funnel for easy refilling. What a great buy! It's basically for the price of 3 Seches (they're normally $6 to $7 each + tax here) you get 9! Did I do that math right? lol.

And after little self-convincing, I also picked up a bottle of Mesmerize by Essie. What an incredible color and formula. It only needed 1 coat on top of CND Stickey base coat for full and bright coverage.

It's slightly similar to Barry M's Indigo, only this is much bluer. In the bottle, Mesmerized appeared to be a softer more powdery blue, but when applied, proved to be more boastful, which was a pleasant surprise.

If my fingers look odd, it's because my middle nail chipped on the side so it looks REALLY off.

And here is Zoya's Sparkle top coat that I LOVE! Had to bling this up.

Oh! I swatched the Cult Nails "Iconic" and just added to the old post, so you can see my swatches of this fabulous brand here. Also want to mention that on my 3rd day of wear, there was still not even one little chip!! Amazing long-lasting formula. Kudos, Cult!

And don't forget to enter our absolutely free to enter and free to win contest for a bottle of NFU Oh 59, AND Deborah Lippmann's Razzle Dazzle. With such a small group of followers, there's a huge chance you could be the winner. You have nothing to lose so please enter! Click here! Giveaway ends Feb 28th. Winner announced March 1st at 1pm est. time.

Hexagon Glitters make my heart smile (Julie)

I do love my Barry M Indigo swatch, but I just get bored so fast! I thought, now that I have the perfect indigo shade, I can bling it up with my Hard Candy glitter polish in Break Up. I love this stuff! It applies plentiful in one swipe, and also has small silver glitter which adds to the beauty...it really is a gorgeous swatch.

The Prettiest Swatch That You NEED! (Julie)

after an impatient wait, Hard Candy Break Up showed up today! It's from their Just Nails line. I absolutely cannot wait to swatch this! I would have today but I'm laying in bed sick as a dog with my nose involuntarily dripping, and needless to say, I'm not up for inhaling fumes right now unless they're vix vapor related.

But here's a few shots of the absolute beauty that is Break Up. The glitter is powder pink and powder blue, and I can just imagine how amazing this would look on top of either color (blue or pink) and I can't wait to try it out tomorrow!

Please click on the image, I provided insanely large photos so you can see the glitter close up.

As far as where to buy, I got this on eBay for $8 including shipping. I have never seen these in stores though.

As promised, here is the swatch! The first photo is 2 layers alone, second is topped with Pixie Dust by China Glaze. Sorry my cuticles are uber yucky this week - I've been doing a lot of NP removal and that really kills them!

Sephora by OPI - And Then He Said - Beautiful cream color! (Julie)

This was one of my amazing xmas gifts from Erika - And Then He said, a Sephora by OPI color. I don't have many cream polishes, but recently decided I want to get some. Then for xmas I received an awesome gift set with mini polishes. In the set, this particular color stood out the most to me. It goes great with my pale skin - it's so beautiful! It's a creamy rose-beige color. The application is flawless too! 2 coats and it applied so smooth and evenly, and looks so professional! Thanks Erika :) :)

Oh, and I've made a few eBay purchases lately (surprise, surprise!) so these beauties are on their way to my door step and will be available to swatch soon! -

Zoya- Sparkle Gloss Top Coat (one can never have too many sparkly top coats)

My first of this brand which I've heard is very inexpensive, but it's not sold in my area - they're called Santee Plus Vernis. There's actually a seller on eBay who sells a set of 12 colors - full size bottles, for $14.99 and free shipping. Here is Moon Light Glitter..the color I bought.

I also got a great french mani color. Innocence by China Glaze.

And last on its way is Hard Candy "Break Up" which is a really beautiful large chunky glitter color which is similar to their other swatch "Hot Pants" but is a clear base, not a translucent pink.

Zoya "Crystal" From Fire And Ice Collection AND Second Attempt At Winter Nails (Julie)

I bought my first Zoya! The color was so irresistibly beautiful so I thought i'd give it a shot. It's called Crystal, and is from their Fire & Ice collection which I believe was released for their winter 2010 collection. I think it looks a wee bit better in the bottle than it did on my nails. It's a gorgeous color though. It's an aqua with golden sparkles in it. It took 3 layers to show the true color, and applied a bit sloppier than most, I would recommend allowing each layer to dry fully before applying the next. I was in a rush so I didn't, and kind of ruined the whole application. But here you go. Zoya, Crystal. (on a side note, I switched my top coat over from seche vite to Quick & Slick by Prolana. My Seche Vite started to apply really crappy and it's too expensive to keep buying new bottles!)

And as I promised myself, I was going to give the winter sparkles thing another try. I think i did better this time, but it still needs more work and different colors. I really want to try this in all silvers. But for now, it's a rainbowy mess :) But a good one!

If at first you don't succeed, try, try again! (Julie)

I saw this amazing tutorial from a new blog on make up/nail polish/everything wonderful and I was immediately drawn to all the sparkles! It's SUCH a beautiful concept, but I just wasn't able to execute it like Audrey was on her demo. Maybe because my nails are too short, or I'm not coordinated enough...or perhaps because I had to improvise with most of the swatches she used! Either way, it was disastrous....but you can't blame a girl for trying.

Here were my choice swatches - It's a lovely little group of colors, they just don't work together! Too much going on -

1- Essie in Pink Glove Service
2-OPI in Sparkle-icious
3-Hard Candy in Hot Pants
4- (the only one I did have) - Golden Enchantment by China Glaze

I am not going to show you my entire hand today, because I haven't cleaned all the excess glitter and my fingers are an absolute mess. But I think this'll give you a good idea. And I think if I had to give this little concoction a name, it'd be fairy diarrhea. YUM!

Collection Pics (Julie)

So I had to follow suit since Erika has such an amazing collection! Mine isn't nearly as large or beautiful, but I'm working on it. Actually, this past summer, I sold just about all of my NP at my yard sale because I had no room for anything! Everything you see here is pretty much brand new, as of late summer '10. So rest in peace former collection! I am impressed with how far I've come since then though! My heart belongs to sparkles, the chunkier the better. I have many different brands, and plenty more coming in the mail this next week. So I will update this post as they show up. Here's what i have so far:

I have a horrible make-up bag that is soon going to be replaced with some kind of kaboodle. Take a peek inside...kind of a beautiful mess!

We'll start with Finger Paints. A nice inexpensive brand with really pretty swatches. I am not really too into their NP because I notice that even with a decent base and top coat, they like to peel off in one big strip. So I've limited my FP collection to strictly colors I MUST have. And these are really beautiful!

My Nubars *Swoon* Nothing much needs to be said about this brand. It's a growing obsession and I expect many more soon.

My Ulta swatches - the aqua color is fabulous!!! The pink is gritty and I'm not a fan, but the sparkles in this color attracted me to it. It's very beautiful.

My love, my life...China Glaze! I have more CG than any other color. I'll start with my very favorite 2 colors. This is Pixie Dust and Golden Enchantment. I don't remember the name of the gold one. But they're top coats and complete just about any color you can imagine, and reflect about every color of the rainbow. These should serve as staples to any nail polish collection, because they really do complement just about every swatch.

I have the blues....My China Glaze Blues...

Metallics:

Some random beauties (my favorite of the 4 being the black with red sparkles.

Prior to my yard sale NP clean out, I had just about every color made by Sinful Colors. Now I only have two. Mainly because I'm not a huge fan of their formula. But these colors are irresistible.

My Color Clubs - do you see that orange/pink/luminescent swatch to the right? Wow, i know!! I need to get a few bottles of this because I run through this color really fast. I probably wear it more than any other color.

Here is my first nail art swatch. It's a really pretty black with colorful sparkles.

My very lonely and bland Essie collection. I do like them, but I haven't explored essie all that much yet.

My 3 Orlys. Another brand I don't care for the formula all that much. But they do come out with some really great colors once in a while that I can't leave behind.

Hello, sparkles! My one and only O.P.I (more are coming!), NYC in the most amazing swatch I've seen from them, and a Forever 21 color that I adore.

Just LOOK at this color! I know! Gorgeous!

You're not so bad yourself OPI. (this is from the burlesque collection)

2 extra brands - Sally girl I won't be buying again, the application is awful. Nail Savvy I found new at the thrift shop and have no idea where to find this brand.

It's a nice concept, I love the pink and blue sparkles though! Anybody else make a better formula with a similar color?

My beloved Deborah Lippmann in Bad Romance.

And you see? I wrote this too soon, because just as I posted this blog, my brand new Hard Candy showed up! Do you SEE this swatch? No I mean do you really see this swatch? Holy moly, it's freaking fabulous! It's called Hot Pants. It's infused with large and small sparkles and a translucent pink jelly base. Woohoo! This just made my day brighter!