If it Pleases and Sparkles

While I was typing up my last post on POP Twinkle, I kept thinking that this color looked so familiar.  After rummaging through my stash, I came across Color Club Magic Attraction.  I also have Color Club Sugar Plum Fairy, and while they are not the same colour, I could not find a blog that compared them.  I decided I might as well add SPF for comparison.  

 Bottle shot!  

Sugar Plum Fairy, Magic Attraction, and Twinkle

Ring: 2 coats POP Twinkle

Middle: 2 coats Color Club Magic Attraction

Index: 2 coats Color Club Sugar Plum Fairy

POP Twinkle and Color Club Magic Attraction are identical in colour, and the only difference I noticed is that there is a marginally higher concentration of glitter in the Twinkle.  If you have one, there really is no need for the other.

Color Club Sugar Plum Fairy was a little more silver and lilac-coloured, and the glitter pieces are a little larger than those found in Magic Attraction or Twinkle.  I prefer the finer glitter seen in the latter, but Sugar Plum Fairy is a nice alternate.

I hope you have a wonderful day!

Testing out POP Twinkle

Good afternoon, dear readers!  I was in the mood to test my bottle of POP beauty Twinkle that I received last week, and I thought I would show you a few pictures.  I'm generally not a fan of the "glitter bomb" look, and I prefer to put my glitters over a creme.  I decided to try it over Color Club Shabby Drab.

Pinky: 1 coat POP Twinkle

Ring: 2 coats Pop Twinkle

Middle: 2 coats Shabby Drab + 1 coat POP Twinkle

Index: 2 coats Shabby Drab

I love the colour of Shabby Drab in the bottle, but I do not like the way it looks on me.  It doesn't help that  Color Club brushes are a little thin so it doesn't apply as easily as I would like.  I must say, I liked it so much more when I put a layer of Twinkle on top!

Twinkle applied very smoothly for me, and I was surprised at how much I liked it.  It is definitely not something I would wear frequently, but the sparkle is beautiful!

I hope you are having a wonderful week thus far!

When You Wish Upon a Star....

...fairytales do come true!  Ok, so maybe not, but I thought that would be a cute way to start this post.  I have the freaking cutest polish to share with you today, and I hope you enjoy it.  I managed to snag a bottle of "Wish Upon a Star" by Polish Rehab when her store opened on etsy, and it really is one of the cutest polishes I own.  It consists mostly of small pink hexes, small black squares, and larger white hexes, but there are silver stars hiding out in the bottle as well.  If you want a polish with a lot of stars, this is not the one for you, but I love the idea that getting a star is a treat!  I actually had a very difficult time choosing what to wear under this as I wanted to be able to see all the glitters well.  I must be in a pink mood lately because I chose Finger Paints "Art You Kidding Me?".  I used two coats of the Finger Paints, and 1 coat of the Polish Rehab.  I did a full manicure, and I managed to get a star on each hand.  I'm not going to even waste your time with more words.  To the pictures!

 You can see a couple stars hanging out!

Even in the shade, the star sparkles!

How cute is this?!?   

Keep an eye out on the Polish Rehab facebook page to order this or one of Haley's other adorable creations.  Shortly after her sale on etsy, she started a pre-order system, and I think she was considering a different route already.

Ciao for now!

Australian Snacks

Good afternoon, dear readers!  I was talking with someone yesterday about a snack exchange I took part in, and I thought I would make a post about it.  As I mentioned last week, I take part in numerous exchange groups, and one of them is the snack exchange group on reddit.  I ended up swapping treats with a gentleman in Australia, and here is a picture of the goodies he sent to me.

My exchange partner sent me several packages of TimTams and Vegemite for the hubby.  I can honestly say that I tried the vegemite, but I did not care for it at all!  My exchange partner told me that I would have to do a Tim Tam Slam, so I had to find a video demo on youtube.  This particular one was/is my favorite.  

Let me just show you how it turned out in rage comic form.

Link to my rage comic

Yep, it didn't go quite as well as I would have liked, but it was well worth the mess!

This is what I ended up sending out to him.  He had told me that he really liked spicy Mexican foods, but he doesn't have access to anything like it.  I sent a variety of hot sauces (several are made in Mexico), canned peppers, prickly pear jelly, and a few other odds and ends.  DH and I are both fans of spicy foods, and I think we have 6 different hot sauces open in the fridge right now.  Sorry for the bad cell phone pic- I didn't think to snap a quick picture with my camera.

I hope you enjoyed my post and have a wonderful day!  

Will you be My Valentine (in May)?

Good evening, dear readers!  I hope you have been having a lovely week thus far!  I have a quick post for you today.  Jess, a friend of mine and the creator of Love for Lacquer blog, posted a picture of her bottle of Lynnderella Liquid Valentine (LV) to her facebook page, and I decided I wanted to give my bottle a test run.  I'm generally not a big fan of red polishes, and I didn't really want to put it over a light pink either.  I still had Finger Paints Pop Rock Pink on my nails, and I decided that I wanted to see if LV would play nicely with it.  I'll let you be the judge of that; photos are with one coat LV.

The heart on my ring finger was the only one that came out of the bottle when I was putting this on, and it settled immediately after touching my nail.  He refused to budge at all, so I gave up and let him be.

I absolutely love this combination, and I can guarantee that I will not be voluntarily taking it off any time soon.  I feel so lucky to have a wonderful friend to have sent me this beauty!!!  I'll definitely be testing it out with other base colours, but I'm going to leave this on for a little while and enjoy it.

What is on your nails today, dear readers?

I Have Been Inspired By Jello

Yep, you read that title correctly.  Sometimes I have a difficult time picking the next colour I wear on my nails, but this one came immediately to mind.  Because I have such a sweet tooth, I always have something around the house.  I've started buying jello because it satisfies my sweet craving without being TOO bad for me.  Of course the way I decided to make it this time isn't the best for me!  After dissolving the gelatin in hot water, instead of adding more water, I added vanilla ice cream.  It definitely changes the texture of the jello, and I love it for something different.  In an effort to make it healthier (haha, who am I kidding?!?), I sliced up a banana into it.  I LOVE LOVE LOVE fruit in jello, and I strongly encourage you to try it.  After mixing it all up and letting it sit in the fridge, all I could think of was my still untried bottle of Finger Paints Pop Rock Pink.  I decided to pull it out of my lacquer storage case and give it a shot.  It took three coats to no longer have any visible nail line.  This was particularly painful because it seemed as though each coat took an hour to dry on me.  I know I have had issues with the Finger Paints top coat not drying, so I wonder if this line just isn't the most compatible with me.  On to the pictures!

See what I mean!  

Picture out in the sun.  It isn't quite as orange as this picture suggests, and it definitely seemed darker on my nails than it did in the bottle.

Indoor picture.  Somebody refused to leave me alone while I took pictures.  

What has inspired you lately?

Happy Friday!

Good evening, my darling readers!  I just have a quick post today.  I wanted to share a franken that I mixed together a few months ago.  I suggested to Zoya on their facebook page that they create a polish in honor of Etta James when she passed away, and one of Zoya's followers asked me how I envisioned Etta's namesake.  I thought about it for a little bit, and I decided I wanted her to be a steely bluple with a hint of sparkle, something strong, but not too flashy.  Zoya never did acknowledge my suggestion, and I decided that I was going to create it.  I mixed mica and shimmer powders into a bottle of clear L.A. Colors nail polish I had around the house.  This is what I came up with:

Inside

 Left to right: Finger Paints Comet's Collar (partial), Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Gunmetal, Etta Franken, Zoya Nephratiti, and Zoya Yara (partial)

Outside

Left to Right: Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Gunmetal, Etta Franken, Zoya Nephratiti, and Zoya Yara

This was my first frankening experience, and I absolutely love this colour with a passion.  I really wish I had Zoya's Tao and Marina to swatch this against!  I could not find my colour spoons to take a picture of the three of them together which means they will probably turn up tomorrow!  Ha!

I hope you enjoy your Friday evening and the weekend!  Anything fun planned?  Ciao for now!  

  

Can We Talk About Honesty and Integrity?

Good evening, dear readers!  I have had something on my mind for a few days now, and I wanted to get my thoughts out of my head.  I am a member of many exchange groups, and I have personally exchanged many bottles of nail lacquer, cookies, tea, other assorted snacks, and handmade goodies.  Just about every week I have a swap package going out or coming in (often both), and it is certainly much more entertaining than the bills that insist on showing up in my mailbox every month!  I have always had a wonderful experience, but I have been hearing more and more about people within my groups being cheated over somehow.  Some people are never receiving their packages while others have been sent things that have been falsely advertised.  Nobody likes to feel cheated, and it is upsetting to see people that I know have to deal with either of these issues.  That being said, I do believe that these bad swappers are in the minority, and I don't want this information to prevent any of my readers from participating in something that can be so much fun.  My advice is to choose your swap partners carefully.  There are so many groups on facebook that one can join, and I encourage you to do so and to try to be active within the group.  Once people know a little bit about you and you about them, you will feel much more comfortable making the decision to swap with someone.  You will also see people post details regarding successful swaps and can determine who has established street cred within the community.  Don't feel bad telling someone you have never heard of or seen before no.  If you're new to the community and eager to start a swap right away, be prepared to be asked to ship your swap package out first.  I know this can be intimidating, and this is where you have to use your own judgement regarding each specific swap.  It can be a little nerve wracking, but given some time, you can become an established swapper.  As long as you are honest and describe your items accurately, others are going to want to swap goodies with you, and who knows, you might end up making new friends!

Until next time, have a wonderful night, my darlings!    

Holy Holos Batman!

Let me start by saying welcome to my new readers!  I am both shocked and honored to see that Leah Ann of Llarowe decided to post about my little piece of the internet to the world; it certainly was a wonderful pick-me-up from spending part of the day going crazy inside a laundromat!  Please feel free to make yourselves at home and send any comments and suggestions that you like.  I'm still learning here, and I value everyone's input.

Speaking of learning, I NEED to figure out a good way to take pictures!  I don't know if it is something I am doing, or if I need to get a better camera.  While I get that sorted out, please bear with me and my mediocre images.  Now onto something amazing!

When it comes to nail colour, I like to try things outside my normal comfort zone.  Sometimes I confirm that some colours do not work for me while others are a pleasant surprise.  I recently fell in love with orange, so I broke down and bought an orange lacquer.  I decided to go with HITS Demeter from the No Olimpo collection because it wasn't glaringly bright and my first holo.  After sitting on my desk for over a month, I don't know what took me so long to get this baby on my nubbins!  Check out this sparkle (please pardon the rough cuticles)!

I wanted to check out the orange next to a blue (its complementary colour), and the door to my house was perfect.  

Blurry picture, but check out that holo!

 Showing off the sapphire ring the hubby designed for me.

I love this colour!  Even the hubby said that he loved it, and he usually doesn't say much about any of my polishes.  I'm going to have to get a backup bottle for this one!

HITS Demeter can be purchased at Leah Ann's website at shop.llarowe.com.

Oh!  Here is the hubby.  He decided to pick up ice cream from Cold Stone while I was painting my nails.  I'm glad he likes me a little curvy!  Haha!  

I hope everyone has a wonderful day!  Until next time, dear readers, stay good.  Or just don't get caught!