Mariah Carey's Liquid Sand

I got my hands on the new Liquid Sand polishes from the Mariah Carey 2013 collection!!

I got them at a San Francisco beauty supply store for just $5! What a steal. Here are some bottle shots of the polish: 

I purchased The Impossible and Can't Let Go. These are the pink and purple shades of the collection.  

Here is the mani I did with the purple shade- Can't Let Go. I also did an accent nail of OPI Gift Cards for Everyone and Goldeye from the Skyfall collection. 

I LOVED these finishes. I've heard a lot of buzz about them and a lot of folks didn't like the texture and grittiness. But I love them!! I think they look so interesting. 

Can't Let Go has silver hexes as well as the general matte glitter which I love. It was super easy to apply, and the polish out of the bottle is liquid-y and glides on easily. It takes a while to dry, and I smudged this mani about 10-15 minutes after applying. So, I suggest doing it when you have time to wait. 

This is The Impossible. This one has silver stars, but I didn't get any of them in this application. I also did an accent nail with OPI Goldeneye dotted with Sally Hansen Slick Slate. I kind of screwed up the dotting, as you can see, but I'm new! And wanted to show the Liquid Sand despite the mess up....

I actually this The Impossible is my favorite. Also, super easy to apply. I love the texture, I don't find the grittiness to be annoying or unattractive. I just think it's a new different finish. I'm a big fan of matte and glitter, so this is a great combo to both!! I hope these stay in style for a while! 

Some More HOLIDAY Nails!

So I've basically stopped doing the Advent Calendar Nail Challenge (there would only be a day left anyways!) Work got SO crazy and then I bought myself a stamper and went kind of crazy trying that one out... It's hard! 

Here are three manis from the challenge that I didn't post yet. 

ORNAMENTS! 

Sinful Color's Super Nova with Milani Red Sparkle and Gems. 

PINE: 

This was an awesomely fun skittle mani. 

Thumb- Orly Buried Alive

Pointer- Color Club Nouveau Vintage

Middle- Color Club Ho-Ho-Holly

Ring- China Glaze Running in Circles

Pink- Milani Hi Tech

STARRY NIGHT

Spoiled My Parking Meteor Expired

China Glaze Snowglobe

Wet n Wild Star of the Show

Merry Christmas all! 

Advent Calendar Post #2

More manis from the advent calendar challenge!! 

Here is SILVER!! 

It's Sinful Colors Heavy Metal from the Metallics collection and Pure Ice Stop and Stare. 

As you can see, the Sinful Colors already had a chip in it-ugh!! Usually their polishes do better, but I think maybe because this one was a foil, it had a different formula. Anyways, I LOVED the Pure Ice color. It's from their new Walmart polishes, and I just love it. So glad I bought it! 

This was BLUE and WHITE! I made a Jelly Sandwich with OPI Don't Touch my Tutu and the Milani Gold glitter from the Jewel FX Collection. The accent is 007 Nail Laquer in Forever Young. This is one I found for $1 at a beauty supply in San Francisco. I bought a lot of polishes this way, some were great and some not so much. This one is a beautiful duochrome that I just loved! Very glad I bought it! 

Stay Tuned for more!! 

Advent Calendar Nail Challenge Days 2 & 3

I'm doing the Advent Calendar Nail Challenge for December (probably not all) but here are the manis from days 2 and 3! 

Day 2 was gold. I don't have a regular gold, but I have an opaque glitter (Milani Gold Glitz). I wasn't feeling it so I thought I'd do a glitter polish with a little gold in it!! This is China Glaze Foie Gras topped with Once Upon a Polish Queen of Hearts. 

Queen of Hearts is probably one of my favorite polishes. The glitter is nice and big, always lays flat. The only annoying thing is you really have to fish to get hearts, and then separate them, as I did not do in this mani. They're all on the ring finger! But that's ok, still a beautiful polish!! You can buy them here. 

Day 3 was green. I was really excited for this one because I wanted to use my new China Glaze Running in Circles! It's from the Cirque du Soliel collection and it's LOVELY. I matted this mani, mostly for the flakies, but I love it matte, too. I think it's a great polish for the holidays and for spring & summer! 

The accent nail is Sally Hansen Black Out (my new favorite black) topped with Zoya Opal. The whole thing is matted with NYC Matte Top Coat. I haven't used Opal as much as I'd like, but I think it really looks good over black and I just don't wear black much! Now that I have the Sally Hansen I might. 

Anyways, enjoy!! I loved this mani, so bright and fun! 

Sunlight pics: 

This challenge has been great so far! Really pushing me to do more manis! Stay tuned for the rest of the month!! 

Glitter Gradient all the Way!

So I've been really into glitter gradients lately. I want to try and jazz up my manis more- add glitter to a glitter type of thing.

Anyways, here are TWO NOTDS!

The first is from earlier this week.

It's China Glaze Creative Fantasty, which is from the new Cirque du Soliel collection. I really liked this collection, and wish I had the funds to get the whole thing! Also, a lot of the colors are dupe-able. I have similar ones, but I just loved how they all looked together.

Anyways, onto the nails!

3 coats China Glaze Creative Fantasy
Gradient of- China Glaze Fairy Dust and Sally Hansen Multi-Faceted.

Now, today was DAY ONE for the Advent Calendar Nail Challenge. Very Exciting. 

Day one is RED! So for my red I did Essie Really Red, accent nail of Essie Penny Talk. I just got Penny Talk in a swap and while I love the color, it is annoying formula! 

The glitter is FingerPaints Fall of Surprises! 

Advent Calendar Nail Challenge!

So, I haven't posted in a while, I haven't taken enough photos!! But, this blog is just for fun and not for stress, so I'll try and update in the next few days with a NOTD.

Meanwhile, I am going to try and  participate in this AWESOME challenge from Kristiwashere, the brains behind Happy Hands Nail Polish. I've been lemming a few Happy Hands but haven't taken the plunge yet. Maybe soon!

Here is the link to the challenge over at Nail Boarders Unite!

Now, I know I don't have the time do my nails each night.... or take photos! (Someone needs a lightbox....) But I'm going to try. Even if they are just bad iPhone pics, or a bad lighting SLR pic, I'll try as many as I can. Certainly the first few will be the easiest!

Hope everyone had a lovely Thanksgiving!

Election Day 2012

Oh boy! This week sure was crazy. Election Day 2012 was Tuesday and it was a long day indeed. Here we didn't find out the results until around 11 PM.

Anyways, this was my election day mani, showing my support for voting and democracy!

The mani is:
Blue- Sinful Colors Rainstorm
Red- Essie Really Red
Glitter- Black Cat Laquer Static Age

Woohoo! Happy Election Day 2012!

This is Halloween..

Hey guys! This is a somewhat old- but very holiday appropriate mani. My NOTD is for my costume- I'm Katniss Everdeen at work at at night Snufflepagus for a group Sesame Street costume! My NOTD (no pic) is Orly Buried Alive with Essie Shine of the Times! 

This mani is Brash Nail Polish from Payless Shoe Source in Sargent Khaki. I really liked this polish. I also got another Brash one, a green creme, that I now can't wait to try. 

Over it I layered two coast of Hit Polish's Halloween! This is a great glitter for the holiday. Sadly, Rachel is all out for this year, but I believe she'll bring it back next year! Certainly glad I got a bottle.

Fairy Dust Mani!

This was a mani I did a couple weeks ago. It's Orly Royal Navy w/ China Glaze Fairy Dust. I recently got Fairy Dust from a big Sally's haul I did when I was in Phoenix. I love it! It looks like it'll be a really versatile polish, that I can add to basically any color to jazz it up. 

More Fingerpaints & Hit Polish!

Hello all! This is a mani I wanted to share from last week. 

It was done with another Fingerpaints creme- Pop Art Purple. I've been lemming this one awhile, I just love the bright and neon purple color. 

I layered over it Hit Polish's Sunset Beach. This was two coats of the glitter. Before when I used her glitter I thought the coat was a bit thin, so I did more here. Rachel from Hit Polish has been making lots of changes recently. She used to have just tons of duifferent mini polishes. She's recently decided to keep a core line of colors plus some special seasonal ones, like fall, halloween, winter, etc. Though I love the larger selection she had of glitters, I understand that it's probably too stressful and crazy to have that many different minis. 

I'm glad I snatched up a couple color combos that she'll be retiring. If you want to check out her shop, click HERE. Looks like now she's also only opening at certain times, but when she is open, it's pretty easy to get your hands on her polishes. 

I know I'm going to get at least a few in the new Winter collex! 

Hot Topic Beautiful Revenge

So I went to the mall the other day- in hopes of finding OPI at the JC Penny there. Sadly, no nail polish at all there! So I went into the mall proper to take a look at what they had there. I remembered having heard about the Hot Topic polishes on Makeup Alley, so I decided to check them out. 

After minutes and minutes of pondering, I picked Beautiful Revenge. It's a gorgeous dark red vampy jelly with bright red glitter. To be honest, it reminded be a bit of blood. I thought it was prefect for Halloween!! 

This is three coats of Beautiful Revenge with top coat- Seche Vite! 

I apologize for the horrible photos. I'm trying to get better! I leave the house before the sunrise and come back typically post sunset, so I have to use flash inside! The first two are definitely more representative of the color. So beautiful! 

Northern Arizona University Mani!

So, I live in Flagstaff, AZ, which is a small town with a state school in it- Northern Arizona University, or NAU. The NAU colors are (apparently) blue and gold. I didn't remember this when I did this mani last weekend. 

I went to the Flag library- only to have the librarian make a comment on what a proud NAU student I was! I was so embarrassed because I try my hardest not to look like a student any more, and of course, hadn't done the mani on purpose. 

It was a fun color combo anyways! 

Blue- Sally Hansen Pacific Blue

Gold- Milani Gold Glitz