Fun Giveaway

Since I, too, would someday like to have a giveaway, I thought I'd pass along the details to a fun one over at Metro Chic! Hurry, it ends tomorrow!

Nail posts starting back up in the A.M.!

Zoya Nidhi

Well hello friends! For someone who tries to blog daily, taking two days off seems like forever! I had an obnoxious bit of school work (that I'd put off for far too long) to finish, so that's where I've been. You'd think that since I'm nearly finished with my second college degree, and after virtually 21 (almost) consecutive years of schooling, that I'd have learned that procrastination is bad. But I have not.

Just a quick review of this one today (which I wore for three! days): This polish sort of reminds me of MAC Fresh Moroccan lipstick. Except brighter red. It's an orange-leaning red with lots of gold glass-fleck shimmer, and in the bottle, you'll notice sometimes there's a blue flash to it. It doesn't much translate onto the nail though. To avoid what happened with Charla, I wore three coats, which went on super smooth and dried just fine.

I really like this color on me. I'm very pale but I think my skin tone is kinda neutral, so I can pull off the occasional warm color, though I do look best in cools.

Kinda boring today, but now that I'm home free I've got some cool stuff coming. My Bundle Monster plates arrived. I ordered the 21 piece set but it arrived missing 2 plates!! Super annoyed. But, I was able to contact someone fairly easily in their CS department, and they assured me they'd send along the missing plates. If I get those plates fairly soon as promised, I'd definitely recommend BM as a good seller. If I don't, then I'm not sure. So, I'll keep you all posted on that. The plates are definitely cute, but the two I'm missing (BM 5 & 21) were two that I was particularly looking forward to (go figure, right?). Anyway, ultimately, I'd like to do swatches of all the plates for those of you out there still contemplating an order. Hopefully this is all forthcoming.

Thanks for reading :-)

Zoya Charla

Charla! You gorgeous girl. This is only the second Sparkle collection polish that I've tried, but I'm feeling that this one might be the star. A blue green sparkle glitter (mega glass fleck?), it's like wearing Caribbean waters on your fingers. Or something. I'm actually speechless in awe of it, it's so frickin' pretty.

I put on 2 coats, which seems opaque, but, as you will see in a moment, it did not photograph completely opaque. Not sure what's up with that. But, to save yourself from this weird revelation, just throw on 3 coats and be done with it. The formula was quite good, and it dried very nicely. I liked the formula on this one better than Mimi, which I reviewed as being good, but later I realized that one or two of my fingers didn't dry completely for whatever reason and dented all night long. With Charla, this is not the case.

I'm not happy with these photos... they don't capture the saturation of the color, or the fact that, to my eye, it appears opaque. But here they are:

We have a gem here, folks, a serious gem. These polishes are so super fun. I wish there weren't three pink/red/orange colors. There could've been a neat gold or silver... even a lavender or a deeper navy. This is not to say, however, that the red/pink/oranges of this collection look boring or anything---super blingy. But Charla! I love her.

Thanks for reading!

Finger Paints Blissfully Blue

They say that hindsight is 20/20, and "they" are right. In this case, anyway. For two reasons, a little planning would've changed today's nails so much. First, I got bored this morning (a day off! Woo!) and had some Fing'rs Edge nails I'd wanted to play around with... and even though my nails are pretty nubby (in comparison to how long I've been able to get them recently), they were not fitting properly. So I glued them all on, for about an hour, only to take 45 mins to soak them off later. Fail. Then, I decided to try out Finger Paints Blissfully Blue, which, if I'd thought a bit harder about, I would've waited to try until my Bundle Monster plates arrived (they've shipped! Can't wait!). I love stamping over pastel cremes. Hindsight. I should've just worn Zoya Charla like I planned.

Anyhow. Finger Paints. The only Finger Paints polishes I've felt compelled to buy were the Christmas 2009 LE's (couldn't find last summers LE's anywhere). They are all gorgeous and perfect, and wore like champs on me. I remember wearing Icy Iris to visit my fiance, and any polish that can make it through a day of packing, hauling luggage through 2 airports and a cab ride, without any sort of wear is pretty much amazing. So I've had good experience with the brand. As you'll see a few posts back, I recently bought a few of the new ones with the B2G1 at Sally's, as well as Blissfully Blue. I think this is LE (not certain), with a collection of 5 or so blue polishes I found on an endcap at my Sally's. It's the only one I felt like grabbing. The rest seemed unoriginal. The only reason this worked for me is that I'm fairly certain I don't have a straight up pastel blue. I do have Color Club Blue Light, but that's much starker (neon). I can't believe with all the pastel madness this spring that almost no one released a straight up pale blue (except Color Club, I guess, Take Me To Your Chateau). The formula on this was good: 2 coats, not perfect, but pretty darn good. Dried quickly. We'll see how the wear goes, I seem to have less luck with cremes than shimmers.

Blissfully Blue:

And, for good measure, with one coat of Sally Hansen Hidden Treasure:

Aaaand, well, I know I'm only in the fledgeling stages of this blog, but for those of you who are following, I've made a Twitter account! Add me, I'm @sparklypaints, and I will add you back. (See widget on the side, too). Also! I'm trying to scare up more readership, so do pass the word around. If we can get more followers soon, I have a pretty cool giveaway in mind.

Thanks for reading! :-)

China Glaze Towel Boy Toy

Ooooh my goodness. I can't believe that this was almost not on my list from this collection. I don't know what it is about a neon blue... but I LOVE them. Add shimmer to that? Perfection. I can't stop looking at this. It's not blinding, but it's bright and happy, and the shimmer is just so subtle and adds interest. Yay China Glaze! I love you guys. You're always on top of things. I highly, highly recommend this one. It seems a bit brighter than Zoya Tallulah (featured recently) and close to Color Club Pure Energy, but perhaps less shimmery (I'll have to check). This one is so fun for summer (I think it may be gracing my toes soon). What else can I say?

This is 3 thin coats. Perfection, despite its neon-ness.

Yay! It was over 80 degrees here today, so I think I'm starting to crave brightness. The formula on these is really making me want a few others... but I don't need dupes, right? (Right??!) Haha. OK, more to come :-) Thanks for looking!

Zoya Mimi

I tried my first polish from my Zoya exchange today: Mimi. I love purple and a glittery/shimmery purple is no exception. This is a deep royal purple, not red toned at all but also not noticeably blue either. But definitely more blue toned than red. The Sparkle collection is a collection of colors that are kinda glitters but not straight up ones, kind of like enormous glass fleck shimmer. But not quite that either. However you want to describe it, it's awesomely gorgeous. Distractingly so.

The formula on this one was pretty good. It took 3 coats to be opaque (thick-ish coats too), and it dried well with Seche Vite. My nails keep having to get chopped down lately... I hate when that happens. One chip... then another... then by the time you even 'em all out, they're a but nubby. It's OK though, they grow.

Here's Mimi:

Aaaaaand, I also got my other 2 Zoyas in the mail today: Ivanka & Charla!

And I ordered one of those Bundle Monster image plate lots off of Amazon (super cheap, 21 plates for $17.99) so I can't wait to see what that's about. I've never ordered any type of Fauxnad before. Excited to see what they're all about!

China Glaze Flip Flop Fantasy & Sally Hansen Hidden Treasure

First, friends, the nail polish gods have been kind to me lately!!

My Zoya exchange arrived today (minus Ivanka & Charla, which were backordered but are ALREADY on their way!). Last night, I found Hidden Treasure. Yesterday, I went to Sally's because my 15% off coupon was about to expire, and the SA allowed me to use the B2G1 promo on treatments: so I got Gelous to experiment with (I'm devoted to Instant Artificials but Gelous is cheaper by almost $3 and easier to find), a new Seche Vite (on sale for $5.99) and a lone Finger Paints polish in Blissfully Blue (my freebie, I have no true pale blues). This was all for like $10. Today, I got a NEW Sally's coupon for 20% off (check your mailboxes!) and on my way home from a meeting with one of my thesis advisors, I stopped at a Sally's I don't usually go to. Jackpot! They had China Glaze Poolside out AND the new Finger Paints (which was exciting because the B2G1 is only for April and I think these weren't supposed to be put out until May 1). So I got 3 new China Glazes (Flip Flop Fantasy, Towel Boy Toy & Sun Worshipper) and 3 new Finger Paints (Sketch N Etch, Scenery Greenery & Easel-y Entertained) for something like $14? SIX of 'em!

Sally Hansen Hidden Treasure & Gelous.

L to R: Sun Worshipper, Towel Boy Toy & Flip Flop Fantasy.

My thoughts on the Poolside collection: I bought the three most unique to my collection (I'm satisfied with the pink/green/yellow neons I have now, so I skipped the other three). I hope Sun Worshipper is everything I wanted Color Club Explosive to be. Towel Boy Toy seems like it might be in the realm of Color Club Pure Energy or Zoya Tallulah (I got this one mainly because I like these bright shimmery neon blues). My thoughts on Flip Flop Fantasy are below.

L to R: Easel-y Entertained, Sketch N Etch, Scenery Greenery, Blissfully Blue.

The new Finger Paints look wicked! I'm glad they're permanent because that means I can get a few more and don't have to get antsy about it. LE's are a bitch. I swatched the cremes--so smooth and opaque. Shimmers look nice too. Not sure about the glitter but we'll see. I've never bought a "core" line Finger Paints polish before, only LE, so I'm glad for these.

L to R: Mimi, Alegra, Nidhi, Gilda.

The Zoyas, which I swatched on paper look INCREDIBLE!!! The only one that looks slightly lackluster (due to sheerness issues) is Gilda. Can't wait to get Ivanka & Charla. I'll be wearing these soon to show ya'll.

Anyway anyway anyway... PHEW after all that craziness, what did I pick to wear?? Well, obviously I wanted to try out Sally Hansen Hidden Treasure seeing as it's hotter than sliced bread lately. I found it the first place I went! And because I was itching for something bright, enter Flip Flop Fantasy--a neon pink that is slightly orange toned, like a neon salmon/coral. Unique, I think. The application on that one was about what I expected for a neon, but a GOOD neon... 3 thin coats (over 1 coat Barielle Natural Nail Growth Activator & 1 coat Gelous), didn't get gloopy. Topped with 1 thin coat of Hidden Treasure & Seche Vite. And it actually dried.

So, not to add fuel to the fire, but I really like Hidden Treasure... yes, more than my Nfu-Ohs. The consistency of the polish itself is so much better... I find Nfu-Ohs to be a tad gelatinous, even with thinner... and the flakes were so thin and not clumpy... gorgeous rainbow iridescence (though it pulls very orangey over FFF). Anyway... snap if up if you run across it.

Thanks for looking!