Goodbye, Summer!

Summer is over and so are summer mani's, but I'm so ready to move on to fall! These were the last things I wore in August:

Butter London Victoriana, just as amazing as it looks! I think this is seriously a must have.

China Glaze Strawberry Fields, which I got tons of compliments on. I liked it but I'm still not a huge fan of pink on my fingeres.

Essie Turquoise and Caicos. My dear Essie... Why do you make it so hard to love you? I've come to terms with the skinny brush, we're good, we're cool.... but why do you need 3 coats and then take FOREVER to dry?! I don't like having a dented mani. Love the color though.

Essie Lapis of Luxury. Same problems as the above, though this time I scheduled my mani with some downtime so I wasn't using my hands for an HOUR after my mani.... still got dents. Which really sucks, because this color is amazing.

I'm already in to my fall color stash and it keeps growing a little bit every week. I can't get enough of fall colors, but need to use them quick because as soon as OPI Burlesque comes out it's glitters all the way!

China Glaze Orange Marmalade

I know orange really isn't the most flattering color on me, but I can't help but love it. Especially when it looks like this. I wish China Glaze would come with a glass flecked collection once a year so that I could get this formula in every color imaginable! Orange Marmalade just glows... I love it. This was with 3 coats and there's still a bit of a VNL, which I can forgive, and you really need 2 coats of TC to make the shimmer sing, but I can also forgive that.

Color accurate picture:

Glass flecked sparkle awesomeness:

Catching up on NOTD's

I know I've totally been slacking with posting the NOTD's, but I'm still (mostly) keeping up with them between homework. So here's what I was wearing this past week:

The Summer Days collection continues to impress me! I totally love Raspberry Festival. At first I thought it was too red, but it's a perfect raspberry color so I really can't complain. I loved the shimmer in it! This was with 2 coats though I probably should have done 3.



For my birthday last Wednesday I pulled out Essie Greenport, which I was saving in my untrieds for a special occasion. And it made me feel so awesome on by birthday! The color completely lived up to all the hype that surrounded it and totally lived up to how awesome I had built it up in my head. I'm really glad I was able to get the Essie, but I've heard L'oreal came out with a collection of 3 exact dupes for the North Fork collection. I'm still hunting them down to have back ups! This was with 3 curse-filled coats (how much do you hate that teeny tiny F^%@ing brush?!) to cover the initial streakiness. I didn't like the overall look of 3 coats, it always looks to thick on my nails.



And finally the NOTD that I'm on day #4 of, OPI Lunch at the Delhi. I adore this. On my super pale cool toned skin, depending on the light I see red to sometimes orange, but most of the day in normal light It's a perfect dusty warm toned coral. This was 2 coats but I probably should have done 3 here also. I hate how white my nail line is!


Also don't forget to enter my Great Barrier Reef giveaway! You can come back every day for an extra chance to win :D

Easter M&M's

So here's my totally non-unique pastel "skittles", but I call it an M&M's because I like them better! I think like half the nail board did something similar, so even though I'm not an original, I totally loved it. I also went shopping while wearing this and got so many compliments!

These are all from Up & Away, from thumb to pinky: Peachy Keen, Lemon Fizz, Something Sweet, Re-Freshmint, and Light as Air. Lemon Fizz is a complete PITA to apply. It's probably the worst polish I've ever worked with. There were so many bubbles, and even though I got them smoothed out, on my right hand I have a spot where a bubble burst so there's a huge pit mark! I've never seen that happen before! Despite that, I still like the color, but I don't think I'll get to doing a full mani with it anytime soon. Something Sweet was the best of the 5, it applied nicely for a pastel, and I'll probably wear this one a lot because it's so sweet and girly.


My birthday is a week from Wednesday and I ordered a few polishes today so they would be here in time. From RBL I got 360, Diddy Mow and Coral, which I'm SUPER excited about, and then I ordered about 8 polishes from a few other places, 5 of which are some shade of coral since that's what I'm totally in to right now! I'm still on the hunt for more awesome shades, so what are your fav corals?

The glitter... it's multiplying! Hide the children!!!

I wanted a quick and lazy mani that I wouldn't have to clean up or worry about the finish on, so I pulled out ChG Flyin' High and Medallion. Cream is usually my favorite finish, but for once I didn't want to have to obsess about my every move just to make sure I get a flawless finish. 1 coat of Flyin' High and 1 coat of Medallion was the plan. I did this late at night, slapped on some SV and went to bed... and woke up nearly blind. I do not remember there being that much glitter! Other than the problem of my glitter mating like bunnies when I'm not watching, I really like this look. Turquoise and gold is so cute!


I love the little holo pieces mixed in the gold!

Greens #10, 9 & 8

I was trying to save my most anticipated greens for next week, but caved and put on OPI Jade is the New Black today. I was hoping it would live up to the hype, and it totally did! I can tell I'm going to be wearing this one a lot, it's the perfect dusty cream green. It applied flawlessly and was perfect in 2 coats. Also I filed down my nails yesterday, it seems like every 3 weeks my classes all pile up big papers and projects and I do a lot of typing. It's so much easier to do the work with nubbins!

It's raining out today (OMG rain! I've missed you!) so I took pictures under an Ott light. I've never done it before but this picture is completely accurate!


I swatched China Glaze Paper Chasing yesterday. I adore this color, so much so that I wore it for 4 days straight last August. But when I took it off I had terrible stains, so this is another one I'd steer clear of. If that doesn't deter you, it took 3 coats to get this and it chips easily. I was sad about this one, it was one of my most anticipated from the Kicks collection. And green #8 was butter LONDON Thames. I like it, but it's similar to the Essence I wore a few days ago, and I like the Essence much more because it's less blue. I'm swapping it away; I won't miss the color but I will miss the little square bottle... so cute!




Also MAC's Liberty of London collection came out yesterday, YAY! If you're interested in the Blue India NP you can use the code LIBERTY and get free shipping with no minimum amount. My awesome mom placed an order for me last night, along with a bunch of lipsticks I've been lemming. I'm pretty excited!

Green #4

No one told me that the China Glaze Summer Days was so completely awesome. I kept thinking they were a shimmer, but according to ALU they are glass flecked. And awesome. These are AWESOME. I tracked down Watermelon Rind to wear for March and it came in the mail yesterday. I'm completely in love with it and am working on tracking down the other 5 from the collection (anyone wanna swap? lol). I used 3 very thin coats of this, I think I could have gotten away with 2 slightly thicker coats but the polish was a little runny at first. Even with 3 coats it dried really fast, I did laundry just 10 minutes after applying Seche Vite and didn't get a single dent (even when my fingers got caught in the little holes of the laundry basket... don't ask how that happened)!

China Glaze High Hopes

There's some quality about the coral family that's so elusive to me. I can see pictures and pictures of coral NOTD's and I always think, "hm, that's pretty," and move to the next picture. But when I actually get a coral on my nails, I immediately want another 10 shades in the same family. I don't know what it is! I've had High Hopes on my desk with the rest of the Up & Away family, but what I REALLY wanted to wear today was Jade is the New Black. But I'm saving my greens for March and St. Patty's day. So I grabbed High Hopes instead. It is the most delicious shade of papaya ever! It's vivid and striking but not in-your-face like a neon. I put this on and it just feels like one of those "drinkable" colors. I immediately wanted a tropical cocktail or a smoothie. This is with 2 coats. I had to thin this one out a bit, the first nail I did got bubbles from being too thick, but after that it applied well. I couldn't get a completely accurate picture, this was the closest, but it's a little more pink in person.

I only have one other coral, Sally Hansen Nasturtium, and it's more orange based than this one. What are some other awesome colors in the coral family I could pick up?

Don't forget to enter my Who Loves Purple? giveaway!

Ultimate Sugar High

I love Oreos. And you know what's better than Oreos? Home baked Oreos. I found the best recipe a few months ago and can't stop making it. I flavor the cream filling to be whatever I want and cut whatever shape I want! Today I made plain but tasty vanilla, and tinted it pink to go with the heart shaped cookie. Add a sprinkle of pink sugar to the top and it's the ultimate Valentine's cookie! To avoid over-sampling while they were baking I did my nails with China Glaze Sugar High. Look how cute they are together!

The formula on this wasn't too great, but I managed to get it evened out in 3 coats. I tried to do just 2, but I got bubbles and had to re-do a nail. Also if you apply even a little too much it runs all over your cuticles. Icky. It's a really cute Barbie pink, but if you already have one and you like the formula on it, then you don't need Sugar High.



ETA: Recipe, click here!

China Glaze Flyin' High

I'm still wearing MPJ and loving it, though it'll probably come off tomorrow since the 3 Hong Kongs ordered came today! I can't wait to get Jade is the New Black on my nails. Last week I was wearing Flyin' High for 3 days, it's so pretty! I don't have any colors like it, it's a perfect turquoise. Oddly enough, this picture shows the exact bottle color, but my nails were actually a bit greener than the bottle color. I hate when that happens, but I can forgive this color. This is one of the better ones from Up & Away, the formula was great and look at how shiny! This picture was pre-top coat!

China Glaze Heli-yum

Outside the polish world, pink is my absolute favorite color. If it comes in pink, that's the color I'll pick for whatever I'm buying. My workout shoes are pink, two of my six iPods are pink, my phone is pink, and all of my video game things are pink. But in the polish world, I just don't like wearing much pink. It's so cliche, just slightly less so than wearing red. And it makes me feel like some girly-girl who grew up with too many barbies. And while I am a girly-girl, I grew up with dinosaur toys. Probably why I favor greens so much lol. But anyways. Heli-yum is the most perfectly raspberry pink. And I very much enjoyed wearing it over the weekend, which is a good thing because I've hardly had a spare second so there was NO TIME to change my polish :D

This is with two coats plus SV top coat, and it applied with creamy perfection. I put this on Thursday night and we're still going strong. I can't comment on tip wear because I filed my nails down yesterday, which I'm so happy about because I can finally type properly again!

Mint Comparisons

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Best. Purple. Ever.

Grape Pop needs some sort of medal. It is perfection in a bottle. There is not even a hint of blue in this! I like my blurples but they are everywhere. I like to think it's because it's cheaper to make, since way way way back when, purple was an expensive and rare color, so only royalty had it. If you're only going to get 1 from the Up & Away collection, this should be it. Now I'm only saying that today since I've just worn 2 from the collection, my opinion my change later this week lol! Grape Pop applied perfectly opaque in just one coat and flowed super easy on the nail. I skipped the top coat, mostly because I was in a rush, but partly because I want to change my polish again tonight. I'm guessing the Vikes won't win, and I don't need the purple reminder haunting me on Monday! Probably should have worn SV since my nails are too long and I got a dent while I was typing... ugh!


Please excuse the mess, I was in a rush today!

Pre-Vikings Game Yellow

If you live in Minnesota you know what I'm talking about. Everything is purple and yellow MANIA right now. We want this win against the Saints like you wouldn't believe! So for the pre-game, I was wearing China Glaze Happy Go Lucky. This name is dead on. The color makes me so happy to look at! And I've heard that out of the entire Up & Away collection, this was the big problem child. I'm not gonna call it a PITA, because I try to stay positive. Let's just say there is a learning curve to the application! Once you master it, it's not so bad.

You're going go need 3 coats. The first one needs to be paper thin. If you have a droplet of polish on the brush, you have to much. You should be seeing mostly brush, and it should almost drag on the nail. Super thin! You'll also need to wrap your tips. This is when you take the brush and horizontally drag it across the free end of your nail, so it gets on the top and bottom of the nail. Why? I buffed my tips just prior to put this on, but the polish still found every rough spot and bump and sat on top, so I had very tiny spots at the end where there was no polish, the looked almost like chips. But if you wrap the tips this solves the problem. Your second coat should also be very thin. At this point your nails will look like crap. You'll have two streaky coats that look terrible, but the overall texture should be even. Now for coat three, GLOB IT ON! Take a big drop and quickly spread it across your nail. Now it should be even and pretty! I know it sounds like a lot of work, and it is, but if you like yellow, this is the BEST yellow I have tried yet, so go for it. Also, this color dried very shiny, but of course I still used Seche Vite.


The big Vikes game is at 5, but the pre-game party starts around 2 at my friends house, so I'll need to redo this with Grape Pop pretty soon. I still can't believe that I've watched every Vikings game this season. I used to be the girl who didn't even know who the Superbowl teams were, and now I'm loving football. And for you ladies out there who like to stay out of football (and I know that has its perks), there is good food, beer, and hot guys! I've gotten more dates this year wearing my Jared Allen jersey than I've ever gotten wearing something that shows skin lol!

Under the Sea

Over the weekend I was sporting Atlantis for a day, and I LOVED it! For as long as I was lemming it (like 5 weeks?), and for the amount of time I've had it untried (2 months!), it's kind of embarrassing that I didn't try it sooner. I love the color in it, and the sparkle... well, it speaks for itself. Pictures galore because this one is a stunner!



Here's some blur to show the sparkle:

Just look at this color!



Here are some comparison pictures too! From left to right we have Claire's Green Confetti, Sinful Nail Junkie, and China Glaze Atlantis. And I know I just did a tribute to Atlantis, but I have to say my fave is Nail Junkie, but I do think you need both! Atlantis has an amazing color, but Nail Junkie has some bigger sparkles and these amazing blue flecks that peek out in some light. It's best to meet them in the middle; 3 coats of Atlantis for color and then 1-2 coats of Nail Junkie. I don't have pictures, but I did an experiment with them. 1 coat will give you some blue sparkle and bigger chunks, and 2 will give you the perfect amount, but will change the color of Atlantis. I personally like 1 coat better.


Claire's Green Confetti was something I picked up for $1 on clearance, and it's pretty cool. It's more of a standard green, which you can see in the second pic, and it has larger chunks of glitter! Sadly, it's pretty sparse, and while 3 coats will get you a jelly-opaqueness with color, you need at least 4, and really 5 coats, to get enough sparkle. But it does dry fast!

(You can click these two to see them bigger, it shows the color differences much better)


For my mom's b-day I let her pick anything from my collection, even my HTF's and LE's, and did her nails. She picked Nail Junkie, and got so many compliments at her party! Even more than my Absolutely Alice did.... not that I was jealous or anything, LOL!

Dorothy Who... cares?!!

I wanted to like this polish. A lot. In theory it were perfect, in execution... meh. This was 3 coats and still a VNL. The blue wasn't dark enough for me and there was too much silver. I'm hoping OPI's Absolutely Alice can be everything that I wanted this to be. I swapped this polish for OPI Parlez Vous OPI? I hope it comes in the mail soon, because I have a little confession... I've never even tried OPI!



Also, since I don't feel this was a satisfying post due to the sub-par polish, here a pictures of my puppies with their holiday bandannas on. They're so cute!!

Snowflakes & Ruby Pumps

I hope everyone had a happy holiday and they got every NP they wanted! I've been very busy playing with my new iPod + Nike equipment, along with a few new RBL's and other NP's. My Christmas NOTD was Ruby Pumps and I took pictures outside in a snowstorm while holding a snowball. When I downloaded the pictures, this one had a single snowflake captured in the flash! It's so cute! Maybe not the best picture of Ruby Pumps, but who hasn't seen that a million times?

I have many more NOTD's coming up, including the Jade-knockoff from Claire's!

Silver and Gold Glitz

I'm saving my untried Ruby Pumps for December 24th but have been trying out my other Xmas glitters! First picture is two coats of Tinsel. I really needed like one or two more coats, but it was a rush job and I knew I'd be taking it off in less than a day so I made due with two. The next morning I put on Cowardly Lyin from the Wizard of Ooh Ahz collex, and while I loved the yellowy gold color, the glitter was really lacking. So this morning I added three coats of 5 Golden Rings and it was pure love. Well, it only lasted a few seconds because the mail truck came with a bunch of new polishes for me to swatch! But I snapped a pic anyways, mostly for reference because I think this would look great on me in the Summer when I'm a little bit tan. On to the pics!

A Perfect Polish - Emerald Sparkle

There isn't much I can say about Emerald Sparkle that hasn't been said. It is one of those perfect polishes that is just so unbelievably pretty that you won't want to take it off. My camera could hardly capture all it's qualities; with the deep emerald green shade, the jelly qualities, and of course all the sparkle, I could only get an average amount of each crammed in to the picture. The full effect in person is memorizing! I highly recommend it to anyone to pick it up, and although I got it really just for Christmas, I know I'll be pulling it out from time to time through out the year. This picture is with 2 coats Emerald Sparkle 1 coat Seche Vite. You'll need a great top coat to bring out the sparkle in this polish!