Sucky Sucky Photos

I had a very hard time capturing the true colors for these two neons.  I want to reiterate that these are most definitely in your face neon, well at least the pink is.  The purple which is Dream On, not so much.  The picture doesn't even come close to what the actual color is in person.  If I had to describe it, it's like Amethyst, somewhat?  What I can say is that the the photos don't show any signs of Amethyst LOL  I don't know why this is part of the neon collection when it's not really bright.  It's a pretty color nonetheless, application was extremely good.  So good, it might even make up for the lack of brightness.

Fusion Neon is a true neon pink, it's bright, it's loud and it's gorgeous!  It reminds of 80's leg warmers and head bands.  Formula was the same as the other neons, but not too hard to work with.  I used 3 coats to achieve total opaqueness.  These two, also chipped the second day of wear.  I'm starting to think it's not from my hands being in water all the time....

Might do a neon skittles soon, so be on the look out!

Highlighter!

If you thought Summer Peach was bright, you have got to see Neon Melon!  My god, you can't even look at the photos for more than a few seconds before having to look away.  It's so bright, it hurt my eyes when I looked at them outside.  This is a true neon yellow, with a very slight hint of green undertone.  As I mentioned in my last post, I was going to paint this on top of just a clear base coat to see if the white base makes any difference.  I have on 4 coats here, it applies somewhat sheer so you need that extra coat to get total opaqueness and get rid of any streaks but luckily the formula wasn't gunky so it didn't feel like 4 coats on your nails.  Setting them with a coat of SV makes them super shiny as it dries matte like all neons do.  I want to mention, it did chip the second day too and my right middle fingernail broke, which took a chunk of the polish off also.  Even with the con, this one's definitely a must have.

Also, the cotton ball looked like I stuck it on the tip of a highlighter when I was taking off the polish.  Kinda cool lols

Caution!!

I love this!  I didn't expect it to be this bright but it was blinding!  Indoors wasn't that bad but once you got outside, it was crazy!  I layered a white coat before applying this as suggested by a lot of you guys, and I can't tell you if I see a difference since it's my first time doing that but the next time I'll skip the white base and let you know how that comes out.  The formula is pretty thin but thickens up quicker than your normal colored polishes but application was fairly easy.  I used three coats for full opaque cover up, and along with SV, it totalled 5 coats!  Some people don't like so many coats of polish but I don't mind if it's not gunky.  This definitely wasn't.  One negative thing is that one of my nails chipped the next day but that could be the fact that it's so damn hot these past few days, I've been giving the Munchkin cooling baths 2-3 times a day and showering just as much myself plus dishes and cleaning.  So it could be my hands being waterlogged lol  But if you like neons, this is a must have! 

My husband called them traffic cones, but they look more like those neon orange signs stores write specials on lol  As usual, neons dried matte but if you don't like that finish, it's nothing a coat of SV can't fix.  Noen lovers, go get it NOW!  You can't beat $1.99 and I'm not sure if they're a Walgreens only thing.  I haven't seen the neons anywhere else.

Bronzed Penny

I chose Iconic to be swatch #1 because it was something different from what I would usually buy.  It looks red with gold flakeys in the bottle but after applying, they look coppery bronzey shimmer with gold flakeys.  It's different, something I'm not too used to lol  More of a fall color, a great color for Thanksgiving!  The application was fairly easy but it thickened pretty quickly but it wasn't too bad.  According to Cult Nails description, this is a new formula for Iconic.

I also stopped by Walgreens yesterday and picked up 4 neons by Sinful Colors!  From left to right:

1. Dream On
2. Neon Melon
3. Fusion Neon
4. Summer Peach

My First Love

As much as I like nail polish, I have to say my first love is always going to be sneakers. Trust me, I love bags and shoes as much as the next girl, but sneakers?  They have a spell on me!  If I had all the money in the world, I would have a closet dedicated to a very extensive sneaker collection.  Right now, I have boxes upon boxes of unworn sneakers in storage (some at my parents house) because I don't want to dirty them by wearing.  Early on in my relationship with my now husband, he surprised me with a secret appointment to the Nike ID lab in Niketown.  Where I made a pair of dunk lows IDs, that up until now, 7 years later have never worn lols  He always bugs me about not wearing any sneakers he buys me, but he doesn't understand that it's out of love!!  I have a pair of limited edition cherry slim dunk highs in tan/yellow (he bought) I've worn only once, cleaned and placed back into the box.  I have to dig a pic up of those!

Anyways, I ordered these light gold dunk highs from PickYourShoes.com.  I've ordered from them before, they have an extensive collection of both common and rare sneakers.  The name of these are Grain, which I can understand, somewhat lol   They are going to my semi-everyday sneakers for work, along with the purple/black Adidas AR 2.0s I picked up last week.  Dunk highs are my favorite, they are comfortable, and light, and I think they go with everything!  I really wanted to like the AR 2.0s but they are flat and kind of uncomfortable, which is why I ordered these dunks.  What I should've done is just ordered the dunks to begin with and save some money.  Oh wells... enough of my gushing love for sneakers...I'm sure you guys don't want to read about this LOL

I found a pic! I love them so much!!!!

Oh but you can't just have one pair!!!

Adidas AR 2.0

Cult Nails Mail

 

I placed my order about 2 weeks ago and finally, I received my box!!  I ordered these when Cult Nails was having their 50% off sale on certain colors.  You were only allowed to get a max of 3 with their discount prices so that's what I did.  I chose Let Me Fly, Iconic, and Living Water.  They came in a small box, nestled in Styrofoam peanuts and wrapped in brown tissue paper taped together by their names.

Let Me Fly is a dark teal shimmer, I think could be my favorite.  Iconic, a golden red with gold flakeys is my first of the kind.  And Living Water is dark blue green with turquoise micro glitter.  I lied, I think I like them all the same!  I can't wait to swatch them!!!

Super Juicy

Here's another swatch from the stash my husband picked up.  I've been slacking on my mani's lately, as I mentioned previously, I have been playing Diablo 3.  Even though I'm literally only getting about 1-2 hours of gaming in, that takes away from the time I would spend on my manis.  But have no fear, I will try to allocate my time better!  Tequila Sunrise is a scented polish from the Happy Hour collection.  I didn't know it was scented until after I finished.  As I was painting my nails, I thought hey, something smells like oranges.  I even sniffed the brush to see if it was the polish but didn't smell it on there.  I thought it was just my imagination, that this gorgeous light orange polish was making me smell oranges!  Or maybe the lack of sleep was making me smell things that weren't there.  I want to clarify that the lack of sleep was due to the Munchkin having another small cold (not from gaming! LOL) and a stuffy nose at night that kept her up till 5am.  Which means mommy doesn't get to sleep either.

Anyways, back to my idiocy...  One thing with this polish, as I was doing my first coat, I noticed it formed wells?  I don't know if anyone has had this problem before.  But while the first coat dried, it formed what looked like craters where the polish wasn't adhering to my nails?  I don't know how to explain it better, I wish I took a photo.  I thought it was my cuticle oil causing it to separate so I removed the polish and started over without applying cuticle oil.  But it happened again...  My solution was to load the brush with more polish than I would usually do for first coat and that helped but a couple of nails still had those little craters.  So I ended up having to apply three coats for an even finish, but in the end, I really like this color.  It probably washes out my skin a bit because of my skin tone but how can I not like something that makes my fingertips look like juicy orange supremes!  The only thing I don't like is the scent, it smells like fake orange candy.  I can't smell it unless I put my fingers close to my face, and that happened when I was eating my bagel this morning.  Oh wells, once again, win some lose some!

Why So Serious?

I LOVE purple, I love green but together?  I don't know if they work... Revlon makes these duo polishes, French Mix, where they advertise using them together as a funky french.  So under their influence, that is exactly what I did.  I chose the boldest color they had available at the CVS near my office which was All the Rage, a shimmer lime green and plum purple with slight shimmer undertones.  Let me say this first, the formula was horrible.  Both colors were draggy, clumpy and stringy.  The polish literally started to dry while I was painting and would pull strings every time I lifted it off my nails.  And each time I went back towards my cuticle to reapply, it'll pull off the layer I already had down.  Not only did it pull it off, it would clump at where I stopped the brush!

By the time I got to doing the tips, the polish was already so thick that it went on in clumps, plus dragged off when you tried to smooth them down.  The bottle looked pretty neat but with the smaller sized bottle and it being a cylinder shape, the polish was trying to tip over every time I dipped the brush in.  With the only pro being how cute the bottle looked, I wouldn't venture in getting any of the other colors.  With that being said, these two colors together remind me the Joker.  Here is the line from Revlon, would you try any of the color combos they put together?  I think I've done the dark lilac with pink before on my own, it's a pretty combo.

Camera Click Click!

Oh jellies jellies jellies, how I love me some jelly!  Essie Camera is described as a neon jelly coral/pink, but my skin tone makes them look more tangerine than anything else.  The pictures don't capture what I actually see, but seem to be closer to everyone else's swatches.  I saw a few others swatches that were close to tangerine also, so maybe the Asian skin tones gives it slight tinge of orange.  My husband actually said it looked like mangoes, go figure LOL It's still pretty regardless of the change in color for me and you probably can't even tell from from my pictures! LOL  I have two coats on, besides my middle finger which needed three because i scraped off too much when I was cleaning my cuticle, woops!  The three coats gave me some bubbles but you can't really see them unless you're up close and scrutinizing.  Overall, I like both colors I picked up and will probably get Action and Bazooka to round out the collection.

BTW, I've been playing Diablo 3 with the hubs after the munchkin goes to bed at night and have neglected my nails a bit.  I actually went bare nails almost all weekend until I swatched Camera last night.  Anyone else playing D3?

Julep June Maven Box Reminder

For all of you who are like me and never remember to log on to Julep to either choose to keep the current month's box or to skip it, here's a reminder!  You have until the 24th to submit your skip request so don't forget!  I'm actually keeping mine this month and will be switching over to Boho Glam because I'm a sucker for Robin blues and also, and I love me a lemon yellow.  Just hope the brushes this month aren't frayed again...

Also, if you don't have Julep and want to try it for a month for only 1 penny, click the banner to the left and sign up with the code COLORS4ONE.

Doo Doo Brown?

I don't even know what to say about this color lol  In the bottle, I thought it was purple, my husband said he thought it was brown when he bought it.  I guess it's both?  It is kind of brown with purple shimmer.  You can only see the purple if I move my fingers back and forth in the light.  I think you can somewhat see the purple shimmer in the lower right photo.  It just looks weird to me, I don't think I'm going to keep it on.  That's too bad because application was awesome.  Two coats and I had total coverage, with no gunkiness or flooding.  Oh wells, at least it's a beautiful Saturday here after a bunch of nasty humid rain in the beginning of the week.  Hope everyone enjoys their weekend!

Edit:  Halona mentioned to me the night I posted, that I didn't even put the name of the polish...lols  It's called Purple Irony, which is pretty "ironic" since it doesn't look purple at all !  I'm pretty sure they meant Irony as in steel iron or maybe the irony is that it's not purple at all...whatever it is..lols I say it still looks brown!

I've Been Framed!

This here is another one from the batch my husband bought me for Mother's Day.  It's called Lilac Me All Over.  I couldn't for the life of me, get the color to come out correctly in the photos because of how light the lilac tinge is.  Basically you can only see it with the naked eye and you have to look pretty damn close LOL  Initially, I thought it was a grayish white but I guess I was wrong lol.  Application was a bit hard because it turned thick pretty quickly, but it wasn't unexpected for this kind of base color.  I actually was expecting a lot worse.  Two coats is pretty much all you need to cover up the streaky first coat.  I have to say, if I didn't already make up my mind to do what I have coming up next?  I would've left this color on, it was very pretty on it's own!

I've been wanting to do this for a long time.  I've seen it being done by many bloggers and always wondered how it was achieved.  Well yesterday I came across someones post and she explained that all she did was tape the tip of her nails to get the straight line and free handed the rest.  So I thought to myself, hey that doesn't sound too hard.  It's not like I had to take a paint brush and free hand a frame around my nails, I can do this!  So yeah, I took my stripping tape and went to town!  I chose another one of my husband's stash, Temptation, it's called.  I noticed that these Mattese Elite polishes thicken up pretty quick, even with this blue metallic color.  You might be able to tell my pinky has a slight bulge because the polish was gunking up while I was trying to perfect my center.  For a first time, I think I didn't do too bad.  If only I had a steadier hand lol

Lime Ricky Anyone?

How can you not love a husband who indulges you in your obsession?  For Mother's day, my husband surprised me with a bag of Mattese Elite polishes from Ricky's!  He said he chose colors that I don't seem to have and wouldn't pick on my own.  He bought a total of 9 bottles, 8 full sized and 1 mini.  I chose the smallest of the bunch to swatch first.  Lime Ricky is a bright neon green, that dries semi-matte but with a top coat, turns into a lovely jelly!  They look like jellybeans on my fingertips, so yummy and juicy!  Application was a little hard due to the smaller brush, I had to do three coats to get full coverage.  Well I think he achieved his goal when the Munchkin took my hand and said Broobrooooo while pointing at my fingers!  Love them both!! <3

Top It Off With Gold

I wanted to make my mani a little more special for Mother's Day so I used the Gap Gold Rush and added chevron tips.  I did them free hand on the fly before heading out this morning, so they're kinda uneven.  I like them, they remind me of a pink wonder woman LOL  I hope everyone had a great Mother's Day!  I know I did!

Poppy-Razzi for Mother's Day!

I am totally in love with Lights!  It's pretty awesome.  Anyways, I'm sure you guys have seen swatches of this all over the net, so I wont bore you with details.  Enjoy the photos -=D  and lastly, HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY to all you mothers out there!  The family and I are heading to Dekalb Market to get some of those freshly fried yummy doughnuts!  If you're a reader from NYC, please please please, you must go have those doughnuts!  It is melt in your mouth goodness!!

Cult Nails $5.00 Sale!

 

Cult Nails is having their $5.00 sale on selected colors!  They limit 3 bottles per coupon, and you must enter the code FB5K2 at checkout.  Don't worry if it still says the original price, the discount will show up before clicking into Paypal.  Click their banner above and it'll bring you directly to the $5.00 page!  I picked up 3 myself! So Happy Shopping!

Pretty In Pink

Here a short post, this is my attempt to show that Tropicalia is pink and not orange lol  This shows it more true to color.  For the tips, I used Candy-licious, another color from the Megalast line.  Like I've said before, I love this line!

Mermaid's Pot of Gold

I was SOOO excited to find the 2 trifle bowls full of nail polish sitting at the GAP Body counter. I was starting to get disappointed in GAP but then I was like hey why not check out GAP Body then BAM!  I found one bottle of Gold Rush in plain view but I had to dig for a second bottle for Halona.  They don't make it easy, the trifle bowl was packed and they were stacked on top of each other.  So the middle and bottom rows were not easily visable.  But my efforts did not go unrewarded!  I bought the ONLY two bottles left!!  Then the cashier was wearing Mermaid, and guess what??  This girl had to have it also! 

I NEEDED this dupe of Peridot because let's be frank now, I can't afford to buy Chanel nail polish.  Okay, maybe I can but I don't want to lol  This SIX dollar bottle of Gold Rush is super AWESOME!!!  Like, how can you not like it??  I read someone's review, she didn't like the formula.  Saying it was thick and streaky but mine was nice and smooth.  It had some brush strokes but that was expected for any metallic polishes.  But still, I am in love!  I told my husband I'm going to be sitting here staring at my fingers, twiddling them to watch the color change from gold to teal and then back to gold.  On my ring finger, is Mermaid.  It sort of matches, I think lol 

The formula for both were smooth as I mentioned before, but the thick wide block handle was a bitch to use.  At one point, I was holding it by the corners and it was not comfortable at all!  Oh wells, you can't have it all!!  I went to the GAP located on Broadway and 8th Street if anyone wants to try there.  They might have restocked!

Swaaaaatch!

I initially didn't want to post this cause when I looked at the pictures from my iPhone, they didn't look true to color.  It looked alot like my last manicure, Club Havana but after I took a look at the uploaded version from Halona, they didn't look as orange.  Because it is not totally orange, but a dark rosy pink with the slightest orange hint.  This is another wet n wild from the Megalast line.  As you can see, instead of doing multiple swatches in a single post, which took alot of time, I'm doing them one at a time.  It lets me wear it a day and if I get tired of it, I'll just swatch the next color.  I'm loving the Megalast line!  I noticed wet n wild had the Megalast line for a while but changed the bottles and now they are a bit bigger.  I realized that when I saw I already had one of the bottles I picked up, but it had a different bottle shape and was smaller.  Oh wells,  luckily they're only $1.99! 

Did you know these polishes were 3FREE?! That is a super great deal for the price.  I will probably pick up the rest, even if some of the colors are not my preference but I can't say no to nail polish!

Mystery Box Fail

I received my Cinco de Mayo mystery box today and I'm pretty disappointed to say the least.  The colors are dull and one of them did not have the shrink wrap around it.  From top down, Gayle a cream dark purple, Leah a grassy green with shimmer (the one that wasn't sealed), Hayden a peachy beige that doesn't look true to color in my photo and Sienna a pale gold shimmer.  I also received a 1oz bottle of Glycolic Hand Scrub, and a glass file.  I kind of expected the colors to be more festive since it was for Cinco de Mayo and all but hey, it was a mystery box and mystery was what I got.

First I wanted to show you the wonky brush from Gayle, and to think this was the only color that interested me.  I still tried to apply it, and did an okay job with what I had. 

I didn't want to spend time on separate swatches for each color so this was the best solution.  I wanted to like at least one of the colors but I honestly have to say none of them appealed to me.  I thought I would like Gayle but it just looks dark and murky.  Leah, the grassy green, had a different brush, instead of a flat one, the brush was round, much like the brucci brushes.  Application was easy as usual (besides Gayle), each color had two coats, except for Hayden on my pinky, that needed three.  If this review sounds meh, it pretty much is lols  Oh wells.....Hopefully the next box is better....

Layout & Creamsicles

I want to start by saying Halona and I worked very hard on the new layout but that would be a lie cause she's the one that worked hard on it lols. I LOVE LOVE LOVE it!! It's modern vintage chic! She knows me so well -=D  I hope everyone loves it as much as I do!

Here's another wet n wild megalast swatch, this one's Club Havana.  It's an orange cream that reminds me so much of a creamsicle.  Formula was good, smooth and the right consistency but OMG was the brush busted.  I should've taken a photo of it, it was all bent out of shape and twisted.  I was struggling to not get them on my cuticles.  It was worse than my smashed up Julep brush!  I have to say though, even with a busted brush, it came out pretty darn nice!  The color is gorgeous, and is much brighter in person.  I tried to jazz it up by making it look like a bitten creamsicle but I don't think I succeeded lol, it just looks like half a cloud drifting away.  Oh wells, you win some and  you lose some.  Overall, I'm very happy with this color.

1 coat SH DD
2 coats Club Havana (Essie Marshmallow white)
1 coat SV

Lazer Beams!

I ordered some nail stripping tape so I didn't have to cut strips of tape to do this lols  I am super sucky at cutting straight lines so these were perfect.  I had a hard time peeling them off and sticking them on the tissue I had put out to collect the tape after I painted the polish on, they kept sticking to my finger.  That is why some of them look smudged, but overall, my first time came out pretty good.  I will try it again!!

Yo Gabba Gabba!!!!

The Munchkin LOVES Yo Gabba Gabba!  She's a little mover and dancing is her favorite thing.  I thought, hey maybe I can do this....and here it is.  I didn't do that great of a job but I still like them for the novelty factor.  I like how Plex came out and Brobee, my god, was the hardest.  I had to redo him twice!  Her favorite is Foofa and Brobee, which is funny because she's trying to say his name now.  It's so cute, she says bobo lol  I love that girl!  I hope you guys like it!!! -=D

To Magnetize or Not to Magnetize

Please disregard my gnarly cuticles...I was lazy and didn't moisturize.  I just oiled them up after I finished painting them lols  So this is my first magnetic nail polish and I kind of see what the hype is about.  I like it, I don't LOVE it......yet.  Maybe with a different design, I just have to get another one to experiment with.  Another excuse to buy more nail polish lol   Most of the May Julep Maven boxes included Kylie, a magnetic nail polish.  It's a lovely dark royal purple with shimmer which you can totally wear on it's own, but why would you when you can jazz it up?  As I mentioned in my previous post, the magnetic design is wavy and not straight as suggested by the lines on the magnet.  I read some people didn't like the wand, but I didn't find it too difficult to use.  Overall, I'm pretty pleased with Kylie.

1 coat SH DD
2 coats Kylie (first coat thin, second coat thick)
1 coat SV

I Need a Refresh-Mint....NOW!

Looking through my stash, I realized I have a lot of blues.  I mean A TON!  When I saw fellow bloggers swatching I Need a Refresh-Mint, I knew I had to get it.  And I'm so glad I did!!  I also picked up a couple of other colors from the wet n wild Megalast collection, but this one has to be my favorite out of the bunch.  The photos make them look bluer than it actually is, it's pretty much a blue/green comparable to CG's For Audrey.  I kind of like this one more.  The brush is flat and wide with curved edges that I found to be slightly stiff, it left streaks on my first coat but nothing a second coat didn't fix.  It's a love or hate thing with these wide flat brushes, I'm leaning towards the love side.  Two coats will leave you totally opaque and the formula is smooth making an easy application.  If you love blues like me, this one is a must have!

1 coat SH DD
2 coats I Need a Refresh-Mint
1 coat SV

May's Julep Maven Box

I'm sure you've been seeing everyone post their May Julep Maven box, here's mine!  I received my It Girl box, which included a black cosmetic bag with a flat bottom where you can sit it on a surface and not have it tip over.  Once I unzipped it, I noticed a pedicure creme tucked inside one of the pockets.  (I didn't see it until after I photographed the polishes, and I was pretty frustrated with the lighting to take any more.)  Kylie is violet magnetic polish that comes with a wanded magnet.  From swatches I've seen, the lines are wavy and not straight.  I will need to try that out myself, swatch coming soon? -=D  Nessa is a lemony shimmer which to me, has a metallic finish.  Ashley is an orange metallic micro-shimmer, the finish is similar to Nessa.  If you've read my previous posts, you should know my feelings about metallic finishes.  It just makes my nails look thin and tinny, hopefully these will change my mind.

Don't forget, you can click this Julep Maven to sign up, and get your initiating box for 1 penny! Just use the code COLORS4ONE at checkout!

Oh My Hero -=D

Who doesn't love Footloose!! And by gosh golly do I love me some Bonnie Tyler! It's raining here in NYC and I'm not saying it's when I'm in my 80's mood but here I am with the 80s Pop station on Pandora lols.  Enjoy!