My first September Birthday Giveaway is now over and the winner is…..
I have emailed Amanda and will wait to hear back from her.
Thank you everyone for entering my giveaway and stay tuned for another giveaway that I am launching tomorrow. I told you this is my birthday giveaway extravaganza month! 😉
I am a true stamping fiend so I was really excited when I heard that Cheeky was releasing a new stamp collection. The Cheeky Stamping Plates Summer Collection 2012 consists of 26 image plates with over 150 individual designs so you definitely get a lot to play around with. When I first started using image plates, I was a snob and only purchased Konad plates but I soon discovered that other brands were putting out
Now, here is a size comparison between Cheeky stamping plates and my MASH plates.
At first I was pretty annoyed at the size difference because all my MASH, Konad and Bundle Monster plates are the same size and I thought maybe the Cheeky plates wouldn’t fit in my card/plate holders. This would have been a huge annoyance because I want to keep all my plates in the same place. The Cheeky plates did end up fitting but just barely.
I already used one of the plates for a nail look I did yesterday and you can see it here. The plate worked perfectly, and I have no complaints about the quality of the plate because it did just what it’s supposed to do: it transferred a clear and precise image. I did notice that when I removed the clear plastic covering on the face of the plates, a lot of them already had some minor scratches. I’m not cool with that especially since they are brand new. Now, this is where my rant will start…
I ordered the Cheeky Stamping Plates the second they were available which was on August 14th. My plates arrived on 9/13. I understand that they were being shipped from China, but that’s just a little ridiculous to me. I buy A LOT of nail supplies that come from China and nothing has ever taken this long to arrive. Even though they offered free shipping, I would have gladly paid for shipping if it meant that I would be getting my items in a timely manner. I do not think that it is unreasonable to expect to receive your items in a timely fashion: if you take my money right away, give me my products right away. Simple as that. I think the annoyance of shipping has definitely soured me on the prospect of purchasing anything else directly from Cheeky. I will look into how quickly Amazon dispatches the items if I buy from them instead of from Cheeky directly so maybe I will just always wait to buy from Amazon if they have something that catches my attention.
I guess that if you don’t mind waiting for eons for your plates, these are a pretty good investment. I paid $24.99 for my set with free shipping. It looks like prices are different on Amazon, but I haven’t looked into it yet. While not all the images are that original, I do like the variety and quality. I also have to give them major props for their packaging. The little box they come in is adorable and so is the little card that comes with it (that can also be used as a scraper!)
Will you be getting this new Cheeky stamping plates set for Summer 2012? Let me know which plate you like the most. I will be using an image from one of these plates for day 3 of the 31 Inspired Days of Nailr Art Challenge which will revolve around the color yellow. Thanks for stopping by and until next time!
Are you ready for Day 2 of the 31 Inspired Days of Nail Art Challenge?!?!?! I am and today I have something that came out kind of awesomely strange. I’ve been seriously loving Bourjois Grenadine Tonic that the lovely Julie sent to me a while ago and I never miss a chance to use it. I absolutely adore how it’s unlike anything I have ever used. It’s like an orange high gloss polish that easily builds up to a vibrant orange with some red to boot. I guess you could call it tomato orange. I’ve used this polish for a NOTD before and you can see my results here.
Let me wow you with my orange jello nails!
This is three coats of the lovely Grenadine Tonic.
This is my first use of the Cheeky plates that I received today. I used plate CH51 for this design and I think the design is pretty cute. I know Vienna would love this since she loves stars so much. 😉 I applied one coat of Grenadine Tonic after I stamped the design using Konad special white polish.
So overall, I kind of really like this whole look. It reminds me of Jello (and you know there’s always room for J-E-L-L-O!) in a weird way. Now, if you’re a Jello hater, move along. Let me know what you think of my Day 2 creation. I’m usually pretty hard on myself when it comes to creativity and execution, but like I said earlier, I’m really diggin’ this. Can you dig it?
Don’t forget to check out the blogs of the other ladies participating in the 31 Inspired Days of Nail Art Challenge! Our next challenge will involve yellow which is my color obsession du jour. It will give me an excuse to finally use the crazy Nails Inc. yellow that I purchased a while ago. Woo hoo!
Thanks for stopping by and until next time!
I’ve seen this information floating around for an awesome Coterie Butter London deal so I finally decided to check it out. I just purchased 3 Butter London nail polishes + a matte top coat for $11!! How? Well, let me tell you how.
Go to: https://coterie.com/preview and use the access code OBSESSED-VIP. You will have to create an account and just click on the Butter London deal and add it to your cart. There are 6 available colors but only 5 are left. The colors you can choose from are:
Pillar Box Red, Wallis, Bluey, West End Wonderland, All Hail The Queen and Knackered. At this time, All Hail The Queen is sold out.
When you go to check out, use the coupon code VIPMEMBER and you will get an instant $25 discount. Standard shipping is free so you end up paying $11 for 3 Butter London polishes and a matte top coat!!! Wow!
Just thought I’d pass on this deal in case you’re interested. Don’t hate me for making you spend money…I’m just trying to pass on the good deals. 😉 Let me know if you take advantage of this awesome Coterie Butter London Deal. I picked up Pillar Box Red, Wallis and Knackered.
I am a little late in posting about this collection since I picked up a couple of colors a couple of weeks ago. Orly’s Fired Up Collection brings us 6 shades ranging from a soft neutrals to dark and vampy shades.
The colors in this collection are: Glow, Flare, Flicker, Ignite, Smolder and Rapture. (Photo Courtesy of Orly FB Page)
When I saw the display for this collection, I was immediately drawn to two of the colors which are the two that I will be sharing with you today.
Flicker
Smolder
I really wish I could say I love these, but I don’t. I like the colors, especially Flicker, but the formula was kind of atrocious. It was super watery and it flooded my cuticles. Even worse, I needed three coats to make these colors work and then the polish bubbled terribly on my nails. My experience with these two colors does not make me want to go out and purchase any of the other colors which is a shame because I quite like the shade collection as a whole. I know that I’ve been saying that I am super duper ready for Fall, but are we going to get any original Fall polish collections at all? I think that the best fall collection so far has been China Glaze On Safari–I seriously loved every single polish.
If you have any of these colors, I’d love to know what your experience was like. I know that sometimes products react differently on different people so maybe it was just my nails. What do you think of this collection as a whole?
Thanks for stopping by and until next time!
Today I headed over to CVS because I wanted to see if they had the Wet N Wild Halloween polishes. Unfortunately I didn’t find them even though they seem to be out in other areas. I can be patient–I just hope we eventually get them! I hope this doesn’t turn out to be a reverse Saved By The Nail collection for me! haha!
Even though I didn’t find the polishes I wanted, I stumbled upon a full display of new Megalast polishes. A NEW FALL COLLECTION!!! The Wet N Wild Pick Your Poison Collection is full of dark colors that will work like a charm for fall. (Hurry up, Fall! Hurry!! I miss you!) I am not that familiar with the Megalast line from Wet N Wild, but I am a big fan of their Wild Shine and FastDri lines so I thought that these would probably be winners too. Well…I love the colors and the formula was pretty decent, but the brushes on about half of my bottles were wonky–wonktastic. They seemed kind of stiff and and uneven. However, when the brush was fine, it applied the polish evenly and smoothly. I am always a fan of wide brushes, and this line of polishes definitely has a wide paddle-type brush. Let me show you the colors before I blab more about this collection.
Poison Ivy
Toxic Apple
Root Of All Evil
Deadly Dose
Venomous Vixen
Lethal Injection
So my final thoughts on this collection are: This is a very typical Fall collection with dark and rich colors. I like the jewel type shimmer of these colors. I do wish that the brushes were more consistent because when they are wonky, they are BAD. I like the wide brush for my wide nail beds, but I can see that those with smaller nail beds might have some problems with the brush. All in all, I think that these polishes are a steal for $1.99 each and even though the colors are not unique to hardcore polish fans, I think that colors like Poison Ivy and Root Of All Evil are worth picking up.
Let me know what you think of these colors. Have you seen this new collection in your area yet? Will you be picking up any of these colors? Which is your favorite?
Thanks for stopping by and until next time!
EDIT: I didn’t think about this when I first swatched the colors, but doesn’t this collection remind you a lot of China Glaze’s Vintage Vixen?
P.S. There are only a couple more days left to enter my giveaway for 5 essence polishes so enter soon if you haven’t done so already! 🙂
a Rafflecopter giveaway
I have never participated in any kind of nail art challenge mostly because my nail art is beyond pitiful. You may think I’m being hard on myself, but I actually cringe every time I attempt any kind of nail art. I always find a way to mess the look up no matter how simple it may seem. As you can imagine, this is a huge step for me but I joined up with some lovely ladies for my first ever 31 day-type challenge. Ohmygodimsorryifmynailarthurtsyoureyes.
We will be posting every 3 days which I am super happy about because I wouldn’t be able to handle the challenge if we had to post every day. The other ladies participating in this challenge are: Jessica from Once Upon A Polish, Nicole from Polish Me, Please!, Alaina from The Little Canvas and Ave from Polish Pixelle.
The first post as you can see from the graphic above is centered around “Red” so this is what I decided to do:
This is Zoya Posh from the MatteVelvet Collection for Fall 2009. This is such a rich and pigmented color that I surprisingly haven’t worn in eons. That will surely change because I am so freaking ready for Fall.
This is Posh with a coat of Seche Vite. Ok, this is absolutely amazing in my book. I am dying at how beautiful this looks.
I am normally not a stud/rhinestone person (like a rhinestone cowboy!), but I decided to do this just because I have tons of these studs. I am still not sure that I really like this so you’ll have to let me know what you think.
I have a bunch of polish stuff to share with you but I’ll leave it for tomorrow’s post. 🙂 So what do you think about my Day 1 look? Stay cool and talk to you later!
It’s no secret that I love holo polishes. When I saw the gorgeous Layla Hologram Effect polishes, I thought: “Prozac be damned! This is a nailgasm!” (Yeah, if you’ve been on Prozac, you know what I’m talking about.) So imagine how incredibly disappointed I was when I realized that for whatever reason their formula just did not like my nails at all. I seriously get chips after like an hour!!!! It was such a major bummer yet I managed to buy 5 of them. Oh, the lack of logic when you’re a nail polish addict…
Fast forward to now and I finally got around to trying the amazing Kiko holo that Sabrina sent to me. OH. MY. GAHHHHH! I am in freaking love with this color. This is 2/2 on the Kiko front. I have a third Kiko polish yet to try out and I’m pretty sure I’m going to love it too. I had a hard time getting an accurate picture of this polish, so bear with me. Without further ado, I present to you Kiko Peacock Green from their LE Lavish Oriental Collection:
The application on this is flawless. I could say that even one thickish coat is enough. It applied smoothly and evenly. Even better, I had ZERO clean up because the formula was so easy to manipulate. I did not apply a base or top coat and so far it’s wearing well. I’ve done dishes, cleaned up the porch (ew, ew ew!!! you know why if you follow me on twitter) and have washed my hands about a million times. I am impressed!
So what do you think? I think it’s absolutely amazing. Sabrina has unfortunately created a Kiko monster out of me: MUST. HAVE. MORE. KIKO! RAAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWWRRRRRRRR!
I’m headed to Sephora in a few minutes with a friend and since I’ve been so incredibly bummed out and stressed out about all the issues with my blog, you know what’s about to happen….
A huge thanks to everyone who entered my giveaway for a free Julep Maven Intro Box. The winner is: Melissa E. ! I have emailed Melissa and am waiting to hear back from her.
While you’re here, don’t forget to enter my latest giveaway which runs for one more week:
Thank you for continuing to visit my blog despite all the technical issues. I hope to have them resolved in the near future. 🙂
Last time I showed you two Essie polishes from some way older collections and today I have two from more recent collections. I don’t know about you, but the more polish I acquire, the more discriminating I become. I used to just run out and buy whole collections without really thinking about the colors–I just wanted every single polish because I felt incomplete not getting a complete collection. Now I tend to pass on colors more often. Case in point: I only bought ONE of the OPI Germany polishes because all the others were a snoozefest for me.
Today I have two previously shunned Essies to show you:
First one up is Tour De Finance:
This was the only color from the Navigate Her Collection that I didn’t purchase. Why? I have no idea. Maybe I was hating on pink that day. Who knows?! It’s a very shimmery hot pink with an awesome formula. You can get away with one thick coat but I applied 2 thin coats here.
Next up is Dive Bar:
Oh, Dive Bar! Why are you so deceptive? When I saw that purple shimmer flash in the bottle, I was drooling. But where did it go once I put it on my nails? Sadness! I’m not saying it isn’t an awesome nail polish, I was just a little disappointed that the purple was MIA. The formula on this seemed a little watery but it went on easily and 2 coats were enough for full opacity. Do I like this? Hell yeah!
Don’t forget to check out Beauty Stop Online if you’re looking for some of these Essie colors (and many other polish brands as well!). You can click here and browse through their selection.
Are there any polishes that you previously passed on and recently picked up?
****These items were sent for review. This in no way influences my review and opinion of the product.****
