Hello, hello! Can you believe it’s already the first week of April? Every time April rolls around, I get the urge to revisit The Wasteland: “April is the cruelest month, breeding lilacs out of the dead land, mixing memory and desire, stirring dull roots with spring rain.” I have always loved Modernist poetry and literature with a fiery passion and wish I had more time to just read. This April, I have a few monthly polishes to share with you, one of them being Colors by Llarowe Spring Forward which is the Polish of the Month for April 2018. Let’s take a look at the polish below. Continue reading “Colors by Llarowe Spring Forward – POTM April 2018”
Tag: Pure Ice
China Glaze Xpress-Ahh! – #vintagepolishfriday
I don’t think that I have ever been a fan of a simple brown color for my nails. The closest I ever came to it was when I became obsessed with Tom Ford Bitter Bitch strictly because of the name. Do you remember when I wrote up my April Fool’s post regarding this polish? Oh boy, that was pretty funny especially the comments. Feel free to check it out here. Now, the reason why I’m talking about brown polish is because I have an interesting polish for Vintage Polish Friday that just happens to be brown: China Glaze Xpress-Ahh! Let me show you what I did with it below. Continue reading “China Glaze Xpress-Ahh! – #vintagepolishfriday”
KBShimmer Fig-Get About It
I made it through the weekend, and I survived Saturday at Chuck E. Cheese’s with my brats. Jonas was on his best behavior for a while, but it seems that he gets very shy when he is the center of attention. When we started singing to him so he could blow out his candles, he started crying! I think he just felt overwhelmed with all of the attention because he got over it fairly quickly once we moved on. He was also crazy scared of Chuck E. Cheese and refused to touch him when he came out for the birthday dance. It was pretty funny, and I got plenty of pictures and videos. Besides that, I didn’t have too much going on this weekend and spent a couple of hours swatching a few polishes. As you may recall, last week KBShimmer announced their rebranding. I think it’s gorgeous and am so happy that the polishes come in boxes now–they have such a luxe feel to them. I was able to pick out a few polishes from the core collection to share with you since they are now all rebranded in the new bottles. The shade I have for you today is KBShimmer Fig-Get About it. Let me show you some swatches below. Continue reading “KBShimmer Fig-Get About It”
Stamping Saturdays #63
Hey there! Welcome to another installment of Stamping Saturdays! Last week I went to Sally’s telling myself that all I needed was a bottle of Yellow Stopper, but of course I was lured in by the discount/sale section. By the way, do any of you guys use Yellow Stopper as a peel off base coat? I guess I was under the (incorrect) impression that it could be used while swatching but no peeling happened so now I ended up with a huge bottle that I have no use for. It’s so annoying. Anyway, while I was at Sally’s I saw this Orly polish off on its own and it ended up being under $2. When does that ever happen? I guess I am just lucky when it comes to polish. Why can’t I be lucky with the lottery, hmmm?
Orly Teal Unreal is a gorgeous teal polish that unfortunately photographs blue because my camera hates me real bad. The polish is incredibly pigmented and is gorgeous at two coats. The best part is that it does not stain at all so it’s a total winner in my book.
I’ve been wanting to use this design from plate MoYou London Back To The 70’s – 03 (press sample) for a while now, but it always seemed kind of a weird image. I ended up liking this quite a bit because my placement came out pretty good. It also helped that my Pure Ice Silver Mercedes stamps like a dream.
So what do you think about this mani? Is it just kinda weird or are you digging it? Do you have any fun weekend plans? We are probably going to be going out to dinner for my dad’s birthday since he turned 76 yesterday. Well, I hope you’re doing well and make sure you check out the other manis below. Thanks so much for the visit, and I will talk to you soon.
PSSSST! Hey, you! Yes, it’s me again. I wanted to invite you to join our stamping group. If you like to stamp, come join us by clicking on the image below to be taken to the group page. The group is growing, and we’d love to have you participate.
Bye for reals, now!
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Stamping Saturdays #48
Happy Saturday everyone. It’s kind of a gloomy day here which feels weird for California. I thought that we were going to have more rain, but apparently we’re going to have a pretty sunny and mild holiday week. I still haven’t done any Christmas shopping, and I think I’m pretty much dead on that at this point. Yesterday I went to Target and it was mayhem–what was I expecting? I’m going to try to go tonight to get everything done but first I’m going to stop by and visit my Peanut Brat. Last night I had such a hard time deciding what to to for today’s Stamping Saturdays until I started digging in my untrieds. Let me show you how my mani came together.
First I started with 2 coats of OPI Get Cherried Away (press sample) from the OPI Coca Cola Collection. It’s such a beautiful berry color that is super opaque. I wanted to use this berry shade as my base for the next polish because it has a jelly finish that needs to be built up.
This is the first time that I use anything from Pipe Dream Polish, and I love it. A big thanks to Frosso for this gorgeous polish. I love being exposed to new brands and sometimes I just don’t even have time to check out what’s out there. Pipe Dream Polish Interference is a glitter polish in a dark jelly base. I love the glitter in this polish, but it does dry super lumpy/gritty which is why you need a good thick top coat to smooth it out. I only applied one coat of Interference over Get Cherried Away and one coat of Seche to give it a smooth and shiny finish.
For my stamp, I used my trusty Pure Ice Silver Mercedes and the paisley image from Bundle Monster plate BM-315. I love how cleanly this stamped.
So what do you think of this mani? I really like it, and I loved trying out a new polish brand. It’s always a love/hate moment because now I’m going to be drooling over yet another brand when I’m trying to to be good about my spending. Well, I hope you’re doing well today and don’t forget to join us every Saturday for Stamping Saturdays. You can use the hashtag #stampingsaturdays on instagram so that I can find you! Thanks for stopping by today, and I will talk to you soon!
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Stamping Saturdays #47
It’s pretty freaking cold here–for California that is. We had a pretty rainy day yesterday which we really need because of the drought, but it’s mayhem when it rains. We actually had a tornado briefly touch down in LA which is pretty crazy for us. It’s supposed to rain later in the week so I hope we don’t have any serious disasters. I’ve been waiting to show you the amazeball polish that I got recently so excuse me if I start to sound slightly spastic. Last weekend, I decided to break my two month no-buy for one of the flaky polishes that was put out by KBShimmer. Oooohhh it’s a beauty for sure! Let me show you what I did with it for today’s Stamping Saturdays.
I started with two coat of OPI Miss You-niverse (press sample.) This color photographed darker than it is in real life, but you can still appreciate how rich this polish is.
Here is the star of the show: KBShimmer Rainbow Shield. This is one thick coat of the polish over OPI Miss You-niverse.
And here it is mattified. Holy shitballs. There are no words. Seriously, just look at the beauty of the flakes.
Since it is Stamping Saturdays, of course I had to stamp this up! I used Pure Ice Silver Mercedes and an image from Born Pretty plate BP-13 for this design. There is something about the flakes peeking from behind this pattern and I’m really digging!
If your interested in purchasing KBShimmer Rainbow Shield, you can find it exclusively at KBShimmer’s Etsy shop. It’s a super duper limited edition polish along with 5 other flakies that were released recently. They are priced at $9.75 each or $58 for the set of 6. I’m thinking about picking up Flame Queen and Lighting Ridge as well, but I’m trying so hard to be good about my polish spending. WHY DO YOU DO THIS TO ME, KBSHIMMER?!?!?! Anyway, let me know what you think about this mani. If you love stamping as much as I do, join me every Saturday for Stamping Saturdays. You can use the hashtag #stampingsaturdays on Instagram to link up with us–we’d love to see your creations. Thank you for stopping by today, and I will talk to you soon.
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Pure Ice Bling On The Holidays Collection
Normally, this is the time when I would start lamenting that tomorrow is Monday and that I have to go to work, but not today because I have Monday off. Woot! Now that Thanksgiving is behind us, I feel like I can now bring out the holiday decorations without thinking that it’s way too early. Can you believe that tomorrow we will be entering the final month of 2014?! This is both exciting and depressing at the same time because I realize that one more year has gone by and I am still stuck in a rut–but hey, at least I’m alive. Anywho, today I’m showing the new Pure Ice Bling On The Holidays Collection which is made up of 6 glitter toppers. I picked some random colors to pair them with to show that they aren’t just for the holidays, so let me show you what they look like.
Pure Ice Bling On The Holidays
Pure Ice Feeling Ornamental
Pure Ice Gold Peppermints
Pure Ice Pure Icicles
Pure Ice Santa Marry Me
Pure Ice Winter Blues
I have to admit that I was a little underwhelmed when I saw this collection because they pretty much all looked the same to me, but I ended up really liking them. The thing about these polishes is that they can look incredibly different depending on what base color you use. Personally I really liked the outcome when I used a dark base–which is probably why Winter Blues is my favorite of them all. These polish are going to pretty much change your base color because the clear base is full of fine shimmer that gives your nails an icy look to them. And you know what the best part is? These retails for just under $2. Yep, you know I love me some expensive polish, but I am not a polish snob in the least. I love Pure Ice for their affordable and quality polish. If you want to get your hands on these, I recommend that you check your local Walmart. My Walmart is usually pretty well stocked when it comes to Pure Ice, but they do go fast. So what do you think about these shades? Will you be picking any of these up? Let me know what you think below. Thanks for the visit today, and I will talk to you soon.
Stamping Saturdays #36
It is so incredibly hot today, so I have no idea why I decided to focus on dealing with my serious make up hoarding problem. You see, before I even started getting obsessed with nail polish, I was even more obsessed with make-up. My make-up collection grew so much and so quickly, that it got to the point that I became disgusted with the amount I was collecting and also the amount of money I had wasted on everything. I say “wasted” because there is no way I can get through all the make-up I bought before it goes bad. Who needs 15 NARS blushes? I only have one face, right? A couple of weeks ago I wanted to use one of my favorite lipsticks: Bobbi Brown Cocoa Berry. Well, it had gone rancid. Almost $30 for a lipstick and it went rancid. I then checked Bobbi Brown Heather Mauve and it was rancid as well. And that is how the great make-up destashing of 2014 began. I’ll share a little more about that below but first let me show you what I did for Stamping Saturdays today.
Illamasqua Poke is such a gorgeous polish. Please excuse the bad pictures and the bad polish job. The truth is that I had to use my non-swatching hand today because I broke a nail on my swatching hand. I didn’t mean for my skin to look so greasy, but I had to use some serious moisture because my cuticles were a total mess. Are you as sad as I am that Sephora no longer carries Illamasqua??? I think that Nordstrom carries the brand now, but I have kind of fallen out of love with them because of the price hikes. I have a lot of Illamasqua polishes in my collection, so I will probably only buy new ones if the colors are really unique.
I then used Pure Ice Silver Mercedes to stamp this chain link design from one of my MoYou London plates. I wasn’t feeling too inspired mostly because it was such a pain to do this on my non-swatching hand…I wish I was ambidextrous!
Now, let me show you all the stuff that I junked today…
I want to cry just thinking how much money I just threw in the garbage. Some of those items were used maybe once or twice. The worst offenders are the NARS lipglosses because those definitely went bad quickly. I think that it’s just the nature of the product, but at 20-some dollars a pop, I will not be buying lipglosses in this quantity. I have a lot more make-up that I should probably get rid of but I just can’t bring myself to do it just yet. This is probably 1/4th of all the make up I have so there is plenty more to sift through–I am definitely not looking forward to it.
So, what do you think about collecting make-up? Are you also a make-up collector or do you focus on nail polish? I think that the fact that polish doesn’t truly every go bad (thinner to the rescue!) makes me feel a little bit better about my collection. Anyway, I hope you’re staying cool today if the temperatures are infernal where you live. Unfortunately, we are entering wildfire season here in OC so I’m always sad when that starts up because so many people end up losing their homes and all the brave men and women firefighters are put in such danger. Thanks for stopping by today, and I will talk to you soon.
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Stamping Saturdays #35
Happy Saturday and welcome to another installment of Stamping Saturdays! I can’t believe that I stayed up until like 4 am last night and then I woke up at 8:30 for no apparent reason. Now I’ve just been watching Project Runway and putting off doing the cleaning I need to do. I’ve always loved Project Runway but I still sorely miss Michael Kors. I do like Zac Posen, but Michael was in a class by himself. I was having a hard time figuring out what I wanted to do for today’s post, so I looked through my melmers and decided to use Chanel Taboo. I’ve only used this polish once since I bought it mainly because it wears like crap on me. It basically stared completely peeling off my nails the same day. Anyway, let me show you what a did for my stamped mani today.
Yes, Chanel Taboo is gorgeous. Yes, it is too expensive. No, it’s not really worth it if the brand wears poorly on you. I think that body chemistry has a lot to do with how polish wears on you so I’m sure that Chanel wears perfectly fine on other people–just not on me. I guess this is a good thing because I only have one Chanel in my collection but that doesn’t keep me from admiring others from afar. My wallet is happy.
I then used this flowery image from plate MASH 42 and Pure Ice Silver Mercedes to stamp this design. I’m feeling a little meh on this overall, but it has this laid back island feel too it that I’m kind of enjoying.
What are your plans today? It’s pretty freaking hot here today so I’m probably just going to be lazy and do some cleaning…and maybe watch a bunch of zombie stuff on Netflix. Thanks for stopping by today, and I will talk to you soon!
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Stamping Saturdays #18
Welcome to another edition of Stamping Saturdays! Let me ask you: have you done your stamping mani? We would love to see what you come up with so join us by linking your mani at the end of this post. Stamping is probably the very first nail art-y thing that I ever did when nail polish became my #1 obsession so it’s something that will always be fun for me. I hope that it’s fun for you too–fun enough to join us, that is. Ha! Anyway, today I am feeling kinda blah (not mentally, but physically) so I’m being a bum. I think I just ate some questionable things like the “Le Burger de Madame” at Mimi’s Cafe. My first mistake was even going to Mimi’s cause that place is pretty barftastic. I’m sure that it shaved off at least a day of my life considering the amount of fat and calories that this buttery bovine behemoth contains. (Buttery bovine behemoth–alliteration at its finest or at its worst?) I also watched the newest Captain America movie and I did enjoy it despite the shitty reviews. To be honest, I will pretty much enjoy any action movie and can’t even think of one that I have hated off the top of my head. I really liked watching Alien vs. Predator which was universally despised, so I should stop talking about movies since I clearly have no taste. By the way, why didn’t I know that Robert Redford was in this movie??? He’s one of the pillars of my childhood crush trifecta: Robert Redford, Harrison Ford and Sean Connery.
I was definitely a weird kid…you don’t have to say it! But come on! Sean Connery was always at the top–it must have been the accent. Harrison Ford was a hot archeologist/professor (and we all know how I feel about professors). Enough said. And Hubbell, I mean Robert was just…Robert Redford. Wait, wasn’t this post supposed to be about nail polish and stamping? Oh yeah, duh…
The polish I decided to use as my base is China Glaze Social Animal. This is one of those ancient polishes that I love hunting for at dusties. Social Animal is from the Fashion Lounge Collection that came out sometime in 2004. It’s a sheer red with lots of shimmer, and I quite liked it despite needing three coats.
I then used an image from Bundle Monster plate BM 322 and Pure Ice Silver Mercedes. I’m feeling a little meh about the design because it was so hard to line it up correctly. You can see that the design on my pinky nail isn’t centered, but whatever–it can’t always be perfect.
Before I forget to mention it, I got a chance to meet Robert Redford like 10 years ago when I was working at the airport as a ticket agent. I may have lost my ability to speak momentarily or maybe I burst into a heartfelt rendition of “The Way We Were.” Who can remember that far back anyway? So, what do you think about this mani? Yay or nay? Please weigh in below and don’t forget to check out all the other Stamping Saturdays manis. Thanks so much for stopping by today, and I will talk to you soon.
P.S. I’m really not crazy. I’m just passionate. At least that is what I tell myself…
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