200 Follower Giveaway WINNER!

Hey allllll!  After quite a few more late-night entry validations and 396 valid entries, I finally have a winner of my 200 follower giveaway!! 

Yay HollyG222!  Congratulations!  She also has a cute blog that you should check out called Madness and Polish Collide!  I sent you an e-mail about your winnings and you have 48 hours to respond or another winner will be chosen :)

<3 Whitney

PS don't forgot to enter my Apothica giftcard giveaway!!  It ends 8/15 :)

Quick Update!

Hello ladies!

Sorry for my lack of updating lately.  I'm super busy and super stressed with moving and I just haven't felt up to painting my nails.  I've painted them once in the past week or two and only took pictures once.  I just haven't got around to editing pics and posting yet. 

Anyhow...I just wanted to let you guys know that there's only TWO days left to enter my 200 Follower Giveaway!!  ANnnnnnnnd if you guys didn't catch my last post, Apothica has generously gave me a $25 gift card to give away as well, so I'm having TWO giveaways at once right now! Ahh!  However, you need to read the entry directions all the way through because you have to complete one of three options to enter.  There's only ONE person right now who's entered out of quite a few who has an eligible entry.  So please read the directions.  If you entered and didn't do it correctly, you can enter again, I won't disqualify you :)

I hope I get in the mood to update again soon...I'll try and de-stress!

Hope you all are well :)

<3 Whit

I'm BACK! And you can win a $25 Apothica giftcard! **CLOSED**

Hello everyone!  I'm back from my TN house hunting trip--it ended up being quite successful as The Boyfriend and I found ourselves a mighty fine condo!  I guess I am going to be pretty busy here within the next few weeks as I will be moving next Saturday and starting my job the week after!  I'll try and keep you all updated and do some blog posts--I have some great products that need trying!

Anyhow, as I said a while ago, I have a surprise for you all!  Apothica has so generously decided to sponsor a giveaway on my blog to win a $25 gift card that can be used for Apothica.com, SkinCareRx.com, and SkinBotanica.com!  Now normally I wouldn't run two giveaways at once but this is just too good of an opportunity to pass up!  Also HORRAY for 300 followers, too! I didn't have much else to personally give away so this is a good time for this!

In case you are unfamiliar with Apothica, it's a great online beauty store!  They sell all kinds of products from hair and make up to nail polish and candles, so you won't have a hard time spending $25 there!  Not to mention that SkinCareRx.com has just about every skin care product you could EVER want!  If you're big into nail polishes like me, you can get Deborah Lipmann, Essie, Barielle, among others!  They also have a great variety of make up brands like Stila, Clinique, MAC, Chanelle, and many many more.  And last but not least, if you're into natural and organic cosmetics and other beauty products, SkinBotanica.com is definitely up your alley!

So needless to say, I think this is grounds for a second giveaway :)  Since I'm going to be busy for a few weeks I'm going to run this giveaway until August 15th and the winner will be announced shortly after and you'll get your gift card redemption code directly from Apothica! 

Since it's an online thing, this is open to EVERYONE including INTERNATIONAL followers! Horray!  Here are the guidelines to enter:


1) You MUST be a GFC follower of this blog!
2) You MUST be 18 or older, or have your parents permission to enter!
3) You can only enter one time!
4) You MUST do one of the following options (but you can do more for extra entries):

Option 1: Facebook
1. Visit Apothica.com
2. Write on Apothica’s Facebook wall about what you think of Apothica (Link your post for an extra entry)
Bonus Entry: Opt in to Apothica’s Newsletter

Option 2: Twitter
1. Visit Apothica.com
2. Tweet about Apothica on your own Twitter Account (Link your tweet for an extra entry)
Bonus Entry: Retweet Apothica’s tweet about this giveaway (Link for an extra entry)

Option 3: Blog
1. Visit Apothica.com
2. Write something on your blog or post a video about what you think of
Apothica (Link your blog post for an extra entry)
Bonus Entry: Write about Stila Cosmetics and link it to Apothica (Link for an extra entry)

That's it everyone!  I will use random.org to figure out the winner and will forward their information to Apothica.  Apothica will then e-mail the winner for verification and then send you the gift card code!

Good luck!

Pink Wednesday! Burst Crackle!

I know I've been kind of double posting lately, but I didn't have as much time to swatch before I went out of town as I'd liked.  Oh well!

Anyway for today's pink Wednesday I decided to try my pink Burst Crackle polish called Shimmering Heat OVER Revlon's Grapefruit Fizz from yesterday's post!  I thought since it was so translucent I'd add crackle to it and I thought the opposing pinks would look neat.

However since the pinks ended up being kind of similar it ended up looking like some sort of scaly pink snake skin, I can't really decide if I like it or not.  In person unless you look close it just looked textured, but you can see in the pics that it's scaly looking!

Zoom in for scaly effect

Lizardy

Overall I was REALLY satisfied with the Burst crackle!  I didn't use it until now because when I swatched it on a nail wheel it SUCKED, but it worked pretty good in person!  It went on very easily and I didn't have a hard time getting the perfect coat thickness for it to crackle nicely.  I also have a purple one and next time I go to the supply store I think I'll get orange if they still have it :)

That's it for now!  I'll be back tomorrow evening with a SURPRISE for all of you!

<3 Whitney

Revlon Scented Polishes!

Soo while shopping at Meijer the other day, my friend Jenn and I stumbled upon Revlon's new scented polish display and cleaned it all out!

I got three of their polishes: Watermelon Fizz, Grapefruit Fizz, and Orange Fizz, and have two of these lovelies to show you today!

First off Grapefruit Fizz:

I really loved this color in the bottle, but as you can see it is not very opaque!  You can see visible nail line on every finger and that is after FOUR coats!  It sucked because I took off a dark polish before applying this so it made my nails look dirty since it didn't cover up the stain.  Oh well. 

Ideally, I think this would look lovely over any other pink polish, and I LOVE the scent!  I'm not sure if I'd call it grapefruit, but I don't really know what grapefruit smells like normally, but I don't think this is it.  But it was good smellin' nonetheless.  The application was okay, the formula is all right for a drugstore brand, but like I said...disappointed with the non-opaqueness of it!  Next time I'll probably wear it over Ulta Heirhead...'cause I think they'd look nice together! 

Anyhow, despite it being awkward to smell the polish (hahah!) I decided to put Watermelon Fizz on my toes! *Warning: feet pics ahead!*  It's a lovely red sparkly polish!

I think I only ended up with two, maybe three coats on my toes.  It went on much more opaque than Grapefruit Fizz!  I really have been into the lighter reds lately (along with orange), and really liked this polish.  Not to mention it DID smell just like watermelon!  One thing I really like about these polishes is that there's a scratch and sniff snicker on the outside so you can smell what they smell like when they're dried!  Yum!  I liked that...'cause I can't go around smelling my toes, that'd be weird.  And awkward for me as I'm not sure I can get my toes to my face anymore.  Hah. 

Anyway, overall, Grapefruit Fizz is a dud by itself, but will look great over any other pink, and I am in love with Watermelon Fizz!  I probably won't be doing my toes for a while 'cause this will be on it :)

Hope you guys had a great weekend! I'm in Tennessee now looking for a place to live, and I'll be back Thursday!

<3 Whitney

P.S. Don't forget to enter my 200 follow giveaway! Have you done so yet??

Spectraflaaiirrrr!

Okay ladiessssss, I know I already showed you what my Spectraflair top coat looked like over OPI Grape Set Match the other day, but I thought I'd show you how it looks over the Funky Fingers Island Collection polishes!

There are two pictures of each because I was trying to get a good picture...my camera doesn't capture the lighter colored holos as well!

Spectraflair over FF Curacao

Spectraflair over FF Curacao

Spectraflair over FF Cayman Island (Blurred)

Spectraflair over FF Cayman Island

Spectraflair over FF Kingston

Spectraflair over FF Kingston (Blurred)

Spectraflair over FF Port Royal (favorite!)

Spectraflair over FF Port Royal

Overall, I love how the Spectraflair top coat gives a beautiful, holo glitter effect even over lighter polishes!  It didn't work as well as over Grape...Set...Match but I account that to the brighter colors and the fact that I hadn't put BB's in it yet so it probably wasn't shaken up as much when I tried it.  Here's it's potential again, in case you missed the post on it:

Spectraflair over OPI Grape Set Match

BAM! Holo!  I love it.  I'm so glad I ordered this top coat, you guys should all try and get your hands on some Spectraflair powder!  A girl I know from PAA just mixed it with Wet n Wild clear polish to come up with this lovely holo coat! 

Do you guys like holos or are you over the obsession everyone has with them?  Have you tried Spectraflair before?  I don't think I'll ever get over the holo effect, I think it looks so cool and all the CG Holos are on my wish list :)

<3 Whitney

Klean Color Chunky Holo Teal!

Did I leave you all DYING to see what I did over my matte Icing Mood Swing polish yesterday?  No?  Haha, I'm just kidding, I'm not good at cliff hangers. 

Anyhow, as you can tell by the title, I added Klean Color Chunky Holo Teal over top of it which not only made it shiny instead of matte, it also made it glittery!  I had a hard time taking pictures of it, but check them out anyway:

You can still kind of see the color changing polish underneath...it still changes with a glitter top coat over top of it!  Some of the pictures don't do the Klean Color justice, you'll need to blow them up!

I added 2 coats of the Klean Color glitter over top which includes a holographic pink/purple/blue glitter suspended in a light blue clear jelly base.  It goes on real easy and in my opinion, it's not as hard as a normal glitter to get off.  It looks fabulous in the sun, but my camera just wouldn't get a good picture of it!  You can kind of see a small flash of different colors in the bottle in the last picture.  I feel like despite it being teal, this glitter may look better over a different color...or maybe I just needed more coats! 

I still liked how it spruced up my matte mani from yesterday, though :)

What do you guys think? Are you all for Klean Colors?

That's it for now!

<3 Whitney

Icing Mood Swing Polish: Stormy/Serene

Hope you guys are having a great Friday! Wooo hooo, weekend!  I'm in Texas this weekend for a wedding, so I'm sure I'm pretty busy (but who knows, actually...'cause this is a scheduled post haha).  But I DO get to see Harry Potter today, yahoo! I've been waiting forever for this movie!  If I weren't at a wedding, I'd do a HP themed mani!

Anyhow, the other day I decided to try my Icing Mood Swing polish since I hadn't yet and I was wearing a blue outfit!  I was excited to try it because the color is supposed to change with your "mood" but in actuality it really only changes if it's hot or cold outside, hah.  I have their Stormy/Serene polish which appears on the label to turn from light blue/teal to a dark blue/purple:

However, this wasn't really an accurate representation of the colors, but whatever! I'll show some pics and then talk about what I think of the polish:

What it looks like normally..you can see my nail tips are darker than my nails

It's like a unintentional funky french :)

This is the color in hot water

Hot water again

Dark blue in cold water

Cold water again!

Overall, I really ended up liking both colors that this polish changed to.  Since my nails go past the tips of my fingers I kind of thought the darker tips/lighter nail part looked a bit awkward, especially since this polish dries matte.  It grew on my after a little while, though!

I'm still not sure I'm really into the matte polish!  I have Zoya Lolly from their Mod Mattes Collection and haven't tried it for that reason.  Anyway...the formula for this is okay.  It goes on pretty easily, but it looked really streaky going on and made me nervous applying it, but after 3 coats it looked all right.  The brush kind of sucked, though, and I ended up getting it everywhere.  I still think it's a really cool idea and I'm glad I bought it!  Tomorrow I'll show you what I did with it when I got tired of the matte look :)

Wellll that's it for now, have a good one, guys!

<3 Whitney

PS have you tried any of the mood color changing polish?  It's making me want to try my Del Sol polish again, I love how it changes in the sun! 

Ojon 2 Minute Hair Mask Review!

Wowsers I feel like I haven't made a non-nail polish post in a while :)

BUT I wanted to tell you all about Ojon's 2-Minute Hair Mask!  I got this stuff from a giveaway a long time ago and have tried a few times and have been so enthralled with nail polish that I put off talking about it.  However, it's a great product and here's a couple pictures for you:

Here's what the big jar looks like

Inside you can see the consistency a bit

Hah...you can tell by the lid that it's been in my shower a while :)

Kind of lotion-looking

The consistency of the hair mask is a little thicker than lotion and feels more along the lines of body butter.  It's basically like a leave in conditioner, here's what the product claims it does:

"In just two minutes, you can transform dry, dehydrated hair into silky smooth, beautiful tresses! Specially formulated with pure Ojon oil and 9 exotic oils and butters, this replenishing mask treatment instantly restores your hair, leaving it feeling clean and refreshed, without weighing it down. " -- QVC Website

After using this product quite a few times I can vouch for it myself.  It works way better than normal conditioner and leaves your hair silky without looking greasy.  It was also silky smooth all day!  I normally leave in my conditioner while I wash or something, so this 2-minute thing wasn't an issue for me! 

Despite it working wonders I probably wouldn't buy this product again because it runs for about $30, which I think is too expensive for a leave-in conditioner!  Not to mention that the smell isn't very good (it kind of smells like old lady perfume), and I have this obsessive thing with my hair smelling nice.  Therefore I doubt I'd pay $30 for a product that didn't leave me confident in my hair smelling great! 

However, if you use other products to style your hair that would cover up the smell, and you're willing to shell out $30, this is something I'd suggest you try!  They have other formulas based on your hair type that are supposed to help restore your hair and make it smooth, so check them out!  You can buy their products at Ulta or online at their website!

That's all for now, folks :) Enjoy your weekend!

<3 Whitney

Pink Wednesday! Essie Watermelon :)

Happy Wednesday, friends!  I leave for Texas tomorrow, so I probably will not be as responsive as normal for the next week or so.  I will have my phone and maybe my laptop, but I plan on being pretty busy! 
I hope you all are having a great week so far!  This week I have a pink to show you from Essie called Watermelon!  I love this color and I was lemming for it for a long time!  Luckily I got it from Traci's Blog Sale!

Up close...eep I see bubbles!

Sooo sometimes I have some issues with Essie formula as they are often thinner than I prefer, but this one worked great.  I needed 3 coats for it to become opaque and I actually enjoy their smaller brush.  From the looks of this last picture it appeared that there was some slight bubbling on my thumb nail, but I did not notice it in person.  Chances are it was my fault because I leave nearly zero dry time in between my coats because I'm impatient!   

Anyhow, I really like this pink and I've been wanting it forever, so I'm glad I bought it!  I feel like I may have a dupe of it in my collection somewhere...if I find it I'll let you all know :)

Have a great week while I'm away!

<3 Whitney

Nicole by OPI Kardashian Kolors Press Release

Okay so I have a secret guilty pleasure of watching Keeping up with the Kardashians...which is why I'm kind of excited for this line to be released for holiday season 2011!  I am not a fan of press releases, like I've said before, because everyone posts them, but I wanted to share this one anyway!

Nicole by OPI Announces Kardashian Partnership, Featuring 14 “Kaptivating”

Nail Lacquers

Nicole by OPI joins the Kardashian/Jenner family in announcing the launch of Kardashian Kolors, 14 new nail lacquer shades inspired by these six trendsetting women. Kris Jenner and her five daughters – Kourtney, Kim and Khloe Kardashian and Kylie and Kendall Jenner – are known for their head-to-toe unique style, which now includes nails!  

“We are so excited to work with everyone’s favorite TV family – the Kardashians – to share a diverse collection of fashion-forward shades,” declares Suzi Weiss-Fischmann, Nicole by OPI Executive VP & Artistic Director. “With lacquers ranging from high-shine and sparkly hues to neutral taupe and pinkish coral, Kardashian Kolors offers the perfect accessory for every woman – from teens to moms and everyone in between.”

            Kardashian Kolors includes:

It's All About the Glam

Shimmering-white glitz for the glamorous gal!

Kim-pletely in Love

Finally! The pink of her dreams has arrived.

All Kendall-ed Up

Powder your nose and get some pink on those toes!

Wear Something Spar-Kylie

Glitter-ly the prettiest pink ever!

Sealed with a Kris

Handle with care: This klassy red is top-of-the-line!

 Rainbow in the S-Kylie

Girls just wanna have…glitter in every color!
  

  Disco Dolls

Glittery gold glam gone wild!

Kendall on the Katwalk

A head-turning blue-green with a “sparkling” personality!

Listen to your Momager!

If you don’t, you’ll never see this fabulous blue again!

Follow Me on Glitter

A glittery deep gray that always has something to say!

My Empire...My Rules

This take-charge taupe is always on-trend.

Khloé Had a Little Lam-Lam

A deep dark emerald worth falling for.

Hard Kourt Fashionista

This delicious deep brown is the chicest hue in town!

Kourt is Red-y for a Pedi

And this captivating coral looks “fab” on everyone!

Nicole by OPI Nail Lacquers and Nail Treatments contain no DBP, Toluene, or Formaldehyde.  Nicole by OPI formulas are long-lasting, fast-drying, and salon-quality, with products featuring the Perfect Stroke brush for streak-free, even coverage. Kardashian Kolors will be available Holiday 2011 for $7.99 each ($11.00 CAD). 

For more information, visit nicolebyopi.com. Follow Nicole by OPI on Twitter @NicoleByOPI and become a Facebook fan!