Color Club Snow Queen

Good morning pretties!

I've got a better fall color to show you girls today :)  It's a Color Club that I'm pretty sure is called Snow Queen!

Now, I got this in a set at Ross a while ago and I initially had it labeled as Rev'd Up, but after looking at swatches, I know that's not the case as it has no shimmer!  BUT it looks pretty close to Snow Queen--do you have another suggestion?

Anywho, here are the swatches!

Snow Queen is a dark, vampy purple jelly!  The formula was great and went on smooth and opaque in only two coats.  In case you were wondering, this is the polish I put on after removing my Butter London Fail :)  This is definitely more of the fall look I was going for!

It was a bit darker than colors I usually wear, but I still liked it a lot!  The only downside to this mani was that it started chipping the next day!  Like...12 hours later!  I did my normal routine of Rejuvacote + polish + Seche Vite and apparently that still didn't help.  I was disappointed because my mani before this lasted like 9 days with the same routine!  Oh well.

I took it off after a day (and by took it off I mean chipped it all off) and replaced it with ORLY Lucky Duck.  Love!

<3 Whitney

Nail Venturous The Shimmer Effect

Onward with Made by Hand May!

Ahhhhhh!  Amy keeps surprising me with the creativity and quality of her polishes!  I lovvveee herrrr!

I've got another beautiful polish from her to show you guys!  It's called The Shimmer Effect and it's probably tied for my favorite with Corrupted!

Lookie lookie:

Oh my gosh.  GORGEOUS!

The Shimmer Effect is a purple jelly/cream with micro yellow and green and larger gold and bronze square glitters!  It looks FABULOUS together!  The formula was absolutely perfect, I couldn't even tell there was glitter in it, it went on like a cream, no glitter-fishin' what so ever!  These pictures show three coats, but 2 would've been just fine!

Have you guys got your hands on any Nail Venturous polishes?  Which one is your fave?

<3 Whitney

Goood morning loves! Here's China Glaze Grape Juice

I've got a little salon around here getting rid of all their China Glaze and older OPI polishes, so they like to sell them to be super cheap, like 4 or 5 for $10, depending on who is working.  In my last haul I picked up a pretty purple from China Glaze called Grape Juice! 
I actually hadn't heard of this polish before and I'm glad I got it!  Check it out:

Kind of beat up label, but it was BN!

Artificial Light

So grape juice is a metallic-ish purple shimmer polish.  It looks pretty much the same in person as it does in pictures, it's a lighter purple with blue undertones that went on nicely in 2 coats.  The formula is decent and it's got enough shimmer in it to not make too watery or too thick like you can sometimes have with the CG creams.  I feel like this would be a pretty polish to stamp over, so when I feel so inclined as to try stamping again (my first time failed horribly), I'll probably dig this one out! 

Do you guys have Grape Juice?  I think it may be part of China Glaze's permanent collection, so check at Sally's if you're interested in picking it up!

<3 Whitney

Julep Viola!

Happy Daylight Savings Day!  Did everyone set their clocks forward?  I actually can't believe it went by so fast since I set our clocks back...I just saw the other day that I missed the one in our guest bedroom and almost changed it until the BF told me that there were only a few more days before they switched again!  Cray-zay.

Before it's officially "spring" I've got one more dark wintery polish to show you: Julep Viola.

Viola is a deep purple-wine colored jelly with red undertones that looks purple in the bottle but appears nearly black n the nail after just two coats.  Initially after one coat, even though it wasn't totally opaque, you could still tell it was purple, but after two coats, it was hard to tell unless in direct sunlight.

Natural lighting

Natural lighting

Artificial Lighting...you can see a bit of purple in the bottle here

Even though Julep isn't my favorite brand, the formula on this jelly was pretty good.  And normally I'd be happy about a 2-coater, but I was bummed it seemed more black than purple.

I think I've actually got the hang of Julep polish application down now pretty decently.  Even though the brush is absurdly long and I normally have issues with a glob of polish running down the length of the brush and ruining the polish.  However, I found that if you get the timing down right, you can paint one nail and up to two or three more with the excess polish without dipping the brush back into the bottle.  So that was cool for me, haha.

Anyway, I like this polish more in the bottle, but it's just too dark for me to wear normally.  I've put this polish, among others, for sale on my blog sale, so you should check it out!  I recently added a few more polishes and lowered some prices!

<3 Whitney

OPI Lincoln Park After Dark Suede...Ruffian!

Hello pretties.

Sorry for the delay in posts, I was out of town for business all last week!  BUT I spent last weekend swatching a ton of polishes and editing photos so I could update in the evenings from my hotel, but the internet turned out to be something like $14 bucks a day, which I refused to spend, haha.  But now I'm back!

I've got a mani to show you that I did with Lincoln Park After Dark Suede, which is much prettier than I expected.  I first put down two coats of OPI Glamour Game, a pretty gold with slight glitter flecks, and added a coat of LPAD suede as a ruffian.  I was super psyched to get pictures of this right away, but I only got two pics before my camera died and I couldn't find my camera charger, so some of them are from my iPhone.

 

 

I really liked LPAD suede.  I have OPI Ink Suede, which I've only used once and had a really hard time with, so I was kind of reluctant to try another suede.  BUT, I looked up some tips for mattes and suedes and I think I must have just been trying to apply it too slowly.  Since they dry so quickly, you have to be quick in your application.  They are pretty opaque and go on usually in one coat, but I could still kind of see the gold underneath the first coat, so I added a second after the first coat had dried. 

I don't think I'd be opposed to owning more suedes now that I had much better luck with LPAD!  What suedes are your fav? 

<3 Whitney

31 Day Challenge, Day 6! Julep Chloe!

Soooo I haven't been showing off my Julep Maven boxes...I promise I'll do that tomorrow and show you ladies who haven't signed up what you can get!

What I got from my October box included Julep Chloe...in the bottle it's a beautiful dark purple with suspended purple glitter that looks just awesome.

On the nail, however it looks almost black unless you're in the sunlight.  It's a bit too dark for me personally, but it's a great fall/winter color and I'm hoping it'll grow on me...'cause I'm not going to have time to do them again for a few days!

You can see the purple in the bottle in this picture

Nails look black...eh.

The polish itself didn't have the best consistency.  I haven't got the Julep application down yet--since the bottle is so skinny and the brush is so long, it is hard to get excess polish off of the brush.  If you don't get enough excess off, it runs down the whole length of the brush before you're done painting the nail...and ugh!  Some of the other Julep polishes aren't as bad, but since this one was a thicker polish, it was hard.  Howeverrrr I ignored the thickness and celebrated because this polish covered completely in only two coats!  It tried a little more matte than I prefer as well, but with some Seche Vite top coat it was awesomely shiny!  Horray!

How are you guys enjoying the Maven program?  What category did you get?  I got Bombshell.  Sounds sexy...not sure how I got there lol.

<3 Whit

Zoya "Jem" from new Smoke and Mirrors Collection!

Oooh dear.  SO I've been meaning to post, oh I don't know, maybe like 5 different polishes I've taken pictures of during my moving/unpacking process, but I just haven't got around to it!  Sorry! 

I have been sent some Barielle polishes to review...but I still have one left and I'd like to do them all at once.  So then I was going to update with one of my new fav polishes, Zoya Whitney (biased much? hah), but I tried Zoya Jem today from their Smoke and Mirrors Collection and it's so fabulous that I want to show you all NOW! 

Soooo excuse me for the amount of pictures...they are all kind of similar but I wanted to show you guys all the color you can see in this fabulous dark purple.

Love love love.

I've been having great luck with Zoya.  I took advantage of their buy one get two free...even though shipping costs the same as a polish.  I've been wanting Whitney and another Kimmy, so I thought I'd try this as well!

Anywho, this lovely, what I would call duochrome, went on great in 2 coats and could be a 1 coater if you're in a rush.  It shows a lovely array of purples, reds, and bronzes in the sun light and it looks decent on my nubbin nails.  I've broken a bunch during moving and unpacking, which is a bummer, but with a little cuticle TLC they look a bit better already. 

The only downside was that since I'm not used to wearing darker colors I thought I'd be able to clean up quickly after slapping it on--but even with acetone it turned my skin a little purple.  I'm assuming it'll wash off, though!

Wooo so have any of you guys tried the Smoke and Mirrors collection?  I haven't found any place around here who sells Zoya (no Ultas, sad story!) so I probably won't be ordering any unless they have a really great promo :)

Okay, hopefully I can update more this week now that my photos are edited!  Hope you all are greaaat!

<3 Whitney

Grape...Set...Match! + Spectraflair Top Coat!

Hellllo ladies :)  Hope you all are having a great weekend!  I've been having a semi-busy week/weekend so I had to auto update a couple posts.  Unfortunately I'm going to have to start that again if I get a good day to swatch this week.  I'll be out of town starting Thursday for a week to go to a wedding and then house hunting in TN!

I also sold my car, horray!  So I am currently car-less and in the market.  I don't know if you've ever bought a car before, but the process SUCKS.  I hate hate hate talking to car dealers.  But enough about me!

I recently found the OPI Serena Glam Slam set with Grape...Set...Match and Servin' Up Sparkle and was dying to try it!  Check this gorgeousness out! 

Love!  Grape...Set...Match is a lovely shimmery purple with blue undertones.  I really underestimated the shimmer in the bottle, but I love how it translates to the nail.  It's sort of sheerer than you may think, I needed 3 good coats to get it opaque and I probably could've done one more, but I don't like doing that many.  Overall, though, the formula is great like most OPI, and the brush is super-wide, which isn't my first preference, but it still works okay. 

I wasn't in the mood for glitter yesterday, so I thought I would try the holographic Spectraflair top coat I bought off Lori in PAA.  Unfortunately I think I shook it up TOO much because it applied more like silver rather than a top coat and my final product ended up looking like a gray-ish purple in the shade.  However...when I got out in the sun it was FILLED with holo-goodness!

You can see on my pinky that I didn't apply it to the edges 'cause I didn't think it'd go on so opaque, haha!

Ahhhh holo!

*The top coat is WnW clear + spectraflair powder...so don't go searching WnW for this product, haha, 'cause it's a franken

So overall I was happy with it.  The inside color is awkward with my skin tone but when I go outside it makes me smile :)

I've tested this top coat over a bunch of other polishes but none of them turned out this holo...I'll probably show you all sometime. 

Well have a great Sunday and I hope to be around as much as possible the next few days 'cause the rest of the month I'm going to be insanely busy with moving and such!

<3 Whitney

P.S. One of the best YouTube bloggers out there, sayanythingbr00ke, is having a GREAT giveaway for an awesome cause.  She is asking everyone to donate some money to a local animal shelter for a chance to win some great make up and hard to find polishes.  Check out her video on it here.

ORLY Velvet Rope

Sooo I know I've done a decent amount of purples lately...and you know, I really don't wear purple that often!  BUT I thought since I mixed ORLY Velvet Rope as a main ingredient to my franken, that I'd show you what it looked like by itself!

The pictures below are shown with 2 coats of polish (If I remember correctly, it was pretty opaque!) and one day of wear.  You can see the tip wear on some of my fingers already starting to show.  I can't figure out what I'm doing wrong to get this much wear after less than one day!  I don't know if it's my top coat or what...probably my lack of tip-wrapping.  Oh well!

Outside sun

I really liked this color.  It was a bit dark for my normal taste, but it appealed to be greatly on the shelf.  It's a beautiful dark purple with flecks of very fine silver glitter in it.  It does like JUST like one of those shiny velvet ropes you see at the theatre :)  It went on very smooth and like I said, it was opaque after two coats!  I really, really like ORLY.  I'm sure I've said this before but their formula is always so great and their brush is the perfect size. 

Do you guys like this polish?  I loved it but it didn't exactly match the bridesmaid dress I had to wear last Saturday, which is why I used this as a base color and lightened it and added some more glitter to it! Love!

That's all for today, folks :) I'll mention how my interview went tomorrow for Pink Wednesday!  I'm glad I'm a little less busy and have time to participate this week!

<3 Whitney

Franken #2 -- Firework! + Wedding Ruffian

Sorry for being MIA the past few days!  I had a few updates scheduled up through last Wednesday but then I just got busy and didn't have time to finish up the rest of the week!  One of my best friends, Dustin, got married yesterday!  I was in the wedding on the groom's side so since Thursday I've pretty much been doing wedding stuff.  My first franken was actually made to compliment my dress.  However, I didn't think it was good enough, so I added some more glitter to it and darkened it up! I called the new one "Firework."

For the wedding I wore it as a ruffian on my fingers and toes!  Here are a few pics:

Sorry for the blur, I didn't notice when I took the picture.  It looks a bit better in person!  But I tried the ruffian on my toes!

Firework ruffian!  With ORLY Shine as the base :)

I really liked it and got a lot of compliments!  I hope since I did the ruffian with a coat of Posche in between the silver and purple that it'll be easier to get the glitter off! 

I added holo silver glitter to my franken so it shines really nice in the sun, but you can't really tell very well in my pictures.  I'm bad at holo pictures!

Well I hope you all had a great weekend!  I'll be out of town tomorrow and Tuesday but I should be able to update anyway :)

<3 Whitney

My first franken! Purple-icious!

Hey everyone!  I tried to make my first franken polish today!  I'm in a wedding here on Saturday and instead of trying to match perfectly (the color is close to ORLY Out of this World), I decided to try and mix a lighter, more sparkly color! 

There are a ton of pictures, sorry!  I call this color Purple-icious!  It is pretty opaque, it went on great in only two coats.  I can't really tell you what I mixed in this.  Seriously, it was a little bit of about every purple I own.  It's base is ORLY Velvet Rope along with ORLY Shine but I also added some holo glitter (Funky Fingers Sand & Stilettos and Icing Glamorous), and some actual solid glitter I bought a while back (EZ Flow Glitter in Jasper)....and I think I also put OOTW in it too among other stuff hahaha.  I won't be able to make this again, obviously since it's such a mess of a mixture :)

Inside w/flash

Inside w/flash

Outdoor, sun setting

Inside w/flash

Inside w/flash

Inside w/flash

Outside lighting

Inside, no flash

Inside w/flash

Inside no flash

So overall I like it.  In the sun, which I couldn't get a good picture of, you can see the holo glitter in it!  I like the pictures with the flash a bit better, so I think I'm going to try and darken it up a little! 

I'm pretty happy with my first franken, what do you guys think??

<3 Whitney