Here is a Pretty Summer Peach: Zoya LC!

I love Zoya.  And I love when they have sales with free shipping, haha!  I picked up Zoya LC when they had their Valentine's Day Sale along with Ivanka and Charla!  I'm waiting to see if they have another Earth Day Promotion, it was awesome last year!

Check this beauty out:

I normally don't wear reds, but LC has just enough pink in it for me to love it.  I was slightly disappointed with the formula, though.  It just was a bit thicker than Zoya's normal formula, but still went on nicely in 2 coats.  I don't have many of their creams, but from what I can tell, their formula isn't super consistent.  LC was thick, Pippa was kind of runny, but Whitney was pretty good ;) But I may be biased for that one, haha.

Have you guys tried LC? Or any of the other ones from the "Hills" collection? 

<3 Whitney

More Frankens by Yours Truly :)

Okayyyy so I don't know if this is mean or not...it's not meant to be a teaser or anything, but I've got some frankens I want to show you that I made special for my mom for her birthday! 

Currently they have names based off my mom's name, Patti, but I haven't decided if I am going to re-name them into element polishes and sell them on Etsy or not.  Maybe if they get rave reviews I'd consider selling them but it's kind of sweet that my mom has two custom polishes that no one else has!  Not that she'd mind either way....

Anywho, first up: Patti Cake (sorry for the insane amount of pics in this post lol)

Patti Cake is a light peachy pink cream with a subtle holo-ness to it!  My mom is not into glitters, because she hates trying to remove them, but I wanted to spruce up a normal peachy pink, so I added some SpectraFlair and bam!  She hears me talk about how much I like holographic polishes, but I knew she'd want something more subtle so this is what I came up with!  AND it only takes 2 coats (correct me if I'm wrong, mom) for full coverage!

Next up: Crabby Patti (I couldn't resist the name...I thought of the name before I made the polish lol)

Crabby Patti is a red based polish that I added a holographic "diamond" powder to to give it just the right amount of shimmer without making it into a hard-to-remove glitter!  In the bottle when I was making it, I wasn't super thrilled about it, but once I put it on I LOVED it.  I even made myself a copy to have before I shipped them off to her, lol.  The shimmer looks awesome in the sun, if I do say so myself :D The best thing about this polish is that it's really a one coater!  I used two for pictures since I'm a sloppy polisher, but seriously...one coat.  It's awesome.

SO overall, I thought this was a good idea for a bday present for my mommy :)  And she liked the names a lot lol.

What do you think of these ladies?  Should I put 'em up on Etsy?

<3 Whitney

More Pretty Julep Polishes: Demi + Oscar

Hey ladiesssss.

I've got an interesting combo for you today.  I am still part of the Julep Maven program but I usually only get the box every other month or so because I'm never thrilled with the stuff in it.  The last box I received was Oscar's themed and came with a dark chocolate "Academy Award", two polishes (Demi and Oscar), and Julep Topcoat for Hair (which is what I really wanted).  Anywho, I always end up putting them on the back burner to try but I was in the mood for a red recently so I thought Demi would be perfect:

Demi is a dark red-wine jelly polish that is a must-have for any red fan.  I really am loving jellies more and more every time I get one to try because the formulas are always so good.  I wish I could find more in colors I love!  This jelly polish is super pigmented and only needed 2 coats for full coverage, but I think I could've just stuck to one if I had been in a hurry.  The only bad thing about this polish is that I had a hard time cleaning it up around my cuticles.  However, it didn't end up staining my nails really so I guess I just need to be more careful!

I decided to pair this polish with one coat of Julep Oscar: a gold glitter in a clear base and here's how it turned out:

Julep Oscar on its own: 3 coats.

I do like both of these polishes.  Oscar ended up being much easier to manage and not as thick as other Julep glitters I've tried.  Despite the great formulas, I already have a few similar colors in my stash (at least 2 other similar reds and 3+ gold glitters), and since I'm trying to purge my stash a little, I decided to put these up on my blog sale!  So if you like them, give 'em a looksie :)

<3 Whitney

31 Day Challenge, Day 1! Sally Hansen 10 Day No Chip Polish in Resilient Red!

So. I've decided to try this 31 Day Nail Polish Challenge that so many people are doing right now.  With how often I've been updating, this challenge may seem silly.  BUT I'm going to do it my way and do the challenge regardless if I am able to update every day.  I'll finish it eventually :)

I'm also going to be switching some stuff around here soon...won't be huge I don't think, but I do want to get back into blogging and I'm trying to re-organize my life and priorities so we'll see what happens.

Here is the 31 day challenge list in case you haven't already seen it!

SO onto Day 1: Red!

I picked Sally Hansen 10 Day No Chip polish in Resilient Red!  I wanted an obviously red cream since my nails are so stubby.  Anything glittery I don't like on short nails, so here's what I ended up with...and I'll get back to you on how long this mani lasts without chipping ;)

P.S. I failed miserably with these pictures and I apologize.  This isn't how I wanted to return from another 2 week hiatus, haha.  It was pretty dark outside already and I didn't realize until I just now edited these pictures that the polish looks a little bumpy, but it's just water droplets from when I rinsed my hands! Ugh. Fail!

So this polish went on pretty smooth...I actually enjoyed it for a red.  I used three coats, but two would've been plenty as it was pretty opaque.  It was a bit hard cleaning up, but you'll have that with darker colors usually!

And thennnn I decided to stamp a little daisy with my new stamping plates that I (finally) got from Born Pretty!  And holy moly, I give you ladies who stamp a TON of credit because I just don't have the patience for it.  I probably tried to get it on the stamp like 5 times each hand and then I got it but it's obviously not centered and ugh.  Just a mess.  I've been trying for a few days, too, it just hasn't worked out too well, lol.  Any tips?  And any suggestions on good stamping polishes??!!

I tried to fill it in a bit...didn't work...and then I blurred the picture.  So much fail in this post.

Ohhhhhhhh well.  Day 1 down, 30 to go!  Any of you ladies trying this challenge??

<3 Whitney

E-nuf is E-nuf!

A while ago I was lucky enough to get quite a few Essie polishes from Traci at the TraceFace Philes! 

One of them was a lovely dark pink/red called E-nuf is E-nuf!  Check it out:

I really like Essie...sometimes the formula is a little thin, but I've had much better luck recently.  Especially with this polish! 

It went on super shiny and smooth in 2-3 coats (sorry, this was about two-three weeks ago, so I can't remember exactly!).  I love 2 coater polishes, but more often than not to get good pictures for the blog I do 3.  I usually don't wear reds like this but it ended up really pretty.   

I probably should've used ridgefiller because you can see the irregularities on my pointer finger nail, but that's okay.  Usually reds stain pretty bad but this one came off easily and didn't turn my skin all red when I was cleaning up!

Overall I'm liking Essie more and more, and it's helpful that they sell them at a lot of places due to my current lack of beauty stores...mainly Ulta.  :/

Welllllll hope you are well, I'm headed back home for a wedding this weekend, so I probably won't have time to update for the weekend, but I'll try and set up a post!

<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??

CG Ruby Pumps vs. ORLY Star Spangled

When I saw ORLY Star Spangled for $1 at a Sally's "damaged sale" I HAD to pick it up.  I hadn't actually tried my Ruby Pumps, yet, but I knew a lot of people really liked it, ORLY looked similar, and for a $1 I couldn't pass it up!

So without trying either of them, I decided to swatch them together because they look so similar in the bottle!  Here they are, together.  Please forgive my terrible clean up of these.  I'm embarrassed I didn't clean up better when I did this comparison a few days ago...red is hard to clean :) 

Also ignore my stained, non-polished thumb.  I didn't think it was necessary to paint at the time lol

Shade, bottles side by side

Sun, bottles side by side

Ew please don't stare at my pinky

Shade

Up close...

Up close again

So overall, they are pretty similar but I definitely wouldn't call them dupes.  The CG Ruby Pumps goes on flawlessly with 2 coats while ORLY Star Spangled needs 3 coats to look as opaque.  I would say that Ruby Pumps formula is better specifically for this reason.  The glitter is also much more dense with China Glaze than ORLY, I can really see why so many people like Ruby Pumps.

The color is pretty much exactly the same, CG might be slightly darker, and the prices are usually pretty similar, but based on the glitter density and the formula, I like China Glaze Ruby Pumps slightly better (2-coat polish FTW)!  I'm still pretty psyched I got the ORLY for $1, though! 

Do you guys have both of these polishes?? Which do you like better?

Hope you all had a great 4th!

<3 Whitney

Trying out my holos!

Hey all!  I am all done with classes!  Horrayyy!  I'll be in DC Monday through Wednesday for some tests for a job offer and then I have a final exam Thursday, but I'll try and update when I'm bored in my hotel in DC!

So this morning I decided to try out CG Don't be a Square from their Kaleidoscope collection!  I ordered this one online a bit ago and have been dying to try it.

My photos don't really capture the holo effect well...I seriously took about thirty, so I'll show mine and then post another I found on another blog:

Yeahhh I don't know how to take pictures apparently...here's a good swatch I found on from Claudia at Chromatic Misadventures (if you don't follow her yet, do it, she's AWESOME!):

Ahhh!  Don't you LOVE it?  She captured the holo effect MUCH better than me.  You can check out her post here.

Amazing.  I love it and I want the whole collection, haha.  Really I just want pink and silver holos...those would be colors I'd wear all the time.  I want Hyper Haute from Tronica! Ahh!

Anyway this is three coats--I could've done two but I wanted to fill in a few nails better.  The formula is great and dries real quick...which is good and bad.  I put Poshe top coat over it, I'll let you know next post how I feel about it, 'cause I don't know yet!  

Also I repainted my toe nails with DS Tapestry.  So I'll show you a sneak peak of my toes 'cause I'm going to eventually swatch this on my nails!

I really like this one.  It came out a bit darker than I thought it would, I'll get a good picture of this on my nails eventually.  It's got so much sparkle to it, I love it!  I think I've decided I love the OPI brush...it's the perfect width.  This formula is also great...it goes on pretty opaque.  This is two coats!

Well lovelies, hopefully I'll get to post more this week--I hope you all had a super great weekend!

<3 Whitney