Dotticures - Part II

Hi y'all, I'm back with part II of my dotticure "series", though I hesitate to call it a series since this is pretty much it for the time being.  Mmhhh, now I'm rethinking the meaning of the word "series".  But I digress....

Starting out with a fun all-Zoya mani I did over the summer while on vacation:

Zoya Purity - white
Zoya Breezi - blue creme
Zoya Muse - blue shimmer/glitter

I wasn't all that interested in the Zoya Bubbly collection when it was released, most of the colors were just a smidge too bright for this dark and vampy loving girl.  But it is a rare thing when I can resist a blue color, so Muse came home with me in a moment of weakness.  I was pleasantly surprised that she covered in two coats (I'd read on some blogs that Muse was a little sheer), and was a nice complement to Breezi, a gorgeous summery blue creme that I picked up during one of Zoya's many (awesome) promos.

A few more manis after the jump!

Dotticures - Part I

Hi again, hope you're enjoying a nice weekend wherever you are!  Our weather has finally started turning to cooler temps, which makes this humidity-hating girl very happy. 

In my ongoing quest to empty out my poor computer's vault of nail polish photos, today I'm posting "part I" of dotticures I've done over the last year or so.  I was not quite as vigilant in noting what polishes I used in older manis, so I apologize for the ones where I don't recall which polishes were used. This post is picture-heavy so I didn't use my usual preference for photo size.  Therefore, be sure to click on the pics if you want to see more detail. 

And so we begin...

Dotticures are such a quick and simple way for a high-impact mani, in my opinion.  It's what I tend to do when I want something more than a plain color but don't have time for anything too involved.  This one, comprised of Sinful Colors Beatnick (lighter color) and Julie G Tokyo Nights (navy blue), was what I wore for a 3-day weekend trip to celebrate my cousin's high school graduation. That green of Beatnick is so cute for adding a bright pop of color, and the formula was about as easy as can be.  Tokyo Nights was also great, no complaints, and is a super-dark navy blue...not quite black-looking, but still DARK.  I loved both polishes!

More after the jump!

Zoya Skittle!

'Tis one of my favorite times of the year....Zoya's Earth Day exchange promo!  Money is a little tight these days, so I'm not sure if I'll partake in the promo, but it's almost too good to pass up so maybe we'll just have a lot of grilled-cheese-and-soup dinners for a while in order to support my endless love of all things Zoya?  :)

To honor what I feel is one of the best polish companies on the planet (bold words considering I've yet to try probably about 90% of the world's polishes), here is a mani I did a while back using only Zoya polishes:

Polishes used:
Mason - shimmery deep pink
Bevin - dusty green creme
Cassedy - shimmery greenish/gunmetalish (yes, that's what I said)
Purity - white creme

More after the jump......

Well....ummmmm......HI!  I'm back, kinda.  After moving north in early-ish January and trying to get settled in with hubs and kiddo and kitties...throw in a few road trips and THE WORST WINTER TO MOVE NORTH after not living in any sort of snowy area for 15+ years, I'm finally...slowly....starting to find my new routine.  Sorta.  A little bit.  We still have loads of boxes to unpack, but guess what got unpacked and organized fairly quickly?  Yep, my polish stash.  Though I haven't been blogging, I've still been polishing regularly, as it seems to be one of the few things keeping me sane in this time of "the unknown" and upheaval.  Have I ever mentioned that I don't cope well with change and lack of a routine???

So anyway, what have I chosen to share with you today as my comeback post? Let's do a couple of green skittle manis, both featuring Zoya Chita....

Details and more pics after the jump....

NYC Empire State Blue (+ some stamping)

We are in the final countdown of our last days here in Florida, soon to be moving to the northern Delaware area...which is currently being walloped with snow as I type this.  So in the spirit of moving into the snowbelt(ish) area of the country, I did the following mani during the week of Christmas.  I doubt it's going to prepare me for the cold, wind, snow, ice, more cold, etc. but at least my fingernails looked cute!  :)

I started off with a couple coats of NYC Empire State Blue, which is a really pretty medium blue with an extremely fine shimmer of super-light green.  Very sort of Caribbean ocean-ish color, imo.  Since I was planning to stamp a winter theme, I topped Empire State Blue with a coat of China Glaze Fairy Dust:

Full-sun photo to show off that gorgeous holo of CG Fairy Dust!  Since I'm not that adept at stamping, I waited until the next day to do my little design of snowflakes and a snowman, using Zoya Purity and Winstonia plate W120.

Please be kind, remember I mentioned I'm not all that skilled at stamping, lol.  I liked my little wintery snow scene and had fun putting it together!

More pics after the jump....

Texture Polishes - Zoya Carter, Zoya Sunshine and Loreal Too Dimensional?

Ahhhh texture polish....either you enjoy it or you don't....and in my case, I enjoy it but I have discovered that I have to be in a very specific mood to wear it.  My favorite textures are the Zoya PixieDusts, JulieG Gumdrops and Nicole by OPI textures.  There are a couple of the OPI Liquid Sands that I like as well, but most of my texture polish collection falls into the former 3 brands.  Today I thought I'd show you three of my more recent nail of the day (NOTD) textures....

Recently I picked up a polish from the new Loreal Gold Dust line of textured polishes to give it a go:

This is Too Dimensional?, a medium blue with a subtle on-the-nail shift to green courtesy of some gorgeous shimmer.  I was happy to discover that Loreal did a great job in hopping on the texture bandwagon and I've been eyeing other colors in the collection ever since.  Still haven't bought more, but I know it's inevitable that I will.  :)

Next are two Zoyas that I couldn't wait to get my hands on, and they sure didn't disappoint:

Ahhhhh Carter, you beautiful thing you.  Everything you've read about Carter is true...a stunning dark purple with lighter pink/purple glitter that is unlike anything else out there in the polish world (at least, imo).  I'd read that Carter is a bit sheer and requires 3 coats for opacity, so I was a bit heavy-handed with my application and got away with 2 coats.  SUCH a gorgeous color, well done Zoya!

Not to be outdone, here is Zoya Sunshine, a beautiful deep navy texture that looks lighter in photos than it does in real life.  I wanted pics in full sun because of the pretty sparkle in this polish.  I bought the brighter/lighter Zoya Liberty when it came out last year and liked it well enough, but the deeper navy blue of Sunshine appeals more to my conservative side and I love it.  The sparkle isn't quite as prominent in this polish as in other PixieDusts, but I like that about it!

More photos of all three polishes after the jump:

Zoya Brown & Green

Wow, I just am not clever enough to come up with good blog titles!  Oh well, let's just get straight to the photos....

This mani was created using Zoya Yara (green with prominent gold shimmer), Zoya Nia (dark dark dark brown creme) and China Glaze Dandy Lyin' Around (gorgeous shimmery white).  I did this a couple months ago, when apparently I was feeling the "fall colors" vibe.  :)  Both Zoyas were a breeze to apply and only needed 2 coats each.

The above photo in full sun is the most accurate representation of the polish colors.  I really liked Yara despite the gold shimmer...which is gorgeous, don't get me wrong...but generally I don't like anything gold, and Yara surprised me in a good way.  I personally feel that it's a somewhat seasonal color, and this is coming from someone who doesn't adhere to the "rules" of seasonal colors.  I'll definitely try to wear it in the spring/summer and see if I change my mind, but I just get the feeling this one looks best in the cooler months of the year.

That China Glaze Dandy Lyin' Around is a little finicky, as are most whites, but the shimmery white is absolutely worth the effort of needing 2-3 coats.  Two coats if you're covering with other colors, like I did, but you'll probably need 3 coats if you wanna wear it alone.

What do you think?  I love comments, don't be shy!

A Christmas Mani!!

Hi all!  (well, I think I only have 2-3 followers -- hi guys! -- but I'm gonna pretend I'm talking to the whole wide world...lol) By some miracle, because I'm always late with stuff, today I have my Christmas-themed mani to show you.  I don't know whether I'll be doing another one for Dec. 25 or not, so I figure I'd post this one to you ahead of time.  I haven't posted my Halloween mani yet, but I'll get around to that eventually....

(I'm sorry for the slightly blurry photos in this post, some days are just harder than others to get a good photo)

I started off with a base of Zoya Seraphina, a really interesting polish from their Zenith collection.  In the photos, it comes across as a white with silver shimmer/glass fleck, but in person it's predominantly silver, toned down with a white base.  It's tough to describe, to be honest!

I loved this far more than I expected to.  I think it's a perfect base for holiday/winter art, and it's quite festive and pretty by itself, too.

More pics after the jump, including the right-hand photo of this mani....

Zoya Monica & Nicole by OPI Shoot for the Maroon

Today's post continues to demonstrate my recent habit of combining 2-3 untried polishes into one mani in an effort to reduce the guilt I feel about the polish pretties that haven't had their time in the limelight.  Lol....okay, so that sounded way more dramatic than it needed to be, but if you're reading nail blogs then you'll understand what I mean. 

The base color here is Zoya Monica, a looooovely dark purple with some grey undertones that applied in typical Zoya form -- easily, quickly, no problems.  (oh hey, look at that bare spot on my index...damn macro photography, lol.....that's user-error courtesy of my penchant for speedy application)  I'm a newbie to the blogging world, but my polish habit started about 18+ months ago and I've since come to the realization that my favorite colors to wear are usually greyed out purples, blues, greens and pinks, and Monica fits the bill quite nicely.  It's a little darker on the nail in lower lighting (though it NEVER looks black), but I like dark anything on my nails so I'm okay with that fact.

For my accent nail, I grabbed my dotting tool and applied some dot flowers in Zoya Purity (white) and Nicole by OPI Shoot for the Maroon (shimmery burgundy/maroon).  I quite like the contrast between Monica and SFTM here, and even though my heart belongs to cremes, I can always go for a little shimmer accent.

More pics below the jump, to include a rare photo of my right hand where I did the opposite color combo in order to swatch that NOPI.....

Zoya Suri and NOPI Kendall On The Katwalk

I have so many polishes in my untried pile that I've recently taken to putting together "skittle" or "skittlette" manis in order to try out more than one polish at a time.  Though as I'm typing this, I realize that's not what I did for today's manicure....whoops.  Oh well, at least it'll explain why I've been posting more manis of this style lately, I guess I'm just in the mood for jazzing up my nails a little more than your basic swatching mani.  I've also been completely inspired by the YouTube video blogger Young Wild and Polished, who does the cutest skittle manis ever, imo.

Anyway, here is a skittlette mani I did a couple weeks ago:

The purple gorgeousness is Zoya Suri, a polish I picked up in one of their more recent sales, though it wasn't one of the post-Thanksgiving flash sales.  Zoya basically has all of my money from the past couple months, they've been running AWESOME sales leading up to Christmas.  I resisted getting this color for a while, I have TONS of purples (many of which are Zoyas, which is known for creating awesome purples) so I felt that Suri was one I could pass up.  Then, a sale and my weak self-control hit at the same time, and I tossed Suri into my cart.  I'm glad I did though...it's such a gorgeous, royal, glowy purple once on the nail, about 100x better than what you see in the bottle.

The glitter is Nicole by OPI Kendall on the Katwalk, one of the few glitter bombs I love.  It's the perfect size glitter (ie. micro) in blue and purple that really packs a punch.  From using this in the past, I would have expected to say that the formula is good and easy to work with for a glitter, but either the cap was loose on mine or it's just been too long since I used it, because it was gloopy and a real pain to apply this time.  I added what seemed like way too much thinner after I did this mani and it didn't seem to make much difference.  I'll check it again soon to see if it's better or worse, and in the meantime I'll be keeping an eye out for another bottle....THAT is how much I love this glitter polish.  :)

More pics after the jump:

Christmas Wrapping Paper!

I was in the mood to play around with my striping brushes the other night and decided to make some simple nail art involving traditional holiday colors in foil/heavily shimmered polishes.  Here is the result:

For what I imagined in my head, those stripes would be little thinner (and certainly with cleaner edges), but overall I was happy with the outcome.  I think these nails ended up looking like Christmas wrapping paper...?

I started out with a base of Zoya Shay, which....HELLOOOOO mannequin hands!  Goodness, I think I've inadvertently found the closest match to my skin tone that exists.  Shay is lovely, easy formula, and has a silvery shimmer that keeps it from looking flat...but I have to admit that I didn't keep this mani on for long since it was just a little too creepy to look at my nails and see virtually no distinction between them and my skin.  :)

More pics after the jump, if you're interested....

Purple Skittles/Skittlettes....a decidedly non-Thanksgiving post on Thanksgiving Day

Here are the reasons I'm not posting a Thanksgiving mani on Thanksgiving Day:

 - I'm always behind on everything.  I'm a planner by nature, but only when it comes to real-life priority things.  Don't get me wrong, painting my nails is definitely a real-life priority for me, but photographing/uploading/editing and planning blog posts with those manis tends to take a backseat to all of the other obligations in my life (especially now as we work on transitioning to civilian life and relocate).

- I'm totally in a purple mood lately, as you'll soon see below...

- I currently live in FL, where seasonal colors aren't necessarily prompted by weather changes.  So while I've done a couple "fall" colored manis, for the most part I'm still jonesing on the brighter colors for my nails.

I'm sure there are more reasons, but my brain is more fried than usual so I'll just start posting the pics!

Let's start with what I'm wearing today, a mani inspired by polishes I recently picked up during our house-hunting trip, to a region of the country that has Rite Aid!!  The pretty matte silver, Layla Softouch 01, was obtained in the bargain bin at Ulta a few weeks back but the rest of the polishes are from Rite Aid:  Dark purple is Sinful Colors Mesmerize, the pale periwinkle is Sinful Colors Candy Coated, and that soooooo pretty glittery textured purple is JulieG Sugar Plum Fairy.  Other than it being a little thicker than I prefer, JulieG once again nailed the right way to do texture!

More pics of this mani and two others after the jump:

Essie Smokin' Hot + Zoya Kristen & Hazel

Hi, and welcome to my most favoritest (hush, I know that's not a real word, but it should be) mani in ages:

I love this so much that I'm wearing it for an unprecedented 3rd day.  As someone who changes her nails every 1-2 days, this is high praise indeed. I think I'm actually going to be a little sad when it's time to remove this one.  Not a lot sad, because you know....it's just polish....but it'll be a little bit of a bummer.  I may pick a different color combo and do just the freehand swipes (on my thumb) as a full mani....

 

More pics after the jump...

Purple Mani Inspired by Young Wild and Polished

A good friend of mine recently suggested that I check out Young Wild and Polished on Youtube and I was immediately drawn a mani she did called "Striping Tape and Flowers".  Being new to blogging, I hope I'm giving the proper credit here by linking to Nicole's tutorial.  Please kindly tell me if I should do things differently, because as a photography hobbyist, it's important to me to make sure I'm giving the proper credit to other artists!!

I was in a purple mood, so here is my resulting mani:

Please ignore the slight smearing that happened when I top-coated.  I thought I'd waited long enough, but clearly not.  :)  These dang macro pics show everything! 

The polishes I used:
lightest - Sinful Colors Sweet Tooth
medium - Pure Ice Jail Bait
darkest - Zoya Pinta

More pics after the jump, including a few from after I applied a matte top coat:

Folder Dump Saturday!

Confession time:  my memory sucks.  There's a comedienne, Kathleen Madigan I think (but don't hold me to that), who does a sketch about how there just isn't enough room in the brain to remember every little detail, particularly as we age.  I have found that to be extremely, positively true.  I can remember important stuff...for the most part....but details and everyday minutiae are just GONE unless I write it down somewhere.

Now, apply this concept to my 1+ year long nail polish hobby, where I've been taking photos of my manis and putting them into a computer folder, but only recently started this blog for documentation/sharing purposes....and you can imagine that I have a LOT of manis where I just cannot for the life of me remember what polishes I used.  I'm using a better system now, but there are tons of photos sitting on my computer that don't have notes, and they need a home on this blog.

Enter today's post, where I dump photos of the manis I've done, add notes if I remember anything about them, and call it a day.  Actually, I'm calling it "Folder Dump".  :)  Fair warning that the photos are sometimes crap quality (as are the manis themselves!) but hopefully you'll forgive that in favor of seeing fun and simple designs and/or random swatches:

(oooooo, boy....these are worse than I remembered....I'll keep the images small....eeeeek)

Christmas 2012...I think that base color was from the ELF mini pack from last year....loved this little tree, will definitely be doing that again this December.

More after the jump:

NOTD: "Dragon Hunter"

Hey y'all...two posts in two days.  Wooohoooo!  Making up for my frequent absences when I get the chance, I guess.  Have I mentioned that my family and I are kinda going through a huge life transition thing right now?  My husband decided to retire from the military and found a civilian job that is requiring us to move to northern Delaware and wrap up our life here in three months, with those three months falling during one of the busiest times of the year, and it's been pretty chaotic around these here parts.  So if I'm here one day and then gone for 2 weeks, now you know why.  I think I'll feel a bit more grounded once we've found a place to live and I've gotten my kiddo enrolled in a school, both of which I hope to have accomplished by the end of November. 

Okay, now I'm just babbling.  Back to nails....

Today's nail of the day is a mani I wore and loved a few weeks back.  I'd bought Zoya Hunter at Ulta one day and it was sitting there on the counter a few days later when I received a Llarowe order containing a England Dragon...talk about a perfect polish match!  I have the sort of skin tone that has a hard time pulling off greens so you'll see some lobster hands here, but I've now reached the age where I don't care because green is a favorite color of mine and I'm gonna wear it even if I get the dreaded red fingers.  :)

Puuuuuurty, right?  a England Dragon is perfection in a bottle, which isn't a surprise to anyone who's used a England polishes.  I'm wearing it here on my middle two fingers, along with a freehand swipe on the index/pinky fingers that have a base of Zoya Hunter.  I personally prefer subtle holos and Dragon fits the bill perfectly, applying smoothly and nearly opaque in one coat (though I did two coats here).

More pics after the jump, if you're interested:

NOTD: Zoya Nimue & Trixie

Courtesy of Zoya's recent promos and a local beauty supply store shutting down one of their locations and selling everything at 40-50% off, I've recently amassed quite a collection of my favorite polish brand.  In fact, tomorrow's mail should bring another box of pretties since I took advantage of Zoya's Spirit Trios promo to get a few good basic colors that I hadn't purchased yet.  I seriously looooove Zoya, it's a problem.  :)  Not all of their colors/formulas have worked for me, but I'd say at least 90% of the ones I've tried have been awesome and I love how their line is 5-Free AND they're based in Cleveland.  I'm a born and raised Ohioan and got married in Cleveland, so I'm glad to support an Ohio company as often as I can.

Anyway, I recently decided to do a little simple nail art using two of my newer untried Zoya's...Nimue and Trixie:

Nimue is a lovely dusty purple with a strong silver shimmer and paired really well with Trixie, a silver foil that was super easy to use with one of my cut-down art brushes.  For a while, the only silver polish I had was Essie No Place Like Chrome, which is a great staple for any polish collector, but it always struck me as a little harsh as a full mani or accent nail (NPLC is a great stamping and/or detail polish, though).  Enter Trixie, which isn't as "smooth" in appearance as NPLC, courtesy of the foily-er (making up words is FUN!) particles that break up the finish just a little more.  Which probably makes no sense.  Both polishes are great in formula and I'm glad I have both, but Trixie's overall appearance on my nails is just more aesthetically pleasing to me.

More pics after the jump...

Blue Green Texture Skittle

I recently swatched my polish collection onto nail wheels and in the course of organizing the wheels, I was struck with inspiration when some of the texture polishes in blues and greens ended up next to/near each other.  As much as I enjoy texture polishes, I don't love them and have to be in the right kind of mood to wear them.  Although I have to say, OPI Alcatraz...Rocks and several of the Zoya PixieDust shades do their best to tempt me into wearing them more often.

Anyway, here is my fun little blue and green skittle mani:

Fun, right?  The sign of a good mani for me is if I want to wear it longer than 24 hours (have I mentioned that I have a LOT of untrieds?), and I definitely kept this one on for longer than a day.  On the second day I experimented with top-coating by putting on a layer of Gelous and then a layer of Sally Hansen Insta-Dri.  I didn't get any photos of that, though....sorry!

More after the jump:

Zoya Carly (+ a dupe alert!)

Oh Zoya, how I love thee.  You help me enjoy colors that are outside of my comfort zone, and Carly is definitely one of those colors.  I consider it a beautiful dark pink, but many others consider it more of a purple.  I have pretty fair skin and feel that anything too bright looks ridiculous on me, but this pretty Zoya toes the line of bright but not TOO bright. 

 

I usually paint my nails in the evenings, then take photos the next day and you can see from the above pic that I started to get tip wear fairly quickly with this polish.  Didn't both me though, since then I had a chance to do this:

I love a good french tip, especially to cover tip wear and gain another day of my mani, and Orly's High On Hope came to the rescue this time.  There is a gorgeous pink shimmer in HoH that closely matched the pink shades of Carly and I looooved the result of these two colors together.

More pics after the jump, along with a close-enough dupe:

Favorite Brand - Zoya

I've been "collecting" nail polish for about a year now and am kinda scared to count the number of bottles I have now, because it seems like it will be an excessive amount considering it's only been a year.  My son, who's 5 yrs old, said just the other day to daddy, "Mommy wants to cover the whole world in nail polish, doesn't she?".  I think that's a sign I've gone a little off the deep end.....?

Well, no matter, because all those little bottles of pretty colors/finishes make me happy, and if mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy!!  :-)

The brand that makes me happiest is Zoya.  I think, though I can't say for 100% sure, that my first bottle of Zoya was Natty, a gorrrrrrgeous navy blue that's one of my go-to colors whenever I'm stumped on what to put on my nails.

(Clearly the above pic was taken before I discovered the concept of "clean up"...lol!)

This is Natty topped with Sinful Colors Frenzy, a really pretty topper in small powder blue and pinky purple glitters.

Since Natty was love at first application, I became a goner for any and all Zoyas.  I did a rough count the other day and I think I have about 50 of their colors now.  Yikes.  But they're soooo worth it.  Even the colors I didn't love on my skin tone (and have been put in the swap pile) have wonderful formulas and were a breeze to apply.  My only teeny tiny complaint is that they're not as easily available in the retail world, but Zoya.com (http://zoya.com/) runs so many awesome promotions throughout the year that it's pretty easy to purchase online.

I also love that their polishes are 5-free and that it's a Cleveland-based company.  I got married in Cleveland and my dad and stepmom lived there for a long time, so I have a soft spot for any and all Cleveland things.  CLEVELAND ROCKS, yo!  ;-)

So here are some random Zoya spam photos for ya, check 'em out after the jump: