Mint & Pink Accent Mani

Hello! I'm posting this as a short break from taking history notes, because I've been taking notes for about an hour and a half now and figured it was time for a break. Last night I did my nails, and I almost immediately knew exactly what I wanted to do: an accent nail manicure with Essie Mint Candy Apple and Exotic Liras. I really think these two colors complement each other well, and I used three coats of each with Cult Nails Get It On and Wicked Fast. The picture's of lesser quality than usual because I took it on my phone, but I know I wouldn't be able to take proper pictures until tomorrow, and I just didn't want to wait. Anyway, I hope you're all doing well, and that it's a bit cooler and wetter where you are than it is here!

China Glaze On Safari PR

Hello! Sorry I've been absent for a while - though, honestly, I should probably quit saying that, because  of course I have a non-nail polish life, and that life is very busy, as are most people's lives (honestly, I don't know how any of us do it!). Right now I have seven hours of class every single day, and then I have to come home and do homework for two of those classes, sooo...yeah. Unfortunately that doesn't leave much time for fun stuff like nail blogging. Anyway, I'm super excited to share the China Glaze On Safari press release with you, in case you haven't seen it already! (And if you have, I'm sorry, because this is probably at least the tenth post you've seen.) I'm particularly psyched about Manhunt, because I absolutely love cobalt blue, and it's rarely attempted in polish form.

P.S. All these photos will enlarge if you click on them.

P.P.S. Personally, I think it would be really cool - and a good PR move - if China Glaze donated a portion of the profits from this collection to the World Wildlife Fund, Safari Club International, or a similar organization.

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Los Angeles, CA – (June 2012):  China Glaze® nail lacquer invites you to take an exotic expedition with its Fall 2012 collection, On Safari.  Be captivated by the earthy tones, rich plums and celestial sparkles that make up this adventurous assortment of polishes.

The China Glaze® On Safari features 10 rich crèmes and two glitters including:

 Kalahari Kiss: Light sand brown

I’m Not Lion: Glistening gold and multi-color glitter

Call of the Wild: Beautiful chocolate brown-dark cherry blend

Adventure Red-y: Vivid red

Desert Sun: Delicious caramel

I Herd That: Brilliant copper glitter

Man Hunt: Bold cobalt blue

Exotic Encounters: Lush green crème with blue undertones

Elephant Walk: Cool graphite grey

Jungle Queen: Smoky violet

Purr-fect Plum: Bold burgundy

Prey Tell: Daringly dark red

On Safari is also available in:

• 6-piece “Native” Collection: Man Hunt, Exotic Encounters, Elephant Walk, Jungle Queen, Purr-fect Plum and Prey Tell
• 6-piece “Tourist” Collection: Kalahari Kiss, I’m Not Lion, Call of the Wild, Adventure Red-y, Desert Sun and I Herd That
• 12-piece counter display

The China Glaze® On Safari collection will be available at fine salons and beauty supply stores nationwide in July 2012.  Individual polishes retail for $7 MSRP; the 6-piece sets retail for $42 MSRP.

China Glaze is free of DBP, toluene, and added formaldehyde. China Glaze nail lacquers are available through salons and professional beauty supply stores nationwide. For more information, visit: www.chinaglaze.com or follow China Glaze on Facebook and Twitter:http://twitter.com/ChinaGlaze

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This press release and enclosed pictures were provided by DNA Public Relations.

Ruffles Mani

Hello there! Today I have a ruffles mani to show you, a technique I learned from Chalkboard Nails. Of course I had to try it right away, so I went through my Melmer drawers and ended up pulling out American Apparel Peacock, OPI Dim Sum Plum, OPI A Good Man-darin Is Hard to Find, Nina Ultra Pro Salsa, Ulta Sun-sational, Zoya Robyn, Essie Exotic Liras, and Sally Hansen Green With Envy. I used the largest dotting tool I own.

 indoors, artificial light

indoors, artificial light

As you can see, I was starting to get some tipwear by the point I took these pictures, and as you can also see, the tips of my nails were getting a bit thick from all the polish. I think I should be able to get it a little thinner with more practice and control, though, and I'll definitely be trying this again - in fact, I'm wearing Icing Grande Margarita right now, and I think I might try a ruffles mani on top of that. One note I should make is that because I took these under artificial light (I suspected they wouldn't last until the sun came out again, and I was right), the colors don't appear as bright as they did in real life. If only I had a tiny personal sun that I could summon whenever I needed to take polish pics...

Royal Flakies

Yep, it's another cheesy layering title, stemming from my combination of Orly Royal Navy and an accent nail topped with FingerPaints Twisted. Not really much to say about this one except that it's awesome and my pictures are kind of crappy and I'm sorry about that, so I'll just let you look:

 natural light

sunlight

Isn't it preeeetty? My nail line wasn't quite as visible in real life as in the second picture, but I included it anyway because I couldn't manage to get a picture in just natural light that wasn't a little blurry. Oh, the mutability of my camera's moods...

Note: As this posts (I'm writing this on Thursday the 7th), I'm going to be starting my first of a month of 8:00, four-hour, daily geography classes. So, um, have sympathy. Or something.

Giraffe Nail Art

Hello again! Today I have some giraffe print nail art that I did recently. I've done variations of zebra and leopard patterns before, but I'd never tried giraffes. Since the giraffe is one of my favorite animals, I thought it was high time I tried, so I pulled out Ulta Sun-sational, some brown acrylic paint, and a dotting tool. Here's the result:

 natural light

I see now that the acrylic paint wasn't quite opaque in a couple of spots, but I actually didn't notice that when I was wearing the mani. While this definitely wasn't perfect, I was pretty happy with it for a first result. I didn't follow any particular tutorial; rather, I just googled "giraffe print" to get a more solid idea of what I was looking to do. You'd think I'd know what a giraffe looks like - and I do, of course - but I've always found that even when I'm trying to recreate something I have seen many times, it helps to have it in front of me when doing nail art. If you do nail art, are you the same way? I'm curious to see if it's just me.

Layla Ocean Rush

I went to Ulta a little while back, and I tortured myself for at least a good half hour over whether or not to get any of the Layla holos - and then, which ones to get! I would have just gotten them all at once if they weren't so expensive, but I didn't want to spend that much and then be disappointed, so I ended up just getting Ocean Rush and Flash Black. The first one I tried was Ocean Rush, and I was thrilled! I used two coats over GOSH Fix Base Coat, and I barely had to do any cleanup. But honestly, I wouldn't really care if the application was bad on this one. I mean, just look at that:

 indoors, artificial light

indoors, artificial light

Isn't that just gorgeous? Of course the sun was gone by the time I took pictures (and, naturally, then came straight back out again when I took Ocean Rush off), so I had to take pictures inside, which always makes my hands look a little orange. However, the polish color is pretty accurate - it's a gorgeous medium blue with a brilliant holographic shine that comes in second only to my bottle of GOSH Holographic. I was afraid that these would be pale and wimpy like the newer China Glaze holos (while there's nothing wrong with those, I prefer bolder colors in holos, and I'd love to see a collection of deep, jewel-toned holos), but my fears were allayed as soon as I put on the second coat. The blue isn't a *dark* blue by any means, but it's deep enough that it's very, very blue, while still having the holographic rainbow effect. I haven't tried Flash Black yet, but if I'm as thrilled with it as with Ocean Rush, I'll consider my money very well spent...and perhaps even go back for more!

Giveaway Winner!

Congratulations to . . .

Maxine Koyanagi

for winning my giveaway! Please respond to my email within 72 hours to claim your prize.

Verve 360 Nail Polish Giveaway

Hello there! Sorry for the almost month-long break in posts - I was very busy with finals and moving out and all that jazz, and I haven't quite felt like doing much in my first week home. I figure I get a week or so of doing nothing before I start having four hours of class a day, an online class, and a job (hopefully...I'll hear back sometime today) to busy myself with. Don't worry, though, my next post will be up within a week! For now, I want to surprise you lovely readers with a giveaway. Verve 360 hair salons in Pittsburgh kindly contacted me to do a giveaway, and of course I agreed. I'd actually been wanting to do a giveaway for a while, but I haven't had the resources to purchase a really good prize myself. Here are the giveaway details and rules:

• Verve 360 is giving one lucky reader two polishes from Zoya Beach & Surf, Tracie and Myrta (pictured above, though in the opposite order - you can read more about them here and here).
• EDIT: The giveaway is for those living in the continental US only. Sorry I forgot to post this earlier!
• To enter, you must comment on this post answering the first three questions. For each one of the additional questions you answer in your comment, you will gain one additional entry. 
1. What's your name?
2. What's your email address?
3. Why do you like Zoya polishes, or why do you want to try them?
4. Do you like my Facebook page? If so, please leave your Facebook name.
5. Did you tweet about this giveaway? If so, please leave a link to your tweet.*
6. What's your favorite Zoya polish?
• The giveaway will end June 1, 2012 at 3:00 PM CST (GMT -6).

Good luck!

*You can find the permalink to a tweet by clicking "expand" or "details" if you are on twitter.com, or by clicking the time and date of the tweet if you are in a Twitter app, such as TweetDeck. It is this link that I will be checking - a link to your personal feed will not count.

Preppy Stripes & Tutorial

Hello there! Today I bring you some nail art I did Thursday night. I ordered some striping tape off of Amazon a couple weeks ago, and I hadn't gotten around to using it yet, so I decided it was time to break it out. I wanted bold colors, and ended up picking China Glaze First Mate, China Glaze Grape Pop, and OPI Red My Fortune Cookie. The overall effect reminds me a bit of a prep school uniform, hence the title.

natural light

Click "read more" to see the tutorial:

Milani Rad Purple + Kleancolor Chunky Holo Purple

Happy Friday! The end of the week is here at last...at that just means finals are even closer. But for now, I'm glad it's Friday. Today I'm going to show you my most recent layering manicure. Every time I get a new layering polish, I'm always tempted to try it over Milani Rad Purple - it's one of the best jellies I own, and it's purple to boot. Naturally, when I got Kleancolor Chunky Holo Purple in the mail after buying it from Colour Coated's blog sale, I had to slap it on over Rad Purple as soon as possible.

 natural light

sunlight

Look at that squishiness! I used three or four coats of Rad Purple Cult Nails Get it On, added a layer of Chunky Holo Purple, and finished it off with Cult Nails Wicked Fast. I'm hoping to find the time to review both of the Cult Nails treatments soon, though top and base coat posts always take me longer for some reason, but in the meantime I will tell you readily that I'm loving them both - so much, in fact, that I may yet say goodbye to my tried-and-true Barielle Clearly Noticeable Nail Thickener, Orly Nailtrition, and Sally Hansen Insta-Dri. Anyway, that discussion's for another post. Enjoy your Friday!