Hello!
Betcha thought I was dead, huh? No post in like 3 weeks?! Unacceptable! I have no legitimate excuse... "I was on vacation and didn't have the internet..." "My computer crashed..." "My grandma died..." Nope. Nada. I have pictures. But do I want to edit and upload and babble on and on about them? Nope. So why am I posting now? To let you all in on why I'm so lazy.
Here is what I just posted to a forum on Idiopathic Hypersomnia (a condition where no matter how much sleep you get, you're still tired, for no reason any medical test can find, sleeping in excess of 12 - 14 hours and long daytime naps without feeling refreshed)
Hi everyone, I am a 19 year old female college student. I just had a sleep study with a nap test done a few days ago. I haven't been diagnosed with anything yet, but my doctor says its most likely either narcolepsy or Idiopathic Hypersomnia. I don't have sleep apnea. My thyroid is fine. I do have periodic limb movements, restless legs and teeth grinding at night. I have also been diagnosed with depression, anxiety and OCD since I was 8 and have been on antidepressants (all of them, currently Prozac) since then. I've always been a sleepy person, even as a baby, I slept through the night. My parents always said I slept like the dead and I was very hard to wake up.
It became a problem my senior year in high school (2 yrs ago) when I began falling asleep in class, not remembering that I had, and waking up when the bell rang, to find that I had missed a whole class. I would then come straight home from school (at 3PM) and fall asleep and sleep right up until my alarm went off the next morning at 5AM. And I was still so tired. My mom worked really hard, and was really annoying, making sure I didn't take any naps. Whenever I could, though, I'd sleep for 12 - 14 hours. I once slept for about 36 hours, not once waking up. Since the onset of this, I've had super vivid dreams (someone else mentioned this) and I sometimes have a hard time telling the difference between dreams and reality for a few hours when I wake up. Recently, I've been having issues staying asleep. I wake up several times, only for seconds and go back to sleep. This is strange because until now I've always had deep, restful uninterrupted sleep.
I've been on Concerta (methylphenidate) 36mg for a year or so now and although I hate the side effects (dry mouth, excessive thirst, jittery, sweating, ect) it has done wonders to keep me awake. Without it, I can't function. I'm also a caffeine addict, I drink huge amounts of coffee and other drinks with caffeine and have built up a high tolerance to it. College has been hard, I've slept through several classes, missed deadlines, missed out on having a social life, despite the Concerta. I'm still so tired during the day. There have a been a few instances when I've come very very close to falling asleep while driving, which terrifies me. My parents still make me run errands (I'm home for the summer) even though I insist I don't think its safe for me to drive. I think they think I'm making this all up. My mom thinks I'm just depressed and she thinks changing my diet and exercising will help. No one else, aside from doctors, understands. They all just think I'm lazy. In reality, I'm addicted to sleep.
I have a difficult time talking about this because so few people believe me and I truly believe that you can't understand what this is like unless you experience it. So... this is hard putting this out there, but I feel like us nail bloggers are non-judgemental people (for the most part!) To prep for the sleep study, I had to go off my Concerta for 2 weeks and start sleeping "normal people hours" like midnight to 10 AM instead of 3 AM to 3 or 4 PM or whatever. So, I've been pretty messed up these past 2 weeks. But, I'm back on my speed now (haha) and am getting back to normal.
**UPDATE** 8/15/11: My official diagnosis is idiopathic hypersomnia with long sleep time. Basically (this is all what my sleep doctor in Boston told me) most people go to sleep and fall steadily into a deep sleep and then come out of it within an hour and go into REM sleep within that time and repeat it over and over throughout the night, known as the "normal" sleep cycle. My diagnosis means that my sleep cycle looks like I fall immediately into a deep sleep and stay there for a while and come out of it, and so on, and it looks completely normal except I don't go into REM sleep until about 8 hours into my sleep. I'm so tired all the time because I get so little REM sleep which is essential to feeling recharged and maintaining body function. There is a possibility that I do have narcolepsy as well but I take Prozac for depression and SSRIs like Prozac are what is prescribed to treat the major symptoms of narcolepsy. The Prozac would suppress the cataplexy (suddenly losing muscle tone often due to strong emotion) and the pre or post sleep hallucinations which I can't remember the name of. In order to officially diagnose me with narcolepsy, I would need to go off the Prozac and repeat the sleep study. The possibility of narcolepsy comes from the results of the nap test which were that I fell asleep on every single one, in under 10 minutes every time. For one I fell asleep in less than a minute and that was at 5:30 PM. But I didn't go into REM during my naps so I couldn't get the narcolepsy diagnosis, but that could be due to the IH or the Prozac, she's not sure.
So I came off my Concerta, which I was "severely undermedicated" with and started taking Provigil last week. Provigil is the drug prescribed to people with narcolepsy so my Dr. gave me the narcolepsy diagnosis in order to get the medication (confusing, huh?) Its not a stimulant, they're actually not quite sure how it works but its supposed to work. I haven't noticed anything yet. And also, I'm not supposed to drive. Apparently I'm a danger on the road because of how unpredictably I fall asleep and how quickly I fall asleep. So yeah, that's how that's been going.
I'm hoping to start posting pretty regularly starting sometime this week.
Thanks for reading my personal ramblings, if you did, and I hope you all have an awesome night/day!
Fiona
Sunday, July 31, 2011
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
I'm pleased to present... (PIC HEAVY)
... but first formalities...
Hello!
First off, wow, we're up 5 followers in 2 days which may not seem like a lot to some but for us, that's a lot! Thanks new followers!! We've been blogging for almost 5 months now and are almost at 50 followers. Not as fast as some people have grown but at least we're growing. Anywhoo...
I have an amazingly awesome fantastical post today. In fact its so great that those words don't even describe it. I don't have any words to describe it... so I'm not even gonna talk about it. Yup. That's how amazing it is. Fiona is speechless and is resorting to referring to herself in the third person momentarily.
Its...
Kleancolor...
Chunky Purple Holo!! (well actually the label says "Chunky Holo Purple" but whatever...)
Okay, so now you're probably wondering (like I was when I saw this and this) where do I get these and how much are they? Go to the Beauty Joint website where they are $1.75 each. Everyone. Go. There. Now. I don't know if this is a sale or what but all Kleancolor polishes are that price. The handling fee for 1 polish was $1 and shipping was $1.71 for the one item bringing my total to $4.46. A bargain. I ordered it the 5th and it came yesterday, the 11th. It was wrapped in about a 2 ft long piece of bubble wrap and sealed with tons of strapping tape all safe and sound. I also liked how Beauty Joint sent me emails throughout the whole ordering process letting me know my order was received, processed, shipped, ect. I'm very happy with their website and will definitely be ordering from them in the future.
So onto the polish. I had heard that Kleancolor has a very strong smell, different from other polishes and I was prepared for that. The verdict: its definitely strong but, the weird thing is, I don't actually think it smells all that bad. Its not that I like the smell, I just don't mind it. It smells very familiar to me and I just can't put my finger (or nose!) on what it smells like. Mini science lesson: I know that our olfactory glands (smelling glands) are the sense most strongly connected to memory and it brings back some memory of childhood which disturbs me because it makes me wonder why a strong chemically smell would remind me of my childhood... I think it might be Mineral Spirits (paint thinner) that it smells a little like and the reason that would remind me of my childhood would be the time when WARNING, storytime, if you're not interested skip ahead to next paragraph shortly after my family and I had moved into our "new" house (the one we're living in now) and I was about 9, my mom wanted all the rooms painted in the house because she hates white walls. Together, my mom and I came up with the idea to paint the kid's bathroom a deep plum color and then sponge on silver stars. That first part went well until I was left alone to do the stars on the ceiling (no idea why on earth my parents would let me do that on my own unsupervised...) I had this little pot of the special metallic silver paint that I used a brush to paint it onto the star shaped sponge and then make the stars on the ceiling while standing on the ladder. I guess, for some reason, I thought it would be fun to also paint my entire silver as well (I was a very creative child...) and I continued on with the stars. The paint on my face had dried and started to itch and burn so I went and showed my parents and they were horrified. They immediately tried to scrub the paint off my face with soap and water but it wasn't coming off. It wasn't normal water based wall paint, it was more for stuff like door handles and such... kinda like nail polish now that I think about it!! They tried everything, and at that point I'm screaming and screaming because my face is burning and burning. So finally they have to wet a cloth with a little Mineral Spirits and clean my face with that. It felt like my face was burning off! So yeah, that explains why the smell of paint thinner reminds me of my childhood. If you read that, I hope you had a good laugh at my childhood misfortune and let me know if you would like to hear more childhood stories like that (because I have millions...)
Anyway... here it is. Chunky (Purple) Holo (Purple) wherever the "Purple" goes. I have it layered over 2 coats of Nicole I'm A Beliber, which is the closest I had to the base color. My application of IaB sucks so please don't focus on that. I used 2 coats of the Kleancolor, no top coat. The formula is thick and the base is mostly clear, very very faintly tinted purple so you could layer it over most anything. The brush is like the OPI Pro Wide brush which I like. It had a pretty normal dry time. I'm not even going to try describe the colors so I'll let the million pictures do the talking.
Sunlight pictures.
Not much effect in direct sun.
Bottle in sun.
Attempting to get color shift...
There it is...
The next set of pictures are all indoor by a window in the fading sunlight with the camera flash off. These are the best depiction of what this looks like.
I'm sorry that some are blurry. The flash is off because the sunlight couldn't be too bright as you saw above.
Here are some bottle pics because in my opinion, this is the prettiest polish in the bottle I've ever, ever seen...
My camera can't even handle all the beautifulness of it... I have literally 30 pictures just like this one.
Its so beautiful it almost makes me want to cry... I have no words to describe it... no, I'm not being dramatic...
And there you go. Go ahead and catch your breath. Because I know, its breathtaking.
And now I have a dilemma because I don't know what color to classify this under. I guess I won't. Hands down, this is #1 on my favorite polishes that I own (so far anyway) *sigh* I have nothing else to say about it.
Have a great night (day... whatever) and I hope to talk to you soon!
Thanks for looking, commenting and following!
Fiona
Hello!
First off, wow, we're up 5 followers in 2 days which may not seem like a lot to some but for us, that's a lot! Thanks new followers!! We've been blogging for almost 5 months now and are almost at 50 followers. Not as fast as some people have grown but at least we're growing. Anywhoo...
I have an amazingly awesome fantastical post today. In fact its so great that those words don't even describe it. I don't have any words to describe it... so I'm not even gonna talk about it. Yup. That's how amazing it is. Fiona is speechless and is resorting to referring to herself in the third person momentarily.
Its...
Kleancolor...
Chunky Purple Holo!! (well actually the label says "Chunky Holo Purple" but whatever...)
Okay, so now you're probably wondering (like I was when I saw this and this) where do I get these and how much are they? Go to the Beauty Joint website where they are $1.75 each. Everyone. Go. There. Now. I don't know if this is a sale or what but all Kleancolor polishes are that price. The handling fee for 1 polish was $1 and shipping was $1.71 for the one item bringing my total to $4.46. A bargain. I ordered it the 5th and it came yesterday, the 11th. It was wrapped in about a 2 ft long piece of bubble wrap and sealed with tons of strapping tape all safe and sound. I also liked how Beauty Joint sent me emails throughout the whole ordering process letting me know my order was received, processed, shipped, ect. I'm very happy with their website and will definitely be ordering from them in the future.
So onto the polish. I had heard that Kleancolor has a very strong smell, different from other polishes and I was prepared for that. The verdict: its definitely strong but, the weird thing is, I don't actually think it smells all that bad. Its not that I like the smell, I just don't mind it. It smells very familiar to me and I just can't put my finger (or nose!) on what it smells like. Mini science lesson: I know that our olfactory glands (smelling glands) are the sense most strongly connected to memory and it brings back some memory of childhood which disturbs me because it makes me wonder why a strong chemically smell would remind me of my childhood... I think it might be Mineral Spirits (paint thinner) that it smells a little like and the reason that would remind me of my childhood would be the time when WARNING, storytime, if you're not interested skip ahead to next paragraph shortly after my family and I had moved into our "new" house (the one we're living in now) and I was about 9, my mom wanted all the rooms painted in the house because she hates white walls. Together, my mom and I came up with the idea to paint the kid's bathroom a deep plum color and then sponge on silver stars. That first part went well until I was left alone to do the stars on the ceiling (no idea why on earth my parents would let me do that on my own unsupervised...) I had this little pot of the special metallic silver paint that I used a brush to paint it onto the star shaped sponge and then make the stars on the ceiling while standing on the ladder. I guess, for some reason, I thought it would be fun to also paint my entire silver as well (I was a very creative child...) and I continued on with the stars. The paint on my face had dried and started to itch and burn so I went and showed my parents and they were horrified. They immediately tried to scrub the paint off my face with soap and water but it wasn't coming off. It wasn't normal water based wall paint, it was more for stuff like door handles and such... kinda like nail polish now that I think about it!! They tried everything, and at that point I'm screaming and screaming because my face is burning and burning. So finally they have to wet a cloth with a little Mineral Spirits and clean my face with that. It felt like my face was burning off! So yeah, that explains why the smell of paint thinner reminds me of my childhood. If you read that, I hope you had a good laugh at my childhood misfortune and let me know if you would like to hear more childhood stories like that (because I have millions...)
Anyway... here it is. Chunky (Purple) Holo (Purple) wherever the "Purple" goes. I have it layered over 2 coats of Nicole I'm A Beliber, which is the closest I had to the base color. My application of IaB sucks so please don't focus on that. I used 2 coats of the Kleancolor, no top coat. The formula is thick and the base is mostly clear, very very faintly tinted purple so you could layer it over most anything. The brush is like the OPI Pro Wide brush which I like. It had a pretty normal dry time. I'm not even going to try describe the colors so I'll let the million pictures do the talking.
Sunlight pictures.
Not much effect in direct sun.
Bottle in sun.
Attempting to get color shift...
There it is...
The next set of pictures are all indoor by a window in the fading sunlight with the camera flash off. These are the best depiction of what this looks like.
I'm sorry that some are blurry. The flash is off because the sunlight couldn't be too bright as you saw above.
Here are some bottle pics because in my opinion, this is the prettiest polish in the bottle I've ever, ever seen...
My camera can't even handle all the beautifulness of it... I have literally 30 pictures just like this one.
Its so beautiful it almost makes me want to cry... I have no words to describe it... no, I'm not being dramatic...
And there you go. Go ahead and catch your breath. Because I know, its breathtaking.
And now I have a dilemma because I don't know what color to classify this under. I guess I won't. Hands down, this is #1 on my favorite polishes that I own (so far anyway) *sigh* I have nothing else to say about it.
Have a great night (day... whatever) and I hope to talk to you soon!
Thanks for looking, commenting and following!
Fiona
Sunday, July 10, 2011
Blue Iguana
Hello!
How is everyone this lovely (?) sunny Sunday? I'm in a much better mood than I was in yesterday, although my post titles haven't gotten any more creative...
In case you didn't already guess, I'm going to show you all today China Glaze Blue Iguana from this summer's Island Escape collection. Unless you don't follow a lot of blogs or are new to nail polish, you have probably seen this color about a million times already. I'm sorry. But in truth, I don't really care. This is (in part) my blog and I'll show what I like. :) I don't have a lot of money and our blog is not huge so we don't get to sample collections before everyone else so we get polishes when we get them even if they've been out for a while and people have already shown them and discussed to death. End rant. Sorry about that... I get a little fired up sometimes. Annnyyway...
Blue Iguana is an absolutely gorgeous bright, medium blue glass fleck shimmer that almost has a metallic finish. It also has a slight purple flash that is not visible in all light and is very hard to capture on film, but I tried like hell. It is kinda sheer and I was going to layer it since my nails are so badly stained and my nail line is kinda wacky but before I did that I tried it on its own first just to see if I could get it opaque. And I'm so glad I did wear it alone!! Layering it over itself gives it so much depth that layering it over an opaque color wouldn't do. I was able to get it opaque in 3 thickly applied coats. The good thing was that I was able to apply it thick since the formula was fantastic, not gloopy or runny or thick either, just perfect and easy to control, plus it dried relatively fast. I was able to apply a thick first coat to all 10 of my nails and by the time I finished my 10th nail, the first nail was dry! Even on the second coat, the same thing happened. I didn't even have to use any of my limited supply of SV to dry it before going to sleep. I didn't wake up with sheet marks all over either! Very happy with the formula of this! Even more happy with the color! Its beyond gorgeous... *sigh* There's so much depth and complexity and the hidden purple flash is so fascinating when it comes out! Okay, enough babbling, here are the pictures.
Please excuse my slightly blue toned cuticles. I did this mani at 3 AM and that's also when I did my clean-up. It looked good to me then but I guess maybe I shouldn't do clean-up at 3 AM. And like I said before, I'm working on moisturizing... it won't happen overnight. This first one is in the shade. The next three are in full, bright sunlight.
These next few pictures are in tree shade where I'm trying to capture the purple flash.
Then I gave on holding the bottle and capturing the purple...
Here it is (look closely and use your imagination a little...) at the top edges...
Grrrr... I swear its there!!
And here are some more bonus kitty pictures, I know two posts in a row!! But Marley was being extra photogenic today, like he was begging for his picture to be taken!!
Here's one of him sleeping on the couch last night just being the cutie-patootie that he is!
And these are from today. I think I got a few really good ones, if I do say so myself...
And my favorite ever I think...
I hope you all enjoyed your weekend!!
I'm expecting some super awesome nail mail tomorrow so hopefully there will be a super amazing post tomorrow!! :) *EDIT* There won't be a post from me tomorrow because I just found out my family and I are going to the beach!
Thanks for looking, commenting and following!
Fiona
How is everyone this lovely (?) sunny Sunday? I'm in a much better mood than I was in yesterday, although my post titles haven't gotten any more creative...
In case you didn't already guess, I'm going to show you all today China Glaze Blue Iguana from this summer's Island Escape collection. Unless you don't follow a lot of blogs or are new to nail polish, you have probably seen this color about a million times already. I'm sorry. But in truth, I don't really care. This is (in part) my blog and I'll show what I like. :) I don't have a lot of money and our blog is not huge so we don't get to sample collections before everyone else so we get polishes when we get them even if they've been out for a while and people have already shown them and discussed to death. End rant. Sorry about that... I get a little fired up sometimes. Annnyyway...
Blue Iguana is an absolutely gorgeous bright, medium blue glass fleck shimmer that almost has a metallic finish. It also has a slight purple flash that is not visible in all light and is very hard to capture on film, but I tried like hell. It is kinda sheer and I was going to layer it since my nails are so badly stained and my nail line is kinda wacky but before I did that I tried it on its own first just to see if I could get it opaque. And I'm so glad I did wear it alone!! Layering it over itself gives it so much depth that layering it over an opaque color wouldn't do. I was able to get it opaque in 3 thickly applied coats. The good thing was that I was able to apply it thick since the formula was fantastic, not gloopy or runny or thick either, just perfect and easy to control, plus it dried relatively fast. I was able to apply a thick first coat to all 10 of my nails and by the time I finished my 10th nail, the first nail was dry! Even on the second coat, the same thing happened. I didn't even have to use any of my limited supply of SV to dry it before going to sleep. I didn't wake up with sheet marks all over either! Very happy with the formula of this! Even more happy with the color! Its beyond gorgeous... *sigh* There's so much depth and complexity and the hidden purple flash is so fascinating when it comes out! Okay, enough babbling, here are the pictures.
Please excuse my slightly blue toned cuticles. I did this mani at 3 AM and that's also when I did my clean-up. It looked good to me then but I guess maybe I shouldn't do clean-up at 3 AM. And like I said before, I'm working on moisturizing... it won't happen overnight. This first one is in the shade. The next three are in full, bright sunlight.
These next few pictures are in tree shade where I'm trying to capture the purple flash.
Then I gave on holding the bottle and capturing the purple...
Here it is (look closely and use your imagination a little...) at the top edges...
Grrrr... I swear its there!!
And here are some more bonus kitty pictures, I know two posts in a row!! But Marley was being extra photogenic today, like he was begging for his picture to be taken!!
Here's one of him sleeping on the couch last night just being the cutie-patootie that he is!
And these are from today. I think I got a few really good ones, if I do say so myself...
And my favorite ever I think...
I hope you all enjoyed your weekend!!
Thanks for looking, commenting and following!
Fiona
Saturday, July 9, 2011
Uninspired...
Hello!
Hey, sorry guys that I missed a few days. I've been feeling really lazy lately due to the super hot weather we've had here and as a result that makes me rather polish uninspired. Since my 4th of July mani, I put on Orly Royal Velvet which I meant to take pictures of but it was just always too hot to make myself go outside to take them. :( I wore that alone all day Tuesday and then Wednesday morning I layered on top of it Sally Hansen HD Laser which looked super amazing. But I couldn't get myself to take pictures of it. It looked about the same as it does on black so you can just Google pictures of that if you're curious. I will most definitely be wearing both again soon so I will get pictures of them eventually. I wore that combo all day Wednesday and Thursday (rare for me, but I was lazy and I loved it!) and then Friday I put on the current mani I have on which I will show you today.
I've been wanting to try China Glaxe Crushed Candy ever since I saw the press release pictures of the collection months and months ago. I was finally able to get to get in my Ulta haul and spent a good amount of time swatching it under a bunch of colors on my palette (plastic container lid) to decide what it looked best over. I finally decided I liked it over Zoya Jolene so that was my mani for Friday. I haven't taken it off since then like I normally do; I normally change my mani daily.
This is 2 thick coats of Zoya Jolene with China Glaze Crushed Candy and SV. I'm sorry if you're sick of seeing crackles and I realize I'm late to the party on showing this one, but I really don't care! This is day 2 of this mani so excuse any minor tip wear.
This is indoor with flash so the colors look a bit more vibrant than they actually are and my skin is definitely not that color!
Outdoors in the setting sun. My skin is a little dry looking because I wash my hands so much and spend a lot of time in the A/C... sorry. I'll have to try to be better about moisturizing.
And here's some bonus pictures because I feel bad about slacking on posting. My kitty Synyster was outside overseeing his territory while I was taking pictures so I took his picture as well.
He's a 5 year old part Maine Coon and weighs about 18 lbs!!
Here he is watching over the chickens in the yard.
I hope you guys enjoy the rest of your weekend and hopefully I'll be back tomorrow with a post!
Thanks for looking, commenting and following!!
Fiona
Hey, sorry guys that I missed a few days. I've been feeling really lazy lately due to the super hot weather we've had here and as a result that makes me rather polish uninspired. Since my 4th of July mani, I put on Orly Royal Velvet which I meant to take pictures of but it was just always too hot to make myself go outside to take them. :( I wore that alone all day Tuesday and then Wednesday morning I layered on top of it Sally Hansen HD Laser which looked super amazing. But I couldn't get myself to take pictures of it. It looked about the same as it does on black so you can just Google pictures of that if you're curious. I will most definitely be wearing both again soon so I will get pictures of them eventually. I wore that combo all day Wednesday and Thursday (rare for me, but I was lazy and I loved it!) and then Friday I put on the current mani I have on which I will show you today.
I've been wanting to try China Glaxe Crushed Candy ever since I saw the press release pictures of the collection months and months ago. I was finally able to get to get in my Ulta haul and spent a good amount of time swatching it under a bunch of colors on my palette (plastic container lid) to decide what it looked best over. I finally decided I liked it over Zoya Jolene so that was my mani for Friday. I haven't taken it off since then like I normally do; I normally change my mani daily.
This is 2 thick coats of Zoya Jolene with China Glaze Crushed Candy and SV. I'm sorry if you're sick of seeing crackles and I realize I'm late to the party on showing this one, but I really don't care! This is day 2 of this mani so excuse any minor tip wear.
This is indoor with flash so the colors look a bit more vibrant than they actually are and my skin is definitely not that color!
Outdoors in the setting sun. My skin is a little dry looking because I wash my hands so much and spend a lot of time in the A/C... sorry. I'll have to try to be better about moisturizing.
And here's some bonus pictures because I feel bad about slacking on posting. My kitty Synyster was outside overseeing his territory while I was taking pictures so I took his picture as well.
He's a 5 year old part Maine Coon and weighs about 18 lbs!!
Here he is watching over the chickens in the yard.
I hope you guys enjoy the rest of your weekend and hopefully I'll be back tomorrow with a post!
Thanks for looking, commenting and following!!
Fiona
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
Zoya Fall 2011 Smoke and Mirrors Press Release
Hey everyone!
If you're into Zoya nail polishes (um, yeah, slightly embarrassed to say I might be overly obsessed with Zoya...), then you may or may not know that today Zoya released what their Fall 2011 collection is going to be. So without further ado, Zoya Smoke and Mirrors collections!
smoke and mirrors
Zoya is the new color of fashion... The new Zoya Fall 2011 Nail Polish,smoke and mirrors colors were designed and inspired by top fashion designers and beauty icons.
If you're into Zoya nail polishes (um, yeah, slightly embarrassed to say I might be overly obsessed with Zoya...), then you may or may not know that today Zoya released what their Fall 2011 collection is going to be. So without further ado, Zoya Smoke and Mirrors collections!
NEW ZOYA NAIL POLISH COLLECTION ANNOUNCEMENT
the best fall 2011 nail colorsmoke and mirrors
...beautiful illusions
Zoya Nail Polish presents 12 enticing and mysterious new colors for fall 2011.
Jana (ZP564) - smoky mauve nail polish quartz cream
Petra (ZP565) - smoky eggplant mauve nail polish cream
Codie (ZP566) - smoky brown taupe nail polish cream
Anja (ZP567) - smoky palatinate purple nail polish cream
Cynthia (ZP568) - smoky Prussian blue nail polish cream
Dree (ZP569) - smoky camouflage green nail polish cream
Nimue (ZP570) - smoky rich thistle mauve nail polish metallic
Marina (ZP571) - smoky steel blue nail polish metallic
Tao (ZP572) - smoky slate gray nail polish metallic
Yara (ZP573) - sparkly olive green nail polish metallic
Neeka (ZP574) - sparkly amethyst purple nail polish metallic
Jem (ZP575) - sparkly fandango pink nail polish metallic
Ultra long-wearing, glossy nail lacquers by Zoya are free of harmful industrialchemicals like toluene, camphor, formaldehyde, resin, dibutyl phthalate (DBP)that are known to cause cancer and birth defects.
Find Zoya smoke and mirrors as well as over 300 other high-fashion Zoya shades at www.zoya.com. As always, each and every Zoya color is made for beautiful women so we name them after beautiful women.
Zoya smoke and mirrors
available July 15, 2011
available July 15, 2011
Sug. Retail $8.00 per 0.5 fl.oz. bottle (US)
###
I've already fallen in love with these two collection. I'm seriously hoping that Zoya will have a promo for their new fall collections b/c otherwise I don't know how I could explain wanting both collections to my parents. They're finally reaching that 'really, more nail polish?' point now since I've gotten a lot of Zoya in the last 8 weeks. This might be something I'll order at school at the end of August so that way they don't have to know! Yep, that's when you know you have a problem when you're hiding ordering nail polish from those who care about you. But that's what I'll probably be doing next year at school when other collections come out. Yes, I'm a little obsessed, but, but, but.... I NEED THEM!!!
-A
Hey, Fiona here. I just wanted to add that the nail blogger queen herself Scrangie has posted some swatches of this collection already so if you haven't seen them yet click here.
I am totally lusting after Jem, Neeka and Yara. Those 3 I will definitely NEED, without a doubt!! I so hope, along with Amanda that's there's a promo for this (I bet there will, it wouldn't be Zoya without a promo!!) I especially NEED Jem. Ohmygosh, when I saw Scrangie's swatch of it, I literally gasped out loud and said, "Need!"
Talk to you guys later!
-A
Hey, Fiona here. I just wanted to add that the nail blogger queen herself Scrangie has posted some swatches of this collection already so if you haven't seen them yet click here.
I am totally lusting after Jem, Neeka and Yara. Those 3 I will definitely NEED, without a doubt!! I so hope, along with Amanda that's there's a promo for this (I bet there will, it wouldn't be Zoya without a promo!!) I especially NEED Jem. Ohmygosh, when I saw Scrangie's swatch of it, I literally gasped out loud and said, "Need!"
Talk to you guys later!
Monday, July 4, 2011
Oh Say Does That Star Spangled Banner Yet Wave...
Hello!
Happy 4th of July/Independence Day!! (to our American readers) Happy Monday to everyone else! I know that's a corny title, but I always associate the 4th with cheesy, corny stuff... does that make me a bad American?
Today I have a mani that I'm actually quite proud of. A lot of thought, planning and time went into it. I really hope its a unique idea, because I wanted to do something different. My idea was to make it look like if I had painted an American flag onto my whole hand, including my nails, and then erased the image from my skin but left it on my nails. Confused?
Here's what I mean,
How did I do it? Its quite simple actually. I sat with my hand in that position on the flag and then just sketched what each nail would have to look like in order to complete the flag. I eye-balled the angles and the sizes of the stars and fortunately I'm pretty good at that.
Then I painted my base colors, the same colors as yesterday, Cherry Red, Dark Denim and French White. I did my thumb and index red, my middle and ring blue and my pinkie white. Then I painted the modified diagonal Frenches freehand on my pinkie, index and thumb using the appropriate colors. Then, I very, very, very carefully and slowly painted the star on my ring nail in white and the half of the star on my middle, using my smallest nail art brush. I wasn't happy with how the stars looked, so I went around them using the same brush in the blue. And royally f**ked them up. After much cursing, I cleaned the brush and tried again with the white, cursed the American flag for having stars, took it back, even though I'm not superstitious, cursed some more, and finally made the stars look halfway decent and left them alone. (Stars are f**king hard to paint, man!!)
After taking some pictures, I decided that since it was the 4th, I needed to go all out, so I added glitter. I added the same glitters as yesterday (Ruby Pumps, Beware and Strapless) over their corresponding colors and then took some sunlight pictures outside in the sweltering summer heat (the thermometer says 86 degrees, but it feels much warmer with the humidity)
My fingers aren't in the right spots in these sunlight pictures and I'm sorry for that. I'd redo them, but A) I'm not leaving my air conditioned room to go outside again and B) After taking these, I smudged my index nail :( Also, sorry for the lack of cleanup. I thought they weren't that bad, but then when I looked at the pictures, they told another story...
Placement FAIL! Haha the sun was so bright I couldn't see well enough even with my sunglasses on, to see if they were exactly in the right spots! Sorry!
Happy 4th of July/Independence Day!! (to our American readers) Happy Monday to everyone else! I know that's a corny title, but I always associate the 4th with cheesy, corny stuff... does that make me a bad American?
Today I have a mani that I'm actually quite proud of. A lot of thought, planning and time went into it. I really hope its a unique idea, because I wanted to do something different. My idea was to make it look like if I had painted an American flag onto my whole hand, including my nails, and then erased the image from my skin but left it on my nails. Confused?
Here's what I mean,
How did I do it? Its quite simple actually. I sat with my hand in that position on the flag and then just sketched what each nail would have to look like in order to complete the flag. I eye-balled the angles and the sizes of the stars and fortunately I'm pretty good at that.
Then I painted my base colors, the same colors as yesterday, Cherry Red, Dark Denim and French White. I did my thumb and index red, my middle and ring blue and my pinkie white. Then I painted the modified diagonal Frenches freehand on my pinkie, index and thumb using the appropriate colors. Then, I very, very, very carefully and slowly painted the star on my ring nail in white and the half of the star on my middle, using my smallest nail art brush. I wasn't happy with how the stars looked, so I went around them using the same brush in the blue. And royally f**ked them up. After much cursing, I cleaned the brush and tried again with the white, cursed the American flag for having stars, took it back, even though I'm not superstitious, cursed some more, and finally made the stars look halfway decent and left them alone. (Stars are f**king hard to paint, man!!)
After taking some pictures, I decided that since it was the 4th, I needed to go all out, so I added glitter. I added the same glitters as yesterday (Ruby Pumps, Beware and Strapless) over their corresponding colors and then took some sunlight pictures outside in the sweltering summer heat (the thermometer says 86 degrees, but it feels much warmer with the humidity)
My fingers aren't in the right spots in these sunlight pictures and I'm sorry for that. I'd redo them, but A) I'm not leaving my air conditioned room to go outside again and B) After taking these, I smudged my index nail :( Also, sorry for the lack of cleanup. I thought they weren't that bad, but then when I looked at the pictures, they told another story...
Placement FAIL! Haha the sun was so bright I couldn't see well enough even with my sunglasses on, to see if they were exactly in the right spots! Sorry!
Blurry for maximum glitter effect!! Small because no clean-up is ugly!
I even did my toes for today!
All the usual disclaimers apply to pedi pics (do not recommend you enlarge, blah, blah, blah...) Haha, funny story about the vertical stripes on the flag toes... I didn't realize that the stripes on the flag are horizontal not vertical... I'd already added the blue before I realized that so I couldn't fix that... whoopsie.. I think I made the same mistake on my mom's nails that I posted yesterday, I'll have to go check. Wow, FAIL!! The rest of my toes aside from my big toes which are just the creme colors, are the creme colors, with a coat of the glitters over them too but you probably can't tell unless you enlarge the pictures, which I don't recommend...
Well, I hope all you Americans have a safe and happy Independence Day, 4th of July, whichever you call it!! I'm probably off to eat dinner soon where we're probably having a good ol' American cook out with good ol' American hamburgers and hot dogs and I will eat my hot dog and baked beans like a good American and then eat too much ice cream, also like a good American... :) See, I can be patriotic for one day a year. :P
And I hope everyone else has an awesome Monday night, wherever you are!! :)
Thanks for looking, commenting and following!!
Fiona
Sunday, July 3, 2011
Patriotic Nail Fail and Guest Nails
Hello!
I hope everyone is enjoying their Sunday!
So, I was bored this afternoon since the internet was out, because my dad was doing some repairs to the airport so our wireless works faster, and I decided to do some 4th of July nail art. I had an idea of what I wanted to try, mainly to see if I could actually do it, so I gave it a try.
And failed.
It's not a miserable fail, which is why I'm posting it, but its not very good either. No laughing, okay?
I'm gonna keep this smaller too, because I'm not all that proud of them. Feel free to click to enlarge for detail if you wish.
For this failed art I started by alternating white, red and blue on my fingers. I used Wet n' Wild French White, SH XW Cherry Red and Fashion Bug Dark Denim. Then I painted the stars and the "USA" with a nail art brush using China Glaze Ruby Pumps, Pure Ice Beware (silver glitter) and Pure Ice Strapless (blue glitter.) Then I made some white stars using the same white and then (unsuccessfully) outlined the stars with the white on the red and the blue nails. I didn't use top coat (although that would have made the pictures look about 10 times better) because my SV is on its last leg and has only about 1 or 2 more uses left in it and since this was coming right off after I didn't bother.
The fingers that sucked the worst were the index and the pinkie. The ring and thumb were the best (uhhh... in terms of this mani...) and the middle is just okay.
The 2 fingers I liked the most.
Overall, I think the idea is good, the execution just could have been better. Also, maybe it would look better with less glitter, like only one glitter star per nail? I don't know... I'll try again tonight (something different!!) for my actual 4th mani and show it tomorrow.
Now here's some patriotic nail art that I actually like!! I did my mom's and my sister's nails for the 4th and like how they came out.
These are my mom's nails. I used the same colors mentioned above (my base colors, not the glitters). As you can see she has tip wear already after 1 day because I didn't put any top coat on.
And these are my sister's (she's 13 in case you didn't already know that.) This is done on a set of acrylic nails (Kiss, most likely.)
I used Sinful Social Ladder as a base to make the acrylics shiny and sparkly and then I painted a french on, freehand using WnW French White. I went over just the french tip with WnW Kaleidoscope (holo glitter) and then using my striper brush, striped across the bottom of where the white met the pink with Dark Denim. Then, using the striper again, striped above the blue, but leaving a space of white, with Cherry Red. Then I striped over the blue stripe with Strapless. Then just on her thumbs, dotted white with a toothpick; I would have done all her fingers but she lost patience and ran away.
I know the red stripe on the thumb on the left looks jacked up but most of them looked fine and you can't tell from a distance!
Uhhh... I can't think of an ending... so...
Thanks for looking, commenting and following!
Fiona
I hope everyone is enjoying their Sunday!
So, I was bored this afternoon since the internet was out, because my dad was doing some repairs to the airport so our wireless works faster, and I decided to do some 4th of July nail art. I had an idea of what I wanted to try, mainly to see if I could actually do it, so I gave it a try.
And failed.
It's not a miserable fail, which is why I'm posting it, but its not very good either. No laughing, okay?
I'm gonna keep this smaller too, because I'm not all that proud of them. Feel free to click to enlarge for detail if you wish.
For this failed art I started by alternating white, red and blue on my fingers. I used Wet n' Wild French White, SH XW Cherry Red and Fashion Bug Dark Denim. Then I painted the stars and the "USA" with a nail art brush using China Glaze Ruby Pumps, Pure Ice Beware (silver glitter) and Pure Ice Strapless (blue glitter.) Then I made some white stars using the same white and then (unsuccessfully) outlined the stars with the white on the red and the blue nails. I didn't use top coat (although that would have made the pictures look about 10 times better) because my SV is on its last leg and has only about 1 or 2 more uses left in it and since this was coming right off after I didn't bother.
The fingers that sucked the worst were the index and the pinkie. The ring and thumb were the best (uhhh... in terms of this mani...) and the middle is just okay.
The 2 fingers I liked the most.
Overall, I think the idea is good, the execution just could have been better. Also, maybe it would look better with less glitter, like only one glitter star per nail? I don't know... I'll try again tonight (something different!!) for my actual 4th mani and show it tomorrow.
Now here's some patriotic nail art that I actually like!! I did my mom's and my sister's nails for the 4th and like how they came out.
These are my mom's nails. I used the same colors mentioned above (my base colors, not the glitters). As you can see she has tip wear already after 1 day because I didn't put any top coat on.
And these are my sister's (she's 13 in case you didn't already know that.) This is done on a set of acrylic nails (Kiss, most likely.)
I used Sinful Social Ladder as a base to make the acrylics shiny and sparkly and then I painted a french on, freehand using WnW French White. I went over just the french tip with WnW Kaleidoscope (holo glitter) and then using my striper brush, striped across the bottom of where the white met the pink with Dark Denim. Then, using the striper again, striped above the blue, but leaving a space of white, with Cherry Red. Then I striped over the blue stripe with Strapless. Then just on her thumbs, dotted white with a toothpick; I would have done all her fingers but she lost patience and ran away.
I know the red stripe on the thumb on the left looks jacked up but most of them looked fine and you can't tell from a distance!
Uhhh... I can't think of an ending... so...
Thanks for looking, commenting and following!
Fiona
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