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

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

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!

NEW ZOYA NAIL POLISH COLLECTION ANNOUNCEMENT

the best fall 2011 nail color
smoke and mirrors 

...beautiful illusions

Zoya Nail Polish presents 12 enticing and mysterious new colors for fall 2011.

Zoya Nail Polish: Smoke Collection (cream nail polish)

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

Zoya Nail Polish: Mirrors Collection (metallic nail polish)

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

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.

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

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!

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!

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

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

Saturday Haul from Zoya and the Mall of NH

Hey everyone!

I hope that you are all enjoying this lovely 4th of July weekend to all of our American readers (and to our international readers, a lovely weekend). Today I went to the Mall of New Hampshire with Fiona. The Mall of NH is centrally located between out two houses since we live in different parts of the state. But before I went to the mall today, I got a package from Zoya today that contained the Color Lock System promo that I ordered last Friday. The mail lady that drops off my packages at my house is very stealthy since I didn't even hear her drive by or leave the package on the porch; she must be trained in the ways of the ninja! But that just meant that my package was now pretty hot and I was afraid that my bottles in the Color Lock System or the free Sunshine collection I got might have exploded in the heat of the intense New England summer and sun.

Color Lock System

Sunshine collection: Reva, Kimmy, Rica, Tansy, Apple, and Faye. Don't know why Kimmy's looking more orange than red in this pic...

But anyway, back to the mall. The Mall of NH just put in a brand spankin' new Ulta store right in our state! Before, the closest Ulta to us was in Portland, ME which is still a good 2 hour or so drive from my part of the state. All I have to say about this store is that it is EPIC. They have so many OPIs, Essies, China Glazes, and Orlys that it was mind blowing. We walked into the store and just stood there for a good 30 seconds taking it all in. I was amazed with all of the different products they had from Cover Girl cosmetics to Bare Essentials mineral makeup (which I almost bought but due to no prices I didn't). This Ulta kind of had a selection of Zoyas, but it was one Intimates collection display that had been pretty picked over since it only contained two bottles of Dove (which I already have) and to my delight, two bottles of Marley. I was happy to finally get Marley since I've been wanting her since I saw her on the swatch plate that came with our Earth Day promo package. I also found a bottle of Orly Space Cadet hidden on an end display of China Glazes and OPIs on the very bottom underneath the display for some OPIs. Someone must have put it there so they could come back later for it; too bad for them since I bought it, sorry person. : ( They also had the Nice Stems! collection from OPI, but they didn't have the one I wanted which was I Lily Love you (a polish that contains flaky pieces in it). They only had it in a mini Nice Stems! collection that would only be good for one-time usage.

Space Cadet and Marley

I was actually proud of myself since I was able to walk out of Ulta without buying a million polishes. I just wished they had more Zoyas than what I found. Maybe in a few months they will, but for now our NH Ulta is not stocked up on Zoya. If they did have more Zoyas than I would have walked out with more. I did well until, like Fiona just said, we went into this store called Hair Cosmopolitan.

I had only seen a display that contained a lot of OPIs and I was hoping that I might find I Lily Love you in there, but then Fiona kept calling my name until I finally turned around and saw the large display of Zoyas. I think my brain just shut down seeing it. I had such a hard time picking out two colors that I really wanted since they had so many that have been on my want list since becoming a Zoya addict. I finally settled on Pinta and Yasmeen since they were two of the purples that I've really wanted for a bit. I almost picked up Roxy instead, but I really wanted those two. I then decided I needed a bottle of Freja as well since it was a cool gunmetal grey.

 Yasmeen, Freja, and Pinta

But the best part was that at the register, they had a display that contained some Nice Stems! polishes. And guess what polish I found?

I Lily Love you: Epic Win

Here's another pic of it to show more of the flakies and glitter that's in this awesome polish:

So besides the mall being 90 degrees since they clearly didn't have the AC on, it was a great day spent with Fiona! And sorry for rambling on at times; hope you all have a great rest of 4th of July weekend (or just weekend for international viewers)!

-Amanda

Mall Haul and Zoya Roxy!

Hello!

How is everyone this lovely Saturday evening? I am awesome! Why? Because I just hauled a bunch of polish from the mall (mainly Ulta) with Amanda this afternoon!

Wanna see what I got? Of course you do!

From top L-R: China Glaze Blue Iguana, Starboard and Crushed Candy. SH HD Laser and Zoya Roxy
Bottom L-R: Orly Halley's Comet (!!!!!), Royal Velvet, and Blue Collar. OPI No Room For the Blues.

Not as big a haul as some people but this is the most I have ever spent on nail polish and got at one time!! It was exhilarating!! Ulta is like a nail polish heaven! I couldn't believe all the choices! We spent close to an hour or more in there. I was glad they were having a buy 2 get 1 free sale on polish or all this would have cost me a lot more! When the guy first rang me up, he hadn't added in the free polish and it had come to $20 more than I actually spent, I was so scared!! I was so close to getting the OPI Grand Slam set with Grape... Set... Match! and Serving Up Sparkle but there wasn't a price on it (a common theme we discovered at Ulta... annoying) and I was afraid it was super expensive so I didn't. I was also contemplating getting Turquoise Shatter and passed it up and by the time we had come back to it, it was gone! :( I also almost got OPI Purple With a Purpose but when I realized the BOGO didn't apply to OPI, I quickly put it back since the OPIs are $8.50.

The Zoya came from a place called Hair Cosmopoliton. Amanda and I were just walking around and saw polish through the window and went in to check it out. She went right to the giant OPI display and I immediately saw the giant Zoya tower and was like, "Amanda... Amanda... AMANDA!!" And then she had a heart attack when she saw it! I only got one because they were $7.99 but it was hard to resist!

It was hard to decide which to wear first (I love them all so much! So many lemmings are killed!) but Roxy was calling out to me so I put it on. And Oh. My. God. WOW. This one goes straight into my Top 5 Favorite polishes ever (if I had a Top 5 list...)

Just... just... just.. LOOOK AT EEET!!

Amazing-sauce, full of win... whatever... Zoya Roxy is stunning. Simply stunning. And I don't even like these types of colors!! I don't know whether to call this a glitter or a sparkle *EDIT* I've decided to classify this as a glitter because it removes like a glitter, so break out your acetone and tin foil!... somewhere in between. Now, I'm no polish expert, but to me, after studying this intently, this looks to be magenta glitter and shimmer suspended in a dark raspberry jelly base. The base is definitely dark, and the glitter/sparkle/shimmer pieces are definitely magenta. Shown is 3 effortless coats with SV. I did a quick clean-up because I was trying to catch the some sunlight before the sun set, which fortunately I did!

Here's about a million more pictures... sorry but this soooo pretty I had to!

It's darker and has more depth than this...

So I think I've made my point clear... Zoya Roxy is beyond gorgeous!! So, so, so glad I decided to pick this up!

I hope you all enjoy your holiday weekend (in case I don't post again until Monday)!!

Thanks for looking, commenting, and following!

Fiona