My first foray into Piggy Polish territory, and the fabulous green that came of it.

O, HELLO! Look at that green! It positively glows. My fingers look as though they are tipped in green fire. :)
Here is my first Piggy Polish buy. I can't decide if the name "Piggy Polish" is endearingly cute or annoying. haha. Either way, I love this polish. It is from PP's Spring collection and it is called Lily's Pad.
The cool thing about this formula is that it looks, and applies, almost floaty-like. I don't know what else to call it. Floaty is all I can think of. :P The floatiness makes it pretty sheer, this is 4 coats. But lovely coats they were, smooth and almost no clean-up. The finish ended up being frosty. At least I think that that's what it is. Sometimes I get confused about my finishes. Eek, what kind of pitiful nail blogger am I?!
You guys, I had something else to say, something that was no doubt very important to this review, but I am blanking. I'm so sorry, but I'm having a blonde moment. Nooo! ;) You'll just have to be content with the knowledge that this is an amazing polish and I love it very much.
Till next time, lovely ladies, adieu.
p.s. You can buy Piggy Polish at Ulta stores. Right now they are having a Buy 2 Get 1 Free sale! :)

The Cuticle Chronicles: Sally Hansen Cuticle Pen

Yay for The Cuticle Chronicles! Today is post two in this series of everything cuticle-wise. :)
This little lovely is the Sally Hansen Maximum Growth Cuticle Pen. It's one of those little pens that you twist and it makes a clicky noise and goop comes out. Nice goop. I guess it's not really goop, it's a clear liquid that smells really good. Like almond flowers! I love that smell. :)
I also love this pen. It's ah-mazing. It sinks in quickly - I'd say about 5 minutes. And then your cuticles are happy and moisturized.
I bought this without any thought of it making my nails grow ... I'm generally pretty skeptical of anything that claims to grow my nails or whatever. But I've noticed that my nails have been growing particularly fast lately. Now this could just be a fluke-y thing, like maybe I've got some nail-growing hormones running wild in me right now or something, but I like to think that it's the result of this cuticle pen. :)

Essie North Forks, Numero Tres

Okay darlings, I give you Sag Harbor! Sag Harbor is, hands down, my absolute favorite from this collection. It actually didn't give me any trouble while applying! *dances with joy*
The color is faaabulous, dahling. Is is blue, is it grey? No one knows, except that they love it so. :) It conjures up images of a stormy sea.
Congrats on making such a wonderful color Essie! Sag Harbor has changed my mindset on the other two polishes in this collection. Perhaps I did something funky whilst applying them? I dearly hope that the fault was mine and not the polish's.
p.s. This picture is not super accurate ... it doesn't show the blue side well enough. The sun won't come out for me today, so I'm forced to post a cloudy-day picture, which makes the grey come out more than it should. :(

Essie North Forks, Numero Dos

Annnd, Greenport! Now, I wouldn't call this a blue. It's more of a dusty teal, in my mind. A very pretty dusty teal, but not a blue. :)
But the application, oh the application! It was, possibly, worse than Shelter Island. Not only was thick and gloppy, it dragged. 3 coats were, once again, necessary to get any kind of even coverage.
I wish Essie had made the quality of this collection up to par. This collection is so beautiful. Shouldn't we be able to apply this gorgeous polish without wishing we hadn't been born? ;)

Essie North Forks, Numero Uno

All right y'all, here is Shelter Island, as promised. :)
This was the color I was the most excited about from this collection. I thought that perhaps it would be the perfect sky blue. It's a nice light blue, but not what I had hoped. :( I give Essie major props for releasing a collection of blues, but I had 2 problems with Shelter Island.
Firstly, the color was a bit flat. If this had been a jelly ohhh what loveliness that would have been! Then perhaps it would have been the perfect sky blue.
Secondly, the application was horrible. Horrible, I tell you! Streaky kingdom. 3 coats are absolutely necessary to achieve a semi-streak-free state, but I used 4. However, the bubbles you see in the picture are not from the polish. These are from my Seche Vite, which is on it's last, very bubbly, gasp.
I don't want y'all to think that this is a bad polish. I did like it a lot, and got plenty of compliments while I was in Georgia. But it could have been sooo much better!
If I can coax the sun out of the clouds, Greenport will be coming up later today. :)

Just so you know I haven't abandoned you ...

Hey y'all! I'm leaving tomorrow morning on a 9:30 flight to Lookout Mt, Georgia to visit a college up there, so I won't be able to post until Saturday. Wanted to let y'all know so you wouldn't think I was neglecting my blogger duties! :)
I bought the Essie North Forks today, I'll show you Shelter Island and possibly Greenport on Saturday. :)

Flying Dragon!

Ok, one more China Glaze and then perhaps I will start posting about other brands again. ;)

Here is Flying Dragon, from the Ink collection of last fall. First off, how awesome is that name? Flying Dragon? Hellz yes!
FD is a sparkly neon purple. Umm, sparkly + neon + purple? Hellz yes again! haha. It actually isn't as neon as I would have liked ... while it is definately bright and will never be mistaken for purple, I wish it was just a tad brighter. The sparkle is definately not lacking, it's full of hot pink and baby blue glittah. Makes it awful to take off, awesome to have on. ;) Oh, and one more thing. The neon and the glitter make this matte and bumpy. I've got a coat of Seche Vite on here; I wasn't feeling the whole bumpy thing. hehe.
I was all set to write a glowing review of this polish when I first applied it. But then after about 12 hours of wear, it chipped. Like, not a little oops-I-dinged-my-nail-extra-hard-on-that-bookshelf kind of chip, I mean like 5 big ones that made me sad. :( It seemed like it was cracking ... like that chocolate sauce that crackles when you stick it on icecream ... except this was my nails and I didn't want them to be crackly! hehe.
But if you don't mind either having to fix chips after a hours or only wearing if for a few hours before taking it off (like I did), then you should definately buy this. Actually, you should buy this just because of the name. And maybe the glitter. :)

More China Glaze ... I seem to be on a ChG streak, yes?

Here is Secret Peri-wink-le, from China Glaze's Operation Color collection of last Fall.
First off, the name irritates me. What's with all those dashes? I guess they're trying to be cute and emphasize the 'wink' part ... but that's just annoying.
The color's really nice though. :) It is, obviously, periwinkle. The picture above was taken in the shade, b/c I feel that that it shows the color more accurately than the pictures I had of it in the sun.
I think that SP has that same fantastic quality about it that OPI Done Out In Deco has which I love so much. I don't know what to call it - extra creamy? milky? Whatever is it, I really really like it. :)
The mixture of blue and purple in this periwinkle is just about perfect; not too blue, not too purple. Granted, in some lights it looks bluer or purpler than others. Here's a picture of it in dapply sun to show y'all kind of what I'm talking about.

Can you see it?
I used 3 coats to try and even out some streakiness. It was still a bit streaky after the 3 coats though. I don't know if that's a problem with the polish or a problem with my application skills. But even with the streakiness, I'd say that this is definately a very pretty color. :)

To Drink, Or Not To Drink? Ok, yeah, that was bad.

This is the last of China Glaze's Summer Days collection that I own ... I don't have either of the reds. I've contemplated Cherry Pie, but I don't think I'll end up getting it.
I of course had to buy Grape Juice. I mean, it's purple! How could I not get it? ;) And not only is it purple, it is sparkly silvery purple! Meaning that it is chock-full of silver sparkles. Or rather, silver glass-fleck thingys. This gives it an effect that is a teensy bit like a more laid-back version of Rescue Beauty Lounge Locavore.
I do not think that this looks like actual grape juice. Grape juice is dark! Like a royal purple! This is light! To my mind, this is amethyst. Beautiful sparkly amethyst.
I used 3 coats in order to get maximum opacity. Excuse the tip wear in this photo, I had this manicure on for a few days before I managed to take some pictures!

Silliness

Today as I was about to take off Cajun Shrimp and put on a new color, I had the sudden urge to do this. Isn't that crazy looking? :) It looks like I was coloring something and got bored and colored on my nails instead. Now I think I've told y'all that I really don't do nail art. I have no interest in buying a Konad or any of that ... but today, out of nowhere, I did nail art. Haha!
As y'all can see, this is a very colorful look. I love the rainbow - my family and friends will tell you that anything I paint, etc., has to have all the colors of the rainbow in it. Thus the colorful nails. :) I used OPI Cajun Shrimp as a base, Essie Big Spender as the wider stripe down the middle, China Glaze Shower Together as the polka-dots, Sinful San Fransisco as the zig-zags, and Zoya Juno as the thinner stipe down the middle.

p.s. The reason I photographed my right hand and not my left as usual is that I am left-handed and since I normally don't do nail art and I'm bad at it, but left hand looked horrible. ;)
p.p.s. I'm so sorry about subjecting you to the disgusting state of my cuticles! I'm rectifying their snagglyness as we speak.

OPI Cajun Shrimp

Hello! How are y'all doing in the aftermath of Easter? I know that I was absolutely sick of any form of sugar yesterday ... the thought made me want to vomit. Over-chocolate-ing much? haha. Today I'm better. :)
I have OPI's Cajun Shrimp for you today. This bright coral creme was perfect in two beautifully smooth coats. Cajun Shrimp is a very orange-y coral; I'd say the pink-to-orange ratio is about 25:75. Under bright sunlight it almost looked flourescent.
While I was wearing this color I felt very 30's, and wanted to wear a flowy dress and hat and match my nails to my lipstick. :) I wore the flowy dress and hat but did not have a coral lipstick of this color ... *sigh*, thwarted.

I'm super late posting about this, but All Lacquered Up has swatches of China Glaze's Summer collection, Kicks. You can find them here and here. Scrangie has pics up as well if you want to compare swatches. I am loving this collection! It's not quite as amazing as Summer Days, but it's still pretty dang awesome. I lurve anything with multiple greens and blues. :) I'm lemming Breakin', Entourage, Sky High Top, Sneakerhead, and Style Wars. Strangely, I don't really want the purple one, Fly. I have no idea why, normally I am compelled to buy every single purple that comes out ...

What colors are you lemming? Any? All?

p.s. Isn't the nail art in the ad fun? I think I'm going to have to try my hand at that.

Long review of a beauty product that includes many photos!

Sooo, I'm a beauty fanatic as well as a nail fanatic. In fact, that's how my whole nail polish obsession started. I started reading blogs like Beauty Addict and Blogdorf Goodman, and I saw links to All Lacquered Up and The Polish Addict, and that was the end, my friends. :) Now my beauty fanaticism is not nearly as extensive as my nail fanaticism. But I still have a sizable colleciton of makeup. My first love is lippies. I have a large bag full of them. After that comes eyeshadow. I've recently been on blush streak as well. Foundation I only wear when I'm breaking out or when it's a special occasion ... I figure nearly-18 is too young to be wearing so much makeup! :) Thus I've decided to feature beauty products once in a while on this blog ... we wouldn't want to get too same-same now would we? haha.
The beauty product for today is Sonia Kashuk's Sweet Nothings eye palette. I'd been looking for some good taupey colors, so while perusing the SK stand at Target, I decided to buy this. It contains 6 eyeshadows and a base. The base is ok, not great, but not horrible. If you don't own Urban Decay Primer Potion you probly won't have too much of a problem with it, but after UDPP nothing else satisfies me. :)
The actual shadows are very nice and feel pretty velvety. The colors range from silvery taupe to mushroomy brown to bone to shimmery white. The pigmentation, however, is sheer. This is great for me, as I've got an ivory complexion. Err, that's putting it nicely. I'm the palest of the pale - as in always buy the lightest color of foundation or concealer available. Thus I can't wear bright or dark looks too well. So this palette works well for paler ladies wanting a neutral eye look. But ladies of a mahogany complexion might want to steer clear; it might veer into ashy territory. I think it would work just find on caramel complexions. Alrighty, enough with talk, here's some swatches. (o, btw, there are no names for these shadows so bear with me!)

Ah yes, see? Verrry sheer. You can barely see the middle two colors! This is the top row. The left and middle color are the colors I use the most. The right color is a bit too chalky and doesn't work super great on my skin tone.
The bottom row. The left color basically doesn't show up on my eyelid (or my arm either, for that matter) ... if it doesn't show up on MY pale eyelid, whose will it show up on? haha. The middle and right colors work great as highlighters, they also brighten the eye when used all over the lid.
Here an eye look that I made today with the middle and left colors of the top row (silvery taupe and mushroomy brown). I used the left color all over the lid and blended the middle color into the crease. Look composed of:
Urban Decay Primer Potion
Sonia Kashuk Sweet Nothings palette top left
Sonia Kashuk Sweet Nothings palette top middle
Maybelline New York Unstoppable Eyeliner in Cinnabar
MAX Factor Volume Couture Mascara in Rich Black
CoverGirl Eyeslicks in Moondust (highlighting inner corners of eyes)

Easter Tips

I just realized that the title of this post is a bit misleading ... it sounds like I'm going to tell y'all some things to make your Easter easier. Yeah ... that's not happening. :) I just want to tell y'all about my fun Easter manicure! As you can see, I didn't do a pastel. :) Who needs pastels?
China Glaze Orange Marmalade is from the Summer Days collection, which means that it is glass-flecked. Woo-hoo! For explanations of the glass-flecked phenomenom, see here. The colors of glass in this particular polish are orange and yellow. OM is the first orange that I've really wanted to buy. I'm sure you can tell why just by looking at this picture. :) I mean, look! My nails look like juicy candy! It's awesome! The name is pretty accurate too ... orange marmalade is generally a yellower orange, and the yellow glass flecks pull this orange towards the yellow side. This is bright without being in your face, and an all together beautiful color. :) The reason I chose to wear OM yesterday was that it matched my dress ... but unfortunately, I got soaked coming out of church so I had to change, and the matchy-ness was lost. haha! The sun did come out a few hours later and we had a lovely day!

China Glaze Turned Up Turquoise

Hey y'all! Sorry that I deserted you for the last few days! I had family come in town from Wisconsin ... it's still snowing up there! Ack! We took them to the beach and to Kemah (a little boardwalk thingy by the sea that has fun rides! ;)) and today is Easter, so I've been a bit busy! Happy Easter, by the way! This here is not my Easter manicure, but I don't have pictures of my Easter mani yet. You'll have to wait 'till tomorrow! :)
I present to you .... my first neon! Now in real life, this shimmery turquoise is much much brighter and in your face. My silly camera didn't seem to realize this fact. Turned Up Turquoise is a true turquoise, meaning that it is a blue-green that leans very much towards the green side and not so much towards the blue. The fun thing about neons is that they dry matte, so you if you're willing to leave the top coat off you can get this really cool effect. Leaving the color matte also seems to make it pop more ... maybe seem extra neon-y? I dunno. Haha, my brain's not working too good right now ... too much sugar! I had chocolate for breakfast and then a big huge Easter lunch and then I had more sugar and more sugar ... my system's freaking out. ;)
ANYways, back to what I'm supposed to be posting about. Here is a picture of TUT without a top coat.
Err, this picture was taken indoors and the other was taken outside, as I'm sure you can tell. The sun was freaking out on me. I kind of like the matte look better, but you're gonna get more wear out of it if you use a top coat. Alrighty, that's all I have for you now, hopefully I'll get my Easter mani posted tomorrow!

The Cuticle Chronicles: Burt's Bees Lemon Butter Cuticle Cream

Hey there! I know that lots of y'all are always looking for different treatments for your nails, so I've decided to start a series about cuticle creams/oils/removers, etc. I'm going to start off with my favorite cuticle cream, Burt's Bees Lemon Butter Cuticle Cream.This stuff works wonders. I've gone through at least 2 tins of it ... and they're a pretty decent size. :) I'd advise putting it on at night, as it tends be a little greasy and dulls your polish until it soaks in. So you put it on before bed, let it soak in all night, and wake up with gorgeous cuticles! Plus it smells super good. Lemony but not lemon-cleaner smelling. Oh, and did I mention that Burt's Bees is an organic line? I love anything organic, my family is all into being 'green'. All of Burt's Bees stuff is at least 90 or 95% organic, I believe. I also swear by their lip balm. Looove it. :)
You can find this cuticle cream at most drugstores and grocerys. Drugstore.com has it for $5.99, but I believe mine cost more like $4.

Zoya's New Collections

Hello lovelies! Have y'all been to Scrangie's site in the last couple of days? She's got swatches of Zoya's 2 new freaking awesome collections! Find them here and here . I am lemming Midori, Tallulah, Ginessa, Pippa, Paz and possibly Ali and Goldie. :D

Essie Sexy Divide

I can't believe I haven't posted about this awesome color yet. I also can't believe Essie came out with such a beautiful, bold color. :)
Sexy Divide is a deep shimmery purple that morphs into different shades of purple depending on the lighting. The above picture is of SD in the shade. You can see the the bottle has tons and tons of blue and red shimmer, but the shimmer isn't super apparent in the shade (or indoors), and that it is a very blue-toned purple. But here it is in the sunlight. *BAM!* It's red-toned purple now! And the shimmer is visible! Ok, so you can't really see the shimmer in this picture. But I swear, it's there. I'm pretty bummed that the shimmer doesn't show up indoors, as that would have made Sexy Divide the perfect polish. As it is, Essie came pretty close. :) Here's a (very bad) picture of Sexy Divide indoors.
You can see that while it's a very dark purple indoors, it by no means looks black. Hooray! I'd call it an eggplant, or aubergine when indoors. :)

Zoya Juno

Juno is from Zoya's Utopia collection. I lurve the Utopia collection, there are some really awesome colors there. I have Juno and Akyra, and I want Irene. I'm loving the name Juno for this purple. In Greek mythology (or rather, Roman, since this is the Roman name), Hera is the wife of Zeus, king of the gods. Hera and Zeus translate to Juno and Jupiter in Roman mythology. :) So, a purple totally makes sense for a queen of the gods. Very royal.
This particular purple is pretty fabulous. Bright yet rich, and very fun. It's pretty reflective, making me think it's metallic or frosty at times, but it's not.
Application was great, as is usual with Zoya. My problem with this one is that it chips in, oh, 12 hours. Yeah, that's not so great. But if you're willing to put up with some wear issues, this polish is fantabulous and you should definately buy it. :)

Wait For It ...

Nope, your eyes are not deceiving you. That is indeed a bottle of OPI RAINFOREST I've got in my greedy hands. :)
I found this, believe it or not, @ my grocery store, the ever-awesome HEB. They've got OPI for $0.50-$1 cheaper than Ulta carries it, so I often scrounge around their nail polish display. The amazing thing about the HEB display is that they've got hella old/discontinued polishes. Take Rainforest. I was just out on the weekly jaunt to the grocery with my mama, abandoning her in the paper goods aisle while I headed to the beauty section. And what greeted my eyes? About six bottles of Rainforest! I know, what the freak! It was amazing. I, unfortunately, didn't have any money on me at the moment. *slight freak-out* I was very afraid someone would take those precious bottles of green goodness in the 15 minutes it took me to get back to the store. But, no worries. They were all still there. :) I bought 4 other polishes while I was at the store, see? Yeah, I'm a bit of a compulsive buyer. hehe.
We've got (l-r) I'm Not Really A Waitress, Cajun Shrimp, Japanese Rose Garden, and You're a Pisa Work. Yay!
Ok, about Rainforest. This is a medium green leaning more toward the yellow side than the blue. It has very fine shimmer in it. I'm trying to figure out the color of the shimmer ... I'm thinking green and gold but it's hard to tell. Michelle of All Lacquered Up has dubbed this a true emerald shade. I'm inclined to agree.
I expected the application to be less than great, considering how old this bottle of polish must be, but I was pleasantly suprised. Nice thin formula that went on pretty smoothly. It was a bit sheer, I had to use 4 coats to get a uniformity of color. Oh, and it smelled absolutely horrible! Like, not the normal nail polish smell. haha! O well, I don't mind.
If any of y'all don't understand why I'm so excited over this color, let me enlighten you. Rainforest is (1) a green OPI. OPI doesn't make too many greens. And (2), it is so old that no one even knows what collection it is from, and therefore Very Hard To Find (VHTF). This stuff goes for mega-bucks on ebay. Most people have to resort to scrounging around various out-of-the-way nail salons to find a 1/2 used bottle of it, which is why it was so astounding that I could find 6 unopened bottles at once. :) I'm a very happy girl right now. Here's another photo for your viewing pleasure.

What NOT to buy

Do y'all remember that base coat I was talking about in my last post? The one that nearly ruined my manicure? Well, here it is. DO NOT BUY IT! It's a huge waste of 5 bucks. Yeah, it sucks. At first (meaning about for the first 1/4 of the bottle) it is fine ... nothing fabulous, but nothing horrible. Theennn, it gets nasty. You know how Seche Vite gets kind of bubbly and thick 1/2 through the bottle? This does that, except wayyyy worse. As in, by the time you get to the last 1/3 of the bottle it doesn't even really apply any more. It draaagggs hugely. It's basically not even a liquid anymore. It's like trying to apply hot glue. Oh, and those little string-ys that you get when you use a hot glue gun? Yeah, you get those here too. HOW WEIRD AND HORRIBLE IS THAT?! Ugh.
I am not a happy customer. It makes me not ever want to buy anything Sally Hansen again, even though I know that Sally's makes lots of good stuff. Except maybe not base coats. Haha!
As you can see, I have completely given up on this. I bought some Seche Clear yesterday. Hopefully I'll have good luck with it! :)