China Glaze Rodeo Fanatic

Well, this is the first China Glaze I've posted in a while! I guess I got a little burnt out on China Glaze after wearing them for like 2 months solid. Haha!
Rodeo Fanatic is from the Rodeo Diva collection of last fall. It is a slightly blackened, shimmery mid-tone blue. For some reason, it's just not working for me. I have no idea why I don't like it ... I mean, it's blue! When do I ever not like a blue polish? Maybe I'm going crazy. I just didn't like the slightly blackened affect, it turned me off for some reason. My sister, however, loves this color. I'm giving it to her, as I obviously am not giving it the loving home it deserves.
I was super excited about this color when I ordered it, but once I saw it I didn't even want to put it on. Weeeird. Oh, and here's another weird thing. I've been lemming nude polishes like crazy lately. What's up with that? I want to find the perfect milky, chic, mostly opaque white/ivory. We'll see if I can come up with anything. Do y'all have any suggestions?

My Experiment With A Likeable French Nail

Y'all know that I hate french nails, right? But for some reason, I've been majorly wanting to do a red french. I saw them on a girl at the library a few months ago, and thought it looked really fresh and cool. The usual French's irritate me to no end, but this one seemed different. Soo, using Rimmel Passian and OPI I Pink I Love You, I concocted my own version of a red French nail.
And there it is. Granted, it is very messy - don't even look at my ring finger please - but I'm pretty happy with the results. I used one coat of Passion (I chose Passion b/c it's very opaque in one coat), then a coat of I Pink I Love You. However, I didn't like the blurred look that gave the red line, so I added another coat of Passion on top, then some Seche Vite. Pretty easy, except for the actual drawing on of the french tip. Haha! I know that the beauty magazines say to use tape as a guideline, but I tried that back in my dark ages of nails (i.e., before I became obsessed with all things nails and a hater of French nails) and it didn't work so great.
Keeping a steady line is difficult, especially on the non-dominant hand. I'm left handed, so y'all always get the picture of my badly applied hand. I've gotten pretty adept at painting with my right hand (I'm am extremely left handed, I can barely do anything with my right hand ... just manoevering a computer mouse, haha), but the French tip escaped me. O well, better luck next time. I'd like to try this with black sometime soon.
What do y'all think of this look? Are you French lovers? Haters?

[EDIT: This marks my 100th post! Woohoo!]

Birthday

Here are some pictures of the manicure and pedicure I treated myself to for my birthday.
I chose OPI No Room For The Blues as my manicure shade, and OPI In My Back Pocket as a pedicure, both from the recent OPI Bright Pair collection.

I'm just now realizing that this picture is slightly blurry, sorry about that! No Room For The Blues is nice sky blue shade, but it is so close to Essie Shelter Island, that I don't think it is necessary to get both. NRFTB is a touch deeper, but unless you have them side by side you can't tell the difference. And, I know, ew, I took a picture of my foot. My foot looks ginormously fat in this picture, let me assure you that it is actually NOT this fat. Haha! In My Back Pocket is an extremely pretty shade of creamy orange. I'd call it pumpkin ... not pumpkin pie colored, but actual pumpkin. Awesome.
So, about the experience of the manicure/pedicure. I had fun, and it was really nice to get my cuticles straightened out, and all of the calluses scraped off of my feet, but I seriously think that I can do just as well at home, and for a fraction of the price. It was nice as a one-time thing, but I doubt I'll ever go back. Yay for saving money! Haha.
I didn't do too much else on my birthday besides the visit to the nail salon (well, I also got my mouth stuffed with cotton and was hung by my head in order to get some pictures of my lower jaw, and got 3 vials of blood sucked out of my arm), it was mainly just a nice, relaxing day. I didn't have any babysitting to do at all, which was nice. I've been on this marathon of babysitting this summer - I'll babysit for 8 hrs one day, then 4 the next, and so on. The money is good, but I'm glad that we're going out of town soon.
My mama made me my traditional birthday dinner, steak, baked potatoes, and salad. Mmm. :) Oh, and red velvet cake of course. If any of y'all have never had this stuff, let me tell you that it is the best cake in the world. Soo good. Even better than chocolate cake, if you can believe that. ;) Tonight we are kind of finishing up my birthday celebrations and are going to a free symphony concert at Hermann park, which is this giant huge park in Houston that's got a Japanese garden, outdoor theatre, rose garden, lake with paddle boats ... you get the picture. The outdoor theatre occasionally has free Houston Symphony concerts, and one just happens to be tonight, so yay! They will be playing a piano concerto by Beetoven, Hadyn's 22nd symphony, and a couple of other things. Woot! :) I lurve live music.

Zoya Ginessa

I found my camera! Yay!
Ginessa is from Zoya's Ooh-La-La collection of this summer. Ginessa is described as a 'multi dimensional metallic frosty white'. It is definitely frosty, and definitely white, but not so much metallic. More sparkly, in my opinion. I quite liked it, as it wasn't a boring white, but a uber sparkly, rainbow-studded white. :) I did get a little bored of it though ... I just have no patience for things that are not mind-blowingly cool. Haha! The application was excellent, no dragging, no thickness. It just kind of floated onto my nails. I used 3 coats to get this opacity, but it would have looked good with just one coat, if you're ok with sheer nails.

In other news, I'm 18 today! Yay! I'll put up some pictures at the end of the day, showing what I did. So far it hasn't been super exciting, I had to wake up early to go get some blood taken for some lab work (routine check-up, nothing bad) and then get a CT scan on my lower jaw, as I'll be getting my wisdom teeth out this summer. But we got donuts on the way home, so that makes up for it. I can hear Mama making my cake downstairs, mmm. :)

Urgh

Ok, my camera is temporarily lost. How annoying! I had meant to post about Zoya Ginessa tonight, but, alas, it was apparently not meant to be. :( I will, hopefully, find it by tomorrow.
Tomorrow is my 18th birthday, and I have decided to get my very first manicure and pedicure as a birthday present to myself. Yay!

Not a Polish Post

Ok y'all, just take a look at this bike site. Bike site as in bicycle, not bike site as in motorcycle. ;)
I've decided that I would like to buy a bike with my graduation money, as my bike is, um, broken, and was built for someone 6' tall. I think a bike would be infinitely useful on a college campus, and just for tooling around San Antonio (which is where Trinity is ... have I even mentioned that I'm going to be going to Trinity University in the fall? Hopefully I have.). I won't have a car, so I'm pretty sure I'll need a bike. Plus, I'm a little opposed to the idea of owning a car in the first place, just because I'm weird and I'm worried about the environment. My goal is to eventually live somewhere where I won't need a car at all. *cough, New York!, cough*
Now, about these awesome bikes. They're road bikes, which I like the idea of. I've had mountain bikes for most of my life, but I don't really think I need one, seeing as I'm not so into mountain biking. What, going UP hills? No no, I wanted to go DOWN hills. Haha!
Besides being road bikes, these bikes are freaking awesome! Just look at them! They come in a gazillion makes and colors, and you can customize them like crazy. Plus they're decently priced. Sure, they're $500 and up, but compare that with fancy-shmancy mountain bikes, and you've got yourself a deal.
I've got my eye on quite a few of the different styles, including the Amsterdam Classic and Amsterdam Original, the Townie Balloon, and pretty much any of the Cruisers. SO COOL!
I'm looking into these guys pretty seriously, especially since school freaking starts in 2 months. Plus I'll be on vacation for all of July. So yeah, I need to get a move on with my bike shopping (and laptop shopping!).
Anyways, I just thought that these bikes were too cool to keep to myself. Check them out and tell me what you think of them. :)

OPI Ink

OPI Ink, ah what a wonderful color. Ink was released a few years ago in the OPI Night Brights collection, which was a pretty fabulous collection, if you ask me. I've got My Private Jet and (obviously) Ink, and I've got my eye on the rest of the colors, except for Light My Sapphire, which seems a little boring compared to the rest.
ANYWAY, about Ink. Ink is this amazing deep blue/purple with a crapload of shimmer. Like, seriously, this thing is dang sparkly. I refuse to call Ink blurple, because blurples always seem boring, like they can't make up their mind. Ink is so not boring. It's dark, but not so dark that it looks black indoors.
And the shimmer, oh the shimmer. Can we just talk about it for a moment? Thanks.
Ok, here's the thing. The shimmer is iridescent , yo! At first glance, Ink looks like an indigo base with large amounts of hot pink shimmer, which gives the impression of purple. But wait, wave your fingers (or the bottle, for that matter) around, and what do you see? The hot pink turns blue! When the shimmer looks blue, the base seems to be royal purple. See why I'm confused as to what base color this actually is?
I don't really care what the base color is, the overall polish is so amazing that it doesn't even matter to me. I wore Ink for 3 days without getting bored of it, and I would have worn it longer, except that I was babysitting and did some dishes ... and ruined my manicure. O well.
So, in summary, INK IS HOT! And claims a spot in my favorites. :)

Oops, Old Lady Polish

Y'all, just look at what I did to my hands. I made them suffer through a round of old-lady-polish! Quite needlessly, I might say. I have for y'all today Japanese Rose Garden by OPI ... I'm guessing that it's from a Japanese collection somewhere?
I bought it because of the name ... I'm a sucker for anything with the word 'rose' in it. ;) Unfortuneately, this is not a nice rose. This is a grandma rose.
JRG is a mauvey pink with white and blue pearl. The pearl makes it a little more interesting, but it's still ew. I don't hate it enough to put it in the 'ugly' category, but it's close.
Oh, and don't believe these pictures. They make it look pretty ... it's NOT. ;)

OPI Lincoln Park After Dark

Ok, so I know that I promised y'all this post on Saturday ... and today is Monday. Yes, I'm a bad blogger. But I ended getting only 5 hours of sleep on Friday night and therefore didn't feel much like doing ... anything, really. I don't function well on less than 8 hrs of sleep. ;D
But the polish, oh the polish. Lincoln Park After Dark is from the Chicago collection of I have no idea when. 2002 maybe? As you can see, it is a lovely lovely vampy purple. It looks black indoors and dark dark purple outside.

Aghhh, these pictures are hurting my eyes, I'm so sorry to subject y'all to them. The fact is that I applied this right before leaving for a weekend in Austin and didn't have time to clean up before snapping pictures ... *sigh*
However, y'all are getting the idea of the color, right? LPAD reminds me of blackberry pie, lusciously dark and jelly-like (it's not a jelly, just to be clear). I hate blackberries, but I love this color. ;) Pretty much the perfect vamp.

I Did Not Forget About You!

Hello all! Just wanted to let y'all know that I did NOT forget that I write a blog! I've had some lovely friends visiting from out-of-town and have been extremely extremely busy! (but in a good way)
They left today, but, alas, I am babysitting in 1/2 an hour and then going to book club, so I have no time for a real post today. Tomorrow, I promise, y'all will get a post. A post about a dark and delicious vamp! :)

OPI I Pink I Love You: A Branching Out

Ok y'all, just look at what I have on my nails. Sheer pink! I know! So shocking, right? If you've read this blog for more than five minutes you'll find that I'm really not a fan of sheers at all. I find them yucky and boring. Why wear a sheer when you can wear blue or green? :)
But I saw this polish on display at HEB (my grocery store), and thought that it looked like a really clean, nice sheer and that maybe I should just try it. So I did. I Pink I Love You is from OPI's current crop of Soft Shades, the Fairytale Bride series, and is a sheer very pale milky pink with a slight blue duochrome. I think that this would be awesome to wear at a conservative workplace and be all like, "Yes I'm wearing sheer pink b/c you're stupid and won't let me wear cool colors, but I'm also wearing a pink/blue DUOCHROME! Mwahahaha!" Haha, can y'all tell that I would do really badly in a conservative workplace? Here's me (futile-y) trying to get a picture of the blue flash.
Now, I was all set to be pretty happy with my sheer when I saw Scrangie's swatch of it. Do y'all see how much more colorful Scrangie's swatch is than mine? What's up with that? I put 3 coats on, so I don't think that I just neglected to put on enough coats to build opacity. I even went back and looked at the bottom of my bottle to see if I had actually gotten the right polish. Nope, I got the right one. So now I'm wishing I had Scrangie's bottle and not mine. Boo!
I wore my princess ring today with I Pink I Love You ... it made me feel like I should be wearing a dress, hat and gloves, and taking tea in the garden. :)

Shelter Island: A Second Chance

Dear Essie,
I want to apologize to you. A while back I posted this article about Shelter Island from the North Forks collection. It was not a very nice post. I vilifed your polish quite a bit, saying such things as "flat" and "horrible".
The other day I decided to give Shelter Island a second chance. Since sky blues are my favorite color of nail polish, I thought that surely it couldn't have been as bad as I thought, and maybe the weather was just weird when I applied it.
And what do you know, but voila! A beautiful blue was applied in 3 coats with only minor streakage issues. The color is not flat at all, but gives me the impression of calm lakes under partly cloudy skies. Also raindrops. It is a quiet color - as quiet as blue polish can be, I suppose. Very chic and lovely.
Please accept my sincerest apologies for this horrific lack in my judgement. I will now praise Shelter Island to the skies to whomever I meet!
Sincerely, Faith
p.s. So sorry that these pictures have such an overcast look ... it was actually starting to rain as I took them.

Zoya Paz

Hello lovelies! Look what I have for you today! Bright bright bright neon orange. Is that amazing or what? :)
I'm very sad that my camera couldn't capture the true neon-ness of Paz, as she is in reality the color of a traffic cone. I'm serious. I'm not lying. I bet you could see my nails from outer space.
So, here's the thing. I was actually really scared to put Paz on ... I didn't know if I was cool enough to wear such a rad color. ;) It turns out that either I am cool enough to wear rad colors, or Paz is not so scary after all. I thought that the brightness might bug me, but no it did not. It just made me happy every time I looked at my fingers. (btw, neon orange fingers look ghostly and uber awesome in the pool underwater.)
I think I used 3 coats just to make sure that I got even coverage. I shouldn't have worried too much about even coverage, as Zoya's formula is so nice, but neons can be streaky.

Upcoming Zoya Collections

First off is the MATTEVelvet collection, which comes out on July 1. It is a collection of 3 matte polishes. Here is a link to All Lacquered Up's post about it. Next is the Truth or Dare collection, coming out July 15. Truth or Dare is actually two collections in one, like the La-Di-Da and Ooh-La-La collections of this summer. Truth is a collection of 6 metallics. I'm wondering if these metallics wil be anything like the 'metallics' of Ooh-La-La, which are not metallics at all, but shimmers. Either way, I think these colors are a little boring.
Here is Dare, Truth's counterpart. This collection is all cremes, and seems much more promising. I think I like all of them. Click here for Scrangie's post, and here for All Lacquered Up's post.