Color Club- Gingerbread Man and a Shopping Haul

I wanted to try out one of my scented polishes. This is Color Club- Gingerbread Man. It was released in the holiday 2011 Scent-suous collection that was a Sally Beauty exclusive. It is a gold foil and it smells like gingerbread! The application was fairly easy; just two coats. It took forever to dry!!! I painted my nails 2 hours before going out, and while I was out, they dented. You can see a little bit on my ring finger, but it was much more noticable in person. I decided to remove it the next day because the dents were bothering me. I also had a couple large chips out of the nails on my other hand. This polish didn't hold up well at all, but it was gorgeous while it lasted; plus it smelled delicious. 

I went on a shopping trip yesterday. I decided that I would make up for lost time for not buying polish 4 weeks in a row. I definitely made up for that. On to the goodies!

I got this gem from Marshall's on clearance for $7. The brand is The Balm. All of the names are on the package. It has a $50 price tag on it so this was a pretty good deal! Each bottle was less than $2.

Next I stopped at ULTA to see if they had the OPI Spider-Man collection. They did! I got Shatter the Scales (green shatter), Your Web or Mine?, Call Me Gwen-ever, Number One Nemesis, Into the Night, My Boyfriend Scales Walls and they threw in an OPI basecoat for free. Of course the shade from the collection that I was most excited about, Just Spotted the Lizard was sold out. I ordered one of off eBay to make my collection complete- so it should be arriving soon!

I also stopped in Five Below and picked up two Funky Fingers polishes. This is Mrs. Mint- a mint green with subtle shimmer and Star-Studded, a prismatic gold glitter. I have a few shades in the mint green family, but the shimmer in Mrs. Mint really sold me. Plus they were 3 for $5 so you can't beat that. I purchased a third one, but that will be a surprise because I might use it for a giveaway soon *hint hint* On a non-nail related note, I will be moving to a new apartment shortly, so my life is going to be rather hectic for the next couple weeks, but I promise to put a giveaway in motion as soon as everything gets less-crazy.

China Glaze- Mistletoe Me!

So I really wanted to do a "Fish Egg Friday" mani, but I have yet to go to Michael's and buy micro craft beads. It's also 3:30am Saturday now. I have fallen into a bad habit of staying up during the wee hours doing paperwork for work instead of during normal daytime hours. Hopefully by next Friday, I'll have some beads! 

This is China Glaze- Mistletoe Me! This picture is with the flash.This shade is from the 2011 holiday ULTA exclusives. There were three polishes in the exclusives. I already have worn Ultamate Holiday. Mistletoe Me! is a foil! In some lightings it looks pink and in the sunlight it looks magenta. The formula applied well, and dried quickly but foils tend to show every perfection on my nails. It reminds me of Sally Hansen- Red Ruby (which was part of their old Chrome Nail Makeup line). Mistletoe Me! is much more of a foil and almost has a mirror-like shine.

Here it is without the flash. I had some slight bubbling with my Seche Vite topcoat. That always seems to happen when I wear foils. At least it was minimal. I just love the reflective shine!! 

Effie Trinket Inspired Mani

In honor of the Hunger Games, I decided to do a mani inspired from the mani that Effie Trinket wears during the reaping in the movie. I'm going to see it tomorrow and I can't wait! I used two coats of Sally Hansen- Red Ruby followed by a gradient of Julep-Oscar. This picture is with the flash.

Here it is blurred without the flash. I was really surprised how smoothly Oscar applied. Normally glitter this concentrated feels really gritty but it has a very smooth finish to it. 

Here's a more in-focus picture without the flash, but of course the lighting made it look yellowed.

Here is Sally Hansen- Red Ruby all by itself pre clean-up. My cuticles look HORRIBLE here!  This is an old one. I'm guessing it's almost ten years old! The bottle says "Chrome Nail Makeup". The polish isn't nearly as chrome as the bottle depicts it to be, but I thought it would be a perfect shade for this mani. Also the color doesn't remind me of it's name "Red Ruby". It looks more like a fuchsia. I have many polishes that have survived throughout the years and I'm planning on featuring them in my blog. I have purchased nail polish thinner and revived most of them. I am going to start a new tag and call it "the vintage gem". I'm going to try to incorporate these on a consistent basis.

OPI- I'm an Aqua-holic

I purchased OPI- I'm an Aqua-holic last summer. It was part of an ULTA exclusive Shimmer into Summer collection. I have heard that the whole Shimmer into Summer collection are practically dupes for the Nicole by OPI Gossip Girl collection. This shade is a dupe for Nicole by OPI- Too Rich for You. I do not own the Gossip Girl collection, because I purchased these first, and although I love Gossip Girl, I can't find myself owning dead on dupes (although I've done it a couple times before with other shades, but not a whole collection.) This picture shows it without the flash.

 Here it is with the flash. The application on it was alright. This took three coats because the first coat was rather sheer. It is a very vibrant blue- I would consider it a foil- and it just screams summer. This year's Pittsburgh winter has been fairly mild.

I managed to get a picture of it in the sun while sitting in the car. This is terrible quality, but I still have an iPhone 3G, and the camera on it isn't the best. I've been due for an upgrade for a while and contemplated getting the 4S, but I just figured I would wait until the 5 is released around spring.

 I went to ULTA and purchased a small haul because I had a $3.50 off of $10 coupon. I saw that my ULTA had a few new Essence Colour & Go's, which is very rare because they usually have the same selection. I purchased Wanna be Your Sunshine, Gleam in Blue, and Hard to Resist. At $1 each, these are hard not to pass up! I'm excited that I finally caved in and bought a yellow shade. I have nearly 600 polishes in my stash, and the closest shade I had to yellow before this was probably China Glaze- Electric Pineapple! In some lighting, Hard to Resist shows up with a purple flash, and it looks like it can be a duochrome!

I also purchased OPI DS Extravagance and Save Me. I have wanted DS Extravagance for a while, but ULTA never had it in. They did today! Save Me was one of the shades from the Nicki Minaj collection that I wanted the most, and ULTA has been sold out of it also. When I went today, I got the last bottle left :)

I was also on the level 6 tier for my ULTA rewards card. I was able to select a fragrance up to $40 to get for free! I chose Britney Spears- Radiance. It was $39 for 1 ounce, and $50 for 1.7 ounce, nearly twice the volume, so I just paid the extra $10 to get the bigger one. I already own Britney Spears- Fantasy and this one smelled pretty good!