ORLY- Mysterious Curse and Nail Mail

I recently purchased ORLY Mysterious Curse from the Dark Shadows collection. The movie was released in theaters today, but I'm not going to see it this week. I also would like to get Buried Alive from the collection- it's a gorgeous brown shimmer! Mysterious curse is what I would categorize as a "blurple" shimmer. It's not exactly a duochrome although it looks blue in some lightings and purple in others. This picture is with the flash, so it causes the blue shimmer to be more prominent. It has blue shimmer particles in a purple base.

Without the flash, it looks much more purple. Although this polish is gorgeous, application was a nightmare. I am wearing three thick coats of this. It was just really runny and streaky so I needed thick coats for it to be opaque. Due to the thick coats, it took a while to dry even with a coat of Seche Vite. The end result is pretty though. 

I received some nail mail today! I purchased from No Holo's!  blog sale. I got two unique mini frankens. They're purple and blue jellies filled with white matte glitter and Essence Vampire's Love Collection- The Dawn is Broken. This is my FIRST Essence that isn't a colour and go mini bottle! I just love their packaging. 

In terms of my efforts in the Nail Polish Buying Challenge, yesterday was 4 weeks into it! (I caved and bought the ORLY Mysterious Curse yesterday) So I believe I made it!  4 weeks counts as a month. I just purchased some Cult Nails polishes- they have a 50% off sale on select polishes today only! I also ordered some clearance Deborah Lippmann polishes from HSN (about $5 each- so awesome discount!)  I am actually about to embark on an ULTA trip to check to see if they have the Spiderman collection. I have been eagerly awaiting it!

Zoya Yara

Today I'm wearing Zoya- Yara from the Fall 2011 Smoke and Mirrors collection. I really love greens and this shade is a muted olive green with some subtle golden shimmer. This picture is with the flash.  Neeka- the dark purple from the collection has a similar quality of shimmer. Yara is Neeka's green sister. The formula was great! This applied in two flawless coats. 

With the flash, you can see more of the gold shimmer. I had some tipwear with this polish after two days of wear. I don't own another green in my collection quite like this one.

The Liebster Award

I was tagged for this award almost two months ago by The Collegiate Nail and I missed the comment. I'm so glad I found it before I reached 200 followers (which is coming up soon!)

The Rules:

1. Put the link to who gave you the award.

2. Put the award on your post.

3. Choose 5 blogs with under 200 followers to receive the award.

4.  Let them know you awarded them.

The award goes to...

Crystal from Nail Noise

Jessica  from Jessica's Nail Tales

Jackie from MeMa's Manis

Kristal from Bull City Beauty (I'm not exactly sure of the number of followers you have)

Katy from Cookie Luvers Blog

Color Club- Fame and Fortune

This is Color Club- Fame and Fortune. It was released in the fall 2011 Backstage Pass collection. This polish is very unique and gorgeous. It has a hot pink jelly base filled with silver prismatic shards (not exactly glitter and not quite flakies). I'm wearing two coats here and this picture is with the flash. Color Club recently just released a shade called Diamond Drops in their spring 2012 Blossoming collection and that is pretty much the silver "shards" with a clear base instead of a colored one.

Here's a picture without the flash. I love how the shards reflect so many colors. Also some shards are pink and others are silver due to the layering of the jelly base. This polish does have one downside though. Because the shards are rather pointy, some edges tend to stick up causing it to catch on things and making the polish chip. While painting my nails I used a toothpick to embed the shards into the polish while it was still tacky. I topped it off with one coat of Seche Vite.

OPI- Grand Canyon Sunset with Gold Crackle

Here I have a crackle mani. It seems as if I haven't done one of those in a while. I have OPI- Grand Canyon Sunset topped off with La Rosa- 24k Gold crackle. This colors go pretty well together. I wanted something rather festive for Cinco de Mayo, and these colors reminded me of Mexico for some reason.

Here is OPI- Grand Canyon Sunset on its own before cleaning up. This is only one coat! Usually I do two coats, but I figured the the crackle would cover up most of the shade. Although Grand Canyon Sunset is part of OPI's permanent collection, the one I have has a black label and is the old formula. This is a gorgeous rose shimmer with an amazing formula. One coat looks flawless!

The La Rosa crackle dried REALLY fast. I'm talking faster than any other crackle polishes I've tried before! Usually crackles tend to dry seconds after you apply them to your nail. This was drying while I was painting it on! I took a picture of the finish before I added my Seche Vite topcoat. This had a super matte finish before adding the topcoat. This picture is a little bit yellowed due to the lighting and lack of flash. 24k Gold wasn't like a traditional gold shade, it was a yellow gold and it could arguably be a light orange with some shimmer. This polish cracked pretty well.

Fish Egg Friday Part Two!

I have another Fish Egg Friday mani. I got six containers of microbeads in a variety pack, so I just figured I'd coordinate them with the manis I'm wearing currently on Fridays. I am wearing three coats of Zoya Audrey topped off with two coats of Zoya Chloe, and then I added an accent of clear beads. I took the picture before I put topcoat over the beads. 

Heres's my mani before adding the beads. I really like Chloe! The Zoya Fleck Effect collection is really unique in that the base the flakies are in is slightly tinted. I tried to wear this one alone, but I wanted a little bit more coverage, so I used a base of Zoya- Audrey. 

Here's a pre clean-up of Audrey by itself. It is VERY sheer, and this is three coats of it. Audrey was part of the limited edition Peter Som box set that was released a couple months ago. 

I also got some small purchases. I've been really good about regulating my nail polish purchases lately, and I've decided to participate in the Nail Polish Buying Challenge. It is not exactly a no-buy, but it puts some serious limitations on purchasing nail polish. You are permitted to get nail polish if it's at least 50% off or free. Shipping costs do not count against you. You just have to last a month. I've been monitoring my buying since April 20th- so I put a pretty big dent in. So here are my exceptions...

I got Zoya- Zuza for free by redeeming my Share the Love points- I just had to pay for shipping. I also bought MAC- Pink Freeze, and Milani- HD from Oh So Lacquered's blog sale. These were about $2.50 each, so they were definitely at least 50% off. I'm really excited about the MAC. It's a vintage bottle. I actually like the older frosted glass MAC bottles and I'm not really a fan of the new ones (which also hold less polish and have an increased cost.) Although I've been being good, I'm not able to resist a good blog sale. I know many people swap, but I'm not to the point where I can part with any of my collection yet.

Lilacquer- Selkie over Boots 17 Black Jelly

I have a special polish today! This is Lilacquer- Selkie. It is a duochromatic topcoat with color-shifting pigments. It shifts from blue-green to a navy blue. This picture is with the flash and I'm wearing only one coat of Selkie over an unnamed Boots 17 polish that is a black jelly.

Without the flash, and at another angle, you can see a beautiful navy blue shimmer! This looks amazing in the sun too! I wasn't able to get any sun pictures though.

Without the flash and under a different light, you can see a different shade of blue. I love color-shifting polishes! If you're interested in purchasing Selkie, along with other color-shifting polishes, head to http://lilacquer.tumblr.com/. Bottles are $6 each plus $1.50 shipping. Shipping increases by 50 cents for each additional bottle. 

This is was what the Boots 17 unnamed black jelly looked like before I layered Selkie over it. I am wearing three coats of it here. This is pre clean-up. It was rather streaky and required thick coats to achieve opacity. The brush shape didn't really get along with my nails either. it was hard to paint the areas near my skin without getting polish on the skin.