China Glaze Atlantis with Koi Accent

I just loved this mani! I am wearing China Glaze- Atlantis and I layered Rainbow Honey- Koi Pond over my ring finger. Another person in my local swap group on facebook posted a picture of this layering combo and I just HAD to try it because it was gorgeous. I cannot say that this layering idea was mine.

 Atlantis was released in the Speciality Color collection in 2009. It is still easily found online such as Trans Design. The formula is amazing. It's pretty thick, but it only needs two coats. It is loaded with prismatic glitter in a teal jelly base. A similar polish is Funky Fingers- Tinsel Town. Tinsel Town is much more green, and the jelly is also sheerer. 

I just love how the accent with Koi Pond turned out. It definitely reminds me of koi swimming in a pond, and the black and silver glitters are like rocks.  I did not want to remove this mani, but unfortunately it started chipping. That usually happens with thick glitters. Since I only used Koi Pond as an accent, I put it back in my untrieds boxes because it's so gorgeous it needs to be used for a full mani eventually!

My fiance and I spontaneously decided to go to a flea market today. I figured it would be a good opportunity to look for polish. I just love finding older bottles, and I'm still quite nervous to take the leap into dusty-hunting. It was really difficult to find polish. The ones that I found were buried under stuff and we didn't have time to rifle through everything. I'm just glad that I found a couple and didn't leave empty handed.

 In a box of Fantasy Makers false eyelashes, these gems were on the bottom. They're makeup sets and they had Glow and Vampish Red. Each one came with rings and black eyeliner. The Glow one came with the a glowing body stick and the Vampish Red one came with a vampy lipstick. I just wanted the polish and they were only $1 each. The seller did offer to sell me the whole box for $8, but it only had eyelashes (like 40 pairs) in it so I wouldn't have much use for them. Since these Wet n Wild Fantasy Makers have the tombstone packaging, they're much newer. They could have been from this year or last year. The Glow one was a little bit separated, but I gave it a good shake and it was as good as new. I'm happy that I found Glow, because that was one that I wasn't lucky enough to find when it was in the stores during Halloween season; plus I got it for less!

I found this one in a box of auto parts. This is Maybelline- Pink Mystique. It still had the original price tag of $3.99 on it, but I got it for a quarter. I wasn't able to find anything out about this polish through googling the name. I don't think that Maybelline makes the Express Finish line anymore but the brushes on these are huge!

Even though I didn't get that much, I still had a great time "treasure-hunting". I only spent $2.25 because I just focused on nail polish. My fiance spent a lot more. He found comic books, Star Wars glasses,  a couple vintage political pins, and a Pittsburgh Penguins framed Stanley Cup poster from 1992. I'm curious to try other flea markets. The one that we went to wasn't very organized, but I'm wondering if others would have their nail polish all in one general location? Have any of you tried flea markets? What were your experiences like? Do you have any tips to find polishes at these locations?

Zoya- Myrta

I just wore Zoya- Myrta. It is from this summer's Surf collection. It is a red-orange with silver shimmer- or it could also be considered coral. I have the mini bottle that I got in the Zoya Pinterest trio promotion. The formula is wonderful! It went on smoothly with two coats. It's very shimmery out in the sun also! I wish I would have gotten some sun pictures, but by the time I got home from work today, it was dark outside. This is with the flash in artificial light.

I also got some goodies!

 When Pretty & Polished restocked on Etsy, I purchased Boot Camp and Dalmatian Nation. I own nothing like both of these!

I'm in a swap group on facebook and today I did some shopping for the person I'm doing a secret swap with. I ended up getting some stuff for myself too! I got Wet n Wild- Blazed (it was on sale for 60 cents!), Milani- Red Jewel FX, and Maybelline- Twilight Rays- which looks like a gorgeous black with gold flecks. Twilight Rays was $4 and it only has .23 oz so that's pretty pricey for a drugstore brand- roughly the same cost per oz as OPI.  I didn't realize it until I got home. I literally was like "Ohhh this is a nice color!" and bought it on the spot!

Amy's Nail Boutique- Pink Lemonade

 This polish is very unique. It is Amy's Nail Boutique- Pink Lemonade. It is a combination of yellow and pink matte glitter in a clear base. It is rather sheer. I am wearing four coats here. I really enjoyed this shade, and for next time I may layer it over a pink or yellow.

 Pink Lemonade wore very well too! There is a small chip on my index finger because I went to the pool, but other than that everything was fine. The color combination of the glitters looks great together. The finish of this was actually smooth with one coat of Seche Vite. It didn't feel gritty like many glitters do.

Amy's Nail Boutique is a relatively new indie company. Amy has wonderful customer service! I received my polishes from her probably 2-3 days after ordering. She also has plenty of other nifty shades in her Etsy shop. Currently Pink Lemonade isn't in stock, but she usually posts restock dates on her facebook page. What does everyone thing of the matte glitter trends lately? I'm enjoying it!

I also have a small Walgreen's haul:

I came across the Wet n Wild Fergie exclusives and I threw in a unique looking Sinful Colors- Pull Over because I don't own that many yellows. Sinful Colors are only $1.99 and they have a pretty good formula for the price. The Fergie ones are: Hollywood Walk of Fame, Glowstick, No Place Like Home, and Tonight's Gonna be a Good Night. Each of the Fergie polishes retailed for about $3.50 each.

A Crackle Combo

It's been a while since I did a crackle combination it seems. I still have tons of crackles that I have yet to try! This is China Glaze- Cracked Medallion from last summer's Metallic Crackle collection. It is layered over Wet n Wild- I Need a Refresh-Mint which was recently released in the new Megalast line. This picture is without the flash.

With the flash, you can see how metallic Cracked Medallion is. My Cracked Medallion was never used before this mani and it was somewhat goopy and thick. I debated adding thinner, but it ended up cracking pretty well without it. I like when the cracks are more spaced out and you can see more of the base color beneath. It crackled pretty quickly too.

This is I Need a Refresh-Mint. The picture was taken without the flash. This applied very nicely and was completely opaque in two coats. I really like the brushes on these. They're larger than the OPI Prowide brushes, and they weren't that messy. It made it easy to get a clean, even sweep of color. This is a beautiful blue-toned mint green creme. There is one downside to this shade though, that being that it stains. It doesn't look like a color that would stain, but even with basecoat, I had random streaks of blue on my nails after removing this. Make sure you use basecoat with this shade!

The Vintage Gem: Orly- Satin Society

 This is a really old ORLY! It was one of the bottles before the rubberized caps and it's .75 oz which is a lot of polish!!! I believe current ORLY bottles have .6 oz. ORLY-Satin Society  is meant to have a satin finish and even has a frosted glass bottle. The first coat dried rather satin-like, but as I added coats, I knew that it would have taken a long time to dry so I added Seche Vite. It now has a nice glossy finish. It still took a little bit of time to dry even with the Seche Vite!

 Satin Society is pretty sheer white and needed three thick coats. It had a frosty quality to it, but the brushstrokes weren't as visible.

I also have gotten a ton of nail mail lately! I've gotten some really good prices on these from blog sales or sales in indie shops!

 Candy Lacquer- Opposites Attract, American Apparel- Makeup, Color Club- Sugarplum Yum, Black Cat Lacquer: Fifty Shades of Grey and Let Them Eat Cake, and Rainbow Honey- Koi Pond.

Sally Hansen: Gentle Blossom, Finger Paints: Fun-fetti, Hard Candy: Beetle, Jordana: Blue Flash, Loreal: Owl's Night, Revlon: Grapefruit Fizz

Jen, from The Polished Zombie also sold me OPI- We'll Always Have Paris Suede, which was the last one that I needed for my collection. She also threw in a stackable penguin pencil!! I love penguins!!!

4th of July Mani!

I had a pretty sweet mani to wear over the holiday. This is two coats of Funky Fingers- Sound Check topped off with two coats of LA Girl Glitter Addict- Celebrate. These next two pictures are taken without the flash. 

I figured that Celebrate would be perfect to wear over the 4th of July. It had various sizes of red, blue, and silver hex glitters. It also had some fuchsia glitters thrown in there. I actually didn't even notice them until after I started wearing it! The formula in the glitter was really nice also. I didn't have to fish any of it out, and it distributed evenly on my nails.

Here's a picture with low-lighting so that you can see the different colors of the glitter.

Here is Sound Check by itself (pre clean-up) before I added celebrate. It was a metallic blue. What I love about this mani is that a couple people asked me where I got my nails done- and this mani was so easy and super cheap! Funky Fingers polishes are three bottles for $5 at 5Below and LA Girl polishes are about $2.80. I got mine at Charlotte Russe. 

I also got some nail mail yesterday:

This had some vintage gems!! This is Covergirl- Sheer Orchid, some unnamed, unbranded pink that the seller threw in as a freebie, Covergirl- Violet Vision, Clarins- Reflet Rose,  Max Factor- Electric Sunset, Covergirl- Starry Pink, Wet n Wild- Black, Loreal- Big Apple Red (I wonder which one is older, this one or the OPI one from the NYC collection?), Red Carpet Lacquer- Grifter (the only indie/non-vintage), and OPI- Tutti Frutti Tonga (black label)

OPI DS Signature and a Pedicure for Buster

 Here I'm wearing OPI DS Signature. This is one of the original Designer Series shades released in Winter 2006. Yes, it is a linear holo! I wish that OPI still made them like this. I'm not really a fan of the newer DS shades. I got this one on ebay a while ago for about $10. It is a medium linear holographic pink. This picture is with the flash.

These next two pictures are on my window sill in the sunlight without the flash. Gorgeous Gorgeous Gorgeous! I could not stop staring at this and it was probably dangerous to wear while driving. The formula was really good for a holo. Usually holos need more drying time in between coats or else they will drag. This needed three coats for complete opacity.

I also went to the pool this week and it looked stunning in the sun! I wish I would have brought my camera with me to capture it. I really want to own more OPI holo DS shades. Especially DS Original!

I had some fun with my fiance's dog this past weekend:

This is Buster the chocolate lab. Some of you readers may remember him from the last pawdicure that I gave him. My fiance is sitting next to him haha. He's wearing the reindeer pajamas that I got him for Christmas LOL.

 I just did his back paws, because I didn't want him to get too bothered. I used Avon- Sweet Mint as a base color and Nicole by OPI- Rainbow in the S-Kylie. I don't own either of these polishes because they are my fiance's little sister's.

 a close-up

 He looks so thrilled!

He's a little bit more content here! My fiance's parents also have a female dog, but she is too fidgety, so Buster had to do. Buster can be the poster dog for defeating gender norms about nail polish.