Bizarre? Nah! Beautiful! Oh Yeah!!!

October marks one of my favorite times of the year!  Some of the reasons that I love October so much are as follows - fall is officially beginning, my wedding anniversary, awesome hoodie weather and HALLOWEEN!  Oh ... and let's not forget the fact that I LOVE fall polish lines.  I did come to appreciate some of this past summers bright and bold colors but honestly, I am a fall polish girl through and through!  I love the richness of the colors that fall brings.

China Glaze has come correct this season with the 2012 Wicked Collection.  There are six really pretty Halloween inspired colors with names like Cast a Spell and Immortal in this collection.  You can buy the collection at Ulta right now and they will be available at Sally Beauty Supply this coming Monday, October 1, 2012.

I was on a trip to Ulta last week when I spotted an entire rack of Halloween goodies.  As I got closer and closer I realized that they had put out the Wicked collection a bit early and without hesitation I grabbed the one color that I knew I needed to have!  Bizarre Blurple is an amazing purple base with loads of blue shimmer.

I DIE!!!  Bizarre Blurple! 

In the bottle, this polish looks ridiculous and it does not disappoint on the nail!  When I brought it home I made my hubby let me test it, with some other newbies, on his nails!  Bizarre Blurple was by far his favorite of the haul.  (YES, I make my husband let me test colors on his nails!)

Now let's see what it looks like on lady hands, shall we?  

w/Flash 

w/o Flash

w/o Flash

SO PRETTY!  Bizarre Blurple has a really nice formula and with two coats I got full opacity.  This color is gorgeous and I didn't even need a top coat.  I have several similar colors in my collection but nothing quite like Bizarre Blurple.  The two colors that came to mind immediately when I bought BB were Orly Mysterious Curse and Royal Velvet.  They look really similar in the bottle so I decided to do a quick comparison to see how similar they really are.

Don't they look the same in the bottle?

But, they are not the same at all!

Well, there ya have it!  In my opinion Bizarre Blurple is the must own of the Wicked Collection.  Let me know what you think?  Do you have any other favorites from this collection?  

Purple Ombre tips with a side of matted NARS, please.

For my birthday I ordered a little bit of stuff from Sephora. Initially I was thinking of getting a couple Sephora by OPI colors but then I did some such random color search and came across the NARS Thakoon Collection. My eyeballs fell out onto my laptop. Seriously the amazingly beautiful and vibrant colors were show stoppers. Of course once I popped my eyeballs back in and rolled my tongue back up at the slightly steep $18/bottle cost my inner negative Nelly popped off with "they only look that pretty because they want you to fork over that $18! They won't be as nice in person..." She's such a bitch, I hate that damn negative Nelly... but she DID have a point...

NARS - Koliary (matte) with Ombre Purple Tips

However, let me just cut to the chase and say that I added and removed NARS - Koliary from my cart probably half a dozen times. I knew I only had so much money to spend and truly spending a decent amount on 1 bottle of polish was just kind of silly. But every time I saw the color it was like it sucked me in with it's mind control and bam! The bottle would be back in the cart!

NARS - Koliary 2 coats with base coat

Well, once my Sephora order came, my joy at finally receiving Nails Inc - Baker Street was quickly eclipsed when I saw the beautiful black NARS box. I thought "holy hell! I guess $18 buys my polish it's own little holder!" Then I opened the box... all the sounds around me faded away and I had tunnel vision. All I could see was this amazing vibrant shade of blue. I really and truly did make the bug-eyed-jaw-dropped face. The website described it as "cyan blue". My description? Happiness. Seriously if you love the blue family and all it's amazing hues this little gem will make you feel pure, unadulterated happiness.

NARS - Koliary made Matte with NYC Color - Matte Me Crazy

I wore this color for 3 different manicures in one week. No lie. I haven't done that in over 5 months. Below is one of those 3 manis. I love purple just as much as blue and thought I'd try to combine them. I still have mixed feelings about this particular mani though. I liked it but I didn't. I dunno. It's sorta like that feeling you get when falling in love with an outfit on the hanger... then you try it on and feel like some vital bit of you is hanging out in an unflattering way... but you cant FIND that bit. Yeah. THAT feeling :/

NARS - Koliary, NYC Color - Matte Me Crazy, Essie - Play Date, piCture pOlish - Wisteria,
Julep - Anne, Ulta - Celebutante, piCture pOlish - Grape

First I painted 2 coats of NARS - Koliary. Then I used NYC Color - Matte Me Crazy to turn the finish matte. Using my reinforcement circles I created a crisp edge, and from there I just used each purple polish in descending darkening shade on each nail to create the ombre tips.

My Instagram shot! Follow me @enjeliq

Hopefully you fall in love with this color like I did... and if you don't... well I guess that'll be just that many more back-ups I'll have access to! ;)

xo,

What about you? Have you ever had this love/hate feeling for a mani?

Techo... am I Raving Again?

I will admit that I was a rave girl once upon a time and boy were those days fun!  Seems so long ago now that I think about it, but one thing that I will never forget is how they made me feel.  Depending on the party planner, the overall feeling that I would usually leave with would be one of shock and awe.  Had I really just partied the night away inside a disco ball?  All the lights and pounding music was such a rush. People dressed in crazy clothes, waving glow sticks around and dancing so hard that it hurt the next day!

Please excuse my rant about my youth but it does have a point, I promise!   All of those excited feelings that I used to have getting ready for a rave hit me all at once one day at the local Ulta.  Sounds silly I know, but stay with me here and hopefully it'll all make sense.

While shopping around and looking for a good deal I suddenly stopped in my tracks.  In my peripheral vision I had spotted something sparkly and my ADHD kicked in big time.  I had a feeling that once I turned my head I was going to fall in love and boy was I right!  Just like all those old excited feelings that I used to have getting ready for a night of ridiculous dancing and eye catching flashiness, I was hooked on my new love, China Glaze - Techno.  However, I managed to leave the store without my new best-friend!  :(  Unfortunately I already had a bag full of polish that had reached my max budget for the trip.  Booooooo!  I know!  But, I try my hardest to be a responsible spender even when it comes to polish!  I was so sad that I had to leave Techno at the store especially since she was the last one.  A couple days later when I called to see if she was still at Ulta, I was not surprised to find out that Techno had been sold.  I then began calling the Sally's in and out of my area but it was the same story each time.  Techno was sold out!

Fast forward a couple of weeks and some serious Amazon.com consideration later, I still had not bought Techno.  Here is where the story gets happy... on a shopping trip with my husband one of the stops that we needed to make was to a Sally's to pick up some raincheck items on hold.  I also warned him that I would most likely find a few more polishes to add to the collection, so he was prepared.

My first stop in the store was the China Glaze display shelf.  On a previous shopping trip I had picked up a few of the new Prismatic Collection and loved them, so I decided to try and complete the collection.  I noticed a polish on the display that I had not seen the last time I was in the store so I was really intrigued.  When I picked it up and looked closely I almost had a heart attack!  Could it be?  Had the polish gods picked that day to smile down on little old me!  I looked at the bottom again... low and behold... it was Techno!  I took that as a sign of course and added it to my basket for the day!

China Glaze had done it again and Techno is just how they did it!  Techno is part of the Electropop Collection release for Spring 2012.  I had seen the collection at Sally's several times but was not really excited by any of the colors on display (Techno was obviously missing!).

In the bottle, Techno looks like a million little disco balls.  A beautiful collection of round holographic glitter mixed with a bit of micro glitter.  I couldn't wait to try it out and I hope you enjoy what I came up with!

The Magic Duo... Rimmel London Steel Grey & China Glaze TECHNO!!!!

With flash

Close up with flash

After two coats of Steel Grey and two coats of Techno, I am giving this polish an amazing A+!  I love it! For some crazy reason I feel like I should be holding some glow sticks, flailing my arms around creating trails with these magnificent nails!  (all you former ravers know exactly what I am talking about)

No Power? PAINT YOUR NAILS!!

We all know what I do when the electricity goes out... paint my nails!  And then break my nails!!!! Opinions needed at the end of this post!    

So, long and short of it is, I was on Skype with E, making dinner, and picking out polish when all of a sudden the power goes out.  First I quietly cursed wondering if I had forgotten to pay the bill, but after some thought I knew that wasn't the case.  I go outside and notice that all the neighborhood kids are outside playing.  That could only mean one thing... ALL THE GAME SYSTEMS HAD SHUT OFF AT ONCE!!!  NO ELECTRICITY!!!  Well that certainly put a hold on all my evening plans (sad face). So I sat at the table and made the best of it. I had a little light coming thru the windows so I started painting.  Hope you like what I came up with!

Nice little gradient... I'm gonna call it my "NO ELECTRIC" mani!  

Not too bad for a play job done in the dark!

The polish used in this mani: Ulta - Purple Haze; Ulta - Alter Ego; Ulta - Indigo-Go Girl and China Glaze - Polarized

Now... for the BREAK heard round the world! My thumb nail got severely hacked off accidentally! I asked E to give me her opinion and now I will ask for yours.  Do you think I should cut them all down?  I am really sad about this but if I gotta, then I gotta!

Schwagin' Nail Mail

Let me start by giving a bit of background information.  Like most little girls, I have loved nail polish since I can remember.  My obsession with nails really kicked into high gear when I was about 15 years old and acrylic nails became super popular.  I had a really tight knit group of friends and we would go and get our nails done weekly at the local nail shop.  We would try to top each other with style and length, at times getting a bit out of control.  When you're 15 years old trying to keep up with whats hot, it can become expensive.  Even $10 a week on a balance and polish became a bit much!  

One of my girls; who was obviously paying more attention at the nail shop than the rest of us, had the bright idea to go to Sally's and buy all of the products that the nail techs used on us. She quickly figured out how to do our nails at home instead! From that point on we became guinea pigs in Kim's quest to save us money and be creative.

After some mishaps, Kim quickly became a pretty good basement nail tech and we always had the best nails around.  To sum it up, as soon as we graduated high school Kim went and got her nail tech license.  And, as they say, the rest is history.  

So now the story of my day begins.  I got up like any other day and decided that I needed to run to my favorite stores and check out what was new or on sale in the world of polish.  I hit up a few of my local Sally's and an Ulta store to pick up some great new colors. The entire time I was shopping I had E on the phone, as usual, looking up polish swatches and helping me shop from 5 states away.

A good start to my day, but not even close to what was coming up next! I finally finished shopping and headed home. The whole time I was thinking about my haul from this mornings trip.  So, I pull up to the house and wait! What do I see?! A BIG BOX ON MY FRONT STEP ADDRESSED TO ME!! The address section of the box was in handwriting that I knew, and it said KIMMIE!

Why is this so exciting you ask?  Well, I knew right away that my girl, Kimmie Kyees, had sent me a care package.  Immediately I called E back; she was possibly more excited that I was at the posibility of what was inside the box! LOL

Anyways, I'll just get straight to it.  Inside the box was NAIL POLISH and NAIL TREATMENTS and and an entire set of GEL POLISHES INCLUDING THE UV LIGHT!!!  (insert hallelujah chorus with angels singing back up)

So, below you will find pictures of all my goodies that Kimmie sent me including the upcoming line of SPARITUAL Gold Collection due out in May.

Please share in my joy while you look at these pics!

Everything that was in the box!

Red Carpet Nails Gel Polish Pro Kit + Gel Polish

What seems to be the entire line of Wet'n'Wild Wild Shine Polish

Wet'n'Wild Megalast Polish

Orly Mini's and Kimmie Kyees & Elegant Touch Nail Creations

drumroll please...

SPARITUALS new Gold Collection, due in May 2012

Keep and eye out because I will be swatching and reviewing these soon!  

Needless to say my day was already great but now it's awesome! I have even more nail trickery to get myself into!  Good thing Kimmie sent me some awesome nail care products too! The amount of remover these nails are going to be subjected to in the next week or so is going to be insane!  

Pointillism... not just for canvas!!!

I love all things art!  I love all things rainbow!  I love all things mani!  Put them all together and you get my attempt at a really artistic nail design.  After several hours spent trying to get a stamp mani done that I liked, I gave up and just started playing with polish.  It's nail play time like this that I usually do some of my best manicures.  I knew I wanted to do something super interesting and something using a rainbow color set.  I started by choosing my polish palette.  This is by far largest number of polishes that I have used on one mani to this date.

From Left to Right: OPI - An Affair in Red Square; Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear - Sun Kissed; Ulta - Sun-Sational; Sinful Colors - HD Nails; China Glaze - Sexy in the City; Wet n Wild FastDry - Buffy the Violet Slayer; Sinful Colors - Snow Me White.  I also used my MASH Dotting Tool Set.

This mani evolved by accident ... I was chatting with E via Skype all the while dotting away.  I think my husband and I even went to grab dinner in the middle of the process!  At any rate, I think what I came up with was pretty cool though! (excuse the shiny shiny cuticles lol I forgot I had oiled up when I took the pics)

So, there ya have it, my attempt at a pointillism mani.  I don't think it will be my last!  

Like that date you were looking forward to all day but...

Hello all you gorgeous individuals! It's E and this is my first post about a polish... in blog form lol!

While I hemmed and hawed about what polish to blog about first, Dom suggested my brand new bottle of Zoya - Julieanne freshly purchased from Ulta. As soon as I noticed it on the front of the rack heading up a couple other beauties, I felt I had to have her. I just felt this pull toward Julieanne. 

Quietly urging from my bucket o' polish, Julieanne, has a really loud personality once you notice her. I got excited to try out this beautiful polish from a brand I have heard so many good things about. I started by filing my nails down and making them as uniform as I could. I don't like my nails very long at all. I never have and I never will. I know that's not the popular opinion as far as nails and blogging goes but it's mine ;) 

Next, I put one coat of Seche Clear as my base. Now... with the first stroke of Julieanne I could tell that this polish formula is not like any others that I own. The most important thing to impart is this-  It dries super duper extra crazy fast! This polish is not the type that you can be simple, pretty, and clean with your brush strokes, at least if you can't do that fast. For me, as you can see in the pictures, I had to pretty much slap the paint on and hope for the best lol. 

3 Coats

I did 3 total coats of Julieanne and one top coat of Seche Vite. You could conceivably do 2 coats and be fine, but I noticed that I hadn't seen any of the yummy duochrome-y-ness yet. Therefore I did 1 more coat in hopes of seeing that ever illusive complement of green/gold that shows in the bottle...

3 Coats & Seche Vite Top Coat

Total massive let down. While the finished mani is pretty in a grape purple glitter with dark purple background way, it does not show any hint of the duochrome shift unless you're staring hard and in a weird indirect sunlight. 

Much like the date you were amped up and looking forward to all day but he turned out to be a total nose picking dud, Zoya - Julieanne, was a waste of my time and $8. I have other polishes that are more dynamic on (in AND out of direct sunlight) and quite honestly if I could return the bottle I would. 

Outside and the best shot of the illusive green/gold shift

AWESOME ALTERNATES TO THE RESCUE!!

If you have any of these in your stash or if you have access to acquiring them I would recommend these in lieu of the Zoya - Julieanne. I think you'll be infinitely happier and get more mileage out of these rather than Julieanne.

Pictured from L to R: Sinful Colors - I Love You, Rimmel - Night Before, Sinful Colors - Daddy's Girl, OPI - Russian Navy (while a dark blue it has a purple sheen that can be played up with layering or glitter), Revlon - Scandalous (Glitter and a stand alone), Finger Paints - Purple Palette, OPI - Grape... Set... Match