Go Pink Wednesday and a Celebration!

As October comes to a close so does our weekly Go Pink Wednesdays manicure. We have really enjoyed finding information to help you and those you love be more aware of Breast Cancer and how you can help yourself and those around you.

Image Credit: Paule Attar Salon & Spa

We wanted to end the month with a celebration of sorts. Every year there is a celebration of sorts in the form of Breast Cancer Walks. The number of walks done in the United States every year is immeasurable. There are several large groups that do yearly walks across the nation in major cities, namely The American Cancer Society is celebrating 20 years of walks and estimates they've had over 8 million walkers in those 20 years, with over 1 million in 2011 alone according to their FAQ page.

These Breast Cancer Awareness walks are inspiration as well as awe inspiring. Many survivors as well as their loved ones, co-workers, kids, pets and strangers come out to walk alongside each other in solidarity. The walk symbolizes many things to many individuals but the bottom line is hope.

Image Credit: expressnightout.com & Lea Pool

 Hope for a future without the disease, hope for a future with their loved ones, but truly and simply hope for more tomorrows.

A close friend of Dom's, Tiffany Kyees, had the chance to participate in the Team In Training Nike Womens Marathon event to run/walk for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society a couple weeks ago. While we have been focusing on Breast Cancer Awareness, cancer in general deserves to be known and fought against. Her personal journey to raise money, awareness and personal triumph is amazing and just as important. She celebrated her participation by wearing a purple tutu along with asorted purple gear. Tiffany shared some personal thoughts about her journey that you can read HERE. When asked about her experience she had this to say,

Tiffany running during the event!
Image Credit: Tiffany Kyees

"Such a beautiful and amazing experience. I highly recommend people doing a team in training event at some point in their lives. There was a woman there who ran and pushed her cancer fighting son in a wheelchair and a woman that spoke at our inspiration dinner who spoke of her bone marrow donor and how she got to meet him. They are like family now and he even flew out to San Francisco to run the race next to her! Such special stories!"

Jessica Mojica of Bakersfield pushes her son Nathan Garcia,
who is suffering from stage 4 brain cancer
Image Credit: Tiffany Kyees

We wanted to show this hope for tomorrow as well as the celebration and inspiration that the walks symbolize in our last manicures for October. Many walkers dress up in silly pink costumes, pink wigs, tutus and other outlandish and fun pink inspired outfits. These manis are our outlandish pink outfits... We hope you enjoy them as much as we enjoyed creating the crazy, over the top manis.


Dom created her everything but the kitchen sink mani with a base of Sinful Colors Snow Me White, Orly Artificial Sweetner and Rimmel London Posh Pink. She used a bit of flocking powder, some fimo hearts and flowers as well as some rhinestones and what you have is one heck of a celebration mani!

Sinful Colors - Snow Me White, Orly - Artificial Sweetner &
Rimmel London - Posh Pink

Sinful Colors - Snow Me White, Orly - Artificial Sweetner &
Rimmel London - Posh Pink

E created her outlandish mani on a bed of OPI - Kiss Me On My Tulips and an accent nail to include Dollish Polish - I'll Have What She's Having. The rest includes: loose glitter, rhinestones, nail decals, and star glitter.

OPI - Kiss Me On My Tulips (indirect sunlight)

OPI - Kiss Me On My Tulips (direct sunlight)

Hopefully you've enjoyed our participation in the Go Pink Wednesdays... Please don't let the Breast Cancer Awareness end with October. Continue to check yourself and remind loved ones as well. It really could save a life... one that you might cherish as much or more than your own.

with love and hope for a cancer free future,

and

Dolly Does Polish, Reviews and Swatches *pic heavy*

I posted on my first indie nail mail from Dollish Polish not too long ago. I have finally swatched the colors that I received from the Dolly Does Polish Collection!  I can honestly say that I love each one!  When the collection initially came out I picked the polish that I wanted by the names that jumped out at me and now I am sad that I didn't purchase them all!

I was so excited to get these colors and make Dollish Polish my first indie purchase ever.  The colors that I chose were Dining at the Pink Taco, A Bad Case of Blue Balls and Baby Gravy!  Yes you read that right!  I personally was most excited about Baby Gravy... I mean really, Baby Gravy!!!  Amazingness!

From the Dolly Does Polish Collection

Dining at the Pink Taco is a super pretty frosted rose. I used a Sally Hansen base coat and the first coat of polish was a little tricky.  It dragged a bit while painting and dried super quick. I do love the Sally Hansen Base but, it is a bit thick, so I think the issue was that base with this polish.  No worries though, with the second coat everything evened out and painted smoothly.  The color is beautiful and the frost makes it really special.  All the photos of Pink Taco were taken after one coat of base and two coats of polish.

Pink Taco in natural light!

Pink Taco in the sun!

Pink Taco in the sun!

A Bad Case of Blue Balls is an amazing royal marine blue shimmer. It is seriously one of the prettiest blues I've ever seen!! I did not have the same issues with the first coat of Blue Balls as Dining at the Pink Taco and I used the same base coat.  So who knows, maybe it's operator error!

Blue Balls in natural light! 

Blue Balls in the sun!

Blue Balls in the sun!  

Prepare yourselves ladies (and gents) for a super suspect sentence!  Baby Gravy is my favorite name in the collection and it really is a beautiful milky white shimmer!  Hehehehe... I said Baby Gravy and milky white in the same sentence.  LOL!!! Starting with my pinky I did a progression of the color with multiple coats.  I love this color and depending on how opaque you want it, this shade has a LOT of versatility in it. Also, I didn't use a base coat with Baby Gravy.

Baby Gravy in natural light!

Baby Gravy with low flash! 

Baby Gravy in the sun!

So there ya have it!  Dolly Does Polish and she does it well!  I love the colors and all in all the application was great.  I will be watching Dolly's site for a restock on a couple of the colors that I didn't pick up the first time most definitely because let's face it - these polishes are seriously one of a kind and stunning too!  I hope you love these as much as I do!

SeXXXy Time with Dollish Polish... Porn-tastic Nail Mail

Warning... material might be offensive to some readers... viewer discretion is advised!  LOL

I am so excited to be able to do this post today!  I got my first indie nail mail!  I got my first indie nail mail!  Nanny Nanny Boo Boo!  (singing like an annoying child)

I have had my eye on several of the indie polish brands for a while but just couldn't pull the trigger.  E has been a huge proponent of the indie brands for a long time and has been strongly suggesting that I purchase some.  So, I have been teetering on the ledge and E finally pushed me over last week!

I was looking on Facebook and saw that Dollish Polish was coming out with a new Dolly Does Polish Collection complete with a parental control warning!  Now, I realize that you might not know me well enough yet to know the parental warning was enough to really pique my interest.  When I opened up the link to check out the new line I almost fell out of my chair laughing.  The names of these colors are ridiculously amazing!

Photo Credit:  dollishpolish.bigcartel.com

*shock and awe falls over the crowd*  LOL!  If you are still reading, way to go, you have made it through the hard part!  Now on with the story...

Dolly posted this little tease on her Facebook page and announced a release date for the collection.  Of course I was ready to finally buy and had to wait a day or two before I could. Dolly generally sells out of her polish as soon as she releases it so I was really kind of worried that I would miss out!  I was of course also concerned that life would get in the way of me retaining the release date/time information, but I knew that E would know exactly when to log on and buy! 

Of course, I was out and about the day the line released and it had completely slipped my mind!  Not to worry, E saves the day yet again!  She called me excited to share that the collection had dropped and ask me what I bought and I panicked!  Crap bag!  I seriously thought I missed it!  It's times like these that having a great friend with similar interests really pays off.  E BOUGHT THE ONES I WANTED FOR ME!  Awe... she loves me!  

So here is what I ended up with... 

Dining At The Pink Taco, A Bad Case of the Blue Balls, Baby Gravy

Dollish Polish... "Dolly Does Polish" Collection

Well folks, thats it!  My first indie nail mail of adult themed polish!  LOVE IT!  Can't wait to swatch these!

Tell me what you think.  Do you love these as much as I do?  What is your favorite color or color name?

Dollish Polish... Bringin' the heat! Bringin' the funk!

Yup! This lady has got some hot products! Bringin' the funk for those that need a little more pep in their step and a polish to those that could use a good... POLISHING!!

For those of you that have been living under  a rock in the world of Indie polish, she's the Host with the most! Dollish Polish makes and sells her own brand of fun in bottles of varnish and glitter. I know it may seem as though I am overly amped up, but truly I have fallen head over heals in love with her polish. My first time in I bought four; my initial excitement and everything involved with seeing them for the first time live and not Memorex can be read in my recent post, Nail Mail and an Epic Fail. But lets get on with the show and review these babies!

"Does Barry Manilow know you raid his wardrobe"

The first polish I used of course was Does Barry Manilow know you raid his wardrobe. I was so excited and eager that I honestly couldn't wait for the glitter to mix up well, so please excuse my eager polish job. Believe me the polish is way more awesome than my iPhone and my eager beaver polishing show in the following photograph. 

Don't worry- this beautiful polish will be making a very very quick return in some future mani's I've already got ideas for...

2 coats, no undies!

"He slimed me!"

Next up I painted my nails with He slimed me! This particular polish is so awesome I don't know if I have enough interesting adjectives to do it justice. However, I'll put it this way... If you've ever imagined what slime or specifically Slimer (from Ghostbusters) and his slime looked or felt like, this polish is that. Litterally it is the varnish equivalent of what I can imagine it being like. Wait a second though- before you jump to the wrong conclusion, I love and adore Slimer. I love the Ghostbusters movies and the way that the movies, characters and dialogue have impacted our culture. That being said, there really could be no higher praise for He slimed me. Honestly if I could afford it I would buy bottles to just give out to people that needed a funny, sunny pick me up. 

The day I wore this polish it wasn't meant to impress, I was just eager to try it (much like Barry's polish job lol). While I painted my nails before getting ready for an appointment I was talking to Dom via Skype and discussing the blog and other life things. She also likes He slimed me, so I kept showing her coat after coat what it looked like. I remember telling her "it is just SOOO pretty and SOOO fun, I just can't stop putting layers on!". He slimed me! can be worn alone and in my opinion 3 good coats would achieve an awesomely slime-rific appearance, however I was in the "zone"and wanted to see what it'd look like with just one more, and another and well just one more maybe... I lost track of how many coats I put on, but I'm going to estimate that it was about 5 or 6. Way more than I needed but it just kept getting prettier and prettier lol. I received several compliments and even referred 2 people to Dolly's shop on Etsy. 

**UPDATE 4/14/12: According to a post on Dolly's FB page "He Slimed Me!" will be moving to the Acetone Vault... so get your polish while its available people!!!

Crappy lighting and an iPhone don't do this polish/ picture justice!

"I'll have what she's having"

The same day I received my polish I didn't want to wait to put on the beautiful and multi-faceted I'll have what she's having. I also really wanted to see it alone. I can't wait for an opportunity to try out a really cool hot pink I recently picked up, but this time around I held off and put on 3 coats of I'll have what she's having alone. I never thought I'd love a PINK glitter as much as I love this one. I am NOT a "pink" girl. However, since this polish was delivered to my door I have purchased 5 different pinks including a neon and a crackle lol. I have SOOO many ideas for I'll have what she's having its nuts! Every time I look at it I find more facets to it. At first it has this soft pink base and pink glitter- sort of a "stock" ya know? But then some light shifts and WAIT! Is that? Why YES it IS flecks of a darker pink, almost fuchsia and possibly some more very very fine pink glitter along with the soft rose of the "main" glitter.

I'm just going to be honest and direct here... this line is from the scene in When Harry Met Sally and Sally is educating Harry in the fine art of a faked orgasm... in the middle of a busy diner! The scene is seriously epic and one of the funniest in the history of motion pictures (in my opinion at least!). The line is spoken by a woman in the diner ordering her meal. A little trivia, that woman was no actress! She was director Rob Reiner's mother! Also, just because the video is hilarious, here is a LINK to see Billy Crystal on John Stewart relating a funny story about the filming of the famous orgasm scene (skip to about 6mins to just see that part if you don't want to watch the whole vid).

Sorry... I'll get back on track! Sorry I get so wrapped up talking about movies. So just like He slimed me! this polish is exactly what I can imagine it to look like to live up to it's name. Honestly, a woman's orgasm... hmm sparkly, pretty, pink, multi-faceted and in a lovely sheer pink base? Check, check, check, check annnnnd CHECK! HA! Well done, Dolly, well done! Bravo!! I'm cheering from my seat asking to have what she's having!! 

Sorry I didn't get a better photograph, but just like the others- I have BIG plans BIG BIG plans for this lovely... you'll be seeing it again and believe me you'll fall in love with it just like I have. I promise you, it's definitely worth the purchase. The glitter doesn't need placement, it spreads nicely and honestly it's leagues better than some of the other glitters I've purchased that were supposed to be so great and wonderful.

3 coats, no undies!

"I wanna do bad things to you" 

I have a confession... I don't watch... True Blood. *GASP* *insert shocked face here* I know I know. What self-respecing Vampire literature loving woman doesn't watch that show!? I want to, I just refuse to pay HBO prices. It sucks (hahaha) everyone always talking about a show I have no clue about. So for this purchase it was purely because it caught my eye as an exceptionally beautiful red glitter. This was my first red glitter purchase ever. The previous red glitters in my stash are all fine and micro glitter with a dark red base, so truly it is a polish with glitter in it, not a glitter. Therefore I was really excited about this purchase because oddly enough, a good red glitter is hard to come by. I wanna do bad things to you is exceptionally pretty. It is jam packed with glitter and not just any glitter either! Beautiful sparkly round ultra red glitter, some tiny flecks of more red glitter and some other glitter that shifts purple! What an awesome addition to any bling-tastic mani! Of course like any glitter- especially such a dense glitter you have the not so fun task of clean up and removal. I swear glitter can be such a meanie sometimes! In closing I would definitely brave the clean up and removal for this beautiful concoction. It truly is the cat's pajamas for any red lover- especially a red GLITTER lover!!

Well I hope you enjoyed my lengthy lamenting on Dollish Polish! Keep your eyeballs peeled for these to make some appearances in upcoming posts! Don't forget to leave me some love and comment below!

Easter Nail Art, A long way to go... but it's a start!

With Easter around the corner I knew I wanted to do a themed nail but hadn't quite decided what. I've seen a lot of super cute stuff in the past month and have really felt the pressure! Well with the arrival of my brushes I was anxious to give them a test drive just that much more... but the question still remained test drive them with WHAT?

It came to me in a flash... of middle finger waving angrily in my direction on Southside Blvd in Jacksonville (FL).

Yup... it was like a lightning bolt made of soft creme colors and easter grass sparkle! I wanted to have 3D grass on my nails, eggs hidden in the grass and of COURSE an Easter Bunny! Yup! So simple... yet how exactly to achieve this and with which polish and in what order. Oh the logistics lol.

I formulated my plan while moving along in the hell that is traffic on that particular road for my 40+ minute drive home and got nowhere. Really and truly nowhere. I just couldn't see it yet. It was like I was mentally constipated or something. I had the idea and I knew I had the colors but the rest was just... stuck.

I went the rest of the day like that and let me tell you it was just as uncomfortable as the real thing! I can't stand being creatively stuck it sucks sour eggs!

The end of the day bled into the end of the night and while on Skype with Dom I just started picking out colors... before I even really realized what I was picking out colors for lol. The next thing I knew I had a base coat and my background of Julep - Leah on and drying!

Dom of course was asking me what I was doing because i looked so intent. I wanted it to be a surprise so I told her nothing and beat around the bush for a bit. The next part were the eggs. Now I knew I was going to do the grass so I needed to put the eggs about mid nail, so I had to sort of imagine the grass already there when picking out space for the different eggs on the other 4 nails. Next up, the bunny!

I learned a VERY important lesson that night... White nail polish (aka Sally Hansen - White On) is just like some paints... the white will pull the color behind it! So what ends up happening (in my case) was I had a verrrrrrrry light LIME GREEN EASTER BUNNY!!! ACK! So, what do I do? I put down another coat of white. And another. And another. And another. AND ANOTHER COAT OF WHITE POLISH! Yes people, SIX COATS of white polish to get a WHITE Easter Bunny lol. Seriously I had so much polish on my middle fingernail, the pile-o-polish was this little white mound as though I had some acrylic on my nail!

Moving on... the next step was the background for grass. For that I mixed a little pile of China Glaze - Holly-Day with Sinful Colors - Happy Ending to get this darkish green shimmer color. It was actually very pretty, but a little bit darker than Julep - Leah to give some depth and what not (or some such artistic blah blah)

Once that was done I very politely asked my husband to go to Wally's and get me some green glitter. Yup, 2am my loving husband said "I will... if you REALLY want me to..." my response? "yup, thanks! Love you!" LOL He chuckled and said he'd be back. A while later I get texts with pictures where he's asking me if I want fine glitter or regular or some such caddy thing. I love that man, he cracks me up.

Pre-Glitter Grass

While Dom and I wait for the delivery of glitter goodness I decorate the little eggs. I should back up and tell you the egg colors lol. NYC - Spring Street, Essie - Play Date, Essie - Turquoise & Caicos, Loreal - Tweet Me, Revlon - Indigo Night, China Glaze - Shower Together. I decorated each egg with glitter since they were so small I wasn't sure that an actual design would be visible, but glitter is! I used the small holos from OPI - Servin' Up Sparkle, Jordana - Blue Bash, Jordana - Celebration and of course, last but certainly not least my new Dollish Polish - I'll have what she's having. I saved that beautious pink confection of sparkle for the most important feature on a bunny- the pink hears and nose! I did try to do the Bunny's face in proportion but the whiskers came out bigger and thicker than I thought they were going to be so that part was poop, but I like his little blue eyes and cutesy ears!  I do  know in the pictures it won't look as though all these colors are represented but I promise they're there lol. Some got covered up with overzealous glitter glass application lol.

L to R: OPI - Servin' Up Sparkle, Jordana - Blue Bash, Dollish Polish - I'll have what she's having, Jordana - Celebration, NYC - Spring Street, Essie - Play Date, Essie - Turquoise & Caicos, Wet n' Wild - Tickled Pink, L'Oreal - Tweet Me, Revlon - Indigo Night, China Glaze - Liquid Leather, China Glaze - Shower Together, China Glaze - Holly-Day, Sinful Colors, Happy Ending, Julep - Helena, Julep - Leah *not pictured Sally Hansen - White On

Alright... the piece de resistance! My glitter-grass! A coat of OPI - Top Coat was applied where I wanted my grass to stick and then copious amounts of fine green glitter applied.

Finished!

TA DA!!

I hope you enjoyed my first attempt at free-hand nail art. It was a lot of fun and while my painting skills are rusty, they're in there... just have to blow the dust off and work out the kinks!

Side note: I wanted to mention that all my photos are done inside and with my iPhone. Unfortunately my camera has been in the shop getting repaired. Hopefully I will have it back soon!

NAIL MAIL!! and an EPIC FAIL :/

Today was an epic day!! Why you might ask? Well I received my first ever Indie nail mail! While I've been an avid spectator in the war that is indie polish shopping, I finally entered the fray! About 2 weeks or so ago Dolly from Dollish Polish announced an opening time for her shop and I made it my mission to be ready and waiting. It felt like Black Friday waiting except without all the weirdos trying to slyly get in front of me. The anticipation was killing me but I was NOT going to miss this. Of course this particular shopping day caught me at a low fundage point so I knew I had to be decisive...

Such awesome packaging! Seriously bubble wrapped, in a bag then in a cute teal drawstring bag!

Now... lets be real here. Trying to pick between one of a kind works of art is like choosing a favorite child! It's impossible! All of them are amazing and for equally fantabulous reasons! I am a glitter-holic to the core. I have a seriously short attention span if anything shiny catches my eye... so truly how could I choose? But when that time came and a simple click refreshed and loaded an actual page front to her Etsy store with available product, I started furiously clicking. Would it be this one? That one? Oooh, what about... um. The decisions were so hard! I wanted them all, however I knew I couldn't have them all, nor was time on my side (remember there were tons of others anxiously refreshing too!).

How did I do it? I stopped, took a deep breath and decided I would go towards what pulled me. I am an 80's baby through and through so of course I felt pulled toward three of my all time favorite movies, The Breakfast Club "Does Barry Manilow know you raid his wardrobe?", When Harry Met Sally "I'll have what she's having" and Ghostbusters "He slimed me!". Now, I know there are others I plan to buy but these were the ones that tugged at me. Not just because of their epic and aptly applied monikers but because they are amazing and beautiful! To round out my purchase I knew I needed (and I mean that literally!) the ridiculously blazing hot red sparkly beauty named "I wanna do bad things to you" which is from the TV show True Blood.

Well... then there's my epic fail.

After checking out and floating on a big fluffy cloud of elation and a goofy "Hail the conquering hero" playing in my head I went about my day. A week went by and I did a Skittles mani thinking about the amazing "Putting on the Ritz" from Dollish Polish that I had on it's way! *insert screeching noise* (wait for it... waaaaiiiittt for it...)

But I DIDN'T!!!!!!!!!!!! >.< WTF how could I have done that to myself?! I had forgotten the ONE polish I KNEW I wanted and had decided to get before the shop even opened. What did I tell you? I have the shortest attention span when something shiny shiny hits my eyes... and that was the iceberg that sunk my Titanic that day. So what now? Now the shop is closed while it is moved to a new (hopefully better for Dolly) shop. I'm literally stuck like chuck. Such an epic fail. I'm totally heartbroken too. At least I'll have my four other pretties to console me while I wait and hope for an opening to pick up Ritz.

aren't they PRETTY!!

Welp, stay tuned for my review... I would've written that first but tonight family time sort of sucked up swatching time lol.

Skittles Rainbow... what does it MEAN?!

LOL I love the video Double Rainbow on YouTube!! The Double Rainbow Song makes me laugh so hard- it's even Dom's ringtone for me on her cell! At any rate...

So this will be a short and sweet post, just enough to show you the colors that I pulled together. They ended up being awesomesauce together too! *insert happy dance*

Natural lighting / Inside

,

From thumb to pinky: Revlon Colorstay - Passionate Pink, Revlon Colorstay - Rich Raspberry, Essie - Play Date, Revlon Colorstay - Coastal Surf, Sally Hansen Insta-Dri - Lickety-Split Lime.

see above for brand & name of color

I don't know what Revlon has done to their Colorstay line, but the formula for these new polishes has been super awesome! It is so smooth and creamy, it spreads on easily and quite honestly I'm A-OK paying $5 for them. Back in the day I refused because I hated the formula but now I really am looking to the line to see what they put out next.

I know my skittle mani might seem a little lacking in art and design department but all I really wanted to put on them was Dollish Polish - Putting on the Ritz and since I don't have my order yet... any other option felt wrong. So I sported this mani for a day or two polish solo and even in it's less than bling appearance everyone seemed to love it!

As always, base coat in Seche Clear and a nice top coat of Seche Vite.

Hopefully you'll decide to give some of the new Colorstay shades a test drive... I think you'll be delightfully surprised!