Zoya Nova

I have been so busy lately with the holidays, work, and classes that I have barely been changing my polish! I've been wearing OPI Lucky Lucky Lavender since Saturday (and it's holding up really well). But this post is about a polish I wore last week, Zoya Nova. It's a glitter polish, pink, and very pretty but it's not my favorite. This is three coats, dried really quickly as glitter polishes usually do. I only had to use one coat of Seche Vite over this polish. It wasn't very gritty at all. Nice.

Milani Gold Glitz

I'm back! I think my broken nail has finally gotten to the point where I can start posting again. In the time since my last post, I went through almost two packages of band-aids keeping that nail covered up. It looked awful and it was pretty painful, too.

Anyway! In my last post I showed two of the new Milani glitters. Since then, I went back and bought all of the rest of the line except for the red one...and I will probably pick that one up the next time I'm at the drugstore because I love these so much. They claim to be "one coat" glitters, and let me tell you - they are! The one I'm wearing today is called Gold Glitz. I have two coats on, but I could have easily gotten away with one. The only thing I don't like about these is that they are gritty. I used two coats of Seche Vite over this to smooth it out, and it seemed to do the trick.

So pretty and sparkly. If you can find these (I found the display at CVS), and you like glitter, you have to take a look at these. I'm dreading removing this...but I think it's worth it!

Party Hearty Dupe

I wanted to share this dupe for China Glaze's Party Hearty in case anyone is still on the lookout for that one. When I went to order it online, it was sold out and I couldn't find it anywhere in stores, so I just decided to pass on it. But today, shopping at CVS, I saw what appears to be an exact dupe by Milani called Gems. The one on the left, obviously:

The one on the right is just a chunky gold glitter called Gold. These are from some glitter collection that must be new - I think it was called Rock Star Glitter or something to that effect. They had a few other nice glitters, too, but nothing really unique besides the Party Hearty dupe. Here's a close up of that one; click the picture to see it more detail.

And here is the reason I haven't been posting:

Yeah. My nails are currently in a disastrous condition. It started Wednesday when I pretty much ripped the nail on my index finger clean off after hooking it on the washer lid. Then my middle nail snapped. Then the index nail on my right hand broke, too. It's probably going to take a month or more for the bandaged index finger nail to grow back, which is so frustrating. In the meantime, I'll try to keep posting...maybe nail wheel swatches or posts like this about polish dupes. Of course this would happen right after I get this nice light box. But hey, they will grow back eventually and my nails usually grow pretty quickly so I'm lucky for that. Oh, the polish I have on in this is Ulta Spice Drop. It came in one of those little kits that are usually five mini polishes for $9.99. This one was Too Faced Loves Ulta, I think. It's a nice pink foil, really sparkles in the sunlight.

Sally Hansen + Zoya + light box!

Okay, since the daylight savings time change, it gets dark around here by 5:30. Since I don't even get home from work before then, I basically never see the light. Therefore, most of my pictures get taken inside in low lighting and they don't look very nice. Pretty frustrating. Luckily, my brother made me an awesome light box for my birthday so from here on out pictures should be much better!

Today I used Sally Hansen Plum Burst (from the Xtreme Wear line) and then stamped over it with Zoya Penny using Konad plate m78. Plum Burst is three coats. The formula on this was pretty hard to work with; thick and gloopy, but it evened out after I put on Seche Vite top coat. Penny is a great polish for stamping and I like the purple/copper combination.

I flipped this picture, that's why the text is backwards. Also, please ignore my cuticles...I don't know what to with them. I use cuticle creams and oils all the time but they still look awful. Does anyone have an suggestions for awesome cuticle creams besides Burt's Bees and Lush Lemony Flutter?

NOX Twilight and Sinful Colors

Long time no blog! I hate that I've neglected this so much over the past couple of weeks. I'll just forgo the usual excuses and get right to the polish (and hopefully back to a normal posting schedule).

I was surprised when I found this NOX Twilight polish in Poseidon at Meijer. I couldn't find a display, just this one polish stuck in amongst the Sinful Colors. I looked everywhere, but to no avail. I had wanted to try this brand, so I picked it up. I'm not a Twilight fan, but the polishes looked interesting and I liked the bottle. This particular one is okay; the application was so-so. I used three coats, but probably should have done four. Dry time was decent. I decided it was missing something, so I layered Sinful Colors Queen of Beauty over it.

Overall, it's alright, but I definitely want to try some of the other shades so I think I might hit up another Meijer next weekend and see if I can find the display! And, as you can see, I cut my nails down. They were getting super long. I swear by Nail Tek Foundation II for long healthy nails and plan to do a post about it soon!

China Glaze Ick-A-Body

Happy Halloween! For my Halloween manicure, I used China Glaze Ick-A-Body. Probably a pretty popular choice this year. It's a glittery orange in a really dark murky green almost black base. Perfect Halloween color! This is three coats with a top coat.

Color Club Jewel of a Girl

I kind of didn't want to post this one because the color is so hard to capture but I have nothing else at the moment so here it is. This is Color Club Jewel of a Girl and it looks like it might be brown in these photos but it's actually several colors depending on the light. I had no natural light for this, but under natural light this color reminds me of black cherries or black plums. See - it looks nothing like that in the pic. Really hard color to photograph! But if you enlarge the pic, you can get a better idea of the color in the bottle.

So yeah. I don't love this polish, but the color is work appropriate so I thought I'd try it. Probably won't wear it again, though.