Nicole By OPI Orna-ment for Eachother

Good afternoon! today i slept in and then went out for breakfast and kind of lazily wandered around enjoying the gorgeous weather. then went home and changed for the beach. my boyfriend and i went for a long walk and drank up the sunshine! anyways, i did a Christmas manicure! my first one this year! Nicole By OPI in Orna-Ment for each other...a dark primary red glitter with sparse gold glitter. i have to say that the formula was a little less than perfect. it took 3 coats to get opaque and was very difficult to spread evenly.

OPI DS Desire...yeah you want it!

happy tuesday! hopefully i will be baking delicious pies this evening if all goes according to plan. what are your Thanksgiving plans? my boyfriend and i will be going to my parents house for a Thanksgiving breakfast and then later in the afternoon we are going to my aunt's house for traditional Thanksgiving dinner. I'm baking the pies for my aunt's and I'm also baking a brie en croute (puff pastry enveloping a baked brie wheel with candied walnuts...mmmm) for my parents. What are your Thanksgiving plans?
TO THE NAIL POLISH!

I'm fairly certain that this is the manicure i'll be wearing for Thanksgiving. It is perfectly brown/green/gold with the right amount of HOLOGRAPHIC! it's OPI Designer Series in Desire. I found this particular bottle whilst dusty hunting at a nearby salon. The owners of that salon just don't know what kind of treasures they're harboring.

long time no post!

hi everyone! it's been so long since my last post...poor neglected blog! well i'm back...hehehe. i've been working full time so i haven't had as much time to write..but that doesn't mean i haven't been swatching away!

today i have a very yellow mani. this is 2 coats OPI Lemonade Stand By Your Man and 2 coats Revlon Pineapple Fizz. the OPI i got in a duo pack from TJMaxx for $6.99...i just couldn't resist. the Revlon polish is stunning...yellow jelly with gold flecks and gold glitter. enjoy!

Hypnotic Week

good morning! today is the last day of my Hypnotic Week post series :( i used Hypnotize Me over 2 coats of In a Trance for this manicure. i don't know if it was just my bottle, but Hypnotize Me was gooey and super hard to apply. i was pretty disappointed with this polish, because it is so amazing looking. oh well!

Hypnotic Week

good morning! this morning i'm a little sleepy. tehee! as promised, i have another Cult Nails fall collection polish for you today! Enigmatic is a gorgeous eggplant purple shimmer/glitter with gold hues. i adore this polish. for this mani, i used 2 medium coats and had no troubles with the formula. smooth sailing! enjoy!

for whatever reason, i don't have a bottle shot of Enigmatic. it is the third polish from the left!

Hypnotic Week

 good afternoon readers! it's a bit of a dreary day here unfortunately, so i have a bit of a stormy color as today's manicure. today i have another new polish from the Cult Nails fall Hypnotic collection, Awakening. Awakening is an inky blue creme...and personally i think it is the perfect rainy day polish! it was fairly easy to apply and dried in ten or so minutes. i used two medium coats for the swatches below....enjoy!

OPI Designer Series (OOOHLALA!) Shimmer

good morning! happy Tuesday everyone! today i have an OPI DS manicure for you. this is one of the original Designer Series polishes, so it can be hard to find. i found mine as a "dusty" in a local salon. Shimmer is an icy silver blue holographic polish. i used 2 coats for this mani, although i noticed there was a bit of VNL (Visisble Nail Line) when i was finished. i am fairly obsessed with the brushes on these OPI Designer Series polishes; they are very flexible and rather wide, but allow for an extremely even application. enjoy!

back from posting hiatus!

good afternoon, everyone! my best friend was down from college for a couple weeks so i've been on a bit of a posting hiatus, and i'm quite sorry for that. i'm back now, however, and better than ever! whilst on my blogging break i happened to discover YouTube...who knew there would be beauty bloggers on there!? this is a manicure inspired by a Tweet i found about a video on YouTube. this is my first shot at a gradient manicure, and also my first time painting on stripes, so please, don't be too harsh!
i started with 1 medium even coat of Mermaids Tears from the OPI Pirates collection. then i used a q-tip soaked with water to apply a band in the middle of my nail using Barielle in Do Unto Others. on the tip of my nails i used another q-tip soaked in water to apply another band with Nicole by OPI in Respect the World. over the top of my banded color nails, i used a ColorClub mini clear glitter top coat from the Starry Temptress collection and 1 coat of Nicole by OPI in Nicole...Spotted! using a mechanical pencil tip, i drew criss-crossed stripes on all of my nails except my middle finger and ring finger with OPI DS Desire. on my middle finger i used the mechanical pencil tip to draw a seashell. i used my ring finger as a bling finger and glued on rhinestones using a clear top coat.
have a fabulous day! enjoy!

Coalest Day of the Year

good morning/afternoon, everyone! today is Mani/Pedi Monday (as is every Monday) on Barielle's facebook page. i encourage you to upload a picture of yourself wearing some Barielle polish! (i did!) so i will share with you what i shared with Barielle! just in case you didn't see on facebook, or in case you love to read my blog (i like the latter of the two.) i used 2 thick coats of Barielle in Coalest Day of the Year. i purchased this polish at Ulta for $1.99 at their giant beauty clearance a few months ago...and i don't regret it! Barielle normally retails for $8/bottle so this was a steal. Barielle polish is easy to apply with a fat-bottomed brush and rather gooey formula. enjoy!

OPI Designer Series (OOOHLALA!) glitz mani

good afternoon, readers (and some browsers)!
i've spent the majority of today reading my Google Blogger for Dummies book and drooling over nail swatches. i also stalked a couple of Sally Beauty Supply's in my area for the China Glaze Metro collex, since i heard a few other bloggers found them already. that is not the case here in south west florida. oh well! so, on to the good stuff. i happen to own a bottle of OPI DS (the original series) in Glamour. i loove this color. its like a purple bluey goodness with ultra subtle holographic in it. i also have this pretty cool Sally Girl (from Sally Beauty Supply) loose glitter that coordinates with the polish. helloo glitter mani! i used 2 thin-ish coats of OPI Designer Series in Glamour, and used China Glaze Strong Adhesion Base Coat to attach the Sally Girl loose glitter in streaks across my nails. this is a picture heavy post (like most of my posts) so please be patient! as always, questions, comments, concerns and opinions are always welcome! xoxo Marina

this is the Sally Girl loose glitter i used for my mani!

pucci-licious purple

good morning everyone! i was feeling a little purple-y today. so i have a purple mani for you. it's ColorClub in Pucci-licious. Pucci-licious is a dusty purple periwinkle. the formula was opaque in 2 coats and fairly easy to apply. unfortunately, my camera was a bit confused by the color, capturing it more blue than purple. there's not too much i can do about that, however. i used ColorClub Pucci-licious (from the Poptastic collection) 2 coats for this manicure, and 1 thick coat of ColorClub 60 second Speedy Top Coat.