Whew, holidays!

Hi ladies!

I'm sorry there's been such a lack of posts lately.  All of the busyness surrounding the holidays has really been kicking my boo-tay!  So please be patient with me just a while longer. :)

Since I haven't been around and won't have a chance for the next couple days to compile everything, the deadline for my giveaway has been extended to January 1st by 11:59 PM!!  If you haven't had a chance to enter yet, please do!  The link is on the sidebar at the right.

Warm greetings to all new readers!  I'm really excited to have you around, so once again, I ask that you please be patient with me.

I have some really great things coming, guys!  Holiday updates abound!  I've also been in a load of great swaps lately, which I'm thrilled to be making posts about.  I've been seriously floored by the great taste and generosity of the ladies I've been lucky enough to swap with, and I can't wait to share more with you!

If I don't get a chance to post before, please have a safe and happy New Year!

Thank you for reading!

Oy!

First, a quick note!  Thank you to everyone that left me encouraging notes in my last entry about Brad being away. :)  It really helped me feel better!  We had some serious snow last weekend, though, so he decided to come home early.  So I saw him Saturday morning before he left to hang out with his friends, and I saw him Sunday night after his long drive in the crazy snow back to his apartment here...  We STILL haven't gone a day without seeing each other.  Our record still stands!

Life is pretty busy right now!

My temp job at the college bookstore started up again last week.  I work just shy of full time at my normal job, and then put in at least five and a half hours each night I'm scheduled to temp.  It's not hard work, it's just a long, long time to be on your feet (twelve hours a day, what what!).  That being said, I've found myself pretty worn out lately.  People aren't rude or mean, but everyone is tired or stressed about final exams, and I think that they all just want holiday break to start.  I can't blame them there!

At the end of the semester, the bookstore will check in textbooks that were rented out, and buy back books that students purchased for their classes but no longer want or need.  I give people the money for their books. :)  Needless to say, I see a pretty incredible number of people.  I helped 228 people today just by giving them the money for the textbooks they sold.  This doesn't include the other book and item sales I made.  It was a pretty fulfilling day. :)

Yesterday I wore Milani Blue Flash.  A couple girls liked it, but one specifically pointed it out and mentioned a couple other very similar colors (Absolutely Alice and Dorothy Who?) in asking what it was.  I was pretty psyched to tell her what I was wearing.  She showed me that she was wearing a newer Sally Hansen polish.  "Wet Cement," she said, cool as a cucumber.  Of course I already knew who made it!  Haha!  I wish that she would have hung around to gab a little, but alas, a line was building.  I very much love the ladies in the blogging community, but I would be tickled to have a friend in real life as obsessed with polish as me! <3

Sorry for the rambling. :)  Ten days until Christmas!  Gak!  I'm so not ready!

I'll play myself out with a little bit of polish.

This is three coats of Color Club Age of Aquarius, with one quick coat of Cover Girl City Lights over the top to bump up the pretty factor.  I only got one decent shot of this one, so I hope you like it!

Also, if you haven't yet, don't forget to enter my giveaway!

If you made it this far, thanks for reading!

Color Club - Wild at Heart

Today isn't a very good day for me.  I knew it was coming, but how do you really prepare for it?

My boyfriend is originally from Ohio.  A couple months ago, he moved to the city where I live. :)  His hometown is about two hours away.  Not far, really.  One of old college friends decided to take a trip out to Brad's hometown to see a bunch of his friends there, so of course Brad wanted to see him.  I wanted Brad to go see his friends, too.  I'm not a ridiculous mouthbreathing clingfest, after all.  I do love him entirely, though.  These will be the first days in almost three months that we will be apart.  Since he's moved here, we've been together every single day.  I hope that he (and everyone else) can forgive me for being a little downtrodden and sad for these next few days.  It's harder than I expected.

I didn't much feel like doing my nails earlier.  I put a bunch of glittery topcoats over my current manicure (Misa Dirty Sexy Money), but that only served to make me more indecisive as to which I liked best.  Huff.  So I picked pictures from a manicure I did last weekend.

I wore this as a manicure over the weekend hoping to catch some sun at some point, but that never happened.  Darned Indiana winter!  I took these pictures hoping that I wouldn't have to settle with them, but eh.  What can you do? lol

This was two super easy coats.  As holographic polishes can sometimes leave bald spots when you layer on additional coats, I made sure that the first coat was completely dry before swooping in for a second.  And lucky me, being a holo polish, it didn't take long to dry at all. :)

I'm reeeeeaaaallllyyyy looking forward to wearing Wild at Heart when the weather warms up and the sun comes back out again.  It's still a beautiful color, but it seems a shame that the gray skies didn't give me a ray of sun to let this polish's true beauty shine through.  I still got a few compliments on it!


Soooo...  Back to doing, um...  Nothing, really.  I need to actually do my nails this time (not just glitterbomb them), so maybe I'll turn on some Buffy and then call it an early night.

Thanks for reading, even if it's all downer.  Please enter my giveaway!

Revlon - Perplex

I should have posted this first, but I really couldn't wait to put the giveaway up!  Please enter! :)  Clickity-click!

I have to say, the first time I saw Perplex, I wasn't super psyched.  But let me tell you why!  I was in the midst of buying some polish from Mary over at Body & Soul (seriously, if you're not already following her, do it now.  She's a really neat gal and she writes a stellar blog!), and through my own misunderstanding, I had expressed interested in Cover Girl Purplexed.  It's a very pretty purple, but oops!  Not what I was after!  (Also, ugh, cosmetic companies!  Why do you have to use such similar names!?).  So when I saw the full display at Ulta, I remember thinking "Too bad I already bought you!"

So anyway, I worked things out with Mary and ended up going back to Ulta to buy three bottles!  One for me, one for her, and one for a lucky reader! :)  The girls at Ulta thought I was crazy ("You already have every polish imaginable, and now you're buying three bottles of the same color?"), but that's pretty standard, I suppose.

Pictures!

A warm welcome to my new OttLite as well!  I'm not used to taking photos under such a great light source.  Unfortunately, a lot of purples still look blue.  Please use your imagination (seeing as my camera has none).  Do you see the streak of subtle shimmer there on the middle finger?  The bottle was gorgeous.  Swathes of the pure purple shimmer floated in the dusky purple cream.  It was a beautiful polish to wear!

This was two easy peasy coats.  I'm not unfamiliar with Revlon polishes, but it's not very often that I find a color interesting enough to buy.  This was a great color and wonderful polishing experience!

Definitely looking forward to wearing this again.  Once I get my swapped bottle of Paradoxal, I'll do a side by side comparison.

So what do you think of Perplex?  Is it on your wish list?


Thanks for reading!

Revlon Perplex Giveaway!

 I found it!  Do you want it?

 Enter my giveaway!

Here are the rules! 

You must be a follower of Persistently Polished.  I don't mind if you're a newbie to my blog or if you've been around since the beginning, but I will check follower status of entrants.

Make all of your available entries in one comment, or I will likely miss any additional entries you've made!  I had a hard time keeping track of extra entries in my Bad Fairy giveaway, if they weren't all logged in a single comment.  I definitely don't want you missing out on extra chances to win! :)

How do you get entries?
-- Leave a comment on this entry with your name and email address. (1 entry)
-- Add Persistently Polished to your blog roll and provide me with a link. (1 entry)
-- Post an entry about my giveaway on your blog (either alone or in a roundup, I don't mind) and provide me with a link. (2 entries)
-- Post a link to my giveaway in your sidebar and provide me with a link.  (2 entries)
-- Post the giveaway picture with either of the above two entry opportunities.  (1 entry)
-- Tweet about my giveaway and provide me with a link. (1 entry)
-- Are you a blogger?  Leave me a link to your blog!  I read a lot of blogs, but I'm always looking for more! :)  Even if it's not polish or beauty related, I'd love to be more involved with the people that have chosen to be involved with me! (1 entry)

Holy smokes!  You could have up to nine entries for my giveaway!

The Revlon Perplex Giveaway will come to a close on December 28th at 11:59 PM EST.  Any entries after will not be counted.  The entries will be numbered and the winner will be chosen using random.org. The winner will be announced shortly thereafter, and will receive an email from me.  If the winner does not respond within 48 hours, I will choose a new winner.

International entries welcome!

Good luck, everyone! :D

Hooray!

Hooray for one hundred followers! :D  You ladies really are amazing!

I just wanted to let all of you know that the giveaway is coming, I promise!  I just started back up at my temp job again today, and after a full day of work, I can tell you that I'm NOT looking forward to the many, many 12+ hour days that I know are coming my way.  I would be happier and more content if I only focused on my primary job, but it always feels very good to be able to dump all of the checks from the temp job into my bank account.  My savings isn't always solid (have you seen my nail polish collection? lol), so it's nice to be able to sit solidly on a larger amount for a while.  Just in case, right?

So, long story short, I hope to have the giveaway posted by tomorrow night. :)

Have a good one!

"Do you love my insides? The parts you can't see?"

I hope that I don't lose any readers for this, but I'm a shameless Buffy the Vampire Slayer fan.  I'm watching through the series *cough* again *cough*, and loving it.  The first season is a wee bit rough.  Most first seasons are, but this series in particular, in my opinion, considering that it's set in the late nineties (gah, wtf fashion?!) and, y'know, the whole vampire and monster slayage. :)

I made it through season one and have zipped on into season two.  Significantly less awkward!  And probably one of my personal favorite seasons.  Some of my favorite characters are in season two. :)  Spike is featured from the second season on, but he's my favorite in the beginning.  Who doesn't love a bad boy?  Also, the second season features Angelus' first appearance, which is absolutely sublime.  (I'm not a big fan of Angel, but when he loses touch with his soul and turns into Angelus?  The unleashed character is significantly better, in my opinion!)

But really, who doesn't enjoy Drusilla?  Dark, disconnected, delightfully mad?  I couldn't help but try out a Drusilla-inspired manicure.

This was also my first go at a scotch tape manicure. :)  It was okay for a first try.  I didn't realize how rounded my middle, pointer, and thumb nails are, though!  Haha!

 These were the two fingers that I felt came out really good.  If all of my fingers would have looked this nice, I would have worn this manicure even longer!

This is what I used for my Drusilla mani.  One coat of Ulta's Lunar Eclipse with one coat of the Rimmel French Tip White on the tips.  This is a great full coverage white, by the way!  And the little bitty brush in the bottle is fantastic!

This is the shot that pushed me over the edge!  Great nails, Dru!  Spike could use a fresh coat, though. ;)  (Frame taken from What's my Line? Part One)

Fun fact!  Did you know that her nail color changes according to her health?  Black is used in her manicure if she's weakened, and red is used when she's her full on evil self. :)

Aaaaand just a couple more pictures, because I feel like it.

Lovely.  See?  Black nails.  I also noticed that her wardrobe tends to mirror her health, too.

And how could I resist one with Spike in it?  The man's so great when he's bad!  I'm still very much under the impression that fictional vampires can be sexy and completely badass without sparkling.


I'm a big Joss Whedon fan, so don't be terribly surprised if I mangle some more theme manicures in the future.  I hope that you enjoyed the Drusillicure!  Thank you for reading!


"I'm naming all the stars."
"You can't see the stars, love, that's the ceiling.  Also, it's day."
"I can see them.  But I've named them all the same name, and there's terrible confusion..."

OttLite question, upcoming giveaway, and Royal Navy!

Question and pictures later!  The most important thing first!

I have ninety-six wonderful followers!  I would like to thank you all so very much for taking the time to read my little blog.  I hadn't ever expected that people might be interested in my simple life and little nubs. :)  Thank you all again, so very much!

I'd like to announce that once I reach one hundred followers, I'll be posting a new giveaway!  It's not a lot, but I will say that it's a new, hard to find polish that has dozens of bloggers on a wild goose chase. ;)  I can't wait to get it started!

I was looking through the weekly ads and noticed that JoAnn Fabrics (is it still called that?) has OttLite lamps on sale for 50% off this week!  I live in the Midwest, and during winter months, proper light is reduced to, y'know, zero. :)  I wore Color Club's Wild at Heart all weekend, hoping to see a glimpse of sunlight, but no luck.  How great would a proper lamp be?

So my question is, which light is most advised for the pictures that we take?  I don't need a floor light, so a desk lamp is most appropriate.  But which one?  Do you use a particular model?  Do you like it?


Onto Orly Royal Navy.  I love when you can see the ripple effect that a polish has through the blogging community.  As far as I know, Royal Navy has been in Orly's core line for a while, but a few months ago, it gained a popularity with bloggers.  First there would be one post.  Then three.  And they kept coming. :)

Look at how jelly sheer it is!  This is three coats.  I didn't notice the VNL until I took pictures of it in the light.  It was a great color, though!  Blues are usually not my cup of tea, and I'm still not entirely sure that I'm going to add this one to my permanent collection.  But for a blue?  It was pretty great. :)

 My nails go from long to short all the time.  This is long for me, haha!  Perhaps the color would look best on me if I wasn't wrestling with the VNL issue.

 Do I even need to mention the light blue glitter mixed into this polish?  Gorgeous!

And since I was eating at Culver's at the time that I took the picture, I snapped a quick one with the cup.  Cute!  Also, ignore my pinky.  I believe this is when I had a run in with a straight razor. :(


I would love to hear your thoughts and suggestions on OttLites.  I'd love to get this giveaway up on its feet.  If you have any nail buddies that you think might like my blog, I'd love it very much if you'd pass my name along! :)

As always, thank you for reading!

Sally Hansen - Gray by Gray

Hey all!

It's been, what?  Twenty-two, twenty-three days?  Sheesh.  I wonder if they make sheepish emoticons?  I'll have to check sometime. :)

Unless there was serious drama brewing, I was never very good at keeping a well-updated personal blog.  I had hoped that having a blog that others could read would motivate me to write more, but that's not always the case.  Clearly. ;)  If only my endless polish-related buying and hoarding would screech to a snail's pace along with my blogging!

I wore Sally Hansen's Gray by Gray a little while back.  I have a few of the Complete Manicure polishes, but this is the first one that I've worn for an actual manicure.  (Outside of Hidden Treasure, of course.  Everyone knows that you slap a coat of Hidden Treasure on almost everything!  Psssh!!!)

Oh yes, I love me a heavily blue-based gray. <3  Is there any better color to mix into your gray?  I don't think so!

This was two snappy coats (plus base and top coat [Out the Door]).  Not being a huge fan of OPI's wide brush (gasp! shock! horror~!), I thought that I would hate this one.  It's almost the complete opposite, though.  The consistency of my polish was great, and the applying it with that brush meant that I could practically do it in my sleep.  I also love how bottom heavy these bottles are.  I'm often a Clumsy McDropsalot, and painting my nails rarely escapes my blunders.  It was relieving to have a heavy, sturdy bottle and a very manageable applicator. :)
 

And there you have it: Gray by Gray.  Love!


Here's hoping, once again, that I can beat out this laziness and keep writing!  Thank you for reading!

Studio M - Wicked Hot + IsaDora Grafitti fun!

Good evening!

Can I share something with you?  I love Daylight Savings Time!  I live in Indiana, and up until a couple years ago, we didn't observe Daylight Savings at all.  While everyone else was switching their clocks forward or back, we very conveniently ignored all of that. :)  Being the little interwebernaut that I was before the switch, it was very frustrating.  I had friends all over the country and world that I wanted to keep up with!  What time was it where Friend A lived?  Is it okay to call Friend B, or is it too late?

Now that we're finally caught up with the rest of the country, though, I very much enjoy the change!  People here still grumble about it, but my being super happy about it balances out some of the grumpiness.


On the docket for today, I have Studio M's Wicked Hot!

I MUST show you my Grafitti fun first, though!!  I was extremely happy with this outcome.  This is one coat of IsaDora's Masterpiece Pink over two coats of Studio M's Wicked Hot.  I wore Wicked Hot on a Friday, and was attending a friend's birthday gathering that night, so I slapped on a coat of Masterpiece Pink.

I admit that I wasn't certain how I felt about a light pink crackle polish like this, but I've been entirely impressed with it every time I've worn it.  I LOVE that it leaves jagged cracks more frequently than it breaks into big sections with thick veins of the base polish between the crackled portions.  Does that make sense?  I see that a lot with the Barry M Nail Effects polish that's big now, and I don't like it.  I love the way this one looks! <3

Also, it was tons of fun trying to set my camera timer and hold my hands perfectly for the shot.  This was the best one I had.  After about ten pictures, I was sick of it.  Haha!

Anyway, back to your regularly scheduled program.

This is two coats of Wicked Hot.  The first coat was somewhat sheer, so I can't help feeling like this is something of a jelly?  It was a pretty standard color, but I enjoyed it for a day.  Very pretty for Fall and Winter.

Why do they put sale stickers RIGHT on the front?!  P.S. These polishes are great stuff for $2.99, and finding them cheaper is even more fun!  The collection put out for Fall didn't really make a big splash where I live, I guess, so there's still plenty of these colors floating around. :)

And here's a quick bottle shot so that you can get a better idea of the color.  Think the deepest, juiciest grape juice you've ever drank, and that's the color you'll get on your nails.

I don't know if I'll be wearing this color again soon, but it was a pretty hot shade.


In more exciting news, I have another giveaway planned!  I had so much fun giving polishes away last time that I really want to do it again!  More details will be coming within a week or two, so please stay tuned! :D

Sally Girl - Pink holo!

Ugh, first things first!  I'm sorry that it's been so long.  I have problems with Blogger uploading my pictures whenever I go to update, so it's more than a little off-putting when I start an entry just to find that my photos won't load up.

I've been buying way too many a bunch of interesting polishes lately.  In fact, lookie what I found at Sally Beauty Supply!

Workplace friendly polish filled with holo glitter?  I thought those had to be expensive?  Butter London, OPI DS?  Nope!  Try $0.99!!  This soft, subtle pearly pink is packed full of scattered holo glitter.

It's not a perfect holo, as you can see, but the glitter in the polish is really whiz bang out in the sun!

Three coats and done!  The polish isn't bumpy or awkward, either.  Very smooth, simple, and pretty.


I don't usually buy Sally Girl polishes.  I don't like that they don't have names, for starters.  There's so many of them!  How am I supposed to keep them straight without names?  Unlike other complaints I've heard, I don't mind at all that they're small.  I think it's fun to buy lots of colors for a small price. :)  I wish that the ones I really liked were available in a larger bottle, though.  I would definitely buy this one in a larger size!

So what do you gals think?  Do you love any of these itty bitty Sally Girl polishes?

Odds and Ends...

SWAPS!

I'm in the middle of two swaps right now, and I'm absolutely loving it!  It's so fun to be able to give someone polish that they want and get something that you really want in return! :)

So let's open this up, eh?

I went through my collection of polish last weekend and sorted aside the polishes that I can live without.  After organizing them into a Word document, I came up with nine full pages (with slight overflow onto the tenth page).  I have a pretty fat lemming list on the right side of my blog.  If you have some of the polishes on there that you would like to swap, please feel free to email me at erinface8d@gmail.com, and I can send you my big long list of polishes I have available for swaps.


China Glaze update!

While I was in Sally Beauty Supply the other day, I noticed that most (if not all) of the Up and Away and Poolside collections have been added to the core line.  I also spotted Dorothy Who? in the new rack.  Is this a new development, or am I behind the times on this?


Mushroom woes!

I recently bought the four newest Hard Candy polishes from Wal-Mart.  While looking through my receipts, though, I noticed that the mouse-y taupe, Mushroom, had rung up at $8.00 instead of $5.00.  What...?  I returned the polish, expressing my confusion about EVERY OTHER HARD CANDY POLISH being $5.00, and that the $8.00 price tag could not possibly be correct.  During a visit to another store, though, I found the same thing.  Weird, right?

After driving up north to go to one of my favorite little restaurants for lunch, I stopped at the Wal-Mart there.  Mushroom for $5.00!  Hooray!  Finally!  Once I had unwrapped it, though, the horror!  The cap had suffered a pretty severe horizontal crack that stretched across almost the entire circumference.  I hadn't seen it because it was low, behind the chintzy ring they package with the polish.  (Is the little plastic ring the reason that they're so much?  Lame.)

Instead of hassling with another return, I took it home.  My younger brother, bless his heart, is pretty handy with super glue and duct tape. :)


Hopefully I'll be able to post a real update again soon.  Blogger hasn't seemed to be interested in loading my pictures lately, so here's hoping that will change.  Until then, though, enjoy the rest of your weekend!  Happy Halloween!

Sally Hansen - Mystery Polish SOLVED!!

So I was at Meijer today, doing that cosmetic aisle stalking thing that I do, and I came across something... rather odd.

Observe.

Excuse the sloppiness, as usual.  But seriously.  What is this?!  It was in a gift pack, rather than the normal display, but it's not a new polish...

No label...  And if I remember correctly from my teen experiences with Sally Hansen polishes, the white cap signifies that it's an older polish.

No label on the bottom, either.  I've never known Sally Hansen polishes to have a bottom label, but it was worth a check.  The bar code is covered because it was part of a holiday gift pack with some lip inflation products.

Look at all the sparkle~!!! :D

This polish is tiny holographic glitter suspended in a sheer gray base.  To get the opacity on my nails, I needed four coats.  I didn't have application issues with it, though, and with a sheer base like this, four thin coats dries quickly and doesn't feel excessive.  I absolutely LOVE the pencil graphite gray, though.  And as if that wasn't good enough, they stuffed it full of itsy glitters.  If this were a flawless two coater, I would be in POLISH HEAVEN!!! :D

Krisinphilly (more readily known as the author of My Lucid Bubble!) informed me that it's called Night Lights.  Thanks, K!


Also, while I was out today, I ran across the new Wet n Wild Megalast holiday collection.  After seeing some pictures, I hadn't expected much, but I was more disappointed than I thought when I saw that...

...they've gotten smaller still!!!  For being a cheap polish, I really enjoy the Megalast collection.  Originality-wise, it's not much to write home about, but the colors are color accurate, reliable, and overall just a pretty decent investment, as far as drugstore polishes go.  But really?  SMALLER?  (0.30 fl. oz. to 0.22 fl. oz.)  For the same price?  Lame.  The store that I was at had a color for every reindeer but Vixen.  The majority of this holiday collection are very unoriginal, in my opinion.  The one pictured is the only one I'm hesitantly considering to buy.

Studio M - Sophisticated Lad

I've been really blog lazy.  Which should not be confused with lazy in real life.  Work has been beating me halfway to Sunday this last week, and I'm still in the process of overhauling my living space in a big cleaning venture.  Oy vey.  There's always good and bad that come with cleaning, so I'm trying to stick with the positive aspects.  At least until I can see my floor again.  Haha!

I've still been taking pictures, but my camera is buried somewhere in this mess.  So unfortunate...  So you get a slight oldie.  Don't worry, though.  It's still fresh.  I sniffed it.

Urgh, why do you do this to me, pointer and middle fingers?  I need a good ridge filler.  This peeling business is ridiculous.

This was two easy coats of Studio M's Sophisticated Lad.  This is the first Studio M cream I've worn in a long, long while.  I was pretty impressed with it!  Sophisticated Lad turned out to be more of a greige than a beige, in my opinion.  There are slight cool undertones that lean purple, but don't make the polish itself look purple.

Very simple, but much more simply pretty than I expected.  As far as I know, though, Studio M polishes are only available at Meijer stores, which are only located in parts of the Midwest.  Indiana, Michigan, and parts of Illinois, if I'm not mistaken.


I found a fun book when I was cleaning.  It's called "The Conversation Piece Collection" by Bret Nicholaus and Paul Lowrie.  My parents got it for me when I was pretty young so that we would have things to talk about when we were out on trips.  It's a hefty little book filled with open ended questions. :)

If you could fly in a hot-air balloon over any city in the world, what city would you choose?
I'm not into heights.  I probably wouldn't even get into the balloon in the first place.  If I had to choose, though, I'd probably pick a tiny little town in Nepal, so that I could see the Himalayas.  Or some little touristy niche in Arizona so that I could fly over the Grand Canyon.


How about you?  Where would your hot balloon fly?

Awww! :D

I had a pretty horrible day at work today.  Usually I can leave my problems at the store, dumping them in the coat closet after I punch out.  The compounding stress of being so busy and having so many things go wrong made that impossible, though.  I took all of my frustration with me, and couldn't seem to turn it off.

Really, though, is there anything that an afternoon with your amazing boyfriend can't fix?  Well, if there do happen to be stubborn little problems, a little Ben & Jerry's Pumpkin Cheesecake ice cream will do the trick. :)  After some tight hugs, a hot shower, and some delicious seasonal ice cream, I was right as rain.  I'm only hoping that tomorrow will go more smoothly than today.

When I got online, I found that Sombrero Stephie had doodled me up a quick picture all Reverse Sensibility style before she headed in to work herself.  It definitely made me smile, so I had to share it!!

What a doll! :D


I should have a nail post for you tomorrow, as well as a picture of my last box of goodies from Nicole at Magic Maid!  I used two of the polishes I got from her to create the look I'm wearing for tomorrow.  I can't stop staring at my hands! :D

We have a winner! :D

The big winner of my Mysteriously Multiplying Bad Fairy Giveaway iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiissss.....

April!!

Check out her great blog, Concrete and Nail Polish, if you haven't done so yet!

I'll be sending you a message straight away. :)

Huge thanks to everyone else that entered.  I really appreciate that you took the time to follow my little blog!

Congratulations again to April!

 

 

The Bad Fairy has left the building!

The giveaway is over, folks!

I must say, I'm extremely impressed with the turnout at my little corner of the web. <3  It makes me even happier to see new people comment.  Welcome, and thank you for following my blog!

I'll have the results of the giveaway up tomorrow! :D

Nubar - Wildlife

Wildlife is absolutely beautiful, but don't listen to me.  I'll let the pictures do the talking!

Click it if you don't believe me!  This polish may as well have just applied itself.  I was expecting several sheer coats, but this was two coats and done.  I don't usually gravitate toward duochromes, but how could I resist this one?  I love green, and the pink in the polish is exquisite.  Light, coppery pink with the mossy green flash underneath.

This picture isn't the greatest, but it gives a good idea of the green in the polish.

Look at that gorgeous flash in the bottle!  I'm smitten with this color.

When I excitedly pulled out my haul to show Brad yesterday, and I asked him to help me pick one, he dismissed this one quickly.  I was a little curious, but I didn't question it.  While I was painting up this afternoon, though, I had to ask.

His answer?

"It looks like roast beef."

Hahahaha!!  Y'know, like when deli-sliced roast beef gets that weird coppery-green sheen?  Never fear, though!  That color is really alright.  You can read about it here!!


What I thought about when I saw Wildlife, though, is my best friend.  Pink and green always make me think about Stephie, because we both like those colors.  Sometimes we even shoot each other random texts when we see colors that remind us of the other.

Totally cool gal, right?  Darn right she is!  The sombrero proves it!

She's been going through some rough things lately, and I don't always feel like I can make her feel better.  But even when I can't always seem to say the right things, she still hangs in there with me.  Without a doubt, Steph's the strongest person I know.  Even when bad things happen, she still thinks of others first.  She's always smiling, always encouraging.  Creative, excitable, hilarious...  This gal's fantastic!

I've been incredibly blessed these last six years to have her as my best friend! :)

She recently started up a blog where she writes about everyday experiences, punctuated with really fun pictures that she draws!  You should check out her blog, Reverse Sensibility!


The Mysteriously Multiplying Bad Fairy Giveaway ends in less than twenty-four hours!  Get your last minute entries in, and keep your wish lists handy!

So what'd you think about Wildlife?  Are you digging the sombrero?  Did you check out Reverse Sensibility yet?!

Heartburn, nausea, indigestion...

...upset stomach, diarrhea.  Yay, Pepto Bismol!

Okay, so wearing these colors really wasn't SO bad.  But the next time I do a half-asleep manicure at one in the morning, I'd really appreciate if the Barbie Dream House would just drop me a memo to let me know the girlish horrors I'm in for.

This is two coats of Finger Paints' I'm a Survivor, topped with one coat of OPI's Princesses Rule!  I'm a Survivor would have needed three coats for better opacity, in my opinion.  The polish is naturally bright, and studded with tiny silver flecks.

See the pretty flecks?  1:00 AM Me seemed to think it needed more glam, so on went a coat of Princesses Rule!  I'm going to try the polish over a different color, but...  These are probably the two girliest polishes that I own, and paired together, I was most certain that diabetes was next up on my life list.  That or throwing a five year old girl's birthday party.



 I have better news, though!  My parcel from MagicMaid's blog sale arrived today!

Without the bottles in front of me, I may butcher the names... :/  Forgive me in advance.  From left to right we have...
Barielle - Tight Knit
Nubar - Wildlife
BB Couture - Caterpillar
Essie - Turquoise & Caicos
Essense - What do U Think?
Diamond Cosmetics - Orange Blush
Misa - Sandals, Flip Flops, and Hip Hop

I'm pretty torn between whether I want to wear Wildlife as my next mani, or Caterpillar!  Such a hard decision!

Love & Beauty - Currant and a giveaway update!

I did some tallying on the number of people entered in my giveaway and the number of actual entries that random.org will choose between.  Twenty-seven people are entered, with 65 entries total.  There's a lot of good chances for winning, people! :D

Remember to keep your wish lists handy for your extra prize!


Now on to something I'm not really fond of.  Red polishes.  I don't understand it.  I love to wear bright, ultra shimmery reds.  I love to wear bold, jelly reds.  But when it comes to red creams?  I kind of just want to run and hide from them. :(

 Two coats of Love & Beauty's Currant.  Maybe I just feel too sexy wearing reds like these?  Smokin' hot, sexpot in red nail polish is NOT how I would describe myself AT ALL!  I really think this is a great color for Fall, and application was fine, it just felt too weird.

Also, lack of clean up?  Sorry.  I took pictures before I started work at 6:00 AM, and told myself I'd take pictures after as well.  But the polish didn't hold up through the rough day, so these were what I got.  Love & Beauty has a new bottle style, though!  I like this simplistic shape, and much prefer it to their old style

Love & Beauty polishes can be found at Forever 21.  Not at all creatively named things, but for $2.80, they aren't bad polishes.  Definitely fun to pick up a couple with very little guilt involved while you're out shopping. :)


Any favorite Love & Beauty polishes out there?  I have a bunch of them, but I'm realizing that this is the first one I've really worn.

Playing catch up!

I don't know if I've made a single polish post this week.  So sad...  Sometimes I just fall out of the writing mood, though.  The 30 Days of Truth posts will continue, too, when the motivation crawls back in.

I have, however, been sucked into blog sales.  Nicole over at MagicMaid has a massive sale going on, and she wants to get rid of everything.  You should check it out!  She has so many different polish brands up for sale, LOTS of discontinued polishes and polishes from outside the US, and ALL at great prices.

I'm actually up to my third order from her blog sale right now... >_>  I got three polishes in my first package, two of which I used for my weekend manicure and pedicure! :)

 This is Essie Pretty Edgy.  I think that I like this color.  I like China Glaze Four Leaf Clover better, though.  Pretty Edgy is a thin cream polish that required two coats.  Even after two, I feel like I had some weird balding going on.  That's likely a problem with the way I applied it, though.

I topped Pretty Edgy with NYX's Graffiti, which is one of the polishes that I bought from the blog sale.  This is my first NYX polish. :)  Why the Ulta in my town sells NYX makeup but none of their polish is completely beyond me.  What you see on my nails is one quick coat, though.  It applied well and dried quickly.

This was a fun combination.  This weekend was good and sunny, so I stared at it quite a bit

WARNING: Toes ahead! 

For my pedicure, I used Finger Paints Black Expressionism and Nfu Oh #54.

 I bought Black Expressionism from Sally Beauty Supply.  I don't think that the markdown to $1.99 was correct, but the girl there didn't have issues ringing it up as such, so whatevs.  And I bought the Nfu Oh from Nicole's blog sale as well.  I had some slight reservation about buying it, but I reasoned that it may be the only Nfu Oh I ever own, so it was purchased.  I was ridiculously pleased with it, so it may not be the ONLY one I ever own...  I love Sally Hansen's Hidden Treasure like everyone else, but that one generally flashes warm colors.  I love that this Nfu Oh flashes cool colors.

It's not the best picture, but I didn't figure anyone wanted some serious close up action on my feet.  Black Expressionism went on perfectly opaque in one easy coat.  (Why do they make black polishes that you have to use more than one coat for opacity?  Isn't the beauty of black the fact that it's... y'know... BLACK?).  Two coats of Nfu Oh #54 and one coat of Seche Vite later, and it's a super gorgeous pedicure.  I have to wear shoes to keep from staring at my tootsies. <3


You only have until Wednesday to enter my Mysteriously Multiplying Bad Fairy Giveaway!  If you haven't yet, get crackin'! :)

Thanks for reading!