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!