A girl and her love of nail polish

12 Days Of Christmas Challenge: Snowmen

Dec. 9, 2012

Day 4 of the 12 Days Of Christmas Challenge already? How did that happen? Today’s prompt is snowmen.

Christmas/Winter nail art: Snowmen

A few days ago I featured Rescue Beauty Lounge Piu Mosso on the blog. I used that same mani as the base for this one, so there is a little bit of wear. This is two coats of Piu Mosso plus one coat of Poshe fast-dry top coat to start, and then I added one coat of China Glaze Fairy Dust. The Piu Mosso made it look to me like a night scene, so I thought the China Glaze Fairy Dust would almost look like stars or maybe snow.

Christmas/Winter nail art: Snowmen

I then used a large dotting tool to add the snow across the bottom of each nail with OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls. I used the same color to do the first layer of dots for all of the snowmen. I then added a second dot to each that was just slightly smaller than the original using NYC French White Tip. My working theory was that since the OPI is a white with a gray tinge that it would provide a little shading compared to the stark white NYC color. Not sure that came through in the finished product, but that was the idea.

Christmas/Winter nail art: Snowmen

I used a small dotting tool to create the scarves with Essie Very Cranberry, and then used Orly Liquid Vinyl for the coal buttons and eyes.

I finished it off with one coat of Poshe.

Christmas/Winter nail art: Snowmen12 Days Of Christmas Nail Art Challenge



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Holiday, NOTD

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12 Days Of Christmas Challenge: Candy Cane French Tips

Dec. 7, 2012

Day 3 of the 12 Days Of Christmas Nail Art Challenge sponsored by Pink & Polished Nails and Over Polished brings us to candy canes.

Candy Cane French Tips

For mine I did candy cane french tips. I started with one coat of clear base coat and then one coat of China Glaze Fairy Dust to the whole nail.

Candy Cane French Tips

Then I taped off my tips and applied two coats of OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls, followed by one coat of Poshe fast-dry top coat. When that was dry, I re-taped my tips and added stripes. I applied the red, Ulta Steppin Out, with a small nail art brush. The green is an It’s So Easy Stripe Rite striper polish.

Candy Cane French TipsCandy Cane French Tips

I finished with one coat of Poshe.

12 Days Of Christmas Nail Art Challenge

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Holiday, NOTD

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Rescue Beauty Lounge Piu Mosso

Dec. 6, 2012

Last week, Rescue Beauty Lounge restocked some of its retired colors in its latest Bring It Back promotion, where it hauls some of the long-gone shades out of the vault to give polish groupies one last chance at nabbing them.

I actually didn’t have any RBL polishes in my collection, but I had recently read through founder Ji Baek’s “Rescue Your Nails,” so I was interested in checking out her nail polish line.

Despite the steep $20 price tag, I picked up Piu Mosso, which is an intriguing polish to say the least.

Rescue Beauty Lounge Piu MossoRescue Beauty Lounge Piu Mosso

In the bottle it looks like it’s a brown polish with lots of shimmer, and on the nail it looks nearly black in most light. But in reality it’s a deep blue with some subtle bronze shimmer. Think really dark pair of blue jeans. RBL actually describes it as as “inky, blue-black.”

Rescue Beauty Lounge Piu Mosso

It’s really amazing. The formula is great; I could have gone with one coat, but this is actually two, plus one coat of Poshe fast-dry top coat. In fact I did stick with one coat on my other hand and it looks fine. The brush is very thin, just FYI, which for me makes it harder to get a nice clean application at the cuticle line.

Rescue Beauty Lounge Piu Mosso

Piu Mosso is very difficult to photograph, so here’s one in my lightbox with the light shining directly on it so you can get a better sense of it.

Rescue Beauty Lounge Piu Mosso

As of this posting it is still available on rescuebeauty.com. And, just in case you were wondering, the name is a musical term meaning faster, with more movement. I like to think it’s because your heart starts beating a little faster when you look down and see this color on your nails. 🙂

Category:

Indies, Swatches

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12 Days Of Christmas Challenge: Holiday Song – Jingle Bells

Dec. 5, 2012

It’s Day 2 of the 12 Days Of Christmas Nail Art Challenge sponsored by Pink & Polished Nails and Over Polished. The theme for today is Holiday Songs.

Christmas Nail Art: Jingle Bells

My inspiration is Jingle Bells. I started with two coats of Essie Very Cranberry.

Christmas Nail Art: Jingle Bells

For the art, the first thing I did was the bow, drawn on with It’s So Easy Stripe Rite in green. Then I added the bells. I needed larger dots than what my dotting tools could make, so I used the blunt end of a wooden skewer. The polish is Orly Rage. When that was relatively dry, I added the little openings at the bottom of the bells with a Kiss Nail Artist Fine Art Pen in black. I finished with a coat of Poshe fast-dry top coat.

Christmas Nail Art: Jingle Bells

Christmas Nail Art: Jingle Bells

12 Days Of Christmas Nail Art Challenge

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Holiday, NOTD

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Restock Radar: Week of Dec. 3

Dec. 3, 2012

Here’s a look at some of the indie nail polish restocks scheduled for this week. Check back every Monday to see what’s coming up.

Tuesday, December 4
9pmET
NAILD’IT UNIQUE NAIL POLISH (On Etsy)
Notables: Rockin Around The Tree, Rudolph Knows, Peppermint Twist (scented), Santy Claws Soot, Its Grinchmas Time, Santa Dust/snow flake polish

Wednesday, December 5
sometime between 10amET and 1pmET
DOLLISH POLISH (On Big Cartel)
Notables: Launch of Purple Haze, restocks of I’m A Material Girl, Mythical Creatures set, Expecto Patronum and Space, The Final Frontier, plus a mystery bonus shade.

12pmET and 6pmET
GIRLY BITS (On Big Cartel)
Notables: Eggnogoholic, Fathomless, Long Winter’s Nap, Visions of Sugar Plums and Heirloom

time not specified
RAINBOW HONEY (On RainbowHoney.com)
Notables: Launch of LOVE collection, including Spirit of Wonder, Annual Emotion, Glittering Rapture and Gilded Angel.

Friday, December 7
10pmET
ELEVATION POLISH (On Big Cartel)
Notables: Launch of Urban Elevation collection, including The Wit and Street Side, NYC, plus restocks on Morocco and Japan collections

Sunday, December 9
time not specified
CHAOS & CROCODILES (On Etsy)
Notables: Restock of winter collection, including Chocolate Toffee Crunch, Zero Gravity and Evening Flurries (Pre-order open until 9pmET tonight at the latest)

And Keep An Eye Out For …
Free shipping on orders over $50 all through December at NOSTALGIC LACQUER with code DECSHIP

BLACK CAT LACQUER is offer 25 percent off with code GRANDOPEN until Dec. 5 (code also good on Etsy)

SEA LORE is offering free polish with purchase through Dec. 16: Buy 4, get 1 free (all of same size), or buy 4 mixed sizes and get 1 mini free

If you know of any planned restocks coming in the future, please let me know at polishgroupie@gmail.com Thanks for stopping by!

Category:

Indies

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12 Days Of Christmas Challenge: Christmas Trees

Dec. 2, 2012

Today is the first day of the 12 Days Of Christmas Nail Art Challenge sponsored by Pink & Polished Nails and Over Polished. The theme for today is Christmas Trees.

\Christmas Nail Art: Christmas Trees

I started with three coats of OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls, a grayish white creme. I then used tape to create a triangle on my ring finger and then filled it in with dots in various sizes. The red is Ulta Steppin Out, the green is Sinful Colors Exotic Green and the gold is Essence  A Piece Of Forever from the Twilight Breaking Dawn Part 2 collection. I used a silver Kiss Nail Art striper to add some tinsel. I outlined the sides of the tree with a green It’s So Easy Stripe Right striper and added a star-shaped rhinestone at the top. Everything is topped off with Poshe fast-try top coat.

Christmas Nail Art: Christmas Trees

The dots on the other nails are Ulta Steppin Out and Sinful Colors Exotic Green.

Christmas Nail Art: Christmas Trees

12 Days Of Christmas Nail Art Challenge

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Category:

Holiday, NOTD

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Zoya Ornate: Aurora

Nov. 30, 2012

Hope everyone had a good holiday and picked up a lot of good deals over Black Friday weekend. I’ve got a lot of new indie polishes coming my way, so can’t wait to show them to you when they arrive.

I’ve been procrastinating on putting up any polish posts over the past week or so because one of the nails on my swatching hand broke clean off and I wasn’t ready to face the fact that I’d need to even everything out. 😦

Zoya Aurora: Ornate Collection

But here I am with my new short nails to show off Aurora from the Zoya Ornate holiday collection. I would describe this as a purple berry shade, and then off course its got a lot of holographic glitter in it. I really love the formula on this. If you took a heavy holo polish and diluted it a bit with a jelly polish, you would end up with Aurora.

This is three coats with one coat of Poshe fast-dry top coat.

Zoya Aurora: Ornate Collection

The accent nail is one coat of A Piece of Love from Essence’s Breaking Dawn Part 2 collection. Originally I didn’t buy this one but I picked it up after reading on a few other blogs that it’s great for stamping. FYI, the formula on A Piece of Love is about a hundred times better than the others in the collection.

Zoya Aurora: Ornate Collection

I added one coat of Poshe and then taped off half the nail and added two coats of Aurora to the other half of the nail. I finished it off with another coat of Poshe.

Zoya Aurora: Ornate Collection

Category:

Holiday, NOTD, Swatches

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