A couple more NOTD and an excuse

This photo is actually a NOTD from a few months ago (who knows when). It's China Glaze Four Leaf Clover with China Glaze Medallion over the top. I actually got this idea from a post on All Lacquered Up (here). Isn't it awesome??

China Glaze - Four Leaf Clover w/ Medallion

And now comes the excuse... one of the reasons I haven't been posting is because my nails have been in transition. See, for the last four or five years, I've had gels on my nails, both to keep them strong and to not have to worry about painting them. Of course, one of those doesn't apply anymore (since I'm now obsessed with nail polish and like to paint them every couple days), so I decided to grow them out. Since gels cannot be soaked off with acetone (I think maybe some can, but not these), it was a VERY long process to grow them out. And of course, pieces chipped off sometimes and they wouldn't buff down perfectly smooth, so mostly they were NOT nice enough to photograph.

But now that the gel is completely gone, I'm having fun taking care of my nails and painting them often, as well as taking pictures of them! So here we are now, with nice new natural nails!

OPI - Visions of Sugarplum

Visions of Sugarplum was an Ulta exclusive for Holiday 2009, and since it was free with an OPI purchase, I didn't think much of it at first. But when I tried it on, oh my gooses, it was gorgeous! I think it's glass fleck glitter because it's easy to take off, and I think it's kind of similar to a blackened Zoya Mimi.

NOTD - Blue/Teal Glitter Gradient

Hi all! So I think I'm gonna try to get back into posting more on the blog, and here's the first post since April!

Claire's Twinkle w/ Claire's Glam gradient

For my NOTD, I used Claire's Twinkle on the entire nail, then painted a glitter gradient with Claire's Glam. I think it turned out pretty awesome, but it looks a little washed out in these pics. Hopefully you get the idea. Here's another pic, and I kinda like this angle (let me know what you think!).






I'm still working on getting colors correct, but it'll get eventually, I promise! :o)

Zoya Sparkle Swatches

So I didn't quite realize how much of my time school would be taking up for the next few weeks, and I technically should be doing homework instead of posting, but oh well. I took these pictures a couple days ago, and wanted to get them up here for you to see.

Zoya - Ivanka

This green is AMAZING and is a little tiny bit more yellow green than in the photo, but it's pretty close.

Zoya - Charla

Gorgeous teal blue! It's actually quite a bit more green (more true teal) than it shows, and absolutely mesmerizing in the sun!!

Zoya - Mimi

I have a lot of purples (including Milani Totally Cool and Hot Topic Iridescent Purple), but this one is still different. It's almost like the little gold-ish flecks stay underneath the surface, so they appear more rosy-purple. And still crazy sparkly!

Zoya - Alegra

So this one really surprised me. It's PERFECT. I don't normally like pinks much (I'm more of a blue/green/purple polish kind of girl), but I didn't want to take this one off. I started wishing I'd swatched this last so I could just leave it on. I think it might be my favorite *gasp*.

Zoya - Gilda

So apparently I didn't do a good enough job of capturing the difference between Alegra and Gilda. Gilda look much more "hot pink" than Alegra, which is more of a magenta.

Zoya - Gilda (sun)

It was at this point that I realized I should probably be taking pics of these in the sun as well to show the crazy sparkle... after I'd already swatched the others... oh well.

Zoya - Nidhi

Pretty awesome color, and it really stands out from the rest because the base is much more creamy and opaque. Really, really cool.

Altogether, I'm SO in love with this collection. I took the set to show my mom and sister and they decided they need a set of them as well! I usually never feel the need to buy a whole set of nail polishes because not all of the colors are "me," but even the pinks and reds in this one were so PERFECT, and I'm even considering that I need a backup set... whoa.

Nfu-oh 062 (sun)

And last but not least, this was my NOTD after swatching. It's my first Nfu-oh holo, and it's SOOOO rainbow-y! Even in shade and artificial light, it was very distracting!