China Glaze Riveting vs. Zoya Amy

Evening all! So I was finally able to do it! I got Zoya Amy only cause it reminded me of China Glaze Riveting. I have a back up bottle, but when my bottles are gone, they're gone. So let's see if Amy is really the dupe I thought it was!  PICTURE HEAVY!

Here is 2 coats of Amy with flash. See the golden microshimmer and golden undertones?

Here's 2 coats of Riveting from last year. If anything, it's go a stronger gold undertone.

Can you guess which nails have Riveting and which have Amy? Without flash, the answer is clear.

Riveting is on my middle and pinky nails. Without flash it seesm to have a slightly lighter color, a bit less microshimmer, and a tad more coverage than Amy. However with flash, they're pretty much identical! They're different enough for me to keep, and while not a total dupe, I'll take it for when I'm out of Riveting!

OPACITY: Riveting wins! It's almost opaque in 1 coat

MICROSHIMMER: Amy wins. The shimmer is so much more apparent

LASTING POWER: Riveting wins. My Zoya had some wear the next day. 

FORMULA: Both had lovely formula that dried quickly

AND THE WINNER IS CHINA GLAZE RIVETING! :D 

Try the Untrieds: OPI The Flowers are Blue-Ming!

Good afternoon glittery polish lovers! Remember the polish I used for my Memorial Day/Captain America mani (HERE) or for my Veteran's Day Mani (HERE)? That gorgeous holo blue? Well here it is finally tried on all my fingers by itself, OPI The Flowers are Blue-Ming!

Oooo! This is 2 coats with Seche Vite on top. Ooooo again! It's a lovely dark blue with lighter blue undertones and tons of scattered holo rainbowness! This is from Ulta's Exclusive To Haute to Handle Summer 2012 Collection. And it was my first OPI ever :)

This picture shows more of the scattered holo effect! I really do love this polish! Ulta really comes out with some nice exclusives! 

Memorial Day and Captain America in One

I wish you all a lovely Memorial Day. Pray for those that are serving, thank those you can see, and remember those that have fallen for your freedom. Since I was sick yesterday, I rolled my Blogiversary/Captain America/Memorial Day mani all into one. I picked Captain America as my super hero, for that goes so well with Memorial Day!

I love this. My nails look so glittery! For this mani, I used 2 coats of OPI The Flowers are Blue-Ming as the base. Then I used 1 thick coat of China Glaze Luxe and Lush on my middle and pinky fingers. For the Captain America design, I taped off one half of my finger, painted a coat of Zoya Trixie, then pulled the tape off after 10 seconds. I then used a striper brush to paint stripes of China Glaze Cranberry Splash. Then a silver star of course!

I liked how this was easy and simple! Not too time consuming either. My inspiration came from good old Captain America's outfit in the Avengers.

Remember our soldiers on this day! Whether they're Captain America, your dad or mom, or just a a man on the street. <3

Candeo Colors: Sweet Sierra and some Plumage

Good morning all! Yup! Morning! I have work today so I'm up and about. I have 2 lovely Candeo Colors to show you today, and they are my first Candeos, so here we go on an adventure!

This is one thick coat of Sweet Sierra over Zoya Richelle down the side of my nail using tape . PURPLE. Ooooo! I love this. There's all kinds of hexes in pink, purple, silver, and iridescent! I love squares, but they weren't too pronounced. While lovely, this was thick. A bit of a pain, but I made it work.

OH YES. Plumage restored my faith! This is 2 coats over Zoya Jo. Look. At. All. The. Square. Glitter. Ahhh! This has different sized hexes in dark/light blue, green, and gold. And gold squares! :D And formula on this was normal, thinner, and not so thick. I suppose the polishes vary, but I like the thinner ones.  So 9/10 for Candeo all in all? I think so! I'll def be picking more of these up in the future!

Get Candeo Colors for $9 a bottle here! http://www.candeocolors.com/ 

Zoya Untrieds Tuesday Swatch Spam

Evening glittery polish lovers! Welcome back for another Try the Untrieds Tuesday! I pulled some untried Zoyas out to swatch for ya'll!

This is my favorite. Hands down! This is 2 coats of Charla with Seche Vite, and man it glows! It is blue-green sea colored polish with flashes of green and strong ocean colored microshimmer.

Look at those clear blue ocean waters with flash! Glowing! And hey! A random red hex glitter in my bottle of Charla....

Next is 2 coats of Richelle. It's a lovely bronze colored polish with golden microshimmer!

In low light it's gold or tan, which doesn't suit my skin tone too much, but I still love it!

Last up is a new love that I will def be keeping for reuse in the future! Here is 2 coats of Jo. This reminds me so much of the color of denim! I love it! 

Flash really brings out the lighter blue undertones and microshimmer! I can see some good nail art coming from this one!

Love Zoya? Sign up for a Zoya account online using my link! You'll get a code for a free bottle of polish, and free shipping if you add 2 more polishes to your cart!

https://www.artofbeauty.com/rd/018F1553

1 Year Blogiversary Giveaway!

Happy Blogiversary to me!

Because of this, I decided to hold a giveaway! Ah yes. Almost a year ago I started blogging after trying out tons of nail polish and nail art in my lonely single dorm room freshman year. I used a webcam...oh silly me. You see my humble first post HERE on May 26, 2012.

Now for the celebration! I've been thinking of stuff to do and this seemed good. Well awesome! How about 5 prizes to give away to 5 lucky winners?

 1st Prize

What could it be? A random item from 365 Days of Color? Will it be a sugar scrub? A hand cream? Who knows? You'll get a random item from 365 Days of Color along with mystery mini polish of hers!

2nd Prize

This winner will receive a $10 Llarowe gift certificate to spend on a nice glittery indie!

3rd Prize

I'm an Avon Rep, so you should have seen this coming ;) You get 3 BNIB polishes called Wicked Game, Forbidden Fudge, and Midnight Plum. You also get 2 BN Glimmersticks Chrome Eye Liner in Burgundy Shock and Electric Pink!

4th Prize

This winner will receive 365 Days of Color's LE Water Lily (#24/50) along with a nice vanilla lotion!

5th Prize

Finally we have a coglomoartion of indies! LynBDesigns's Little Foot (swatched on a nail wheel), Impala Disco, and A England Ophelia

Now go forth! Enter! This will run until 11:59pm EST on June 1! Be sure to read the terms and conditions of rafflecopter! US and Canada only! Good luck! And Happy Blogiversary to me!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Bloglovin

Hi glittery polish lovers! I know I'm a bit late on the bandwagon, but please follow my blog with Bloglovin! You don't want to miss out on this glittery goodness do you? If Google Reader really does disappear in July (Thanks Google. YOU SUCK), then I won't be able to see you anymore, and you won't be able to see me!

Follow me on Bloglovin and stay up to date with all your blogs by transferring everything over! It's really easy. I already did it :)

Thanks for reading this and have a lovely evening! 

***Stay glittery!***

Try the Untrieds Tuesday with Zoyas!

Welcome to Try the Untrieds Tuesday glittery polish lovers! My untried drawer is huge now, so here's a great way to go through them! I used all Zoyas for this! I'll start with the base! 

2 coats of Zoya Eva. This application was nearly flawless!  In some lights, like flash, it's a normal dusty watermelon pink. In others it's strawberry red or an orange red! Look!

What the power of a regular bulb compared to a flash bulb can do!

Now here is my mani with Charla an Apple. I used Apple for the flowers centers and the dots, while I used Charla for the petals. This was really easy, just time consuming.

I used a stippling motion to make the centers and petals as big as I liked with my biggest dotting tool.  I then used my smallest tool for the random green dots. I like it. It's wacky colors and glittery. A win all around! Dip into your untrieds guys! I want to see you try your untrieds this or next Tuesday!

For Mother's Day...The Madonna Collection

Happy Glittery Mother's Day to all those mothers and mother figures out there! I waited until today to post this because it only seemed fitting...the Madonna Collection from SquareHue this month..

This month's box contained 3 lovely pinks. While everyone may not have liked it, it went along with the Mother's Day theme and I personally like pink!

Let's start with my fave, Day Glow, in 2 coats. It dries to a rubbery semi-matte finish. I love this color! NO FORMULA ISSUES, unlike my other SquareHues. The color was a darker pink, almost magenta, than the hot pink in the bottle. Red in some lights. Lovely color, finish, and dry time!

Next is 2 coats of Mother's Pearl, a frosty shimmery darker pink with lighter pink undertones. I loved the color, but the formula bubbled a bit for me on my nails, and it showed the brushstrokes. Top coat didn't help either. Ah well. 

Last is my least favorite, 3 coats of Happy Creme, a light bubblegum pink. I had the same issues with formula as with my Bloom Collection, and it was extremely streaky. It was shiny, which was nice, but the formula bugged me. Hoping next month is better! After all, look what the teaser is!

Get SquareHue for $21 a month with 3 full size polishes here: http://www.squarehue.com/

Milani High Speed Fast Dry Part 2

Afternoon everyone! I'm having a great week of polishing and hanging out with friends before summer classes and work start. Hope you're all enjoying yourselves! On to my second half of my Milani swatches!  You can see Part 1 HERE

This is 2 coats of Move on Mauve, a lovely rose pink. It's got lots of lovely shimmer too. It seems to have some lighter pink, almost light blue duochromeness to it. This one is a keeper!

This is 2 coats of Instant Pearl. I like this one. It reminds me a bit of Zoya Ginessa. It's a nice pearly white that actually was not too streaky. So shiny!

Last up is 2 coats of Quick Teal. This one was watery as well, but not as watery and Rapid Orchid. It stained really bad where it got on my cuticles, so chances are, you'll need a good base coat with these! It's still a lovely shiny teal though!

Milani High Speed Fast Dry Part 1

Evening glittery polish lovers! I recently won some Milani High Speed Fast Dry polishes from Christina at Adventures in Polishland, and they make great glittery polishes bases! You may have seen some of them in my Butter London swatches HERE.  While not all of them are true 1 coaters, they still dry wicked fast! Check out these lovely colors!

First up is Flaming Race, a dark coral color with nice orange tones. I loved this on its own! 2 coats with no streaks or tugging. 

Next is 2 coats of Pink Express. It's a lovely soft pink creme. Reminds me of ballerinas!

Here's 1 coat of Rapid Orchid, my least favorite. It was REALLY watery, and the application on it was bad because of that. It's such a dark purple that it can look almost black. Not a keeper ladies for the color or the formula!

Some Butter London Swatch Spam

Evening glittery polish lovers! I was going through my untrieds and found some Butter Londons!

One coat of Fairy Lights. It's a gorgeous frosty, chrome, mirror-like finish that seems to shift between dark and light pink. What shimmer!

Oooo! 1 coat of Fairy Cake over 2 coats of Milani Flaming Race. Lovely. Holographic. Mini hexes. YES! This was a bit thick though, and I wiped off one side of my brush to get this coverage. This would def build up great on its own!

2 coats of Rosie Lee over 2 coats of Milani Pink Express. Meh. While a pretty glitter (with a nice formula not as thick as Fairy Cake), the rose gold glitter didn't do it for me. Mostly just small dot glitter and seemed to have a dirty appearance to me. Ah well! Enjoy!

L.E.H. Soap Body Butter

Afternoon all! So if you don't know it by now, I've gotten sucked into the all natural homemade awesomeness of the Little Egg Harbor Soap Company, or L.E.H. Soap for short! I already reviewed their  Balm Therapy that I use for my cuticles HERE and now I have their body butter for you in Almond Crumb!

Why Almond Crumb you ask? Cause it smells like the dough for my mom's raspberry almond thumbprint cookies of course! I want to eat this stuff. Mmmm! So for $10.95 you get 4oz of body butter. What makes it special? The scent. The softness you get instead of scales on your hands, and the lack of greasiness! I use just 3 nail scrape fulls.  It absorbs within 

a few minutes.

I've been using it since January and only made it just under the rim of the container. Great value folks! And there's some mango, shea, and cacao butters in it, along with some vitamin E too! No preservatives!  This stuff kept my hands from cracking and bleeding all winter. All in all, this is AWESOMESAUCE!

Get your body butter in a variety of scents at their Smithville, NJ location or here: http://lehsoap.com/product/lavender-body-butter/