Rock the 2000s with SquareHue November 2015!

Press Sample

The theme for November's SquareHue box was the 2000s Decade. I wasn't really sure what to expect from this collection honestly, so I was surprised that two out of the three polishes were named after major tragedies that happened in the United States. I guess, I will explain more with each polish. I like that there was one color theme through the whole box, it makes it feel...complete? Whole? I'm not sure, there is just something solemn about it. 

The polish that you see below is aptly named Never Forget 2001. I'm sure that you all can instantly see what this polish was named after. The September 11th attacks. 

This polish is a metallic silver polish that is opaque in two coats. 

Just like with all..or well most metallic polishes, you can see the brush strokes with the polish. The pinky and ring fingers are without topcoat so you can see the polish in all of its natural beauty and my index finger has a top coat on it, not that you can really tell. BUT regardless, this is a really nice polish even though it's named after something super depressing. 

Idol 2002 is named after you guessed it...American Idol, which first aired in 2002. 

So, as you can tell I have 4 fingers (I mean I really have 10 but don't tell anyone, our secret.) and they are all different. Let's pretend that my index finger is invisible because we will chit chat about that at the end after the swatches.
My middle finger has 3 coats of Idol by itself with nothing under it.
Ring Finger has 1 coat over Hurricane 2005

Pinky Finger has 1 coat over Idol 2002.

This is a silver glitter polish and like a typical glitter polish is a pain in the big ol booty to remove, but the effect is worth it in my opinion. 

I didn't find that this polish had much of a sparkle to it, it's pretty but it's nothing that is like WAH-BAM in your face like some of their previous glitters. It still is pretty though!

This last polish is Hurricane 2005 which is aptly named after Hurricane Katrina. Another absolutely devastating disaster that happened.
This is a dark steel gray..silver? polish and it can be opaque in 1 coat if applied semi-thick, but if you apply it thinly, you can get it opaque in two coats.
Once again, my index finger is the only one with a top coat so you can see the polish in all of it natural glory as well as with some extra shine. I would call this polish a satin maybe? It wasn't matte but it wasn't shiny either. 

The one thing that I noticed with these polishes is that they dried rather quick. I've found that a lot of SquareHue's polishes dried quickly, but since these are metallic polishes, they dry just like other metallic polishes. I decided that since they dry quick, I would throw my hand in at stamping again. I know that I am terrible at it, but I wanted to try anyways to show that these can be used for stamping. My results are below. 

Don't ask me what plate I used...well I used two actually. One of them (index finger) was the one and only Cult Nails stamping plate and the other came from one of those Fing'rs sets that you can get at Walmart. I always had trouble with the love image, but dang-it I wanted to try it because it was one of the more intricate designs that I had. I think I did an okay job with it. Plus the Chevron, yay it came out looking okay as well. I'm pretty pleased with how these turned out for a n00b. :D You can't see it but I am patting myself on the back! :D

If you want to sign up for squarehue and get your own box head over too http://squarehue.com/ and sign up! Don't forget that they offer two boxes now, one that has all 3 polishes and one that only has two. Same collection, just one polish short. 

Your fellow polish addict,

Autumn

China Glaze Bat My Eyes & Howl You Doin'

Purchased Myself 

Hoooola!

I picked Bat My Eyes and Howl You Doin' up from Sally's the other day (see my "haul" here). By far my favorite of the two formula wise was Bat My Eyes but we shall get into that later.

Bat My Eyes is a black jelly based polish that is packed with different sized greenish gold glitter.

The formula on this polish is absolutely outstanding. Depending on how thick or thin you apply it, you could get away with 1-2 coats. I used 2 coats naturally. This polish applied like a dream, it didn't flood my cuticles or anything, nor was it a top coat eater. Thankfully.

I've got a polish that is like this from the past 4 Halloween collections that China Glaze has put out. This is by far my favorite type of polish that they put out every year.

Howl You Doin' is a deep purple crelly based polish that is absolutely packed with blue glitter and shards of coppery-orange glitter.

This polish I am not impressed with at all. Even though it's gorgeous, it's the formula that kills it. I found this to be very thick and it didn't apply evenly at all. I needed between 2-3 coats depending on how I applied it. This also wound up being a top coat eater, don't ask me why it was. The finish of this is probably satin, it's not matte and it's not shiny. I'm thinking of thinning it would and it might work better. 

Maybe I just got a bad one or something because I noticed others LOVED this polish and said the formula was perfect for them, but for me, it was a complete letdown. Maybe I could try and thin it down or something. I LOVE the polish but not the formula of it :( 

Did you get any polishes from this collection? What do you/did you think of them?! 

Cast A Spell of Twinkling Glitter!

Purchased Myself

Hey everyone! I hope that you are doing well!

So, I wound up getting sick AGAIN, two days after I got over the original things I had. Completely ridiculous right? It stinks having a crappy immune system/small lungs. Total drag! Anyways, not only did being sick get me down, but I realized, since I don't have a dedicated space at the moment, I totally hate being on my laptop. It's actually kind of a hassle for me to be honest, so that's draining on me as well. It's just a big stink fest over here. I'm actually using my Dad's desktop as I write this because I totally could do with a desktop and just not bother with laptops anymore. I've had a laptop ever since... oh good lord middle school!? Maybe even before then, but you get the point. Crazy. 

With all of that being said, I did manage to do my nails. Wow right?! However, figures that I would smudge them! I didn't want to re-do them for a 5th time, so we're going to have to deal with the smudgie. I did try and cover it up and thought I did a pretty good job, that is until I saw the pictures! Pictures never lie...well unless it's adding more pounds, then that's a lie. It's a win/lose kinda thing. Hah!

Just totally pretend that you don't see the smudges and that it's just a freaky reflection. Cool? Cool.

I used Hairspray & High Heels DIY Gel Nail tutorial as a basic base of this manicure.

Gelous Advanced Gel Coat

China Glaze - Cast a Spell

Rock Top Coat 

Venique Twinkling Glitter

ORLY Matte Top

Mucho pretty right?! I looooove that you can see rainbows in the glitter. So. Cool!

This is a close up of Twinkling Glitter, look how crazy that is! Ugh love it. Twinkling Glitter is made up of different sized hexagonal glitter.

You can still see a little bit of the rainbow here, but it's more matte (obviously). I'm undecided on which I like. Okay, I love it crazy shiny as well as matte so I can't really choose.

Which do you like?! 

\

Glittery Mai Tai with Nailtini

Hello Loves!
I hope that you all are doing well! I've been feeling really beat down lately and it's starting to affect a lot of things. I've not really wanted to do anything. I've been planning posts about but just haven't really been up too putting them up. Super lame! So I am very sorry about that! I'm definitely going to be working harder to get my regular schedule back! I'm sorry for complaining.

Onto the post though! =^_^=

I got Nailtini's Mai Tai from July's Ipsy bag and in the bottle I wasn't sure if I was going to like it or not. In the bottle is really reminded me of tomato soup with milk in it. Let me just tell you, I am SO GLAD that I decided to give this a try and not let it sit in my nail polish box! I want to make a note that this photographs differently under different lighting. I have under my daylight lamp and in natural sunlight.

Isn't this gorgeous!? It did stain my cuticles a little bit as you can tel in the picture. I will tell you that this is the farthest from color accurate. I didn't edit it because I wanted to show how it photographed under a daylight lamp.

Nubar Green/Silver Glitter

 
Hello Darlings!

Before I even get into this post, please excuse my cuticles. I had done some hard yard work earlier in the day, which included digging up a palm tree. If you know anything about palm trees you know they are a complete pain in the tucka to dig up because their roots go really far down. AND since it had been raining for the past week the ground was still sopping wet, I wound up digging through mud. So you can tell, it was totally fun... I actually had fun doing it hah, but really it took me about 30-45 minutes trying to dig up the roots to get it out! Then I had to cut roots from another tree.. okay see, off topic. Let's get back onto why you are here!

Nubar's Green/Silver Glitter (unique name no?) was one of the polishes that I picked up from Premiere Orlando. I just HAD to have it, I knew if I didn't purchase it I would have regretted it instantly. Let me just say, now that is it on my nails I am so glad I did!
Look at how absolutely gorgeous this polish is!

You can see just how packed this is with green and silver glitter, not to mention the sheer amount of holographic glitter! It's all finely milled so it doesn't leave you with that textured effect, which is nice.

I wanted to capture the silver aspect of this polish, because it can get a little lost BUT it does appear depending on how you hold your hands in the light, which is nice!

The one thing I definitely love about this polish is the fact that is looks like it is JUMPING off of your nails! It is that sparkly and holographic. No lie. You have to buy this for yourself just to be able to see it. The jumping off of your nails aspect of it, wouldn't capture in pictures or video. *sad face*

This is a scattered holographic polish, but it does look linear in the bottle, but it's not when you put it on the nails, which I don't mind. It would be gorgeous if it was linear anyways.

This is 3 coats over OPI Nail Envy Nail Strengthener with two coats of Nubar Diamont Seal & Top coat.
Since this is a glitter polish, it isn't that easy to remove. I would suggest doing the glue thing that people are doing (?) I've never tried it but people keep telling me about it. I just take it off by wrapping my finger in aluminum foil, with a cotton ball soaked in remover of course.

I know this video is totally out of focus but it was the only way to capture the complete awesomeness of it. And I still wasn't able to capture it all! (I forgot to turn my phone sideways to make it full screen... can you tell it's the first time I used the camera? Lol)

I really love this nail polish like I said before, it is absolutely fantastic! and so gorgeous!
You can purchase Nubar from their website bynubar.com This polish retails for $8, like the rest of Nubar polishes. You can purchase Green/Silver Glitter HERE

Sidenote, I was going to do this as a comparison post with ORLY Sparkling Garbage, but I did not get one good picture of Sparkling Garbage earlier when I was taking pictures and I lost sunlight. BUT I can tell you that Sparkling Garbage is a darker green polish, it is also more linear than GSG is. I love both of them. 

Nubar is Formaldehyde Free, Toluene Free, (DBP) Phthalate Free.They are also Vegan and Cruelty Free.

Urban Decay Moonspoon & Diamond Dog

Hallo jeder! Ich hoffe, daß jeder einen guten Tag!

Hello everyone! I hope everyone is having a good day!

I can't believe that it has taken me so long to do a proper makeup review! Bah, I'm definitely on the nail polish wagon! I've got some makeup posts lined up though! 

Urban Decay discontinued their Stardust shadows and the Moon Dust shadows are basically their replacements! There are even some of the same shadows ie Moonspoon and Diamond Dog, which are the two we are talking about today!

Diamond Dog is a deep brown with white and gold sparkles. This is such a lovely neutral and extremely glittery shadow. 

Twinking Steel Toe Stud - Venique

Hello everyone!

I had asked on Twitter which I should post about first Venique or another ORLY MegaPixel and Venique won the majority so here we are! I do feel bad about doing this post, since Venique isn't readily available to the public.. well let me rephrase that, I just found it on Amazon, so I don't feel AS bad. But if you are a beauty professional you can find these at Cosmoprof. I do want to warn you, I'm not too fond of the pictures. I have been having the biggest issue with my camera. I've been using my Dad's for my nail posts because mine wont focus at all. I definitely hope you all love this mani as much as I do! I also want to say sorry for the state of my hands/cuticles. They've been so dry but I've been doing some pretty heavy yard work so they are pretty tore up right now. I am trying to get them looking decent though!

Steel Toe Stud is a grey creme polish that has a distinctive purple undertone to it. I'm looooving grey polishes like this! Me gusta mucho! Anypoodle.

Twinkling Glitter is a hexagon holographic glitter. When I saw this polish I couldn't pass it up!!! 

June 2013 Ipsy Bag! On The Wild Side

Hey everyone!

I got my Ipsy bag in the mail a few days ago and I definitely was NOT inspired to walk on the wild side and rush to get this put up. Honestly for myself personally, this bag was a flop...well the contents at least, the bag itself is cute. I'm glad that Corrinne from Galactic Lacquer reminded me to check my Glam Room or I would have gotten overly excited and impatient about this bag!

Okay, I'm being way too much of a negative Nancy! Let's just get right into it.

Chella Ivory Lace Highlighter Crayon

I've heard of Chella before because we have gotten their eyebrow gel in a previous bag. I've slightly used it, but like I've said before. I've got thick eyebrows so I am NOT that into doing them. I'll probably try this in my inner corner, but not promises.

Starlooks Lip Pencil in Bare

I don't own any lip liners, but I definitely know that this one wont get any use. I've swatched it and pffft. It's kind of like a taupey-brown/grey? I don't know but I definitely don't have any lip colors to match it and it definitely would NOT look good on me...at all. 

NYX Blush in PB10 Sand

Okay, so this may be the ONE gem out of this bag. Granted I wont use it as a blush because 1) I don't wear blush and it's too "shimmery" for me. Mixed with my oily skin I would look like a train wreck of a disco ball BUT since it's a really pretty gold color, I'm going to try it as an eye shadow.

J.Cat Eyelashes + Eye lash glue

So, I don't wear eye lashes and I probably would have a reaction to the glue anyways. False eye lashes give me migraines, so I tend to avoid them at all costs. These are okay, but you can kind of tell that they are cheap, they look similar to elf lashes quality wise.. but like I said, I've not tried them so I can't vouch for how they are.

J.Cat Sparkling Cream Palette

Okay, I'm going to go on a mini rant here. This is the one product in the bag that extremely pissed me off, like you have no idea. They should put a WARNING ON the palette saying it is not eye safe. Let me say that again DON'T USE THIS ON YOUR EYE LIDS. If you do, I will hunt you down.. Kay? Seriously, it's just craft glitter in some "gel" binder. Ipsy does say on their website to not use this around your eyes and JCat says that it is safe to use around your eyes if you use caution. BUT the only reason I know that is because My sister told me about Ipsy having the warning. They should have put it on the dinky card that they put in the bag. How many people do you really think check their glam room AS SOON as they get their bag. I don't. I check my Glam Room ONCE and that's just to see what I am getting in my bag. That is what most people do. I think someone needs to make a public statement, to not use this around your eyes! I don't want anyone going blind because it's not stated anywhere.. Anyways end rant.

So like I said, 2/5 products I MIGHT get some use out of....pffft. I would have been hunky dory if I had gotten the eye liner. (I'm secretly hoping my sister doesn't want it..shh)

Anyways, what did you get? I heard there was some great variations between bags. 

Metallic Pop Tart

Hello Loves!

xxx

Chris found my memory card so I can actually do NOTD posts and finally get around to some swatches! I've actually managed to collect polishes that I have yet to try! I've got untried polishes! Squee! Okay, I know that is not something to be excited about, but damn I am excited!

These two polishes I've worn once but never managed to get them to last long because I used too thick of coats and they took ages to dry! Le sigh. Don't you hate that?!

I have no idea what happened to my ring finger. I didn't even notice that mark until I started watermarking the pictures -_-

Nail Polish Haul!

Hey everyone!

When I BOUGHT all of these polishes earlier, I was EXTREMELY excited to finally get my hands on a few new China Glaze and ORLY polishes. After I got home, I looked up swatches (I went into Sally's not knowing what I wanted) and I realized how extremely underwhelmed I was at the China Glaze nail polishes that I bought. :( 

This Holographic polish from China Glaze (Strap On Your Moon Boots) I realized this was going to be the polish that I was MOST disappointed in. When I first picture the bottle up, I knew it wasn't that holographic, but I figured the swatches would be different. I looked  up a few different bloggers and it's subtle. If you remember China Glaze's Tronica collection from 2011, THOSE are way way more holographic then this entire collection is.

To see what else I got, click to read more!

Julep Fun!

Heyyyy Sexy Lady!

:P I have Gangnam Style stuck in my head bahaha.!

So, the past what month? I have been really really self conscious about my nails. I have two very short nubs that do NOT want to grow at all :(. It's kind of depressing honestly. The damn things just will not grow. I decided to just get over it and play around with some nail polish. I've been attempting to paint my nails for 2 weeks. Every time I start, they don't dry completely and get smudged! Ugh it stinks so bad! >_< I'll get halfway done, they get messed up and I just say screw it! 

Welp! Last night I got a bug up my tushka and I was DETERMINED needless to say to get these bad boys painted. Woo!

Check out which polishes I used to create this nail look!

Top Coat Throwdown

Heya loves!

Before I get into the purpose of this blog post, I just want to restate a few things from my earlier post. I did switch blogging platforms because it was becoming an issue with people only being able to subscribe VIA email. So I eliminated that (kind) and switched to Blogger from Wordpress. So unfortunately yes, you will have to re-subscribe (if you were previously) but you can do so through GFC (Google Friend Connect) or once again VIA email. I do want to point out, that for an upcoming giveaway or two, GFC will be part of it and what not :)


ANYWAYS, so what we are here about today!

I was just going to have this be a NOTD (Nail of the Day) post then I remembered I told a few people I was going to do a comparing blog post of these two top coats... or at least a review of one of them. I figured I would compare them, since they are the two that I currently am switching between. Maybe down the road a little bit I will do comparisons of the 3 I have, heck maybe I will even have a few more baha. Anyhoobles.

The two polishes that I used were both from Essie. The lilac-grey color is Miss Fancy Pants and the glittery parts is Stroke of Brilliance from their Luxeffects line.
 My basecoat is the Sally Hansen Continuous Growth Treatment (being discontinued scoops this bad boy up ASAP it's amazing..also.. it's not pictured below)

For my Top coats I used Out The Door and ORLY HI Shine.
Out The Door can be purchased at CVS and Sally Beauty Supply, I'm not sure where else. CVS is where I found mine.
HI Shine .. well that is a different story, I found mine at TJ Maxx, but I've never seen it before and apparently neither have a few nail bloggers I talk too.. I got this for $4.99 at TJ Maxx.

Out The Door claims to be Americas #1 Super Fast Drying top coat. I do agree with that, it does dry extremely quickly. However, don't expect to be able to walk out the door, especially if you didn't wait for your nail polish to fully dry (without realizing it..this happened to me)
You get a pretty nice amount of shine out of this top coat. On my pink and ring finger I used two coats and on my middle and index fingers I used 1 coat.. Just to show. You do get more shine if you use two coats of it. However, two coats is not necessary, especially if you are not using a top coat eater (like glitter) this glitter topcoat I used isn't a TCE (top coat eater) thankfully, but I still did 1 and two coats just to show. This is an absolutely lovely top coat. This also claims to be "long-wearing" and will not yellow... I've never had a top coat "yellow" on me, I didn't even know it could happen... As for long wearing, for me, it is long wearing. I can't say days and days because I have shoddy nails and nothing lasts days and days on me. No matter how much prepping or anything. It is just the nature of my nails I guess. HOWEVER this one does last longer than other ones I have tried so yay on that!

ORLY's HI-Shine is new to me..well kind of, I've had it for a few weeks, but new to me as in I've never seen it before. In the bottle this has a blue tinge to it, but comes out clear when used. The brush for this, in my opinion leaves something to be desired. Don't get me wrong, I like the brush itself, but not the way it is cut. It is cut in a really wonky manor that if you don't check to see if your nail polish if fully dry, it can tug and pull it.. it happened to me on this manicure actually...on my pinkie to be exact. I really do like the bottle of this, I'm not sure what it is, but it just reminds me of being slightly vintage-y.. it's a me thing okay? This handle of this, has the typical rubbery ORLY handle, which I actually quite like. I do find that between the two of these, Hi-Shine is more "shiny" or glossy if that is what you prefer. Particularly, it does make the nails looks sleep and finished, even when they are painted a little shoddy.. ( I did my nails in half darkness..no shame) It also makes them look even.. thankfully. On my left hand, I'm not sure you can see it in thee pictures, you can tell the polish was uneven.. where as on my right hand (this top coat) it looks even and just.. dare I say perfect? .. Well not really perfect, but you get my point? As for HI-Shine, I think that there are top coats out there that can give you a more shiny effect, however this one is pretty shiny.

Between the two top coats, it is hard to say which one I like better. I actually quite like both of them honestly. It really boils down to what nail polish I use on my nails per which one comes out looking better. Does that make any kind of sense? I've had times where the Hi-Shine was out shined by the Out The Door and vice versa.


Here is an example of what I mean by one out shining the other. On the left (pinkie/ring) is Out The Door on the right is HI-Shine. (middle/index)

Oh! All pictures were taking as the sun was halfway up in the sky.. aka morning light :)

Have you tried either of these top coats? Which is YOUR favorite Topcoat? I am ALWAYS on the lookout for a new one! xx