Zoya Promo Is Here!!!

Zoya has been hinting at a promo for ages now on their awesome Facebook page. It's finally here ladies!!!
It's buy one polish from their three new summer 2011 collections, get another from the collections free! And only pay $2 shipping for all of it (free if you buy $55+)!!! The collections include their new Sunshine collection (foily shimmers), Summertime (bright cremes), and ModMattes.

With such low shipping this is a great time to take advantage of it and add some other polishes and some Zoya Remove+ you've been wanting as well!

This promo should last until 3/25, but I still wouldn't wait. The best case scenario is that your order will be on back order which could seriously extend your waiting time until you receive your goodies. The worst case is that once they run out of bottles, the promo ends. They really weren't super clear with that. If I find out otherwise I'll let you know!

Which ones are you thinking about getting ladies? I'm feeling Reva, Breezi, Keiko, and I can't decide on the last one. Either Tanzy, Faye, or Apple. Temptalia is the only place I have been able to find swatches so far, so let me know if you find others!

Swatches
(Summertime) (Sunshine) (ModMattes)

Detailed information is available on Zoya's official blog.

I Got the Greens - Flaky Gemma

I'm really on a St. Patty's Day green trip lately! A loyal fan asked me to swatch Sinful Colors Green Ocean over Zoya Gemma.
To the left is the lovely Gemma all by herself. She's a little lighter and more exciting in natural light.

This is 3 medium/thick coats because the fake nail I used was so huge. Below we have Gemma topped with one coat of the flakies. I did tap a couple in here and there to make sure it looked relatively even, so you could call it one careful coat.

The first on is actually in dimmer light, turned away from the light source. For some reason that really brings the flakies out. This is honestly more of what it looks like most of the time anyway. It doesn't have to catch the light just right for you to be able to see the flakies. The second picture is an example of what this combo looks like in pretty much the worst case scenario. Still gorgeous right? Right :D!

This is a pretty awesome St. Patty's Day combo, or for anytime!

Pot O' Gold at the End of the Rainbow

Yay St. Patrick's Day! This mani has been in my head for days now and I finally put it down on...nails. A sparkly rainbow with all the colors is spanning across my fingers, over a matte sponged sky, with a big pot'o'gold at the end :D.

I used 20 polishes for this manicure. I know right? Wow.
Base: Seche Ridge Filling Base Coat (Love this, little opaqness to it)
White: 1 coat Milani White, then 1 coat WetNWild Rock Solid in Ice Crystals
Sky sponging: WetNWild Crystalic in Cool Blue Blast, Katy Perry
by OPI Last Friday Night
Matte sky: China Glaze Matte Magic
Rainbow: Obvious colors from ArtNails striper polishes, and the blue is Sally
Hansen Insta-Dri Brisk Blue
Seche Vite Quick Dry Topcoat over the rainbows, then I decided it
needed some sparkle with Diamond Cosmetics Glitter Opal
Pot: Zoya Kelly outlined with Zoya Dove
Gold: Zoya Jules, highlighted with ArtNails gold, covered with Afterthoughts
Lemon Drop (gold glitter)
Carefully topped with SV Quick Dry Topcoat to keep the sky matte still
That makes 20 polishes total!!!

Here is the sky before I painted on top it. This was my first time sponging and it was fun! I just painted right onto the sponge after wiping off most of the polish from the brush. I used a sponge brush from the hardware store kind of thing, not a special nail art sponge brush. This picture is after the matte top coat. I thought it was super cool!

Closeups of my sparkly rainbow and one of the pots of gold. The gold is way sparklier in person!! You can see all seven colors of the rainbow a little better in this one. The ArtNails only had one blue, but there is blue and indigo in a rainbow. So that's why I made the SH polish the lighter blue. I freehanded all of this nail art. I used the striping brushed in the bottles for the rainbow stripes. It was much easier once I started (after red) because then I could just follow the lines. For the gold, I used a dotting tool to make the coins. Then I dipped a toothpick in the ArtNails gold and added a few curved lines to highlight some coin edges. Gotta have the gold glitter on top too!!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!!!

St. Patty's Day Mani

So I noticed Color Club was having a nail art contest on their Facebook page (over now, winners announced on St. Patrick's Day). I thought I would spice up my Sheer Disguise and Sinful Colors Green Ocean mani with some St. Patrick's Day nail art!!

Here is a different angle where you can really see the flakies. I got the idea for the fun lines from this awesome picture someone posted on the Color Club page. Okay so mine look nothing like hers, a nd not even close to as good. Isn't her nail art amazing? Like wow.

I also added a little freehand shamrock to make it more festive. And just to make it pimp, I made the shamrock glow in the dark! I used Diamond Cosmetics Gloworm Green, which I love! You should check them out. As far as I know they are only sold online, but they're only $2.50 each. Even their closeout colors are pretty awesome, and they're only $1.00.
If you did a St. Patrick's Day mani, send me a pic/link. I'd love to see it!!

My First Flaky!

I finally found my very first flaky! Sinful Colors Green Ocean ($1.99)! It's apparently a LE polish that only comes out around St. Patrick's Day. I bought one for you for the giveaway, and another for myself!!

See tha flakies? :D :D :D
I knew it was going to be pretty sheer with a green tint, so I wanted to layer it. I just bought the Color Club Alter Ego set (the lighter one), so I layered it over Sheer Disguise.

Here is a sunlight pic (note the new sun symbol I've been using :D). It really does look like this pretty much all the time though, even indoors. It's just really hard to capture the look on camera. If you don't know what a flaky is, it's like a glitter, but cooler. It usually has some amount of glitter or shimmer to take up the spaces in between larger "flakes" of a similar material. It makes a really cool effect huh?

When there is very little light or it isn't hitting it right, the flakes look like this. They don't sparkle as much, but it still looks really cool like mosaic tiles on my nails.
Sinful Colors Green Ocean has loads of shimmer and flakes in a tinted apple green sheer base. The flakes and glitter flash bright green, gold, and light blue. The application was a little bit difficult, but still worth it. The jelly base was a tiny bit thick. It was a little bit difficult to get the flakes to lay right. Sometimes they would be hanging off the end of my nail or onto my cuticle, and sometimes they would stick up a bit. Even with this, it still was pretty good for application, and it is SO worth it!

Do you own any flakies? Do you like them?
I'm dying for the Nfu Oh ones!

My Feet Are Getting Intimate

I got my Intimate Collection 6 days after I ordered. It was from the awesome promo Zoya did last Tuesday, so I got it for $25! I also ordered a bottle of Zoya Remove+ and am loving it so far.

I was talking on the phone with my deployed boyfriend and made him pick which color I should use for my pedi. After a verbal description of all the colors in the Intimate Collection, Jeremy chose Caitlin :D. I thought okay, not what to stamp with. Well Amber from Rainbows & Sparkles used Marley to stamp on Caitlin, suggested that to me, so I did! Then I wanted to use Dannii too because she's so pretty, so she is in the center of the flowers. I love how all the colors in a collection look so good together. As they should!

Here are a couple close ups :P. Caitlin is a gorgeous medium gray creme with a blue/purple tint to it. It is really unique and fabulous. She is definitely Kelly's lighter sister. Marley is a pale lavender with subtle shimmer, although she looks a bit light gray in the stamps. She is on the gray side though. As you can see, Dannii is a super sparkly purple. Isn't she pretty? I have to say, clean up on your toes is difficult! They're hard to reach, never turned the right way, you can't see them really close, etc, etc. And stamping on toes is even harder! I think it's because there is less nail away from the skin because toes aren't as long as fingernails (I hope). And the sides of your toes don't just nicely come away like on your fingernails...know what I mean? I really want the tiny stamper I have seen some ladies use. Here is a picture of what I stamped with - Konad M53. The design is a pretty flowery design with some curly vines in between. I thought it was fun to also take a picture of my tools, especially my scraper. It's covered in paint, and this is after cleaning off the blade area with acetone!

OPI Heart Throb

OPI Heart Throb is a sweet bubblegum pink sheer. I got this thinking it would be opaque. That's what I get for trusting the bottle lol. It's still super cute though. This is after white tips and 3 coats...or maybe 2 lol...I can't remember.

The tips were done by hand with a Sally Hansen Nail Art Pen. I like these pens when it comes to nail art that is in small parts. But I find that when I do bigger things, like french tips, the "formula" dries weird and cracks.

 

You can see that effect in the above picture a little more. I think this has something to do with the fact that the Sally Hansen Nail Art Pens are a "quick drying formula" and not actually nail polish. I have never noticed this problem when doing normal nail art like dots, little flowers, etc. 

I took this picture from farther away to demonstrate what it looks like from a normal distance. I really don't think the odd cracking tips are noticeable to everyone else, just to me since I closely analyze my nails lol.

Anyone know of a pretty pink creme that is totally opaque?