Happy Birthday Marian

Today is my best friend Marian's birthday. I told you about her a few months ago in a blog post. We grew up together and were best friends. She died in a car accident May 7, 2011 at age 21. I think about her nearly every day, and more often lately when I remember that she won't be at my wedding. She would have been a beautiful bridesmaid.

Memories of her help me through so much. Even trying on wedding dresses, I looked down at my stomach and kept pushing it in, wishing it were smaller. Then I thought of her and how angry she'd be with me for worrying about something so petty and superficial. She dealt with serious self-image issues herself, but overcame them. To look down on myself would be a disgrace to her and the lessons she taught us. That's the biggest thing I have learned from losing her - Don't wait until it's too late to appreciate the people around you and learn from them, to tell them you love them, to wish you would have tried sooner to fix things. 

On the brighter side, I thought I would dedicate a manicure to her on her birthday. I chose a color I thought she'd like. It's Butter London Victoriana from my recent BL haul.

Victoriana is a lovely dusty steel blue with silver shimmer that also has a blue tint when it peeks through the base. She's slightly teal, but less than I expected.

The application was perfect and full coverage with two coats.

Close up of the shimmer

Moose seems to always be in my shots lol. Do your cats do this too?
Marian used to have the meanest cat named Jingles lol! The only person she'd ever tolerate was Marian.

Sharing this with you helps me through it, and makes me feel better that more people will think of her. Just remember what she taught me. Don't wait until it's too late.
"Never take your freedoms for granted and every chance you get let the ones you love know that they are indeed loved." ~Marian Curtner

Working Up to Drama

I'm usually nervous when it comes to more dramatic makeup. I never really line my lower lash line or put mascara on my lower lashes. This is an example of a grey smokey eye I did before that is much more toned down. We were going out the other night and I decided to dramatize it a bit.

I used dark grey liquid liner, and dark grey eyeshadow over that to smudge it out. I put mascara on all my lashes. I was worried it would be too much, but I like it!

You can see the liner more in this photo. It is more defined on the outer corner of the eye.

Heres the outfit with the look. I love those tights lol.





 Edit: I got my first really mean comments on my blog today. I was just letting you ladies know so that all the other comments made sense. I deleted the worst ones in attempt to remove the negativity.

Beyond the Mistletoe Layering

Layering these Color Club collections is fun! This post will show you how some of the Beyond the Mistletoe glitters look layered. I already used Holiday Splendor on my toes. A lot of people layer them on top of the corresponding color, but I like to spice it up a bit.

Layered over Color Club Perfect Mol-ten from the Foiled collection LtoR:

Beyond the Mistletoe - Light blue and silver holo glitter that flashes green, gold, teal, silver, and blue, in a clear base

Holiday Splendor - silver holo glitter in a bright tealy green jelly base, which makes the glitter flash a lot of green

Candy Cane - Hot pink and light pink holo glitter that flashes pink, silver, and red, in a slightly pink jelly base

Gingerbread - Gold holo glitter that flashes blue, green, red, purple, orange, and gold, in a clear base

This is Color Club Cold Metal with a coat of Jingle Jangle on the ring finger.


Jingle Jangle - light teal and silver glitter in a slightly purple jelly base, which makes the silver look purple sometimes

These glitters are pretty awesome, but some could be more exciting. I thought Gingerbread had red glitter in it, which would have been awesome. I think I'll do a mani with it and throw in red glitter :D. You like them?

Color Club Foiled Collection Swatches

I picked up the Color Club Foiled collection from Ross the other day. I never thought I liked foils until now! All the colors in this collection have a glitter/foil sort of finish. They're very metallic, which is part of being a foil, but if you look up close there is tiny metallic microglitter. Each color has particles of silver and particles of the base color. All swatches are two coats


Cold Metal - Rich royal blue foil. I actually like this and I'm so not a blue person.


Lumin-iceient - Light cloudy blue foil.


Antiquated - Champagne gold foil


Hot Like Lava - Hot pink foil


Foil Me Once - Light dusty pink with a touch of lavender foil


Perfect Mol-ten - Bright light green foil, really pigmented but a little more silver at the same time.

I really never thought I liked foils until now...honest lol. The wear seems to be average (a couple days), and the application was great. I thought it would be streaky when I was applying it, but looking at my nails now you can't see a single imperfection.
And by the way this was my first collection swatch. I have never before put polish on JUST to photograph it. What an interesting feeling lol...

Have these? Love them? Want them?

Defiant Pedi

MeMeMe Defiant, that is :). It's a European polish. Drool ladies.

I was feeling something dark. This is two coats Defiant with one thin coat of Color Club Holiday Splendor from my haul yesterday.

Here is Defiant in a couple different lights. At its darkest it only looks black out of the corner of your eye. When you actually look at it, it's just super dark teal.

Here is is topped with the thinnest coat of Holiday Splendor I could muster, to add a little glitter bling.

Holiday Splendor is holo glitter in a bright green slightly teal jelly base. The glitter flashes blue, green, and gold.

My combo ended up a slightly darker ChG Atlantis....crap lol but quite a bit more green. The more I look at it, the more I like it and realize that it's different!

Haul: Holiday Color Clubs

I went to my Ross to look for Color Club sets, originally for friends because I was undecided. I saw them in person and had to have them.

Color Club Beyond the Mistletoe Collection

LtoR: Beyond the Mistletoe, Holiday Splendor, Sugarplum Fairy, Gingerbread, Candy Cane, Jingle Jangle

Color Club Foiled Collection

LtoR: Perfect Mol-ten, Antiquated, Cold Metal, Hot Like Lava, Foil Me Once, Lumin-iceient

And then a friend mentioned to me that the colors in both collections match up quite well...

Interesting huh? Ooh I wonder what one Foiled would look like with a light coat of a different Mistletoe? Or of course I could layer them for a little more pow.

Thoughts? Have them? Want them? If you are nice to me I'll pick some up for you :). 

Preview: Zoya Feel Collection

I'm really excited about this ladies! I finally got added to a media list :). This is my first press release.

FEEL collection

Six full-coverage winter cream neutrals

This is Zoya's winter collection, opaque neutral cremes. Normally I wouldn't be as excited about a collection like this, but I've been interviewing for internships and at least one requires natural or close to it nail colors. I'm trying to convince my fiance that if I get that internship he should buy me this entire collection :D. 

I enlarged the colors so you can get a better look. I like a lot of them!

Here is what Zoya says about their collection:

FEEL Beautiful!

Every season the color experts at Zoya create dozens of new color collection options. This year, one of those “secret collections” just had to be seen now rather than later. FEEL by Zoya Nail Polish delivers six new, highly pigmented, full coverge neutrals for right now!

Zoya FEEL Collection

• Kristen (ZP591): Full coverage, gull gray cream
• Carey (ZP592): Full coverage, periwinkle gray cream
• Megan (ZP593): Full coverage, taupe gray cream
• Kendal (ZP594): Full coverage, rose quartz beige cream
• Kennedy (ZP595): Full coverage, pale french beige cream
• Avery (ZP596): Full coverage, blonde beige cream

Zoya is the new color of fashion...

Ultra long-wearing, glossy nail lacquers by Zoya are free of harmful industrial chemicals

like toluene, camphor, formaldehyde, resin, dibutyl phthalate (DBP) that are known

to cause cancer and birth defects.

Find Zoya FEEL as well as over 300 other ultra high-fashion Zoya shades at

www.zoya.com. As always, each and every Zoya color is made for women so we

name them after women.

FEEL by Zoya

Sug. Retail $8.00 per 0.5 fl.oz. bottle (US) 

www.zoya.com

Available November 15, 2011. 

You should be able to find Zoyas at Zoya.com, Ulta, Whole Foods, and some salons. 

Looking forward to this collection?