Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween readers! Are you doing anything fun for Halloween? I'm not sure what we're doing yet, I am going to attempt to dress up like a vampire or something. Who knows.

I wanted to show you my Halloween Manicure. I got the idea for the Frankenstein nail from the lovely Goldiestarling on Youtube. Check out her amazing tutorial for a way better version of these cool nails. I suck at nail art so these are sort of messy but festive none the less.

Click on this image to see a list of what I used:

Have a wonderful Halloween all. Leave a link to your Halloween inspired nails in the comments.

nubar - Holiday Jewel Basket

If you're looking for a great holiday gift for the lacquer lover in your life I'd suggest checking out nubar's Holiday Jewel Basket. It's a great price at $49.99 for 9 polishes. It'd be an excellent present. I love nubar! Their formula rocks.

This set will be available November 15, 2010 at bynubar.com

Give the gift of beautiful nails! nubar's Holiday Jewel Basket is filled with nine nubar classics for a perfect holiday manicure. With a range from glitters to classic red crème, the Holiday Jewel Basket has something for every woman.

Always free of formaldehyde, phthalate and toluene, the nail lacquers in Holiday Jewel Basket offer four fine glitters, two glitter top coats, a classic red crème, Foundation Base Coat, and Diamont Top Coat.

G103: Grass Green Glitter, a fine green glitter

G108: Silver Glitter, a fine silver glitter

G113: Gold Glitter, a fine gold glitter

G125: Pixie Dust, a delicate dusting of shimmer

G157: Ruby Red Glitz, a fine red glitter

G188: Nubar 2010, a flaky glitter in a color changing base

N219: Competition Red, a classic red creme

T304: Foundation Base Coat

T309: Diamont Top Coat

nubar nail lacquers feature an ergonomically designed cap and a 299 bristle brush built for comfort and performance.

Press release and images were provided directly by PR.

Color Club: Wild Orchid

Happy Friday readers. Don't worry, I haven't forgotten about Halloween. I will have a Halloween mani to show you on Sunday. If you're doing anything for the holiday have fun and be safe. And if you have a blog and blog about your costume be sure to let me know! I love to see people being creative.

Also, I will be hosting a giveaway courtesy of Beautyticket.com for 6 China Glaze nail polishes. So be on the lookout for details either tonight or tomorrow.

Today I have another color from Color Club's fall collection. This is Wild Orchid from the Indulgence package. This is purple/gray with shimmer. It's absolutely stunning. It's a bit drker and more gray than Sally Hansen's Mystic Lilac but I'd say it's in the same color family. It is absolutely gorgeous and one of my favorites from the collection. It's really chic and I think it'd work on most skin tones.

Application was nice. It went on smoothly and was opaque in two coats. I had no streaking or balding. The shimmer was not textured so this polish dried smooth and sleek.

I really think this color is beautiful. What do you think?

Disclosure: This product was sent for consideration. All reviews are done at my discretion and all opinions are my own.

My First Experience with Incoco Dry Nail Appliques & a Discount Code

Hi everyone!!! Today I want to share my first time experience with the Incoco Dry Nail Applique. I received a few sets of these for review a while back and I just finally got the guts to try them out. I was nervous that I would be clumsy and unable to do it so I put it off and put it off but you know what? In the end it really wasn't as difficult as I anticipated. It's not fool proof, there is a slight learning curve but application is not as scary as I thought.

Incoco Dry Nail Appliques are strips of base coat, nail polish and top coat, which come to you dry with a slightly adhesive backing. The strips are roughly nail shaped and there are 16 strips in a package which are double sided for a total of 32 sizes. I was pretty successful in finding the proper size for my nails.

You apply these to clean dry nails. I think the best way to describe the application process is to refer to the chart below from Incoco's website.

Click on the image below to see directions. It will be clear and readable once you click:

Application is slightly tricky but not impossible. The kit comes with the mini file shown in the photo and a mini orange stick. I actually used the orange stick to smooth the applique over my nails at step 5. I found if you placed the applique at the bottom of your nail and then worked your way up it was easiest. You can stretch the applique a bit and I found doing that to cover the top worked well.

I had some trouble with my ring fingers. I scrapped a few strips when trying to apply them to those fingers. I guess they're a funny shape. But I think you can see in the photos that it worked out fine. I did not run out of strips, in fact I had a few extra.

Being that this was my first time using the product I did not expect a flawless manicure but I think, if I do say so myself, I came pretty close. I had one nail on my right hand that looked like it had tip wear because I didn't stretch the applique properly over the edges of my nail, and some of the appliques on my right hand I sized wrong so you could see the sides of my nail if you were being picky about things but otherwise I was happy with the results.

Let's look at some photos. I apologize for the silly shape of my nails, I had recently cut them down and was going squoval but I don't think I did a good job LOL. They're better now.

Not too shabby right? I think they looked pretty darn good and people were shocked when I told them they were essentially stickers.

Once on they felt like regular old nail polish. Once adhered you couldn't peel them back or anything. Once they were stuck they were on there like a regular polish.

I did not wear these long enough to test wear. I will do that with another package and report back. I removed these after three days and in that time I did not get any chipping or tip wear so that's pretty great. The website claims they last up to 14 days, I can't speak to that but it'd be interesting to try.

These come in a variety of colors and finishes including french manicure style (which I'd love to try). You can purchase them online for $7.99 a package. I think that's sort of pricey when you consider the average bottle of polish goes for about that and you get way more than one application from it, but it's a novelty item I guess.

So what do you think of Incoco Dry Nail Appliques? Have you tried them? Let me know your experiences. If you haven't tried them do you think you will? I think the idea is cool but I will stick to my good ol' classic bottled polish. I will use the rest of the strips I have and let you know how they are and if I come across and interesting "gotta have it color" I wouldn't hesitate to pick it up but these will not replace polish for me.

Incoco was kind enough to offer a 10% discount code to my readers. That code is PRIM10 and it expires on 11/30. Enjoy!

Disclosure: This product was sent to me for consideration. All reviews are done at my discretion and are 100% honest and uninfluenced by anyone.

China Glaze: Tis' the Season to be Naughty & Nice: Part 2

I hope you all had a great weekend. I had a really fun weekend. My husband and I joined my 2 brother in laws, sister in law and our four month old godson for some pumpkin picking. We had a great time. I love the fall. But fall comes and goes quite quickly which is why I have some more China Glaze Christmas colors to show you today. :-)

This is Sugar Plums which is described as a plum shimmer. To my eye it's really a maroon with some silver and holo microglitter. I thought this was going to be one of my favorites from the collection but unfortunately I had some issues with the formula so I can't say it lived up to my expectations.

I had the same issue with this one as I had with Color Club's De-luxe-cious where the glitter leaves the polish with a bumpy finish. It's quite textured as it appears the glitter sinks into the polish a bit and gets covered with the base color. I wanted it to be a little more holo so you'll see I added Cover Girl's City Lights top coat to the mix. I love that top coat. If you love holo glitter you should really check that one out.

Overall Sugar Plums is pretty but the issues with the sinking glitter make it not as amazing as it could be. Here are some photos:

I wish I could photograph that top coat better. It's really amazing. It will make any polish a rainbow masterpiece. I got so many compliments on this combo. When the sun hits it it is mesmerizing.

Next up is one of my favorites from the collection it is the collection's namesake: Naughty and Nice. This is described as "a deeply rich wine creme" which I can totally see. It's totally a gorgeous sort of Cabernet color. It's a creme but it's slightly jelly like in my book. In some lights it can lean black but if you do 2 coats like I did you will see the red tones just fine. It reminds me a lot of China Glaze's long discontinued Dripping Wet (I apologize for those swatches, it was when I first started blogging and I had horrible cuticle pooling, sorry!!) but Naughty and Nice is slightly darker.

I did two coats so that it wasn't black but you can see some balding where I did not apply carefully. It does not bother me but I know some people would rather do the third coat to avoid that.

My favorite thing about this color is the high shine finish. It's like patent leather. It's just gorgeous. My favorite polishes are high gloss cremes, there's just something chic about them. This color is so nice. Work safe but vampy. I think it will be used a lot in my collection.

So do either of these beauties get you excited for Christmas? Plan on picking either one up?

Disclosure: This collection was provided to me for consideration. All reviews are honest and done at my discretion.

Sally Hansen: Mystic Lilac (*Thank you Tamara!)

I was intending to do more China Glaze Holiday swatches but we had no sun this week so we'll have to wait until next week for that. Sorry!

A few weeks back Tamara of MochaMishMash held a Sally Hansen Mystic Lilac giveaway and I won! I was so excited because I could not find this color anywhere. So I thought I would share it with you today:

Mystic Lilac is a gorgeous grayed out lilac color with sort of irridessent or silver microshimmer. I am not sure, it's difficult to describe. It's a great sort of "edgy" neutral because it's not in your face; it's understated yet unique. I really like this color a lot.

As far as the formula is concerned it's not the best in the World but is is much much better than some of the other Xtreme Wear lacquers I have tried. I found it much easier to apply than usual but it does dry rather quickly in my opinion so it can gunk up the sides of the bottle a bit if you don't work quickly.

On to the photos. I apologize in advance, my hands were very dry that day.

So are you a fan? Have you seen this in your drug stores?

Zoya: Crystal (My First Zoya Experience)

Hi Everyone!!!! I wanted to share my first experience with Zoya polish with you. Last week Zoya was having a great promotion where if you order $10 worth of product you get 3 full sized polishes for free. I thought this would be the best time to try a new brand. Why not right?

The first polish I tried out from Zoya is Crystal. This is from the Zoya Fire Collection which is new for winter. It is a stunning mid-tone blue with gold shimmer which borders on flakie. It's absolutely beautiful and unlike anything I have in my collection. The gold shimmer just makes this polish so interesting. It was difficult to photograph but if you look at the final photo (enlarged) you will see the color best, which is funny because it's inside and usually I have issues taking good photos inside.

My first impression of the formula is that it's nice. It dries SUPER fast though so you have to be careful with the sides of the bottle as you wipe any excess from the brush as it could build up quite a bit. Actual application was fine though. This color was super opaque and I just needed two coats for clean, streak free application. I was happy with it.

So what do you think of Zoya Crystal? Is it a color for you? Do you tend to go for colors like this or leave them?

You can purchase Zoya polishes for $7 on Zoya.com. Be on the lookout for excellent promo codes like the one I took advantage of because they often do nice sales.

Thanks for reading and have a fantastic day!

China Glaze: Tis' the Season to be Naughty & Nice: Part One

Happy Monday everyone! I changed my font on my photos to a cuter (IMO) style. The font is called "Yelly" if you're interested.

Today I want to show you a few of the colors from China Glaze's holiday collection. I received all of them except for three, I do not have Midnight Kiss, Phat Santa or Mommy Kissing Santa Claus, Idk why they were not in my package but it's no biggie. You can purchase this collection on Trans Design. Let's start this series with four of the colors from the collection:

Cheers to You is described as "a bright shimmery silver" and it is a fantastic vibrant silver foil. The metallic affect on this one is just beautiful to look at. It's super sparkly but not glittery if that makes sense. It's really a perfect metallic foil. It's a really fun festive color for the holidays like tinsel!

Sometimes foils like this are streaky but this one was not streaky at all. Application was great and I just needed two coats for opacity.

Next is Jingle Bells which is a champagne style gold color with gold microshimmer. It's got a great sort of foil-ish finish and really sparkles. Again, I think it's great for the holidays, especially New Years Eve.

The formula on this was great. Again, no streaks and full opacity was achieved with just two coats.

Snow is a high shine, almost patent leather finish bright white. I don't normally go for a stark white nail but this color is the one I would reach for if I did because of the super shiny finish. I think this would make an excellent color for a French manicure if you're into the American style French with super white tips.

Application was shockingly easy for such a pigmented white. Whites can be troublesome but this one was fine. I used three coats but it was essentially opaque in two.

Last in this installment of swatches we have Frosty and it sure is frosty. It's a shimmery off white with sort of off white/silver micro shimmer to it. This is my least favorite from the entire collection as I don't think it suits my skin color at all.

It's pretty sheer so I used three coats for the opacity pictured. The formula was okay but like I said it's on the sheer/thin side so you need to be patient. I probably will not reach for this one much.

Disclosure: This collection was provided to me for consideration. All reviews are honest and done at my discretion.