Birds of a feather flock to...Orly fOWL Play!

I did this post as a guest post a number of months ago for Guilty As Charged in her absence, but she had some issues with the scheduling feature so I just figured I might share it here on my own blog as well, in case you guys missed it, and because I will be out of town this weekend with positively no  time to do a post. :-/  So I really hope this isn't considered "bad blogger form!"  I just l♥ve this mani and could share it over & over again! LOL


My original mani plan ended up having an element that just would not work, so after going back over the ideas I'd had for this post, I decided this one was much more fitting anyways, since Haleigh's blog features such great nail art.  I hope mine is worthy of being here!  I give you Fowl Play:

I cannot even tell you how excited I was to find out that OPI's Merry Midnight has an almost exact dupe.  I wanted MM after seeing only one photo of it, but when I discovered it was going for upwards of $25 on eBay, I was quite sad.  Then along came a comparison post (or several!) with Orly Fowl Play, and with some trepidation, I headed back over to eBay.  This time however, I was overjoyed to find I could get my dream polish for only $5!!!  Mmmm...just feast your eyes on that vampy purple, flaky, sparkly, rainbow-y goodness!  

Being a huge fan of plays on words, I had a "liiiightbulb" moment and realized that freehanding an owl as an accent nail would mean I could entitle my post Fowl Play! ;-) hehehe

Isn't he a cute 'lil guy?!  :-D  I think he needs a name...any ideas?  

Mr. Unnamed Owl is composed of Zoya Reagan, Sinful Colors My Buoyfriend, Zoya Arizona, and just any old black & white for the eyes, against a background of OPI Can't Find My Czechbook.  The color combos are truly endless, which is super fun!  :-)  I don't actually have a nail art brush set, but a detail brush from my roommate's set of craft brushes (from Wal-Mart) worked just fine.  I also used a pin - yes, A PIN - for the beak & the dots on the owl's body, as well as the black pupil & the teensy, infinitesimal, tiny, microscopic white glint on the pupil.

In case you were curious, I did end up doing my right hand because I really want to be able to wear this mani for a few days, so I had to at least attempt to make my hands match!  He's a tad...deformed, but still loveable. :-)  OH!  I almost forgot - the branches are China Glaze Ingrid.  Pretty much the only brown I have in my stash.  And of course, it has a fine gold shimmer in it, so my apologies, but Houston, we have a sparkly branch!

The application of all these polishes was really great.  Ok, yes, I used most of them in minute quantities, but I was glad to see they were all very opaque as there was a lot of layering going on!  This is only two coats of Fowl Play.  I think I would classify it as a couple-shades-lighter-than-eggplant purple jelly base, but it's highly pigmented, so the coverage is great - as is the drying time.  I've had SO many issues with bubbling cremes lately, so this was quite a welcome relief.

If any of you have read my blog, you know I'm very long-winded, and I'm sure I could continue on about this mani, but I feel I've kept you long enough, especially since this is a guest post!  I leave you with one final shot:

Thank you so much for reading!  I hope this inspires you to be creative & boldly go where you've never gone before...on your nails. ;-)  Or in life.

~ Emily :-)

A fairy tale on mah nails: Cameo Colours The Glass Slippers

Hello ladies!  I hope you're all have a lovely Saturday. :-)  I didn't expect to be able to do this post today, since I happen to be at my parent's house "in the sticks" where they just got DSL last year.  Yes, we had dial-up until then.  Well, it turns out my genius little brother who is home from college for the summer had the presence of mind to get a router that would convert the DSL into wireless, so he & I are currently chilling in the living room; he's playing Halo online & I'm blogging, ogling blogs, & listening to YouTube.

This has been a rather strange week...my shifts were all over the place and I had Wednesday off to celebrate a momentous occasion with my bestie, so although I intended to show y'all this mani much sooner, at the end of every day, the amount of work involved in a blog post made me just want to go to bed!  I'm sure all you fellow bloggers know what I'm talking about! ;-)  So, with many apologies & without further ado, I give you THE GLASS SLIPPERS:

Cameo of Cameo Colours Lacquers was uber-kind and sent me this one after I had an issue with one of her other polishes that I purchased a couple weeks ago.  So when I messaged her about it, she not only apologized for the weird polish behavior, but said she'd already prepared a package with supplies that should rectify the issue & a full-size bottle of TGS!!! :-O  I was utterly blown away by her amazing customer service - I really didn't expect such kindness & generosity!  And this is such a dreamy, fairy tale-esque polish.  :-D

As you can see, it's a fairly opaque white pearl? base (rather hard to tell as it's got SO much goin' on!) with pastel pink and green micro glass flecks and slightly larger gold flecks.  I'm sort of wondering if she was going for a semi-textured polish because as you can probably tell from the photos, it is somewhat bumpy.  Either that or it's just the nature of all those awesome flecks!  I wish it were sunny today so I could show you just how sparkly it and amazing it is in the sun.  

So, the beauty and the bottle/brush are top-notch, however the one downfall to this polish is that it was like trying to put on old glue.  SUPER hard to work with! :-/  That is why, much to my chagrin, my nails are a bit messy.  And cleanup doesn't do much, because this is one durable polish!  What you see here is two coats (plus Sally Hansen 4 in 1) and I've had it on since Monday. WHOA.  It definitely redeems itself in that!

I have no doubt however that once I get my manicured paws on some Seche Restore, adding a couple drops will make it much easier to paint with. :-)  But regardless & like others have said before, I'll put up with its spoiled princess attitude for a polish this beautiful and unique!  I am aware the above photo is blurry, and I was considering not using it, but it shows the sparkle when the sun can't be bothered to help a girl out.

Awww lookit the little bunny, just peekin' out from behind my thumb ;-)

The accent nail!  Ahh, the accent nail...I was planning on using my fresh-killed lemming: L'Oreal Creme Puffs - thanks to a kind lady from a polish group on Facebook - however, something was in the air on Monday night, and it resulted in a horribly bubbly creme puff. :-(  Realizing there is a fair amount of pink sparkle in TGS, I decided Mod About You would be a nice second choice.  I think this is 3 coats (patchy little sucker!) and I HAD to jazz it up for y'all, so thanks to the Llarowe package that arrived yesterday, I give you a french tip/wannabe gradient in Hare Polish Own Your Opulence. :-D
OYO goes perfectly with TGS: it's a glitter topper, jam-packed with small matte pastel pink, gold, black, and matte baby blue hexes, small black & baby blue (or maybe matte mint?) squares, and a microshimmery gold dust base (no, not real gold dust!). BEAUTIFUL!  I'm really excited to use this one for a full mani.  I got it on clearance for $5 in Llarowe's sale section.  Unfortunately, it appears to be gone, but What I Wore to the Revolution is still there for $5.

I hope you enjoyed this mani as much as I have THIS ENTIRE WEEK! :-D  Enjoy your 4th of July weekend, peeps . . . I'm off to an afternoon of pontooning & jetskiing!  . . . If it would just get sunny. Grr.

Zoya haul-ette?

Hi everyone!  Despite being ridiculously tired (ridiculously as in it's ridiculous how horribly my brain is functioning right now - thank God for spell check!), I am SOOOO excited about the Zoya polishes that I got from the Earth Day Exchange deal. WOW.  I've tried 3 on my nails so far and LOVE them all!  I wish I'd had the complete color chart they send in all packages when I was placing my order 'cuz I surely would've bought more than 5 then!  Hahaha, my bank account is probably very glad I didn't, but seriously, HALF OFF Zoyas?!  What a deal!!!  Gotta say I can't wait for Earth Day next year - forget planting trees - I'm gonna save the planet, 10 Zoya polishes at a time! ;-)

L-R: Neely, Vespa, FeiFei, Daul, Reagan
I edited this photo a bit to make it as close to shade-accurate as possible.
The cremes do dry darker on the nail - Reagan is definitely NOT magenta!

I'm sure you polish addicts can understand this:

I'd been watching the FedEx tracking information and it said my package had arrived in my town on the 6th, well, what the heck were they doing with it?!  Why were they estimating delivery on the 8th?  I forgot that seemingly every stinkin' UPS or FedEx package that comes here gets handed over to USPS for actual delivery.  They don't call it snail mail for nothing.  So I barged in there, explained the situation, and stood there 'til he went and searched the pallet.  Victory was mine!  :-D

My *star* attraction . . . 'tis true that out of focus shows the sparkle better
P.S. It really looks like this on the nail, and definitely glittery indoors!

Outdoors, in the shade.  Color accurate.

FeiFei
The colors in her shimmer are AMAZING!  Best purchase ever!
There's a coppery gold, champagne pink, medium purplish, and definitely dusty green shimmer.

Neely
Calming, creamy pale dusty mint green

Reagan
Haven't worn this yet, but I did a tiny swatch on some white cardboard, and it definitely looks to be a juicy raspberry creme. As I said, it is NOT magenta IRL.  Sorry, I couldn't adjust this photo enough.  They all look like this, probably because it's so highly pigmented.

Daul
It's like a bottle of royalty in the palm of my hand!  The gold glass fleck shimmer is SO prominent and perfect in the bluish leaning purple base.  I plan on wearing this over Dutch Ya Just Love OPI? to conserve it.

This pretty color accurate

Faye
The raisin-y/plum version of Daul.  I almost got one for myself too, but just bought it for my roommate instead.

These are the polishes I picked out for her.
L-R: Faye, Kimber, Reece, Karina

 

 What amazing polishes Zoya has!  I'm officially in love!  <3