Monday, November 21, 2011

Long time no blog w/ Essie Trophy Wife

Oh hai thar! Sorry for my unscheduled hiatus, I have been very busy with work, attempting to secure a second job and spending time with my friend Winifred who is currently recovering from a broken hip in a nursing/rehab center. Also videogames, ngl. I would have loved to have finished my 13 Days of Nailoween, but I have to admit it was a bit ambitious as October is always busy at work, and that wasn't even the half of it! I did take pictures of a couple manicures that I didn't have time to crop/upload/post, so maybe you'll see some seasonally inappropriate manis here in the near future, if not, there's always next year! :)

Enough chit chat though, let me show you something I wore recently!


I originally fell in love with Essie's Trophy Wife when I caught my friend Sharon sporting it. I don't normally dig frosty polishes, but Trophy Wife is definitely an exception! It's a gorgeous teal frost that is rich with a lot of depth. It's a color that I imagine looks well on arm candy by way of a skin tight silk cocktail dress. If fact, I wore it to a work party to match my favorite not-so-silky-or-skin-tight cocktail dress (no pics of that, sorry! lol) XD Blah blah blah, here's more pictures!


The next day, I wanted to jazz it up a little bit, so I added Love & Beauty Light Green (same as L.A. Girl Rock Star Crowd Surfing) which is a sheer spring/seafoam green shimmer with orange-to-green flakies.


As always, thanks for reading :)

Saturday, October 22, 2011

13 Days of Nailoween: Halloween Dots

Holy balls, it has been a loooong day. Let's just pretend I didn't just get home, having left the house this morning before noon. Ugh. I so tired! Anyways, since we're pretending again, go ahead and pretend I'm posting this on Friday proper, okay?


I did this manicure late Thursday night (well, Friday morning technically) before bed, so I have some shrinkage from good ol' SV going on. At first I just had the diagonal colored bits, but it looked a little Mardi Gras, so I added the dots. I'm glad I did.


For this manicure I used Essie Licorice, Zoya Julieanne, Apple and Tangy. That's all you need to know right? I'm so tired, haha ;_;

Thursday, October 20, 2011

13 Days of Nailoween: Wet n' Wild Creepy Pumpkin w/ crappy black tips

Okay, let's pretend for a second that this manicure doesn't look like poop and that I'm good at doing french tips. While we're pretending, let's go ahead and say that I don't absolutely hate this manicure too, okay? Haha :)

ugh
I suck something fierce at free-handing french tips, especially on short nails. This is a particularly bad example of my suckatude too. I wanted something fast and easy because... well... Batman: Arkham City came out Tuesday and I'm sorta busy with that, okay? XD


Now, I love both of these polishes. Wet n' Wild Fantasy Makers Creepy Pumpkin is a delightful orange jelly loaded with glitter. It's great for jelly sandwiches (which I should have done) and reaches bottle opacity in about three coats. Icing Twilight is a nice black polish with silver glitter. It's not original or unique, but it dos it's job. I haven't been able to do comparisons yet, but I'd say this is a pretty close dupe for China Glaze Haunting from this year's Halloween line. I need to do that soon...

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

13 Days of Nailoween: Bat Moon Rising

Oh hi guys! Long time no update! I've been uber busy with work and quarter four videogame releases (heh) that I've had no time to even think about doing my nails, for shame! But here I am... and with a new feature for you!


Muahahahahaha! Yessssssss, the 13 Days of Nailoween starts today and will run through Halloween. I will be uploading a new Halloween/spooky manicure each day! Hooray!

Today I'd like to share with you a design I saw come across my blogroll but can't for the life of me find now. With that said, if you know whose manicure I took inspiration from for this design (or if you are that person), please let me know so I can give due credit! So, without further adieu, feast your eyes upon...

Bat Moon Rising!
Nevermind the completely unrelated bottle of polish there, I totally took these photos outside my car before I hopped in and sped to work, I accidentally grabbed the wrong bottle to take pics with, so I worked with it :D


For this manicure I used two coats of China Glaze Tempest as a base, China Glaze Happy Go Lucky for the moon and I just doodled the bats on with Sharpie because it was late and I was tired. They smudged a little while I was asleep because I didn't think they'd need a top coat, but apparently they did, lol. This manicure is far from perfect, but I'm happy with it regardless :)

You might notice I change up my layout to match this mani! Keep an eye out for other Halloween manicure inspired layouts for the entirety of this feature as I will be changing it often! Thanks so much to all of you who've stuck around through my absence. I lost a few followers, but what can ya do! As always, thanks for looking!

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Borghese Mediterraneo Sea + my own nail mail! :D

Today I received a package that I have been awaiting from my best friend, Cathy. MO sucks when it comes to availablity for a lot of things, polish included. Since Cathy lives in CA, she has a significantly better pool of resources to chose from, so she's been picking things up for me here and there. I had a hard time deciding what to try first, so I went with what Cathy had been holding for me the longest, Borghese Mediterraneo Sea.


Mediterraneo Sea is a navy base loaded with a ton of multicolor glitter. It dries matte, which gives the glitter a neat frosted look. Like the other Borghese glitter polishes that released with this collection in the fall of last year, Mediterraneo Sea is a bit on the lumpy side, but I don't mind. This is two coats, but I could have totally gotten away with one.

with top coat, for science
I don't remember if I mentioned this when I posted about Nero Magico, but I absolutely hate Borghese's brush. It's wide and stubby, which makes it hard to not paint my entire finger while applying polish. Seriously obnoxious. Anyways... let's check out what else came in the gigantic box I received today, shall we? :D

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

China Glaze Cha Cha Cha + OPI Simply Smashing with bonus guest haul!

Hey y'all :D I have some epic nail mail to share with you today, but first let me show you what I'm wearing!


My good friend Jenny is currently prancing around Europe, and while she's gone, she's been having her nail mail sent to me to babysit. She's been kind enough to let me fondle everything that has come in as well as try a couple of things out, such as these two polishes. For this manicure I painted my thumb, middle finger and pinky with two coats of China Glaze Cha Cha Cha, then I applied two coats of OPI Simply Smashing on all nails. I'm pretty sure Cha Cha Cha and Simply Smashing were made for each other. The last two photos were taken in shade, the rest were taken in full sun.

sexy out of focus photo is sexy!

Pretty delicious huh? Well, you haven't seen anything yet! Hit the jump to see Jenny's omgepic haul! Remember, all photos can be embiggened ;)

Sunday, September 11, 2011

Silver Cap Sunday: OPI DS Exclusive + Giveaway Results! :D

Hey guys! For this Silver Cap Sunday, I had originally wanted to share OPI DS Original with you, but my body and my brain weren't working together and I was half way through my second hand before I realized I grabbed the wrong damn polish (it's been one of those weeks, lol). I couldn't bare to waste what I had already used, so I just went with it :) 


I intended to compare DS Exclusive and DS Extravagance (which you can see my post about here) side by side when I swatched this one, but I ran out of daylight. IMO, the only difference between the two is that Exclusive is a linear holo where Extravagance is scattered. That is seriously the only difference. The shade is, at least to my eye, exactly the same.


I've been wearing this for three days without a topcoat, so please excuse the tip wear. I tried to take photos yesterday, and you can see how well that went by looking at the last photo. It was all sorts of gloomy and rainy yesterday, haha :D The rest of the photos were taken in full sun, but I digress...

I want to take a minute to thank everyone for reading AYBC and leaving such wonderful comments :) When I started my blog I didn't expect anyone outside of a few friends would be reading it, but thanks to several polish groups on Facebook and the recommendations I've received from the friends I've made there, my lame little blog has attracted 201 followers at current :D Of course, that's not why I started this blog and it's not why I continue to update it when I can get my shit together, I do so because I enjoy sharing my hobby with like-minded people because it's much more fun to be excited with others about something you love than it is to be squeeing to yourself and your cats... who are more than a little indifferent, I might add. I had such a great time reading through all of the jokes, haikus and comments everyone wrote in the giveaway form. Many lols were had and I surely blushed at the nice things you guys had to say about me and my blog. I wish all of you could win ;_; Well, with that said... let's see who did!


Hurrr, h'okay... ngl, when Random pulled that number and I saw who won, I laughed my head off. I *almost* hit the randomizer again just because I felt that whatever cosmic energy bonds you to your best friend had some kind of hand in the outcome and, well, really? Haha, but in all fairness, I can't fault my bff for being lucky. Congratulations, Cathy! And thanks again to everyone else who participated :) I will definitely be doing this again in the future, it was so much fun!

Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Barielle Buddha-ful

Hey guys! I hope you all had a great Labor Day weekend, I worked the entire time! Sorry for the lack of Silver Cap Sunday this past week, I had a bit of a... snafu... with one of my nails while putting together baby's first Melmer. Well, I'll just show you what I mean.

Yeah, I totally snapped my nail off at the corner three quarters of the way down, it didn't feel very good. Don't even ask how, I'm not 100% sure. All I know is getting my Memler together was worth it because those things are awesome. Anyways, here's some more photos :)


You can see that I had been wearing this for a few days (at work no less) because there's some obvious tip wear, but for the most part, this polish holds up well. Even though the photos are a bit dark, the color is pretty true to life. This shade is almost a mannequin hands color for me, but considering it has the iridescent green flakies, it's more like mannequin jazz hands. Application was a breeze and I achieved bottle opacity in two coats. For my ring finger, I layred one coat Buddha-ful, two coats Nubar 2010, one coat Buddha-ful, one coat 2010. It's pretty sexy. This is definitely in my top five polishes now. Good job, Barielle!

Don't forget, there's only 4 days left to enter my giveaway! Click here to check out what you can win and enter!

Friday, September 2, 2011

Dead Island sponge and splatter manicure

One thing I've noticed about how I do my nails is how sloppy I am with my top coat, it makes my cuticles/skin around my nails look... crunchy? Lol, I'm totally bring this up because I went crazy with my top coat on this manicure to smooth everything out and I didn't realize it was everywhere until... well... now, while I was going through the photos I took this morning before work. Oh well, you guys are cool :P

ANYWAYS! I did this manicure last night thinking the release for Dead Island, a videogame I'm really looking forward to, was today. Unfortunately my brain was a bit derpy, because it doesn't come out til Tuesday. I didn't really want to wait that long to share this, so here it is :)


I based my idea off the cover art for the game (which you can check out here if you feel so inclined), with the gray/blue sponging as the cloudy sky and the red splatter as blood... it is a zombie game after all! I used A LOT of polish for this manicure:


From left to right we have Sinful Colors Snow Me White, Zoya Dove, Funky Fingers Elephunk, Orly Snowcone, Barielle Slate of Affairs and China Glaze Phat Santa. Whew! I think everything came out alright, especially considering this was my first time doing splatter!


Thanks for looking (and sorry about my fingers! ugh!) :D

Sunday, August 28, 2011

Silver Cap Sunday: China Glaze Jolly Holly and Mistletoe Kisses

Good morning everyone! ...Okay, so it's not exactly "morning", but I just woke up, so whatever :P This Silver Cap Sunday is a twofer!

China Glaze Jolly Holly and Mistletoe Kisses
Both of these polishes are from China Glaze's 2010 Holiday collections. Jolly Holly is an emerald green that leans olive, giving it a more earthy tone. In the sun, it glows a true emerald with golden undertones. It's definitely not a polish I'd usually grab for, but I have a feeling I'll be wearing this more often come fall and winter. Mistletoe Kisses is a minty sort of green loaded with glitter, I love this polish.


Just a reminder that there's only two weeks left to enter my giveaway! Mosey on over here to check out what you could win and enter to snag it!