Orly Fowl Play

Hey everyone! Before I give you the post for today, I just wanted to let everyone know that I've heard back from ProudMary and I will be sending her giveaway prizes out today! I just wanted to thank everyone again for participating!

The polish I have for you today is Orly Fowl Play. Fowl Play is made up of tons of red/orange flakes and blue-ish silver glitter suspended in an eggplant colored base. I used three coats for what you see in the photos. I know this is basically a copy of an old OPI shade, but it's still so awesome and worth owning!

The photo above is with flash in the shade and the photo below is in direct sunlight (I think the sunlight photo is better/more accurate, but the glitter shows up more in the flash photo). Also, I had a hard time photographing this, but the flakes in Fowl Play actually shift to different colors depending on the angle you hold your hand.

 

Giveaway Winner!

Hello everyone! My internet finally just came back (thank you Irene) so I was able to get all the entries from the giveaway together and select a winner. The winner of The Nail Network's 100 Follower Giveaway is...

ProudMary! 

I have sent an e-mail to the winner and am waiting on a response to send out her prize. If I do not hear back from the winner within 48 hours, I will choose another. Thank you all for entering and for all the new followers, welcome and I hope you like what you find here!

OPI Ginger Bells

I'll be perfectly honest here, I bought this because I read online that it looked like canned pumpkin pie filling. I love pumpkin pie. And pumpkin cookies and bars and cream cheese and candles, etc. The only thing that would make this better is if it smelled like pumpkin. OPI Ginger Bells is a lovely burnt orange/sienna creme that was good in three coats.

I'm sorry the photo is so small today, but for some reason the larger size is too saturated (you can click to enlarge the image to see this). I do not pretend to understand the mysterious workings of the interwebs.

Sideways French Tip

I loooove this one. I used China Glaze First Mate, which I've shown you before, and Love My Nails Dazzling. I used the bottle brush from Dazzling to swipe the accents on the sides, but I think a thinner nail art brush would have been a better choice. This would be a perfectly subtle way to dress up any mani.

Julep Maven Box!

Hey everyone! My first Julep box arrived a few days ago and I thought I would share it with you! I was very, very excited about this. The products were packed very well; the nail polishes were wrapped with tissue paper and everything was put inside of a gift bag before being packed in the box. Here is an image of all the contents together:

I got the "American Beauty" box, which came with a summery pink called Cameron, a dusty purple called Alfre, a nail treatment, a hand scrub, and a sample size of the hand scrub and an SPF hand cream. Not bad for $4.99, I'd say.

I know some bloggers have rather negative opinions of these bottles, but I love them. I would never pay full price for them, but all the same, I think they are a great shape and size. Here is a Julep bottle compared in size to a bottle of OPI and the neat little cut outs on the side of the Julep bottle (how cool would a whole shelf of polishes with cut outs like this look??):

I thought that I should use at least one of the colors and include a swatch for this post, so below you will find a photo of Cameron. Very bright, summery, happy shade of pink. It's not quite neon, but I did have a difficult time trying to get the color accurate on my computer. I have also used the Glycolic Hand Scrub and it does seem to soften my hands a bit, although I don't think it's gentle enough to use with every hand-washing like it says on the bottle. It smells like oranges as well. :)

Overall, I'm very pleased with this experience. The products are great for the price of the Maven box and I'm very pleased with my purchase.

100 FOLLOWER GIVEAWAY!

I don't even know what to say to all of you other than thank you! Thank you all so much for coming back to read my blog and to support this growing obsession! I'm so amazed at how much this blog has grown in such a short amount of time, and it's all thanks to you!

I've gotten together a small giveaway in order to show my thanks. One reader will win one bottle each of both Essence Choose Me! (a dupe for OPI's Catch Me In Your Net!) and Space Queen and one package of Kiss Nail Art rhinestones and stickers.

In order to enter you must:
1) Be a follower (obviously!) New followers are welcome, of course!
2) Leave a comment on this post with your GFC name and an e-mail address to contact you with, should you win.

You have until 5pm on Sunday, August 28th to enter. I will try my hardest to get the entries sorted out and announce the winner on Monday. Thanks again to everyone who is supporting this blog! You guys rock! :) :) :)

Revlon Carbonite

Before I say anything, I want to send out a big thanks to Sammy at The Nailasaurus for her super sweet compliment on Twitter! Sammy, I know you probably read the comment I left on your post, but your Disney Princess nail art is AMAZING. You are awesome.

Now to the nails...

As you all are reading this, I'm sitting through my first day back in class. Booooo :( I might go to Ulta afterwards though, so that will (hopefully) make my day better. I have Revlon Carbonite to show you today, which I found a whole display of at Wegman's. This color is really cool... I guess the best way I can describe it is a darkened silver or some other type of metal, maybe iron? I used two coats and had zero application issues; I'm very pleased with my first Revlon purchase.

Yes, my stamps are crooked. Stamping straight is really hard! I wanted the stamps closer to my tips as well, but this is what I got. I guess some more practice is in order... 

Zoya Kym

Ah, Zoya! So perfect. Kym is a rusty red with tons of gorgeous shimmer. I could have left this on for weeks. Unfortunately, I did something really stupid and didn't wash my lotion off my nails before I painted them and my polish peeled off in big sheets literally two hours after I did them. As mad as I was, it was kind of fun to peel it off... Anyway, here are some photos that I took before the disaster happened...

The first photo is the more color-accurate of the two, but I included the flash photo below to show the shimmer in Kym. I can't get over how perfect this is for fall.

Hey Zoya, have another awesome soon promo preaseeeee? :) 

Jesse's Girl Firefly over Black

First of all, these photos are so bad that it makes me laugh. Why am I squeezing my poor ring finger like that?? Anyway, this beauty is Jesse's Girl Firefly over Wet 'n' Wild Black Creme. Firefly is such a pretty and versatile polish; you could pretty much layer it over anything and it would be gorgeous. The iridescent flakes in it flash yellow, orange, and green, most of which you can see in the first photo. 

This second photo is generally how my nails looked when I was indoors, a sparkly dark green. This is one of the prettiest combinations I've worn in a while. I bet Firefly would look good over a dark blue or purple too... hmm...

Zoya Ki (My first Zoya!)

This is going to be photo overload, so consider yourselves warned. Let's start out with how Ki looks most of the time, a shimmery purple/grey. Also, before we get too far into this, I want to warn you that I am aware that my skin is like five different tones in all of these photos. Unfortunately, I had to sacrifice an accurate skin tone to give you an accurate polish color.

Here is Ki in my kitchen, under fluorescent lights (hence the reddish/yellow skin tone). See the green?? See it?! There's also a flash of medium gray in there somewhere.

Then I decided to get a little stampy. Full nail stamp with Wet 'n' Wild Black Creme. Mother says it looks like spiderwebs. Check out all the shimmer! 

And finally, to the left is the crappiest picture of them all! However, it shows the best green flash, so it may stay.

I just want to take a minute to totally rave about Zoya's formula. The clean-up was so easy and quick and the color is gorgeous. The only thing I feel that I could nit-pick about is the price. No stores in my area stock Zoya and I do feel that $7 is a bit steep for shipping, but the fact that Zoya does all these incredible promotions and give-aways more than makes up for those facts.

I used three coats for all the photos here except for the very first one, which is two coats. I like to use as few coats as possible, but it was only after the third coat that I really could see the "oil slick" effect and in particular, the green flash.

And if anyone is curious, the other polish that I got with this promo is Kym. It shouldn't be long before I have that one up here considering how amazing Ki is.

OPI Holiday Glow

Here I am again, eating my words about hating brown. Holiday Glow is gorgeous! It has a chocolate brown base packed with gold and light brown colored glitter. It took me three coats for what you see in the photos, but it dried pretty quickly and was easy to work with. I bought this the day that I got all those OPIs for free and, naturally, wasn't sure if I made the right decision or not. Of course I did! I'm already planning on wearing this for Thanksgiving... 

Here's a nice macro shot where you can see the different shades of glitter. It's hard to spot unless you are in sunlight or direct light; it appears mostly gold indoors. Feel free to enlarge the photo. :)

Color Club & Cupcakes

One of my lovely readers from my Facebook page requested that I do a cupcake mani and lucky for her, I love cupcakes! I also had just picked up two of the cheap Color Club sets from Ross, Wicked Sweet and Starry Temptress. I used Yum Gum and Raspberry Rush from the Wicked Sweet collection for this mani. Yum Gum is a bright, Barbie-pink that smells exactly like bubblegum. Raspberry Rush is a beautiful dark pink that has some sort of weird candy smell that I couldn't recognize. I stamped cupcakes onto my nails and topped them with rhinestones of the opposite shade of pink.

Unfortunately, I had to file my nails down because my middle nail broke AGAIN. I don't know what it is with them, but I have such a problem with my middle nails. Also, while I'm complaining, I have to say that I really didn't like the scented polish. The colors are really gorgeous and I would love to wear them again, but the scent is just really overpowering for someone who has their hands by their face a lot. It's even strong with topcoat on.

"A" for concept, "F" for execution.

Well, this was one of my first real attempts at a "tape mani."Unfortunately, I was a little too impatient with the drying polish and rushed the process too much, hence the terribly ragged black lines. However, like I said in the title, I really liked this color-combo and design, I just executed it badly.

Essence Dress For a Moment is the base color; it is actually more lilac in real life than it shows in my photo. I used Wet 'n' Wild Black Creme as the black and Color Club Revvvolution for the tips (which you all know how much I love).

So, what do you think? Do you have any tips for me?

Fancy gold french!

Hey everyone! Firstly, I'm sorry for the lack of posts lately; things have been busy again and are only going to get busier, so I may not be able to post as much as I would like to. Once school starts at the end of August, I'm going to at least try to post twice a week. We'll see how everything goes.

Secondly, I hit 50 followers a few days ago! That's my first milestone, yay!! Thank you all so much for coming back to see what I've been up to and for supporting my craziness. You're the best. :)

Thirdly, here is the nail post for today. I have been letting my nails breath a day or two in between painting them because they've been getting kind of peely and unhealthy, so last night I was sick of seeing them naked and decided it was time to paint them again. I did a french manicure using Confetti Pink Paradise as the base and China Glaze White on White and White Cap for the tip/sponging. I stamped a flower with Orly Luxe and added yellow/gold rhinestones to my ring and thumb nails. I feel so fancy! 8)

Yes, there is a hair on my pointer nail. Ugh. And the only thing I don't really like is that the flower stamp I chose kind of reminds me of a snowflake... not a fan right now.

Also, one of my fans on Facebook requested a cupcake mani and I just wanted to let her know that I haven't forgotten about it! I have an idea in my head, I just need to sit down and do it! Hopefully I will be able to get that done and post it soon. :) Thanks again!

OPI Coral Reef

More coral! Ah! This is OPI Coral Reef from the 2003 Summer for Shore collection. I won this baby off of eBay for very close to retail price and I'm sooooo happy I did! Coral Reef is a gorgeous coral (duh) holographic polish. The formula is awesome, but I needed three coats for full opacity.

The holographic effect is not as in-your-face as, say, DS Vintage is, but it is still there and still beautiful. It's just enough to keep this polish interesting. I saw a couple bottles of Coral Reef on eBay this morning for relatively decent prices if any of you are interested in scooping this up!

Ssssslytherin!

You guessed it! Another Harry Potter mani! And I have at least two more ideas in my head, so you better prepare yourselves! I know this isn't terribly unique, but I've been struggling for inspiration lately, so it is okay in my book. I used two coats of Nina Ultra Pro Emerald City with one coat of OPI Silver Shatter on top. Behold!

Emerald City was a very pleasant surprise to work with. I wasn't really expecting too much since it's one of the cheaper brands at Sally's, but it had a very lovely formula. Here's a swatch of it before I added Silver Shatter...

Have you tried any of the Nina Ultra Pro polishes? What did you think?

Happy Shark Week!

For those of you who don't know, Shark Week (a whole week devoted to shark-related television shows) started two days ago on the Discovery Channel. I had a couple of shark-themed ideas in my head, but this is what I finally decided on.

I used Essence Movie Star as the base, Konad special white polish for the teeth, OPI Chick Flick Cherry for the blood droplets, and China Glaze Sci Fi for the fish skeleton stamp. I've wanted to use that cute little fish stamp ever since I first got my Bundle Monster plates and I was so happy when I figured out that I could incorporate it into this! I also should inform you that Movie Star is actually a darker gray with less blue in it than the above photo shows; I think this last photo is the most color-accurate:

Will you be watching?

OPI Route Beer Float

I really never thought I would like this color when I saw it in the bottle. Brown is not my thing. Brown clothes, shoes, make up... I just don't like it. But this is something else. I don't know if it's just the name, but Route Beer Float really does conjure up images of root beer floats in my mind, and I LOVE root beer floats. I don't even really know what to call this shade of brown, but there's a color on the Wikipedia List of Colors called chamoisee that seems to be the closest bet. I'm sure none of you have ever heard of or seen something chamoisee-colored, so here are some photos! ;) 

Route Beer Float has all these little shimmer particles in it that seem to mimic the soda bubbles in an actual float. You can see it the best on my middle finger and in the bottle of this next photo...

I think I've found myself another fall color! Yay!