Essie Navigate Her & CND Emerald Shimmer

Soooo I got another CND Shimmer with one of my Bloom vouchers :D I wanted to have a good variety of them, so I got Emerald Shimmer this time. I've had Essie Navigate Her for a few weeks now and I figured they would make a pretty combo, so here is the result! 

I tried so, so hard to like Navigate Her on it's own, but I just couldn't stop loathing it. It looks gorgeous in everyone else's swatches, but I just couldn't love it against my skin tone. Emerald Shimmer improved it substantially, but not enough to prevent it from being thrown in the blog sale.

OPI Crimson Carol

Sometime within the past few weeks I suddenly got it in my mind that I needed to start going dusty hunting. For those of you who aren't totally insane polish freaks (not that there's anything wrong with that :P), dusty hunting is when you stop into a salon and look for old and/or hard to find polish. It's called dusty hunting because the bottles are so old that they are often dusty. Anyway, I apparently have quite a bit of luck with it. I've found a few polishes that I never thought I'd be able to get my hands on, like practically full bottles of both China Glaze LOL and OPI What's Dune? for a grand total of $5!

I found OPI Crimson Carol on one of my stops and knew I needed it the second I saw it in the bin. It's just stunning. Crimson Carol has a pink-ish red base and teeny tiny red and gold glitter pieces that are really dense. It applied perfectly out of the bottle even after sitting in a salon for who knows how long. Three coats is what you see here. Isn't it beautiful?!

Have you tried dusty hunting? Have you ever found anything really awesome? What was it?

Konad Plate M85 Review

Hey everyone! Today I have a review of a new Konad plate for your viewing pleasure. There are two new plates from Konad (M84 and M85) and M85 was provided to me to review by Nail Polish Canada. You can find both of them on the NPC website. I loved the bubbly design on this plate, so that's the one I chose to use for the review! 

While I think the designs on this plate are adorable, what I really love is that they are big! I can fit a design in it's entirety on my nail and not have to worry about awkward cutoffs from too-small designs. I have plates from other companies that I cannot use at all because the full nail designs are so damn small, so I really appreciate that these are made larger. The designs are also etched nice and deep so there are no problems getting them to transfer to the stamper. 

Since the design that I wanted to use reminded me of bubbles, I decided to use some shades of blue to reinforce the watery look. The lighter blue is two coats of Milani Beach Front, an amazing light blue with silver shimmer, and the darker blue is two coats of Orly Sweet Peacock, an awesome medium blue foil. I reversed those colors for the stamping and am thrilled with the result! Overall, I had zero issues with the plate and would definitely recommend it; I can't wait to try the little star design next! 

*The product(s) in this post were sent to me for a completely honest review.*

Essie Go Overboard & Set in Stones

Essie Go Overboard is part of the new Essie collection of the same name. It's a gorgeous deep teal blue creme that practically applies itself. I really don't have much to say about this one; I love the color and the formula was awesome. This is two coats. I think these are available online and in drugstores right now. 

As much as I loved Go Overboard, I got a little bored with it pretty quickly. I decided to try out a coat of Set in Stones over it and was very happy with the result. The only problem I had with Set in Stones is that the pieces that ended up sticking off my nails were really sharp! I scratched myself a couple of times with them before I finally picked them off.

OPI Mermaid Tears & CND Copper Shimmer

Remember last week when I showed you CND Violet Shimmer? Well, here's another one that I got, Copper Shimmer! This gorgeous topcoat has little copper shimmer pieces that add a little extra something special to any polish you choose to layer it over. I've layered it over two coats of OPI Mermaid Tears here. 

Mermaid Tears is a dusty light green shade, but the formula of my bottle was a little streaky. The brush kept dragging polish when I went to apply my second coat, so I had to go over some random areas again to make it look presentable. Copper Shimmer fixed that right up, though!

Make sure to check out my 600 follower giveaway and enter here! 

Make Up Store Greta

Hang on, give me a second to wipe the drool up off my keyboard... Okay, so here is Make Up Store Greta! The most stunning holographic polish to ever grace my nails. I won Greta in a giveaway months ago and never got around to wearing it because it doesn't really look that stunning in the bottle. Boy, am I regretting that! Greta is the standard silver holo, but it's the strongest one I've ever seen.

The awesome thing about Greta (well, one of the many awesome things) is that it ALWAYS looks holographic. It looks crazy good in direct light/sunlight, but is still very holographic in normal household and diffused light. I can't wait to wear this in the summer!

Greta's only downfall was the application. I don't have an aqua base coat for holos, so I endured four (or maybe five, I don't remember) coats of awful dragging and bald spots before it was finally even. I'd be willing to bet that an aqua base would completely fix that problem though. I also didn't use a top coat here because I was afraid it would dull the holo effect.

600 FOLLOWER GIVEAWAY!!

I know everyone says this when they reach a milestone, but I really can't believe that there are 600 of you who liked my blog enough to follow it! That's so awesome and flattering and I really don't know what else to say other than thank you, thank you, thank you!!

As a token of my appreciation, I have a small (but awesome!) giveaway for you all! Jody, the creator of SoFlaJo polishes, has kindly donated two bottles of her incredible polishes for me to give away! One lucky winner will receive one bottle of The Conjuror (which I reviewed here) and one bottle of Pendragon (which you can see swatched here).

1. You must be a public follower of The Nail Network. New followers are welcome!

2. This giveaway is open internationally.  

3. You must be 18+ or have parental approval.
4. No purchase necessary. 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Zoya Kennedy w/ CND Violet Shimmer

I picked up CND Violet Shimmer from Bloom.com with one of the vouchers that I purchased recently and it should be no surprise to all of you that I absolutely love it. It's purple and it's shimmer, how could I not? I wanted to try it out as soon as I got it, so I layered it over my favorite Zoya neutral, Kennedy. This is two coats of Kennedy with one coat of Violet Shimmer.

These shimmer effect polishes are so awesome because you can create so many new looks with colors you already have. I layered Violet Shimmer over a darker color as well on a nail wheel and it looks just as gorgeous as it does here over a neutral. In fact, I thought it was so great that I ordered Copper Shimmer too!

Don't forget to check out my blog sale; I added some new stuff yesterday! 

ManGlaze Matte is Murder

Hey everyone! My fantastic package came from ManGlaze last week and I promptly painted my nails with Matte is Murder, their awesome matte black. It's glossy alter-ego will also be taking up permanent residence on my toes for the rest of winter and probably into sandal season. I could rave and rave and rave about how perfect and easy to apply it was and how I wore it for days before I even got minor tip wear, but would you really want to listen to that? Yeah, I thought not... here's the pics! 

I used two coats of Matte is Murder with no topcoat. The photo below is the fill-in for the Valentine's Day mani that I was planning to do. Since the one that I planned to do ended up being a huge disaster, I stamped some kisses on Matte is Murder with the two pinks from the Color Club Foiled collection and made it glossy with some Seche Vite. Not your typical V-day mani, huh?

Revlon Naughty

Revlon Naughty is a re-named version of Revlon Perplex, which is supposedly a dupe for the much coveted Chanel Paradoxal. I picked this up on a whim on the same trip that I found Whimsical (see what I did there??) because they were buy one, get one half off. I'm really glad I decided to try this! Naughty is a dirty purple-gray with very noticeable and gorgeous purple shimmer. I'm really a sucker for purple so it's so surprise that I love this. 

The formula was perfect; I need two easy coats for complete opacity and it wore amazingly well also. I would definitely recommend running out and picking up a bottle of this if you don't have it already!

FingerPaints Spring Collection Press Release!

SoFlaJo The Conjuror

I had the opportunity this weekend to try a polish from a really cool new brand called SoFlaJo. SoFlaJo's first collection, called The Year of the Dragon, consists of 8 color-changing, glittery topcoats made to layer over darker colors. The Conjuror is one of those gorgeous topcoats and it shifts mostly between teal and purple. 

The formula of The Conjuror was really excellent.  I used two coats over two coats of Dr.'s Remedy NOBLE Navy. It covered really well and consistently in one coat, but I thought two would add to the sparkle. Here you can see some of the lavender/lilac/light purple shift:

These last two photos are my favorite of the bunch. I love how they mainly show the teal shift, but you can also see the purple shift on the edges of my nails. I'm really, really impressed with this topcoat and I would be willing to bet that it will look awesome over ANY dark shade, not just blue.

If you are interested in making a purchase, you can view and order all of the available SoFlaJo polishes right here on her website! Go check 'em out! 

*The product(s) in this post were sent to me for an honest review.*

Baby Shower Bee Mani!

So, this past weekend was my lovely aunt's baby shower! She is expecting a little boy and the theme for all his little baby stuff is bumblebees. Naturally, this called for a bee themed nail design as well for the shower. I am SOOO happy with how this turned out, like I talked about it all night and shoved it in my boyfriend and mom's faces when I finished kind of happy. 

I used two coats of Zoya Kristen (which is actually a bit paler than it shows in my photos; check out my Zoya Feel review for accurate color) as the base and sponged Zoya Purity randomly on each nails for a cloud effect. I used a normal black striper, China Glaze Lemon Fizz and Lighthouse for the bee body and Zoya Purity and Sally Hansen Diamonds for the wings. Unfortunately, you can't see the pretty shimmer in the wings, but it's there. Also unfortunate is the fact that I used Sally Hansen Insta-Dri topcoat instead of Seche Vite on my ring and pinky nails and it smeared the black lines. :( However, macro always makes little imperfections seem huge, so it really looks fine in person. 

Please excuse the strange corners in this next photo; I wanted to crop it a certain way but the photo wasn't large enough, so now we have a weird cut. And yeah, I could have just shot the photo horizontally, but for some reason I have a really hard time posing my hand that way. I'm a little special :P

ManGlaze Fuggen Ugly

First of all, the last thing I would call this polish (if it wasn't it's name) is fuggen ugly. Secondly, Fuggen Ugly is the most perfect, flawless grey matte polish out there. I held off on purchasing any ManGlaze polishes because they were out of my price range for a while, even though I really reaaaaaaaaally wanted them. I finally broke down and managed to do a swap and get my hands on Fuggen Ugly! So now, picture spam! First up is two coats of Fuggen Ugly straight from the bottle, no top coat.

I know I'm not the first person to rave about this, but the formula is AMAZING. Seriously, it rivals any normal, non-matte polish I have and mattes are known for being temperamental. I do have to mention that the photo above was with strong desk lighting and isn't as true to life as the second photo here is. This second photo by my window is much more representational of how Fuggen Ugly generally appears.

Lastly, this awkward claw photo is meant to let you see the difference between matte (thumb) and glossy (fingers). I'm very partial to the matte, since I'm just discovering how truly awesome they are, but glossy is definitely gorgeous as well. And in case you were wondering, I have two more of these suckers on their way to me right now! ;) Check out ManGlaze on facebook and give them a 'like'; you can even order directly from their store on FB!

Blog sale posted!

Hey everyone, just wanted to let you know that I posted a small blog sale today! Check it out and shoot me an e-mail if you're interested in anything! :)

http://nailnetwork.blogspot.com/p/blog-sale.html

Zoya Petra & Glitter

Here's a mani I did back in December... not sure why these photos are so awful, but I'm sure you can imagine how pretty it was. :) This is two coats of Zoya Petra with Wet 'n' Wild Color Icon Diamond in the Rough sponged near the cuticle. Diamond in the Rough was the only Color Icon glitter that I chose to pick up and after working with it, I'm glad I only bought one. Even after two thick coats of Seche Vite, it was still coarse to the touch! No me gusta.

These photos really aren't doing much for it, but I remember it being really gorgeous in person. My momma even wanted me to do this for her Christmas mani!