My Top Five Favorite Fall Polishes

I know we're still a few weeks out from it being "technically" autumn, but lately I've been so in the mood for fall colors that I decided to put this post together. These are my top five absolute favorite polishes to wear during the fall. I do have a lot of other shades that I enjoy wearing around this time, but I find myself reaching for these five very frequently every year.

OPI Every Month is Oktoberfest is a super dark, super shimmery blackened shade of garnet. The formula on my bottle is incredible and covers great in two coats.

Essie Very Structured is kind of my "wild card"; I never expected to like this dark pumpkin spice shade, but I actually love it! I'm wearing two coats.

A England Dorian Grey is an absolutely stunning gunmetal grey metallic. Two easy coats are all you need.

Zoya Monica is a stunning aubergine crème. I have such a thing for purples and I wear this all the time, fall or not. The formula is fantastic and it covers perfectly in two coats.

A England Tess D'Urberville is one of my all time favorite shades. This deep, dark shimmery green is absolutely breathtaking! I'm wearing two coats.

What's your favorite fall polish? Did it make my list?

Teal Floral Gradient Stamping Nail Art

Good morning! I had another desire for gradient nails, but this time I decided to do the gradient under the stamping instead of as the stamping. I still stuck with a floral pattern though since I'm so smitten that it's spring!

For the gradient base, I used Essie Go Overboard, OPI Taylor Blue, and KBShimmer A Touch of Glass. I applied two coats of A Touch of Glass and then sponged the other colors over it to create the gradient. Once that was dry, I stamped the flower design over it using Gals plate GA11 and Konad white stamping polish.   

I really almost left it like this. It was so beautiful without the stamping and I worried that stamping over the gradient would ruin it, but I'm happy with how the design turned out. Gradients are my favorite! 

Essie Winter 2012 Colletion Swatches/Review

Good morning everyone! I have some swatches from Essie's most recent winter collection. There are some really gorgeous colors in this collection that can easily transition from winter into all the other seasons. The formula on each of these polishes was fantastic and I used two coats with top coat for each swatch.

She's Pampered is a bright scarlet shade with a creamy jelly finish.

Where's My Chauffeur? is an amazing turquoise shade and my favorite of this collection.

Snap Happy has a creamy jelly finish like She's Pampered, but is a reddish orange shade.

Leading Lady is a stunning deep red base packed with red glitter. The depth in this one is just gorgeous.

Beyond Cozy is one of my favorites of this group as well. It's a very pale gold glitter that is totally opaque in two coats.

There is one more polish in this collection, called Butler Please and it is a bright, cheery cobalt blue. Overall, I think this collection is fantastic for the holiday season, but is also equally well-suited for the rest of the year. I can tell you for sure that I will be wearing Where's My Chauffeur? often and I'm even throwing around the idea of wearing Beyond Cozy for my engagement party! I'm not sure if these polishes are still out in stores, but they should be pretty easy to find online. Essie polishes retail for $8 a bottle and can be found in salons and drugstores across the US.

Products provided for review

Autumn Leaves French Manicure

I guess that I should have named this week Festive Fall Nail Art Week! :P Today I have a festive french mani for you to enjoy. I always forget how much I love fun french mani designs like this; I did one around the holidays last year and swore to myself that I would wear them more often, but alas, I never did.

I started with two coats of Confetti Pink Paradise and used Milani Chocolate Sprinkles to create my french tip by painting it right on the tips of my nails. I didn't use any kind of tape or anything since I knew the edge would be covered by the leaves anyway. After that was totally dry, I stamped some leaves randomly with a bunch of different colors: Essie Very Structured, Milani Rapid Cherry, Orly Luxe and Rescue Beauty Lounge Santa Fe. I think I'm going to do this again as my Thanksgiving mani! :)

Essie Stroke of Brilliance & RBL Bella Glitter Sandwich

Soooo I finally got around to trying a glitter sandwich and guess what? I totally regret not trying this sooner! This is three coats of RBL Bella, one coat of the new Essie Luxeffect polish Stroke of Brilliance, and one last coat of Bella to top it off. Stroke of Brilliance is an awesome periwinkle blue shade with multiple sizes of glitter.

And here's a swatch of three coats of Rescue Beauty Lounge Bella. This is such a gorgeous and simple color. Just another RBL that I'm absolutely in love with, no big deal...

*Essie Stroke of Brilliance was received as a perk from Klout.com*

Tropical Flower Mani

Happy Friday everyone! Today I have a re-do of an old mani that I did last summer. I started out with two coats of Essie Tart Deco, followed by L'Oreal Coral Starfish sponged on the tips. I stamped a flower design from MASH plate m26 in white and topped the look off with little yellow rhinestones in the center of each flower. I entered this design in a nail contest that Rite Aid held online and unfortunately didn't win :( I am still a big fan of the design though! What do you guys think?

Make sure to enter my 1st Blog Birthday event to win some gorgeous glitter polishes!

Sonnetarium Lotta Zebra

Yay!! More Sonnetarium goodness! And I have good news: I got word from Michelle (the brains behind Sonnetarium polishes) that she will be opening up her Etsy shop around June 25th, so prepare your wallets/checkbooks/bank accounts!

Today I have Lotta Zebra for you; what you see is one coat layered over Essie Jam 'n' Jelly. I'm sure I don't have to tell you guys how awesome this is, but look at that coverage! Michelle makes the best glitter polishes ever! They apply perfectly and I never have an issue with glitter placement. I'm loving the contrast in this one and the different sizes of glitter!

Don't forget that you can enter for a chance to win some Sonnetarium polishes (and a Lynnderella!) in my 1st Blog Birthday Celebration giveaway! 

*Product(s) in this post were provided for my honest review.*

Born Pretty Steel Ball Nail Art

Good morning! Here is yet another trend that I am behind on, the "caviar" mani. Yeah, I know I'm not supposed to call it that, but whatever. How about the microbead mani? Alliteration FTW! Okay so today I have a couple microbead manis to show you using some steel nail art balls that I received from the Born Pretty Store to review. I got twelve different colors and they all arrived in their own little container. The containers are closed really tight and everything arrived safely with there was no spillage.

I decided to use my two favorite colors for the review, so I started looking through my stash for a purple and a turquoise polish to match. For the purple, I chose RBL Mismas and the lighter shade of purple microbeads. Mismas is amazing. I had some base coat-related formula issues with my RBLs, but I bought a bottle of Essie ridge-filling base coat and used it this time and it was incredible. Mismas applied so smooth and easy. Anyway, after two coats of polish, I dipped my ring finger nail into the little container of beads. I didn't get total coverage, but I like that some of the polish is still peeking through.

I decided to use Essie Turquoise & Caicos with the turquoise beads. This was my second attempt, so I was able to get better coverage when I dipped my nail in the beads. I actually really like this look. It's not convenient for every day wear, but it would work great for a fancy one-night mani.

This steel ball set retails for $5.41 and you can purchase them here. Don't forget that you can use the coupon code over there in the right sidebar, ZR5X31 for 5% off your order!

*Product(s) in this post were provided for my honest review.*

Adorable Watermelon Pedi!

Warning: feet ahead! I debated posting this because I know that feet creep some people out and honestly, I'm not a huge fan of my feet anyway, but I decided that 1) it was too cute not to share and 2) it's my blog so I should be able to post my feet if I want! :P

I used Essie Watermelon as my base color and Essie Absolutely Shore, China Glaze Holly-Day, Zoya Purity, and a black striping polish to create the watermelon design on my big toes. They are seriously too cute... I smile every time I catch a glimpse of them!   

Super Sweet Sonnetarium Swatch Spam!

You guys know by now that I've been taking a ride on the indie polish bandwagon recently and that that I've found some pretty incredible stuff on Etsy, but believe me when I say that these polishes from Michelle at Sonnetarium blew me away. Not only are her polishes amazing, but Michelle herself is a total sweetheart, please read on...

Samurai Princess is Michelle's take on Lynnderella Connect the Dots/Stick & Stones/whatever other dupes are out there. It will not be for sale in her shop, as she would like to avoid the drama associated with duping Lynns (understandably!!). However, a week or so ago when I was trolling the Facebook polish groups looking for CtD or S&S, Michelle kindly messaged me and asked if I'd like her to send me the dupe that she created, as well as some of the other polishes she was working on to review. Of course I said "yes, yes, yes, please!" and you will not believe how excited I was to get her package! Not only is Samurai Princess everything that I was looking for, her other polishes turned out to be INCREDIBLE. But you'll see them in a minute! First, here is two coats of SP layered over China Glaze Flip Flop Fantasy. I know the photo is a little under-exposed, but I think the neon in FFF shows up a little better that way. This combo is so freaking awesome!

Up next is two coats of the beautiful Snowfall over my favorite neutral, Zoya Kennedy. I could not believe how gorgeous this was when I started applying it. It is perfectly "winter" but I can't stop myself from wanting to wear it right now! Snowfall is made up of different sizes of white hex glitter and small round iridescent glitter.

If nothing else, I love Big Girl Panties just for the name! This one consists of large black hex, black bar, silver hex, and small black and silver glitter. I have two coats of it here layered over Essie Mesmerize. This would look insane layered over a neon!

It's so hard for me to pick a favorite from these polishes, but This Land, a mix of turquoise, teal, and blue glitter, is definitely up there in the ranking! Since I've had it sitting on my desk, I've picked it up a dozen times just to spin it around and watch all the glitter sparkle in the bottle. I've layered two coats of This Land over Zoya Zuza for these photos (and I've made myself a pair of earrings with this combo already :P).

And lastly, we have Weapons of Mass Consumption, a mish mash of large, small, silver, and gold glitter. I love the name of this one too and how the glitters remind me of little silver and gold coins. I did two easy coats here over Zoya Tru. I originally was planning to layer Weapons of Mass Consumption over a gold foil, but decided the gold metallic finish would compete too much with the glitter.

Michelle will be restocking her Etsy store in mid-to-late June, so make sure you mark your calendars and check it out! I'll post a reminder on my FB/Twitter pages when she opens! :) 

*Product(s) in this post were provided for my honest review.*

The Hungry Asian Swatch Spam!

Hiiiiii guys! Today I have some awesome swatches for you from an Etsy seller called The Hungry Asian! :) The founder of The Hungry Asian polishes, Kae, was kind enough to send me some of her beauties to review for you all! Let's start, shall we? First up is Sneeze Breeze, a very unique and original polish consisting of blue and black glitter. I used two coats here over Zoya Robyn; it does get a little rough, so make sure you have a good top coat to even it all out (I used Seche Vite for all of these).

Next is Vote for Purple, an awesome purple and silver glitter. Here I have it layered over Zoya Kendal and I was seriously not expecting to like this as much as I do! I love the mix of the really tiny glitter and the larger glitter pieces. Vote for Purple is really shimmery!

Pony really impressed me as well. Duh, it's a purple! It's a mix of different shades of purple but the glitter appears to be all the same size. I layered Pony over Zoya Mira, but I think it would look really awesome over a white or a light purple, or even a yellow, as well!

Sea Creature is my favorite of the bunch! I layered it over Essie Go Overboard for this mani and it completely won me over. It spread out perfectly and wasn't all that gritty; top coat smoothed it out completely. I really don't have any teal glitters, so I'm really excited to add Sea Creature to my collection!

Last but not least is Twenty Ten, which is comprised of red and blue glitter in a black jelly base. I layered it over an opaque black cream because I'm not totally on the jelly-train yet :P I really, really am a fan of this one too. I don't usually like wearing black polish very often, but this is such a cool twist on black! All in all, I would strongly recommend that you go and check out The Hungry Asian and get at least one to try! Would you like the link again for easy clicking? Here you go!

*Product(s) in this post were provided by the company for my honest review.*

Windestine Jeweled Sand

OMG... I am so on the indie seller bandwagon now that it's not even funny. Look what I was missing out on!!! This is Jeweled Sand from Etsy seller Windestine. I'm sure by now you guys know that I'm a total sucker for beachy stuff, so of course I had to snatch this up when I found it browsing through Etsy last week!

Jeweled Sand is composed of three different sizes of glitter; the smallest are gold, the next size up are pink, and the largest are turquoise hex glitters. I was kind of wary about buying from Etsy because I wasn't sure if the formulas could hold up to the name brands, but Jeweled Sand totally proved me wrong. I did two coats over Essie Sand Tropez and Zoya Wednesday and didn't have to try at all to place the glitter to make it look good. It was fabulous! Windestine will be opening up shop again sometime in late May/early June, so make sure you check out her Etsy and Facebook pages for updates!

Sand & Surf Water Marble

Happy Wednesday! We're halfway through the week, yay!! I'm really looking forward to this weekend; my family and I are going out to dinner together Saturday night (for awesome wings!) and Sunday is my boyfriend's birthday and the annual canoe race held in the town that most of my family lives in. Hopefully it will warm up a little by then!

Today I have an awesome water marble that I did a few days ago. Can I just tell you guys how much I love water marbling now? It's so gorgeous and I've gotten so many compliments on it already. For this one, I used Essie Turquoise & Caicos, Zoya Robyn, and Zoya Cho. Zoyas work so well for water marbling, which is awesome because I have so many of them! :P

This next photo is the most color accurate of all of them. I had a hard time capturing the brightness of Robyn; it's much brighter than all of my photos show. I added some dots over Cho with Robyn to all of the nails that I marbled on to fill in some of the empty space. I used two coats of Robyn and three of T&C on my other fingers.

Here's a shot of my left hand to match the one above of my right...

And last but not least are my thumb nails. The one on the right is my absolute favorite because it was the only one that really ended up looking like a wave! I'm really bummed out about how dull the blue looks :( Next up on my water marbling list is the Zoya Beach collection! :D

Don't forget to enter my 800 follower giveaway! :) 

My First (successful) Water Marble!!

How exciting is this?! I was finally able to do a decent water marble! One of my friends was learning how to do water marbling at beauty school last week and she asked if I wanted to get together and practice, so we did this past weekend. Here is the result:

I used Zoya Mira, Sally Hansen Caribbean Coral, and Essie Absolutely Shore for this marble. Caribbean Coral photographed WAY too bright and red; it is very bright in person, but it's more pink-toned than red. The nails that aren't marbled have three coats of Absolutely Shore on them. I was pretty happy with my first three nails, but my thumb (below, which I did last) was definitely the best! I can't wait to try this again now that I've gotten the hang of it!

Here is a photo of the fake nails that my friend practiced on. I'm thinking that I have to try the gray and purple one next! 

Girly Bits Hippity Hop

For those of you who aren't familiar Girly Bits, they are the brainchild of a brilliant woman named Pam with a knack for creating unique and exciting handmade polishes! Pam recently came out with her newest collection, Calendar Girls, and Hippity Hop is the color for April. I decided that the best way to showcase Hippity Hop would be to apply it over a skittle mani of pastel, spring shades. Details of which shades I used are below! If you are interested in ordering Girly Bits polishes, you can do so on her blog or on Llarowe! 

Below is two coats of Hippity Hop over three coats of Milani Mint Candy on my ring finger and Orly Kiss the Bride on my pinky nail. What's really neat about Hippity Hop is that some of the little hexagon glitter pieces are 3D! It's like having little tiny rhinestones in the mix!

Here I layered Hippity Hop over three coats Essie Nice is Nice and Finger Paints Lemon Sour. I don't really ever wear skittle manis, but I loved this one so much and I cannot wait to recreate it for Easter!

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.