Day 8: Gifts w/Zoya Noel

I hope I'm not throwing you off with this horizontally oriented photo. :P I wasn't happy that the silver gift stamp blends in with the blue glitter in all of my photos, so this was the best way I could position it for your viewing pleasure. It stands out more in person, I promise. Anyway, for this mani I started out with two coats of Zoya Noel, which is amazing by the way. As you can see, Noel is a medium blue/aquamarine-y foil with tiny, tiny bits of silver in it. Icy and awesome. 

I sponged Milani Blue Flash on the tips and then sponged Sally Hansen Diamonds on top of that because it STILL wasn't sparkly enough. ;) Lasty, I stamped the gift with Orly Dazzle and topped it off with a light blue rhinestone. I wasn't really crazy about this one at first, but it has grown on me. I know I haven't given you guys a nice macro shot in a while, so here you go! Enjoy!

You guys!! The Hunger Games collection is back on!

China Glaze and Lionsgate figured their stuff out apparently and are still collaborating on a collection for The Hunger Games release in March, which is awesome news because I need these! It looks like they kept all the same colors and just changed the names around. According to The Hob, each shade now corresponds to one of the twelve Districts. Check it out:

Luxe and Lush – District 1 (Luxury)
Stone Cold – District 2 (Masonry)
Riveting – District 3 (Technology)
Hook and Line – District 4 (Fishing)
Electrify – District 5 (Power)
Fast Track – District 6 (Transportation)
Mahogany Magic – District 7 (Lumber)
Dress Me Up – District 8 (Textiles)
Harvest Moon – District 9 (Grain)
Foie Gras – District 10 (Livestock)
Agro – District 11 (Agriculture)
Smoke and Ashes – District 12 (Mining)

Day 7: Glittering Garland & Holly Leaves

This is gorgeous! I can't believe it took me so long to wear China Glaze Glittering Garland. It seriously is the most sparkly, amazing green polish I've ever worn. It is part of the 2011 holiday collection from China Glaze called Let It Snow and you can probably still find it at Sally Beauty or online. Snatch it up!

I used two coats of Glittering Garland for what you see above. Make sure you let the coats dry sufficiently in between applying them or else the brush will drag and create bald spots. When that was all dry, I stamped holly leaves with Color Club Perfect Mol-ten and added red rhinestones for the berries. This is another really low-key holiday design that I loveeeee! Would you wear this?

Day 6: Ornaments

Happy Friday everyone! Today my design started out with the stunning Zoya Sooki. Sooki is the perfect bright and sexy pin-up girl red polish; it has a jelly finish, so I needed three coats to cover up my nail line. I stamped a tree-like image with Zoya Kym on all my nails and then added ornaments with Orly Luxe. It definitely wasn't sparkly enough, so I dabbed some Milani Gold Glitz on the ornaments with the brush from the bottle. I think this is definitely the most bold design I've come up with so far! What do you think?

Here is a swatch of Sooki alone; keep in mind that it's actually way more red than my photos show... It's one of those polishes that are so bright they freak my camera out :P

Zoya Feel Collection

Good morning everyone! I have something really awesome and special for you today, Zoya's Feel collection! The Feel collection was created to be the perfect winter neutrals and they truly are. I'm so excited that I get to share these with you, so let's get started:

First up is Kristen, a beautiful sky-blue-gray shade. I don't have any colors like this and I absolutely love it. I actually wasn't sure if I would like Kristen or not since light blues usually make my skin look red, but I'm very happy to say that this is one of my favorites. 

Carey is the one true gray out of the collection. It's very pretty, but not overly exciting. I don't have a lot of gray in my stash though, so I'm happy to add this one!

Up next is the beautiful Megan, a lavender-gray creme. I had a really hard time picking a favorite out of this collection, but Megan is definitely one of them. I am so crazy about all these tinted grays.

Here is another one of my favorites, Kendal. A very, very light purple-gray or maybe even pink-gray in certain lighting situations. I really love Kendal, too. There are so many awesome shades in this collection.

Here is Kennedy, a pink-ish beige color. Kennedy was one of the colors that I was most worried about with my skin tone and I actually ended up liking it a lot. It's not a typical color that I would reach for, but I'm pleasantly surprised with it and I do think that I will wear it again.

And lastly, we have Avery. If I had to pick a least favorite from the Feel collection, I think this would be it. I'm not really crazy about how it looks with my skin tone, but I'm sure there are a lot of people that this would look awesome on. It really looked like I was applying liquid foundation to my nails! :P

Honestly, I think Zoya nailed this collection. I'm really impressed at the variety that they were able to create while still having a collection of obvious neutrals. The only thing I have a slight complaint about was the formula since it was a little tricky to work with. It seemed a bit on the thick side and didn't level itself off as well as some other Zoya polishes that I have. I'm sure that this would be solved with a couple drops of polish thinner, but I thought it was worth mentioning. Also worth noting, I used three coats of polish for all of these swatches. Two probably would have been sufficient if I had done them a little thicker from the start, but I did a really thin first coat. Overall, I would definitely recommend the whole collection, but specifically Kristen and Megan and/or Kendal.

You can pick these up at http://www.zoya.com/ or (I think) at Ulta for $8. While you're at it, you should definitely go like Zoya on Facebook and follow them on Twitter; they are doing incredible flash promos/deals/giveaways throughout the holidays that you need to get in on!

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

Day 5: Festive French

Like that alliteration? ;) Welcome to Day 5 of my holiday mani celebration! I hope you're all enjoying yourselves so far and not getting too stressed out over the impending holidays!

Today I did a french manicure with some festive holiday colors :) I started out with two coats of my favorite french base, Confetti Pink Paradise. I used hole reinforcers to paint China Glaze Jolly Holly for the tips, but here's where my plan changed: I originally wanted to stamp holly leaves with a light green foil, but it just didn't show up well enough over the light pink base. Instead, I grabbed my silver striper for some tinsel-y accents. I dotted Dr.'s Remedy REVIVE Ruby Red under the silver lines and called it a day. This is one of my favorite manis so far, what do you think?

Day 4: Snowmen

Hey guys! Welcome to Day 4! Today's nail art was inspired by building snowmen on a bright winter day. I am an artist so I get to use cheesy inspiration like that, don't judge! ;P Anyway, this is two coats of the lovely Julep Amy.

As you can see, Amy is an awesome dusty but bright teal/blue with a really great formula. Julep really knows how to make a creme polish. I used a dotting tool to make the little snowman and Zoya Noel for the snowflake stamping.