KBShimmer Summer 2013 Collection Swatches/Review

Hello! I have swatches of the amazing summer collection from KBShimmer to share with you guys today. More info will be at the bottom of this post, but I'm going to get right to the pictures!

Don't Pink Twice is a matte neon pink with some subtle blue shimmer. This is three coats.

Grayscale is easily the best black and white glitter topper ever created. It has black and white glitter, as well as gray in a bunch of different shapes and sizes. AND THERE IS LARGE BLACK ROUND GLITTER. This is two coats over Don't Pink Twice.

24 Carrot Bold is the orange counterpart to Don't Pink Twice: red-orange with gold shimmer. This is three coats.

What's Your Damage? is a white-based polish with neon pink, neon green, and black glitter. This is two coats over a white base.

Pimp My Pride is another white-based polish, but with red and blue glitter mixed in.  This is three coats with no white base.

Totally Tubular is far and away my favorite of this collection (and my current pedi color). This turquoise stunner is packed full of aqua, blue, and magenta glitter, including round glitter! I used three coats for maximum glitter and color payoff.

The Dancing Green is a shamrock-green crelly (cream/jelly) finish with purple, green, and blue glitter. This is three coats.

Blinded by the Bright is a neon yellow filled with a rainbow of glitter. This is three coats by itself. Being a neon, it didn't photograph quite right and is actually more highlighter yellow than it appears in my photo.

It's Razz-ical has silver, magenta, and pink glitter in a raspberry colored jelly base. This is three coats.

All of these swatches are topped off with one coat of KBShimmer Clearly on Top (my new fav topcoat!). These polishes are available for purchase right now HERE and retail for $8.75. My top picks are Totally Tubular and Grayscale. Which ones are you picking up?

The products in this post were provided for my honest review.

OPI Couture de Minnie Collection Swatches/Review

I have a post for you guys! Are you dying of shock? I know that it really sucks that I haven't been able to post like normal, but it's going to be so worth it. The book is so much fun to work on and I've come up with some really neat stuff for it that you guys are going to love. I was able to work all of these OPI Couture de Minnie polishes into some nail art for the book, so I was also able to swatch them for you. Yay for killing two birds with one stone! ;)

Chic From Ears to Tail is a beautiful and dainty light pink. If you look very, very closely, there is also some subtle silver shimmer in this one, but you'll never notice it if you don't know it's there. This is three coats.

 Innie Minnie Mightie Bow is a stunning red shimmer that was perfect in two coats.

A Definite Moust-Have is a bright medium-pink, almost coral-leaning shade. I think this one is my favorite of the bunch. Perfect in two coats.


Magazine Cover Mouse is the Liquid Sand shade that was included in this collection, a light red with golden shimmer. I'm still not a huge fan of these textures on their own, but I'm starting to love them for creating diverse nail art. This is two coats.

Minnie Style has a clear base with red, pink, and white glitter. I layered one coat here over a gradient of the rest of the colors (minus the Liquid Sand) from this collection.

The Disney freak in me loves that OPI keeps doing these collections, but the nail polish enthusiast in me is bored with the barrage of pink and red. I'm dying for some Mickey Mouse head-shaped glitter in a polish, but at the very least I'd love it if they did a special cap wrap for these Minnie collections. They are all nice colors, but they certainly are wearing out the red/pink scheme and I'd love to see OPI do something different with the bottles or something to spice them up a bit. But ultimately, if you think any of these shades are pretty, I would recommend purchasing them. The formulas are all fantastic and you won't be disappointed. The Couture de Minnie collection will be available in June.

The products in this post were provided for my honest review.

Rescue Beauty Lounge Thank You Swatch/Review

Hey guys! I had a little bit of time earlier this week to swatch, so I should have some stuff coming for you within the next week or so (hopefully!). The book project is going well (albeit a little stressful) but I'm so excited to see the end result! But today I have swatches of one of Rescue Beauty Lounge's newest shades, called Thank You.

Thank You is a very soft faded pink with purple shimmer and I used two coats here for this mani. I love almost every single RBL shade that I own and this one is no exception. The formula was good, but frustrating. You see, RBL has a different formula than most other polish and doesn't play well with any of my regular base coats. It requires some patience. RBL makes their own base coat (which is rather expensive for me to justify at the moment) so I purchased Essie's ridge filling base coat, which I've heard is similar. It works much better than my regulars, but still not perfect. Just a little FYI!

But anyway, there you have it. Although this shade isn't something I generally would wear, I'm a huge fan of it and will definitely wear it often.

What's your favorite RBL shade? Do you have issues with the formula too?

Jenna's Prom Nails!

Good morning everyone! I haven't done anything interesting with my nails lately, so I thought I'd post the nails I did for my sister's senior prom over the week. Jenna sent me this photo from @noemihk on Instagram and asked if I could recreate it to match her dress and I said "of course!"

We started out with one coat of Zoya Trixie to get a pretty solid silver base down and then I used three coats of OPI Which is Witch for more bling.

Once that was completely dry, I slowly and carefully painted the white sections using Milani White on the Spot with the brush from the polish. I used Zoya Ibiza for the navy blue and used a striping brush to paint those sections. That was the painstaking part!

And here is the beautiful little lady all dressed up! It seriously shouldn't be legal to be this good looking...

I absolutely loved her hair. She has the longest, thickest hair I've ever seen and it looked amazing.

And here's a shot of the front of her dress. She picked a good one!

Are you going to prom this year? Or, if you're not quite so young, did you go to your senior prom? What do you remember most? My prom was rather boring, unfortunately!

Nails for Boston!

Hey guys! Long time no nails, right? To be perfectly honest, my nails have barely been polished the past few weeks *holds back tears* but I finally have a mani to share! I ran my first 5k this weekend, so I thought it would be appropriate to do blue and yellow nails in honor of the victims of the Boston Marathon bombings.

I used Zoya Solange and Liberty (two of the new summer PixieDusts) for this mani. I layered one very thin coat of each over Zoya Darcy and Orly Sweet Peacock and then topped it all off with two coats of top coat for a smooth, glossy finish. I love the PixieDusts with top coat; they are so glittery and pretty! I'll be reviewing them all for you guys eventually (hopefully soon!).

The Zoya products in this post were provided for review.

P.S.
I started a blog as a way to keep track of my running and write about the races that I do, so if you're into that kind of thing, check out it here: www.runlikea-princess.com ;-*

An Apology & Some Exciting News!!

Good morning everyone! Firstly, I want to apologize for not posting consistently lately. I've had a lot on my plate (I graduate college in less than a month, weee!!!) and I haven't had as much time for blogging as I would like. This also relates to my exciting news...

I'm writing a book! It will feature a whole mess of nail designs all created and photographed by me! I'm so unbelievably excited for this opportunity, but it is also going to be something that unfortunately interferes with blogging. However, this project should be completed and I will be able to focus solely on the blog again by July.

So, at this point, I am not going to commit to a rigid posting schedule for The Nail Network. I will continue to swatch and occasionally post as best I can when I can, but I cannot promise a certain number of posts per week. I hope you all understand and are willing to hang with me until I finish this huge, awesome project! :D

Pretty and Polished The Algebraic Addition Collection: Part One Swatches/Review

Hey guys! I have part of the second Adventure Time collection from Pretty and Polished to share with you today. These four shades are inspired by locations from the show Adventure Time.

Candy Reign is a light, baby pink jelly with a mixture of glitter suspended in it. This is three coats. This polish is meant to represent the Candy Kingdom.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of awesome glitters in this that I was unable to get out of the bottle. They stuck to the bottom side of the bottle and even leaving it sit upside down didn't seem to really help.

Whatevers 2009 is a frosty purple with multiple sizes of purple, green, and blue glitter; inspired by Lumpy Space. This is three coats.

House of Heroes is a mix of brown, green, and white glitter in a clear base. This one represents Treefort and this is two coats over Zoya Jacqueline. I had the same issue here getting glitter out of the bottle as I did with Candy Reign.

Watch It In CD is my favorite of the group, a lovely mix of pink and purple glitter and shimmer in a clear base. This is two coats over China Glaze Tart-y for the Party. This one represents Crystal Dimension.

These shades are available in Pretty and Polished's shop and Etsy store. Keep updated with P&P on Facebook. I'll have swatches of the other half of this collection up hopefully on Friday! Stay tuned!

The products in this post were provided by Pretty and Polished for my honest review.