It's gradient time!

I was looking through animal print tutorials and pictures, and I kept seeing artists using really awesome gradients underneath their animal print designs. Pink, orange, and red do NOT sound like they'd go well together (to me, anyway), but apparently they combine for a really awesome and smooth gradient! First, I did a solid coat of Sinful Colors - Courtney Orange. This is a seriously beautiful orange shimmer. Check it out:

3 coats to a beautiful (quite Halloween-y) orange!

It actually matched my lotion bottle ^.^

Now on to the gradient! I don't have a very good camera, but for some reason it captured this manicure exactly how it looks in person. Maybe it's the beautiful desert sun bringing out these truly beautiful colors!

For the red I used Sinful Colors - Ruby Ruby and for the pink Sinful Colors - Timbleberry.

I am super pleased with how this turned out! That little bottle of polish I'm holding is a glitter from a 5 piece Hello Kitty set. It really isn't good quality AT ALL, but the bottle is super cute! The glitter actually washed off the next time I washed my hands. Still, what glitter remained made this an awesome manicure that I was proud to show off. Thanks for reading! 

Zoya - Anja

This little beauty really took my breath away when I finished the application and sat back to admire it. It's a rich burgundy with a definite purple hue. In the bottle it looked like it had a lot more red/purple in it, but mostly it looked like a dark burgundy while I was wearing it. Here are some photos taken in the lovely desert sun!

It took only two coats for this to be opaque - and I paint really thin coats! Really great coverage and super easy application. Smooth and creamy! I am quickly falling in love with Zoya polishes! Now I just need to try their mattes!

Fashion Polish Blogaversary!

Whew! This has been a lot of giveaways to blog about. But really, how awesome are giveaways?! I have yet to win one, but I am holding out hope still!!


Fashion Polish is a fantastic blog with the BEST swatches! Seriously this girly has the best nail photos out there. I imagine her camera is ridiculously amazing.

Here is what you can win

Drooooooool

Click here to enter!

Lacquered Lover Unicorn Puke Giveaway!

Look at this color. LOOK AT IT. It's beautiful. Too bad they only made a few! But Lacquered Lover is giving a bottle away! Woohoo! Click here to enter!

Lacquered Lover 1,000 Follower Giveaway!

Lacquered Lover is hosting a most generous giveaway to celebrate 1,000 followers! Check out what you can win:

Those holiday colors are amazing. And Orly's Androgynie is gorgeous as well. 

Enter here!

Lucy's Stash 1300 Follower Giveaway!

As I said before, Lucy's Stash was having TWO giveaways right now - here is the second one!

Enter here!

Note: I have a few giveaways to post about, but then I'll be back to my own newbie attempts at nail art! Even if people that see this don't want to enter any of these giveaways, VISIT THESE LADIES HOSTING THEM THEY ARE FANTASTIC! 

Lucy's Stash 1100 Follower Giveaway!!!

Lucy's Stash is having two giveaways right now, the first is for the 1100 follower mark. I can't imagine 100 let alone 1100 haha!

 Here is what you can win!

Enter here!

Barely any time left! TraceFace Philes giveaway!

The TraceFacePhiles was one of the first blogs I started following (obviously before I started my personal one). The art and application are just amazing. Period. And of course, she does giveaways! This one is to mark 2000 followers!


Follow this link!

Zoya - Dove

I have very limited funds and usually get very cheap polish, but recently I received a lovely gift of 4 new Zoya polishes! I got Casey, Dove, Petra, and Anja!

The first I decided to try was Dove.

It's a beautiful creamy grey. Took 3 coats to get it as opaque as I wanted, but I also apply really thin coats out of habit to avoid bubbling. I'm sure the more daring lacquerista could get away with two coats. I've been looking for a nice grey for awhile now, and it definitely seems like I have found it! I can't think of a single complaint I could have about this polish. The only thing that I think would make it better is probably a glittery or flaky top coat layered on.

More Zoya swatches and nail art (I hope!) to come. Thanks for reading!

In love with The Real Teal - and other Xtreme Wear lovelies

After finding a few coupons for Sally Hansen products, I headed off to my local Walgreens to see what I could find. I came out with The Real Teal, Mellow Yellow, and Pacific Blue from their Xtreme Wear line.

This is Pacific Blue with some glitter over it

The Real Teal 

I genuinely cannot gush enough about this color. It's stunning. It helps that I love teal, but this is still a great polish. It goes on smoothly with nice even coverage. I barely needed to clean up. This picture was actually taken before I cleaned with acetone (I planned on putting glitter on anyway - and I did!), and I can be pretty sloppy! But this brush and polish formula made it really easy to be neat!

As I said, I wanted to add glitter and had just picked up this at the Dollar Tree. They worked perfectly together. In total, this is two coats of The Real Teal and one coat of this glitter that doesn't have a name on the bottle. 

I don't have any pictures of Mellow Yellow yet, but I plan to swatch my entire collection soon (just for my personal use, it's a small collection) so I may add it later.

I hope anyone who happens to see this enjoyed it!