Franken #1

I picked up a bottle of Wet N Wild Clear and Wet N Wild Black nail polish today at Walgreens. I've been wanting to franken polishes for a long time, and that's why I got fyrinnae samples a while back and I've been saving them. The day has come where I finally tried frankening for the first time. If you don't know already, frankening is the term used to describe the mixing of nail polishes to create your own; you could use nail polishes, glitters, fyrinnaes or any other cosmetic powders.

For my first franken, I used:

• half a bottle of Wet N Wild Clear
• some (no measuring instrument) of Meerkat fyrinnae sample
• some of Android Angel fyrinnae sample
• some of Chrome fyrinnae sample

TADAA~ the finished product:

metallic purple gray. The swatch is 3 coats and I love it! It's my first franken and I'm proud of myself! :) I absolutely love this color and it's so unique. I'm really glad that I tried frankening. This is one of my grails now haha! :P?

Would anyone like to name it? I'm open to suggestions! :)

hope you enjoyed,

<3katherine

2 checked off my wishlist

After hearing and reading about Deborah Lippmann's Nordstom exclusive nail polishes Across the Universe and Bad Romance, I knew I wanted them, badly. So I checked the website and at first it was sold out - devastation yet determination hit me. When I checked again a few days or a week later, it was available again. I waited until I got paid for the little hours I've worked and bought both of them! :)

For the swatches, I only swatched on 2 fingers because I didn't want to use them up. Yes I know there's plenty in there for more manicures but still, as much as I can save since I did pay $18 per bottle not including shipping for them lol. It's the first time I've spent $18 on one bottle, yes that will probably change in the future if I ever decide to buy some Chanel nail polishes, but not yet hehe.

Deborah Lippmann Across the Universe

dark blue jelly base with blue hexagon and round glitters. The swatch is 3 coats and no top coat on my index and middle fingers. I'm absolutely estatic that I got this polish from Nordstrom online because there is no location of Nordstrom in my area ~ but at least I was able to get it online hehe. I love this polish ~ but I might need to use a black base before applying :P

Deborah Lippmann Bad Romance

I love love love love Bad Romance?~ It's black based jelly yet kind of a creme with purple hexagon and round glitters. Absolutely amazing. :) I can't wait to use this as a manicure!! The swatch is 2 coats and no top coat (ring and pinky fingers).

I'm very pleased with Deborah Lippmann nail polishes, and I'm certain in the future that I will get some more bottles :) hope you enjoyed!

<3katherine

Confetti

On Tuesday (27th), my bf and I decided to stay in my area instead of going to the city for the day. We ended up going to eat sushi and I really wanted to go to Rite Aid or Walgreens in my neighborhood to pick up some polishes. But we waited until after we've had lunch. The only 2 places there was CVS and Rite Aid. We both agreed to go to CVS since there's a Rite Aid at my house and I could find different polishes at CVS.

At CVS, I didn't see much that was different, except there were more Milani polishes there! But I found Confetti and reading from other nail blogs, they compared it similar to Sinful Colors except their color range isn't as wide. I believe that but the few bottles I picked up weren't bad at all and is basically at the same level as Sinful Colors ~ just less colors but some of them were different compared to Sinful Colors.

Here are the swatches of the Confetti polishes I got at CVS:

Confetti Belle of the Ball

dusty grayed out lilac purple. The swatch is 2 coats and no top coat. I love this color, its so cute and chic. :) This was the first one I swatched from this brand and I loved it. It was easy to apply and the drying time wasn't that bad either! This was the start of a good feeling and a new beginning with Confetti, hehe.

Confetti Centerstage

dark purple based creme with purple shimmer. The swatch is 2 coats and no top coat. I really was surprised at the look after I finished swatching. This was amazing! It was so different and really smooth. It gave me no trouble at all and it was so pretty.

Confetti Happy Birthday!

dark purple based jelly with purple shimmer. The swatch is 2 coats and no top coat. Amazing! I'm happy I picked this bottle up along with the other 2 bottles of purples. I guess I was attracted to these the most because it was purple, something that is so few in my collection. Application and formula was amazing for Confetti and drug store quality. :)

Confetti Party Palace Blue

blue opaque clear base jelly with shimmer and glitter. The swatch is 2 coats of Party Palace Blue over 2 coats of OPI Alpine Snow without top coat for my index and middle finger. 3 coats of PPB on my ring and pinky finger without top coat. Honestly, this looked better in the bottle. I guess you could say that I'm disappointed in this one, but maybe if I tried it with a black base instead. I do wish that there was a solid blue base or that the blue would be thicker rather than a clear and opaque kind of base. But nonetheless, good for layering!

I hope you enjoyed,

<3katherine

GGG

GGG - Gold Glitter Gradient. I decided to do my nails & sadly, I took them off not too long after ~ not even a few days. :( But I wanted to because I got more nail polishes to swatch! :) My nails this week was to attempt to do a better gradient with regular nail polish brushes rather than nail art brushes like I've done before (Sally Hansen Gunmetal + silver gradient [it should be the first post I made on my blog])

OPI Hey! Get In Lime + China Glaze Cleopatra

3 coats of HGIL & 2 coats of Cleopatra & 1 coat of Seche. After I added the gold, brushing from bottom to top, I used a cotton pad and slightly dabbed the top area of the gold so that it would have a "fading" look to it.

I hope you enjoyed,

<3katherine

Swap

Swatches from a swap I recently got. :)

Essie Haute as Hello (mini)

coral pink+orange color. very unique and I like it! Even though it's a mini, I'm considering buy the regular sized bottle. :) The swatch is 2 coats and no top coat.

Revlon Tropical Temptation

similar to Essie's Cute As A Button ~ but Tropical Temptation is a little darker and more coral. The formula and application was excellent for this and it surprised me. I don't have that many Revlons but I do like their formula. The swatch is 2 coats and no top coat.

Sinful Colors Let Me Go

very sheer shimmery/frosty looking purple. The formula very sheer and should be used for layering over a darker base. The drying time wasn't that bad and I kind of like this~ The swatch is 3 coats and no top coat.

Hope you enjoyed there will be more swatches and some nail designs coming soon~

<3katherine

Marble Attempt

Water marbling has become very popular among nail polish lovers. I've been wanting to attempt marbling for a while now, but just hesitant. So I tried it out a few days ago and at first it took me about 10 tries until I got it right.. well kind of right. The next day I tried it again because of course like people say, practice makes perfect. I still haven't 'perfected' marbling to my liking yet, but I'm sure that I will continue trying and getting better at it. Here are 2 pictures of the attempts I've made during the 2 days that I've tried marbling. Any input would be great :)

left - Day 1 | right - Day 2

polishes used: Essie Pretty Edgy

Finger Paints Yellow Bikini

OPI Alpine Snow

OPI Jade is the New Black

Sally Hansen Twisted Pink

hope you enjoyed,

<3katherine

You're Cute as a Button

I've had this color since last summer but I haven't used it as much after getting tons of bottles of polishes after. But time to bring back corals with Essie Cute as a Button! Coral pink almost close to red color is great for the summer and it suits the 'tan' skin that most of us get during the summer. The swatch is 3 coats for full coverage and bottle color with one coat of top coat. Accompanying the swatch is my 'design' for it. I wouldn't take much credit for it since it does come from it's name :)

and then I looked at the button some more and was reminded about my high school days where I drew dinosaurs on my papers. The mouth of the dinosaur is a little funny though, darn my noob nail art abilities!

I was trying this polish on yesterday with my longer nails, but it made CAAB look slutty, so I took it off and trimmed my nails shorter. I think CAAB fits well with short nails rather than longer nails. Unless you add something to it so that it won't be just one solid manicure.

hope you enjoyed,

<3katherine

I'm no Fortune Teller

Although it came out last year, I'm still happy I finally got my hands on it ~ and now I have it for this year's Halloween, China Glaze Fortune Teller! It took me forever of wishing and the search is over! :) I was planning on resorting to eBay however, price got too steep for me. Thankfully MUA has the answer.

Fortune Teller is a black base jelly with orange glitters. The swatch is 2 coats of Fortune Teller and 1 coat of Seche top coat. Amazing orange hexagon glitters and round glitters♥

hope you enjoyed,

<3katherine

Look it's a Flying Dragon!

China Glaze's Flying Dragon, hehe :) I also got this from a swap and the color is nice, since I don't have that many purples in my collection. A lot of people don't like this color that much because of the glitters not being able to mix well with the formula and results in bumpiness. But a lot of people also don't mind it because 2 coats of Seche could smooth it right out. Which is why I still like it :). The swatch is 2 coats of Flying Dragon and 2 coats of Seche top coat. I was able to get a closer shot of the glitters in the third picture too. The glitters are pink and purple/blue ~ beautiful♥

hope you enjoyed,

<3katherine

Wagon Trail

I got this in the mail from a swap and I think it's beautiful! China Glaze Wagon Trail is a dark olive green brown with a micro gold-ish shimmer. The swatch is 2 coats and no top coat. While I was resizing the pictures I noticed that I was able to get the shimmer close up from the flash picture I took. Looks awesome! :)

hope you enjoyed

<3katherine

POTW

I noticed that ever since I started my blog, I never posted my pedicures, I guess because mainly they're just regular polishes. But I decided for once to do some 'art.' Before this I had China Glaze Ruby Pumps and my aunts were talking about how my toes can rock any color :), awesomeeeeee♥! Anyways so I decided to add some 'fun dot's (credit to Pan again, hehe).

base: OPI Lucky Lucky Lavender

dots: OPI Alpine Snow, OPI You're Such a Kabuki Queen & China Glaze Lemon Fizz

used: dotting tool

Also, I don't know if this happened to anyone else but about 1-2 months ago, I bumped both my big toes at work and it really hurt. After I decided to change my pedicure because it was getting boring, I noticed that on my left big toe I had a black spot in my nail bed on the left corner & a black spot in my nail bed on the right corner of my right big toe. I started freaking out and google-ing it. There were 2 things that I found, that it could be a disease or it's just the blood from the impact. But it's still there and noticeable, I'm debating whether to go to the doctor or not about it. :x And after that incident, I've always had nail polish on my toes because I don't want anyone to see the big black spot. Sometimes you could even see it through the nail polish. Maybe I'll post up a picture next time or something, because I looked and didn't see the right picture on Google that is similar to mine.

<3katherine

Minions :)

After watching Despicable Me on Tuesday and I saw on someone's blog I believe, a nail art of a minion - I was inspired to make a minion on my nail too. It came out pretty cute even though it wasn't exactly it but still, I'm happy with my nail art. :) But knowing I wouldn't be able to replicate it on my right hand since I'm right hand dominant, I avoided any nail art on my right hand.

TADAAAAA!~

Used:

Finger Paints Yellow Bikini (3 coats)

American Apparel Peacock for the jeans

OPI Alpine Snow for the eyes

and LA Colors Black Nail Art

Just looking at this picture makes me sad - since my middle finger nail broke :( it was torn on both sides and it broke today. Midget nail.. I hope you grow back soon♥

hope you enjoyed,

<3katherine

Neon Horror → Beauty!

If you've read my horror with neon in the post the day before yesterday, well here's another shot at neons! :P After reading the comments on that post, I put 2 coats of OPI's Alpine Snow and then a coat of Seche before applying China Glaze Celtic Sun (index and middle) and China Glaze Pink Voltage (ring and pinky) and now it's neon fabulous! :P A special thank you to: ABOP, Allison, Katrina and Laura for your help!

Warning: Celtic Sun is REALLY bright! it's almost blinding :p

More swatches for today:

Finger Paints Yellow Bikini

yellow with light shimmer. The swatch is 2 coats without top coat and taken in my room where the sun light shines. I actually LOVE this yellow. I don't know what makes it different from the other yellows that I've tried and I didn't like (except for China Glaze Lemon Fizz). I think I'm going to do a manicure and maybe some designs with this soon! :P

Essie It's Genius

red-purple with a shimmer. It's so beautiful! :) The swatch is 2 coats and no top coat. Ahh it was hard to capture this in the sunlight but this was the closest I could get. It's actually a little darker than this in real life but still LOVE IT!

hope you enjoyed and happy friday!
<3katherine

Scrangie

I haven't posted this one yet because I was hoping my bf would send me the pictures he helped take of my nails because my camera didn't pick up the beauty of it as much as his. Still, he hasn't sent it to me :( So I'm just going to post without them and edit it in the future.

my first bottle of Rescue Beauty Lounge! Scrangie was created by the popular nail blogger Scrangie with Ji from RBL. It's purple based with blue and green to create the color of a beetle's wings. I was surprised because as I was browsing RBL, I saw Scrangie and I rushed and ordered it. It arrived within a few days, and when I opened the package, I was kind of surprised that it was so small compared to what I thought it looked like online. It's .4 mL so there's .1 mL less than Essie, China Glaze and OPI bottles. But nonetheless it's definitely a must have for me! I think I might order a back up bottle in the future. It was released before and it sold out. Ji from RBL re-released Scrangie and another RBL. :) I'm happy I got this and I'm absolutely in love with this. The swatch is 2 coats and 1 coat of top coat. ♥♥♥

hope you enjoyed,

<3katherine

Neon Horror

I received 2 bottles of China Glaze from their 2008 collection Ink from a swap and I was excited to swatch! :) And when I got home to swatch them........ THE HORROR!

Pink Voltage

highlighter neon pink. The swatch is 4 coats (index and middle) and 5 coats (ring and pinky) with no top coat and yet my nail line is still visible! :( I really like the color though! The swatch looks better with flash, but I wish that was how it looked in real life.

Celtic Sun

highlighter neon yellow. Swatching this on my 'not so' bare nails (I have base coat under) makes my nails look toxic and sickly =X. The white tips of my nails are clearly visible. I'm so surprised and 'UUUUUGGGHHH' at it.

Does this happen to anyone or is it just me? Are you supposed to put a nude base underneath so that it balances out my nail color? I love the colors but I don't think I'd use it unless this problem is solved! :'(

<3katherine

Fight like a Woman

Find Strength in the Power of Pink. China Glaze Nail Lacquer gets gloves ready to join in the Fight Against Breast Cancer.

Join China Glaze Nail Lacquer this October in the battle against breast cancer, one nail at a time! The professional line of nail lacquers brings on the fight with 3 powerful pinks. Inspired by the women who fight everyday and those that support them in their battle, these fabulous shades are sure to help you defeat the toughest opponents with style and cass. China Glaze representative Rachel Schafer voiced that "in an industry dominated by women, for women, it is important that we strive to work together towards finding a cure."

The three colors in "Fight Like A Woman" include:

Encouragement - a baby pink shimmer that brings on the cheer

Endurance - power through the punches with this raspberry shimmer

Empowerment - stand up tall with this cotton-candy crème on your nails

A portion of the proceeds will benefit the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), an agency of the World Health Organization dedicated to the science of cancer and promoting international collaboration in cancer research.

The "Fight Like A Woman" collection will be available at professional beauty supply stores and select salons this September. Availability will be very limited internationally.

---

* China Glaze and other nail polish companies have continued to create nail polishes in order to show and raise awareness of breast cancer. This never really affected me although I am aware of it. But recently this has affected my life for a few months as my mom found out that she has breast cancer. It was really tough and sad for me to watch my mom go through surgeries and trying to get over the pain. It hit me hard and I hope that my mom will get through it and I think she will. I went to one doctor's visit with her; usually my dad goes with her but he couldn't since he just got back to work from a one week vacation taking care of my mom after she had a surgery to take out remaining lymph nodes, and the doctor said that it's unlikely that she will have to go through chemotherapy. I'm glad to hear that because I know that she won't have to suffer a lot more in the future but I hope that she will get better. This taught me to be more aware about my body and about breast cancer because it isn't curable. But maybe in the future it will be. :)♥

<3katherine

ps. the shades look amazing! I'd probably pick up 2 of each♥

Prevail

Today I went to watch Despicable Me with the boyfriend and I loved it!♥ I thought it was funny and cute :). Before and after the movies, I went to 2 different Duane Reade's to get top coat since my Seche turned horribly thick & useless. At the first Duane Reade, there was no Seche :( but I picked up 2 bottles of nail polish, one which I never heard of before so I decided to try one out since the color looked really nice but it was $6 a bottle, kind of pricey for a drug store polish. After the movies, I went to the Duane Reade closer to the movie theater and found my Seche♥.

Swatches!

Essie Pretty Edgy

green, kind of hard to describe what kind of green but it's not very blue based though - that didn't help much, lol. The swatch is 2 coats and no top coat. For the nails picture, I used China Glaze Strawberry fields to create the strawberry and Pretty Edgy as the leaves of a strawberry. The seeds look like a fail, maybe because I rushed it and it looks awkwardly placed. Another time I'll redo the strawberry nails :P. Overall I like the formula, application, drying time and the color is unique in my collection since I don't own that many greens excluding mint greens. :)

Prevail See You In Chelsea

light sky blue with green shimmer. The swatch is 3 coats with no top coat and there's VNL. This is the brand that I'm unfamiliar with and as I googled it, I only found it relating to 'diapers' (drugstore.com) & Nubar. The price is eh, which made me hesitant but I wanted to try it out. So this isn't the type of nail polish to be the base coat but rather layered. I wanted to see which blue would go nicely under and here are the pictures. After layering them on top, I noticed that it was mostly a green shimmer than blue shimmer. You can't see it well on top of Essie's LOL or CC TMTYC but I like them best on those two, for the 'water' look that I'm looking for to do my nails with. :P

Thumb Claire's Fresh Water (4 coats), index American Apparel Peacock (2 coats), middle Essie Lapis of Luxury (2 coats), ring Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure Fairy Teal (2 coats) and pinky Color Club Take Me To Your Chateau (1 coat).

As I was going home, the boyfriend and I were contemplating on ideas and he came up with the movie Titanic. Although I'm a noob at nail art this was a pretty good attempt. On my left hand I made the iceberg, though it doesn't completely look like one.. I'm most proud of it and the 'fail' Titanic, lol. On my right hand since I'm terrible with making nail art with my left hand, I tried to make a necklace relating to when Rose threw the necklace into the ocean. The pendent was kind of a fail but I do like the chain lol. Overall, it was a good experience and challenge for me because I usually do the same, similar or easy nail arts. :)

Used: China Glaze Ruby Pumps, Essie Chinchilly, Essie Lapis of Luxury, LA Colors Nail Art Gold Glitter, OPI Alpine Snow and Prevail See You in Chelsea.

hope you enjoyed,

<3katherine