Mish Mash Challenge Week 14: Pink

Welcome to week 14 of the Mish Mash Challenge! This week our theme was Pink and I actually did two nail looks because I did not like the first one all that much, it was a stamping mani. The one I decided to go with is a water marble using Sinful Colors Snow Me White, Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Bubblegum Pink and Pure Ice Gossip.

Today you also get to see both my hands LOL they each came out so different I wanted to share them both. I think I like my left hand better though :)

Left Hand

Right Hand

Try it on Tuesday: OPI Not Like the Movies

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I hope I will not be stepping on anyone's toes by doing a Try it on Tuesday, as I know a lot of nail bloggers have TIOT. I have around 85 untried polishes in my collection and I thought this would be the perfect way to get them all tried out! With that said lets get in to the first TIOT!

Last week I went in to a TJ Maxx for the first time and ran across a couple of OPI Polishes from the Katy Perry Collection packaged together for $7.99, could not pass that up! One of the colors the pack contained was Not Like the Movies. NLTM is a beautiful silver/grey duo chrome with tiny flecks of silver shimmer. When I first got it home and swatched it I thought this looks a lot like Grey's Anatomy from Wet n Wild, so I went and grabbed that from my stash and swatched it beside NLTM, not a dupe at all, not even close LOL

I really like Not Like the Movies, application and dry time were great. The duo chrome was beautiful and the little flecks of silver just set the polish off. I do wish I had applied 3 coats instead of 2 because my nail line was still visible.

Next Tuesday I will be back with the other polish that came in this set!

Duri Truth or Dare 2013 Collection Part 3

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Today I am back with my the final part of the Duri Truth or Dare 2013 Collection review/swatches.

Just in case you missed part one and or two of my series: If you are not familiar with Duri Cosmetics they were established in 1990 and carry over 200 shades of nail color, nail and hand treatments as well as some depilatory supplies. These products can be found in spas, salons and purchased on Duri's website.

Duri was nice enough to send the entire 2013 Truth or Dare Collection out to me, to try and review. Today I will be sharing the last four shades from the collection with you; Berry Vague, Murky Answer, Grey Area and Lucky Strike

Up first today is Berry Vague, a gorgeous berry toned creme polish. I am in love with this polish, I think berry shades are great for fall and winter and would look fabulous with some gold glitter accents! I would like to point out I have 2 coats of this polish on all fingers except my middle finger, I smudged it so I just added another coat to smooth it out. I personally think it looks better with 3 coats. The only issue I had with this polish was the cleanup, as you can see from my cuticles. I have a hard time cleaning up colors of this shade.

Up next is Murky Answer, I really love this shade! It is a purpleish grey creme color, my swatch is showing up a little more on the brown side :/ This is with 2 coats. I also think this one would look good with gold glitter.

Now we have Grey Area, which is like the name says, a Grey creme polish. I really like grey polishes in the fall and winter because it's a great alternative to black. You get a nice wintry color that's not so harsh looking. If you haven't already noticed I love glitter/shimmer in my polish, so in the 2nd photo of this color I added some pink glitter just to show how you can play up this polish. Each photo is 2 coats of Grey Area.

Last, but certainly not least, we have Lucky Strike a beautiful shade of blue. In the bottle I can see a hint of blue shimmer, but it did not transfer well on to my nails. If I was out in the sun I could get a very slight hint of the blue shimmer on my nails but not a lot. In any case this is still a gorgeous polish and quite unexpected in for a fall color, but I really like it!

I love the quality of these polishes, and for $6 each I think you are getting a great product! The all go on your nails so smoothly, they all have rich colors to them, and my favorite things about them are how fast they dry and how incredible shiny they are!

What color(s) was your favorite from the collection? Mine would be Berry Vague and Grey Area.

Thanks again to Duri for letting me try out this collection!

The Sunshine Award

I am so honored that Jasmine over at Green Eyed Monster nominated me for The Sunshine Award! Thank you so much Jasmine!

So what is the Sunshine Award?

The sunshine award is an award given to those who inspire us and bring sunshine into our lives.
And there are a few simple rules:
*Include the award logo in your blog post
*Link to the person who nominated you
*Answer 10 questions about yourself
*Nominate other bloggers

So lets get to the 10 questions Jasmine sent me -

1. Name one of your guilty pleasures.

Reality TV shows
2. Do you wear makeup every time you leave your house?

Most of the time yes. Sometimes if I'm just going to the bank drive-through I won't.
3. What is your favorite color to wear on your nails?

I don't have a favorite color I like to wear on my nails, I wear a variety of colors :)
4. What is your favorite quote?

Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.
5. If you were the main character in a movie, which actress would you want to play your role?

Sandra Bullock, I love her movies!
6. What is your favorite social media & why?

Facebook is my favorite because it's how I keep up with Family and Friends from back home.
7. What are your 3 favorite books?

The Bible, To Kill a Mockingbird, and The Shawshank Redemption
8. What do you dislike about blogging? (Be honest!)

That sometimes I put a lot of work and effort in to a post and no one ever comments on it.
9. Share a tradition that you and your family enjoy

Since I moved away from home we don't really have any traditions. Hubby and I haven't made any either. We should work on that LOL
10. What’s your favorite blog post (from you or others) ?

I'm going to have to go with the posts that Nouveau Cheap does on new products hitting the stores.

The Sunny Bloggers that I have nominated:
Lizzy at Lizzy's Place

Martha at Quick Cheap & Pretty

Katy at Skin Stuff by Katy

And here are my 10 questions for them!
1. What is your favorite time of the year?
2. What do you like most about blogging?
3. Do you match your toe nail color to your finger nail color?
4. What is your favorite quote?
5. Do you save old greeting cards and letters? Throw them away?
6. What is something about yourself that you hope will change, but probably never will?
7. What’s one of the scariest things you’ve ever done?
8. If you could try out any job for a day, what would you like to try?
9. Have you ever met any celebrities?
10. If you had an unlimited shopping spree at one store, which store would it be?

Halloween Nails: Part 3

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Today I am back with the third and final part of my Halloween nails mini series. Today's look is a cute simple nail look I created using dotting tools!

To start off I painted my nails with green shade for my base. I had four greens in my collection that I thought would look great for this and I could not decide on which one I wanted to use so I used them all. On my index finger I used Wild Thing from Pure Ice, my middle finger is Free Spirit also from Pure Ice, on my ring finger I used Happy Endings from Sinful colors and on my little finger I use a bright neon green from L.A. Colors that does not have a name. I then took a white cream and put 2 dots on each nail, then came back with a black cream polish and a slightly smaller dotting tool and placed black dots on each of the white dots to create the eyes. I then took a smaller dotting tool and drew a horizontal line under the eyes and then made a few vertical lines across the horizontal line to form a little mouth.

I had a lot of fun with this series and I hope you enjoyed it too. Let me know if this is something you would like to see for Christmas nails as well.

Mish Mash Challenge Week 13: Rainbow

This week of the Mish Mash Challenge was a lot of fun for me because I got to try out a really, in my opinion, cool nail look.

I first applied a Sally Hansen base coat, once that was dry I applied a white crackle polish from Avon and let that dry completely. Then I used 6 different colors to make a 'rainbow' of colors on my nails over the crackle. I had around 25 polishes on my little polishing table trying to figure out which ones were sheer enough to let the crackle come through after trial and error I found my 6.

I used Sinful Colors Forget Now, Wet n Wild Sunny Side Up, Spoiled Mind Your Own Beeswax, Pure Ice Monte Carlo, Neon Green no name from L.A. Colors, and Sally Hansen Blizzard Blue.

I really like the way this came out and I plan on trying it again with just one color.

Duri Truth or Dare 2013 Collection Part 2

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Today I am back with Part 2 of my series on the Duri Truth or Dare collection. I am still loving these polishes and all the great colors. Just for an FYI my camera does not like pink or red colors, I adjusted some of the settings when taking the photos for a few of these polishes in a effort to get the most accurate color of the polish as I could, so if my skin or the grass in the background looks a little off, please disregard that and just focus on the fabulous colors in this collection :)

L-R Coral Start, Fuschia Finish, Question Mark, Double Dare

Just in case you missed part one of my series: If you are not familiar with Duri Cosmetics they were established in 1990 and carry over 200 shades of nail color, nail and hand treatments as well as some depilatory supplies. These products can be found in spas, salons and purchased on Duri's website.

Duri was nice enough to send the entire 2013 Truth or Dare Collection out to me, to try and review. Today I will be sharing four more shades from the collection with you; Coral Start, Fuschia Finish, Question Mark and Double Dare.

Coral Start is one of the prettiest coral colors I have seen. It's a creme polish and goes on really smooth, I did have to apply 3 coats of this so my nail line was not visible and with as quick as this polish dries that was not a problem. My swatch below came out way more orange that it actually is. The bottle shot above gives the accurate color.

 

Up next is one of my favorites from this collection and is currently on my toes, is Fuschia Finish. It is a gorgeous fuschia/berry creme color that I think would make a good spring or summer shade, it's just so bright and vibrant. I also think this would be a good alternative to red during the Holidays. Was opaque in 2 coats.

Next is Question Mark, a deep berry colored creme polish. I will be using this shade a lot this fall and winter. I think it would look great with some gold nail art or a gold accent nail. Swatch is 2 coats with no top coat. It was a little difficult to clean up, but I have that issue with most berry colored polishes. It's just a beautiful shade and I can't get over how shiny these polishes are without a topcoat! 

Last one for this post is called Double Dare. If you are in the market for a classic red creme polish for the Holiday season I highly recommend this one, opaque in just 2 coats and such a beautiful shade of red. This is more of a true red in person.

Next Monday I will be bringing you the final four colors from this collection; Grey Area, Murky Answer, Lucky Strike and Berry Vague. 

Review: Eclos Apple Stem Cell Skin Care Skin Prep Cleanser

*I received the following product from Klout as a Perk*

Eclos Apple Stem Cell skin prep cleanser is formulated with apple stem cell technology extracted from a rare Swiss apple, the stem cells help to reduce the appearance of wrinkles and improve skin texture. It's Ph balanced formula contains chamomile to help revitalize and hydrate skin and cucumber to sooth skin stress, antioxidants to help with tone and to revitalize for fresh and super clean skin. Eclos is free of parabens, sulfates, synthetic fragrances, synthetic dyes, mineral oils and petroleum. It is clinically proven to reduce wrinkles and improve skin texture in 2 weeks, lifts makeup and pore clogging debris with out over-drying skin. Suitable to use morning and night.

I have been using this for probably close to 2 months and I'm really loving it. I think it does a great job of cleansing my skin, sometimes I do have to use a separate eye makeup remover to get all my mascara and eyeliner off. I really like how gentle this is on my skin, leaves it feeling clean and soft without over-drying it. Since I've been using this I feel like the condition of my skin has improved; it's softer feeling and my tone looks so much more even now. I can not attest to the anti-aging claims, thankfully I'm not having any of those issues with my skin currently.

 It does have a light fragrance, to me it just smells like soap, not perfumey (is that even a word LOL). I personally like the fragrance of it, it smells really clean and fresh.

The skin prep cleanser is just one product from Eclos' anti-aging line. I also received with the cleanser a primer and a moisturizer, which I will be reviewing later on.

Eclos is a part of Freeman Beauty and can be found on their website or at Ulta. The cleanser comes in a 6.8fl oz pump bottle for $14.99

Quality: 4/5

Price: 3/5

Packaging: 5/5 

Formula: 5/5

Scent: 5/5

Overall: 22/25

Have you used any of the Eclos products? What did you think about them?

Halloween Nails: Part 2

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Today I am back with the second part of my Halloween nails mini series. Today's look is  more on the gory side, it's bloody finger prints!

To start off I painted my nails white with Sinful Colors Snow Me White, my new favorite white nail polish. Then I took Sally Hansen Cherry Red and dripped some drops on to a sheet of paper, lightly put my finger tip in it to get some polish on it. I then took my finger and lightly pressed it on the sheet of paper one or two times to get some of the excess off and took what was left on my finger tip and pressed it on to my nail. The finger prints did not come out as good as I hoped they would, but I still like this look. It's a little gross, but super fun at the same time. For me this method was a lot like stamping, a little trial and error till you get the look you want. On a few of my nails I put more than one fingerprint.

Is this something you would do for Halloween? Be sure to check back next Thursday when I conclude my Halloween series, it will be a 'monstrous' good time!

Mish Mash Challenge Week 12: Flower

I had a plan that I was going with that I seen on Pinterest, click the link to see the look I was going for and if anyone knows how to embed a pin in a blog, please let me know. I have tried copying and pasting the link that they provide when I click on embed, but I can not get them to work to save my life. Once I started on the dotticure flowers it went downhill. So I kept most of that look, but instead of dotticure flowers I used Mash stamping plate #42 and that turned out much better.

For my nail look I used Sally Hansen Blue Me Away! on my little finger and for the stamping. For my ring finger I used Ruffled Sheets topped with Beware, both from Pure Ice. For my other 2 fingers and my thumb I used Sinful Colors Snow Me White. I also added a rhinestone to each little finger, those I got from Avon. Never did a look like this before, but I really like it, something fun and different for me.

Nail of the Day: KKCenterHK Water Decals

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Today I have a cute nail look to share with you using Blue Feet water decals from KKCenterHK. The set came with 26 decals, 13 blue feet and 13 green feet. I chose to use the blue for this nail look.

I used Sally Hansen Blue Me Away! for my base on three fingers and Sinful Colors Snow Me White for my accent nail, to help the decal stand out better. After placing the decal on I thought my other fingers looked too plain, so I used a dotting tool to add a few dots to my other fingers. I really like the look I got, just something cute and fun.

This was the first time I had ever used water decals like this, so it took me a few tries before I got it right. The decal kept wanting to curl up on me, I was using tweezers and I think it would have been better to just slide it off with my finger then placed it on my nail. I will be giving these another try. They are just too cute!

Have you used water decals before? What is the best way to do them in your opinion?

 Take 10% off your order with coupon code: SBB2013

Duri Truth or Dare 2013 Collection: Part 1

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Welcome to a new mini series I'll be doing for the next couple of weeks! I will be showcasing the 2013 Truth or Dare Collection from Duri Cosmetics!

If you are not familiar with Duri Cosmetics they were established in 1990 and carry over 200 shades of nail color, nail and hand treatments as well as some depilatory supplies. These products can be found in spas, salons and purchased on Duri's website.

Duri was nice enough to send the entire 2013 Truth or Dare Collection out to me, to try and review. Today I will be sharing four shades from the collection with you; Sheer Bluff, Naked Truth, Pink Player and Lilac Liar.

L-R Sheer Bluff, Naked Truth, Pink Player, Lilac Liar

All four of these polishes went on like a dream, very smooth. I did not have any issues with balding of the polish or with it running down and filling my cuticles. I was really impressed with the formula, not only for the aforementioned reasons, but also because it dries super quick, we're talking 5 minutes! The finish is super shiny, in my swatches I did not add any topcoat and each swatch was with 2 coats of polish.

Let's take a look at the colors!

First up Sheer Bluff I'm gonna call this a gray lavender. It is a nude gray color but it has a hint of lavender to it, which did not show up in my photo, beautiful color. The only thing I did not like about this polish is that in the bottle you can see tiny flakes of gold/brown shimmer, but it did not show up when I painted my nails.

Naked Truth is a very pale, pastel pink cream polish. It's is a very delicate looking pink, would be great for a wedding!

Pink Player is a rosy colored pink cream polish. When I put this on the first thing I thought of was my Grandma, it's a very pretty color and something that she would totally wear on her nails.

The last color for today is Lilac Liar, also a cream color. To me this is a pink shade that leans toward purple, I don't really have a good way to explain the color, but I really like it! Beautiful color for spring.

I also want to comment on the packaging, I'm a sucker for unique or interesting packaging. Duri's polishes are bottled in a square shaped glass bottle that features the company name on all four sides. I really like it because it is raised up off the bottle just a little, which is not something I have not seen with any other company. I just think it looks really classy.

The brush is just a standard polish brush. There were no stray bristles and they were all even.

Duri polish comes in a .5fl oz bottle and retails for $6.00

Can't wait to see the rest of my swatches from the collection? Be sure to check back next Monday when I will be showing Coral Start, Fuschia Finish, Double Dare and Question Mark!

Beauty Bits: Pure Ice Glow in the Dark Top Coat

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If you follow me on Facebook you know that I bought a bottle of glow in the dark top coat from Pure Ice. I was originally looking for the one from Sinful Colors, but could not find it. I have spent 3 days, well I guess nights, trying to capture the 'glow' on my nails. Capturing the bottle glowing was super easy, but once it was on my nails my camera just did not like it.

For starters it does work, I was quite surprised.Once it got dark my nails were glowing, it was not a bright glow, but there was a glow there. Also through trial and error, I discovered it does not work on dark colored polishes, weird I know. I started out just putting it over the polish that I had on, which was orange and white (I had attempted a saran wrap mani, fail) and I noticed that the glow was brighter where the white polish was. I then put white polish on two of my nails and black on two, the white glowed, the black nothing at all happening there. So the lighter the color the better it's going to work.

For my pictures I held a flash light up to  my nails right before taking the picture in hopes to get a bright glow to capture, it looked so much brighter in person and even when looking at the display on the camera, but once I uploaded them it was like my computer ate the glow right off.

Started off with Black and White

White had glow, black did not

How the glow in the dark polish looks over black

Over Sinful Colors Snow Me White

Over all I think this is a fun polish and not just for Halloween. It applies smoothly and dries quickly. As you can see in the photo above, if you do put it over dark polish it leaves it looking speckled. I would not advise putting it over dark colors though cause it does not work.

Have you tried any glow in the dark polishes? What was your experience with them?

Pure Ice Glow in the Dark polish is available at Walmart for right at $2 a bottle.