Essie Full Steam Ahead

Happy Friday! Today I was planning on posting a beauty product review, but since the weather has been so nice I could not stay indoors, had to get out and enjoy it and needless to say I didn't get around to writing up the review. So instead I'm sharing Essie Full Steam Ahead with you :)

Full Steam Ahead is the only actual nail color I have from Essie, I do have a couple of their Luxe Effects though. FSA was a super easy formula to work with, no streaking or other issues. It is a little on the sheer side, in the photos I used 2 coats and I feel like it could have benefited from a third coat. My photos make the polish look a shade or two darker that what it really is.

In any case, it is such a lovely lilac shade, would be great for a spring or Easter manicure. In the bottle it appears that it has a lot of silver shimmer, but once you have it on your nails it's not quite as noticeable.

For me this is just an okay polish, mostly because I wish that it wasn't so sheer and that the shimmer showed up better. It did dry fairly quick and wear time has been great too! I've been doing housework, been outside planting flowers and I only have minimal tip wear.

Imagine a shade darker than the photo below and that is the true color of Essie Full Steam Ahead.

Hope you have a great weekend and I'll be back on Monday with a new post, just not sure on what yet. The weather is supposed to turn yucky again so I'll have plenty of time to get it sorted out :)

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

Nail of the Day: KKCenterHK Ebalay Warm Orange Shiny Glitter

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Today's post is a NOTD plus a mini review of EBALAY Warm Orange Shiny Glitter Nail Polish that I received from KKCenterHK for review.

I had some difficulty with this polish, I tried several different base colors with it, from white, orange, black, blue and several shades of purple and could not find a color that looked good with it. In the end I opted to do a jelly sandwich with it using Wet n Wild's 2% Milk and really liked the results.

The Ebalay polish is a clear base full of white and orange hex glitters, white bar glitters and some purple iridescent glitters as well. The polish it's self is a nice polish, does take a little extra time to dry, but that may also be because I felt like I put heavy coats of polish on in order to get a good amount of 'glitter' on my nails. The glitter was slightly hard to work with. I think it looks amazing in the bottle, just not so much on my nails.

Application: 3/5
Drying Time: 3/5
Longevity: 3/5
Overall: 9/15

                       Take 10% of your order with coupon code: SBB2013

Nail of the Day: Kiss Nail Dress Corset

Greetings from Myrtle Beach, South Carolina! While I am on vacation I wanted a no fuss nail look that would last me the whole time I'm gone, so I went with Kiss Nail Dress in Corset. They are super easy to apply and have held up pretty good, I do have some tip wear, but you can't really see that unless you look at them really close. I thought these would be great for our beach trip since they are such bright and fun colors!

Have you tried the Kiss Nail Dress? What did you think about them?

NOTD: Water Marble

The other day I was out running some errands and I went in to Fred's and seen this fabulous set of of neon L.A Colors polishes. The packaging says Tropical and on the back it says it's a limited edition set. I pick this up for $5

After I swatched all the polishes in the set I thought to myself, these would work great for a water marble mani, so that is what I did with them. They are beautiful on their own as well and I don't feel like my camera does them any justice, they are such bright and vibrant colors.

Here are the swatches of the polishes:

Swatched over White

No base

Now on to the water marble mani! I have only done a handful of these type manicures and I'm not that great at it but I really loved how this one came out!

Also I have a little poll up in the right hand corner of the blog. Would you please take just a second and vote in it? I would appreciate it very much.

NOTD: Fing'rs Heart 2 Art In Mint Condition

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Today's nail of the day features In Mint Condition form Fing'rs Heart 2 Art. I picked this polish up at Walmart for $1.68 I love the color of this polish, it's a nice mint color with a hint of gold, it also has blue glitter.

The application of this polish was okay, the fact that the brush is so long leaves you with a big glob of polish running down the 'wand' which at times caused me to get way to much polish on my nail. I fear that this polish is going to get get very thick after a few times of using it, because it was a little thick to start with. Drying time was average, about 10 minutes.

This polish does feel rough after it dries and I was hoping my topcoat would help that out, but it still feels a little rough. I used the NYC quick drying topcoat.

Have you tried any of the polishes from the Heart 2 Art collection? What did you think about them?

Next Wednesday I will be starting a new Nail Challenge with a great group of ladies that participated in the ABC Nail Challenge! This new challenge is called the Mish Mash Challenge, 30 different manicure ideas, so be sure to stop by next Wednesday and check it out!

NOTD: Melon

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If you saw my post or my unboxing video I did on my iKatehouse haul you know that I got a beautiful lime green, with hints of gold shimmer, polish called Melon by S.he Makeup, I am obsessed with it! It's just such a bright and fun color for summer and I love the way it looks on me.

The application of this polish was smooth, it was not running all over the place. The first coat is pretty opaque, but it has a yellow look to it, once I applied the second coat it looked like the pretty lime green color in the bottle. Dry time was average, around 5-10 minutes. I've wore this polish a couple of times now and it wears really well, I had it on for around 3 days before I got my first chip, for me that's pretty good wear time. I was afraid this might stain my nails a little since it's green, but it did not stain them at all!

On my ring finger I used some of the stripping tape from the brand Fing'rs that I picked up at Walmart (totally forgot to write my haul post on those items, if you are interested let me know and I'll do a haul post on them) and make some kind of design LOL and painted over that with a black cream polish.

My pictures do not show the 100% true color of this polish. I really wanted to take the photos outside in the sun, but it refuses to shine lol. The first and third photos are the most accurate color.

NOTD: July 4th

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Just a quick little post today. I wanted to share my July 4th mani with you. I attempted to make my nails a flag! I used Maybelline Color Show Navy Narcissist and stamped stars with Color Club Holo Cherubic, I really wanted to use white, but none of my whites would stamp good. For my other two fingers I first painted them with Milani's White on the Spot, used some scotch tape to make some stripes, and painted over that with Siren from Pure Ice.

Did you do a July 4th mani? Let me know in the comments below, I would love to see them.

Hope you all have a fabulous 4th!

And today is also my babies birthday! They are 4 :)

NOTD: Starburst

Today I wanted to share with you a beautiful polish that I purchased from Avon's new Cosmic Collection line. The Cosmic Collection is a line of holographic nail polishes. These polishes are a scattered holographic, not a linear holographic like most of the holographic polishes. With that being said it is still a beautiful polish. I have two other colors from this line that I will get put up on my blog at some point :) The regular price for these polishes is $6.00, but if you shop Avon often, you know their products are almost always on some kind of sale.

My camera does not like reds or pinks so it tends to mess with the actual color of this polish, but I think I captured it good enough to get it's beauty across.

The polish is called Starburst and went on very smooth and easily and was opaque in one coat. I only used one coat in the photos below. Dry time was average and it has wore really well on my nails. As with most holographic polishes, it looks pretty much like a regular nail polish in indoor lighting, but when you get out in the sun it looks amazing!

Quality: 5/5

Price: 3/5 unless it's on sale

Packaging: 5/5

Formula: 5/5

Pigmentation: 5/5

Longevity: 4/5

Overall: 28/30

Have you tried Avon's Cosmic Collection yet? If not are you planning on it?

Nail of the Day: Orly Rage

The very first time I seen Orly Rage in a photo online, I wanted it, but I was not willing to pay $9 for a bottle of nail polish. Well when I was at my local CVS I seen they had it for 50% off, so of course I snatched it up and only paid $4.25 for it!

I am not at all disappointed with my purchase. I love this shade so much, to me it's like a nude gold with a hint of pink. Perfect for a nude looking mani with a hint of bling.

It applied smoothly and you could get away with just one coat of this polish if you wanted a lighter look, I opted for 2 coats. Dry time was average.

Do you own Orly Rage? What do you think about it?

Nail of the Day

I'm going to try and post a picture of my nails each time I paint them :)

Today's nails were inspired by the news of really cold weather coming to my area, I'm talking snow and day time temperatures only in the 20's!!!

I used China Glaze strong adhesion base coat, Avon nail enamel in Vintage Blue, NYC polish in Starry Silver Glitter, and Out the Door top coat.

Here is the finished nails. I really like them :)