ellagee Laule'a collection Part 2 :-D

So today I have for you all the last half of the ellagee Laule'a collection. I loved this collection so much, but I have to admit the staying power is not what I've come to expect from ellagee polishes, at least on the shimmers. Since I have no other indie shimmers to compare to, and I've never had a problem with any of Laura's polishes before, I'm assuming it's the finish that makes them chip more easily and not the quality of the polish. With the gorgeous colors though, I feel like they're worth it! Onto the polish!!

This beautiful green shimmer is named Stairway to Heaven. Not being familiar with Hawaii, I'm not sure what this is referencing, but I know I had the song by Led Zeppelin stuck in my head...and now again while I'm typing this. Sigh. Anyway, this was actually my least favorite of the collection. I'm not sure why because she is a very pretty emerald green but I just wasn't crazy about this color on me. The formula on this was similar to the others, if you saw my previous post, in that I had to work kind of hard to keep the brushstrokes from showing, but I think that's typical for a shimmer polish.

Leilani is a gorgeous crelly with blue, purple, and iridescent glitters. I love this polish. I've had it on my toes since Mother's Day. I don't love it as much as Pua Melia, but I love it!! I'm a blue kinda girl though :-). Formula on this one was smooth and I had no trouble with the glitters. It's shown in two coats in the picture and I could have probably done another one. I wore this for two days on my fingers with no chips!

Aloha 'Oe is a beautiful purple with a little bit of pink. Formula on this one is the same as the other shimmers. I noticed more on this color than the others (and it truly may have been my polishing) that it seemed to wave or ripple a bit. You can see it on my middle finger in the pics.

Lanikai Beach is a gorgeous blue shimmer. I love this color! It has a silverish, teal sheen to it depending on the lighting, almost looking like a duochrome. The first picture is the most true to color. This was one of my faves of the collection! Formula was the same as the other shimmers on this one, but for the gorgeous color I'm willing to overlook short wear times.

I'm excited to see what Laura has coming out next...my wallet however, is not!! :-)

ellagee Laule'a collection, Part 1 :-D

Whew, ok so today I have for you all the first of two posts on the ellagee Laule'a collection. Let me tell you a little about this collection, from my point of view.

The last two collections Laura from ellagee came out with I liked, but I wasn't crazy over the top for them. So I knew when she announced she was doing a collection based on Hawaii I was in trouble. I started saving money back as soon as I heard the whispers. Then she released these. And I bought 7 of 8. Sigh. I knew it was coming. I was prepared. However I'm very quickly running out of room for all my polish, and Laura isn't helping :-) !!

Onto the beauties!!

This is Pua Melia. It is my favorite of all 7 I bought. Holy smokes, I LOVE this polish! It is everything a summery Hawaiian polish should be! It's got yellow and orange and pink and iridescent glitters with a white crelly base. CRELLY. PINK GLITTER. I'm in love!! Plus the formula is awesome and it wears so well!

Next up is Golden Sands of Waikiki. This was the sleeper of the group. I wasn't going to buy it, then I thought oh hell, I'm already buying 6 what's one more? Plus I don't have this particular shade of golden brown shimmer *wink* *wink* I was totally blown away! I didn't expect to like it, but I actually LOVED it! The color is so beautiful and looks so pretty with my skin tone! Formula on this one is a little streaky and it dried to a powdery like finish without topcoat. I have never bought an indie shimmer polish before though so that may be par for the course. These shimmers don't last as long as other ellagee polishes I have, and your brush strokes do kind of show if you're not careful! Also, this was a 3 coater for me.

Last for this post is Haleakala Sunrise. I can't pronounce it, but it must be Hawaiian for GORGEOUS!!! This was my #2 fave of the group. I am a sucker for pinks, and this one did not disappoint. In fact I'm still trying to figure out how to wear it again already without you guys figuring out I'm wearing it again. And again. And again :-) Formula on this one was a little streaky and thin and it was also a 3 coater, but OMG I love the color so much I didn't care! It also dried to a powdery like finish without topcoat. 

Stay tuned for installment #2 of the Laule'a collection coming on Friday!!

Blu sparkles!!

Today I have a mani that I really, really love. It was also so simple that even I couldn't mess it up! I wore this for two days because I really didn't want to take it off...something about blue just makes me happy. We've discussed how this is wrong on so many levels for me :-)

For this mani, I polished two coats of Zoya Blu, a sky blue cream, on all my fingers. Then for my ring finger I polished two coats of Square Hue Copacabana from the 05.14 Rio collection. It's a glitter polish with a darker blue base and holographic glitters. This turned out simple yet sparkly and I love it!

Zoya Elodie

Do any of you all have that one nail polish color that you absolutely love that looks like absolute poo on you? I do. It's coral. I LOVE coral nail polish. However for some reason EVERY coral polish I buy takes one look at my skin tone and turns...carrot orange. There is something about my skin tone that takes any pink tones in a coral polish and completely makes them disappear!! It's SOOOO frustrating especially since I love the color so much!

Here is Zoya Elodie. Zoya's website describes it as a "bright and fresh warm melon pink creme with a touch of coral"...and that's what it looks like in the picture on their website. On me, it's carrot orange. Sigh. I also don't agree with Zoya classifying this as a cream...it's more like a crelly in opaqueness. In the photos I have on 3 coats and there was still some visible nail line. And you can kind of see in the second photo how thin it is in the bottle. Maybe I got one of an off batch? I'm not sure. But I can tell you I was a little disappointed with the color and formula on this one.

ellagee Promises!

*****Press Sample*****

Today I have a BEAUTIFUL texture polish from ellagee's White Lace and Promises collection! It's also a part of the Bejeweled collection as well, and below I have a link that takes you to it and all of the lovelies in Laura's texture line!!

This is Promises, a silver texture polish that is like a disco ball for your fingers!!

This polish is a little on the thick side, and it is textured so I waited about 5 minutes between coats to let the first one dry some before I put on the second coat. It still goes on smooth and beautiful though!

JUST LOOK AT THE SPARKLE!!! Can you believe this?!?! I love ellagee's textured polishes because with topcoat they smooth right out, and they are so gorgeous I can't stop staring at my nails!

Even if textured polish isn't your thing, try this and the other ellagee textured polishes! They are so versatile because they can be used as accents, toppers, or whole manicures! Beware though, you buy these and they'll ruin you for any others!!!

Nie-cy Polish reviews!!!

*****Press Sample*****

I started this blog as a way to share my love of nail polish with everyone I knew. I have so much and there are so many different styles and manicures I want to try and have tried. Plus polishing my nails is a great destresser for me...you can ask my boys, I hear NOTHING when I'm lost in the polish world!!

So when Jeanice of Nie-cy Polish contacted me to review her polishes for her, I was beyond flattered and amazed that she would give me the opportunity to do that! I mean, how cool is it to see a brand new indie maker on the scene and get to see her take on the polish world?

What I love about Jeanice is her inspiration for creating polish. On her website www.niecypolish.com, she says, "Nail polish puts me in a good mood and makes me feel better. The inspiration for my nail polish brand is definitely my friends and family. My dream has always been to help women feel better about themselves and starting this nail polish line is just what I think this will do!" This fits right in with my life philosophy of family first and building people up rather than tearing them down! 

I got three polishes from Nie-cy to review from her 2014 Love and Romance Collection. And here they are:

First up is French Vanilla, a bright white cream. The formula on this one was a little thin, and the above pictures show three coats and I still had some visible nail line. But, application was smooth and the polish self-leveled really nicely. The first coat was kind of streaky, but I had no issues after the second coat was applied. I would use this for nail art mostly so the fact that the formula is a little thin doesn't bother me at all! It was a little hard to do cleanup on this one, and part of that was my fault because I thought I'd be an Einstein and try to do cleanup AFTER topcoat. So please excuse the mess on these photos and I'll try not to do that again!!

Next up is Pace Mates, a bright sunflower yellow cream. Again the formula on this one was a little thin and I used three coats in the above pictures. First coat on this color was a little streaky also but again with the second coat it was fine. It also self-levels beautifully too. And I love this color! I'm not a huge yellow fan, but I really liked this one, and when my niece saw me using it she loved it so much I had to do her nails with it too! 

Last up is You Are My Lady, a minty green cream. This was my favorite out of the three! Formula on this one was perfect, the above photos show two coats...with NO topcoat! One thing I loved about all three polishes is they are very shiny even without topcoat, and I wanted to capture that for you all! I had no problems with streaks with this one and it self-leveled amazingly also!

I wore all three of these polishes for over two days with no chipping and minimal tip wear, so I thought that was really awesome too. Because I spend the majority of my day on a keyboard or 10-key, I can usually get two days out of a manicure before I have to change it, and Nie-cy held up to that!! I am so anxious to see what Jeanice is cooking up next, and I hope to be able to review her polishes again because they're great!

Zoya Aurora

You all know what a junkie I am for holographic polishes, right? Right?? If anyone reads my random ramblings on this blog you know I'm a junkie for holographic polishes...and Zoya Aurora is one of those.

So dreamy, so sparkly, so holo-y (it's a word...work with me here!)! Best of all the formula is smooth and it lasted 3 days which for me is about as long as a polish lasts before it chips or I take it off :-)

While Zoya's holos aren't as rainbow-y (don't start) and awesome as some of the indie holos you see out the market, they're still gorgeous!

Zoya Chyna

I have another Zoya polish for you all today, because I'm still working my way through my epic haul from the Earth Day sale!

I've had my eye on Chyna for a long time, just like I did with Vespa. I'm not sure why it took me so long to get her, because she's beautiful!! Chyna is a red PixieDust polish and she is very, very sparkly and very, very red! Of course, red is my favorite color and it's polishes like Chyna that make me remember why I love red so much!

I do have a complaint about all PixieDust polishes though...they are SO hard to remove and clean up after!! But their gorgeousness totally makes up for the difficulties and you can bet I'm going to continue to buy and wear them!! <3

PS Don't forget to like my Facebook page, follow me on Instagram, and follow the blog via Bloglovin! Happy Hump Day!

Squishy raspberry sparkle!

I love jelly polishes...the depth they can give...their squishiness...it makes me want to lick my fingernails because they remind me of candy :-)

Today I have for you a jelly polish from Zoya, Paloma. She is a very beautiful raspberry jelly and I wish I had taken pictures of her on her own so you could see how much she looks like a watermelon Jolly Rancher! Anyway, after I polished two coats of Paloma, I used Zoya Sparkle Gloss Topcoat to give her some sparkle! I love this!!

Sadly, I only got to wear this mani for about an hour. The one complaint I have about jelly polishes is that if it is at all humid outside they take FOREVER to dry. That's why I only got to wear this for about an hour...I waited until I was fairly certain my nails were dry then got up to put something in the sink and completely smudged the polish off two nails. I was sooooo sad because I loved these so much! I will be doing them again!

Zoya Vespa swatch and review

Today I have one of the 12 polishes I bought on the Zoya Earth Day sale! Whew, that sale is a life saver for people who love Zoya polish but don't really want to spend $9-$10 a bottle on it, which is why I bought 12!!

I've had my eye on Vespa for a long time...she's a PixieDust polish and she's just beautiful! In my opinion, she's such a classy color, perfect for more mature women who don't want to run around with glitter bomb nails but still like some sparkle. She's also fun for younger ladies who love the bling!

Vespa is such a pretty gray-green, it reminds me of the ocean on a cloudy day! As with all Zoya polishes, she was opaque in two coats, but be careful with the PixieDust polishes--clean up on them is a little difficult (as you can see by my index finger)! That glitter likes to stick. To everything!!

What is your favorite PixieDust??

Don't forget you can follow the blog via Bloglovin, like my page on Facebook, or follow me on Instagram! Have an awesome weekend!!

Um...so not what I was trying for!

Have you ever done something that in your head looked really awesome but turned out in real life to be a disappointment?

That's what happened with this mani...

I had to take my nephew to the Young Author's Conference a few weekends back. His story won and he got it made into a book and got to go listen to two kids authors speak. I won it when I was in 2nd grade and it was so awesome to be able to be a part of this with him! His favorite color is yellow, so I wanted to do a yellow mani. I wanted it to be bright and fun!

Using Zoya Mitzi, a matte lime green polish, I polished two coats then used striping tape to make a V shape. I then used Zoya Pippa, a bright yellow cream, to polish above the tape. What I wanted was bright and fun. What I got was John Deere. :-(

In addition to reminding me of farm equipment, I ran out of my favorite top coat (ellagee Glass) and the top coat I used bubbled on the thicker coat of Pippa. All in all I was so disappointed in how this manicure turned out!!

Holo stripes!

Have I mentioned how much I love ellagee polish?? I have?? Oh. Well, I'm going to say it again...I LOVE ellagee polish!

Today I have a holo stripe manicure using two ellagee polishes. First, I painted two coats of Marvelous Delilah, a GORGEOUS peach cream! I loved this so much I almost just left it with no art. I KNOW!!! Me, leaving a cream polish just cream?!?!?! It almost happened folks ;-)

Here's Delilah:

Isn't she just beautiful??

After the two coats of Delilah, I used striping tape to stripe off my ring finger and thumb and polished over the tape with ellagee's Plum Gee-nius, a dark purple holo fan exclusive!!

My pics really don't do Plum Gee-nius any favors, but it is a beautiful polish! I love this combo too!!

Nail Care!

Until about 6-8 months ago, I really didn't pay much attention to nail care. I clipped my nails when they got too long or got in my way, I used lotion when my hands were dry, and that was about it. Since I've gotten so into nail polish and I've started my own blog, I understand nail care has to be an essential part of my life! One, I want my hands and nails to look nice for my readers and two, I've spent a lot of money on polish and I want to showcase it the best way I can! I decided to do a post on what I do once a month to keep my nails and hands in the best shape I can. I use my hands A LOT! I spend 85-90% of my workday typing on a keyboard, I clean house, I cook, I do laundry, and I take care of 6 animals and 2 boys. My hands go through a lot in any given day!! Plus, I have psoriasis that usually flares in the spring and fall when my allergies are at their worst. It makes little tiny blisters all over my fingers that then dry up and flake off. Without a lot of moisturization, my fingers will crack and bleed and it takes forever to get them to heal! So I started doing this routine about once a month to keep my hands and nails looking good. It takes about 30 minutes and the difference is AMAZING!!

These are my before pictures...you can see on my ring finger where the blisters have peeled some of the skin away. Also, on my right hand my pointer and middle finger nails are peeling...not very attractive!

The first thing I do is get a large bowl and pour some baking soda into it. I used a lot. It's cheap :-) !! Then, I fill the bowl with enough hydrogen peroxide to cover my nails when I put my hands into the bowl.

I put my hands into the baking soda and peroxide mixture and soak them for 5 minutes. This removes any stains I've gotten from polishing so much! I swirl the baking soda around with my fingers while I'm soaking and rub it onto my nail beds.

Here's what my nails look like after the baking soda/peroxide soak:

Then, I use a 4 sided buffer to buff my nails. This is what they look like after buffing (not pretty at all!!)

After the buffing, I get warm water in a bowl and add about 1/4 cup of coconut oil to it. I let my hands soak for about 15 minutes.

After I'm done soaking in the warm water and coconut oil, I use brown sugar to exfoliate my hands while I'm rinsing them in the sink.

After I'm done rinsing I put on some lotion and voila! Here's what my nails look like after:

I try to do this once a month because I feel like it makes such a difference in the health of my nails and hands. On a daily basis I use cuticle balm and/or oil and I use lotion like it's air. What are your nail care routines??