Fairy Dust Feng Shui

I've been a very bad blogger lately, not because I don't love you all haha it's just been a little crazy lately. I've steadily been taking pictures, swatching, and polishing so I have plenty of stuff to share with you :) Thanks for bearing with me during the unintended absence!

So what I have for you today is a layering combination that I la-la-love. Perfect for fingers or toes! This is 2 coats of OPI - Suzi Says Feng Shui and 1 coat of China Glaze - Fairy Dust. It's glittery but not overwhelmingly so; colorful but not in your face because of the dusty quality of Suzi Says Feng Shui. It also makes me very happy that the glitter in Fairy Dust lays flat, I hate bumpy glitter.



outside, sunlight


more sunlight outside (the pictures were too pretty to just pick one)


outside, shade

inside

There's just something about the dusty blue color and the light hitting the holographic glitter that makes me very happy. I need to wear this combo again ASAP! Do you have any colors or combinations that have that an effect like that for you?

I was interviewed!

The lovely Kimberly over at Libby's Pink Vanity, has an amazing series going called A to Z of Me. Every Sunday she highlights a different blogger and shares The A to Z's of them with us. I love love love things like this and seeing other bloggers be recognized and celebrated by our peers is awesome.

I was lucky enough to be this week's focus of her A to Z of Me series! Please go check it out here (and if you've missed any of the past ones read them as well, they're all fabulous.) Even if you don't care all that much about what I have to say, she has included a pretty phenomenal picture of some penguins at the bottom of the post. That alone is worth a click ;-)

Click here to check it out!

Thanks again Kimberly!

This Definitely is My Kind of Cool Aid

I have no idea why it's taken me so long to post this beautiful polish. I'm sure you've seen Cult Nails - My Kind Of Cool Aid before and have heard about how Maria of R3Daily started the company, so I won't go too much into it. Maria is a fellow blogger who did what I think we all dream of and started her own line of incredible nail polish! This was her very first polish to hit the market and I made sure to order as soon as it came out. I then proceeded to fall in love with it haha.

My Kind Of Cool Aid is a pretty lavender-gray shade with delicate silver, blue and pink shimmer in it. The shimmer is borderline, what I would think of as, secret; so it is subtle but still very pretty. I wish I could have gotten it to show up more in my pictures; my camera wasn't having it though haha. Next time I wear this I'll try to catch the shimmer, but in the mean time check these pictures out!

sunlight
shade

indoors with flash

indoors

indoors

I couldn't get the shimmer to come out to play much but it's beautiful, subtle, classy, and glamourous. I am not exaggerating at all either haha. What do you think of My Kind Of Cool Aid - do you already own it or plan on picking it up one day?

Also, When Cult Nails gets 5,000 likes on Facebook they are going to have a major sale where the polishes will be $5 (aka 50% off!) so please be sure to like them on Facebook so you too can get your hands on My Kind Of Cool Aid and some of the other gorgeous shades!

Layering with... Orly- Fowl Play (picture heavy!)

So Orly- Fowl Play is one of the star polishes of the fall collections and has been hotly anticipated ever since the lovely Carina over at Gilded Nails put promos and swatches of it up. It started trickling into stores recently and I'm sure you've all seen swatches of it by now, be it on other blogs, the nail board, etc. It has kind of a squishy, jelly-like finish, which made me curious about how it would look layered over some other colors. I wanted to try and lighten up the dark purple base color of Fowl Play too. I rummaged through my stash and asked on twitter if there were any colors you wanted to see it over and came up with a nail wheel full of choices :)

Enough with the words, on to the pictures right? haha. So here is a picture of the nail wheel before I put Fowl Play over everything...

(remember you can click to enlarge all of the pictures!)

1. Orly - Fowl Play (3 coats)
2. Orly - Royal Velvet (3 coats)
3. Diamond Cosmetics - Crushed Velvet (1 coat)
4. China Glaze - Light As Air (1 Coat)
5. OPI - Done Out In Deco (1 coat)
6. China Glaze - Spontaneous (2 coats)
7. China Glaze - Grape Pop (1 coat)
8. Essie - Sexy Divide (2 coats)
9. Zoya - Demi (1 coat)
10. OPI - Manicurist of Seville (1 coat)
11. SpaRitual 0 Devil Inside (1 coat)
12. OPI - Mrs. O'Leary's BBQ (2 coats)
13. Orly - Enchanted Forest ( 2 coats)
14. China Glaze - Re-Fresh Mint (2 coats)
15. Avon - Vintage Blue (2 coats)
16. Wet n Wild - Blue Moon (2 coats)
17. Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear - White On (2 coats)
18. Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear - Black Out (1 coat)

Now let's check out how Fowl Play layered shall we? Since it's kind of a complex polish with the flakies and shimmer and all that good stuff, I'm giving you pictures in sunlight and in the shade with flash, to try and capture the differences and nuances of each combo.

1-4 in sunlight

1-4 in shade, with flash

4-7 in sunlight

5-8 in shade with flash

8-11 in sunlight

8-11 in shade with flash

12-15 in sunlight

12-15 in shade with flash

15-18 in sunlight

15-18 in shade with flash

17-2 in the shade with flash


Did you make it this far after all the pictures? :) Out of 17 possible choices on this nail wheel, which ones are your favorite? I liked a lot of these! I think China Glaze - Spontaneous (number 6) gave me the perfect purple base color I originally was looking for, but I also really loved how Orly - Royal Velvet (number 2), Essie - Sexy Divide (number 8), and Wet n Wild - Blue Moon (number 16) looked because the shimmer in the base colors added to what Fowl Play already had. The most surprising ones for me were the red shades I tried, (thank you Allibally for the suggestion!) OPI - Manicurist of Seville (number 10) and SpaRitual -Devil Inside (number 11) I looooooved how pretty and burgundy looking those turned out. I can see myself wearing these combos during the fall/winter for sure. I like the idea of those manis with sweaters and fall clothes for some reason haha.

Demure Vixen vs. Venus di Violet (comparison)

Every now and then I post spam on MUA (MakeUp Alley) of random polishes, and in one of those posts I had OPI - Venus di Violet (which I showed you earlier here) Someone asked to see how it compared to Essie- Demure Vixen. So here we go!

Three coats of each color, Venus di Violet on index and ring fingers and Demure Vixen on middle and pinky fingers.


sunlight

shade

indoors

bottle shot!

The Verdict? Obviously they aren't dupes, Demure Vixen is darker and more mauve, but they are relatives. Demure Vixen is somewhat of a darker version of Venus di Violet. The shimmer in DV is a little more "secret" and VdV is a little more obvious. Also the shimmer isn't 100% the same, although it is very similar. It feels almost identical but VdV is a little pinker, more of a purpley-pink shimmer.

If you like one you'll probably like the other polish, I hope this helps :) Are there other comparisons you'd like to see? Tell me in the comments!

Venus di Violet

So, it's been a while, eh? Sometimes life gets in the way of blogging and as much as I wish this could be my number one priority, realistically other things have to come first. But everything has settled down (or at least as much as it's going to haha) so I'm back! I never intended to go on that hiatus, so sorry for no heads up.

Today I have OPI - Venus di Violet to share with you. This is a polish I had put on my wishlist early on in my nail polish addiction and never really got around to getting until one day I found it on sale at a Trade Secret store. I was pleasantly surprised by it!


sunlight

shade

indoors (and apparently a little rough on the clean-up, sorry!)

This is a soft and sophisticated color, kind of a palette cleanser if you will. The application was good for such a pale color, sometimes they can be streaky and tough to work with but this wasn't. I used three coats in these pictures. Venus di Violet is a pale pink with pretty shimmer that is purple-leaning pink. I'm glad I ended up picking this polish up, because I ended up really liking it :) I'll do a comparison with this in my next post, so check back for that! What do you think of Venus di Violet?

Just a couple of other little notes - I will be notifying the winner of the crackle polish giveaway hopefully this weekend. I have some new reviews coming up as well as another giveaway very soon!

Matte-Suede Fest '11 - Day 3

Matte-Suede fest rolls on, day 3 brings us Revlon - Ruby Ribbon, no topcoat. This is my absolute favorite of the matte suede finish polishes. It's the perfect red with gorgeous shimmer....oh I could gush on about it for a while haha. This is a red I actually will wear on my fingers, normally I only rock red on my toes. In my book, Ruby Ribbon is perfect...see for yourself!

sun

shade

inside

and something fun I noticed while swatching, Ruby Ribbon matches the color of my front hall!

cool, right? :)

If you think Ruby Ribbon is pretty now, while it's matte suede (and of course, you do) just wait until I show it to you with a top coat. So pretty. I bought a back-up of Ruby Ribbon already... I did it just a few days after I tried it, same as with Perplex. Revlon, you have been bringin' it lately with the colors and quality! Ruby Ribbon was super easy to work with, I used two coats - but just like Emerald City, you can get away with one coat. Day 4 of Matte-Suede fest is going to be the first of the top coated versions of these polishes, so check back for that!

Do you have any polishes that match wall colors in your home? I plan to use some polishes as guides for choosing paint colors in the future though for sure!

Matte-Suede Fest '11 - Day 2

It's Day 2 of my Matte-Suede fest! I've got Revlon -Emerald City to show you today. And it's beautiful matte/suede or shiny Emerald City is more opaque and easier to work with than Powder Puff, which I showed you Day 1. I used two coats for this swatch, but you can probably get away with just one if you're careful. I also didn't have any issues with drying time, like a lot of people had with Powder Puff - so that's another bonus.

sunlight

shade

inside

This is one of my favorite greens, no doubt about it. I love how even without a topcoat, it's still very lit from within looking because of the shimmer it has. My favorite thing about these Matte-Suede polishes is that they aren't flat, like most mattes, there's still some shine and shimmer to them. I haven't decided what my St. Patrick's Day mani is going to be, but Emerald City is definitely in the running!

In my next post I'm going to show you my favorite of the three matte-suede polishes I have.

Matte Suede-fest '11: Day 1

Welcome to a little week I'm calling Matte Suede-fest 2011. I love most of the shades from Revlon's Matte-Suede line that came out a few months ago, a very serious love. So instead of sporadically posting them at random, I'm making it a Matte-Suede palooza! Woooo! I own 3 of the 4 shades (Fire Fox didn't appeal to me) so you'll be getting six days of fun. Let's get it on - Day 1 brings us Powder Puff, without topcoat


sun!

shade

indoors

This is without topcoat, which means it's Matte-Suede, so kind of flat. To me the whole Matte-Suede concept is really like a hybrid of the flat almost plastic looking matte finish, and the more suede like finishes (like Zoya Matte Velvets and OPI Suedes). So when these Revlons are topcoat-less, they are more interesting looking than a full on matte polish, in my opinion at least. I don't know if you know that I pretty much hate the look of matte polishes, so I always wear topcoats on these types of things, but the Revlons I like enough that I've contemplated leaving them Matte-Suede-y.

Powder Puff seemed to be the shade that got the most attention out of the four when these first came out, because it's one of the most interesting looking white polishes on the market. There's this really pretty blue flash to it. My pictures are three coats of polish, but I know a lot of people need four and Powder Puff is sloooow to dry. I'm pretty sure this can be solved by layering a coat or two of Powder Puff over a regular opaque white, but I haven't tried yet (I keep meaning too...) White it tricky for me to pull off because I'm ridiculously pale, but I like how Powder Puff looks on me. Tomorrow I'm going to show you the shiny topcoat-ed up version!

Fun WIth Layering Wednesday: Gray by Gray and Star

Happy Wednesday? I've got one more final left to take tomorrow and some end of semester work to finish this week and then I can breathe for like one minute haha. Next week I start more classes and the 2 baseball radio and webshows I co-host start up. Phew! But I do have a cool thing planned for this weekend - it looks like Mimi from Makeup Withdrawal and I may be meeting up for a nail polish playdate!


I've got another Fun With Layering Wednesday post for you today, using Sally Hansen - Gray by Gray from the Complete Salon Manicure line. In case you want to check it out on it's own and missed my post about it the other day, here is the link.



sunlight


shade


inside


I used two coats of Revlon - Star overtop of Gray by Gray. I think the glitter in Star really works well with Gray by Gray, the colors work really nicely together. I'm not super into the random hex glitter in the polish, I need to figure out a way to make it a little more symmetrical or something next time I use it. The polish Star has special meaning for me though, a few months ago when one of my cats Starlight passed away, a really really sweet MUA-er sent me this polish to cheer me up. She included a poem and a little note with it too which was so wonderful. Do you have any polishes with special meanings to you like I do with Revlon - Star?

A Little Crack(le) Giveaway!

Heyyyy! I should be studying for a final I have tomorrow afternoon (yes, final, my schedule is silly) but my back is being highly uncooperative. Shooting pain in my back and legs is preventing me from focusing - so my lack of productivity is your gain! Somebody should be getting something good out of this situation, don't you think? :)

So I came across some old Cover Girl Crackle Polishes recently and decided to give them away to one of my awesome readers!


the prize!

close-up of the bottles

One reader will win 1 bottle each of Cover Girl Crackle in Boo! and Ghost. Boo! is a black crackle polish and Ghost is a white crackle polish

This giveaway is open internationally! So as long as you have a mailing address, you can enter

Mandatory: You MUST be a follower! New or old, either works.

Tell me how you follow and what name you follow under. You also need to leave me your email address. (1 entry)

For additional entries:

1. Follow me on twitter (@JeweledTips) & tweet about the giveaway (must include a link to this post and @JeweledTips so I can see that you did!): (1 entry)

2. Blog about this giveaway! (putting it in your sidebar counts): (1 entry)

3. Add Jeweled Tips to your blog roll and leave me a link: (1 entry)

4. Tell me what your all time favorite nail polish is and why :) (1 entry)

So a possible 5 total entries! You will be disqualified if you do not at least leave the mandatory information. I had to disqualify some people in the last giveaway for this, so READ this whole entry please!

The giveaway will be open until midnight on March 17, 2011. As long as it's March 17th where you live, you can enter. Please leave you entries in ONE comment if possible (I know sometimes you may blog about it later or something so I understand that, but please do your best here). Also, once I contact you that you've won - you have 72 hours to respond or else I will have to pick a new winner.

Good luck everyone! I can't wait to see the answers to the favorite polish question :)

A belatedly Sinful Valentine's Day (pic heavy)

I hope you all had a fun Valentine's Day or Monday.. however you chose to think of the 14th :) Unfortunately, my laptop crashed so I couldn't post these on the 14th like I had planned too. My mom is great with computers, so she got it back up and running - yay! So I have three colors from the collection of six that Sinful has put out for Valentine's Day. All 6 appear to be repromoted shades, but they are very pretty and definitely worth checking out. This is picture heavy! Just fair warning

sunlight

shade

inside

Beautiful Girl: This is definitely less peach in real life than it's looking in pictures, it's a little brighter and a little more pink. This was three coats and a little thin, but I like it a lot. All three swatches are without topcoat, and you can see how shiny they are on their own, which I'm a big fan of. I was on the fence about this color in the bottle but it was really pretty once I had it on!


sunlight

shade

indoors

Pink Forever: This is more vibrant in real life and a little brighter than the pictures wanted to show. I only needed two coats for Pink Forever, and it was definitely the easiest of these three to work with - so yay for that. It feels very spring-y to me, I want to konad some flowers on my ring fingers when I wear this :)

sunlight

shade

indoors

Boom Boom: I found this to be the most difficult of the three to work with, it was streaky the first two coats. It did eventually even itself out and I ended up really liking it. Boom Boom is a color I'll be wearing a ton in the summer; doesn't it seem like a cute pedi color? It's very bright in real life, a little more vibrant and a little more blue than I could capture in pictures. I think using a white base or some other underwear color will help cut down on coats needed. It does have a jelly feel to it, which a lot of people will like (I'm not into VNL so I'll use underwear)

Overall I really like all three of these colors from the collection, I can see myself wearing all of them! Which of the three is your favorite? Will you be picking up any of the six pinks from the collection? At $1.99 a piece, there's no reason not to! :)

(these were provided to me for an honest review)