When Nail Polish And Jewelry Come Together...

I've been a little MIA this week, sorry about that. I've had a ridiculous amount of work to do and my back is not playing well with the rest of my body. But I'm back! Get excited because I have some incredible necklaces from GingerKitty Designs to share with you! I seriously can not get enough of her jewelry, it's phenomenal. My biggest problem is trying to narrow down what I want from a wishlist of, well everything haha. At the end of November I finally got my act together and ordered a necklace from Tracey and then a few days later, I won a second through the Overall Beauty Scavenger Hunt!

I'm going to show you the one I originally ordered first. It's even more stunning in person than in pictures, but I tried to capture it as best I could in the late afternoon sun


look at it sparkle in the sun!

more sun

a deliberately blurry indoors picture to show the holo and glitter sparkle

Holy moly, how insanely pretty is that?! It's made with China Glaze - Octa Gone Wild, China Glaze - Emerald Sparkle, OPI - Ink, and OPI - Purple With A Purpose.

Okay, the second necklace I won through the Overall Beauty scavenger hunt at the beginning of December and it's so perfect for the holidays and Valentine's Day!

quasi-sun haha

inside, so you can see the design

inside, blurred some to show the sparkle!

This one is red and silver, made with Color Club - Art Of Seduction and Zoya - Trixie

Ever since I got these pretties in the mail, I've worn them a couple of times a week, I can't get enough of them! They add a pop of color and sparkle (without being over the top) to everything from jeans and a t-shirt to dresses. I seriously cannot say enough about how much I love these and they are even more stunning in person.

You have to go check out the GingerKitty Designs Etsy Store and you can read her blog too. (You definitely want to do that, she has great giveaways!) Tracey has a huge list of polishes that you can have her make pretty much any kind of custom piece for you, or you can pick from some of the gorgeous ones she's come up with. Lately a lot of pieces with crackle polish has been ordered I believe.

What polish (or polishes) would be in your dream piece of jewerly from GingerKitty Designs? I want more holo ones!

Marbled Nail Tutorial

I've got a great tutorial to share with you today from Alexandra. It's a short video showing step by step how to get marbled nails! It's not water-marbling, this gives you the same kind of effect but a lot faster and way less messy. Big time selling points for me haha.

Check out the video!

so to recap, here's the picture of the supplies you'll want to have:

and here's two different versions of the finished product...

After I watched the video Alexandra made for us, I feel like this is something I could definitely do. I can't wait til my midterms are over this week so I'll finally have some free time and can try this! I'm thinking maybe using purples... China Glaze - Grape Pop and Light As Air perhaps?

How about you, have you ever tried marbling like this or with water? Are you brave enough to now after watching Alexandra's tutorial?

Three Press Releases that I'm Excited About!

I've got some new information about collections from China Glaze, Color Club, and Cult Nails to share with you. There are a lot of colors I'm excited about from all of these brands and I want to know which ones are on your wishlist! Check them out:

First up, China Glaze - Anchors Away

Sail away this spring in 12 nautically-inspired colors from China Glaze. These bold and confident brights are reminiscent of a carefree natural getaway, with soft ethereal hues that inspire leisurely thoughts of sand and sea. Colors in this collection include:

· Life Preserver: Highly pigmented and luxurious poppy crème.
· Hey Sailor: Vibrant crème red.
· Ahoy!: Delightfully intense pink that flashes with reflective glass speck.
· First Mate: Sophisticated and rich navy crème.
· Starboard: Hip and playful green crème.
· Lighthouse: Multi-dimensional, bright yellow glass speck.
· White Cap: Whimsical and sparkling multi-dimensional white.
· Pelican Gray: High shine, cool toned grey crème.
· Sea Spray: Calming pale blue crème.
· Below Deck: A flirty mix of taupe and violet.
· Sunset Sail: Delightful peachy pink high shine crème.
· Knotty: Micro-particle beige shimmer.

This collection is available at your favorite etailers now! Keep in mind that snow has slowed down some shipments, so if it's not listed yet give them a few days, I know for sure Victorias Nail Suppy is slowed down by snow right now. And it will be showing up in stores soon, if immediate gratification is your thing. I'm looking forward to Below Deck, Sea Spray (feeding my Essie-Sag Harbor love in a big way haha), and First Mate!

Color Club also has just released the information about their Alter Ego collection for Spring

Color Club lets you create high-fashion looks for every identity with Alter Ego, their latest collection of diverse, long-lasting lacquers!

Alter Ego’s consists of 12 shades! Go incognito with our opaque shades or rendezvous in full view with our sheers of Alter Ego ‘LIGHTS’ and ‘DARKS’!

Alter Ego’s ‘Reveal Your Mystery Collection’ 7 piece salon pack includes Get a Clue, Revealed, Incognito, Secret Rendezvous, Sheer Disguise, and Give Me a Hint shades plus Milky White Base Coat. Their ‘Keep It Undercover Collection’ 7 piece salon pack includes Alter Ego, Secret Agent, Total Mystery, Alias, Ulterior Motive and Masquerading plus Vivid Top Coat.

Those purples! I'm also really into how Incognito, Secret Rendezvous, and Sheer Disguise from the lighter collection look too. I think a lot of these Spring colors are going to be coming home with me as soon as they are released in February :)

As you may know, one of our own nail bloggers, Maria from R3Daily has been hard at work on her own line of polish called Cult Nails. Her first color, My Kind of Cool Aid is finished and ready to be purchased! It looks seriously incredible! You can read more about it and see pictures HERE at Maria's blog. And if you want your own bottle of My Kind of Cool Aid, it can be purchased HERE. How cool is that?

Are you planning on purchasing any of the new colors from China Glaze or Color Club? Have you or will you be ordering My Kind of Cool Aid?

Yasmeen and a bonus!

I think Zoya - Yasmeen was my first ever Zoya lemming. (Thanks to Scrangie of course!) After you see these pictures, you'll totally understand why. For one reason or another, it took me a long time to get my hands on this, but a few weeks ago I finally ordered it from the Zoya site...when they had that buy one get one free promo. I was getting Nikki for a gift for someone and got Yasmeen as my free polish, yay. So of course I had to put it on as soon as it got here. Yasmeen definitely lived up to my lemming, check it out:

sun (look at the sun! and grass! it's been snowing a lot here lately and more coming tomorrow afternoon)

shade

inside

Dark purple with lighter shimmer? I'm so there. It has a lit from within feel to it. And by that I mean it's darker at the edges and lighter in the middle. Yasmeen has a similar feel to China Glaze - Let's Groove, one of my all-time favorite polishes, which I showed you in the very first post here :) But that's not why I felt like I had seen the color of Yasmeen somewhere before...

It turns out that a ring I bought from an Etsy seller last year is an exact match for Yasmeen! Clearly I like the color, eh? Haha. Here it is on:

I'd normally wear it on my right hand, but for swatch pictures I use my left. Exact match! It felt pretty chic to have a matching ring while I had this on as a mani. Do you have any jewelry that matches a polish? What do you think about being matching like that? I think it's neat when it's something small like this (although I'd never tried something bigger, so I can't say for sure...)

I have three new Zoyas coming in the next few days from the latest promo :) So you'll be seeing those swatched soon! Did you order any during the sale last week?

The One In Which I Declare My Love For Perplex

The first polish I'm showing you in 2011 is currently my favorite polish, period. I've got Revlon - Perplex for you today! As I'm sure you have heard by now, Perplex is very similar to Chanel - Paradoxal. They aren't exact dupes but close for sure. (There are several blogs with comparisons if you want to see for yourself.) I have a few extra pictures in this post to show you the depth of Perplex, check it out!

two sun pictures
shade

2 indoor pictures to show you how it can look different on the lighting.

Ahhh, so gorgeous. Perplex is a gray-ed out smokey purple with subtle (or secret) purple shimmer. It's complex and sophisticated and perfect! Depending how the light hits it, the shimmer can be seen more or the polish can appear more purple, I tried to capture that in the pictures above for you. I wore this for my birthday mani last month and am wearing it again for a concert next week, it seriously works for every occasion.

When I first found the Perplex display at CVS, I bought one bottle. I tried it that night and liked it so much that I went back to CVS two days later and bought two back-up bottles. Big time love haha. Do you have Perplex or its sister polish Paradoxal? What do you think about the gray-purple trend of late?