Embroidered Emerald (pic heavy)

I'm baaaaaaaaack! (Back again, Jana's back, tell a friend.  Guess who's back dun nun na)  I've got roughly 300 things to show you all and today I was sitting here trying to figure out where to start and eventually I just decided to go big.  Let's just put a handful of pictures up and drool for a while, shall we?

Warning: This post is wicked picture heavy.  I needed every one of these pictures to try and show the gorgeous-ness that is this polish.  (Yes, I said wicked.  I just watched the movie Fever Pitch so I feel very Boston-y right now.)  I'm not putting them under a cut either...I won't hide it from the world! 

Misa - Emboridered Emerald.  What can I say about it?  I love this polish, I love the name... everything is perfect about it. 

Holy moly.  This might be my favorite picture of it.  The colors!  The shimmer!

My hand is at a funny angle here so I could try to show you what the base color of Embroidered Emerald is. It's a raisin-y kind of purple if that makes sense. Very pretty, dark without being too dark and you know how I love me some purple.

Now with Embroidered Emerald, you get a serious multi-chrome thing happening.  There are 3 or 4 different colors of shimmer that will pop out depending on the angle of you hand and lighting.  Wearing this polish can be hazardous to any type of productivity, beware :)

 

So here you can see the subtle gold shimmer on my nails and you can see the green in the bottle

Here you can see the blue shimmer



And the green shimmer (mixed with some blue)

 There also is this green-ish gold shimmer that comes out in certain lights.

Look how even in the shade so many different colors show up on your nails.  Yum.

Have I saturated you with pictures yet?  Well, let me gush some more.  The formula on Embroidered Emerald is pretty solid.  Misa doesn't disappoint formula-wise even with the older polishes.  I have either 3 coats or 4 thin coats on in these pictures (sorry I don't remember for sure but I'd guess for 4 thin coats if I had to pick.)  This baby came out in Fall 2006 (I believe) and has become pretty tough to find by now.  I was lucky enough to get my hands on it last year which made me sooo happy since I had been lusting after it for a long time. 

Can we talk about the name for a second...Embroidered Emerald.  This is the kind of name nail polish should have; not suzi this or that or something generic like "green."  Perfect name for the color. 


How about one more picture for the road? :)

What do you think of Embroidered Emerald?

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.

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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.

Mistletoe Kisses for New Year's Eve

Hello lovelies! Just a quick post for you tonight before 2011 is upon us. I've got China Glaze - Mistletoe Kisses for you today. I won this a little while ago from Mary at Body & Soul and it's so pretty! Maybe my favorite from the Holiday collection this year.

sun (you can see how the silver glitter is more apparent sometimes depending on the light)

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inside

Pretty right? Sorry there are a few stray glitter pieces on my ring finger in the pictures. I'm actually wearing this on my toes right now. It's easy to work with, sometimes glitters can be a little gloopy but the formula here is good. Mistletoe Kisses is one of three I have from this collection, I'll show you the other two soon. Do you have any from this collection? What's your favorite?

I hope you all have a great New Year's Eve! I won't be kissing anyone at midnight since I'm sick, but hopefully you will be :)

Diamond Cosmetics Winter Collection, Part Two

I've got the second half of Diamond Cosmetics' Winter Collection for you. If you missed part one you can find it here. I've got pictures of Starshine and Hypnotic to show you today! Have I mentioned how much I like the names of the polishes from this collection? Because I definitely do. If you've been reading JeweledTips for a while, I'm sure you've noticed that polish names that don't make sense drive me crazy haha. Yay for logical names!

First up, Starshine!

sun

(click to enlarge all of these to see the glitter better)

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inside

Diamond Cosmetics describes it as, "Dark blue like the cosmic abyss, flecks of glitter in this polish twinkle like stars." I'd say that's pretty accurate! The bits of glitter aren't quite as obvious on the nail, it's more subtle but you can definitely tell they are there. These are all without topcoat, which I think would make it even prettier. The application was good, I used three coats but could've gotten away with two. I have polishes in my stash that are like a cousin to Starshine but no dupes. I'm a sucker for any polish with Star in the name too haha. As soon as I put this on, I thought it would make a really cool base color for something similar to the Space Nails that Asami did a while back.

Now let's check out Hypnotic!

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Oh myyyy goodness is this gorgeous or what? Diamond Cosmetics describes it like this: "Get lost in your fantasy with this shimmery blue green hue." Cute! Shimmery definitely fits this, although I'd say it's more a green that leans blue than a true blue-green, if that makes sense? There is a little more blue to it than my camera captured, but still predominately green I think. Application was great, very easy to work with and full coverage in two coats. I don't have any dupes to this for sure, it's crazy pretty though haha I can't wait to wear this as a full mani!

I don't think I can pick just one favorite from the collection, they all fit different holes in my collection (if you can have holes in a collection closing in on 300, you know what I mean though) I do know for sure I'm going to wear Moonsand on New Year's Eve! Do you have a favorite out of the four? Will you be picking one or all of them up from Diamond Cosmetics? If you're celebrating this weekend - I hope it's wonderful! And if not, I hope your weekend is amazing too :)

(these were sent to me for an honest review)

Festive!

Hi again! Second post today... told you I was playing catch up here haha. I just finished my radio show and I'm sneaking in really quick to show you a perfect holiday mani that Alexandra just did! And it's super easy, I promise.

base colors
close - up of some of the stickers

finished product!

Alexandra alternated Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear - Emerald City and Orly - Bus Stop Crimson for the green and red base colors. And then topped it off with some holiday Cina nail stickers from Sally's Beauty Supply. I think most of the time you can find these seasonal style stickers by the registers at Sally's if you want to pick some up to try this yourself!

I love it! I need to get to Sally's to get a pack of these stickers, they are so adorable :) Thanks again Alexandra!! Have any of you started doing holiday manis yet?

Toxic Seduction

Hi lovelies! Sorry it's been a few days, my back has been crankier than usual :( but I'm sneaking on here for a minute to post for you! Today I have Misa - Toxic Seduction to show you. This is my first Misa and a lemming that I've had for a while that was recently fulfilled, a really sweet lady on MUA gave this to me as an EXTRA! Honestly I can't get over how kind people are sometimes, that was so sweet. I love that when I get amazing things like this, everytime I use the polish, I'm reminded of how nice and generous the person was. Enough of me rambling haha let me show you how gorgeous this color is:

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Toxic Seduction is this great dark green lit from within polish. It was super easy to work with formula-wise, I only needed 2 coats. I've really only branched out into using dark-er colors over the last 6 months or so; this is kind of perfect in my opinion haha. It's dark but you can always tell it's green, it doesn't look black in shade or inside. All the pictures are accurate representations of how it looks in the different settings. I think the name is a perfect fit too, Toxic Seduction... I feel kind of seductive with this on my nails haha :) Names that fit the polish make me so happy. But after finally getting this in my hot little hands, I definitely want to get some more Misa polishes soon. Maybe a post holiday haul?

Don't forget!! My giveaway ends tomorrow December 3rd at 11:59pm Eastern Standard Time! If you haven't entered yet, what are you waiting for silly goose? Go and enter here: http://jeweledtips.blogspot.com/2010/11/giveaway-nail-art-style.html

I have some great things coming up... some gorgeous necklaces from Ginger Kitty Designs, Revlon - Perplex swatches, holiday manis and nail art, and showing you one of my all-time favorite polishes for my birthday mani on Tuesday! Yay for lots of pretty upcoming things :)

I'm Sew Psyched Guys

I really thought I posted about this weeks ago, but I guess not haha. So I have Essie - Sew Psyched to show you today! This is a gorgeous dusty green with what I call secret shimmer. The shimmer is very subtle and not unlike what many Chanel colors have shimmer-wise. I've worn this twice already and really like it a lot - check out the pictures!

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If you click on the first picture you can see the silvery hints of shimmer the polish has, which gives it some added depth. Many people have said this is a dupe for Rescue Beauty Lounge - Diddy Mow, but I don't have that to compare myself. There are a lot of pictures out there that are enough for me to say just owning one or the other is probably good for most people. :) This was very easy to work with, Essie's formula has gotten a lot better with the last few collections. I used to really not buy them at all because of it, but I'm changing my stance on that now. Essie has been putting out some awesome greens lately, don't you think?

Don't forget to enter my giveaway if you haven't already! And have a Happy Thanksgiving if you celebrate, and if you don't then have a great weekend!

First Ever Franken! - Stormy Waters

If you follow me on twitter, you probably saw that yesterday I finally got my courage up and made my very first franken! I'm really excited about what I ended up making and can't wait to share it with you. I also took some pictures of the supplies I used to put it together so hopefully I can help inspire some of you to get your franken on :) This post is picture heavy, just giving you fair warning!

Okay first some pictures of the franken, which I've lovingly named "Stormy Waters" and then I'll tell you how to make it!

sunlight

shade

inside

bottle picture

The bottle shot is color accurate for the base color, it's a teal with scattered holo. I like scattered holo better than linear holo, so I like using the Milani holographic polishes for frankening purposes. I'm going to make a second bottle of this I love it so much. Stormy Waters is a sibling to China Glaze - DV8 and China Glaze - Atlantis (only holo instead of glitter, obviously) So it's similar to other polishes out there but still fairly unique. Remember the franken I showed you a few weeks ago that Alexandra made for me? This is basically a teal version of that!

Now for how I made it... It's about half a bottle of Milani - HD (silver holo), maybe a fifth of a bottle of OPI- Ski Teal We Drop (pigmented dark teal), and 5 drops of Milani - Hi-Res (purple holo). You don't really need to use Hi-Res, I just thought it gave it a bit more depth. Very easy and inexpensive to make haha, just how I like my polish. It's totally opaque in two coats and was very easy to apply!

you can see in the picture exactly how much of HD and Ski Teal We Drop I used, they were both brand new and never used bottles, I bought them just to make this franken with. Ski Teal We Drop is super pigmented so you don't need much of it.

If you want to take the foray into making your own franken, I suggest you pick up some ball bearings for mixing. I'd recommend stainless steel, anything else is going to oxidize in your franken and ruin it! Here's what I use:

And I hit up my local Dollar Tree (a dollar store) and got a few 2-packs of old style NYC bottles, because I like the shape of them and the labels peel off easily. But you can buy empty bottles online - places like ebay or polish e-tailers as well. Also you can clean out old base coat/topcoat bottles or polishes that are old and you won't use again. Here's a picture of my NYC bottles before I cleaned them out:

I like the shape of these a lot

I also used a small glass bowl and orange stick to mix to figure out an idea of the ratio before I make a whole bottle. All very easy to find things! I couldn't be happier with how Stormy Waters turned out, I'm wearing it right now and honestly can't take my eyes off my nails :) Do any of you franken or are you planning to in the future?

Rodeooooo Fanatic!

Left Hand Alert! My left hand is making a rare appearance in today's post. Why? Well mainly because when I wore this, the sun didn't come out for like four days. And I was playing around with different layering combinations on my right hand and the sun came out for a few minutes so I decided to take pictures. So I apologize for two things, number one- that my hand positions are a little screwy, I need to practice with my left hand haha; and two - that the mani looks a little raggedy around the edges, this was the fourth or fifth day of wearing it. (Yes, I generally wear manis for 4-5 days - I very rarely get chips, just growth)

On to the color... This is China Glaze - Rodeo Fanatic; it's from the ah-mazing Rodeo Diva collection. I got this in my first ever e-tailer order when my nail polish addiction first took off.

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This is a color I wear frequently, I loooove it for pedis and rock it on my tips in the fall/winter. It's a dark blue-green (more so blue, but there is some green in the mix for sure), but it never ever looks black, you can always tell what color it is. Nothing makes me crazier than a color that looks black, I don't wear black polish and don't like my colors to look black inside, just my preference. I have a few colors that are siblings or cousins of Rodeo Fanatic, but no dupes. I definitely would recommend picking this beauty up it's soooo worth it!

I hope everyone's Sunday is going well :) Go Cowboys!

Subtle Holo

I don't think it's any secret how much I love holo polishes. I go bananas for them. I'm always on the hunt for new ones to add to my stash, but I was surprised to find one at Rite Aid! I had been eyeing CQ- Gem Green in the store but hadn't purchased it until someone posted pictures of it on MUA and pushed me over the edge. It looks pretty unassuming in the icky Rite Aid lighting, which is part of the reason I hadn't gotten it until I saw pictures online. Let's see if my pictures push you over the edge too :-P It's a pale green subtle holo and I don't have anything like it! Here it is, CQ- Gem Green


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You can click to enlarge all the pictures to check out the holo out. As you can see, the holo shows up in sunlight and inside, but not so much in the shade. I didn't expect to like this as much as I did, but ooooh is it pretty in person. The sunlight picture is pretty accurate color-wise. I'm thinking this was a few dollars well spent! The holo in this is scattered, which I actually prefer more than linear holos. Which type of holo is your favorite? And what do you think of Gem Green? I always feel like I'm typing the name wrong, that it should be Green Gem; that seems to just have a better flow to it, in my head at least haha.

I'm Not Much Of A Rule Breaker, But I Love To Wear It!

Hello lovelies! I've gotten a bunch of new polish lately, so I will be showing you a lot of cool stuff in the next few weeks. I tend to buy polish as a pick me up when I'm frustrated and I've been going to a new back doctor that I haaaate, so a lot of new polish has made it's way into my stash haha. But today I want to show you a polish I've had for a while and really like. It's Color Club - Rule Breaker. A pretty dark-er green, that has a leeeeetle bit more blue in it than these pictures show.

outside

outside, shade

inside

I bought this when I was first getting out of my color comfort zone, if you will. I like wearing this year round, especially on my toes. This has a hint of frost to it; I hesitate to say the word frost because most people run screaming as soon as they read it. But I think this is pretty! AllYouDesire did a great comparison between this, China Glaze- Emerald FItzgerald, and OPI - Cuckoo For This Color, so you can see that this is different from those two. What do you think of Rule Breaker? Enjoy the pictures and check back for a layering post tomorrow! I'm off to edit two more articles, work never ends!

More Layering fun, and exciting things coming!

Wednesday, Wednesday, Wednesday! I'm back with another new layering combo for you :) And after I show you that, I've got cool news- new stuff debuting here tomorrow! The excitment is radiating off this blog post, I know you can tell, haha.

So today I've got a green and some glitter for you. I was rummaging through my nail polish boxes last week trying to figure out what layering things would be interesting for you. I'm trying to mix it up, I don't want to show you the same colors or finishes each week. Plus I want to mix it up between easy to find, hard to find, inexpensive, etc so that there's something for every taste. (Well, unless your taste is yellow - I look awful in yellow.) Last week I gave you flakies, so this week - glitter!

I give you, Sinful Colors - Rise and Shine



Sorry it's a little messy, wish I had noticed before I took the pictures :) haha, oh well! That's two coats, with top coat because it dried a little matte. I like shiny.

Now, Rise and Shine, with Color Club - Hot Couture over it!


Inside


Outside


Ah! Extreme close-up!

I really really like this combination. I was worried this might turn out looking awful, but I had a feeling it might be cool. Lucky for me it ended up really pretty! Hot Couture is from the Pardon My French collection and is still pretty easy to find in case you want to try this for yourself.

Do you want to know a secret? Until about two months ago I almost never wore glitter nail polish. I read too many horror stories online about what a pain it was to remove, so I figured there were plenty of other glitter-free nail polishes in the world that were easier to deal with. Luckily I wised up! I still don't really go full-on glitter yet, but I'll get there. (Yes, I know about the foil method for removing..but it just seems like a lot of work haha) I'm really into glittery top coats right now though.

The one good thing that came out of me not wearing glitter was that I got really into holos! I'm going to be doing a holo week pretty soon to show you my favorites, which include an incredible frankened holo from a really amazing Make-Up Alley (also known as MUA) friend, Alexandra. Which bring me to my really really exciting news! Alexandra and I got to talking, and she is going to be doing guest posts here for the amazing nail art she does! Tomorrow I have the first post from her, which gives us cute nail art, a tutorial for it, AND Paradoxal swatches!! I'm not great with nail art, all I do is Konad, but Alexandra has such pretty and creative nail art - I'm so honored that she wants to be a part of Jeweled Tips! So be sure to check back tomorrow afternoon for it.