Colour me unimpressed

Today I just have a simple swatch for you. It's something I have owned for years and have worn before, but have never swatched. This is Milani Chocolate Sprinkles, which came out way back in 2012 and was a CVS exclusive.

Chocolate sprinkles is a rich dark chocolate brown, with golden shimmer and flashes of green and pink. And application was 3 coats(but you could get away with 2) and the formula is super easy to work with. Now don't get me wrong this is a nice polish, but it just doesn't do anything for me. I think I fell for the polish because it photographs so well(I would love it if it looked like my photo). I never even saw it in person before receiving it, I just asked my mother to pick it up when she was in the States. When I finally put it on my nails it all just kind of fell flat. It's so much more lively in photographs.

It's rare that I hate a polish, so even ones I don't love get used up. A polish like this would fall under the "I have no idea what polish to wear" and the "I need something nice, and non offensive" polish.

Any polish(or makeup in general) you fell for that then left you unimpressed?

Sinful Coloor New Wave + I think I'm telepatic

So I have some polish AND art for you guys today!

First up I have Sinful Colors New Wave.  I bought this at a warehouse sale with George.  The weather was something like -30 and it was WINDY.  And yet you could not keep us away from those polishes.  It was totally worth it.  I would honestly say this colour is the closest I have to a Nine/Ten TARDIS blue.  It's a deep navy blue, but it's a bit dusty in real life.  The formula was excellent, I almost didn't need a second coat.

 

Then I decided I need to add some art to it, and for the first time ever I got out a piece of paper and started to draw some designs on it.  One of them involved tape, but I didn't really like it.  After doing this for a while I was out of ideas.  So I decided to lurk the interwebs for inspiration.  That's when I came across this manicure by Nailside after searching 'Gold nail art'.  It was actually the same design I had drawn, but it looked much better off of paper.  I have seem post from her before, but had never seen that specific manicure.  So that is how I telepathically took her idea.  Or would could have just both come up with the same design, but that answer is too easy.  To achieve this look I cut out triangles out of scotch tape.  Then I used a piece of striping tape on either side of it.  Then for the Gold I used Milani Gold Glitz.

 The ring finger had a bit of a bubbling incident :/

Neon Pop! Oh, and Varnished Valkyrie turns 2 today!! Huzzah!!

Sorry I haven't been updating often, but I have been having bouts of insomnia and it leaves me feeling drained.  I'm hoping that passes soon.  I have nothing really interesting to share apart from I made the best slow cooker ribs ever.  The end.

Today I have this simple manicure inspired by Silvia Lace Nails: Textured nail art with a subtle splash of neon.  I loved how the colour looked just popping through the black textured polish.  For mine I used Milani's Dude Blue and Zoya's Dahlia.  I kind of changed up the french as you can see.  It's still simple, but a but a bit funky.  And even though the textured polish was layered over polish it still wore like iron.

In celebration of turning 2 don't forget to check out our 2 year anniversary wishlist giveaway!!

I don't know how I feel about you... I think I just fell out of like.

So just a quick post because I've been a bad blogger this year :P

1)  I don't think I have mentioned it here(or I may have just mentioned it in passing), but we have an Instagram now.  So everyone should go and follow us over there because that's the cool thing to do.  Everyone's doing it.

2)  This man.  All I did was use some white and then I used the saran wrap technique and blotted on Essence Ultimate Pink and Milani Dude blue.  I finally ended with a square neon pink stud from The Born Pretty Store.  I don't know if I like it.  I liked it when I originally finished it, but I kinda just fell out of like.  There's nothing wrong with it, I just had a really short like affair.

What do you think about this mani?  Are you in like with it?

*The colour of the pink stud was REALLY hard to capture in some of these.  In real life it is probably closer to the second picture.

Also if you would like to buy these studs you can get them here. And you can also use our 10% Born Pretty Discount code EAL91.

*Some products were sent for review.

Vein Nails: I have a semi. A semi fail that is.

Do you ever have one of those ideas?  Really random, weird ideas?  I do.

Well the other day I was thinking of transparent animals, because no one can stop me.  That lead to me thinking of veins that you can see through skin.  And I wondered could I do that on nails?

I knew I was going to have to sandwich blue in between a sheer nutral.  Now I had nothing that matched my skin so I used a random Nailene french mani polish.  As well as Milani Dude Blue(ugh) for the veins.  Finally I added a layer of matte topcoat.

Now there's a few things you should take note of when looking at these photos.  1) The Camera tends to make the Nailene polish look a lot yellower when under light that's not natural.  2) The more light the less visible the veins were in photos.  In real life they look more like the last 2 photos.  Which were taken with a tiny bit of natural light 3) What I'm trying to say is these were IMPOSSIBLE to photograph.  Any lighting I would consider good lighting essentially washes out the veins.

Now this is a semi fail because this actually looks pretty cool in real life.  The "skin" looks a lot more natural and the veins are a bit more visible.  But not too visible.  Enough that they look sort of like veins :P

You guys get any weird nail ideas?  Do you actually go through with them even though they my fail? 

Adventures In Stamping: The First Attempt

So thanks to the wonderful people over at The Born Pretty Store I decided to step out of my comfort zone a do something I never really considered trying.  Stamping.   I wont lie.  Originally I thought stamping was kind of eh.  But it turns out when done well it can look AMAZING. So because I already had a Konad plate (m65) I decided why not use it.  So I decided to try a Double Sided Nail Art Stamper and Scraper.

First off I decided against using the scraper for two reasons. 1)I didn't want to scratch up my plate 2) I don't know it you can see it in my photo of just the scraper but there was a tiny extra bit of metal on the scraper that would have for sure messed up the plate.  So instead I used an old, plastic HMV gift card.

 

 

You can see the extra piece of metal under my watermark

The stamper itself has two rubber sides.  A smaller green side and a larger pink side.  I had never even felt what a stamper feels like until recently.  It sort of feels like a REALLY soft, and squishy eraser.

As my base I used Milani Dude Blue.  Then for stamping I used ORLY Platinum Blush a metallic silver. Getting the polish onto the stamper was easy as pie.  Paint polish onto plate, swipe off all that excess with card, put stamper on plate(I tried rolling the stamper across the design and just placing it directly on top of the design. Both ways picked up the design just fine).  The actually application onto the nail was easy.  I just rolled it across my nail.  The tricky part was getting it to go on straight.  But I'm sure it will come with practice!

Going into this I knew what design I wanted to use, and I knew even though it was a full nail design I was only going to stamp half my nail.  The full manicure I ended up with has been something I have been wanting to try and thought the stamping would look good incorporated with it.  I really liked how it turned out with the black and the striping tape!  I also purposely started stamping the design so it was a different angle on each nail.  So it looks the same, but different!

How do you guys think I did?

 

And don't forget about out Born Pretty Discount code (EAL91)!  10% off already great prices! 

*Product was sent for honest review.

James Bond: Black and white rainbows? (Come see the wonders that are my left AND RIGHT hand!)

In an attempt to do a James Bond mani, I wrote a list of all the James Bond stuff I know.

1) Suits
2) Martinis
3) Sean Connery
4) Pierce Brosnan
5) Daniel Craig
6) Gold something
7) Shooting occurs
8) Movies make loads of money
9) The theme song

I quickly realized that I know nothing about James Bond, and that I didn't care.  So I did this instead!

On my left hand I did black and white stripes,  and a rainbow and white accent nail.  I achieved this by using striping tape.  Then on my right hand I got that straw stamping(?) look by breaking an old pen and using the tube that holds the ink.  And in order to give it more dimension I would stamp more then once with paint.  And in between stamping I would dip my hand in water.  That's why not all the stamps are solid.

On my left and right hand I used OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls as a base.  Then on my left hand I did the stripes with OPI Black Onyx.  The rainbow was done using (From red-purple) Essie Fishnet Stockings, Orly Holla, BK Sweet Candy Fast Dry Nail Art Polish in #19, Essie Pretty Edgy, Milani Dude Blue and H&M Plum.  All the black and colour on my right hand was done with acrylic paint.

So tell me.  Who does not care about James Bond?

 I wanted to hold something that had a rainbow on it.  The only thing I could find was this bottle of Chardonngay.  Oh what a NYE that was.

Milani HD: Shortest review ever. I'm just going to put it in the title. 3 easy coats, silver, scattered holo.

 

Milani Dude Blue: I don't like your name...

I would like to start by saying I love Milani products.  Next I would like to say I hate this name.  It's like they got some UCLA frat boy named Chad "Chadster" Daniels to name it(No offense UCLA...unless you're a frat boy...any frat boy for that matter.)

DB is a vibrant bright blue.  Although in my personal opinion I wouldn't call it a neon.  Too me it just doesn't seem bright and obnoxious enough.  Like all the other Milani polishes the formula was great and I only needed 2 coats.  My only problem is the bottle is the colour of the polish.  So you can't see how much polish you have left.

I really liked this polish.  It's polishes like these that make me wish I had some more brighter colours.

The verdict is in: I like this better then OPI Spotted.

Yeah I definitely like the water spotted nails better.  I'm glad I didn't spend a silly amount of money on the OPI one.  If you don't know what this technique is watch the vid a linked to.  But if you don't want to here's a quick how to. 1)Fill a container with room temp water 2)Drop droplets of polish in water of colour you would like to be on top 3)Spray with hand sanitizer 4)Stick your finger in it 5)Boom done.

Now the OPI one is unique BUT it always reminds me of dirty water drying slowly.  You know when you spill something and it starts drying in random patches.  You know!

With this technique I feel like the base colour and the colour you choose to use on top of it look better together.  They look like 1.  Does that make sense?  Anyways there are not perfect(See right hand) but I will for sure try these out again.  They are much easier then water marbling!  And you can do them in any colour!

I used OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls for the base and Black Onyx for the top.  I did the accent nails with Milani Dude Blue and BK Sweet Candy Fast Dry Nail Art Polish in #19* on my left hand and China Glaze Urban-Night and Essie Pretty Edgy on my right.

 

Left hand

 

Right hand

 

* I need to add something about the BK Sweet Candy Fast Dry Nail Art Polish in #19.  In my original review I said it took between 3-4 coats to reach opacity.  Well I was wrong.  I used two coats when I did my accent nail.  I think my problem last time was I never waited long enough which caused constant dragging and bald spots.  I have failed you. *hangs head in shame*.

Milani - Gold Glitz : Seeing is Believeing

1) I got a huge piece of a shrimps tail accidentally lodged in my throat.  I had to fish it out with my finger.  It was HUGE guys.  I honestly wanted to take a picture and post it (It wasn't gross looking at all, just the hard shell) But I'll save that for another time.

2)More seeing is believing stuff.  I for the first time EVER wore just a glitter.  A pure glitter.  Now I'll do a full mani every once in a while and top it off with some glitter but I never do just glitter... Until today (well 3 days ago).

I wore Milani's Gold Glitz.  It's a gold glitter peppered with orange/coppery glitter. And let me just say it's pretty effin amazing.  For something that is pure glitter it's actually not over the top.  It's really blingy without being overly obnoxious.  This is of course one of Milani's one coat glitters.  I did 2 coats because most fingers needed it.  Although some would have looked fine with the one. The formula was a tad goopy but nothing thinner can't fix.

Does this mean I'll be wearing more full glitter manis?  Absolutely not.

 BLING!

Blurry but you can really see all the orange.

H&M Plum + Fierce nails

I have a swatch today of H&M's nail polish Plum. I really wasn't expecting much out of it. I had bought something before Christmas at H&M and they had given me a $5 discount. Luckly for me there was no minimum purtchas limit. So I ended up buying this an another tiny of bottle of nail polish with the card and payed nothing.

H&M Plum is exactly the colour it sounds like. It's a deep plum cream(although aubergine would have been an equally acceptable name). To my surprise this had a great formula. I had full coverage in 2 coats and even before I put top coat on it was super shiney. My only complaint was the brush.  I knew that it wouldn't be the best just because the bottle was small (0.23 fl.oz) but the brush itself didn't fan out that easily.  And I've had small bottles that were decent for what they were.

Then I decided since I was going to be wearing this as an actual mani I wanted to spice it up. So I got out some tape, my bottle of Milani One Coat Glitter in Silver Dazzle and La vola! I've seen them before but I'm not sure what they're called. But I do know this.  They are pretty damn fierce (and I never say fierce). They ooze with sexy prowess. I need to do my nails like this one day for the boy. Valkyrie approved.  They may simple but I love the way they look.  Why didn't I do this sooner?! I will definitely be doing this again!

Sephora by OPI - Break a Leg Warmer

This is the only polish I was interested in from Sephora by OPI's Urban Ballerina collection. And boy oh boy was I glad I bought it!

First off when it comes to polishes in general I find that (at least in my case) if there's any formula that's gonna give you application problems it's gonna be glitter or cream based polishes.  I find if any polish is ether going to be goopy or get goopy over time its going to be one of the two.  Let me just say that the formula for this is FLAWLESS.  It applies like butter (if you put butter on your nails, and it was a really good polish, and not butter). It goes on opaque in 2 easy coats and evens out beautifully.

Break a Leg Warmer is a true medium to dark gray.  And I love it because it's just gray.  Not grayish blue, or grayish green.  Just Gray. <---- Imagine that said by Jack Mcfarland from Will & Grace.  If you watch/watched the show you'll get why.

This last picture is actually quite old.  And I had been wearing it for a few days which is why it's scuffed up and such.  But I really like wearing Break a Leg Warmer wit Milani's one coat glitter, Silver Dazzle.