Category Archives: NOTD Photos

NOTD Spam!

Revlon Heavenly - jelly sandwich - swatch

Revlon Heavenly in a jelly sandwich

Today, my NOTD is a jelly sandwich using Revlon Heavenly and OPI Care To Danse.  The full mani is a coat of OPI, Revlon, 2nd OPI, 2nd Revlon, 3rd OPI, then topcoat. I did the thinnest coats I could manage, and I love how it turned out!

For some reason posts with just one photo of one NOTD feel incomplete to me, so here are some other recent manis I’ve done:

Two coats of Max Factor Fantasy Fire over one coat of OPI Dating a Royal – Fantasy Fire has a gorgeous color shift! Unfortunately, Fantasy Fire is not available in the US.

max factor fantasy fire

with flash

max factor fantasy fire

artificial light

Hits Phenomena Moonbow (buy at -->Llarowe -->) – this is two coats over black. Another color shifting polish, I just love duochromes & multichromes so much!

And good news on the kitten front: they came home from the animal hospital Sunday evening, spent all day yesterday sleeping, and are feeling much, much better and more playful today – they are currently chasing each other all over the house, and could not be any cuter if they tried!

China Glaze Holiday Joy 2012 – Holo Glitters Swatches & Review

China Glaze Holiday Joy 2012 – A Gift For You Shot Glass

China Glaze has just released their Holiday 2012 collection, called Holiday Joy.  It consists of 12 polishes, and I believe all are available individually, as well as in a variety of sets.  I found them at Sally Beauty yesterday, and purchased the set with the two scattered holo glitters, which also includes a shot glass.   The silver holo is called Glistening Snow, and the gold is Angel Wings.

China Glaze Glistening Snow, Angel Wings

Here is a swatch of Glistening Snow, blurred to show sparkle.  On the left, I have one coat over OPI Dating a Royal; on the right, I have three coats alone. No topcoat – it’s very gritty (more on that later)

China Glaze Glistening Snow 

Here is China Glaze Angel Wings.  On the left, three coats alone, on the right, one coat over Nails, Inc. Belgrave Place.  Again, blurred to show sparkle, and this time it does have topcoat (not that you can tell, it’s so blurry!)

China Glaze Angel Wings

Like I mentioned, it is VERY gritty without topcoat – here is a close-up of three coats of Angel Wings without topcoat:

It takes 2-4 coats of topcoat to smooth it out, depending on how may coats of the China Glaze you use, what topcoat you use, how thick your topcoat coats are, etc.

And, here is my NOTD! This is one coat of Zoya Zuza with one coat of China Glaze Glistening Snow, again blurred to show sparkle. It has two coats of topcoat, but I’m going to add a third, because it’s not smooth enough for my liking.

Here it is un-blurred – much prettier blurred, don’t you agree?

You can see all 12 of the China Glaze Holiday Joy polishes on Vampy Varnish. Will you be picking any of them up?

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This post is from Project Swatch. All rights reserved.

FOTD with Wet n Wild & OPI Bond Goldeneye NOTD

I realized I haven’t posted a FOTD for a while, so today I took pictures of my makeup look.  The top photo has the lipstick (WnW Black Orchid) at full strength; after taking some photos I decided to blot it down, and that’s how I wore it out.

Here’s the breakdown:

Face:

Armani Maestro Foundation (review)
Guerlain Meteorities Compact Powder in Teint Beige (review)
Inglot 363 eyeshadow (swatch) – to contour
MAC The Perfect Cheek blush (review)

with lipstick blotted down

Eyes & Brows:

Wet n Wild Sparkle Til Morning; two shades on lid and another in inner corner (review)
Wet n Wild Drinking A Glass of Shine – medium brown under lashline (review)
Burberry Trench (review) – to blend & on browbone
Prestige Total Intensity pencil (swatch) – upper lashline
Armani ETK Mascara (review)
Anastasia Brow Powder duo in Brunette (review)

Lips:

Wet n Wild Black Orchid lipstick (swatch)

OPI Goldeneye swatch
OPI Goldeneye – natural light

I also wanted to share a picture of Goldeneye from OPI’s new James Bond themed collection, Skyfall. It is so gorgeous! It’s a clear base absolutely packed with tiny gold flakies – so many that it’s opaque in 2-3 coats.  I wore it when I went out of town last weekend and didn’t manage to get a picture, so I swatched it today to show you.  I swatched it over Wet n Wild MegaLast polish in Deadly Dose (a gold) so that I could get away with two coats of Goldeneye and not have any nail showing through.

OPI Goldeneye swatch
OPI Goldeneye – with flash
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This post is from Project Swatch. All rights reserved.

Nail Art For Short Nails: Stamping Over Neutral Holo

OPI DS Classic stamped with Cheeky Plate D

OPI DS Classic stamped with Cheeky Plate D

My nails are super short nubs right now due to a split and filing down to match – they’re always short, but this is shorter than usual.  I was playing around yesterday, and I think that this combination works really well on them; using a base color close to my skintone keeps it low-contrast and de-emphasizes the short length, and the sparkle and delicate stamping adds interest. As in the caption, this is OPI DS Classic stamped with an image from Cheeky Plate D.

Because of the scattered holo sparkle, this is especially great in the sun. In the shade, it’s more muted but still pretty.

I bought Cheeky Plate D from a local nail supply store, I’m not sure of the best place to buy online.  It’s a great quality plate – it was very easy to stamp the images.

In other nail polish news, I’ve been busy swatching all of my nail polish on swatch sticks.  I did all of my frankens last week on mini swatch sticks (again from a local beauty supply), and yesterday my giant ebay order of regular sized swatch sticks arrived.  I spent a couple hours yesterday and managed to swatch most of my cremes/jellies/sheers/shimmers, and today I’ll be swatching the glitters, duochromes, flakies, and other special finishes.

Almost 150 swatch sticks – mostly cremes