Pink Wednesday Comparison: Lex Cosmetics vs. Ulta

Hey girls! Quick comparison swatches today! For a while, I was stuck on finding the perfect pale pink polish (this all began with OPI Play the Peonies). In this process, I've acquired quite a few similar pinks, and unfortunately, quite a few super-sheer ones I have no use for. As I searched through my stash here at my apartment (I took only two shoe-boxes of my stash from my dad's) I realized I brought two pale pinks that were nearly identical and thought you guys might want to see. If you don't, avert your eyes now...jerk.

On the left, we have Lex Cosmetics Sweetie Pie and on the right is Ulta Baby Doll. I swear, the nicknames are just a coincidence!

Two coats; both are streaky and not evened out

Three coats; opaque, VNL might be showing on a natural nail, though

Three coats

As you can see, they are fairly similar. Lex Cosmetics is a touch less opaque, but they could be built up to the same opacity easily. The main difference is that Ulta's is a hair pinker than Lex's, but similar enough I'd say you don't need both. If I had to choose, I'd choose Lex just because I like that she donates to charity and has colors created by the fans with stories behind them. Lex Cosmetics is available online at www.lexcosmetics.com for $10 per bottle, with $1 going to a charity picked by the inspiration (BTW, my color is on there too, check out Tuilleries!). Ulta is found, obviously, in Ulta stores and at www.ulta.com for around $2-6, depending on sales.

xoxo,
Amanda

Thank Blue to my Lovely Readers ;)

Hello there... *sheepish*. I know, I know. I've been MIA a lot lately. So much going on in my personal life, blah blah blah. Onto the polish and I won't bore you with the asinine details of my existence.

Anyway, this mani is sort of an homage to all my readers and followers. Despite my often prolonged absences recently, my followers have been increasing! Hello of you out there, and thank you for being my inspiration again.

I started off with Ulta Alter Ego. I definitely thought this was green, I don't know why. This is clearly a blue metallic polish and it was super easy to work with. Here's two coats and top coat.

Now, once I realized it was, in fact, blue, I decided it needed some freshening up, so I added some of my favorite stuff... glitter! And thus, my Lynnderella Thank Blue! mani came to be.

I used two coats of Thank Blue! and it was blingtastic. The metallic and glitter combo was perfect (IMO) and I was in love with this mani... however, I'm also a Lynnderella addict (evidence? See my last ten posts and the percentage of which contain Lynnderella - they are my antidepressant).

Just for good measure, I wanted to show you all the bottle from which Thank Blue came. You can really see all this polish has to offer in this shot!

Anyways, this mani can be summed up in one word: Sexual. Amanda knows what I mean.

xoxo,
Amanda

Christmas Party Nails

Hi everyone! I'm back...ish. I was really behind on Christmas manis and it's just not the same posting them after the holidays, so I guess the deadline inspired me! These are the nails I wore to my work Christmas party, which was kind of a good idea in my head but didn't work out exactly as planned.

I started off with one coat of Ulta's The Jungle Look - ONE freakin' coat. Below is no top coat, too, and look how shiny! This color reminds me of Mandy because she's always encouraging me to use it ;)

Then I wanted to add some dots. I decided on silver, but my boyfriend also wanted red... but the red didn't really show up and they just looked black in most lights. You can see it below with the flash that it is red, but the first picture they hardly show up. I made the dots using my Migi nail art pens.

And there you have it, really simple holiday mani. I was going to do this with blue and silver for Hanukkah as well, but I've lost track of all time and haven't... but you can visualize, I'm sure.

xoxo,

Amanda

I'm Not a Nail Artist... Part Two

Hi, I'm back! More nail art! Hopefully you all haven't lost faith in me after the last attempt :/ This one came out much better, but was much simpler. I decided to go for wrapping paper nails. Each nail is themed differently, but I think that made it even more fun! Behold:

For this I used base coats of a basic white, Ulta The Jungle Look, Cult Nails Iconic, and Orly Sweet Peacock. Then I added green and red polka dots on the white, a red bow on the green, green swirls on the red, and silver ribbon on the blue.

This was pretty simple and I liked it a lot! My favorite were the polka dots, they were just so cute! I wish I had done the bow facing out but hindsight is 20/20. Which nail is your favorite?

xoxo,
Amanda

Recent Purchases and Packages

Hey guys! I'm in an alliterating mood, so be careful! Just giving you guys a glimpse into my awesome acquistions as of late.

With the Ulta Butter London BOGO I snatched up these two lovelies: Bluey and Rosie Lee.

And to get free shipping, I needed $25 so I grabbed these too: Nicole by OPI One Less Lonely Glitter (my work inappropriate week was sadly lacking in purple glitter), NOPI Do Good... Feel Good, and Ulta Baby Doll. (I'm still on my quest for a non-shimmery light, light almost nude pink after OPI Play the Peonies.)

I also ordered last year's Halloween set from OPI, Tattoo Ta-boo! mostly because I wanted the glow in the dark purple :)

And finally, the lovely Dana sent me some goodies just because. Funky Fingers Sand and Stillettos, Wet n Wild Stream of Wonder (from Mermaid's Cove) and Funky Fingers Baby Baby Baby (which I hope is a Justin Bieber reference, just because). She also sent a Nail Fetish polish from the dollar store, but I had already opened it when it was time for pictures and forgot it at my best friend's house. :-\

So, I got some good stuff! I also have multiplied my Migi supplies, but I don't know if it interests you guys to see all of those colors? Let me know!

xoxo,
Amanda

Colors that Look Good on Short Nails: Part Une

Hey ladies! As I previously mentioned, my nails are a little bit nubbin-y lately because of my breaks. Never fear, I have been patching, applying strengthener, applying lengthener, and just plain hoping to get my nails back to a reasonable length. But for now, you get the great (please read this with a booming voice like you're at a wrestling match or something. Think of the voice they use to say "let's get ready to ruuuumbbbleeeeee") COLORS THAT LOOK GOOD ON SHORT NAILS series. And here's the first part: Ulta Mint Condition. This is two coats and no topcoat (yet):

See how shiny and pretty it is?! Even on my little nubs! I actually wasn't expecting it to look nice, since when I polled friends on twitter, everyone said to go with dark colors. However, I'm in denial that summer is over and I'm still using all my summer untrieds until further notice. And, because I only have one picture of Mint Condition for some unknown reason, here's a bonus picture of my kitty, Star:

She looks kind of possessed here because her eyes are this really bright green-yellow, but when she closes her eyes she's super cute (to me, because I'm her non-fur mommy) because she's totally black and nothing stands out. I've actually taken some pictures of my nails with her as a background because she's such a solid, opaque background... but then I have to deal with the fluffy fur all over me ;)

Oh, and yes, she's spoiled and sits on my kitchen table all the time. And she's too cute for me to punish her for it. :)

xoxo,
Amanda

Pink Wednesday: Ulta Sweetheart Pink

Hi again! Here's a really nice Barbie pink color, Ulta Sweetheart Pink. I picked this one out randomly when Ulta had the spend $17.50, get a free bag of goodies promo, and I'm glad I did because it is a perfect Barbie pink. I just have to be careful where I wear it because people will think I am trying to be Barbie LOL.

The above picture is three coats. It could have been done in two, but I wasn't patient and didn't let each coat dry so I kept streaking it with the second coat and had to go back. As you can see, it's a creme pink with no shimmer, which is something I like. I've recently come to grips with the fact that shimmer is among my least favorite finishes; and I know that's something very controversial to say in the nail polish community LOL

What do you think? Are you a Barbie pink girl or no?

xoxo,
Amanda

Quick Comparison: Vintage Violet vs Sparrow Me the Drama

Just a quick post for today, not at home to use my computer so unless I have tomorrow off, probably no post for tomorrow. All depends on Irene, whose center is set to hit us in 2-3 hours.

Hi! After I brought home my recent Ulta purchases, I noticed Vintage Violet looked eerily similar to one I already own, OPI Sparrow Me The Drama. I did a quick side by side to show you the comparison:

Vintage Violet on the left, SMTD on the right. As you can see, VV is slightly mauve-r than SMTD but they are pretty close. I know this picture isn't the best but my camera died right after and I forgot to take more pictures. In my opinion, you could own one and not the other. I slightly prefer SMTD's color but the application of VV was much more opaque.
Dupes? Close? Do you need both?

xoxo,
Amanda

Epic Comparison Post, AKA I'm a sucker.

Well, hello there, my dears! You're looking dapper today! ;) If you aren't all in a good mood now, you'll be in one by the end of this post because either I am high from fumes typing this or these polishes are just AWESOMESAUCE. (And that is a word I don't use lightly!)

Let's start with a back story. (I wish I could somehow insert the wobbly lines down your vision like they do on TV to show a flashback LOL) Back in the day (okay, about a year ago) I became obsessed with my first lemming. Yes, the polish that started it all: Mad as a Hatter. The problem was that it was about 2 months after the collection came out, and I couldn't find it ANYWHERE. I became that obsessive polish fiend we now all know as "Amanda" ;) Alas, I didn't ever find it, until the fabulous Jamie sent it to me (love ya!) and the lemming was fulfilled. But not before a lot of other polishes came home with me...

So after a lot of taunting from my boyfriend ("oh, another one?" "wow, that's a lot of rainbow sparkle", etc.) I decided to put this collection to good use, and I swatched them all and will compare them so you can decide just which one is the perfect one... for you. For me, they're all perfect.

 (Ignore the smudged Sharpie, I was going to label them on the wheel but it would not cooperate. So I got creative and wrote the labels around a piece of paper). These are two coats of each in order of the bottles above: Wet n Wild Party of Five Glitters, Sephora by OPI Spark-tacular, Claire's Bedazzled, Essence Circus Confetti, Ulta Pinata-yada-yada, Milani Gems, Nyx Carnival, and (the epic, the ultimate) Deborah Lippmann Happy Birthday (yes, I broke down and bought it).

And here are some close ups in the same order: Wet n Wild Party of Five Glitters, Sephora by OPI Spark-tacular, Claire's Bedazzled, Essence Circus Confetti below.

And the remaining four: Ulta Pinata-yada-yada, Milani Gems, Nyx Carnival, Deborah Lippmann Happy Birthday.

And, not to be outdone, Dana actually pointed out one I was missing so I snatched this one up just before this went to presses: Confetti Tazmanian Devil:

So here's the rundown: All nine (!) of them have a clear base and a variety of glitter: either micro-glitter (small specks), small glitter (next size up), and regular glitter; either hex, round, or square in shape.

• Wet n Wild Party of Five Glitters: Small red and green circular glitter, slightly larger green circular glitter, hex glitter in silver and light blue. Price: about $3-5 depending on the retailer (I forget what I paid exactly.)
• Sephora by OPI Spark-tacular: Multicolored micro-glitter, small pink, blue, orange round glitter, and sparse larger hex glitter in orange, pink, blue, green. Clearly different from the others because of the abundance of micro-glitter outweighing the hex/round glitters.  Price: $9.50
• Claire's Bedazzled: Multicolored micro-glitter, large red, orange, yellow, green and blue hex glitter. Price: $4.50 but can be combined with Claire's buy one get one half off special.
• Essence Circus Confetti: Sparse multicolored round micro-glitter, some multicolored small hex and round glitter, and large pink, orange, yellow, silver, blue and green hex glitter. Price: unknown, estimated about $2-5 but I got this in a swap and it's only readily available in Europe.
• Ulta Pinata-yada-yada: Small round multicolored glitter, red, pink, orange and yellow hex glitter. Dries a bit matte. Sparser glitter than the others, definitely meant as a top coat and not to be used on its own. Price: $5 in the old Ulta bottles, $6 in the new cylinder bottles.
• Milani Gems: Small round multicolored glitter, red (?), orange, green and silver hex glitter. Although this is usually hailed as the dupe for Happy Birthday, it doesn't have the light blue hex glitter. Older versions also don't include the pink hex. Price: unknown, I got this one in a swap also, but it's available from beautyjoint.com for about $5-7.
• Nyx Carnival: Small round multicolored glitter, pink, orange, silver, green, and light blue hex glitter. Price: about $3-4, also available through beautyjoint.com
• Deborah Lippmann Happy Birthday: Small round multi-colored glitter, Pink, orange, yellow, green, light blue, silver hex glitter. Very dense compared to the others, only required one coat to compare to the others at two coats. Price: $18, or as part of the Get This Party Started set which is 3 polishes (Candy Shop, Forget You, Happy Birthday) for $42.
• Confetti Tazmanian Devil:  Like $OPI, it has a lot of microglitter which sets it apart. Multicolored small round glitter, pink, orange, yellow, green and light blue hex glitter. Dries matte, not as sparkly as the rest. Price: $2 at CVS

Whew! Okay, now that my vision is blurry from staring at swatches of these glitters, I'm going to rest haha. I hope you all enjoyed this comparison, but which one is your favorite and which ones do you own? Obviously, I own them all haha but my favorites are probably the ones without the microglitter, like DL Happy Birthday, WnW Party of Five Glitters, Claire's Bedazzled, and Essence Circus Confetti. Are there any questions left unanswered? I'm hoping the price points, glitter rundown, and swatches were helpful!

xoxo,
Amanda

Bam-blue-zled ... updated!

Hello my dears! Quick post for today to show you how I updated Ulta Bam-blue-zled before removing it: adding glitter! Duh! :) I put 3 coats of Kleancolor Disco Ball (why it's called Disco Ball, I'm not sure...) over it. Disco Ball has small purple and blue glitter in a clear base.

What do you think? I liked this enough and was happy to use a glitter, but it didn't keep me occupied for long!

xoxo,
Amanda

Ulta Bam-blue-zled

Hello lovely ladies! I just want to start today by saying that I'm up to 49 followers! I'm already planning out my giveaway to thank you all and hopefully there's some stuff in there that you are all interested in (hint: it's a lot of glitter LOL). Thank you so much! I feel like I've finally "made it" haha. It's amazing to me when I think there are about 50 people from all over the world reading what I have to say. Thank you, thank you, thank you! (I feel like this is a terrible Grammy speech, and I'm moving on now. Sorry.)

On to the polish: Today's polish is brought to you by creative naming! LOL I'm a huge fan of this name for some reason, but the color is nice too. Bam-blue-zled is one of my recent Ulta purchases and is a periwinkle color. A few of you mentioned you liked it in comments on the Ulta post or on twitter. It applied pretty nicely, although it required three coats on some fingers to even out and had some pooling at the cuticle. Nothing unmanageable, but worth noting.

 No flash, above.

With flash. Completely blurry. I only posted this because this is color accurate, and none of my non-fuzzy pictures would reflect the real color. So weird, right?

Overall, I enjoyed this color but it just wasn't WOW! to me so I touched it up with something, which you'll see in my next post!
What do you think? Did the name draw you in too?

xoxo,
Amanda

Recent Ulta Visit...

Hello again my dear readers! My follower count has increased because I joined a facebook group called Polish-aholics Anonymous and I love it! So nice to interact with fellow bloggers and polish addicts, so if you found me through there: hello!

As you all know, I'm an Ulta addict. Say what you want about their service or whatever, but I adore it and my Ulta is amazing and hasn't let me down yet. So I decided to stop by recently and picked up these beauties:

Vintage Violet, Bam-blue-zled, and Mint Condition. And with a purchase of $17.50 or more I got...

This cute little wristlet! Filled with all the goodies below:

Pretty spectacular deal if you ask me! I was so excited haha. And below are some super quick swatches of the polishes. Bam-blue-zled (I love that name haha), Mint Condition, and Vintage Violet.

Do you share a love of Ulta like I do? My friend Emily from Embellished Nails hasn't been yet so we're going to get together and go soon! Any suggestions for her?

xoxo,
Amanda

Mardi Gras on my Nails!

Hello my dears! Today I have for you an unintentional Mardi Gras mani. I really just wanted a different color on my nails, since I keep leaning towards pink, purple, and blue, and out popped this green beauty from a brand I don't see on blogs often: Misa. I love Misa for many reasons, one being that it is Big 3 Free and especially because it is vegan-friendly (I'm not vegan, but I love animals and I definitely support any company that respects animal rights). This is Misa, The Grass is Greener on My Side, which is a green shimmer that can be built up to opacity in three coats.

As you can see, because I am a glitter fiend and couldn't resist, I added Ulta Pinata-Yada-Yada on top to give it some flair.

I must say, I was a little disappointed in Pinata-Yada-Yada. The pictures above are THREE COATS OF GLITTER. Can you believe how sparse that is? I ended up having to dot and blot and dig and make sure that the glitter somehow got onto the nail, but it was a pain. The bottle looked like a little glitterbomb topcoat and then it came out with five glitters per nail? I was unhappy, to say the least, but now I know for when I want five sparkles on my nail (rarely) that I have a polish to turn to!

In the end, I decided to cover it up and apply La Rosa black crackle from NailDeRoyale.com and I loved the outcome:

Have you had similar experiences with Pinata-Yada-Yada? Have you tried Misa? (If not, I suggest you do! It's available on Transdesign.com)

xoxo,
Amanda

Boyfriend's Pick: Ulta Scene Steel-er and China Glaze Harmony

Hi ladies (and gents, possibly!) How is everyone doing today? It's Monday which is normally okay for me, since I like my job, but I hate Tuesdays and therefore dread Mondays... are any of you like that? I'm enjoying today though because none of my clients are coming (boo, no money) but it's giving me plenty of time to stalk my fellow bloggers who are at Cosmoprof! (By the way, this post is apparently going to be centered since Blogger won't let me align it left)

Today I'll be showing you Ulta's Scene Steel-er, a gunmetal gray metallic polish. I absolutely love gray polishes. I love gray anything. I fell in love at first sight. It was a bit brushstrokey, but nothing too unbearable, so I wore it for a day on its own. I'm sure this polish would be great for stamping!

Then, my boyfriend helped me pick out a Bundle Monster plate and color to stamp. He has great taste and picked China Glaze Harmony and BM 210. It was subtle, but really pretty and inspired me to let him pick more manis! Sorry for my awkward finger placement, I wanted to show how subtle the stamping was but then you couldn't see it at all so my ring finger is up a little and my pinky kind of followed... it was a mess, but it did show what I wanted it to! haha



Does your significant other pick your polishes or manis? Do you like this idea? Should I make this a regular blog feature? Isn't he adorable? (Oh wait, ignore that last thought...)

xoxo,

Amanda

My First Splatter Mani

Hi my dear readers! My post today is inspired by Jen, The PolishAholic. She made the splatter mani famous and this is my rendition, although she has many others that are much better than this first attempt on my part.

For my splatters, I used Misa Baby I Love You, Ulta Celebutante, and Claire's Fresh Water over Sinful Colors white. I had a bit of trouble with my technique at first (this was initially going to be a holo splatter, but my holos didn't want to cooperate and I didn't want to waste them) but I got it to work with some other colors and the results were pretty cool! Here's both hands so you can see what I got:

For some reason, my right hand has a lot more white showing, but maybe it's because I did my left first and had perfected my technique. I really liked both middle fingers (ironic). I didn't tape my fingers off and boy, did I regret that when it came to clean up!

All in all, a really cool technique! Love the abstract-ness and the variety of colors and combinations you can use. Thanks Jen! I got so many compliments on this when I wore it! Once in a while, people will compliment me but yesterday when I had this on at least five people commented how cool it was and asked how to do it! Guess it's a hit (and a great way to get through untrieds)!

xoxo,
Amanda

OPI DS Extravagance vs. Ulta Material Girl

Hey again! :) How is everyone doing? My day is going rather craptastically, and I'm in need of some cheering up!

Today's post is a comparison I stumbled upon by accident. Dolores at Colorful Bottle and I have been in the midst of an epic cross-continent polish swap, and she requested OPI DS Extravagance for her friend. I went to Ulta to pick one up (I have it at home, but wanted to give her a new bottle), and happened upon Ulta Material Girl.

In the bottle at the store, they looked nearly identical in color and holo. Of course, I thought of you guys and doing a comparison post. The Ulta was on sale for $3 and OPI was about $9, so I scooped up two bottles of Ulta (one for me, one for Dolores or a giveaway if she didn't want it) and decided if she wanted the DS, I could send her my bottle. I quickly swatched both for her so she could compare and you can see for yourself: which one is which?

Answer: OPI is on the left. The only real difference was that OPI has a bit more holographic glitter, but other than that the colors are pretty much the same. The angle and lighting here may have affected the holo, but the colors are so similar! OPI could have been one coat but I applied two coats of each for uniformity.

In the end, Dolores decided Ulta was just as well and passed on the OPI. What do you think? Dupes? Similar? Totally different and I need to get my eyes checked?

xoxo,
Amanda

Pixel Polishes

Hi all! Many people have been noticing the new brand that Ulta is now carrying, Pixel. A lot of these intrigued me on the website, so I ordered 6 of them while they were on sale for $1.99. Here are the ones I picked:

Left to right: Oh Pardon Me!, Ammazzin (not sure why they decided on that spelling...), Ouchy Wow Wow, Aqua-Escence, Oh Boy! (pink on the bottom), Oh Wow! (purple on top).

Below are two coats each except for Ammazzin which was one coat.

The shimmers: Oh Pardon Me!, Oh Wow!, and Oh Boy!

The solids: Aqua-Escence, Ouchy Wow Wow!, and Ammazzin.

I haven't tried them on the nail, but they weren't exactly what I was expecting. The shimmers all came out looking like holos on the website, and many of you may know how I feel about sheers: I dislike them. I think they might be pretty layered, but we'll see. I'm also disappointed at their size: only 5mL as opposed to a normal sized 15mL. I guess I should have read more closely! Ammazzin might be interesting since it's a one coater and I do like the color. They will have to work wonders on the nail for me to change my mind! ;)

In the meantime, I'm waiting on lots of fun stuff! My package from Dolores at Colorful Bottle should arrive any day now and includes Catrices, Essence magnetic nail polishes, holos, and glitters... all of my favorite things! And I broke down and bought 3 Nfu Ohs (63, 64, and 65/the holo pink, blue, and purple). So lots of goodies are on their way and I am excited to show you all! Which ones do you want to see first?
xoxo,
Amanda

Ulta A Tail of Two Cities

Hi girlies! (Ew, "girlies"? I need new synonyms for my greetings) How is everyone's week going so far? This summer is killing me: every day it's nice, I'm working! Ugh. Anyways, today's polish is Ulta, A Tail of Two Cities (at least, I think it is. Ulta doesn't label the bottles so the packaging says the names from left to right on the back, so I figure it's left to right looking at it from the back, but other blogs have it left to right from the front... so who knows. It's the pink one! haha). This is one of the mini polishes I showed you from the Under the Sea collection.

Here it is indoors:

And outside in the sunshine:

As you can see, this polish (whatever it's called) is a pinkish-red with gold glass flecks in it, a la Ahoy! by China Glaze. I liked the base color of this better than Ahoy! but both are gorgeous.

What do you think?

xoxo,
Amanda

Charlie Sheen = My Hero

Happy Sunday, ladies! Sundays always feel depressing to me because it's the end of the weekend and I have to start getting back into "work mode". Boooo.

I have a special request to ask of you. Yes, you, reading this right now. Leave me a comment and give me a link to some new nail blogs I haven't mentioned before. I'm seeking out nail talent so I can learn their tricks of the trade. GlittaGloves has been mentoring me in my camera techniques to get great pictures, but I want to see what other people do to make their blogs stand out. (Plus, it'll help get my name out there and I'm still looking for 50 followers to do a giveaway!)

Today's mani is Epic Winning from the Icing. This was a huuuuge lemming for me from the very first time I saw it, and my boyfriend took me a mall an hour away so I could pick him up. And he was worth it. Epic Winning is a clear base packed with blue glitter and holographic glitter, and it's simply breathtaking for any holo lover (however, it is not work appropriate, so it only gets the weekend to shine for me).

I started off with Ulta Blue Streak, or as I call it, "my accidental neon". For some reason, I never think that a blue this color can be neon, but it was! Pretty on its own, but not really my style. Luckily, Blue Streak was just a means to an end...

Bam! Epic Winning. This is just one coat (I ended up doing three because I wanted it to overwhelm people's eyeballs).

Here's a blurry pic to show the holo glitter in it. *Swoons*

Here he is in natural light, AKA the light coming from my window on an overcast/rainy day. I did notice that this polish in the sun tends to be a little less sparkly, but inside it's a glitter bomb!

And finally, a tribute to GlittaGloves: a macro picture! My camera doesn't have a macro setting per se, I just have to put it on its automatic setting and let it do its thing... so this is what I get. Here's the bottle with all the holo goodness inside. Yum!

So, what are your thoughts? I loved it, but I imagine it's not for everyone. Don't forget to suggest those blogs!

xoxo,
Amanda