China Glaze Mimosas Before Manis

Hey everyone, almost done with February untrieds and today I didn't even cheat! I have one of the new Avant Garden China Glazes today, Mimosas Before Manis (which on my label is Mimosa's Before Mani's and ughhhhh). This is pinker than my photo but I honestly couldn't capture this accurately and was really enraged by it and decided to move on. However, I do love this color and will wear it again. This is three coats and it was easy peasy.

Go check out Amanda and Sarah!

xoxo,
Amanda

Untrieds: Sally Hansen Carribean Coral

Hey everyone! Sorry this post is late. I have another post I'm drafting too with my explanation of why but the post at hand is more important :) Today Amanda, Sarah, and I are back with our untrieds challenge and I actually didn't cheat (much).

This base is Sally Hansen Carribean Coral which is a red-leaning coralcreme, though the bottle looks like it has shimmer. It didn't translate to the nail so I'm calling it a creme :) Application was easy in two coats, no top coat in this picture.

Then I felt bored and had leftover Valentine's Day thoughts floating in my head so I did a simple skittle mani using my white dotter. My heart's wonky so it looks like a weird triangle but whatever. The glitter on my accent nail is Different Dimension Love Her? I Don't Even Lacquer! which had really good glitter payoff but I had to fish for the heart to get it out of the bottle :( It's a fun color anyway and I'll try thinning it for next time.

There you go, happy Thursday!

xoxo,
Amanda

February Untrieds!

Hey everyone, first of mine and Amanda's February untrieds and this month's challenge is cremes/shimmers/NON-GLITTERS. It'll be the hardest challenge yet though I have some tricks up my sleeve ;) Today I am starting with Illamasqua Lament, which is a beautiful pink-coral creme that I swapped for not too long ago. This applied perfectly in two coats but I probably could have even gotten away with one.

Then because I'm a sneaky dickens I added a glitter. I know, I know... it's supposed to be creme month! But I showed you a creme and it's also Valentine's Day month, so I needed to include my Valentine's (HEART!!!!) glitters too. <3 So I added Candy Lacquer Love Rocks on top:

I think it's a lovely combination :) (Come for the nails, stay for the puns.)

xoxo,
Amanda

PS Today is the last day to add entries to my mom's tribute post - please let me know if you have a photo I can add even if you didn't do a blog post!

Lazy 15: Fairy Tale

Hi everyone. I think it's my duty to warn you: today's post is kind of mushy. I think it might be vomit-inducing. I warned you...

Today is fairy tale themed and rather than going with the typical fairy tales, I decided to go with my own personal fairy tale: my boyfriend. So without getting into mushy-gushy-vomity details, I'll just say that he's a very special person in my life and this was inspired by him.

The base color is Sinful Colors Island Coral and the rest of the design used loose heart glitters, pink rhinestones, and my white Migi pen. Nothing too fancy and just so we can all be assured that I'm not a lunatic, I didn't go out in public with this on haha

So there you go, lovey dovey foofy adorable-ness. Hope you made it through without meclizine ;)


xoxo,
Amanda

Pink Wednesday: A Geeky Rainbow Cocktail

Hi pretties! How's it going out there in Internetland? I hope all is well with you guys and if not this is sure to cheer you up! I'm clearly not grasping the fact that it's autumn and refuse to wear anything remotely fall-related. So you get some more bright colors and such for a little while, weeeee! Denial is so fun!

For this NOTD I started with Urban Outfitters Cocktail, a perfect colored coral with not perfect application but much improved over Smush.

After that I added my most recent go-to glitter, Geek Glitter Rainbow Guard:

This is such a perfect combination, to me. I love finding colors that make all the glitters pop and this one does! The Geek Glitter is easily applied (see my previous post) and I just love it. I don't have enough good things to say! Seriously.

Oh, and just to amp the drool factor, here's a close up. Don't look at my cuticles. They'll make you cry, and we just want you to drool over glitter - no tears! PROMISE ME YOU WON'T LOOK. Ahem...

What do you think? I love this freaking polish. That's all there is to it.

xoxo,
Amanda

Sally Hansen Coral Reef + Black Cat LTEC

Hello again loves! I hope your week is off to a good start! Today I'm showing you a recent NOTD of mine. You may know I've become obsessed with coral this year so this was one of my opportunities to wear a lovely coral.

I started with two coats of Sally Hansen Coral Reef, which was so shiny and beautiful even on its own (no top coat here).

But since I love glitter, and I wanted to try wearing Black Cat's Let Them Eat Cake as a "work appropriate glitter", I added two coats on top. I had to use a little bit of dabbing to get the glitter evenly dispersed, but the effect was really beautiful. You can see that it didn't level too well on my ring finger, as there's a bit of a bumpy part to my nail. Nothing top coat couldn't fix!

I adored this look. LTEC is the perfect work-appropriate glitter. Most people didn't even notice or just thought I had some sort of design on my nails. Since it's matte pastel glitter, it was muted and subtle but really pretty once you noticed it on the nail. One of my favorite NOTDs in recent history! What do you think?

xoxo,
Amanda

OPI Coral Reef

Hi girls! I'm writing this post live since I just realized all my scheduled posts are all gone! Oopsie! Hope you're all enjoying your weekend! I had a really hectic, stressful week and I had to work Friday all day (usually I'm off or only work until 2 or 3) so my weekend feels stunted. I have so much to do today but I feel like doing nothing at all! I'll probably do the latter and then regret it later ;)

Today I have for you an oldie but a goodie, OPI Coral Reef. This is a linear holo from OPI's It's Summer For Shore collections from a few years back. I got this in that giant haul of old salon OPIs along with her sister, Sand-erella. Unfortunately, it wasn't particularly sunny on the day I wore this, so you just have to imagine the linear holo in the photos below.

Coral Reef is actually shockingly opaque for a holo, I only used 2 coats here. You do have to be careful with dragging, though, so make sure each coat dries completely. I added topcoat which did not dull the effect and I'm wearing my normal base coat, not an aqua base.

Overall, Coral Reef is gorgeous but I was a little disappointed. It's not as outrageously holo OR coral as I'd wanted it to be, but it's going to stay in my stash anyway for a rainy sunny day. I'm not sure it compliments my skin tone but I don't usually care about that anyway ;) Here's one last bottle shot to show you some of the holo:

xoxo,
Amanda