Drumroll please...

Hi everyone! My 50 follower giveaway is now closed and we officially have a winner! I used random.org and my long list of entries to come up with number 96 which is...

Katie, from the Nailaholic! Congratulations Katie! I'll be sending you your prize shortly :)

And for those of you who didn't win, don't worry! I have another giveaway coming up at 128 followers!

xoxo,
Amanda

Little Hauls & My Blue Obsession

Hello ladies and gents, but mostly ladies! Today's post is a few polishes I've bought recently, but mostly I'm showing you for the stories behind them.

First up, I got these lovelies from the Walgreens 99 cent Wet n Wild sale. Hannah Pinktana, Buffy the Violet Slayer, and Teal of Fortune (I love these names). No fun story behind these. :(

Next up is a fun  is a fairly random bag of polishes that I got with Emily from Embellished Nails. We actually live really close and it was so nice to meet her in person and find someone equally interested in nail polish as me! We found these bags of 10 polishes for $3.99 at Christmas Tree Shops (not sure if these are a Northeast phenomenon or if you guys know what those are?) Emily jokingly mentioned that her mom pointed them out before and that they were mostly old polishes, but we went to look anyway... and then we sat down on the floor, opened the packages (whoops), and picked out the best ones from each. We laughed like idiots and joked about getting caught, and it was a lot of fun.

What we ended up finding was:

Cutex Cherub Red, Wet n Wild Super Silver (which is an awesome topcoat which makes an effect similar to the glitter in No More Waity Katie) x 2, Passionate Purple x 4 (one for Emily), Black Ice, unsure of the name on the red, and Sweet Georgia Brown (?) Aqua Crush.

Here's Passionate Purple up close, I think this one is one of my favorites!

Then Emily and I got polishes from our local beauty supply we both frequent and joked about how they probably saw us together and thought, "Finally, those two addicts know each other!" haha! I got OPI's Swimsuit... Nailed It! from the Miss Universe collection and Pink Shatter.

Now, the next three polishes have a funny story too. When I first got into nail polish, I didn't like blue. I thought it looked funny (Emily actually told me she initially felt that way too!) or slutty or something. I loved glitter, but thought it would make me look 12, so I avoided it. As you can see from the next three polishes I bought, I've definitely outgrown these preconceived notions LOL (Either that or I'm a 12 year old slut with some funny looking nails, who knows!)

This is Milani Blue Flash, Revlon Mint Fizz, and Swimsuit... Nailed It!

What do you think?

xoxo,
Amanda

Zoya Jo

Hey girls! The subtitle of today's post could be "A Polish I'm Not Crazy About, But Not Sure Why". I have for you Zoya Jo, which was one of my picks in the buy one get two free promo Zoya recently had (I love Zoya, their promos are awesome!)

Jo is a perfectly nice blue with a soft shimmer and is a color I would definitely describe as "gentle".

But for whatever reason I just wasn't in love with it and I had all these polishes out and, next thing you know... This Wet n Wild dusty Super Silver made its way on top. Super Silver reminds me of the sparkle in No More Waity Katie, and I think it could make some excellent frankens! I loved it as top coat, but I wonder what it would look like within another polish.

(PS Sorry this picture below is only two of my fingers. You may notice in the pictures above that my middle finger is about to rip off, which was already occuring but the acetone to take off my previous mani didn't do much for it and I just kept it long for these pictures and then it got chopped, because it was literally falling off, so by the time glitter came into play it was long gone :( Poor middle finger...)

Thoughts? Do you love Super Silver as much as I do?

xoxo,
Amanda

Pink Wednesday: Orly Sterling Silver Rose + Colorama Ruby Rays

Hey ladies! How's everyone's day going?! My boyfriend just bought an electric guitar so he's been off playing that a lot lately, meaning I have time to catch up with my blog! Yayyy!

Today's post is the clearance Orly I found and showed you guys recently, Sterling Silver Rose. It's a frosty pink with a nice shimmer to it, which you can see a bit better in the bottle but that crazy clearance sticker wouldn't come off. :( I put it on but, you know what? I wasn't crazy about it. I don't know why. It offended my eyeballs, it was too hot pink and too frosty and I was just blegh. So this is what it looked like at two coats:

Buuuuut, then I saw the bottle of Colorama Ruby Rays that Dana sent me. She was just peeking out on my desk like "oh, hey, well, you know, you could use me?" and so I took her up on the offer, and on she went! Here's two coats of RR over SSR. (SSR, whoa, that abbreviation just brought me right back to elementary school where SSR was Sustained Silent Reading, eeeeeek!)

RR is a gorgeous, red based flaky that Dana covets, and now I do too. It looked so good over the SSR! I'm so glad she popped out of my line of polishes that sits perpetually on my desk and told me to use her, because it made me dislike SSR so much less :)

Unfortunately, I did all this painting late at night so I have no outdoor pictures for you guys, but trust me when I say all that gorgeous flakiness translates on the nails and if you click on my photos to enlarge, you may get a glimpse of it ;)

What do you think of SSR? She's destined for my swap/blog sale pile, even though there's really nothing wrong with it, I just don't like the color on me. RR, however, is staying with me... FOREVER! Muahahahahaha *laughs evilly*

xoxo,
Amanda

Prepare to Lem: Nfu Oh 65

Hello girls! I'm not sure if "lem" is a real word, but it's my verb version of lemming. I thought "Prepare to lemming" sounded weirder but if there's an actual verb, please let me know so I can stop looking stupid with my made up words... or just go along with it and never ever tell me I've been using the wrong word. Kthanks.

I have a million bazillion pictures of 65, but I'm not really sure why. It's the most photogenic polish ever. The holo is so pronounced that no matter what I do it was coming out to play, so I really just have a lot of great pictures. So this may be picture heavy, but you're gonna love it, I just know it.

65 is, as you can see, a light blue linear holographic. In the bottle, it doesn't look too holographic but still pretty. As soon as it dries though, BAM! Holo. It's amazing, and further proof YOU NEED NFU OH HOLOGRAPHICS. Yes, you. Yes, I know, it's an investment... no, I know that it needs to be ordered online, no, stop making excuses. Go to fabuloustreet NOW and order at least one of these, they'll change your life.

I hope you enjoyed this post, sorry for going a little rogue on you but I promise, if you're looking for a little nudge to buy these, tweet me and I will be your enabler. You need them.

xoxo,
Amanda

Transdesign Haulage

Hey, quickish post today because I'm just showing you gals the rest of the fun stuff I got from Transdesign (for now). I'm planning a giveaway at 128 followers... Details to come! Thank you all for following and commenting!

Below is Sation Holiday Spirit, Sation Marion Red, China Glaze Skyscraper, and New York Summer Glitter Fire Red Glitter.

And Amour Rain Glitter and Amour Blue Glitter:

Below are swatches of Fire Red Glitter, Marion Red, Rain Glitter, and Blue Glitter (I didn't include Holiday Spirit because it's for my next giveaway and everyone's seen Skyscraper already)

 Then, I got a few more Color Clubs: Covered in Diamonds and three from the Backstage Pass collection I have heard nothing about until I saw them on Transdesign and neeeeeeeded a few of them. These three are Wish Upon a Rock Star, Backstage Pass, and Fame & Fortune.

Left to right, one coat each: Backstage Pass (large purple and silver hex glitter, clear base; hard to get opaque and placement was tough but not impossible), Wish Upon a Rock Star (multicolor small glitter and sparse hex glitter), and Fame & Fortune (red jelly base with red-based flakies that flash pink and silver).

I'm really happy with all the polishes I got, I went on a bit of a glitter/holiday collection rampage but I'm not even mad about it. Thoughts?

xoxo,
Amanda

Color Club Holiday Collection Swatches!

Hey hey hey ladies! My post today is kinda special because it involves two of my favorite things: glitter (yummm) and new collections! These are from Color Club's Beyond the Mistletoe holiday collection. I realize it's September 4th and I'm talking about a Christmas season collection, but deal with it. I rarely get to bring you collections first-ish (the only other time was Tronica) so I'm excited! Tell all your friends, tell your neighbor, tell your milkman! And if you still have a milkman, tell him to telegraph his best friend to let him know too! ;)

I ordered five of the six from Transdesign.com (all except the gingerbread one because I just couldn't see myself using that color) and three came in. I'm a little disappointed that two were out of stock and they failed to indicate that, but I'm glad they sent the order without them rather than waiting on all of them to come in. So these are the first three I received: Holiday Splendor, Sugarplum Fairy, and Candy Cane.

Yes, I know what you're thinking: Is that glitter? In a holiday collection? And you would be correct. But no, Color Club likes to one-up ya, and they're gonna make it HOLO glitter in a holiday collection:

Le sigh. So beautiful. Nom nommmm. Here are some swatches with the bottles in the background, reverse order as above. (Candy Cane, Sugarplum Fairy, Holiday Splendor)

Candy Cane is the pink glitter on the far left. It's a very dense pink and silver glitter in a clear base. These swatches are only two coats, so I think CC could be built up to opacity for a holiday glitterbomb fest. I can't wait to wear this one!

Sugarplum Fairy, which you may notice is not plum colored, is a silver toned holo glitter in a clear base amazebomb (yes, new term). Lots and lots of holo glitter in this baby. Again, this is two coats so it's possible that this could be built up and worn on its own! <3

Finally, Holiday Splendor. What to say about this?! I love it. It was the one I was most on the fence about when I was ordering and it's the one I love most. It looks somewhat blue in the pictures, but it's definitely green in person and in the swatches, so use that for the color comparison. This one has a green base with the holo glitter in it, and it's gooooorgeeeeouuuusssss.

So what do you think of these three so far? As I said, two more are on the way and I also have the Color Club Backstage Pass collection (well, most of it) which I haven't heard much about but did seem to come out some time ago. I'm not sure if I just missed this one or if everyone did, but I like it a lot! I love everything about Color Club, so I have no idea how I missed an entire collection of glitters.
xoxo,
Amanda

Butter LONDON Victoriana

Hi gals! My post for today can really stand on its own, so I'll be brief and not wordy today: butter LONDON Victoriana. Victoriana is a gorgeous blue-leaning green with lots of silver micro-shimmer/glitter.

Below is with flash:

And here in "natural" lighting, which shows off the color more accurately but makes my cuticles look icky.

Do you love Victoriana as much as I do? Application is a dream and I loveddddd the color! LOVED!

xoxo,
Amanda

Wet n Wild Diving for Pearls and Confetti Tazmanian Devil

Hi again! I'm so close to 100 followers I cannot believe it! It's amazing how many people care what I have to say, and again, I'm very grateful. Thanks guys! *waves*

I got Diving for Pearls in my swap with Dana, and I LOVE it! Once I got this polish, I started lemming all the WnW collections, which sucks since they aren't available in my area. Or even any of the bordering states to my area. Booooooo! Anyways, so I had that on for a day, then left for my vacation gone awry. (Thanks, Hurricane Irene...) and forgot to take pictures. Then, every day as my anxiety mounted about the impending hurricane I added a layer of Confetti's Tazmanian Devil, which equalled two coats and then we left. LOL So here is what I ended up with:

And yes, I got a huge chip in my ring finger that I ended up filing down but didn't have my mani kit with me on my trip. So this is all I got for you guys! I plan to re-wear Diving for Pearls for sure, so I'll have more pictures then!

xoxo,
Amanda

OPI Flit a Bit

Hello my dears! Quickie post today since this is an oldie and I'm sure you can find a bazillion swatches online ;) I bought OPI Flit a Bit for $3.25 at my local salon, as I mentioned recently, and I decided to wear it because I felt like wearing a bright summer color for my Cape Cod vacation. However, this was less summer and more Nickelodeon to me and I wore it barely a day before I thought it was too bright, too loud, too bleh for me and took it off.

What do you think of Nickelodeon Orange... I mean... Flit a Bit?

xoxo,
Amanda