#TheBeautyBuffs – Zoya Radiant Orchid

You may have heard that I’m part of a beauty blogger group called the Beauty Buffs.  This week we’re all talking about the Pantone color of the year- Radiant Orchid.

The orchid shade that I’m highlighting is Zoya Perrie.  I’m shocked at how opaque this color is!  The above swatch is one base coat and one coat of Perrie (no topcoat).  I also wanted to do some floral nail art to tie into the orchid theme.  I tried out my first attempt at one-stroke painting.  Nope, you will not be seeing the results!  It was less than stellar.  I need some practice, for sure.  So instead, I grabbed a bunch of Zoya colors and went for an abstract floral orchid design.  I enjoy doing nail art like this.  It’s not too planned out and I just let my creativity do the work.

Perrie – used as my base color and a few dots here and there

Ginessa – sponged onto my tips for some subtle shimmer

Belinda – for the dark purple petals

Pippa – as the yellow accents

I hafta admit- I borrowed Zoya Perrie from my mom! 😉 She has good taste in nail polish.  I’m just realizing that this shade of orchid looks great on me though!  I was never really attracted to these pinky-purpley colors before.  I always preferred purples that leans more towards blue than pink.  But now that my eyes are opened, and considering it’s the color of 2014, I really need to grab some shades like this!

What radiant orchid shades do you have?

Here’s what the other Beauty Buffs are wearing….

An InLinkz Link-up – CLICK ME

Diamonds are a girl’s best friend! for #NAILLINKUP

It’s DIAMOND week for the Nail Art Ideas Linkup.  This theme makes me think of Marilyn Monroe’s “Diamonds are a girl’s best friend!” and also “Material Girl” by Madonna.  Remember their hot pink dresses with the big bow?  And how they were dripping with diamonds?  That’s the inspiration for my manicure today!

I’m wearing two coats of my favorite hot pink polish- Zoya Ali.  It’s so hot and summery… when I applied it the other day I was actually screaming HOT DAMN! Because I love it so much. Does anyone else get super excited by polishes like me?  So much so that you run around the house waving your hands around hooting and hollering?  Please tell me you do that too.

Now that we’ve established that Zoya Ali is a good base color for me…. then I applied a sheer pink holo over some of those nails.  Bobbie brand Margarita (which I swatched the other day) needed four coats, so I assumed it’s sheerness would be a good topper for Ali to allow the hot pink to shine through, yet still add a touch of holo sparkle to it.  I didn’t apply that holo to my middle or thumb fingers, just because.  And on my middle finger I painted a bow just like on Madonna’s and Marilyn’s dresses.    I used a white and a black striper along with thatleanne’s tutorial to do my bow nail art.  And the funny thing is, I just realized she used Zoya Ali in her tutorial post too!  What are the chances of that?  Such a strange coincidence!

Lastly, I added some diamond-looking bling on a couple of my fingers.  I love this manicure!

Don’t miss the other diamond nails here:

21st – 27th April : Diamonds

 

Blue rain waterfall mani for #NAILLINKUP

This week’s prompt for Nail Art Ideas Linkup is RAIN.  I was racking my brain on this theme.  I could not figure out what to do- massive creativity block!  Luckily Kairi gave me the idea to do a waterfall mani.  That’s perfect since I’ve never tried this technique before.

 I used The Nailasaurus’ tutorial right here.  I also added some raindrop shaped rhinestones that I got at a Harmon store.  I like the added touch of the drops.

I don’t feel like typing out all the blue polishes I used.  But I’ll tell ya that my white base is Zoya Purity.  With one coat I got awesome coverage!  That’s shocking for a white.  The formula is a little weird- I think it will probably get really nice and stringy if you ever wanna do a sugar spun mani though.  But even still, it’s nice and opaque.  I just decided that I might use Purity all the time for nail art now when I want a white base color.  I used to use OPI’s Alpine Snow all the time.  But sometimes I had to use 3 coats and I don’t have the patience for that!  3 coats is normally fine for me… but not when it’s just my base color and I plan to do a bunch more nail art on top.  Time is of the essence ladies, so I’m gonna use my Purity for nail art from now on.  Then again, I go through phases, so next month I may have a new fave white!

Anywho, I hope you like my rainy waterfall nails.  Check out the other NAILLINKUP nails right here:

31st March – 6th April : Rain (April Showers)

Zoya Dream Dupe (and a discount code)

I recently received the 6 piece Zoya Zenith collection from nailpolishcanada.com. One of the clear winners of the bunch is the scattered dark blue scattered holo called Dream.  It’s stunning, but yet it kind of reminds me of another polish that I’ve had for about a year now.   Could Zoya Dream be a dupe of last year’s L.A. Girl Brilliant Blue (old swatch found here)? Let’s look!

indoor lighting

Can you tell the difference?  Honestly, I cannot.  I asked my boyfriend (he has a trained artist’s eye) and he thought that Zoya looked more green in the bottle, while the L.A. Girl looked more purple.  But once I got them on the nail I could not tell them apart.  He agreed.

I’m wearing no base coat, two coats of blue, and no topcoat.  I’ve seen other bloggers say they needed three coats of Zoya Dream, but I definitely only needed two.  Same with the L.A. Girl-two coats does the trick.  The formulas on both are very similar, but if I had to pick my favorite I’d choose the L.A. Girl.  But I’m partial to bigger brushes, so I found application easier with that one.

outdoors in natural light

If you’re interested, Dream can be found here on the Zoya website.  Meanwhile, the old L.A. Girl 3D Effects collection is still available at cherryculture.com.  Cherry Culture has low prices on these and China Glaze.  Their shipping is a lil bit of a mystery though since I don’t think they emailed me when my order was on it’s way.  But I’ve placed some big orders and they are always accurate, timely, and are packed up really well.  So just have faith.  Check it out! They have a coupon code (JTV14) for 20% off your entire cherry culture order through Feb 6 2014.  Brilliant Blue is on sale right now too so after the discount code it’s only $1.92  !  I’m tempted to buy a back-up bottle of the Black Illusion since I love it so much!  Feb 6th is almost here so hurry up.. and happy shopping!

UPDATE on Feb 6th, 2014—   I just bought more L.A. Girls online woot woot !  Ground shipping within the U.S. was $6.85…  but be aware that international shipping is pricey on cherryculture.com!

Holo Feather Motif (inspired by pinterest) for #NAILLINKUP

I love the N.A.I.L. theme this week : INSPIRED BY PINTEREST!  I have over 1600 pins (most of which are nails) so I had no problem finding a nail art pin that inspired me.  When I pin pics I always think “Oooooh I love this nail art design,  I’m pinning it so I remember to try it later!”  But do I ever try it?  NO.  See, this is why I love this week’s theme!

I tried one manicure and it was an epic fail, but my second one came out great!  Let’s see….

This handpainted feather motif was inspired by just1nail’s pin of her instagram pic posted here.  Something about her design really stood out to me!  I love how the opaque pastel feather stands out against the dark holo background!  So pretty and sorta retro. Thanks for the inspiration Paola!

I didn’t have the same polishes as Paola so I changed it up a bit. Here’s what I’m wearing…

♥ Duri Rejuvacote – one coat as my basecoat

♥ Zoya Payton – two coats as the maroon holo base color

♥ Wet n wild I Need a Refresh-Mint – blue accents painted with a skinny brush

♥ Seche Vite – topcoat

 

13 – 19 January – Inspired by Pinterest :

Zoya Chita

I don’t do too many swatches on my blog, as I focus more on nail art.  But textured polishes are so complex, they are almost like nail art, don’t ya think?  They’re a quick and easy way to get nails with WOW FACTOR! 🙂

Shown here is two coats of Zoya Pixie Dust called Chita.  One coat of this green could almost do the trick.  But I went with two since I was planning on wearing it all week for my work trip to Las Vegas.  I wore it for 6 days and it held up well, but my dominant right hand got some chips towards the end of the week. I like this stuff since it’s opaque, dries fast, doesn’t need topcoat, and looks pretty darn cool!  I got some compliments on it from random people.  That’s always nice.

It snowed in Vegas by the way!  ‘For real’ snow, like for several hours!  Sorry to everyone else who was in Vegas then.  I’m pretty sure I brought the bad weather with me from New York LOL.  It was freezing there all week.  But that just meant I had to stay inside more during my down-time… which means: SHOPPING!  Check out my new ring.  It was only $6!

Every ring I tried on looked great next to my Zoya Chita nails.  I think it was a good polish choice for my trip.  Festive, hardy and fun!  *And yes, my fingers look freakishly long in this pic, but I’m almost 6 feet tall, so I guess that’s expected! Hahaha!

Speaking of shopping– that’s the theme for this week’s NAIL ART IDEAS LINKUP challenge.  I haven’t started my Christmas shopping yet, so hopefully our Linkup will inspire me!!!  There’s so many options for SHOPPING-themed nails.  Your favorite gift, something on your wishlist, coupon codes, money flushing down the toilet, presents under the tree…. and I think I might even have some Cheeky stamps with shopping images on them.   I hope you join the LINKUP too- click the graphic below for more info!

See you next time! Talk soon.  🙂

Blue Tree Manicure

Today is friday and I don’t have to work <woohoo> so I wanted to play with my new MoYou stamping plate and have some fun !  Plus, I’m going to see the sexy Chris Hemsworth in the new Thor:The Dark World movie soon so I’m in a good mood.  I think a bright bold happy mani is in order!

I’m wearing three coats of Phoebe which is a cool smooth ‘velvet matte’ polish by Zoya.  It has some shimmer in there, but when it’s matte you don’t notice.  I stamped a tree image over top in grey, Zoya Dove.  Then I stamped the tree on top again using a dark blue creme called Jive by Oh My Golly.  I like how the grey stamp underneath gives a neat shadow effect.

Lookit my new MoYou plate that I used for this manicure.  When I ordered it pre-sale (it took a week or two before it shipped) it was called MOTHER NATURE 03 Plate, and that’s how it’s listed online.  But take a look at my plate- it says LANDSCAPE 03 on it.  Hmmmmm….

Weird mistake they made, but I am liking all the cute nature stuff in this plate !

After I stamped the grey and blue tree design then I topcoated it with seche vite.  See how you can see alot of shimmer in my blue base color?  The shimmer was not noticeable when Phoebe was matte, but once I topcoated you can really see tons of shimmer in there!  I can’t decide if I like Zoya Phoebe better matte or shiny….. I took some photos of it matte which I can post later if anyone’s interested.  My camera was like WHOA at how blue it was!

Well, I’m off to go see Thor.  Have a nice weekend everyone! Talk soon!