I've got your Rainbow Snowcone Connection!

 This manicure was for one of those "I need something fast and easy" days.  I have one coat of Orly Snowcone, which is one of the most flawless blurple pastels I have ever used. Ever.  It applies like a dream in one coat and always looks fantastic.  Over my accent nails I used two coats of OPI Rainbow Connection.

I love the Muppet Collection of polishes. As soon as it released I bought the whole set, without even thinking twice.  For some reason I have lost Designer De-better though, which is driving me up the wall.  I know if I buy another bottle the old one will pop up out of nowhere though!

Everybody cut Footloose!

 Sorry for the skipped blog on Saturday, I was at the wedding of a very close friend and completely forgot to schedule an update.  To apologise I have a polish from one of my favourite brands to show you.  This goregous red is Footloose by Deborah Lippmann.  It was kinda sheer, and you can still see some VNL, but overall it is a gorgeous polish!

As soon as I heard of the Footloose collection I ordered the entire thing (it helped that HSN had a great sale on).  I love musicals and if a polish has a tie-in to one of my other passions it gets an immediate "in" for my stash!

This color is Surreal

I decided it was time to show off another one of my top polishes.  This is Estee Lauder Surreal Violet.  I got this at a CCO a few years ago and have since fallen completely in love with it.  The color has a beautiful coppery shimmer in a creamy lilac base.

 I decided to add little gems on my nails for a bit of an accent.  I don't tend to love having things stuck on my nails, but I wanted a little bit of glamour for this manicure.  They lasted pretty long too, which was a nice surprise.

 In this picture you can really see the color shift when the light hits the polish in different ways.  I love how warm it can become when the shimmer is just right.

Here is my often forgotten right hand!  I used different color gems so I decided to photograph it as well.  Excuse the horrible gouged cuticle on my thumb, I had a bit of an accident at work.  This is actually after a bit of healing.  Sometimes it really sucks working in a job where you use your hands all day every day!

Inky Pedicure

Recently my mother forced me to go get a pedicure.  I don't tend to love going to the salon, since I do all of my own maintenance and I don't love how they do it.  I decided to try OPI Ink, since I love dark colors on my toes.  The manicurist tried desparately to get me to choose a lighter color, which frustrated me highly since I'm pretty sure I know what I like on my nails.  Otherwise it was a nice time with my mother, but I can't say I will be running to get another pedicure again any time soon.  The color is fantastic though, dark and inky (duh) with beautiful shimmer.  Now that I have worn Ink I have to own it, since it's one of the most perfect pedicure colors in my opinion!

Beautiful Opals

 Here I have two Sally Hansen Star Opal shades, 04 Rose Gold Opal and 05 Pale Pink Opal.  Honestly I can't remember which color I have on which nail, I think the accent fingers are Pale Pink and the rest are Rose Gold.

 Their shimmer are fantastic over a plain black creme and I love watching them shift in different lighting.

 I tried to move my fingers around to show all the dimension, but it was night time and I wasn't able to coax them into playing nice with my camera.  The weather didn't clear up for a few days either, so when I did take them outside to take pictures the tip wear was way too much to post.

I decided to mattify my ring and pinkie on my right hand.  I actually really like these shades matte, especially the more purple one, I wish I was 100% sure which one was which!

You have a magnetic Attraction

 I was apparently feeling magnetic in March so I have another of the China Glaze Magnetix to show you.  This time it's Attraction, which is the black/gray shimmer.  I still need a lot of practice with the magnet, but this time they definitely came out better than my first attempt.

 Look at my poor little pinkie nub!  I must have smashed it at work, since I don't remember it being this short in a long while.

 I love the placement I got on the thumb.  It looked like a sun ray or something.  Very cool.

Out in the sun the magnet effect really stood out!  I have to say, the designs seem to show up better on camera than they do the the bare eye.  Is that just me, or have others found that as well?  Either way, I really like the magnet trend and I'm definitely keeping an eye out for the Nabi line.  I really want to try a few of those.

I updated my Hook!

After a couple of days of Hook and Line by itself (as evidanced by the tipwear) I decided to do a little bit of layering.  I put a layer of Color Club Orna-minted from the Scent-suous Holiday collection on my ring finger and a coat of Finger Paints Aslyum on my thumb.

I took about a million pictures of the thumb combination, trying to get as many colors as I could possibly have show up for the camera.

 I think I got a pretty good range.

 Outside in the shade some of the more tricky to photograph sparklies came out.

And to top it off here is a sunny picure of the Orrna-minted.  Which was gorgeous as well, but not nearly as distracting as the other combination.

Hook and Line

Does it count as on time at midnight??!?  This is China Glaze Hook and Line from the Hunger Games collection.  I'll be honest, I haven't read the series or seen the movie, but the polishes were fantastic.  I love this subtle gray with a hint of brown in it.  On Tuesday I'll show you some variations that I did that made me fall in love even more!

That's the Diamond Life

First off, can I just say I love the name of this polish? It reminds me of a song by one of my favourite bands Unsearchable Riches called That's the Life.  The only video I could find isn't great quality, but it's a great song from a wonderful local band and I had to share:

This video was from '07, and they have definitely changed quite a bit since then.  I met them through West River, a local United Methodist retreat that I used to spend my summers at.  I wish I had kept in touch with them, because it would definitely be cool to be able to say that I know the band personally. Now that I have bombarded you with my love for Christian Pop, on to the polish.

This is NARS Diamond Life, and is /yet another/ lilac foil.  This is probably the closest to my old favourite that I have found yet, and was definitely worth the purchase.  It went on in one easy coat and had fantastic wear.

 I had a heck of a time photographing this polish, and every picture is pretty blurry because the metallic finish was killing my poor Canon.  I added dots from my Glitter Gal Holographic Purple, just because I was bored and wanted to see if the holo would translate to little dots.  Sadly, it did not show nearly as strong as I was hoping, but it still looked pretty neat.

This has probably become one of my top ten nail polishes and has given me an incredible urge to try more NARS polish.  If their formula is like this for every color they could easily outrun Orly in the race to be my favourite brand.  I promise I will give the full explanation for my abundance of lilac foil polishes very soon, I just have to photograph everything first and that is a daunting task!

Cling on to my Magnet

After a slight hiatus due to some family matters I am happy to be back with one of my most anticipated polishes.  As soon as the magnet trend started and China Glaze announced their collection, I knew I had to own the color Cling On.  Not only is it a gorgeous olive green, but it also has a name geeky enough to make my inner nerd smile.  I will admit, I was never really a huge Star Trek fan, but I can still appreciate everything it has done for sci-fi and geekdom.

 Every time I think of a Klingon all I can think of is my Uncle Brian.  One Halloween, years ago, he had a professional makeup and effects artist turn him into a Klingon.  He came by my house and effictively scared the crap out of me.  In hindsight, that is probably why I am not a huge fan of Star Trek.  It is also possibly where my fascination with theatrical cosmetics was born, even though I wouldn't want to admit it.

I definitely have some work to do on practicing my magnet holding skills, but otherwise the polish was pretty easy.  Consistancy in my coats was definitely a set back, since you can see which fingers I had a lighter hand with (they are much lighter).  Also, I really need to stop being lazy and crop my pictures.  They are getting annoying to me, and I am sure that if they are bothering me they have long since started bothering you guys!