Barielle - Elle's Spell

Today I have for you the star (in my opinion) of the Barielle Winter Collection, Elle's Spell. It's my first flakie polish =]


I'd describe this polish as a cranberry-red jelly with "chopped-up-looking" flakies that flash red, orange, yellow, and green, a la SH Hidden Treasure. I did 4 thin coats for this mani, with Avon BC and Seche Vite TC. Next time I'm definitely going to layer it over a red polish.






After 2-3 days, I put some white stripes using an Art Deco striper polish, which turned my nails into candy canes. I tried to make some lines thicker than others, and it came out pretty good! The flakies make the red really look like candy, and these pictures are not color accurate! My camera made the flakies pull orange under the stripes.





I wore this up until Christmas Eve night...I changed my mani right after all of my family left on the 24th! Christmas and other manicure pictures coming soon!

How was your holiday or weekend?

Janna

Ulta-Exclusive OPIs - Holiday 2010

Hey everyone!

I'm sure you've seen dozens of swatches of these, but here are mine! The OPI Holi-daze collection:





Plum Full of Cheer:






This is a really interesting color...kind of a muted purple with some gold peaking through. 2 coats.

Gift Of Gold:






I love the texture of this one! Very fine gold glitter with a tiny bit of red thrown in there for good measure. It's a really bright, true yellow-gold without looking brassy. My favorite of the collection. 2 coats.

All The Berry Best:







Not really sure how to describe this one...hence all of the pictures. It's kind of a red/crimson/coral/cinnamon color....yeah. It's a pink-leaning red and you can definitely see some orange. Leaving it at that =P 2 coats as well.

Also included is a mini OPI topcoat...which I've never tried. Overall, I am glad I got this mini set. They're all really pretty holiday colors =] It retails, I think, for 12ish dollars at Ulta, but I got it on sale last week for $7!

What are your thoughts? Is this just another holiday gold, red, and purple to you?

Thanks for reading (as always),

Janna

Random October Manis

Helloooo. Finals are overrrr and I'm home!

How's everyone?! What have I missed?!

Well, I do know a lot of things I've missed, and I definitely missed showing you my October manis! Let the madness begin!





Milani Hi-Tech. I painted my nails this color for Depression Awareness. Amazing green holo! 3 coats I believe.

Next, one of my favorite manis of all time. This is Polar Bare from the Sally Hansen Salon Manicure line. I bought this thinking it was a stark white, but it's actually a jelly, sheer white. I hated it at first and was going to return it, until I realized that just one coat made my nails look really clean and fresh. Here it is with 4 coats:





After a couple of days, I stamped it with BM plate 21 and Design-a-Nail polish in Voodoo. How amazing is this?! I got so many compliments each day I wore it, even from one of my professors!







Finally, my Halloween mani! I kept it simple for this one: 3 (I believe) coats of an unnamed Color Club obnoxiously-neon orange. If anyone has any idea what this is, let me know! I posted this in one of my haul posts, and it might be Wham! Pow! from their Spring '10 collection (EDIT: actually it's more likely to be Orange Revenge!).





That's all for now! Thanks for reading!


Janna

A Haul!

HELLOOOOO.

Things are winding down here before finals, so here's a quick post!

HAUL!




My roommate works at CVS, and in October she told me there was a sale on Milani, so I bought my first Milani's! She feeds my addiction. Here are bottle pics of Hi-Tech and Cyberspace, the holos!



The pink sparkle polish is from Mandee, a clothing store chain around school (and other places). It was two dollars I think, and it's GLITTER!



Finally, the little cube is the Essie Fall 2010 Collection minis in Limited Addiction, Sew Psyched, Little Brown Dress, and Merino Cool. (I wore Limited Addiction last week and I need a full size bottle...or two.)





Swatches to come on all of these.

Hope everyone is having a Happy Thanksgiving!! Mine was fabulous. It's good to be home.

Help?!

Hey everyone,
How's it going?! I promise I'll get on some sort of blogging schedule soon =]

But anyway, Zoya is having this awesome deal where you buy the Color Lock system for $48 and get 6 free polishes! I missed out on the last deal so I really want to take advantage of this one. You could also buy the mini Color Lock system for $20 and get two free polishes! I'm planning on buying the $48 dollar one, and I'd like some help from you to help me decide which 6 polishes I need! (Not want, of course, but NEED. lol!)

Here's my list that I THINK I've narrowed it down to:

Crystal
Shawn
Edyta
Dana
Jo
Ki OR Adina (I think I like Ki better...)
Lexi
Savita OR Veruschka
Pinta OR Lael OR Mimi
Tallulah
Zara
Richelle

I know I absolutely NEED Edyta, and I'm going to get Dana because it's my sister's namesake polish. Any help on picking the other four?

Link to promotion page. It ends Wednesday so take advantage of it!


Please help! <3 Are you taking advantage as well?

Thanks!

Janna

BCA / DA Manicure - finally!

Hey everyone!

Again, I was MIA for a bit there. Sorry about that! I went to my first Broadway show last night =] In The Heights! It was amazing =]

Onto this manicure. I did this like...almost 3 weeks ago. Oops. This was inspired by this post by Deez Nails. I had the same problem with Sally Hansen Lime Lights...It's so sheer. Here it is at 4 coats (no base or topcoat):



So...yeah. Here's my combined Breast Cancer and Depression Awareness mani! Two coats of CoverGirl Megawatt Mauve topped with one coat of Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Lime Lights:


Megawatt Mauve on its own. These pictures make it look more melon-pink colored. But in real life it's a deep mauve-pink.


Again by itself. More color-accurate.


With Lime Lights! I love that subtle (or not-so-subtle) green shimmer.


Anyone else think my nails look like candy? Is that just me? ......**crickets chirping**


So pretty!

So yeah, that my combined Breast Cancer (pink) and Depression (green) manicure. What do you think?

Thanks for reading!

Janna

CQ Silver Taupe

This has to be one of the most unique finishes that I've ever seen on a polish. Maybe it's because I don't know about many finishes besides the standard ones, like glitter, shimmer, frost, metallic, cream, jelly, duochrome, flakie, etc. But this polish doesn't really fall into either one of those.

So, is this what "glass fleck" polish means? I didn't think glass fleck polishes gave off a speckled kind of look, but I have no idea in all honesty. If it IS glass fleck, it's my one and only glass fleck polish at the moment =]. Onto the pictures!

Here are some bottle pictures. If my camera could zoom in as close as I wanted it to, the pictures would be better. Hopefully you can make out what I'm talking about anyway!









Just nail shots:











So, I posted a lot of pictures, and hopefully you can make out the finish in at least one. The polish in real life looks almost speckled. The base is a medium taupe with a hint of violet, and it's speckled with shimmer silver pieces. If it's not glass fleck, I was thinking it was kind of a micro-flakie...nail polish. Yeah, I just made that up. I don't own any flakie polishes, but that's the closest thing I could compare it to. If they're flakies, they're almost ground up to a powder, and pieces of different sizes are covering my nail. Does this make sense at all?

Please leave a comment with what this finish is called! =] Thanks!

Other stuff: this is 3 coats, and I had to do medium coats because it was rather sheer when I did my usual thin coats. I got this at Rite Aid if you're interested. =] That's about it!

What do you think of this polish?

Janna