Clever and Colorful

China Glaze Trendsetter with some stamping!

2012-02-08T10:00:00.000-05:00

Hello again!

Today I have for you a polish I was DYING to wear...China Glaze Trendsetter. It's a really awesome olive green with very strong yellow tones and a really pretty fleck finish. When I put it on though, I was a tiny bit disapointed because it showed up a lot more green on my nails than in the bottle. So the hunt continues for a really awesome mustard shade of polish, but I really liked this one for what it was.

Since I had some extra time on the Sunday night that I did this manicure, I decided to stamp it so that 1) people wouldn't be weirded out by the shade, and 2) ......it would look cooler?

I stamped it with OPI Here Today....Aragon Tomorrow using Mash plate m64. The design was a forest green that I think looked really nice over Trendsetter, and the design on the plate was as....funky....as the color.

Have a look!

Most color-accurate

Sorry for the strange background...none of my stamped photos
came out clearly so I had to use the ones that were the closest.

So what do you think? Would you wear this shade? I got so many compliments while I was wearing this!

Thanks for reading!

Janna

Pure Ice Siren with ChG Ring in the Red

2012-02-04T15:39:00.003-05:00

Hello!

It has been a while, hasn't it? My semester is off to a super fast start, but I'm loving every minute of being busy. I've also had some pretty great manicures this semester so far.

Here's a manicure that I did at the end of winter break that lasted until the first week of school. It's a Pure Ice red cream, which I borrowed from my sister, and it had no label, but after some research I'm assuming it's Siren. On top of that I added Ring in the Red from China Glaze's Holiday 2011 Collection. I'm pretty much obsessed with this glitter. I wanted to wear it on its own but I wasn't sure how many coats I need, so I used one of the Pure Ice first, then added two of the glitter. I didn't get to take pictures until about five days after I did these, so sorry for any tipwear or chips you may notice!

I love the different-sized glitter in this polish! It's so much fun to look at and creates such a cool effect. It's definitely a warmer-red glitter, and my pictures photographed near orange-red, so imagine these a bit more of a true red than they look! These are topped with 2 coats of Out the Door topcoat.

Enjoy!

Meep! That's one ugly chip.

As always, thanks for reading and following!

Janna

Survey Says...

2012-01-23T10:00:00.000-05:00

Happy Monday! Here's a survey I stole from Original Wacky. I never do these but it seemed like a fun activity to get my blogging mojo back! Go read her answers, too...I was lol-ing. I'll have a mani post this weekend hopefully.

1. What did you do in 2011 that you’d never done before?
Hm..Oh, I left the country for the first time to study abroad in Spain in July and August. And I worked 15 hours a week at school. Very busy, but I love my job so it's worth it!

2. Did you keep your New Year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I don't remember my resolutions, and I don't really make them anyway. I tend to just follow a ton of superstitions on NYE.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Hmm...no one too close.

4. Did anyone close to you die?
No. *knocks on wood*

5. What would you like to have in 2012 that you lacked in 2011?
Ummm an easy semester.

6. What countries did you visit?
Spain and Portugal! (I'm guessing the US doesn't count)

7. What date from 2011 will remain etched upon your memory, and why:
Our last night of study abroad. So much fun!

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
I don't have a "biggest," but I'm proud of finishing my courses abroad and doing well in my courses this year while I balanced work and stuff. Yeah, I'm boring.

9. What was your biggest failure?
Well one was my blog this semester. And some others but I'm not dwelling on anything.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Nothing too awful thank goodness.

11. What was the best thing you bought?
MAC Cosmetics and awesome polish! And some pretty awesome Christmas gifts.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?

Everyone's. LOL.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
Geez, no one's!

14. Where did most of your money go?
Nail polish, and oddly makeup. I also bought a good amount of clothes.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Traveling. Polish. Dates with my boyfriend or outings with my friends. I get excited about everything.

16. What song will always remind you of 2011?

Tonight by Pitbull, Ne-yo, etc.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
i. happier or sadder?
i'm never sad.

ii. thinner or fatter?
THINNER! Still a way to go though. Trying to lose the weight I've gained since I've entered college.

iii. richer or poorer?
I'm gonna say richer since I'm making good money at work even though I'm spending a bit more. Plus it makes me feel better to say richer.

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?

More exercising, more going out.

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?
Less complaining, less other stuff.

20. How will you be spending Christmas?
Well it's over, but family was over on Christmas Eve for the fish dinner. On Christmas we do gifts and have people over for breakfast, then go to each of my grandmother's houses for food and more gifts. It was so fun!

21. There was no #21. I don’t know why there was no 21.
Oh, snap!

22. Did you fall in love in 2011?
"You mean any more than I was before? Because I fall in love with The Mate over and over again. Not that I ever fall out of love with him." (I'm keeping her answer 'cause I like it.)

23. How many one-night stands?
"I really prefer to sleep laying down. Although I sometimes fall asleep sitting up in the tub." HAHAH ALSO KEEPING THIS ONE.

24. What was your favorite TV program?
Once Upon a Time!

25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?
Nah. If anything I hate people less.

26. What was the best book you read?
....fail. I'm in the process of reading a sample of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and I've read a sentence of Little Women so far, both on my new reader. Other than that, text books.

27. What was your greatest musical discovery?

Tough. I'm really not sure. I don't "discover" artists; I just listen to whatever.

28. What did you want and get?
Nail polish, of course. A tablet, Money =P, a new camera! And other mushy things.

30. What was your favorite film of this year?
One of the only ones I saw in theatres was New Year's Eve.

31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I spent my 20th birthday home, because it was Easter weekend. Probably went out to dinner. (wow, I don't remember)

32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
a 4.0 GPA?

33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2011?

A lot more dressed up than 2010 and INFINITELY more dressed up than my bummish ways of 2009. Constant makeup-wearing and hair-doing and very little sweatpant-wearing in public.

34. What kept you sane?
Friends, family, and boyfriend.

35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
Ryan Gosling, Justin Long, Russel Brand, Ben from the Bachelor LOL.

36. What political issue stirred you the most?
Noneee.

37. Who did you miss?
Boyfriend, family.

38. Who was the best new person you met?
All of the new friends I've made!

39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2011:
Always bring your apartment key, and don't keep your bedroom key IN your bedroom, you know, in case of emergencies. Also, to calm the eff down.

40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:
Wow, pressure. I can think of a few but none of them make sense, so PASS!

This is the first time I've done one of these. It was fun! Give it a try if you want =] And thanks for reading! Bonus points if you made it to the end.

Janna

Christmas Mani 2011

2012-01-10T22:52:00.002-05:00

Hello!

Today I have a my manicure from Christmas, about two weeks late. I apologize in advance for the quality of these; they were the first shots I took with my new camera I got for Christmas. I had an older Kodak Easyshare and now I have a newer one....actually, two new ones because both Santa and my boyfriend got me two different Kodak Easyshares. I'll have to figure out what I'm going to do about that!

My mani for Christmas Eve was China Glaze Jolly Holly with accent nails of Orly Winter Wonderland. For Christmas Day I added a coat of China Glaze Party Hearty. I didn't get to take pictures without PH though. So yeah, this Christmas manicure is exclusively Holiday 2010 polishes. I liked it; it was festive enough.

The background here is my living room. I snapped this one in a last-ditch effort to get a clear shot
and it was my clearest one so I included it even though the background is funky.

Blurryyyy.

WW brought out the blue undertones in JH, which was pretty interesting. I should use that polish to layer more often but it's almost too opaque for that!

What do you think about my manicure? Is it "so last year?" I say these are pretty much classics in my book!

Thanks for reading!

Janna

MAC Lipglass Swatches

2012-01-06T22:30:00.000-05:00

HI EVERYONE!

Well I'm embarrassed. I haven't done a quality post in a while, but that's about to change. I'm getting better at managing my time and hopefully I won't leave you all hanging next semester. I'll be working less than 15 hours a week, that's for sure, even though I'm upping the number of credits I'm taking a little. But somehow I ended up with class only on Monday and Wednesday! I didn't even try....so I'll have three glorious days of no class next semester (but of course, I'll be working).

Today I'm going to do a post for my Face Paint Friday series that I started way back when, featuring the products from my first-ever MAC order. I don't have a lot of pricey cosmetics, and I consider MAC pricey, so these have a special place in my collection.

This is the order I placed shortly after the Bloggers's Obsessions Collection came out. Actually, come to think of it, all of these products are from that collection. What can I say? I like to support my fellow bloggers (as if I'm even close to being on their level) and of course these were limited edition, which draws anyone's eye - if I'm going to spend $14 for a lipstick, it's gonna be a freaking amazing one that only the lucky ones will be able to get their hands on. Anyway, this was an awesome collection! I kept it small though and settled on MAC Sonoran Rain and MAC Caqui lipglasses as my first MAC purchases (even though I received the Tartan's Tale set as a gift last Christmas).

MAC Lustreglass in Decorative, and MAC Lipglasses in Caqui and Sonoran Rain

Oh, and before I start with the lipglass swatches (Meep! My first ones ever!), I wanted to add that I'm not entirely sure about my skintone, but I know for a fact I'm not cool-toned. I don't think I'm completely warm-toned though either, since I look good in a variety of shades. Perhaps I'm some sort of olive/neutral-undertoned freak. Who knows. Either way, if I were to guess my MAC foundation shade, I'd say NC 20, but I've never checked to be sure. Thought that'd be important for you guys to know; on to the pictures!

Sonoran Rain is a red lipglass with some really pretty metallic shimmer and gold sparkles, or in the words of MAC, a "deep coal-red with gold and silver pearl." I suppose it is a bit warm in the tube but I don't think it'd look bad on cool-toned folks (then again, what do I know?). This one is awesome and came out to play during Halloween when I dressed up as Snow White. I love the shimmer in this; it's an attention-grabber for sure. I've also read on many blogs this is many bloggers's favorite red lipglass ever from MAC! It's definitely red even though my pictures aren't showing it too well. I did a pretty light swatch too as I don't like super dramatic lips.

Redder than it looks here.

And since personally I think reviews of lip products are roughly 1370 times more helpful with full-face photos, here I am!

Caqui is described by MAC as a "persimmon orange." And like I said before I'm definitely not cool-toned and I find orange/peach shades much more flattering on me than pink, so orange is one of my favorite colors for makeup. I had to have this! It's very creamy and has some red undertones for sure. I must confess though that I might love this just a tiny bit more if it had some pretty pearl like Sonoran Rain, but I still love it. This could pass as your Pantone color of 2012: Tangerine Tango. I can't wait to see what other orange products come out this year! Would you wear this?

And lastly I have to add my only other MAC lip product, which is a Lustreglass in Decorative. This came in my Tartan's Tale set and it looks super scary in the tube; it's a deep purple with really pretty sparkles that look gold and pink. It's so shiny and sparkly but it's not completely opaque which makes it super wearable. This wasn't part of my MAC order, but now all of my MAC lippies are swatched in one place.

All together now! These are very color accurate.

Top to Bottom: Sonoran Rain, Caqui, and Decorative.

Sorry for the long post! I hope it was informative. Next Face Paint Friday I'm going to feature the products I ordered during my second MAC purchase, and spoiler warning: they're from the same collection. I got Parisian Skies and Hocus Pocus, because of course Jealousy Wakes is sold out. I was going to add full swatches and review here but that'd make this post insanely long, so I'll add pan shots, just in case you want to order them before they are sold out forever! If you go to the MAC website, you'll see a link that says GOODBYES. These are all the limited edition shades that are going away forever, so if you see something you like, grab it! That's what prompted me to make the second order in the first place. As of now, 1/6/12 at 10:30PM, the products are still available. Unless someone requests swatches, I'm not going to post them until next Friday, and they might be sold out by then, so check around online for swatches. Let's be honest, they're probably way better than mine anyway.

Hocus Pocus (Dark sooty gray with silver pearl, satin finish)

Parisian Skies (Muted gray-blue, satin finish)

Hocus Pocus is warmer and Parisian Skies is dustier than it appears.

Gorgeous! I'm so happy with these. Do you have any cosmetics from this collection? What do you think?

Thanks for reading! Please give me some feedback as these are my first lip swatches and I'm pretty new to swatching makeup in general.

Janna<3

Beauty Resolutions 2012

2012-01-06T05:34:00.000-05:00

Helloooo there! This is a short post that I'm putting up before my monster MAC post goes up later on. New Years Eve is seriously one of my favorite, if not my favorite, holidays. You can get dressed up, wear glitter like it's your job, stay up/out late, and reflect on a great (or mediocre) year while having high hopes for the new one. It's a fresh start. Who doesn't love that?

On NYE 2011-2012, I stayed in with my family. I'm only 20 so this is about as exciting as it gets, but we have family and friends over and eat a lot so it's always a good time. I did almost every superstition I had ever heard of. First, I wore a new top, new jeans, new jewelry, new makeup, and new polish. There was money in all of my wallets. At midnight, I made lots of noise, ate 12 grapes (this, to my understanding, is a Spanish tradition)...well actually, I ate 2, kissed my boyfriend (another superstition), and ate the other 10. Then I ran to fill up a cup with water and chuck it outside; I've heard this is a Puerto Rican tradition. And finally, I had my pork and cabbage. I have super high hopes for this year after all of that. What do you do at midnight? And correct me if I'm wrong about the origins of those superstitions!

My NYE Mani, courtesy of my new Kodak Easyshare.
Essie Braziliant with gradient on rings and thumbs in China Glaze Fireside Glow.
Two new polishes along with a new top/base coat for NYE!

I've seen a lot of talk about resolutions and I've decided to post mine here; maybe I'll be more likely to follow them that way. These are mostly regarding beauty, this blog, and health; I could go on for hours about personal or academic resolutions. Feel free to share yours below! I'd love more ideas.

1. Blog more often! (Who didn't see that one coming?!)

2. Set a budget! The lovely Lacquer Ninja posted on twitter that she's setting a polish budget including shipping per month, which will be the amount she makes in one week of dog-sitting. I'm going to modify this idea and make my budget just over half the amount I make in a week while tutoring. My budget per month (makeup and nail polish) is going to be $80. My problem is though that I rarely buy anything while I'm at school, maybe $20 worth of products per month from websites like e.l.f., Amazon, and Zoya, but when I get home I'm spending hundreds a month catching up with all of the products I missed out on during the semester. I'm gonna shoot for $80 per month and if I spend less than that one month, I'm gonna have "rollover dollars" LOL.

3. Take my makeup off before bed! I'm guilty of this one so often that I don't even want to think about it.

This is similar to the Pantone Color of 2012 - Tangerine Tango! That may
or may not be why I wore it. And a completely orange makeup look.
And a top with orange in it. And made orange punch.

4. Use less pure acetone as polish remover! It's all I brought with me for this past semester and my nails took a beating.

5. Drink more water! Self-explanatory.

6. Catalog my polishes and organize my makeup! This is a huge undertaking and I hope to get it done, or at least acceptably done, by the time my spring semester starts in 11 days.

7. Change my polish more often! Fall semester I was changing it once every 7 days if not more, and I even went out in public with chipped nails on multiple occasions. Disgraceful. I need to step my game up.

8. Do more nail art! I lost my nail art mojo a while ago and am trying to get it back. I'm thinking about doing some cool stamping or water marbling.

Braziliant is a bright orange with pink shimmer that I wish was more noticeable.
And Fireside Glow is gorgeous: a fine holo and copper glitter. Think a more opaque,
copper version of Fairy Dust/Golden Enchantment.

9. Take a multivitamin every day! I find that this helps with my migraines and I'm sure my body benefits in other ways, too.

10. Be more active in the blogging community! I don't want to bother any of you lovely people, but I'm trying to be more involved and maybe make some blogging friends this year =] I still feel like a new blogger even though I've been blogging on and off for a year and a half, so perhaps I'm still intimidated.

I was only planning on listing 3 when I got hit with all of these other ideas. So those are my resolutions! I'll see which ones I can stick to!

Fun fact: I bought a back-up of Braziliant before even wearing it. It's that gorgeous.

By the way, one of your resolutions should be to join Pinterest. I'm seriously addicted. That's why I'm writing this post at 5AM. Oh, and even though it sounded like it right there, I'm not affiliated with them =P If you need an invite let me know! Hahaha!

Thanks for reading,
Janna

Dr's Remedy Instant Cover review!

2011-11-30T22:58:00.001-05:00

Hey everyone!

Today I'm going to review a different kind of product for you called Dr's Remedy Instant Cover. It's similar to a very full-coverage foundation, and is intended for use on the body. I received the shade Light for review.

I really like the packaging for this product! It comes in a 3.5 oz tube which is a great value for the ~~$46~~ Edit: $40 price tag. Here's a picture:

It comes with a sponge applicator attached to the tube so there's no need to dirty your hands with makeup! I first put Instant Cover to the test when I attended a wedding Labor Day weekend and used it to cover up a pretty noticeable scar on my knee from when I ever-so-gracefully tripped on campus last spring. I'm happy to say that it did an awesome job covering! Here are the before and afters:

BEFORE.

AFTER.

AFTER AGAIN. WOW!

Since then, I've used it a couple more times and have really liked it! The only small complaint I had was the lack of shades; at the moment the shades offered are Light, Medium, and Dark, and the light is a tad too light for my skin tone, as you can probably tell. All in all, I'd say this product is really good to have if you would like to cover scars, varicose veins, bruises, or any other imperfections on the body. It will last an extremely long time too since the tube is pretty big. Oh, and my favorite part, it dries so quickly and stayed put all day =]

Do you have this product? Also, go like Dr.'s Remedy on Facebook and follow them on Twitter to stay updated on their latest products! It's my first-ever product from this brand, but I'm pretty sure it won't be my last =]

Thanks for reading,

Janna

Revlon Talk Dirty

2011-11-12T17:50:00.001-05:00

Hey everyone!

I just did a hugeee chop and I can't find my camera so I don't know when will be the next time I can post, but here's a quick mani for you!

This is Revlon's Talk Dirty from their line of Dark Pleasures. I got this one in a Christmas Tree Store for a couple of dollars. It's one of those deep brown/olives with gold shimmer that are kind of popular at the moment. This is two coats, I believe.

How is everyone doing? Thanks for sticking with me during the hectic school year. I'll be having a tiny giveaway to thank you soon!

Janna

Dr's Remedy Press Release!

2011-10-11T23:56:00.002-04:00

Hi everyone! Just stopping in to share this news! Hope all is well<3

DR.'S REMEDY PARTICIPATES IN BREAST CANCER AWARENESS

Dr.'s REMEDY Enriched Nail Polish in Positive Pink will add a healthy dose of color to your look. 20% of the proceeds from each Positive Pink Enriched Nail Polish purchased at an Everything But Water store or their website will go to Living Beyond Breast Cancer. The polish is a lovely, healthysplash of toxin-free, vitamin-enhanced color for your nails. $17. The nail polish is available ateverythingbutwater.com/in-the-pink.

Dr.'s REMEDY is a line of doctor-inspired cosmetics that is dedicated to using clean, hypo-allergenic ingredients. The birth-child of two New York-based podiatrists, Dr. Adam Cirlincione and Dr. William Spielfogel, Dr.'s REMEDY proves quintessentially-perfect for any person looking to better the condition of her skin and nails; their Enriched Nail Polish is the first-ever nail polish on the market created by doctors and approved by the American Podiatric Medical Association. Dr.'s REMEDY is sold online at www.remedynails.com or by calling 1-877-323-NAIL.

Hello! And Chysanthe-mum's the Word

2011-10-02T23:08:00.000-04:00

Hi everyone!

The semester is in full swing and I've already had a bunch of exams, all of which have gone well so far! I've barely turned on my computer and my Google reader constantly shows that I have "1000+" new posts to read, but hopefully I'll find the time to get through them and get the energy to write up some posts.

It's October! I'm excited for the cooler weather but not for the extreme cold. How is the weather where you are?

Anyway, here are some quick pictures of Finger Paints Chrysanthe-mum's the Word from the Spring 2011 Collection, the ones with the adorable rings attached! It's a really bright seafoam green, if that makes sense, and I can't really decide what kind of undertones it has. It's lovely! I wore this for longer than I care to admit.

It's a really pretty cream! I can't believe it took me so long to wear it. Do you own it?

Thanks so much for reading and continuing to follow!

Janna

Back-to-School Haulage

2011-08-27T18:08:00.002-04:00

Hello!

The hurricane is coming! I'm in southern New Jersey and it has been raining since about 10 AM. Luckily I still have my power, though!

Sorry I kind of ran out of manicures for a bit so I'm due for a long swatching session. Fortunately I have so many new goodies to play with! Wanna see? Sure you do!

First, the two most recent Serena sets. I bought the red and gold one first, since the purple was sold out at my Ulta and I couldn't NOT buy a Serena set since I play tennis, but I went back to make my last Ulta trip yesterday and they restocked Grape...Set...Match! My lucky day =]

L to R from top: Pros & Bronze, Love is a Racket, Grape...Set...Match and Servin' Up Sparkle.

Here are my two picks from the Miss Universe collection, which also randomly showed up at my Ulta yesterday. I was just there two days before but yesterday there were SO many new things and everything was restocked. I chose It's MY Year, because it was so much prettier in person than I expected, and Swimsuit...Nailed It! Fun fact: my boyfriend actually LOVED that blue.

Oh, and has anyone else seen OPI caps stamped with numbers? This is the first time I have.

Next are my Orly Birds of a Feather picks. I went out originally just wanting Fowl Play, like the rest of the world, but Sea Gurl stuck out to me for some reason as well, so I also got that one. I loved Peachy Parrot too, and actually the whole collection =P Maybe someday I'll get the rest.

Here's what I've recently grabbed from Sally's: China Glaze Trendsetter (I'll probably get more Metros in the future) and Finger Paints Cordur-Orange. I also got a One 'n' Only Argan 1.25" Curling Iron. I mentioned this on Twitter, but when I asked the woman working at Sally's if the Metros were in, she said they were in the back, but she wasn't allowed to put them out until September for some sort of promotion? But she asked if I wanted to see them and told me I could buy the ones I wanted...weird! The saleswoman got to Midtown Magic before I could, though!

This picture shows both polishes much more color-accurately.

Now I can show you these glitters I got in Spain! These are all chunky glitters that I got from an Asian Bazaar for 1 euro each. They are full of chemical goodness. They don't have names, but from left to right, it's a lilac circular glitter, a white/iridescent circular glitter, and a BLACK! circular glitter. Besides the large circular glitter, each polish has tiny glitter of the same color. I wore the black one in Spain, and application was typical for a chunky glitter: annoying and all of the glitter came to my nail tip. But they're pretty cool nonetheless.

And last but not least, MY GLITTER GAL HOLOS! These just came today and I'm already in love. I ordered them from llarowe and shipping was only $2.22. It's great that when polishes are already so much, you don't have to pay an arm and a leg for shipping as well. Super fast shipping and I highly recommend her site! I got Red, Marine Blue, and Dark Purple.

DO YOU SEE THIS RIGHT NOW?!

So, yeah....my stash has absolutely doubled this summer. At least. Sigh. I hate it, but I love it. This isn't even close to all that I've bought.

Oh, yeah, when my Ulta restocked, I noticed a brand new display with a white shimmery polish, a red (typical), and base and top coat. The tag on the bottles noted that some of the proceeds from sales go to a charity. The name of the white I can't remember but it had "man-i" in it, and the red was "Red-y to Help." Has anyone else seen it? I took a cell phone pic but it will not send to my email.

Did you grab any of the polishes I did? I love fall collections. And now I'm definitely all set for school! Thank you so much for reading =]

Janna

How I Got Over Polish Withdrawl

2011-08-22T14:46:00.001-04:00

Hello!

How are all of you today? Feel free to leave a comment letting me know! I'd love to talk to you guys more =]

So today I have one of my favorite manicures of late. I brought like 6 polishes with me to Spain, and I was getting plain SICK of them and couldn't wait to get home just to get back to my full stash. So as soon as I got home, I put on this one =]

First we have two coats of Orly It's Up to Blue. I really like this polish and it had awesome opacity. It even matches my cell phone! =]

And since I was craving some sort of nail art, I pulled out my brand new China Glaze Cracked Medallion. It cracked really really well! For those of you who are interested, I painted it on very thick and made a ton of brushstrokes to get this pattern. Check out the awesome color combination!

So what do you think? I needed this mani to get over my polish slump! =P

Thanks so much for reading,

Janna

A Bit of Polish and a Bit of Spain

2011-08-20T21:03:00.001-04:00

Hello again! Third day in a row =]

Today I have a picture of the polish I was wearing when I left, China Glaze 2NITE<3. I also have a feet picture, so you have been warned. BUT I was wearing Barefoot in Barcelona on my toes, and I was at a beach in Barcelona....so I couldn't NOT take a picture!

Here we go:

The lovely 2NITE. This was 3 coats I think because I had a heck of a time with application. Any hints for applying this better? I only have this picture, but I thought I had taken more.

SANGRIA at a lovely restaurant on the waterfront in Barcelona. It was delicious..and 15 euros for the pitcher. I also had a ton of mussels at that restaurant and my friend had shrimp. Yes, we split that between two people.

My Barefoot in Barcelona pedi. I left the image small on purpose =P I just can't get over how appropriate the polish was for the occasion! Oh, and I don't think the whole "nude pedi" thing works for me....or maybe I need a more warm-toned nude. I don't even care that BiB isn't good for my skintone....I love it!

And finally, La Sagrada Familia in Barcelona. Oh. My. Gosh. Even looking at the pictures leaves me breathless. For some reason, I am in love with this building. I only vaguely knew of it before my trip. It is spectacular in person, and I was so happy that going to visit was on the itinerary! Here's a little bit about the building (I used Wikipedia to check my facts and for the years): So, this building is a Roman Catholic Church that was actually declared a minor basilica in 2010. The construction of the Sagrada Família began in 1882, and an architect by the name of Gaudí took over the project in 1883. When he died in 1926, less than 1/4 of the project was done. As you can kind of see in my picture, there are cranes around it, because it is still under construction today, and the project will hopefully be completely in 2026, which would be the 100 year anniversary of Gaudí's death. Also, there's some really interesting symbolism to represent the apostles and some of the saints, some of which isn't completed yet, but I'll stop boring you here. Isn't it incredible? I urge you to Google Image Search it; it's absolutely gorgeous. (Oh, here, just click!)

So that's it for now! I hope I didn't bore you =P I'll add more pictures in my next couple of posts. These are what I consider the highlights of Barcelona, since I was only there for 3 days. Look forward to some sights from Madrid and Santiago de Compostela!

As always, thanks for reading.

Janna

China Glaze Flip Flop Fantasy

2011-08-19T17:17:00.001-04:00

Hello!

What's going on today? I haven't done anything....except eat some really delicious hoagies for dinner (that's subs or sandwiches for all of you non-South Jersey folk). Today I have another manicure from before my trip: China Glaze Flip Flop Fantasy. This was the one I wanted most from the Poolside Collection because a neon coral just sounds so awesome, and lucky for me this one was added to the permanent section of my Sally Beauty Supply so I snatched it up =]

Here are some color-inaccurate photos. This was an awful time to capture; I even tried to take a photo underwater and it came out even LESS color accurate. =P

Only two photos this time because I really didn't get any pictures that I was happy with. Do you own this color? What do you think?

Thanks for reading!

Janna

I'm Finally Back! With China Glaze Electric Pineapple

2011-08-19T00:06:00.000-04:00

Well hello there! Long time no see!

I had an absolutely fabulous time in Spain so I hope you can forgive the lack of posts over the last five weeks. I will try and make up for it! I will also post some pictures from my trip =] Thanks to all of you for sticking with me over the past couple of weeks! I noticed that someone unfollowed my blog, and while I suppose I understand why, it still hurts a tiny bit! Thanks for being so understanding as always!

But here are some nail pictures, because I know that's why you are all here. I love this color. It's creamy, it's bright, it's awesome for summer. This was three coats I believe, and I didn't have any problems with the application. Here is China Glaze Electric Pineapple:

As you can see, it's about a 60:40 mix of green to yellow. I realized that I bought this, OPI Who the Shrek Are You? and OPI Fiercely Fiona all within a week or so of each other. I think those shades will make a pretty crazy ombre manicure in the future. Oh, and look how long my nails are! My nails are seriously recovering from vacation so I've chopped them down a bit, and I miss them being this long!

That's it for now I suppose! Expect to be hearing a bit more from me over the next couple of weeks. I've missed you!

Thanks for reading!
Janna

One Year Blogiversary Guest Post!

2011-07-22T09:14:00.001-04:00

(Hi everyone! Today we have another guest post from Amanda of the Nail Polish Enthusiast blog. It's a special one as today is my one year blogiversary and also her birthday! Thank you all for your support over the last year! Enjoy!)

Hello again, Janna's readers!

I'm here with a very special post for you: Janna's 1 year blogiversary post! (It also happens to be my birthday, but let's focus on the important stuff here.) Janna is in Spain and has given me the honor of her one year post, so we decided on a celebration theme. Instantly, Janna and I both thought of Milani Gems, a dupe for Deborah Lippmann's Happy Birthday. It's a sparse glitter with a variety of colors in it, but we'll get to that soon.

Step one was figuring out what color to layer it over. I couldn't figure out what color scheme I wanted to do, since Gems has so many colors and I wanted all the glitter to stand out. I swatched it over Zoya Phoebe, Misa The Grass is Greener on My Side, OPI Chapel of Love, and Color Club Pucci-licious (I still don't understand that name, by the way).

For some reason, Zoya Phoebe stuck out to me as the most celebration-y of the bunch. The blue and glitter just seemed to scream cupcakes and celebrating and fun drinks (okay, maybe the last one is more of an adult celebration technique...). Here's Phoebe on her own:

Phoebe is a matte polish from one of Zoya's summer 2011 lines, Mod Mattes. This is shown with 2-3 coats and no topcoat. It dries with a shimmery finish, something unusual for a matte but somehow very appealing. (Ignore the poor cleanup, I wanted to wait until I put Gems on to clean up completely.)

Finally, I added Gems to my index and thumb, two coats each. I thought I would add it to all my fingers but I thought it stood out more as an accent than on every finger. Then I just added topcoat to all my nails. (I now see that my cleanup on my middle finger wasn't as good as I thought in person. Hmph. That's the trouble with up close pictures, I guess!)

Blurry to show the sparkliness and shininess with topcoat, mmmm:

What do you ladies think? Would you have chosen Phoebe, TGIGOMS (what a long name, Misa!), Chapel of Love, or Pucci-licious? Would you have done all nails with Gems?

xoxo,
Amanda

(Thanks again, Amanda! I love the accent nail and removal was probably much easier =] But Gems looks great over all of the colors! And Happy Birthday! Thanks for reading everyone! -Janna)

Guest Post! Nina Ultra Pro Purple X-ing

2011-07-18T16:20:00.001-04:00

(Hi everyone! I've finally arrived at the University of Santiago de Compostela! Time to get to work =] Today I have for you a guest post from Amanda of the Nail Polish Enthusiast blog. Definitely go check her out!)

Hi ladies! Today I'm posting for Janna while she's in Spain (hola querida! estas usando tu espanol? espero que si!). This is quite an honor, so I picked a polish I thought both Janna and I would adore, and I think I found it. It hits all the things I love about polish: cheap ($2.99!), easily accessible, beautiful, and a one-coat dream.

Here's Nina Ultra Pro, which is available at Sally's. The polish is called Purple X-ing, which I mistakenly called Purplexing for about a week until my friend pointed it out. This is a deep, almost royal purple with silver and purple glitter and slightly larger holo glitter in it. The picture below shows the texture (slightly gritty) and the sparkle pretty well, although it isn't so color accurate (the bottle is).

And finally, a macro shot of the bottle. Look at that sparkle!

Applying this polish was heavenly. Did I mention that is only one coat on my nails?! I loved this color, although I only wore it for one day since it started to chip and I was getting behind on manis to post on my blog and Janna's.

I hope you enjoyed this guest post! Nice meeting all of you ;)

xoxo,
Amanda

(Gracias Amanda! I hope you all enjoyed this guest post and expect to be hearing from Amanda again really soon ;])

Hola!

2011-07-12T14:05:00.001-04:00

Hi everyone!

This is a quick post to say that I'm alive and very well. Barcelona is beautiful and I'm going to enjoy my last 2 days here for sure.

I've decided that I'm going to do my next post once I get to a place where I have more time, which will be starting the 18th when I'm in Santiago. I'm really sorry, but I don't think I have enough time to do a post until then. There's too much to see!

That being said, I hope all is well. If you'd like, leave a comment telling me if you've ever been to Spain. If so, where? Would you like to see pictures from my trip?

Thanks for reading!

Janna

Face Paint Friday - Have Makeup, Will Travel

2011-07-08T23:45:00.000-04:00

Hello!

Two days til my Spanish adventure! I still really need guest bloggers, so email me at paradise423@gmail.com or tweet me at @cleverncolorful to let me know if you're interested! Nail, makeup, hair, skincare...any beauty related things are encouraged!

So for this week's Face Paint Friday, I'm going to show you the makeup I'm bringing on my adventure. My trip is 3 days in Barcelona, then 3 days in Madrid, then 4 weeks at the university at which I'll be studying, so there's a lot of moving around. I actually think while I'm at the university I have to change dorms halfway through as well. My favorite makeup product is eyeshadow, and at home I use many different palettes when doing a look, but it seemed impractical to bring a lot of small palettes with me across the world, and I didn't seem to have a bigger palette that included all the colors I use (pinks, greens, purples, browns...occasionally blues and smokey colors). I also couldn't bear to think of what would happen if I brought one of my favorite palettes and it BROKE in transport. **shudders**...the horror.

I went to CVS to try and find a big palette with enough shadows in it to keep me from wearing the same eyeshadow shades for 5 weeks (can you imagine?). I almost bought a Maybelline 10-shade palette, about the size of a playing card, until I found this:

This is a beauty pack from The Color Workshop. It includes 3 eyeshadow palettes in compacts, 4 eyeliner pencils, 4 nail polishes, two lipglosses, and 3 palettes that have 1 blush and 8 lipgloss shades. It cost me a whopping $10.

Here are some closer pictures!

The eyeliners. Black, Brown, Gray, and another Black. They're not crazy pigmented but they'll work. They're also really smooth and creamy, no pulling or tugging. I also love how big they are!

The eyeshadows, which were the reason I even looked twice this package. I did very quick finger swatches that I don't have a picture of, but I can tell you these aren't terribly pigmented. But, my Sephora eyeshadow primer will be with me to solve those problems. My favorite thing about these three palettes is the packaging. They each ave a mirror, they close very tightly and take some force to open....I found this really surprising for the price. They'll be great for travel! Also, imagine these much brighter, and anything that looks blue is actually purple.

Here are the lipsticks. They're really pigmented and creamy. The pink is a true fuschia I'd say, and the other one is a weird mauve/champagne frost. I like these (well, the pink)!

The blush/lipgloss palettes. I wasn't crazy about the possibility of getting powder blush all over the lipglosses, but I'll deal. I really like the color selection in these as well. I wore a blush yesterday and it was 75% missing after three hours, but I didn't set it so that might be why. I'm not crazy about blush anyway so it's not a big deal to me. I do have to admit I'll miss my dear Benefit Sugarbomb, but I'm so afraid to ruin it. Also, all of these are much brighter in real life. Those purple and pink glosses in the top picture are almost neon! I didn't have time to edit these because it's almost not Friday anymore!

I didn't photograph the nail polish, but they're a standard red, fuschia, dusty pink cream, and pink shimmer. If anyone wants pictures I can do that.

So this is most of the makeup I'll be traveling with. For $10, I won't care if it gets broken or cracked. I won't mind if I accidentally leave it in a hotel or lose it in transit. I'll also be able to buy makeup there if this stuff isn't doing it for me, so I'm not too worried. It is completely worth the price.

The other makeup I'm bringing is my Ulta Extreme Wear Mousse Foundation in Pure Beige (love this stuff), a tinted moisturizer (Ulta brand unless I find another one somewhere), Ulta Amped Lashes Mascara (again, unless I find another), my setting powder, colored liners, and concealer (also Ulta brand....see a pattern?), and a bunch of lip products including Wet n Wild tinted lipbalm and lipstick, Ulta brand gloss, my MAC Sonoran Rain and Caqui, and probably some others. Wow, that sounds like a lot....maybe I'll cut down =P

I will mention that CVS carried another kit like this from The Color Workshop. It had the same eyeshadow colors in the same arrangements (only in my kit, the shadows have circle stamps on them and in the other kit the shadows had no print on them), but it had 2 palettes with 2 blushes each, 4 lipsticks instead of 2, and the eyeliners were actual pencils (is that called kohl liners?) instead of the creamy pencils. Oh, and the nail polishes in the other kit were stout and round and the ones in mine had flat, squoval-shaped bottles.

So what makeup do you bring when you travel? Five weeks is a long trip, so I think I'm bringing more variety than I would on vacation. Also, I'm blanking on what nail polishes to bring. I seriously might go grab a bunch of Wet n Wilds and NYC polishes in case they break. =P

Would you buy this kit? Have you already? Let me know! Thanks for reading!

Janna

My Go-Between

2011-07-06T23:22:00.000-04:00

Hello!

For this Pink Wednesday, I'm going to show you something very subtle. Yesterday, I posed this question on Twitter (follow me! @cleverncolorful) and I don't think I made any sense. This was the question:

do you have a color that you throw on when you need a between mani polish? does that make sense?

Yeah, bunch of gibberish. What I meant was: is there a polish that you can throw on between manicures if you have to leave the house, just so you don't leave with naked nails? I get so nervous with just 140 characters to use =P

When I took my glittertastic fourth of July manicure off, my nails were, obviously, naked, and my mom took that moment to ask me if I wanted to run to the store with her. My nails were so stained, so I threw this on my nails until I had time to do a full manicure. Here it is:

This is supposed to serve as a "my nails but better" look. I literally slapped on a coat of an old Sally Hansen pink glass fleck, and swiped over my tips with Rimmel Insolence, a white/silver fleck. This was only going to be worn for an hour or so, but I'm still wearing it a day and a half later....

Oh well. So now, let me re-ask this, now that I have more characters to work with....

Do you have a go-between mani?

Thanks for reading!

Janna

The Evolution of My July 4th Mani!

2011-07-05T16:09:00.000-04:00

Good afternoon!

So I'm about to take this mani off, but I keep putting it off since I have about 9 layers of polish and some serious glitter on my nails and I know it's going to be awful. Here's how my Fourth of July mani evolved!

First, I painted my nails with two coats of Revlon Plum Baby, a mauve/purple cream. I didn't take a picture of this alone; I only intended it to be the base for the next polish I used. Next, I used three or four thick coats of Icing Bird of Paradise on top of the Revlon. Bird of Paradise is a wine-colored jelly with a ton of iridescent glitter. I wore it like this for about 5 days:

Revlon Plum Baby topped with Icing Bird of Paradise

I did like this even though the color is a little tame for my taste, but the glitter kept it interesting.

Then, I was going into NYC and wanted more sparkle, so this mani was topped off with two coats of Cover Girl City Lights, which is your typical silver holo topper. No picture of this, but you get the idea.

This past Saturday, I wanted red, and since I was dreading taking this off, I layered one medium coat of China Glaze Phat Santa, a red, I guess, jelly, over it, just to see how it would look. I ended up LOVING it, so this was the next stage of my mani =]

The glitter shows beautifully under the red. I guess you can say this is my "half sandwich" manicure.

And yesterday was the fourth of July, so I decided to incorporate some nail art onto this red, even though I didn't really go anywhere celebrate. On accent nails, I painted half my nail on the diagonal with China Glaze First Mate, a gorgeous navy cream. I also got out my stamping plates and used BM21 (many stars and swirls) and BM05 (the big star) along with Design-a-Nail polish in Frostbite, a plain white. I actually really love the result, even though it took all of 3 minutes and came out a bit sloppy. It served its purpose. After that, I topped with one coat of an old Wet n Wild 413, which is just a clear polish with very fine silver glitter. Here's the final mani!

So, yeah, all in all, I think there are about 10 coats of polish on my nails, lol! But I got absolutely no chipping throughout the whole week or more I've been wearing it. Pretty impressive! Oh well, time to take it off now!

Do you ever "recycle" manis like I did? Or keep layering until your end result is completely different from your first mani? I ended up really liking how drastic the change was despite the thickness!

Thanks so much for reading!
Janna

I Need Guest Bloggers! And Help from Spanish Beauties!

2011-07-03T18:36:00.000-04:00

Hey everyone!

As you may or may not know, I will be studying abroad in Barcelona, Madrid, and Santiago, Spain from July 10th to August 13th. I will try to post occasionally while I'm gone, but I'm going to need your help with posting while I'm away for 5 weeks. So, if any of you would like to help me out and guest post, I'd really reallyyyy appreciate it! You can write up a post, email it to me (paradise423 at gmail dot com), and I will paste it into my blog and schedule it for posting while I'm away. Once I decide, I'll let you know when your post will appear on my blog. So send me your beauty posts! It's also a good way to advertise for your blog. =]

Also, I have to pack for 5 weeks of Spanish living. I'm so excited, but would like some information from anyone that lives in or has visited beautiful España. What is the weather like? What polishes should I look out for? =P If you think of anything else I may need to know about going there (besides Spanish, that's what I'll be studying =]), I would love to hear it!

So, finally, thanks for reading! And please send me your guest posts! =] More nails coming up!

Janna

Long Overdue Giveaway Winner!

2011-07-02T00:35:00.000-04:00

Hello!

Here's a short post to announce the winner of my Long Overdue Giveaway! I had 41 entrants and over 118 entries in all! Thank you all so much for entering! You made my birthday/first year blogoversary/150 follower celebration so enjoyable.

So without any delay, the winner of the Long Overdue Giveaway is...

ERIKA!

Erika is the mastermind behind Ice Queen's Nail Parlour, one of the first blogs I started following and one of my favorites. Be sure to check it out if you haven't already, and enter the giveaway that she's having right now!

Sorry to all of you who didn't win, but there will definitely be more giveaways! Be sure to follow me on twitter as well (@cleverncolorful) because I'm also thinking about doing twitter giveaways.

That's it for now! Thank you, as always, for reading, following, and supporting my habit.

Janna

Face Paint Friday - Wet n Wild Mega Eyes

2011-07-01T15:36:00.000-04:00

Hello everyone!

I decided to start an installment on my blog called Face Paint Friday. Before I go on, I wanted to point out that I thought of this idea without seeing it anywhere else, and I am unaware that something called Face Paint Friday exists elsewhere. If you know of another blog/site/anything that uses "Face Paint Friday," please let me know and understand that this is an unintentional coincidence.

Every Friday, if I post on a Friday (not sure that it'll be every week), I'll make posts regarding different makeup products instead of the usual nail posts. These posts could range from an eyeshadow look to a face primer review to a new favorite lipgloss or my top makeup products of the moment.

Please let me know what you think of this idea, and if you'd like to start posting your makeup looks on Friday also, feel free! I've been getting more and more into makeup since I've discovered the blogging world (you're enablers, all of you!), and it's so much fun to paint myself up. =D

So for this week's installment, I'm going to show you a green eyeshadow palette that I bought from Wet n Wild almost 5 years ago, so it might not look familiar. It's called Amazon Greens. I think the Wet n Wild Mega Eyes trios have been discontinued, but at the time of this post there are very reasonably-priced listings on eBay. Here's a picture of the trio:

I love the mirror on the side. For reference, these trios are exactly the same size as the current trios.

Here are some pictures of the look I did.

To create this look, I used the pale green shade on the inner corner, the brown shade in the middle and the dark green shade on the outer corner.

Taking eye pictures is so hard! I give all of you beauty bloggers major credit. Any tips for a girl with a simple camera on how to take better eye makeup pictures? My "macro" setting is just a Close Up setting that is designed to shoot from 28 inches, which isn't a close-up shot if you ask me.

I will say that these are brighter in person, even though I did edit them a bit to try and bring out the color. It reminded me of the makeup version of Chanel Peridot, gold to green. See, I added a nail polish reference in there somewhere!

I added a quick poll in this post because I know most of us read through a reader. I'd really appreciate your feedback!

That's it for now! What do you think? Thanks for reading!!

Janna

Pink Wednesday - A Motherly Water Marble

2011-06-29T07:15:00.005-04:00

Hi there!

While you read this I am off galavanting in NYC. Sigh =] ~~Or still asleep.~~

For this week's pink Wednesday, I actually have a pink. Yesterday you saw my sister's graduation water marble, and today I'm going to show you how I did my mom's nails.

My mom showed me a magenta-colored top that she was wearing for my sister's graduation, and OPI Ate Berries in the Canaries was a near-perfect match, so first I painted all of her nails with that. Then I practically had to beg her to let me water marble them...she said she didn't want me to mess them up =P I chose to do a relatively simple design on her because she didn't want her nails as crazy as mine and my sister's.

This is a really simple way to try a water marble if you're a little scared. I only did her thumbs and ring fingers, and they made a really nice accent to her manicure, if I do say so myself =P The accent nails are marbled with Ate Berries in the Canaries and Pamplona Purple (I could have used a clear polish instead of ABITC because her nails were already painted with that color, but I didn't have a clear polish handy). My mom really liked it! =]

This is entitled, "Jan, my arms don't bend that way!!"

I made these pictures extra large so I hope you can see the design. It's pretty subtle but she got a lot of compliments on it =] Every design came out perfect though, so any imperfections you see are the fault of my photography. Maybe next time we'll go bolder...

So what do you think? Does this make you less scared to try a marble? =]

Have a great Wednesday! Thanks for reading!
Janna

More Water Marbling, Family Style

2011-06-28T01:18:00.001-04:00

Hello!

How is everyone doing today? I just wanted to preface this post by saying that I'll be spending Tuesday night to Wednesday night in New York City! It's the first time I'm going without being on a field trip!

Also, I'll be picking my giveaway winner on Thursday when I return. I cannot wait! Thank you for your patience! =]

So my last post was about my MAC Hint Of Sapphire water marble. The day before I did that water marble, I did my sister's nails and some of my mother's nails in a water marble design as well. Today, I'm going to show you my sister's design.

This was an extra special design because my sister graduated high school on Monday, and I did this design for her on Sunday night. So congrats to her!

For her marble, I used Color Club Age of Aquarius, China Glaze Spontaneous, OPI Ink, and Orly It's Up to Blue. It was a pretty combination =] Take a look! EDIT: Forgot to mention I topped them with Cover Girl City Lights, a holo topper.

left.

right.

What do you think? Have I inspired you to try a water marble yet? =] To all my new followers, look HERE to see how to do it!

Thank you for reading!

Janna

MAC Hint of Sapphire-Inspired Water Marble

2011-06-24T02:54:00.000-04:00

Hi everybody!

I'm bursting with excitement right now to share this manicure! It's been in my head for weeks and I'm really happy with the way it turned out!

If you keep up with cosmetics, you may already know that MAC's summer collection, due out in July, is called Semi-Precious and will feature mineralize blushes, mineralize skin finishes, cream sheen glasses, and other products. What really caught my attention, however, was the mineralize eyeshadows. (Check out beautezine.com's post of the full press release of the Semi-Precious collection from MAC.)

Now, I don't know too much about MAC and the only MAC products I have were a gift, so I'm not going to pretend I know the difference between a creamsheen glass and a lustreglass (if you know, please share!), but these eyeshadows look just plain gorgeous in the pan. I mean, how could you stand to use them?! The colors swirl together beautifully and compliment each other to a T, and there are some really unique color combinations in this collection.

So when I saw the press release for the Semi-Precious collection on several beauty blogs and I saw the eyeshadows, I was reminded of watermarbled designs for nails. The eyeshadow that stuck out the most to me was Hint of Sapphire. Here's a look:


Image Credit: beautezine.com.

Seriously beautiful. These things are truly a work of art. So I let my creativity flow and set out to create a water marble that utilized the colors in this particular eyeshadow. MAC describes Hint of Sapphire as a "melange of pink, violet, teal, copper, blue." Respectively, I used Zoya Perrie (even though Zoya describes Perrie as purple), China Glaze Spontaneous, Color Club Age of Aquarius (on loan from my sister), Pure Ice Iced Copper, and Sally Hansen Blue It. The combination is awesome! Take a look =]

Left Hand

Right Hand

Left

Right

My favorite nails:

Left Index

Left Pinky.

Right Ring

Before you can say it, I did go overboard on the pictures. I wanted to do this manicure justice and I think I did =] And pardon my shoddy cleanup job.

The contrast of all these colors really pops on my nails, and in my opinion the copper just makes this look. And, if you're wondering how I did this, click HERE for my tutorial on how to water marble!

I'd like to do another watermarble based on one of the other shadows from this collection, but I'm not sure which one. I was leaning toward another multi-colored one, but do you have a preference? Let me know!

Swatches of this collection are starting to circulate, so tell me, are you getting anything from the Semi-Precious collection? Any eyeshadows? If you are, would you actually use them? =P What do you think of this manicure?

Thanks to Jessica of beautezine.com for letting me use her picture of Hint of Sapphire! =]

Thanks so much for reading!

Janna

Brief Post - Giveaway Closed!

2011-06-23T23:57:00.000-04:00

Just wanted to post quickly to let everyone know that my Long Overdue Giveaway has closed. I ended up with 43 entrants, which is great! Thank you everybody for entering! I'm in the process of validating entries.

I also wanted to let you know that if you left me a question on my giveaway form, I sent you an email answering your questions. Thanks for having trust in my opinions! Don't delete these emails as spam =P and if you left a question and I didn't email you, drop me a comment.

Finally, as promised, everyone that entered my giveaway will be featured on my blogroll. This was my way to kind of ease into having a blogroll so it wasn't such a massive undertaking. No worries though, if you didn't enter and want to be on my blogroll, drop me an email!

My water marble post is coming up tonight! (Technically tomorrow morning.) I think you're all really going to like it.

Thanks so much!

Janna<3

Almost-Pink Wednesday - China Glaze Señorita Bonita

2011-06-22T05:29:00.002-04:00

Hellooo there!

Today I'm showing you an almost-pink, China Glaze Señorita Bonita. I love the name, the color, and the formula. This is a very warm toned purple or purple toned pink or berry if you like. Let's just say it's purple to make sure that I'm not stretching it and trying to make it pink for Wednesday ;] Although it has gorgeous pink glass flecks. Take a look!

Woah, blurry. I'm sorry =\

The formula on this was awesome. I was able to create a near-perfect curve near my cuticle and leave the perfect gap. This is definitely one of those polishes that you fall in love with when you put the first stroke on your nail...I was in love at one, two, and three coats. Shown here is three with Out the Door topcoat. I only grabbed this and one other from the Island Escape Collection: Electric Pineapple.

Do you own this "pretty lady" or any others from the Island Escape collection? Please let me know!

Thank you so much for reading! Don't forget that there less than one day left to enter my Long Overdue Giveaway!!!

Janna

Thank You!

2011-06-21T01:31:00.001-04:00

Hey everybody =] All 200 of you!

I am floored. I even print screened a shot of my dashboard! I just wanted to take the time to write a post dedicated to you, all of the readers, without a mani or anything else to get in the way. You guys are AWESOME! Every comment on this blog, tweet or retweet on my twitter page, and entry in my giveaway makes me smile! I have 33 entries and I'm so excited! So again, thanks for reading about my millions of haul posts, manicure posts, and swatches (or even just skimming through and looking at pictures ;]) And feel free to post a comment on this post telling me a little bit about yourself and your blog if you have one.

That's it for right now! My awesome water marble post will be up and running tomorrow night.

<3, Janna

Haulage Part IV - I Have a Problem

2011-06-14T10:12:00.001-04:00

The above statement is absolutely true.

I think every nail or beauty addict has a moment (or multiple moments) when they sit back and say, "I'm crazy for having this much _______." The blank, of course, is filled in with makeup, lipgloss, or in my case, nail polish. Please let me know if you have these moments!

ANYWAY. Last Saturday, I found my first "dusty," which in the nail world, to my understanding, is a beauty shop that isn't too popular, where you can find products that have long since been discontinued. Let me know if you have another definition! Besides the dusty, I also visited Ross and five below. Get ready for some more longwindedness.

First up on the left is an unnamed Cosmetic Arts polish, a really pretty very-neon pink that I got at Ross.
The rest of the polishes in the picture were purchased when I struck gold at five below, if I do say so myself. I found THREEEE bottles of Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Night Lights, a charcoal scattered holographic jelly. One of these will be given away, either included in my current giveaway, or part of a separate one. (Let me know if you have a preference!) The other mini bottle most of you probably recognize; it's one of the LE Wet n Wild polishes called Prancer. This little guy had some nail fanatics going crazy back around Christmastime, and I'm shocked that I found a bottle at five below.

This picture is Part I of the dusty. These two polishes were on clearance! To the left, Essie Funky Limelight and to the right, OPI Friar, Friar Pants on Fire, which is black-label. (One of my first salon manis was with a red OPI with gold shimmer, and even though I don't think this was the polish - maybe Sweet as Annie-thing - it still fulfills a hole in my collection.)

Okay guys, this is where the problem-having realization started to sink in. Since I study Spanish in school, I have been lemming OPI's Spain collection. The lemming definitely intensified since I'll be studying abroad in Spain next month! This dusty had EIGHT out of the 12 polishes from the collection, just sitting there in the original display rack. I was about to ask to take home the empty rack! Yes, they're all extremely similar and I wish the collection had more variation among the colors. For some reason, Can You Tapas This? was sitting in the clearance section, and the OPIs at this store were $7.50 each, which is a whole dollar cheaper than at Ulta, so in the long term I'm saving money...right?
The ones they had are (I'm gonna try to name these in order) Barefoot in Barcelona, Bullish on OPI, Can You Tapas This?, Pink Flamenco, No Spain No Gain, Here Today. . .Aragon Tomorrow, Pamplona Purple (love), and Manicurist of Seville. And my justification was that I never ever have to buy another berry shade of polish again. The other four are obviously HIGH on my (unofficial) lemming list.

EDIT 6/18: I just purchased Ate Berries in the Canaries, Give Me Moor!, and Suzi Skis in the Pyrenees. And just added Conquistadorable Color to my cart on Amazon =]

Needless to say, I'll be frequenting that dusty to check out what they crazily put on clearance. Also because they sell every brand of nail polish for a full dollar cheaper than I've found them elsewhere.

Do you have a go-to dusty? Have you ever . . . lemmed?. . . a whole collection, be it for the name or the colors? Do you have a polish problem, too? DO I HAVE ONE?!

Let me know in the comments! And as always, thanks for reading! Enter my Long Overdue Giveaway!

<3, Janna

Haulage Part III - A Harmless Trip to Ulta

2011-06-12T19:12:00.000-04:00

Yes, ANOTHER haul post. I'm a lunatic. I hope you guys don't mind them because there are probably at least two more to come.

Anyway, I had a coupon and my level one award to cash in, so I went to Ulta. Here's what I snagged:

My level one reward: Ulta Celebutante. Rich, purple cream. My sister actually bought this polish first because it's really close to OPI Funkey Dunkey, and I got my own bottle because it was free and nothing else was calling my name. Current pedicure and only two coats were needed for opacity, FYI. Love it!

And here are some other things that magically made it into my basket somehow.....

Top row: Ulta Toe-tally Matte set, with (LtoR) High Shine Top Coat, Sunbathing Beauty, Beach Bum, Surfer Girl, and Bananarama, Ulta What a Maroon, which is a red jelly that was on clearance, and my first butterLONDON, All Hail the Queen, a taupe subtly-holo polish.
And underneath is the OPI Pirates of the Caribbean mini set, with Skull and Glossbones, Planks a Lot, Sparrow Me the Drama, and Stranger Tides. I had a 20% off coupon that I used on this. And I got the last one in the display!

I hope you are enjoying my installment of haul posts! I'll post my current mani, ChG Señorita Bonita, and after I remove this I'm going to try my hand at another water marble. Check out my past water marbles HERE to get inspired!

That's it for now. Thanks for reading!

Janna

Sally Hansen Extreme Wear Sun Kissed

2011-06-12T00:21:00.000-04:00

Hellooo!

Here's a quick picture of Sally Hansen Extreme Wear Sun Kissed. This was a birthday gift from my boyfriend that I talked about in one of my last haul posts. It's a really pretty orange cream. Not neon at all, but pretty bright. I really liked this one on me =] Sorry for the crappy picture, but this one's definitely awesome in real life. It bubbled a tiny bit but only because I applied three coats in a hurry along with Seche Vite and OPI topcoat, with a fan on. Pretty much a recipe for disaster.

Keeping it short for tonight, but more goodness to come tomorrow! Also, PLEASE don't forget to enter my Long Overdue Giveaway that ends the 23rd!

Janna

Haulage Part II - While I Was at School

2011-06-08T12:47:00.004-04:00

Hellooo!

Here's another haul for you....do you like reading about hauls? I definitely do!

First up is the 6 polishes I got from the Zoya Polish Exchange! Two of them aren't pictured; I'll explain below!

Left to right: Savita, Rica, Breezi, and Perrie. How amazing are the frosted bottles?!

The two that aren't pictured are Isla, shown HERE, and Zoya Erin, which I gifted to a friend with the same name =] Rica looks a little orange-y in this photo, sorry about that, but I assure you it's a gorgeous coral. And it's much brighter than I thought it'd be so I'm happy! Savita, I've wanted forever because I love purples, Breezi just seemed like a good polish to have even though I wasn't specifically drawn to it (am I the only one who shops like that? Please say no! =P), and Perrie seems like my perfect warm-toned lilac.

Up next is China Glaze 2NITE. I bought this on a whim kind of, from Medusa's Threads, which is a shop run by April of Concrete and Nail Polish. I'll never have any other OMGs, so I figured I might as well grab one while I can. It's still on the site, though admittedly the price has been raised a bit. Still probably cheaper than you would pay if you bought it from a seller on eBay.

Waiting for the PERFECT time to wear this one. A jewel in my collection for sure.

Finally, a Sally's haul. Well, this is actually 2 (maybe more) hauls in one.

Top Row: China Glaze Lightning Bolt, Cracked Concrete, Broken Hearted, Fault Link, and Black Mesh. (Not pictured is Crushed Candy. I wore it and misplaced it!)
Bottom Row: Orly Royal Velvet, China Glaze Señorita Bonita, ChG Electric Pineapple, ChG Frostbite, and a Sally's Girl polish in Periwinkle. Not pictured is Flip Flop Fantasy...I obviously have a problem locating polishes. My apologies!

My Sally's got the crackles back in stock after the initial sellout little by little. Black Mesh was the first purchase, along with Flip Flop Fantasy and Frostbite, since they were running the buy 2 get 1. Then they had the white, gray, pink, and teal, and the buy 2 get one was still on, so at that time I also picked up (or my mom did) Señorita Bonita and Electric Pineapple. (I was on the phone with my mom to pick out the polishes, and Sally's had justtt gotten in the Island Escapes. Like, the saleswoman opened the box for my mom, and was extremely impressed that I rattled off the polishes that I wanted on the phone before my mom could describe them. =P) Sally's held the purple crackle for us when it came in, so I have the complete crackle collection! =]

Oh, and I bought Orly Royal Velvet way before the crackles. So pretty.

Sorry for the long-winded post! I like to write a little background on the polishes, why I picked them, and the deals going on when I purchased them. What good are just pictures? You may disagree lol.

Thank you so much for reading, and PLEASE don't forget to enter my Long Overdue Giveaway!

Janna

Haulage Part I - Happy Birthday to Me!

2011-06-05T00:08:00.001-04:00

Hello again!

My 20th birthday was April 23rd and I just wanted to show you what I bought or received on that day. Onto the pictures!!

These lovelies were a thoughtful gift from my boyfriend.

From left to right these polishes are Orly Rose-Colored Glasses, Orly It's Up To Blue, Orly Rose Radiance, Sally Hansen Extreme Wear in Sunkissed (wearing now), SH Extreme Wear in Blue It, and Ulta Under the Sea Mini Set, which I'd been DYING to get, and I didn't even tell him. The polishes in the set are Tip the Scales, A Tail of Two Cities, Mermaid in Heaven, and Don't Be Shellfish.

Next I hit up Sephora and I got my free Beauty Insider birthday gift and bought a discounted polish. After that, I was headed to Ulta, where the polishes were buy 2, get one free.

To the left is philosophy's Happy Birthday, Beautiful! shampoo, shower gel & bubble bath, which is vanilla birthday cake scented. This was my free birthday gift, and it's a 6 oz. bottle, which I thought was really nice for a free gift! The polish is Sephora by OPI Rumba Romance. The two OPIs I got at Ulta are San Tan-tonio and Señorita Rose-alita. The 3rd polish I got was Big Hair. . .Big Nails, but I gave this to one of my close friends who has big curly hair. Lol.

Finally, I bought myself a very special birthday present at Nordstrom. . .I've never even been inside a Nordstrom before I don't think. I'm sure you can guess what I bought!

The saleswoman said they just got this in! MINI Deborah Lippmanns. From left to right: Bad Romance, Happy Birthday, Across the Universe. In love! I paid $30 for this if anyone is interested.

All in all, my birthday was amazing and I want to thank everyone who was a part of it! And thank YOU so much for reading!

Janna

Some Shameless Self-Promotion and Zoya Isla

2011-06-04T22:42:00.001-04:00

Hello!

Okay, first the shamelessness and then the mani. Over at More Nail Polish blog, a contest is going on where each of the participants entered a franken, and now it's up to the blog's followers to vote on a winner! Go check out the gallery of participants! There are some awesome frankens, and if you'd like to help me out, I'm lucky #7, Frankenberry. On the site you can read a description and the recipe I used. If anyone's interested in more pictures, let me know, but I submitted the only perfectly-color-accurate one to the contest =] To vote, you must be a follow of More Nail Polish and fill out the form. Vote #7! =D Here's the link.

Now onto Isla! This is a deep red shimmer from Zoya, and as soon as I saw Scrangie's swatch, I fell in love. This color is amazing in person and I tried my hardest to capture it in photos! Here it goes:

After a couple of days I fauxnaded it with a Mash plate using Design-a-Nail polish in Voodoo. I loved this and got so many compliments!

Thank you for reading!

Janna

Blogger ABC's

2011-06-02T05:11:00.001-04:00

Hellooo!

I've been reading this tag from a lot of bloggers and decided I'd give it a go. I wasn't tagged or anything, just wanted to do it! Warning: I like giving long-ish answers!

A. Age: 20

B. Bed size: Queen at home (wish it were a full so I'd have more room), Twin XL at school.

C. Chore you hate: Making the bed is the worst, but all of them unless I'm suddenly in the mood to clean.

D. Day: Hm...Saturday?

E. Essential start to your day: Putting in my contacts. I'm half-asleep until I put them in.

F. Favourite colour: Light Green and Purple. They're tied =P

G. Gold or Silver: Silver, but I think I look better in gold.

H. Height: 5'7" or 170cm for my international ladies. Yes, I googled that conversion.

I. Instruments: I played the clarinet in elementary and middle school...and I sing, so, voice?

J. Job title: Undergraduate Teaching Assistant. In other words, I tutor people in Chemistry.

K. Kids: Definitely someday, but none right now.

L. Live: New Jersey.

M. Mum’s name: JoAnna. Take away the 'o' and you get....

N. Nicknames: Jan, Jannabanana (lol), and a friend at school started calling me "Meeps" because I say "Meep!" a lot, as a term of excitement, fear, frustration, or any other emotion =P

O. Overnight hospital stays: None, knock on wood.

P. Pet peeve: Hmmmmm, I hate people who are cocky or brag to other people. Oh, and incorrect grammar. Come on, people!

Q. Quote from a movie: off the top of my head..."And I was like, 'EMILIOOOOOOO'"! (Name that film!)

R. Right or left handed: Right.

S. Siblings: One "little" sister who is 18.

T. Time you wake up: It varies, but lately I've been sleeping past noon =\

U. Underwear: Sure?

V. Vegetables you dislike: Peas and celery, just to name a few.

W. What makes you run late: My hair/makeup =P or just plain oversleeping and/or turning off the alarm in my sleep.

X. X-Rays you’ve had: None, again, knock on wood.

Y. Yummy food you make: Well I don't really cook, but I can make this taco dip, and....mac and cheese out of a box? Toast?

Z. Zoo: Not the biggest fan, but I saw one blogger mention that she prefers aquariums, and I have to agree!

Please, do this tag if you haven't already! It was a lot of fun. Leave a link in the comments if you do! As always, feel free to leave any questions or comments in the box below =]

Thanks for reading,
Janna

It's Wednesday!

2011-06-01T18:45:00.005-04:00

And for the first time ever, that means I'm wearing pink!

For those of you who don't know, a bunch of bloggers have decided that "on Wednesday, we wear pink!" which is a nod to the ridiculously-quotable movie Mean Girls. Check out http://onwednesdayswewearpink.com/ if you're interested in joining!

Now, I don't know if I can participate every week, but I'm gonna try! Pinks once a week might be too much for me =P

Here's a mani that's mostly pink. This is Sephora by OPI Who Let the Dorks Out? topped with two coats of Jesse's Girl Confetti to turn up the purple sparkle, and then finally topped with one coat of China Glaze Broken Hearted and top coat.

Here are some bonus pictures of WLTDO and Jesse's Girl. Look how awesome the purple is! WLTDO is shown alone HERE.

Thanks for reading!

Janna

150 Followers!

2011-06-01T03:09:00.003-04:00

Well actually, 151 at the moment =D

I just wanted to say a quick thank you to all of you. More posts to come tomorrow and more often since I have literally NOTHING to do in my life until July. Sad, right?

PLEASEE don't forget to enter my Long Overdue Giveaway! It's open until June 23rd, so there's plenty of time. I only have 4 entrants right now though, and I'd love to have more! I've also decided that everyone who enters my giveaway that has a blog will be put on my blogroll, which doesn't exist yet, but will after the giveaway closes.

A HUUUUGE THANK YOU again to all of you!

Janna<3

Clever and Colorful's "Long Overdue Giveaway!" - Closed

2011-05-27T21:55:00.004-04:00

Hello! **This giveaway is now closed. Thank you!**

Yes, you read correctly - I'm FINALLY having a giveaway! And I'm so so excited! I know I don't post very often at all, but I'm always thankful for all of my followers and every little comment I receive.

This giveaway will be combined for my birthday, which was April 23rd, for having 150 followers (at the moment I have 144), and for my first year blog-o-versary, which is July 22nd, when I'll be in Spain for study abroad.

Here's what's up for grabs!

A bottle of OPI Lucerne-tainly Look Marvelous from the Fall 2010 Swiss Collection! Swatched HERE.

Confetti My Favorite Martian! Shown layered HERE.

Sephora by OPI Mash Up from their Glee collection! Swatched HERE.

Sally Hansen's Salon Effects Nail Polish Strips in Skinny Jeans!

A set of Kiss Nail Decals and Rhinestones!

Rules:

1) This giveaway is open to U.S. followers only. Sorry international beauties!

2) The giveaway will close on June 23, 2011 at midnight, 'cause I like the number 23. If it's still June 23rd somewhere in the world, you can enter.

3) In the form, please input your GFC follower name and your email address.

4) Extra entries will be given if you:
a) Follow Me on Twitter! @cleverncolorful
b) Tweet about this giveaway and mention me in the tweet!
c) Create a blog post about this giveaway! (Sidebar counts)
d) Tell me your favorite manicure that I have done!
e) Comment on one of my posts!

EDIT: Additionally, every blogger that enters my giveaway will be put on my blogroll, which does not exist yet, so please enter your blog address in the form! I love to find new blogs to follow, too!

That's it! This is my first giveaway and definitely not the last =] Thanks to all of my followers for making this an awesome journey!

Sephora by OPI - Glee Collection

2011-05-24T20:05:00.001-04:00

Hey everyone!

Back in February, I entered the Sephora Hide and Go Gleek contest on Twitter, where Sephora tweeted a Glee trivia question after the episode finished on Tuesday, February 8th and I was the second person to answer! I won the ENTIRE collection - 7 full size bottles, the mini bottle set, and three sets of polish stickers. I was so excited!

Since season 2 is ending tonight (SAD), I figured this would be an awesome time to post it. Here are some pictures and swatches =]

I'm gonna start off with the mini set exclusives. I let my sister swatch these =]

First up is Sue vs. Shue, a deep navy blue shimmer. Not unique but still pretty.

Next up is Express Yourself to Yourself. Weird name...Madonna reference I guess? Makes sense since there was a Madonna episode, but not too sure about the "too yourself" part. This was AWFUL to photograph, and sorry for the crappy shots. This is like a pink-leaning coral jelly with shimmer in it. Four coats and still VNL.

Finally for the miniset exclusives, we have Celibacy Club, which is a weird name choice for this holo glitter topper. Nothing to unique about this, comparable to ChG Fairy Dust and the like. In my opinion, not opaque enough to wear on its own.

One Coat:

Three Coats:

Now for the others.

First up out of the big bottles, lol, is Mash Up. This is 3 coats, dried quickly. Silver/green/lavender multichrome, similar I suppose to Wet and Wild's Grey's Anatomy and OPI Not Like the Movies, and maybe even Lippmann's Wicked Game I assume, even though I don't have those ones to compare. This one also has silver microglitter. Very pretty.

Yes, I needed 5 pictures of it. And this one may be featured on an upcoming giveaway HINT.

Next up, Diva-in-Training. This is 3 coats, and could serve as the Pantone Color of the Year, honeysuckle, but it might not look like it because it was difficult for me to photograph. It stained a tiny bit. I liked this one, and actually don't have anything like it.

Now we have Slushied. This one is also featured in the mini set. It's a blue cream, looks like a darker version of that cotton candy blue color. I loved this one =] Two coats and didn't stain!

Up next is Hell to the No. Isn't that a great name?! This is a very warm purple with gold shimmer. GORGEOUS. My favorite one in the collection. This is 3 thin coats.

This one is Gleek Out, also featured in the mini set as well. This one is four coats, still VNL. I'd call it a lime green/chartreuse glass fleck shimmer. Very pretty but very sheer.

This is Miss Bossy Pants, also featured in the mini set. My full size bottle is on backorder, so for this I swatched the mini bottle. This is four coats, still VNL. I think I must do really thin coats cause I don't know why all of these are so sheer. Bottom pictures have one coat of Celibacy Club on the ring finger. MBP is a fuschia shimmer.

Finallyyyyy, we have Who Let the Dorks Out? I was gonna swatch this one last, but then I decided to make it my NOTD, cause it's awesome. This is a teal polish, with blue and purple flashes. LOVE. Four coats. Must try this over black.

Can you spot the purple? Also, FYI, I topped this mani with a coat of Jessie's Girl Confetti, to amp up the purple sparkle, and it's AMAZING.

What do you think? Do you own any of these? Are you a gLeek?! Will you be watching tonight?! Let me know!!

Thanks so much for reading,
Janna

Better Late Than Never - Zoya Intimate Collection

2011-05-22T07:27:00.000-04:00

Helloo!

So I finally got around to swatching the Zoya Intimate Collection. I ordered the whole collection for $25 from the Zoya website for the Women's Day promotion, and I love them all. Zoya's vision for this collection was awesome - soft and delicate rather than bright and shiny like some other spring collections. None of these colors were like anything that I typically wear, but I think that's why I loved them so much.

This is Dove. For this swatch I used three thin coats of Dove, but you could definitely do two medium/thicker ones. Medium gray cream...maybe even jellyish. I didn't expect this to look good with my skin, and I'm not even sure if it does, but I loved this one when I put it on. I definitely need more grays, since this is the first one I've ever worn, and the second one in my collection.

Me trying to get Dove to photograph more gray and less blue.

Next is Zoya Jules. This is a champagne/taupe shimmer polish. Shown is 3 coats. This was one of the colors I was most excited about from this collection, but when it arrived I wasn't sure how it would look on me...but it's gorgeous nonetheless. This one, along with the other shimmer in the collection, was hard to remove since the little shimmer flecks did not seem to want to come off.

FLASH. Not this silver-toned in real life.

Then there's Marley. This is a pink-based lilac pearl polish, if that makes sense. The finish reminded me of Color Club Pretty in Platinum (shown HERE). I really liked this one too, mostly because, if you can believe it, I don't own any other light purples. Shown is three coats, but two is fine if you pay more attention when you apply this lol - I only did 3 to fix my application flaws.

Next up is Zoya Gemma. This one definitely got the most attention when the promos of this collection started showing up, but I've read many people wish there was more blue shimmer. I do agree, since the blue shimmer almost disappears on the nail, but I still love the color. It's a murky green jelly with subtle light blue shimmer throughout. This is three coats.

FLASH. Look at that blue! =]

Onto Zoya Caitlin. Very pretty, very dusty deep periwinkle color. Cream finish. I actually wore this on my birthday with China Glaze Black Mesh crackle on top, but it didn't turn out very well. I love Caitlin. This is two coats.

Finally, Zoya Dannii. This is a very shimmery warm toned purple, almost magenta. Same finish as Jules. Two perfect coats. She may be my favorite of the collection? I hate picking favorites!

Not this bright in real life, but not as dull as in the other pictures.

This collection is awesome. I love how the colors fit perfectly together but couldn't be more different from each other. Oh and also, I always forget how awesome Zoya's brush is. It fits my nails perfectly! The formula on all of these polishes was awesome and Zoyas used to not dry for me, but these all have dried very nicely. Oh, and sorry for the dry hands - I used pure acetone while swatching...=\

Don't forget: Zoya is offering Caitlin and Dove free with any purchase on their site through tomorrow, 5/23, at 11:59PM. Click here to see Zoya's post!

What were your favorites from this Zoya collection? Do you own any? Planning to get any?

Zoya Ivanka

2011-05-19T20:06:00.001-04:00

Hello!

(Sorry Guys...I definitely posted this, but blogger's been down...you know.)

This is Zoya Ivanka - It was one of my three-free Zoyas along with Charla and Pinta. This color is the absolute PERFECT St. Patrick's day green, so that's what I wore it for =] This is three coats. Ring fingers and thumbs are stamped with a Champagne/gold Stripe Rite and BM plate 03!

What do you think? Sorry for the extreme lateness!

Janna

Zoya Shawn with Confetti My Favorie Martian

2011-04-28T19:13:00.004-04:00

Hello!

What a busy week! 2 weeks til summer for me!

This is a mani from the past: Zoya Shawn, 2 coats, a deep yellow-leaning green cream polish, and then in the second picture, I topped it with one or two coats of Confetti My Favorite Martian. I love it!

Let me know what you think! What are your favorite colors to layer?

Janna

Update!

2011-04-23T14:19:00.002-04:00

Helloooo!

So I'm home for Easter/my birthday (today, the 23rd) and I don't have my camera....FAIL...or any pictures saved to my computer....DOUBLE FAIL. I'll try and steal someone's camera to take pictures before I get back to school. Sorry I don't have any posts =[

Congrats to all the Bundle Monster plate winners! And I hope everyone has a lovely Easter/Passover/weekend!

I have some haul posts coming up! Stay tuned!

Janna

Bundle Monster Contest!

2011-04-17T01:31:00.002-04:00

Hey guys!

Will update sometime after my HUUUUUGE Physics exam on Tuesday, but here's my entry for the bundle monster plate contest!

Please click HERE to help me out!!!

Would love it if you could vote for me and all of the other lovely entries!

You guys are awesome =]

ChG Innocence American/French Mani

2011-04-11T22:20:00.005-04:00

LOL. Saw this as an ad on facebook. Thought you guys would appreciate it! What's with this spelling?!

Help spread savvy, colorful nails to your beautiful customers. Start giving mannies and peddies now!

In other news this was one of the best school days I've had in a long time. It was a high of 82 today...which is drastically hot compared to the winterish weather we've been having, and everywhere else has been having as well. I finally could wear flip flops!! I had two canceled classes and got out of my lab almost two hours early! I also got to take two naps! Very painless day, to say the least.

FOUR MORE WEEKS TIL SUMMER!

Just thought I'd share!

I'll leave you with some blurryish pictures of a mani I did a while back. Base is China Glaze Innocence, a sheer pink. Then I created a kind of American or French manicure with freehanded tips in Sally Hansen Polar Bare, a sheer white. I really like how fresh this looked. Hm...maybe I'll recreate this and stamp over it....

Until next time,

Janna<3

Autism Awareness Day

2011-04-02T13:15:00.006-04:00

http://www.lightitupblue.org/

Hey everyone. Today I'm going to be showing pictures of a blue mani (which I did a while back) in honor of World Autism Awareness Day which is today, April 2nd! I'm happy to see other bloggers supporting this cause as well!

Onto the pictures!

This is OPI's No Room for the Blues, a medium blue cream that I just love. It went on like a dream and I believe this is two coats, but I might have done a third. The accent nail is topped with one coat of Sephora by OPI Traffic Stopper Copper, which I tested on my ring nails and then decided to buy a full bottle! =P

What's your favorite blue polish?

Janna

Happy Belated Pi Day with Zoya Evangeline!

2011-03-16T23:45:00.007-04:00

Hello!

For those of you who may not know, March 14th is an important day in the world of mathematics. Not to mention, it's my mom's birthday!

Pi (π) is defined as the quotient of the circumference of a circle divided by its diameter, which will always come out to 3.141592.... It's an irrational number, so the decimal places never end! So this number, 3.14, translates to 3/14, which is PI DAY!

To celebrate, in high school we used to eat cake, pies, cookies, or any other circular foods. So on Monday, I did a really quick Pi Day manicure!

I started out with three coats of Zoya Evangeline. I got this in the Be a Star mini set with the lip gloss in Starlet. Zoya mini bottles are ADORABLE! The name of this polish will forever remind me of the Princess in the Frog. Anyone else get the reference?

Evangeline is a wine-leaning magenta, meaning this isn't a BRIGHT magenta, but a deeper one, with a ton of gold shimmer. In my opinion, the base color is very very close to that of China Glaze Ahoy! So much so, that I don't plan on purchasing Ahoy anymore. I happened to be at Ulta looking at the Anchors Away collection when I had this on, and my nails nearly matched the Ahoy bottle when I picked it up.

Here is Evangeline alone:

Then I added a bunch of multi-colored pi symbols, π, on my ring fingers and thumbs with random Stripe Rites, Art Club polishes, and Art Deco polishes. On my left thumb, I wrote "3.1415" in a black nail art brush.

I hope you guys like this! I haven't seen another pi day mani, so let me know if you see one on another blog! Hope you enjoyed your math lesson and my geek moment for the day! =D

Janna

Major Catch Up: Valentine's Day Mani

2011-03-15T01:09:00.006-04:00

Hey everybody!

My apologies for not posting this sooner, but since I have the week off I'm going to catch up on past manicures as well as post some St. Patrick's Day nails in a timely manner. So don't be surprised if you see some more "Random Manis" posts to come.

Anyway, here's my Valentine's Day Manicure that I need a month before Valentine's Day for a contest (I did a post about it a while back asking for votes =]). The last two pictures are pictures I took for fun of my manicure for the ACTUAL Valentine's Day; sorry for the awkward angle, but I thought it was a cute pose.

Contest Entry:

Woah, props!

The base is OPI Color So Hot it Berns (NOTD here). I painted half of every finger except my ring finger with Milani One Coat Glitter in Red Sparkle. All white stamping is done with a Bundle Monster plate and Color Club Pretty in Platinum. Purple hearts were made with a dotting tool dipped in China Glaze Spontaneous. Thumb is accented with a red rhinestone heart.

I loved this manicure. What do you guys think?

Real Valentine's Day Mani featuring my boyfriend:

This is Pure Ice Peony, a frost/pearl bright pink. Same BM plate as above I believe. Purple lips are ChG Spontaneous, silver (pinky) is OPI Lucerne-tainly Look Marvelous, and all red is Design-a-Nail polish in Rage. Mani topped with ChG Golden Enchantment.

Thanks for reading!

Janna

Random Manicures - The Sequel

2011-03-06T15:00:00.012-05:00

Hello everybody!

Hope you all are having an enjoyable week. Sorry for that lame excuse for a post I left you a couple days ago, but I feel so bad that I don't have a lot of time to post. I am in the 8th week of my Spring semester, which means I'm pretty much exactly at the midpoint. Mid-semester is always the busiest time, excluding finals, so I'm trying really hard to keep up with my school and work commitments, and sometimes blogging gets pushed aside unfortunately. Friday starts my Spring Break though, so I'll definitely have more time to do some swatching and posting! =] You can look forward to seeing some of the SOPI Glee polishes (if they ever arrive in the mail), my 3 free Zoyas, some Viva La Nails decals and accessories, and some e.l.f. cosmetics, all of which have been sitting in my house waiting for me to get home.

That's my little song and dance. =P I'm sure I've told you something similar before, but it's true. Onto the pictures!

These are all manis I've had on my computer since fall semester. I did find my memory card though, so hopefully I can get some more recent pictures up soon.

This is one of my favorite manis ever and I got so many compliments and questions about it. It's really simple - NYC Skin Tight Denim Creme, and after two or three days, I topped it with one coat of Essie Matte About You. No shiny pictures, sorry, just matte ones. When I first discovered the nail blogging world, seeing pictures of Russian Navy Matte drove me crazy, so I bought Skin Tight Denim Creme specifically to be used with Essie MAY and recreate the look =p. I loveeee this!

The NYC polish is just two coats (could get away with one), formula was great, and at 99 cents, it's a great way to fulfill a lemming.

Moving right along, next up is Pure Ice Iced Copper, an orange-leaning copper polish with a finish between shimmer and metallic. I bought this to fill the copper polish hole in my collection, and this one is really really pretty. Two, maybe three coats? I really like Pure Ice polishes! (Sorry for the one lonesome picture!)

And next is China Glaze Ingrid. Holy crap, my nails are so long. They actually look fake. Ahem, anyway. The first couple pictures are the only ones that are color accurate. In the last two, the color is pulling oddly green. Hm. But I believe this was three coats. Taupe/brown with pretty gold shimmer.

HOW RIDICULOUS do they look?! I don't think I could grow them that long, especially in this weather, even if I tried.

And finally, since I noticed how long my nails had gotten when I was wearing Ingrid, I pulled out Claire's Calm/Wild, because I figured the color change would be very obvious on my long nails. This is three coats, and since my hands are cold all the time, the polish most of the time was a uniform magenta color, but after I washed my hands the color change would be very apparent for a few minutes.

Midpoint color.

"Warm" color.

Ditto.

"Cold" color!

Midpoint.

Midpoint. Flash.

Midpoint.

Thank you so much for reading! You guys are amazing!

Janna

Hello! + 130 followers =]

2011-03-04T01:31:00.002-05:00

Hey everyone!

I hope all is well. I've had some computer issues but hopefully I can do a blog post sometime this weekend. I'm also doing my best to keep up with all of your wonderful posts =]

The plus side of being too busy to blog is that I'm doing really well in all of my classes. Hope that makes up for being MIA!

Right now on my fingers I'm wearing OPI No Room for the Blues, which is an awesome blue cream. Wish I could show you pictures, but my memory card is temporarily misplaced.

That's my little update for now. Thank you to all of my followers!!!!!

Janna

Valentine's Day Nail Art Contest Entry

2011-02-06T18:57:00.003-05:00

Hey everybody,

I'm asking for your help. I entered to win at nail art contest over at Konad Addict, and I'd love it if you could take your time out to vote for me!!

http://konadnails.blogspot.com/2011/02/valentines-day-manicures-vote.html

You have to be a follower of Konad Addict in order to vote!

I'm #21. Every entry is so good so I really need your help to win!

Thank you so much! Thanks for reading!

Janna

Sinful Colors Pretty-In-Pink Review

2011-02-05T13:39:00.011-05:00

Hi everyone!

I was graciously sent samples of 2 of the colors to review from the new Sinful Collection: Glass Pink and Scandal.

Now, here's my dilemma. As most of you probably know, I'm currently away at school for my Spring semester. My school is 2 and a half hours away from my home, so I hardly go home unless the school is closed for a break. In order to give a convenient address and to ensure that the samples don't get lost (packages get lost often upon delivery to my school), I requested that the samples be sent to my home address. This means that I did not review the samples myself; my wonderful mommy did it for me! I got my love of nail polish from my mom, so she's definitely a reliable source. This is what she had to say.

With Flash.

Glass Pink - Sheer lightest-pink shimmer, or as my mom says, "one pink up from white." Lol. I was really excited to be sent this one as it looks like a really versatile polish. This one looks like it'd be really pretty for layering (see below) and I'm jealous my mom got to try it before me! This is three coats.

Scandal - not really neon. 'If it's neon, it's not a GREAT neon...' She says it reminds her of the flesh of watermelon. Pink-leaning coral with a jelly finish. My mom says it's so shiny when it dries. Again, three coats.

And just for fun...

This is three coats of Scandal topped with one coat of Glass Pink. This was my mom's idea because she thought that Glass Pink would make a pretty topcoat; she was right!

Other comments: My mom always does three coats, because she thinks two isn't enough, but she said that both of these are fine at two coats. Application was awesome. It also dried really fast between coats.
To directly quote my mom, "Wear is BEAUTIFUL." After she swatched these, she kept the Scandal/Glass Pink combo on for a week and a half (without topcoat or base coat!!) and she said it still looked perfect when she removed it. She LOVED these colors and thinks for the price she wants all of them =P

Without having seen any of the polishes in person, I feel like this is a collection of awesome pinks. I can't wait to try Glass Pink over a dark blue maybe. I'll definitely pick the rest of these up if I can find them! Thanks Sinful Colors!

(Sorry this took so long to post. I wanted to make sure I posted a quality review and had time to get my mom's opinions on everything! Hope you enjoyed it!)

Sinful Colors polishes retail for $1.99 and are available at most drugstores.

Sephora by OPI - 212 and a Poll

2011-02-02T00:11:00.002-05:00

Hey guys! Happy Groundhog Day =P

I <3 being a chemistry major....not. =] Anyway, I hope all is well out there. Here are some pictures of a polish I picked up in...early January I think. I loved the mix of holo glitter and flakies, and when I got home and looked it up I saw it was LE from LAST holiday season! So here it is, in all its glory, Sephora by OPI 212:

This color was pretty dark for my mood at the time, but I still liked it a lot. I'd describe it as a....charcoal? black? blackened-gold? polish with a mix of holo glitter and flakies. Definitely unique. This was 3 coats, I'm pretty sure.

Anyone have this polish?

One last thing, I added a poll to my blog about how often a blog should post. Please do me a favor and answer it! It's a two part question...for the first question answer either 1, 2, 3, or 4, and for the second, answer 5 or 6. (EDIT: Please answer both parts! You are allowed to select both answers) If you have any other comments to make, please leave them on a post! =] I'd love to hear your feedback and it is MUCH appreciated =]

Talk to you soon,

Janna

Sinful Colors Pretty-In-Pink Collection Preview

2011-01-20T20:30:00.002-05:00

SINFUL COLORS INTRODUCES A PRETTY-IN-PINK COLLECTION

Perfect for Valentine’s Day

Love is in the air, romance is in bloom and pink is paramount. Welcome February 14th, a day marked by kisses, sweethearts and flirting, of course. This year, treat your tips to a Valentine’s makeover, coating them in a feminine, delicate, or dynamic shade of pink. From bubble gum to baby doll – and everything in between – Sinful Colors has the best array of pink polish to pretty-you-up for the big day.

The 8 loving shades in the collection include:

Pink Forever: Bazooka meets Bam-Bam to equal beautiful.

Beautiful Girl: Classic ballerina with a flirty finish.

Glass Pink: Sheer, shiny, shimmer-happy bliss.

Boom Boom: Magenta-infused pink, which pops on toes and tips alike.

Scandal: No-nonsense neon, slick and sensational.

Soul Mate: Muted peachy pink with a melon twist.

Sinful Colors surpasses the masses with more than 300 amazing polishes, including the above-mentioned shades. All hues are available at major drug and mass market stores nationwide for $1.99, by calling 1-800-448-0763 or online at www.sinfulcolors.com.

Color So Hot it Berns and a Quick Update

2011-01-18T20:30:00.006-05:00

I'm just letting everyone know that I moved into school yesterday. My first day of classes was today! Ah, I can't believe I'm back already. So I'm just saying that unfortunately I can't post as often as I did over break. I'm going to shoot for once a week! Thank you all so much for sticking with me!!

Anyway, here is Color So Hot it Berns from the OPI Swiss Collection, Fall 2010. It would have been okay in two coats, but this is three. I'm VERY picky about what I call red. A lot of the polishes I see that are supposedly red, in my opinion are red/orange or dark pink =P But this is a true red, even though it doesn't look it in my pictures, and I've actually been looking for a bright red so this is perfect. I LOVE this polish!

A book I asked for for Christmas called The Elements =] Isn't it awesome?! **Chem Geek Moment**

NYE Mani

2011-01-11T15:33:00.000-05:00

Happy 1/11/11!

As you know if you follow me on Twitter (@cleverncolorful), I wore China Glaze Turned Up Turquoise for New Years Eve. Then I topped accent nails with one coat of Color Club Untamed Luxury and white and green rhinestones.

I think it was like 4-5 coats of TUT, but it dries super fast so it's not an issue. I lovee the ChG neons so much. It's a CRAZY bright blue/green with gorgeous shimmer, dries matte. This color is super-flattering. Untamed Luxury is a glitter that coordinates perfectly with TUT. I used my new Out the Door TC and Gelous BC.

I included a lot of pictures because this color is hard to photograph. I will say that the underwater pictures are most color accurate. Enjoy!

Not SO color accurate.

I thought photographing this polish against blue jeans would make it pull more green, and more color accurate. I was right =]

Least color accurate.

Thank you for reading, and thank you to all my followers!

Janna

Discounted China Glaze!

2011-01-10T23:50:00.000-05:00

Sally Beauty, like a ton of other stores, had crazy sales going on after Christmas, and I snagged some China Glazes.

Awakening, Turned Up Turquoise, Innocence, Spontaneous

They also had a DISCOUNT TABLE, like they often do, but this one had, when I got there, two Orly Cosmic FXs, some Finger Paints, aaaaanddd...

2010 HALLOWEEN POLISHES FROM CHINA GLAZE!!!!

Ahem. They only had Zombie Zest and Mummy May I, but I'm not complaining. They're awesome =]

I also picked up a mini China Glaze Peppermint Cuticle Oil. Love the Mini CG bottles!

Oh, and I grabbed an Out the Door topcoat to try. So far, I like it.

The huge bottle looks ridiculous =P

Even better, everything at Sally's with a red price tag, so the Halloween polishes and the cuticle oil (priced at $1.99), were 50% off. Helloooo LE polishes for $1 =]

Anyone else score some deals after Christmas?!

Thanks for reading, and sorry this post is a little late =] Up next: NYE mani.

Janna

Milani One Coat Glitters

2011-01-09T10:08:00.001-05:00

Today I have for you the sought-after Milani One-Coat glitter polishes! =]

YAAAY!

I won four of these glitters in a wonderful giveaway from Erin of Never Enough Nails! =] Check out her blog if you don't know it/love it already. These are the four I won:

So of course, I NEEDED Gems, since I love anything multi-colored (my blog background...) and have been lemming Happy Birthday, and I got the purple to complete my collection. I went to FOUR CVSs trying to find these polishes. At the fourth CVS, I found a handful of the polishes sitting on a shelf, no display or anything, but there was two bottles of Purple Gleam and one of Gems. I got one of each:

Swatches (no TC):

Gold Glitz. Fine gold glitter with some darker gold/red/orange glitter thrown in.

Blue Flash.

Silver Dazzle. Blue-leaning Silver glitter.

Purple Gleam. I'd say this is a red-toned purple glitter.

GEMS!!!! Multi-colored glitter of varying sizes. Buying another of these when I see it.

All of these were two coats. Sorry about the one finger swatches, but there are tons more out there and I did not have time to remove all of that glitter. They're really awesome polishes. They're not really just one shade of glitter either; they have varying shades so they're really interesting on the nail.

And no, I didn't forget, here's the last of the Glitter polishes, Red Sparkle. In the last two pictures, it is shown with 2 coats of Out The Door topcoat. My sister is wearing this as a full mani, and it only took the promised one coat to be opaque on her nails. She was excited to be a model:

With TC.

Yep. Looks like Dorothy's slippers alright. Overall these are really good polishes; 2 thin coats make them perfectly opaque and they dry really fast.

Anyone else have these?

Janna

Beauty-full Gifts

2011-01-05T22:27:00.010-05:00

Helloooo!

Another Christmas-related post...these are some gifts I generously received for Christmas!

My first NARS polishes =] Drop Dead Gorgeous Set. (Arabesque, Chinatown, Saratoga, Candy Darling)

OPI Set: Tease-y Does It, Sparkle-iscious, Body Shimmer

OPI Set: Tiny Black Purse, Color So Hot It Berns, Lucerne-tainly Look Marvelous. Gift from my boyfriend's mom along with a $25 Ulta Giftcard. (Yes, I already had LLM, but now I have one for you guys =] Slowly compiling a giveaway...)

OPI Set: Bring On The Bling!, Rising Star, gold bag

Crystal Nail File adorned with Swarovski crystals =] came in that cute case!

Orly Winter Wonderland

MAC Makeup set. My first MAC products EVER. Adorable bag including Teal Pigment, Mascara, Gel Liner and brush, and I also received a lustreglass =] from my boyfriend's brother.

There you have it =] A very successful Christmas. I'm so thankful for everything in my life!

Thanks for reading. I'm almost at 100 followers! I'm overwhelmed.

Janna

Stylish Blogger Award =]

2011-01-03T14:18:00.006-05:00

Hey everyone!

I won the stylish blogger award from Toes That Twinkle. Thank you! =] I don't usually do tags but I figured I'd give this one a shot.

The rules for the award:
1. Thank and link back to the person who awarded you this award.
2. Share 7 things about yourself.
3. Award 15 recently discovered great bloggers.
4. Contact these bloggers and tell them about the award!

So...um...
1. I usually sleep 12 hours before I wake up on my own...it's stupid =P

2. I can crochetn - just made a hat as a Christmas gift - and I recently learned how to knit a little.

3. I am 100% Italian (Italian-American).

4. I've recently become more obsessed with makeup, specifically eyeshadow. If I could figure out how to take better eyemakeup pictures, I'd post them more.

5. I'd rather do a jigsaw puzzle (<3) than watch tv or be online.

6. I'm obsessed with sea turtles. My boyfriend adopted me a sea turtle named Squirt through http://conserveturtles.org last year for my birthday. I'd like to save them =]

7. I wish I blogged more. But I'm going to try to be more focused on it next semester.

That was easier than I thought.

I'm not going to name any blogs specifically because I love all of the ones I know equally =P

You all get this award! Give this tag a shot if you'd like =]

-Janna

Christmas Mani

2011-01-01T16:05:00.004-05:00

Hey guys!

I'm slowly playing catch-up...so here's my Christmas mani. I hadddd to use Party Hearty, but I think a true red or true green base hides the glitter a little bit, so I went for a soft pearl white/light gray, Color Club Pretty in Platinum, and on accent nails, Essie Sew Psyched. PiP is a gorgeous color and it was surprising opaque; shown is 2 coats. Sew Psyched, as I'm sure you know, is a dusty, almost-sea foam green with hidden shimmer...LOVE! I bought the Essie mini set for Fall, but I might have to go buy a full-sized bottle of Sew Psyched and Limited Addiction...

ANYWAY. Onto the pictures! The mani was topped with two coats of China Glaze Party Hearty.

Pretty in Platinum and Sew Psyched alone.

Ditto.

I love how subdued the base colors are...makes the glitter really pop!

Thanks for reading everyone!

<3, Janna

Happy New Year!

2011-01-01T02:13:00.001-05:00

Just wishing you the best as you start 2011! I love New Years Eve!

One of my resolutions is to blog more often, and hopefully I'll make that happen! Thank you all for reading =] It means so much!

Janna

Barielle - Elle's Spell

2010-12-23T00:21:00.009-05:00

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

2010-12-22T23:47:00.009-05:00

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

2010-12-17T19:33:00.007-05:00

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!

2010-11-23T20:37:00.010-05:00

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?!

2010-11-16T17:29:00.008-05:00

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!

2010-10-29T16:07:00.007-04:00

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

2010-10-08T19:18:00.001-04:00

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

China Glaze Atlantis

2010-10-07T12:49:00.000-04:00

This color is amazing! I ordered it off Amazon (love Amazon!) after seeing some awesome swatches not too long ago, and when it came, the polish looked absolutely amazing in the bottle. It is absolutely PACKED with holo glitter.

Onto the pictures! Warning: there are a LOT.

=]

Yeah, I know, it's amazing. I seriously could not stop looking at my nails. I really considered taking the polish off for my Organic Chemistry exam cause I just kept staring at them while I was studying! But, of course, the polish stayed on. =]

If you couldn't tell, Atlantis is a teal blue jelly with a TON of holo glitter. The jelly is so sheer so you can see right through to all the layers of polish underneath. The effect is awesome. This is 3-4 coats; I did 3 on some and 4 on others =P. You can still see nail line, but you can't really cover it with this polish. Not that I mind at all! It's gorgeous!

Only complaint? Chipped within 2 days =\

Here's another picture that I took while I was doing my manicure. It kinda shows the thickness of coats that you need for this polish. Take a look:

These are all one coat. On the first two fingers, I did a thicker coat. And on the second two, I did how I would usually do a first coat. As I've said before, I usually do very thin coats, but that just doesn't work with this polish. It would take like 6 coats if I kept doing it that thin.

So, do you own Atlantis? I couldn't stop looking at it while it was on, and now I can't stop staring at these pictures! lol! Share your thoughts below!!

Thanks for reading!!

Janna

A Trip to NYC with OPI Glitzerland!

2010-10-05T12:34:00.002-04:00

Let me preface this entry by saying that I live about 3 and a half hours away from New York City, and I've still, to this day, never visited NYC without being on a school trip. My school is much closer to the city, and on the 18th, I went into the city to see the King Tut exhibit!

This was my first time in the 19 years of my life that I've walked down Broadway and been in Times Square =] Here are a couple pictures:

Times Square!

Broadway!!!!!!

On my trip, I wore OPI's Glitzerland from the fall Switzerland collection. I did swatches previously here, but here it is as a full mani:

This shot shows the glitter like a thousand times better than any of my other pictures.

Nails on a countertop at a Starbucks in NYC.

A woman on the trip asked me what color I was wearing, and I told her, and she started describing it to her friend on the phone as a "goldish, grayish shimmer." She wanted to get it for herself =P

After a couple of days, I stamped it with BM plate 19 using Glitzerland's sister from the Swiss collection, Lucerne-tainly Look Marvelous.

Sometime later, I added one coat of Matte About You on the ring finger.

I loved this look =] It came out pretty much how I intended, but maybe the stamping could have been a little darker.

What do you think about this? How often do you go to NYC, or have you never been? Please let me know!

Thanks so much for reading,

Janna

PS. I'm working on a post for BCA/DA. Stay tuned!

I'm Back! OPI Black Cherry Chutney

2010-09-30T13:57:00.006-04:00

Hello again!

Today is a sad day....the weather is terrible and someone unfollowed my blog =[

Sigh, oh well. Thank you all for sticking with me! This semester is intense.

I got OPI's Black Cherry Chutney in a mini pack at Ulta (it was a free gift) the same day that I got all that other epic stuff for free. It came with Brisbane Bronze and Bogota Blackberry. I haven't tried those two yet, but after wearing neon yellow, I wanted something much darker. I think this is the darkest polish I've ever worn!

In my opinion, this is near black, but I don't think it ever looks black, even in low lighting. The shimmer in this is AWESOME! It's mostly red, but every so often you can catch some blue sparkles.

This is two coats of Black Cherry Chutney:

Alright, maybe it's KINDA close to black, but not exactly BLACK black.

Flash.

This and the next one are me trying to get sun pictures inconspicuously while walking to class.

Indirect sun. Gorgeous!

If you couldn't tell, this is a very dark, almost blackened red shimmer. Two coats.

Oh, and ignore those ugly diagonal breaks. My nails never ever break straight across.

The only problem I noticed was cuticle drag, but I didn't let my coats dry in between, so that'd be why =] I actually loved this so much I bought a full sized bottle on amazon. Very sexy polish ;]

I'm slowly catching up on blogging! I've only been doing my nails once a week anyway, which is sad, so I'm not tooooo far behind. It's terrible when your mani chips and you don't have time to change it for a couple days! =[

That's it for now! Thank you so much for reading!

China Glaze - Yellow Polka Dot Bikini

2010-09-12T20:01:00.003-04:00

So yeah....I fail at posting.

I meant to post this after Labor Day weekend, but I failed. Don't give up on me! This semester, 18 credits and a job is kicking my butt. I need to start finding time to post instead of just napping every chance I get. I am physically and mentally exhausted.

ANYWAY. Enough with the excuses. I hope all of you with a new school year ahead of you are doing well, and actually....I hope everyone is doing well!

I had ended my last post saying a hint for my next manicure was, summer isn't over yet! And to me, that means NEONS. So my labor day mani was China Glaze Yellow Polka Dot Bikini!

Shown here is three coats over one (I think) coat of Sinful Colors Snow Me White:

Most color-accurate.

They look obnoxiously bright with the flash, and the color is not orange-toned at all in real life. Oh, and as you can see, I topped my ring and thumb nails with red-orange colored triangular rhinestones.

That's it for now! My next manicure was much darker...

Til next time,

Janna

Avon - Jade

2010-09-04T16:41:00.002-04:00

Hey everyone!

Sophomore year in undergrad started Wednesday so I haven't been posting =[ But here I am!

Today I have Avon - Jade. I've seen this color on other blogs, and it's just so pretty. I really like Avon; I have a ton, and for the price they're really awesome. I also picked up the new colors Urban Grey and Olive Green, but here's Jade:

This is taken on like the 5th day or so of wear...and it still looked pretty good. Application was nice, 3 thin coats and topped with Seche Vite. Base coat is Avon from the same line. In case you couldn't tell, this is a muted seafoamy (?) kind of green, cream finish, really pretty, maybe it's close to the Chanel color of the same name? I wouldn't know. I've never even seen a $25 nail polish, let alone owned one.

As you can see, I chopped my nails off after wearing Paparazzi, and having short nails is so much easier! I might keep them shorter for fall since I hope to start wearing darker colors, but we'll see.

Since I'm at school, my background is green (cause, well, my sheets are green =P), and my roommate, who was my photographer, thought that the green background made the polish look more green than it was. So, to be fair, here's a picture taken on her teal blue sheets:

Definitely looks different =P And OH HELLO chips. Like I said, this was day 5. I hate having to wear polish that long, but there's no way I'm going to be able to get spare time during the school week to change polish.

That's all for right this second. I'm in the middle of another manicure right now, so maybe you'll get another post out of me this weekend before I start another week of school. What polish? Hint: It's not fall just yet!

Thanks for reading, and thanks to my followers =]

Janna

Sally Hansen Insta-Dri

2010-08-29T23:09:00.002-04:00

Hellooo!

This was my first full weekend back at school, and since I have no classes yet, it's been pretty good =P

Here's a quick post about my two Sally Hansen Insta Dri polishes.

First up in Lightening:

This is a yellow cream. Shown is 3 coats, but two would have been fine if you were more patient than I was. In the last two pictures, I topped the middle and ring nails with Sinful Colors Dumpling, which is a very sheer yellow shimmer, just to see what it would look like. Love this one =]

Here's Flashy Fuchsia:

Love this one too. Could be a one coater, but shown is two. I've only worn this on my toes before I took these swatches, and I was surprised how much I like it. Very pretty pink shimmer with a violet flash.

I like the wide, flat brush on these, but you need to be sure to put more polish on the brush than usual. Dry time was good! That's all I really have to say about them. I definitely want more of them!

Do you have any Insta-Dri polishes?

Quick Update!

2010-08-27T22:00:00.002-04:00

Hello!

I am all moved in at school, and my sophomore year officially begins on September 1st. We somehow got everything to fit in the car for the 3 hour drive, INCLUDING my 200 bottles of nail polish. I have my polishes in 5 shoe boxes. When I brought the first 3 of them in, and everyone I passed made a comment, like one girl was walking with her mom, and the mom said, OHHHH BE HER FRIEND! lol. Got lots of comments marveling at all my polishes, and it was only 3 of the 5! Needless it say, it's a hit with my roommate and suitemate (and their moms!).

So I'm just letting everyone know that I'm most likely going to be MIA for a couple days while I get situated, but not for tooooo long. Please stick with me! I should be getting some free time very soon.

What am I missing? What's going on in the polish world?!

Thanks for reading!

Janna

NOTD: Icing Paparazzi

2010-08-26T02:10:00.004-04:00

Hello there =]

I'm posting this much later than I thought I would, but I said you'd see tomorrow so here it is!

Since my poor nails broke on my right hand, I thought Icing Paparazzi would cheer me up, and it definitely worked. I've swatched this color here, but I think I got some better pictures this time around, and these pictures are with base and top coat.

Sorry for wearing this again so soon, but I don't have many glitter polishes. I was going to wear ChG Atlantis, which I've been dying to wear, but the shirt I was wearing out that night was emerald green, and the clash of teal green on my nails would have bothered me =P This is definitely gorgeous though, definitely one of those "going to get into an accident" kind of polishes =P

Onto the pic spam!

Indirect artificial light

Indirect artificial light + flash

...Me hunched over blocking the artificial light?

<3 that glitter.

My new short right hand nails

LOVE this one!

Sorry, couldn't get any two-handed shots since no one is around to take them for me =P Tried to take them by myself once, and it was a huge fail and waste of time.

Shown here is two coats, could have used a third if you're picky, but I think it looks fine with two. This is a rose-toned copper glitter, and there's fine glitter and also a ton of chunky holo glitter in this polish. It is rather thick and you kind of have to glob on the polish, but it wasn't that big of a deal for me. My swatches that I took before (again, seen here) don't really bring out the rose tone, so these pictures are much more color accurate than the swatches I posted before, but in real life the polish is still more rosy than it looks here.

As you can see, in some lights it looks more gold and in some the deep rose copper really stands out, so it's a neutral with a little bit of a pop =]

Oh, and another thing, if you think you see chipping or tipwear on my right hand, it's a lie. I changed my pedi today and the acetone from the felt got onto my tips, taking away the copper color and just leaving the silver glitter. I'll touch those up eventually, but from what I can tell, this polish is pretty long-lasting (BC: Avon adhesive, TC: Seche Vite), and there's not even any tipwear after two full days. Serious achievement if you type as much as I do! Definitely needs TC, and even with it it's really gritty from all the glitter. All in all, I think it's an awesome polish, pretty unique, and it seems to be pretty popular on the blogs. I'm going to keep this on until I have time to change it, since I'm moving into school Friday afternoon and am going to be super busy.

So yeah, if you notice my lack of posting, or posting at all hours of the night, it's cause I'm beginning school very shortly =\ As soon as I get into a routine I'll start posting much more regularly =]

That's all for today! What do you think of Paparazzi? (Love that name!)

What Would Have Been an Awesome NOTD

2010-08-25T00:01:00.008-04:00

Good morning =] It's 12:01 here, so I can say that.

Here's a little bit of a recap: On Sunday afternoon, I finished my PHD Challenge entry and decided to change my nails for a bowling party fundraiser thing. I decided on China Glaze Purple Panic (neon), a gorgeous very pink toned purple with subtle pink shimmer. I did my manicure in 3 coats and it dried matte, and while I liked the look, I still topped it with Seche Vite so that maybe my nails would be more protected from breaks.

Got home from the party having broken my thumb, middle, and ring nails on my right hand and chipping my pinky. =[ Guess that was the price for bowling with long nails. I didn't fix them for the next day, but instead I just topped them with two more coats of polish, skipping top coat this time, and now I can show you how they turned out.

Here's my left hand, which used to be my short one but now it's my long one =P (All of these are without topcoat)

I really love this color and this was the first time I've ever used it. That little pinkish flash you can sorta see is really pretty with topcoat.

Andddd my poor right hand (WARNING: THESE ARE ALL EXTREMELY OUT OF FOCUS, and I have no clue why. I need a camera with a real "macro" setting and not just a "close up" mode):

My thumb was the first to go, and as soon as I lost that one (I cut it down before taking this picture, to sort of even it out), I switched from an 8 pound ball to a 6 pound ball. I'm a weakling, I know this. Anyway, those are my poor nails, and I cut them down this morning and tried to lift my spirits with a glitter polish. You get to see which one tomorrow =]

Talk to you soon,

Janna

PHD Song Inspiration Challenge

2010-08-22T16:46:00.009-04:00

Gooood afternoon/evening/morning, depending on when and where you're reading this =]

This challenge was really tricky for me and I spent literally 3 days thinking of a song, and having my family and friends help me think. I was browsing on a list of the top songs, as voted by the site's viewers, and I think I reached song 300-something by the time I made a decision. I'm so picky =p

I not only wanted to pick a good song that translates to pictures or images, but I wanted a song that fits my personal taste. I really love music from the 60s, 70s, and 80s, as well as other genres, and this fits =]

(The gallery will be linked HERE when it's posted.)

Can you guess what it is? Here is what I submitted:

This played out pretty much just like I envisioned it, which was surprising because I'm super picky, and a perfectionist =P

Another:

This is one of the best songs ever, such a classic. How can you not love her voice and emotion?

Okay here's the super long list of what I used:

Tools: double-sided dotting tool and nail art brush.

The blue background is NYC Skin Tight Denim Creme. Moon: Avon Nailwear Polish in French Tip White. Stars: Avon Nailwear in French Tip White, Rimmel Polish in Insolence, Cover Girl in City Lights. Train Outline: Art Deco in Silver. Train: Ulta Black Lace (Glam Goth collection). Smoke: Art Deco in Silver and Ulta Black Lace.

Thumb Background: Avon Speed Dry in Creamy Coral (Peach, get it?). Georgia: Color Club Art Club polish in Mint. Lettering: Color Club Art Club polish in Midnight Blue.

Other stuff I used was Seche Vite topcoat, Avon adhesive base coat, and LA Colors Base/Top Coat.

Whew =] Here's what it is, if you couldn't guess =] Of course I listened to this while singing along on repeat while doing my manicure.

Hope you enjoyed this as much as I did!

Janna

Follow Me on Twitter!

2010-08-22T00:44:00.002-04:00

Hey there!

Just a super quick post since I'm in the middle of my PHD challenge entry =]

I recently created a twitter account for my blog, @cleverncolorful on twitter (I was so mad that cleverANDcolorful was too long - stupid character limit), and I'd really love for you to follow it. I'm so lonely tweeting about giveaways I'm entering and about my blog to myself! There's a nifty little box on the right side for your convenience =]

Super excited about my entry, and I hope to give you guys a little glimpse of my taste in music as well. Who's entering?!

That's it! Talk to you soon =]

Janna

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