Sally Hansen Insta-Dri

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!

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

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

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

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!

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

Del Sol Calypso with Fauxnad

Hello!

Posting at kind of an odd time for me today. Yesterday I painted my nails with Del Sol brand polish in Calypso. If you're not familiar with this brand, I'll tell you a little about the store. Basically they're located at a lot of beach locations (that's where I've seen them); I've been to the ones at Virginia Beach and Myrtle Beach. Their gimmick is that everything in their store (clothes, accessories, toys, and of course NAIL POLISH! =]) changes color in the sun. The store is filled with UV lights so you can go crazy trying things out and seeing how they change. =]

So of course I had to grab a nail polish when I went to the Myrtle Beach location last year. The price was a tiny bit high for me personally, $9, but I guess they DO change color in the sun, so you get a little something extra.

Here's pic spam, cause, well, IT CHANGES IN THE SUN. =O




Bottle pictures. Bottom picture has flash.



This is what it looks like most of the time, pretty color accurate =]


This was taken right after I got outside. It starts changing pretty quickly but takes a little less than a minute to reach the full color.


Darker midpoint color.




This is the full color change!

The color is a pink with a little bit of a "melon" or orange kind of color as an undertone. The "sun color" is a pretty medium warm-toned purple. I picked pink to purple cause it was one of the ones that had the most obvious change. It's a frost finish, brushstrokes are crazy. This is two coats. It's not opaque, but I was using it as a base for a Konadicure (fauxnadicure?) so two was fine.

This is topped with a stamp from Bundle Monster plate 21 and Design-a-Nail polish in Voodoo. Then I freehanded a french tip in Rimmel's Black Satin. I couldn't get any sun shots of the fauxnadicure, but you get the idea =]





My stamping skills aren't that great in my opinion, but these came out straight for the most part =] even though the thickness/darkness of each stamp is different, the effect is still there.

That's it for now. What do you think of this look?

Janna

OPI Swiss Collection

I have swatches!

I've been dying to swatch these since I bought them, and since I am in the process of changing my polish, I figured tonight would be an awesome night for it =]

I only purchased two polishes from this collection, since those were the ones that stood out the most to me, and I was lucky enough to receive a third one as a gift =] Let's get to the pictures.







Glitzerland. This, to me, is the perfect color gold, just close enough to a champagne color. I hate those really yellow almost brassy golds, so I was really happy with this. Foil finish. I actually don't own any other gold metallics, so it was a good choice for me. This was three coats maybe...but there wasn't any VNL (visible nail line) in real life. Don't know where that came from!







Lucerne-tainly Look Marvelous. This is Glitzerland's dark silver sister. Same finish, that fine glitter/foil. This was given to me by my boyfriend's brother. I wasn't crazy about this polish when I first started seeing swatches; I didn't consider it a must-have. But now that I have it, I can really see why people are going crazy over it =] (What the heck, I can't even remember how many coats this was and I just swatched these. I want to say 2. Sorry!)





The Color To Watch. This one has been basically hated by most people, or so I've read on blogs. I basically fell in love with it though, and I think it's the most unique out of the collection. It's a light purple shimmer with a blue flash. NOT as sheer as people have said. I do super thin coats, and each of the pictures above is three. On my ring finger, I did my coats a little thicker, and it was completely opaque. It was definitely wearable as a sheer at two thin coats. Loving this color and it's my favorite of the three =]

Here's one coat over two coats of black, because I've seen people asking about that. It's even better!



Gorgeous =] I was also thinking you could layer it over a taupe color and make your own (better) version of Paradoxal. lol! Maybe I'll give that a try...

That's it for today! What do you think? How do you feel about The Color to Watch?

Janna

WOW

51 Followers! Thank you so much. I'm so happy I could entertain you for a couple minutes. I love reading all of your posts, and I hope you enjoy reading mine. =] You guys are the best.

This is just a quick post for now, some things that I've been thinking about. First, I've been trying to find my perfect red nail polish. My current manicure, the one from yesterday, Zoya's LC, is a very pretty red, but it's too pink for what I'm looking for. I believe I only have one polish that comes close, and it's a very old bottle of Wet n Wild. Most of the reds I have lean coral or pink or brown; I want like ultimate 40s glamor, red carpet, red lip, blood red. Lol, my description is ridiculous, but does anyone have any suggestions? What are your favorite reds?

Next, Polish Hoarder Disorder is having a Music challenge this week. What an awesome concept! But I'm having a really hard time thinking of a song. I didn't have time to enter last week, so I'm trying to do something really good for this week. Is anyone entering? Don't give away what you're doing though!

That's about it for right now =] I'm getting a bit tired of this manicure so maybe I'll have some OPI Swiss swatches for you later! Yaaaay!

Hope everyone's having a great day,

Janna

NOTD: Zoya LC with Gold/Red Art

Hello!

Tonight I have a short post for you, I hope. I usually say it's going to be short but then end up rambling and rambling.

I did a manicure tonight with some freehanded art, which I used to do so often but I haven't in a while. I've been inspired by a lot of blogs, so I decided to try a different design on each nail, and I really like how it turned out!

The red photographed terribly. Maybe the gold of the nail art threw off my camera? Who knows. I'll post some pictures with flash (they look more red) and some without (those make it look more orange), but the real color is somewhere in between.









Wow...didn't realize how crappy these pictures are, color-wise. Hopefully you get the gist of it; the last one is definitely the closest picture and it's almost true to how it looks in person.

I neglected to take bottle/tool pictures, but I used Zoya's LC from the Gossip collection (find out how I won the Gossip collection in a contest HERE) as the base. Then I drew the gold lines with a champagne/gold Stripe Rite that I got at Sally's. The dots were made using a dotting tool with OPI's Glitzerland from the Fall '10 collection (OPI Fall collection swatches to come!). I used a nail art brush from Icing in Red for some of the accent lines, and the Art Deco striping polishes in Red Glitter for other accent lines. Each nail has half of the accent lines in red, and half in red glitter.

LC, the base color, is in my opinion a summery red cream that has an orange/coral undertone. The pictures don't do it justice - I promise it's cute in person! Sorry about that!

That's it for tonight. Going to go to bed early I think. What do you think of this look?

Janna

A Bunch of New Goodies!

I'm typing this post with naked nails....AH!

I really truly need to stop buying nail polish. And I'm thinking you guys are pretty tired of reading all my hauls. But here's another, and hopefully it's my last for a while! lol

This isn't really a haul, seeing as some were gifts and some were purchased at different locations. So I'm basically saying this is all my new polish from the last week or so.

First up is an Amazon order that just came in today! I added China Glaze Atlantis and Seche Restore to my cart. I think the ChG was 1.99 (but had 5 dollar shipping, ugh) and the Seche was 7-8 dollars or something.



I picked Atlantis because it's teal, it's a glitter, and it has tons of holo glitter too! I didn't realize just how much holo there was packed inside this bottle! And I grabbed the Seche Restore because my local Sally's didn't have it...and I was pretty much having nightmares that my Seche Vite would thicken when I needed it most. =]


Next I have a couple of polishes that were purchased for me as a gift from my boyfriend's brother. How sweet is that? And he has good taste, too!


Color Club (no name...), Icing Blackout, Icing Nail Art polish in Red, OPI Lucerne-tainly Look Marvelous.

I've been dying to try Color Club, and I didn't know you could actually buy them in stores! I can't seem to find a name on this...but it's a super bright neon orange, leans slightly more red. Maybe Wham! Pow! from their Spring '10 collection? (EDIT: I'm leaning toward Orange Revenge actually.) The Icing polish, a black with holo glitter, I almost bought during my last mall trip, so I was really happy about that, and this is my first Icing nail art brush! Also, I was on the fence about OPI Lucerne-tainly Look Marvelous, but now that I have it, I really love it. And I don't know why people hate its name with a passion. I think it's kind of cute! But it is a pain to say.

Finally, a recent Avon order:


Top Row: Avon Nailwear Pro in Lagoon, Jade, Urban Grey, and Olive Green
Bottom Row: Mark Kiss Therapy Lip Balm (with SPF 15) in Shimmering Coral, and two bottles of Nail Experts Adhesive Base Coat

The Lip Balm and Base Coat were on sale, in their Clearance catalog, and I've read good things about the base coat so I snagged two bottles. I have another Kiss Therapy Balm in a light pink shade and it's great, so I picked this one up. The balms have a rose scent to them, which initially I didn't like, but it's grown on me. I really like the red shimmer my new balm gives to the lips, and SPF is always necessary. I'm going to try the basecoat in my next manicure, so I'll keep you posted on that.

All the nail colors I got from Avon are really pretty and the pictures are accurate. I can't wait to try them! I decided to pass on their new blue shade, Vintage Blue, but every time I see a swatch of it I think I want it. Any thoughts?

Do you own any of these? I've really added to my collection this past month! lol. Stay tuned for some swatches of these new products!

Janna

My Teeny Tiny Orly Collection

Long time no see!

Sorry for my small leave of absence...it's now Sunday afternoon and my last post without scheduling was Wednesday night.

I went on vacation this weekend. Not far, just down the shore, and I had expected to do some posts when I got there, but there was no internet in my hotel. NO INTERNET!!! It's 2010 people; we should be getting internet on every street corner by now! Blasphemy. I was really disappointed that I couldn't post or read all of your new posts.

I had scheduled my Jade is the New Black post to go up Thursday night, so at least you got to see that. I'm still wearing that color, and I got compliments from strangers while I was away =] It lasted from Wednesday til today pretty well. It's weird though, because I have very little tipwear, but many of my nails have small chips...not really sure how that works.

So maybe this will make up for me being MIA (I'm making a huge deal out of being gone for 3 days, lol). I only have two bottles of Orly polish, Royal Navy, which I bought after seeing gorgeous swatches on blogs, and one called Terracotta, which I bought years ago, before I'd even heard of the brand, because it was pretty =]

Here is glorious Royal Navy:







I believe this was 3 coats? The base is kinda jelly-ish. This is a darker royal blue (not quite navy) color, with some teal shimmer in it. Look at those flash pictures! So pretty.

And here's Terracotta:




Definitely no cleanup going on here...>.<



2 coats, cream finish.

Yeah, I know...you're all looking at that last picture going, JANNA, YOU MESSED UP THE SWATCHES. THAT'S NOT THE SAME COLOR. But alas, it is. I'm not sure why the no flash vs. flash pictures turned out sooooo different. My advice for that last picture is, at least for my laptop, to lower (not tilt) your head so that you're looking up at the picture; it looks way more red that way, more true to the actual color. For some reason my camera picked up a TON of pink. Sorry.

Here's a good picture of what I think this color looks like, since the first pictures are too orange to be accurate.


My favorite flower =]

It's hard for me to describe...it's red, but kinda orange, leans a little pink....warm, but soft...

If you have any suggestions on how to describe this let me know. =p

There you have it! Until next time,

Janna

PS. Thank you to all my new (and old =]) followers!