Halloween: Pumpkin manicure

Deborah Lippmann Lara's Theme with black pumpkins. I used Bundle Monster plate 222 (BM-222). This is cute, simple, and fairly easy to do. I consider myself a konad novice and I don't think it came out too bad! I used the black konad polish for the pumpkins. I did suffer from bubbles because I tried to do a thick coat of topcoat so I wouldn't smudge the design. Boo. It wasn't too noticeable though.

Here is a quick picture of what the BM plate looks like. I purchased this from Amazon. It is from the second set. Click here for the direct link.

Also, I should note that at first I had a little trouble getting the polish to stick onto my stamper. I never had this problem with the konad brand plates. I just took my glass file and filed the top of the stamper a tiny bit. I heard this helps adhere the polish to the stamper and it worked!

Orly It's Not Rocket Science, Zoya info and wowsocool update!

Yay, it's October 1st! One of my favorite months of the year :D So to start things off, I've got on Orly's It's Not Rocket Science. This is a really cool green. It's from the Cosmic FX Collection, so it is definitely a duochrome. Not as obviously duochromey as Space Cadet. But you can definitely tell in different lighting and different angles. From what I've seen it goes from a golden green to darkened green and sort of aqua tealish at some angles. Initially Space Cadet and Galaxy Girl were my favorites, but I think this one is growing on me the more I look at it!

So first things first, here's a million pictures of it at different angles and different light settings.

Indoors without flash

Outdoors in the shade without flash

If you click to enlarge this one, you can see some of the blue on the nails really well!

Outdoors in direct sunlight without flash


And here's a video where I tried to show you how it changes colors at different angles. This was outside in the sunlight and now I realize that I probably should have done a third coat :X

Now down to business. Did you guys hear about the new Zoya Fire & Ice Collection? Apparently this is their Winter 2010 Collection, which the timing works out perfectly because I've actually been meaning to place a Zoya order. And when I went to check out the website this morning, I saw this:


Doesn't it look gorgeous?! Some quick googling and I was able to see swatches on other awesome nail blogs (Scrangie, Temptalia, The Nailphile, Karlasugar). So, go look for yourself if you don't believe me! Hopefully I'll have this in hand in the next couple of weeks. I need to narrow my official order list down. But in the meantime, here are color descriptions from Zoya:

Tiffany - Soft champagne sparkling metallic
Gloria - Pink champagne sparkling metallic
Crystal - Frosty blue sparkling metallic
Lisa - Celebration red sparkling metallic
Sarah - Possibly the prettiest sparkling red metallic ever!
Valerie - Deep purple baby in a sparkling metallic

But also, I wanted to take another moment to let you guys know about a giveaway that www.wowsocool.com is doing! Click here to go to their blog and read the details. If you've been wanting to try your hand at Konad, this is probably a great way for you to get started. Both Jan and I have ordered from WSC several times and have never had anything but wonderful service! You can also follow them on Twitter here.

Well, that's it from me for today. I'll hopefully be back next week with some Venomous Villains swatches and comparisons. Have a fun and safe weekend and good luck to anyone who enters the contest!

Red Kick!

Carolyn New York (CNY) Lincoln Center topped with CND Crimson Sparkle

 

Carolyn New York (CNY) Lincoln Center topped with Sally Hansen Hidden Treasure

Lincoln Center. Very very bright red jelly? I don't think it is a full out jelly, but it is kind of squishy. This is hands down my favorite red. I've worn it lots of times already and there is visible usage *screams* It is sad that they went out of business because they had some great colors. It is probably my favorite brush and the application is incredible! All the pictures were two coats and I also included an old picture of my newbie konading.