Pink Wednesday: Hits Atena

Hi everyone! Today begins finals week for me, so this is going to be a quick post today. I'll let the pictures do most of the talking =)

Hits is a Brazillian brand of polish, available at Llarowe.com. They are pretty pricy, but worth it, because these bad boys are PHENOMENAL! I may even like them better than my OPI DS holos. The formula is seriously flawless - these pictures are no clean up at all! Most holos are very difficult to work with and are very unforgiving as far as ridges and other nail bed flaws go. Hits holos are the exact opposite. The jelly-like formula of these is so smooth and very forgiving. Best of all, the holo effect is out of control amazing. The only downside of these is that the bottle is so small for the price, but these polishes are truly special and are worth it. Atena is an outstanding fuchsia holo, and some say it's very close to OPI DS Exclusive. I don't own Exclusive, so I can't compare, but I will tell you that this has just about killed that lemming!

So here is 2 coats of Hits Atena over Nfu Oh Aqua Base with Seche Vite as top coat. Enjoy =)

Thanks for stopping by and I will see you all tomorrow =)

Pink Wednesday: Revlon Victorian with jelly snowflakes!

Happy Pink Wednesday everyone! Today I have for you one of my favorite jelly polishes, Revlon Victorian from this summer's Just Tinted collection. For those who don't know, a jelly is a polish that is sheer yet pigmented and creates a wonderful, almost juicy effect on the nail. Jellys typically dry quite shiny on their own, but Victorian dries to a satin finish so I had to use a topcoat to really bring out the juicy jelly-ness in this polish.

So, I woke up today and it was SNOWING! I was so excited, as it is the very end of November and we still hadn't really had more than a dusting of snow. I wanted to incorporate the first real snow that I have seen this year into my manicure today, so I stamped a few snowflakes on my ring finger and thumb as accent nails!

A popular manicure technique making the rounds out there is called a "jelly sandwich." A jelly sandwich is when you layer glitter under a jelly polish, giving the glitter a subdued, milky look to it. So today, I decided to do a Konad jelly sandwich! When I stamped the snowflakes on with my white Konad polish, it almost seemed too stark against the delicate shine of the jelly. To cure the problem, I added two more coats of the hot pink Victorian on top of the stamping and I absolutely LOVE how it turned out. Subtle, shiny, with a hint of winter goodness lurking underneath.

So here we have today's NOTD, 4 coats of Revlon Victorian with accent fingers stamped with Konad Special Polish in White. Enjoy!

These were taken indoors, with diffused flash to show the juicy, shiny jelly quality of Victorian. It appears a bit more red in the pics than it does in real life.

Here are a few outdoor shots to show the true hot pink color of Victorian =)

Thanks for stopping by! See you all tomorrow =)

Pink Wednesday: Kleancolor Metallic Pink a.k.a. The Most Awesome Pink Ever!

Good afternoon my fellow polish nerds!! Today I have for you Kleancolor Metallic Pink, which is probably the most incredible pink nail polish I have ever seen in my life. If you saw my post last month on Kleancolor's Metallic Orange, you know how amazing these polishes are. They are the most saturated, pigmented foil polishes on the market. The best part is, they will only set you back about $2 a pop. How awesome is that?

Kleancolor Metallic Pink was so awesome, in fact, that it broke my camera! Not literally of course, but I tried about a million different settings and not one was able to capture how truly amazing this polish is. The best way I found to take this was with a diffused flash, but because the polish is SO metallic, the reflection of the flash still is bothering me. This way gave the most true representation of the color though, so please try to bear with me.

Metallic Pink was a breeze to apply; I could have just stuck with one coat but I did two for good measure. These Kleancolor Metallics are some of the funniest polishes I have ever worked with in my life. Funny in a good way, that is. They are awesome straight out of the bottle, but when you put the top coat on, it does something to the polish to really make it glow. And I mean GLOW. I could probably flag down traffic with these babies. If I was stranded on a desert island, and could only take a few polishes with me, a Kleancolor Metallic would most definitely be in there.

So, here is the pink so awesome that it broke my camera: Kleancolor Metallic Pink. Enjoy!

Happy Thanksgiving Eve everyone! I'm off to get my pie baking on. See you all tomorrow =)

XOXO
-Jacqui

Pink Wednesday: NYX Girls Kinky Pink

Hi everyone! I promised you that I would be back, and here I am. Just wanted to throw out a quick Pink Wednesday post today. Again, I apologize for my absence and I hope to be blogging back to full swing here very shortly.

My pictures today are quick, not cropped or edited and show the absolute disarray my nails and cuticles are in at the moment. My cuticles are dry and unmoisturized and my poor nails are all in different shapes. They are really in need of some TLC, that's for sure!

Today I decided on Kinky Pink from my last NYX Girls order. I love this polish! It is a hot pink shimmer with blue and gold glass flecks throughout. It took a good three coats to reach opacity (and cover the stains that my last blue polish left me with) but it was pretty easy to do thin coats so no problems with bubbling or anything like that. Overall, a pretty smooth application.

The glass fleck is very subtle, and lends the hot pink just a bit of a silvery-blue sheen, depending on the light. I couldn't capture the blue flash very well in the pictures, but rest assured that it is there.

So here she is! It started raining when I was taking the pictures, so that is why you see the occasional water droplet in them =)

I appreciate you all coming back and visiting after my hiatus! Nothing crazy has been going on, just school and life have been super busy lately =) See you all again soon!

-Jacqui

Pink Wednesday - Spiderwebs!

Hi everyone! This is going to be a quick post today, as I have a migraine and am not really feeling up to a full blog post.

As I mentioned at the beginning of the month, this October is my first wedding anniversary.  Since I've been feeling nostalgic about my husband's and my relationship these days, I decided to base this manicure on a tank top that I wore on our first date =) It's kind of ironic because this shirt has spiderwebs on it - perfect for October!

Here is the shirt:

As I base, I used Essie Can't Filmfest, an old non-3-free blue-leaning magenta pink. It went on perfectly in two coats and the formula was awesome. They don't make them like this anymore, folks. I used Can't Filmfest partly because it matched the shirt, but also because my husband is a videographer and often makes films and submits them to filmfests =) Can't Filmfest is a play on Cannes Film Festival, which is the most prestigious film festival in the entire world. Here is Essie Can't Filmfest alone:

Stamping with black polish is always a bit of a pain because the black polish will often stain the cuticles. So I apologize in advance for the staining and yucky cuticles. I stamped using Wet n Wild Black Creme and a plate from BF-beauty.com.

Ugh. This would have been really cool if the black didn't stain the crap out of my fingers.

Have a great day everyone =)

- Jacqui

Pink Wednesday: Lynnderella Connect the Dots over Essie Pink Parka

Good morning everyone! Today I have a neon pink manicure for you for Pink Wednesday. I chose Essie Pink Parka as the base color for this manicure because it is my favorite neon pink nail polish that has ever existed! I have several neon pinks of all different shades, and this one is the brightest one that I own. Neons can be pretty tricky as far as application goes, and this was no exception. It was streaky and had several bald spots along the way, so I needed to do a good three coats to get where I wanted this color to be. A good tip is to apply a coat of white under a neon color to help the color really pop, but I didn't do that this time because I feel that Pink Parka is just so awesomely neon on its own. But difficult application aside, this is truly an amazing shade and I'm glad to have it in my collection.

I layered two coats of Lynnderella Connect the Dots over Pink Parka. Isn't it fabulous?! I just love all my Lynnderella polishes. Connect the Dots has black and white square, hex and bar glitter in a clear, shimmery base. Application can be a bit tricky with this one because sometimes the glitter doesn't go where you want it to. So you just have to play around with it a bit and see how it works for you. I put two coats of top coat over the manicure just to make sure everything was extra smooth and shiny!

You may notice that the color of my hands seem a bit off in these photos. That is because neons are notoriously hard to photograph, and you really have to mess with the white balance to get the true color to show up. I find these photos to be very color accurate as far as the polish goes, but my hands, not so much! You can tell how really eye-searingly bright this color is in real life. I think Connect the Dots looks fantastic over neons, so this combination for Pink Wednesday was perfect!

And here is Pink Parka by itself:

Thanks for stopping by! Have a fantastic day everyone!

-Jacqui

Pink Wednesday: Sally Hansen Pink Insta-Dri Polishes and Stamping

Hello again, and welcome to my very first Pink Wednesday! It will be very quick post today, as I have a ton of homework to go before I head on up to school this evening.

Anyways, I decided to start doing Pink Wednesdays because I seem to have accumulated a boatload of pink nail polishes, but I never seem to wear them. I'm hoping this will help me test out all the lovely pinks in my stash.

For today's nail, I used two pink Sally Hansen Insta-Dris. I really have a love/hate relationship with these polishes, as they are fantastic for nail stamping, but as far as regular polishing goes they really fall short for me. First of all, they have that horrendous "pro wide" brush that seems to be all the rage these days. I know a lot of people like them, but for me, it makes it really hard to control application. Since these polishes are so thick, it would be nice to have a smaller brush for easier control. I suppose they would be good if you were in a pinch, but I prefer to take my time with my polishing and be precise about it. It's just so hard to get a nice, thin coat with the brush and the thickness factor of this polish.

In conclusion, for regular polishing, the Insta-Dris get a C-. For stamping, however, they get an A! I think I'll keep these in my stash just for the stamping purposes.

For the base, I used Insta-Dri Pink Blink from the limited edition Spring 2011 collection. This is two of the thinnest coats I could possibly muster with that damn pro wide brush.

And here is Pink Blink stamped! I used another polish from the LE Spring 2011 collection called Fuchsia Flare. I love these tone-on-tone stamping designs! I used an XL Chez Delaney plate for this stamping pattern. Not my best stamping attempt, but I think it's rather acceptable. From far away, at least =)

Thanks for stopping by today! I have something VERY EXCITING in store for you all tomorrow so I hope to see you then =)

- Jacqui