Pretty and Polished: September 2011

Thursday, September 29, 2011

Breast Cancer Awareness and a Giveaway!

October is breast cancer awareness month. I have personally lost a few people to this

horrible disease and it effects so many of us. So in honor of the people we have lost and

the people who are fighting and to help boost the awareness of this disease I will be

doing pink manicures every day in October.

I will also be asking people to make donations to the National Breast Cancer Foundation.
Anyone who donates $1 or more to this foundation will be entered into a giveaway I am
hosting by myself from my own pocket. The giveaway will include several Halloween
polishes, frankens, and pink polishes. These giveaway polishes will be announced
sometime between now and October 8th and the giveaway will end October 22nd.
So you will have two weeks to donate and earn a chance to win!

To donate go HERE.

Once you have donated please send me an email with your donation confirmation attached.
I will enter you into a random drawing. For every $1 donated you will be entered into
the drawing that amount of times. So donate $5 and you will be entered 5 times. Donate
$10 and you will be entered into the drawing 10 times.
Don't forget to subscribe to my blog please! And make sure you give me your
GFC name when emailing me.

There will also be a second prize for anyone who donates more than $5. I hope you guys like this giveaway and I really hope a lot of you participate. You can start donating anytime you want to. I will continue to re-post the rules of this giveaway in every post I do in the month of October.

This giveaway is open to everyone worldwide! Thanks so much!
email: [email protected]

OPI Stranger Tides

This is the first time I have worn this color since I bought it. I truly love it. It looks very nice with my skin tone. I also squared my nails off a bit last night and am very happy with the shape.

My pinky is so short that the skin is sticking out from under neath a bit.

It is yucky but it will grow out quickly.

Monday, September 26, 2011

Barielle Elle's Spell

I got this from a group buy on a facebook group. Awesome polish! I love flakies and this is a gorgeous shade of red. I took pictures of it with no top coat and then some pictures of it with a matte top coat. The matte TC I used is Hard Candy's Matte-ly In Love. It works wonderfully! I have been putting matte TC over everything OR wearing my matte polishes. It's a phase lol

With Matte Top Coat. Hard Candy Matte-ly In Love.

Saturday, September 24, 2011

Zoya Phoebe and Essence Holografics (Holographics)

I went to Ulta yesterday for the purpose of seeing new collections and getting a new Matte Top Coat. My Ulta is always late in getting new collections so there really wasn't anything to look at except the China Glaze Metro Collection which wasn't even on the floor yet, just at the counter getting ready to put out. They still have a ton of Orly Cosmic FX polishes though. Anyways, they didn't have ANY matte top coats so I ended up getting 4 other polishes...

This is what I got: Zoya Phoebe and 3 Essence Holografics polishes. I got Gagalectric, Prism@tic White, and Blue Ray. Unfortunately I don't see much of a difference between Gagalectric and Prism@tic White. The Gagalectric has a purple tint to it but for layering purposes I tried both over 3 different colors and they looked the same. I don't like seeing a nail line and both of those polishes leave a nail line showing even after 3 coats. So, I feel like having both of them is unnecessary. I am going to show you a mani I did lastnight with Zoya Phoebe and Essence Gagalectric.

I LOVE Phoebe! It is such a gorgeous shade of blue and I LOVE matte polishes. This matte polish is at the top of my list because it is so smooth and has a beautiful blue and violet shimmer to it yet remains matte! You have to work with it quickly because it dries very fast. I added some Gagalectric to my tips to make it more exciting!

Prism@tic White, Gagalectric, Blue Ray, and Zoya Phoebe. Phoebe had a $3.99 sticker on it but they rung me up for $8 and I didn't notice til I got home :(

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Teal Mani for Ovarian Cancer Awareness Month

I finally got around to doing my teal mani. I really love the color teal and I think that Ovarian Cancer Awareness is very important. I come from a family with a history of "female cancer's". So it is very important for me to take care of myself and get regular check ups. I know it is really hard for a lot of people to get the medical care they need but please look into local programs and do what you can to raise the money to get your tests done. When my husband and I got laid off and we did not have insurance I found a wonderful local organization called Little Red Door. I found a lump in my breast and they were able to take me in and pay for my tests. It was really scary and I am so lucky I had that organization to support me.

Anyways, onto the mani! I used LA Colors Sea Siren (aka BCC 580) and Sally Hansen Teal-y Cool. I love Sea Siren. I paid $1 for this gorgeous polish at my local dollar store and Teal-y Cool was only $2 at my local drugstore. I am very happy with this mani and think I will keep it for a few days.

I would love to see your Ovarian Cancer Awareness mani's so please post links!

Milani Hi-Tech and Cyberspace

I really love these polishes. Hi-Tech is a green holographic polish with lots of pretty green

and blue sparkle. It is obviously a holographic polish. Cyberspace is a light blue holographic

polish with lots of blue sparkle. Cyberspace is a little bit chunkier than Hi-Tech and is not as

obviously holographic. Both are very beautiful though. I am wearing them over Nfu-Oh Aqua Base.

This time the aqua base dried much more quickly than it did last time I used it. Which makes

me change my mind about it a bit. It is working well as a base but I don't know if it is better than

Orly Bonder yet. I'll let you know once I play with it some more.

I have Hi-Tech on all my fingers except my two ring fingers. I like having an accent nail

and these look really nice together.

Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Special Glee Mani and Cuppy Cakes!

This might be completely lame to some people but I LOVE Glee! I was always really big into song and dance and spent most of my life in show choir/choir or doing something in the performing arts. This show brings it back to me. I also love the show because of the message of not being afraid to be yourself. The homophobia they portray in Glee is very real and can be quite dangerous. If you know someone who is being bullied please step up and do the right thing and get help for that person.

Now onto the mani and the treats!

On a facebook group we have a 31 day challenge going on. I sometimes do the challenges and today's challenge was water marble. So I did a water marble inspired by Glee!

I used China Glaze Tree Hugger, a red polish by The Color Workshop, Sinful Colors Savage, and Wet n Wild Black Creme. For the yellow letters I used Kiss Nail Art polish in yellow.

And yes, I know I am HORRIBLE at free-handing letters lol

And because my husband supports all my endeavors with Human Rights campaigns and watches Glee with me I made his favorite cupcakes. Strawberry cake with vanilla frosting!

Monday, September 19, 2011

The Color Workshop Nailathon!

My daughter received the "gift of beauty" this past Christmas in the form of a ginormous box of makeup/nail polish from the Wal Mart brand "The Color Workshop". To my knowledge these products are only available around holidays, because I have not seen them any other time. The package came with 6 polishes and I decided to show them all to you today.

Surprisingly for this stuff being as cheap as it is the nail polishes are quite beautiful. I am actually thinking of offering my daughter a swap for a few of them! None of them have names but I have given them some generic names for my post. Hope you enjoy!

Coffee in my Cream. This is a light almost taupe shade of brown. It looks the way my cream and sugar do when I put coffee in them lol

Dusty Rose. This is a gorgeous dusty rose pink. I actually really really like this and plan on wearing it for some up coming formal occasions.

Genus Fuchsia. This is a gorgeous fuchsia polish with a bright purple flash. So pretty!

Cherry Poppin'. This is a really bright Cherry red and has the slightest hint of pink. Very vibrant!

Whory Laurie (kind of an inside joke on Face and Friends, I

This polish is nothing like I expected. It really is very gorgeous. It makes me think of Vampires and dark pretty things. This is definitely a polish I'd like my daughter to hand over. I will pay her for it lol

Space Dust. This is a dark charcoal with TONS of silver shimmer. It is much prettier on the nail than it is in the bottle. I did a galaxy mani recently and I wish I would have used this for it.

So I really ended up liking all of these polishes. I think I might trade my daughter a little shopping spree for them. The only "bad" thing about these is the formula. Coffee In My Cream was the thinnest and the rest were ok. I did notice a few bubbles here and there but I am sure I can do something to avoid those in the future. I also noticed a little separation in the bottles not very long after using them. You can see here in Coffee in my Cream what I am talking about.

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