Pretty and Polished: February 2012

Thursday, February 23, 2012

Hello Johnny Law

Just in case anyone is wondering, the "appreciation giveaway" has ended and the winner has been contacted. Thank you to everyone who entered! Congrats to Stacy for winning!

Now on to the pretty polish. I am going to show you two polishes today. Borghese Stellare Notte and Pretty & Polished Johnny Law. Both gorgeous polishes with color changing properties.

First up, my base coat for Johnny Law, Borghese Stellare Notte. This polish is a gorgeous blackened duochrome polish. It goes from a deep dark teal shimmer to a gorgeous plummy purple. This polish is magnificent as a base polish or to wear alone.

Pictures of Stellare Notte taken with two layers of polish and no top coat in artificial LED light.

And now you get to see my newest creation, Johnny Law! This polish is a light blue base that shifts from blue to gold and has tiny turquoise glitter particles spread throughout. Reminds me of our friends in blue!

Bottle shot in natural light (cloud cover).

Swatch on clear nail. Taken with one layer in artificial light.

Following pictures taken with one layer of Johnny Law over two layers of Borghese Stellare Notte and no top coat in artificial LED light.

Following pictures taken in natural light (cloud coverage).

I'd love to know what you think of both of these polishes!

Johnny Law is available at my shop in 7 mL bottles.

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Mattese Elite Desfiles De Samba

This is a polish that I won recently through Ricky's NYC Store. I actually won the entire Carnaval collection! This collection is bold and bright and I love it. Desfiles De Samba is a neon minty green color. It's very unique compared to the other mint green polishes I own. I really love this color. The formula was a little thick but not too hard to work with. Pictures taken with 2 layers of polish.

Saturday, February 18, 2012

Appreciation Giveaway!

Yup that's right. Time for a little giveaway. Here on my blog I will be giving away three polishes. Wet n Wild Diamond in the Rough, Sinful Colors Cinderella, and China Glaze Ultamate Holiday! I will also be giving away a couple of my own polishes but that contest will be held on my facebook page.

This giveaway will be open until this coming Wednesday 2/22/2012!

If you want to win these items please fill out the giveaway form by clicking here!

All of these items were purchased by me for this giveaway.

Gel Nails, Party on my Yacht, and Stamping!

Hey hey! So after months of trying to get my real nails healthy and taking really good care of them I decided to make the leap to gel nails. I have never had gel nails before and have always been all about keeping my real nails. The fact is though that I just cannot keep them looking the way I want to. I take vitamins, I moisturize, and I buy expensive treatments. I just have bad nails. I know several people with gel nails and they love them. I also got a lot of great tips and info from my girls in the nail community. Rebecca from Rebecca Likes Nails actually works in a salon putting gel nails on. She is really good at it and knows a lot! She gave me some great advice and I am very thankful for it.

Anyways, I really love the way my nails came out. I took a picture of them right after having them done so you can see. I shaped them a bit more to my liking and painted them with my own polish, Party on my Yacht. I also had my very first successful stamping!!! I love it so much even though it is really simple. I suck at stamping so the fact that this turned out so nice is like a dream come true.

The stamping plate I used is a ENAS plate that i purchased online recently here. It makes stamping SO easy! I am actually on the website now buying more! I also used their dark blue stamping polish as well. I love this brand!

Thursday, February 16, 2012

Pretty & Polished - Toy With Me

Today is one of those days that I am kicking myself for not investing in a better camera. Seriously, it is time to get one! I am going to share with you a polish that I made for my etsy store recently. I haven't shown it to anyone yet so this will be the first anyone has really heard of it. It's nothing special, just pure awesome! I made a matte color shifting (purple to green) polish with tiny green micro-glitter. I named it "Toy With Me". The fact that its a shimmer, glitter, and matte polish just blows my mind hence the name. I hope you like it! I will be putting it up at the shop within the hour. Goodness, not only do I need a new camera but I also need some DAYLIGHT! Why won't the sun come out when I need it to!?

Bottle shots

2 layers of Toy With Me

1 layer of Toy With Me over Black

1 layer of Toy With Me over black

Side by side shots of Toy With Me, top photo with two layers and bottom photo with one layer over black

Horrible Natural Light picture, kind of shows a bit of color shift.

The colors are actually much more prominent in person. I so wish I could capture how gorgeous this polish is. It's so interesting. I am really proud of it.

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Quick Stock check!

Good evening readers. This will be short and sweet. I worked my fanny off tonight to make sure every bit of inventory was accounted for and posted to the etsy store. I listed some things around 8 p.m. and a bunch sold out so I made as many as I could with what supplies I had left. What is at the shop now is all I have left until next week. Luckily I was able to re-stock Party on my Yacht, Jawbreaker, Bubble Tea, Midnight Rider, and some of the other popular polishes. Enjoy!

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz....................

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Valentine's Day Mani with ManGlaze

What is better than Love, Chocolate, Nail Polish, Lesbians, and Santorum? Nothing, that's what! I did a Valentine's Day Mani based off of my favorite things about today. Dark Chocolate with strawberry fruit filling or strawberry cream filling. That really is the only thing I look forward to. I spend time with my loved ones everyday and don't need a special Hallmark day to give me a reason to tell them I love them. But I totally respect and understand why Valentine's Day is special to some.

And just a fair warning, I KNOW I suck at nail art. Give a girl a break ok? At least I am trying!

I used Santorum by ManGlaze as my base color. It might not have the prettiest meaning but the polish is actually quite beautiful. It is the darkest brown polish I own, perfect for a dark chocolate mani. I also used manGlaze Lesbi-honest and China Glaze Go Go Pink for my Strawberry art! I also finished this all off with Hard Candy's matte-ly in Love Matte Top Coat.

Monday, February 13, 2012

Pretty and Polished has been re-stocked!

Well, I was hoping to reach my readers in time to get what they wanted from my store but within minutes I sold out of most of my full sized bottles. BUT, the good news is that by the end of next week (fed ex permitting) I should have ALL my supplies in and be ready to completely re-stock everything except the Holo polishes and some of the color changing polishes (sphere, hemi-sphere, jealous). There are still some polishes left in the store if anyone is interested. You can check it out here.

I did want to take a second to say thank you. The support I have gotten from my readers and friends in the "nail polish community" has been overwhelming. The fact that I am literally selling out of polishes just amazes me! You guys are awesome! To thank you I will be holding a giveaway here on my blog AND one on my facebook page! I am not ready to tell you what the prizes are yet but please look for the giveaway posts this weekend. If you want in on both of the giveaways please feel free to "like" my facebook page. You can find it in the sidebar over there ~~~~~~> somewhere.

Thank you all again. I only wish I could give you what you have given me! I guess free nail polish will have to cut it for now though!

Sunday, February 12, 2012

Sunday Serving

A weeks worth of Hauls!

I am loving the new Wet n Wild megalast polishes. I have bought several of them. I picked this one up recently because it makes me think of Creedence Clearwater Revival. It is called "Through the Grapevine" and the polish next to it is "Jewelry Heist" which is another glitter from the new Spoiled line.

In this picture you see today's Ulta haul. I was so happy to see the new OPI Holland Collection. I looked at all the polishes but the only one I felt I NEEDED was this gorgeous shimmery blue called "I Have a Herring Problem". Next to that is a gorgeous deep shimmery purple Ulta polish called "Love My Blackberry" and I got it on clearance for $2. I also bought one of the new Essence colors called ""gleam in blue" and I of course picked up another thing of my favorite nail polish remover pads. They smell delicious!

These are two gorgeous color changing top coats I got from the talented Soflajo! You see Enchantment and Guardian of the Lake.

I snagged a couple of the Sinful Colors polishes this week. I actually bought 5 of the new shade "Cinderella". I got one for me, one for my daughter, one for someone in Australia who will be receiving a surprise package from me, and two for giveaways/etc. The other Sinful color is called "Forget Now" and the Confetti polish is a cute glitter called "Tazmanian Devil".

Now here is what I am MOST excited about. I went into this random Walgreens in a city I am usually not in and I found this display of Nabi Magnetic polishes!!!! They were $3.99 each or 2 for $7. I bought four. I tried to find names for them and cannot find them anywhere. Not on the bottle and not online. I can't find any identifying numbers on the bottles either to identify them with. But they are really beautiful colors and I am so glad I found them.

The colors are gorgeous themselves. I need to work a little more with the magnets but as you can see, the green definitely works well! I am so excited about these. I plan on doing a mani with them this week.

What did you get this week?

Friday, February 10, 2012

Butter London Slapper + SOFLAJO Guardian of the Lake

I only own 3 bottles of Butter London Polishes. They retail for $14 each and I just haven't been in love with many of the colors. This color, Slapper, was one of those "head over heels" "love at first sight" type of deals. I had to have it. I even passed Knackered up for this one. Though, I may buy Knackered today lol. Anyways, here is a NOTD with Slapper and a gorgeous top coat made my SOFLAJO called Guardian of the Lake.

Slapper went on like butter btw, just perfection in a bottle.

Pictures taken with 2 coats of Slapper. Last picture taken with two coats of slapper and two coats of Guardian of the lake.

SOFLAJO's Guardian of the Lake polish is described on her website as this "Guardian of the Lake with Blue glitter and depending on your basecoat, shifts from turquoise to blue to violet". You can't really see the color changing qualities over this polish because of it's light shade. BUT I absolutely adore the gorgeous shimmer it brings to this polish. If I move it around a little I can see the color changing a bit here and there. I need to wear it over black for you. I have two of her color changing top coats and will do a post about both of them over a darker base coat. Please check her page out for her awesome polishes by clicking on her name anywhere on this post.

Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Sold Out!

Ok dear readers, I have sold out of several polishes over the last few days. I want you to know that I will be completely re-stocking the shop once I get my supplies. There was a delay in my shipment because of someone going on vacation at the company I order from. It is no big deal, just gives you more time to decide on what you want to order right?!

Here is a list of polishes that are sold out and that will be back in stock asap!
Midnight Rider (mini and full size)
Party on my Yacht (mini and full size)
Hemi-Sphere (mini)
Sphere (mini)
Jawbreaker (full size and mini)
GBF (full size and mini)
Candy Coated (full size and mini)
Tart (full size and mini)
Bubble Tea (full size and mini)
Elvis' Pink Cadillac (full size and mini)
Razz (mini)

And some polishes that are still available in Mini but will be re-listed in full size:
Galax-E
Martian Salad

And some polishes that are still available in Full Size but will be re-listed in Mini:
Power House
Swing
NOVA
Born Again

I think that covers all of them. If there are any polishes you have specific questions about please feel free to contact me through etsy and I will get back to you ASAP! Thank you all for your on going support! I hope I can make sure you all get the polishes yo are after. Take care!

Pretty & Polished Hemi-Sphere

Hello everyone! I have a gorgeous green polish to share with you today. Hemi-Sphere is the sister polish to Sphere (hence the name). This is also a gold to green polish but instead of being blue this has a deep green base with golden glitter. If you know me you know I absolutely adore green polishes, especially darker greens. I am very proud of this little baby. I hope you enjoy the pictures!

All pictures taken with two coats of Hemi-Sphere and no top coat.

It is very hard to photograph this polish. It looks much more blue in the pics than it does on my nails. You can tell it is a green when it is placed next to the original Sphere.