The Nail Nerd

Oh this is a beauty! I've been lemming Dirty Sexy Money by Misa so I'm thrilled about owning this Models Own polish as it is a pretty close dupe to the Misa. I love this type of colour, dusty and toned down but still bold and colourful.

This is three coats and application was good. Formula seemed very good but the brush was a bit stiff and the first coat ended up streaky, it was easy to even out with the following coats though. The only real complaint I have really is the smell. All the Models Own polishes I bought have a very strong chemical smell, almost got a headache when I swatched them on a wheel and it wasn't better applying it in 3 coats on all 10 nails. But the colours are really pretty and I'll just have to keep the window open when I use one of them next time

Today I have a lovely blue-green duo chrome for you guys, Rodeo Fanatic by China Glaze. I bought this bottle AGES ago but I haven't worn it and I don't know why. Once I had applied it I just LOVED the colour!

This is a blue shimmer with a slight green duochrome, I tried to capture it in the picture but I don't know if I was all that successful. The purple flash you see in the bottle is just not there in reality, not on the nail nor in the bottle. This colour makes me think of scarabs, I wish I owned a real scarab coloured duochrome polish, but this is the closest I get with whats in my collection. It applied like a dream, took 2 coats for it to be opaque and it wasn't as runny as blue shimmers tend to be. I took the picture pre-cleanup but I can tell you that clean up also was easier than normal for a blue polish, no smurf fingers!

As you might have noticed the rate of my posting have dropped lately and it's cause of multiple reasons. Some personal reasons but also I'm working on a new blog/website, as I'm planning on moving to my own domain sometime in the near future. There's only so many hours in a day and I try my best to get the everyday things done, work on the new site and still do my nails and blog here. Just bear with me and hopefully I'll get back to my normal posting once the new website is up and running.

Ok ladies, I've gone through all of the entries and added them to The Hat program to let it pick my winner, and here it is...

Hey guys!
Hope you all had a great weekend, I've been sick with a fever again! I've been too tired to do my nails so I was rocking No Way Jose for a few days, but yesterday I wanted to do something for valentines. But after paiting the base colour I wasn't feeling the hearts and cute stuff at all so I went with a zebra print instead!

This is 2 coats of Essence Most Wanted with Konad m57 and Konad Princess polish in Black. Most Wanted is a bit darker in reality, but I just couldn't get a good shot of it. The formula is great, was almost opaque in one coat!

My 200 followers/valentines giveaway is now closed! And I hope to bring you the winner tomorrow! Good luck everyone!

I finally got around to wearing the 2nd polish that I am giving away here. This is version 2 of China Glazes popular and discontinued shade No way Jose. It's more pink toned than the original, but has the same pretty glass fleck shimmer. I'm normally not a pink fan unless they're hot or neons but I actually like this one, a lot, it compliments my skin tone and it's just pretty to look at.

This is three coats and it applied smoothly, no application problems what so ever. Only downside with the formula is that it dries kind of slow, even with quick dry topcoat, almost 2 hours after applying it I managed to dent my right pinky nail a bit. It was hard to get it colour accurate in the pictures, it wanted to come out more bright than it really is. It's a bit more muted or dusty but the actual base colour looks pretty accurate to me. Anywho, it's really pretty. Wish I owned the original but I'm happy I got my hands on this version anyway!

Siw is the first Make Up Store polish I ever bought, I've picked up a couple more after painting this on. This is the best holo in my collection, there's no contest. It doesn't look like much in the bottle but I decided to give it a chance anyway. Painted it on, still nothing. Waited a few minutes until it was fully dried and was shocked. Super mega holo goodness! Like superhero holo! These pictures don't do it justice, and I guess the holo extraordinaire freaked my camera out so it didn't pick up much of the base colour, which is a icy blue.

Make Up Store Siw
Overcast daylight

Make Up Store Siw
Flash on lowest setting (mimics sunlight or lamplight)

This is three coats with base and top coat, application wasn't exactly anything to rave about. As you can see I still have some bald spots on my ring and pinky, the only trick to apply this is to have plenty of polish on the brush and work FAST. Never do more than 3 strokes on the nail then let it dry properly before next coat. I didn't have enough patience and got bald spots anyway, but thankfully you can't really see them in person cause of all the holoness going on. Another con is the price, at $16 a bottle I didnt't exactly go shopping crazy even though they had many colours I found pretty. Is it worth the price? For the holo's I'd say yes but I'm a real holo lover and I'm always on the look out for new ones. But for the rest of the collection I'd expect them to apply themselves for $16, you can probably find a much cheaper dupe or atleast a good enough substitute. I did pick up one creme to see what the formula is like, will it apply itself or not? I have yet to find out!

As many others I jumped on the 50% off offer from Models Own, and I picked up 6 bottles. Wanted many more but had to limit myself :P I recieved them yesterday, and here they are:

I loved all these 3 colours, not much else to say about them. Pretty pretty pretty! I only wish the glitter in Emerald City was a bit more dense, tried them on a swatch wheel and I lost count on the coats I had to use to make it opaque.

L to R: Beth's Blue, Lemon Sherbet and Fuzzy Peach

Beth's Blue isn't really blue at all in my eyes, more lilac or maybe a pastel lavender, I'm happy though cause it's exactly how I had hoped it would be. Lemon Sherbet is as bright as in the picture, it's fantastic! Come on spring and summer, I want to wear this baby! Fuzzy Peach was alot darker and brighter than I had hoped, not sure if I like it at all at the moment. Had hoped for a more soft pastel'y peach colour, still need to try it on and see how it looks against my skin tone. Worst come to worst I'll just mix in a bunch of white to lighten it up.

After seeing swatches of some of these over at Plane Beauty I'm bummed I didn't pick up Purple Grey instead of Fuzzy Peach. I was looking at it when I was placing my order, I should have googled for swatches before deciding against it! Maybe next time, cause I'm sure I'll be wanting to shop for more Models Own!

What I hoped wouldn't happen, happened. One of the winners of my Viva la Diva giveaway never got back to me to claim her prize. So I was forced to re-draw a winner for the 2nd prize...

And the new 2nd prize winner is...









(I forgot to get a screen shot of The Hat window so just imagine it's here displaying the right name :P)

EVIL ANGEL!

Congratulations! I've sent you an e-mail =)

Hi everyone!

Hope you're all having a good day! I'm feeling productive, lots of posts today, 3 so far, whew! I have a poll going in the sidebar. Since I've had no motivation for nail art lately I thought maybe it'd be fun to do a nail art contest for inspiration and maybe get some new ideas. I wanted to check on the response from your readers first to see if there's even an interest in one, so please place your vote :) Also feel free to come with suggestions for themes and prizes for such a contest!

I also have a little request, to anyone who happens to live close to a Claire's. Like many others I read Brookes blog, Getcha Naild Did and recently she posted the most fantastic mini collection from Claire's with bright pastels and I NEED it! I'm also on the hunt for Claire's Dream Catcher as I completely missed out on Chanel Jade. So, is anyone out there interested in maybe doing a swap, or could help me shop for them and ship them over here? Pretty please *puppy eyes* If you are willing to do this, please send me an e-mail!

EDIT: I found someone to swap me get the polishes I wanted, BIG thank you to everyone who offered to help. You all ROCK!

I'm not the only one having a giveaway right now, here's some other giveaways you all should go enter! These ladies all have lovely blogs!

Kelly from Plane Beauty is celebrating 100 followers! Congrats Kelly! She's giving away lots of great stuff.

Click the Picture above to read the rules and enter!

Gildedangel from Naive Nails is celebrating 300 followers and is giving everyone a chance to win some great Milani holograpic polishes!

Click the picture above to get to her awesome giveaway!

Diana from Painted Lady Fingers teamed up with Color Club and is giving away their new Rebel Debutante Collection, how awesome is that?

Click the picture above to get magically transported to Diana's little corner of the web and to her contest!

Last, but definitely not least, Andrea from Black Nail Polish and Lipgloss hit 300 followers and is celebrating that by giving away some really awesome loot! So much it takes 2 pictures to fit it all, check it!

Click any of the two pictures above to get to her giveaway!

What are you waiting for? GO! NOW!
But come back soon! and don't forget to enter my giveaway :)

As promised here's a nail picture of the first of the two colours that you can win in my 200 followers giveaway, the discontinued 100 Proof Pink from China Glaze.

China Glaze 100 Proof Pink

This is three coats of this pretty hot pink colour with silver glass fleck shimmer. This is a colour that makes me happy and feels like a real spring shade. The formula is great, had no application problems at all and it was really easy to control the polish with the brush. Note that this is the old China Glaze formula and it is NOT 3-free as their new polishes are. This isn't anything that bothers me personally but figured it was worth pointing out anyway. I'm really tempted to do some cute nailart on this polish, maybe something fitting for Valentines but I've had no inspiration lately, hope that changes soon!

Things are just happening too fast on my blog! Have barely finished one giveaway before it's time for another, but I'm having alot of fun doing this! This time I'm celebrating 200 followers and that Valentines is coming up so I thought it was a good idea to give away some pink polishes! One lucky person will win 2 discontinued and hard to find China Glaze polishes! I managed to get my hands on doubles of these 2 colours when I was looking for them for myself and with the ammount of polish I own I will never ever finish a bottle of any colour so I'm giving away my unused backups of 100 Proof Pink, hot pink with silver glass fleck shimmer and No Way Jose, this is version 2 which is more pink toned than the original but still gorgeous with the same glass fleck shimmer.
I will post nail pictures of both colours shortly so you get a better idea on what they look like, until then here's a bottle pic!

You can get a total of 5 entries! This contest is open to everyone, doesn't matter where in the world you live, it ends February 14th at midnight GMT+1 (6pm EST).

Good luck ladies! :)

I got tagged by Solveig who has the great blog Nailin' It! Thank you so much Solveig!

It's been a long wait but now it's finally over and I have drawn the 2 winners!

The second prize winner is..

Polish Passion!

and..

First prize goes to..

GINA!

Congratulations to both of you ladies! I have sent out e-mails to you, please reply as soon as possible. If I for some reason have not gotten a reply within the next 48 hours I will have to re-draw a winner for that prize.

Thank you to all who participated, I had alot of fun doing this and I hope you did too! And soon there will be a new chance to win some rare and discontinued shades!

Hello everyone!
Hope you all had a great weekend! Today I'm showing you this beauty, Lincoln Park After Dark from OPI's suede collection.

Lincoln Park After Dark Suede - with topcoat

I love these suede polishes, they have this superpretty silver microglitter in them which makes them different and special. I prefer to wear them with topcoat because I love the shine and dimension it gives. It also helps a great deal on the durability of these polishes. This was 2 coats and application is good if you work somewhat fast, they dry really fast so if you don't cover your whole nail fast enough you might get dragging, streaks etc. but OPI's wide brush really helps with that. I don't own the original LPAD but as far as I know this looks nothing like it, imo they should have named it something new. It's really gorgeous, almost like a slightly blackened purple basecolour, in most lights the egdes look really dark and the middle is purple and the silver glitter brightens it some and makes it interesting to look at.

Coming up: My Viva La Diva giveaway has come to an end, I will draw and post the winners later today and soon I will announce my new 200 followers giveaway!