300 Followers Seche Giveaway! [Winner]

First, thank you to all my readers for keeping me motivated to do what I do.  Secondly, thank you to Seche for hosting this giveaway - I am very grateful for it.


I decided to use the Random Number Generator located here http://www.psychicscience.org/random.aspx this time, just to switch things up.  To keep things easy, you were assigned the number on my Google Form in the order you signed up for the giveaway.  Duplicate entries were deleted, keeping the original entry in its spot.


First off I drew 2 winners for the Seche Pack that contains one (1) bottle of Seche Vite Crystal Clear Top Coat, one (1) bottle of either Rebuild, Recondition or Retain (winner's choice), and one (1) bottle of Seche Restore.

Next I drew 2 winners for the "Secrets to the French Manicure" FULL SIZE SET.

YAY to the winners!


Oh, I guess you need to know the winners.  ^_^


71) Lily
11) Mai


46) Meryl C.
69) Hillary


I have sent you all an email asking for your information.  If I haven't heard back from you by Monday, June 7 at midnight:01 GMT, I will choose a new winner.


Thank you all again!

OPI What's with the Cattitude?

On one of my recent trips up to a bigger city, I went into a place called Trade Secret, which sells OPI.  They have tons of colors, but what gets me the most were the Minis.  I love miniature items.  The one big gripe I have about OPI minis is that the name is not on the bottle.  Rawr!  I'm almost thinking of making little labels for them, because it drives me insane not to know the color of a bottle.  I have 4 other OPI minis that I stupidly threw away the box, so I have no idea what the names are.  There is only a code on the bottom of the bottle.  The code on the bottle of this bottle of OPI is NLB90 10062


Oh man, awesome.  I just realized that the number on the bottom (the NL part) is also listed on OPI's website.  Their iPhone app has not been updated with the Shrek colors, but the others are on there.  SCORE.


Back to the polish.  Now these bottles are MUCH smaller, at only 3.75 mL instead of a normal bottle of 14 mL but when you don't use much as it is, I'm okay with it.  The package of 4 colors cost me $12.50 so the bottle was about $3.12.  That's still super pricey when you think a 14 mL bottle of China Glaze can be purchased online for $3.50.  Oy, I can't think about that much.  This is why I hate math.


I really like this color.  It's almost a cotton candy blue creme - quite light.  OPI says it's a moody light blue that's really a pussycat.  (Remember, these were Shrek related.)  I used Seche Natural for my base, 3 thin coats of What's with the Cattitude, and a top coat of Seche Vite.  I did have a big of an issue with covering bald spots, but I think that's my base and top coat (more on that later).

See, isn't this a pretty color?  I had a bit of an issue holding ON to the bottle hah, it's so small!

Shade picture here - again just a really happy color.  I'm a fan.


Now, as soon as I got back into the house, I touched my nail and it wrinkled under my top coat.  What?  Now, I was using Seche, which goes great with China Glaze, but won't work with Zoya.  Looks like OPI doesn't play nice with Seche either, which is why I was having bald spots and wrinkling issues.  So now I'm going to try and get a bottle of the OPI Natural Nail Base Coat, and I found out that I have not one, but two bottles of RapiDry OPI Top Coat (minis), and I'm almost interested in the OPI DripDry Lacquer Drying Drops too.  I'm a little apprehensive of drying drops after not having the best results with my Zoya ones.


I have like 20 OPI minis and 2 full size bottles of OPI to review still.  Please note that OPI is officially on Facebook [official Facebook] and Twitter [official Twitter] now (they joined last week), so be sure to follow them.  I know there has been a lot of controversy regarding their lawsuits with etailers, but I'm not going to get into that, partly because I don't agree with the "popular" side, and secondly because I don't know enough about it.  I'm just glad that I'm near a salon that sells OPI - regardless.  ^_^


OPI is available at Professional Salons, including Beauty Brands, Beauty First, Chatters, Dillard’s, JCPenney, Pure Beauty, Regis, Trade Secret, and Ulta, for $8.50 ($10.95 CAN) suggested retail for each Nail Lacquer. Please visit their website for details [official website].  

China Glaze Stroll vs Ruby Pumps

So if you're on my Twitter, you've seen it blow up over the HBO True Blood Ultimate Fan Experience in the past week.  Here's the low down - on June 1st, HBO is hosting a Live Q&A session with Alan Ball (creator) and some of the cast members, following is a showing of the Season 2 Season Finale (previously aired) and finally a sneak preview of Season 3 (rumors are swirling that we'll actually see the first episode of Season 3, unconfirmed).  To win, people had to log on to True Blood's Facebook page in the 6 minute window that your theater city was announced, and click to see if you were a VIP winner.  There are only 50 theater cities in the USA, and a minimum of 50 people were chosen per theater.  Each winner received 2 tickets... so we're talking a minimum of 100 people per theater but they were also giving away General Admission tickets at some theaters, so .... I have no idea how many people will truly be there.


Now, HBO is pulling out the stops for this one.  Each theater city will have a red carpet entrance complete with photographers and whatnot.  The event starts at the same time in each theater, 11:00 p.m. for us Central Truebies (as they are called).  So it's going to be a late night.


IN ADDITION, HBO asked for "sheriffs" to call out from each theater city.  No one knows fully what they do, or what they will be asked to do, despite at least one leaked document online that may or may not have been genuine...  anywho, I "applied" and well, I won!  There is only 1 sheriff per theater city, so 50 sheriffs throughout the entire event.  ^_^


I haven't completely figured out what I'm going to wear.  Some people are seriously going all out - fangs, capes, the whole nine yards.  I originally signed up on the site as a Fangbanger which is the character that willingly allows a vampire to feed on them (awesome, huh?).  Typically in the show, fangbangers are kind of the equivalent of a groupie.  (Sorry Mom.)


While I'm still assembling my outfit, now I'm stuck on nail polish.  I originally was thinking of a vampy red or maybe even a hooker red, but I forgot how boring cremes are for me.  I want something that pops, so I went through about 10 polishes and finally settled between two.


China Glaze Ruby Pumps is a red glitter in a red base and it sure does shine.  I'm wondering if it's too much shine for this event.  China Glaze Stroll (from the Retro Diva collection) is a reddish gold glitter in a dark fuchsia base.  I used Seche Natural for my base, three coats of each polish, and a layer of Seche Vite to top it off.


Now I just need to pick one!  Please vote for me in the poll below ^_^

Which color should I wear to the True Blood Ultimate... » create a poll
Tags : beauty nail polish

China Glaze Flip Flop Fantasy

Flip Flop Fantasy is the "neon coral" from the Poolside collection.  As you can see, I had to do a ridiculous amount of color correction on this one, and it's still not absolutely perfect to the color that FFF is.  China Glaze's own polish swatch shows this a little more like a salmon pink

Yeah, not the same.  Hah.  I've worn this color on my toes twice now, but not on my hands for a day.  I used a base coat of Seche Natural, a white coat of CND Brilliant White (it was on my desk), and then 2 coats of Flip Flop Fantasy.  On my pointer and ring finger, I added a layer of Seche Vite, but let it matte on my middle and pinkie fingers.

This is a little more accurate to "real life" - a nice coral pink.  You can't tell too much of a different between matte and shiny in my sun pictures.

Pretty good application on this one - just a slight pooling into my cuticles on my pinkie finger.

This shade picture is awesome - you can literally see the bottle glowing to the left of my hand.  You can also really tell the difference in the matte vs shiny here.  Oh neons - I heart thee.

China Glaze [official website] can be found online through several etailers, including my favorite Head2Toe Beauty [official website], Sally's Beauty Supply [official website] as well asTransDesign [official website].

Disclosure: The product[s] in this post was [were] provided to me by the company for consideration.  For more information, please read this post.

ManGlaze Hot Mess

I have to admit, I love the artwork on these babies.  Reminds me of the local band here "The Reely Rotnz" that I would jam out to as a teenager.  Two of the band members were family friends, so I felt like a VIP since I had their CDs and stuff.  Anyway.


Hot Mess is the obnoxiously awesome silver microglitter top coat in a clear base from ManGlaze.  I think "Hot Mess" is one of my favorite things to say, as well as its an awesome song by Cobra Starship.

I wanted to see how this would work over a variety of nails, so in the sun we have Hot Mess 2 coats on the pointer finger by itself.  Almost opaque but still has a bit of VNL.  Middle finger has 2 coats of Hot Mess over 2 coats of #Matte is Murder.  Ring fingers has 2 coats of Hot Mess over 2 coats of Fuggen Ugly.  Finally my pinkie has 3 coats of Hot Mess over 2 coats of Fuggen Ugly.  Which do you like best?

Shade picture:

My hands are having issues right now.  I'm working on that.  I also have a HUGE bruise on the top of my polish hand where my nurse completely mangled me with my IV last week.  Thankfully it doesn't hurt, but between that, and the other nurse who bruised my inner elbow drawing blood, I look like some kind of junkie.  Awesome.


Now, this is a glitter so I had to take my felt and scrub a bit.  I am just not patient enough to remember to PLACE the felt around my finger (and I never use foil, but I should, and will, I promise), but overall it ALL came off on the felt, no crazed microglitter on my hands for hours.  Yay!  


You can purchase ManGlaze on their website [official website].