I was pretty surprised to see that the 'Tis The Season to be naughty and nice collection is already online at Head2Toe Beauty and at TransDesign. Don't forget Head2Toe Beauty has their monthly 5% savings by using the coupon code OCT05 during checkout.
Because I'm absolutely obsessed, I'll be buying all the gift sets that have actual presents... Cheers To You (shot glass), Celebrate in Style (holiday necklace), Merry Mint (holiday peppermint cuticle oil) - coming soon to Head2Toe Beauty, Oh, Ruby Deer ("Ruby" the reindeer), Party Hearty (Party Hearty glitter top coat) and Rejoice! (holiday candle). The other 2 sets - Peppermint Kisses with Holiday Wishes (candy cane holder) and Dreamin' of a Green Christmas (no gift) don't really interest me. Now to hope they don't sell out before I get some money in!
Here's a pink for Breast Cancer Awareness month! Actually, it's kind of a "fail pink." China Glaze came out with 50 different "Cremes and Glitters" also called the "Specialty Collection" that came out in 2009. Now, I had heard some rumors that the glitters were supposed to all be minis going to the Japanese market only, but frankly I've never seen any truth to that. Much to my wallet's dismay, I purchased every single one of them, and yet I still haven't swatched them all. There are a ton of good ones though, although many of the glitters are best layered over a creme in my opinion.
Bad Kitty is a pink that settles between Barbie and bubble gum. It has a multicolored fine glitter that runs through it, but it's not as easily seen unless the light hits it just right. I used a base of Seche Natural, 3 coats of Bad Kitty which still left a VNL (visible nail line) and a top of Seche Vite. Because this is a true glitter, it was hard to remove and required extra time, patience and a bit of scrubbing.
In the sun you can really see the VNL showing. The base is a very watery pink which is why I think this would be best layered. China Glaze has MANY pinks that would be appropriate - some from the Specialty collection itself.
In the shade you can see all the glitter that I talked about. It almost gives the polish a foiled look because there is so much glitter packed into the base. Overall a very cute color to wear but not necessarily a fall color.
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].
When I was swatching these two polishes, they looked very similar to me. As you can see in the bottle, Barielle's Wool You Marry Me? looks much more brown than Zoya's Stacy. However on the nail, there's a bit of a different story.
For my Barielle swatches, I used a base of Seche Natural, 2 coats of Wool You Marry Me? and Seche Vite. For my Stacy swatches, I used a base of Zoya Anchor, 2 coats of Stacy and a top of Zoya Armor.
As you can see, they look very similar on the nail. You can just barely see that Zoya is more red than Barielle.
The shade also just barely shows a difference - again Zoya is more red, but overall the shades are very close, cousins maybe.
Disclosure: The product[s] in this post was [were] provided to me by the company for consideration. For more information, please read this post.
Happy Sunday! Here are 3 more blogs.
First today is Happy Berry Naiad. Owner Berry is from Singapore and features a lot of polish that I haven't seen before. She has medium length nails and does some nail art, but mostly just posts swatches which is great because again, most of it is all so new to me!
Next is I Love Nail Polish. Owner Wan lives in Canada and has long nails. She does feature a lot of nail art but also provides picture tutorials which is great. She also posted a ton of uniquely flavored KitKats which I just recently found out about in the past 2 years and I'm dying to try. She's been on a bit of a break but it's still fun to read her archives.
Last today is Konaddict. She has been on a bit of a break, but you can still search her blog for Konad tutorials. She wears gel nails but they are medium length and her tutorials seem very easy to replicate which is great for a non-artist like myself.
Enjoy!
My best friend and roommate in college was named Stacy. It was rare that people remembered there wasn't an "e" in her name. Stacy is listed as a mahogany red cream in the Zoya Wonderful 2010 Fall collection. I really do enjoy Zoya - I'm glad that I found out about it through the blogging world. The nearest place to physically but Zoya is over an hour away but I did hear they have been seen at Ulta (also, an hour away), but of course you can buy online directly from their website, which is nice because they always have great customer service and shipping costs and turn around.
I used a base coat of Zoya Anchor, 2 coats of Stacy and a top coat of Zoya Armor. The color actually goes on a lot lighter with the first cost and darkens up with the second - pictures tell the story.
The formula was really nice with Stacy - instead of being a lighter red like the 1 coat, it's more of a darkened wine color. Look familiar? I'll have a comparison post tomorrow.
There is 1 coat on the ring finger but 2 coats on the rest of my hand - when I originally picked the color of stain for my cabinets, I picked "mahogany" but my cabinets look a lot lighter than Stacy right here.
In the shade, you can see that Stacy darkens up a bit. It's definitely more red than brown, and while this was listed as a fall color, I see how it would be pretty in winter too!
Zoya [official website] can be purchased on their website for $7/bottle.
Disclosure: The product[s] in this post was [were] provided to me by the company for consideration. For more information, please read this post.
