Graduation Nails! (Zoya Phoebe + Jordana Funky Gold Town)

Hey guys!
Firstly, sorry about disappearing again. The past two weeks have been taking care of last minute things, prepping for graduation, and going to senior stuff, and it was way busier than I could have imagined. Don't worry though...school is over for real for real and I'm not employed (working on it though), so I will probably be a much better blogger for the forseeable future lol.


But anyway, Saturday and Sunday were my graduation dates (yes, I had two graduations lol), and of course, I had to wear something festive on my nails to celebrate. Since my school colors were buff and blue and time was short, this is what I ended up with:

I started with two coats of Zoya Phoebe, and then applied one layer of Jordana Funky Gold Town on top.

Then I applied a layer of BYS's Matte Topcoat to finish it off.  Super easy and quick. :D 

Sunlight, no flash.

Natural light, no flash.

Sunlight, no flash.

      Even though it wasn't what I originally wanted, I really liked how this came out. The glitter looked pretty against Phoebe's shade of blue, and I appreciated how easy Funky Gold Town was to put on. With chunky glitter, there tends to be placement issues, but in this case, I swiped on the polish and the glitter went exactly where it was supposed to, which was nice. However, I need to go to one of these meetings where they decide the names for polishes. Funky Gold Town? Clearly, everyone there was drunk.  

And unrelated, but I think I'm gonna go back to square nails. The pointed ones were fun, but I've been scratching the hell out of everyone (never myself though oddly enough), and soon, nobody will want to be my friend anymore. Plus, I think they look prettier on my hands. So back to squares I go. 

But that's all from me today! 

Thanks for reading, and have a happy hump day!! 

Jade Vine

Hi guys!! Sorry for dropping out on ya'll like that...in the past two days, things have gotten incredibly real so I haven't had time to paint my nails at all. Been strolling around buck naked...not even any clear coat for protection...just enjoying the breeze.
But moving right along, today's post is going to feature a plant instead of an animal. Animals are cute (sometimes) and fine, but really, it's plants that allow us to live on Earth today. Without them, we would have no air...no air. So we have to pay attention to them too. This is the Jade Vine:

    Although this gorgeous plant can also be seen in botanical gardens and greenhouses and is cultivated in Hawaiian gardens for decorative purposes, it is native only to the tropical rainforests of the Philippines. Jade vines provide food and shelter to bees and butterflies, which are important organisms in the rainforest, as so many plants there rely on bees and butterflies as pollinators. Without pollinators, there can't be any seeds. And no seeds mean no new plants when the old ones die. Since the jade vines allow the bees and butterflies to live happily, that makes them an important part of the rainforest ecosystem too. Sadly for the jade vines (and the butterflies and bees), they are quickly disappearing in the wild due to deforestation. 

I really loved the colors of this plant, so I wanted to base my nail look on them:

Sunlight, no flash.

Sunlight, no flash.

Ottlite, no flash.

Sunlight, no flash.

     To do this, I started with two layers of Diamond Cosmetics Tranquility and let that dry. Then I used a chunk of a kitchen sponge (didn't have a makeup sponge lol) to pat on some Zoya Breezy and let that dry a bit. Next, I patted on some Color Club Pucci-licious, and when that was still wet, I applied topcoat, to try to blend the colors in a little bit better. Obviously, the blending did not happen, but I still like how this turned out. 

I also think it would be cool to water marble with these, so when I can find the time (maybe after finals), I'll do that and show it to you guys.

But that's all from me today!

Thanks for reading, and have an awesome Saturday!! (Mine will not be awesome...it will be filled with homework and misery. ;__;)

P.S. Earth Day is tomorrow!! :D

California Condor

Hello people! The animal we're gonna look at today is the California Condor. Warning, there's nothing cute about it.

Except for the baby. The baby is kind of cute. 

     The California condor is a gigantic bird that lives in Arizona, Utah, and of course, California. It's a carrion bird, so it pretty much only eats things that are already dead, being particularly partial to the bodies of large mammals like livestock, coyotes, and deer. The California condor is perfectly content to live its life minding its own business and peacefully eating dead things, but it is facing extinction today because of dumb people. Dumb people killing them to put them in museums and dumb people hunting them out of fear that the condors were killing domestic animals. A quick trip to the library would tell you that these animals are lazy and don't even like to hunt. Finally, the condors were dying from other things like lead poisoning, flying into electric wires, and eating meat poisoned by pesticides The government has been trying to bring their numbers up by breeding them in captivity and teaching them to avoid dangerous things, but these birds are still very close to extinction right now, which would be sad because in a way, they're the last of their kind.

 For my California condor nail look, I did this:

This was about as easy as it looks. I did two layers of Obsessive Compulsive Cosmetics Radiate, and then put one thick layer of Zoya Loredana on top, in a v-shape. Lastly, I put a little yellow gem at the bottom of the V. I didn't use any topcoat, because I wanted to keep the flatter texture of the colors. 

This time around, I didn't want to do a literal thing for the bird, but more wanted to represent the colors on the condor in the same proportions that they appear on the actual animal. My index finger came out kind of janky and the lines on the other fingers are not straight (I should have used tape), but all in all, I'm happy with how this turned out. In real life, you can't see the imperfections, so it looks a little smoother. I also like the contrast of Radiate's brightness against Loredana's darkness and the flatness.  So I'm a pretty happy camper.

And that's all from me today!

Thanks for reading, and have a great Monday!

St. Patrick Day Greens!!

Hi guys! So tomorrow is St. Patrick's Day, and I have been wearing greens all week to celebrate. Like I've said in the past, the holiday doesn't mean anything to me personally, but I just like to indulge in it. So to get everyone in the spirit, I thought it would be fun to make some green spam.


First one is Diamond Cosmetics Never so Evergreen.

Ottlite, no flash.

Ottlite, no flash.

    Never so Evergreen is a smoky, faded hunter green, with lots of golden shimmer in it. It's really beautiful and unique, and I love how it looks on my nails. The application was also super easy...two coats of color and a layer of topcoat was all I needed for it to look perfect. 

Next is Zoya Yara.

Ottlite, no flash.

Ottlite, no flash.

Artificial light, with flash.

    Yara was a weird one to capture. It's a dirty olive green with lots of grey in it, and my camera had a hard time balancing those. I guess the true color is right between the ottlite ones and the flash one. But anyway, I wasn't expecting to like Yara very much and really only bought it because it reminded me of one of my favorite queens from RuPaul's Drag Race, Yara Sofia. But when I put it on, I really did like it. The shimmer is really visible and looks great against the base, and the shade of olive itself is fairly flattering, because it doesn't have too much yellow. Formula was also really easy...I only needed two coats of color and one of topcoat. 

Next is Nina Ultra Pro Salsa!

Ottlite, no flash.

Ottlite, no flash.

Ottlite, no flash

   Salsa is a bold and slightly deep kelly green semi-jelly. The shade of green is really fun and punchy but I think my favorite part of this polish is the finish. It has the opacity and ease of application of a creme, but the jiggly quality and shine of a jelly, and with the shade of green, it makes me happy lol. It just reminds me of springtime and makes me want to skip and dance. I used three coats of polish and a layer of topcoat for the pictures, and Salsa went on pretty smoothly and easily. 

Next is OPI Damone Roberts 1968.

Artificial light, with flash.

Artificial light, with flash.

    Damone Roberts 1968 is a really smooth and creamy mint green creme. It has a good bit of grey, some brown, and a hint of yellow in there too, all of which soften it up and make it much easier to wear with my skin tone. I love how it looks kind of vintage-y but still really modern, and am so glad that I snagged a bottle when it was still available. However, application was tough on this one...I needed four layers of color to get it even and streak-free, and I had to be really careful to apply with a light hand, or there were these annoying divots. So it wasn't fun, but definitely worth all the pain in the end. 

And last, but definitely not least, is Nfu-Oh 569. 

Ottlite, no flash.

Artificial light, with flash.

Ottlite, no flash.

Ottlite, no flash.

    Nfu-Oh 569 is a blackened forest green jelly. It's known as being a dupe for NARS Zulu, which I guess is accurate, and as such, I lurvee it. It's so sexy and rich, and I love the way that it shines. Wearing it, I feel wicked, but in a good way lol. Application was also pretty easy. I used three layers of polish and a layer of topcoat, and although it kind of took a long time to dry, the polish itself went on fairly well. A little streaky on the first coat, but the next two fixed it. Incidentally, if you are in the market for Zulu, I would actually recommend picking up this one instead. You get more product for less, and Fabulous Street's shipping is much better than NARS'. 

And those are all the greens I have for ya'll today! 

Thanks for reading, and I hope everyone has an amazing St. Patrick's Day!! ^_^

Zoya Kissy

   Umm...Happy Valentine's Day guys!! LOL I know I am late as hell with this, but I actually did paint my nails for Valentine's Day. I'm forever alone, so to counteract the inevitable Valentine's Day depression, I wanted to wear something happy. So I chose Kissy (such a good name for a V-Day polish, no?) from Zoya's Gems and Jewels Collection. I meant to put some lovey-dovey decals on there too, but I forgot. My bad.

Kissy is made mostly of small red hex glitter, with lots of pink and holographic bar glitter scattered throughout. There's much more pink bar glitter than holo though.

Bottle shot. 

Sunlight, no flash.

Ottlite, no flash.

Sunlight, no flash.

Ottlite, no flash.

Sunlight, no flash.

Sunlight, no flash.

       Kissy is pretty and actually made for a fun Valentine's Day color. All the glitter is really sparkly, and although I generally don't like pink, Kissy's shade wasn't vomit inducing. I also think it looked pretty good on me. My only gripe is again, the fact that the holo bar glitter isn't as visible as I would have liked. You can see it straight on, but not that well. To really see it, I had to do finger Cirque du Soleil or look at it in lower lighting conditions. However, it does show up more in Kissy than in Rina or Twila (I'm planning to post that soon), so there's that. 

    Putting Kissy on was kind of tough though. The glitter isn't too sparse, and covered in three coats, which was nice. But I had a hard time getting it to stay put and it was pretty messy...little bits of glitter hanging off my nails and such. In the future, I'll probably just layer it over a similar color. 

   And a note on Kissy's wear, I had several fingers where the polish just popped off in a big nail-shaped chunk. The same happened with Twila and Rina. I didn't use Zoya's Anchor base with any of them, so maybe that would help, but I just thought I would mention it.

And I wanted to quickly put it out there that my giveaway is closing in one week, so don't forget to get your entries in if you want to play!

And that's all from me today! (Haha that rhymed.)

But anyway, thanks for reading and have a happy hump day! (HA I RHYMED AGAIN. I'm a poet and didn't know it. ^___^)

Some Layering Stuff

   Hi guys! Yes, I am still alive and even better, I'm starting to feel some interest in nail polish again, which means that I'll probably be back to posting regularly in the near future. I won't have anything current to show because I haven't bought polish in a month (seriously), but maybe that will change soon too. But anyway, a few days ago was my 21st birthday, and I needed some sparkly nails to go with it. I didn't have much time though, so I did some quick layering. 

This is two coats of Zoya Phoebe and two layers of Sapphire Shimmer. Sorry about the cracks...I guess Phoebe wasn't all the way dry before I put the glitter on top. It dries so slowlyyy. -___-

Ottlite, no flash.

Ottlite, no flash.

Natural light, no flash.

Natural light, with flash.

I blurred it to show some of the holo sparkle, even though I felt like there wasn't much this time around I remember the first time I wore Sapphire Shimmer in early fall and I wanted to marry it. Not sure what happened. 

Ottlite, no flash.

    This combo was okay. It was bright, glittery, went on quick and dried quick, and that was pretty much all I wanted, so I am satisfied.

But better than my nails were these awesome cupcakes I got from Sweet Themez Bakery. If you live in DC, I would definitely recommend paying them a visit and getting their sweet potato cupcake. All their cupcakes are delicious (except maybe the marble, which is a little too delicate for me) but the sweet potato one brings tears to my eyes. It's the one in the middle and is magically delicious. 

Also, the giveaway post should be up in the next couple of days, so look out for that!

And that's all from me for today! Thanks for reading guys, and have a great Sunday!!