Apologies and polish reviews!

Hello friends!

So a week went by without a peep on here, I'm so sorry!  I fell behind on blog posts and as soon as I would turn my thoughts to posting something, I caught an extreme case of writer's block!  But I'm back and I have a few new polishes to review plus one layered manicure that was so froofy I couldn't NOT post it!

The good:
Essie Mojito Madness!


How gorgeous is this?!!?




This is a part of the "Bikini So Teeny" collection, and I had been wanting a color like this for a while and I'm so glad this is the polish I picked up!  It applied like a dream and I barely needed 2 coats for it!  I did apply over a ridge filler, but I use that more to protect from staining.  Either way I bet it would still apply really well, this polish didn't get goopy or drag and it looks BEAUTIFUL.  Definitely recommend it.

The Bad:
Revlon Runway Pearl


4 coats!
I wanted to love this polish, it's a beautiful LE white/ivory with a red/orange/gold shimmer.  It's really stunning in the bottle.  BUT it goes on so thick, a little streaky, it took 4 coats to build opacity AND IT BUBBLED LIKE CRAZY.


THE BUBBLES! (editing note: I cropped and sharpened this using flickrs editing tools)

And you can see a little bit of the bottle in the above shot, the shimmer is really beautiful but the formula isn't worth the headache.

The Awesome:
Here are my "prom dress" nails!  Every time I looked at my nails I kept picture a puffy skirted sky blue dress with baby pink tulle that was covered in bits of silver glitter.  I have a major soft spot for froofy dresses, let me tell you.




This is OPI What's with the Cattitude topped with 2 coats of Pirouette My Whistle from the NYC Ballet Soft Shades collection that just came out and CND Raspberry Sparkle on top of all that.  I really like PMW, it's a mix of silver microglitter and white pearl hex glitter.  It's really beautiful and looks lovely over pastels.  It's the best picture I could get of my nails before I took this off but isn't it lovely?

And that's all I've got for today!  I've got another beauty post in the works for Wednesday and of course there's Friday Jams!  Thanks for stopping by!

love and cupcakes,
Ms. Meghan

My first glitter gradient mani!

Soooo in the wake of not dealing well with the aforementioned juice cleanse, I completely spaced on writing my post for yesterday, so you get 2 posts today, and this one is about the sweet manicure spotted in Monday's post.  So without further adieu...my very first glitter gradient manicure!



First, let me wax about Illamasqua Nomad, which is the base for this polish.  It is MAGNIFICENT.   It is a glorious, gorgeous jade green that applies pretty much perfectly.  I had almost no clean up and it barely needed 2 coats.

I used 2 China Glaze polishes for the glitter, "White Cap" which is a sheer gold glass fleck and "Medallion" which is extra small and small gold and medium silver holo glitter in a clear base.  Both polishes are great, though I didn't really need "White Cap", "Medallion" is spectacular all on its own.

To make the gradient, I did a layer of polish on the top third of the nail and let that set for about a minute.  I then applied a thick second layer over that, and working quickly, took a clear polish and ran that over the top and middle third of the nail from the top down.  I used a clear Essie I had lying around, but any clear polish will do as long as it's not a quick drying polish.  I only had to do this all once through.



I think it came out fairly well for a first time, and if I had more patience it probably would have been even nicer!  I hope you liked this post, I'll be back later with the juice cleanse update!

love and cupcakes,
Ms. Meghan

Week of Greens day 5!

Hello again, I'm back with another green polish, one that is widely available and I'm madly in love with it! Aaaw yeah!


Sally Hansen Smooth and Perfect in Sea! (forgive the extra shiny cuticles, I was almost done swatching and my skin was so dry!)

I am in LOVE LOVE with this whole collection. It is 7 pastels (beige, 2 pinks, coral, blue, green, purple) plus a white and they all have this amazing soft shimmer to them. It's very fine and not quite warm, so they sort of glow and it's beautiful.

I saw these polishes popping up on a few blogs and wanted to give them a try, I bought Dune (the beige shade) and fell head over heels. WITH A BEIGE NAIL POLISH. So I slowly bought the whole collection (and bought backups of Dune & Fog [white]).


Bottle shot, look at that shimmer!

The polish has ridge filler in it, so by the 3rd+ coat, your nails are gonna look soooo smooth, my thumbs have some horizontal ridges going on and with this polish they are non-existant. The only downfall is drying is a bit tricky and these are sheerish, requiring 3-5 coats. While I am not usually the kind of girl that tolerates anything that requires more than 2 coats, I completely tolerate it for these. YEAH. They are that pretty.


One more shot!!! (Ignore the smudge!)

These are pretty widely available now, I've seen them at drugstores, Target, Bed Bath & Beyond (the ones that sell bath/beauty products). They run ~$5-$8 but Sally Hansen is on sale all the time. I would recommend this in a heartbeat!!!!

Tune in tomorrow for a slightly old school (5 years or older?!) Sally Hansen! Yeah!

Week of Greens day 3!

A quick post with a fast drying nail polish, how lovely!


Wet n Wild Fast Dry in Sagreena the Teenage Witch! 2 coats, no topcoat.

This is a rich metallic kelly green, it's not as dense as Buffy the Violet Slayer, which is a bomb ass color, but this is still beautiful. Plus it is a fast drying nail polish and I've yet to experience bubbling with these polishes, so that is super nice! Well worth the price, and plus the names are so silly!

I'll be back tomorrow, and I think I'll do my THREE new Funky Fingers to make up for today's short post!

Week of Greens day 2!

I almost forgot to post this in time! I should be in bed, fast asleep but instead I am uploading and posting nail polish pictures for you all. Aren't I a nice person? :P

Today's polish reminds me of villains, velvet, and emeralds, it's Ulta Professional "Green With Envy"!



This is a nice, neutral black base with LOADS of green shimmer. It looks green most of the time, and when the light hits it, it's BEAUTIFUL. I especially love that the shimmer is GREEN and not olive, or teal like some greenish shimmers can be.


I know this is blurry in the foreground, but look at the shimmer!!!


Bottle shot!!

Just going by the ulta website, this color isn't there. However, the Ulta Salon Formula (which is cheaper + has more colors) has a color called envy which looks super similar and may actually be the same color. I really like the Salon Formula, it's inexpensive, with some nice colors and it applies really well. This applied okay, I think I did 2 coats here, but I don't think it was quite as nice as the salon formula. Either way it's such a beautiful polish, I would definitely say pick this up if you find it!!

Week of Greens day One!

Hey everyone!

So I decided that since St. Patrick's day is coming up and since I don't actually have to pretend to be Irish for one day since I am the rest of the year, I could instead show you some of my favorite green nail polishes! Some new, some old, some might be HTF but they're all awesome! Who doesn't love a good green polish?!

Today's color is...Orly Fresh!

This color was a part of last summer's "Happy Go Lucky" collection, which I completely swooned over, the whole thing was just PERFECT.


4 coats w/top coat

This may have only been 3 coats but I think it was 4 and worth all the hassle. It's an almost neon jelly/creme hybrid, and it smooths out pretty well. I loveloveLOVE the color, it's somewhere between grass green and lime green. And it's looks super amazing with a black crackle over it!



It's very late 90's/matrix/Monster Energy drink! I actually compared my nails to a can of Monster and it's a pretty good match. It's also a match for one of my favorite shirts for one of my favorite bands:



36 Crazyfists is a metal band originally from Kenai, Alaska and they are one of my favorite bands ever. And I wear this shirt all the time because I love them and I love the color/design. And now I can match my nails to my shirt!

So Fresh might be a little hard to find, maybe a Sally's or Ulta might have it, but I'm sure your favorite e-tailer still carries it, and it's well worth picking up.

nail polish announcements & my holiday manicure!

Hello internet friends, long time no see!

I wanted to throw out a quick nail polish post with a miscellany of items, some polish news and my holiday manicures. I have a couple of posts planned, including some claire’s polishes and hot topic polishes, don’t judge me, they are always on sale and awesome!

I also plan on actually posting regularly as soon as I get used to my brand new job! In the meantime some polish announcements:

-=- Zoya just announced via Twitter that their gorgeous spring collection Reverie is available for pre-order. The whole set is available as is the individual polishes, you can check out swatches from All Lacquered Up and Scrangie. It looks gorgeous, so I’m probably going to pre-order at least part of the collection, definitely Adina and maybe the 2 pink shades.

-=-Some people really don’t like Sephora by OPI, which I don’t really understand, since it really is a fantastic, incredibly long-wearing formula. I’m wearing Ocean Love Potion as I type this, and it is a gorgeous slightly grey teal cream that went on super smooth. Plus it dried shiny even without a topcoat:

See? It’s so pretty! At any rate, I just recently checked Sephora’s website and the new spring shades for SOPI are listed, though not available for purchase yet:

Cover Me in Petals looks like a pinky coral as opposed to the red-orange of the description. Go With The Flower looks/sounds AWESOME, a super bright pink sparkler, while Leaf Him At The Altar reminds me of an old Wet n’ Wild green shade, at least judging from the other website picture available.
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It’s almost a camo type green with a gold shift, like Urban Decay Mildew.
And the rest of the polishes are all purples:

I like all of these actually, but the one I’m most excited for is It’s Bouquet With Me because it has HOLOGRAPHIC GLITTER! I wonder if it will compare at all to Color Club Wild at Heart? I’m really excited for nearly all of these shades, but Sephora’s online swatches and images are notoriously different from the actual product, so I would like to see them in person first.

Holiday Manicure, a story in two parts.

Twas the night before Christmas and my tips were still bare … the horror! I didn’t want to do a red/green manicure as that was a bit too garish for my tastes, however I loved the idea of doing white and green together, and furthermore it gave me a chance to try out my idea for a matte white shimmer.

I used Zoya Get Even as the base and for the white polish used the following:
Color Club Ooooh la la! (bright white shimmer)
OPI Happy Anniversary (sheer silver/white crystal sparkles)
Essie Matte About You
The green is China Glaze Emerald Sparkle. I think this is a gorgeous manicure but the more I looked at it, the more I realized it reminded me of the Boston Celtic’s uniform and NOT holiday cheer. However, my awesome and smart friend Clio suggested that instead I do silver instead of white, giving my manicure both holiday cheer and Slytherin cool. She’s a smart cookie, because it came out pretty awesome:

Instead of the whites, I used Orly Dazzle with Essie Matte About You.

So that’s my blogging (don’t call it a) comeback. I will still be adjusting the next week or so, but then (hopefully) get into a 3 post a week schedule.

Disclosure: Any polish pictured was purchased by me. Any companies mentioned have not given me any incentive to do so, although I would totally be okay with it if they wanted to!! ;)

Nail Polish, blues and greens

So I've decided to post some polish swatches, everything is 2 coats + base and top coat.


OPI Russian Navy. Deep navy blue shimmer with pink/red sparkle. It's okay, but nothing I would write home about. It's hard not to love a dark blue shimmer though, I think it might be ingrained in my dna.


OPI Blue My Mind. It's a little too primary, I was looking for a dupe of a wet n' wild shade I used to have. It was a bright navy shimmer, and all I need with it is some red lipstick and bangs and BOOM it's 1996 again. I used the opi ridge filler with this and I think that's what caused the bubbling.


OPI Yoga-ta Get This Blue. Navy shimmer with blue sparkle. Really wonderful blue, better than Russian Navy. I need to re-swatch this because this pic is terrible.


China Glaze Sky-High Tops from the Custom Kicks collection. I really love this color, and I didn't think I would. It's a beautiful shimmery blue. Forgive the chips and tip wear, that was after at least 5 days of wear.


Misa The Grass is Greener on My Side. How fun is that name? So much sass. And the color lives up to the name, it's a gorgeous deep green/teal shimmer. Forgive the visible polish lines it was SO HUMID when I did the mani. Despite giving them drying drops and 20+ minutes to dry, I still smudged my thumb so bad I had to re-do it.

I have ~12+ nail polishes to swatch that I haven't even worn yet, let alone what I own that I haven't swatched. And the 8 bottles of Zoya polish on their way (including the MatteVelvets!!!). And I'm eyeing a few more bottles of CG, Color Club and Misa. It's a terrible addiction.