Nicole By OPI: Carnival Cotton Candy. The Carrie Underwood Collection.

Hello lovelies! Its the middle of the week, I cannot wait to get today over, as you are reading this I will be at work, fun fun.

Today I bring you a swatch of one of the Nicole By OPI Carrie Underwood Polishes. I have only seen this collection at my local Walmart and they only have five of the colors which makes me sad.

Today I bring you Carnival Cotton Candy! I adore this polish so much! It is just the perfect girly pink creme. I wore this on my first day back at school this past spring semester but did a crappy job of applying so I never took photos.

Wet 'n' Wild: On a Trip.

Hey guys happy Friday!! I hope you all are well!

Sorry about the break in post. School crept up on me  and it was a mad dash to get myself organized and ready for this past Tuesday!

However school has started and it seems like the course work will be heavy but I will have lots of free time to do it and blog so hopefully I will get myself on a schedule of Monday-Wednseday-Friday thing. There are so many things I want to blog about!!

Today's post is a really pretty nail polish that is from Wet 'n' Wild's Meglast Line, I got it in that gift set my mom got me for Christmas.

Its called On a Trip and its a pretty purple creme polish. When I first started getting into nail polishes purple was the one color I loved the most and most of my collection was purple. However I branched out to other colors but purple never gets old.

This polish is vibrant and definitely a purple I didn't have in my collection. It only takes two coats to be opaque. The formula is about average, not to thin where it gets everywhere and not thick. But if this is like any of the other Wet 'n' Wild polish I have, the longer this sits it will get thicker. But in the end though it will make a good stamping polish.

This polish will be one to wear as the weather gets warmer!

One thing I love about these Megalast Polishes is that with top coat they just get so shiny and pretty.

Wet 'n' Wild is available at most Drugstores accross the U.S.! I always get mine from either Rite Aid or Walgreens!

OPI Charged Up Cherry!

Hi guys!!

Today I have for you a polish from OPI called Charged Up Cherry. I bought this at the grocery store I work at. We have a small section of OPI, Orly, and China Glaze that doesn't always get updated but sometimes new polishes appear and I make it a thing to check it out once in a while.

Charged Up Cherry is a bright cherry pink creme polish. Its from the OPI Brights Collection.

I adore this color! I think it is going to be great for upcoming spring and summer! I'm pretty positive that I will be wearing this as a pedicure majority of the summer. Sadly I'm one of those people that puts on one color on their toes and don't take it off until it looks crappy.

If you didn't know already, ( I think I mention it every time I show a creme polish) that they are my absolute favorite finishes. They just look so clean and smooth and top coat just makes them look gorgeous.

I used two coats to get perfect opacity but honestly if I was more careful I could of gotten it one this polish is that pigmented!

I'm also really glad that my DSLR picked up the color well and didn't freak out. Sometimes with such bright colors it goes all hay wire and I have no idea how to fix it when I edit photos. I don't even think that Picasa has that option!

I don't own a lot of OPI nail polish but I'm so glad when I find one that I can add to my collection that I know I'll go back to!  If you want to get your hands on OPI polish I would check out Ulta or even now Sally Beauty Supply!

Do you own Charged Up Cherry? Whats your favorite OPI Polish? I wanna know! 

<3 Nicole

Sinful Colors: Cool Gray.

Good morning guys!

Hope you all are having a wonderful morning! For those of us who are finishing up the fall semester at school, good luck to you all on finals!!! Today is my last day of the semester too but I don't have any finals. I just have to give a speech in my Business Communications class. I am the worst public speaker. This would be the third speech for this class and every time my heart feels like it it going to leap from my chest!

Anyway wish me luck on it and lets jump into today's post!

Today I have for you a polish I picked up in the fall that I clearly never got to swatch for the blog but I have worn and its kind of a favorite of mine. I remember my Wal-Mart had a huge middle of the isle display with all new and old Sinful Colors on it. Now I have had gray polishes in the past, the two that jump to mind are the Claw Polish in Phantom and China Glaze Immortal. I did a dupe post here if you want to take a look.

This polish just a straight up creme finish, which is why I love it so much. Cool Gray is the name and its is as the name says pretty cool. If you saw in my last post the Instagram shot I did of snowflake nails back last week I used Cool Gray as a base color.

The formula on this isn't thick or too thin, but you definitely need two coats to make it opaque. This is a polish I will find myself grabbing for anytime of the year. 

The photos were taken inside with a make shift light box I  made over the summer and don't have anymore because it got crushed. This also when my nails looked nice too, after the fall semester my nails took a nose dive and got really bad and I have had nubbins for the last three months. Hopefully now I can start to grow them out a little more. Although I do like having shorter nails it makes stamping easier. 

I hope you enjoyed today's post and I will have another one for you guys soon! I'm thinking it might be a make up post with some swatches of the new Lorac Sweet Temptations Eye Shadow palettes I just got a couple weeks ago! 

Until then! 

<3 Nicole 

45 Days Of Untrieds: Day 8 China Glaze Unrefined.

Hey guys! I apologize for this post being a day late. Life has been crazy busy and adding on this amazing challenge has made me realize that there are just not enough hours in the day to everything!

Between work and the blog and family life I have been exhausted the past few days, so once again I apologize for not having a post yesterday.

Day 8's Untried is from China Glaze, I think China Glaze is one of my favorite brands that I own, I know I own quite a few of them and there will definitely be a few more making their way into this challenge.

Unrefined comes from the China Glaze Texture collection. I remember seeing this collection back in the beginning of the year maybe around March? I remember going to the Beauty Plus Salon and was happy they had them.

This is one of the first creme texture polishes I own. I don't know how much I like it in comparison to the Frosted Gumdrops or the Liquid Sand Polishes but they are pretty nifty.

Unrefined is a pretty pastel pink color. Its fairly bright and I like it with my skin tone. The texture finish is that more of I think I have heard bloggers describe it as a popcorn ceiling effect. I have to agree with it 100%.

I had to use three coats to make it opaque and to get the texture to even out. The texture bits seem to already in the polish when you apply it because I could see them on the brush and on the nail. I didn't add a top coat, obviously to ruin the effect.

I have two other colors I plan on showcasing during the challenge so keep on a look out for those. The only thing I didn't like about this polish was that it chipped really easily, where as with the glittery ones from OPI and Julie G, they stayed on my nails well, and the base coat I always use is Nail Envy by OPI.

Don't forget to check out Adrianna's nails and Shaylads untireds!

<3 Nicole

Do you prefer creme or glittery texture polishes??

China Glaze Light As Air.

Hello and happy Friday!!! Hope all is well!

Today I bring you a polish that has been on my wishlist for a while. A couple weeks ago I went to a beauty supply store with my BFF  Stephanie that is for professionals only. Lucky for me she s a licensed cosmetologist and can get me into the really good stores. This store was called Cosmo Prof. I think it is the same company that puts on the Cosmo Prof trade show that's for professionals, if I have my facts straight about it.

Anyway there is one little Cosmo Prof. store about 40 minutes from where we live and we decided to take a road trip to find it. Once we found it we were undoubtly excited to get in there and see what we could find. She blames every nail polish she purchases on me, I love being an enabler!

The store isn't huge but big enough that is has pretty much all the OPI's you can dream of and some China Glaze. I was hoping they would have more choices in brands of polish, especially Color Club but no. They had a few other brands I had never heard of as well but they weren't so appealing. So I stuck to picking out one or two OPI's. Usually OPI's are $8.99 when I purchase them at other beauty supplies that are open to the public like The Beauty Plus Salon, but here at Cosmo Prof they were $4.25 a piece! What a steal! So I immediately went looking for the Euro Centrale Collection which they had displayed on an end cap. They had all of the DS polishes too, but there weren't any prices on them so I didn't buy any. After grabbing a couple of OPI's  the employee's showed us the clearance section. Now there wasn't much to choose from sadly, most of the polishes were ones I already had or ones I knew I didn't want. Plus a lot of them were older and separated which means they had been sitting there some time. There was one polish though that caught my eye which was China Glaze Light As Air. Light as air is from the Up & Away collection, when I first started collecting polishes I made an ultimate list of what I wanted to buy off of one of the E retailers and this was on that list.

With the clearance price it was on sale for $1.99! I couldn't pass that up so that was the last one I grabbed. So that's what I have to show you, Introducing Light As Air.

These photos are two coats, no top coat and in natural light.

Light As Air is a crème finish polish that I would say is a lavender grey color. Two coats brings it to perfect opacity, and for once on the first coat there wasn't much streaking at all! You'll see in a later post I used this as a base for some nail art!

I'm definitely glad I grabbed this polish, I can't wait to wear it when the warmer spring weather arrives. I think spring is trying to break through early, its now march so its only 19 days away officially. Every time we get snow its gone by the next day since the temps are finally above freezing!


I only have one complaint about Cosmo Prof. The employees as much as they were trying to be helpful, they were extremely rude and annoying. They literally followed me and Steph around like we were criminals waiting to see if we were going to steal anything. Every turn it was "can I help you" I explained to them that I am a nail blogger and I know what I was looking for but mainly browsing too. The clerk looked at me like I have three heads, when Steph asked the lady at the front counter what product she used to get her hair blue, I mean it was this nice vibrant blue that faded out towards the bottom, the lady replied " uh bleach." and Steph went " I know that but what did you use to get the blue color?" I understand people have the right to be aware when people come into their store and there just browsing, I work in retail I know, but at least there could of been a little more hospitality and not so much hovering like we were little kids.

So until next time!
<3 Nicole

Loreal Paris! Rainy Piccadilly!

Good morning!

For those of us on the east coast I'm sure many are preparing for the Nor'easter that is headed our way! Here in upstate we are expecting rain and maybe that dreaded 'S' word!

Today's polish is then very fitting for the type of weather we are about to receive, it is another Loreal Paris polish from their British collection. It is called (and this is one of my favorite names) Rainy Piccadilly!

For those who are not familiar with Piccadilly Square it is sort of Like New York's Time Square.

This polish is a stunning dusty navy blue creme. It is pretty much how we would picture a rainy day in a bottle.

I was originally on the fence about this polish. I didn't initially want to get this polish since I am not a huge fan of dark blue polishes. As soon as I saw it in real life I thought I had to try it, I thought maybe it would be close to Sinful Color's Rainstorm but it isn't its darker and dusty-er. Rainstorm which will be on the blog eventually is more dirty looking if that's even possible.

The formula on Rainy Piccadilly is okay, standard for a creme polish. I know I probably sound like a broken record right now saying that the first coat was streaky. It was beyond streaky, very patchy and it created a lot of bald spots. I seriously considered taking it off because I thought it was going to be too difficult to work with. Upon the third coat it seemed to even it self out and become opaque.

Clean up was the usual, the bits of my cuticles that touched the polish did have slight staining, if I had taken more time with my old angled brush I use to clean up with I could have probably gotten rid of it. My worst fear though was that this polish was going to stain my nails! I kept thinking back to a story my bestie told me when she tried Pacific Blue from Sally Hansen, and how it stained her nails and she even used a white polish underneath. By now I was regretting not putting undies on my nails!

I wore this polish for three days straight, and no major problems until of course I was at work on Saturday morning and a chipped my middle finger on my photographing hand and now have a nub. :(
Since Saturday was so busy I did see a lot of tip wear but the first two days were pretty good.


Now I've been trying a different type of base coat when apply my polishes lately, Alaina over at The Little Canvas tweeted that she had been using a matte top coat as a base coat and her polishes haven't been chipping. Now I had been using Orly Bonder every single time and my polish  has chipped but not as bad as it was before I used Bonder, but still I would love to make it through one night of work without any chips. So I decided to try it, I used my NY Color matte top coat and it worked amazing!

I definitely recommend it if you are having trouble with chipping, and the best thing is, is that NY Color Matte top coat only about two bucks! Talk about affordable!

So when it came time to remove Rainy Piccadilly I prayed to the nail gods that my fingers nails would not be blue. Here is where I think maybe the base coat had a hand in it, my nails came out clean as a whistle. So after all that worrying, I had no need to be.

I think if you are a lover of blue polish and lovely creme finish than maybe Rainy Piccadilly is a polish that should join your polish family!

Talk to you all soon! Nicole

My very first Essie Polishes!

Hi everyone! Hope all is well!

Today for once I didn't have to get up at the butt crack of dawn to go to work, I love having a Saturday off! What is even better is work is kind enough to give me next Saturday off too! Apparently the customer service gods are shining on me :)

Today I bring you my very first ever Essie Polishes! I have always love the brand, always ogled at them in drugstore when they started showing up there, but at $8 a pop I couldn't justify buying one, when $8 can buy me like 5 of a more cheaper drugstore brand polish. Maybe its the bottle size that is intimidating to me, I mean I have walked into beauty supply stores before and walked out with an OPI Polish and there about 50 cents to a dollar more, so why have I waited so long???

 Yup I dragged my mom out of the house at 11:30 this morning solely to go to Big Lots to find some discount polishes since the rumours are flying around that you can find some really decent polishes there now. The only thing I don't like about Big Lots or as my mother kept referring to it as "Odd Lots" is that not all of them have the same items, and some store won't get the overstock that another store does. With all intentions full steam ahead I went in and prayed I would be one of the lucky ones.

The outcome of my trip? FAIL! Not really any polishes at all! A few sets of obscure Revlon Colors that weren't that appealing and a few of the Sally Hansen Nail Pens but no huge bins of discount make up items to dig through :( I became a sad panda.

So I dragged my mom down the road to the next shopping plaza where I knew I would be somewhat successful. Its got a Sally's, Five Below, TJ Maxx and Kohl's, Walmart, Rue 21. One of these places or more were bound to have some polish I want. Now I know I said I was on a 'No Buy' but looking at the calender I did a successful month of no buys, I actually started July 15th. but didn't start talking about it till almost the 1st of August. Today is the 18th so exactly one month and 3 days!

Although I probably will go on another month of no buy now since I bought a few. That's what I do at least. Well unless the new L.E. Maybeline Fall Fashion Week Polishes come out....

Anyway enough rambling! On to the polish. These are the two beauties I picked up at TJ Maxx!

These are Raise Awareness (pastel pink) and Infatuation (darker pink)!. I believe they are in the salon bottles since the caps have a large lower case E on them and the names are on the bottom and they don't have the Essie name in the white label like we see in drug stores today. I snagged these lovelies for $3.29 a piece! Score!

Here is the manicure I created with them!

Pretty self explanatory, I think every nail polish lover and blogger has done a manicure like this. Each color is two coats both reach perfect opacity. When I got Raise Awareness I thought like every other pastel pink it would be streaky but it was not at all, and no brush drag either. Infatuation is like a nice berry pink that I don't have in my collection from any one else! These pictures were taken in sunlight with a top coat. Oh and I used my new base coat today too! How many of you use Orly Bonder??

Okay so that is for this post! I do think I will be buying more Essie in the future, my Walgreen's has pretty much a full stock of all the colors and I desperately want Marshmallow, and Penny Talk!

Talk to you all soon!
Nicole!

L.A. Girl Disco Brights. Vinyl Record.

Holy crap!! Long time no post! I am so sorry for not posting! The last time I posted was the last day of the SNARRRKM Challenge. That's over two weeks! I feel that is so unacceptable! I just wasn't inspired by anything.

Although today I am back! Today I have a polish from L.A. Girl Disco Brights polish. This photos and notes on this polish has been sitting in my 'need to blog' folder for at least a month now!

 All of the polishes that are in this collection are creme finishes and glow under a black light! I sadly do not have a black light, so I can't show you how cool this polish is.

Vinyl Record is a pretty teal creme that leads more blue then green. I think I have like three of them now!

The formula on this polish was a dream. Two coats and perfect opacity! The brush is the usual standard brush and I had no problems with it.

I think that this polish would be great to stamp with and then sticking your hands under a black light and only the bits that you stamped light up!

L.A. Girl polishes are usually sold at Rite Aid. At least that's where I got mine from. I don't actually remember how much this was but I want to say it was probably $3.99.