Introducing Formula X for Sephora + Teardrop Nail Art Tutorial

I'm always flattered when I'm contacted by a company to do a review.  This was even more than that, an introduction for a completely new nail polish line.  Formula X for Sephora is the next in nail, a 3-free polish that has a wide range of colors, finishes, and products extending to nail appliques & nail care treatments.  Sephora sent me a selection of colors from both the New Classics, and the Celestials.  You can see my thoughts on the collection as a whole, a close up look at the polishes, as well as a tutorial for my teardrop design in this vid:

One thing I forgot to mention in the vid is that the caps are not really square - that's just for looks & can be removed to reveal a normal cap, which makes application much easier.

Here's a closer look at the manicure - I used Pyrotechnic for the base color & Sparklebomb for the teardrops:

So what do you all think?  Have you been in store to see the awesome display of the full collection?  Let me know in the comments!

If you don't live near a store you can always order online from Sephora's website:
http://www.sephora.com/formula-x-for-sephora

Or, if you're just looking for some inspiration, check out the Formla X site:
http://www.formulax.com/

Thanks for reading =)

~Colette
(These were sent to me for review)

NOTD: Goodwill Halloween Faces + Tutorial

This is so my favorite commercial right now - just puts a smile on my face every time I see it, and I (along with nearly everyone else in my family &, it turns out, many people at work) can't help but to sing along - if you haven't seen it yet, you can see it on YouTube here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vw4De9it-8Q&feature=share&list=LLl6OwCbW6bdtZ14hoxJrgwg

So, since the faces are all pretty basic, I decided to try my hand at putting them on my nails.  Just picking out the polish for this manicure took longer than some of my designs!  And would you believe that with over 2000 bottles of polish, I still had a bit of trouble?  I would have liked the pirate's beard to be a slightly lighter brown, but I didn't have one that was a creme, and since I was able to find creme matches for all the others, I didn't want to use a shimmer there.  So I just went with the slightly darker shade that was used for the cat/werewolf.  There were a few other things like that, but overall I think I did a pretty good job color matching everything.

I used black acrylic paint for the details, and 18 polishes for everything else:  China Glaze Papaya Punch, Essie Boxer Shorts, Nails Inc Tate, Nails Inc The Thames, Nubar Milk Chocolate Creme, OPI Alpine Snow, Orly Glow, Orly Orange Punch, Revlon Stone Edge, Ulta Blue Streak, Zoya Blu, Zoya Carmen, Zoya Evvie, Zoya Jacqueline, Zoya Josie, Zoya Neely, Zoya Pippa & Zoya Shawn.  Whew!  But worth it I think:

Here's a close-up view ... I see I could have done a bit more cleanup at the cuticle area LOL:

Here's the tutorial - there are annotations to navigate to each one, so if you only want to see a few of the faces it's easy to jump around:

This was a fun mani, I was a bit sad when I took it off to fix the break in my index (that you might have noticed on some of the pictures on the witch nail).

Thanks for reading!  I hope you all have a safe & happy Halloween =)

~Colette

NOTD: Skull & Crossbones + Tutorial

So, as far as old vs. new posts, I decided that I'm going to do both.  If I just try to do the old stuff, I'll feel like I'm just falling further behind & it would be true.  Plus, with Halloween today & the holidays right around the corner, no way I'd get caught up in time to share this year's themed manis with you.  So, I'll just try to state whether what you're looking at is old or new ... although in the end, it probably doesn't matter that much, right?  Nails are nails & a mani that was beautiful a few months ago is still beautiful today.

This post is a new mani, for this year's Halloween.  I wasn't sure at first if I was going to do any Halloween manis this year, I just didn't have much inspiration, and then I decided to do these ... they weren't my favorite ever, because as you know I'm a perfectionist, but it was fun to do & good practice at freehanding (which I need).  Base colors were OPI Black Onyx & OPI Alpine Snow, bones done with AS & the skull done with black acrylic:

Here's the tutorial:

And I actually ended up doing another, even free-handier, Halloween design - stay tuned for all of the little Goodwill Halloween faces from the commercial!

Thanks for reading.

~Colette

I'm Back! (No, Really This Time)

I've had several people, including my own mother, tell me that maybe I should stop blogging.  But even when I have admittedly large gaps in my posting, I'm still a blogger - this whole nail mini-empire I seem to have built all started here.  When I hand out business cards, it's my blog that's listed ... and every time I hand one out I get a little guilty feeling because I know it's been such a long time.  BUT now I have a Chromebook, so now I'm able to be a little more efficient by doing blog & YouTube related stuff during my lunch break at work.

(The Chromebook was a lovely gift from Google while I was in California a few weeks ago for the Top Contributor's Summit, but more on that later)

Anyway, I'm trying to get caught up all over the place, while at the same time giving myself more to keep up with LOL.  As of a few weeks ago I expanded my social media presence & in addition to this blog, and my Throughout Me blog, and the related YouTube channels, and the Facebook Fan Page, and the Google+ page that I don't use (yet) but set up because it seems inevitable I'll have to link my channel to it, you can now get your fix of me on:

Instagram:  http://instagram.com/mysimplelittlepleasures

Pinterest:  http://www.pinterest.com/colettemslp/

Twitter:  https://twitter.com/ColetteMSLP

(There will be links added for all of them at some point into the sidebar)

There's not much on any of them yet, but I know everyone has their own favorite, I've had requests for all of them for such a long time - I finally ended up giving in because I needed to post & tag a picture on Instagram for a recent sponsored design that I did.  So far I'm most active on Pinterest, because there's so much cool inspirational nail art on there that I'd like to try myself.

Anyway, to sum it up - I will be posting more.  As I'm sure you can guess, I have a TON of material to edit & catch up with, and I may intersperse it with current stuff, or I may go strictly in order ... I haven't decided that part yet.  I just know that I can't afford to get any further behind, and I don't want this blog to just turn into an archive of old pictures.

Thanks for reading =)

~Colette