Haul & Swatches - Icing & Claire's Magnetix, Glitter Crackles, Etc

This is around hmm, probably half the hauling I've done lately LOL.  I'll be posting up the other half, which is mainly an order from Nailogy, a little later.

Here's a closer look at the Icing polishes:

Pink, Blue & Silver Magnetix & Purple Glitter Crackle.  I really don't like that Icing doesn't name any of their polishes that have effects.

From Claire's:

Gold Magnetix, Fuchsia & Turquoise Glitter Crackle, & Night Sky - which did in fact turn out to be a dupe for Icing Epic Winning, as you can see in the swatch vid below.

From Hot Topic:

Warpaint Beauty matte top coat Mattify & glow in the dark Glow Turq.

The China Glaze Ulta Exclusive Holiday colors I was so thrilled to find:

Fireside Glow, Ultamate Holiday & Mistletoe Me.

Zoyas - my 2 free bottles & my 2 clearance bottles:

Holly, Izzy, Ali & Paz.

And those that I only had one of each brand:

OPI DS Temptation, Nails Inc magnetic Whitehall, Sephora by OPI Blasted Opalescent Gold, Barielle Pink Sherbert,  Wet n Wild Disturbia (which had something of an accident when I was marbling with it LOL - right into the cup so that's why it's go pink all over).

Lastly (for now), here's a look at a comparison of Night Sky & Epic Winning, swatches of all the Magnetix, and swatches of the glitter crackles:

Thanks for reading =)

~Colette

Guest NOTD: Ulta Smoke Screen

Not only behind with my own NOTDs, but also Mom's.  This is perhaps the most demure of her NOTDs lately that I have pics of - Ulta Smoke Screen:

Thanks for reading =)

~Colette

NOTD: The Evolution of Revlon Dreamer

I was on such a roll yesterday with getting things done, and videos edited, and just as I turned my attention towards this post - the power went out =(  The electrician was working the bathroom, lord knows why my room had to be turned off for the process.  But I am trying to keep momentum & so I'm finishing this today =)  It is my last manicure from 2011

Revlon Dreamer is a perfectly nice blue all on its own:

But I wanted to add some shimmer & I'd just picked up the Special Effects collection, so I added a coat of Finger Paints Motley.  It added a tiny bit of shimmer.  The shade pic shows it best, a lot of the day it was, like in the other pics, nearly invisible:

Without time to fully changed it, I tried one more time for bling, bringing out the big guns - Essie Shine of the Times (aka the easiest to find dupe for Hidden Treasure).  And I finally got my sparkles, lots of them - you can also still see the blue glimmers of Motley underneath in a few shots:

Here's a look in motion:

Yay!  OK, so I know it's February, but I've just been busy.  I am so freaking glad to be ... well, obviously not caught up, but at least operating in the right year LOL.  

Thanks for reading.

~Colette

Friday I'm in Love

Well, I decided that I see no reason not to spread this YouTube-wide collab throughout the blogosphere as well.  Robinmoses & ProfessionalDQ organized one for winter/Christmas that turned out wonderful & as you may have guessed by the title, this one is for Valentine's Day.  Check out Robin's video:

So if you're a blogger join in!  Even if you're not, join in & feel free to share pictures on my Facebook fan page =)  Spread the nail art love this Valentine's!

Thanks for reading.

~Colette

Naked Nails & Update

I'm still here, still alive ... mostly.  I think.  I've been sick for several days, actually missed some work, and I've been so drained I couldn't even make good use of the time by getting some posting done, literally all I've done is sleep.

Anyway, excuses out of the way - I have an absolute crapload of pics to edit.  I still have one mani from 2011 I haven't posted yet.  I need to just sit down & edit & post but I don't know when I'll have time so here are some naked nails from the past month.  

At the beginning of the month I put some fresh patches on; when I changed them this past weekend I decided it was also past time for a chop.  A full centimeter is lovely, probably my preferred length, but difficult to deal with & all but impossible to fit gloves with in the winter.  So now they're down to about 5-6mm, which is as short as I think I can have them & still feel kind of normal LOL.  Still playing a bit with the white balance on the new camera (the top is auto, the bottom 2 are manual & I think reality is somewhere between the 2), so please excuse that & also the post-acetone dryness in the middle pics:

I feel like I've been asking for patience for a long time, but just a little more please =)  & I'll get caught up with nails, and books, and then maybe I can squeeze in a top 25 from last year.  IIRC it took me until the end of March last year LOL - hopefully I can do better than that this year.  But do know my absence here does not mean I've been neglecting my nails

Thanks for reading.

~Colette