♥ S.H. Insta-Dri 'Grape Going' ♥

3 thin coats of Sally Hansen Insta Dri Grape Going. No Top Coat.

What a lovely colour. I love this pretty purple shade with prominent blue iridescent shimmer that can be seen in most lighting conditions. It's supposed to be 'Insta-Dri' but I found it took a long timer to dry. This also needs at least 4 coats to hide any bald spots = it is very sheer. I think this will be great as a layering polish, but I am a little disappointed that it this sheer.

On another note, can you imagine creating a polish colour so awesome, that another world famous polish company copies it? That would be a thrill! I'll have to put some thought into what type of polish I would make ... if I could, probably something very similar to the older S.H. Nail Prisms something that dry's fast and has the same formula as the older Nail Prisms = but a shimmery Chocolate brown with Orange and Red duo-chrome-i-ness and Flash.  So, I suppose it would just like Nail Prisms Garnet Lapis, but Chocolaty Brown, With a strong Orange/ Red Flash, but also has alot of shimmery iridescence to it. OR, Like that Nat Robbins Polish I modeled a few months ago, 'Phantom', same shade of Brown just much more opaque and instead of the blurple flash it would be a strong Orange/Reddish Flash & Iridescence. I have seen a polish sorta like this on the blogs recently, but can't remember where.....

If you could make your 'Dream' polish what would it be? or does it exist already.

Back to this polish. The iridescence in this is strong, it completely eclipses the subtle duo-chrome and it is extremely noticeable & beautiful. I did say I would never buy one of these Insta-Dri's again, but it truely is a lovely polish despite the slow drying time & sheerness which I had been warned about =  BUT I had to have it. ( on sale ~ of course ).

This is 3 thin coats, with no Top Coat -  I have a hankering to do some nail art, something easy and simple for this lovely Sunday Evening.....................

Shade

Shade with Flash

Indoor Fluorescent

Sunshine

Shade

Shade with Flash

♥

♥ Rimmel 'Green With Envy' ♥

Rimmel Green with Envy 2 coats with 1 coat of Nailene Acrylic Strong Top Coat

The photos above and the next two are 2 coats of Rimmel Green With Envy, followed by a coat of Nailene Top Coat. I wore this polish twice this week, I had some weird application issues that I found strange. This is a very pretty colour that IS NOT GREEN, this is more of a teal shade. The shimmer in this is prominent and it looks beautiful and 'glowey' in all types of lighting.

Indoor Fluorescent

Indoor Florescent

The rest of these photos are outdoors. I re-wore this polish after my first trial & I got alot of {small} bubbles and weird application issues the second time as well. So this is 3 THIN coats followed with a coat of Nailene Acrylic Strong Top Coat. It wasn't as bad as my first mani, but I still had some tiny bubblez!

Has anyone else had these problems with Rimmel 60 Second Polish's? Everyone else's swatches on Google search images look pretty good, so maybe it is just my application skillz, or the humidity in my region..... Oh well - it's still a pretty shade and  I will definitely not write Rimmel polish's off.....

Shade

Shade with Flash

Shade

♥

♥ Rimmel - 'Night Before' ♥

Rimmel 'NIght Before' 3 thin coats with 1 coat of Nailene Acrylic Strong Top Coat.

Wow - this is a really cool polish. It is vampy and dark but still looks purple in dim lighting.This is an easily accessible polish that is very similar to Claire's Magic however the base colour is a little darker and seems alot more shimmery to me. Rimmel can be found at department stores and pharmacies and I am pretty sure it will be available for a long time.

The false nails I am wearing are Nailene Full Cover Nails = Active Square. I miss wearing my loooong fake nails, but I am doing some around the house and so I needed something a little shorter for the week.

Enjoy The Weekend

Flash

Indoor Fluorescent

Sun

Shade with Flash

♥

happy long weekend

thank you. your support is amazing and overwhelming. Had two incredible meetings this week- and next week is looking likes it will be a nice one too. I am off to work on the next dkny pr girl, and then a second fashion illustration. If you enjoy the blog, it's new look, please link it, tweet it, share the love! I am so appreciative of your help as I work. Until Tues- have a happy memorial day weekend.

(will be doing some fun things here and there this weekend. catch up on twitter!)

photo cred: sweetndainty flickr

in honor of the heat

I am ready to run out and by sundresses... and these straws I saw in anthro a few weeks ago.

see by chloe, jack and lulu

French Connection

I have always been a fan of their simple black and white pieces.

Also planning to check this little pretty out for summer...

french connection

♥ Rimmel 'Climax' w/ Rimmel 'Glam Goth' ♥

Rimmel Climax with Rimmel Glam Goth sponged on tips.

Apparently this is also an older Rimmel polish that was re-packaged when Rimmel changed their bottle shape. This is a nice light lilac shade that I would say is a frosty shimmer......It has some pinky-ness to it that can be seen in the photos and IRL....so a lilac with just a smidgen of pink.

I had a tough time with this polish, I found it to be thick but also the brush seems a little different from most polish brushes that I have experience with. The bristles were dense and also there seemed to be polish 'hiding' in the bushy bristles..... hence the super thick application on my middle finger which resulted in EPIC BUBBLEZ!

But - it turned out to be a lovely shade, I ended up sponging on another Rimmel polish 'Glam Goth' that I found on clearance in fall-time of last year. Glam Goth is a black jelly with dense pink and blue micro-shimmer. Its really neat but very hard to take a picture of. In the the evening sun I can see a prominent rich raspberry shimmer = very pretty.

Instead of sponging the whole tip of my nail, I stared at the middle of my nail, created a 'sponged arc', and then just painted on Glam Goth towards the tips of my nails..... Normally I try to do it all fancy and make sure my nails are evenly sponged - but I am trying to work through my un-tried & un-worn polish's and this Mani will only last for 24-ish hours.

Sun

Sun

 Rimmel Climax, Nailene Top Coat, Rimmel Glam Goth

Shade/Sun

Pinky - raspberry-ish shimmer

This polish seemed really thick to me and I had some problems applying it. I applied it too thickly and got alot of bubbles on my middle finger.

I sponged on Rimmel 'Glam Goth'  a black based jelly with pretty pink and blue shimmer, using an ordinary kitchen sponge cut into a small square.

Then brushed on Glam Goth to fill in the tips of my nails. When it was dry I applied a nice coat of Nailene Acrylic Strong Top Coat.













Below - the rest of these photos are of the lovely Rimmel Climax - 2 thick coats with 1 coats of Nailene Acrylic Strong Top Coat. The next time I wear this it will be many thin, thin THIN coats, becuase this bubbled like crazy on my middle finger so thin coats are the way to go!!!!

Sunshine

Shade w/ Flash

Shade

Flash

♥

lovely lela rose

...has a capsule collection out.

 ( exclusively at bergorf goodman & nieman marcus )

Pretty embellished necklineds and jewel tones.
wondering if the dress comes with the adorable birdcage??

lela rose

wendy mink...

...does it again

wendyminkjewelry

♥ Rimmel Camouflage ♥

Rimmel Camouflage 2 coats with 2 coats of Nailene Acrylic Strong Top Coat

Nothing new and exciting for you; Sorry!.......just trying to get through my many, many, many untried's so I can justify buying more polish! This is a Rimmel shade thats been on the shelves for a while - I guess it's a good seller and so when they changed their polish product packaging this colour stayed in the collection.This is a very pretty green with ( subtle) gold/yellow shimmer.

There was no sunshine during my photo-shoot, but I will imagine that the gorgeous golden shimmer looks amazing in the sun. There are 1 million photos of this polish on Google images = all are lovely. When i know for certain that it will be sunny for a few hours -  I will likely do a skittles of this in the future with other polish I currently have in this shade/finish.

Shade

Shade

Indoor Fluorescent

Shade

♥

nyc

spent another day in nyc yesterday. I am beginning to feel like it is my second home these days.

happy to say my meeting went well- and I hope I can share who it was with very soon.

red cap cards.
and with that said here it what I would have loved to be wearing in that nyc heat

jaeger, philliplim

frieda and nellie

for your bff.

at frieda and nellie

♥ Franken - 'Deco-Rate' ♥

2 coats of Franken DecoRate with 1 coat of Nailene Acrylic Strong Top Coat

Here is a lovely light purple creme I made using N.Y.C. 'China Town' a dark, almost black shimmery purple and a stark white creme polish - 'Billie French White'. With 3/4 of the Billie white in the bottle, I added approximately 15 drops of the N.Y.C. 'China Town' and this is how it turned out. While I haven't really been into the light -almost white- pastel shades of spring, doing a test drive of this franken made me appreciate them a little more.

I named this polish 'Deco-Rate' As I will be doing some crafty and not so fun around the home things in the next few days; I switched from trophy wife length nails to shorter sturdier sporty length Nailene active square nails and will be modeling those for ' Rimmel Week' which is coming up... ummmmmm.... this week.  I will be totally impressed with myself if I can stick to a theme week for more than 4 polish changes.

Sun

Flash - I wish I knew how I got the camera to get a photo like this..... cuz this is perfect!

Shade

Shade

Flash

 Indoor Flourescent

I used Billie French White & N.Y.C. Chinatown for this dusty lilac franken

♥