My Paprika Czechbook is Buff

Almost time for bed, and after a wonderful day of extreme scores at the nail supply shops, I had to use my new colors.

I got all 12 colors from the OPI Euro Centrale collection. Tonight, I used three:

• My Vampire is Buff
• Can't Find My Czechbook
• My Paprika is Hotter Than Yours!

Like this almost 3D look? I love it, and I love the collection!

More to come for nail art of Euro Centrale, I'm sure!

Fix My FAIL: Glitter Fail

Hello!!

Just in under the wire for February I'm introducing, as promised, a new feature: "Fix My FAIL"!

Sometimes my manis come out okay, and sometimes they just...don't. And sometimes they don't more than other times...And I sit staring at them saying to myself 'that looked so much better in my head...there is so much I'd do differently...'

Well, I thought that it might be fun to see what you'd do differently.

The idea is this. Take my mani and make it better. Deconstruct it and rebuild it.  You can do this any way you want--maybe you like the polishes, but not the design, so you want to do a different design with the same polishes (or similar ones). Maybe you like the design, but not the colors I chose. Maybe you see what I was going for and decide to replicate it, but know you can execute it better. Maybe you like what I did exactly as is, but would have added something else to finish it. You just have to have some element of the original manicure, take it, and run with it. I'll give you some more specific examples with the failed manicure below.

This is a for-fun contest, meaning there will be no prize, just the fun of doing it and bragging rights if your manicure 'wins'. For this first go-round, the winner will be chosen by popular vote--whichever entry gets the most 'likes' on the Facebook page will win. If you enter the contest, you cannot like your own entry, of course. I will include the winning manicure in a follow-up post on my blog. :)

Okay, let's take a look at the first FAIL manicure. I started with the beautiful Hare Polish Rusty Hearts, which is a deep red with orange-gold flecks:

Hare Polish Rusty Hearts

Hare Polish Rusty Hearts

With a polish that pretty, you wouldn't think you could possibly be able to make it a fail. But oh, oh, oh, I did. I added a gold-and-black glitter in a swipe around three-quarters of the nail; in my head, this looked really elegant and pretty... Here's what it looked like IRL:

Yeah...not so much.

I hereby officially apologize to these bottles of polish for doing this to them.

Yeah. Not much to be said there except...What a waste of polish.

Okay so. What would count as a 'Fix My FAIL' entry? You can't just submit a swatch of red polish or just any manicure with a totally different design on red polish. What you could do is use a red polish with a black-and-gold glitter, but combine them differently. Or you could do a sweep design with similar placement, but maybe not with glitter, maybe with a hand-drawn flourish instead. Or maybe you think this mani would have worked if the glitter were exactly the same and positioned the same way, but it was over a grey instead of a red. The point is, there must be some recognizable element that relates to this manicure. Other than that, go nuts! Have at it! Have fun! And Fix My FAIL!!!

Can't wait to see what you guys do. :)

Xoxox,
M.

Wear Test: Indigo Bananas Telephasic Workshop

When I receive items from makers for review, I choose one of their polishes to wear for a longevity test.  I'll wear the polish for as long as it takes for it to chip.  As you'll see today, I take pictures each day to show exactly how the polish is lasting each day.  At the end, I'll review the polish as normal and discuss a little about the longevity.  Today's wear test is for Indigo Bananas Telephasic Workshop.  First, let's finish the remaining question and answers I had for Indigo Bananas creator, Andrea!

3) What was your inspiration for the polishes I've chosen to review?

Telephasic Workshop is a medium blue leaning teal polish with a teal/purple/pink duochrome shimmer and fine holo glitter and is one of my favorite polishes out of all the ones I've made. I have so many teal polishes, and so many are yellow leaning/too green or plain cremes, so I tried to make something I really wanted to wear but didn't have.  So. initially my inspiration was definitely "a teal that will not make my hands red and with a lot of hidden color changes, shimmer and sparkle" paired with one of my favorite Boards of Canada songs.  

Anansi is a glass fleck duochrome, deep emerald green to lighter greenish silver to purple.  The name also came first for this polish - Anansi is a lesser folk-god from West Africa & the Caribbean, and a darkened emerald green with deep purple shift seemed perfect for that kind of sneaky trickster.

First, here's the basic info with photos from day one of Telephasic Workshop.

Color: Teal with flashes of blue and pink.

Finish: Chrome – a polish that shifts between colors depending on the angle you look at it.

Bottle / Brush: Round bottle brush (i.e. Seche Vite) – standard width and length.  Easy to control and manipulate.

Opacity: High – opaque in two coats!  Probably could've done three easily, but I only needed two.
Glitter Application: N/A

Consistency: Medium – applies easily and doesn’t flood the cuticles.

Overall Ease of Application: Easy – applies well without pooling, dragging, streaking, or balding.  Spreads evenly and smoothly.

Stampability: Not tested for stamping.

Dry Time: Medium – dry to the touch with minimal smudging in 3-8 minutes.

Day Two:
Still going strong!  No tip wear.  Gorgeous shift.  Fantastic finish.

Items used:

• Basecoat: Orly Bonder 
• Topcoat: OPI Topcoat (black label) 

Day Three:

Minimal tip wear, but still no chips.  Shift is still strong.

Indoor light brings out the green in Telephasic Workshop.

Again, the indoor lighting brings out the green in the polish.

Minimal tip wear.

And the mix of florescent lighting, computer monitor ambient lighting, and  little bit of sunlight, and you get this amazing shot of pink.

Day Four:

One chip on my middle finger on my right hand when I woke up.  Otherwise, everything else still looked great.  Minimal tip wear, no chipping anywhere else.  Granted, as you can see, my nail itself chipped, so that could be the culprit for the chipped polish!

That is, no chipping until I got into the hot tub.  Pools and hot tubs are horrible on my nails.  After I got out, Telephasic Workshop was chipping all over the place.  Poor guy didn't stand a chance...

Overall Thoughts: Indigo Bananas Telephasic Workshop is a seriously gorgeous polish.  I wish I would've waited to hop into the hot tub to see exactly how long this bad boy would last.  Honestly, though, I don't usually wear polish more than a day or two, so I wouldn't have gotten to the point where I had chips on a normal wear.  The consistency was great.  It applied so easily without any pooling or dragging.  It dried relatively quickly, but I didn't use a quick dry top coat, so it did take a little bit longer than it would've had I used Seche or LL No Time.  All in all, this polish is amazing.  Based on the microcosm of polishes I've sampled from Indigo Bananas, the brand as a whole is solid.  The polishes are highly pigmented, they apply easily, last a long time, they're unique, and they're beautiful.  I can't get enough of them!  I have like 10 more on my wish list for after my no buy is up.  If you are interested in them but are worried about IB being a newer brand, I can tell you that Andrea has tested these polishes for a very long time, some since last summer, before she put them out for sale.  She's very communicative if you have any questions or problems, which is great when looking for a company with good customer service.  In conclusion, I love Telephasic Workshop as well as the rest of the Indigo Bananas that I received, and I can't recommend them enough.

You can purchase Indigo Bananas at her shop.  Follow Andrea and Indigo Bananas on Facebook and her blog for news, updates, and links to blogger reviews.

*I was not financially compensated for this post. I received a sample for review purposes. The opinions are completely my own based on my experience.  For more information, please see my Disclosure Policy in the tab above.* 

Empowering Women nail art contest: Winner announced!

Hello!!

As you may know, I recently held my very first nail art contest; the theme was 'Empowering Women' and the purpose of it was to raise awareness for Inspire Me 2 Aspire's International Women's Day chat event, and to encourage strong, creative women to become mentors for the project. The contest brought in both beautiful nail art and women willing to mentor teen girls, so on both accounts it was a huge success!

This contest was very graciously sponsored by Llarowe; as everyone knows, Llarowe specializes in hard-to-find nail polishes and gorgeous indie brands. The prize they donated was a $50 gift card for the winner.

The contest judge, Jenny Ellis of Inspire Me 2 Aspire, has chosen the winner, and is debating her two honorable mentions. However, before I announce the winner, I want to show you the beautiful entries we received. I'll present them here in the order we received them.

First up is this entry by MesiaszCiszy:

Next up is Misha of Enigmatic Rambles, with a manicure that represents the different stages of womanhood:

The next entry was submitted by Norma Maria:

Here is what she had to say about her entry: Hello, here is my entry to the nail art contest. My main idea was to demonstrate how women can support and empower each other and how some women might feel isolated (looking at one nail) but looking at the bigger picture (all the nails) there are other women around them, with open arms, ready to go together and support each other. I am aware that my design looks rather simplistic but I wanted to take part of the contest to raise awareness of empowering women and people overall, being a mentor for a teenager myself (unfortunately for another charity), I know how rewarding the job is and how much it helps people in need. Mentoring online sounds very interesting and definitely has big future because of the accessibility. I hope more people will join IM2A mentoring in the future.

Next up was Diana Van Nisselroy: 

Here is her description of what inspired her: Inspired by a song from Delta Goodrem - Be Strong

"And when you're like a single flower, Whose colors have turned to shades of grey, Well hang on, Be strong"

From thumb to pinkie the flower turns in to shades of grey but from pinkie to thumb the flower gets his colors back :)

I find her songs/ lyrics especially this one beautiful and inspirational when you feel down for some reason it will gives you power to be strong and hang on and don’t give up. And Delta is a beautiful empowering woman who overcome Hodgkin's Lymphoman cancer at the age of 18. Be strong is inspired by that period of her life. She was strong did not give up and now is a beautiful strong adult woman with an amazing music career. And she got strength and inspiration from her bad period in life.

Next to enter was Gin Shivers of Baroque Fool: 

Here is her description of her manicure: This is my Empowering women nail look. It has a simple base and over it OPI Spotted black that represents that a strong women can always get what she wants no matter how hard is it to attain. Over it I added some Essence flakies that give the impression of fire wich represents the passion that makes this woman an inspiration to others. And on top there are some studs becouse a strong modern woman must be though.

The next entry was from Brush Me Blush:

This is what she had to say about her entry: It is a surreal design I call "creation of the universe".
This design was inspired by the saying: you guide the stars, the stars don't guide you. It's supposed to show that even seemingly the most insignificant actions may be the most important to someone.


And last but not least, the final entry was from Amber:

Here's what she had to say about it: Contest entry: For my mani, I channeled Cleopatra, who I see as a strong independent woman also known for her shrewd political moves and beauty. She was known to create her own makeup even, so I though she was perfect because… I'm really into polish and making my nails pretty! At the same time, she showed that women don't have to ditzy if they are pretty (she showed that you can have it all and still be taken seriously), you can be strong and smart, maybe even enough to rule a country!

From Wiki: Cleopatra originally ruled jointly with her father, Ptolemy XII Auletes, and later with her brothers, Ptolemy XIII and Ptolemy XIV, whom she married as per Egyptian custom, but eventually she became sole ruler. Cleopatra is portrayed as a great beauty, and her successive conquests of the world's most powerful men are taken as proof of her aesthetic and sexual appeal.


And the winner is...:

I'm very glad I didn't have to choose, because I'm not sure I could have! Jenny chose her winner based on how well she thought it represented the theme of empowering women, in line with Inspire Me 2 Aspire's mission statement. Her choice, and the winner of the $50 Llarowe gift certificate is...

Diana Van Nisselroy!

I love that Diana won because she was so worried that her manicure didn't fit with the theme, but it completely did. It's a beautiful visual representation of how a woman can bloom through life's difficulties and obstacles to become even more beautiful than before. :)

Please join me in congratulating Diana, and come back tomorrow to see which two manicures were chosen for honorable mentions!

Thanks to everyone that entered, thanks to Llarowe for sponsoring, and thanks to you for reading!

Xoxox,
M.

Top Nail Polish Bloggers Get PixieDusted!

Swatches and reviews of the textured, matte and sparkling
Zoya PixieDust Collection
have been flying in...



"Godiva is a soft nude with the silver matte sparkle that you will see in this entire collection. This is an unexpected love for me, I love how it is a neutral with a twist- so if you want to try this finish, but don't like wearing funky colors, this was made for you. Shown is three thin coats." - Lawless Lacquer

Click here to see the entire review and full set of swatches from Lawless Lacquer. 

 


"I love them, truly! I am totally down with a textured finish. I’ve been hoping for a few years that companies would start doing something other than just plain glitter. It doesn’t bother me that they aren’t completely smooth to the touch, as most glitter polishes aren’t either." - Vampy Varnish 

 Click here for the entire review and swatches from Vampy Varnish.





 









"Zoya describes Chyna as: "a red dazzle with a sugared sparkle."  I LOVE this color!!  Chyna is sooo gorgeous!!!  It has so much depth!  It's stunning and it's my favorite of the PixieDust Collection" - Captivating Claws

Click here for the entire review and full set of swatches from Captivating Claws.

"As I said, application is different than I’m used to. Typically with dense glitters, I use thicker coats…my goal is to suspend the glitter in the base for a shiny smooth finish. With PixieDust, you want to reveal the glitter instead. So the thinner the coats the better. This will allow the glitter to “stick out” from the base, which gives it that textured finish." - work / play / polish

Click here for the entire review and full set of swatches from work / play / polish.





ZOYA IS THE NEW COLOR OF FASHION!
www.zoya.com

kur by LONDONTOWN Giveaway Winner

EDIT 2/27: Our first winner Daphne unfortunately does not live within the US. We've selected a new random winner, and the edits have been made below.

Thanks to everyone that entered the kur by LONDONTOWN giveaway last week! I received over 80 entries!

Using Random.org to generate a number from 2 to 82, I received the following:

I then checked this number against the spreadsheet of responses in the Google form (organized by date the user submitted their form), and the winner was selected...

 Congratulations to Kelli Dobrin!

You are the winner of the $125 kur Nail Treatment System giveaway!

I have sent Kelli an email and will await her reply.

Thank you all for entering, and continue to follow LONDONTOWN USA on Pinterest for great nail art inspiration, as well as helpful how-tos to keep your hands in top shape.

Dupe Or No Dupe? Spoiled Pirate's Booty vs. Sinful Colors All About You

Hello!

I promised you that it would return before month's end, and so it has! I also promised to introduce another new feature this month called 'Fix My Fail', which will be an interactive feature on my facebook page, so stay tuned for that!

But in the meantime, Dupe Or No Dupe returns, and I have an all-drugstore installment today. My drugstore world is slowly getting smaller and smaller since I discovered there seems to be some lack of clarity about whether or not Revlon is involved with animal testing in China. There seems to be no clear answer for this, but Revlon is now selling product in China, and animal testing is actually *required* there for cosmetics, although there do seem to be some cosmetic types that are exempt from this. Revlon hasn't clarified this, and I hope they do (clarify) and I hope that they don't (test on animals).

Anyway, point is, other drugstore brands like Wet n Wild that are definitely cruelty-free play a bigger part in my life when another brand goes to the darkside! So let's return now to the actual dupe-or-no-dupe post. :)

When I recently began re-swatching my polish collection (before my life exploded into a haze of packing boxes and moving madness) I noticed that these two polishes seemed to be awfully similar...Take a look at Spoiled's Pirate's Booty and Sinful Colors' All About You in their bottles:

Spoiled Pirate's Booty vs. Sinful Colors All About You

Both are pretty glitters that consist of mostly gold, with bits of orange thrown in for good measure. Here they both are layered over China Glaze's Budding Romance; can you tell which nails have which polish?

Pirate's Booty vs. All About You

Pirate's Booty vs. All About You...which have which?

What's the verdict? I CALL DUPE. I can't tell them apart in the bottle, in the pictures, or in real life. These are exactly the same as far as my little eyes can detect. Even the formulas were dead-on the same.

So which should you get? Well...these polishes are the same price normally ($1.99), and periodically go on sale at the drugstores such that you can get them for $1. So I'd say, whichever you get on sale first! The other issue I should mention is that Sinful Colors is now owned by Revlon if that controversy matters to you; it seems that Sinful Colors still doesn't test on animals themselves, but are owned by a parent company that does. (If you want more information about my position on these issues, please visit my Cruelty-Free Stance page. )

(Oh, yeah, btw...All About You is on my index and ring fingers, and Pirate's Booty is on my middle and pinkie. :) )

Thanks for taking a look, and Happy Tuesday!

Xoxox,
M.

Zoya Nail Polish in Sharon is BACK - For a Limited Time Only!

Zoya Sharon Makes A Special Appearance...

Zoya Nail Polish in Sharon made her debut at the Peter Som Spring/Summer 2013 runway show at Mercedez-Benz Fashion Week (MBFW) with sister polishes Zoya Jacqueline and Zoya Neely. The memorable funky french manicure look that was created for the show featured two of the three custom shades - Zoya Neely as the base color and Sharon as the french tip. After MBFW, Jacqueline and Neely went on to join the Spring 2013 Lovely Collection and Zoya Sharon fulfilled her life-long dream of becoming a secret agent (get it - ZP9007) and went off to her first mission. For a limited time only, Zoya Nail Polish in Sharon is back in town visiting her sister polishes and is making a special appearance on www.zoya.com! Here's your chance to add Zoya Nail Polish in Sharon to your collection - before she heads off to her next mission!

NOW through 11:59pm EST, 03/06/13 (or while supplies last) get Zoya Nail Polish in Sharon FREE* with any $20 purchase - Bonus: FREE standard ground shipping included!  
Code: SHARON
How it works1. Add $20 or more Zoya, Qtica or Qtica Smart Spa products to your shopping bag. 

2. Enter Code SHARON into the coupon code field in cart and press "Apply Code". (Zoya Sharon will automatically be added to the bag)  

3. Complete check-out, review and submit order.
* Terms and Conditions 
Valid online at www.zoya.com 02/26/13 through 11:59pm EST, 03/06/2013. Continental US only. Not valid in conjunction with other coupons, codes or promotions. Returns or exchanges of promotional items not permitted. Art of Beauty is not responsible for incorrect addresses, credit card entry errors or errors associated with declined credit cards . Code must be entered at the time of purchase. Limit 1 promotional order per account.

ZOYA IS THE NEW COLOR OF FASHION! 
www.zoya.com

Review: China Glaze Avant Garden Part 2

Hello!!

Okay, after a brief pause, here is part 2 of the China Glaze Avant Garden collection. If you missed part 1, you can find it by clicking here. I'll be back with the final three polishes that I bought from the collection later this week.

Let's take a look at China Glaze Sunday Funday, a muted sky blue creme:

China Glaze Sunday Funday in the shade

China Glaze in the sun

The formula on this polish was great, and that's the last time you'll be hearing this during this post. It applied like a dream, smoothed out on its own, and gave flawless coverage. This is one of my favorites of the collection. :)

Next is China Glaze Dandy Lyin' Around, a frosty creme concoction that I really wanted to love, but that just didn't love me back:

China Glaze Dandy Lyin' Around in the shade

China Glaze Dandy Lyin' Around in indirect light

As I say, I really wanted to like this. When I have nail art that I want to do with a white base, plain white cremes are usually too stark and uneven. So on the surface, this seemed the possible solution to my issues--a softer white with a pretty shimmer and an awesome China Glaze formula. Yeah, not so much. This certainly was better than a standard white, but not by a whole lot. It was uneven and took three coats to get even--and if you look, you can still see some patchiness. Also, it wanted to do strange things at the tips of my nails for some reason, not sure why--either it didn't dry the way most China Glazes do or it reacted with my Seche Vite, I'm not sure which. Sigh...

And finally for today, China Glaze Budding Romance, a split-pea green crelly:

China Glaze Budding Romance in the sun

China Glaze Budding Romance in the sun

China Glaze Budding Romance in the shade

China Glaze Budding Romance in in direct light

China Glaze Budding Romance in the shade

I absolutely adore this color--it's my favorite from the collection, by far. I love greens and this is a pretty-ugly sort of green; not quite ugly enough to be ugly-pretty but definitely with an edge. In terms of color, this will quickly make my favorite-greens list. However...the formula...the formula...::weeps:: This gave me all the hassle of a jelly, with patchy, draggy application no matter what I did. I took three coats to get anything that looked remotely like full coverage, and even then, if you look closely on my ring finger, you'll see a patch. Grrrr. Nonetheless, I love the color enough that I will probably throw down with it in the future...maybe I can convince myself to forget the formula issues. #LikeItNeverHappened.

That's it for now--stay tuned for part three where I will rant about the fact that it's spelled 'Mimosa's Before Mani's' on my bottle label and why that drives me completely bat-crap crazy...>.<

Thanks for reading!

Xoxox,
M.

(The polishes reviewed in this post were purchased with my own money.)