300 Follower Giveaway!!

Hello!!

I am so excited that somehow I've managed to reach 300 followers! When I first started this blog I thought I'd be lucky to ever get anyone other than my personal friends to read it, lol. My pictures were horrible, my cuticles really messed up, and my nail art was...well, let's not go there. My pictures are sometimes still horrible, my cuticles sometimes messed up, and my nail art is sometimes still not great, but I think I'm improving slowly. What improvement there has been has been due to your support and feedback, and I can't thank you enough for making this blog one of the high-points of my day.

So, I've decided to have a giveaway! The prize will be a $20 gift certificate to Ninja Polish!

I like the gift certificate option because that way the winner can get whatever suits their personal style; also it can be delivered by e-mail. Also, Ninja Polish ships to most of the world, except Italy and Russia, so the contest can be open and useful to most of the world, and I can make the contest open to everyone and anyone who has a use for the gift certificate. :)

I'm using Rafflecopter for the giveaway; this is my first time using it, so please be patient if I mess something up along the way, lol.

The contest will run for one week, and will close on January 8, 2013, at noon.

I also want to work on improving the blog, so I've incorporated questions about what you like about the blog, and what you'd like to see more of about the blog. I'll definitely be paying attention to the feedback you leave, so thank you in advance. :)

Okay, so here goes:




a Rafflecopter giveaway

Again, thank you so much for your support! I can't tell you how much it means to me!!!!!

Xoxox,
M.

Happy New Year!

Happy new year, everyone!!!  I hope everyone had a nice and safe time celebrating the new year last night.  I spent my night passed out on the couch.  I'd like to say it was from alcohol, but it was actually from being sick...  I'm still running a low grade fever, but I really wanted to get a post up today since I've been slacking so much lately.  Today, I'm going to show you part 2 of my Kelara swatches: Daydream, Dragon Scales, and Mother Earth.  I'll have my final Kelara for you guys tomorrow.  Get ready, this post is going to be very picture heavy!

When I received my Kelara Lacquers, they came packaged in these cute little organza bags.  I really liked the presentation.  It was like opening up a party favor.

Daydream

Color: White with blue, teal, and pink glitters and a micro iridescent shimmer.

Finish: Glitter Jelly – glitter in a colored jelly base.

Bottle / Brush: TKB hexagon brush – lid is tapered at the bottom and larger at the top, which helps with handling the brush and application.  The wand is an average length.  The brush is thin but long, so you have to make sure you don’t load up on polish on your brush otherwise it may pool up on your cuticles.

Opacity: Medium – achieves opacity at three to four coats.

Glitter Application: 

Easy – Spreads evenly without much manipulation.

Consistency: Thick – thick but is easily remedied with some polish thinner.

Overall Ease of Application: Medium – applies well with minimal pooling, dragging, streaking, or balding.  Spreads well without much manipulation.

Stampability: Not designed for stamping.

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

Overall Thoughts: Like with Saturn, I had to add a little bit of thinner to this guy to make it easier to spread.  Once I did, though, it applied very easily.  The glitters came out easily and spread well.  It's almost too glittery for my taste.  I did three coats on all fingers but my ring finger, which I did a jelly sandwich with OPI Don't Touch My Tutu.  I'm definitely going to jelly sandwich it or wear it with unders next time.  It's a pretty and delicate polish that will be perfect for springtime.

Dragon Scales

Color: Green with gold micro glitters.

Finish: Shimmer – a polish that shimmers in the light from micro glitters.

Bottle / Brush: TKB hexagon brush – lid is tapered at the bottom and larger at the top, which helps with handling the brush and application.  The wand is an average length.  The brush is thin but long, so you have to make sure you don’t load up on polish on your brush otherwise it may pool up on your cuticles.

Opacity: High – opaque at one coat!  I used two coats for the photos.

Glitter Application: N/A

Consistency: Thick – thick but is easily remedied with some polish thinner.

Overall Ease of Application: Medium – applies well with minimal pooling, dragging, streaking, or balding.  Spreads well without much manipulation.

Stampability: Not tested for stamping.

Dry Time: Quick – dry to the touch without smudging in under 3 minutes.

Overall Thoughts: Wow.  I was blown away by this polish.  As you can see from the macro shot, not only does this polish have gold flecks, it also has micro green holo particles that make this polish sparkle.  Again, I added a little thinner, but it applied easily once added.  The gold in Dragon Scales seriously makes this green glow.  It's definitely one of my top greens.

Mother Earth

Color: Gold glitters in three sizes in a clear base.

Finish: Glitter Top Coat – glitter in a clear base to be worn as a top coat or in a jelly sandwich.

Bottle / Brush: TKB hexagon brush – lid is tapered at the bottom and larger at the top, which helps with handling the brush and application.  The wand is an average length.  The brush is thin but long, so you have to make sure you don’t load up on polish on your brush otherwise it may pool up on your cuticles.

Opacity: Glitter topcoat – not designed for full opacity.

Glitter Application: Medium – requires the dab method, but spreads evenly.

Consistency: Thick – thick but is easily remedied with some polish thinner.

Overall Ease of Application: Medium – applies well with minimal pooling, dragging, streaking, or balding.  Spreads well without much manipulation.

Stampability: Not designed for stamping.

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

Overall Thoughts: Mother Earth is so packed full of glitter, that you definitely need to add quite a bit of thinner to get it to a more easily flowing consistency.  At least, for me, I like for my glitters to spread a little more sparsely rather than being total glitter bomb.  Once I added thinner, the glitters spread evenly without much work.  If I left the consistency the same as when I received it, I would definitely have to use the dab method.  I swatched it over Saturn, and they looked great together.  Like most glitters, removal was a bit difficult.  I recommend using the glue basecoat method or the foil method.  I don't own much gold, so I'm glad to have this beauty in my stash.  It's like wearing jewels on my fingers.

You can purchase Kelara Lacquers at their Etsy store.  Follow them on Facebook for news on updates and new colors.

Which of the Kelara Lacquers that I've shown you so far is your favorite?

*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.* 

NOTD: Black & White

Happy New Year!!

I hope you had a wonderful New Year's Eve and are recuperating accordingly! I'm feeling very optimistic about this coming year, so much has transformed in my life and there is so much beauty and joy coming to all of us, I truly believe. :)

With this New Year, I start a new challenge, a 31 Day challenge that runs the length of this month. The first prompt is 'Black & White', and I've been stumped on this one for some time. I started working on this challenge about mid-December, putting together manicures because I've heard from experienced challengers that the way to do these successfully is to get a head start. Well, I've completed about half of them, most toward the beginning of the challenge, but this one was giving me fits and starts. Finally I came up with an idea for it two nights ago as I was falling asleep:

You see, it's not about races. Just places, faces.

I've seen the bright get duller...

I'm not going to spend my life being a color.

I started with a base of two coats of Sally Hansen White On. Over that, I did a gradient with a blend of Sally Hansen White On and Wet n Wild Ebony Hates Chris. I learned quickly that a white/black gradient may be the hardest gradient in the world to do, lol. :)

Over that, I put a coat of China Glaze's Whirled Away; I dabbed for placement a bit so I could get one big white hex on the black part of each nail, and black glitter all over so that it 'disappeared' into the black polish. The original idea was to do this with a smaller more overall glitter (I was thinking Dandy Nails Colorblind Squared), but when I went to get the glitter my eyes landed on this and I just had to use it.

I'm glad I did, because as much as I dreaded this manicure and had a horrid time coming up with a manicure for it, I am IN LOVE with this manicure. I didn't want to take it off, but I had to in order to do my New Year's Eve nails. It just looked so cool on, and I'm going to wear it the next time I wear a black-and-white outfit. And I still want to try the Colorblind Squared version of it too, so hopefully you'll see that soon.

On a final note, as of this posting, I have 299 followers on GFC, and am hoping that I get my 300th on New Year's Day, how cool would that be! Regardless of when it happens, I'll be holding another giveaway, and will be taking my first leap into RaffleCopter. :)

I hope you had a wonderful New Year's, and thanks for looking! And please check out the other black & white manis linked below. :)

Xoxox,
M.

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