Zoya Haul PART III

Hello Lovelies,

Here we are again for my third part of this lovely series I've started :) I am really enjoying this amazing process of trying new colors completely out of my comfort zone! This is my 3rd and final PixieDust polish I picked up from their 3/$12 and even though Stevie holds my actual heart-Tomoko is to DIE for! It is thee most sparkle I have ever seen on my nails. I just could not stop starring at it!

As you can see, it isn't very opaque, this is 3 coats of this beauty. OH WELL! I can totally get over that, seriously! Just LOOK at it sparkle! I figured next time I use Tomoko, I'll probably use a creme or pink polish underneath just to offset having to add a million layers to get the coverage I want!

To me 100% honest, I am having a hard time describing Tomoko's color! When the light hits it one way you pick up a lot of gold tones, and then move your head a different way and it's like completely silver. Just look at the picture above!! It totally just looks like a bunch of silver glitters glistening in the light! :)

This picture, I think it is a bit odd that it seems like it is picking up some green tones..... and then I remembered while I was trying to take pictures- I was wearing a green shirt. So the color it throws off may even pick up on the color it's surrounded by. Which is pretty cool, I think! :)

In the same sense that in this picture, you can really see how sheer it is, yet completely flawless at the same time! It honestly BLOWS MY MIND!!

This is an up-close-and-personal type shot. Some may actually not like this because of fear of being able to see the dirt. You know, that no matter what you do to keep them clean, always manages to end up under your nails. So it may be a hit or miss, but my thought is.... no one is going to be looking at my nails that closely anyway so I'll ROCK my pretty Tomoko painted nails!!

Now, the only problem is to try not to get distracted from my work/school work from starring at my nails to much!! :x


Much Love,
Gingerella

Zoya Haul PART II

Hello Lovelies!

I'm glad to have you visiting my page again, and if this is your first time I'd like to revert you back to my previous post where I stated that I will be doing almost a series-type deal with my polishes I picked up fro Zoya's most recent promo (3/$12)! Also, for a reminder, these are my first (few) Zoyas!

Since I started out with my beloved Stevie, which as we know is a PixieDust, I thought it would be fun to do the rest of the Pixies that I picked up, and then move on to the others. So, this post I will be talking about London!

At first glance, I was a tiiiiny bit disappointed. I don't own a lot of grey polished, actually just one from a sub box I have, and I haven't had the chance to use it. Don't get me wrong, the polish look absolutely beautiful in the bottle-I always have a fear it'll look good in the bottle and NOT on my nails. That is what made me feel a bit indifferent about it!

After a good layer of base coat, and one coat of London, I was feeling more hopeful that this color was going to look fabulous on me! I am a natural red head and all my life I have had to watch which colors I wore. For instance, I have not ever been able to wear red. I completely, 100% washes me out! So, for the sake of apologies- I'm soooo sorry I ever doubted you London!

For me, this polish did go on a bit sheer. Sheerer ( if that is even a word?) than I thought, so I did end up using 3 coats. What I did notice, and I LOVE, about these wonderful PixieDust is that you can absolutely tell whenever they are dry! I'm not even sure how to explain it, but you can see it drying into the textured goodness it promises!

The shine and sparkle this lovely grey matte polish gives off is absolutely mind blowing! I can't really wrap my head around the fact that this is a grey matte polish sparkles so much! :)

And yet in this picture (above) you see a completely different side of this polish. It is dark, and sparkly and you can really see all the detailed textures in the dried polish!

Much Love,

Gingerella 

My First Zoya Haul!!

Hello Lovelies!

I think this is going to be a series type deal..? I took the bait on Zoya's most recent promo sale they had. In case you all didn't hear about it- it was 3 polishes for $12, for a grand total of $4 a bottle! Which no matter which you chose, it was a FANTASTIC deal considering their regular polish is $9 per bottle and their PixieDust collection is $10 per bottle! I will do seperate post and swatches of each individual polishes I ordered. :) I have 6 polishes to share with all of you and I hope you enjoy it! 

First off, these are my first Zoya's so it was really hard for me to narrow my picks down to just 3 after seeing all the beautiful polishes they had to offer! I felt like a little kid at a candy store just oogleing over the sweetest things there! Then I found out they had a polish named "Stevie," and everyone (i know) knows I call my boy friend Stevie! So there was no doubt in my mind, no matter the shade, it was going to be mine! When looking up swatches I found it to be a PixieDust in a light purple shade with silver glitters and I LOVE THE COLOR PURPLE! If you couldn't tell! ;) I was super excited because although I do have one textured polish , OPI's Can't Let Go, I haven't used it yet but I have heard sooo many great things about Zoya's PixieDust Collection! 

So, here we go, it's polish time!! My first of six Zoya's:

I was trying to capture the best angle of the bottle, the shade of purple AND pick up the glitters as well! It was a bit of a pain, and after numerous photos, of almost the same exact thing, I liked this one the best! 

Here I have just a base coat of OPI Nail Envy, and 3 layers of Stevie, NO TOP COAT! :) Although I heard putting a topcoat on PixieDust leave you with a pretty cool effect, I wanted the texture and matte finish like it's supposed to leave. 

I really dig this color, a lot! This picture picks up some of the reflection from the silver glitters, but also showcases the cool purple shades it leaves off!

To be 100% honest, I wasn't sure how I was going to like the feel the texture polish. I was fearing it to be almost like I had sand paper on my nails but it feels more like a buffer, if you ask me. ANYWAYS, I am totally excited about this polish and I can't wait to write about my other pretties! :) Oh and I thiiiink Zoya has won me over! Looking forward to expanding my collection :) 

Much Love,

Gingerella

Quick post!! IMPORTANT

Hello Lovelies! 

Some things have been brought to my attention, so I'd like to address them now! All pictures that I post, with or without my watermark are mine unless noted otherwise! I prefer to use my own pictures and do my own work, but I WILL SITE sources of inspiration when I have resorted to it! Some pictures in my last post were not watermarked, mainly because it was an after thought, but there were some questions. Lol So to clear the air, those are my photos. They were taken the same day as the post, under my OttLight, on my fold away black top table (from Target) and placed on a typical 8.5X11 piece of paper for a better background! :) 

With that being said, I'm looking for a better way to watermark my photos! Open for suggestions! 

Much Love,

Gingerella

Early Valentine's Day mani for Mom

Hello lovelies! I am waiting on some nail mail to write about, but since Valentine's Day is (kinda) right around the corner, I thought I would give my mom a Valentine's Day theme! :)

To start off, I am not using regular polish! My mom works in the medical field so wearing regular polish would chip after a day of washing her hands about a billion times! For Christmas my parents got me an at-home gel polish kit and boy has it changed mine, and her, nail polish life! :) 

This is the kit that I got. I originally found it at Target at a price of $79.99, and honestly that was just tooo much for me to let my parents buy it. So, I turned to Amazon and found it (eventually) for $43.79 and free two day shipping!!! Now that is a price that I was excited about, almost half off the in-store price tag! I have quickly became very addicted to gel polish and all things gel polish! Haha 

Without further ado, here in the complete Valentine's Day themed mani that my Mom is sportin'! 

The gel polishes I used to do this mani include:

2 coats of Finger Paints Gel Polish in Impressionst Pink cured for 45 seconds each coat

Sensationail Color Gel Polish in Sugar Plum for the French tip cured for 20-35 seconds (depends if I remembered to count while working on the other hand!), and

Finger Paints Gel Polish in True To The Art to create the small heart on both ring fingers cured for 20 seconds.

After both hands were completely cured, I like to let them "air out" anywhere from 30-60 seconds and then apply the gel top coat! I applied a thin layer of top coat and made sure that absolutely no top coat was touching any portion of the nail wall or cuticle! Making sure that it isn't touching anywhere and cure for the 45 seconds. See if the top coat is touching the skin at any location, during the curing process, it burns a bit. Not so much that "you're" left with burn marks, it just gets pretty hot and after the nail grows out a bit it will increase the likeliness of the gel polish lifting, and pulling away from the nail. Picking gel polish off is VERRYYY bad!!!!! It will peel layers of your nails off so PLEEASEEE remove by scratching the shiny layer off (with a finger nail file or buffing block), soaking your nails in 100% Pure Acetone, or by using felt squares/cotton balls and aluminum foil for 10-15 minutes. They practically slide right off! After curing the top layer for the 45 seconds, again allow some time for them to get some air, then to get the sticky layer off, you simply take a felt square/cotton ball, dip it in some rubbing alcohol, and rub over all the nails! Last, but not least, apply cuticle oil all around the nail and try and remember to continue to apply cuticle oil throughout the life of the mani! 

Much Love,

Gingerella

Opening my life to the wonderful world of ACTUAL blogging (CAUTION: wordy post :p )

Hey all! I'm fairly new to "actual" blogging, but not really... What do I mean by that? I created a nail page on FaceBook to share my love and passion of nail polish, nail art and standing true behind supporting brands that DO NOT test on animals. :)

In case you are just joining me in this journey, I will spill a little about myself. I am a Senior in college at Penn State studying Electro-mechanical Engineering. I'm so close I can smell it, really, I can! I am pretty busy 90% of the time, the other 10% I am sitting back, relaxing, and doing what I love to do the most-paint my nails! :) I am a daughter, sister, granddaughter, cousin, girl friend, and friend of thee most amazing people ever. My friends, family, and boy friend support me 110% in everything I do! I consider myself very lucky and thank the Man Upstairs every day for the life he has given me. I have been with my boy friend for 3+ years, it'll be 4 in March. Most people eventually say their S/O is their best friend, but boy and I literally have been best friends forever. We met all the way back when I was in 7th or 8th grade on the bus going to school. We were instantly friends and I only realized he was the man of my dreams when he graduated high school and was "leaving me" to go to college. My parents have supported me, like most do, but I feel like mine honestly bend over backwards for me-I don't think they realize how much I appreciate, and love them for that!

SO now on to my nail journey! I was an EXTREMELY terrible nail biter growing up! I would bite and bite and bite until there was basically nothing there. I would be bleeding, and my skin would crack...sorry for that image! Then I turned to acrylics.... bad, bad, bad... BUT that didn't even stop me from biting my nails. Once they grew out a bit, I would bite my nails from under neither the acrylics! I knoooow, I took it to a whole different level. Then, one day I just stopped doing that and stuck with acrylics for a while.... I don't even think I want to know how much I actually spend on getting my nails done every 2-3 weeks for about 3 years!!! Then came my year of "intervention," also known as my Senior year in High School where I was just saving for Homecoming, Prom, summer, college.... So when I finally started college in August 2010, I'm not sure what came over me, but I just STOPPED biting, until my first round through finals. I was too stressed and bit them all off. LOL.  So I have officially been "BITE FREE" since January 2011 :) Since then, a monster has been born. Everywhere I go I am constantly looking for non-tester polish, and good deals, which leads me to say that I have TWO nail mail subscriptions as of right now :)

Much Love,
Gingerella