1 Year Blogiversary Prize 2

Again, this is going to be picture heavy, so less chit chat and more photos!  All of the polishes in this post were either purchased by me or donated for the giveaway and not for review.  Tonight, I only have three polishes from the prize to show you as well as an example Avon - a different color but from the same collection.  Let's get down to business!  As always, click on the photos to enlarge them.  To enter, go HERE.

Here's the second prize again:

Prize Two

Sponsored by Wishes of a Blue-Eyed Girl, Kelara Lacquers, Polished 10, Soflajo, Elevation Polish, Sharla Sells Avon, and Nail Bed Dreams.

Kelara Lacquer Happy Blogiversary, Color Club (unnamed pink), Blue-Eyed Girl Lacquer Birthday Wishes, Soflajo My Sign's Aqua-rium, Elevation Polish Magens Bay, LA Girl 3D Dazzling Pink, Avon Saturn, Julie G Gumdrop Rock Candy, and Bath and Body Works PS I Love You Shower Gel. 

And here are bottle shots of the polishes in the prize:

Avon Starburst

The first polish I want to show you is Avon Starburst, which is a scattered holo in dark fuchsia.  The Avon in the prize is Saturn, which is an orange scattered holo.  

Can I just say that this polish was AMAZING?!  Like, seriously amazing.  It probably could've been one coat, but, as you guys know, I'm weird and did two.  

These photos are zero cleanup.  ZERO. CLEANUP.  Do you get what I'm saying?!  Amazing polish.  Such depth and opacity.  I'm almost speechless.  Looking forward to trying my hand at stamping with this beauty!

Kelara Happy Blogiversary

I used 1 coat of Happy Blogiversary over Barry M Strawberry Ice Cream.  Happy Blogiversary is a pink shimmer with multiple color and sized hexes.

Application was easy.  The brush strokes in the macro aren't evident at all to the naked eye.

Here it is with NYC Matte Me Crazy.

Since this was a custom, you can only get this polish from my giveaway!

SoFlaJo My Sign's Aqua-rium

My Sign's Aqua-rium is a glittery teal matte.

Application was easy, but it took a little bit longer to dry than the others.  This is three coats without a topcoat.

Here it is with HK Girl topcoat.

And here it is shiny with topcoat but blurred so you can see those gorgeous glitters.

Elevation Magen's Bay

I love her little pic and signature!!

Elevation Magen's Bay is a custom I had made for me by Lulu, the creator of Elevation.  I sent her photos of Magen's Bay in St. Thomas, Virgin Islands as inspiration, and this is the beauty she came up with!

A light teal base with teal and light blue dots, hexes and squares.

This is two coats.  Super easy application with a very quick dry time.

Again, since this was a custom, you can only get this polish from my giveaway!

You can get Avon products from my awesome Avon Lady, Sharla, and you can follow her page here.  You can purchase Kelara at their store.  Follow Tara and Kellen on Facebook and Twitter.  You can purchase SoFlaJo at her store and on Etsy. Follow Jody on Facebook. Lastly, you can get Elevation polishes at her store and Llarowe.  You can keep up with Lulu at her blog.

Aren't you guys loving these customs?!  I absolutely love them all!  And, man, I'm digging all of the holos in these prizes!  

Rainy Grossness!

Well, today was a rainy nasty day in Georgia.  I'm on the 34th floor, and all I could see most of the day was a white haze.  No buildings, no clouds, no sky, just white.  It's kind of disconcerting, lol.  Now, the news people are predicting we'll have "wintry" weather on Thursday.  Awesome.  I'm pretty skeptical, though, because "wintry weather" never really pans out in Georgia.  We'll see, I guess!

In other news, as you may have read on my Facebook page, I am going on a low, scheduled buy.  Basically, when I got my first paycheck after getting on a new project in November, I went totally crazy with my polish spending.  I like to say it's because I had all of that pent up need to spend after several months of low/no buy.  Either way, it's time for me to get back on track with my budget.  I'm creating a pretty ridiculous and out of hand wish list, which will help me determine what polishes I will buy for the month.  At the first of the month, I will choose which polishes I will buy and which restocks I will purchase from.  I will not exceed $50 per paycheck on polish.  I will, however, allow myself to splurge on items on my wishlist that are hard to find or limited edition that I am able to find for a reasonable price.

Had to break up the wall-o-text with something.  What's better than my kitty Jynxie sticking his tongue out at us?  It was like that for 5 minutes.  I love that cat, lol.

In the meantime, I will be working on slashing through my untried list and weeding out polishes that I won't wear again.  Hopefully, I'll be able to re-home some of my beautiful collection to help fund some of my scheduled buys.  I encourage anyone who is going on a no/low/scheduled buy to work through your untrieds and share them on my Facebook page!  Untried can mean anything from new to you polishes to new techniques.  I want to see them all!  I think I'll call it Blue-Eyed Girl's Untried Parade.  Let's make this fun and set up a giveaway!  Get your photos up on my page, labeled as Untried Parade with a brief description of what's new or untried about your manicure, by February 21st.  I'll compile them into an album and voting will open February 22nd at midnight.  The photo with the most likes will receive one full-sized polish of their choice from my hand made collection that are all LE and not for sale.  All of my available polishes can be found in my album Blue-Eyed Girl Lacquers on Facebook.  

Anyway, let's get on to business!  Tonight, we're going to take a look at the rest of my New Year's Eve manicure.  I showed you my undies yesterday, which was Soflajo Red Carpet and an accent of Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Black Out.  I topped my left hand with a glitter ruffian of Lynnderella Fiddle Dee Dee and a full accent of Lynnderella New Year's Eve Eve.  On my right hand, I did the opposite with full coverage of New Years Eve Eve and a ruffian accent of Fiddle Dee Dee.  I received Fiddle Dee Dee as a random act of kindness from a friend, which was a total surprise.  Needless to say, it's one of my favorite polishes because of the meaning behind it.  Let's get on to the review!

Lynnderella Fiddle Dee Dee

Color: Clear base with multicolored and multishaped glitters including silver holo butterflies and hearts and red holo hearts.

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

Lynnderella New Years Eve Eve

Color: Clear base with multicolored and multishaped glitters including several different colors of satin hearts, giant holo silver hexes, and holo regular and mini stars.

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

Both FDD and NYEE

Bottle / Brush: Rectangle bottle brush – ribbed cap that is a little hard on the hands to open if you have sensitive skin.  The wand is the standard length, but the brush is a little too thin to pick up large / shaped glitter without fishing.  The brush's width is also an issue for spreading.  It doesn't fan out and pretty much requires you to dab polishes that are densely packed with glitter.

Opacity: Glitter topcoat – not designed for full opacity.

Glitter Application: Hard – difficult to dig the larger and shaped glitters out of the bottle, but spreads well with the dab method.

Consistency: Medium – base 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 with the dab method.

Stampability: Not designed for stamping.

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

Overall Thoughts: I'm going to review both of these polishes together since they're both similar in concept.  Unlike many of my other Lynnderella's, these two had great consistency.  They weren't too thick and spread easily.  I really liked the explosion of colors and shapes that both of these polishes provided.  FDD had fewer colors and centered more around red, green, silver, and gold with holo pieces.  NYEE has pretty much every color in the rainbow.  Both are major glitter bombs, so you'll definitely need either a thick topcoat like Gelous or Glitter Food plus a thick quick dry topcoat to even things out.

You can purchase Lynnderella's from their eBay store.  Follow their blog for news and updates.  Also, follow Lovelynnderella on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook for updates on new polishes, swatches of new collections, and swatches of limited editions.

Are you on a no/low/scheduled buy?  If you are, what's your plan of attack?

Fiiiiiiinally back! Soflajo Red Carpet

Wow, I apologize for taking the whole week off last week.  After being ridiculously sick for three weeks, I needed the down time.  In that time, I received some amazing polishes from purchases and swaps, reached 400 blog followers (!!!!!), and got to spend some quality time with the cutest and most ridiculous kitties ever.  Specimen #1:

Just one of my kitties striking a pose...  Say hello to Fenway!  I'll have some pics of Jynx later.

Well, since it's already late and I have to wake up early tomorrow, let's get down to business!  Tonight, I'm going to show you part of my New Year's Eve mani.  I'm pretty late in showing you guys all of my holiday manicures, so I'll try to catch up.  As undies for NYE, I wore Soflajo Red Carpet with an accent of Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Black Out.  We're going to focus on Red Carpet tonight.

Color: Red with holographic micro glitters.

Finish: Matte – flat finish, no shine.

Bottle / Brush: Round (9ml) mini bottle – wand and brush are just long enough to reach the bottom of the bottle.  However, the fact that it’s a mini makes application a little tricky.  Requires a steady hand to apply evenly without pooling.

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

Glitter Application: Easy – Spreads evenly without much manipulation.

Consistency: Thick – thick, but is easily remedied with some polish thinner.  Although, I didn't add any thinner.  I wanted to see how it would apply without it.  It worked well, but you have to go fast since it's a matte polish, which dries quickly.

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: This was my second Soflajo, and I really liked it.  The color is more of a burnt red than a bright cherry, but the holographic micro glitters set this apart from other matte polishes I have.  Once I added a top coat, the shimmer from the micro glitters made it glow.  I will show you guys the finished mani with a top coat tomorrow night.  I also like that this is a larger mini, so you get more bang for your buck.  Jody, who owns Soflajo, is a pleasure to work with, ships quickly, and has great communication.  You can purchase Soflajo polishes at her site or at her Etsy store.  Follow her Facebook page for restock information and updates.

What did you wear for New Year's Eve?

Happy Holidays Giveaway: Prize Three

Wow!  Sorry about last night.  I got caught up doing some work, and then my computer decided to die...  Then my printer decided to be a pain in the ass.  Yeah.  I was about to go Office Space on their asses.

(Source)

Then, tonight, the hubs and I decided we should probably go get our tree.  We usually get our Christmas tree from the baseball team of the high school nearby.  This year, though, we waited too long, so we went to Pike Nurseries instead.  They had some pretty gorgeous trees for only $30, so I think that it worked out alright.  We try to usually shop locally instead of through chains, but it just couldn't be helped this year.  We drug the tree in and put it up.  Now our kitten, who has never seen a tree before, is going bananas trying to figure out what it is and how he can play with it.  I'm afraid we're going to have this situation going on before the holiday is over...

Anyway, enough about my crazy week, let's talk shop.  Tonight we're going to talk about the Holiday Giveaway prize number three!  

First, let's take a look at Soflajo Yule Tidings.  Yule Tidings is an olive green based shimmer polish full of holographic micro glitters in red, silver, gold, and green and giant gold hexes.  Application was great!  Everything came out of the bottle easily and spread on my nail without any extra effort on my part.  This was two coats with one coat of NYC Grand Central Station.

Check it out blurry so you can see how awesome the holo glitters are.

Here's a closeup so you can actually see the colors better.

Next up is Girly Bits Long Winter's Nap, which is a grey creme base that leans a little toward dusty purple.  It is filled with periwinkle, bright blue, and gunmetal hexes of varying sizes.  Like all Girly Bits polishes, I had no problems with application.  This is a jelly, but it's more opaque than normal jelly glitters, which means you only need a few coats for full coverage.

This is the perfect polish to wear on a chilly winter day.

Color Club Snow Flakes from the Winter Affair collection is pretty much a dupe of Essie Shine of the Times.  I don't think the combo I used here does Snow Flakes any justice.  It really is a pretty polish, it applies well, and the scent isn't too bad.  However, it doesn't really look very good over Ho Ho Holiday.

Maybe the green interfered too much with the color shift, but the macro is lackluster.

Orly Miss Conduct is an absolutely gorgeous bright pink scattered holo!!  It is extremely pigmented, so it didn't take much for full coverage.  The holo came out to play even with indoor lights.  The only down side - it stained my nails even though I was wearing my Rejuvacote base coat.  So my nails are little pinkish orange now.  Womp womp!

I don't know, though.  I think it's worth it.

I mean, look at that holo!

Lastly, I present to you Blue-Eyed Girl Lacquer the Man Who Makes the Toys.  MWMtT is a red jelly with green and red shimmer, red and green hexes, iridescent hexes that shift from blue to green, and holo gold stars.  The polish builds up easily in two coats, but I used three for the photos.  The stars aren't as difficult to get out as they are in other polishes, which was a pleasant surprise!

You can purchase Soflajo from Jody's site and her Etsy store. You can purchase Girly Bits here, here, here, here, and here.  Lastly, you can purchase Orly and the Color Club scented Winter Affair collection at Sally's Beauty Supply.

Ok, you've seen 3/4 of the prizes so far.  Have you picked your favorite prize pack yet, or are you waiting for number four to make your decision?