Daring Digits - Tin Man

Hello lovely ladies!

Today I have for you some swatches of Daring Digits Tin Man, which is in the process of being discontinued. :( I have been lemming this polish for a while and when Daring Digits had a sale, I HAD to buy Tin Man. I love the way they packaged them, too!

As you can see, I even got a little package of extra glitter! I thought that was awesome because some people love glitter more than others. I also received an extra! Daring Digits Golden Dragon:

Such a nice touch! If I didn't love Daring Digits enough already, this pushed me over the edge. I will have swatches of this one for you tomorrow or Wednesday depending on how much time I have.

Without further ado, here is Tin Man!

Tin Man is micro holographic round glitter, medium holographic squares, and red hearts in a clear base. The micro holographic glitter is amazing and super shiny, as are the squares. I chose to wear it over Confetti Lonesome Dove. Tin Man was super easy to apply and it was really easy to get the micro glitter, square glitter, and heart glitter out. I am not the biggest fan of glitter so it was nice to not have a glitter bomb right off of the bat. I just think it's so pretty. I topped it off with HK Girl and I am in LOVE with it! I have been wearing this manicure for 6 days and I have no shrinkage, tip wear, peeling, etc. It's wonderful.

I am in love with this polish, but what do you guys think? Let me know!

Thanks for reading,
Nicole

Nail Art Society Review

Hello ladies and gents!

As promised, here is the post about the Nail Art Society bags. I was lucky enough to subscribe before they raised the prices, so I pay $9.95/month instead of $19.95/month that it is now. So far I have only received the December and January bag. Here we go!

December bag:

Stella Luminous Nail Kit and nail art glue

Cherimoya Nail Polish Removal Pads

with Cuticle Oil - Orchid Scented

Cherimoya Matte N A Polish

I feel bad because this really isn't a fair review since I haven't used the Stella kit or the polish remover pads. BUT I have used other jewels and polish remover pads.

The Jewel Kit comes with a TON of different sized rhinestones and an orange stick. In my experience, the nail glue isn't entirely necessary to use with the rhinestones, but I change my manicure constantly. So if you want to keep your manicure for a while and want the rhinestones to stay, definitely use the nail glue.

I have used polish removal pads before and they are really oily (because of the cuticle oil) so I'm not really the biggest fan. They are definitely good for removing the nail polish but I don't think the cuticle oil is that great. When I use cuticle oil, I only put it around the cuticle and sides of the nails, but when you use the pads they get all over your fingers and it's very difficult to clean the oil off. They're probably good for on the go if you figure out a way to get the oil off of your fingers easily, but I don't like them.

Lastly, I received two Cherimoya Matte polishes in Blockbuster (silver) and Mystery (berry). When I first saw that they were matte, I was disappointed because matte is one of the 'trends' that I'm not a fan of. However, I decided to see what they looked like with a top coat and they looked 10 times better than without. The formula was great but a little thick, as is expected of matte polishes. But they was very easy to use and worked pretty well.

-Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures of swatches because I just did a manicure (which I will post tomorrow) and didn't want to remove it because I love it so much. However, once this manicure comes off I will do swatches for you. I do have swatches on swatch sticks, so let me know if you would like to see those.

Onto the January Bag!

Swarovski Crystals

Stella Nail Art Tweezers

Layla Magneffect Polish

In my opinion, this bag was on par with the December bag, but the polishes are WAY better.

 

So first are the Swarovski crystals. Yes, I said that right. SWAROVSKI! I was shocked when I saw what they actually were. I'm sort of scared to use them because of what they are. I have drooled over their jewelry and such for a while, so I was thrilled to find out the brand. Anyways, I haven't used them yet because I'm afraid, but I'm sure they're more beautiful than regular rhinestones. I will use one or two when I post swatches of all of the polishes, I promise!

 

Next ar the Stella Nail Art Tweezers. I am sorry to say that they are horrible. :( I tried to use them to pick up the crystals from the flower case and not only did they not pick up the crystals, but they actually scratched the bottom of the case. Color me sad. :( They might work for other things, but they definitely don't work for the crystals.

 

Lastly are the Layla Magneffect polishes. Apparently we were supposed to receieve one of these polishes and also a black Stella nail art polish, but I receieved two of the Magneffects instead. I am not compaining! If you are familiar with Layla polish, you know how expensive they are. So getting two wasn't a problem. The problem was the fact that they're magnetic. Matte polish, magnetic polish...it seems that NAS is a little behind on trends. I have magnetic polish and they were fun while they lasted, but much like the crackle phase, the trend is long over. I have not tested the magnet, but will include swatches in the post with the rest.

 

Well, as you can see, I am not really that happy with these bags. I'm sure they worked for others, but they were old trends in my opinion. Was the value of the products worh it? I'll let you all decide. I will say that I'm staying subscribed to NAS for at least next month, but if they're anything like the past two bags, I may just save my money. Let me know what you think in the comments!

If you would like to subscribe, you can go to Nail Art Society's website.

 

Thanks for reading,

Nicole 

****I did not receive these bags to review, nor do I have any affiliation with Nail Art Society. I am just a customer.**** 

'Back to School' Mani

Hello gems!

Today I've decided to show you my back to school mani. I didn't want to do something school themed because...I don't know. I just didn't feel like it, I guess. Haha. So I did something a little different. Please excuse the bad paint job. I did this manicure on Monday morning and it has since chipped. :( But here it is!

My ring finger looks so bad. I'm sorry! Chipping. D:

 This is two coats of Nicole by OPI (NOPI) Mer-Made For Each Other with Orly Mermaid Tale on the accent nail. I swear I didn't do these two polishes together because they both have 'mermaid' in the name, although I love it! I actually was trying to find undies for the Orly for my swatch sticks and the NOPI looked best. I loved it so much I had to try it!

I LOVE the brushes in the NOPI bottles! They're thick and awesome and are really easy to use. You can basically cover like 90% of your nail in one swipe. I love it! Plus NOPI's generally have great formulas in my experience and Mer-Made For Each Other was no exception. The Orly was packed with glitter so I wiped a little bit of it off because I'm not the biggest fan of glitter AND I wanted it to be an accent, not take up the entire nail.

So, what do you think? Despite the ugly ring finger due to chipping and re-polishing, I'm quite happy with this manicure. :)

I'll be back tomorrow or Thursday with a blog post about Nail Art Society.

Thanks for reading!

Nicole

Month of Untrieds Post 1

Hello all!

Tonight I have for you a manicure that I did for the 'month of untrieds' event we're doing in a group on Facebook (Show Me Your Top Coats). I've been really 'busy' the past two weeks (depressed and lazy is more like it) so I haven't really done much with my nails since my KBShimmer manicure. This is my first contribution to this event but I'm not really sure if I like it or not.

This is Zoya Neeka with accents of Picture Polish Mask-A-Rade on my ring fingers and thumbs.

(Please excuse the pictures, I'm still learning (and doing horrible!) with lighting and such.)

In this picture you can see more of the gold and red tones of Mask-A-Rade.

I'm not sure how I feel about this manicure just yet. It may be the way I painted my nails, but Zoya Neeka looks NOTHING on the nail like it does in the bottle. I'm an airhead and forgot to take bottle shots, but in the bottle it's a much lighter and prettier purple with shimmery pink undertones. On my nails the purple is much darker and you can't really tell what color the shimmer is. I'm kind of disappointed. :( However, I'm kind of pleased with Mask-A-Rade. I received it in a grab bag and immediately was disappointed, since I'm not the biggest fan of glitters. On the nail it's actually very pretty and it's a really fine glitter polish so it really isn't that bad. :)

What do you think of this polish? Do you love it, hate it, or are you kind of in the middle like I am? Let me know if the comments.

~Nicole

KBshimmer Proud Peacock

Hello everyone!

As my first post back, I thought I'd share with you my new favorite indie polish and my favorite polish from them (so far). This is KBshimmer Proud Peacock. I've been lemming this polish for a while and finally got it in an awesome swap. It is just as awesome as I thought it would be, if not more!

KBshimmer describes this polish as "[a] dusty teal green base is accented by tons of glitter. We started with a large blue hex, and added both a black hexes for some depth. We then went micro with purple, black and white diamond glitters. Fuschia, teal, and navy small glitters accent several holographic glitters, including a silver bar, teal, and two sizes of silver." I normally hate bar glitters but I had no trouble with these at all!

First I have some bottle shots:

 

So pretty! I'm a sucker for anything blue or teal and lately anything with 'peacock' in the name, so this was the perfect polish for me. Now for some swatches after the jump!

I'm back!

Hello lovelies!

I'm so sorry I've been gone for months. It has been getting very hectic in my house with my father being sick, the holidays, going on vacation, and going back to school soon. I PROMISE I will start being more active from now on.

I would like to thank my two followers for still being here, so if you could please message me your name, address, and favorite polish type (color, creme, glitter, shimmer, etc.) I'd like to send each of you a little something. :)
Also, if you could tell me some things you like to see on other blogs that would be great! I'm going to start swatching more of my polish as I NEED to go on a no buy soon after spending too much on holiday sales. Eesh! I'll try to do some stamping and designs and stuff, but is there something else you'd like to see? Comment to let me know. :) I'll be posting something this weekend that's polish related.

Until next time,
Nicole