China Glaze-Light As Air

Hey guys! Happy Tuesday, how is everyone? It's suuuper hot over here, we're kinda going through this thing called a HEAT WAVE.*insert expletives here* I am like so sweaty and gross right now from walking home from camp. One perk though is that I bought some nail polish on the way home! Yay me. Also I saw this reeeaaally cute little deer cross the street and SHE WAS SO CUTE!!!!! She was all little and stuff. I named her Bambi. Haha I'm really original.
So today's color is this pretty purple, China Glaze-Light As Air. It's a light lavender leaning purple creme polish and it applies like a dream!

The formula on this was uber nice and creamy. It was basically only one coat, but I just used two to even it out a bit. In real life this polish is a little brighter/lighter, not this greyish. But the pics are pretty accurate. How weird is that normally it's the other way around!My camera usually makes dusty colors look too bright but now it's like reversed. Lol. 

That's all I have for today guys! I've actually got other stuff to do today *gasp* that does not include watching reruns of Buffy the Vampire Slayer *bigger gasp* I'm leaving for China on Friday so I have to actually start packing...maybe. And I've got some gifts to make for family and stuff so yeah. I'm not sure if I'll be able to post when I'm in China, so we'll see. If I can't you'll just have to survive without me for 2 weeks. Oh the horror! In fact, most of August I'm not even going to be around, so...I dunno. We'll see.
Thanks for reading everyone!
~Nova

Kill Bill Nail Art

Hi fellow humans demons and vampires how is everyone? Hope you're all having a good weekend. I finished Buffy the Vampire Slayer the other night, sigh, many tears were shed...Can't believe the most amazing show ever to grace the mystical land of tv is over :( So, to cheer myself up, I resorted to one of my feel good movies, Kill Bill. No you read that right. Kill Bill is a serious feel good movie for me. I used it to get over Buffy because, well, I needed to see more blonde kickass women. And who better than the lovely Beatrix Kiddo to do that for me? (Sorry spoiler alert there). So without further ado, here comes the bride.

So what do you think? Some nice blood and gore and cutting off of limbs is enough to make anyone get over, well...anything! The yellow base is Sally Hansen-Mellow Yellow and the red used for the blood is Essie-She's Pampered.

These nails were super easy to do. I used the brush from the bottle of black polish to make the stripe. To do the blood spatter I took a skinny straw, like one of those coffee stirrers, dipped it in the red, then just blew through the other end!

It's sorta funny cuz I had to do a couple practice spatters before feeling confident enough to do my nails. But honestly they were so easy! The only thing is, silly me probably should have taped around the edges of her nail before blowing polish onto them...I think I spent more time cleaning my fingers than actually doing my nails! 

I also thought I'd include some swatches of Sally Hansen-Mellow Yellow on its own because it's such a pretty yellow! It's a little more muted in real life than in these pictures, but it's my favorite shade of yellow! And I don't really wear yellow, honestly I only have like 3 yellow polishes, in comparison to my at least 20 blues and greens! Mellow Yellow is a super pretty yellow creme, and in my opinions the word mellow is the perfect way to describe it!

The formula was a little sheer, I'm wearing 3 coats in these pictures to get it nice and opaque. 

So here's the poster I used for my nail art inspiration:

I really liked doing these blood spatter nails. I think I'm gonna end up doing more splatter nail art in the future!

So for those of you who read my blog you'd know that this is right about the part where I would post pictures of Kill Bill and make funny references about them. I tried to stray away from the bloody ones.

But I mean honestly, can you blame me for using this movie to get over my immense sadness? And just to include one of my favorite scenes from the movie that's not totally R rated

Sigh Lucy Liu...

And I'd just like to say that Buffy the Vampire Slayer and all its amazing characters, even the evil ones, will forever have a place in my heart as the best show the tv world has ever seen.

Thanks for reading guys and I'll see you next time!

~Nova

Glitter Spam-Multicolor Glitters Part 1

Hello happy Friday(yay!) Anyone have fun weekend plans? Me not so much, in fact I have absolutely zero plans at all. I guess that means lot's of swatching yay! 
Today I've got another glitter spam post, my multicolored glitters! This has been divided into two posts because I didn't want to have too many polishes/pictures in one post. Sorting the multicolored glitters was kinda difficult, and while swatching some of them I ended up moving them into different categories. But I do have some fun and sparkly glitters in this post so yay!
First up is Spoiled by Wet N' Wild-Trust Fund Baby. I was in CVS the other day and saw a rack of these for like $2 each, and I found this fun glitter so it was like happy day! The rest of the polishes were quite ordinary, there was another glitter but I decided not to get it.
Trust Fund Baby is a super awesome glitter. It has gold, pink, blue, and black small hex glitter and gold and pink SQUARE glitter! It's funny cuz in the bottle I didn't even NOTICE the black glitter at all until it was on the nail and I was like woah there's black glitter in there sweet. And same with the square glitter. Like what?! This glitter is so awesome. The brush on this was REALLY big and flat, which I liked but could make application hard for people with smaller nails. It needed a little dabbing to get the glitter in the right places, but for the most part the coverage is good. and this dries SUPER shiny which is awesome! This is Trust Fund Baby over Essie-Turquoise & Caicos. These pictures do not have top coat.

Uber close up time. Can you see all the different types of glitter? Square glitter...still can't get over it. I don't really love square glitter on its own, but when mixed with other glitters I think it looks so cool! Don't you?

 This next polish is Deborah Lippmann-Happy Birthday. Yes, there are like 50 dupes of this polish for less than half the price. I don't own any so I can't compare, but this was a Christmas gift, because I would really never buy myself a polish this expensive($16!) Ok that's a total lie I would, especially if it was something as fun as Happy Birthday. It is a mix of all sorts of multi colored hex glitter, large and small. The only complaint I have, and I make this complaint a lot, is that the Deborah Lippmann brushes suck, in my opinion. At least in this polish, the brush was REALLY small, and didn't spread out, which means major glitter dabbing required. The glitter was kinda sparse on and sorta reluctant to get on the brush, if you know what I mean. This is Happy Birthday over OPI-Berlin There, Done That.

 Here's a close up, hopefully you can see all the fun colors in Happy Birthday.

Next up is Model's Own-Dancing Queen. Now this polish I LOVE! I bought a bunch of Model's Own polish back when I was in London, and this was one of them. It's an awesome mix of dark blue hex glitter, gold small and large hex glitter, light teal shard glitter, green hex glitter, and silver holographic diamond glitter. Whew I think I got it all. This glitter is SO amazing I mean shard glitter?! That is like the queen (pun intended) of all shaped glitters! I almost out this polish in the shaped glitter category because of the shards and diamonds but I think it has a happier home in the multi colored glitter category. This is Dancing Queen over Zoya-Farah.

 The only thing I don't like about this polish is that it's really goopy/uneven, even after I added a crapload of thinner to the bottle. But once you get around the tricky application the glitter coverage is really good and you don't need to dab around too much. Below is a close up image, and you can really see all the awesome glitter in this polish.

Our next glitter is OPI-The Living Daylights. This came out with the Skyfall collection last fall. And boy does this polish scream fall! The mix of silver, orangey copper, gold, and teal glitter just looks SO much like fall, it's crazy! I can just tell that come the season, this is the polish I'll be grabbing for! This is The Living Daylights over Zoya-Bevin.

 I'd recommend giving this polish a good shake before using it, that way makes it a lot easier to get the polish onto the nail. This polish does need a little dabbing to get the glitter in the right places, but overall the coverage and formula is pretty good. It dries a little satin-y so these pictures have one coat of top coat. And please ignore that awful bald spot on my ring finger. I didn't notice it until I was uploading the pictures :-/

Our last polish is today is one that has already been shown, Model's Own-Freak Out! I have some more pictures just to include it in this post, but for the original post, click here. This is Freak Out! over Orly-Pure Porcelain.

Those are the glitters I've got for today, but I'll have more next Friday! Thanks for reading guys and I hope you all have a nice weekend! Till next time
~Nova

Orly-Snowcone

Hello readers! How's everyone's week been goin so far. I've been havin a swell time up in New Hampshire but I am leaving today :( It's been so nice up here, yesterday I went hiking with my mom, and it was actually a lot of fun! Tomorrow Imma be goin back to camp...back to all that normal life stuff. Ugh.

So today's featured polish is Orly-Snowcone. It's a nice dusty shade of light blue, it's not quite as bright as it appears in these pictures. This is just such a gorgeous color, especially on me and my skin tone. Greyed out dusty colors just look good on me! Don't make my hands looks all red or ghosty or anything. Yay!

The formula on this was EXCELLENT!!! It was one coat, smooth and perfect and awesome. The only thing is that it got a little streaky you can see on my ring finger and I probably should have smoothed that out with another coat. But other than that blip it's like the most awesome formula ever. The application is smooth and not runny and opaque and ugh I'm pretty sure this polish dropped out of nail polish heaven!

That's all I've got today guys! I should have some nail art for y'all towards the end of the week if I get the chance. I've been thinking about doing nail art more often, you know not just once a week. Lately I tend to get sick of a design if I've been wearing it for more than like 2 days. I have some real fun designs planned/stored up in my dusty old brain, so should be fun!
Enjoy the rest of your day and I'll see you all next time!
~Nova

Essie-Maximillian Strasse Her

Hello readers how is everyone on this lovely Tuesday morning? The weather over in NH is just sooo nice! It's breezy and cool and the fresh air is just so..fresh...does that make sense? Lol it's just really refreshing here. I'm going hiking later in the afternoon so that should be fun. I haven't been hiking in a really long time. I used to love it. 

To match the intense love of nature that I am feeling right now, today's color is green! Essie-Maximillian Strasse Her is a beautiful dusty muted greyed out green. Which of course means my camera is really not capturing this color accurately because, well, it fails at those dusty tones. In real life this shade is darker with more grey in it. 

And please ignore the dry as a desert state of my cuticles in these pictures. Ugh I shudder just looking at them.

The formula on this was quite nice. It was a little streaky on the first coat but it was nice and opaque by the second. It had a very smooth and even application and flowed onto the nail very well. That sounds weird...but you know what I mean!

Essie polishes are available at CVS, Target, and other drug stores for about $8 a piece.
That's all I've really got for today guys. I'm off to my date with Netflix and reruns of Doctor Who. Thanks for reading and I'll see you all next time!
~Nova

Blog makeover

Hi everyone just letting y'all know that I've been givin my blog a makeover. I've been playing around on Blogger trying out different templates and layouts and stuff, because I didn't really like my old look. I'm still sorta working on it so don't be surprised if my blog design changes like a billion times in the next few days. I'm not sure what I'm gonna be doing but I kinda like this look I have now. I promise I'll settle on something soon! And don't worry it'll still be the same old nerdy me blogging! And feel free to leave comments if you like/don't like anything in particular.
~Nova

Butter London-Bossy Boots

Hey fellow nail obsessors! Wow I didn't know that was actually a word...obsessors...hm. Happy Monday! Doesn't feel like a Monday really because I'm still in New Hampshire and I'm not going to camp or anything. My mom has conferences in the morning and evening so I basically just hang around watching movies and Netflix-ing on her computer. And blogging. That too.
Today's color is suuuuuuper purdy. I got it a while back around Christmas time, it's Butter London-Bossy Boots. I have to say I reeeeaaaallllly love this color! This is probably one of my favorite greens in my collection! It's a very spring color to me, I probably should have used it more in the spring. These photos are a little too yellow toned, it's a little bit greener in real life. It's really more of a pistachio green. It's actually an exact pistachio green. Like, this is exactly the color I think of when someone says pistachio green. Also can we take a minute to get over what an amazing word pistachio is. Pistachio. Pistachio. Ok I'm done.

The formula on this was very nice, all my Butter London's have really nice formulas. The application was smooth and creamy and beautiful. It was a little streaky on the first coat but perfect by the second coat, which is what I'm wearing.

I have to say I'm really in love with Butter London polishes. The formulas are just so nice! The only thing I don't like is that the brushes are freaking tiny and they don't spread out very well. Like they're kinda stiff. Which I guess is good for some people, but for me those super skinny/stiff brushes make it hard to get a nice round cuticle, which you can probably see in the pictures. I dunno, maybe that's just my problem.

Butter London polishes cost $14, so yeah, they're quite a pretty penny, and you can find them in department stores like Nordstrom and Macy's or beauty retailers like Sephora or Ulta.
Ok I lied I'm totally not done:

Now I'm done. Promise. 
Teehee
K guys thanks for reading and bearing through my pistachio fetish.
Byee
~Nova

Sunday Nail Art-Bumpy Chevron Design

Hello everyone! How's everyone's weekend been goin? I'm actually in New Hampshire right now with my mom. She's attending some sort of conference thing here, I'm just taggin along. It was like a 5 hour drive, but it was fun. We listened to every single Muse album EVER in chronological order...and there are 6 albums. WHEEEEEE!!!!! I wrote up a couple posts before I left so as long as this computer doesn't spaz out or something I should still be able to post the next couple days. 

So these nails I did yesterday, and God are they COLORFUL! It's so summery and bright and pretty and AWESOME! I couldn't think of a good title for this post so I'm just calling it a "bumpy chevron look" which I guess is more or less accurate. 

The base color I used for these nails was OPI-My Vampire Is Buff. God I can't get over how that is a Buffy the Vampire Slayer reference. Kinda weird cuz that polish was from the Euro collection and I have no idea what Buffy has to do with Europe...but whatever. It's a super pretty off white color that was like, MADE for me, given my looove for off whites!

All the other colors are Essies. The green is The More The Merrier,  the light blue is Turquoise & Caicos, the pink is A Tart Deco, and, my camera's arch-nemesis, the RED that looks ORANGE but is really RED, is Saturday Disco Fever.

To do this design I took my medium sized "fluffy brush", which is what I call it because I have no idea what it's actually called. I don't have a picture of it but it's sorta fluffy(duh). It's not a striping or detailing brush it's more like a paint brush. And it tapers to a smaller point at the end. It behaves just like a regular polish brush, like the brush you would find in the bottle, but its tapered tip makes it easier to make finer lines. It was perfect for this design and I just dipped it into the polish and used it to draw lines in a bumpy, chevron-y pattern.

I used my smaller detailing brush to make the thinner lines just redefine the "bumps" a little better, like in my ring finger above. 

This design was pretty easy, but it kinda took a while. The only thing that really sucked about it was that Saturday Disco Fever and Turquoise & Caicos needed a white base before they could be layered on top of the other colors. It was kind of a pain. Also you had to keep waiting for the previous layer of polish to dry before applying another. That's the main reason this design took such a long time.

I finished off this design with 2 coats of top coat and done! Let me just say that doing this design was extremely uncomfortable, partly because I was in an awkward position and mostly because I REALLY had to pee, like the second I started the design. Advice: ALWAYS PEE BEFORE DOING YOU'RE NAILS.
So what do you guys think of this? I really liked the color combo I used, it's just so summer, yaknow? 
That's all for today, I'll see you all next time!
~Nova

Glitter Spam-Monocolors

Hey girls! (and maybe guys...?:-/) Got a fun post for y'all today, GLITTER SPAM!! Has there ever been a better combination of two words in the english language? I guess...Firefly's back...Buffy marathon...snow day...band camp...so yeah jk there are a lot :P
Anyway so I've been working on swatching all my glitters (just sayin...there's a lot) and I thought I would post them in "category" posts. So today's category are my monocolor glitters!
*Disclaimer-Not all polishes in this post are available for purchase in the US.
First up is Milani-584 Red. It's large red hex glitter in a clear base. I picked this up really recently, like 2 days ago recently. I was surprised when I saw it and realized I didn't have ANY red glitter polishes in my collection! Not one! And I always thought red glitter was really vampy and sexy, especially over darker colors, so I was like yay.
The glitter was a little hard to get onto the brush, maybe cuz the brush is like freaking tiny or maybe the bottle just needs a good shake. Anywho, as long as you swirl the brush around in the bottle a bit first you should be good. Other than that the formula was nice. It had good coverage and only needed a little bit of dabbing.
This is Milani-584 Red over Zoya-Evvie a nice dark color :)

And just for fun, here's 584 Red over Revlon Top Speed-Grape. Grape is a dark purple with a pretty shimmer, and I thought it would look REALLY good with red glitter. I was right :D

Sorry the pics are a little blurry/out of focus. My camera fails at sparkles.
Next is Color Club-Platinum Record. This is large silver hex glitter mixed with dark silver micro glitter. I considered putting this in the micro/fine glitter category, but due to the abundance of large glitter I decided to put it here. I always have issues with categorizing stuff :-/
The formula on this was very smooth and even, and the glitter applied in one nice coat. Another reason I considered putting it in the fine glitter category. But it's here now. So whatever. This is Platinum Record over Essie-Butler Please.

Do you see those random flashes of red? weird...

Also sorry for the stupid dent in my ring finger

Now these next two are Chinese brands, and not really available anywhere in the US or online or whatever. Sorry! The brand of these polishes is Lucidarling, and they don't really have names.
Also the brush on both these polishes is like microscopically small. and kinda stiff. Both the polishes needed a lot of dabbing to get the glitter on the nail. They also dried sorta matte, so these pictures all have one coat of top coat.
This first one is just large gold hex glitter in a clear base. The shade of gold is rather interesting...it's not light enough to be champagne gold, but it's not as yellow tones as most gold/yellow glitters. It's a little muted. Muted glitter? This is the gold over Essie-Maximillian Strasse Her.

See? It's a weird shade of gold.
The next one is a rosy pink color. Also not a the typical pink color I see in glitter polishes. Like the gold one, it's a little dusty/muted. Very pretty. This is the pink glitter over China Glaze-Light As Air.

God that shade of purple just makes my fingers look REALLY red! Meh...
The Milani polishes retail for about $6-7 and in places like CVS, which is where I got mine, and Color Club usually costs about $7 in stores like CVS and Walgreens or beauty retailers like Harmons.
Those were all my monocolor glitters! Thanks for reading everybody, I'll have more glitter spam posts up every week so stay tuned! K bye!
~Nova 

OPI-Did You 'Ear About Van Gogh?

Hello everybody! Hope you're all having a nice week so far. I've been enjoying my summer camp, except for the long walk home :( Good news though yesterday I got to blow some of my money on nail polish! Yay! I got a few Essie's, and I don't really remember being a huge Essie fan, but all of a sudden I noticed how many Essie's I had in my collection and I was like woah! I'm also like super exhausted and sweaty as a write this because I've been biking a lot recently. My friend and I have been going on these daily bike rides, we average about 11 miles a day, it's crazy fun but it's soooo tiring!
Today's polish isn't Essie though, but it is one of my favorite colors, OPI-Did You'Ear About Van Gogh. Can we just take a second to laugh and marvel at the name of this polish? I swear I'm pretty sure I bought this just for the name.

The second I said this was one of my favorites you could probably figure it was a nude polish:P I am such a sucker for nudes/tans/off whites. This nude leans more in the tan department, it's a nice light tan with yellow undertones. 

This polish is from I think the Dutch collection from a couple years ago. I could be wrong though, but I know this polish is a little "old".
God it's so pretty! Reminds be of another favorite, Zoya-Farah. 

Didn't hurt that the formula on this was like utter perfection! Almost a one coater, for people with small nails this is definitely a one coater. I needed two just to smooth out a couple areas, but the formula was actually flawless.
OPI polishes cost about $8-9 and you can buy them in beauty retailers and in places like Target.
That's it for today guys! I'm planning a couple of fun posts for the future so stay tuned! Thanks for reading and I'll see you next time!

Essie-Lilacism

Hi everybody! How was everyone's Tuesday? My summer camp started yesterday. It's pretty fun, it's an art summer program and there are only 2 other girls in the class! Which may sound awkward but I LOVE small classes. Plus the teacher's nice. Plus I can stop in down town and buy nail polish on the way home. Which is the best part :P I actually did this same program last year and did a still life oil painting of some of my nail polish bottles. But that will never be shown...because I hate it :0
Today's nail polish color is kinda an oldie, at least for my collection, Essie-Lilacism. It's a very pretty sorta dusty light blue. The pictures are making it look WAY brighter than it really is! My camera can never capture these dusty colors properly. If you want a better idea of what Lilacism actually looks like you can check out my flower outline nails here. 

The picture below is probably the more color accurate of the two, though it's still a tad brighter than the real shade. but just a tad ;)
It's funny because in my opinion, this color isn't lilac at all! It is DEFINITELY a light blue! I've seen other pictures of this shade and all of them lean more purple, but for some odd reason mine is just totally blue. Not that I'm complaining; it's a super pretty blue :)

The formula on this was kinda sheer and it was pretty streaky on the first 2 coats. You can still see a little bit of streakyness in the pictures. I'm wearing 3 coats here, a couple of the nails needed a fourth, but I think you can get away with just 3.
Essie is available in most drug stores like CVS or Walgreens, and also in Target and retail for about $7-8.
Overall I REALLY love this color even if it's not really a lilac. I prefer this color to a lilac polish anyway. That's all for today guys thanks for reading!

Sunday Nail Art-Outline Flowers

Hello and happy Sunday! I just got back from Connecticut from visiting some of my parents' old friends. They had a college reunion thing, but I just played cards and stuff with the other kids.
Today I have nail art that I actually did a couple days ago (before leaving for Connecticut on Friday). They didn't really take too long and are really cute! Flower outline nails!

I had a lot of fun doing these nails and got lot's of compliments on them! Flower outline are a design that I've been wanting to do for a while, but I just put it off for some reason.

The white base is OPI-My Boyfriend Scales Walls and the light blue on my ring fingers and thumbs is Essie-Lilacism. The flower colors are Essie-Cascade Cool(pink), Essie-Playdate(purple), and OPI-Can't Find My Czechbook(blue). The little leaves are Confetti-Green With Envy. 

After painting the base and letting it dry, I just used a large-ish dotting tool to make the flowers. When they had dried I used a smaller dotting tool and the base color to go back in over the flowers. The leaves I did with my little detailing brush. When I was done they kinda looked plain, so I resorted to my favorite manicure pick-me-up, glitter! I used glitter which would correspond to the color of the flower, except I didn't own pink glitter :( so I just used red.

These nails were really easy and only took me about half an hour. 
So what do you guys think? Thanks for reading and I'll see you all next time!