Deborah Lippmann-Cleopatra In New York

Hi everyone! Happy Friday, I'm going bowling tonight to raise money for our marching band trip, can't wait! I'm probably the worst bowler you've ever seen but hey, it's worth it! Lol last time I went bowling I completely broke my thumb nail...hope that doesn't happen this time :-/
Today's polish is a great one, I picked it up around Christmas time, Deborah Lippmann-Cleopatra In New York. I absolutely love this polish! It is so pretty and unique(I don't have any like it in my collection) and I love the name of it too...God it's awesome!

Cleopatra In New York is an awesome black jelly/crelly base with small and medium sized gold glitter mixed in. The base isn't so thick that it covers the glitter in the previous layers, so this polish has really great depth to it.

The formula on it is all right, the black base is a little sheer, and I'm wearing 3 coats here for full opacity. The glitter is abundant and easy to get onto the brush/nail, but I would give the bottle a nice shake first. I also added a little polish thinner to it to ease the application. A little bit of dabbing is needed for the glitter, but it's really not too bad at all. Here's a closeup: can you see how the glitter from the previous layers shows through but it slightly covered, I love how much depth this gives the polish!

Anyway, this polish is kinda special to me because it's actually the most expensive bottle of polish in my collection, at $19. I have this thing where I refuse to spend more than $20 on a bottle of nail polish, because that's just obnoxious, but you know...how could I resist this 19 dollar nail polish?!

So yeah, that's all I've got for today. Thanks for reading everyone and I'll see you tomorrow! Byee

~Nova

Double Post With Rose Gold Glitter

Hi everyone! How's everyone's day been? We got rain over here and band practice was cancelled, so I did lot's of swatching yay me! So today's post is a super fun one. Several days ago my friend Carlee sent me some pictures of her nails and wrote up a little blog post/description for me and wondered if I would post it for her. Of course I said yes, so today I'm happy to present Nicole By OPI-Haley Good Lookin'. This is actually pretty cool because I myself don't own any Nicole By OPI polishes! So these are the pics she took:

So Haley Good Lookin' is from Nicole By OPI's modern family collection. I feel like I'm the only person on the planet who doesn't watch Modern Family. 

This polish is a mix of rose-y gold glitter with some larger pieces of pink and fuchsia glitter mixed in. It definitely leans to the "rose" part of rose gold. This is a full coverage glitter and is meant to be worn on its own, so I don't really think you'd be able to layer it over anything. 

Ok so according to Carlee "the formula's ok this is one coat and you have to dip the brush back in a lot and dab it on. The brush is a nice medium size and spreads out easily. These pictures do not have top coat." 

So yeah when she sent me these pics I thought it would be cool to do sort of a "double post", so I picked the polish in my collection that I thought best matched HGL and I have swatches for you guys!
This is a Love & Beauty polish by Forever 21, I picked it up like AGES ago and never really used it. Don't know why because it's so pretty!

So this is sort of rose gold polish but it definitely leans more gold, in the bottle it looks sort of pinker but on the nail it's a much more of a golden color. It's small gold, silver, and pinkish copper glitter in this coppery-pink base. You can't really see the base color that well in the pics.

So this polish was kinda sheer and is probably more appropriate for layering, but I felt like wearing it on it's own and think it looks really cool this way. I really love this glitter color, it's almost like a nude glitter! Does that make sense? Not really...

The formula was very nice, it was a little sticky but that didn't make application any harder. This is 4 coats I believe, and there's a teensy bit of nail line showing, but it doesn't really bother me. Here's a closeup so you see the little glitter particles:

 Overall I really like this glitter! It looks really great on my skintone and I love the color. It also only cost $4 so hooray for cheapness!

So that's it for today! And if anyone else wants to write a blog post and would like me to post it feel free to send me pics and a description anytime! Thanks for reading guys and I'll see you all next time!
~Nova 

What I've Been Wearing (On My Nails)

Hey friends readers and other people! I'm back! Yay. I know I've been like mia for weeeeeeks now...I have a good explanation. I promise. Soo if you didn't know I was in China for 2 weeks...so obviously there was no blogging to be done there. But I had a great time I was there with my mom visiting family, my grandparents, who by the way, live in THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE, and eating Chinese food. Which in China, is nothing like the "chinese food" they have here. And dear God it was sooo hot! And I watched lot's of movies and TV and stuff. Cuz I was in the middle of nowhere and had nothing to do. But like, American TV stuff. I watched lot's of big band theory, and friends, and elementary, and FINALLY got a chance to watch Person of Interest! Yay me. And, of course, I bought more nail polish. The good thing about the middle of nowhere is that things are CHEAP! I got 5 bottles of polish for like 8 bucks. CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT!! Ok so then afterwards my mom and I stopped in Shanghai just for a couple days, and I bought more nail polish and visited some more family and stuff. And so I got back like 2 weeks ago i guess, on Friday night.   So yeah ALL of last week I was mostly free and probably should have updated this blog, except I was kinda busy yaknow...being the laziest ass in the world and watching friends all day and yeah...And then last thursday my family and I went to upstate New york to spend some time in a lake house with our neighboors, and we didn't get back till Sunday. And band precamp started on Monday and I'm away marching and playing in the hot hot sun from 9-2. So I guess this week I'll be able to get some blogging done, before leaving for band camp in Pennsylvania on Sunday, and will have no computer access/free time for all 5 days. So yeah August is like a super busy month for me. But I'll try and post some stuff for this week! I did do my nails after I got back from China and I have pics of those for you guys today!
So what I attempted here was a turquoise stone effect. Like this:

I'd seen lots of turquoise stone manicures so I thought I'd give it a try. So this is what I ended up with...

 So really not sure how I feel about these. I do think the effect is really cool...but I probably should have picked a more turquoise-y base color. What I'm wearing here is Urban Outfitters-Absinthe. It's a couple shades darker than what you see in the pictures. And that really isn't the color of absinthe. It annoys me when polish names are like that. If you're gonna name a polish absinthe you might as well make it the actual color of absinthe. But the dark teal color is still quite pretty! 

So after a couple coats of "Absinthe" I used plastic wrap to dab on white and grey polish. Then I used the water spotting method to get the black lines. It's basically where you put a few drops of black polish onto the surface of water, spray it with something like hairspray, which will create fine lines in the surface of the black polish, then dip your nail into a part you like to transfer the polish onto your nail. Much like water marbling. 

This was my first time ever using this sort of method, I don't even do water marbling that much because I find it sort of tedious. I think for a first try it came out pretty well though! I really like my pinky and index finger, I managed to get the finest lines on those. The other nails all seem to have larger chunks of black polish. 

Overall I think this is a manicure I'll be trying again sometime soon. Maybe with like other colors and stuff, it's a really cool effect and I got SO many people asking me how I did these! 
So that's all I've got you guys today! I'll be posting some more stuff this week (hopefully) before band camp so yay! Have a great rest of the day everybody!
Oh and fyi, THIS is absinthe

Please don't ask me how I knew all that.
~Nova

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