Showing posts with label zoya. Show all posts
Showing posts with label zoya. Show all posts

Tuesday, July 8, 2014

Twinsie Tuesday, Stripes

Good evening everyone and happy Tuesday! Sorry I'm late posting today, I just haven't been feeling 100% lately and needed sleep last night. 

For today's prompt we were supposed to do a mani with stripes. I wracked my brain over this one and couldn't come up with anything that interested me except for a mani I did a few months ago but never posted. 



This is the mani that I did for our anniversary weekend back in March. Just over 12 years we've been married, I can't believe how lucky I am sometimes! Mike's favorite polish color is red, so I started with Zoya Sooki. Then I decided to try my hand at the famous "amkuch" mani. (She made this design famous, you should definitely check her out on Instagram, her nails are AMAZING!) On my middle finger I did 2 coats of OPI This Gown Needs a Crown and added In True Stefani Fasion. On my ring finger I used 2 coats of This Gown Needs a Crown and added 1 coat of HK Girl topcoat by Glisten & Glow. Once that was fully dry I used my straight Nail Vinyls from www.nailvinyls.com to add stripes in OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls. Then I freehanded a little heart in Sooki. After everything was dry I gave all of my nails another coat of HK Girl and I was good to go!

I loved this mani so much that I've been saving it in my phone for months waiting for the perfect time to post. This was the perfect time! 

I hope you like this mani! I definitely need to try this again once my poor little teeny ring finger nail is back to a normal length! 

Thanks for reading! Be sure to check out the other Twinsie's blogs linked below to see their stripes!!!

~casey

Amanda at Amandalandish
Amber at Nails Like Lace
Bridget at A Painted Nail
Chelsea at Nailed Blog
Elizabeth at Did My Nails
Kelly at Tuxarina
​Marisa at Polish Obsession
Róisín at Cuti-CLUE-les
Stephanie at A Little Polish
Tiffany at Polished To Precision​


**The products in this post were purchased by me for my own personal use.**

Sunday, March 16, 2014

Born Pretty Store: Black Rhinestones

**press sample**

Two posts in one day? Crazy right? I can't wait to share the rest of my Born Pretty Store goodies with you, so you're getting more than one post today. :) 

This post is devoted to 1.5 mm rhinestones just like the previous post, but the color option is #12 from the listing. 

For more pictures, details, and my coupon code click read more!


Born Pretty Store Review: Pink Rhinestones & Wax Picker Pencil

**press sample**

Hello everyone! Today I have another Born Pretty Store review for you, of 2 things. One is a decoration one is a tool. 

For this post I have Pink Rhinestones and a super handy little wax pencil. Click read more for more details, pictures, and a coupon code for 10% off!




Monday, March 10, 2014

Sincerely Polish Shamrockin' Trio

**press sample**

Hi everyone! Sorry for the late post, but I have to share these with you and this was the first chance I've had to post it. :) 

Tonight I have the Sincerely Polish Shamrockin' Trio!

First up, Teal My Luck Runs Out.





Here you see 3 coats of Teal My Luck Runs Out topped with 1 coat of Gelous and 1 coat of Glossy Glam by Just Ricarda. 

Teal My Luck Runs Out is a white jelly base filled with various shapes and sizes of teal and mint glitters. Application on this was flawless, very little glitter placement and that was only on the larger glitters. LOVE it!

Next up is Don't Touch My Pot of Gold.






For this look I used 1 coat of Don't Touch My Pot of Gold over Zoya Josie, on my ring finger I dabbed 3 coats of Don't Touch My Pot of Gold on it's own. All nails were topped with 1 coat of Gelous and 1 coat of Glossy Glam. 

Don't Touch My Pot of Gold is a clear base filled with every shape and size of gold glitter you can think of. So much sparkle! I posted a macro video of this baby on my Instagram, you should check it out! Application was easy and smooth!

Up last is Emerald Crush. 






For this mani I used 1 coat of Emerald Crush over Zoya Neely, my ring finger got 3 dabbed coats of Emerald Crush. All nails were topped with 1 coat of Gelous and 1 coat of Glossy Glam. 

Emerald Crush is a clear base packed with green glitters in every shape and size, including holographic green glitters and some holographic golds. So much awesome! Great application on this one too!

I love this collection and I can see myself pulling it out for more than just St. Patrick's Day. 

You can purchase Sincerely Polish in their store here. Be sure to follow Karen Jo on Instagram for updates and sales!

Glossy Glam can be purchased in their store here. 

Thanks for reading! Have a great night everyone! 

~casey

**The polishes in this post were provided to me in exchange for a fair and honest review. For more information please see my disclosure policy**

Tuesday, March 4, 2014

Twinsie Tuesday Grunge Nails

Happy Tuesday everyone! I hope you're all having a great week so far! I'm feeling pretty worn down... without going into a ton of detail I'll just say that endometriosis SUCKS. :)   

So today's prompt is Grunge Nails. At first I thought I'd go with the distressed look that has been floating around the internet since the beautiful Sarah over at Chalkboard Nails posted them here. (go check it out, they're amazing!)

But, I wanted to add more to it. When I think of "grunge" I think of my teen years. Yes, I'm 33, I was a teen in the 90s... when grunge was at it's prime. I have never been (and probably never will be) fashionable, but I was mesmerized by the look when I was young. So I needed to add to that distressed look... acid wash jeans came to mind. A lot of people have done this look, so I got to browsing the web and found a great tutorial on Seriously Swatched here. 

This is what I came up with.





For this mani I used all Zoya polishes, except for my topcoats. 

I started with 1 coat of Zoya Blu. That isn't enough to get complete coverage, but you don't need complete coverage with either of these looks. I added a coat of Glossy Glam topcoat to this to get it nice and dry. Then on my pinky and pointer I added 1 coat of Sailor, 1 coat of Blu, 1 coat of Sailor and another coat of Blu. I then took a piece of a makeup sponge dipped in acetone and kinda "burned" little holes in it. (See Cordia's tutorial for better instructions... I'm not good at them at all!) After that I added a coat of Gelous. While it was still a little tacky I added some silver studs from Born Pretty... they kind of reminded me of button fly Levi's. Remember those? After I got those where I wanted them I added another coat of Glossy Glam and moved on to my distressed nails. 

For these nails I used Yana, Josie, and Neve on top of Blu. I followed Sarah's tutorial here. For a first try I don't think I did too bad, and I'm glad I used Neve instead of black... it pulled it together without making it too dark. 

Mike says that these aren't very "grunge", his idea was I should just paint them black. But I think this was maybe a more colorful take on grunge. After all, I don't remember it being all dark and dingy... ;) 

I hope you all like this mani! I had fun doing it. Be sure to check out the other Twinsie's posts to see how they interpreted Grunge Nails! Can't wait to see them myself! Links are below!

Thanks for reading!

~casey


Amanda at Amandalandish
Amber at Nails Like Lace
Chelsea at Nailed Blog
Elizabeth at Did My Nails
Kelly at Tuxarina
Marisa at Polish Obsession
Rachel at Top Coat It
Róisín at Cuti-CLUE-les
Stephanie at A Little Polish
Traci at DrinkCitra


**The polishes in this post were purchased by me for my own personal use.**

Tuesday, February 4, 2014

Twinsie Tuesday Red Nails for American Heart Month (Heart Disease Awareness)

Good morning polish friends! I hope you're having a good week so far! So far my week is good but a bit hectic. 

For today's post our prompt was Red Nails for American Heart Month. Whenever I think "perfect red polish", I think Zoya. I've got 2 perfect reds from Zoya, today I decided on Rehka. 



For this mani I applied 3 thin coats of Rehka followed with 1 coat of Glisten & Glow HK Girl Topcoat for extra shine. 

Look at that red! Look at that shine! I love these. I will admit that red polish is NOT my favorite polish. I love it in theory, and I love it on other people, but I'm not crazy about it on my hands. And I'm REALLY not crazy about working with it. It stains my skin so easily... so I have to be extra super duper extremely careful with my application so that I don't need much clean up. I think I did a pretty good job here. And lets be honest, it's hard to make this polish look anything but beautiful. 

Sorry I didn't get any nail art done for ya, crazy hectic day Tuesday taking the dog to the vet for a teeth cleaning. I took her to my parents vet 40 miles away, then got too chatty when I picked her up after work and didn't get home til almost 10. Whoops. :) 

I hope you love this red! Zoya has some amazing polishes, you definitely need to try some out if you haven't yet. 

Thank you for reading! Be sure to check out my other Twinsie Tuesday friends for their Red Manis for American Heart Month! See below for their links! 

~casey

**All polishes in this post were purchased by me for my own personal use.**

Amanda at Amandalandish
Amber at Nails Like Lace
Chelsea at Nailed Blog
Elizabeth at Did My Nails
Kelly at Tuxarina
Marisa at Polish Obsession
Rachel at Top Coat It
Róisín at Cuti-CLUE-les
Stephanie at A Little Polish
Traci at DrinkCitra


Tuesday, January 21, 2014

Twinsie Tuesday, Seasonal Gradient

Good morning friends! I hope everyone is having a good week so far. I've been so busy at work lately that I haven't had much energy to do any blogging. BUT, this is Twinsie Tuesday, and I will always make time/energy for that! 

Today's prompt is Seasonal Gradient. This could be interpreted a lot of ways... but after seeing The Base Coat's Instagram post of a gradient using Zoya Carter and Arabella, I KNEW I had to do something similar. But I needed seasonal... automatically my mind went to wintry blues and silvers. 



For this manicure I started with 2 coats of Zoya Pixie Dust in Nyx, a lovely light silvery blue. Then I sponged on Zoya Pixie Dust in Sunshine, the most amazing deep navy blue Pixie you've ever seen, at the base of my nail. On some of the nails I got more Sunshine than I wanted, so I just sponged on more Nyx until I was happy. Gradients with Pixie Dusts are SO MUCH MORE FORGIVING than gradients with cream polish. Oh my goodness. Especially with these two, because they both have the same silvery glitter base... they just blend together seamlessly. 

Of course I had to throw some topcoat on there just to see what happened. Holy sparkles batman! 




Pixie Dust's can be kind of hard to get smooth and glossy. Any textured polish is for that matter, probably because they are designed to be textured. But if you use the right stuff you get amazing payout. For this ultra shiny and sparkly look I added 2 coats of ACI Gelous from Sally's and 1 coat of HK Girl Topcoat by Glisten and Glow. Wowza! They look like they're set in resin or something. Isn't it incredible? I've been wearing these since Sunday night and I love them. I am being very careful while driving though, it's been sunny and we all know how distracting glitter can be in the sun. No more car accidents for this girl for a long long LONG time please. 

So what do you think? Have you tried a gradient with Zoya Pixie Dust? Trust me, you really should! Find 2 that have a similar base glitter color and go for it. Do you like the matte or glossy finish better? I love them both, but my heart has to choose the glossy if I had to pick one.

Zoya nail polish can be purchased at Ulta, www.zoya.com, and many salons across the US. I get most of mine from the website, and I'm not ashamed to say that I own almost all of the Pixie Dusts. They are by far my favorite textured polishes out there today.  

I hope you all enjoyed this mani as much as I did! Be sure to check out the other Twinsie Tuesday Bloggers! Links to their blogs are below! 

Talk to you soon! 

~casey

**All products in this post were purchased by me for my own personal use.** 

Amanda at Amandalandish
Amber at Nails Like Lace
Chelsea at Nailed Blog
Elizabeth at Did My Nails
Kelly at Tuxarina
Marisa at Polish Obsession
Rachel at Top Coat It
Róisín at Cuti-CLUE-les
Stephanie at A Little Polish
Traci at DrinkCitra


Tuesday, January 14, 2014

Twinsie Tuesday: Nails inspired by one of your family members.

Good morning everyone! I hope you're all having a great week so far. Mine has been hectic, but I can't complain too much... I am already ready for another weekend though, it's going to be a long week.

For today's Twinsie Tuesday post the prompt was nails inspired by one of your family members. That was easy for me, my husband Mike. At the risk of getting a bit sappy, my hubby really is my best friend. This last couple of years have really proven just how lucky I am. He's taken care of me through 2 surgeries, some seriously heartbreaking self discovery, my first car wreck, (the wreck and 1 surgery in the last month... whew) and many many other things. I won't go into all the details, but I love the guy to pieces. This March we will be celebrating our 12th wedding anniversary and I love him more and more every day.

SO, lets get beyond the sap. Besides all of that greatness, he supports my love of polish. He teases me about it naturally, but he's super supportive. He is constantly combing the net for deals (of any kind), and when he finds anything polish related he lets me know. He "oohs and aahs" my nail mail, tells me my super sparkly polishes look like a bass boat, and compliments my nail art. Usually his answer is "That's pretty fancy", which is my favorite response.

So when I saw the family member inspired nail art I knew it had to be him. I've been wanting to do a Mike themed mani for a while, but this was the kick in the pants I needed. My husband is a serious Dodge (MOPAR) lover. His baby is his 2012 Blacktop Edition Dodge Charger. It was our first (and probably only) brand new car, and we both love it. But he definitely loves it a little bit more than me. The one deal we made when we bought the car was that we would start taking a road trip every year, and so far we've kept the promise. (This car isn't just beautiful, its comfy.)

So here is my Dodge Charger Black Top tribute manicure.




My inspiration, the Dodge Logo. 


And our Black Top Dodge Charger. 
Photo courtesy of my lovely and talented sister-in-law, Jen from Images By Jen Photography
Click here for more photos from the Charger's photo shoot. (Yes we had a shoot with the car, the pictures turned out incredible!)



Since the Black Top Charger is black on black (black wheels, black paint, and ours has pretty dark black tint) I went with a mostly gloss black manicure using 2 coats of OPI Black Onyx topped with 2 coats of HK Girl Topcoat by Glisten & Glow. For this car it has to be ultra glossy black. For my Ring Finger I decided to do a take on the newer Dodge logo. Mike's car doesn't have these red stripes on it anywhere, but I like the way they look and they made the accent nail pop. For this nail I started with 2 coats of Zoya Sooki then topped it with 1 coat of HK Girl Topcoat. It's fast drying, and since I was using tape I needed that.

Once it dried I used my Nail Vinyls for the very first time. Let me stop here and throw in a little review. This vinyls are amazing. I've used vinyls before and loved them. (Make It Stick Designs on Etsy makes some BEAUTIFUL nail vinyls, including chevrons. These are designed to leave on the nail.) But this was my first experience with vinyls that are made to be removed. You let your base dry, apply the vinyls making sure they are completely adhered to the nail, then top it with your 2nd color. (black in my case) Before that dries you gently remove the vinyls leaving crisp and clear stripes. I've been battling tape for quite some time now... striping tape and masking tape cut with craft scissor or regular scissors. It is a pain in the butt. The tape is hard to get even, usually too sticky so you have to fight it to get it off, it smudges the lines, on and on. It's a huge headache. These vinyls have just the right amount of stickiness and weight to make them extremely easy to work with. I am in love. My first order was 300 chevrons and 200 straights (various sizes), and I think I will be ordering more very soon! 

Overall I love this mani. I didn't wear it for long, I had a serious itch to do more nail art. Mikey loved them, they were a subtle tribute to his beloved car. Someday I will do a MOPAR manicure, but that's not going to be any time soon. I have to wrap my head around it. :)

So what do you all think? I hope you like them! Hubby did!

Be sure to check out all of the other lovely Twinsie Tuesday bloggers (links at the bottom of the post) for their posts this week! I can't wait to see what everyone has in store!!!

See you all soon! Be sure to follow my Instagram for more current nail pics and weird little snippits of my day to day life. (which is boring, but sometimes I catch a funny pic of the fat dog or cranky cat.)

~casey
Amanda at Amandalandish
Amber at Nails Like Lace
Chelsea at Nailed Blog
Elizabeth at Did My Nails
Kelly at Tuxarina
Marisa at Polish Obsession
Rachel at Top Coat It
Róisín at Cuti-CLUE-les
Stephanie at A Little Polish
Traci at DrinkCitra


Friday, November 15, 2013

Loaded Lacquer The Last Frontier Collection

Good morning everyone! It's here, the 5th and final day of Loaded Lacquer week 2013!!! Heather's store is launching in just a couple of hours at www.loadedlacquer.com and I have just 6 more polishes to show you. 

**Press Sample.**

I saved The Last Frontier Collection for last, because I feel like these are Heather's favorite polishes.


More pics and details after the jump.

Sunday, October 6, 2013

Guest post from Indie500 Nails

Hi everyone! For my last day of guest posts I have the wonderful Amy from Indie500 nails! Amy and I met on Instagram and became fast friends. (well, I became fast friends.... I have a tendency to be a bit of a creep when it comes to my beloved Amy's.... aka Indie500 and McPolish. ;) ) 

Check out this fantastic mani! 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Well hello, people of the internet! A big thanks to Casey for asking me to guest post while she is off in the wilds of Colorado living it up. Despite forgetting the submission deadline and having an overwhelming fear of being too awkward for the bigtime (i.e. this blog!), I really am excited to be here. Casey is one of the best banterers I know on IG and it's a pleasure to hijack her little corner of the interweb for today. Let's dive in, shall we?

Casey gave no requirements for this post, which was a veritable invitation to run absolutely amok. However, due to the aforementioned nearly forgotten deadline, I have a fairly sedate fall mani to share. As a Texan, it's a little tricky for me to get excited about the changing of the seasons as there is rarely if ever an appreciable difference in the Lone Star state. But all the cool kids seem excited about it, so I'm hopping on the bandwagon and trying to at least swatch the fall collection polishes I just *had* to have prior to ordering the holiday collections that I will likewise need :)




For this fall skittlette mani, I used Zoya Hunter as my base. Formula was exactly what you'd expect from a Zoya creme and beautiful coverage and opacity were obtained in two easy coats. For the glitter gradient on the middle finger and thumb, I used a copper glitter topper sent to me by an IG friend, one of the Face of Australia Glitterati Nail Enamels. Upon researching for this very post, I discovered it is unnamed. This sort of conundrum probably explains why I am a guest blogger as opposed to a regular blogger :) The ring finger was stamped using the leaf image from Winstonia plate 119 with Mentality Nail Polish Proper.

Well, we've made it to the end together. If you weren't deterred by my awkward, stream of consciousness rambling, er *blogging* up to this point, I'd love to have you stop by my semi-defunct blog over at indie500nails.com. And if you'd like to actually see semi regular posts, please follow me on Instagram! 

Happy Fall Y'all!
Peave, Love and Polish!

Amy aka @indie500nails

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Ok, first of all, can we agree that Amy is hilarious? This post had me giggling the entire time. Second of all, I'm big time? Really? Dude, you've got like a for real blog and over 4,000 followers on Instagram. If that's not big time I don't know what is. ;)

Amy thank you so much for helping me out and doing this mani for me! 

Everyone I hope you have enjoyed my 10 days of guest posters! I wanted to share some of my favorites with you!!! And hopefully they'll be some of your favorites now too! 

I should be back on a regular posting schedule very soon, as soon as things settle down from our vacation. 

Thanks for reading!

~casey

Saturday, October 5, 2013

Guest post from McPolish

Good morning everyone! So today's guest post is from the wonderful Amy McPolish!!! Amy and I have been creeping on each other on Instagram for a while. Go check her out, her nails are amazing! 

Lets see what kind of awesomeness she came up with for my little blog. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hi! I'm Amy McG aka McPolish!  I was so honored when my favorite stalker, Casey, asked me to write a guest blog post for her.  Well, a little about me.  I started painting my nails in October 2012.  It all started with a Sally Hansen magnetic polish I saw at Wal-Mart.  I was so intrigued about this crazy concept that I googled it and fell upon a nail polish blog.  Wow!  I was hooked!  I started buying up all the polish (like we all did).  Then in March 2013, I started my Instagram account (www.instagram.com/mcpolish) and got sucked into the nail art and indie polish world.  And down the rabbit hole I went...deeper and deeper.  But I love nail art and indie polish, so I wanted to share them both with you today.

For this guest post, I decided to share a skittlette mani using one of my favorite indie polish makers (and Casey's too!) Pipe Dream Polish!  These two polishes are from April's new fall line.  The gorgeous brown glitter is called "Fall Again" and I layered it over Zoya Flynn on my thumb and pointer finger.  The green polish with gold and brown glitter is called "Time in a Tapestry".  I used two coats alone over my pinky and then punched tiny heart shapes out of it to use over Flynn on my middle and ring finger.  Of course we must matte all the mani's :)





I have used homemade polish decals before by painting polish on a plastic bag then cutting out shapes and strips once it dries.  Well this time I had worn "Time in a Tapestry" with a base coat of Nail Pattern Boldness "Glitter-a-peel", which is an epic peel off base coat.  When I decided to change my mani and popped off my polish, I didn't want to waste that gorgeous glitter!  So I decided to punch some hearts out of the old polish.  Now I can wear my glitter mani's more than once!  Reduce...Recycle...Reuse! Lol!

You can find both Pipe Dream Polish and Nail Pattern Boldness on Etsy!
http://www.etsy.com/shop/pipedreampolish

http://www.etsy.com/shop/nailpatternboldness

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Amy I love this! Anyone who has followed me on here or on Instagram knows how much I love Pipe Dream Polish, so this is perfect. And I love the idea of punching shapes out of peeled off manis! Thank you so much for helping me out with a guest post! 

~casey

Friday, September 13, 2013

Zoya Giovanna


Good morning everyone! Happy Friday! 

Today I have a quick swatch of Zoya Giovanna for you. This is a beautiful metallic emerald green. To me it almost looks like liquid emeralds, it's gorgeous. 


Natural light, shade. 

Natural light, sun. 




It leans a little more blue in pictures than in person. In person it's a very vibranttrue  green. 

The formula on this one was ok. The formula on metallic polishes is usually a bit watery, and this is not exception. But it built up nicely and dried pretty quickly. For this mani I used 3 coats of Giovanna topped with 1 coat of Glossy Glam topcoat. 

Zoya nail polish can be purchased from www.zoya.com and in some Ulta stores. 

Glossy Glam can be purchased on Etsy, http://www.etsy.com/shop/justricarda. 

What do you think? I love this one and will definitely be pulling it out for the holiday season. 

Have a great day everyone! 

~casey

**All polishes in this post were purchased by me for my own personal use.**

Thursday, September 12, 2013

Red Roses

Good morning everyone. Happy Thursday! 

Today's post is all about some red nails I did for a collaboration over on Instagram. NailsLikeLace and ChristaBellNails put together a second rainbow mani collaboration. I can't imagine what a pain this had to have been for them, but I am so glad they did it. Go check out their Instagrams, they do great work and are super sweet. And this was a big task they took on. 

There were 200 nail girls involved in this one. I was in the "firetruck" group, which just meant that we had to use red. Our manicure had to be at least 95% red anyway, so we could do some nail art in there too. Red is one of my least favorite polish colors to use on myself.... I feel like they put me in there on purpose. But that's good, I like being pushed out of my comfort zone with manicures. (signing up for collabs is a great way to do that to yourself... lol)

The only thing I knew right away was that I was going to use Zoya Sooki, it's a perfect red. I started with that, and ended up with this mani. 

This is the pic I submitted for the collage. 

Natural Sunlight

Light Box
  
Light Box

For my ring finger and thumb I started with a base of Essie Mint Candy Apple. I then used Zoya Sookie and China Glaze Merry Berry and Red Satin to start my roses. I also mixed a little Wet-n-Wild Blank Canvas in with Sooki to get a light color for highlights. Then I used OPI Jade Is the New Black and Zoya Josie for the leaves. My other nails are 2 coats of Zoya Sooki with 1 coat of Glossy Glam on top of it all to seal it in and make it glossy. 

What do you think? I loved this mani, even if it is red. I like the way red looks, mostly... But what I really don't like is working with it. It stains and is just a pain in the butt for me. But that's just me. :) 

Here is the collage that the girls made with all 200 manis. Pretty awesome huh? I'm on the left side, 7th from the bottom. :)


You should head over to Instagram an check out the tag #rainbow2collab to see all of the other lovely manis! 

I hope you all enjoyed this post! I'll talk to you soon!

~casey

**All polishes in this post were purchased by me for my own personal use.**