Arabella & Tomoko, Show Us Your Heart

Good morning polished friends! I hope everyone is having a great week! :)

I'll warn you now, this is a picture heavy post. But I can't help myself sometimes. And macros of PixieDust polishes make me so so happy. Hopefully they make you happy too.

Today's manicure is something that I posted on Instagram a couple of days ago. The lovely Mrs Lochness and Ethereal Lacquer paired up to do a contest called #showusyourheart. The only rules were that you had to incorporate a heart into your design, and you had to say something nice about someone in your comments. Well, I had to enter. I don't really care about winning (although it would be awesome) but I am a big fan of positivity and being encouraging to others, especially in my little nail art community. No, not everyone does great manis every time... but even manis that don't look spectacular take a lot of time and effort. Plus it takes guts to post this stuff on the Internet. So we should be building each other up, always. 

For my something nice about someone I chose the lovely Elena from Ecklipsed by Color. You should go check her out, she's on Instagram and has a great blog. Elena is always so positive and encouraging no matter what is going on in her life, I admire that a lot in a person. I just had to call her out for it! Go check her out, you won't be sorry! (plus she's got an drool worthy indie collection... it makes me swoon...)

I wasn't feeling like doing anything too complex, so I kept it simple with some Zoya PixieDusts. The base for this mani is 2 coats of Zoya Arabella. Arabella is a rich fuchsia pink (straight from Zoya.com) and I agree. It's a rich, deep, beautiful pink. And sparkles... oh my. You know how I feel about these PixieDust polishes and how I rave about Zoya's ability to somehow capture texture, matte, sparkle, and shine, all in one bottle. It's baffling. Once Arabella dried I took a nail art brush and painted hearts on my ring fingers and thumbs in Tomoko. Tomoko is a beautiful silvery gold. I'm not sure I'll ever wear this by itself, but I love using in it manicures for nail art. I'm just not a huge fan of gold on my own nails by itself.

Full Sun

Full Sun

Full Sun Macro

Full Sun Macro

Natural Light, Shade

Natural Light, Shade

Light Box

Light Box

Light Box, close up of my thumb. She felt left out. :) 

What do you think? I really love this one. I wore it for a few days, I just couldn't take it off. PixieDust polishes are so great for nail art. It's crazy but they level out into each other, so you don't even miss having a topcoat to smooth things out. 

Zoya nail polish can be purchased on their website here, in some salon retailers, and in some Ulta stores. 

You should also check out Mrs Lochness on Instagram. Her swatches and nail art are AMAZING. 

Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed these as much as I did! 

~casey

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

Zoya Carter

Good morning! I hope everyone is having a good week so far. We're almost to the weekend, and it's a 3 day weekend for some of us. I'm pretty excited. We've got big plans to do nothing, which is our favorite thing to do. I'm sure I'll paint my nails, probably half a dozen times... you know how it is. 

Today I have one of the fall 2013 Zoya PixieDust polishes. I LOVE these textures. I've said it before and I'll say it again, Zoya has the texture down perfect. They've got the sparkle, matte, and texture all balanced out perfectly. 

Zoya describes Carter as royal purple, I think that's pretty accurate. It's really unique, in different lights the base looks like dark purple and sometimes dark blue. The glitter in this is more pink, and it really brightens the whole look. Then there's the sparkle.... ugh. If you are following my Instagram you saw the video I posted of it last night. If you're not following my Instagram, please go check it out and follow me. 

There isn't much to say about Carter, I'll let the polish speak for itself. The light box pictures are the most color accurate to real life, but really it's very hard to capture it's beauty. Sorry, I love taking macro pictures of these textures. 

Light Box

Light Box Macro

Light Box Macro

I took a blurry one just to show the sparkle. I love this stuff.

Natural Light (Shade)

The sun was setting when I went to get dinner so I had to snap a pic, of course.

This is 3 coats of Carter with no top coat. 

What do you think? I have to say, if you like sparkly polish and you like purple, you NEED Carter in your life. 

Zoya polishes can be purchased on their website and in some Ulta stores.

**The polish in this post was purchased by me for my own personal use.** 

Zoya Miranda

Good morning and happy Saturday! I hope everyone is having a good weekend so far. Ours has been good. This morning we took our cat to the vet for a check up and nail trim. I was pretty nervous about this because she's 11 and this is only the 3rd time she's left the house. And because she tends to be a bit grouchy. But, she did much better than I expected. She didn't try to bite anyone, she only hissed a little, and held mostly still while they trimmed her tender problem nails. So much better than I expected, so I have high hopes for a good weekend! :)

Today I have another Zoya PixieDust polish to show you. I know I've said it before, and I'll say it again and again and again. I love these polishes. I love all of my Zoyas, but these Pixies are so sparkly, the texture is perfect, and the formula is amazing. I could go on and on about them. 

Today's color is Miranda. Zoya describes this polish as a "rose sparkle". It's a lovely pinkish mauve shade, with just a hint of coral. At least that is how it pulls on my exceptionally pasty complexion. It's very pretty and subtle. 

On to some pictures. I'm going to show you this polish both matte and topped with glossy topcoat. PixieDusts are sparkly straight out of the bottle, both matte and glittery. Adding a topcoat changes it completely, and turns the glitteriness a whole new dimension. It's kind of like getting 2 polishes in one. 

This is 3 coats of Miranda on its own with no topcoat. All in the light box. 

Then I added 3 coats of my favorite topcoat, Glossy Glam. Textured polishes are very "topcoat hungry", so it takes a bit to get it all smoothed out. But I wanted a glassy finish on this, so I'm glad I added that extra coat. 

Here is one with the flash to show the extra sparkles. Sorry, I had just used cuticle oil so it's a little greasy around the edges. 

Sparkle sparkle! :) 

So what do you all think of this color? I love it. It's a "safe" color, but still fun with all of the texture and sparkle. 

Thanks for reading! 

~casey

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

PixieDust Leopard!!!

Good morning polish lovers! I hope everyone is having a good day so far! 

I have to say, I am super excited to bring you this manicure. A few weeks ago I ordered the entire Zoya Pixie Dust fall 2013 collection. Around the same time I did my first Leopard print mani... and then I realized I haven't seen anyone do an all PixieDust leopard mani! I knew I had to do it. I love Zoya, I love PixieDust polish, I love nail art... so being able to combine all three was such an exciting idea for me. I didn't mention this leopard idea to anyone, I just kind of kept it stewing in my brain. Then last weekend I was playing with my nail wheel and tried it out. It looked great to me, but I needed my good friend Alaina's opinion. (aka TheLittleCanvas) I sent her a picture, I knew she'd be honest with me if it totally sucked. She loved it too, and after we threw ideas back and forth for a bit we decided it would be a great opportunity to do some #BestieTwinNails for Instagram. Alaina is way more experienced than I am with blogging and nail art, and she's got a special gift with PixieDust nail art... so I was thrilled to do a little collab with her. Go check out Alaina's blog and Instagram as soon as you can, she's great and super sweet. Her version of these turned out fantastic! 

Here is our stitched photo for Instagram, both with topcoat. We were pretty matchy matchy huh? :)

Now for some solo shots of my version. I took pictures of this both with and without topcoat. For the textured look, you need to leave the topcoat off. But adding a topcoat gives you a totally different (and more sparkly) look. 

First I'll show you the textured look.

Full Sun, textured

Full Sun, textured

Full Sun, textured

Light Box, textured

And here it is with a couple of coats of Seche Vite. 

Full Sun, topcoated

Full Sun, topcoated

Light box, topcoated

Light Box, topcoated

For this look I used the entire Zoya Fall PixieDust Collection and Pixie Dust in Dahlia from their first PixieDust Collection.

Here are the colors and names for you:

Black - Dahlia

Gold - Tomoko

Blue - Sunshine

Green - Chita

Orange - Dhara

Purple - Carter

Pink - Arabella

I started with a base of 2 coats of Tomoko on all nails. Then using a medium size nail art brush I started painting the colored spots. Some colors required two coats (Carter needed 3 in some spots), then using a fine nail art brush I painted the lines in Dahlia. I used 2 coats of Dahlia on all nails so that it would really pop as black. I think leopard print nails are one of the absolute easiest types of nail art to do. You don't want it to be perfect, the less perfect your spots are the better. So it's pretty fail proof! 

I highly recommend Zoya's PixieDusts. They are by far my favorite of all of the textured polishes out there. They are textured but not too rough, matte but also sparkly, and the colors and formula are fantastic. 

What do you all think? Do you like this? I was very excited to do it because it's the first time that I came up with a mani that I hadn't seen before. I've seen lots of textured nail art, and it all inspires me. But I hadn't seen a full textured leopard design yet. You should give it a try! If you do let me know because I want to see! You can tag me on Instagram or send me a message on kik or email! 

Instagram & kik: caseylanelovespolish

email: caseylanelovespolish@gmail.com

Thanks for reading! 

~casey

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

Zoya Stevie...

Hello everyone! I hope you're all having a good week so far! 

Today I have an awesome polish to share with you. Zoya PixieDusts are by far my favorite of the textured polishes out right now. They got the formula just right in my opinion; the texture is sandy but not too rough and the finish is matte but also incredibly sparkly. I haven't really mastered catching them on camera, but trust me, they are amazing. 

A couple of weeks ago I placed my largest (and most expensive) polish order ever, and of course it was from Zoya.com. I'm just so in love with the Pixies and Zoyas in general lately. So, I ordered Stevie and Miranda from the summer PixieDust collection and the entire fall Pixie Dust Collection. I also ordered Josie, Neely, Storm, and Hope. So prepare yourself to see lots of Zoya over the next few weeks. :) 

So first up is Stevie. Zoya describes Stevie as a violet sparkle with silver sparkle, but I think it's closer to lavender. To me its a nice, light, soft purple. I wore this color for a couple of days and loved it. 

I put this over my usual OPI Nail Envy Matte base coat. Zoya says to use no base coat, but I can't do it. Nail Envy has been so good for my nails, I can't go without it. I've heard they dry faster without base, but I'm okay with waiting. This is 3 thin coats. With PixieDusts make sure you let them dry in between coats, and the full effect doesn't show up until it's totally dry. 

Sorry this post is a little picture heavy. I've got light box and sun pictures for you. 

First the light box pictures. 

And here it is in the sun

I highly HIGHLY recommend the Zoya PixieDusts. Stevie is the 4th one I've tried and I've loved every single one. They apply like a dream and wear incredibly well. If you're a fan of textured polish and sparkle, you need at least one of them in your life. 

Let me know what you think of this polish. Do you have any PixieDusts? Are they your favorite too???

Happy polishing!

~casey