Gradient and Water Marble Together Forever

I love combining techniques in new and interesting ways.  A lot of the time it won't work but occasionally you can create something amazing.

Last night I did a rainbow gradient nail.  I started by painting my nail white with Essie Blanc so I could make the colors pop.  I used a make up sponge with layered colors of nail polish to make a rainbow I could sponge onto the nail in a gradient.

After the rainbow design was finished I started on a water marble.  Water marbling is the technique of taking nail polish and dropping it on the surface of a bowl of water.  The nail polish will spread out over the surface in a circular pattern.  You can add multiple colors to the bowl and then swirl them to give liquid patterns.  The nail is then dipped into the pattern and when removed there is a gorgeous marbled pattern.  To display the rainbow through the water marble I used Julep Marissa which is a sheer shimmer color meant to go over other shades of polish, contrasted with China Glaze Liquid Leather.

There was  a lot of clean up with this technique! It was kind of a pain but, I got a beautiful result so it was worth the effort!  I've had request for a tutorial so I will be working on youtube videos of how to do gradients and water marbles separately and then you can combine them however you'd like.  :)

Cyber Monday Polish Deals!

I have a handful of deals today from large brands and corporations and indie polish makers too!  Many of these deals are ONLY available today and end at midnight so hurry!

First up, Julep!  If you are a maven check your emails!  They sent out mystery codes that will give you anywhere from 30%-60% off your entire order today!  A 60% code is W60JTQ use it and let me know if it works.  Before the code is applied if you spend $20 or more you can choose a free iphone 4/4s case!  I went with the blue one. (Phone case is reportedly now sold out)

Butter London has a great deal on select shades of their polish.  You can choose Aston, Victoriana, Marrow, Henley Regatta, The Old Bill, Big Smoke, Blagger, Bluey, Bumster, Dosh, Fash Pack, No More Waity Katie, Scoundrel and Swinger for only $10 each, reduced from the regular $14.  FREE shipping when you use the code CYBER12.   

Ulta is having their own Butter London deal.  Buy 2 get 1 free of their online Butter London shades.  FREE shipping when you spend over $25 and use the code HOLIDAY2012.  If you spend over $35 you get to choose 1 of 3 styles of beauty bags containing 15 samples free.

Illamasqua is offering 20% everything but their Freak products when you use the code XMAS20.  Buy any item from their Christmas gifts selection and they will throw in a free bottle of nail polish in Snap.

Freak Show Polish has a 20% off code when you use the code FSPCYBERMONDAY.  Swatches of her collection are a few posts back and they are AMAZING.  So be sure to check this one out.

Polished by KPT is doing a buy 2 get one free deal of her polishes. Once you have three polishes selected just use the code CYBERSALE to get your discount. Don't forget Polished by KPT is including a mini of Bleu Tonic in the prizes for my #uglysweaternails contest.

Coterie's Butter London deal is back with new shades! 40% off for three shades (only pay $25).  You can choose from Pearly Queen, Chimney Sweep, Fash Pack, Henley Regatta, Bumster, Saucy Jack, Thames and Chancer. Plus, sign up for an account using my code here and when you complete your first order they'll send you a free $10 gift card! They also have some Julep sets available at 55% off! Even better they are randomly selecting 20 orders today to be completely free!

Sally's Beauty is offering 25% off any order of $50 or more. Use the code 555214 at checkout.

NCLA is using the code CYBERMONDAY2012  so you can receive 20% off your entire purchase. Any order that is placed today will also include one free fall nail lacquer!

20% off all Nars products when you use the code NARSFF2012. Free shipping on all orders! 

Know of any polish related deals I've missed or want to add an indie deal to my list?  Let me know below in the comments! <3

Forever Polished is having a buy 2 get on free as wellllll as a 25% off code when you use the code 25offnow.  She's got some awesome holos!

Butter London Black Friday Deal!

I've got an awesome black friday deal for you today from Coterie!

First sign up. To get $10 in credit after you place your first order sign up using this link: http://www.coterie.com/refer?code=mOVGSV7BF

Head over to their Butter London section next. Select any three colors you'd like and check out! It will be 50% off so you will only spend $25.

I got two sets myself :D.

There are eight colors to choose from! Enjoy, and happy shopping!

Beetlejuice! Beetlejuice! Beetlejuice!

Beetlejuice nails!
I did these for Paper Thin Nails contest.  I think I should have stuck more to one style and not mixed realistic with cartoon because they clash a bit but, I still worked very hard on them and thought I should post them!

All polish was used for these nails there was no acrylic.  The base is Essie Blanc, For Beetlejuice I used Essie Sand Tropez for the skin, China Glaze for the black and to mix shades lighter, Ruby Wing Birdie for the yellow hair with touches of OPI Don't Mess with OPI for the moss green on the side of his face and in his hair, Essie Forever Yummy for the lips, Sally Hansen Shocking Seas for the eyes and Essie Blanc for the white highlights.  For the sandworm I used Essie Blanc for the white sections, China Glaze Liquid Leather for the black, Essie Forever Yummy for the red eyes, OPI Don't Mess with OPI for the lips and Ruby Wing Birdie for the yellowing teeth.  

Hope you like them!

Freak Show Polish: Lion Tamer, Sword Swallower, Snake Lady and Ringmaster

Today I am back with the rest of the Freak Show Polish collection!  I have four more gorgeous glitters to swatch and review.

I started off with Lion Tamer.  I used Julep Donna for the undercoat and topped it with Lion Tamer to show off the gold and red glitters.  On the accent finger is a little acrylic painted lion.  I am seeing with Freak Show Polishes that they have absolutely NO problems with glitters laying flat!  What a relief!  I was worried when I saw the stars that I'd have problems with the glitters pulling up but they laid nicely against my nail and stayed looking pretty.  I had to fish a few stars out but I find with any polish that has glitters stars I always need to do a bit of fishing.  It's unavoidable because they are so big and heavy!

In the macro you can see how harmonious these glitters are together in this polish!

For the macro you can see some holo shine on these glitters and they really do pick up the light and reflect vividly.  The stars are in there!  They just tend to get hidden amongst the smaller shapes.  Here is what Freak Show Polish has to say about Lion Tamer: "Inspired by the people daring enough to take on the king of the jungle, Lion Tamer is a glitter top coat full of gold squares, slices and hexes as well as red hexes and stars." Rawr!

I was super excited to try Sword Swallower!  This polish has a strong collection of silver holo glitters in bars and hexs that reflects rainbows everywhere!  It also includes translucent and black hex glitters.  The light is picked up in the holo and translucence while it is sucked back up again by the black glitters. It is a really great effect.  I used Essie Blanc as a base because I wanted to reflect as much light as possible to the holo glitters.  

See that gorgeous rainbow of colors on the pinky bars?  You get that all over with subtle shifts of your hand in the light!

The macro shot of Sword Swallower really shows off the rainbow best.  You have a full spectrum of colors here.  This glitter would look gorgeous over anythinggggg.  Here is Freak Show Polishes description: "Inspired by one of the more daring acts of the circus, Sword Swallower is a top coat glitter polish packed full of silver, gray, and holographic hexes and slices." Sign me up to duel this guy anytime.

Snake Lady in the bottle gave me the impression of snake scales so I decided to try and create my own snake scales on my fingertips.  I used OPI DS Illuminate as the base and did two coats of Snake Lady on top.  This glitter has black glitters, large whites and medium browns.  And don't forget the signature translucent glitters hidden in there.  I really see speckled snake scales when I look at this mani!

I love this combo!  The glitter went on great and gave me the exact look I was aiming for.  

I read Freak Show Polishes description after I came up with my scale-er-ific mani idea and it appears we are on the same page with this glitter, "Snake Lady is a top coat glitter polish with brown, black and white hexes in various sizes created to give a reptilian look to your manicure." Exsssselent!

I saved my personal favorite for last.  Bringing up the rear of the parade is Ringmaster!  Ringmaster is a light red translucent base with gold, black, yellow, red and white glitters somehow all fit into one bottle!  The base on this polish is fan-freaking-tastic.  The red coats your nail to opacity and gives you an instant jelly sandwich.  The base pigment is a bright red that really adds some flare to your nails.

Of course not only are all the glitters above included but Freak Show Polishes translucent glitters are sprinkled in as well!  I find these really round out her formulas well to give all of her polishes a wonderful, full effect.

Upon closer inspection I was surprised to find that the large red glitters are textured!  See that criss cross pattern on them?  How complex can one nail polish get?  What a wonderful surprise!  Freak Show Polish sounds equally excited about Ringmaster: "The Ringmaster of a circus is front and center. This polish, inspired by its namesake, features a red jelly base with gold squares and black, white, yellow, and red hexes."  Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls the gorgeous Ringmaster!

Overall Freak Show Polishes entire collection was wonderfully made.  The base suspended all these glitters, sometimes large heavy ones, perfectly well.  All of them spread the glitters evenly over the nail and had a great variety to them.  There is a through thought to all of these polishes and they clearly belong in one, big, freaky, happy family.  The pigmented jelly based polishes did exactly what they were suposed to and the clear based glitters perfectly accentuated my manicures.  

My must haves of this collection for me are Ringmaster because of the amazing complex awesomeness of it,  Sword Swallower for its lovely holographic glitters, Circus Elephant for its fun glitter colors offset by the dark base and Snake Lady for its purely reptilian poise.  Lion Tamer, Mime, Cotton Candy and Fire Eater were all fabulous glitters as well, I'm just purely picking out my own personal faves.  

You won't miss with any of these polishes!  Here is Freak Show Polishes site.  You can also find her on Facebook and Instagram @freakshowpolish.  Be sure to watch for her upcoming six new polishes which are to be released the first week of December.  I know like an elephant, I'll never forget!  

This polish was sent for review and is based on my individual, honest opinion! 

Freak Show Polish: Circus Elephant, Mime, Cotton Candy and Fire Eater

I am so excited to bring you Freak Show Polish!  The wonderful Carissa sent me her entire current collection.  Since this is such a large collection and I took a lot of pictures this will be the first post of two.

I was instantly attracted to Circus Elephant.  Circus Elephant is a slightly translucent gray jelly base full of all colors and shapes of glitters.  There are even some gorgeous color shifting translucent glitters in there.  Here is Circus Elephant on its own in three coats to create a jelly sandwich effect.

The grey base really sets off the glitters in this and really does bring to mind a circus elephant dressed in  all its circus finery.  

See those color shifting translucent hexs I was talking about before now?  It adds a great extra oomph!

I wanted to try layering Circus Elephant too so I used a base coat of Essies Over the Top and coated it with two layers of Circus Elephant on top.  Gorgeous!

As you can see this is a polish that is wearable many ways.

Here is a macro bottle shot of this glitter.  You can really see the party of glitters perfectly!  Here is what Freak Show Polish has to say about Circus Elephant: "Circus Elephant is a grey jelly full of multi-colored shredded glitter and hexes. One of the first attractions that comes to mind when I think of the circus, this polish is meant to bring the circus to you."  A stampeding good time!

Next up from Freak Show Polish is Mime.  This polish is a translucent white base with varied white and black glitters plus those cute color shifting translucence too!  I like those glitters, it's like a little surprise that you only notice if you look very carefully.  This polish is total cookies and cream!  I really enjoy it on my own and it would look great layered over any light polish colors.

There are white hex glitters, bar glitters and squares and black hexs in multiple sizes.  If you look carefully you can see those translucent glitters as well.  Lovely!

I love this polish on its own, it really doesn't need the under colors at all.  Even in the bottle it looks very similar to how it will appear on the nail.  Here is what Freak Show Polish has to say about her creation: "The silent act of the circus is brought to life in this milky white jelly based polish jam packed full of white and black glitter in many shapes and sizes." You don't need to speak to see the beauty in this one.

For Cotton Candy I got a little creative.  I wanted to show off the blue and pink glitters with my own blue and pink water marbled nails.  I used Cotton Candy as the topper!  Cotton Candy has blue diamonds and large pink squares combined with square glitters and color shifting smaller hexes.  The base is clear so this is a great top glitter.  

Check out all these angular glitters.  I really like the look it gives to the glitter altogether and it really pulled my water marble together in the perfect way.

The macro of Cotton Candy shows the gorgeous pastel pink and blue angular glitters as well as those signature color shifting translucent and the pale squares.  Here is what Freak Show Polish has to say about Cotton Candy: "Light pink, white and baby blue squares are joined by baby blue diamonds and fine sparkly white hexes to create a glitter top coat designed to bring to mind the yummy circus treat, Cotton Candy."  Deliciously sweet!

Finally, for the first half of this collection, we have Fire Eater.  Fire eater is a clear based glitter full of red and gold.  The red glitters in this polish are really intense.  Being close to the holidays it instantly brought the holidays to mind.  I started with a layer of China Glaze Gaga for Green and topped it with only one coat of Fire Eater.  The glitter spreads evenly and at a great variety.  All of the Freak Show Polishes have that wonderful quality of spreading across the nail well while still delivering a good coverage of glitter.  The red glitters come in shatter, bars and hexes.  The gold is varied as well!

Gorgeous!!!!!!!  This glitter could be layered over ANYTHING.  It would look awesome over multipal colors and finishes or even in your classic jelly sandwich   

Unadulterated in the bottle, here is Fire Eater.  Here is what Freak Show Polish has to say about this one: "Fire Eater is a top coat polish packed full of fiery colors. It includes hexes, shreds, and slices in many shades of orange, yellow and red."  Burn baby burn!

I can't wait to finish the rest of this collection!  There are four more great shades.  Here is Freak Show Polishes site.  You can also find her on Facebook and Instagram @freakshowpolish. 

This polish was sent for review and is based on my individual, honest opinion!

Ipsy November Glam Bag

Look what arrived today!  That tell tale pink envelope.

My Ipsy Glam Bag is here!  I was very excited to try my second Glam Bag because I was so pleased with Octobers.  Novembers theme is "Party Perfect!"  

"The season of soirees begin now so this month it is all about getting "Party Perfect!" with your November Glam Bag. Products that you will love for pre-party prep to after party fun. Dance the night away without a doubt that you look like the bell of any ball." - Ipsy

Lets see whats inside.

This months bag is a sleek leather look alike bag.  It's got a thin black material with faux brown leather on the trim and zipper pull with gold accents.  The bags in these tend to look and feel slightly cheap.  However for all I'm getting for a $10 subscription I don't expect much more.  I'm in this for the products anyway!

Inside are two cards.  The first is a coupon for JustFab.com.  Just fab is a shoe subscription service for $39.99 a month.  The card give you $20 off your first month by using the code IPSYNOV20.  You can feel free to use the code but I'm going to sit this one out.  I have more shoes than I know what to do with as it is.

The second card is the party themed card.  It invites to you shop the Ipsy store where Glam Bag members can get discounts on items like Nailtini, The Blam, BareMinerals, Starlet, Benefit and Chella.

Here are my products:

In my bag I received a sample size of The Blam's Meet Matt(e) eyeshadow in Matt Batali, a mini BareMinerals Marvelous Moxie Lipgloss in Dare Devil, a sample of Chellas Eyebrow Defining Gel, a full size Nailitini Nail Polish in Millionaire and a full size Starlet Chocolate Eye Pencil.

The Blam eyeshadow has a cute magnetic flap to open the shadow so you could easily carry it in your purse and keep it protected.  

First I went for the nail polish. Duh!

I haven't heard of Nailtini before.  I applied three coats to the naked nail.  It is not a full coverage glitter so it would look best layered over a base color.  The glitters are gold and blue bars with small rose-gold micro glitters.

Over China Glaze Liquid Leather I was starting to feel much better about this glitter!  It spread evenly and looks very pretty.  Upon further exploration Nailtinis Millionaire is part of their Speakeasy Lacquer Collection and retails for $13!  I only paid $10 for the whole bag so I'm pleased as punch.

Next I wanted to play with the Chella Eyebrow Defining Gel.  I've never really even heard of eyebrow gel before (this is why I love these tester bags) so I was excited to give it a try.  Here is my natural brow after a long day at work.  Can you tell I was a little frazzled today?

And right below with one swipe of the defining gel!  I did not put anything in place or play around, I just did one brush with the wand and my brow was instantly snapped into place.  The gel holds the brow for lasting perfection.  I am very pleased with this sample!  I didn't realize my brows could get so crazy.  I will definitely use this gel but I probably won't buy a full size product.  While it is awesome it just feels slightly unnessesary to me when I could push my brows into place with my fingers.  Chella Brown Defining Gel retails for $18 for a full size product.  This sample size retails for $45 as part of a 4 product brow set but it isn't sold alone so I can put the value of the sample at about $11ish.  Another awesome value!

Next up are my eye and lip products.  I did a quick swipe of each product on my hand.  First is the Starlet Chocolate Eye Pencil (two lines drawn), then The Blam Matt Batali Eyeshadow and finally BareMinerals Marvelous Moxie Dare Devil Lipgloss.  I like the eye products for my complexion but the lipgloss is a little dark and dramatic for me.  

This lip gloss is a deep sparkling blackberry.  And wowwwww does it tingle!  It was a refreshing and plumping feeling which I definitely felt worked to pucker my lips.  I just wish my shade wasn't so deep so it was something I could wear more often.  Looking at the picture I actually feel it looks nice...maybe it's just me and my not-used-to deep colors craziness.  The full size lipgloss retails for $18.  Since this is half the size I'll put the value at $9.

The Starlet Chocolate Eye Pencil is full size but kind of waxy and hard to apply.  I had to go over the area multiple times if I wanted it to show up.  I also can't find any information about this particular eye pencil.  Starlet eye pencils retails for $11 on their site but they don't have a Chocolate color listed.  Because of the waxiness I wouldn't purchase this and I probably won't use this sample :/

The Balm's Meet Matt(e) Eyeshadow in Matt Batali is lovely!  It's a deep burgundy, eggplant color.  I want to say it applies creamy but it's matte!  It smooths on the eyelid perfectly though.  Matt Batali is part of The Blams Matte Eyeshadow Palette which retails for $34.50 and includes 9 colors plus an applicator so we'll put the value of the single eyeshadow at around $3.  

Altogether I am again super pleased with my Ipsy Glam Bag!  Overall the retail value of all these products is around $47 and I paid $10.  I got to try out some really cool products I wouldn't have been able to try otherwise.