Fragrance Fridays: fragrances to check out!

Pic of my haul at Sallys Beauty Supply, including 3 great perfumes!

Hi, guys! Just wanted to do this quick post in order to recommend these travel sized perfumes from Sally's.  The packaging calls them "fragrance spray pens."  They were on clearance at my local Sally's for 99 cents, and this weekend's sale means I picked them up for 50 cents!   The fragrances come in plastic tubes with spray nozzles on them and then a cap on top. You could actually unscrew the spray tops and refill the tube when you've used up your fragrance, if you were so inclined. Each bottle contains 6.5 ml, and the fragrances are so nice that I can easily imagine myself using them up.  My favorite of the bunch is the one called Smitten, whose fragrance I would describe as fruity, sweet and tart. I'm feel ill equipped for describing scents, though, so I urge you to check these out for yourself if you visit Sally's this weekend. 

Drippy look with Color Club For You

Color Club For You with Jordana Boy Oh Boy drips

Happy Easter, everyone! Today I'm sharing some nails I sported a little while back, after wearing Color Club For You on its own.  For You is really cool because of the mix of colorful glitters it includes, especially the matte ones. I think this polish is totally reminiscent of Funfetti cake or rainbow sprinkles. That's why I thought that colorful drips on it would make the perfect accent. For me, it looks like dripping icing on a yummy cake.  I had a hard time deciding between the colors in For You. I ended up going with red and teal, although I feel like the right yellow or purple would have also worked.  I think the teal, Jordana Boy Oh Boy!, is especially appropriate because it's an almost perfect match for the matte teal glitter in For You. I used that teal for my left hand and Nicole by OPI OMB! for my right.  That last name is not an abbreviation, guys, that's actually the name of the polish. It came out in a Justin Bieber themed collection, but it's such a  pretty shimmery red that I bought it anyway. ;)

Color Club For You with NOPI OMB! drips

Check out a few more pictures after the jump!

Roses on a nude

Blue roses on a nude, sun

I am wearing blue all month for Autism Awareness Month, though I haven't had time to do as many posts about it as I'd like.  Anyway, one day I was craving a nude, so this came to mind as a design to try.  I basically copied this look from Kayla Shevonne. I'd seen it and thought it was beautiful, like all of Kayla's nail art.  I used different polishes than Kayla, but the overall look is pretty close, IMO.  I started with 3 coats of Revlon Trade Winds as my base. The polish is a bit streaky at first but was fine with 3 coats.  For the roses, I started with large dots of Sally Hansen Blue Me Away and then used China Glaze Manhunt for the outline. I made the leaves with Sinful Colors Exotic Green.

Blue roses on a nude, shade

 Join me after the jump for more pics!

Layla delivers green jelly goodness in C54 polish, Green Galaxy

Here's a quick post sharing a cool polish I sported a while ago. I found it in the clearance section  of my local Ulta-Layla Ceramic Effect #54, Unfortunately, that's the only "name" my packaging has. Once I googled this polish, though I found that it was also known by the name of Green Galaxy in other markets.

Despite not being a well known brand or color, I adore this polish. It's a dark green jelly base with large green hex glitters and small microglitter. It's unique to my collection, although it does strongly remind me of colors like Kleancolor Red Hot or Blue Eyed Girl. I'm always a sucker for a jelly and love green, so this one was a total winner for me. 

Color Club slips under the radar with a rainbow milky glitter

Color Club For You, a rainbow glitter suspended in a white base

Here are my swatches of Color Club For You, probably the most underwhelmingly named polish in the world.  For You is a polish with milky white base and tons of colorful glitter mixed in. While this is definitely not unique in the world of indie nail polish, it's fairly unusual when it comes to mainstream nail polish brands.  What makes it really unique is the mix of glitters in this polish. For You features some pretty standard shiny glitter-red, lavender, and indigo- mixed in with a couple of matte colors, yellow and blue green. The indigo glitter in it is so dark that it almost seems matte, but close examination shows it to be a bit shiny. Along with all these larger hex glitters, there are some fine indigo and red microglitters in the mix as well. Overall, this makes for a really fun and eye-catching polish!

Color Club For You, sunlight

Tips and Tricks Tuesday-Water Marbling 101

Think you can't watermarble? My tips might change your mind!

Like many people, I really struggled with watermarbling. I was a total failure the first few times I did it. Now that I've watched a lot of Youtube videos on the subject, I feel like I'm a lot better at it.  At least, I haven't wanted to tear my hair out the last few times I did it, which is progress for me. ;)  I wanted to share all these tips in a concise post so that other people who were struggling like me could find it all in written form rather than having to a bunch of videos. (Although watching water marbling videos can be quite enjoyable, also!)

I have a few videos links in this post, so please jump to begin unraveling the mysteries of watermarbling!

Comparison: Butter London Tart With a Heart vs. Nina Holographic Topcoat

Here's a quick post comparing Butter London Tart With a Heart with Nina Holographic Topcoat. I had a hard time finding Tart With a Heart at the sample counters at my local Nordstroms, and then only got a few pictures before the polish peeled off my nail wheel. As you can see, the Nina Holographic Topcoat is very close to Tart With a Heart, but it's not an exact dupe.

Butter London Tart With a Heart on left, Nina Holographic Topcoat on right

Here is a picture from the very kind MissCarley. She's a fellow regular at the Makeup Alley nail care forum. I really recommend visiting, it's such a great resource for us nail polish nuts! Anyway, Miss Carley was nice enough to give me permission to use her pictures of the Butter London Tart With a Heart and Nina Holographic Topcoat. Here's one pic: 

Nina Holographic Topcoat on left and Butter London Tart With a Heart on right 

In MissCarley's pictures, Nina Holographic topcoat is on the left and TwaH is on the right. She tried it over American Apparel Hassid (a black creme) and Butter London The Black Knight.  

I hope you can see in these pictures that the concentration of microglitter in TwaH is a little denser than the Nina Holographic topcoat. However, the polishes are so similar that I think Nina Holographic Topcoat will be close enough for those of you lemming Butter London Tart With a Heart. Since Nina polishes retail for around $5 at Sally's and Butter London polishes retail for around $13, many of us will find the Nina Holographic to be an affordable way to satisfy a high end lemming!  Join me after the jump for a couple more pictures comparing this duo.