Comparison & Review

   Quite a bit has happened in the 6 months I've been away.  During this time time of absence from the blog my nails have been (of course) better than ever.  It feels like I'm finally finding the sweet spot in my nail care routine.  I've had the chance to try some new products, and I've left behind some old standbys.  Rather than let my 6 months of learning go to waste, here is a collective post on the different base coats I was and am using, and some things I've learned about them.

Swatch / NotD

   This is a simple manicure but I really like it.  When I did my Blue Midnight jewelry nail art I ended up painting my left hand in Pure Ice Ruffled Sheets.  I love silver polish but it was feeling washed out with my other hand being so colorful and fancy.  Here is Ruffled Sheets on it's own at two coats, with no top coat.  As you can see it dries shimmery-matte.  (You can enter to win a bottle, along with two more shades!)

   A very nice type of brushed-steel metallic and it stands out as unique in my collection of silvers.  My eyes kept wandering to my new bottle of Orly Miss Conduct, though.  I considered taking Ruffled Sheets off and redoing my nails with the Orly, but instead I layered it.  This way I only needed one coat of Miss Conduct, which has a jelly-type base that let the metallic of Ruffled Sheets shine through.  It was hard to capture the effect...

   Miss Conduct dries shiny and with Poshe topcoat added my nails turned into little glass jewels.  The glitter is fantastic: holographic microshards such as found in the Milani 3D polishes and Zoya Aurora and Storm.  It helped bring out the Ruffled Sheets accent nail made shiny with topcoat.  Miss Conduct is now among my favorite pink polishes because of the awesome color and perfect formula.  Ruffled Sheets has proven itself to be good for nail art and good for layering.  So, I'd call this left-hand-mani a success!

   Here is my last haul post for 2012!  I'm looking forward to the content I have planned for next month, some of which has to do with what I found this month.  Not very much to show in this Haul post, so here we go...

   I managed to snag some more of the Pure Ice limited edition colors, which sold out at our local Walmart very quickly.  Last month I picked up Treasure Hunt, and I should have grabbed a few more of the pretties that were on the shelf then...  Oh well!

   Top Row: Vintage Glam, Internationally Known, Monte Carlo

   Bottom Row: Blue Midnight, Ruffled Sheets, Get Low, After Hours

   Of course I also snagged a few of these polishes for my giveaway, which will be running until January 11th; did you see that post?

   I picked up Sinful Colors Hazard and Mint Apple, and Salon Perfect Silver Sparkler.

   My Sephora haul was made possible by a coupon given to VIBs.  I picked up Dior Crème Abricot and two of Sephora's glitter liner-and-mascara combos.  I started using the Crème Abricot right away, and will be officially trialling it next year!

   And of course there was my special CosmoVoxBox from Influenster, which I've been having fun with testing and reviewing.  So far I've gotten to post about the Gillette razor and Forever Red perfume.

   Finally, I wrapped up my expenditures at Sally Beauty, where I grabbed a container of Bubble White and Orly polishes Green With Envy and Miss Conduct.  Green Wtih Envy seems to be one of those polishes that doesn't want to photograph accurately.

   With all the awesome end-of-year sales that are happening now I'll probably have a more exciting haul post next month, though for budget's sake I'm trying to resist!  As always thanks for reading and I'll blog to you all next year!  ;P

NotD

   While digging through old pictures I found a few from a manicure in July.  Nothing too fancy, just simple layering, but I couldn't waste pictures of multichrome-and-flakie goodness!

   Both of these polishes change color at different angles, so it was a neat manicure.  Nfu-Oh #60 is a black jelly filled with orange-to-green shifting flakes.  Orly Space Cadet is a sort of foil finish polish with a copper red-to-green shift and a teal base.  Here they are sitting next to each other:

   I think it is worth noting that Nfu-Oh is a 17ml bottle of polish, and Orly is 18ml.  My two "biggest" bottles next to one another!  I appreciate the generous portion of polish when both of these brands tend to be pricey.  Now have a couple angled nail shots to show off the color shift they have together!

   So pretty!  Pictures don't do justice to these polishes!  I put #60 in my blog sale but after being reminded of these pictures it is tempting to pull it back out!  I have enough flakies, though... someone grab it before I change my mind!  =P

Swatch & Review

   Second to last Different Dimension nail polish!  This one is a rainbow flakie named Iris.  I wanted something like this in my collection, and after using it I'm very happy that I chose this particular polish!  Also, I snagged Orly After Party from a blog sale.  Once I had it in my hands I knew I couldn't swatch Iris over a plain black creme as I originally planned...

   I used two coats of After Party and two coats of Iris topped with one coat of Poshe.  Both polishes contain flakies, which are tricky to capture, so I took several pictures.  Read on to find out what I though of each one!

   My second monthly haul post and I've already managed to be late!  Well, not really, I'm aiming for end of the month or start of the new month, but I did want to post this two days ago.  Technical difficulties botched my plans.  I wanted to put up another Different Dimension polish today.  You will get to see Different Dimension polishes here too, at least.  So, let's see what I got!

   A My Little Pony calender for next year, yes!  I was thrilled when I spotted it.  Now I'll have more ponies in my sewing room during the coming months.  Also, it probably ties with second-hand nail polish as the cheapest thing I bought.  =P  Let's see the little things up close...

   I'm still testing out my ShopRunner membership and here are the last few small orders I placed with either Drugstore or Beauty.com (or both).  First I had to buy some more of my favorite dry shampoo:

   Then I snagged a couple of nail polishes:


   Once again nail polish is full of danger and peril and must be shipped ground, so only my freebie sample of gloss was eligible to be shipped in 2 days by ShopRunner.  (Uh, how is that going to work?)  Layla Magneffect Silver Galaxy has been swatched and blogged about and I highly suggest checking out the post if you haven't already.  Orly Space Cadet is my first Orly polish and wow, huge bottle!

   Then I treated myself during the 20% off Friends & Family-type sale, which made me happy that I skipped the one done by Urban Decay themselves:


   Finally, something that ShopRunner was willing to send to me!  I placed my order around 10-11am, and was surprised when my glosses came the very next day.  I suppose it's because I ordered in the morning but I really was expecting to see them in 2 days, not 1!  These are Urban Decay Lip Junkie Glosses in Red Light and Perversion.


   So in all I liked the fact that when ShopRunner can ship my items it works very quickly, but it's frustrating that so many of the products that I personally want to buy Online are no-goes with them.  Has anyone else signed up for or checked out ShopRunner?  What do you think of it?