I finally caved and hunted down some of the goodness that is Revlon Whimsical!  Once I had this polish I wanted to wear it right away because I was in the mood for a pastel.  I used 1 coat of China Glaze Kinetic Candy as a base, and them two coats of Whimsical...

   Read on for more pictures and what I think of this polish!

   Hello everyone!  I had a really busy weekend because I had my first Bridal/Wedding Shower to attend!  Well, not the first one I've ever been to, but the first one where I was the girl unwrapping the prezzies.  ;D  It was tons of fun, and I made chocolate fudge, deviled eggs, and... something that I threw together and don't know what to call! to take to the party.  You can see what I made after the jump!

   First though, China Glaze Sweet Hook.  This is what I had on my nails!  Sadly these swatches were done right after I peeled 18 hard boiled eggs, so my cuticles were not the happiest, but oh well.  The other thing is that I took these pics in sunlight, and the color got washed out.  The polish in more purple than this in person, and a little darker on the nail than in the bottle.

   I've been drawn to lighter colors lately.  Maybe it's because we are nearing spring, which I love, or maybe it's because I've been in such a good mood lately.  I'm not sure, but that is besides the point.  When I was looking for a color to wear on my nails yesterday I knew it had to be either China Glaze Kinetic Candy or Sweet Hook.  I was thinking of using both.  But then I spied my lovely new Milani glitter, and realized that the color paired perfectly with Kinetic Candy.  I'll try Sweet Hook another day!

   I strongly suggest clicking to see the larger versions of my pictures for this mani because you can make out all the tiny glitters!  Super awesome!  In fact, I distracted a manager at work with how sparkly they are!!  This is also my very first glitter gradient manicure.  =)

   One of my favorite things to do when I get new cremes is to come up with a rainbow mani of coordinating colors.  It's so cute and gets tons of compliments!  And I get to try several colors at once, heheheh.  ;D

  The colors I used are China Glaze Lemon Fizz, Aquadelic, Dance Baby, and Bahamian Escape.  2 coats of each and they were all a dream to use.

   I'm so glad I got Aquadelic!  Yes, it is super-similar to For Audrey, but it is more green and doesn't have the dusty quality that For Audrey does.  They are both lovely colors, I know I'll use both.  Did you get any of the new Electropop colors yet?

   Hello everyone!  I'm taking a break to type this up with gloves on my hands.  My cuticles are turning scary because I haven't been giving them enough love.  Trying to make up for lost time with oil soaking on them right now.  Please ignore the dried skin, but enjoy the polish!

   I wanted something light, and I had a new polish to try.  I picked up Starry Silver Glitter by NYC and these are the two polishes I used along with it:

Sally Hansen Xtremewear Lacey Lilac, Nfu-Oh "Firefly Bums" #39, NYC Starry Silver Glitter

   When my latest Nfu-Oh order (through FabulouStreet.com) showed up this month I just had to try Holographic Polish 66 out right away.  I can see why it is the favorite of the group - it's so holo you can't help grinning at it.  My nails were spewing  (double!) rainbows with this stuff on and it was a dream to work with.  I only needed 1 coat - yes, one coat! - for opacity and full prismatic awesomeness.  Dried in no time and even wore well with no chips and very minor tip wear.  I didn't use a top coat.

   Yep, these photos are before my tragic nail breakage.  How scary would it be if they grew that fast?

   This Nfu-Oh shows the most holo in the bottle!  I have seen this described as a greyed-out green or dirty silver color several times.  While I can agree with that for what it looks like in the bottle, I think it is obviously pale green on the nails.  Well, when it's not ALL THE COLORS, of course.  In pictures my nails are showing great rainbows but I wanted to show the base color...  It is this green:

   I'm so, so happy to own this polish.  I'm also happy to own the other Nfu-Oh beauties I picked up.  Here are numbers 62 (another Holographic), 66, 60, and 39.  Yay, flakies!

   The dark #60 looks deep and mysterious in the bottle.  Nfu-Oh #39 is more glowly than I can convey through your screen.  It is a bottle of Firefly Bums!  I capitalized that because that is the first thing I told my boyfriend it reminded me of.  He helped unpack these and agreed wholeheartedly.  So from now on #39 is Firefly Bums to me.

   Thanks for reading!  =D

   Last week was the week of glitter nail polish on my blog.  I tried out the lovely piCture pOlish Pink Shimmer and really wanted to include it but I simply ran out of days!  I won this nail polish from piCture pOlish and chose the color because it sounded really pretty but there weren't swatches of it anywhere to be found.  I am here to fix that!  =D

   Isn't that just lovely?  The bottle description of "soft & delicate with a silver sparkle!" is spot on, but here's what they don't tell you:  That not just silver sparkle, it's holographic silver sparkle!  Of course the glitter is too sparse to be anything linear, but it reflects a rainbow of colors under all lighting.  My camera couldn't really capture the super-fine microshimmer, but it does show the microflakies pretty well.

   The pink color itself is a perfect pale pink.  It doesn't lean peach, it's not overly blue or purple, it's just pink like pink should be.  I loved it on my pale skin but couldn't help thinking how awesome it would be on dark-skinned ladies!  It's a very wearable color, appropriate for any age and pretty much any occasion.  It's feminine and beautiful.  I really can't believe this isn't a more popular color from piCture pOlish!

   Now here's the bad part: this was 4 coats - four!  And it wasn't even completely opaque; you can see the visible nail line in my pictures.  While it was wearable it didn't feel "finished" to me.  Of course, this isn't a terrible problem.  I'm planning to revisit this color layered over a similar pale pink.  If I can get the look I want with only 1 or 2 coats of Pink Shimmer layered then I'm fine with that, as it will save my little bottle of piCture pOlish, which is precious to me and rather costly to replace.

   More good news:  This was very easy to work with.  The formula wasn't as thick as their color Twinkle, and dried shiny.  Also, I wore this without top coat for a few days.  It stayed shiny, only had one chip and very minor tip wear on the other nails.  I can only imagine it would have been fabulous with a top coat.  Also, clean-up was great.  I'm a messy painter, always getting polish on my fingers alongside my nails.  After this had dried for awhile it came right off my skin, no hassles.  And my nails were perfect!

   Alright, I know I've said a lot about this polish but I couldn't contain all my love and adoration!  I definitely recommend this polish.  Please let me know what you think of it!  =)

   At the start of October I was pleasantly surprised - I won a giveaway for my choice of three piCture pOlishes!  I have to give a huge thank-you to both piCture pOlish and Johanna from Paillette.  The polishes just arrived Monday so I immediately painted my nails up with one of the colors, Twinkle.  Find out my other two colors at the end of this post!

   After my last Nail-of-the-Day post I dressed my fingers up a little more.  I was wearing NFu-Oh 63 - a pink holographic polish.  I added a coat of Milani 3D Holographic polish in Digital to each nail except my ring fingers, which got a coat of China Glaze Fairy Dust.  The result is lovely!

   The Milani line of Holos has a micro-flakie quality to the holo particles and a fairly weak linear effect.  They are sheer enough that one coat over another color looks nice but not overwhelming; I'm happy I decided to try it over another holo!  Digital made #63 look a little pinker.  Fairy Dust gave my polish a slightly more powdery appearance and most of the fine glitter was lost in the underlying holographic polish.  There is not top coat in any of these shots.  And yes, there are a lot of pictures.

   Hey all!  I need to get back into the habit of taking pictures of my eyeshadow creations and what-not.  Finally I am bringing you a Face of the Day post.  This is actually yesterdays news, but of course the mani made it through the night and I'm rocking it today, as well.  I was in a good mood yesterday and the sun was out for most of the day, so I celebrated that with colorful pastel nails topped with glitter, and my outfit was yellow, pink, and white - you can't get much cheerier than that!  It seems like it has been awhile since I had the time to play with my eyeshadows so it was nice to be all pretty~

   In the interest of organizing my blog better I'm creating more specific tags, or labels.  These are so you can find a certain type of polish quickly.  Brand name tags have already been put in use.  All nail polish tags will begin with "np-", and the types will be defined as follows:

   ~ Finishes ~

Creme - also known as cream, but hey, that's a color!  Creme polishes are pigmented, opaque, shiny colors.  True cremes contain no shimmer or glitter.  Think of shiny enamel paint.
Effect - what I'm dubbing the crackle, shatter, and graffiti colors.  Also includes color-changing, glowing, and magnetic polishes.
Flake - contain larger, odd-shaped and usually iridescent reflective pieces.  Think of fish scales.
Frost - or pearl, these polishes can usually be identified by their brush-stroked look.
Glitter - polish containing glitter!  Often meant for use as a topcoat.  Sparkly!
Iridescent - polishes that change color in different lighting, or have "flashes" of a color in them.  Other terms can be lustre or duochrome.  Think of soap bubbles, insect wings and oil slicks.
Jelly - these polishes are sheer, yet have depth and look almost squishy or wet.  Very shiny, good for layering.
Matte - flat color with no shine after it dries, which is quickly.
Metals - polishes with a metallic, mirror, foil or chrome quality.
Prism - or holographic nail polishes contain special glitters that reflect a whole rainbow of color.
Satin - polishes that dry to a sheen somewhere between a creme and a matte.
Shimmer - these have smaller, fine microglitters or "glass fleck" particles that sparkle faintly.  May only show in strong light.

   ~ Colors ~

Bright -  vibrant colors, and neons.
Dark - deep, dark colors of any hue.
Light - all pale or pastel shades.
Mid - any mid-range color that doesn't fall in with bright, dark or light.

   ~ Other ~

B3F - stands for "Big 3 Free".  Polishes that do not contain Dibutyl Phthalate (DBP), Formaldehyde, or Toluene.  Besides those chemicals posing potential health risks, polishes that do and don't contain them often don't work together well.
B3+ - my term "Big 3 Plus".  Not only are they b3f, they also exclude other risky ingredients.

   This is my list, made up according to how I describe things myself and usually see things described as.  It may be updated or added to from time to time.  I do try to be accurate, so if anyone would like to offer corrections, suggestions or refinement please comment below.  I really hope that these tags can be of benefit in the future for anyone searching for specific types of polish I have posted about.  If anyone else wants to use a similar tagging post on their blog go right ahead, but if I inspired you a link back here would be great!