Bunnies with Mustaches

Hello :)

HAPPY EASTER! Do you guys have any plans for today? I do, my family's having dinner. Well, today I have an Easter manicure for you! I'm also entering this in Rambles of a Polish Addict's March Nail Art Contest !

Well, here it is!

BUNNIES WITH MUSTACHES!

I started off with two coats of OPI Need Sunglasses? on my middle and ring fingers, and two coats of OPI Can't Find My Czechbook on my pinky and pointer fingers. For the bunnies, I used Wet n Wild Wild Shine French White Crème, NYC Black Lace Crème, OPI Suzi's Hungary Again, and a detail brush. For the hatching baby chick, I used the same white and black, Zoya Lianne, and a detail brush. Finally, last but not least; for the eggs, I saran wrapped China Glaze In The Limelight for the Easter grass that's in the bottom of your basket, then, with a detail brush, drew a couple of Easter eggs using the same yellow and pink.

Well, I hope you enjoyed my Easter manicure!

Thanks for reading,

-Kiki

St. Patrick's Day Mani(S)!!!

Hello :)

Happy St. Patrick's Day! Are you doing anything fun? I'm not Irish, so I'm just doing my nails and wearing green :)

So I have a TWO manis to share with you folks today! One is a bit of a copycat, and the other is original (although there are probably many of the same out there, I didn’t look at anything to create the second look, it was all in my head). So, let's get started!

The first is a copy-cat of Beauty Gnome's St. Patrick's Day Shamrock Nail Art.

First, I applied one coat of Sephora by OPI Looks Like Rain, Dear.

Next, I drew a shamrock with a detail brush (and CG In The Limelight and OPI Black Onyx) on a piece of wax paper, top coated it, waited for it to dry, and then peeled it off. Then, I top coated it to my nail. This is called making your own decals. It's very popular right now, so you should be able to find many tutorials for it out on the interweb.

For the second mani, I applied one coat of China Glaze For Audrey on my pointer, middle, and ring fingers. On my thumb and pinky, I applied one coat of each: Sephora by OPI Charge It, Sephora by OPI Wild About Shimmer, and Sephora by OPI Only Gold For Me Top Coat. Finally, I free handed a rainbow, a pot of gold, a sun, and some blades of grass over For Audrey using CG Ruby Pumps, NYC Midtown Mimosa, CG In The Limelight, Sephora by OPI Charge It and Only Gold For Me Top Coat, and OPI Black Onyx.

Well, there you have it folks! Hope you have the Luck of the Irish on your side today!

Thanks for reading, and Happy St. Patrick's Day-

-Kiki

Sephora by OPI polishes can be purchased at Sephora or on their website for $8.50 a bottle. China Glaze polishes can be purchased at Sally Beauty Supply, Bobbi and Guy Beauty Supply, Amazon, eBay, professional salons, and many other places for $5.49-$8.50.

NYC can be bought and many drugstores, ranging in price from $1.00 to $5.00.

OPI can be purchased at Bobbi and Guy Beauty Supply, Amazon, eBay, professional salons, and many other places for $5.49-$9.00.

Nabi Magnetic

Hey guys! How has your weekend been going? Ok, so I want to show you a very interesting and different manicure. I have today Nabi Ocean Blue and China Glaze Liquid Crystal.

 (I think this picture captured the magnetic effect the best, don't you think?)

Ocean Blue is a very nice medium-dark blue MAGNETIC!! At first, I thought this magnetic wouldn't work very well, but it actually has a magnificent magnet effect.

Ocean Blue, I must say, is not a very easy polish to apply. This polish is extremely thick and at least 2 thick coats are needed to get a good magnetic effect. I speak from experience, thin coats just don't work. The magnet, I must say, works like a charm, a few seconds of hovering over the magnet and POOF! magnetic waves!(although I must say, the magnetic effect is not as strong as I wish) I used a pencil to draw a line of China Glaze Liquid Crystal and voila! A magnetic mani!

Ok, I must say, a huge downside is the smell. It smells weirdly metallic, like metal pipes, but much stronger. I think it smells horrible, although some people might not mind as much…

(all but the first picture were taken indoors)

Thanks for reading!

-Remy

Nabi Ocean Blue is available at many drugstores and are $4 a piece.

China Glaze Liquid Crystal is also available at many beauty stores, and have a variety of prices.

Illamasqua Fragile

 Hello :)

Today I have Illamasqua Fragile and Wet n' Wild Fast Dry Teal of Fortune for you! First, a bottle shot:

Fragile is from Illamasqua's spring collection, I'mperfection. I love these polishes because of the stinking spots! I love the stinking spots! Some really good swatches of the I'mperfection collection are here. As for Teal of Fortune, I got this one as a gift (I got Fragile as a gift as well). I lurrrvvveee this one! It may be a dupe (Nail Polish Speak: dupe- n. a exact duplicate of another polish, e.g. same opacity, formula, and color) for Zoya Charla, though.

So:

This is two coats of Illamasqua Fragile on all fingers, and on the ring finger is one coat of Wet n' Wild Fast Dry Teal of Fortune over Fragile.

Formulas: Illamasqua was a bit thin on the first try, if you do thin coats, but if you do thick coats, you could get away with one. I did thin coats, and only used two.

Teal of Fortune was very opaque as well; I used one coat over Fragile.

So, you may be wondering, why did she put that $1 polish over the beautiful Illamasqua? Well, for one, TOF is beautiful sparklinesses, and I wanted to see if the speckles would show through the over polish. It did, but would probably work better with a lighter color. I might try that in the future…

You can buy Illamasqua polishes at Sephora for $16 in the US. As for Wet n' Wild, you can buy them at CVS Pharmacy, Kmart, Longs Drugs, Rite Aid, Ulta, Walgreens, and Walmart varying prices but usually between $1 and $5.

Thanks for reading!

-Kiki

    

Birthday Mani

Hello :)

This past week, it was my mom's birthday! She is turning somewhere between 30 and 50…teehee. I did her nails for this special occasion, and used her new iPhone 5- (birthday present)-phone case as inspiration. First, the case and some bottle shots:

 

So, here it is:

First, I did three coats of OPI Care to Danse? on all fingers.

Then, I freehanded some flowers and scrolls with Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Deep Purple.

Well, I thought this turned out pretty well. Definitely not the best in the world, but it'll do :).

Thanks for reading!

-Kiki

:

A Jewel of a Find

Hello :)

Today I have some swatches of Sephora+Pantone Universe Jewel Lacquers. I have Parachute

Purple and Evergreen for you! They are beautiful colors with different shimmers, but

unfortunately, you can't see the shimmer on the nail as much as you can in the bottle. Here are

some bottle shots:

First up, let me just tell you that the formulas were pretty much the same. Very opaque, I could get away with one coat on my shorter nails. The other nails varied, some of them were two and some of them were three. So basically most of the nails are 2 ½ coats. Or 2 2/4. 2 3/6. 2 4/8. 2 5/10. 2 10/20. 2 20/40. 2 40/80. And so on. The brushes were very nice as well, thick and sturdy and stay where you want them to. The bottles are pretty as well, I always love the polish bottles that are glass. Oh, and the packaging was magnificent!!! Look at those boxes!!!! Accchhhhhh!!!
* dies * OMGRR. Also, these polishes wore very well. I had it on for four days! Most people could get way more out of these polishes because I have unusually soft nails…So onto the swatches me mateys!

Parachute Purple- A purple with subtle blue and green shimmer. 

Evergreen- A deep Christmas green with subtle green and blue shimmer.

Well then, that's it for today. You can purchase these polishes at Sephora stores (idk how much got them as a gift and nothing on website :( ).

Thanks for reading!

-Kiki

Hello :) 

 Welcome to A Polished Life! This is our nail polish blog (plus a little something extra here and there) and we are ready to get started! 

 For my first mani, I originally wanted to try out some new BeautyUk polishes that I bought in a mini-pack at Ross. They were all unnamed so I emailed them, and Emma, the customer service agent I spoke with, was very nice and told me that they hadn't actually been from their nail range and didn’t have names :(. But, she did say that if they ever brought them out as single shades she would email me :)! 

NOW ON TO THE MANI! 

 So, since I had six new BeautyUk polishes, and ten fingers, I decided, you know, maybe I should paint those other four nails as well. I was playing around with the idea of bright, neon colors and eventually came up with an inspiration point. 

Rave gloves. 

 So, some of you may not know what these are, but I know some of you do…(ahem-hem you know who you are) and basically they are gloves with tiny flashing bright lights at the fingertips. 

So…that’s what I did!

 

Now, I've done my research, and learned that blogging is equally parts awesome: bright, vibrant, fun, fantabulous, and supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, and fail: epically horrible, terrifying, awful and bleggghhh. I feel I have captured both of those aspects in my first mani. I kept messing up my right hand and eventually got my pointer and middle finger all screwed up. Eh, whatever. I used two coats of each polish and then 1 ½ coats of Wet n' Wild Kaleidescope. Then I sealed it all in with the world's greatest top coat- Seche Vite. 

 Thanks for reading! -Kiki 

Polishes used on right hand 

 Dark blue- BeautyUk (?) 

Light pink- BeautyUK (?- possible dupe for L'oreal I Pink I'm In Love) 

Bright green- OPI Did It On Em' (Nicky Minaj Collection) 

Light blue- BeautyUk (?) 

Dark Pink- BeautyUK (?) 

 Polishes used on left hand

 Peach- BeautyUk (?) 

Green (it looks teal for some reason)- China Glaze In The Limelight 

Purple- BeautyUk (?) 

Neon coral/pink- China Glaze Flip Flop Fantasy 

Yellow- OPI Need Sunglasses?