Bloglovin'

SO I'm sure you've heard the drama about GFC going away, and to be frank I don't understand a damn bit about what's going on. I do know that Bloglovin' is a good alternative for those who want to follow but don't have their own blog. SOO I'm just putting the option out there should it be easier for you!

There will be a little widget around here to click on and follow through Bloglovin'. Hopefully this helps!! Yay 47 followers btw!!

Hope everyone is having a great day!

Rachael 

Nail Mail!!!

Hey again! Here's my first swap pic like I promised. I swapped with Amanda from Fashion Footing. She's super nice, and her blog is great! She included a really sweet note and a little extra. So exciting to have done my first swap. Hope she likes what I got her! :)

L-R: Pixel Polish- Oh Wee! Color Club- Foil Me Once, Essie- Shine of the Times, and Sinful Colors- Winterberry

I have been lemming the Foiled Collection for a long time, and so I was so excited that she threw that in as a surprise! I looove Shine of the Times and just never picked it up. As soon as I put it on I wondered why I waited! It's gorgeous! The Pixel Polish is my first, and it's adorable. Super pretty sparkle, too. Ohh and the Sinful... I love purple, and Winterberry is the dustiest most lovely shade. So. Excited.

Thanks so much Amanda!! 

Have a wonderful day everyone :) 

Rachael

Fingerpaints Blue Raspberry Taffy

Hey everyone :) The past few days have been pretty meh, but yesterday I went to my room and on my desk aka Perky Polish Central, I found a little orange envelope... with POLISH INSIDE. ooohhhhh maaan. Instant pick me up. Swapping is my new addiction. A post with the deets will come later tonight. I'm still ogling my pretty new polishes and haven't taken pics yet.

So for today we have a new Fingerpaints polish, from the Gumdrops and Lollipops collection. There are six in this collection but so far I've only picked up one. I love Fingerpaints, so I have a feeling more will come, but for now I'm trying to save up for the Hunger Games polishes. squeeee

This beauty is Blue Raspberry Taffy.

This is one coat of pure yum, no topcoat. Seriously, that shine has gotta be illegal in some countries. Fohreall. Tiny bit of tipwear after two days, so... this baby is a winner. Oh, and it didn't stain!

I'm in love.

Have you picked up any of the new Fingerpaints collection? If so, which is your favorite?

Also... I got more giveaway stuff today. OH SNAP

Ulta Store Review

This post will be a review of an experience I had and overall opinion of Ulta stores. I am not affiliated with Ulta stores and this is only my honest opinion. If uninterested, do not read further.

I have been shopping at Ulta for several years now. There is one right down the street and they have a good selection of makeup and nail polish. Lately, I go in multiple times a week.

I have made returns a few times. Once a polish I already had and didn't remember purchasing, once a damaged item for my mom, and once for a gift I wasn't fond of. All items were new and unused, and I received store credit because I knew there was something I'd want. Lately, I've been increasingly uncomfortable when entering the store. A few of the associates whisper when I come in, give me dirty looks, and are generally rude and snotty at the register. Soon I was no longer greeted, nor did anyone ask if I needed help. The final straw was when my cousin was returning something I bought for her, and I heard them (associates and a woman I knew to be a manager) talking about me at the register. One of the associates loudly and rudely said, "Oh, she's in here all the time." And later, I tried to use a coupon and mistakenly brought the wrong one. The associate said "I can't just make one for you, you know. You actually have to, like, have a coupon." I'm not sure if it conveys through text, but she was quite hateful, and I left the store extremely annoyed and dismayed. I made a quick call to Ulta customer service. (I hate having to complain about stuff- I was really tempted to hang up the entire time I was on the phone. I don't like causing trouble =/) I spoke with a very apologetic and efficient man named Bill, who took note of the situation and emailed our conversation to the general manager.

A few days later, I received a personal phone call from Kelly, the extremely nice general manager of 3 Ulta stores in my area. She was apologetic, grateful for my time and input, and incredibly understanding regarding my frustration. I was so pleased with the short conversation that I will absolutely continue to bring my business to Ulta stores and to make online purchases. I was frustrated, but a little kindness and recognition made a huge difference. In short, Ulta Customer Service receives an A+ from me. This is a very condensed version of the situation, but I wanted to share how wonderful the Ulta company seems to be. They truly value and appreciate their customers. Despite a few employees with little tact, I believe the company is one worth shopping with.

Swatches tomorrow :) I'm wearing Zoya Lolly right now. Testing the wear time, as I've heard mattes are terrible for long term wear. I work all day tomorrow just like today and I'm sleepy. See you soon :)

-Rachael

Bloom.com Nail Mail!

Heeey! Last week I bought a coupon on Gilt.com for a $40 certificate to Bloom.com for just $20. I was also a new member, so I got $15 off my first order. Essentially my purchase was $5 total, and free shipping!! (Note: I heard that within a few hours, the coupon had changed to 20% off of the order. I got lucky! Not sure if it is still available.) Gilt.com emailed me my coupon code within a few hours. I'm a frugal girl, so this deal made me so happy. Thank you to Lizzy from The Do It Yourself Lady for posting about this awesome bargain.

Bloom.com has an amazing array of beauty products. Hair care, skin care, makeup, and of course polish. They carry Megan Miller, some OPI, Essie, Zoya, and assorted Sally Hansen. I chose five Zoyas and ordered them on the 17th. My order shipped the 20th and arrived yesterday, the 22nd. I am incredibly pleased with how quickly and efficiently Bloom.com operates! So here's the box I received.

Pink tissue paper and a hand written card. Seriously? I love this so much. I know it only took a second, but that second was for me and that makes me so, so happy I shopped with Bloom.com. Little efforts like this one make such a lasting impression. You've got me hooked, Bloom!! I'll be back so soon!

When you make an order with Bloom.com, you get to pick three samples. I love that you choose your own. I picked a Sundari hair oil treatment, Stila shadow samples, and a POP Beauty face primer, all in a cute little silver bag. So stoked to try these!

My five new pretties were all wrapped up in polish burritos. 

yes, that is a gingerbread man placemat underneath. ya dig?

Caitlin, Areej, Mira, Lolly, and Phoebe 

Mira leaked a tiny bit, but not enough to make any difference. No problem at all!

Now I have all three Mod Mattes. :)

Overall, I am beyond ecstatic about my experience with Bloom.com. Zoyas retail for $8. I will be ordering from them all the time as of... now! YAY. 

Thanks for looking! 

giveaway soon.....hehe

Sinful Colors Zeus

Hi!! Today's mani is sweet and simple. Zeus is part of the new Sinful Colors Castaway collection which hit Walgreens stores just a few days ago. I called to see if my local store had it before I got out in the rain, and when I got there the sweet employees called me "That polish lady." I'll take that as a compliment!

Zeus is a dusty periwinkle tinged purple. It's darker than the average lavender and has a gorgeous pink shimmer running through it when the light is just right. Application was no problem, dry time was excellent, and at $1.99 average per bottle, the price is right, too. You know I love Sinful Colors :) This is two coats, top coat of Seche Vite, and my ring finger is stamped with a little butterfly in Kleancolor Metallic Black. Fauxnad plate m25.

lamp light

loook at the gorgeous pink shimmer

Work destroyed this mani. I hope my new OPI Nail Envy starts workin' it's magic.

What do you think of Sinful Colors? Some people seem to get runny or super thick bottles, but I haven't had a bit of trouble. Maybe I'm just easy to please. Ignorance is bliss!

Thanks for looking :) So happy to have you all here. Hope you have a wonderful day!

Katie's Nails: China Glaze Techno and OPI Ink

Hey everyone! How is your weekend? I bought 15 Sinful Colors... oooops. 99 cent sale at Walgreens ends tomorrow, and a new collection is out! It's called the Castaway collection and has 8 gorgeous new colors, most with Grecian themed names. Of couuurse I bought all of them.. you know me and my Sinfuls! So I'll have a swatchfest soon and post them all. Yay, and thank you Nouveau Cheap  for letting me know about this great new collection. :) 

So I have family in town this weekend! My grandmother, aunt, uncle, and three cousins. Needless to say it is busy around here and I am one happy girl. I love my family being around and I wish they'd come more often! My awesome cousin Katie lets me do her nails, and they are lovely. Long and thick. I wish I knew what her secret is! So for this mani she picked OPI Ink, one of my new favorites, and because she has a soft spot for mattes, we used Hard Candy Matte-ly In Love as a top coat.

THEEEN we sponged on some China Glaze Techno for a sort of funky french-sponging combo! They had one gorgeous baby, lemme tell ya. Here's a few pics- aren't her nails beautiful??

lamp light

blurred- look at that holo!

One coat of Seche Vite Quick Dry to smooth out the glitter, and voila. Beautiful.

I hope everyone is having a great day! Special thanks to Katie for the use of her lovely nails as my canvas. YAAAY

Love,

Rachael

Late night nails

Heeellooooo darling readers! It's about 2:15 am where I am and I have to be up at 6:30. Wooosh

Valentine's day was beyond wonderful. My boyfriend... sigh. Wonderful.

Tonight's nail painting was initially a fiasco. I attempted to do China Glaze Aquadelic, one of my new favorites, and for some reason it just didn't work. I struggled, cursed, chucked something across the room, and finally quit.

After rummaging around, I blindly chose Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure Which Couldn't Possibly Have A Longer Name in Fairy Teal. It's a lovely dusty teal creme that covered perfectly in two coats. I friggin love the brush on this brand. Seriously. It's like a paddle and I wanna spank my nails with it. Omg I said that.

I started with a base of my new OPI Nail Envy. I'll be reviewing it in a few weeks or so, when I've had adequate time to see if it's worth the price tag.

'Cause I couldn't stop with just Fairy Teal, I stamped a flower from BM plate 03 and then filled it in with Sinful Colors Nail Junkie, a gorgeous teal base with silver, gold, green, blue, and teal hex glitter. Then I did some little dots with Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Celeb City, then a top coat of Seche Vite. And then I looked at the clock and cried.

Hope you liked this post- Valentine's day mani. I'm ready for greens and blues... and sleep. Love you all! Have a wonderful Thursday!

-Rachael 

Sinful Colors Bare and Amethyst

Hey sweet readers! I heard that Walgreens has Sinful Colors for $0.99 this week, and I gleefully took advantage of the sale. I only bought five, but I really think I need a few more... Unicorn, Cream Pink, and Bikini... why did I not get them! Silly me. 

So I don't own a single nude polish. After seeing some really beautiful shades of nude, sand, etc, I decided I should definitely have a few! Tempted by 99 measly cents, I picked up Bare. I think Bare is a new Sinful Colors color, 'cause I haven't seen it before. It's exactly my skin tone which surprised me because the bottle looks a little bit pink, but lo and behold, mannequin hands! Fabulous. This is two coats that dried very fast, probably only needed one. Application was perfect- no cleanup needed, and look how shiny without a topcoat! It looks like there is the tiiiiiniest bit of shimmer but it's hard to see on the nail in real life. Beautiful regardless. 

Lamp light, no topcoat 

I have seen some really lovely manis with a nude base and black design or stamp, so I played with that a little. All images are BM plates and stamped with Sinful Colors Black on Black. Really fun!

Next up is a gorgeous dusty purple creme, Amethyst. Also Sinful Colors and I was again impressed with the application! This is definitely my favorite drugstore polish and for $1.99 full price, I can totally fit it into my budget. Which always stretches to accomodate polish, but whatever! ;)

One coat, no topcoat, and no cleanup. Damn.

lamp light

color accurate

Yay Sinful Colors! I'm so crazy about these two. I picked up a few more so those are coming soon. Hope you like them!

Have an amazing week, and see you again soon.

Rachael 

PS- picked up a few pretties for an imminent giveaway... 50 followers? Get excited, 'cause I can't wait! love you all!

Inky Bombshell + Sap... Beware

Hello darling readers! I'm a happy girl today. Worked all day and came home to comfy pants and a cupcake sock. (the other has zigzags.. we know I don't match my socks!) I wanted desperately to go polish shopping but I didn't get to work at all for the past two weeks, so my paycheck was $0... and Valentine's day is right around the corner. My poor sweet boyfriend is getting handmade gifts and I'm probably wearing jeans to dinner. Ha! We'll see. 

This polish is OPI Ink, a gorgeous dark purple with a pinky purple microglitter. The formula was perfect- opaque in two coats. It dried quickly too. Keeping with the Valentine's Day theme, I decided to do a heart but not in the traditional pinks and reds; the heart for this mani is gold, inspired by my boyfriend. I'm a sap (seriously it's friggin revolting) and I could write poems and novels about how crazy I am about him, but instead I'll give you a just little smidgen, and then we can all groan in unison and move on! ha. 

IT'S ABOUT TO GET SAPPY, FEEL FREE TO SCROLLLL TO THE SWATCH'EMS

Brian and I met in October of 2010, and twenty minutes into our first date I was enraptured like I had never been before. I just backspaced a whole paragraph of sappy BS. Moving on. Brian was such a breath of fresh air, and it took about two months for me to learn what that elusive L word really felt like. I didn't love him like I love cupcakes, or like I love kittens, or like I love nutella... and I friggin LOVE that shit. No, what I felt was overwhelming, and it astounds me to this day. This love is so scary and bright and bigger than me, or him, or the life we have. It's the knowledge that I would lay down and die for him without a second thought. DAMN.

I have a serious skin condition and most of the time I feel awful. I've had surgeries, procedures, radiation, countless meds and tears and doctors. I don't wish I didn't have it- It makes me who I am. But I never thought someone would love me past my scars. He does, and I know he always will. He's selfless, he's kind, and he truly has a heart of gold. okayI'mdoneIpromiseI'msorrrryyyy

HEY OPI Ink, you're pretty. 

why are you so beautiful

there's a glare but GAH look at that shimmah

wittle heart!

The heart is done with a little heart stamp from a BM plate filled in with China Glaze Blonde Bombshell, a gorgeous gold glitter that I can't stop looking at.

in my top 10 polishes, easily

I'm sorry for the ubergross love stuff up there, but I'm a writer and sometimes I just need to be poetic. I love this mani. Purple and gold are royal colors or some shit and this feels pretty damn kingly. Queenly?

I love you guys :) So happy to have my amazing 36 followers. I hope you enjoy my silly posts and average swatches because I so enjoy doing them for you. 

Hope everyone is having a fantastic weekend!!

Rachael 

Smoooch!

Hello dolls! Here's my first Valentine's Day mani. I was playing around with my new striper brush and came up with a really cute design, but it was time consuming and I'm exhausted. So that one will come later! For now, here's a simple funky french with some stamping. I used Orly- Au Champagne for the base. It's a beautiful pearly white that dries almost satiny. I found it on sale at Sally's today, and was so happy! It had been on my wishlist. Please excuse the dry skin by the way. meh. I used some french mani tape guides and they kinda suck, so my lines are wicked uneven and I'm too tired to care. It looks good from far away, haha. For the tips I used Zoya- Dita, which is inaccurately pictured below. Dita is a beautiful warm creme pink, and the pics look red. I could NOT for the life of me get it to photograph correctly. The kiss stamp is from a BM plate and it was done with Dita, too. It is more color accurate. I hope you like it!

two coats Au Champagne, two coats Seche 

Practice makes perfect, so I'm gonna keep trying :) Thanks for coming by, and have a wonderful day.

Major blogging fail...

Hi everyone. I am sooo sorry for being MIA over the past week. I won't get too far into the details but as it turns out, the stomach virus I thought I had was much more severe and I ended up sicker than I've ever been... ever! I was not a happy girl. I tried to paint my nails several times and the smell, which I normally don't even notice, made me nauseas. (I always have trouble spelling that word. is that right? haha) Anyway I am on the strongest antibiotics a person can be prescribed and I feel much, much better. On the plus side, from not eating/being sick I lost 12 pounds in 7 days! Woo, silver lining!

So! I was going to post right now but I think I need to make an Ulta/Sally's/Beauty Brands shopping excursion to treat myself for battling the angry tummy all week. Any excuse to buy too much polish, as if there is such a thing!

I will absolutely be back with a post tonight, and I'm so excited to get back in the swing of things. I missed all of you and have been keeping up with your blogs to tide me over. So, off I go, and I'll talk to you tonight come hell or high water!!


Rachael

China Glaze Sweet Hook and Techno

Hello everyone!! I'm so excited to have reached 30 followers. I really didn't think anyone would be interested in my ramblings but I'm so glad all of you are!! I appreciate each and every one of you, and your sweet comments make me smile. So, enough sap huh? On to one of my favorite manis ever!

I started with two coats of China Glaze Sweet Hook, from the new Electropop Collection. I rushed to my Sally's and picked up my favorites, and Sweet Hook didn't disappoint. She's a beautiful creamy pale   lilac. Colors like these are sooo up my alley. <3 Then I used one coat of Techno, also from the Electropop Collection. This polish blows my mind. I don't have anything like it. It's a clear base filled with silver and holo glitter and tiny, gorgeous holo hex glitter. I had to scooch the glitters around a little, but it was so worth it. I haven't stopped looking at my hands! Now, let's let the pictures do the talking. 

Indoor, no flash. Topcoat of SV

minor tipwear after a couple days, but nothing major 

seriously look at that bottle. OMGHOLO

ahhh <3

I hope you liked today's mani! I'm crazy about it. I have more of the Electropop Collection to show you, so stay tuned!

Thanks for reading and have a wonderful day. 

Rachael