Zoya Sparkles, the remainder.

When I first bought the Sparkles Collection from Zoya I decided on only getting 3 of them and passing on the reds/pinks.  Now that I have the 3 reds from the Sparkles collection I realize the mistake I made when first purchasing! These are gorgeous, people!

Nihdi is the most unique color of the bunch in my opinion. It's a red jelly/cream hybrid loaded with shimmer and micro sparkles. I absolutely LOVE it, not to mention I own nothing else remotely close to it which is a good and RARE thing.  

HOT.  I adore this medium to hot pink jelly!  It's so 80's yet so now at the same time.  It's jam packed with pink glitter and shimmer and basically comes alive in the sunlight. 

Alegra...Wowza!  This one is my favorite from the entire Sparkles collection now that I see it in person.  A truly gorgeous magenta like dark pink that sings when applied.  It was the most pigmented of all the sparkles polishes IMO and only needed 2 coats to reach it's perfectly sparkly goodness.

Overall, the Sparkles Collection is my favorite collection from zoya ever.  These polishes are unique in color as well as finish, they are attention getting, and they have a superior application to any other glitters I own while not needing a topcoat. SO, if you haven't gotten the sparkles collection yet...HINT HINT. To see the other colors from Zoya Sparkle click here.

While Zoya used to be near the bottom of my top 5 polish brands they are trudging up the totem pole with these new wonderful and inventive collections.  I have found myself with a desk FULL of zoya bottles with nowhere to store them, and they are quickly catching up in numbers to my previous favorite brands like China Glaze and Orly.  Keep it up Zoya!

Love, MM

New Misas! Mardi Gras!

I only got three of the new Mardi Gras collection and I kinda wish I had gotten more.  The formula was the classic, awesome Misa formula but the colors I got were a little weird. Well not weird, but definitely different than I had hoped.

For example, to me, this isn't purple people!  Maybe they want us to throw them something purple because this polish is clearly BLUE?

This one is nice but I wish it was a tad less blue and pastel looking. 

This was my favorite one out of the 3 I got. Sooooo pretty!

Love, MM

Undercover bling

These are two more of my favorite Orlys. Goth and Glam. Both seemingly run of the mill shades from a distance, but they are mixed with different sized glitter.  Glam actually has different colors of glitter as well.

They are both 2 coaters and apply great, as most Orlys do.  These are like ninjas, looking all innocent and normal until you get up close and get round house kicked in the face by the undercover awesome. BAM! GLITTER!  Plus these are two of my absolute MOST loved nail polish names.

Don't be fooled my this pitiful swatch! Glam really needs a top coat to show its full glorious, micro glass flecky, redish marooney, glittery, bad ass-ness. I must have either been in "MOAR COFFEE" or "don't care, were is the remote"  mode while swatching this because I did not use a top coat.

If you like fast cars or have dated a dude that does, you will understand what I mean when I say this polish is a "sleeper".  It just looks like your basic black from about 2 feet away then you pull up right next to it and it blows your mind. Nothin but break lights baby.

Love, MM

Really.

 Very bright pink creme with purple undertones. This was 2 coats and like most Orly cremes it applied smooth as buttah. 

LOVE, LOVE, LOVE!!!! I LOVE THIS!  I thought for sure I would hate it in the bottle, but I had only a few green Orlys so I got it anyway. It is so pretty and unique! Smooth, awesome application, 2 coats, radical color what more could I want? 

What more could I want besides red dots in Nfu-oh 551 of course! DUH!

This is a jelly! YES! I had no idea until I applied it. I was a 3 coater with minimal cuticle drag and I really like the color. 

Deep orange based red creme. This could pass for straight dark orange under some lighting. I don't love it, it's just ok for me. 2 coats.

Love, MM

Stroll.

What a dream this polish is, I adore it. It went on so smooth and is a 2 coater. In case nobody has told you yet, YOU NEED THIS.

My new favorite pink polish, also a 2 coater and great application. Heads up light skin ladies that look freakishly red skinned when they wear light colors and pastels, this is the pink for you!

Zaaaang! A stunning blue based green shimmer. LOVE! 2 coats

This was a 3 coater and I dont love it. But I haven't seen a lot of swatches of it, so here it is!

 OH! The glass flecky goodness, the unique awesomeness! Its the morning sky living on my nails! This was 3 smooth coats.

This is a jelly based hot pink shimmer with a fuchsia flash. It takes a lot of coats but I think it's worth it.

Oooh la la

I swear it's like every single time I apply an Nfu-oh polish it becomes my new "favorite" of the color group it's in.  I just found my new favorite red last night.

 This polish shocked, attacked, then physically abused me.  It slapped me in the face, HARD, then it grabbed me by the eye balls and glued itself to them refusing to loosen it's grip. Not that I really minded, I wasn't driving or anything.  GAH!  This is the hottest red EVER!   Seriously it's like sex in a bottle.  It's not like the sex you are actually having in a bottle.  It's like the sex you WISH you were having, in a bottle.  This was a fabulous, smooth, fast drying, 2 coat application. But, I really could not care less if this polish took 5 coats, it is that gorgeous.

GORGEOUS.

She's my Cherry Pie.

Just to let you all know I wholeheartedly and in all seriousness plan to walk down the Isle to Cherry Pie by Warrant.  I will be wearing cherry red 6" pumps,  a super tight, white, "wife beater" tank top and "to the cheek" cut off jean shorts.  Silver hoop earrings, long wild hair and a floor length already pulled back, white organza veil will nearly complete my look.  What will be on my tips you ask?

This will.  Every time I even think of this polish Cherry Pie pops into my head.  This is 3 coats.  It applies like buttah, dries fast to a glass like shine, and is the PERFECT polish to rock out with my bad self while walking down the isle surrounded by open mouthed faces filled with shock and anger.

Need a refresher of my wedding song? 

Uploaded by 80sglamdoll.

The rest of my wedding will most likely remain "cookie cutter", I haven't given anything other than my outfit and hiring a cover 80's hair band much thought.  I don't really believe in marriage.

Love, MM

Lessons From the Looney Bin- Lesson Five.

Lesson five: Partner Polishes.

Flaky polishes are GORGEOUS and great for layering but they look totally different layered over another polish than they do in the bottle.  Mind you, they still look beautiful layered over other polishes whether they look different than the bottle color or not. 

The problem for me is, I LOVE how they look in the bottle!  I buy it for how it looks in the bottle.  So I WANT it to LOOK like it looks in the BOTTLE!  They are just way too sheer to layer coat after coat and build them up to the bottle color, not to mention way too expensive to do 5-6 coats a mani, so that option is OUT. 

My solution was to layer them over other jelly polishes that match the base color of the flaky as CLOSE as possible.  I used Nfu-oh flakies but any flaky will work.  My goal was to achieve the look of the Nfu-oh flakies actual bottle color by using other polishes as base coats.

I tried this out for Nfu-oh polish #50 for my first go round.  I think it turned out pretty well.

 I started out with a nude base coat, then 2 coats of what I decided was nfu-oh 50's partner polish- Zoya Juicy.  This needed to be a TAD lighter but I think after layering it is PERFECT.


To find a partner polish, you want to thinly swatch your flaky on some white paper and look for the base color.  Or, you can hold up your flaky bottle to your stash and find a polish that matches the base color of the flaky.  Ignore the color of the flakes or glitter!  Keep in mind that 2 coats of the flaky will slightly lighten the partner polish.

Then I layered 2 coats of Nfu-oh 50 over Juicy.  This photo is outdoors in the shade.  I think it's pretty close to the bottle color don't you?

Closer.

Here it is outdoors in direct sunlight.  This is what I'm talkin 'bout!  I got this polish because I loved the POLISH, and now I can wear, THE POLISH! Score!

Here is the same method used on Nfu-oh #59.

 I started with 2 coats of Orly Naughty. I thought this was the best partner polish for nfu-oh 59.

Then I added 2 coats of Nfu-oh #59.  Damn this is DEAD ON dudes. This is in direct sunlight.

Shade.

Indirect sunlight.


Obviously this trick is not just for Nfu-oh polishes. It can work for ANY polish that you love but simply can not build it up to the bottle color by layering.  Partner polishes save TIME and money by saving on coats of your precious flakies or glitters or whatever.  Of course it is also nice to layer these over everything under the sun and make your own looks, but being able to wear them exactly how they look in the bottle is a nice option to have.

Love, MM

Death to the fiance!

,Look, the last type of blogger I ever want to be perceived to be is some fliberty gibbit typing away at her laptop, eyes glazed over, looking off into space, and nothing but nonsense about her her fiance, her boyfriend, or her husband, ever shows up on the screen.  *YAWN*   "My fiance is so sweet, or I hate my fiance or, guess what I am taking all my ex husbands money", RETARDED. 

Not that I sit around all day with my legs crossed, chin in palm, deeply thinking about what kind of freakin blogger I want to be, as if its some type of important thing to be thinking about at ALL.  I mean come ON.  It's just that I started typing this and I was like "OMG! I hope I am not THAT girl!  Must I clarify?  Yes, I must!" 

 holy mother of god.  2 coats.

So, back to death to the fiance thing.  MY fiance takes his showers first in the mornings, usually shortly after he lovingly makes the coffee.  He even makes me my very own glass of coffee and puts it in the freezer for me because he knows how I like it cold.  Awww.  But put that part OUT OF YOUR MIND because we are MAD at him, ok?  After his shower you want to know what he does?  Do ya?  HE TURNS THE HOT WATER HEATER OFF!

Now ladies this is going to sound strange but it took me about 3 weeks of dripping wet trips, sprinting naked to the breaker box, in the MIDDLE of a shower to figure out this freakin pattern.  Now that I have it figured out I STILL have to run to the breaker box naked, all crouched over using my hands as Eve's leaves would be used, in some sort of crab like, two legged race at the county fair, type of run.  Really, the ONLY part that is different is that only ONE LEG is soaking wet because I still get naked and halfway in the shower before I remember.

This is 3 thin coats.  Need I say more?  I think not.

Now why is it that I RUN to the breaker box covering my private parts?  It's because for some reason, every time, I am always totally POSITIVE someone has broken in and will be walking down the hall the precise second that I run by naked.  Now, logically if someone has broken in my home, which I am always certain they have,  the top thing on my list of worries probably should not be them seeing my boobies.  It should probably be something more along the lines of being murdered.  But still, the covering of the boobies and The Hunchback of Notre-Dame run are instincts I just cannot overcome while running naked through my house.

2 coats

It only took ONE dripping wet trip to the breaker box in the middle of a shower for my fiance to stop turning off the freakin hot water heater folks.  ONE.  After all the times I had scowled, and screamed and screeched, "STOP TURNING OFF THE HOT WATER HEATER" at him in the voice of a 70 year old woman that been smoking for 50 of them. It only took ONE time for HIM to experience it to make him stop. Not to mention he still thinks HE was the one that "accidentally" turned it off the night before his shower.

Maybe it's Maybelline.

I love Maybellines, especially the old express finishes with the grey caps.  There is something so nostalgic about them, and I really love the bottle shape. With that said, I don't know if it's a coincidence or if I'm a nut job but the gold cap express finishes seem to always be streaky and it pisses me off to have to thin a brand new bottle of polish. 

Every time I apply a gold cap express finish and it streaks horribly across my freshly prepped, clean and shiny, lovingly base coated, unsuspecting nail, I think really LOUDLY in my head, "MAYBE IT'S NOT FUCKING MAYBELLINE!".  Yeah, I can think to myself in different volumes, and yeah that is the first official full force F-bomb on mah blog.  I think it went over quite well.  Seriously when a polish ruins 20 minutes of filing and moisturizing, base coating and prepping, I strongly consider walking into my kitchen grabbing the hammer out of my pot holder drawer and taking it to every shiny surface in sight.  But I don't because that would mess up the rest of my manicure.

In all honesty, some of the grey cappers streak too.  I just need to point a finger at something and those ugly ass gold caps are just gonna have to take the blame.  Somebody has to take the fall and it's you, you hideous gold caps.  Maybe if you weren't so GOLD and gaudy you could have flown under the radar, but Noooo you just had to be loud and stupid and GOLD.  Is this EGYPT Maybelline?  Are we in King Tut's tomb?  Last time I checked, The answer was NO!  So, stop gold plating random things that AREN'T JEWELRY. 

Maybe I'm wrong and Maybelline is 100% on point.  But my toothbrush and shoe laces aren't gold plated so I'm pretty freakin sure this isn't Egypt circa 1333 BC.

So, in this ONE isolated instance do not listen to me. The grey cap Maybelline express finishes are capable of streaking just as bad as the gold ones. 

 This one applied awesome.  2 thin coats to achieve bottle color.  Purdy.  This is like the ONLY heavily orange based red I can wear and have my hands remain normal looking.

I kinda liked this color but was it worth 4 coats to cover the streaks?  NO!  Was it even worth typing the ridiculously long and STUPID name so I could post it?  Kinda, because I wanted to tell you guys how hard it was for me to type "blet" when all I wanted in the world at that moment was to type "BLEH!"

I think this swatch reveals what a pain this was to apply.  It was wierd.  Streaky and runny at the same time.  But only 3 coats.  I bought this polish because in the store it looked like a creme that would perfectly match my skin tone.  I got it home to find it was a pinkish, yellowish, nude SHIMMER.

This took 5 coats to be opaque, but it's not meant to be opaque so its ok.  But good LORD it is SO streaky.  It's like trying to apply polish with a brush a 4th grader made out of pine straw at summer camp.

I have a love hate relationship with this one.  LOVE- because it looks VERY close to Ruby Pumps. HATE- because it looks VERY close to Ruby Pumps.  This is the closest ruby pumps dupe I have found but who cares. Maybelline can't touch it because Ruby Pumps is RUBY EFFING PUMPS, it is THE red glitter. Nuff said.

Jelly baby.

While I'm busy snuggling and smooching, I'll leave you dudes with some swatches of wonderful Jellies.  After all it IS valentines day!  And you guys know how I am ALL about commercialism controlling the happiness in my relationship.

I freaking LOVE this red jelly.  It took 4 coats to get it this opaque but I don't effing care!  It doesn't matter to Jesus!

Yeah, the bottle is all smudged.  Look, I can't be scrubbing and cleaning all kinds of jars, and WHO KNOWS how many bottles.  I recently got this long time lemming in a swap and I am in LOVE with it.  It's more of a very dark raspberry color than a true red.  This was 3 coats.  Any Brian Reagan fans out there?

I love this warm purple jelly!  It's so juicy. HAR DE HAR HAR. This was a whopping 5 coats but I didn't need that many.  I just wanted it to be completely opaque.  Sorry about the lame juicy thing.

Wowza!  Quick somebody get me my inhaler!  I need it so I can smash it against the wall in my sheer excitement.  This is THE purple jelly people. The polish brand is Sugar Baby.  It dries about 4 shades darker than bottle color.  Which is a very good thing, because if it didn't it would be a dead on dupe to Nfu-oh 554.  We can't have that now can we?

Here is an outdoor photo of it for good measure. 3 coats

Happy Valentines day everyone, and if you haven't done so yet, get in the shower and shave your freakin' legs you lazy ho!  Don't you know that shaving your legs today is your man's reward for the $4.99 bouquet of  flowers he got you at 1 AM from Wal-mart last night?  Seriously I was at Wal-mart last night and the self checkout line was a mile long.  It was comprised of nothing but solitary males holding shitty flowers looking ashamed.

I got it from my Grandma.

I woke up in a super weird mood today so in preparation for this post please locate the nearest salt shaker and separate a single grain to keep handy.   First of all I have misplaced my hairbrush.  It’s a disaster of epic proportions people.   I might as well go buy a wrist sweat band in the colors of the Jamaican flag and a Djembe drum right now because I’m going to be dreaded out like a Rastafarian by noon.   I tried to use my fiancés retarded hairbrush, but it’s totally useless.   It’s one of those stupid bristle brush things that look like a bathtub scrubber.   HOW do people use those?  God, they SUCK.

This is 2 coats.  Once again try to imagine this a bit less blue.  This is a gorgeous purple creme but it is a dupe for Orly Plum Noir.

 This isn't really my thing but it IS one of the non-pink Zoyas I have acquired so I'm posting it. 2 coats.

Just to give you an idea of the mood I'm in today, for the last hour or so I have been running scenarios through my head about how I could go driving around scouting for non-injury related car accidents, then childishly tormenting the drivers in all sorts of ways. Like parking a little ways away and leisurely walking up to the driver with the most mangled car and asking them how they are doing.  “Hey, what’s up man? How’s it going?”  In this scenario the driver replies “Pretty terrible, how are you?”, so I say, “OH YEAH?  You think YOU’RE doing terrible? Well, I’ve misplaced my hairbrush!”   

Some of the other scenarios include me just casually striking up a conversation with the drivers while they are busy fighting and exchanging insurance information, "Hey man, you tried out that new rib place over on King St.?", "So who'd you vote for anyway, pal?"  Another scenario is me driving by the 2 crushed cars and tossing notes out the window to the unfortunate drivers that say random food commercial tidbits like, “With a name like Smuckers it has to be good!” or “The secret is in the sauce”.  I hope this helps! 

My favorite scenario is one where I speed up to the wrecked cars and E-brake slide into a parking spot, then yell out the window “RACE YA TO THE HOSPITAL!”  Then I cackle wildly before I speed away.   One part of each scenario is always the same though.   Right after I spot the accident I do a stealth drive by to make sure nobody is bloody before I proceed with any further action, so don’t worry.

This is such a gorgeous darkened red shimmer.  2 coats.

Something else I’ve been mulling over today is why people say “I got it from my grandma” when you pay them a compliment.  For example- I say, “Hey Janice, what beautiful hair you have.”  Then Janice smiles and says “Thanks, I got it from my grandma”.   I just want to be like, “Wow! Really Janice?  Well you see this WHOLE BODY I have?  I technically got this from my Grandma!  Now tell me what conditioner you use and stop stating the obvious!”   I mean, it’s not like I am complimenting you on your antique coffee table.   But in the instance that I were, it would be perfectly acceptable to say “I got it from my Grandma”.  To which I would reply, “Wow your Grandma is wicked awesome! You could get some hella coin for that baby at the pawn shop!” 

Crazy Town

Lately I've been on this obsessive kick for red cremes.  It's all I want to wear.  So, since I never allow myself to just do what I want.  I've been forcing myself to branch out into the pinkish, redish mauve, and purple range.  I placed a Zoya order, and when I opened the box and started unloading polishes I realized I had ordered SIX nearly identical pinkish red polishes.  It seems when I want something I don't just buy ONE of what I want.  I buy every polish available that is close to that color!  So now I have 6 redish pink Zoyas sitting on my shelf in addition to all the other red Zoyas I already had. When I want redish pink, I BUY REDISH PINK people.  Is one enough?  Nope! Gimmie every single one you got, apparently I dont even care if they are nearly identical!  It seems I have a hoarding problem with things in the redish pink color spectrum despite the fact that I really don't LIKE redish freakin PINK!  
 

Not to mention, I also got some Orlys and 3 of them are nearly dead on dupes to 3 of the Zoyas I got.  I laid them all out together and match after match just kept appearing!  Lucky me!  Oh yeah!  I cleared out the redish pink section of Orlys too!  Don't try to find any because every single redish pink polish ever made is sitting in a pile on my living room floor.  So, if any of you gals need  to borrow some red, pink, or mauve cremes COME ON DOWN to crazy-town and lets get you polished up!

From left to right we have- Paris, Sofia, Demi, Ciara, Moxie, and Vanessa. 

2 coats. Ok.

2 coats, a little brighter than Ciara.

2 coats. This is pretty. 

2 coats. Ok, a little more towards purple, doing better. It isn't this purple IRL though my camera adds blue to anything thats even CLOSE to purple.

This one was 3 coats. Back were we started. A slightly darker version of Ciara.

Thank goodness I had the sense to toss this one in my cart along with all the pink or I think I would have seriously lost it.  I love this! 2 coats.