Jessica: Venus Was Her Name

Gorgeous, gorgeous polish!! I actually used this as a base to layer Lynnderella Mercurial over...and completely forgot to take a photo of the final product. *LOSER*



Amazing dusty, deep purple with brighter purple shimmer which catches in the sunlight. There is no topcoat on this and it's still shiny!

Have an amazing Sunday everyone! I'll be busy putting my new Helmers together today!!

Revlon Colorstay: Spanish Moss

I finally have a sane moment to sit down and write a new post! Between all the extra skating I have been doing (I am getting ready to take the 2nd part of assessments for my derby team to test if my skills are up to par to bout some more this season!!! So excited!!), a broken washing machine which has now taken 5 days to get replaced...I haven't been looking forward to doing laundry in a very long time!! Also, working long hours has been kicking my butt lately. Trying to balance work, play and love is challenging but oh so fulfilling!!

Here are my opinions on one of the new Revlon Colorstay polishes. I wanted to give this a fair chance as the claims tout 10 days of chip free wear if used with the Colorstay base and top coats.



This is 2 coats of polish between 1 coat each of the base and top coats.
The base has a milky appearance which made me think of the aqua bases that you *need* for linear holo polishes. I am hoping to do a comparison of an aqua base -vs- the Colorstay base to see what the differences may be. Also, the base is slightly thick which made me think it had a bit of a ridge filling benefit to it.



This took several hours to cure. Once it cured it had settled a bit so my nail ridges were not completely filled in like my usual base coat combo does for me. I went to bed and it was dry to touch...but not completely set.
These photos were taken on day 6 of wear. 6 days of no chips is a big deal for me. Not that I really like wearing my polish for that many days, this can certainly come in handy for travel. Regular polish usally starts to crack from normal wear and tear...usually from moisture expanding the nail then shrinking them when they lose the moisture...if that makes sense! This showed very minimal of those cracks at day 6. Whatever is in this makes the cured polish flexible enough so it doesn't chip or crack. Also, I had pretty minimal tipwear even though I was sure to not baby my hands.



Here is a close up shot of the bottle of Spanish Moss. In the 1st 2 photos, it looks like a dusty, pale grey/green. I did not realize this had super, micro, hidden shimmer in it! The day after I applied this is when I noticed. You can see all the little shimmers in the close up shot...pale green, pale pink and silver. Super subtle but still very pretty.

All in all, I really like these new Colorstays. They are a bit pricey for a DS polish...around $8-9 at major drug stores. WalMart has the lowest price point I have found so far at right under $5. Keep an eye out for those Revlon coupons or BOGO deals if you really want to try these.

Happy Saturday!! I am getting ready to head out to Ikea in a few hours for alittle BFF excursion. Wonder what I will be bringing home with me....

Givenchy Purple By Night

Happy Sunday!! I am being distracted by football, basketball and my new addiction...Pinterest!!! This is going to be another short but sweet post today.



2 coats of this amazing polish that I was fortunate to snag in a private sale. This was released in 2008 as part of their holiday collection called Nightlights.



This shot really shows the difference between how it looks in the bottle versus how it looks on the nail. The bottle has an amazing shimmer in it...which does not translate to the nail. It also dries darker on the nail than what you see in the bottle.

I can't say I am completely disappointed in this one but it was definitely not what I was hoping for. It's still pretty but I would have loved to see more of that shimmer on my nails and for it to have kept the bottle color.

Coming up this week I will have a review of one of the new Revlon Colorstay polishes. Wonder what 7 days of wear looks like? Stay tuned!!

FP Motley to the rescue!

Quick, short post.

I topped the last mani I posted about with Finger Paints Motely. It had such a pretty violet blue/aqua shift in the sun. You can see a bit of the aqua in the bottle and mainly the aqua on my nails. The blue gets a little lost due to the blue base. Still lovely though!

If you are interested in the Finger Paints you better run to your local Sally's and hope they still have them in stock. Mine have been extremely picked over but I was lucky enough to get the ones I wanted. It also seems that Twisted has been the hardest to find in my experience. So...if you want these...good luck!
Happy hump day...get to humpin'!!

China Glaze Up All Night + a little layering

1 coat. Yup. 1 amazingly level, even, gorgeous coat! I had this in my untireds for quite a while and was actually just looking for a layering base. I was completely blown away by this polish! Deep navy with a slight, glowy shimmer. This is over my usual base combo and without top coat.

Then I added to it to get this:



1 coat of LA Girls Glitter: Jostle. I really liked this combo. Even though it is basically tone on tone the glitter stands out just enough to give it a very nice effect even in lower light.




Hump day...get over it.

Disco Diva + stamping

Happy Sunday!!

I definitely do not have very good stamping skills which is why I do it so rarely. This is one of the few attempts that I thought came out fairly decent.



This is from Bundle Monster plate BM19. I used WnW Wild Shine Black Creme for the stamping. My biggest complaint about the Bundle Monter plates is that the image is very small compared to a Konad image. The image did not cover my smallest nail (the pinky) so it naturally did not cover any of my nails. I had to double stamp all of them and hoped that they lined up enough to look decent.



I used the new SH Diamond Flash fast dry top coat over the images and was pleasantly surprised that it did not smear my images.

This mani was not a complete fail but I wasn't loving it either. I just was looking for a way to stretch out my Disco Diva mani...which is on day 4 in this photo! Great wear for a holographic polish that has no top coat on it!

Have a great week!!

Jessica Hologram Chic Disco Diva

Holy holo!!! Ok...really, no words needed.



3 thin coats over Gelous and the base coat that comes in the set.



You can buy this at jessicacosmetics.com $25 for the silver holo polish an aqua type base coat. Hopefully this won't go the way of all the other fantastic holos recently and turn into a dud due to formula and pigment changes. Also...wouldn't it be fantastic to see this in more colors?

Love, love, love!!

Palette cleanser!

Color Club Nomadic In Nude. Great coverage and application for such a stark color. 2 coats ove 1 coat of SH Nail Quencher and 1 coat of Gelous (my HG base combo) This was actually underwear for a glitter so there is no clean up or top coat in that shot.


Topped with 2 thin coats of Icing Gold Dust. I loved this combo so much I wore it until it started to peel off...as most glitters do on me. Though the colors are subdued, the glitter adds a nice kick without being too over the top. Not that over the top is bad...I love over the top! I was just trying to cleanse the palette to get ready for some of the glitters I have seemed to amass in 2011!!

Happy New Year...now with Brains!!

Happy New Year everyone!! I thought I'd start of my year with a post just to get my blogging year rolling.

This was my NYE mani...which I had on since 12/29. I wanted to change out to something with more bling and sparkle but this held up so well I figured I'd get as much mileage out of it as possible.


2 coats of Misa Grey Matters topped with 2 coats of Lynnderella Gotta Love Brains.

I really hated the application of the Misa. It was very watery and uneven on the first coat and still a bit uneven on the 2nd. In the end, it didn't matter because it was just being used as the base for the Lynnderella.



I have gotten so many compliments on this combo...as well as the other Lynnderella combos I have worn. I usually have a hard time trying explain to someone what I am wearing because most people have not heard of some the brands that the nail obsessed deal in. I have written down Lynnderella's blog site down for a few people and warned them that they have to monitor her site regularly if they want to own some of her amazing creations! But isn't it worth it?

Hope you all had safe New Year's Eve celebrations and are starting your year off right!