ABC Challenge: "Y" You Don't Know Jacques!

Hello my lovelies!  We are getting to the very end here on the Alphabet Challenge and I have really loved doing this!  It has really motivated me to blog and also allowed me to pick polishes that I normally wouldn't have.  I have to say, I was kind of happy there were only two letters this week.  I have just been having all kind of craziness going on!  I am getting my 4 year old ready for 4K and just trying to keep up with things.

I have lots of new polishes that I hope to be posting soon too!

For the letter "Y" this was easy as it was the only polish I had that started with a Y and it is a classic favorite, OPI You Don't Know Jacques.  I love this color and it is perfect for fall!

Thanks for stopping by!  Have a good day!

Amy

ABC Challenge: "X"

So this is the letter I was dreading for the Alphabet Challenge.  I don't have any polishes that start with the letter X.  Is there such a thing even?  Then I thought, I'm going to take the easy way out.  I had picked an Xtreme (starts with X) Wear by Sally Hansen polish called Pink Satin.  Then, I thought..well heck...I could get out my striping tape and do an X on one of my nails!!!  For some reason I picked my middle finger to do this "accent" on.  Maybe subconsciously I was thinking...middle finger to you, letter X!!!

I gotta be honest, this is by far my finest work.  The color I put over my X was Essie No Place like Chrome and for whatever reason, it just didn't apply smoothly.  I have yet to try this polish on it's own but I doubt the formula is bad.  I do like the color combo but the actual outcome did not come out how I would have liked.

If I wasn't doing this challenge, I most likely wouldn't even post this.  I have many manicures that I've done that I intend to post but end up not doing so for reasons just like this!  I'm not big on editing my photos.  The most I do is crop and watermark.  So, here is is in all it's glory!

First picture is with flash

Second picture without flash.

Only two more letters left for next week.  Thanks for stopping by!

ABC Challenge: "W"

Hello my friends!  Happy Friday to you!  We are on W today for the Alphabet Challenge.  I picked Revlon Whimsical for this one.  If you don't know, Whimsical is a dupe for a Deborah Lippmann polish called Glitter in the Air.  It is a very delicate sheer blue base with pink and baby blue hexagon glitters.  I have worn this before over Sinful Colors Cinderella and it is pretty that way but today, I wanted to try something different.  I actually layered it over Revlon Peachy.  Not something that you would think to layer it over but I quite like how it turned out.  I only did one coat of Whimsical for fear of that sheer blue base building up too much on the base.  I love how delicate it looks with just one coat.

What do you think of this pair?

ABC Challenge: "V"

We sure are getting to the end of the alphabet here in the Alphabet Challenge!  I'm a little behind this week and I have to try to squeeze two more letters in after this one.  One of those letters is going to be difficult.  I'm trying to get my creative juices flowing but they aren't flowing too good.  I will come up with something though!!

Today we are featuring the letter V.  I actually had two polishes that started with the letter V and the one I decided to go with was China Glaze Velvet Bow.  I believe this is part of the holiday 2011 collection but I don't think a similar color would be too hard to find.  It is a nice vampy deep red.  I found it a little boring by itself so I spiced it up with Essie Luxeffects Pure Pearlfection.  This top coat adds so much to a manicure and I feel like I never hear about it or see anyone using it!  I love how it can transform a manicure!

Don't be surprised if you see another post from me later today so I can get caught up here.

The combo outdoors, no flash.

Velvet Bow with flash indoors.

The combo indoors, no flash (using light box)

ABC Challenge: "U"

Hello all!  I hope you all had a great weekend!  I had off this weekend (which is rare) but I ended up with some sort of bug and so did my little baby boy.  We are doing much better now which is good!

So for the Alphabet Challenge we are getting to some more difficult letters..at least for my collection.  I do not own a single polish that starts with the letter U.  I really wanted to try to be creative on this one and I thought of one of my favorite family movies, Up.  Now I am not big on nail art as I just am not good at it.  So I was trying to figure out if there was something I could do with that without being too complicated.  I thought of trying to do something that resembles the sky.  I picked out two blue polishes which were Sally Hansen Insta-Dri in Blue-Away and than Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure (CSM) in The Sky's the Limit.  If even has the word Sky in it which we generally look up when we look at the sky.  (Am a reaching a bit here?).  

So, with these two colors, I wanted to try something I had not tried before.  I did a Saran manicure.  You can go to Nailed It for a good tutorial on this.  If anyone would like me to post a tutorial here, let me know and I would be happy to do it.  This is actually very easy!  I really love how it turned out with the exception of my not so stellar clean up.  Plus, I waited to photograph it and actually broke a piece of my pinkie nail off which is why there is a chip.  

Also on a side note, check your clearance bins at Walgreen's!  I found the CSM polish for $3 and it is normally almost $8!

What do you think of this technique?  

ABC Challenge: S and T

Hello again!  Well I don't know about you but I am glad the weekend is here!  I usually bartend on the weekends and I happen to have this weekend off.  I've had a looonng week!  Today I have for you the letters S and T...or is it T and S?  I started off with OPI Thanks a Windmillion and I topped it with Cover Band's Sticks and Stones.  This used to be a very hard to obtain polish as it was always out of stock but I just checked over at Ninja Polish and it looks like it is currently in stock!  It is said to be a dupe for Lynnderella's Connect the Dots however it is a little different.  It is the same idea though.

I hope you all enjoy your weekend!  I am going to be doing things like mowing the lawn, folding laundry, etc.  I will hopefully also enjoy some time outside.  It's supposed to be gorgeous out tomorrow, and laundry can always wait, right?!

Again, have a good weekend everyone! 

Amy

Makeup Haul! 1st time...maybe last time?

Hello lovely people!  Something you may not know about me is I am not only a nail polish lover, but I love makeup too!  I've actually been into makeup a lot longer than I've been into nail polish, but nail polish has definitely taken over and it is my number one beauty-related love.  MUA (MakeUp Academy) is a UK brand and they were recently having a sale.  I believe the sale was 30% off PLUS free shipping including free shipping to the US.  First off, their products are already extremely affordable but something about the free shipping was what gave me the push!  I had heard good things about the eye shadows so I figured what the heck!  When it comes to makeup, I am definitely an eye person.  I love eye shadow and eye liner.  I am very much drawn to colorful eye shadows but I am mostly a neutral girl.  Most of the time I save the colors for my nails! :)

When I named my blog, I actually named it Polish and Such for the exact reason that I thought I would maybe someday want to include other beauty related things.  Here is my first one.  I just took pics of the things I ordered.  The grand total on all of this was under $20!!! Crazy, right?!!

Let me know your opinions on this post.  I was thinking about doing a Naked palette comparison/possible dupe on a future post if that would be something of interest.  Or would you rather I stick to just nail polish??

I am pretty sure this eyebrow pencil is not going to work.  I love the brush on the end but it is just so dark!  I have pretty dark eyebrows but I tried this and it made me look crazy and just doesn't seem like the consistency an eyebrow pencil should be.  It is actually creamy.  Maybe I can utilize it as an eye shadow base.  

This shade doesn't have a name.  It just just number 2.  I like it from what I tried.  It is creamy.  Also blends out well if you like using your lipstick as a blush.  

Just a general sum-up of the eye shadows, they are mostly very good and pigmented.  A couple of the more sparkly ones are pretty chalky.  I haven't actually used these on yet but I'm looking forward to doing so.  

Again, I would love to hear your thoughts on this kind of post.