Old Essie Find: Part 2; Hot Commodity

Hello friends!  I am sorry I haven't been posting a lot.  My break that I had....broke AGAIN!  So frustrating.  I am really trying to make a conscious effort to moisturize but I think between dryness and bartending, my nails just aren't handling things well.  The pictures in this post are from a couple of months ago.  Back in September, I had a post about some old Essie's I found and where I featured Essie Priceless.  Today, I will be showing you Hot Commodity which is one of the other ones I picked up at the same time.  This one is just gorgeous and is perfect for this time of year!  It's kind of a deep red jelly but with some silver glass fleck in it.

I'm not sure when I will be posting again.  I looked through my old photos and dug this one up but couldn't find much more that was worth posting.  I might try and use my other hand for swatching, but we will see.  It's harder to take pictures with my non-dominant hand.  I know...such problems!

Shade

Sunlight

I hope everyone is enjoying their week!  

Amy

Late No H8!

I am late with this but a BUNCH of bloggers were sporting purple nails on their blogs yesterday to take a stand against bullying.  Go HERE for more info. It's unfortunate but we here about bullying all the time.  It happens in real life but it seems to happen a bunch in the cyber world as well.  When people are sitting behind a computer screen, it must make them feel big and bad like they can say anything.  I don't know how someone could purposefully make someone feel down but it happens all the time!

So even though I'm a day late, I still felt compelled to join in as I feel this is something that needs to stop.  There is no reason for it.  We've all heard the line...if you have nothing nice to say, then don't say anything at all!  There is no reason to go out of one's way to make a person feel bad.  Shall we get onto the mani?

I first started with Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure in Plum Luck.  Then I added Wet n Wild Color Icon in Back Alley Deals.  Unfortunately this was LE but it is a gorgeous one.  I forget to wear these guys! 

Bullying is not funny. It is not cool. It is not right. And more importantly, it is not okay.
Most of us are, thankfully, residents of countries that support tolerance and many of our families have settled in these places simply for that reason. Generations later, it is our responsibility to perpetuate that message of tolerance across our new social platforms, including the internet.

As members of the nail polish blogging community, we all share a love of beauty, color, and lacquer. Other than that, we are remarkably different: from our race to our religion to our hair color...even to our polish application techniques. To marginalize anyone because of those differences is completely unacceptable and today I take a stand against that. I refuse to allow other people's view of "normal" dictate how I behave, believe, and blog.

In solidarity with a multitude of bloggers linked below, my purple manicure represents my proud commitment to the No H8 movement. Today, November 8, I dedicate my post to ending bullying of any kind and to encouraging diversity and imperfection among our colorful community.

Special Announcement!!

Hello my lovely followers!  So I have some news to share with you.  For the past several months, I have been working very hard on starting my own nail polish line.  I have been toying with this idea for quite a long time and working very hard to make it a reality.  I am excited to say, that day has come!

Now, I realize there are a lot of other indie polish makers out there.  I do hope I can offer something unique to nail polish lovers out there though!  One of my biggest inspirations for this, (besides the fact that I am a nail polish addict) has to do with my bartending job.  I like being festive while working on game days.  I always try to pain my nails to coordinate with what game might be on while working.  When painting my nails, I kind of always wished there were more glitter combos to represent sports.  Then I thought, well maybe I could do something like that!  Back before football even started I decided and starting planning for NFL team inspired nail polish.

There have been many bumps in the road along the way but I am getting close to releasing my first polish which is inspired by Dallas Cowboys.  I also hope that shortly after, I will have a Minnesota Vikings and a Green Bay Packers. I've had some snags with those but I'm hoping to get those worked out soon.  For now, the polishes I put out will be in clear base and meant more to be glitter top coats.

I hope to actually have some of the Dallas stuff ready for sale, in what will be my etsy shop, before Thanksgiving but I'm waiting on a very important piece of what I need.

The name of my "brand" will be BadAss Polish.  My husband gets the credit for this one!  He said it, I loved it and never really looked back!  Well...that's not really true.  I loved it, but I was worried that someone might be turned off by the name.  I hope nobody would be.  I ultimately decided this was my brand and I loved the name so I wanted to stick with it.  :)

We do have a Facebook Page so if you'd like to stay up to date, feel free to give us a "like"!   We also have a website which has little info at this time until we have a need to have more info on there.

I will hope to be doing a post with swatches of the first one soon so watch for that!  I am so excited for this new adventure!

Frugal Friday: Cocktail Dress

Well, I had to do it.  I had to file my nails down due to my recent break.  I think between weather and bartending, my nails are having a hard time staying strong.  I am trying to make a conscious effort to moisturize more often and I've been on a mission to drink lots of water.

I have some pictures of manis that I have taken before "the file down" that I may post.  So you may see a variation in nail length but I have a hard time liking my nails this short!  There are many bloggers that have shorter nails, aka "nubs" or "nubbins" and those bloggers rock the heck out of them.  I just feel like it doesn't suit my hand.  I don't every have my nails too long to begin with this length is definitely shorter than I like.

For this Frugal Friday, I have a Maybelline Color Show polish.  The one is from the Sequins collection. I no longer have my receipt but these are about $3 at Walmart.  I am not positive if they are charging more for the  glitters...hopefully not! This particular collection is limited edition so if you like what you see, don't hesitate too long.  I picked up two from this collection and the one I picked for today is called Cocktail Dress.  It has a black base with a mixture of black glitter and slightly larger red glitter.  This polish is a bit of a problem child for me.  I started off using a nail wheel and the formula was just...dry?  Not really sure how to describe it but it just didn't flow well on the nail.  I then added some thinner and it was more workable then.  For the photos below, I used three coats, then a coat of Gelous, then a coat of SV.   I don't like when a glitter is really rough on the nail and this combination usually solves that problem.

Okay...shall we get on to the pictures?!!

Sunlight

Shade

Have a good weekend!

Go Pink Wednesday: Final Pink Wednesday!

Ah!  Hello!  I have been MIA...I know!  I actually had a pretty bad break on a few of my nails.  It happened right after I did last week's Go Pink Wednesday!  It's still pretty short but I really wanted to do the last installment of this series.  Oh, and by the way...Happy Halloween!  I'm taking my son trick-or-treating this evening and he can hardly contain himself!  He is going to be Mario, and no I am not dressing up at Luigi! :)

For today's mani, I chose Essie Sure Shot  Its a gorgeous magneta/fuchsia with fine shimmer (still in the pink family, right?!).  This was two coats.  Then I topped with a Spectraflair top coat.  Spectraflair is a holographic pigment.  I snagged a tiny bottle of a frankened top coat off of Copious a while back.  Unfortunately, I didn't have any sun so it was hard to capture the holo in this.

This first picture is kind of crappy but it shows the truest color and you can see a bit of the holo effect, especially on the pointer finger.  

This is outdoors but no sunlight. 

Even though the month has come to an end, please be sure to take care of yourselves.  Early prevention is key and having a healthy lifestyle and habits now means later on having less problems.  I've really enjoyed taking a part in raising awareness this month!  I hope to get back to blogging soon..I'm just trying to get my nails back in a better state.  

Go Pink Wednesday including Special Message

This is the second to last Wednesday in October, Breast Cancer Awareness month.  Last week, shortly after I posted my last Go Pink Wednesday mani, one of my friends of Facebook, an ex-coworker posted the following.......

Today I was dignosed with breast cancer.
I just turned 34. 
I'm told, this is an uncommon diagnosis for someone "as young" as me.

I'm a fairly private person and this is a very personal thing. But I feel it's important to share my experience. 
Who knows, maybe it will help someone...

I went in for an annual exam about 2 weeks ago.
Something the nurse felt led to a mammogram (which didn't dete

ct anything) and an ultrasound (that did).
Followed by a biopsy yesterday that tested positive for cancer.

Bad news, Yes.
BUT, there is a bright side (there is ALWAYS a bright side...although sometimes you have to search for it)
Mammograms aren't generally done on women until 40+ (unless there is a history)
And the mammogram I had didn't detect anything. It was the ultrasound.
So I feel very fortunate that although it is cancer, it was actually FOUND and found early.

So not to preach, but take care of yourself....
Go to your annuals and physicals.
It could potentially save your life.

And since this is the kind of thing that will throw you for a loop...
It's a good reminder of how fragile we all are and
how precious and SHORT this life (we're currently in) is:

Be kind......don't hate
Love yourself
Love EVERYONE
Appreciate all you have
Laugh as much as possible
Live as much as possible
Life is short...
We are here for a reason.
Whether we understand it or not
Make the most of it
While you can.

Oh, and for the record, I do hate something (but I feel this is fair):
the words, lump, nodule or any derivitive of them.
Geez :)

What wonderful words that she posted!  So I just want to remind you, to please do your monthly self breast exams, go to the doctor regularly, and take care of yourself!  Early detection is huge!  

Today I used Maybelline Color Show Crushed Candy (supposed to be similar to Butter London Disco Biscuit) and for the accent finger I used Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Strobe Light (dupish for OPI Teenage Dream).

Frugal Friday! Wet n Wild Toxic Apple

Whew!  Friday is here!  Even though I only had a three day work week at my main job it seemed like it took forever.  I am back to bartending too so, no rest for the wicked!

The polish I picked today is Limited Edition but it should be in stores now so if you like it, try to find it.  It is from Wet n Wild's Pick Your Poison collection.  This one is Toxic Apple.  I first saw this when Liesl from Liesl Loves Pretty Things did a guest post over at i Heart Pretty Polish's blog.  Don't you love when bloggers come together?!! :)  Well, when I saw her post, I figured if I came across is I would maybe get it....and that is just what I did.

This polish was $1.99.  It also may possibly be a dupe to OPI Russian Navy.  Dupe or not, I love it!  In the bottle, this looks much more purple.  You can see in the photo that the bottle kind of shows purple but on the nails it's a nice dark blue...perfect for fall!  It is gloomy and rainy here so I wasn't able to take photos outside.

I forgot to clean up a bit of polish on my ring finger...oops!

I thought I would share some of the family pictures we had taken a couple of weeks ago.  I say family but my husband hates getting his picture taken, so we mostly just had pictures taken of our boys but I peaked in just a couple.  Our photographer was amazing!  If you live in the Milwaukee/Waukesha area and are looking for someone, let me know and I can give you here info.

Have a wonderful weekend my lovelies!  

Amy