Maybelline Color Show Twilight Rays

Hello ladies! Happy Thursday!

Today I have one of the new Maybelline Color Show polishes to share with you. Took me long enough to get to these, right?? ;)

I picked up several polishes from the Color Show line when they first hit shelves, but just haven't had a chance to really play with them until now. The other night I decided to take my nails back down to nubbins since they were catching on everything, getting in the way when I type, poking the baby and they were starting to do that weird curvy thing again. I love darker colors on nubbins, so I decided that this was a perfect opportunity to try out Twilight Rays, one of my faves from this collection.

Twilight Rays is a black jelly with a plethora (I love that word!) of gold flakies. This polish was the first one to catch my eye, and is certainly a stand out in this collection.

Details:
1 coat Seche Recondition
2 coats Twilight Rays
1 coat Seche Vite

Isn't she gorgeous? I'm not usually a huge fan of gold, but I really love this polish. It's such a chic twist on classic black.

Formula:
As far as formula, this girl left some to be desired. Very watery and streaky on the first coat, then thick and gloppy on the second. More annoying than troublesome though, since a good coat of Seche evened it out nicely.

Application: The changing formula of this polish made application a little tricky. The first coat, although streaky and a little watery, went on smoothly. The second coat was troublesome due to the polish really thickening up. I had to go thicker than usual and use a very light hand.

I actually really love this girl despite the less than amazing formula, but then again I have been known to fall in love with a pretty drugstore polish often.  This girl was definitely worth the $2.99 I paid for the gold flaky/black jelly combo alone. The colors in this collection aren't anything new and exciting, but they are pretty and there are a couple of standouts. I picked up 5 in all, and am looking forward to trying out the rest.

Hope you're all having a great day! It's almost the weekend!

Thanks for stopping by and as always...Happy Polishing!
-Kimber

Spoiled by Wet N Wild Double Feature: Good Karma and Use Protection

Hi Guys! I am finally feeling better! Woohoo!

Unfortunately I am still a touch depressed about having to cut my nails back to nubbins. And it shows in the mani I have to share with you today. :(

I sat down and did this mani on Tuesday night, while I was so sick that it actually hurt to breathe. I was exhausted from being sick and caring for both kiddos, as well as working and running errands, so the first bad thing I did was I applied my polish over a base coat that was 36 hours old. I just wasn't able to pull off a complete mani, but I was so depressed about my nails, and having them mostly naked (save for base coat) wasn't helping, so I just had to put on some polish. The second issue I had was that I hadn't really cared for my cuticles in almost 3 weeks. I had beaten up on them with doing the dishes, laundry, cleaning, etc., but hadn't really babied them or used any cuticle remover.  My hands and cuticles (and obviously the length of my nails!) have suffered like crazy over the last couple of weeks, and I'm now being a good polish fanatic and picking up some gloves to protect my hands. I was able to sit down and do a full mani tonight, and let me tell you....the sheer amount of cuticle that came off with zero effort and just a touch of cuticle remover? Ungodly! It was horrible. I'll never do that again.  But enough of that, right? I'm stuck with nubbins, and until they grow out, I may as well shut up and show you guys some polish!

Today's mani is Spoiled's Good Karma, a lovely teal that shows mostly blue, but leans green in low light. It's hardly a duochrome, but that color base does look different depending on the light. This is a pretty basic color, but I do love teal on the nubbins, so I decided it would be a good time to try this baby out.  All pictures are taken in my lightbox, and please forgive my sloppy mani! I was really very sick, and rushed like crazy, even while taking pics. I promise I won't be posting any more horribly sloppy manis!

As much as I love teal, I can't say this is one of my favorites. The formula was fairly thick, and since it has a frosty finish, visible brushstrokes are a problem. The gigantic evil brush doesn't help either! All in all this is a beautiful color, but doesn't really stand out for me. So, I added a coat of another Spoiled polish, Use Protection (those names! Jeeze! LOL!)

Use Protection is a sheer teal jelly with silver, teal and blue hex glitter and some silver microglitter. In certain light the silver glitter almost looks gold. This glitter has potential, but the brush sabotaged it for me. The brush with this bottle was so fat that it would tangle up as I pushed it into the neck of the bottle, and had bristles coming out of the side of the stem at random. I'm so fed up with the brushes that come with these that I am going to use a different brush with them from now on. I love the polish itself, but the brushes are so bad that it's just frustrating to use them. It's worth a shot with a better brush since the polish itself is pretty awesome.

So there's my horrible mani. Looking back at my blog, this is one of my worst! That'll teach me to polish while I'm sick and exhausted! Also, having to go back to nubbins really depressed me. I didn't want to click open my blog, I didn't want to look at polish, nothing. It really hit me way harder than it should. They're just nails, right? Not like they won't grow back. But I had just grown them out to where I liked them, and breaking off corners and ripping my index finger down to a nub just plain ole sucked. I'm trying to remain positive and tell myself they don't look so bad, but man! I just had nubbins 2 months ago!

Hope you're all having a wonderful start to your weekend and are all healthy! I'll be back with more Spoiled soon, but I do have to sneak in a different brand tomorrow. Hubs returned home tonight (yay!) and found a polish that I had been lemming that just wasn't showing up around here. I just have to wear it!

Happy Polishing!
-Kimber

Spoiled by Wet N Wild: Ants In My Pants!

Hi guys! Hope you're having a great week! I'm having a rough time, but I wont get into that here. Suffice it to say that out of town hubs and sick kiddo plus my own anxiety isn't a good combination. But, lets talk polish, shall we?

Today is the start of my Spoiled marathon, and I thought I would start it off with a bang! I'm up to 29 Spoileds now, and it was tough to choose which one I wanted to share first, but this is such a showstopper that I just had to show it off!

This is Spoiled by Wet N Wild's Ants In My Pants, a veritable plethora of red hex and round large and microgiltters in a sheer black jelly base. It's very similar to Wet AN Wild's Behind Closed Doors, which was one of their LE polishes that I could never find out here. Ants seems to have more glitter than BCD, but otherwise is an exact dupe. Check this baby out!

Ants In My Pants, 2 coats over Black Creme:

Now THAT is gorgeous! I love red glitter, and this baby is just what the Dr. Ordered!

Formula was surprisingly good, a bit thick, but nothing that you can't work with. It is loaded with glitter, so no need to dap around on the nail to place the glitter. Dry time was very fast, and wear? Well, Ive been wearing this for 2 days now with no chips or wear. Impressive! The brush is still a PITA, but I'm getting used to it. I recommend not drinking coffee for at least 5 hours before using this brush, and never try to use this brush while drinking! ;)

I did layer it over Black Creme since it takes a good 3-4 heavy coats to reach opacity since the black jelly is very sheer, and I didn't want to use up a quarter of my bottle on one mani.  This polish is gonna require a backup bottle, and I plan on picking one up as soon as my anxiety chills out and I can drag both kids out to the store without panicking. :) If you only pick up one polish from this line? Make it this one. You won't be disappointed.

Have a great Thursday!

Happy Polishing!
-Kimber

P.S. I can't seem to find the Julep swatch I was going to post, but I have 2 more Julep's on the way so I'll re-swatch it with those.

Butter London- The Black Knight

Hi guys! I'm still feeling horrible, so this will be short and sweet, but I figured I would at least post something since I'm a little behind and I spent a good chunk of time indulging my depression since hubs was traveling for work and I was run down. For those that don't know, I have 2 kids: a 21 month old son and a 10 year old daughter. My daughter has Asperger's Syndrome, so we have a lot of OT and Neurology Appointments, as well as trying to help her transition to middle school next year. I also own my own business, which requires a ton of paperwork, computer work, as well as driving and walking. Lemme tell ya, when Hubs is gone? I'm going a good 20 hours a day just to get things done. I'm certain that contributed to my picking up this heinous illness. So that's what I've been dealing with, and since I suffer with depression and anxiety disorders, it's been very hard. I think I'm due for a med change since before hubs left I was having trouble with anxiety and leaving the house. I know, TMI, but for those that know me a little more and are wondering where I went, etc., there ya have it.

On to the polish!

Today I have Butter London's The Black Knight to share with you. I've had this polish forever, but just never really found the right occasion for it. Finally, the night hubs left town, I said sod it all and wore it anyway!

I want to tell you guys how fabulous this polish is, and that it's totally worth the $14.00. But I can't. This one is a matter of how much you will tolerate to get to the final look. The Black Knight is a mass of multi-colored glitter in a black jelly base, but it's not your usual multi-color glitter. Nope, it's a gorgeous mix of blues, pinks, and what looks like some silver and gold. The pink and blue truly dominate, and that's what made this polish a must have for me. It really is absolutely gorgeous. But, the formula? What a hot mess! It was thick from the get-go, but it just became so gloppy that I had to thin it out after the 4th nail. Even after thinning once, it still glopped up so badly that the neck of the bottle was clogged. I've never used a polish that was this thick and gloppy in my life! I was so frustrated by the end of the second coat that I swore I would never wear this again and threatened to re-home it. I have since decided that it may be worth the hassle for some special occasion or another, but I certainly won't be wearing it just for fun. This was really inconsistent with Butter London's usual smooth formula, and I'm hoping maybe it was just my bottle. At least I hope so because I sent a bottle of this in a package to someone and I really don't want their head to explode when they try to use it! ;)

Despite having the most evil of all formulas, she is a pretty girl. Of all my glitters, this one got the most compliments. Wear was average, lots of tip wear (wrapping them was a waste of time), but no other chips or wear.  This is 2 coats over Julep Nail Therapy and topped with Out The Door (I ran out of SV. I have since procured some, thank god!).

See? She's gorgeous enough, but is she worth all the hassle? I'll let you be the judge...

Happy Polishing!
-Kimber