A-England Holy Grail (revamped) and some stamping!

Morning lovelies! Happy Monday (ducks thousands of objects being thrown at her for saying that)! Actually I'm not even close to happy, having broken a corner off a nail on Saturday and losing more length that I really was prepared for. Hopefully they grow fast, and I can re-shape them the way I like. I wasn't about to go back to nubbins, so you guys are going to have to live with the less than perfect shaping. :(

Also, this post is kinda long and pic heavy - here's to you, Anonymous, who said that I didn't have enough pics compared to my text (what??????)!

It's going to be a busy day here at KLK....the Giveaway is going live today! First, some warning: The polishes are still in transport stage since I decided to start early. I will post the pictures of the actual prizes as soon as they are all in my hands. Until then, I'm going to be linking to swatches of them so you can still see what is what.

What? You came here to see some polish as opposed to just reading my babbling? Well, let's get on with it then!

Today I have another beauty from A-England to share with you. I'm sure you are all aware that Adina recently revamped Holy Grail from the Mythicals Collection. You may also be aware that Although I love Gold on other people, I rarely wear it since it does really weird things to my skin tone. However, I couldn't resist the sheer beauty of the new Holy Grail.

This version of HG is more of an Antique Gold Foil, boasting flecks of copper, bronze and a golden green. This combination is sheer perfection, and makes this polish a bit of a chameleon. In some lighting conditions it is a glowy, bright gold, in others a shimmery golden bronze with olive highlights. It really is stunning (and occasionally blinding since it's a foil and light just bounces right off it!) and I'll be the first to admit my pictures do it no justice. I'm not going to be as wordy as I usually am with A-Englands today, since I have so much to get done. :)

This is 2 coats of Holy Grail over The Knight, and topped with The Shield. 

I do love this revamped version of Holy Grail. I still need to order the original HG, so I can't do a comparison, but the Original is more of a Yellow Gold shimmer from what I can see in swatches. Also gorgeous, yet somehow plain next to this new version.

It's also just brilliant how Adina brought new life to Holy Grail by revamping it. It's also awesome for nail art, you can see how I combined Holy Grail and Beauty Never Fails below:

As always, Holy Grail's formula is true to A-England's high standards, and application was sheer perfection. 2 easy peasy coats for opacity, no streaking or glopping, and superior shine, even without top coat!

And now, bonus stamping! The moment I saw HG I knew I wanted to stamp using that baby. So after a day of wear (and some impromptu shaping - sorry for the naked tips) I grabbed my Red Angel Plates and Konad Black and came up with this:

 I love how this stamping came out. The pattern is so complex, if you look at the gold it's one pattern, focus on the black and it's another. I was testing out a new item for review with this as well, and didn't get perfect transfers on all nails, but it's good enough IRL that I wasn't too concerned.

What do you think of the new Holy Grail? Are you loving it as much as I am?
Stay tuned for the giveaway to go live later today!!

Thanks for stopping by and Happy Polishing!
-Kimber

Wet N Wild Fergie Collection: Going Platinum

Hi ladies! I know, I know. I'm still updating weekly. Lemme tell ya, I didn't expect to get this busy. I'm currently trying to get my daughter ready for camp, which means lots of paperwork, shopping, and doctor's appointments, as well as work, my whirlwind of a toddler, and a new car. Well, a new to us car, anyway! It's actually pretty cool, and was a gift from my in-laws. We've been a 1 vehicle family for a long time, and hubs really needed to be able to get to and from work without having me drive him so I would have a way to get around during the day, hence the new vehicle. That took a good chunk of our time, so my blogging plans had to be put on hold. Now add going back down to super nubbins due to yet another broken nail (door handle this time! ugh!), and you have a bad recipe for nail blogging anyway! I can't promise that I'll post as often over the next week or so while I'm getting Kalli ready for camp, but I do try to post at least once a week so you guys know I'm still alive. Hopefully I'll be back to my usual every other day schedule in about a week.

Today I have a very cool polish to share with you guys! I came across the new Wet N Wild Fergie display at Walgreens awhile back, and over the past few weeks have managed to pick up 5 of them. The first one I picked up was Going Platinum, a very cool silver metallic/foil with gold flakes. Let me tell you, wearing this was like having platinum on my nails! Sometimes it was blinding! The gold flakes made it even more awesome (I swear the silver reflects the gold in some lights which made the base color look almost like a champagne color!), and I spent a good amount of time staring at my nails. This girl was hard to photograph, mostly because it really reflects light, so the finish tends to wash out. I'll apologize in advance for the really odd shaped index fingernail. I think I must've been filing in the dark or something. ;)

Details:
1 coat Seche Recondition
2 coats Going Platinum
1 coat Seche Vite

 
Isn't that just a really cool polish? Love it! Wet N Wild's Fergie Collection has a ton of awesome polish.  There are a few more that I really want to pick up. If you haven't seen the glitters in this line, you really should check them out. Very cool. I have a few to show you guys soon!

Formula:
I was very impressed with the formula on this baby. I have only met a couple of Wet N Wild polishes that I wasn't happy with formula wise, and this is not included. Perfect consistency, No issues with streaking or dragging (despite the metallic finish!). This polish could be opaque at 1 coat, but I can't seem to ever use a single coat of polish.

Application:
Very smooth application. Like I mentioned before, no streaking or dragging, no bubbling. This girl went on like butter! The brush is a much improved version of the spoiled brush - it's flat and wide. Unlike the Spoiled brush though, this one is actually usable. It fanned out nicely and wasn't like painting my nails with a mop. 

I foresee this baby getting some heavy rotation in the future. I wore this for a solid 5 days with ZERO CHIPS and barely any tip wear! Can you believe that? Color me impressed! I was very hard on my nails while I had this on as well. Lots of cleaning, poking around in car engines, tons of water exposure, etc. By all rights it should have looked like it had gone a few rounds with Mike Tyson (insert ear joke here, right?) when I took it off, but it was still perfect. I can't wait to try out the rest of my polish from this line just to see if the wear is consistent!

I hope you all are having a great week so far. I haven't forgotten you! I'm still reading your blogs when I have time, and I promise my lack of posts won't last much longer. I really miss having time to sit down and do my nails, as well as blog! I'm also still in the middle of updating my blogroll, so if you don't see yourself there, chances are I'm adding you again, I just haven't had time to actually do it. If you want to be added to my blogroll, leave me a comment and I'll make sure to add you!

Thanks for stopping by, and as always, Happy Polishing!

-Kimber

OPI Amazing Spiderman Collection: Just Spotted The Lizard

Hi ladies! Just a quick post today since it's busy busy in my world today.

Today I have OPI Just Spotted The Lizard to share with you. I wanted this polish desperately since it's a perfect dupe for Chanel Peridot and I cannot bring myself to spend the money on the Chanel polish. I just can't. Not when I can grab a dupe for much less, or spend that $20 on an amazing Nfu Oh or an Illamasqua. Anyway, when this came out I ran to Ulta to snatch one up. Unfortunately for me, the full size bottles were sold out, so my only option was a mini. :(

I love the colors in this polish, but it just doesn't look good on me. At least not by itself. I did play with it over black for use in a tape mani, and that looked awesome. I plan on picking up the full sized bottle for that reason alone. Well, that and the gold to green to teal multichrome flash!

I did have some issues with this polish, but I think it just didn't like my base coat, or maybe it's the SV. Either way I had some shrinkage/lifting around the cuticle line, so I had to clean that up before taking pics. Unfortunately that means my gap at the cuticle is HUGE, which makes me sad and hesitant to post these! My need to show off this color won out though, so here they are.  Please excuse the random bottles I'm holding. The mini bottle is way too small for pics!

Details:
1 coat Seche Recondition
1 coat Nail Tek II Intensive Therapy
3 coats OPI Just Spotted The Lizard
1 coat Seche Vite

I have to say, this polish is just gorgeous. It may not look great on me, but I love the foily finish and amazing duochrome.  <3!

Formula:
Perfection. The only issue here is that is prone to obvious brushstrokes, but a light hand and a good top coat will help with that.

Application:
I found that you have to use a light hand with this girl, since she is so prone to visible brushstrokes. She's also a bit on the sheer side. I used 3 thin coats, but you may be able to get away with 2 medium coats. I would suggest thinner coats since she is so brushstroke-y and I also had some issues with lifting at the cuticle which I think thicker coats would intensify. Again, I can't knock the polish since I think it has to do with my base coat or SV.

I can't wait to do a tape mani with this polish! I do wish it looked better on me, but I can handle using it with other colors for nail art. Next time I plan on using Orly Bonder or CND Stickey to see if that alleviates the lifting at the cuticle line. All in all I really like this girl and if you're looking for Chanel Peridot, this is a great alternative. Spending less means you can buy more polish, am i right? ;)

Hope you are all enjoying your Friday and thanks for stopping by!

Happy Polishing!
-Kimber

Revlon Nail Art Break-Up in Ice Queen Swatch and Review (a little pic heavy!)

Hi guys! I hope you're all settling in for an awesome weekend and unwinding from the work week. I'm planning a fun filled weekend with my kids, and some serious swatching!

Before I get to today's mani, I want to take a moment to say thank you. I don't have many followers through GFC, but I thank each and every one of you that does follow me. It's nice to feel like my swatches and manis are appreciated, and I love being able to share new polishes and nail art with you! I also want to thank my anonymous readers. When I started this page I was getting maybe 10 page views a day on a good day. This week my page views keep soaring, increasing by over 100 views/day! It's not much, not like the thousands some of you get daily, but to have page views sitting above 300 is amazing to me. Thank you for reading my blog, checking out my swatches, and generally deeming me worthy of a few minutes  of your time.

Now, let's talk polish!!

Today I have Revlon's new Break Up Nail Art duo to show you. This is a brand new line of crackle duos, and Revlon's first foray into the land of crackle. I know, late to the party, but at least they showed up, right? I know alot of us are just over crackle, but I still enjoy it on occasion. I do think that's mostly because I've seldom worn crackle polishes, despite owning a slew of them. This little duo is called Ice Queen, and is a combination of a simply gorgeous Icy Blue foil and white crackle.  White is the one color of crackle that I did not own, and wouldn't normally pick for myself. In fact, I would've skipped over this duo entirely had my 21 month old son not intervened! He loves to hold polish bottles while we shop, and he really wanted to hold one of these. I grabbed the one he was pointing at, and he held it happily while we shopped for other polish. Normally Dex will get bored since he can't open them (I crank the cap down as tight as possible), and either sets them on a shelf or throws them. When I went to pay, I didn't see the polish, so I figured he had set it down. Not so much! He had set it in his stroller, under his butt! I found it when I went to lift him into his car seat. Little Klepto!  Since he obviously wanted mama to have this polish, I went back inside and paid for it. I figured it would just sit in my untrieds and gather dust, but I asked G over at Nouveau Cheap if there were any swatches of these and found out that she had not seen any. I decided that I would swatch it now so you guys can see at least one color.  So let's get to it! Here is Ice Queen!

A few shots of the base color, Ice:

I love this color! I love foils in general, but I have a serious weakness for icy blues. Well, blue in general actually, but that's a whole 'nother post!

Here she is with the crackle:

Despite not being a huge crackle enthusiast, I really like this duo! It's a very fun look, and the color contrast really makes it look like a little icy wonderland on my nails.

Formula was less than stellar; Ice was a bit on the thick side, although it didn't glop up. I had a hard time getting thin coats, and despite using 2 coats, still had some minor balding and drag. I recommend keeping a few drops of thinner handy for Ice. Queen was very thick and gloppy for a crackle, and dries VERY quickly. I had to work lightning fast to cover the entire nail before it started to dry and glop even worse. It does crackle quickly and has a nice mix of smaller, spidery-like cracks and big chunky cracks. It dries to a very textured Matte finish, but I like my crackles to be shiny, shiny, shiny, so I used a good coat of SV to seal the deal. I love the overall effect, but the formula could be better. Also, check your brushes carefully! I didn't check mine before leaving the store, and the brush on the crackle side is wonky! Half the bristles are bulging out of a crack in the stem, which makes them wad up when I scrape the excess off my brush.

Overall, not bad for a first try, Revlon. The color combos aren't anything amazing, and I actually prefer the Pure Ice crackles over this one. I paid $7.99 on sale at Walgreens, but regular retail is around $10.00. Despite being very pretty, I think that's a steep price tag for the quality of the polish.  Hopefully I just got a bad bottle, since Revlon's formula is usually much better.

Hope you're all enjoying your Friday night! I'll be back over the weekend with more Spoiled by Wet N Wild, and Julep.

Happy Polishing!
-Kimber

Petite's Daze and Mermaid Tails

Hi guys! I seem to be recovering from the evil stomach bug! Yay! I swear, if this year continues on the path it's been headed down, I'll be in the looney bin by March. Ugh!  But enough whining, onto the polish!

Today I have a really awesome little drugstore polish to share with you, Petites Daze. Daze is a bright yellow based green glitter/foil that caught my eye on a trip to Wal Mart awhile back. There were a ton of newer petites colors (newer to me at least, wal mart usually only has a handful of petites colors out here), so I picked up as many as I could. At $1.29 a pop, I figured even if I hated them, they were worth it. Daze is certainly the standout among the Petites colors I picked up, being the only bright color and one of the 2 that isn't a creme. I still couldn't tell you if it's a glitter or a foil, since it has glittery particles suspended in a sheer green base, but is very foil-like. I'll call it a Gloil. Close enough, right? Anyway, check out this dazzling little beauty!

Taken in lightbox - sorry for weird lighting! I think it's time for a new daylight bulb!

I love this green! It does cast a bit of a yellow glow on my cuticles, but it's such a fun color that I'm willing to overlook a little cuticle jaundice.  Formula on this was much better than I had expected. It did need 3 coats to look somewhat even, and as with any glitter it left it's fair share of glittery residue on my fingertips (I maintain it's festive), but it went on smoothly and stayed where I told it to. Wear wasn't too shabby either. I wore this alone for a day without any tip wear or chipping. Of course, since it's such a bright and shimmer color, I had to play with it a bit. I decided to  add a sponged gradient using Essence Choose Me, then double stamped using both Essence Choose Me and Pure Ice Silver Mercedes. I topped that off with a quick coat of Pure Ice Heartbreaker and some SV and voila! Mermaid Mani!

I don't think it came out half bad! Some of the stamping smudged a bit, but I also stamped directly onto the sponged polish - limited time frame and impatience on my part. :(

First, my Left Hand:

And my rarely seen Right Hand! Funny, lately when I stamp my right hand comes out better than my left!

I had a blast working on this mani. What do you guys think?

Hope you're all having a fabulous Friday!

Happy Polishing
-Kimber

31 Day Challenge 14: Flowers!

Oh man! It has been a day! My youngest isn't feeling well at all, and has been glued to me all day. This i literally the first time I've had a moment of peace all day!

First off, I think I found the culprit to the ever changing nail shape. Last night I moisturized my nail plate really well, and left out the strengthening base coat. Today, my nails are almost back to normal shape again! Weird! They will alway grow in that weird sideways position, but at least the edges wont be curling inward anymore!

So, the mani: This is my "slap and dash" version  of flowers. I admit it, I'm not a flower kinda girl. Don't get me wrong, I have seen some really awesome flower mani's since I've been reading nail blogs. I guess I just can't get excited about doing one myself. Since I'm not a flowery kind of girl, I guess I ever really thought about learning how to do anything other than this! It *was* fun to play with my new dotting tools, and I love playing with neon polish, but this is the extent of my flower skills. Mad skillz, they are not!

For this mani, I used Sally Hansen Celeb City as my base color, and dotted on the flowers and dots using Heaven Nail Lacquer in Passion Pink, Dream, and True Blue. Topped it all off with Seche Vite and voila! Neon flower nails!

Here they are in really crappy lighting! Not a hint of sunshine all day, so I had to use my lovely fluorescent lighting. Ugh!

And with Flash (I just love how the neon pops!)

And my usual "bad macro" (maybe Santa will bring me a better camera for XMas):

Isn't neon over silver foil just fun? I think it was Cristina over at Let Them Have Polish (I KNOW you've all seen her blog! Isn't it amazing??) that had done neon dots over silver....I don't have time to check so I'll get back to you guy on that one so I make sure I credit the right person....anyway, I loved the combo. I used different neon here, but the overall idea is the same.

And now it's off to work on my "delicate print" mani. I *think* I know what that means! ;)

Happy Polishing!
-Kimber