Swatch: Maybelline Dotty

The polish in this post was purchased by me. All opinions are my own.

Hello all! I relieved some of my pre-wedding stress by doing my nails yesterday (my last mani stayed on for a full week! Must have been the Gelous). I picked up this new Maybelline Color Show shade at the grocery store. It's part of a collection called "Polka Dots" and reminds me a bit of the recent China Glaze Glitz Bitz 'n Pieces collection, except better because 1) it has a colored base and 2) no bar glitter, which I HATE!

Dotty is an orange jelly (or maybe it's a crelly?) with three sizes of black and white hex glitters.

Maybelline Dotty. Two coats with one coat Out the Door and one coat Gelous.

As you can see, at two coats it's still a bit sheer, but I felt there was enough glitter coverage to camouflage my nail line.

Dotty was pretty easy to apply; I did have to dab the glitter on a little to fill in some gaps. It dried pretty quickly too. This polish would be great for Halloween, maybe over another orange to make it bolder. Or in a jelly sandwich!

Oh, and just before I took this picture, my ring finger nail tore 1/3 of the way across. That makes three of my nails that are held together with nail glue. Just have to make it one more week...

You can find Maybelline in pretty much every drugstore and grocery store (in the US at least). I think I paid $3 for it (7 ml). The collection has several other colors with the same glitter, so you can choose your favorite!

The polish in this post was purchased by me. All opinions are my own.

My wedding accessories!

Just wanted to post this because I'm excited: I've got my jewelry and hairpiece for my wedding!

Luckily I didn't have to spend an arm and a leg. The pearl necklace belonged to my grandmother, and I got the earrings and hairpiece on Amazon. (I'm not wearing a veil.)

I still don't think it's sunk in that I'm actually getting married in 13 days. Although I have had several wedding dreams already where something goes terribly wrong...

Swatch: Emily de Molly Cosmic Forces

The polish in this post was purchased by me. All opinions are my own.

This is the swatch I've been looking forward to posting! I basically fell in love at first sight with this polish. Emily de Molly Cosmic Forces is a plum-colored jelly with a variety of pink and holo glitter, both hexes and circles. My nails look like gems with this polish!

Emily de Molly Cosmic Forces. Two coats with Out the Door and Gelous topcoats.

(The base is a little more red-toned than it appears in my pics.)

On my middle finger you can see the star of the polish--huge holographic circle glitter! You will have to fish around for these; it took me a few tries to find that one. (Of course I got some on both thumbs without even trying...)

Since a lot of the glitters are holographic, they'll be different colors depending on the direction of the light. Here you can see the big circle piece shifting blue:

I also love this hidden-glitter type of polish because sometimes the glitters seem to vanish, but then you move your hand a little and they flash at you!

The formula of Cosmic Forces was pretty good, other than the density of the glitter. With some of the bigger glitter pieces you might have to work to place them where you want them.

I knew the polish would end up a bit bumpy, so I took the opportunity to use Gelous as a topcoat for the first time. If you're not familiar with it, Gelous is a base/topcoat that's really thick. "Luxurious" might be the best way to describe it. With one coat my nails are still slightly rough in places, but much smoother than before. And it dried faster than I expected for such a thick polish.

Emily de Molly is an Australian indie maker, so if you're down under you can buy Cosmic Forces from their website ($9.50 AUS for 12 ml). The rest of us have to buy it from a third party; I got mine at Llarowe for $13. Emily de Molly polishes are 3-free. (They also have a very similar polish with a blue base called Oceanic Forces, if you're not into purple.)

I bought Gelous at Sally Beauty ($5.99 for 15 ml, $5.39 with a Beauty Club membership).

The polish in this post was purchased by me. All opinions are my own.

Polish Days: To boldly go...

I'm back from my short hiatus and excited to be participating in my second Polish Days! This month's theme is sci-fi and outer space. I wasn't very creative--I had been meaning to try out galaxy nails for a long time, plus I already did a Star Trek mani! So here's my first attempt at galaxy nails:

(In case you're wondering why you're seeing my right hand today, it's because the mani somehow turned out better on that hand.)

Here are the polishes I used: the base is Zoya Storm, which is a perfect outer space polish! Then I sponged on Maybelline Porcelain Party, Revlon Plum Seduction, and Color Club Age of Aquarius. I used Porcelain Party again with a dotting tool to make the stars. Thanks to my compulsion to make everything look even, I made too many stars, but otherwise I think it looks cool!

And here's a bonus pic with my tribble!

Live long and prosper! And don't forget to check out some of the great nail art linked below!

A quick update

Hey all, sorry for the lack of posts this week--over the weekend we found out that my fiance got a job in Boston, so we ran out there to find an apartment. Yesterday we were successful, woohoo!!

Another discovery I made is that apparently nail polish is the only thing holding my nails together; since I've been wearing my nails bare I've gotten FOUR breaks! I got so frustrated that I trimmed the corners of my nails off and ended up with this shape:

 

What do you think? If they look good with polish I might keep them this way for the wedding, since they're more feminine than squares I think. That is if I can get ahold of some nail glue to fix these breaks!

I'll have an amazing polish to swatch for you when I get back home...