Nicole By OPI-Iceberg Lotus

Happy Sunday! I know I've been gone for quite a while. I'm sorry to leave y'all hanging but a lot has been going on. I turned 30 on May 20th and celebrated a lot for that. I was spoiled by all my friends and family, near and far. It was amazing. In addition, I had another biopsy related to my thyroid issues and I'm finding out the results tomorrow. I'm nervous, so send me pretty polished good vibes.

Tonight, I'd like to share a polish with you that has sentimental value. This is probably the only polish in my collection, aside from my recent Deborah Lippmann acquisition, that has that kind of value to me. And the reason why is because it was given to me for my birthday last year by one of my very, very good friends. He is a person that knows me very well, even though we've only known each other for a short time and he's been a great source of support and clear-headedness through a lot of my thyroid issues. And, half of my current favorite songs started as Spotify links or playlists from him. The best part, and the part I love the most, is that he picked the polish out without any peeks at my wishlist or collection. To date, my homie is the only guy that has given me nail polish for any occasion and that is a major reason why this polish is so special to me.

Let's look!

Will you just look at that gorgeous blue/purple around the edges?!

This is three coats of Nicole by OPI Iceberg Lotus...an emerald glass fleck in a green jelly base. The glass flecks flash blue, purple, and even pink in certain lights and it's just a stunner to look at in the sunshine. I wore this for one of my birthday manicures and got so many compliments on it. It's definitely in the top 5 of my stash and will probably stay there for a very very long time. And it's funny--I never would have picked this out on my own in the store but here it is, one of my favorites. 

I hope you enjoyed tonight's post! I've got a lot of good things coming up, including some mini-swatch fests of a local to Buffalo indie nail lacquer and I recently joined a challenge group that I've been following for a while and you'll see my maiden manis for this month's theme here, soon. Stay tuned!!

xo, ali

Baby, You're My Better Half

Well, hello! I know I've been a stranger but things have been NUTS over here at Casa de Phalanges. It feels like this weekend is the first chance I've had to breathe since the last time we got together.

Over the past two weeks, I've helped to put on a bridal shower for my older sister, celebrated Christmas, went to multiple family parties, and rang in the new year with my best friend. I'll share some quick snaps from all that at the end of the post.

Tonight, I'm going to share with you an Essie mini that I picked up just before Christmas. 

This is My Better Half from the Summer 2013 Bridal Collection that came out.

This is a sweet and simple pink-toned lavender that is shot through with a pearly purple shimmer. It applied really smoothly and I believe this is three coats with Orly Nail Armor base coat and Beauty Plus top coat. 

It was just a very simple, girly manicure and a great palate cleanser, as I wore this after the nail art I shared in my last post.

And before I go, I wanted to share a few peeks at the bridal shower I helped put on!

The shower theme was...

[source]

which is one of my all-time favorite movies.

So of course, I had to do my nails to match

What else could I use, other than China Glaze For Audrey? I did a Tiffany box as an accent nail using pearly white from my Migi Nail Art pen set.

(my phone case matched too..hee hee)

This is my younger sister, Ashley (upper left), myself, and our older sister, Aimee.

The bridal party girls!

It was such a fun shower and the food was delicious. It was great to honor my sister and spend time with family that I don't get to see that often!

What did you girls do to celebrate the holidays? Get any polish goodies for Christmas?

Hope everyone had a great Christmas and celebrated a happy New Year!!

xo, ali

Santa!!

Hello! Here I am, a week later. I have a good reason for my absence, last week-my sister and I went to see our favorite and hometown hockey team-the Buffalo Sabres-play the New York Rangers. It was a loss, as have been the majority of our games this season, but we had a great time. I'll share some pictures at the end of this post.

Now, for the real reason you're here--the polish. Tonight, I have a beauty for you ladies. I received this from my Hobby Polish Bloggers Secret Santa swap. Hobby Polish Bloggers is a great facebook group that is run by Stephanie from Imperfectly Painted (which is one of the first blogs I started reading, and is FABULOUS). She was an angel and organized a secret Santa swap for all of us. My gifter was the talented Erika from Icy Nails and she hooked me up. Check it out:

We've got a Christmas cat card, some yummyyy dark chocolates, OPI Make Him Mine, Alcatraz...Rocks!, Silent Stars Go By, and Swimsuit...Nailed It! We've also got some adoraaaable Rudolph socks and some awesome Clinique, Bumble and Bumble, Laura Mercier, OPI, and Clean samples in an adorable makeup bag.

I can't even begin to say how excited I was opening this last night. And to have my own bottle of Swimsuit...Nailed It!, well, that's so awesome!

The first polish I chose to break in was OPI Liquid Sand Make Him Mine. 

This is two coats, under artificial light.

Make Him Mine is a beautiful rose gold shimmer with larger silver hex glitters. My fingertips look like they've been gilded in rose gold and it's so SPARKLY. I honestly must have stopped what I was doing 20 times today to look at how sparkly my nails are. I absolutely love this color!! It will be a 2013 favorite for sure.

some rare Buffalo-in-December sunlight.

and my first try at a macro so you can see all the liquid sand goodness.

What have been your favorites, lately. Anything you've been dying over?

I'll be back later this week with an interesting stamping manicure that I tried a week ago and I'm interested to hear your thoughts. Plus, my first Ipsy Glam Bag is going to be arriving soon! I'll review that, as well.

Before I go, I'll share a couple of pictures from the Sabres game, last Thursday.

The Sabres have photographers taking pictures of fans as they come into the arena. This is me and my sister in our Sabres finery.

And, Sabretooth, our mascot, was nice enough to pose for a picture with me :)

This is from my Instagram. You can follow me there; my username is ali_golightly!

xo, ali