Blue is the New Black

Well, good evening! Just a quick post to show off another Nail Challenge Collaboration creation.

To start this manicure, I laid down three coats of OPI I Saw...U Saw...We Saw...Warsaw, a navy blue with a green tinge that gives it a little bit of a teal tilt. Once that was dry, I used striping tape to mark lines and painted each finger with OPI Alcatraz...Rocks. I painted one finger at a time and lifted the tape off, carefully. 

I didn't top coat after Alcatraz...Rocks because it's a Liquid Sand polish and I loved the contrast and the little bits of shiny polish peeking out.

Hope you enjoyed the glittery goodness. Every Monday is a little better with some shimmer and sparkle ;)

And don't forget to check out the second manicures from the NCC ladies for October!

xo, ali

An InLinkz Link-up

the Never-Ending Pile Challenge: Textured

Hey! Happy Monday! I just have a quick post for y'all tonight. Of course, it's another installment to the Never-Ending Pile Challenge and today's theme is textured. I have quite a few textured polishes. I love how they look like the inside of geodes. I just never think to wear them! Tonight, I paired two of L'Oreal's textured polishes from their Gold Dust collection.

On my pointer and pinky fingers are three coats of Hidden Gems. For my double accent nail, I used three coats of Too Dimensional?

And some macro shots for good measure.

Overall, I really like these polishes but I favor Too Dimensional? over Hidden Gems, right now. While I love the darkened teal of Hidden Gems, I wish the purple flash you can see in the bottle shot would have translated better on the nail. I've seen Hidden Gems swatched on a few different blogs and that seems to be the general consensus.

Too Dimensional? is a beautiful dusty lavender and that gold shimmer makes it look so expensive. I'll definitely be wearing it as a full mani, soon!

What have been some of your favorite textured polishes since they've come out?

Be sure to check out the other sparkly ladies and their textured tips!

xo, ali

The Never-Ending Pile Challenge:A Random Untried

Friday! Friday night is one of my favorite nights, but not because I go out and get crazy. Don't get me wrong-I do that, from time to time, but I love Friday nights because I get to chill out, maybe stay up a little bit past my bedtime, and go to sleep knowing that both my alarms are silenced....ahhhhh!

Tonight, I have another contribution to the Never-Ending Pile Challenge. It was created by Missy and the rest of the girls over at The Glittah Pirates, which is an awesome group on Facebook that I recently joined. If you want to join in the fun, just click the link and request to join :)

The theme today is "A Random Untried" and I chose Nicole by OPI Roughles in On What Grounds? I received this in my March Ipsy bag and I was really excited to try it. Let's see what I thought.

I top coated my index finger to see what it would look like.

Macro-index with top coat, middle with no top coat.

On What Grounds? is a matte aqua sprinkled with blue and brown. These sprinkles give it the finish of a robin's egg. There is no glitter to this polish so it does dry flat but the different colors mixed in give it some depth. However, I didn't like this as much as I thought I would. I applied this last night and this morning, when I was blow-drying my hair, my index finger got caught and a piece chipped off :( 

I'm disappointed because I loved the Gumdrops collection that NOPI came out with a while ago. My Cherry Amour is one of my favorite textured polishes. Sigh. Oh well, can't win 'em all! Maybe I'll give this another shot down the line.

Make sure you check out what the other rad girlies are showing off for their random untrieds today!

Have a great weekend!!

xo, ali

There's No Place Like Home

Hello! Happy Friday! Hope you're well on your way to the weekend! I sure am!

Tonight's polish comes with a story. When I was a growing up, I would often come home from school to find my younger sister and my mom, watching the Wizard of Oz. My mom was always taking care of mending or other chores that could be completed while she kept an eye on my then 3-year old sister, who was parked in front of the TV with one of her dolls, looking up in amazement at the colorful world that unfolded before her. The Wizard of Oz will always be one of those parts of my childhood that I'll keep with me.
How does this relate to nail polish? Tonight, I have the nail polish incarnation of Dorothy's Ruby Slippers.

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Zoya Chyna was released as part of the first, six-polish collection of Pixie Dusts. These were Zoya's answer to OPI's Liquid Sand polishes.

This is two coats of Chyna over Orly Bonder. It built up very nicely to an opaque finish, similar to fine ground ruby dust. The red is so rich that I felt like I had jewels on my nails. The red glitter adds an eye-catching sparkle when the sun (or any light) hits your nails just right.

I just love how this macro shot turned out!

Before I took this polish off, I wanted to see what would happen if I top-coated it, and BAM! The next time I'm wearing this, I am top-coating it within an inch of its life. The glitters just come alive.

Chyna is available at Zoya.com and retails for $10.

What do you think? Gorgeous? Or not for you?

Oh, and don't forget!

[source]

xo, ali

GOT: Valentine's Day!

Happy Thursday! Or the day we Parks & Rec fans know as Galentine's Day

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Galentine's Day is the day to celebrate your girlfriends. I spent the evening with my mom and sister and two good friends for dinner.

I had the perfect mani to do it in, too. 

I started with two coats of Zoya Raven

 indirect light

flash

Raven looks like your typical black but there is a hidden silver shimmer that gives it a pearly sheen. It definitely sets it apart from the pack.

The next part, I'm really proud of. I tried the plastic baggie decal method and it worked!!

While I was at the gym, I had my sister help me out and paint two squares of two coats each of Zoya Chyna, one of the first PixieDusts that came out.

When it was fully dry, I carefully peeled the squares off the baggie and, using a heart-shaped craft punch, I punched out a heart from each. I topcoated my ring finger and placed my hearts.

Here's the finished product

I'm really proud of this manicure. And even though I'm cheating a little bit because I haven't had the polishes for a year (sorry, Debbie!), this is my entry for the Golden Oldie Thursday challenge.

I have one more Valentine's Day mani lined up for tomorrow and I hope you'll like it!

Check out what the other talented ladies did for this week's challenge, below!

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