What will be on your nails for Valentine’s Day?
Manicure Monday: Valentine’s Edition February 11, 2013
Manicure Monday: Catching Up January 21, 2013
Sorry about my lack of posts the last couple of weeks. I’ve been settling into a new job and a new schedule. I took pictures of some of my manis over the past couple weeks and will share those with you now.
This first manicure is Julep Mila. I did this mani when I was planning on participating in Judi’s “Julep January” theme. Watch Judi’s eye opening video to find out why “Julep January” didn’t last very long. I knew the Julep bottles contained less polish than standard bottles but to see how much is actually contained in those bottles was enough to make me second guess my Julep Maven subscription. I’m still debating on whether I want to continue as a Julep Maven. On one hand I love the excitement of it but on the other hand I feel like I am getting ripped off. I’m most likely going to be cancelling in the next day or two before February’s box ships. What are your thoughts on the Julep Maven program?
For my next mani I wanted to incorporate the color of the year: EMERALD. I added a little leopard print and I was good to go!
On to my current mani: I took inspiration from one of the nail sets I created for sugarshorts available HERE.
Skulls and red roses with silver studs.
What’s on your nails?
Manicure Monday: Christmas Edition December 24, 2012
Happy Monday everyone! I hope you are all enjoying the holidays. Here’s a pretty quick and simple Christmas mani I did with candy canes and snowmen. I love how it turned out!
What’s on your nails?
Manicure Monday: SantaCon Edition December 17, 2012
This past Saturday was SantaCon here in San Francisco. SantaCon is everyone’s chance to be Santa! Dress up as Santa or any of his merry helpers (elves, trees, reindeer, milk and cookies, etc) and spread the Christmas cheer! SantaCon originated in San Francisco in 1994 and now takes place in 37 countries and 276 cities. Ways of participating in SantaCon are passing out candy canes, giving toys to children, giving gloves/hats to homeless, having a snowball fight, etc. In general, Santa consumes many adult beverages during SantaCon and the entire city turns into a bar crawl.
Here are some pictures from the 2012 SF SantaCon:
Unfortunately the weather was cold and rainy but it was so much fun seeing red EVERYWHERE!!! Some people came up with some very creative costumes as well. Our little group was made up of a reindeer, a Christmas tree and a Santa.
I dressed as a Christmas tree for SantaCon so I decided to paint my nails with Christmas presents!
What things do you do to spread the holiday cheer?
Manicure Monday: Gilty Lady December 3, 2012
Ever since purchasing the Zoya Gilty Pleasures Gift Set I’ve been obsessed with Gilty 18K Real Gold Topcoat. This is one of my favorite combos: Essie Lady Like and Zoya Gilty. What do you think of it? Lady Like is a dusty, grayish pink. It’s opaque with two coats. Zoya Gilty applies fairly easily with minimal dabbing.
Have you tried any of the gold flake topcoats? What are your favorite combos?
Rose Nail Art Tutorial May 8, 2012
I have another tutorial today! Today I will show you how to do floral nails. There are so many ways of doing floral nails but this is one of the simplest ways I have tried.
I started with a mixed mani of Zoya Erika and Zoya Reece. Both are from my Zoya Earth Day haul and both are absolutely gorgeous!
Zoya Erika is a pale pink with tons of gold shimmer.
Zoya Reece is a mauvey-rose pink with a gold duochrome.
Next I added irregular dots of Erika over Reece.
Next use Reece to create a half circle in the center of the dots. I used a toothpick for this. I’ve tried doing this with a brush before and the toothpick is definitely easier to use because it gives you more control.
Add another half circle to the center.
Continue adding half circles around the two center half circles until you’ve filled the dots.
Add triangle shaped leaves randomly around the flowers. I used China Glaze Agro for the leaves. I used a toothpick for this step as well.
Wait a little bit for it to dry and add a top coat. That’s it!
Hope you like it! It’s pretty simple and quite fast to do especially when you are just creating an accent nail or two like I did.
Zoya Blogger Collection (Pic Heavy) May 7, 2012
As I discussed HERE, I was a lucky winner of the Zoya Blogger Collection. You can check that post for more details about the collection if you aren’t familiar with it. Today I want to show you the unboxing and swatches of the collection.
(click pictures to enlarge)
I think it’s so cool that the bottles have the bloggers name under the color that they inspired.
First up is Coraline. Coraline was inspired by a tangerine colored mood board created by the two lovely sisters of Eleventh Gorgeous. I love their youtube channels.
All three polishes are jellies so they are sheer. I wanted to show you how they build so I did one coat on my index finger, 2 coats on my middle finger, 3 coats on my ring finger and 4 coats on my pinky. So you can see They do build really nice and you are able to wear them sheer or more opaque depending on your preference.
3 coats on the left and 2 coats on the right.
Next up is Kate. Kate was inspired by a grapefruit colored mood board from The Small Things Blog. I’ve seen her hair tutorials all over Pinterest but I don’t follow her blog.
Again, I did one coat on my index finger, 2 coats on my middle finger, 3 coats on my ring finger and 4 coats on my pinky.
3 coats on the left and 2 coats on the right.
And finally we have Belle. Belle was inspired by a pink and copper colored mood board created by Capitol Hill Style. Belle is a bright pink with shimmery copper throughout.
One coat on my index finger, 2 coats on my middle finger, 3 coats on my ring finger and 4 coats on my pinky.
3 coats on the left and 2 coats on the right.
Next I wanted to show you how Belle looks layered over Coraline and Kate.
On the left is Kate + Belle, middle is Coraline + Belle and on the right is just 3 coats of Belle by itself.
Belle, Coraline + Belle, Kate + Belle
Then I decided to try some nail art using the collection. I started with 2 coats of Zoya Purity and added dots of Coraline and Kate in various sizes.
I then added a layer of Belle over top but it turned out super streaky over the white and did NOT look good at ALL!! I added another coat of Belle but then it still didn’t look that great and made t more opaque than I wanted. So I removed that and started over. I’m glad I took pictures before I added Belle because I do like how the dots look over Purity.
Next I started with 1 coat of Belle and added dots in Coraline and Kate and then added another coat of Belle over top. Creating a jelly sandwich of sorts…
I thought that turned out OK but I still wasn’t that thrilled with it. So I decided to start over again!
I applied 2 coats of Coraline on my thumb and ring finger and 2 coats of Kate on the rest of my fingers then used Belle on the tips of all of them.
I was pretty happy with that one so I called it a day!
The Zoya Blogger Collection is available only through Birchbox. It can be purchased HERE for $22 and shipping is free.
Zoya Earth Day Polish Haul + Sinful Colors + Zoya Blogger Collection April 30, 2012
I received my order from the Zoya Earth Day promo on Saturday and I stopped at Walgreens and picked up a couple Sinful Colors while they were on sale for $0.99.
I really love Zoya. The formulas are amazing to apply and long lasting. They have over 300 colors to choose from in all different finishes – mattes, duochromes, micro-shimmers, etc. Also Zoya is a vegan polish – win!
Zoya Erika & Zoya Portia
Zoya Reece, Zoya Dannii & Zoya Mimi
Zoya Edyta, Zoya Zuza & Zoya Phoebe
Zoya Remove & Qtica Smart Spa Grapefruit Surprise Sugar Scrub
Sinful Colors Hottie, Sinful Colors Kissy & Sinful Colors Unicorn
As I was typing this up UPS delivered more nail mail!
The Zoya Blogger Collection by Birchbox.
Back in February Birchbox posted pictures on facebook of mood boards created by some beauty bloggers based on their favorite spring/summer color. They asked people to vote for their favorite mood boards. I voted and shortly after I received an email that said I won the Zoya Mood Board Sweepstakes and I would be receiving the Zoya custom collection in April. At the time I had no idea what I won but as it turns out they took the top 3 mood boards and created a nail polish shade based on each of them. I think this was such a cool idea! What an amazing way to get everyone involved in the process of creating a collection – the bloggers that created the mood boards and all the people that voted. It’s really a neat little collection, the bottles have the names of the polish along with the bloggers names that created them. They are all jellies so I see some sandwiches in my future! I am really excited to swatch these so look for a full blog post on this very soon.
The Zoya Blogger Collection is a Birchbox exclusive and can only be purchased HERE. Great time to use your Birchbox points if you have them. It retails for $22 and currently shipping is free!
Click HERE for a chance to win your own Zoya Blogger Collection.
The Color Of The Year April 27, 2012
In case you’ve been living under a rock and haven’t heard – Tangerine Tango is the color of the year! Tangerine Tango has been big all year and according to the Pantone Fashion Color Report, it will continue to trend through the Fall.
Here are a couple of examples of Tangerine Tango in the beauty world:
I raided my nail polish collection to show you some of my favorite tangerine-ish shades for your fingers and toes.
If you follow me on Instagram (@sugarmitten) you know that I broke a nail 😦 you will witness that break during these photos as some were taken before the break and some after. The break is actually there in all the photos (you can see it in my ring finger especially in this first picture) I just had it glued for a couple weeks until I finally gave up all together.
Essie Orange, It’s Obvious! This is a true tangerine orange.
butter London Jaffa is a slightly coral-toned orange.
Essie Tart Deco is a bright peachy coral color. If oranges aren’t your thing then Tart Deco might be a way for you to still rock the tangerine trend.
Sinful Colors Hazard is also a peachy coral but it is not as bright and peachy as Tart Deco.
Zoya Gwin is a bright, slightly coral-toned orange with tons of gold and yellow iridescence. If you have a love for shimmer then this is the orange for you!
And finally I did some Tangerine Tango nail art! I did the same design I used on Erika HERE which was originally from HERE.
Zoya Earth Day Promo April 19, 2012
Once again Zoya is doing their fabulous Earth Day polish exchange to promote recycling. You can choose a minimum of 6 and a maximum of 24 bottles. Enter code EARTHZOYA2012 at checkout and receive 50% off your entire order! Once you receive your order you send in the equivalent number of polishes that you don’t want (old gunky polishes, ugly colors, duplicates, etc) – hence the EXCHANGE!
You can read more about it on the Zoya blog HERE.
It says it’s available Saturday and Sunday only but I just did mine and it worked so I guess there is no need to wait.
Here’s what I ordered: (all photos are from Zoya.com)
Dannii
Reece
Erika
Portia
Zuza
Phoebe
Mimi
Edyta
My total was $32 after the discount for 8 polishes plus I received a free 7oz Smart Spa Grapefruit Surprise Sugar Scrub that retails for $18:
and a 2oz Zoya Remove Plus Nail Polish Remover that retails for $4.60:
Pretty good deal!! Can’t wait for it to get here!
Are you going to be taking advantage of this promo?
Please click on the photo below to vote for my design in Julep’s April Color’s Contest:
sugarmitten 