Review: Above The Curve Nail Polish (Girls Just Wanna Have Fun)

Hey guys! I know I'm kind of behind, work was super crazy all week :( But I have a great review for you of one of the sponsors for our contest, Above The Curve nail polish.

When I messaged Angel to ask if they would be interested in bein a sponsor for our contest she was pretty quick to agree (once she talked to Shawn of course!) and she even said she would send me an extra in case I wanted to show swatches. Which is super awesome of them! If you haven't entered the contest yet, click here or anywhere it says contest and do it! We are also doing a giveaway with the contest! 

This is a gorgeous pink holo. You can see the holo even without direct bright sunlight and it's probably my new favorite holo polish I own! (Not sucking up, I really mean it!)

It applies like butter, it's so smooth and perfect. I'd say this is my favorite Indie polish yet (which unfortunately doesn't mean much, since I only have a couple, lol). This was also the easiest clean up and removal job ever. As for wear it's pretty good, it lasted the week I left it on my nails with only 1 chip and that was my fault lol. 

Where you can get ATC polishes:
http://abovethecurve.bigcartel.com/
http://www.etsy.com/shop/AboveTheCurve

You can find them on Facebook at www.facebook.com/AboveTheCurveNailPolish.

Interesting information about them:
Their mission is to raise awareness for Shriner's Hospitals for Children and Scoliosis. 
$1 of every bottle sold goes to Shriner's. 
They were voted #1 by the Crumpet's readers poll favorite Indie polish of the year for 2012.

Seriously, have you gone shopping yet?


As always, thanks for stopping by :)

*This polish was provided to me free of charge to show swatches for the contest, I took it upon myself to review it. The review was not asked for by the makers of the polish.*

Naughty Nails Contest and Giveaway

Hello gorgeous! 

If you've been here a while you may have noticed that I don't do giveaways or contests. It's not that I don't want to or can't afford to (though sometimes that's true). It's mostly that I wanted to get to a certain point before I did all that. I wanted to know that people liked me for me not for winning stuff. I feel I've reached that point now and I've partnered with a few other bloggers to host an awesome giveaway/contest for you!

Dahlia from datyorkLOVES, Aralyn from Enchanted Nails and Fluffy Dog Tails, Alyssa from Frugal Polish and myself present to you: 

Being a woman, and, ya know, actually having a cervix, it's important to get checked regularly for cervical cancer. (Especially as it's in a place you can't see for yourself lol) Regular Pap Smears are a nuisance right? But very important! They detect any abnormalities which is crucial in detecting cervical cancer early. And HPV can play a big role as well, so those tests are must too! And January being cervical cancer awareness month is just an added bonus for a naughty nails contest :)

How to win: 
There will be 5 winners based on art on nails and 2 winners based only on Rafflecoptor entries. The art winners will be based on a set of criteria and decided by the hosts. 

The prizes:
First Place is the whole 50 Shades of Grey Collection by Different Dimension
Second Place is the new Valentines Collection by Candii Polish.
Third will be polishes from Glitter Me This.
Fourth will be two polishes from datyorkLOVES: (I named them!!!!) 
Fifth, Sixth and Seventh will be 1 polish decided by the hosts from either Above The Curve, Shimmer Polish or Darling Diva Polish.

This is the only prize I was in charge of and I had to include swatch pics for you guys from my bottle!
Above The Curve Nail Polish: Girls Just Wanna Have Fun

Important Notes:
The contest will run from 1/14/13 to 1/25/13.
Winners will be announced on all Blog Posts by the hosts as well as Facebook.
Winners must email me (lenalovesnails@gmail.com) by 1/30/13 (or I'm gonna keep the prizes bhahahaha!) 

If you are going to do the art portion of this you still need to follow/like all the hosts and sponsors. The Rafflecoptor entry is the very last one and it will ask you for a link. If you do not have a blog to where your entry will be located then you can come and post your entry on my Facebook page and get the URL that way. If you want to post it on your own Facebook profile or something it has to be public so we can all see it. If you are unable to do any of those you can email it to me but please try to do the others! I will upload it and email you back a URL to where it is that you will have to enter into the RC widget. 

The picture at the top has all the other info on it that you'll need, Dahlia made it! If you do have any questions drop me a line here or swing by the Facebook page and ask!

Enter:
a Rafflecopter giveaway
Are you going to do nails?
As always, thanks for stopping by :)

Zoya Swatches!

Hi there my lovely lovemuffins! 

If you aren't yet aware Zoya is having a fantastic promo right now! Try 3 for free, just pay $10 (US) for S&H (Ends 01/13/13). I'm getting Skylar, Storm and Zuza. While I'm (impatiently) waiting for my order to come I thought I'd swatch all the Zoyas I already have :) 

These aren't all the best as I forgot my clean up brush at home :( But you still get the idea ;)

I even labeled them! The silver is Trixie and the black is Raven :) I just thought it'd look cool to do them that way. I'm still wearing Tallulah on my left hand and I have a gorgeous pink holo on my right (but I can't tell you about it yet lol). If you want to see the original pics not in collage form come over to the Facebook page! 

Will you guys be getting any pretties from Zoya? Seriously their polish is amazing! It's so smooth, it applies effortlessly. Zoya Raven and Trizie are both pretty much one coaters. And most of the other ones I could have gotten away with one coat but 2 just made them all come alive. All Zoya polishes are big 5 free. Seriously y'all, this isn't a sponsored post, I just love Zoya that much! 

Stay tuned for tomorrow! It's gonna be a great post :D
As always, thanks for stopping by :)


***All polishes shown here were bought and paid for by me!***

Holy Haul Batman!

Oh man! Have you ever bought stuff and been like 'eh, it's not that much'? And then you get it together and realize just how much it actually is? Yeah, that's pretty much what's goin over here lol. 

It started the weekend before Christmas when I went to visit my sister and family. Well of course I just had to stop at my favorite Sally's! And WalMart because the one I usually go to doesn't have jack in terms of good polish choices lol. 

The bottom row is the first haul, top is second and middle on the right is the third. And then I went to Ulta last night.... I'm going to do it by brands so bear with me, I'll tell you all the dirty details!
Pure Ice:

Top from left to right: Not Now, Heartbreaker, Once Again, Tease, Cha-Ching and Sugar Cookie. Bottom left to right: Temptress, Taxi, Getting Gorgeous, Tinsel Town, Peep Show, and Blue Midnight. Middle is Outrageous. Now I love Pure Ice and at $1.97 I really just can't resist! Some of these are from the new collection, some aren't. No idea which is which though!

Color Club:

These are my first 2 Color Clubs! I got these at Sally's and they are from the 2012 Holiday Collection (whatever the name of it is lol). Left and right: Glitter Wonderland and Ho-Ho-Holly. The purple smells like sugar cookies and the green smells like weird Pinesol lol. I love them though!

inm:

I got these at Sally's as well. Northern Lights was on sale (can't remember how much though) and Out The Door Top Coat which I use with my NYE nails (see here).

Revlon:

Not So Blueberry and Decadent. The scented one (Not So Blueberry) smells like what else, blueberry (I guess). I got the other one because it reminds me of my favorite polish ever (one I got in some makeup kit that is unnamed and I've been seriously hunting for a dupe for a terribly long time). It remains to be seen if it is a dupe, though I highly doubt it is.

wet n wild and NYC and Orly:

Top pic left is Teal of Fortune (watch out it SERIOUSLY stains the hell out of your nail!) and Rain Check. Rain Check is the only polish that didn't really cooperate as far as color accuracy goes. It's really more like a bluish gray, kind of pearlescent and darker than this pic. Bottom pic, left to right: wnw Fergie collection; Rock n Roll, Orly Spazmatic (from the Flash Glam Collection), and NYC Empire State Blue. The Orly I got at Sally's and it was on Clearance, woohoo! I used the Fergie for my NYE nails (see here).

Essie:

Yep, My first Essie! Usually I can't bring myself to pay for Essie but this was the last Shine of The Times and I'm pretty sure they are discontinued or something. You know what? Don't judge lol. The bf pushed me into it. He really is a terrible influence when it comes to polish buying ;)

Nicole by OPI

These are the ones that were in the middle row of the first pic. I got these at KMart half off. From the Kardshian Kolor collection, left to right: Deck the Dolls, (I'm not sure if these other ones are from that collection or not, the signage in the store leads me to believe that though so correct me if I'm wrong) Enchantress, A Lit-Teal Bit of Love and It's Up to You.

Ulta Haul:

I totally had the $3.50 off $10 coupon and was going to stick to the $10.....yeah that didn't happen lol. I went to see if I could find Zoya Aurora at Ulta and they had some good sales as well. Well I couldn't find it but I did get more NOPI for $1.99 each! The blue is really blue and purple glitter, also from the Kardashian Kolor collection: Kendall On The Katwalk. The pink is All Kendall-ed Up. The Ulta polish is Ultra Violet Femme (on sale for $3 each right now!) and is stunning! Oh and yay! I got a Zoya Remove Big Flipper! Love it so much already :D

One last pic of everything:

Holy crap, this is a super long post! Have you guys gotten anything great lately? 
As always, thanks for stopping by!

NYE Nails after the fact

Hi guys!!!! I've missed you :D I was on vacation from work and work is where I get the most done on here too lol. But now I'm back (even though it means I have to wear clothes again not my WalMart finest lol) and ready to get stuff done! 

I didn't actually do my nails on NYE like the rest of the world. I wasn't feeling very well and just wasn't up to it. I figured okay, I'll do them in time for Frugal Polish's mini NYE nail contest...Yeah that didn't happen either lol. Okay then they'll be done in time for Shelly's Sassy Nails' Sassy Saturday contest. They were somewhat done but I just wasn't happy with them so didn't submit. 

I used Rock N Roll by Wet N Wild from the first Fergie collection:

So pretty in the bottle!

But kind of plain lookin in the pics :( Every once in a while I would catch some pow of the little round holo glitters. Overall I like the mani but it wasn't my favorite by any means lol. 

Application of this polish was pretty decent in general. I did have to really fish for the holo glitters though. I also am not a fan of these type of brushes which are the same in the Insta Dri. You know...the flat wide plastic part of the brush and the brush head is really big and rounded all weird. Might be good for full nail coverage but terrible for trying to do french tips! 

The polish took a ton of coats to get that opaque plus another couple trying to get the stupid glitters. I really didn't want to use underwear though based on a little testing. So as a result I had a ton of polish on my tips! How'd I fix it? I used Tip Top Nails Toughen Up base coat which I've been using for the past few months, 1 coat of Savvy USA Blush, and tons of top coat. I literally just kept piling on the top coat until it was even with all the damn glitter. I couldn't even count how many coats it was anymore. Once it was even I did a full layer of top coat and wrapped my tips. 

It was terrible, almost like a full set of acrylics with a glitter tip. I think it'll be relegated to the "pretty collection" not the "wear it a lot" pile lol. I did try to add some things with acrylic paints but nothin looked right so I took it off using rubbing alcohol (erases all mistakes made with acrylic paint!) and left it alone. I wish I would have: 1. Used the glue method (taking it off was terrible and I had to revert to the foil method) and 2. Remembered I wanted to mattify it before I took it off :(

Did you do your nails? Do you have this polish? What do you think?

As always, thanks for stopping by :)