Ulta Haul (and some mini-reviews)

I think my nailpolish obsession has meandered into a make-up-in-general obsession. Not necessarily a bad thing, considering all the job interviews I'm going to be doing.

So, I had bought the Kat Von D Beethoven palette from Sephora and decided it really was not worth the money (I think it's the purples that did it for me, the yellow and a few of the others were lovely, but when I see a purple and it has purple in its name, I expect it to be purple on skin, not navy or grey).

See that dark purple that looks lovely? That's "Rad Purple" aka "Navy".

I had been debating eventually buying the Urban Decay Naked palette and heard that they actually had one at Ulta to see (none to buy, of course) and ended up going all the way out there to check it out.

And bought a bunch of other makeup stuff, lol:  Cargo's Safari Kit, Too Faced's Brow Envy and Natural Eye Palette, Eos Lip Blam, and Smashbox HD Concealer.

Konad Attempt #4

I don't know what's up with all of my cameras, it's like they hate photographing nail polish. I guess it would help if I had any natural light in my apartment. Today I was planning on going outside to take photos, because I absolutely love my current look, but it's very overcast. I tried doing it out my single window, which isn't great since I have walls all over the place (oh, city living).

This was Zoya's Deidra (base) and Adina (stamp), using the swirly/feathery full-nail stamp on Konad m63 (I used the flowers from m57 for my thumbs). I thought it was really special, just subtle enough to wear to work, but still pretty and elaborate-looking.

Another issue seems to be that my camera takes the best picture of my nails while making my fingers look fat and wrinkly!

Right up against the window! Gives a somewhat accurate representation of the color

Nail Polish Collection

I know some people do swatches on request and I figure if I ever have people reading this I might as well offer the same.

These are all the polishes I have with me here in DC. I don't know which ones offhand I kept at my parents' house, alas. Well, I'm not including base coats.

If you want to see any of them, either just one or in comparison or with something over them, whatever, just leave a comment.

Zoya BOGO

Oh, so, I guess I should post this here, since I made this blog so as not to bombard my lj flist with nailpolish posts. Zoya had a BOGO Summer Sale, which practically everyone that knows Zoya knows about so far. I decided to take the opportunity of $2 expedited shipping to get the few Summer colors I actually liked and some other colors I've been lusting for.

First of all I got the Mod Mattes mini sampler

Konad and Crackle

I've been trying out more konad plates as well as both OPI's Black Shatter and China Glaze's white Crackle polishes.  Here's some pics and opinions:

Here's my third go with Konad. This is two coats of Zoya's Trixie with Zoya's Reece as the stamp, using two patterns from m60. Zoya's Armor for topcoat.

Trying out Konad

So, I decided to buy a Konad stamper and a few plates.  I've tried out a few designs just for testing, one of them turned out good enough to wear, lol.  Please excuse my horrible cuticles.

Both are made with Konad m65, which I knew I'd love when I was ordering it and I'm glad it looks so good IRL.

I wore this one this weekend:



The base color is Glacier Bay Blues by OPI, it's a sorta dark aquamarine.  The stamp was done I think in Revlon Silver Screen, though may have been Sephora by OPI's Social Climber (I own a lot of silvers).

I also really like this one, though I was really sloppy with the base and then bumped my nails into a few things and basically messed it all up (and took a pic before cleaning up the excess polish).  But I think I could probably get away with this at work:




The base was two coats of Deidra by Zoya (a wonderful conservative work color) and Gold Digger's Delight by OPI, which is pretty ancient.  As you can see, my camera just did not want to get the details on this one, alas.