Pretty & Polished Cuticle Oil {Review}

Hey all!  A few weeks ago I received a sample of cuticle oil from Pretty & Polished for review.  With the Holidays and all, I am finally ready to post my review.  Here is what I received, sorry for the cell phone pic, but it's all I had when my son decided he loved the oil too and sadly dumped half of it out while I was out and the kids were home with dad.  Yes, I am blaming dad for this one! 

I got a little dropper bottle and a cute file.  Isn't it cute?!?!  So hanging out in my purse :)

You may have seen other reviews for oils or balms from Pretty & Polished, and originally the oils were dispensed with a roller ball, which had me super excited.  I was planning on getting one as soon as I ran out of my sample.  But then the news came that the roller ball failed :(  So now the oils are going to stay in droppers.  Which, if you ask me, is still better than a brush.  It's so simple to just grab a bit in the tube and dab a little drop at the top of my cuticles and rub it in.  Purse friendly and quit easy to apply.

Here is some info I received from Chels:

"Cuticle Oils will be packaged in dropper bottles that contain 7.3 ml of product (which is 1.3 more than the old packaging).  We will also be releasing new scents within the next 48 hours!"

Sooooo, you get a little more bang for you buck!  Here is what the new bottles will look like:

I received fruit punch and it smells delicious!!  It's not too strong and doesn't fade away fast.  When I have my hands close to my face a while after using the oil, it still smells good :)

I have loved Pretty & Polish nail polish for a while, my collection is steadily growing, and now I can add the oils to one of my favs from the shop.  Chels has expanded her shop to include lots of great things like oils, balms, jewelry, gift sets and nail art tins.  Check out the SHOP and see for yourself.  Beware, your wallet may suffer LOL

XOXO  Mandy

Whimsical Ideas By Pam: I Believe In Fairies

Morning!!  Today I wanna share with you a polish I got from my Birthday Group.  I have been wanting to get my hands on some Whimisies for a long time and I was lucky to receive a couple from a great friend for my birthday.  This one is called I Believe In Fairies, it's a beautiful light purple jelly base with lots of little glitters in blue, pink, green, and prob a few others I can't make out, plus some large star glitters.  

Sadly, not one star showed up when I was painting my nails.  Maybe next time, but I still love the look anyway.

Base Coat:  Rejuvacote

Base Color:  Orly Royal Navy (1 coat)

Glitter:  Whimsie I Believe in Faires (2 coats)

Top Coat:  Seche Vite

I def plan on wearing this again soon, but layering over purple.  The blue is lovely and I can't stop looking at my nails

Pam can be found on FB HERE, she doesn't have an Etsy shop, you just e mail her at pea422000@yahoo.com, tell her what you want and she will invoice you.  Super simple!  She has some great stuff I hope to get my hands on.  Until then, I am quit enjoying I Believe in Fairies :)

XOXO  Mandy

BadAss Polish: The Vikes {Review}

Hey everyone, long time no talk!  Hope your Christmas and New Years was great.  My son was off school for 2 weeks and today was his first day back.  He was excited to go back and see his teacher.  I love that he loves school!!  

Before the break I received another polish from BadAss Polish for review.  The Vikes is another from their football line, based on The Vikings.  It's a clear base packed with purple glitter, small white hex glitter and large yellow hex glitter.  It's quit pretty.  Of course I took a few bottle shots:

When I was deciding what I wanted to use as a base, I tried out like 10 different colors, and this one looks good over a variety of colors.  When I reviewed the last 2 polishes from the football line, America's Team and Go Pack Go! I kept with the colors of the team.  This time I just went all girly LOL  

I went with pink and silver using Sally Hansen Extreme Wear Very Cherry and Orly Dazzle.  

I used 2 coats of The Vikes over my base coat.  It was perfect.  Lots of purple, a little bit of white and a touch of the yellow :)  

As always, you can buy BadAss polishes on Etsy and make sure to check out their FB Page where you can check other reviews and swatches.  

Can't wait to see what else they come up with!!

Happy Monday, hope it's not too terrible to get back into your weekly routine after all the Christmas and New Years fun.

XOXO  Mandy

Pretty & Polished coupon code

I know I have been MIA for a while.  With Christmas and family staying at my house to visit, I haven't had much time to do my nails let alone blog.  But I got an e mail this morning from Chels at Pretty & Polished and thought I should share some good news :)

Chels is offering a few of us bloggers a 10% off coupon code to share with our readers and FB followers.  You can go to her store HERE and use code Blogger10 to receive 10% off your order.  The code expires on Jan 4th at 12pm EST.  So take a few minutes and get something you have been looking for :)

Also, a new Valentine polish is coming out, so keep a look out for that one.  As well as a new collection called "Save the Dauphine Collection", due out on Jan 16th.  There is some surprise news to come, which I will share when I know more.  So, for now, enjoy 10% off your order and Happy New Year.  I will be back soon with more nail art and swatches :)  

Let it Snow!: Christmas/Holidays

Happy Thursday, it's challenge mani day!  This week's theme is Christmas/Holidays.  Nice and simple and fun.  Which is good the week before Christmas.  I have been so busy baking and wrapping and taking care of kids I haven't really had time to do my nails.  So easy was definitely on the menu for today.  And what is easier than a holiday base coat and a nice stamp?  Nothing!  LOL

Here is my Christmas/Holiday mani

Base Coat:  Rejuvacote

Base Colors:  Sinful Colors Hot Hot Heat (1 coat) and Essie Good as Gold (1 coat)

Stamping Plate:  Cheeky CH16

Stamping Polish:  Sinful Colors Hot Hot Heat and Essie Good as Gold

Top Coat:  Seche Vite

I am gonna keep this short and end my post here, I have dinner I need to make :)

   

 Don't forget to check out the other ladies doing the challenge with me

BadAss Polish: Dusk {Review}

I have another review for you today :)  This is another polish from the core line of BadAss Polish.  Dusk is a beautiful glitter polish.  It's a clear base packed with mostly blue glitters and tiny gold glitters mixed in there for some some added dimension.  This polish is gorgeous in the bottle!

When choosing what color to layer over, I knew blue was a must.  But I wanted to add another as an accent.  Purple won that battle after a few swatches on a piece of paper.

I went with Sinful Colors Midnight Blue and Let's Talk as my underwear, a nice deep blue and dark purple.  I wish I could capture the purple's true color on camera.  The blue is spot on.  Looks great, right?  The accent is actually about twice as dark as in the photo.  So the contrast in real life is much more than you see here in the photo.  But you can still get a good idea how how cool Dusk looks over purple.

I used just one coat of Dusk for this mani.  That was all I needed.  This one is a little on the thicker side, so I would recommend you either add a bit of thinner or do as I did and just do one thick coat on each nail.  If you go too thin, you are gonna get some dragging as the polish dries and you are still trying to spread on more glitter.  Ask me how I know that LOL.  So get it on there, spread fast and move on to the next.

Just looking at my nails I am reminded of OPI Absolutely Alice.  I cannot for sure say that this Midnight Blue/Dusk combo is a dupe, but it sure looks like it from the bottle.  I will have to do a comparison post.  Wouldn't it be cool if this combo made the dupe list?  We shall see!

As always, check out BadAss Polish on Facebook and check out the SHOP to make your purchases.  Amy is really great and I enjoy working with her and her husband.

Amy is kind enough to send me the next polish in their football line, The Vikes, so stay tuned for that one!

Let it Snow!: Ugly Christmas Sweater

Thursday is the typical day of the week that we share our challenge mani's from the Let it Snow! Challenge.  I am gonna try real hard to keep on that schedule.

This weeks theme is Ugly Christmas Sweater, should be pretty easy, right?  Except I didn't want to have an ugly manicure.  I do wear my mani's for a few days before I change it.  Unless I have had some horrible chipping.  

In general, all Christmas sweaters are ugly to me.  No offense if you wear them.  They are just not for me.  Coming up with a design was kind of hard.  There are so many possibilities!  Lots of super ugly sweaters and some not so bad.  I went with a not so bad design.  Remember, I am wearing this for a few days.  

I have been on a red kick so that is where we start.  I chose Sinful Colors Ruby Ruby as my base, I know, been using that one a lot lately, but it's right there in front of me :)  And to make my ugly sweater a cute mani, I added some snowflakes :)

I used my Konad M59 plate and Konad Special Polish in White.  There are 2 snowflake designs on this plate, so I randomly placed them on my nails.

I topped with a coat of Seche Vite and voila!  A cute Ugly Christmas Sweater mani.  My nails are so smooth and shiny, I can't stop rubbing them.  What do you think?

Here is a recap of the products I used:

Base Coat: Rejuvacote

Base Color:  Sinful Colors Ruby Ruby

Stamping Plate:  Konad M59

Stamping Polish:  Konad Special White

Top Coat:  Seche Vite

There you have it, my Ugly Christmas Sweater mani.  Please check out the other girls doing this challenge with me :)