Polish Monster and Oh Three Oh Four Holiday Giveaway!
It’s the most wonderful time of the year- which around the blogging world, it usually means that it’s time for the best giveaways! My friend Dulcie at Oh Three Oh Four and I have long been talking about getting together for a December giveaway, and here it is!
Without any further waiting, here’s what you can win!
Prize #1 : Takko Lacquer’s Holiday Duo- Va Va Voom and We’re All Mad Here
Prize #2 : Lynnderella The Glittering Crowd and Spumoni
Prize #3 : Enchanted Polish Hot Chocolate and Ballerina Sprinkles
(note: while it’s on it’s way, this duo haven’t quite arrived at my door in time for the post, so we’re borrowing a photo from Enchanted Polish’s facebook page to show the prize!)
Prize #4 : Lynnderella Ice The Snowcake and Elf Assured
Be on the lookout over the next week for swatches of some of the prizes on our blogs!
Everything will be done via Rafflecopter. There will be 4 winners and this IS open internationally! Prizes and winners will be randomly chosen and paired together. This giveaway will end December 18th at 12:00 AM EST. Winners will be announced here and on Facebook. The winners will have 48 hours to respond or a new winner will be chosen in their place. I will be responsible for shipping prizes #1 and #3, while Oh Three Oh Four, aka Dulcie, will be responsible for shipping prizes #2 and #4. Dulcie and I are not responsible lost/damaged deliveries. Some polishes in this giveaway were donated for the purposes of this giveaway, others were purchased by myself.
If you cannot enter using Rafflecopter please leave me a comment/email with your information and I can enter it manually for you.
Click the following link to go to the Rafflecopter entry form, and GOOD LUCK! Thank you for your support!
Polish Monster and Oh Three Oh Four’s Holiday Rafflecopter Giveaway
Silly Bee’s Chickadees: Review and Swatches
Warning- VERY photo heavy post incoming!
I promised this for Saturday, but I think we all know that whenever I say I’ll post something, add a few days and that’s when it will probably go up. I had my swatches photographed and ready to go, but until now NO time to just sit at the computer to load them and publish!
Today I have the *entire* collection from Silly Bee’s Chickadees to show off! Melissa, the genius behind these pretty polishes, is a sweet friend and I’ve been so excited for when she would launch. She opened shop this weekend, so be sure to go check them out. Great last-minute Christmas shopping!
First, I’ll show off the entire Fruit Basket collection. This collection is so fun- it’s made up of 6 polishes. 3 are ‘Cocktails’- glitter mixes in a clear base to be used as a topcoat or built up glitter polish. The remaining 3 are ‘Smoothies’- the same mixes as the Cocktails, but in a milky white base to be used as stand-alone polishes. And each polish in this collection features the Silly Bee girl wearing a fruit basket hat! I’ll be showing the Smoothie polish, and then its corresponding Cocktail polish.
I’ll quote Melissa’s listings here for descriptions of each type- I can’t replicate it nearly as well as the original!
‘The Fruit Basket Smoothies are inspired by the yummy smoothies my friends and I used to buy from the health food counter at the local YMCA when I was in Junior High. My school didn’t have a swimming pool, so we used the Y’s pool that was just next door. Good times! The Fruit Basket Cocktails are inspired by the beautiful dishes grandmas and aunties alike used to make for baby showers and bridal “sip & sees”. You know the stuff I’m talking about– the colorful concoction of fruit that was displayed Luby’s-style atop a bed of lettuce. If you’re from the South, you know a proper hostess must always serve sherbet punch, chicken salad– white meat only– and an extra fine fruit cocktail with baby marshmallows.’
First up, we have Bring Us A Figgy Mango!
Bring Us A Figgy Mango Smoothie is a fun mix of figs- represented by the purple and lavendar hexes, and mango- represented by the orange and yellow hexes, in a milky white smoothie base. To save polish, I chose to layer 1 coat of Bring Us A Figgy Mango Smoothie over 1 coat of OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls, but 2 coats on its own will provide excellent coverage.
Next is Bring Us A Figgy Mango Cocktail!
Bring Us A Figgy Mango Cocktail is just like the glitter in the smoothie version, with the addition of white hexes for the ‘marshmallows’- how adorable! I layered 1 coat of Figgy Mango over 2 coats of Finger Paints Circus Peanuts from their spring collection. I think pastels go really well with all of the Cocktail polishes!
Second in the Fruit Basket line is Orange You A Honeydew (seriously, aren’t these names just adorable?)
Orange You A Honeydew Smoothie is a mix of oranges- represented by the orange and yellow glitter- and honeydew- represented by the pale green glitter- in a milky white base. Again, this is 1 coat over OPI’s My Boyfriend Scales Walls.
Next is the Cocktail version!
Orange You A Honeydew Cocktail is the same mix as the Smoothie version, but again with the addition of white glitter for the marshmallows. For this I layered 1 coat of Orange You A Honeydew over 2 coats of Finger Paints Lemon Sour, also from their spring collection.
The final mix in the Fruit Basket series is Bananamelon Thump!
Bananamelon Thump is a fun mix of bananas and watermelon- the bananas are represented by yellow hexes and squares, and the watermelon is represented by pink hexes and squares. Like the others, the smoothie version is in a milky white base. Like before, this is 1 coat over OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls.
Now for the Cocktail version
Like the smoothie version, Bananamelon Thump Cocktail is made of yellow and pink hexes and squares, with white hexes to represent mini marshmallows. This is 1 coat over 2 coats of Zoya Shelby!
Now it’s time for the 2 polishes that Silly Bees Chickadees offers that aren’t part of the Fruit Cocktail collection! Even though I adore all of the polishes- these 2 are my VERY favorites!
First up is Mystery Mix Volume 1!
I am LOVING grey right now, so it’s no surprise that I adore this particular color. If you want it, you better act fast though! Melissa makes the Mystery Mixes by combining any misfit mixes into a jar, and when the jar is full that mix is bottled! This one is Volume 1- a polish that has a little bit of everything! There’s some bars, diamonds, squares, hexes, every size, every color.
I layered 1 coat of Mystery Mix over 1 coat of Sally Hanson Salon Perfect Pumice, a very light grey polish. While it looks grey in the bottle, on it’s own Mystery Mix applies relatively clear- which is great if you just want the glitter over anything else. Personally, I *adore* the grey color, so I chose to mimic it using a similar base color!
The final polish to show off from Silly Bee’s Chickadees is her signature polish, Melly’s Mix!
This is described as a party in a bottle, and I would agree! It’s a fun glitter topper filled with hexes, squares and diamonds in various colors. I layered Melly’s Mix over 2 coats of Love My Nails Tropical Fruit.
Overall, I just really adore these polishes. The smoothies were a bit thicker than the cocktails but all applied well. I never had to fish for glitter, I didn’t have to dab anything (all of the cocktails and Melly’s Mix glided on as shown).
I adore the Fruit Baskets, but if you can only get 1 polish, you *need* Melly’s Mix (and Mystery Mix Vol. 1- so I guess that’s 2) in your life!
Here’s all the info:
Silly Bee’s Chickadees Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/SillyBeesChickadees
Silly Bee’s Chickadees Blog: http://www.sillybeeschickadees.com/ (go check it out- Melissa posts a lot of fun crafts and recipes, as well as beauty things!)
Silly Bee’s Chickadees ETSY SHOP! : http://www.etsy.com/shop/sillybeeschickadees
Silly Bee’s Chickadees polishes are all 15mL and $9 each, though Mystery Mix Volume 1 is only $6!!! (due to it’s limited nature).
*Some polishes in this post were provided to me for my honest opinion. All thoughts are my own*
OPI: My Boyfriend Scales Walls
Just a quick post today! One of the underwear polishes I used in my post about Too Cute-icle’s new polishes (pssst! Her store opened yesterday, have you stopped by?) was OPI’s My Boyfriend Scales Walls, and today I thought I’d show it off by itself.
My Boyfriend Scales Walls is a white polish that has just a slight tinge of grey. This one was part of May’s Spiderman collection, though you can still get it in some stores and online.
Coverage was ok. I needed 3 coats, and even then I didn’t feel like everything was covered perfectly, there were a few streaky spots and sheer sections. There was a bit of cuticle flooding, but cleanup took care of that fairly quickly- since the polish was white I didn’t have to struggle to remove the bad areas.
You can get OPI Nail Lacquer at a variety of locations- I tend to get my bottles at ULTA, but most salons also carry OPI. They tend to retail for around $8 a bottle.
Too Cute-icle: Swatches and Review!
Woo look at me, 3 days in a row! Maybe I’m finally back in my groove?
Tonight I have some fun polishes to show off from a new indie line launching this weekend! My sweet friend Jess of the blog Too Cute-icle is venturing into the land of polish making. I was sent Frosty the Penguin and Pretty Pretty Princess to review, and they’re both so pretty!
First up is Frosty the Penguin!
This pretty glitter topcoat was named for an adorable mani Jess did with this polish- originally called Frostbite- that featured a cute penguin! This is a fun mixture of iridescent, blue and white glitters. Perfect for winter!
For these first 2 photos, I layered 1 coat of Frosty the Penguin over 3 coats of OPI’s My Boyfriend Scales Walls. I opted to use a bit of dabbing to get the glitter exactly where I wanted it, but it went on fairly smoothly and evenly without it
In this photo, I layered 1 coat of Frosty the Penguin over 2 coats of Girly Bits Arctic Sunrise. What a gorgeous combo! I’ll have pictures of Arctic Sunrise this weekend (though I’ve featured it briefly here).
The second polish I got to try out was Pretty Pretty Princess!
Pretty Pretty Princess is a girly glitter mix of various shades of pinks, purples, and blues. It’s super sparkly and pretty!
In the first 2 photos, I layered 1 coat of Pretty Pretty Princess over 2 coats of Sinful Colors Flutter. I did a bit of dabbing to ensure things were photo ready, but for the most part the glitter went on nice and evenly!
This is 2 coats of Pretty Pretty Princess over Sinful Colors Flutter. Almost full coverage! My nails were SUPER sparkly, I love it!
Too Cute-icle is opening shop on December 2nd. You’ll be able to find these polishes and others at her Etsy store! You can also follow her on Facebook, as well as her blog. Be sure to keep an eye out!
*These polishes were sent to me for review. All opinions are my own*
