"Earth Day" Splatter nails

Week 17 of the Year of Polish Challenge is about appreciating the earth :)

I was tempted to do something with grass and the sun and all those pretty things

Unfortunately my time is pretty constrained at this time of the year. There are many a tests to study for a projects to complete and papers to work on... So I did a quick and dirty splatter mani!

I love this kind of mani because you don't have to wait for anything to dry. You just keep right on going then when you're done, stick on a coat of Seche Vite and voila! you're ready to move out!

To keep it "earthy" I used shades of green and blue :D

Turns out I have a much wider variety of green shades... which is odd since I have so much more blue polish!

I used the barrel of an old disassembled pen to splatter my colors... coffee stirrer straws work very well too!

left hand

 Greens:

China Glaze in Re-Fresh Mint

Spoiled in I Only Eat Salads

China Glaze in Four Leaf Clover

Zoya in Zuza

Model's Own in Emerald Black

right hand

Blues:

China Glaze in Kinetic Candy

China Glaze in For Audrey

China Glaze in Aqua Baby

OPI in Swimsuit... Nailed it!

Barry M in Indigo

Keeping this post short.. Have to get back to studying >_<

Have you ever done a splatter mani? what did you use?

Until next time ^_^

mbeautylounge- buyer beware!

Hello everyone!

Today's post is about an unfortunate event that occured to me earlier this year. I was browsing some nail blogs (because that's what nail bloggers do!) and I came across a swatch of OPI I Lily Love You. 

What a gorgeous flakie! the collection came out while I was taking my blogging sabbatical last summer and apparently that particular shade sold out pretty quickly.

I looked around at a few e-tailers and came across mbeautylounge.com

This was my first time on the site but it looked legitimate and nice. It had websafe check out and a good shipping policy and the prices were incredible!

I ordered 2 bottles of I Lily Love You, along with 2 OPI Mrs America, 2 OPI Nikki Minaj, and 1 OPI from the France collection.

The company is located about an hour away from where I live in Ohio so I thought I would be receiving my package very quickly. However, it took over 10 days of processing before my package was shipped out! This was much longer than the 48-72 hours promised on the website...

Regardless, my box finally got here! hooray! I opened it up, excited to see my new pretties but was shocked by the fact that the polishes were simply thrown in the box with some tissue paper. No bubble wrap. No foam peanuts. What was this person thinking?? Gladly, the trip wasn't very long and all of the bottles arrived in one piece. Good right?

Here is what I received:

Looks pretty good no? but where is I Lily Love You, you ask? That's what I wondered as well. I looked through the box and found a slip of paper with my order.  I Lily Love You was striked off and the word credited was handwritten. How disappointing! they must have sold out right?

I logged on to my Mbeautylounge account and checked to see if I had any credits or vouchers but found nothing... I then went to the OPI section and found that I Lily Love You was still there. With the option to add it to your cart. So it wasn't sold out?

I decided to send a polite message to the company via their "contact us" page asking what happened to my order. I hit send and was promised an answer within 48 hours.

after 3 days with no answer, I sent another message. Briefer than the first but still polite. Again, no answer...

10 days later, I wrote them a pretty extensive message asking to be given a refund (it was $16 worth of polish!). I also told them I would be reviewing their company on my blog (as I am doing now).

A day later I received a message from them to tell me a voucher had been created for the amount I was owed. It could be found on my account on Mbeautylounge.com

Finally! after about a month of messaging, it looks like there is someone over at Mbeautylounge after all! Since I was prepping for the giveaway that just ended, I decided to use the voucher to get some polishes for you guys. I didn't trust Mbeautylounge but I sure as heck was not going to let them keep my $16! So I order 3 bottles of Zoya: Ivanka, Valerie, and Charla.

After about 12 days of processing, here is what I received:

This time Charla was missing! what is up with this company?? the order slip once again  claimed that I had been "credited"... I did send a message to the company about the missing polish but I am much to exhausted to deal with them any more. 

Overall, Mbeautylounge is not a place I will be ordering from any more. They have great prices and a variety of collections but this was not worth it. 

Oh well, live and learn right? 

have you ever had to deal with a dodgy company before?

Until next time ^_^

**EDIT** About 2 months since my last email, MBeautyLounge just issued me a refund for the missing Zoya. Can't promise they will do the same for you but it looks like patience pays off with this company...

And the winner is!

First of all, I would like to thank everyone who entered :)

Also, I want to welcome the new followers! We're glad to have you here!

I will be having another giveaway very soon which will be international, because everyone deserve nail polish!

Alright, alright... Now for the winner!

Congratulations to Peripatetic33!

Until next time ^_^

Dotticure

Since there can never be enough dots in your life, week 16 of the Year of Polish challenge is a Dotticure!

I am not 100% sure what makes a dotticure different from a polka dot mani (from week 10) but I'll take any excuse to whip out my dotting tool :)

I know it looks matte here, but I promise it isn't. The light must have wonked it....

Kleancolor in Metallic Fuschia

GOSH in Ocean

I've been trying to go through some of my unused polish but it can be really hard when you do nail art... Certain colors just work so well for certain techniques that it's hard to switch to a new color... So I think I am going to try and do one simple nail art a week that features some unused colors... what do you think?

Also! my giveaway has now ended... Thank you to everyone who entered! I've already started going through the entries, verifying things and all that jazz. I should be done in a day or two! 

Until next time ^_^

Stash Post!

Hello everyone!

I've always been a fan of polish, especially bright colors. I remember the first polish hunt I did in the early 2000's. I had seen a spread in some magazine about bold colored polish and there was a toxic waste green that I just had to have! After searching through a number of different drugstores, I finally found the perfect neon green at Walmart from Pure Ice. It stained my nails yellow but boy was I in love!

Then a few years later, I was looking through Vogue and saw a picture of a model wearing grey nail polish. The search began! Months later, an awesome friend of mine came back from Sally's with a bottle of China Glaze No Name Yet just for me. It was a grey/lilac polish perfection. It's still in my stash today, even though the bottle barely has any polish left. 

I used to have all my polish in a little make-up bag. Then, I went off to college and starting buying more and more nail polish. So I dedicated a drawer of my computer desk to polish :)

When I left college, I had probably tripled the number of polishes I owned. I stuff them all in a big hat box but quickly realized that I needed a better way to store my lovelies...

I went to the store and found a plastic drawer organizer! perfect! Now I felt like a real polish addict. It was time to do something more productive with my hobby. It was time to share it through a blog!

Since then, the collection has grown quite a bit and a new plastic drawer organizer had to be added. I considered getting a Helmer but the plastic organizers are much cheaper: my first was $29, the other 2 (which I stacked) were $15 each! And that leaves more money to spend on polish!!

This is what my polish corner looks like right now

 In the right organizer I keep all of my nail tools, art, and treatments along with glitter polish and franken materials.
The left organizer has all of my colored polish :)

More after the jump!

"Easter" mani

So today's challenge is supposed to be an Easter mani... However, I didn't really feel like putting bunnies and eggs on my nails so instead, I decided to go a little less literal for this one.
Easter manis are all about pastels and fun so I used my new Q1 Konad plate to create a cute spring look!

Ice cream and cupcakes and candies! I love this stamping plate!!

Sally Hansen in Yellow Kitty

Joe Fresh in Iris

China Glaze in Aqua Baby

China Glaze in Make Some Noise

I realize that the stamping polishes I used aren't really pastels normally, but over Yellow Kitty, they were perfect! 

You can get your own Q1 stamping plate from Konad.co.uk for £9 plus shipping

As far as I know, that is the only place where it is available

I hope everyone had a great Easter! with family and food and chocolates :D

You can check out other Year of Polish challenges on the Year of Polish page located on the right side bar

Also, don't forget to enter my 200 followers giveaway!

Until next time ^_^

Stripes inspired by a Mug

This week's theme for the Year of Polish challenge was stripes.
Easy peasy! I love stripes!!

Not too long ago, I came across this mug on Print and Pattern's blog

And I loved how cute it was! so here is my take on this beautiful mug :)

Sally Hansen in White Tip

China Glaze in Lemon Fizz

China Glaze in Peachy Keen

China Glaze in Kinetic Candy

China Glaze in Agent Lavender

China Glaze in Re-Fresh Mint

Milani in Black Magic

1.5mm Rhinestones

Check out my Year of Polish Challenge page to see past themes and also take some time to look at bloggers who are doing this challenge as well!

Also, don't forget to enter my 200 followers giveaway :)

Where do you usually find your inspiration?

Until next time ^_^