Showing posts with label cult nails. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cult nails. Show all posts

Thursday, November 8, 2012

november 8 for no h8

Bullying is not funny. It is not cool. It is not right. And more importantly, it is not okay.

Most of us are, thankfully, residents of countries that support tolerance and many of our families have settled in these places simply for that reason. Generations later, it is our responsibility to perpetuate that message of tolerance across our new social platforms, including the internet.

As members of the nail polish blogging community, we all share a love of beauty, color, and lacquer. Other than that, we are remarkably different: from our race to our religion to our hair color...even to our polish application techniques. To marginalize anyone because of those differences is completely unacceptable and today I take a stand against that. I refuse to allow other people's view of "normal" dictate how I behave, believe, and blog.

In solidarity with a multitude of bloggers linked below, my purple manicure represents my proud commitment to the No H8 movement. Today, November 8, I dedicate my post to ending bullying of any kind and to encouraging diversity and imperfection among our colorful community.


In honor of the No H8 Movement, I am wearing purple to show my support. As a future teacher, this cause is close to my heart. I want to be an advocate for all children, especially children who are feeling down on themselves. Bullying is never acceptable.




Shown is two coats of Sephora by OPI Just A Little Dangerous topped with one coat of Cult Nails Seduction.

Do what you can to show your support, even if it's as simple as painting your nails. We can stand together against bullying!

Monday, November 5, 2012

nude paisley

No, the title is not referring to Brad Paisley... how I wish it were! He's hilarious, sexy, and has a wonderful voice. Mmmmmm. He always comes to mind whenever I see paisley print. The paisley that I'm referring to comes from bundle monster's third collection of nail stamping plates (the plate I'm referencing here is #315)! If you ask me, this is a genius idea. Who doesn't love paisley?! You can do so much with it. I always like the look of black images over a nude or tan creme, and that's what I decided to go with for this manicure. 

At first, I started out with two coats of OPI Don't Pretzel My Buttons. I wanted to think of some clever, unique accent nail... but I failed. I originally went with this look:

 

Then, I fell in love with how the paisley stamp looked and I wanted to add more. I didn't like how this looked with only two nails stamped. Thus, I added more stamping and an accent of Cult Nails Happy Ending, from the Fairytale Collection that was released this summer. This was hands down my favorite Cultie collection to date. 

 

I'm not entirely sure how I feel about this combination. I love the paisley, but I don't like how dark the black is in comparison to the glass shard-looking multicolored glitter. It's something different, for sure. Overall, I seriously LOVE Don't Pretzel My Buttons. It's my ideal nude polish, for real. I'll probably wear it a million more times. My only problem with this shade is that I hate my application of it. I usually suck and mess it up by making it too splotchy or by accidentally flooding my cuticles. Oy.

What do you think? Are you a fan of paisley? What about nude polish?

With that, I'm out. Have a great weekend everybody! Tonight I have my first Saturday night off since my vacation in July! WOOO!

Sunday, September 30, 2012

cult nails annalicious

Hey hey. It's Suuuunday funday! By funday I mean working all day-day. Ah well. Such is life. Today I'm going to show you one of my MANY Cult Nails favorites. I wore this a few weeks ago but am just now getting it up on the blog. Blogging is always my favorite way to procrastinate doing quite possibly everything and anything else that I have to do.. like getting ready for work when I have to leave in twenty minutes.


 

I do apologize for these not-so-great photos. Sometimes polishes just don't photograph well, no matter how great they are. I can never get good photos of reds to save my life. Maybe it's my camera. Yeah, let's go with that. I couldn't capture the orange shimmer in this. It's definitely red-orange, and the shimmer is AMAZING. Application was phenomenal, per usual.

This is two coats of Cult Nails Annalicious. I wasn't going to get this one but I couldn't help it after seeing these amazing swatches from ChitChat Nails. Her swatches put mine to shame. F'reals.

Did you fall in love with this one, too? It's scary how fast my Cult Nails collection has grown in the past few months... ahhhh! 

Have a good one, guys. Hope most of you have today off and can relax with some football on the telly. 

Wednesday, September 26, 2012

pink wednesday: cult nails untamed

Hiii! :) Hoping the first half of everyone's week went well! I'm doing ok, hanging in there. Not happy with a few things in my life but I'm trying to change them. I'm trying to get to the point where the good outweighs the bad. I think I'm almost there. Today hasn't been amazing buuut... I have a date tonight! I'm seeing someone new and he has been excellent thus far. I really like him, and it's exciting. Tonight we're getting fancy and going out for hibachi. 

I really wanted to try out Cult Nails Untamed for tonight. I wasn't sure if I would have time to paint my nails, but I managed to squeeze it in. ;D


 

This is three coats of Cult Nails Untamed. I wasn't really expecting a jelly polish but that's what I got! It was sheerer than I expected but I had faith that it would build up appropriately, and that it did. I just love Cult Nails.

And, a bonus! I bought some heels at work last night- I work part-time at a Payless Shoesource. Here they are:


I feel like they look better in person than they do in pictures. The moral of the story? I am not not not a heel person but I am branching out for tonight. To be honest, I'm a little nervous! Nervous but excited, for sure.

Have a happy night, y'all!

Friday, September 14, 2012

Day 14: FLOWERS

Hey guys. Really really quick post today because my laptop is about to die & I have to get to bed! I wasn't happy with my overall manicure for challenge day 14 but it is what it is. I kept failing at stamping and freehanding so I resorted to some plain old decals. 



The base for this manicure is three coats of Cult Nails Enticing, a new polish for me but definitely one of my new favorites. These decals are from Sally's from a while back. I liked how the color looked on its own but of course today is a day for flowers so I had to add some somehow. 

What do you think? Do you like this light, soft pink?



 

Sunday, September 9, 2012

Day 9: RAINBOW

Happy Sunday, my fellow polish fiends! Today is day nine of the challenge! For today, the theme is rainbow! I can honestly say I've never done a full-out rainbow manicure. There's gotta be a first for everything, right?!

 To me, the "rainbow" idea is a little daunting because of how many colors it requires... I am not an artistic person, and sometimes matching colors is hard for me (i.e. which "purple" or "green" is right). I was a little nervous about this challenge day. The fact that there was so much creative liberty scared me. Red is red. Blue is blue. Polka dots are polka dots. Stripes are stripes. But rainbow? You can do anything with rainbow. Ahhhh! The possibilities are endless.

I ended up with a rainbow base and a black stamped manicure. Check it out.

 

My first thought process was.. roygbiv = 7, my fingers = 5. This is where the idea to do half-colors on my nails came from. Then... I stamped.


 

I'll list the colors I used from pinky->thumb:

pinky: OPI Overexposed In South Beach, Love & Beauty Dark Purple
ring finger: China Glaze Shower Together, Brash Electric Sky
middle finger: OPI Don't Mess With OPI, Piggy Polish Poet-Tree
pointer: Zoya Pippa, Essie Meet Me At Sunset
thumb: Essie Ole Caliente, Cult Nails Evil Queen

HOLY POLISH! I've never used this many colors in one manicure! It was a lot of fun to do, though, that's for sure. I used however many coats it took to reach full opacity. For the yellow, it was a few more than for the red. Actually, I only used one coat for my thumb nail- Cult Nails polishes rock! 

I stamped with bm-205. I really like this butterfly/bow-looking image. It looks whimsy & fun over the rainbow design, something different.

What do you think? Are you wearing rainbow today, too?


 

Thursday, August 30, 2012

Cult Nails Mind Control with Unicorn Puke!

I never know what to put on my nails anymore. I seriously have more polish than I'd ever imagined would be humanly possible. I opened one of my melmer drawers and the first thing that came to mind was UNICORN PUUUKE, the very exclusive and discontinued and not available anymore flakie by who other than my favorite brand, Cult Nails.

They released 275 bottles of Unicorn Puke last fall during a presale (click here to see my original post with UP, posted in October of last year!). It sold out so quickly, and they re-added Unicorn Puke to a collection under the name Clairvoyant. That sold out too! This is a huge lemming for some people, and is practically unattainable. I'm so lucky to have gotten a bottle- and to think, I almost didn't buy one! Now, I wish I bought two.




This picture shows my bottle's number: 185!
 
Shown is two coats of Cult Nails Mind Control and one coat of Cult Nails Unicorn Puke on my middle and ring fingers. Love it. There's no way I'd do a full manicure with UP just because I don't want to use it all up! It looks great as an accent!

Did you scoop this up last year, or do you have Clairvoyant? Do you still like flakies, or have they been overdone?

Monday, August 27, 2012

Cult Nails Princess (plus a Cult Nails promo)

Happy Sunday! To celebrate an awesome promo that www.gloss48.com is running for Cult Nails, I decided to put on an untried from my Cult Nails drawer. Today I'm showing you all Cult Nails Princess from the summer 2012 Fairytale Collection. This was the first collection that I preordered in full. I felt a strong desire for every. single. polish. That never happens, even with OPI collections (and those are my absolute fave). I'm not sure why I still haven't tried this. Ah well- today is the day!

 

Shown above is two coats of CN Princess. This is a light bluish/grey with a ton of hidden shimmer. My pictures in the sun didn't come out well so I don't have any pictures with really strong shimmer. Alas, you get the point. I rushed this manicure and my application sucked but I was still happy.

Anyway, go to gloss48.com !!! Select Cult Nails polishes are on sale for $7/bottle! Plus, use the coupon code CHEEKY10 for $10 off your purchase! I ended up purchasing four polishes for $25 (shipping included). Wahoo!

Friday, August 24, 2012

Cult Nails Let Me Fly Glitter Gradient

Hiiii! Happy Friday night to those of you who are home relaxing, out partying, or just plain enjoying your time away from work. If you are actually at work, I feel your pain. I'm currently babysitting for a few more hours (not that babysitting is anything awful; this kid is a blast).. then I get to go home and relax. It's a short lived period of relaxation. I'm back at work at nine in the morning and for a solid twelve hours. Y. U. C. K. I hate working a double on Saturdays. No matter how many Saturdays I work, I still hate it so much. Ah well. Not much I can do about it now, is there?

I actually left work a tad early today because I wasn't feeling so hot. The day was supposed to be really busy, but it didn't quite live up to that so I was able to sneak out before I was scheduled to live. I was really grateful that my coworkers let me leave early. I've had so much on my mind lately about school, work, this and that. It's overwhelming.

Anyway... as I was rummaging through my newly-organized polish storage, I got the idea to do a glitter gradient, one of my favorite manicure designs. I've only tried it once before but I love it! Simple and easy, yet they look so awesome! An untried, Butter London Victoriana stood out to me first. I always have the same problem- I see Victoriana and instantly think of Cult Nails Let Me Fly. Then it's over for me, and I have to use Let Me Fly. I just love it.



 

This is two coats of Cult Nails Let Me Fly topped with Sation Pyramid Princess. I added on the glitter with a triangular makeup sponge. This always proves to be so much easier than I expect it to be. This manicure honestly might be my favorite manicure of all time. 

Below is a picture of Let Me Fly on its own. This is my first Cult Nails polish, so it holds a dear place in my heart. Eleven other Cult Nails polishes later and I still love this one the most. 


Still gorgeous even on its own.

Do you own Let Me Fly? Which are your favorite Cult Nails shades? Have a great weekend- stay safe and have fun if you get the weekend off! xo

Sunday, July 1, 2012

A Charming Gradient

I've been a horrible blogger lately and I'm so sorry. Some circumstances are out of my control, I just haven't been able to get on. I want to dedicate much more time to my nails and this blog but in reality sometimes that's just very difficult.

I also just realized that I missed posting my giveaway winner.. I will be doing that very soon, and shipping out those prizes ASAP.

On to what matters: the n a i l s !! I have been trying to showcase the Cult Nails Fairytale Collection as much as possible because I love it! Here's a gradient I did using Charming from that collection.




 

Colors Used: Cult Nails Charming, China Glaze Polarized

I just love the look of a glitter gradient. It's a great way to add glitter without piling it on the full nail! It's very girly and pretty. I got a lot of compliments on this understated manicure!

The China Glaze Prismatics Collection is awesome. I'll be featuring a full mani with another polish from this collection tomorrow. Luckily I found almost the entire collection on clearance at Sally's for three-something a polish!

I'm going to see Scotty McCreery in concert today, I'm sooooo excited! He is so beautiful and has an AMAZING voice! I will definitely be posting pictures tomorrow!

Friday, June 22, 2012

Cult Nails Flakie Heaven: Feelin' Froggy

my giveaway ends soon! don't forget to enter to win Floam, Fantasy Fire & Flecked !!

Continuing on with the Cult Nails feature! In my last post, I posted swatches of Evil Queen. Today, I'm going to show you two additional polishes from Cult Nails' newest collection, Feelin Froggy and Happy Ending.



 

Colors Used: Cult Nails Feelin Froggy, Fingerpaints Flecked, Cult Nails Happy Ending

I went out of my comfort zone with this one- I am NOT a fan of green polish, which is ironic because green is my favorite color! Makes no sense, I know! Anyway, I wanted to use a flakie from the Fingerpaints Special Effects Collection to give this manicure more dimension. I think it worked! Using the same-colored flakies (greens) in Flecked combined with the multicolored flakies in Happy Ending, this manicure really popped. 

Even though I don't dig green polish, I like the way this manicure came out! :)

Tuesday, June 19, 2012

Cult Nails Evil Queen: I have found my perfect red!

my giveaway ends soon! don't forget to enter to win Floam, Fantasy Fire & Flecked !!

OK. You guys have to brace yourselves for this one! I haven't been able to stop staring at my nails since I put this on yesterday. This is the perfect red.



 

Colors Used: Cult Nails Evil Queen

I'm not a red person. I like the look of red nails but I could personally take or leave red polish... yet this was the first one in the collection I reached for to use... that just tells you how AMAZING it is! Clean-up wasn't bad, which is always a reason I tend to stay away from reds. Even the littlest bit of stray polish on cuticles/skin is so hard to get off, and leaves ugly stains on your skin. As you can see, there was none of that with this polish! As per usual, the formula is spot on. In fact, this could easily be a one-coater, but I'm so OCD with using 2-3 coats of polish that I added another coat to the first one.

Cult Nails is definitely an amazing brand. I'm not one to buy full collections, but I knew I had to have this collection so I pre-ordered it right away! Although the pre-order is over, the collection is available for purchase (either single bottles or the entire collection together) on Maria's website. If you don't already, follow Cult Nails on Facebook to keep up with sales and new colors. 

Sunday, May 6, 2012

Glitter Gradient Mani: an easy but gorgeous way to spice it up!

I have a huge final project to do that's due Tuesday (due Tuesday = do Tuesday??) but here I am posting blog updates ahead of time. The few weeks I didn't post anything I continued to do my nails... so, I have SO many manicures I still need to show you guys. This gradient mani is one I just did yesterday.

First and foremost, let me show you the INSPIRATION of this manicure:

This manicure was done by the owner and creator of Cult Nails, Maria. Maria posted this on Instagram a couple of days ago and I fell in love!

I've never tried a glitter gradient (or ANY gradient) before so I thought I'd give it a shot! Here is my version!





Did you notice something different about these pictures?...
....that's right! They were taken of my LEFT hand instead of my RIGHT! I am a leftie, so my right hand always comes out a smidge better than my left. Take a look at how wonky the nails are on my right hand..

 

My middle fingernail broke and the others are awkwardly too long.. I just didn't want to trim too much on the other nails because they are looking good! I just couldn't take taking all of my pictures of these nails at their random lengths, so I decided to give my left hand some time to shine. ;-)

What I Used:
1 coat of OPI Natural Nail Base Coat
3 coats of Cult Nails Devious Nature
1 coat of Icing Tiger's Blood (Cult Nails Captivated dupe) sponged on
1 coat of Poshe Top Coat

I'm so happy with how this came out. I was feeling unsure midway through but I love my end result. Devious Nature was more watery and runny than I expected. Two coats may have been sufficient but I simply preferred the look of three instead.  

What do you think? Do you like this look? Have you tried it before, or do you plan on trying it?

Friday, February 10, 2012

Vacation Series: Cult Nails Cruisin Nude

It's Day One of my vacation series! It seemed obvious to pick Cruisin Nude to start this feature off.. after all, I am going on a cruise! I bought this polish when Cult Nails had the free shipping sale a few weeks back. I'm glad I did. Check it out.

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Haul Pictures

Hey guys! Happy Hump Day! Because Unicorn Puke is so gorgeous, I didn't want to do another manicure and take UP off last night. So, today you all get to see my haul pictures from the past few days. See, I'm unlike a lot of other nail bloggers in that I don't just paint one hand for swatches of colors to post on here. ALL of which you see are polishes I wear for full manicures. I like doing this because I can get an overall feel for a particular color/brand/ regarding wear time and appearance.

I'll start with a picture of yesterday's/my current mani.. *drool*

Two girls in my math class yesterday were like "I can't stop staring at your nails! They're so beautiful!" Yes, ladies, I agree.

On to the haul...

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Cult Nails Unicorn Puke- pic heavy, as deserved!

Hi readers! Do I have a treat for you today! I pre-ordered this beauty a few weeks ago from a budding polish company based in Florida. This polish is so gorgeous and became so popular. The company's creator decided to make it exclusive and only released 275 bottles. Not to worry, if you missed it, the same color is being released as a part of Cult Nails' winter collection, just under the name "Clairvoyant." Without further adieu.. check this out!

Thursday, July 7, 2011

Cult Nails Let Me Fly & A Moment For Caylee

Hello everyone! :) Happy Thursday. I can't believe I'm still up- I was up at 5am this (well, yesterday) morning for work so I've been up almost 21 hours lol. I just did an awesome manicure I can't wait to share with you! It's my first Cult Nails polish, Let Me Fly. I've been eying this one color from the brand for the longest time, going back and forth with myself whether I should spend the $10+shipping for it. When the brand had a sale this weekend, the polish was only $7.40 and I was so excited to snag it before the color sold out!!! Probably one of my best polish purchases to date. The color is gorgeous. See for yourself!


Taken with flash


Taken with flash again- which I don't usually do, but the color came out better this way. Here's a close-up of the cute little flower decal from Sally's! 


No flash


No flash


And today's haul-
on top from l->r Señorita Rose-alita, Significant Other Color, and Cozu-melted In The Sun
bottom Imagine If..., Bewitching Bordeaux

Last but CERTAINLY not least.. I just want to mention Caylee Anthony for a minute. Ugh, this whole situation just makes me so sad. I hate that Caylee won't get her justice.. she was just murdered, and that's it. I still can't fathom someone EVER murdering anyone, most especially an innocent, beautiful baby girl. UGH. Sick people. Hopefully karma will come around and bite that Casey Anthony hard in the ass.

And, that is all. Good night! Thank you for the continued comments and followers!! :-)