The Manicured Monkey's Giveaway!

The Manicured Monkey is having a giveaway! You can enter here and below is what you have the chance of winning and the rules.

Nubar- 2010 and Brilliant (pink holo)
Wet N Wild- Tangled in your web, correction tape, behind closed doors, cougar attack, Fantasy Makers glow in the dark
Orly- Fowl Play
Headband- from my Etsy shop, you will get to choose what color/shape/finish you would like.
Rules:Must be 18 to enter or have your parents permission, Required fields in form must be filled in, you must be a public follower, One form submission per person.
Giveaway ends on October 16, 2011 at 6 pm, pacific time and is open internationally.
I will be verifying entries and verifying the winner before I announce them, so be honest. 

Layla Magneffect Blue Grey Flow

Today I have another Layla Magneffect polish for you. Blue Grey Flow was the polish that I wanted the most out of the collection released, I just love the ways it looks. In the magnetic polishes, the lighter color is the actual color of the polish before using the magnet. The formula is thick but not unmanageable or sloppy. I used IMN Out The Door as a top coat which sped up the already very fast dry time. I wore this polish for two days, and it looked the same is it did on day one. I used two coats but if I really wanted to I could have gotten away with one. Onto the swatches:

I love this color! I really should have swatched the actual color before doing the effect, so I guess I will do that on my last one when I get ready to swatch it.

The line is how you want to align the magnet on your nail. Whichever direction (up/down, diagonally, across) you aim the magnet will be the direction the design flows.


How are you liking Layla's Magneffects?


Kisses
Marketta

Pink Wednesday

For today's Pink Wednesday I used all OPI. My base color is two coats Steady As She Rose, which is a dusty pale baby pink that has a slight grey undertone. The formula was great and easy to paint with. I stamped using Bundle Monster plate 215. First I stamped with I'm Indi-a Mood For Love, then went over it with Sparrow Me the Drama. Sparrow Me the Drama came out much lighter than I anticipated, so it didn't have the exact effect I wanted but it still came out cute.

If you look close you can see the Sparrow Me the Drama scales. Below is Steady As She Rose which I used for the base. It was hard to capture the true color of it today.



Inside with flash




Outside


What do you think of my snakeskin stamp-icure? I think next time I will definitely use darker colors.


Kisses
Marketta

Layla Magneffect Changing Lilac

What I have for you today is my first magnetic mani! I was super excited to try this because of the effect it has on the polish. What you do is paint you nails, and right after applying polish you put the magnet as close as you can get it to the nail without actually toughing it. You have to do one nail at a time because it needs to be done the second you finish your last brush stroke. There are a few different ways you can do it, up/down, side/side, and diagonally which I did. I ordered my magneffect from Aveyou Beauty Boutique, and here's my first attempt:

This is two coats with a top coat of INM Out the Door. This polish is thick but easy to manage, and the brush holds a lot of polish so you will want to clean some off before applying. I really didn't need the super fast drying top coat because dry time is really good on this polish. If you look at my index finger I didn't have the magnet quite as diagonal as the others, so make sure you pay attention to that (I don't know about you but stuff like that bugs me to no end if I plan of wearing the mani for a few days) Let me show you a few more pictures...

What do you think about Changing Lilac?


Kisses
Marketta

Nail Catastrophe!

I so am not a happy camper today because two of my nails broke on my swatch hand. I'm right handed, so when I am just swatching I paint my left hand. Well yesterday on my thumb I have a side split in the nail bed, and my index finger just did a clean break. My nails grow pretty fast but with the split in my nail bed I'm going to be nubbin it, and I'm upset because I was almost at my favorite length. Here's some pictures of the damage done and to show you why my mani's are going to be a little nubby for the next few weeks:

:(  I'm so sad right now, I had tons of Halloween ideas that I wanted to do on longer nails, but now they all have to be cut to be uniform. Do you see how my ring finger has a little tint to it? That's stain from OPI Swimsuit... Nailed it! So I haven't swatched it yet because I'm waiting on my base coat that's supposed to prevent staining. Btw that stain is about 2 weeks old and i've tried lemon juice, so layer on the base coats!


Kisses
Marketta

Deborah Lippmann Lady Sings the Blues

I was super excited to try this one after I swatched Ruby Red Slippers! Lady Sings the Blues has a blue black jelly base with silver regular sized and hexi glitter. The application was terrible, the formula is very thick and the brush holds a ton of polish. In the pictures below I used 2 coats. If you look you will see that cleanup was no walk in the park.

I do love the color and it has good dry time but I will have to make sure I have plenty (and I now have all my tools and supplies to make my mani's look much better <3 ) of time on my hands to see if it comes out better next time.

What do you think?

Kisses

Marketta

Polish Hauls

I've been meaning to update but just kept forgetting. I'm currently on polish restriction and I am allowing myself to buy anymore polishes until I swatch my entire collection. I will probably have 2 more haul posts as I have some babies floating around out there that haven't made it to me, and I have family in Puerto Rico sending me a bunch of Bettina polishes (I am nearly bursting for those to arrive!)  :) . So this haul is actually from a few different places that I will explain below:

This haul comes from a trip to my local Target. From left to right Burt's Bees shea butter hand repair cream, Sally Hansen green (the sticker was missing on the top so I have no name or number for you, sorry :-/ ), Sun Kissed, White On, Black Out, Celeb City, NYC 105 Starry Silver Glitter, NYC 130 Classic Coral Creame, and Burts Bees lemon butter cuticle cream (which I have heard is amaze).

Amazon haul: Deborah Lippmann Ruby Red Slippers, Some Enchanted Evening (was on sale for $12 so I got two, one for me and the other for when I have a giveaway), and Lady Sings the Blues.

Sally Beauty Supply haul: INM Out the Door top coat and Northern Lights holo top coat.

ULTA haul: Seche Vite, OPI natural nail base coat, OPI - Pirates of the Carribean Collection.  Zoya - Phoebe matte, Mitzi matte, and Lolly matte. China Glaze Broken Hearted crackle. There was a sale at ULTA today when you buy 2 you get one free (OPI) and also a top or base coat for that combo too, so thats how I got the Seche and the OPI base coat - They Were FREE :)

Sephora haul is all Nails Inc: Kensington Caviar (which is supposed to work good to prevent staining), Electric Lane holo glitter topcoat, Fitzroy Square, Sloane Square, Bloomsbury Square, Connaught Square. The last four are from the 3D Glitter Collection new to Sephora.



From left to right Misa Spaced Out and Gray Matters, China Glaze Don't Touch My Tiara, Sprinkles and Snow Globe. I believe I got the two Misa and CG Snow Globe are from Trans Design, and the two pink CG are from Victoria Nail and Beauty Supply. I got them mixed up while taking the picture, which is why I should have taken a picture when it first came in the mail.

Ok so the two pink CG from the last group and these two pictures above all came from Victoria Nail and Beauty Supply. What I have here is Color Clubs Foil and Beyond the Mistletoe collections (since its the whole collection I am not going to name them) and Blue-topia.

Whew, so that concludes my haul and I'm now up to date. I won't be putting that off again lol. My polish collection is updated every time I get a new polish, so it never needs to be updated. Stay tuned for swatches :)

Kisses

Marketta