Bettina Ocean

Good Morning Babes! Today I have Bettina Ocean from the Resort Collection. This is probably the polish that I was the most excited about because the color is so different, and I am not disappointed. For the swatches below I used 2 thin coats of Ocean, Konad plate M85 with special white polish, and topped it off with Seche. I am in love with Bettina, the formula is AMAZING, such an easy paint and dries lightning fast - like to the touch with pressure in a couple of minutes! The sun finally showed its face today so I was able to get some good pictures without having to use flash :)

And here's a swatch of Ocean by itself, check out how shiny it is with NO top coat, all the Bettina's are like that (at least the ones I've swatched so far).


Without flash



With Flash

 Can you believe that shine?!??! There is no top coat on Ocean by itself! The stamp-icure pictures are most accurate, but this polish is absolutely beautiful and you really have to see it in person! How do you like Ocean and the stamp I chose to go with it? I didn't want to take it off!


Kisses
Marketta

Guest Post: Carolina from Colores de Carol

Today I have a guest post from Carolina over at Colores de Carol. I LOVE her blog and her creativity, she's so sweet and gave me tons of pointers when I went to her with questions when I first started my blog :) . She was also one of my first followers which was so exciting because you don't expect a blog that you are crazy about and that's very popular to be one of your first followers. Here's the lovely mani she sent over:

Hello gentle readers,
When Marketta asked me to do a Guest Post for her I couldn't deny because she is a very enthusiastic girl. She's always looking to learn and improve her skills. Today I'm showing you a manicure I did specially for her readers. For this manicure I applied two coats of Nicole by OPI Green Up Your Act!, a creamy army green, then I applied one coat of Sinful Colors Green Ocean, a clear base with green glitter and larger green flakies. For the design I used Bundle Monster plate BM 210 and China Glaze Cherish.

Thank you very much for letting me share my manicure with you. I hope you like it.
Love,
Carolina

                                                                                                                                                                  

Don't you love what she came up with? I sure do, Thanks Carolina! 

Kisses
Marketta

  

My First Red EVER - Bettina Garnet!

Good Morning Babes! Today I have my first red mani, like EVER. Red has just never been a color that I have cared for, but I figured that hey I'm 27 and I noticed that if the nails are short or not to long its actually sexy! What I have for you today is the first Bettina that I'm cracking open, Garnet from the Metallic Collection. I used two coats but its very pigmented and could have done with one, and the formula is the best I have used to date. Garnet is very dark red, like it maybe has just a splash of burgundy in it with red micro shimmer. I just love the metallic foil like look it has! It dries very fast to a very pretty glass like finish. It drug a little on my middle finger (you can see the slight dent) so I would suggest a little wait time between coats, which isn't much because they dry lightning fast. I topped it off with Seche.



Taken with flash so you can see the micro shimmer.

The micro shimmer isn't gold, but that's just what the flash did. What do you think of Garnet? I LOVE it and think I chose perfectly for my first red mani!

Base Coat: Nubar Foundation Base Coat
Color: Bettina Garnet
Top Coat: Seche Vite


Kisses
Marketta

Puerto Rico Haul

Today I am one happy camper because I finally have some Bettina in my hands! My daughter Lala's Godmother is from Cidra, PR so when I found out that Bettina isn't the easiest to get your hands on I called her sweet sister and she kindly went Bettina hunting for me. I made a list of 29 polishes that I wanted and out of that she was able to find 27! In Puerto Rico Bettina retails for $2, so this haul is actually cheaper than most since I can get 9 Bettina's for the price of 1 Deborah Lippmann or 2 OPI's. Its a win win, so here's what I got, all names are from left to right:

Metallic Collection: Copper, Garnet. Gems Collection: Topaz, Platino. Candy Collection: Marshmallow, Cotton Candy.

Art Deco Collection: Purple, Aqua, Brown.

#28, #138, #187, #190 all from the main collection.

Nature Collection: Trees, Haze, Ocean, Clouds.

Resort Collection: Flip Flop, Mojito, Sunrise, Starfish, Pink Bikini.

Jeans Collection: Sand Blast, Indigo, Over Dyed, Glitter Jean, Premium Wash.



The two that were sold out everywhere were Vintage Jean from the Jeans Collection and Grape from the Candy Collection. None of these polishes are the full collections that I ordered other than the Jeans and one was sold out, these were just my picks based on colors that I'm usually not open to and wanted to try or colors that I love and don't have that particular shade. Best haul ever right? I went out on restriction with a bang!

Kisses

Marketta

Zoya Purity Stamp-icure

Today I have a simple stamp-icure (as I call them) for you. I stamped using BM 205 and Color Club's Hot Like Lava and Foil Me Once. I didn't want it to look super so I used two colors for the stamp and I like how it came out. I haven't swatched the Foiled Collection yet but they are really good to stamp with! Here's how it came out:

For the base I used Zoya's Purity. This is the best white polish that I have found so far, its very clean and a white that you can actually wear on its own. Two easy coats and so easy to paint with. It also dries very fast to a nice glossy finish that doesn't need a top coat but I always use one.

How do you think it came out? I think its cute! :)  Thanks for stopping by!


Kisses
Marketta

Pink Wednesday!

For today's Pink Wednesday I'm doing a China Glaze edition. I have 3 pink China Glaze polishes and 1 crackle (I should have 5 but I will get into that at another time), so I'm going to knock out the 3 solids with 1 post as I have over 100 polishes to swatch through before I can add to my collection. What I'm showing you today is Sprinkles, Strawberry Fields, and Don't Touch My Tiara. Strawberry Fields I bought for obvious reasons - Its gotten rave reviews and I loved the unique color blend, Sprinkles I hadn't actually viewed a swatch before I purchased it but it was just so pretty that I couldn't resist (you will see why), Don't Touch My Tiara because it has a beautiful shimmery metallic look with a hint of pearl to it, and Broken Hearted because I was disappointed in OPI's Pink Shatter, I wanted it to be REALLY pink and it wasn't so I bought the Crackle (you will see this one on another day). Now onto the swatches...



Sprinkles - I LOVE this color! I think its absolutely FAB! This is officially my new favorite pink glitter until I can find something to top it! Its a medium pink polish with hot pink glitter. There's enough glitter for the glitter to be noticeable but not so much to where it would be inappropriate to where it to certain places like work. I used 3 thin coats to reach my desired opacity. Very easy to paint with, perfect formula, and good dry time. I used Seche as a top coat. I fell in love with the sprinkles, they really do look like sprinkles! The best part is that it translates onto the nail just as you see it in the bottle. I didn't want to take it off :(



With flash so you can see the gold micro shimmer.



Strawberry Fields - Well this polish speaks for itself because its so popular, and every blogger has blogged about it. Hot pink polish with gold micro shimmer. The formula is a little on the thick side but in a good way. Two easy coats and dry time was ok, I used Seche on this one as well.

 

Don't Touch My Tiara - A dark pink polish that looks like it could be a metallic or chrome polish in the bottle but it definitely is not. It has a sort of pearl  like flow to it that makes it really pretty in my opinion. The formula was thin but evened out perfectly and opaque at 2 coats. I used Seche as a top coat which drug the polish a little on my index finger (which you can see in the pictures), so I put that down immediately and grabbed INM Out the Door.

Which one is your favorite? I love Sprinkles and I can't wait until next summer to wear it a lot, hey I might be seen wearing it a few times this fall lol!

Kisses

Marketta

Nails Inc Special Effects 3D Glitter Collection

Today I have four polishes by Nails Inc. to show you. Fitzroy Square, Bloomsbury Square, Connaught Square, and Sloane Square are part of the collection new to Sephora. I've never tried Nails Inc. so I was pretty excited to try these out. For each polish I used Kensington Caviar base coat (by Nails Inc. which is supposed to prevent staining and very good for your nails), two coats of polish and 1 coat of Seche to finish it off.

Connaught Square - a clear base with blue and chunky purple glitter. Very easy to work with for such a jammed packed glitter polish. Cleanup was piece of cake piece of pie, you don't have to worry about using the foil method for any of these.

Fitzroy Square - a clear base polish with green glitter and chunky teal glitter. I personally think this is the star of the collection. I was very surprised that I loved it so much because I was just thinking green, but its really more of a turquoise. Very beautiful color that was very easy to work with!

Bloomsbury Square - a clear base with purple glitter and chunky red glitter. I didn't like this one at all. I think that the red glitter was to overpowering of the purple, maybe hints here and there would have been better. It could just be that I didn't like it on my skin tone, but either way I didn't like this one at all. This one also had the only hard to work with formula, it was the most difficult buy very thick and goopy. Also, this one was the only one that the glitter was a bit of a nightmare to clean up and dry time was slow...



Flash

 

No flash

Sloane Square - a clear base with silver glitter and chunky iridescent glitter. This polish was very easy to work with but is definitely a layering polish. It doesn't build to opacity easily like the others but I think it would look really good layered on top of OPI's Suzi Skis in the Pyrenees.

Flash

No flash

My only major complaint is the brush which is really soft and flimsy. I'm definitely not jumping for joy over this collection, so I think I will just try some of Nails Inc. regular polishes and stay away from their glitters until I'm wowed. The sun is back in hiding, so getting good pictures really sucked and I wasn't really happy with any of them but I wanted you to see this collection. What do you think of this collection?


Kisses
Marketta