31DC2016 - Watermarble - Zoya Fall Watermarble

*Press Samples*

Hi everyone! Today is Watermarble day in the 31 Day Challenge and I thought I would showcase my newest fall creme collection! Let's take a look!

Falling for Nail Art Challenge: Back to School

Hi everyone! I have decided to participate in another nail art challenge, but this time one that isn't every day to make it less stressful. The lovely Ashley from Plump and Polished is hosting a fall themed nail art challenge called "Falling For Nail Art". If you want to participate, please join in! This is just the first day. If you post on Instagram, please use #fallingfornailart so everyone can see your work!

So day one is "Back to School" and I decided to take my Cheeky XL Top of the Class plate to do some notebook paper nails. I loved the cute doodle stamps on that plate, so I tried to make it look like they were doodled on the paper. For the base I used Sinful Wisp (my new favorite white) and then I freehanded the stripes with blue and pink Kiss Nail Art Stripers. After that fully dried, I stamped my doodle images with black. It was a super simple mani that looks quite striking!

Thanks for looking everyone!

piCture pOlish Blog Fest 2013: Year of the Blogger

Hi everyone! I am so honored to be selected to participate in the piCture pOlish Blog Fest 2013, which features bloggers from all over the world. A year ago, I never would have thought I would be selected to take part, so I'm very excited! This year's theme was "Year of the Blogger", which focuses on celebrating bloggers and what we do best. We were challenged to create our "most amazing nail art manicure ever" using 3 different piCture pOlish shades. I feel like simple, yet bold designs are what I do best, so I have one here for you today!

Oh and guess what...there are awards! How exciting! All of the participants in Blog Fest 2013 will go into the running to win the chance to create a Collaboration Shade with piCture pOlish to be released in 2014! There will be 3 awards chosen based on voting. You can view the entries on a special pin board on Pinterest created for the Blog Fest, and then cast your vote on piCture pOlish's website in the Blog Fest 2013 Zone. You have a chance to win free polish when you cast your vote as well! The awards are as follows:

 1 x award as voted by piCture pOlish friends and fans    

1 x award as voted by the participants of Blog Fest 2013

1 x award as voted by Jules and Megs of piCture pOlish

piCture pOlish sent me 3 shades to use in my mani: Ocean (turquoise blue jelly with scattered holo shards), Mad Magenta (hot pink/magenta crème), and Honey Dew (soft mint green crème). We were allowed to use the 3 shades that we were given as well as black and/or white as accents in our manicures. After much deliberation, I decided that I really wanted to play on the jelly quality of Ocean with my nail art and chose to use it in a stamped jelly sandwich with dotted accents. For those of you who are unfamiliar with jelly sandwiches (at least the nail variety), it is a technique in which you "sandwich" glitter between layers of a jelly polish so that the glitter peeks through due to the sheer nature of the jelly. In this case, I am using a stamped design instead of glitter.

Here are some quick swatches of Mad Magenta and Honey Dew before we get started. 

Mad Magenta (2 coats) - this one wanted to lean more purple in pictures than in real life

Honey Dew (3 coats) - It did not give me lobster hands in real life, but mints seem to do that in pics 

Here is a step-by step tutorial on how to achieve this look. As you will see, it is quite simple.

1. I started off with a base of Ocean (2 coats). If I was going to wear it on its own, I would probably use 3 coats because there is still a bit of visible nail line, but for the purposes of the jelly sandwich, I just used 2 because I am going to add more coats. Allow to dry completely before going to step 2.

As you see, Ocean has those lovely holo shards (NOT glitter) that piCture pOlish does so well.

2. Using the Cheeky XL Musical Nails stamping plate and Konad White polish, I stamped a design over Ocean. You could use pretty much any design you wanted with white and it would work equally as well with this manicure, I would just choose one with a bold pattern. Also, something that has recently been a big help with stamping is my discovery of gauze squares (found in the first aid section of your local pharmacy). They are lint free and thus don't leave you with fuzzies on your stamper and plate when cleaning up like cotton pads do.

3. Next, I layered 1 additional coat of Ocean over the stamped design. Doesn't this look awesome? I have done this with regular jellies before, but the holo shards in Ocean make this look sparkly and magical!



4. Finally I used Honey Dew and Mad Magenta to add dots to my design. I used a paper plate to dab little pools of polish to dip my dotting tools in. As you can see, the design I chose has some logical places to add dots (the circles) but if your design doesn't have circles, you can certainly still add dots to liven it up it. When I did the dots, I did not do them all the same size but instead used several different sizes of dots to give the design more of a random, unstructured feel. Wait about 10 minutes or so before adding topcoat to complete your design to avoid smearing the dots.

So that's it! The completed look is very striking, but the process to achieve it is quite simple. I hope that it will be easy for anyone to reproduce using the pattern of your choice. It reminds me a bit of a psychedelic Starry Night painting or planets of some sort. And if you are scared of stamping, DON'T BE! Get yourself one of those squishy stampers (like the one I have pictured above) and it makes the process SO much easier. 



piCture pOlish products are available from their website based out of Australia. They do ship internationally and details about their shipping policies are available on their shipping page. piCture pOlish also has international stockists located all over the world. I have personally ordered from Llarowe, Overall Beauty, and Harlow & Co., but a complete list of stockists is located on piCture pOlish's network page. Also, be sure to check out their Everyday Deals section to score awesome deals on polishes! 

To keep up with all of the new happenings at piCture pOlish, be sure to follow them on Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, Twitter, Google+, and You Tube.

I hope you guys have enjoyed my contribution to piCture pOlish Blog Fest 2013! Please be sure to check out all of the other participants today and see the amazing nail art they have created (and vote (for me!) on Pinterest once the contest is up and running!). You can also find pictures on Instagram using #ppblogfest2013. Thanks for looking everyone!



Lush Lacquer Splish Splash with Neon Dots

Hi everyone! So...the favorites thing has TOTALLY taken much longer than I anticipated. I am still diligently working on it and I will get done hopefully some time this month! I have a LOT of blue, green, and purple favorites that needed decent pics, so swatching all of those is a TON of work. Also...I haven't forgotten about the giveaway! I promise! I just have a few things in the works that are taking a little time, but I promise it will be worth the wait! I do have a vacation coming up, so I might not be posting as much at the beginning of July, but I promise I will make up for it in the last half.

And back to our regularly scheduled programming...

So today I have one of the new Lush Lacquers from their neon collection called Splish Splash. This is a blue and green neon glitter in a clear base. The glitters in the Lush Lacquer neons are all a little translucent, so they look best layered over a light base color so that the colors really pop. For this mani, I layered 2 coats of Splish Splash over a white base (Sinful Gel Shine Wisp) and on the accent nails, I have used Finger Paints Inkblot Blue and Silkscreen Green to make the dots.

 

 

NOW...Sinful Gel Shine Wisp. This polish is from Sinful's new Gel Shine line so it won't be with all of the regular Sinful polishes at the drugstore. I have seen them in a separate, tower-like display at several Walgreens. All of my white cremes are getting low and I tend to use it a lot in the summer, so I picked this polish up at Walgreens on a whim. I am VERY pleased with it as a white. the formula was excellent and was actually pretty opaque and streak-free at one thick-ish coat. I did 2 coats for good measure. It is also cheap, so hey...pick it up and give it a try. Comment back here and let me know about your experience with it if you decide to get it. I'm curious if it was just a fluke that it worked so well for me.

Lush Lacquer is available from creators' Karin and Lexi's Etsy Store as well as from Llarowe. Thanks for looking everyone!