So these are about as Spring as my nails have gotten recently!! I got a new glitter at Sephora back in December and I'm JUST getting around to using it. That's OK though because it's absolutely perfect for Spring.  I couldn't decide which color would be best to wear it on and I started with the idea of using it only on the cream colored nail and then using a white glitter on the other nails but I just didn't love the effect over cream.  I actually think I prefer it over the blue nails! The base colors here are my FAVORITE pastels, the Lime Crime line. They have such a great formula and while they are pastel, they're also nice and bright.  What's are your favorite colors for Spring?

It's the final of the Digit-al Dozen's celebration series, The Digit-al Dozen, Does it All Again! Today's challenge was fashion! Last time we did fashion I had TOO many ideas! I actually had another mani planned for today too but then I came across this pic on Olivia Blois Sharpe's instagram:

and I was like, "Oh this HAS to happen on my nails!" So my fashion week mani became my Bling mani and here we are! I LOVE the way these turned out. And they were hella easy to do as well. You can catch a tutorial for them on my tutorial page! I'm sad to see the Digit-al Dozen year anniversary celebration end BUT I'm so excited for you all to see what we have planned for the next year!

Please don't forget to enter the September Specatcular for your chance to win a $200 gift card! THERE'S ONLY ONE DAY LEFT TO ENTER!! And check out what my fellow Digit-al Dozener's came up with by clicking the link below!!

It's day ten of the Digit-al Dozen's celebration series, The Digit-al Dozen, Does it All Again! Today is book themed!  I covered a lot of my favorite books last time we did this challenge so for a change I wanted to do a book I've recently read! These nails are to represent The Curious Incident of the Dog In The Night-time.  I actually found this book at a book store and for whatever reason started flipping through it.  It has all these little charts and pictures inside and a very unique writing style so I decided to purchase it.  Me being a little more frugal when it comes to books (I buy so many it doesn't make sense to buy them at full price), I went to my nearest half priced store and picked it up for right around $7.  It's not my usual style of book but it's very interesting and it was a good read. It was definitely worth the time and money! So the ring finger is obviously meant to represent the cover and the others represent the yard where the incident occurs, the city the main character is trying to get to and a chart of frogs he makes at some point.  I hope you all enjoy the nails!!

 

Please don't forget to enter the September Spectacular for your chance to win a $200 gift card! And check out what my fellow Digit-al Dozener's came up with by clicking the link below!!

It's day two of the Digit-al Dozen's celebration series, The Digit-al Dozen, Does it All Again!  Today's design theme is Halloween.  Halloween is one of my most favorite times of year! I love dressing up and going to the parties and the fall weather! I can't wait for it to come around again! Today I decided to do a design based on sugar skulls.  I've seen a lot of people doing them and I haven't tried them yet so I thought now was as good a time as any! I found these super easy to do with just a simple dotting tool. I added a bit of glitter to make them more fun and sparkly but the great thing about them is that you can fancy them up any way you like!  Please don't forget to enter the September Specatcular for your chance to win a $200 gift card! And check out what my fellow Digit-al Dozener's came up with by clicking the link below!!

You can also check out last years Halloween designs by clicking here!

Colors Used: 

Zoya Purity and Raven

LA Nail Art in Gold Glitter 

Holographic Glitter Pen

Lime Crime Lavendairy and Parfait Day and Pastelchio

Today I have something fun for you!!  I received these Jamberry Strips to review from Shea at OMG Wait What Polish Is That.  I got a series of designs from her and eventually you will see them all!! This is the one I was most excited to get though!  They came as a little sample pack:

Well we have arrived at the final day of Geek Week with the Digital Dozen.  I'm super sad to see this week go. I loved sharing all my geekiness with you all!  For today, I'm paying tribute to the creator of Geek Week, Miss Geeky Owl herself!  These are my little geeky owl nails. :)  I actually love owls so this was a super fun one for me to do.  I also love Kirsten, of the Geeky Owl and I'm happy to give her a little love on my blog today. :) If you haven't already, please check out her blog! It's really great and she's a fellow owl lover and geek!  Thanks for following along with this week's challenge.  Stay tuned for next months theme. It's going to be WILD. ;P

Colors Used:

Lime Crime:

 Crema de Limon, Once in A Blue Mousse, Lavendairy, Parfait Day, Milky Ways and Peaches <3 Creme

Models Own Nail Art Pen in Black

Here's the result!  I left these top coat free because it seems to be a new trend to have slightly textured nails.  Plus they have this amazing sparkly quality to them which was intensified by the matte base color.  I LOVE the way this one shifts with rainbow-y flashes in the light.  It's very angelic looking.  This actually stayed on really well too even without a top coat.  And even though it had a slightly textured look to it, it didn't feel super gritty or catch on anything. This one seems understated but it's really not! It's a real stunner.  Here's a close-up...

You can pick up Gemini or other Lime Crime Glitters at Lime Crime Makeup.

Colors Used:

Orly Au Champagne

This product was sent to me for my honest review. I have not been compensated for my opinion.

Here comes another gorgeous glitter for you to drool over!! This one I'm especially in love with because...it's Aquarius and so is yours truly! :)  It's also a fabulous combination of deep blue and purple glitter.  There's a bit of a turquoise shift in there but the overall effect is a deep purple/blue.  What better to pair this amazing glitter with than Lime Crime's Lavendairy!  Lavendairy is from their Les Desserts de Antoinette polish line which I reviewed for you awhile back.  I'm still in love with them and use them quite frequently! I can't wait for summer because the bright pastel colors will be perfect for pool days! Anyway, on to the nails....

Lavendairy is not as pink as this looks on my screen but it's really hard to photograph these! It definitely has a pink undertone though. :)  So sparkly. I used a coat of Gelous this time before I applied my topcoat and it seemed to keep the glitter flat and shiny.  You can pick up Aquarius on LimeCrimeCosmetics.com. Trust me, you won't regret it!

These products were sent to me for my honest review. I have not been paid for my opinion.

Day two of the Digit-al Dozen art challenge is here! Today's inspiration was water color.  I used to really love using watercolors as a child and I still love the soft, sheer quality they have about them.  I used a new technique for this challenge and I'm considering making a tutorial for it since it's super easy and the effect looks really intricate.  I used a creamy base coat to sort of represent a canvas and then I used a fan brush to make patterns on the top.  A few days after I had this on I decided to add some glitter and it looked pretty amazing but then it started peeling off in sheets. Fail.  I think the glitter with the Gelous with the top coat with all the layers already on just became too thick.  I'll definitely be revisiting this technique so maybe next time I'll get it to work! Don't forget to check out the other girls art inspired mani's for today!

Lime Crime: Milky Ways

Color Club: Poptastic, Chelsea Girl and Pucci-licious

I have some gorgeous, gorgeous things to show you this week.  They are glitters. They are complex. They are stunning.  They are not polish.  But in a way, they're better than polish because I can use them in millions of creative ways and also on my face! There's really nothing better than a little glitter!  I have several of these to show you but today I'm starting with this one.  It's called Scorpio and it's from the new line of Zodiac glitters from Lime Crime Cosmetics.  The thing I love most about Lime Crime (other than the super packaging and whimsical colors!) is that they are a mostly vegan and cruelty free company (their primer contains beeswax).  Something that I'm really trying to stay on track with this year is going to vegan branded polishes and it's a wonderful thing to be able to go to a site, order whatever you like, and not have to peruse every ingredient to see if it's OK or not.  Anyway onto the important stuff!  Scorpio, as you can see above, is a black glitter with holographic particles throughout.  It has a very dark but fantastical feel to it and even though I'm so OVER the holo trend I was really drawn to this one.  The packaging is lovely too.  Here's the box they come in:

Then the bottom of the glitter containers show the color and the symbol for the zodiac sign:

Pretty, no?  I love how luxe the packaging looks.  It's all golden and delicately patterned. Gorgeous.  Anyway I decided what better way to use it than with my Lime Crime polishes?  So I mixed it with some top coat and did a gradient over Once in A Blue Mousse.

It could have used one more coat of Seche Vite. These glitters are pretty hungry but that's standard fare for a glitter. This is also gorgeous used on the eyes! :) What do you think?

These glitters were sent to me for my honest review. You can purchase them at LimeCrimeMakeUp.com.

Well it's been a long few days for me and I've been sleepy and cranky and not really in the mood to do much. Lol...but today I had a little bit of free time and I had an epiphany which turned into this mani.  I don't use texture much on nails which is something I'd like to start doing more often. It just gets in the way at my job and falls off or gets ruined.  But today was a good time to do it since I wasn't really going anywhere.  I also really liked the little kawaii angry cloud!  He's just sort of creeping in there!  I used Lime Crime Once in A Blue Mousse for the base and then used Zoya Purity to make cloudy tips.  After that I used a yellow and a black Models Own Nail Art Pen to make the cloud and the lightning bolt.  I don't know why but I always struggle with lightning bolts. They seem dead easy to make yet mine always go all pear shaped after the first stroke! This one was a little better! But it took two tries to get it this way and the top is still a bit lopsided.  Oh well...practice makes perfect, right?  What did you do with your weekend?

I used a combination of China Glaze Foie Gras and Lime Crime Milky Ways for the base which is meant to emulate the two tone skirt.  Then I used China Glaze Emerald Fitzgerald for the french to capture the jacket on top.  They kind of remind me of football season.  The brown ball and the green grassy field? No?   Alicia went home this week and I felt like while it wasn't warranted this challenge per say, it was about time she went home at any rate.  Did you like the winning look this week best? Do you think Alicia should have stayed?

Don't forget to check out what Emma and Jewli came up with this week!!

Today I have something SUPER exciting to share with you all!! Lime Crime's new polish collection, Les Desserts d'Antoinette. There are a few reasons I'm excited to share these with you, and only one of them is that I'm totally obsessed with Marie Antoinette!  If you're not familiar with Lime Crime, they are a cruelty free, vegan (they do have one product which contains beeswax) company which was born in 2008.  Until recently, the majority of their product line was eye shadows and lipsticks but they recently added nail polish and are currently adding a line of face products.  I do have a few Lime Crime eye shadows and they're lovely so I was interested to see how the polishes would be. So how were they?  Well here we go....

I'm starting with the brushes on these because I was surprised at the brush in the bottle!  Here I'm comparing Lime Crime's brush with a China Glaze and an OPI brush.  Since it comes in a shorter bottle I expected a thinner brush a la China Glaze but if you look at the picture you'll see that it's much closer to the wide brushes of OPI.  It's not quite as wide as the OPI but it's wide enough to cover the nail easily yet not so wide that it's not feasible for use on toes!  The cap and brush are shorter than a lot of commercial brushes; I'd liken them more to a butterLONDON brush where length is concerned.  There are seven polishes in the Lime Crime line, and here they are...

This is Milky Ways.  It's an off white polish intended for use with French manicures, but I'm in love with it on my nails.  It's almost got a hint of peach to it and it's a perfect soft white polish.  I could see myself wearing it just as is rather than as a French manicure.  The formula on this one was amazing.  With whites and cremes I usually find streakiness, unevenness, and thin formula.  This was none of the above.  This is two coats and there isn't a streak in sight!  It also dried to a shiny finish (there is no topcoat on these!) which is another big bonus for me!  I think this turned out to be my favorite of the bunch!

Next up we have Crema de Limon.  This is described as a pastel yellow but I think it leans a little more on the bright side than pastel.  I have a few pastel yellows and this is much more pigmented than any of those but it's not bright enough to be neon or unflattering. Like with Milky Ways there were no streaks, no unevenness and it dried to a shiny, glassy finish.  I don't know that I would have chosen this color for myself if I were buying these but it was actually very flattering on me which is surprising since yellows normally hate my skin tone! 

Then we have Peaches ♥ Cream.  This was my least favorite of the bunch.  It again is not really pastel but also not neon.  It's like pastel on a night out! Very pigmented and very vivid.  I didn't love it on my skin tone but even though it has peach in the name, they do describe it as an orange on the website which is much more color accurate.  I had some issues with formula on this one.  Even though all the polishes have the same viscosity, this one seemed to want to drag and streak a bit.  This is three coats and it evened out nicely but it was the only one of the bunch I needed three for.  It did dry shiny and glassy like the others, but it wasn't my favorite to work with. 

Here we have Parfait Day.  I'm just going to throw it out there...for a pastel collection, these are very intensely colored.  This one was no different than the others.  It's not as soft as you'd expect a pastel to be but I really loved this one.  I'm not a pink person by any means but this has the right amount of softness and femininity and just a punch of fierce.  No complaints on the formula on this one either.  Two coats, no streaks, shiny finish. 

This is Lavendairy.  This one surprised me a bit.  It really reminds me of Barry M Berry Ice Cream.  It's purple...but wait...it's also pink?  It's a very warm, pink toned purple and again it was very intensely colored.  These are not your grandmothers pastels.  The formula on this one was great but it didn't dry as shiny as the others.  I'm not sure if that's something to do with the pigments but it had a more semi-matte, neon type of finish.  Nothing a bit of top coat wouldn't take care of though.  This is another favorite for me.  It was super flattering and I like that it's not a straight up purple. 

Here's Once in A Blue Mousse.  This was another pleasant surprise for me.  It's blue and it's sort of pastel, but it has just a hint of soft green in it.  It really gives the color dimension and it was SUCH a pretty color.  Other than Milky Ways this is a favorite for me.  It was so gorgeous I hesitated to remove it to finish my swatching!!  I had a hard time capturing the color on this so it's more intense than what you see in the picture but the basic color is accurate.  It's not pastel but it's soft and rich.  No formula issues on this one.  This is two coats and it dried to a shiny finish.

Finally we have Pastelchio.  This one is a stunner.  It's literally almost a neon but it just hinges on that line of crossing over!  It's bright, intense and in your face.  I was surprised at how intense it really was when it was on my nails!  It did dry to a semi-matte type finish same as Lavendairy but again a little top coat solves the problem nicely.  The formula was lovely on this one, two coats no streaks, but beware of using a base coat on this one!! I didn't and I should have (duh) so I did get a bit of staining from it but nothing serious.  Actually I'm surprised it didn't stain worse with no base coat but I also didn't wear it for an extended period of time!

Overall, I'm really impressed with these.  I think the formula is on par with high end brands and the retail on these is $5.99 each which puts them at practically a drug store price point.  They're not thin but they're not super thick either and for the most part they only need two coats. The wear time on them is good, although I've only had them a day so I can't speak too much on how they wear.  So far so good and I have no chips or issues yet.  I love that they're unique colors, I haven't seen anything like them before and with over 900 polishes in my arsenal that's really saying something! I also love that they're vegan and three free! I'd love to get more of these in the future! Thanks for following along with me! I hope you enjoyed this collection!

Do you have any Lime Crime polishes? How do you like them?