This is a quick mani I did for Valentines Day.  It's been nice out here lately which is out of character for this time of year! So I was feeling very Spring-like and wanted to use brighter colors.  These are my Color Club Poptastic colors again.  I'm in love with that collection.  A good friend got the set for my birthday last year and I literally use them all the time.  I also love that I've found this technique for making them more pastel so that now I can use them as neons and pastels! Anyway the idea of this manicure is scribbled hearts that are sort of scribbled in with color too!  I love the way it came out!!  What's on your nails for the holiday?

Colors Used:

Color Club Chelsea Girl, Twiggie, Poptastic, Pucci-licious and Almost Famous

Zoya Raven and Purity

Models Own Nail Art Pen in Black

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?

Today's challenge presents a valuable lesson in why I hate doing my nails in clinic at school.  A little background on what clinic first, in case some of you are unsure.  I started school for Nail Technology on January 18th.  In my state, the law requires that I have 200 hours of practical work before I can graduate and take the state board exam to obtain my license.  This means I must spend 200 hours working in a salon in order to graduate.  Since an actual salon cannot hire me until I have graduated, or at least, not to actually work on clients, we get to work in the school's on site Spa/Salon where we work on clients to get our hours.  Some days are wicked busy and I have client after client.  Other days are incredibly boring and those are the days when I usually do my nails or one of my classmates (usually Pauline...you'll see some of that VERY soon!).  Or occasionally, I actually do them in class.  The good thing about clinic is that it's usually pretty fun and it's a lot of free time where I can do my nails.  The bad thing about it is that it means I spend 70 or more hours away from my house which makes me extremely tired during the week. :/  The nails above were done in clinic.  Our clinic uses OPI products, though we have a handful of Orly and China Glaze polishes, and most of the polish choices are from the Pirates of the Caribbean collection so I usually bring my own.  Have you ever tried to bring 600+ nail polishes to school with you?  Yeah. Not so much.  I estimate that I have between 70 and 100 that I am able to comfortably (sort of ) take with me from home to school everyday.  Apparently I should have included more pastels in that count.  I chose the most pastel-y colors I had for this one and it still came out kind of bold for a pastel skittle.  So...when I got home I did them over...

Much better, no?  For the second skittle I used Orly Prelude to a Kiss and Models Own Bloo Bloo, Beth's Blue, Pastel Pink, and Utopia.  I'm going to try to be more prepared for the next few challenges!!  Thanks for following!