Bee Polished

Life's a beach...

Here's a fun design I did forever ago! I'm still dreaming of sandy beaches and crashing waves. Winter is great and all but the coming new year always gets me thinking about new adventures and travels! How about you?

Colors used:

Zoya Cala and Mallory

MoYou White Knight

MoYou Scandi Collection 01

Seche Vite

12:00 PM
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In the dark of the night...

Who loves starry winter night skies and midnight snow storms? Well...maybe not the snow storms, at least if I have to work the next day. 😂😂 But here's a pretty design with stars and snow over a nice deep black base anyway.

Colors used:

China Glaze Maliboo-boo and Zoya snow white

12:00 PM
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Turks and Cai-quoise

Now that Christmas is over, is it too early to start thinking about tropical vacations? 😂 This was a pretty quick water marble done over China Glaze Kinetic Candy. I used China Glaze Liquid Leather for the black and OPI Goldeneye for the gold. Marbling seems to be tricky on shorter nails since there isn't as much space to get a great design but overall I liked the way these turned out!

12:00 PM
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Christmas pudding

Popping in with a quick Christmas design today! I hope you're all enjoying a lovely holiday (no matter what you're celebrating!) with family and friends. :)

Colors used:

China Glaze Midtown Magic

Zoya Snow White, Wyatt and Janel

12:00 PM
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Twas the night before Christmas...

Merry Christmas Eve (to anyone celebrating)!

Here's a fun Christmas inspired design done with

Essie Like Linen, and China Glaze Resting Grinch Face, Holly-Day, and Pure Joy.

12:00 PM
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Swatch of the Day Roundup!

It's time to round up another week of swatches! Can you believe I've actually made it two whole weeks? It's nearly Christmas, my little one has been sick, I've had MEGA tons of things to do at home and at work and yet...I haven't missed a swatch day yet! I'm super proud of that. I've found some serious stunners this week as well. Things I'd forgotten I even had. That's really the fun of this for me. At one point or another I really wanted all these polishes and now we're to the point I don't even remember them anymore. So part of the fun is to find those hidden gems and it sure brings back memories of why I bought them and when and all the things that were going on in my life and in the nail world at that time. I promised to stick to China Glaze this week and I mostly did but I did throw in one that wasn't just because it was a late night and it was sitting on my nail desk. I think it's OK to throw in some odd ones though because all China Glaze may get boring. Anyway here goes the round-up. I'm going to start throwing the art in as their own blogs so no art to show you this week but you're welcome to check out my Instagram if you want to stay ahead of the game. :P

Sunday we did this crazy glitter called You're a Hoot. This is from the 2013 On the Horizon collection and it's a clear base with yellow, orange and black matte bar glitter.

Monday I showed you this Megan Miller Collection deep purple called Velvet Lounge. This color DID NOT age well. It was ridiculously thin and needed tons of coats to be opaque. The cap has also cracked and the cork part came right off when I went to use it. Still a pretty color though. These were available online and at Anthropoligie stores.

Tuesday we got fancy with this crelly packed with glitter from the 2012 Cirque de Soleil Worlds Away collection. Another coat or two would have made it more opaque but I like the slight opacity of the base.

HOLO Wednesday! This one is OMG it's a UFO from the Hologlam 2013 collection. This collection wasn't nearly as holographic as its predecessor, the OMG collection but it does still have a nice linear holo effect. It's better in person than in pictures and it's better in sunlight than natural light. Unfortunately it's winter so...;P

Thursday we kept the holographic theme running with this black holo from the Paint it Black collection from -- wait for it -- Halloween 2018! That's right ya'll I purchased a polish this year. 😂 Anyway this one also has a nice linear holographic effect but it's not AS holo as the OMG collection either. Still gorgeous though.

Friday we threw it all the way back to 2013 for this fancy pants wild and weird Crinkle Chrome polish, Aluminate. Basically the Crinkled Chromes are a chrome finish with bar and round glitter throughout them. In person it does have a rather crinkled effect but in photos it looks a little more haphazard. At any rate it was a fun one and it definitely brought me back to the days when companies were trying to outdo one another for newest weird finish.

On Saturday my nails betrayed me and one of them broke at the quick. PAINFULLY. Honestly this time of year my job is hectic anyway so it wasn't the end of the world since shorter nails are easier to type with BUT it did make me a little sad to chop them all so short. Oh well. I picked a bright happy color for this one, Kinetic Candy from the 2012 Electropop collection. That one remains one of my favorite collections they ever did. Muted but bright pastels, gorgeous shiny finishes and holo glitter topper. Ahhh...those were the days. 😂😂

So that's the round up this week!! Art work will be popping up all week long so stay tuned! ;P

9:42 AM
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Swatch of the Day: Week One Roundup

If you've been following me on Instagram then you've probably noticed I've started a little thing called Swatch of the Day. It's pretty straightforward; everyday I swatch a random polish and then sometimes I add a little art or a stamp to it later in the evening to give you an idea of what you can do with it and how art looks over the top. Today I want to do a little round up for you of the polishes this week and then also explain a little bit WHY I decided to start doing this. Let's start with the roundup!!

The very first swatch was Zoya Wyatt. This is the only Zoya you'll see swatched this week and the reason for that is pretty easy. I pulled this off my nail station to do a swatch of for some Christmas art I was planning for my company's Ugly Sweater day. When I went to do that I noticed that...well...my nail station is a MESS. Which is largely the reason I hardly polish my nails anymore and when I do it's usually the same brands/colors. My helmers are bursting at the seams and polishes are tossed on polishes and honestly, finding anything worth using in that mess is just not an option. So hence, the swatch of the day was born. Wyatt is a gorgeous green by the way. It's a nice blue tone which is super flattering on me!

Wyatt got a little fancy sweater action with some white patterns. :P

Tuesday saw some pretty blue/grey polish with Intelligence, Integrity, and Courage from the 2014 China Glaze The Giver collection. This one is an old favorite of mine because it looks blue or grey or a combination of both depending on the lighting. That whole collection was full of muted and really unique shades and this one was no exception.

I jazzed this one up with some delicate floral and woodland designs.

On Wednesday I played with greens again and swatched another CG shade --Holly Day. This one from the Let It Snow 2011 collection. This one is really cool too because even though it's a pretty true Hunter green (perfect for this season!) it's got an almost jelly-like feel to it. It's just SLIGHTLY transluscent and squishy as it dries. Super shiny as well.

This one's fancy pants day was taken in a serious hurry...but these are meant to be quick swatches not full on reviews. At any rate some Barry M Gold Foil and a China Glaze glitter from the Grinch collection this year gave this one a fun twist.

Butter London Hamstead Heath was the pick for Thursday. It was sitting on my desk after I had gone through a box of polishes so I grabbed it and threw it in the mix. How gorgeous is this one though? Butter London is pretty well known now days for their creams and they don't do a ton of fun finishes anymore. I really miss the days of gorgeous polishes with serious depth like this one. Macro shot below for maximum droolage.

Seriously stunning. This was from a 2012 limited edition collaboration with GOOP.

Another Barry M Gold Foil design. I really loved this one so much. Glad I picked it up. It's definitely going in my keep pile!

On Friday I showed you another blue (and another China Glaze!). This one is Sea Spray and it's another oldie; the 2011 Anchors Away collection. This one is a pretty blue with a touch of a blue flash shimmer.

It got winterized with some sweater pattern. :)

Saturday we got really extra with this MASSIVE glitter bomb from the China Glaze 2012 Prismatic Chroma collection. This is a serious SERIOUS glittery festival on your nails. Because I'm not a savage and I don't hate myself I used a peel off base for this one. If you don't...well...be prepared to break out a chisel. 😂 Still a real stunner though.

A close up gives you a better idea of how much actual dang glitter is in this thing. Also you can really see the shift of the purple and blue base. It's a pretty sweet color but again, a peel off base is a great idea with this and also be aware that heavy glitter polishes have a tendency to seize up overtime so a thinner is a must if you plan to store this.

OK so why so much China Glaze and why the swatch of the day? Here is a snippet of ONE of my China Glaze drawers. Yes, you read that right. One CHINA GLAZE drawer (I have three of those. 😂😂). So the idea is I empty out the drawer, I pull one random shade out of it each day (toppers and special effects will be swatched over polishes of my choice), swatch it, potentially jazz it up and then it either goes in the keep, recycle (this will be for any polishes unable to be saved by thinner), or sell box. I'm also using this as an opportunity to clean the tops of them and possibly reorganize the drawers. Once I finish this first CG drawer I'll start a new brand or else we'll be looking at a solid year of CG. 😂 And if I get bored I may toss random shades from my desk top in there.