*Nothing to Disclose*

     How is everyone today? I don't know about you but I'm very happy it's Friday. I'm even more happy that  it's a holiday weekend and I don't have any plans. It seems like I've only been home long enough to wash clothes and repack before we were off for another adventure. I did manage to fit in a few nail art looks between trips and I wanted to share one of my favorites with you today. I call this look Bling and Swirls. But I bet you could have guessed that by the title of my blog post huh. 

    A few of you may have already seen this look floating around the interwebs in various places but in case you missed it here's your chance to see it in all its glory!

*Press Release*

*Press Release*

The Pretty & Polished 2016 Fall Collection consists of 10 polishes in total. We have Thermals, Glitters, Flakes, and Dusty Cremes! Lavendarling is a holo Lavender Polish filled with pink and blue flakes. This polish will turn to a darker blue/purple when cold. The change is subtle but very pretty.  Fall in Love a Latte is another thermal. This shade changes from a light brown to an off white when warm. It is filled with different shades of glitter that we feel represent Fall. Taupe me off and Leaf! is a taupe creme polish packed with browns, golds, coppers, and orange glitters to represent the falling leaves of the season.  Heavy Metal (the name is self-explanatory lol) is a silver based polish packed with metallic glitters in silver, gold, and copper. It also has a sprinkle of color shifting flakes that may be hard to see if you aren't looking for them.  Dark Magic is a dark gray creme holo with metallic purple hex and holo glitters.  Fuzzy Sweater is a mustard yellow creme packed with color shifting flakes.  Riverside Drive is a dark midnight blue creme with blue, silver and dark gray flakes. I Done Plum had it! is a plum creme shade packed with copper orange flakes.  Patch is a pumpkin orange dusty creme.  Creme De La Creme is a creamy sand shade and another one of our Fall Dusty Cremes! This collection will be available at Polish Con in Chicago on September 17th and available online (www.shopprettyandpolished.com) on September 23rd!  Color changers are $9 each Glitters and Flakes are $8.50 Dusty Cremes are $7.50 You will be able to purchase the full collection for $78 (which will qualify domestic orders for free shipping).

*Nothing to Disclose*

    Today I have a quick post to share with you. The reason I'm keeping it short is because this polish is no longer available. In fact, you can no longer get any polish from this company and I know a lot of people are still really bummed about that. Cult Nails was huge and had a lot of people lusting after their pretty creations. Disciplined was no exception, and you'll see why when you look at my pictures. 

    Released in 2013 as part of the Behind Closed Doors collection this neutral grey polish packs a big punch with its intense micro shimmer. 

*Nothing to Disclose*

     Happy Friday everyone! Another week has come and gone and it seems like the summer has just flown by. Soon it will be time for hoodies, fuzzy socks, pumpkin everything and darker fall colors of polish. That being said there's still time to rock some fun bright colors on your nails. And today's post is all about some fun, bright neon colors from Heather's Hues. I'll warn you though the Jellybeans Collection is being discontinued on Aug, 31st so if you want them you'd better snatch them up quick! 

     Because I have so many polishes to share with you today and there are quite a few pictures I thought I'd go with a different format for this post and I'd love to hear your thoughts on it as well as the polish in the comments. 

     The Jellybeans Collection consists of 7 colors. 6 bright neon shades that remind me of a pack of highlighters and a black. Each polish can be built up to reach full opacity but are sheer enough to work with pond manicures or leadlighting which makes them extremely versatile. I've chosen to show you each polish as 2 coats without top coat so you can see the true jelly finish.  While being very bright on their own I would recommend wearing them over white to really get them to pop. Also like most neon nail polish they are unforgiving when it comes to imperfections on your nail so a good ridge-filling base coat is the way to go. This will also help prevent any staining, which I didn't have an issue with but I only wore each polish for around 10 minutes. Whew, now that the introduction is out of the way let's look at some polish!

Strawberry Jam-min'

     Color: A bright neon pink jelly polish with a slight orange undertone. No matter what lighting I tried to photograph this in it wanted to look orange. 

     Finish: Semi-matter jelly finish

     Application: Surprisingly smooth for a neon polish with no streaking on the first coat. Build up nicely after two. Very quick dry time. Shown 2 coats without top coat.

     

Orange Jubilee

     Color: Bright, highlighter orange

     Finish: Semi-matte jelly finish

     Application: More opaque on the first coat than I was expecting and had minimal streaking. Very quick dry time. Shown 2 coats without top coat.

Limonyello

The Electric Lime

     Color: Vibrant green

     Finish: semi-matte jelly finish

     Application:  Sheer and a little streaky on the first coat. Evens out nicely after two. Very quick dry time.  Shown 2 coats without top coat. 

Show Me the Blue Raz-zle Dazzle

     Color: Beautiful ocean blue. 

     Finish: Semi-matte jelly finish

     Application: Sheer and a little finicky when using more than 3 strokes. I had some slight dragging when applying thin coats and found it was best to not play around with the polish. Everything evens up very nicely after two coats and was the most opaque out of the entire collection. Very quick dry time.  Shown 2 coats without top coat.

Isn't That Just Grape?

    

     Color: A pink toned purple

     Finish: semi-matte jelly finish

     Application: Smooth and easy application but a little sheer on the first coat but builds up nicely. Very quick dry time. Shown 2 coats without top coat.

Least Liked Licorice

     Color: Black

     Finish: semi-matte jelly finish

     Application: Very sheer on the first coat and slightly streaky. Evens out after 2 coats and builds up nicely. Very quick dry time.  Shown 2 coats without top coat. 

     Now  even though I know these polishes have a very quick dry time I thought I remembered someone successfully water marbling with them. So against my better judgementI tried it out. That really didn't work out at all. The first drop of polish was dry before I could get the second drop to fall. So as a warning, don't try that at home. They do however work great for gradients!

     Don't you just love how vibrant this is! The colors really pop over a white base and work well together. For this look, I did one coat of Sinful Colors Snow me White and sponged the entire Jellybeans Collection (minus the black) over the top. Once that was dry I stamped over it with Hit the Bottle As Black As Night and Uber Chic plate 10-3.

      Like I mentioned above this collection is being retired at the end of the month. (Aug. 31st) but you can still pick up the entire collection if you hurry. Individual bottles are $5 for a mini (7.5 ml) or $7.50 for full sized (15ml). The entire collection is $41 for a set of mini's or $57.75 for full size and can be purchased through Etsy. Thanks for stopping by and Happy Polishing!

*Nothing to Disclose*

    Today I've got a throwback polish to share with you from when my  obsession with nail polish really started to get serious.  Zoya released the Beach collection in the summer of 2012 at the height of my polish purchasing frenzy. I bought up nail polish faster than it could dry on my fingers and sadly I have almost 2 helmers full of untrieds because of it. Just take a look at my Collection page and you'll see a long list without too many links to blog posts. while I'm still making a few polish purchases here and there I've decided it's time to really make a dent in my collection and give a little love to all those pretty untrieds.  That where today's polish fits in, Zoya Tracie is one of those nail polishes that has been sitting unloved in my helmer and now it get's it's turn in the spotlight. 

*Nothing to Disclose*

     Ok, so I've got a super quick blog post for you today because it's playoff season for me and I'm working on borrowed time as it is. For those of you who don't know I play on a softball team and we were on the field until after 11 pm Monday night for playoffs. Yay, we are winning but boy am I tired. Being the glutton for punishment that I am I agreed to help out 2 different friends on their Volleyball teams for playoffs which are Tuesday and Wednesday night. I'm either going to be in great shape after this on unable to move. I guess time will tell on that one.

    Anyway back to the reason you're here, the nail art! I have fallen so hopelessly behind on the 40 Great Nail Art Ideas challenge that I know I will never catch up, but I'm determined to finish it! I'll have all my posts done, albeit months behind but the inlinks are no longer open so I won't be able to share the other looks with you. However, if you're reading this post and participating in the challenge please feel free to leave a link to your post in the comments.  So just what is the 40 Great Nail Art Ideas Challenge? Well, it's simple really, This challenge is set up a bit differently than most. For starters, there is the option to do weekly manicures with one week dedicated to themes, and one to colors. Or you can do every other week and stick with themes only or colors only. For the color portion of the challenge, each person is also assigned a pattern. The end result is 40 different looks all done in the same colors. As most of you know I opted to do the color challenge and you can see my previous looks using Teal, Orange, Purple and Green, Black and White, Grey, Glitter toppers, Pale Blue , 3 shades of Purple, Turquoise and 3 shades of Green. 

    For this prompt the color is Violet and I was given the pattern Aztec. Well, I sort of screwed up and thought it was tribal so feel free to use your imagination on this one. Or since my "tribal" manicure from a few months ago ended up looking more "Aztec" let's just say that I did this on purpose to give each pattern their 15 seconds of fame on my blog. Yeah, that sounds better than me just being scatterbrained and mixing them up!

    So this look was very easy to put together and I want to toot my own horn a bit about that image placement. Look at how centered they are on my nail!! That will probably never happen again so bask in its beauty while you can. 

    For my base colors, I used Sally Hansen Lively Lilac and Sinful Colors Snow Me White. For the image, I used NNail plate B97 and Hit the Bottle As Black as Night. The accent nail I stamped with Lively Lilac to tie it all together. After a layer of top coat, this manicure was complete. Just like this post is about to be. I hope you enjoyed this look. I will be back Friday to share more of my hectic life with you. Thanks for stopping by and Happy Polishing!

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     Have you even be perusing Pinterest and stumbled across a pin that made you want to whip out your nail art supplies right then are there? Well, that's exactly what happened to me when I can across this pin. I loved the vintage look and feel of this manicure and the muted color scheme. Sadly it was the late hours of the night and my nail art would have to wait.  But as I lay there in bed supposed to be sleeping my brain just kept coming back to the manicure I was thinking of completely inspired by that pin. 

     I lay there for over an hour working out my color scheme, which plate I might want to use, and I knew that sleep would be impossible. Until I wrote my idea down that is. Which is exactly what I did. I ran to my desk, grabbed a pen and paper and jotted down the rough ideas I had, went back to bed and instantly fell asleep knowing my idea was safe from being lost to the hidden corners of my mom brain.  So what was this important manicure idea that caused my a restless night? Let's take a look

*Nothing to Disclose*

     Hello and welcome back to my blog. I feel bad about not having post's ready for last week when I was on vacation but I had so much to do that I ran out of time.  But on the positive side, we had a blast and the kids have already asked when we can do it again. I love that they had so much fun but I'm ready to be home for a bit. Right now I'm procrastinating on the clean up part of my vacation and bringing you a prototype polish from Drip Drop #518. But that also means this will be a quick post because I've got lots of housework sitting here staring me in the face. Sometimes I feel I need a vacation from my vacation!

     I don't know about you but I really like getting prototype polishes and mystery bags. They open my eyes to nail polishes I might not normally pick out for myself, and I've gotten a few that I ended up loving. I don't know about you but before I  started on my journey with nail polish I pretty much only owned shades of pink and red. Now I have the entire rainbow and then some in my helmers!

     Prototype #518 is a clear based polish with multi-sized circular glitters in Silver and Blue. While this polish works best as a topper, I've chosen to show it alone.