Happy 2011!

Happy 2011 Everyone!

Blogs of Note

It's the day after Christmas - I hope everyone is enjoying their holidays!

First today is Candy Coated Tips.  Jackie has medium length nails and also makes jewelry!  She has quite a bit of OPI which I love to see all the colors since I really got into polish "late" and don't own a lot of the great colors like the DS series.

Next is Chromatic Misadventures.  Claudia posts a large variety of brands and colors but I think she does post always in her house and not outdoors, which can lead to a bit of color discrepancy.  She has medium nails and was featured as a Top 50 Nail Blog by SpaBeautySchools.com

Last today is Cindy Blogs Nails.  Cindy has medium to short nails and blogs a mix of swatches and nail art.

Enjoy!

Christmas Manicure

Water marble before scrubbing clean up

I really went all out this year on my manicure.  Looking back, I think I needed to stick with one product line of colors - not sure... it was crazy fun to create but also super time consuming.


I started out with a base coat of Seche Natural.  Next I added one coat of China Glaze Cheers To You.  I did several test runs of what base color would look best and the silver in Cheers To You seemed to really make the colors pop.  Next I did a water marble of Zoya Edyta and Zoya Kym.  I did 3 drops of Edyta and 2 drops of Kym for each nail.  Because both are glitter nail polishes, you have to be careful with the way that the polish disperses in the water.  I did not actually swirl the polish because it kept falling apart when I did that, so I just went straight down with my nails in the best possible spot.  To keep my hands (semi) clean, I used petroleum jelly all over my nails down the joint but even then you can see I needed some clean up.  I finally ended with a topping of ManGlaze Matte-Astrophe Clear Matte Top Coat to give it a nice satin look.  Only problem with the matte was that it chipped a tiny bit in some places.


I did have issues with both my pinkies.  On my left hand, I just let it be, but on my right hand, I cheated and just laid down a base coat of Kym and added some swipes of Edyta.


Here's my left hand in the sun and then the shade.  The sun made the matte top coat look non-existent, but it was there.  I did the manicure on Thursday morning and just took all these pictures on Christmas Day, so it lasted a good while.

Next is my right hand, sun and then shade.  You can see how I cheated on the pinkie. 

Yay!  Water marbling checked marked off my list!

Merry Christmas!

Man have I been a slacker this month!  The holidays are always weird for me.


But I have this ridiculously excited renewed sense for the New Year!  The best part was hearing that my cousin is as into nail polish as I am (HI KAREN!) and it just reminded me why I love blogging.


Things to come here on Polish Galore:
-Pulling a new winner from my 500+ Followers Giveaway
-Holding my one year blogging Giveaway
-Pulling the winner of my Apothica Giveaway
-Having my Urban Decay Pigments Giveaway
-Loads and loads of nail polish!
-Posting my eyeshadow and pigments collection (TBA, I have more nail polish to review).


Merry Christmas to those who celebrate, Happy Holidays to all, and LOTS OF LOVE from me!

Ginger Kitty Designs - Giveaway!

I've been thinking about promoting other blog giveaways - just so you know what else is going on in the blogging world.  Kind of like a weekly "Blogs of Note" ... the idea isn't unique by any means - Concrete and Nail Polish routinely has a post on Mondays about giveaways (check out the one from December 20th).


So I'm blogging today about Ginger Kitty Designs because she's having her first giveaway - a beautiful necklace made from the super rare, hard to find, Essie Starry Starry Night nail polish.

Image from GingerKittyDesigns

Now SSN (as it's called) was before my nail polish time (that is, before I became interested in nail polish) but just look how beautiful that is!  I own 4 sets of Ginger Kitty Design earrings and I absolutely love them all (must review later!).


To enter this giveaway, please click here or on the banner below to be taken to her blog.  Good luck to all!

China Glaze Tronica

Photo courtesy of China Glaze

Have you seen Tron yet?!  I saw it in 3D on Saturday night for my birthday and even though I didn't see the original, I LOVED this version.


So imagine how freaking excited I was when I heard that China Glaze is coming out with 6 holographic polishes in March/April 2011?!  They will only be available at Sally's Beauty Supply, so make sure to go out and get a membership card! (You don't need one to buy from the store, but it gives you a discount on the polishes).  They look pretty similar to the OMG! Collection but I won't know until I get them... because blogger samples are limited I'm not guaranteed to be able to review but you KNOW I'll be buying ^_^  The only thing I wonder is the promo picture looks like it has 8 colors, not 6... I'll see what I can find about that one.  :)


UPDATE!  There will be TWELVE colors in this collection!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Techno Teal – Turquoise Holographic
Virtual Violet – Violet Holographic
Electra Magenta – Magenta Holographic
Gamer Glam – Purple Holographic
High Def - Blue Holographic
Hologram - Silver Holographic
Hyper Haute – Raspberry Holographic
3D Fantasy – Peachy Pink Holographic
Digital Dawn – Dusty Rose Holographic
Cyberspace – Taupe Holographic
Mega Bite – Gold Holographic
Laser Lime – Lime Green Holographic

Urban Decay is on HauteLook!

Starting today and ending Wednesday 12/22, Urban Decay will be sold on HauteLook*!  I had put my link on the Urban Decay Facebook fan page and so far 17 people signed up using my referral link and purchasing something, so I decided to turn around and put my credits to good use.  I'm buying all 12 pigments (something that I already owned and loved) and will be having a blog giveaway soon - only requirements will be following PolishGalore via GFC and I'll give away extra entries via Twitter.  I hope to have this all organized by the first of the year... shipping for the pigments is the second week of January so I won't receive the prizes before then.  Thank you again to all who signed up under my link!


*The HauteLook link is an affiliate link.  If you sign up using this link and purchase any item, I will receive a $10 HauteLook credit for your first purchase only.


12:00 pm CST Update: I've purchased three sets of pigments, so currently there will be 3 winners that will all receive 12 pigments.  :)

Blogs of Note

YO!  It's my 27th birthday!  Also it's Sunday which means it's that time again!

First today is Blue Tape and Nail Tips.  Owner Cyan has long nails and features a lot of nail art, mostly used with Blue Painters Tape!  She includes a very detailed step-by-step write up of her nail art which is wonderful because you can create it for yourself.  There are also regular nail swatches available as well.

Next up is Body and Soul.  Owner Mary has been includes both makeup and nail swatches on her blog and hosts a monthly contest for some amazing prizes.  She gets a lot of nail wheel information first due to her contacts at Victoria's Nail Supply.  She has short to medium nails and provides accurate color swatches. 

Last today is Bring on the Bling.  Owner Velvet (yes, that's her real middle name) also features both makeup and nail polish and has short nails.  She includes a good number of pictures so you can see the polishes in different lights and angles.

Enjoy!

China Glaze Kaleidoscope and OMG! Collections

I'm constantly looking for little online beauty stores that carry some older holographic polishes that I own and love... today while randomly browsing, I can across M Beauty Lounge.  Now, I know NOTHING about this company - how they are with shipping, or anything else.  I'm also not being paid to write this post.


Unfortunately, the supplies are limited but here is the link for the Kaleidoscope collection and the link for the OMG! collection.


If anyone does purchase from M Beauty Lounge or know anything about them, please let me know in the comments section!

China Glaze Peace on Earth

I must say, I still have a love hate relationship with green nail polish.  Ever since my nails stained one time because of the yellow dye in the polish, I've been pretty terrified of the light greens.  Peace on Earth from the China Glaze winter 2010 'Tis The Season collection falls in that category of light greens for me.


I used a base of Seche Natural, 2 coats of Peace on Earth, and a top of Seche Vite.  I can thankfully say I had zero staining (thank you Seche Natural!) but the formula was slightly streaky.

So I'm back to nubbins.  :(  I ended up breaking more nails and got fed up with glue and just cut them all off.  I always hate starting back with nubbins but I must say it makes typing SO much easier.  In the un, you can see that this is almost an Army olive green from the old days - not this new Army green like in the BDUs (which I don't think they even call it that anymore!).

In the shade the color is a little more muted - almost like Zombie Zest without the glitter (or orange...)  It is a nice Christmas like color that I think would be AMAZING with some Konad.  I'm really wanting to break out my Konad lately - not sure what's going on in my head because I don't have the most steady hand or very good patience.  

China Glaze [official website] can be found online through several etailers, including my favorite Head2Toe Beauty [official website], Sally's Beauty Supply [official website] as well asTransDesign [official website].

Disclosure: The product[s] in this post was [were] provided to me by the company for consideration.  For more information, please read this post.