Layla Gel Effects N.03

We've all heard of Layla's awesome holos but did you know they make a gel polish that requires no light.

From Layla, "Layla Gel Polish is the revolutionary new gel nail polish that does not need a UV lamp to dry and has a long lasting brightness similar to what you get in the salon! This unique at home gel polish comes in 12 vibrant colors and has the performances of a semi-permanent gel polish in terms of brilliance, scratchless and is a ridge filler!""

I received N.03 for review. A very pretty bright Barbie Pink shade. I love the way this color looks on my nails! It's very flattering with my skin tone. Good thing because I didn't mind wearing it for a whole 5 days! I wanted to test the wear and I must say I was really impressed. After all that time there was only very minimal tip wear on a couple of nails and no chipping at all. And that was without any topcoat! I definitely could have gone a lot longer. It's very opaque, I used 2 coats here but I think on shorter nails one might do the job. And the application was so smooth, like it painted itself onto my nails.
This polish is said to also contain a ridgefiller so no basecoat is needed. I usually always wear a ridge filling basecoat as I have a few dents and uneven spots in my nails. I could tell it did help but you can still see some of the unevenness, next time I'll probably wear my normal basecoat. If your nails are in pretty good shape though you shouldn't need any.

Layla Effects are available through Ninja Polish and from Layla Cosmetics. They have an awesome selection of different "Effect" polishes, including hologram, caviar and velvet effect as well.
Check out Ninja Polish on Facebook and Layla on Facebook for more info.

Till next time friends..

*Products sent for review. All opinions are my own. See my disclosure policy for more info* 

♥ One Year Blogiversary Giveaway!!! ♥

Oh My Gosh! I cannot believe how fast this year has flown by! It has been an awesome first year and I hope to be here for many more. I am still trying to make small improvements everyday but I like to think I've come a pretty long way since my first post. (don't laugh I know, that was before I discovered the importance of cuticle oil. ☺) 

Most of all I just want to say thank you from the bottom of my heart to all of you who continue to stick with me. Especially to those of you who come back to read every post and leave so many wonderful comments. It really makes my day to read them. You guys are the best! 

Of course I had to put together a great giveaway to celebrate! I've teamed up with some of my favorite people, stores, and polish makers to bring you something I hope you will really like.

This giveaway is open Internationally but there are some prizes that are US only, those will be noted.

There are 3 prizes from me:

First is a Gift Card to Nordstroms. Nordies carries everything from Dior to Chanel to Tom Ford and they ship free.. I know there's no way I can stop the winner from spending the $ on a pair of shoes but I'm really hoping that whoever gets this will use it as a chance to add that gorgeous high-end polish they've always wanted to their collection.

$30 Nordstrom Gift Card

US Only

The butter LONDON Sparkle Sparkle trio
including Rosie Lee, Fairy Cake and Black Knight
Black Knight was the first expensive polish I ever bought. :)

US Only

I had been dying to own a NerdLacquer since I first saw them. Only recently did I finally have a chance to add a few to my collection, I feel complete now.
NerdLacquer ~ Quasar

US / International*

You all know how much I love me some Ninja Polish! If I were to choose my 10 favorite polishes of the past year Ninja's would definitely take up half the list. It means so much to me that Rhonni has entrusted me to be one of the lucky few with the opportunity to swatch her babies and share them with the world. Working with Ninja Polish has definitely been one of the biggest highlights of my year and I hope I've made her proud.
Ninja Polish has generously donated the 4 newest additions to the Enigma Collection.
Ninja Polish 
Mystic Glacier, Coral Reef, Tweety and 100% Colombian

US / International*

Zoya has an incredible Blogger Network and they were the first big company to give me a shot. But even before then I had amassed quite the collection of Zoyas on my own and they have always been my favorite mainstream brand. Zoya will be sending one lucky reader the new Summer 2013 Stunning Collection.
Zoya Nail Polish ~ Stunning Collection

US Only

Believe it or not there was a time when I thought I didn't like glitter polish! But Girly Bits changed all that for me. The very first indie I ever bought was Girly Bits Stormy Skies and the second was Hippity Hop.. I was hooked! ☺  Pam has offered to send one winner 2 of her newest beauties.
Girly Bits ~ Bachelor's Button and Emerald City Lights

International*

I Love Nail Polish is another brand that would definitely be included in my favorite polishes of the year. Barbra, the mastermind behind ILNP creates the some of the most beautiful and unique glitter polishes out there. And not to mention that she's a total sweetheart! She has generously donated 5 ILNP polishes.
I Love Nail Polish ~ Bohemian Peacock, My Private Rainbow and Grape Alicious, 
No Place Like Rome and Fully Turqued (minis)

US Only

Kim from Overall Beauty is just all around awesome! I've been a long time follower of her blog, Thoughts of Beauty, I love her product reviews. And she writes a lot of very informative and entertaining articles on all topics, not just nails. If you aren't already following her definitely check her out. And her eStore carries everything from indies to eyeshadow. Kim has been so kind to offer a prize pack of Dollish Polish Nail Lacquers.
Overall Beauty ~ Winners Choice, 3 polishes from the Dollish Polish Candy Collection

US / International*

The Nail Junkie is another blogger that I have followed since before I even thought of starting my own. She was the first blogger (that I knew of) to develop her own polish line. I remember being so excited for her when she posted those first swatches of Nail Junkie polish. I thought, Wow here she is not only writing about but living what she loves. I wish I had that kind of creativity. Aleta has also offered a prize to help me celebrate one year of blogging bliss. 

The Nail Junkie ~ one Nail Junkie polish, winners choice

US Only

A Huge Thanks goes out to all of these ladies for helping me mark this special occasion!  

Following their blogs isn't mandatory to enter the giveaway but I'd like to list them all here and encourage you to check them out and follow them if you aren't already. ♥

Polish Ninja

Pam's Girly Bits

I Love Nail Polish

Thoughts of Beauty

The Nail Junkie

We will have a total of 9 winners. The Giveaway will run until Thursday June 13th at 11:59pm (EST).
Winners will have 48 hours to respond or another winner will be chosen.
Must be 18 or older or have parents consent if you win because we will need your address.
International entries are Welcome! Only some of the prizes are US Only, sorry ladies.
*If you live in Italy or Russia (due to extreme shipping restrictions) you will need to have another address we can send your winnings to.
Obviously we cannot be responsible for any items lost or damaged by the post office.

Just enter through the rafflecopter widget below to enter.
Good Luck!
a Rafflecopter giveaway

As always cheaters will not prosper! Any false entries will be deleted and numerous false entries by one person will result in all of their entries being deleted and I will be checking.


Thanks For Entering &
Good Luck Everybody!
♥ ♥ ♥

Dandy Nails ~ Just Hugs ♥

Quick post today. Trying to get caught up. I totally forgot that I swatched this about a month ago, I just found it in my memory card. How could I have missed such a pretty polish!?

This is Just Hugs by Dandy Nails. A red glitter topper with red micro and circles! I love circles!! There is also just a hint of holographic purple microglitter in there too. I layered one coat over China Glaze Liquid Leather. Super easy application, the glitters laid just like so - no dabbing or placing needed. And I topped it with one coat of Poshe topcoat. 

I just love the way the red looks with the black base, it has such a sexy, vampy feel to it. Though I'm sure it would look awesome over other colors too. What do you think?

Dandy Nails polishes are available at the DandyNails Etsy Shop and Ninja Polish.

And make sure to like them both on FB to stay up to date on new collections, restocks, ect. 

Dandy Nails Facebook

Ninja Polish Facebook

♥♥♥

Till next time friends..

*Products sent for review. All opinions are my own. See my disclosure policy for more info* 

I Love Nail Polish ~ Simply Adorablue & A Touch Of Mint

Good afternoon Nailistas! The lovely Barbra from ILNP was kind enough to send me a few of her new polishes to review. She also sent along a few goodies for prizes in my blogiversary giveaway that will be kicking off in a few days. So be on the lookout for that! ☺

First up is an absolutely gorgeous deep teal holographic, Simply Adorablue. I am so in love with this polish! I'm addicted to greens and teals lately so I was super excited to have received this one. The holo is perfect for me, not super intense but just enough to stand out. The formula was amazing, it applied like a dream. This was 2 easy coats with Poshe topcoat.

A Touch Of Mint is a much more subtle holo. However it does show up much more in real life than I could capture in my photos. From what I hear it's not easy for polish makers to get lighter colors to show the holographic pigment as well as darks. Either way I think it's still very pretty and has a really delicate feel to it. And I really like this color, I didn't have anything else in my collection even close. It's a very pale almost white mint green creme with blue undertones. Beautiful. And again that same great ILNP formula. I ended up going with 3 thin coats and a layer of Poshe.

I Love Nail Polish is available at www.ilnp.com and can also be found in the ILNP Etsy Store.
Check out her site, there are still a few Adorablues in stock in the mini size and it looks like Mint is still in stock in full size. Plus there are a few more colors in her holographic line that are still available as well. I don't know when or if she will be restocking these so if you want some grab em now.
And make sure to follow the I Love Nail Polish blog,  Facebook and Instagram pages. Her FB page totally rocks, really, it's one of my favorite nail pages out there.

I have been swatching a lot over the past few days so hopefully I'll be back later tonight with more pretties to share. ♥

*Products in this post were provided for review. All opinions are my own*

Zoya Irresistible Collection ~ swatches & review

Good evening friends! Tonight I am finally ready to share the new Zoya Irresistible Collection with you. This review should have been ready to post a few days ago but I realized that I accidently deleted a whole file of photos from my memory card so I had to re-do some of them. Whomp-whomp. Anyways..

This collection is made up of 6 new shades of foil finish metallics, each very different and very beautiful.

Zoya Irresistible Collection ~ Summer 2013

Kerry is a yellow gold metallic foil. I'm usually not too big on yellows but I loved this one. It's unlike the others in the collection in that it seems to be a clear base (or maybe it's just so light yellow that it looks clear) with zillions of teeny tiny yellow and gold microglitters. It goes on very smooth and is opaque in 3 easy coats.   Three coats plus Poshe topcoat for the photos.

Amy is a red orange foil metallic. Orange base with orange, red and gold shimmer. Amy really comes to life in the sunlight, she glows like your nails are on fire! I never knew I could like an orange polish so much! Again 3 thin coats, great application. 

Tinsley is definitely my favorite of the bunch. Described as a rose gold foil metallic. This one has so much depth. The base has an almost jelly like feel to it and all that beautiful microshimmer floating throughout = Wowza! I used 3 coats here with Poshe topcoat but 2 covered well enough. I just added an extra coat to get a deeper color. 

Bobbi is described as a hot magenta pink. I LOVE this color and it has a gorgeous sparkle in the sunlight but I did have some issues with her formula. She's thick, should be a 1-2 coater but she didn't self level too well so I ended up needing 3 coats to try to smooth it out. Also I did notice a bit of pink staining on my nails after I took her off. So make sure to wear a good base coat. I think if I just added a few drops of thinner it could be perfect.  

Hazel is described by Zoya as a blue green metallic foil. Though to me it seems more blue/gunmetal gray. If you look closely in the 1st photo you can see there are dark gray microglitters in there too, I love the added dimension they give. Excellent formula with this one. 2 easy coats, went on super smooth, everything about her is perfection. Love it!

Rikki, a fern green metallic foil also has that great application I've come to know and love with Zoya. This too like Hazel has darker speckles in it only this time they are more of a chocolatey brown color. Two easy coats here as well..  

I couldn't decide which collage I liked better so I'm putting this one in too. ☺

Overall I really like this collection. You may have also noticed some of them are similar to the shades featured in the newest PixieDust Collection so if you liked those colors but aren't into the textured polishes these are definitely for you. I'd also like to try stamping with a few of them, I think that Bobbi being a bit thicker would make it a great stamping polish. I'll share my findings when I get a chance to test it out. 

Zoya Nail Polish is available on the Art of Beauty website or Zoya.com. These retail for $8 for a full size (15ml) bottle.

And make sure to follow Zoya on Facebook and Twitter and Instagram for great promos, pictures and lots of fun polish chat from the Zoya Fairies. 

Which of these do you ♥ the most?

Till next time friends..

*Products sent for review. All opinions are my own. See my disclosure policy for more info*