Birthday Mani: Maybelline Neutral Statement & O.P.I. My Favorite Ornament

Sorry about the lighting in these pictures. Sadly it will only keep getting worse, so I have no idea how I will do any of my holiday manicures justice. 

I'm 28 today!! Since I didn't even acknowledge my birthday last year, I'm making up for it this year. I'm going to spend the day with my family today, have an amazing dinner tonight, and tomorrow night I'm off to downtown L.A. with my boyfriend, bestie, and her husband. We'll eat at Canter's, squeal over Christmas decorations at the Farmer's Market, and more than likely I will buy bon bon's from See's and possibly a very expensive pair of shoes. I will also wear a freaking amazing bow in my hair. 

I also worked up the courage to try a ruffian accent nail, which I think I nailed (heh). If I'd known how easy they are to do, I'd have been wearing them constantly. I used a base of Maybelline Neutral Statement, which looks better in real life than it does in the pictures-the sun sort of warmed up the color too much-there's less beige and more pink-white in it. There's also some sparse deep coppery-gold sparkle that you can detect close up, but fades into the background at arms' length. 

My Favorite Ornament is one of my favorite pale gold glitters. Expect to see it over and over in the next month. 

The formula on Neutral Statement wasn't the greatest-a more patient painter could have gotten away with 3 coats, but I did four to even out the streaks. My Favorite Ornament was flawless (no surprise there) at 2 thin coats. 

Maybelline Pretty in Polka

Who knew pink was going to be my color this year? I'm as shocked as you are. 

Pretty in Polka was part of my birthday gift to my sister last year. She's a pink fiend and I thought it would be a fun way to wear it, but it just sort of sat in her small polish collection and I just couldn't help myself. Turns out she didn't really like it, and just didn't want to hurt my feelings. Puh-lease. Gimme. 

I'm now pretty much convinced that I need this entire Polka Dots collection. They're easy to apply, super glossy, and surprisingly easy to remove. Pretty in Polka is a bright, cheerful pink jelly full of black and white matte hex glitters in different sizes. Effortless nail art. 

I think the pink jelly is my favorite part. It's just so bright and glossy and transparent. Michelle from ALC referred to it as lip gloss for your nails, and that's dead on; it's just a nice wash of glossy pink color. 

This was three thin coats. I actually liked it at two, but I had a lot of gaps where I thought glitter should go, so I dabbed a third coat on. Even though it was super glossy on it's own, I top coated out of habit. 

I can't believe it's June already.

Various Polish Hauls of 2014 (Update: Flakie Goodness at the end!)

I really need to keep better track of my hauling. These are only the ones I've remembered to take pictures of:

left to right: China Glaze Sand Dolla Make You Holla, Tail Me Something, Teal the Tide Turns, & Wish on a Starfish.

left to right: Maybelline Coral Heat (Bleached Neons) & An Old Flame (incidentally, am wearing Teal the Tide Turns in photo)

Zoya Earth Day Haul: Stevie, Zara, Maya, Elodie, Rekha, Caitlin, Sooki, Bevin, & London.

Uninvited from the MAC Maleficent Collection (good lord, I wanted it ALL...am debating on whether or not to go back for the beauty powder)

left to right: O.P.I. Chillin' Like a Villain & Don't Touch My Tutu!

left to right: O.P.I. Hey Baby, I Sing in Color, & Love.Angel.Music.Baby.

left to right: A Study in Polish I Do Post-Mortems, L'Oreal In With the Nude, Red-y to Shine?, Essie Blanc (Chinchilly is next to it, and not included are Go Ginza and A Cut Above)

With everything happening in my life right now, these little polish hauls are one of the few things that remind me of that little thing called happy. Not the best way to deal with things, but I'm working with what I have. 

Also I have some super-pretty nails to share later. Or tomorrow. Depends on when it's not overcast anymore. Mind you, not complaining in the slightest; I'd rather have it be overcast and chilly than be dry-roasted alive in my own house.

EDIT: Well my nails were chip city today, so here's a photo I snapped of them last night:

You're looking at 1 coat of O.P.I...Eurso Euro and 1 generous coat of Color Club The Uptown. I had planned on wearing The Uptown over something a little lighter (You're Such a Budapest, for example), but I wasn't quite over wearing something dark on my nails. I'll definitely be sporting that manicure on here in the next couple days though. I don't wear flakies much, and oftentimes I find myself wrinkling my nose at them. But every so often the flakie mood will take me, and my eyes will end up glued to my nails for a few days. 

My Little Bottle of Sunshine; or, The Coral That Started it All: Maybelline Express Finish Fire Fly

We've all got that one polish. Regardless of price, formula, or availability, it's our perfect polish and we will accept nothing less. You're looking at the reason I love corals so much. The formula is less than stellar, it doesn't do well covering my smile lines, and technically doesn't exist since I can't find it anywhere online, or even confirm it existed with Maybelline, but this doesn't stop me from proclaiming: THIS IS THE MOST PRECIOUS AND LOVED POLISH IN MY STASH. Not only that, it has a lot of memory attached to it.

This feels so weird typing, but come on. We've all got a polish like this in our stash. Right?

Fire Fly came into my life in 2002. I was a sophomore in high school, nervous, quiet, and a festering anxiety disorder compounded with crippling depression (then undiagnosed) caused me to chew my nails into oblivion. A girl who sat in front of me in my Spanish class, aside from always being well-dressed and beautiful, sported the most perfect coral nail polish. It accentuated her subtle tan and made me wish I wasn't so pale. And messy-looking. Despite my tastes leaning more toward black and dark red (or on the other end of the spectrum, silver holographic glitter bombs), I set out to find my own little bottle of sunshine. Maybe it would magically help me dress better, and act less like a dying fish when interacting with people. After poking in Long's Drugs a bit (this is how old this polish is...12 YEARS...when CVS was still Long's Drugs) I found a display of new Maybelline polishes and snapped it up. How I wish I'd bought the whole rack.

I wore it constantly. I may have worn mostly black clothes, purple eyeliner, and Chuck Taylor's so beaten up they belonged in the trash, but I LOVED my coral polish. It helped me chew on my fingertips less, and brightened my otherwise doleful outlook. I used the whole bottle up, and then promptly forgot about it. Other stuff got in the way...crushes, homework, first relationship, friends, betrayals, going to shows, holographic polishes (Sally Hansen Nail Prisms, yo), etc. Teenagers will be teenagers.  A few years later I unearthed the bottle and panicked because all that was left was a fraction of an inch of dried-up gunk. I wanted to wear my coral polish and I couldn't (it didn't occur to me at the time that one could have more than a single coral at a time. Chalk it up to loyalty...or stupidity, take your pick). I searched online...nothing. It was like it didn't exist.

MakeupAlley confirmed that I wasn't crazy. I put a question up on the nail board and a very kind girl answered me, and even offered to send me the bottle she had. I almost cried. I've met the nicest people on that site.

I've tried to use it sparingly, but it's hard, seeing as how it's my everything (in terms of coral). The bottle is about half gone, so until I can find a reasonable dupe, or manage to stockpile a whole bunch of bottles of Fire Fly (listed under 'Utopian Dream') I probably won't wear it as a full manicure after this. It's too precious. The way most varnish veterans feel about Clarin's 230, I feel about Fire Fly.

It's not that special, considering what it is. It's a coral jelly, not too orange, not too pink; just a perfect blend of both. It's bright without being obnoxious or making my skin look dirty (I find really bright shades bordering on neon, or stark, white-based colors tend to make my skin look muddy). Just cheerful and coral. But in all my years of searching for a dupe, I've not found anything like it. I've even attempted mixing my own version.Twice. Everything either is too bright, too dark, too orange or pink, too opaque/creamy...there's a reason I've got a ton of coral polish. While I appreciate them for what they are now, they were, admittedly, purchased in the hope that they would resemble my beloved Fire Fly. None have come close.

And I guess, in a sense, it also is special because it reminds me of a time in my life where, although I was troubled and figuring things out, I was happy. I didn't know I was happy at the time, I was too busy being a depressed teenager. But looking back, I had a lot to be thankful for. I discovered what love felt like. I realized what it was to feel beautiful and have self-esteem. I felt I belonged to humanity in a way I felt I hadn't belonged before. I discovered a talent for writing (that I've been neglecting a lot in the last few years). So this little bottle of sunshine means a lot to me emotionally. It's just one of those polishes.

We've all got one.

P.S. This was three coats. There was bubbling, but not as much as you'd expect from a 12-year old jelly. A couple of coats of NYC Grand Central Station masked most of them.

EDIT: A picture for you from under my makeup mirror light, to show brightness! Taken with my iPhone, my camera would never have been able to do this. I might just start just taking pictures with my phone now:

So pretty!

Maybelline Color Show Dotty

I broke about four nails at Disneyland, so I present this awesome polish to you on nubs!! I actually think it looks pretty good on short nails though.

Even though I don’t think this was an intentional Halloween polish, I mean…look at it. If this doesn’t scream “HALLOWEEENOMG!” then I don’t know what does.

Dotty is several sizes of black and white matte hex glitters suspended in a bright orange jelly base. I had to do a bit of placement with the larger glitters, but painting was not the hassle I expected it to be.

This was two full coats, and a bit of placing on a third. Don’t expect this one to come out smooth, I have two coats of Gelous and two of my regular Grand Central Station on top of it.

I just love everything about this. The orange jelly is bright, but doesn’t obscure the glitter, and I’ve had people complimenting my nails all day.

Maybelline Color Show Twilight Rays

It is overcast and rainy today, so I had to snap these pictures in between showers. On the one hand, raaaaaaaaaaaaain! Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!! On the other, less than stellar pictures. I’m not the greatest photographer to begin with, so anyone keeping up with this is truly awesome.

Admittedly, Twilight Rays looks less than remarkable on camera, which is a shame because it’s really beautiful. Its black base is chock-full of irregularly shaped, foil-y shimmer in orange and gold, with flashes of bright emerald green. It catches the light beautifully and is quite shiny and smooth without topcoat. This was three coats.

I’ve got two more Color Show polishes to show you later on in the month; I’m really liking the brush. It’s skinny and short, but not short enough to where you feel out of control.

Halloween is in full-swing over here. My best friend and I are coordinating costumes, planning a little party, and even my boyfriend is going to dress up!