Ulta Last Fling Before the Ring

 3 coats + Seche Vite

I'm slowly but surely making my way through my latest Ulta purchases. I picked Last Fling Before the Ring for this past weekend's manicure. I own a couple of pastel purple polishes but this one is my favorite at the moment. Probably because I love the name (haha!) and the complexity of the color. I can see purple and gray in this color and its a really pretty balance. The last picture, taken in the shade outdoors, is the most accurate representation of this color in my opinion. I paired this color with a purple sundress for a cousin's birthday party this past weekend, and I got compliments on it at the mall. Last Fling Before the Ring is definitely a good springtime pick for your next manicure.

♥ Lachelle

Maybelline Blue Brilliance

I saw the Maybelline Spring 2011 collection display in Ulta this weekend and picked up Blue Brilliance because it is truly a gorgeous color in the bottle. On the nail, it definitely is sheer and takes plenty of coats to build up. How many? Well that depends on how many you have patience for...

This is three coats + Seche Vite.

Despite this being thin, I am still wanting to try some of the other colors in the collection. Mary over at Body and Soul has swatches of the rest of this collection here . I think they are really pretty colors and I'm really liking that this drugstore brand is coming out with seasonal/limited edition collections. High end brands don't get to have all the fun. ;-)

♥ Lachelle

Happy Birthday! An Open Letter to my Blog

Well look who's 3 years old today! My blog! I was going to say Happy Anniversary, but I dont like the sound of that, so it's my blog's birthday. Take it and like it.

Well, we've been through a lot together. April 6th, 2009 I decided to start my own nail polish blog after randomly stumbling upon Scrangie's blog. I didnt start immediately after that, it was a couple of months before my addiction to nail polish prompted me to start blogging. At first, I had to get over my inital shock. "Who would blog about nail polish?", I thought to myself. However, I kept coming back to the blog, intriuged by the colors. By then, I knew that polish companies came out with seasonal collections and glitter polishes were addictive, flashy little things. When I first started my blog, there were not many solely-polish dedicated  blogs, and I knew of no women of color who had nail blogs. However, it didnt take me long to figure out that I wasnt seeing swatches on skin that looked like mine. Had I known what I know now, I probably would have grinded a little harder at blogging. Initally, I was very excited at showing my small polish collection and I had time to work on blogging. Then, life got in the way and I started being able to blog less frequently. This was due to a number of things; family issues, money problems, my senior year of college, internship woes, relationship problems, relocating to another city, etc. Basically, a lot of things got in the way of me consistenly blogging about what I loved.  What is the past, I cant change; but the future is up in the air. Somedays I truly struggle with the direction I want to take my blog. I want to consistently post and write about the latest collections and make a new series, basically make my blog reflect more of my creativity I know is within. On the other hand, I feel like my resources constrain that effort. I work 8 to 5, I attend grad school at night and I'm have some beginning life issues that I need to sort out about myself. I tell myself I want it all. However, that thought translates into some serious work in which I find myself thinking there are not enough hours in the day.

In sum, I'm proud of my blog; and over the course of 3 years, theres never been a time I wish I had decided not to blog. There's defintely been some decisions made that I havent been so sure about and some that I couldnt be happier with. My wish for the future of my blog is to continue to grow. I want to improve my writing, my pictures, my application technique, the audience I reach. Most of all, I want this to continue to be an outlet where I can purse the things that truly make me happy.

Best wishes for our future,

♥ Lachelle

Metallic Zebra Nails? Yes!

During Sally Beauty's Sidewalk Clearance sale, I spotted these super shiny metallic nails by Nail Bliss. You just cant get this shine with nail polish...and they are zebra print so you know I had to try them. 

Picture of the packaging I tweeted

I really like that they come with adhesive tabs so I don't have to use glue. The downside to that is they don't stay on as long, but I just wore these fun nails for the weekend. If you're looking for longer wear, you'll probably want to use glue. I also clipped and filed them down because I thought they were a little long and I wanted them about the length of my real nails. As always, fake nails look weird around the cuticle area to me, but from far away its not that bad. 

Like I mentioned earlier, these were on clearance at Sally Beauty Supply. Don't you hate when you find something awesome on clearance but then they stop making it or the product is really hard to find? I hope that's not the case with these.

Check out more about Nail Bliss and see the other metallic nails they offer at their website.

So what do you think? Metallic nails; yay or nay?

♥ Lachelle

St. Patty's Green NOTD!

My pick for the green of the day?

Ulta's The Jungle Look! Super smooth medium green creme. Gets no complaints from me. I only needed two coats to achieve bottle color to my liking. Its pretty opaque and I could have gotten away with one thick coat, but I did two.

I photographed it in sunlight and indoors.

 
Does your St. Patrick's Day  celebration include nail polish shopping today? Here's a deal from Butter London.

Whats your green polish of choice today?

♥ Lachelle

Friday's NOTD: Get Cracking!

Hello all! I haven't blogged in soooo long! Grad school readings are kicking my butt, but fortunately I got my head out the books long enough to snag some China Glaze Crackles. The "it" thing for nails now is a shatter or crackle effect and I decided to test it out for myself. I picked up two colors to start off with, China Glaze's Black Mesh and Broken Hearted. 

Out of all the colors to layer the black crackle over, what do I reach for? China Glaze's Shocking Pink of course! My user name isn't adorepink for nothing! 

 (Above: My right hand makes a rare appearance! And you can see why it rarely gets shown!)

There was a little trial and error when I first applied this, because I was doing either too thick or too thin coats. Once I got good amount of polish that wasn't gloopy or too thin on my brush, I was really satisfied with the crackle effect. Is it me or does this look really Halloween-ish? I cant wait to try out new crackle combos! Until I can get some more time, I'll have to live vicariously through other bloggers and readers!

Are you loving the new crackle/shatter nail trend?

♥ Lachelle

Color Club Mrs.Hautie & Snakeskin

Two more Color Clubs from the Untamed Luxury! Do you know how long its taken me to wear these. Too long. *hangs head in shame* I think I've had them since Oct of 2010?

Oh well, they're on the nails now. First I put on Mrs. Hautie. I was in love with the bottle color, but it was ehhhh on the nail. Still pretty, just not what I expected.

Snakeskin is gorgeous but it has a little too much olive green undertone for me.

Brushstrokes galore on these! If you change your nail polish as much as I do, then I suppose that wont bother you? Then again....it might just bother you. This is two coats each with Seche Vite topcoat

♥ Lachelle

Milani Awesome Orange & Techno Red

I have two more Milani neons to show you today. First up, my favorite of the two, Awesome Orange. I just love that name. What if someone asks you whats on your nails? "Awesome Orange!", you can reply.

This looks blazing hot with the flash! Almost red.

Here it is without flash, in normal indoor lighting in my house. A little more toned down...but how it looks most of the time on me.

Techno Red looks like squishy red jelly!

If you don't mind visible nail line, then you wont have a problem with these. I used 4 thin coats of each polish and I can still see VNL. They dried quickly and matte, just like neons. Both of these are super cute pops of color so Milani Neons get a thumbs up for me!

♥ Lachelle

This post contains Milani polishes sent for review by the company or PR firm. For more information about my disclosure policy, please read this post.