Another Look: Lynnderella Love Potion No. 99

So I'm sitting in the airport writing this post. Courtney showed us Love Potion No. 99 by Lynnderella not that long ago and I had not intended on wearing it or showing it to you so soon. However I got a new purple polish that I had so many issues with I had to cover it up! It was such a warm purple and it apparently didn't agree with my new favorite base/top coat combo. So it refused to dry and was getting smugged and dented hours later. So what better way to cover up any issues than top is with an amazing purple, violet, fuschia and holographic glitter!!! Soooooo much better. So this is two coats of the lovely and sparkly Love Potion No. 99 over 2 coats of "mystery purple". :)

Love Potion No. 99

Love Potion No. 99

Love Potion No. 99

Love Potion No. 00

Can you stand how awesome this is? You can get Lynnderella's polished for $15 from Llarowe's website. Also can anyone guess what my mystery base polish is?

Julep Maven November Box #2

You guys!!!! :( I missed a freaking day!!!!!!!!  UGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!  I was actually pretty disappointed when I woke up this morning realizing it.  I found out pretty late last week that work needed me to travel for a conference and trade show and demo one of my products at the exhibitors hall M-W.  So late Sunday night I uploaded pictures for the week so I could write my blog posts remotely.  Then Monday morning at 6am Chris took me to the airport and I spent the day traveling, checking in (to the hotel and conference), setting up, demoing for hours, and then going to a networking dinner.  By the time I got home it was after 10pm and I literally passed out.

So let's just pretend this blog post went up yesterday :) for my sanity :).

So my second Julep Maven Box in November was awesome.  I got another makeup bag which I gave to a friend, another plumping lip gloss, and Maggie!!!!!   They even included a cute note to let me know that they messed up.



Julep Maven November Box - Bombshell



Julep Maven November Box - Bombshell

Here is the lip gloss, an amazing shade called Ulta-Violet which is gorgeous and I'm also allergic to.  I has a sad :(.

Julep Ultra Violet

And then there is Maggie.  I LOVE her.  A deep blackened purple with beautiful silver shimmer.  This is the perfect Raven's game day polish.  LOVE LOVE LOVE.  This is 2 coats and it's super shiny on it's own.  The shimmer isn't as prominent on the nail as it is in the bottle, but it's certainly there.

Julep Maggie

Julep Maggie

Julep Maggie

Julep Maggie

Julep Maggie is available from Julep.com for $14!  If you don't have her and have some Julep credits saved up, this would be a great way to spend it.

Deborah Lippmann Across the Universe

So last week before I took off Deborah Lippmann's I Know What Boys Like, I slapped Across the Universe over it to see how the combo would look.  I really really love this polish and it was my first Lippmann.  It's a dark blue jelly with blue and green glitter in varying sizes.  Total mermaid nails.  You definitely want to wear this over another polish, because building to opacity is tricky.  I usually wear it over OPI Dating a Royal, but this works too!



Deborah Lippmann Across the Universe

Deborah Lippmann Across the Universe

Deborah Lippmann Across the Universe

Check out that sparkle.  Mr. SLR hated photographing this one.  The light just goes nuts.  This polish will set you back $18 but is always available at Zappos.com or Nordstroms.com with free shipping.  This is a must have Lippmann, so if you don't have it and love it start saving up :).  Once I figure out how to take better SLR pictures of glitters, I'll redo these to get some zoomed in shots of it's awesome!  What do you think?

Julep Maven November Box #1

Getting there with catching up on Julep Maven Boxes!  We are up to November, which was full of wins and losses for me.  So the first thing that happened is I got my email telling me what was in my Julep Maven box for November.  And this light mossy green creme, Selena, was included and SO not what I am in to.  So for the first month I request a new pull and asked for the Bombshell Box instead.  So disappointingly when I opened up my box - Boho was still staring me in the face?  What gives?!?!  FAIL! So I emailed Julep and within a few days they let me know they had some issues with the system for requesting new pulls and I would get another Box (the correct one this time) immediately and for free and that the Boho Box was mine to keep.  WIN!

So let's start with the first box I received, the wrong one.  It came with a Julep Maven bag, which is a black cloth bag with the Julep logo quilted into it (super cute - WIN), a plumping lip gloss in Extravagant (WIN for now, beautiful color), and Selena (FAIL! more on that too).  They also threw in more sample of their hand/skin care products which I'm not a fan of on scent alone (FAIL).

Julep Maven November - Boho

Julep Maven November Boho

So Extravagant...  I actually never got this on my lips, only my hand.  The color is actually gorgeous.  It's a pinky taupe neutral with soft gold shimmer.  It was really lovely and would have been great for work.  However when I got box number 2 I decided to try it's plumping lip gloss and subsequently found out I was very ALLERGIC to it.  The skin around my lips got red and huge.  It was so weird looking.  I wiped it off and about 40 minutes later my lips were back to normal.   So Extravagant never made it to wear, no more swollen red lips for me please.  I mean I know this is plumping, but plump my lips not my entire mouth region! FAIL!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Julep Extravagant Plumping Lip Gloss

 So then I gave Selena a shot, knowing I would hate it and I was correct.  There are a lot of people that would go nuts for this polish.  It was a 1 coater, the formula was great, and the color is unique and interesting.  But it's just SO NOT ME!  So here she is, love her or hate her (FAIL) - Selena.

Julep Selena

Julep Selena

Julep Selena

So there is the November Box I wished not to get, and now you know why!  At least Julep sent me the correct box for free, so I'll show you that this week as well.  The Julep Maven program is $20 a month and you can sign up at Julep.com!  On their own, a polish like Selena will cost you $14.

What the Hubby Chose: Wet 'n Wild Back Alley Deals

I think I may have mentioned the week before last that the hubby and I were going out for our big birthday celebration with our friends.  Or maybe I didn't.  The past few weeks have been a blur, lol.  Anywho, the hubby and I have birthdays exactly a week apart (and also a few years), so we decided to celebrate them both with some of our closest friends in a big birthday dinner at P.F. Chang's.  Mmmmm...P.F. Chang's.  Since it was closer to Hubby's birthday, I let him pick out my manicure.  He originally wanted a "Saints-themed manicure," since they were playing that night (I don't even want to talk about it.), but we just couldn't really make that happen, so I had him pick something else.  Leave it to him to pick the glitteriest glitter that ever lived.

Wet 'n Wild Back Alley Deals is the queen bee of glitters.  Pardon these photos, because they're 1) not color accurate (and I tried REALLY hard to adjust them to be) and 2) not even a shadow of how awesome it is in real life.  It's a polish of smaller round purple/fuschia glitter sprinkled with larger red hexagonal glitter.  It's a really cool color combination.  The hubby said it reminded him of the Joker from Batman.  I'm totally picking up what he's throwing down.  Definitely click to enlarge these photos!  SO gorgeous!

 (click to enlarge)

 (click to enlarge)

All that being said, this is not going to be a completely favorable review of this polish.  It's absolutely stunning on the nail, but HOLY BAJEEZUS.  The application was HORRIBLE.  HORRIBLE.  HORRIBLE! I don't even know how I can articulate how bad it was.  I wanted to cry.  Thick, gloopy, patchy, impossible to work with.  I put up with a lot of crap for a good polish, but DAMN.  


Then, it ate top coat like a MOFO.  I kind of expected that, but what I'm showing you is TWO coats of Gelous, followed by Poshe, and the next day I had to add another coat of Gelous and Poshe, and it STILL felt gritty.  I need Lynnderella's Glitter Tamer like WHOA.


As if that still wasn't enough, THEN it chipped like crazy!  I had major chips in less than 24 hours.  That's a huge nail in the coffin for me.  I could maybe handle it with a polish that had flawless application, but not from one that I fought with so much.

So, what do you do when a polish looks SO amazing, but sucks so bad?  You look for dupes!  Luckily, Back Alley Deals has not just one, but TWO dupes!  The first is Deborah Lippmann's Flash Dance.  The bad news is that this one is a mini that comes as part of the Dance Music trio set.  It's $29, but as Jessie already showed us, Dancing in the Streets is totally worth it.  The other is Nails Inc. Bloomsbury Square.  , which is a little more accessible.  It's $9.50 and available at www.sephora.com.

While I would tell you to run FAR far away from Back Alley Deals (Ha!  Makes sense, right?  lol), I would more than recommend picking up one of the dupes!  DO IT!  ;-)

And the Winner Is...

(Sorry it took so long to get this posted.  This past week has been probably the craziest week of my life!)

Bebe!!!

Congrats, Bebe!!  All five Finger Paints flakies will be on their way to you soon!  We hope you love them!!

Thank you to everyone for participating in our 1-Year Blogaversary Giveaway!  One year really does fly by quickly, especially when you're having fun and have the support of amazing readers like YOU!  It just wouldn't be much of a blog without you, and we look forward to more fun and giveaways in the future!  Can't wait to see where we are a year from now!

Love,

Courtney & Jessie

Another look: Zoya Edyta

So one of the other polished I recieved from my polish fairy-godmother was Zoya Edyta. Courtney showed us this back in April. I'm generally not a fan of Zoya polished only because their formula doesn't seem to be too compatible with my nails. It always chips, and chips early. I do have few polished I keep though because their color alone make it worth dealing with the chips. Edyta is one of these amazing colors so I am SO happy to have it. Funny, I would have never expected liking this polish's color. It's a very dark warm toned green with tons of gold shimmer. We all know I'm not into gold, and that cool tones tend to look better. Given all that I still LOVE Edyta. She is stunning an beautiful and totally reminds me of RBL Anne. They aren't dupes, but they are cousins for sure. Edyta is a one coated to boot! She's so a keeper :). Check her out.

Here are the comparisons of Edyta and Anne. Edyta is in the middle. Anne is to the left and right. Anne looks so light next to Edyta. What do you think? Cousins?

Edyta was released as part of the Wicked collection released in Fall of 2010. All of Zoya's polishes are permanent collection so this will be easy to find if you don't have it. And for $8 each they won't kill your wallet!