Some Micro Swap Spam

Hi loves!

  Today I have the remaining colors I had yet to try from my swap with Carina from Gilded Nails. Let's just get straight to it shall we?

  This is Down the Rabbit Hole. I really wish I had Sunlight pics of this but I realized after I put it on that there was no Sun :(. This one is a Black jelly- like base full of micro Silver and holographics sparkle. For this I layered Two coats of Down the Rabbit Hole over one coat of O.P.I Black Onyx .

 This one is Mint Condition. I love this one! It's an awesome Minty Green creme but it is not pastel at all. It is actually bordering on neon but not quite all the way there. It's super playful and unique. The only thing I cannot stand with BYS polishes is the horrendous smell. But the colors I have are so pretty! This was Two coats, no top coat.

 And last but absolutely not least is China Glaze's Wagon Trail. This one is a blackened Golden- Olive shimmer. So stunning and classy. This is from one of my favorite China Glaze Collections, Rodeo Diva. I have been lemming every single color from this collection ever since I saw Scrangie's swatches. Carina made my day by sending me this beauty because now I am Two colors into this collection... Just a few more to go lol. This was two effortless coats.

I am so grateful to Carina for sending me all the lovely polishes. I am so glad I was able to do this swap with her. 

Thanks for stopping by,

<3 Cristina

Swap with Gilded Nails ♥ + Essie Demure Vixen

Yaaaay!

  I'm so excited about this swap! This bundle of awesome came to me all the way from Australia thanks for the lovely Carina from Gilded Nails. This was my first international swap so I was super stoked to see what international pretties would come my way. I left the choices entirely up to Carina who picked me some beautiful and unique colors.

  She also included for me some Aussie goodies (I've already had a caramel Koala which was super yum!), a pretty nail file and some M.A.C pigments. I'm super excited about the pigments because I've never tried ANY M.A.C makeup.

And there you have it!! Look at them goodies! Why is that a bottle of Kaleidoscope Him Out and Wagon Trail by China Glaze there? Why, YES! Yes it is! Can you believe her? She also sent me two of the BYS polishes from the Alice in Wonderland Collection they did which had some incredible glitters.

So why did I choose to start with Essie's Demure Vixen when all these new and International goodies were waiting for me? I had literally been pondering buying Demure Vixen the same day the package came so I figured it was fate and decided to wear it first. 

 Demure Vixen is one of those lovely Mauve-y/ Taupey- Violet shades we love so much but toned waaay down. I am so madly in love with this color. It's soft and delicate but present. As in the color does not get washed out by skin tone or visa-versa. The formula was great. For this I used Three coats of Demure Vixen. This is also my very first Essie I've ever tried. I liked it.

And how cute is it with the swirly stamp? This is the first mani I've done in a while that I loooved. I love the simplicity and cleanliness of it. I am so into these Nude shades lately and this one really does it for me! 

A big Thank you to Carina again. I almost cried tears of joy as I was unwrapping each little bottle.

<3 Cristina

Color:

Essie Demure Vixen

Stamp: SH Color Quick Chrome Pen in Pink Chrome

Plate: BM201

TC: Seche Vite 

Revlon Steel her Heart

Hello ladies and not,

  Today I have a swatch of a color I got in a mini- swap I did with Steph from Imperfectly Painted. She is awesome with a capital A. I don't remember how we got on the topic of Maybelline Colorama polishes but Steph and I were Twittering and she mention she had Four Coloramas she could send my way so I said "Hells Yeah!" and along with the Coloramas she sent me a beautiful Pure Ice polish and this Revlon shade.

Steel her Heart is what I wanted China Glaze's Avalanche to be.... Steel her Heart is a beautiful Gunmetal Grey metallic. Even though it is slightly brush-strokey, with careful application it can be prevented. The artificial light pics are picking up a lot of the Silver tones which make it look frosty, but this is not frosty at all. The formula is good on this color, easy to work with but watch out for brush strokes. In the pics above I have Two coats of color and no top coat.

Sorry I haven't been doing more creative things lately but I have been seriously stuck on this goal of swatching my entire collection. I am only 11 colors away from having that done so I have been swatching like crazy and not stamping enough. I have a few things I want to start working on as soon as my swatching project is completed so things should be getting more exciting around here pretty soon. In the mean time I hope you are liking my swatches.

Also if you have not yet done so, pretty please check out my entry for the Bundle Monster Facebook contest. You can vote once every 24 hrs until April 20th. Please help me win one of these sets gals! You can check out my entry by clicking the picture on the right side bar.

Thanks for stopping by :)

<3 Cristina

Swap with Colores de Carol ♥

Hello lovelies,

  So I did a little swap with the lovely Carolina from Colores de Carol not long ago and she sent me some awesome Pure Ice polishes along with some cute stickers and a lip gloss that I can't stop wearing lol. Pure Ice is totally new to me and I had been wanting to try some. I left the choices totally up to her because I like to have colors chosen for me and she picked some beautiful shades!

Dreamy- China Girl- Rio- Celestial- Heart Breaker- A*List.

Today I'll be showing you Rio and Celestial. Rio is an absolutely gorgeous Fuchsia jelly packed full of micro iridescent Purple glitter which resembles Pixie dust sprinkled all over my nails. I could not stop staring at my nails for a good while before I applied a coat of Fault Line which complemented Rio beautifully. With Rio there was still some VNL at Three coats but I'm not a VNL hater so it didn't bother me.

  And here is Celestial. This is basically a metallic Royal blue. I know what you are thinking O.P.I Blue my Mind  or CG Frostbite. Close, but no cigar. This is much more of a metallic finish than a shimmer also more of a true Blue... The formula is good on this one but watch out for brushstrokes. Keep your hand steady but light when working with finishes like this one. This is Two coats.

 

  I'm really liking this brand. The polish is great, the price is even better and they have an awesome color range! I love when inexpensive brands surprise me with how good they are.

Have you ever tried Pure Ice?

<3 Cristina

(**CG Fault Line sent by China Glaze**)

Whoops! I forgot...

that today was a holiday...

   My friend Ellen asked if I was doing a mani for St. Paddy's and I just couldn't come up with anything I liked so instead I'll show you some amazing polishes that I received from the awesome Stephanie at Imperfectly Painted. Both brands are unknown to me but this always excites me because you never know where your next favorite will come from!

I'll start with Savina's Morning Glory. Stephanie featured this color not too long ago on her blog. Of course being a Grey I couldn't help but love it.. AND THEEEENN she mention that not only is it Grey... It is a jelly. Yes, you read right... A Grey jelly. So, I commented on the post about how much I loved the color and without missing a beat she Tweeted me to see if I would like a bottle for myself (She knows I have a serious Grey fetish). I am eternally grateful to her for getting this beauty to me (lol) and for being so nice to me for no reason other than I liked the color (like, Like like the color)! And this is why beauty bloggers are amazing! Anywhoooooo..

  Be still my heart... A Grey jelly... This is like someone took Zoya's Caitlin, made it a jelly and gave it a shot of Blue to give it depth. The formula on this was great, I find that jellies are pretty easy to apply IMO. I am so madly in love with this Color it's not even funny. It's squishy, shiny and translucent, but not at the same time. After Three coats it is perfectly opaque and there is no VNL. For some reason when I looked up at my rack Flurry Up! was demanding I layered it over this beauty and so I did... And I'm so glad I listened!

She also included this hawtness in there. This is Daring Imagination's Vampire Red. This is one of the few times I enjoy being so pale! These colors really pop on my skin and who doesn't love a hawt vampy mani? The formula is great on this polish. It is thin but not runny and it is very well pigmented. It actually has quite a bloody look to it. I only needed Two coats for evenness and the end result is an awesome deep Reddish- Maroon that is extremely sexy.

  I love these two shades, especially Morning Glory. Again, a big huge thank you to Stephanie for sending these two amazing polishes and making my collection even more awesome!

<3 Cristina

Colors:

Savina Morning Glory

Daring Im. Vampire Red

Sephora by OPI Flurry Up!

TC: Seche Vite