The Time Has Come...

I have been contemplating writing this post for a while now, and I can't put it off any longer. I have been blogging for a long time, si...

Thursday, September 30, 2010

kelly's devil bug

no there is not a polish named kelly's devil bug, but there are polishes named kelly's green, horned devil, and love bug! and i think i'll probably show them to ya :)

first is kelly's green, from bb couture's vampy varnish collection, made in collaboration with vampy varnish herself, kelly :) and how can i not have a polish that has my name?? even if it's spelled differently. this is an avocado green creme with salt and pepper glitter, la la love it! it might not be everyone's cup of tea, but it is seriously gorgeous to me. thanks for creating this kelly, i cherish this! two coats here.
horned devil is from the butterfly collection, a gorgeous red-orange jelly jam-packed with that gold glittah that bb couture does so well!  three coats. this makes me smile :)  very bright and cheery!
and love bug is seriously adorable, right?! presh! this baby pink jelly is from the lady bug collection, like the polish i posted the other day--man bug. and it's full of glitter, but this time it's silver! they do glitter jellys so well, it floats and stays visible w/o being gritty or sinking to the bottom. three coats.
i might be shoving it in your face lately, but honestly, i love bb couture!  what is your must have bb color?

xoxo,
kelliegonzo

i purchased these products myself. please see disclosure statement for more information.

Wednesday, September 29, 2010

occ nail varnish

here are some more obsessive compulsive cosmetics polishes for you beauties!

wasabi is a WHAM! POW! IN YO FACE! color that is totally up my alley :D a bright chartreuse creme that was a tad thick, but manageable. this is three coats of brillance!
uber is an amazing shade that i la la love!  my skin is a bit more tan than most folks', i think, so it's hard to find a neutral that looks good on me. this taupe is perfection without matching my tone too closely, a nice contrast but still giving that "band-aid but better" look. and the formula was seriously great, thin but opaque! three coats.
rx is a new shade, part of their UV selection--they glow under ultra violet light! it is a PERFECT true candy blue! and i love the name, haha! this formula was also amazing, no bubbling and it built upon itself very nicely! this is three coats.
and last is radiate, another LOOK AT ME! color, a UV shade as well, red this time! wowza, i can't believe what this baby did to my camera! almost impossible to capture in a photo, you have to see this one to believe it! to say it glows would be an understatement! this is three coats.
are you diggen and of these shades, kittens? i love bright colors, even if we are looking at fall coming up fast :)

xoxo,
kelliegonzo

these products were sent to me for an honest review. please see disclosure statement for more information.

mac f/w nail trend 2010

mac is hawt. that's all there is to it. whether it's the "exclusivity" about the brand, the cult status, the sleek and sexy black packaging, or the fact that it's just plain good shit, people really freaking love mac. now, do people love mac nail polish?? in the past, it's been a pretty resounding "no!". or at least a small "no thanks". but, they have come a long way in terms of formula and their new stuff far outweighs their older polishes. at least, i've HEARD, as i haven't been a polish addict long enough to have any old macs.

the fall/winter polish trend, created with jin soon choi, is STUNNING. i mean, wow. glass fleck/glitter/micro-speckle? idk really. can't pinpoint them! but it's ok, sometimes no explanation is better :)
imperial flower is a heavenly orange, the color i imagine the oranges in the fruit orchard in my own personal nirvana to be!  flecks of gold and reddish orange glow from within this hot mama.  and here and there you can even detect slight bits of other colors, oh my stars!  it is slightly jelly, like the rest of the polishes.  this one was only two coats, great formula :)
ming blue was one i was ready to skip from looking at the press release, but i'm SOOO glad i gave it a spin.  gahh, when will i learn that blues just WORK on me??  today i suppose, because this beauty really just is fiiiiine!  inspired by the "ming vase" blue color, this reminds me of Bleu de France too, with light blue shimmer flecks.  in two coats this was perfection!  *sigh* can this collection get better??
OMG it can!  jade dragon is the first one my eye fell to when i first caught sight of these polishes.  i seriously think i drooled.  GORGEOUS deep forest green with blue-green shimmer/glitter that just makes you want to stop and stare, WOW.  two coats and opaque as all!  unfortunately, this one stains bad.  like stains in the time it took to paint four nails and take pictures, that bad.  oh well, WHO CARES this ish is gorj!
earthly harmony was exciting for me, which may sound a bit weird, because it's a neutral, but i really adore colors like this.  murky concrete putty colored with golden shimmer.  however, this just looked kinda weird on me.  i still love the color, it just doesn't translate with my skin tone very well.  three coats and a bit streaky.
concubine was probably the least unique looking to me out of the collection, a jelly bright blood red with pink/red shimmer flecks.  i also REALLY REALLY hate the name.  it's like naming a polish "whore".  sorry, no likey.  but yes, it is a very pretty polish but i would never buy it.  this is three coats.
and last, we have rain of flowers, a deep blackened violet polish with lighter purple and blue shimmer raining through it.  i really like the idea of this one, but it just doesn't pull itself off, unless you're in direct sunlight.  mostly it looks like a dark purple or black polish with a hint of gleam.  which is fine, but for something so spectacular in theory, it think something could've been tweaked to make it a bit better.  this is two coats.
so all in all, i really like half of the polishes and half are nice.  did you get any of these?  i just picked up jade dragon, but i wish i would've bought ming blue as well :)

xoxo,
kelliegonzo

most of these products were lent to me by a friend. please see disclosure statement for more information.

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

bb couture man bug


tra-la-tra-lee come with me, my little friends, down along the grove, to where the garden ends, and the flowers grow, all high and bright, where the sun beams down, bathing us all in light. tra-la-tra-lo, oh happy day, what pretty creatures, all the birds and bugs, have come to play! now let's all join in, a colorful troupe, to laugh and smile, sing and whoop

yeah...idk what that was :) but this polish makes me feel so gosh darn SUNNY! i just had to write some jolly gosh darn happy poetry for ya! man bug by bb couture (my love!) is a fabulous minty turquoise jelly with golden and green glitter from the "ladybug collection" from spring 2010.  i've never seen anything quite like it and i'm glad, i love having unique polishes! in fact, you can say that about a ton of bb's polishes, they are one of a kind--which is what a polish addict likes to see!! this is three coats. the color is a bit more green in flash and a bit more blue in the lamp light photos. in the sun it's in between the two.
do you have any nail polishes that make you just feel giddy and goofy? i mean, enough to write dorky poetry about them? o_O haha love y'all and don't forget to enter my giveaway! the deadline is october 1st!!

xoxo,
kelliegonzo

i purchased this product myself. please see disclosure statement for more information.

fingerpaints BCA polishes

i told you all a couple posts ago (here) about two polishes that FingerPaints had come up with to bring awareness to Breast Cancer during the month of October. now i have them to show you "in person"!

i'm a survivor is a bright candy pink with a wash of silvery/white shimmer that shows *just* enough through the color to make it a fun and exciting polish. exactly what i would want to wear to declare my "womanhood"!  plus i had that Destiny's Child song "i'm a survivor" stuck in my head the entire day i wore this haha.  the formula on this was absolutely awesome, three coats, no fuss.

i pink i can looks like it has the same silvery/white shimmer but this time it's in a baby pink opaque base color and it's a bit more subtle. very appropo for the Breast Cancer foundation, i think, as the awareness ribbon is after all, a medium/light pink. i had a bit of trouble with the application of this one, it was a bit thick but after i worked with it a bit it was ok. just make sure to allow the layers of polish to dry a bit between coats, think of it as a pastel almost. i might thin it the next time i use it, to make it easier though i think.  this is 3 coats.
these should be available at sally beauty starting in october, which is Breast Cancer Awareness month, for about $4.99.

xoxo,
kelliegonzo

these products were sent to me for an honest review. please see disclosure statement for more information.

Monday, September 27, 2010

rehab franken

i have been wanting deborah lippmann's polish rehab forever. and i mean, for-ev-er! not too long ago, in my local nordstrom, where i have gotten good and bad customer service, but mostly tiresome problems, i was just shopping with my sister and happened to see a bottle out on display labeled as a tester. i basically started going into hysterics. unfortunately, the wiley minxes at nordie's had put out a tester with no product to buy, since rehab is long since discontinued. no matter how much i begged and pleaded with the sales girl, the supervisor, and later the manager (yeah i know, i'm an addict) to let me buy it, they wouldn't. "store policy". whatever. it's not MY fault you have something displayed that i can't buy! you're a STORE. that's your ONE JOB. to sell me things! man was i mad. when i was talking to the manager later, he assured me he could find me a bottle (yeah right) and would call me back in a few days. well sure he called me back, in the middle of a work day when i couldn't answer the phone. so i slip away to call him back about 10 minutes later, and end up having to leave him a message. did i ever get a call back?? nope. so that does it, burned your bridge there local nordies, i'll either shop online or in another town! boo!

anyway, all this ranting is leading somewhere, i promise. i decided, if you can't beat em, join em. i set out to make a franken of the polish to satiate me until i can track down a bottle of my own. i made this using a recipe suggestion from Lacquer Laine here. you can see how close it compares to the original here and here. it's about 4 parts wet n' wild clear polish, 1 part wet n' wild nocturnal (navy), and 1 part a beautiful life noir (black). i layered it on pretty opaque here, but it looked good more sheer also.
i'm alright with this girl, let's call her amy (get it? rehab? haha) but i still am lemming for the original. *sigh* what are some of your all time biggest lemmings??

xoxo,
kelliegonzo

i purchased these products myself. please see disclosure statement for more information.

man glaze

man glaze is a little polish company that has a BIG image. they make six products, matte is murder, fuggen ugly, mayonnaise, a matte topcoat named matte-astrophe, a glitter matte topcoat called hot mess (aka fish dicks), and bottles for frankening polishes called "franken juggs". the polish is technically for men, but c'mon like that's gonna stop us hot babes from wearing it?! plus the owner Marc Alexander Paez wouldn't dream of stopping us :) he's a great guy and is a blast to interact with. (check out his site and his twitter.)

mayonnaise is their newest addition, a shimmer filled matte white.  this is super sexy and really easy to wear!  most girls tend to stay away from white polish, but i really like the look on me.  and this polish is seriously gorgeous, the shimmer is understated and it being matte puts a new spin on it.  comparing it to the other white matte polish i have, opi alpine snow matte (seen here), it blows it out of the water.  this polish is not chalky, stark, or hard to control, it's the opposite! 
i also put hot mess, the matte glitter topcoat on top of mayonnaise (middle and pinky), along with a regular shiny topcoat (index and ring) to see what it would look like, and the results were awesome!  the sun kind of obliterates hot mess because it's so sparkly haha, it almost looks like salt and pepper huh.  and the shiny topcoat really brings out the subtle shimmer on mayo, doesn't it?!  (enlarge by clicking on pictures)
fuggen ugly has been around since the company started but this bottle is a reformulation, more matte and more shimmer.  grey and gorgeous, and probably the best named polish ever!  i think this has to be my favorite matte nail polish in existence, even more than the opi suedes, which i love.

when i put a shiny topcoat on, i was like, uhh, is this a flippen holo??! it almost seems like it because of how much shimmer is packed into fuggen ugly!  the flat concrete-like gray turns into a sparkly dream with a topcoat applied (index and ring)!  and hot mess on top (middle and pinky) made it even more bling bling, wow i could hardly stand how hawt my nails were!  i could've used their flat matte topcoat, matte-astrophe to make them even more matte, but i was enjoying the gorgeous sparkle too much to do so :)
and here is a photo of the entire bottle of hot mess, manglaze's bottles are epic-ly illustrated.  trust, these polishes are legit.
xoxo,
kelliegonzo

these products were sent to me for an honest review. please see disclosure statement for more information.

Friday, September 24, 2010

illamasqua fern

illamasqua used to be a slightly untouchable brand to me. i felt like their stuff was, like almost too good for me? of course that's silly, because illamasqua's whole philosophy is to show that everyone has a face of beauty and deserves to express themselves. their website quotes -
Illamasqua is for the bolder person hiding inside all of us. It is an act and an attitude. A symbol of tolerance. A celebration of idiosyncrasies. A confident statement of self-ownership.
i recently acquired my first piece of illamasqua beauty with this polish, fern when i bought it on a blog sale a while back.  i really didn't know what i was getting into, i saw a pretty shimmery blue polish at a great price so i jumped at it!  how could i have known that i was going to receive this gorgeous, perfectly formulated, stunner!  seriously, the bottle is so beautiful even, and the polish just zings out of control.  shimmer or microglitter?  idk which one exactly fern houses, but it works, whatever it is!  this is three coats, because i didn't want to stop painting haha, but two was opaque and lovely.  i was complimented a lot on it too, which is always encouraging.
illamasqua had my attention from the minute i knew about them, and i legit love them now because i know their product is just as amazing as their image.  now i just need to build up my collection!

xoxo,
kelliegonzo

i bought this product myself. please see disclosure statement for more information.

eyeko pinks

eyeko has been a brand that is quickly rising in popularity with me. the last few polishes i've tried of theirs have been stellar! these next two are pinks, adorable no? =) every girl needs a little pink. and eyeko thinks so too, because first up is chi chi polish for girlie nails. a sweet vintage pink glitter in a milky pale pink creme base. i love that they used a colored base on this one, instead of a clear one. i kinda hate clear based glitter most of the time, because i'm not much for layering :/ this is very pretty and didn't take much for opacity, only two generous coats! it was a bit gritty so a topcoat is a must. this would also be great as a layering polish, but again, i'm not big on that soooo...
i had high hopes for punk polish for neon nails, as i had heard glowing reviews about it, but i couldn't really get it to work for me at first. i literally redid my swatch five times before i decided i had to thin it a little, it was just too thick--i kept getting massive air bubbles and had horrible application problems. a few drops of lacquer thinner and viola, almost perfect! went on like a dream, very pigmented and neon. this is three coats of the thinned version, and as you can see, i still had a little bubbling :P
in this flash pictures, it takes on almost a purpley tone, but it's definitely pink, that's just the neon messing with the flash.
so i'd say as a fan, i would pick chi chi as a winner and punk as a nice-to-have kind of polish but not a must-own for me. what do you think?

xoxo,
kelliegonzo

these products were sent to me for an honest review. please see disclosure statement for more information.
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