Milani Purple Outline

If you have replied to a post of mine in the past week, I have caught up and replied to all of your comments!

Netflix had consumed my life for the past few days. I was watching the new Netflix series Orange is the New Black and became hooked. If you have Netflix, are not offended by a  TV-MA rating ,and like a thoughtful well written show, you need to watch this now!

Anywho on to nail polish! Milani, a little while ago had these nail art stripers. One of them was called Purple Outline. I can't for the life of me understand why Milani wasted this color by making it a striper nail art thingamabob. Purple Outline deserved to be a full blown 0.5fl oz polish of her own. Yes, ma'am. I will thank Scrangie for this because I would of never known about it if it weren't for her. I purchased 2 of the nail stripers and decanted them into a empty nail polish bottle, and gave Purple Outline the attention she deserved. 

Purple Outline

Purple Outline is a violet with pink, purple, and blue glitter throughout.

Color: You tell me? This is an awesome color. I don't think it needs more explanation than that!

Formula: The formula was actually really nice and easy to work with. This does dry dull, so top coat is a must.

Price: I don't remember what I paid for this. This was discontinued from stores awhile ago, but you can still find it for $3.48 on Drugstore.com. 

Overall: Awesome polish! Nothing more to say, if you can snag this one, do so! 

My Rating: 5 out of 5 Paint Splatters

Happy Wednesday!

Cult Nails Road Trip, Anyone? Swatches & Giveaway

* The following products were provided to me by Cult Nails for review. 

I have to share with you the latest Cult Nails collection--Road Trip, Anyone? today. This is a fun assortment of 3 bright shades with 2 nifty top coats. Also, at the end of my review I will be giving away a set of this collection to one of you! 

Be Loco

Be Loco is a bright pinky-coral creme.

Riot

Riot is a bright pastel teal creme. 

Party Time

Party Time is a bright marine blue creme. 

All Out

 L-R: One coat over Party Time Riot, and Be Loco

All Out is an intense yellow-golden shimmer in a clear base.

Mayhem
L-R: One coat over Party Time, Riot, and Be Loco

Mayhem is a silvery holographic top coat.

Color: I love the bright colors in this collection. I think they're fun, vibrant, and saturated. Party Time was really hard to photograph, but it is way more intense and saturated in the photos. All Out can completely change the color of your base polish, while giving it this awesome intense shimmer. Mayhem is a gorgeous holo topper that gives a soft holographic effect.

Formula: I liked the formulas of all of these. I found most of them easy to work with and apply. I did have some issues with Party Time leveling out on my nail a bit, but nothing overly troublesome. Riot and Party Time have the potential to be stainers, but Maria from Cult Nails has provided a short video on how to avoid this.

Price: The collection is currently be sold on the Cult Nails website for $62.00. You will be able to purchase these individually soon.

Overall: I really enjoyed this collection. I love all the base colors, but I'm a bit partial to Riot. I don't have anything like that in my collection. The addition of the 2 top coats is awesome. They both can transform your nails in subtle or a more intense way!

My Rating: 4 out of 5 Paint Splatters

*The products above were provided to me for review. 

Don't leave yet! I have purchased a set of this collection for one of you!

The Prize:

-One person will win the entire Cult Nails Road Trip, Anyone? collection (see pics above)
*This giveaway prize was purchased by me. This is not a sponsored giveaway. 

Guidelines:

- This giveaway is open to USA residents only. Please do not take this personally, this is to avoid any issues with customs and not being able to track packages. *Note- If you have someone in the USA willing to ship it to you from their address you may enter. I will only ship to USA addresses. 

- Giveaway runs until Saturday, August 10th @ 12:00am EDT.

- One winner will be chosen. This winner will have 48 hours to claim their prize (I will send you an email) or else another winner will be chosen.

-The only requirement to enter is that you provide your email. There are other optional entries, but email is mandatory.

- Enter using the Rafftlecopter widget below only.

a Rafflecopter giveaway


Happy Monday!

Share With You Sunday: 7/21/13-7/28/13

Imperfectly Painted Posts:
Tues- Milani Retro Glam Collection
Wed- Pastel Saran Wrap Nails 
Thurs- Milani Fantastical Plumage Collection
Fri- Cult Nails You're My Dandy Lion

Posts I'm Loving:
Nailmattic swatches Rue 21 Pink Ice.
Peace, Love, and Polish shows us her summer flowers nails.
Beauty Judy shows us what Nubar had to share at Cosmoprof 2013.
Makeup Withdrawal shows us her rainbow nails.
Spektor's Nails shares with us her green saran wrap mani.
Polish Art Addiction shows us her neon studs nails.

Posts You're Loving:
The Polish Playground swatches some of Leesha's Lacquers.
Lacquer or Leave Her! shows us her Michelangelo inspired nail art.
The Clockwise Nail Polish shares with us her starry stamped nails.
alizarine swatches Le Chat Dare to Wear Our Secret Eden.
Polish Obsession swatches Sindie Pop Sky Sparkle.
Beacon Nails shows us her ice cream manicure.
Adventures in Acetone swatches the Elevation Polish/Crowstoes Hot-Cold Duo.
Light of the Moon Nails shows us her stamped nails using her favorite color combo.
VJC Nails shares with us her neon rainbow gradient.
Fox Claws swatches Different Dimension Ocean's Daughter.

You can submit your blog posts for Sunday posts here.

Reader Manis of the Week: 

Name: Nidia
Location: Florida
Manicure Description: The first part was Cult Nails Nevermore with Finger Paints Twisted! Then, I did a color block on top of that, but left some spaces for the Twisted mani to shine through.  The color block colors were all Sephora for OPI:
Skinny Jeans, I Come In Peas, Screen Test, Set the Mood, and Charge It!
http://beautylitfromwithin.blogspot.com/2013/07/CultNails.Twisted.Colorblock.html
Favorite Polishes: ORLY Sparkling Garbage, A-England St. George, all flakies and holos!
Blog:  Lit From Within:  www.beautylitfromwithin.blogspot.com

Name: Lisa N. / The Polish Playground
Location: Canada
Manicure Description: My first stamping manicure! For my base color, I used OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls. For my stamping, I choose a full image design from BM-301. I decided to do a gradient type look so I choose three colors to stamp with. I used Cynthia Rowley Mint, Sally Hansen I Pink I Can, and Ulta Sun-Sational. Finished it with a coat of my Seche Vite Dry Fast Top Coat.
Favorite Polishes: They include Orly Rage, Orly Ancient Jade, OPI Pros & Bronze, Essie Shine of the Times, Windestine Jeweled Sand, and many more!
Blog: http://thepolishplayground.blogspot.ca/
Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/thepolishplayground

I need manis for August! You can find information on how to submit your manicures for Sunday posts here. 

Happy Sunday!

Imperfectly Me: Guarded

This is a non nail polish related post. Sometimes when I have life challenges pop up I like to share them with you all.

One of my biggest challenges in the past has been social interaction. I will be flat out honest. I lived in Orlando with zero friends from 2007-2011. Self esteem plays the major role into all of my challenges in life including friendships and social interaction.

When local bloggers started meeting up that was extremely anxiety provoking for me. Thankfully, over time I was able to move past that anxiety, and become more comfortable in social situations. I even was able to break off and form individual friendships with some bloggers! Awesome!

I'm good with individual friendships. One on one I feel comfortable with. I suck at group interaction...like really suck. I've always been this way since a child. I'm seriously a loner type. When my friends would get together as a group I'd feel like the outsider. I never really fit in with groups of people. I think it's because I'm guarded as a person. I feel very disconnected socially in group settings. I never let loose or feel like I can be myself.

The problem is even though I am accepted and liked by all the members in social group I still behave this way and feel this way. I honestly think it's because I find it hard to believe people like me and want to spend time with me. Again, self esteem. I had a get together with some bloggers I felt closest to for my birthday and I honestly was shocked that people wanted to celebrate MY birthday with ME. I couldn't just absorb those good feelings I had to question them? In turn, I felt disconnected and awkward, which I then hate myself for. Vicious cycle--here we go again!

This isn't anyone's problem but my own, and it's one I create for myself. I think a lot of this stems from my past behavior and a lot of severe emotional abuse. I used to be an open book to a lot of people and was betrayed many times. I used to get really close to people only to be disappointed by them. I also do not feel good about myself so it makes me wonder "if I don't like myself, how could someone else?" There is also the fact that growing up I was told repeatedly by some peers and and some adult figures that I was not good enough. I think these are a few reasons why I don't fully connect to people. I keep my distance to protect myself in some way. This is probably some psychological defense mechanism that I can't think of the term for.

While I'm trying to protect myself by behaving this way it doesn't serve me well. I even do this in the blog world online. I feel very much like a loner blogger. The truth is I don't know how else to behave? This has been my response to situations for years and years. It's natural and a very learned behavior.

The thing I'm learning is that while I'm able to do little fixes here and there in my life, I'm neglecting the major issue of my low self esteem. That is what really needs to be addresses and worked on as it is the true source of all my problems I believe. Don't worry folks, I'm in therapy. That's why I brought this up today because it was we talked about in our last session. I feel like sharing these thoughts and getting a response helps to put a lot of this in perspective and most of all not feel so freaking alone.

My therapist recommended the book The Six Pillars of Self- Esteem by Nathaniel Branden to help me start battling this nasty thing. I've already started and I'm shocked at how much my low self esteem has been reflected in my actions, choices, and how I've continuously been creating negative self fulfilling prophecies for myself. Yuck. It's good to recognize this though because I hadn't before. I'm hoping now I'll be able to recognize the behavior when it starts and re-direct it.

On-wards and upwards. Thanks for listening.

Happy Saturday!

Cult Nails You're My Dandy Lion

I have a beautiful yellow to show you from the Cult Nails In the Garden collection today. Yellows are probably one of the trickiest nail polish colors out there. The formula on yellow polishes has tendency to be streaky and hard to worth with. How will You're My Dandy Lion measure up?

You're My Dandy Lion

You're My Dandy Lion is a sunny yellow with a subtle yellow shimmer.

Color: This is a beautiful sunny yellow. I know yellows can be tricky with some skin tones, but I think this one would be flattering on most. The shimmer in this is very subtle and is virtually indivisible in person

Formula: I used 3 coats in the swatch above. The formula is a little on the thick side, but covers and evens out very nicely on the nail. I'm impressed because most yellows do have a lot of leveling and streaky problems even after 3 coats.

Price: This is $12.00 on the Cult Nails website.

Overall: I really like this yellow. The color is great and the formula covers well and is impressive for a yellow polish!

My Rating: 4 out 5 Paint Splatters

Happy Friday!

Milani Fantastical Plumage Review & Swatches

Be sure to check out my review of the Milani Retro Glam collection.

* I received the following in exchange for my honesty review by Milani.

I have for you the other new collection by Milani. This one is called Fantastical Plumage, which is a mix of brightly color shades with a white & black Jewel FX glitter top coat called Carnival. 

 Scarlet Ibis

 Scarlet Ibis is a bright red-orange with a very subtle shimmer.


Canary

Canary is a sunny yellow with a subtle shimmer. 

Peacock

Peacock is a light aqua blue creme.

Blue Jay

 Blue Jay is a blue-violet creme.

Purple Martin

Purple Martian is a bright lavender with a very subtle shimmer.

Carnival is a mixture of  white & black hexes and black bar glitters in a clear base.

Colors: These colors are excellent! I absolutely love these bright shades. They are vibrant and pigmented. This is exactly what I look forward to from a drugstore brand as far as colors.

Formula: I'm sure you're curious considering my issues with the Retro Glam collection what my thoughts were on formula with this these. I will say off the bat these performed much better for me than the Retro Glam collection. These were not perfect though. I did have some issues with some, namely Canary, Purple Martin, and Carnival. I will break those down for you.

Carnival- I found this one very hard to work with. The glitters did not stay put on the nail, and I think ended up making a bigger mess than what it was worth using this.

Purple Martin and Canary- These both had some noticeable leveling issues for me. They did not even out on my nail well. That being said, I didn't find them so challenging that they became frustrating to work with unlike the other collection.

The other colors Scarlet Ibis, Peacock, and Blue Jay while not perfect formulas were overall pretty good in my eyes.

Price: $4.50. These can be found in August at select CVS and Meijer stores. This collection can currently be found on the Milani website.

Overall: I think this is a good collection sans Carnival Jewel FX top coat. The glitter top coat is simply just too hard to work with and I can't recommend it. The other colors though are beautiful and bright. Some of the colors do have a few formulation issues, but nothing I felt was overly problematic.

My Rating: 3.5 out of 5 Paint Splatters

* I received these products for review by Milani.

 Happy Thursday!

Pastel Saran Wrap Glitter Accent Concoction

* Check out my guest post on Refined & Polished yesterday, where I talk about how replicate the saran wrap nail technique. 

I have some secondary birthday nails from last week to show you. I was really proud of these nails! I wore these when I went out to lunch with some of my blogger friends for my b-day.

I started out using Julie G 9 to 5 as my base. I then topped that off using saran wrap technique with China Glaze Tart-y for the Party. I finished it with an accent of Sally Hansen Gems Big Money.

I am in LOVE with this, and really impressed with myself! I love the color combination and the glitter accent. Big Money was perfect balance because the lavender glitters mixed in with the gold match up to the lavender in China Glaze Tart-y for the Party. I think I did good considering nail art isn't my strong suit.

I'm making the most out of this mani. I've had it on since Saturday night and it's still holding strong! I don't want it to chip. This is probably one of my favorite nail looks I've ever done for myself!

What is one of your favorite nail art creations? 

Happy Wednesday!

Milani Retro Glam Collection- Swatches & Review

* I received the following product in exchange for my honest review by Milani.

This post is pretty wordy, but I felt a need to explain many factors when writing up this review.

I have the Milani Retro Glam collection to show you today. This is a collection of soft shades that includes Sprinkles black and white glitter topper.

Almond Bliss

Almond Bliss is a pale yellow off white creme.

Mint Chip

Mint Chip is a medium muted green creme.

Strawberry Shake

Strawberry Shake is light pink with a subtle shimmer.

Creamy Pistachio

Creamy Pistachio is a soft pale green creme.* I want to apologize for not having a swatch of this with Sprinkles on top. It truly slipped my mind as I was swatching tons of Milanis and didn't realize until editing that I had left that one out. 

Raspberry Delight

Raspberry Delight is a medium pink with a subtle shimmer.

Sprinkles is a mixture of black and white hex glitters and black bar glitters in a clear base.

Colors: This is a nice collection of colors. I think for a drugstore brand these are definitely on trend and fun colors. I especially like Almond Bliss and Creamy Pistachio.

Formula: These were a challenge to apply. I am sure you notice that from my photos. These were uneven, streaky, and did not self level. I really struggled with these, so much so I couldn't wait to get through this collection. I'm sure that's why I inadvertently forgot to swatch Creamy Pistachio with Sprinkles. Sprinkles top coat was nice though, but was a bit tricky to apply with the bar glitters.

Let me go into this further. You will see bloggers who have reviewed this collection with pristine swatches of these. I have also seen bloggers who have had similar problems that I had. Who is right? Who is wrong?

Neither one of us. Did some of us get "bad bottles".  No, I highly doubt it. Even though I have been blogging for a long time now I still consider myself an everyday polish user. One of the reasons I love nail polish is because of how easy it is to apply in comparison to other cosmetics. I don't want to fuss with a polish to make it work. I don't want to have to adjust  how I regularly apply nail polish to make it look nice. My nails are also not perfect. They aren't perfectly smooth and I do have nail ridges. Part of what I consider a good polish is a polish that covers up my imperfections, not one that highlights them.

These are the problems I had with these Milani polishes. They did not perform in the way I would  personally expect from a nail polish. I even used a ridge filling base coat and still noticed issues. That's not to say like some other bloggers you cannot get nice results with these. You may have a smoother nail surface, you may be more willing to work with these to even them out, you may have a better base coat than me. Personally, these were more of a struggle for me than I care for.

Price: These are $4.50, and will be available in select CVS and Meijier stores in August. They will also be available on the Milani website.

Overall: These are probably some of the most challenging nail polishes I've worked with in a long time on a personal level. If you identify with me on what I explained above, I think you will struggle similarly. If you have a different approach and don't mind working with a polish you may like these. This really boils down to personal preference and experience. These colors are beautiful, but that is as far as my recommendation can go on my part.

My Rating: 1.5 out of 5 Paint Splatters

* I received these products in exchange for my honest review. 

Happy Tuesday!