Gifted Goodies

Good afternoon folks!

Today I'll be sharing with you some of the goodies I received over the holidays. But before I do that, I'd like to give some quick updates on some of the products I've already talked about.

First up, we have a couple of Wet 'n' Wild polishes: "Be More Pacific" and "Ready to Propose". Both of these are stainers. I wasn't terribly surprised about "Be More Pacific", as greens, blues, and dark reds do have a tendency to stain--especially in the lower budget brands. But I was rather shocked that the gold stained. It turned my fingernails brown! Honestly, though, staining isn't a major issue to me; my nails are always painted anyway.

As for the Born Pretty Store stuff, the stamper works beautifully. I love it. But the stamping polishes are garbage. They not only stink to high hell, the white doesn't even work at all! The black is okay, but not very pigmented. The nail studs that I purchased are okay, but the special shapes (hearts, stars, etc.) are too big to lay flat on my nails. However, I have very narrow nails with a very strong c-curve, so this might not be an issue for most people. 

I've also figured out how to get the Nicole Diary stamping plates to work (mostly). I was so used to working with the BMC XL plates that I was scraping and pressing my stamper too hard on the smaller, less deep images of the ND plates. It's still going to take some practice, but I think I can get all the images to pick up now.

Remember when I said that Jess warned about China Glaze "Combat Blue-ts" drying super fast? She wasn't kidding. You can get away with three strokes... maybe four if you're quick, but that's all the wiggle room you have. If you try to manipulate it too much, you'll end up picking up the polish you already laid down. Still, it's a stunning color, and the matte look is awesome, so I feel that it's well worth it.


Alright, let's get into the new stuff, shall we?

So, I know I said I was on a "no buy" for a while, but there were a couple opportunities I just couldn't pass up. 

The first was Zoya's Black Friday sale. Uhmmmm HELLO! Zoya for $3 a bottle?! How could I not take advantage of that? 

Prior to this sale, I didn't own--nor had I even tried--any Zoya polishes. So when the chance arose to snag some for so cheap, I was all over it. I wanted to see what the hype was about! I didn't go too crazy, though. Originally I had 9 polishes in my cart, but I reigned myself in and only ended up buying four. These beauties are "Ember", "Tangy", "Elisa", and "Katherine". 






"Ember" is so amazingly luscious. When I first received it, I was worried. I thought, Oh hell, this looks a lot more orange than it did on my monitor. But then I swatched it. I am so in love! I know this sounds crazy, but if I ever run out of her, I might actually pay the full $10 for another bottle. She's a bright orangy-red with an amazing luster--damn near chrome-like. "Tangy" is a funky, fun green shade unlike anything I had in my collection. "Elisa" is a gorgeous crimson red. I'm not normally a fan of reds, but this Zoya is amazing. "Katherine" is a deep purple jelly. I wanted a jelly because I'd like to try pond manicures and jelly sandwiches. I've never worked with jellies before, so I was a little surprised at how streaky it is. However, I'm still excited to work with it. All of these polishes just glide on like butter. The hype for Zoya is well deserved!

Another deal I wanted to take advantage of was the $5 off coupon from Sally Beauty Supply. I was given this coupon when I went in to grab some acetone and nail wheels. You could get $5 off any purchase of $5 or more. So I figured I would grab China Glaze "Tis the Sea-Sun" from their recent Seas and Greetings holiday collection. Surprisingly, I didn't have any corals in my collection, so this was a great addition. Between the coupon and my Beauty Club Card, I paid $1.49 for the polish. 




Now on to the presents! My dad did a great job picking out some polish for me--so good, in fact, I can't help but wonder if he had help from his wife... hee!  He sent me the 12-piece Kleancolor metallics collection. Now, in reviews I've seen online, the original collection that was released two years ago had a "Metallic Black". Whether it was a packing error or whether they've replaced that original black I'm not sure, but in its place I received "Golden Nightmare" which is a black with gold micro-glitter. The other colors in this collection are white, orange, red, pink, mango, yellow, green, sapphire, purple, fuschia, and aqua. 


These colors are soooooo gorgeous. I'm in love with the entire collection. A lot of these are one-coaters. The white does take two, but... it's white. That's to be expected. They're amazing on their own, but folks... if you slap a glossy top coat on 'em... they come alive!  I've heard that Kleancolor polishes work great for stamping, too. I can tell you, though, that the white and the "Golden Nightmare" do not work. I think they have too much shimmer/micro-glitter. The price point is great, too. You can get this whole set on Amazon for $11.99, which puts each polish at only a dollar!

Unfortunately, there are some downsides. These polishes do stink a bit. And... they bleed. I'm not sure what it is, but once you put a top coat on these bad boys they will melt right before your eyes. If you're doing a plain mani, this is a boon. But if you're trying to do nail art, it's definitely a bane, as can be seen in this photo of a recent mani. I thought perhaps I hadn't let it dry long enough, but that proved not to be the case. I let the other nails dry overnight, and the next morning made sure to float my top coat. Yet I got the same result. I sat there and watched in horror as it bled more and more as the top coat dried. 

Still, for the price and the color payoff, I think these polishes are great.




I asked my mom for Sinful Colors "Snow Me White" for Christmas, but as per usual, she took it 18 steps further and got me all these goodies!


The first item was a package of plate sleeves from Bundle Monster that hold various shapes and sizes, along with a pouch that can hold my stampers, scrapers, and other stamping supplies. These are sturdy sleeves with metal ringlets--they'll hold up for a while! The only downside is that they're not completely clear, so it's a wee bit hard to see the images through the plastic.

She also got me a 25-piece round plate set from Bundle Monster (plates 301-325) and a 25-piece round plate set from Pueen (plates 01-25). It's taken me a bit of practice to get used to these plates, as I had the same heavy-handed issue that I did with the Nicole Diarys. But both sets have some awesome images. I'm excited to use them! 

Instead of the Sinful Colors polish I asked for, Mom got me the Bundle Monster duo of "BAM! White" and "Straight Up Black" stamping polishes. Both work great. "BAM! White" is very opaque! I highly recommend! 

She also got Bundle Monster's "Poli-Peel", which is a liquid latex barrier. I haven't tried this yet, but I'm betting it's a lot better than the crap I got from China. Especially since said crap is now completely dried out and unusable. Pbbt. 


That's all I have for you today! Now that the holidays are over hopefully I can catch up on some of the manis I've done. 

Have a fantabulous day!