My makeup from Halloween

Just wanted to do a quick post to show you all the makeup I did for Halloween. Since I am obsessed with all things Dia de los Muertos, I went with that as my theme. 

This isn't the greatest picture and it was hours after I had initially applied the makeup but that's all because Halloween is pretty hectic when you got 3 little kids around to dress up! We had fun though and got an absolutely absurd amount of candy (trick or treating in densely packed military housing always brings a windfall of noms!)...

Products used:

Manic Panic Goth White creme makeup

ELF HD setting powder

Ben Nye Lumiere Creme Color wheel

NYX Jumbo Eye pencil in Black Bean

Wet N Wild Color Icon single in Panther

Random old Rimmel black eyeliner pencil

Sally Girl glitter adhesive

Glamour Doll Eyes Eyelights in Fierce, Rave and Legit

I do love Halloween. It is my absolute favorite holiday for several reasons, some of which being: 1) it's all about the spooky things and I luvz me some spooky things. 2) It's the only time it's actually ok to accept free candy from random strangers?? 3) You can rock all kinds of kooky getups and no one gives you the stink eye or tries to have you committed. Hope you all enjoyed it as much as I did!

Still kickin

Sup, homies? I know its been a while. Life keeps eating up all my time--damn you obligations and responsibilities!! Despite the fact that I haven't blogged about my nails, I HAVE been doing them and I've still created manis for the CNT Halloween Challenge. I just seem to be having issues with being able to get said manis posted on the days they're supposed to appear....sigh...oh well--better late than never, right??

So anyway, here's the mani I did for the "Bump in the Night (monsters, etc) " prompt of the challenge:

Yep, unoriginal mummy nails that 5 million bloggers have done 5 million times before.  But, hey, how many bloggers take pics of their mummy nails while holding adorable little tuxedo skeleton wind-up toys? Yep, that's me, always gotta shake things up.

This mani consists of:

Zoya Dove (the gray)

Wet N Wild Black Creme

Wet N Wild French White Creme

Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear  Cherry Red for the pupils

Next up, I have the mani I did for the "pumpkins" prompt of the challenge:

outside shade

inside under swirly eco light bulb thingy

Yea I know, they kinda suck but, like I said, I'm still a newbie with all this free-hand nail art stuff. 

This mani consists of:

Maybelline Orange Blazes

Sally Hansen Diamond Strength Moonlit Dance

Wet N Wild Black Creme

Only 3 more prompts left in this challenge. Think I'll manage to post about 'em before Thanksgiving? Stay tuned and find out!

Crumpet's Nail Tarts rock my socks

More late Halloween Challenge nails...

Yep, once again, here I am posting for Crumpet's Halloween Challenge a day late...but honestly--at this point--do you expect anything else from me?

The prompt for this mani was "Freestyle Halloween" so I took the opportunity to experiment with a nail art technique I haven't tried yet: needle marbling. In orange and black, of course...

outside sun

outside shade

even more outside shade

So basically, I took Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Sunkissed, painted my nails with it and let it dry. Then, going one nail at a time, I painted half Sunkissed and half Wet N Wild Black Creme--put them both on a bit thick and then I dragged a pin-point through them randomly. I decided NOT to attempt any sort of specific design within the needle marble since it was my first time with it. My aim was simply "lets see if we can do this without it becoming a hot and hideous mess." Once again, kids. If you set your goals nice and low, you won't be dissappointed. After the pin-dragging, I applied 2 coats of Seche Vite.

I admit, I am actually really happy with how my nails came out--even if they are super simple (see readers, I'm taking your advice and trying to be less hard on myself)...I'll definitely be experimenting with needle marbling again!

Oooooh Things that Go Bump in the Night is the next prompt! Ghost nails, here I come!

Yay for Crumpet's Nail Tarts!

Lame late witch nails

So yesterday was witch day in the halloween challenge I'm doing but I didn't exactly post yesterday.
I DID do my nails yesterday, just didn't get around to actually uploading, editing and publishing anything. Damn you, life...MUST you keep getting in the way of blogging?? And you think I could at least have a decent mani to post given my lateness, but nooooooo. I come straggling in with THIS crap:

My original plan for the witches prompt was to create a fun halloween-colored background and stamp the only witch image I have in my plate collection over top of it. However, since I had never attempted to use that plate before (it's from Bundle Monster's first generation of stamping plates), I had no idea the plate was not etched properly and therefore would NOT stamp the witch properly...so I gave up and reached for some lame witchy decals instead. 

I like to think the cute dotticure background redeems this crap mani but really I just hate the whole dang thing.

For this mani, I used:

Barry M Bright Purple as base

Sinful Colors Exotic Green 

Maybelline Orange Blazes

large & small dotting tool

Nail decals by Kiss

Gelous and Seche Vite topcoats

Lets hope that, since the next prompt is "freestyle Halloween," I can actually pull of something that doesn't suck. Til then, go join the Crumpet's Nail Tarts group on Facebook and go see lots of other much more competent witch-themed manicures! 

Halloween Challenge Day 3: Zombie Nails!!

We have arrived at day 3 of the Crumpet's Nail Tarts Halloween Nail Art Challenge 2012. Day 3 belongs to the zombies!! I have quite an affinity for the undead--what with the glazed over eyes staring into space, the drooling on oneself and the tendency to communicate with grunts and growls, zombies and I have lots in common. I, too, desire brains--not so much for eating but for thinking more clearly and remembering things (I'm convinced the only thing I have between my ears is empty space)...

Anyway, enough yammering and onto the nails:

inside under lamp with swirly eco bulb thingy

outdoors under overcast sky

Zombies--heart--brains....get it? Yea I know, my brilliance is awe-inspiring.

For this mani I used:

China Glaze Immortal as a base

Wet N Wild Black Creme

Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Cherry Red

LA Colors pink nail art polish

Wet N Wild French White Creme

Tiny flat, angled nail art brush

Detail/lining brush

Dotting tool

Crumpet's Nail Tarts Halloween 2012 nail art challenge day 2: Black Cats!

Hello and welcome to the second post for the Halloween nail art challenge I have undertaken. Today's prompt was "black cats." My personal goal for this challenge is to baby-step my way into more free-hand nail art so, once again, I chose a simple design that I felt I could pull off with nothing but brushes and polish. Here's what my nails ended up looking like:

Yep, little peeking black kitties. I know they're not perfect, but at least they actually somewhat resemble cat heads, right? That's right people, set low goals and you'll never be disappointed. 

So, for this mani, I used China Glaze Surfin for Boys for my orange base. Then I busted out my trusty Wet N Wild black creme and a flat, angled nail art brush (picture a mini version of an ecotools eyeliner brush) to do the cats' heads. The eyes were done with a lime green LA Colors Art Deco striper polish and the pupils with a a short striper brush and WnW Black Creme again. 

 So far I am loving taking part in this challenge! As you can see below, the next prompt is ZOMBIES!! You know, I have a great affinity for the undead so I can't frickin wait!

challenge list image courtesy of Crumpet's Nail Tarts, aka the banginest nail group on Facebook

China Glaze Cast A Spell

Just a quick post today to show you one of China Glaze's Halloween 2012 polishes. This is Cast A Spell:

Cast A Spell is made of orangey-gold, lime and emerald green micro-flakies in a blackened olive base. This polish is stunning! It's murky yet still glows--even in ugly gray, foggy New England fall weather (I like to hope that, one fine day, we'll see the sun again). 

Formula is is a little on the thick side--practically a one coater but I did 2 because apparently I like wasting polish (any one else a habitual multi-coater even when they don't need to be?), then topped it with my trusty Seche Vite. 

Well done, China Glaze! You can always count on this brand for some awesome Halloween nail candy!

Crumpet's Nail Tarts Halloween 2012 Nail art challenge--day 1 "Trick or Treats"

So guess who decided to finally join a nail art challenge....I figured since I want to do tons of Halloween theme manis for the month of October and could use a little impetus to keep me going, why not hop on board this nifty little challenge that starts today? I learned about it in this nail-related Facebook group I'm in and the minute I saw it I was like "I'm SO on board with this!" I love the prompts and I love that everything is staggered out over the month of October because I know for a fact I could NEVER keep up with any kind of daily challenge (too many kids and too short of an attention span for that kind of nonsense)...

So anyfrickinway, onto the pics!

Crumpet's Nail Tarts Halloween 2012 Nail Art Challenge Day 1: Trick or Treats:

(please ignore the chip in my index nail...I whacked it on the screen door on my way out to snap these pics)

So the prompt for today is 'trick or treats'--basically sugary candy goodness. We all know I am a stampaholic but I am massively inexperienced when it comes to other forms of nail art--especially anything free form, so I wanted to push myself to do more free form stuff. I figured I could pull off something nice and simple like a candy corn manicure, so that's what I went with. 

I started off with a base of Finger Paints Papier Mache. Then painted Maybelline Sunshine half way up each nail. Next I painted Sally Hansen Extreme Wear in Sunkissed a quarter of the way up. I guess it's not that bad...right? It could have been worse...

So that's my installment for day 1 of this challenge. I am SO excited for all the upcoming prompts! I LOVES me some spooky things and am looking forward to painting all manner of ghoul and gore on these 10 little canvases on the tips of my fingers!

Btw, is that dancing skelly not the awesomest thing you've ever seen? Seriously, I want to tatt it on me somewhere!

Halloween nail art with scrapbooking rub-ons

One of my favorite nail bloggers is Another Bottle of Polish. I love how she frequently uses non-traditional materials in her nail art (by non-traditional I mean things that were not made specifically for nail art). For example, she creates beautiful manicures by using rub-on transfers--the kind you can find in the scrapbooking sections of craft stores. I finally got around to trying some of my own rub-on nail art. Of course, I chose a Halloween theme because from now until October 31st I'm rockin nothing but spookyness on my nails. Anyway, here's how my mani turned out:

Please try hard to ignore my terrifying cuticles. You know you just don't realize how bad your hands look until you blow them up a million times and macro-fy them... sigh...

I used my mani from yesterday (L'Oreal Project Runway 'The Temptress' Touch'), cut out some web and spider rub-ons, trimmed them to fit, placed them on my nails, gave them a good rub, did a little clean up with the ol acetone + ELF concealer brush and then sealed it all with a coat of  Out the Door topcoat. 

Here are the rub-ons I used. I found them at Christmas Tree Shops (an oddly-named bargain shop here in New England). 

So, are you feelin my rub-on mani? Thank you to ABOP for the inspiration! I see many more manis like this in my future!

Also, stay tuned for lots more Halloween nail art. I got a whole list of manis I'm planning to attempt!

I'm back--and I got spam!!

hey, remember me? yep I'm back to blow the dust off this blog and see if I remember how to post. It's funny, I somehow thought I would have more time to post once my kids went back to school. Man WHAT was I smoking?? Between shuttling them to & from places, homework, tutoring, soccer & the fact that their little brother doesn't know what to do with himself when his beloved big brothers are gone (and is therefore very cranky and VERY prone to getting into anything and everything the minute I turn my head), I have my hands more full than ever! BUT every now and then I do get a chance to paint the nails on those hands and when I do, I make sure to snap some pics, so here's some NOTD (nails of the day) spam for yas:

The above little lovely is Legal Assasin by Dandy Nails. It's part of her newly debuted Halloween collection and I picked it up when she did an impromptu pre-sale. It is basically the DREAM halloween glitter I've fantasized about making if I had ballz enough to make my own polish--black, purple and green micro glitters hanging out with bigger orange hexes. I wore it layered over OPI French Quarter for your Thoughts because I wanted the glitter to take center stage. I only needed 1 coat of LA to cover those gray undies up and only needed 1 coat of Seche Vite to make it all smooth. I loves me some dense yet flat glitters!

And next we have R.I.P. by Orly--3 coats topped with Seche Vite. Small gold and large orange hex glitters in a sheer black base (I showed its sibling polish in my previous post). Once again, Halloween in a bottle and I lurve it. I gotta mention the formula was a bit of a pain, though. Orly you need better suspension bases for your glitters!! I had to pick this bottle up and shake it several times during my mani because all the glitters just wanted to sleep at the bottom of the bottle. This tends to be a problem with lots of Orly glitters--Androgenie, and most of the Flash Glams, I'm looking at YOU! 

Here we have a fail art attempt I wore to celebrate the start of Football season. I'm not much of a sports person in general but I'm ALL about the football. I'm a Philadelphia Eagles fan (although I'm reluctant to admit it at the moment--damn, guys did you have to let the Cardinals run ALL over you like that?!) and the closest polish I have to Eagles green is Zoya Suvi. I did a silver glitter gradient with a silver glitter nail art striper polish & a bit of sponge and the silly little pigskin accent nail is OPI Suzi Loves Cowboys with a white Kiss nail art striper for the laces. 

And I saved the best for last. Behold the majesty of Nicole by OPI Just Busta Mauve:

(PLEASE enlarge these pics and scope all those gorgeous bitty flakes)

full sun

full sun

partial shade

full shade...be still my little heart!!

Just Busta Mauve is part of the Fall 2012 Target exclusive collection (yes that means you can only get it at Target--but it's also available on their website. This beauty is made up of tiny  blue, purple, copper, red, and gold metallic flecks and the amazing thing about this polish is that all the individual shades are actually discernable--it's like gorgeous cosmic multi colored tv static or something!! LOVING it! Nice job, Nicole. Now if you just ditch those ugly, awkward saggy boob-looking bottles, you'll be golden! (oh yea, and this is 2  perfect, easy coats of JBM over Nail Life ridge filler base and, as always, Seche Vite is on top!)

So I hope I made up for my absence with this spam...now I gotta run and get my kids ready for school (yep I woke up extra early just to write this post cuz I love you guys that much ;)...I'll be back soon, I promise! 

I'm already rockin Halloween polish, early September be damned!

OMG, you guys!! I don't know if you've heard but the peeps at Orly have glittered up Halloween something fierce! Check out Monster Mash:

DEATH by green glitter. LOVE!! Monster Mash is big green holo hex glitter, gold  micro glitter & gold bar glitter--all in a slightly tinted chartreuse base. I've never seen glitter quite like these big hexes. If you enlarge the photos, you can see there is actually a cross-hatch pattern on the glitters--probably has to do with their reflectiveness. It's STUNNING!

Formula wise, this polish is a little thick--of course--because they STUFFED this bottle full of as much glitter as physics would allow. The glitters spread out well and they are DENSE. My swatches are 2 coats of Monster Mash over black, but the black can barely make its presence known under all that bling!

I topcoated this mani with 2 coats of Gelous and 1 coat of Seche Vite to smooth everything out....and then I proceeded to STARE at my hypnotically twinkly nails for 2 days straight.

Monster Mash is part of a glitterfied trio that Orly has released for Halloween 2012. The other 2 polishes are R.I.P. (BIG orange glitters in a black base) and Right Amount of Evil, which looks to be the orange version of Monster Mash. The only thing I love more than Halloween themed stuff is SPARKLY halloween themed stuff so, of course, I got all 3 polishes and will be posting the other 2 soon!

NYC Haunted and Enchanted polishes for Halloween 2012 swatches and review

If you saw my post from yesterday, you know I came across a plethora of brand new Halloween makeup displays at Rite Aid. The New York Color display had some intriguing polishes that I of course snatched up right away & I couldn't wait to try them. 

On the left is Haunted and on the right is Enchanted. Haunted is a black jelly polish with gold hex glitters. Enchanted has the same glitters but in a shimmery white base. 

Click to enlarge. All swatches taken in outdoor sun.

Ok, lets start with Enchanted.

I had such high hopes for this polish. You don't see too many white polishes with glitter in them in the drugstores. When I was in Rite Aid under those whacko flourescent lights, I couldn't tell what kind of base polish I was dealing with. My hopes were that it was some kind of white jelly polish because a white jelly polish with awesome gold hexes suspended in it would be EPIC. 

Alas, when I got home and swatched Enchanted, though, there was no jellyness in sight. Nope. Just a frosted white mess...nasty and dated and brush-strokey (my photos above are actually being very kind to this polish. In real life, every stroke of every brush hair is apparent). And the glitter? Well it gets smothered by the frosted white base and the under layers of glitter end up looking less like glitter and more like bubbles and bumps. Yuck. As far as opacity goes, at 3 coats, there is still some visible nail line. Double yuck.

Haunted had its own set of issues. I actually really love the final look of the polish. The sparse gold glitters against the black background remind me of the starry night sky my boys and I have been spending so much time exploring lately.  Formula-wise, though, Haunted is very problematic. It's thick and it has major dragging and balding issues. You have to wait until each coat is fully dry before you can proceed with the next. Otherwise, you're gonna end up with a streaky, draggy nasty mess. Also, you have to be careful with how you lay down your strokes so the glitters don't get completely eaten up by the black base. Despite the polish's thickness, it still took 3 coats to reach full opacity and it needed a generous coat of Seche Vite to get it completely even. 

So my final verdict on these polishes? They're a nail fail unfortunately. If they weren't so cheap ($1.99 each and I got them on a BOGO 50% off), I'd take them back to the store. I guess I'll keep Haunted because I MIGHT wear it again one day;  it looks like it might be an interesting base for galaxy nails. But Enchanted is definitely destined for another home. Oh NYC, WHY couldn't you make that frosted white base a jelly base instead??

Halloween Makeup collections beginning to pop up at Rite Aid!

Ok, once again, before I even start, let me apologize for my absenteeism. We've been incredibly busy lately getting the boys ready to go back to school and trying to squeeze all the fun we can out of our last days of summer vacation. Once the boys start school again, you'll be hearing from me much more frequently. For now, just know that I appreciate all my awesome readers and all the wonderful comments you leave and even if I don't get a chance to always post responses, each line you drop makes my day!

Alrighty, so now that we got that out of the way, I have lots of pics of lots of exciting halloween sightings I came across today when I was in Rite Aid. Seems like these displays pop up earlier and earlier each year, but I kinda sorta LIVE AND DIE for ALLTHINGS Halloween, so I'm excited to see them despite the fact that it is no where near October.

OK, onto the pics! BTW, If you are a lover of red eyeshadows, you DEFINITELY want to keep reading.

First up, the annual Rite Aid  Blue Cross  pumpkin polishes are back! Lots of neon glow-in-the-dark offerings this year...I was disappointed that there were no awesome glitters this time around, but these polishes have a habit of varying widely from Rite Aid to Rite Aid so it is possible that this particular store only had these and there may be glittery pumpkin awesomeness to be had elsewhere. 

Next, we have some Fantasy Makers awesomeness. I LOVE me some Fantasy Makers--of course--because it is made by Wet N Wild and this year, they have these awesome eyeshadow/nail polish/lip stick/lashes look kits! Each "Wicked Look"  kit is $4.99.

Please forgive my awful cell phone pics. The kit in the upper left is called "Siren" and it includes a purple polish, a purple and blue eyeshadow duo, a mauve-looking lipstick and silver tinsel lashes. The upper right kit is "Vixen"--tomato red polish with a black and TRUE RED shadow duo (it appears to be the same red that has made appearances in past LE Wet N Wild shadow collections), tomato red lippie and more tinsel lashes. Bottom left is Temptress, which consists of a charcoal and bright pink shadow duo, a vampy red polish , vampy red lipstick and some long human hair-like lashes. Witch is the final kit here and this baby has a black and white shadow duo, a black polish and a black lipstick, plus some interesting clustered lashes. 

Now we all know how much Wet N Wild shadows rock, so I am very excited to see these shadow duos! Also, I couldn't help but notice that the lipsticks look like mini Mega-last lipsticks, the incredibly, deservedly popular new for 2012 lipstick formula that Wet N Wild released this year.

                                                           

Next to the "Wicked Look" kits, they had "Hauntingly Hip" kits that consist of heavily glittered cream shadow palettes and stencils. There's a devil kit that consists of reds, oranges & a grey  and some flame stencils; a butterfly kit that is more of a "brights" themed color palette, an angel kit which is an earth-toned palette and a swan kit that, other than the white shadow,  seems to be made of "jewel-toned" shades. 

Above is yet another Fantasy Makers offering--temporary hair color and colored mascaras.

Aaaaand even more Fantasy Makers--this time we have body glitters, glitter eyeliners and bottles of beautiful holographic glitter. Fantasy Maker fanatics like me will recognize that amazing little bottle of holo glitter--yep it is the same one they offered last year and I am SO glad to see it as I wasted my bottle last year in a horribly botched frankenpolish attempt. Now I can get a replacement and back-ups!!

OK, lets move onto our New York Color section of this post (these "spotted" posts always end up a million years longer than I originally imagine)...

Here we have the "Sweet and Devilish collection. The lipsticks in this collection are LE City Duets lipsticks--one is a red/black duo and the other is a white/gold duo.

The polishes--a white pearl with gold glitter and a black with gold glitter. Of course, I got both of them. There is also a mysterious "Demon Glow" top coat. Not sure what that is about. It doesn't contain any glow-in-the-dark particles that I can discern--just looks like a "dressed up for Halloween" version of a regular topcoat to me but maybe I'm missing something.

Eyeshadow duos! We have a pearly white & a gold duo and--GASP--another TRUE red drugstore shadow offering! This one is a matte red paired with a matte black. 

The bronzers in the display--a gold and white shimmer duo.  (I'm so sorry I neglected to get the shade names of all these)...

And finally, we have some liner duos--a black and red duo and a white and gold duo to go with the shadow duos. All in all a very exciting collection!

So are you digging any of these offerings?? Oh how hard it was to NOT walk out of the store with everything I saw!!