Jessica Fall Collection- a quick preview!

Enlarge this photo, it's worth it!

Wow!! I checked my mail a couple of days ago and was excited to find an unexpected box from Jessica Cosmetics. I'm not sure if you're aware of this, but I absolutely ADORE Jessica polishes. The range of colors is fabulous and the quality is unbeatable. I couldn't wait to tear into this box and see what was there!

I wasn't disappointed. In the box was a set of 12 polishes that included the Fall 2013 collection and the Jessica Effects- Glitzy collection. That's right, it was a collection of glitter polishes that made my eyes almost pop out!

Oh yea, that's a LOT of testing!!

I was so excited that I had to experiment immediately. I pulled out my favorite notebook and began swatching on paper, and I was absolutely in LOVE!! (This page also includes the swatches from the latest Zoya collections. Expect a post on that soon as well!)

Seeing all of these colors together just made my afternoon, and I fell in love with two of the polishes. Usually when I get a collection, I let it sit for a while to come up with ideas that work with the colors. But not this time...

No, this time I couldn't wait to tear into this set and start wearing them. I started with two coats of Jessica Overture, a rich coppery, sparkling orange. I topped that off with a coat of Jessica Sizzle, an absolutely amazingly beautiful red glitter. The glitter in Sizzle comes in three sizes- a moderately large hex, a smaller hex, and then tiny pieces that are still larger than the microglitter in a lot of polishes.

These colors go so well together! I wasn't sure if red glitter over orange/copper polish would work, but ZOMG it SO DOES!! This is one of those manicures that just keeps me looking at my nails, loving how the light plays across them.

Of course, all this sparkle and shimmer made these nails almost impossible to photograph. I'll try to get some better ones tomorrow, but I'm not promising anything.

I've got the nails painted, so hopefully I can get the review of all the polishes up soon. I was just so happy that I had to share this! Hope you like it too.

Til next time!

Polishes were provided by the brand for consideration.

See my disclosure statement for more information.

A fun floral look

While using the camera flash, the colors
are washed out but you can see the depth
of the blue background.

Whew, I just woke up from sleeping almost 24 hours! I'm not exaggerating, either. My husband was in the hospital over the weekend, thankfully for a false alarm. But I spent 3 days "not sleeping" on the awful pull-out loveseat, being worried sick and waking up every time something beeped. In short, I didn't really sleep for 3 days.

I'm super-thankful, though, because my husband is ok! All the tests showed that his heart is strong and healthy, so now we get to follow up with the primary care physician and go from there. We can do that. I just want to keep him around. 20 years together is a good start, but he can't go anywhere yet. :D

The good news is that while we were waiting (and waiting and waiting!), we came up with a TON of great blog ideas! Since it's going to take me a while to get them started though, you get to see this older nail doodle I did and then forgot to post. Oops!

This is actually a very simple look to create. Let me list the polishes I used before I get started, just to make it easier.

1. Nutra Nail Gel Perfect in Two-Step
2. Jessica Strawberry Shake It from the Gelato Mio! collection
3. Jessica Tangerine Dreamz from the Gelato Mio! collection
4. Jessica Lime Cooler from the Gelato Mio! collection
5. Zoya Evvie from the Designer collection
6. Orange loose glitter

Natural light shows the actual colors of
the polishes I used.

I know, it looks like a lot. It's easier than it seems, though, I promise! I started with Two-Step (1) to create a gorgeous background with a lot of depth. I then put down a drop of both Lime Cooler (4) and Evvie (5) next to each other, then
dipped my brush into both. This let me slightly mix the two, but still get striations of both colors through the leaves and stems. I think this gives an interesting look to them.

For the flowers, I put down a large drop of Strawberry Shake It (2) on my palette, then used my large dotting tool to make 5 dots in a circle around the top of each stem. I went back with a bamboo skewer and drew from the center of each dot to the center of the circle the dots made. This gave me a five-petaled flower at the top of each stem!

To complete my flower, I put down a dot of Tangerine Dreamz (3) in each flower center. After that dried, I realized I wanted a bit more sparkle there, so I put a dot of clear polish on each flower center, then put a bit of loose orange glitter on top of the clear polish. Unfortunately, it went everywhere, and I didn't notice that until after I'd put a coat of Seche Vite over everything. That's why there are bits of glitter on the petals and the stems.

Overall, I like this. It's fairly simple to do once you get started, and it's a fun happy design! You could use any background and flower color you like!

As for what's coming up? Stick around, it could get fun in here!

Polishes were provided by the brands for consideration.
I make no money from the links provided. They're just for your convenience.

See my disclosure statement for more information.

Let's Get Bronzed- Jessica Pumpkin Delight topped with Jordana Bronze Fest

Jessica Pumpkin Dreams in the bottle

You know how sometimes you get a new nail polish and you're almost obsessed with it? I have to be honest here- Jessica's new Pumpkin Delight (from their Fall 2012 Spicy Dreams collection) is one of those polishes for me. I've worn it twice, and I am absolutely in love with it!

This really is my sort of polish. It's a shimmery metallic bronzey golden duochrome that has flashes of red and gold and copper that's almost impossible to photograph. I finally managed a couple of decent photos, after taking probably 50 or more bottle shots alone!

Jessica Pumpkin Dreams in the bottle

This bottle shot gives you a slight idea of the complexity of this color. At the top of the bottle you can see reddish coppery tones with sparkles of red and green, while at the bottom of the bottle there are golden-greenish shades. If you never enlarge any other photo here, enlarge this bottle shot to the right. You'll be amazed at the flashes of color, and how stunningly beautiful this polish is!

Ah well, enough babbling about Pumpkin Delight. I love it, and it's obvious. Hopefully it's obvious why as well! But now I have to explain the next step I took. It was a rather odd one, but I think it worked out nicely...

If you've been a reader for very long, you probably know I have a thing for glitter. Big glitter, small glitter, holographic glitter... I love it all. So when I got the Jordana collection of special glitters I sort of lost my mind a bit. They're amazing, and I'm having problems picking a favorite. Heck, I don't think I can even pick five favorites... they're just that awesome!

Jordana Bronze Fest in the bottle

Enter Jordana Bronze Fest. Can you see that amazing collection of coppery, bronze, and gold glitters? There are large hexes and tiny microglitter, and flashes of so many shades... It's definitely one of my favorites.

As I was looking through the box I got to thinking... what if I did a gradient from Pumpkin Delight to Bronze Fest? They're very similar in tone, and I liked the idea of going from small shimmer to large glitter. Why not, right?

People? Let me just tell you that I fell in absolute LOVE. They aren't quite as close in color on the nail, but they look fantastic together. It's definitely a magpie heaven! Unfortunately, no matter how much I tried to photograph this, it just didn't work. I tried natural light, I tried flash, I tried in shade and full sun. I finally gave up and shot a video. Hopefully this can convey a bit of this polish combination's amazingness!

Polishes were provided by the brands for consideration.

See my disclosure statement for more information.

Jessica Fall 2012- Spicy Dream

Holy wow. Can I just say I'm in love with the Spicy Dream collection from Jessica? Seriously, I cannot even begin to tell you how much I love these polishes.

When I saw the flyer for this collection, I have to admit my first thought was, "Meh." Gee, more browns and bronzes. Yippee. That only lasted til I opened the box containing these sweet polishes, though, because even in the box I could see the texture that these polishes have! There are two creme polishes, a shimmer, and three gorgeous glitters.

Let's look at the cremes first. Crimson Tattoo is a red so deep it almost looks brown. This is my kind of red...rich and lush and dark. It makes me think of fall, and maybe of steamy activities better left to the imagination! ;)

Brown Sugar is a creme brown that's well named- it's the brown of brown sugar, like the gingerbread cookies that appear every winter. Both of these polishes are gorgeous on their own, but they make amazing bases for the glitters... but we'll get to those.

Next is the single shimmer of the collection- Cinnamon Kiss. This color? Omg. There are no words. This is the color that I bought and rebought for years, loving the deep red and the gorgeous shimmer. It's not terribly unique, but it sure is gorgeous. The first car I bought using my own money was this color!

I actually wore this color first, and loved the way it looks against my pale skin. Unfortunately, I didn't get any photos of it. I'm scatterbrained, apparently. It's gorgeous, but I made the mistake of applying it right before a bath, and soaked a bit too long. I don't know WHAT I was thinking!!

My favorite polishes of this collection are definitely the glitters, though. When I opened the box, I saw these and actually squealed in delight! The glitter in these is so incredibly fine that they're almost a foil finish. It was really difficult for me to figure out what to call these!

Champagne Bubbles is a very pale, almost white glitter, and I haven't tried it on the nail yet. Gingersnap is a golden/silver-leaning polish, and Pumpkin Delight is more bronzey/red.  Gingersnap and Pumpkin Delight both have a duochromey, color-changing feel to them that's really difficult for me to describe.

So, instead of wear these as they are, I knew I needed to layer these. I paired Crimson Tattoo with Pumpkin Delight, and let me just say that I am absolutely in awe of the finished look.

See what I mean about the color? It's so dimensional, and it looks simply magical on. I've gotten compliments wearing this too, people asking just what I'm wearing because they can't stop looking! It felt good to share the Jessica love!

If it will stop raining for a bit, I'll try to get outside and show you what this looks like in sunlight. It's definitely worth looking at. It's been so hard to photograph!

Since it's 3am, I'll go ahead and show you the rest of the photos and hopefully get to bed. But I had to share this with you... these colors are simply magical!

The Spicy Dream collection was provided by the brand for consideration.

See my disclosure statement for more information.

A muted, fall design

Today's nail is something more simple, something less flashy than I usually wear. (I know, I know, but I don't ALWAYS wear super-bright neon glitter and spangles!) I was thinking of fall- sweaters, falling leaves, and the general feeling I get around the holidays.

This was a very simple design to do. I started out by mentally dividing the nail into two diagonal sections. I painted the bottom half in Zoya Noot, a deep rich grey creme color that I absolutely love. Then I painted the top section with Zoya Rekha, a deep burgundy creme. Both colors are from the Zoya Designer Collection for fall 2012.

I loved the two colors side-by-side, but I wanted to accent where they came together. To do this, I painted Jessica Wing It in connected swooshes across the join. Jessica Wing It is a lovely incredibly muted creme color from the Awakening Collection that accented the two base colors beautifully.

I liked the nail at that point, but felt it needed something else. At that point I reached for Zoya Elisa, a bright metallic red from the Diva Collection that really pops against the dark creme base colors. Unfortunately, this was the hardest thing to capture! My camera did not like the combination, so the photos I'm showing are the best I got from two sessions! Ah well... it happens.

I finished everything off with a coat of ProFX quick dry topcoat. My bottle is starting to get goopy, and thinning it isn't working so well. I think it's about time for a new bottle. Still, it's lasted nicely!

I'm really liking this combination of colors. I may have to wear something similar to this on my own nails soon!

What do you think? Would you wear this? Leave me a comment, tell me what you'd change on this one.

Polishes were provided by the brands for consideration.

See my disclosure statement for more information.

Blue Dots Everywhere

Whee, I have more nail art for you! This one is deceptively-simple looking. It's easy to do, though, and I love the end result!

I started out with a base coat of Zoya Song. It's a gorgeous color, deep, rich, and metallic royal blue! Once that was done I was strongly tempted to leave it like this.

But no, I had plans for this. Once Song was dry, I painted the tip half of the nail in a slant using Jessica Sky High. It's a light-to-medium blue creme that looked gorgeous next to Song! To tie the two together, I added a stripe of Zoya FeiFei between the two.

The sparkling effect of FeiFei looked really nice between Song and Sky High, but I felt like the junction needed something else. So, I added a stripe of Jessica Barely Blueberry over FeiFei, so that there was a nice transition between them of light, dark, light, dark. Then I added a coat of Jordana Glitter in Lunar Lights over the lightest blue stripe, because you know I have a thing for glitter. :D


Don't get me wrong, I could have left it just like that. It would have been beautiful, but I wanted more. So, I pulled out my basic black and white nail art polishes (my white was White Canvas from Milani, and the black was a striper from the Dollar Tree) and added contrasting dots- white on the dark blue and black on the light blue.

I feel like the end result is whimsical and silly, but still not too overdone. (It takes a LOT for me to consider something overdone...) I love the big round dots, even if I do wish they'd been more consistent. I need more practice, clearly! But overall I think this could be a really fun look!

You could also do this look in any set of colors you like. I can see this with various purples, or monochrome in shades of grey. You could even do this with contrasting colors! (Note to self, do one of these in blue and orange...)

So what do you think? Cute, or junk? Leave me a comment and let me know!

Polishes were provided by the brands for consideration.

See my disclosure statement for more information.

Nail Art Doodling Summer 2012- Glitter Madness

It's been a while, but I've finally got some new nail art to share with you! I've gotten several new collections recently that seemed like they would play very nicely together. So one day I pulled them all out, grabbed some full coverage nail tips and started playing.

The image to the right gives you a hint of what's coming up. I had so much fun making these, and I've got some designs I'm absolutely in love with! So, first we've got a design I called Glitter Madness!

I started out with Zoya's Diva collection. This set has some absolutely gorgeous metallic jewel tones that I really needed to see together. I chose a very long nail tip for this one so I'd have lots of room to play. From top to bottom I used: Elisa (red), Suri (purple), Song (blue), and Ray (green). I then added dots of a greyed-out blue, but realized I wanted more oomph for the nail

Enter the Jordana Glitter Specialty Nail Polishes. I'm a bit late to the party with these, but holy WOW are these polishes amazing. The day I got the collection I ended up painting all my nails with a different glitter and just watching them sparkle. This collection was basically made for me, and I am so in love with it!

Getting back to the Glitter Madness, I went over each section with a corresponding glitter. I added Red Flash over Elisa, Magenta Magic over Suri, Blue Bash over Song, and Green Glitz over Ray. This took the nail from gorgeous to magically glam. I still wanted some definition between the colors, though.

Thankfully, Jessica Custom Nail Colour had just the color I wanted. I didn't want white, because that seemed like it would be too stark against the deep rich colors I had going. Instead, I went with Barely Blueberry from the Gelato Mio Collection. This color is a very pale, very cool blue, just barely blue but still with enough color to not seem shockingly out of place with the rest of what was happening on the nail.

With the separating dots, I didn't want a precise line of equally-spaced, evenly sized dots. Instead, I wanted a slightly meandering, wobbly line. You know, if a leprechaun with a peg leg got drunk, stepped in paint, then staggered all over my nail!

Wait. That just sounds wrong. Forget I said that. :D

I then added a coat of ProFX Quick Dry Top Coat to protect everything and smooth things out. I have to say, I am in LOVE with this look. I just wish my nails were long enough to wear it! The various glitter polishes have multiple sizes of glitter in them so there's a ton of sparkle, and the deeper toned base colors show through underneath.

It's just a crazy sparkly, intensely colorful look that makes me giggle when I think about it! This satisfies my inner magpie, and makes me want more more more. It's definitely my style of nail art...

But my question is this- what do you think of it? Is this something you'd wear? Would you tweak this to fit your own style, or does this design call to your inner diva? Let me know in the comments!

Polishes were provided by the brands for consideration.

See my disclosure statement for more information.

Jessica Cosmetics - Lime Cooler

Lime Cooler by Jessica Cosmetics

OMG, has it really been a whole week since I blogged?? Sheesh. I saw the doctor and we tweaked meds again, but unfortunately I've still been feeling all fibro-hit-by-a-truck. But I seem to be looking up a bit, maybe... I even managed to paint my nails last week, and I loved the color so much I'm STILL wearing it!

Some of you may know I love lime green. If you weren't aware of it prior to now, well... now you know! When I opened the box that contained the Summer 2012 collection from Jessica Cosmetics, I squealed loud enough to make my husband cringe. I knew Lime Cooler would be the first polish I tried!

Let me say it one more time, I absolutely love this polish. This green creme is bright enough to make me happy, but not so bright and in-your-face to make me feel uncomfortable. It's a chic take on summer brights, and I'm in heaven!

Application was a bit unpleasant for me, but this was mainly because my bottle was sort of thick and gloppy. I have a feeling a couple of drops of nail polish thinner will make this baby perfect. As it is, it's almost opaque in one coat!

So, if you love lime green, this is a total keeper! I know this one will be one of my special bottles of polish, the ones I love to wear, but am afraid to run out of!!

Also, since I've been out of touch for the last week, I figured I'd show some of the stuff I've drawn to help keep myself sane. My husband got me a big set of colored pencils, complete with neons and metallics, so I've been having a ball coloring in my drawings.

This drawing is probably my favorite one I've done in the last month or so. She looks thoughtful, and sort of... I can't quite find the words. Anyway, I like her a lot!

She was drawn one of those nights I was up all night, just hoping meds would kick in, or things would stop spasming enough for me to sleep. I didn't sleep, but I got a pretty drawing out of it!

Then there's this one. Not as happy with her, although she's still interested. She looks kind of spastic, though...almost like she's frightened.

I've changed her since I took the photo... I gave her eyelashes and brought her eyelids down a bit. Now instead of looking afraid she looks all sultry and smouldering. I love seeing the difference such slight changes can make!

There's also this lady. She looks kind of like a pirate to me, maybe. She started out as me attempting to copy a drawing in the book Doodles Unlimited by Tracy Bautista. I didn't like my rendition, so I kept tweaking and tweaking until I was satisfied. While you can definitely see the inspiration, I think my drawing has a lot of my own style to it.

Then there were a couple of basic doodles, one all my own and one a way of decorating words that I found on Jaqueline Koh's blog. I've had a lot of fun tweaking it to my own style!

I colored this one with colored pencils, metallic colored pencils, and metallic gel pens.
I think the gradient petals are my favorite part!

The top bubble is the style I got from Jacqueline Koh,
although the one I saw on her blog was all black and white.
I had fun incorporating dots and a heart smiley face.

And that's it! I've rambled enough, and now my husband and I are going to finish watching a movie I fell asleep in the last time we tried to watch it. Sometimes I'm an awful movie buddy! I hope you've had a great week so far, and that your weekend is even better!

Til next time!

Polish was provided by Jessica Cosmetics for consideration.

See my disclosure statement for more information.

Jessica Cosmetics - Desire

Hi! I have some wonderful goodies to share with you over the next few days. I recently got a box full of nail polishes from Jessica Cosmetics, and I fell in love with one of them right away. Let me show you Desire...

Ok, that was cheesy, but I couldn't resist. Still, Desire is a gorgeous raspberry red that waved to me from the box, shouting pick me, pick ME! What could I do? How could I leave that poor little polish unworn, sad and lonely, feeling unfulfilled?

I couldn't!

This deep raspberry is so lush. If I'd been a bit more generous with my application it would be a one-coat polish, but even so two thin coats gave me a deep, rich glossy finish. Drying time was a bit slow, but that could be because my bottle of ProFX is getting old and funky.

One thing amuses me- this polish is part of the bridal collection. For some reason, bright red polish never stuck me as a bridal color. On the other hand, my best friend from college had the most beautiful wedding gown with deep red accents. It was absolutely breathtaking, and she looked like a princess.

So yea, red works. :D

Also, I apologize for the scratches on my nails in these photos. I gave my husband a pedicure, and wound up scratching the heck out of my nails with my emery board. They are absolutely all my fault, and not a reflection of the polish.

Since it's 4am and I need sleep, I'm going to upload the rest of the pics. What can I say, I had fun photographing these.

This is the most color-accurate photo I took. Flash definitely washed this color out. I'm in love. :D

Desire is available from the Jessica Cosmetics website for $7.50, or at a salon near you. If you'd like to keep up with this brand, why not follow them on twitter?

Polish was provided by the brand for consideration.

See my disclosure statement for more information.

Another Fail...

Once again, I've got a total failed manicure to share with you today. I was experimenting with the Jessica Heavy Petal collection polishes again, this time going for a pink look. Unfortunately, it was a complete disaster.

I'm not sure what I was going for, but this clearly isn't it. I started with a base coat of Dazed Dahlia, which is such a beautiful deep hot pink. It's vibrant, but not too vibrant in my opinion.

I then wanted some texture to the background before I started stamping. I used Rolling Rose on my striping brush and added some slashy, stripey bits. I expected the Rolling Rose to add just a bit of texture and shimmer, but instead the stripes really showed up against the background! Not ideal, but I kept right on, hoping I could salvage something from this.

I pulled out my Salon Express stamping set to add some interest to my nails. I started with CND's Green Scene and stamped a swirly sun-type design on my ring finger. BLEAH! This just did NOT work. The green is too similar in value to Dazed Dahlia, so the colors meld into each other visually. No bueno!!

At this point, I knew I was basically not going to be able to save this one. I just stamped random designs from the Salon Express plates, mainly to see how they worked. I was happy with the stamps, I just with the overall design worked better!

Finally, I'll show you a closeup of my thumb... I think I went over this with the Jessica Holographic topcoat too, but I'm not sure. The sparkles are pretty, but this is just not a good look.

I apologize for not cleaning this one up, but I knew I was taking this off as soon as I got photos of it. Keep in mind, this is not a failure of the polishes. This is purely user error- I'm the failing part of this experiment!

So, help me out here- what do you do when you try a nail design that just doesn't work? Do you keep adding to it, hoping it'll work out? Do you say to heck with it before you're finished and take it off? Do you just shrug and keep it on? Leave me a comment and let me know!

Til next time!

Polishes were provided by the brand for consideration.

See my disclosure statement for more information.