Zoya Chyna over Blair

I put a layer of Chyna over Blair so that it looked a little darker than the normal ruby red slippers color of Chyna.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Zoya – Dahlia

And I’m holding a bottle of Lo because it’s my favorite pink!

OPI – Stay The Night

I know I’ve been pretty non-existent lately! Its for a good reason, but a reason that makes me unable to swatch nail polish for a while… I will explain later. 🙂

For now, here is a swatch from a couple of months ago that I’ve been wanting to post.

OPI – Stay The Night

I loved it in the sun! In the shade it looked pretty gritty so I added a top coat and although it took away the sand look, I ended up liking it better. It stayed on for quite a while because it didn’t chip off!

I think I’d like anything that was black and pink?

Pure Ice – Pardon My French (lemming!)

My story about looking everywhere for Pardon My French has such a happy ending! Pure Ice sent it to me themselves! I am so thankful to them, I hope they know it. 🙂

They saw my post somehow and answered the call, doesn’t that just make you love them even more? Generous and good to their customers beyond belief!

Anyway, I’ll get to the swatch! It was more than I even expected. I didn’t need a base color layer at all, and it wasn’t globby like a lot of other hex glitter polishes are. It is even a peach-ish color of brown, so it is really unique. So absolutely perfect!

♥

Essie – Sunday Funday

This is the only one I got from the new collection. I was bummed at how it turned out to be too orangey of a coral pink. It dries darker than it looks in the bottle, and the glitter doesn’t show through very well.

Here’s the most accurate representation I got of it!

When I swatched it up close, it does show the glitter a little better though. Forgive the cuticle oil, sorry! 🙂

For a color like this, I think I’ll stick to China Glaze – Surreal Appeal!

Happy 2013 Giveaway! Featuring Lynnderella’s Snow Angel!

I know everyone wants Lynnderella’s Snow Angel, and even if you already have it, they are selling for a ton on eBay! So I thought it’d be exciting to feature that in my giveaway, since I have a brand new, unswatched, big round bottle of it!

I want to pick 3 winners again. So I’ll ask you what your favorite items are from these, and the grand prize winner will get 4, including Snow Angel! The 2nd place winner will get another 4 polishes, and the 3rd will get 3. Every time I’ve done it this way, I’ve been able to give everyone some polishes that they wanted most, so it was pretty fun!

Here is the list of the polishes in the giveaway! Click if you’d like to see google images swatches for each.

• Lynnderella – Snow Angel
• Color Club – Love Em Leave Em
• China Glaze – Material Girl
• Nox Twilight – Disco Darling
• Nubar – Cherry Cordial
• Kleancolor – Pastel Teal
• Duri – Lazy Days
• Milani – Digital
• Essie – Angora Cardi
• Essie – Pure Pearlfection
• Del Sol Color Changing – Ruby Slipper(Changes from silver glitter to red glitter in the sun.)

To enter, you can do one of two things, or both for an extra entry!

1. Use the giveaway picture and post/blog about this somewhere, put the URL to your post into the form.
Picture to use -> http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8222/8346691467_0d150cc61a.jpg
Link to the giveaway to use -> http://happy2013giveaway.shimmerspark.com

2. Become a facebook friend!
Here I am -> http://www.facebook.com/shimmerspark
(Just put your facebook name into the form, even if you were already my facebook friend.

I will pick the winners randomly, on February 10th!

If you don’t see the form load below this line, click here to go to the original post so that it will load for you…

♥
Holly

Party Hearty

I finally unpacked my nail polish and found my China Glaze Party Hearty, just in time for our work Christmas party. It was awesome, they had it at a nice hotel, bought us and our dates food, drinks, and even cab vouchers!

Anyway, I had to swatch with my right hand for once since my left hand still has a short ugly nail that needs to grow.

I started with OPI Germanicure to have a darker base, then covered it with China Glaze Ruby Pumps! I left my toes like that, but on my nails, I added a layer of Party Hearty. 🙂

—

I also got a cool set together for my next giveaway! It will include China Glaze, Essie, Nubar, Color Club, Milani, Duri, Del Sol, Nox Twilight, and even a Lynnderella!

Yep, I’m going to giveaway this sweet thing – A new, unused, unswatched, virgin Snow Angel!

Christmasy Swatches

After going through all of my posts to update links for my new server, I kept my favorite Christmasy swatches aside to put in one entry. 🙂

I might as well try the cool WordPress “Gallery in a post” feature!

RGB – Crimson

LA Splash – Glitz & Berry

Deborah Lippmann – Ruby Red Slippers

Ciate – Dangerous Affair

China Glaze – Ravishing Dahling

From left to right, Femme Couture – Garland, China Glaze – Gussied Up Green, China Glaze – Emerald Sparkle, and China Glaze – Peace on Earth

Octoberfranken…

What do you get when you take Orly Rock Solid and pour in a bunch of China Glaze Hawaiian Punch, NYX Maroon, and Spoiled Cougar Attack?

Isn’t it pretty? When I got Rock Solid, I was bummed that it was just gray and not brown at all, so I thought I’d make it burgundy with some NYX Maroon. Then it was too purple and I wanted it a little pinker, so I added the China Glaze Hawaiian Punch. Then I remembered I wanted brown in the first place and dumped the Spoiled Cougar Attack in. haha!

Now I have a full bottle of this awesomeness!

My Favorite Franken!

I want to gush about the girl who made this, but she didn’t want me to just yet, so I WILL with the next bottle I get from her! 🙂

I usually love to look at these awesome glitter mixes, but have a hard time wearing them. THIS one is just 100% awesomeness. Brown base with silver and rose-colored glitter. Its SO perfect for me!

I really got so many compliments on this one, so many more than I get with any other polish actually. I hope she makes more of these and gives it a good name. 🙂

I wore it on my Bachelorette Party day and still have it on my toes.

I’ll have to remove it to do my wedding french mani/pedi tonight.

Wedding in 2 days! I’m so excited, I’m a huge spaz.

Oh and I lost 40 pounds since Jan 1st so I could be at the weight I was a few years ago for my wedding day.

Okay, too excited and must stop babbling.

BB Couture – Lazy Bum

I LOVE this polish!

I thought it was going to be too light of a taupe but it dried to the perfect medium brown taupe. And it has tons of complexity actually. Lots of silver glitter, brownish sparkle… there’s nothing like this one for sure!

Don’t be thrown off by the name and the dirty color, its gorgeous!

Spring Giveaway!

That pretty glowing one there at the top is from Night Reflections! Its the clear with glitter that glows Aqua in the dark! Fresh from their shop. Since I have my polishes up on a rack, I can see this one glowing twice as much as my others, even the OPI and China Glaze polishes I have that are glow in the dark! The first winner will get that plus 4 of the others.

I want to pick 3 winners again. So I’ll ask you what your favorite items are from the rest of them, and the first winner will get 4! The next two will get 3 each. Last time I was able to give everyone something they wanted, so it was pretty fun!

Left to Right: Sally Hansen – Ice, AQumore – P039, LA Girls – Enchanting, NYX – Perfect Gray, Sinful Colors – Easy Going, NYX – Dreamy Glitter, Essence – King of Mints, Revlon – Starry Pink (aka Popular), FingerPaints – Gossamer White, and a limited edition tinted SoftLips SPF 15 in pearl (never opened, of course)!

The difference now is… I have no more Google Friend Connect. So there went my followers and my method of doing giveaways. (Until we figure out the best new way, that is!)

So this time, to enter, you can do one of two things, or both for an extra entry!

1. Use the giveaway picture and post/blog about this somewhere, put the URL to your post into the form
(The link to the giveaway is -> http://shimmerspark.com/posts/spring-giveaway-2012)

2. Become a follower in another type of network and comment to tell me your username on that network

(Just go on my sidebar over to the right and pick from Google+ Circles, HelloCotton, Bloglovin, Networked Blogs, or LinkyFollowers. Become a follower and post a comment to this entry to let me know what your username is for what network. If you have trouble with the new comments system, please email me or send a facebook message/wall post!)

I’ll close this one before my wedding, so I’ll go with May 18th!

As always, thank you again so much for reading my blog! I love giving you guys presents so I can do more than just say thank you!

♥
Holly

Dollish Polish – Cold Winds Are Rising

This is from one of the awesome franken designers on etsy. I couldn’t pass up a grayish blue jelly with pretty blue and silver sparkles in it!

There are also some larger hex glitters in a really pretty darker blue that really stand out when they land on your nail among the other smaller blue and silver particles.

I put it over Color Club – Take Me To Your Chateau this time. I actually saw myself in the mirror after and thought it was too smurfy blue with that underneath. Next time I’ll try putting it over a white and a light gray. I’ll swatch it again when I do!

Here is the base color so you can see how it made it so blue instead of more of the grayish color like the polish is…

I know, my nails are SO short right now… so much envelope-making and other wedding crafts have torn up my nails lately!

Nerd Lacquer – Nebula

Let’s not discuss how much I paid for this one on ebay and get right to the swatch, shall we? 🙂

This is such a gorgeous burgundy jelly full of different sized holo particles! It isn’t really chunky either, it lays flat and looks amazing!

This is only one coat! I was half in a hurry and half wanted the jelly effect, so I left it at one. And it is lasting forever, this one hardy coat!

I’ve had it on for a few days now and got a lot of compliments.

What do you do by the way when someone says, “Wow, I love your nail polish, what is that one?” and you know they haven’t heard of Nerd Lacquer, and also know they probably wouldn’t pay over 10 or 12 bucks for a polish?

I get stuck in these exchanges pretty often… this was my latest at David’s Bridal:

Cashier: Wow, I love your nail polish, what is that one?
Me: Oh its called Nebula… its by this little brand called Nerd Lacquer?
Cashier: Nerd Lacquer? I haven’t heard of that one, where did you get it?
Me: Well *I* got it on ebay, because it was sold out everywhere else, but you can get it online.
Cashier: I could look on ebay for it, how much was it?
Me: Umm… *shameful blush* I think I paid about 24 dollars, but they just get bid up like that when they are sold out everywhere else.

haha!

China Glaze – Ahoy over Duri Night – Before Christmas

I love the way Ahoy looks but its too bright for me, so I layered it over a darker jelly-ish color that had gold glitter in it.

Its awesome because the gold glitter just shines through as a bright sparkle along with the pink glass flecks that are in Ahoy!

This was Duri – Night Before Christmas by itself…

LA Splash – Glitz & Berry

This is one of my most favorite and most used polishes. Its so perfect for some reason! The glitter is not too chunky or too sparse, the base isn’t too clear or thick… and the price is amazingly perfect too, I must say.

They sell these glitter polishes at Ulta. You can also get these on CherryCulture.com or probably some other online shops!

I took one while I was out too!

I wore it in DC, to the award ceremony at the Air & Space Museum! It was a really formal event and I thought it would go perfectly with my black dress. 🙂

I also wore it for our Love Story video we filmed to play at our wedding reception.

Butter London – Black Knight

I found this at an Ulta! When I was at the check-out register, the girl was like “We just got the new shipment of this polish and we’re almost out already. That one is so pretty!” So then I felt like I got really lucky! 🙂

When I saw a lot of swatches of this, I thought I might not like it because it was too multi-colored. I thought the yellow and red glitter I caught in there would ruin the look for me, but it actually really looks like a black polish with pink and blue glitter!

On the nail, it actually looks the way I hoped it would, so this one definitely impressed me. I’m finding that my swatches are showing too many colors as well, so I guess you’d have to just try it for yourself to see what I’m talking about?

No more trips for a while I think… DC was so awesome, I took so many pictures!

OPI – Dutch Ya Just Love OPI vs Zoya – Tru

These are so exactly the same, I can’t get over it. Just when I thought I might like one more than the other, I realize oops, no it was just the light angle because when I tilt back this way, its the same as the other afterall…

That is the OPI on the index and ring fingers, the Zoya on the middle and pinky.

They do look the same in the bottles as well! The best part about these is the hidden shimmer of course!

Unfortunately they were too bright purple-toned for my liking, because we know how I am so picky about purples, so they are both up on my MUA swap list.

I need to do a blog sale though very soon in case any of you want to just buy them at a discounted price with paypal or a check. I have so many I could put in a blog sale, I just need to make the time to sit here and do that. I must soon!

Sephora by OPI – 212

I don’t know why I waited so long to post about this one! The awesome Ms. Gemma (greencurry on MUA!) swapped this one to me for my maybe fake My Private Jet since they were kind of similar!

Its like the greenish version of it but with some flakies in the mix. Not quite green but that Wagon Trail/Seriously Hip kind of brownish green!

petites – galaxy

I had to try this one when I saw the bottle. This was just a swatch, so it seems a little gritty, but when I wear it, I bet it’ll be prettier with a top coat!

Its a burgundy with silver glitter. It isn’t too sheer, so it only took 2 coats to be done, I just think it needs a top coat.

(My skin looks weird because I took that next to my window and the shadow of the screen shows up. ha!)

Right now I’m wearing BB Couture – Napa Valley Red and I keep forgetting how amazingly gorgeous it is until I wear it again!