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

Sephora by OPI – Beauty Junkie

When I went to Sephora last week, I was admiring their new aisle they have that is just dedicated to nail polish! With the new fake-nail swatch of each color, I was able to see the polishes in a different way. They even have that for all of the other brands they carry now.

The one that caught my eye was Beauty Junkie! I picked it up and wondered how I had never noticed it before. So I bought it. 🙂

It is really cool because in different lights, it can look brown, burgundy, or really dark mauve! I swear sometimes in the sun, it has looked like a plum even. Its a nice and rich creme, so even though it is really dark, it can’t be mistaken for black… I love it!

New Bundle Monster! Butter London – Toff with Flormar – 389

I was so excited to get my new Bundle Monster plates from Amazon! I went to a wedding over the weekend and wanted to try out one of the new designs.

The two plates I tested really worked well! The designs were really etched in deep and they were large enough to even cover my thumb with a lot left over!

Butter London – Toff with Flormar – 389 stamped over, using the new Bundle Monster Plate – BM 314

I reallllly wish their new plates came with a coffee cup design. I thought they said they would with the next set but maybe I’ll have to keep waiting. If you want to see the designs that they did use, check this out:
http://www.bundlemonster.com/top-sellers/25pc-nail-art-stamping-image-plates-2012-collection.html

Up Colors – Multi Magenta

This is Up Colors – Multi Magenta!

It has been raining here, so it was hard to get a sunny shot, but even in regular overcast light, do you see how it glows?

These are really strong holographic polishes, you can get them on the llarowe shop!

It was hard to show exactly why I like this color, compared to all of their other similar pinkish hues. This one is a dusty rose type of color. It isn’t as light as it looks in the photo, in full shade or low light, it actually tends to look darker.

I have Rosa Prisma as well. These apply really nicely, I didn’t even use my aqua base and had no weird bald spots to cover up or fight with.

shimmerspark.com got a makeover!

Upgrading my comments system made me want to update my whole look…

I’m really into the greenish blue and mauve lately because they’re my wedding colors, so I put together some stuff in photoshop. I couldn’t help but add the cute little birds for Spring. 🙂

I’m going to start working on a giveaway!

Savina – Merlot

I picked this up at Nordstrom rack because it reminded me of OPI – Meet Me On The Star Ferry.

I love it so much! It is more opaque and just a perfect mauve-ish plum color that has a lot of shimmer to it.

I see these on 8ty8beauty.com too.

BB Couture – Romeo

This is one of my BB Coutures that I love so much!

In the bottle, it looks like a coral/peach kind of mauve if that makes sense… then when its on the nail, it is more of burnt pink red. I know that doesn’t make sense. haha! Their colors are so unique! It has tons of glittery sparkle in it though!

I think I had to get this one after seeing it swatched on vampyvarnish.com so I’d recommend looking there or on google images to see how it has different tones in it on different people!

If any of you see an online store that is selling the China Glaze Metro collection, let me know pleeeeease. 🙂

Zoya – Coco

It was so nice to have a holiday, but I’m definitely tired today!

Anyway, I love these brownish mauve cremes, if you haven’t noticed… this one is Zoya – Coco!

Its a nice warm raspberry chocolatey mauve color.

In San Diego, I wanted to hold this Cockatoo and as soon as it saw my metallic looking nails it had to bite into one so now my pinky looks pretty retarded, but my vitamins have been making my nails grow like crazy, so I hope it grows soon! I didn’t mind too much because the bird was so cute. 🙂

China Glaze – Hyper Haute and some Golden Rose Holos

I had to try the Golden Rose Holographics, so I compared 3 of them here to a Tronica polish, Hyper Haute. Golden Rose polishes have a stronger holo effect than the Tronica set (but not the OMG set), and they come in a lot of colors. AND they are so cheap and easy to buy online.

(Ooops, I just realized their site says they’ve exceeded their monthly bandwith! haha! I’m sure it’ll be fine tomorrow again, on the 1st. Its http://www.goldenroseusa.com if you’re in the US.)

Here I have China Glaze – Hyper Haute, then Golden Rose 108, 110, and 112:

I LOVE 108, its such a great color!!!

I also have Golden Rose 103, I’ll post that one tomorrow!

I had a great birthday, thanks so much for all of the birthday wishes here and on facebook and twitter! 🙂 You guys are some of the nicest people ever and I’m so glad I got to come across you because of our nail polish obsession!!

(My fiance bought me a Nintendo 3DS! Yay!)

Zoya – Maya, Paige, Penelope, & Joy

Here is another Zoya comparison swatch of some more I got from the Earth Day promo! I think I have a couple more left after this still!

Maya is very jelly! This was 4 coats. It is a nice coral hot pink that isn’t too neon!

2 coats for the rest of the 3…
Paige is a dark mauve purple, I actually love this one and it is the only one of these 4 that I’m keeping.

Penelope is a light rose mauve, and it is just a little too light for me.

Joy is the bottle that I’m holding. It has a really warm shimmer to it, its very pretty! I think it was just too light for me as a purple-ish color?

Zoya – Marcella (and a blog award!)

This color is really pretty and unique… it is like a burnt rose color with hot pink hidden shimmer! I had ordered the color spoon before buying this from Zoya, and it leaves me wishing the shimmer stood out more.

You can’t really see the shimmer, although the color is still unlike others that I have.

Look at the bottle though, I wish so badly that the shimmer would show on the nail like this:

Also, I am so excited to say that Moondancer Jen from http://moondancerjen.blogspot.com gave me this Liebster blog award! You guys are such a nice and generous community that I’m so glad to be part of!

The Liebster Award is designed to bring well deserved additional recognition to those bloggers with less than 300 followers. You just pass it on to 3 more that you feel best fit that description!

So here are the 3 blogs I would like to give this to!

1. Dorian at http://www.doridavis.com
2. Olivia at http://varnishme.blogspot.com
3. http://solensdanserinde.blogspot.com

L.A. Girl – Pleasures

This was the one I loved out of the 3 I got from the shimmery nude collection of theirs.

I happen to love the color mauve, and usually light ones don’t look so good on me, but this one was a keeper! It has a silver shimmer to it like the others did.

Pleasures

I did a french manicure for Mother’s Day weekend and stamped hot pink flowers on the tips! I’m uploading some for the next post.

I hope all of you Mothers had a really nice Mother’s Day! I had fun with my Mom! 🙂

Duri – Guilty Pleasures

This is my favorite Duri polish. Its an awesome dark shimmer with a mixture of eggplant and dark rose tones.

It applies SO well in two coats. It goes on really thin, like Chanel’s Black Pearl… very silky and sheer but so full of pigment that you get the good coverage without being thick, so the layers dry quickly and don’t get lumpy.

Its almost like Meet Me On the Star Ferry but darker and richer… and without the glitter? If that makes sense? 🙂

Forgive the index finger, I was in a rush and when I went to run out the door back to work, I put the nail polish back on my rack and totally nicked it with the sharp acrylic edge of the rack shelf. I hate when I do that at the last minute and try to smooth it back out with my finger for a half hour. ha!

Their new bottles are awesome-looking.  You should try some! You can buy them here!

Sephora by OPI – Casting Call

This one looked really bad on me although I LOVE the color of the actual polish. I almost didn’t want to bother posting the swatch, but it didn’t look so bad when I stamped on it with the American Apparel’s Coney Island pink to make it stand out a little more…

Here is the swatch by itself. Eeek, melds too much with my skin tone and looks a little too grandma-ish!

After I stamped it I was like okay, that looks less like grandma nails? Looks more like grandma’s couch though.

I wish it worked on me because I really do love vintage rose mauves like this. I’ll swap it to someone who can make it look prettier. 🙂

I’d like to point out that American Apparel – Coney Island is a really pretty pastel pink and it stamps SO well!

Borghese – Mochaccino

Okay, after this one, I want to do pastels and Easter colors all week!

I just have to get this last one in, just in case you go nail polish shopping and see these Borghese Rapido on a shelf. I didn’t want you to miss out on Mochaccino or overlook it if you like the hidden shimmer taupes, because this one is so pretty!

On the nail it will appear a little darker, and the shimmer isn’t as apparent as Chanel’s Paradoxal…

But look what lies inside! How pretty is this!?

After I wore it like that, I decided to add some pink shimmer, so I layered Orly – Fifty Four over it. Its really sheer so it just added a tiny bit of pink sparkle. I felt more Springy I guess!

It really is a nice taupe creme in the shade or from far away. I kept thinking that it was almost a mauve-ish purple gray taupe cream when I’d look at it in the shade, if that makes sense? Probably not, you’d have to see it for yourself!

It isn’t a Paradoxal dupe, although some people might refer to it that way since it has the similar taupe and purplish tone with hidden purplish shimmer. I find the shimmer to more of a mauve-ish purple shimmer though, compared to Paradoxal.

If you like it, go get it before the new Borghese Rapido displays get raided! 🙂

BB Couture – Cosmopolitan

My first BB Couture! This one looks like a nice vintage rosey pink, but it has all of these hidden blue and purple flashes you discover when the sun hits it!

I don’t know why I always passed up BB Couture polishes, thinking they were too odd or too dirty/dingy-looking, but I did.

I saw a swatch of Cosmopolitan and it looked like the color of vintage mauvey pink that I love to go for. So I went to the shop and well… you guys know how it is… you think, “I’m buying this one so I might as well look and see if I should try another one, since I’m paying for shipping anyway”… and I ended up with a BB Couture haul.

When they got to me, I was SO impressed. They really are unique polishes. I’ll go on about this later when I post more swatches, but for now, here is Cosmopolitan!

I had to take a sunny close-up so you can see what comes out of hiding… look!

Do you have BB Couture polishes? What are your favorites? Let me know, I don’t want to miss out on them because I couldn’t tell what awesomeness it has based on swatches!!

Zoya – Faye and Kate

I was so excited this weekend when my Zoya package arrived on the same day as my first package from Eyeko!

I’ll be swatching all of these, but first I’ll start with Faye and Kate.

Faye is from Zoya’s Sunshine Polish Collection. From that collection, I got this one along with Reva. Both colors surprised me quite a bit. Faye was a lot lighter on the nail than I thought, but only because it is SO full of gold sparkle, its crazy. They really named this collection properly because it is full of bright sunshiney sparkle.

Kate isn’t one of the new ones, I was just in the mood to buy vintage-ish rose creams, and Kate is the one I wore today. I love it! Its almost like the Orly Pink Chocolate polish. 🙂

Orly – Pink Chocolate

Before I put my green on, I had to try this one out that I got yesterday!

I swear that I loved it before I saw the name, but who couldn’t love something with this name!?

It really does look like pink chocolate. Yum! I love this one, I have a feeling I’ll wear it a lot. 🙂

Dior – Lemon Balm

Another lemming bites the dust! (And did NOT disappoint!)

I’m loving this one! It is basically a brown with a tiny hint of plum or mauve at certain angles. It is SO much more dynamic than Aztec Chocolate.

The application was smooth and lovely, and it has a rich shimmer that kind of looks different at different angles. I tried to capture that, but I’m not sure if you can see what I mean…

This one is definitely a keeper!

OPI – Meet Me On The Star Ferry

I’ve always loved this one… its a pretty mauvey color with micro disco shimmer glitter that really sparkles!

I had to get one in the sun too so you can catch the little sparkles that make me think its why it would be the “Star Ferry”? 🙂