Bright Orange Layering

Hello Ninjas!

The weather has been pretty deceiving around here lately, mild during the day but cold as heck at night. We finally had to turn on the heat today, way earlier than usual for North Carolina!

Tonight's manicure is a bright manicure I did to brighten up my mood with all the cloudy days we've been having recently. I started off with two not-so-even coats of Essie Braziliant followed by a medium coat of Kleancolor Chunky Holo Poppy. Poppy is a pretty color shifting glitter that flashes both a bright sunny yellow and a vivid orange.

Natural Light

With Flash

Zoya Ziv

Good evening Ninjas!

Hope everyone's week is going well. I can't believe it's only Tuesday here, it feels much later in the week.

Tonight's manicure is Ziv from Zoya's Ornate Collection for Winter 2012/13. Zoya describes Ziv as, "a full coverage, yellow-toned metallic gold foil with silver highlights and warm gold flake glitter accents." I wasn't entirely sure I wanted another gold metallic in my collection but Ziv is really a neat and complex metallic polish. The different color flecks of gold and silver as well as the various sizes of the metallic particles make this one a fun polish to look at, even just in the bottle! This is two coats of easy coverage with one coat of Seche QD on top.

Zoya Blaze

Good evening Ninjas!

As this weekend comes to a close, I have to say I'm pretty thankful for the time I've had off and been able to spend with my husband. Right now we're watching Aliens and just relaxing before the start of another work week.

Tonight's manicure is two coats of Blaze from Zoya's Ornate collection. Zoya describes Blaze as, "a full coverage, cool-toned medium mulberry red with a high concentration of micro fine diamond holographic glitter." I'd say that's a pretty accurate description except for the red. This is definitely more of a pinkish berry color, though it does lean towards the redder end of the spectrum. The formula is great, only two coats for opacity. However, this polish did not dry with the same high shine we saw on Storm from this same collection. In the sunlight, you can't tell but Blaze might have benefited from a second coat of topcoat to give a smooth shine.

Sorry there's no label shot this time, my computer corrupted the file and I couldn't recover it :(

OPI Meep Meep Meep

Hello Ninjas!

I hope you're all enjoying the newly begun holiday season and are having fun shopping for your loved ones. My favorite part of chrismahanukwanzakah is seeing the looks on peoples' faces when they open the gifts I got them, how about you?

Tonight's manicure is Meep Meep Meep frpm last year's Muppets Collection by OPI. I picked this and Pepe's Purple Passion up at a 2 for $12 sale Ulta was running on older seasonal colors a while page. MMM is a pretty magenta jelly base with pink glass flecks throughout. This can be a little on the sheerer side so people with longer free nail edge may need three coats but with my nails pretty short here, I only used two.

Sparkly layering combination!

Hello Ninjas!

Thanksgiving break has started, the dojo is closed until next Monday so I'll hopefully have time to post every other day as usual.

Tonight's manicure is one I really loved wearing. Despite telling myself I never wanted to own a gold leaf topcoat, I couldn't pass up the Sephora by OPI version when I saw it on clearance at Sephora. To be fair, I tried it on over my existing manicure and it looked fantastic. To make a really dynamic and textured look, I put one layer of the $OPI 18k Gold Leaf topcoat over two surprisingly opaque coats of Essie Leading Lady. I actually expected to have to do at least three coats of LL but the raspberry red jelly that the glitter is suspended in was very easily buildable!

Snakey Nails!

Hello Ninjas!

Fair warning, this post contains pictures of a live snake; if you don't like snakes or have a phobia, turn back now!


OK so I went to a Reptile Convention this past weekend and picked up a new baby, an albino ball python. I named her Oswynn (from Doctor Who) and did a little photoshoot with her! My nails are done with the Sally Hansen Salon Effects Real Nail Polish Strips in Brattlesnake. These were very east to apply and stuck to the nail without any trouble. You'll notice a litter bit of an edge pulling up on some nails which was caused by the topcoat I used shrinking down slightly. I thought these were perfect for Repticon!

Zoya Storm

Good evening Ninjas!

Trying to get back into the swing of posting with an awesome manicure! This is two smooth coats of Zoya Storm from their Ornate Collection. Zoya describes Storm as "best described as a full coverage, holiday black with a high concentration of micro fine diamond holographic glitter." For the amount of scattered holo in this polish, Storm dried surprisingly shiny and smooth, I was very impressed.

Essie Your Hut or Mine

Good evening Ninjas,

Still a little crazy adjusting to my new schedule and figuring out how to fill my time with my dogsitting job gone. I keep getting off count with my days so I'll miss a day I was intending to post because I don't remember until I'm falling asleep. So I just wanted to say sorry for the wonky posting schedule!

This manicure is two super smooth coats of Essie Your Hut or Mine from the Resort 2011 collection. YHoM is a nice medium to dark pink with a vivid magenta shimmer that compliments the base color very well. These pictures aren't the greatest but there are enough swatches out there by now that you all know how lovely this polish really is.

Barielle Decadence

Hello Ninjas!

Sorry for the sporadic posting, my dog sitting job has ended and we've had so much stuff to plan at the dojo I've barely been able to read my blog subscriptions.

Tonight's manicure is two smooth coats of Barielle Decadence. Decadence is a medium teal with a subtle shimmer throughout the cream base. I was worried this might be a hard to see shimmer similar to Purplex or Into Astrono-Me but this one is really awesome and easy to see in any light.

Purple Nail Art

Hello Lovely Ninjas!

I hope you all went out and voted if you're in the US. It's been an interesting day here in NC with a lot of back and forth about how our popular vote would go!

This is a manicure I did so I could wear the wonderful two coat purple manicure from this post for a little bit longer. I added one layer of Essie Nothing Else Metals in a cloudy shape followed by Zoya *Toni in the same shape.

* Toni provided by Zoya PR for honest review.

ManGlaze #Matte is Murder

Hi Ninjas!

Short and sweet post tonight. This is two coats of #Matte is Murder by ManGlaze which is a fantastic opaque black matte nail polish. I probably could have worn this for a week if I didn't have nail art obligations, this is a great black polish.

Fifth Degree Nail Art

Hello Ninjas!

Sorry I didn't finish the Halloween Challenge, I had too much going on between the outrageous costume I was doing and work that I didn't have time to do a costume manicure and a repeat manicure of another blogger's design. Maybe the next challenge I do I'll complete!

Tonight's manicure is the one I did for the huge Ninja Festival in Dayton, Ohio way back on September 29th. I replicated the belt that our dojo owner was recently awarded, his Godan or Fifth Degree black belt.  The Godan belts are black with a metallic silver stripe down the middle with the kanji for Toshindo in red on one end and the warrior name on the other end. I did the Toshindo kanji as well as the five gold bars that accompany them to represent each degree. The symbol on my pinky is what we call a kuginuki and is one of the crests of our martial art.