Happy Fourth of July!

I just realized I've had my blog for a year now! I guess it would be more of an accomplishment if I posted more often! Anyways, here's a quick post on my 4th of July mani.

I attempted my very first gradient with red, white and blue. Then I added Red, Blue, Silver and Pink glitter on top.

For my first gradient I'm really happy about how it turned out. My right hand didn't get so lucky, but that's ok! For those of you wondering, I used a makeup sponge with the three colors to dab it onto my nails. If you really want an in depth tutorial I can create one, or lead you to the one that taught me! 

The colors used:
China Glaze First Mate

China Glaze Phat Santa

Sinful Colors Snow Me White

LA Girl Glitter Celebrate

Happy Fourth of July! Stay safe.

Kimmy vs. Reva

Today I have Kimmy and Reva, both from one of Zoya's summer collections (I also got Apple from the same collection). Their shimmers in that collection mostly had one thing in common: gold shimmer. And that was what attracted me to all of them! They were a unique spin on regular colors, at least to my collection. Here we go!

Bottle shot under artificial light.

Reva on pointer and ring, Kimmy on middle and pinky.

Reva on pointer and ring, Kimmy on middle and pinky.

On their website and at a first glance these two colors seem really close. But once on the nail you can very easily see the difference. Reva is a strawberry pink with gold shimmer running through it. Kimmy is a bright red with gold shimmer running through it. Both are gorgeous colors. And I think you should have both in your collection. 

Personally, I like Reva better. Red and gold are perfectly paired together, but done a lot. Strawberry pink with gold is definitely a new one for me. And I like it against my skin tone better than Kimmy. Their formulas were both perfect. I believe I did 2 coats of each color. Zoya goes for $8 on their website (here) and they have tons of awesome promotions. You can get insight to them if you Like them on facebook, and of course sign up for an account with them on their website. They've had BOGOs, buy any polish and just pay for shipping, really any kind of promotion you can think of. They really are a wonderful company. Would you buy both of these?

CM

Frankly Scarlet vs. An Affair In Red Square

Today I have Revlon's Frankly Scarlet and OPI's An Affair In Red Square. AAIRS is one of my absolute favorite red polishes, ever, hands down. So when I was organizing my collection I noticed that when I swatched these two they were pretty similar. Well let's see how similar they really are!

Bottle shot under artificial light.

Ignore my gross stained thumb. FS on pointer and ring, AAIRS on middle and pinky.

Artificial Light. FS on pointer and ring, AAIRS on middle and pinky.

Artificial light. FS on pointer, AAIRS on middle.

These two are similar, but definitely not dupes. They both have a fine shimmer running through them that make them glow. Both formulas were great, although FS was a little bit thinner (as most of Revlon's polishes are). FS leans more to an orange red on my skin tone, where as AAIRS stays a true, glowing red. The winner for me is OPI, and it is still one of my favorite reds, ever. OPI retails for $8.50 in most places (Ulta, Target, etc.),  and Revlon retails for $4-$7 depending on where you buy it (Target, CVS, Walgreens, etc.). I don't think FS is still available anymore, it is a fairly old polish, I think one that I inherited from my mom several years ago before I was really into this sort of thing. So which one do you prefer?

CM

4th of July

Hello! I hope everyone had a great Fourth of July. Mine was pretty laid back. My dad, Richard and I went and walked around the mall (and bought my engagement ring!), then took fatty naps, then cooked hotdogs, then went back to the mall for Flagstaff's lame fireworks. No joke, they were extremely lame. We left before they were over.

On a much brighter note, this is the last day of this awful class. I'm not coming tomorrow because I have everything turned in and I am done. Plus, my dad and I are leaving for Montana tomorrow morning to see my brother, niece and nephew, so yeah.

 I just wanted to do a quick post, in case anyone missed my patriotic manicure! It was actually pretty easy, but I could have done the job a little bit neater, so the lines were more straight. But here it is:

Enjoy! 

CM