Valentine's Mani Monday

Okay I feel bad that I didn't get a chance to get this mani done over the weekend as discussed on my facebook page BUT I DID get to it today--spite breaking a nail, having an ironing board fall on my head and then spilling red koolaid all over my freshly mopped kitchen...what? what's that you say? It's monday? OH NOW IT MAKES SENSE! =]

So earlier today, I posted this photo on my instagram as a sneak peek to this mani!

Hooray for watermarbeling! Maybe one day I'll get really good at it... The colors used for this watermarbling included Color Club's "MODern Pink", Wet 'N Wild's "Candy-licious" and CG(Not China Glaze, but CG) Pink Candy

I also used CG Pink Candy on my middle and pinkies topped with OPI's I Lily Love You. My watermarbled fingers were topped with China Glaze's Fairy Dust and my index finger is Color Club's "MODern Pink" topped with Kiss Nail Art striping paint in silver glitter for the heart :) Enjoy the spammage!  

                       

      

    

Ignore the weird dots above my cuticles on my index/middle fingers..those are koolaid splatter stains >.<    So there you have it! Hope you enjoyed!

Glittertastic Nubbins!

So since i had to do the chop to my nails after my thumbnail breaking, i decided i needed something sparkly to cheer me up since I'm now rocking nubbins again. I was seriously bummed out about this breakage...I was finally just starting to get some good length(for me) to them and of course, my luck comes along..did i mention it was bad luck?! Damn vacuum filter! Enough with the rambling!

Earlier today on Instagram, i posted this photo as a sneak peek! HELLO HOLO-GOODNESS!!

*drumroll* I give you, Wet n Wild's Black Creme  and OPI DS Coronation topped with Ninja Polish's Hanukkah Floam!

 

So i got distracted while doing my right hand for a half a second and ended up just going from my thumb right to my index finger with the DS Coronation..oops... But i decided ehh why not mix it up a bit?!

 

So much sparkly goodness!!! The Hanukkah Floam is AMAZING. So much sparkle to it! Layered over the black, it almost looks galactic like in certain lights. I had envisioned this a few days ago, and while i wasn't anticipating it being done on my little nubbins, i still love the overall look! 

 A few close ups. I hope you enjoyed this!

Nail Break and TIOT

So this morning...I was vacuuming and was cleaning out the filter when THIS happened :(

Don't mind the black streak on my nail..that was from the attempt at water spotting my nails. You can see that post HERE... But seriously, SERIOUSLY?! The freakin' filter?! NOT happy with the vacuum right now! Oh well! I can't just leave one nail noticeably shorter than the other, so i decided to give them all the chop! 

They better grow back fast! Guess i'll put Essie's grow faster to the test! *fingers crossed* 

Later on, I remembered that it was Tuesday which meant it was TRY IT ON TUESDAY aka TIOT. So I found a polish that i have had laying around that hasn't had any lovin' and boy do i feel bad! Nicole by OPI "baby" blue by Justin Beiber from his One Less Lonely Girl collection is GORGEOUS! I can't believe i had waited so long to try it! 

From left to right- inside with flash, outside in shade, outside in direct sunlight. Such a GORGEOUS sky blue! It applied AMAZINGLY smooth. Completely opaque in two coats. I can't wait to use this baby when it warms back up and i can get a bit of a summer glow! 

Trying to find my Mannequin polish color

So recently, I found Essie's Sand Tropez at Target, when I was in civilization! I have a few other nude colors, but none seem to suit my skin tone..THIS however, I thought, matched my skin rather well!

Below, I decided to leave it glossy and to then matte it to see how it looked.

 

I think it's actually a pretty good match! I'm sure i'll find another one eventually, that might even be closer, but for now, this one will definitely work!

Tell me your thoughts? What polish have you found to be a good mannequin polish? 

Water Spotted Fail...well sort of..

So i thought i would try my hand at the water spotted technique everyone has been doing...BUT i didn't have and couldn't find hand sanitizer spray, so i decided to try rubbing alcohol in a spray bottle...Yeah, that didn't work so well, haha. Basically, it like sort of dissolved it, i guess is the word. I don't know how to really describe it, but i took a short video on my phone to show y'all what did happen. You can see the video HERE on my youtube page (which is also a baby) it's actually my very first video =D

Below is a photo of a few 'test' specimens i took.

So you can see, it definitely doesn't do the desired 'spotted' effect but something entirely different..Not sure if i like it or not! What do you guys think?!

Ruby Kisses Makes A 'Deal With The Devil'

HAPPY FRIDAY, Y'ALL!  Maybe it's just me, but it didn't feel like a typical friday to me...perhaps it's because my husband is out of town for some training. So I decided that i would play around with another untried i have sitting around.

SO for christmas, one of my fabulous friends from my military days (for those of you who don't know, I was active duty Air Force) got me some polishes along with a bunch of other goodies and TONS of clothes! She happened to get me two brands that i hadn't previously tried and tonight i will be sharing one of them with you.

Ruby Kisses 'Deal With The Devil' is a GORGEOUS deep navy blue with a hint of shimmer to it. Now something that i thought was interesting, when i was researching swatches of this baby to get an idea of what it looked like, the ones i saw HERE , described them as a jelly and were not shimmery at all. I don't know if they redid the formula and changed it a bit or what. Regardless, mine looks different! Same deep blue color but that one is definitely a jelly and mine isn't!

I LOVED it! It is simply stunning! Application was great! Smooth, self leveling and full coverage in two thin coats. This is one of those polishes that is great for fair skinned gals who want a dark polish but not the stark effect that straight black usually would give. This is a great alternative. I would love to try this in a gradient..with either a shimmery green or red. Guess i should make another attempt at gradients and hope it goes better, haha!

Overall, i thought this was a wonderful polish and would definitely purchase more from the Ruby Kisses brand in the future!

The Jungle Queen has some Inner Sparkle

Did you catch the title? Did you think that it was referring to China Glaze's Jungle Queen from the On Safari collection? Selena Gomez's Inner Sparkle from Nicole by OPI? Yeah that was my lame attempt at being witty, haha.

Yes ^^that^^ is my awesome coffee mug in the background haha

Anyways, diving right in! Over the holidays, I was fortunate enough to get quite a few bottles of polish for Christmas (woo hoo!) I kept kicking myself last fall for not having snagged Jungle Queen when i actually had access to buying it! --For those of you who don't know me personally, i live in a small town in the middle of nowhere. We have one beauty supply shop (Sally's) and it's a whole like two aisles big! SO, on our way home from our trip during the holidays, i was lucky enough to stop at an ULTA and saw a bottle of Jungle Queen in the discount bin! SCORE! Another 'regret' quickly fixed :) Sadly though, i was less than impressed by the actual product-more on that in a bit. After getting back into town, I saw swatches of the new Selena Gomez collection all over instagram and a few caught my eye, including Inner Sparkle. So when we went into town, while at Walmart, in the very back corner, was a nice, but hidden, display of Selena Gomez NOPI polishes!

Earlier today, I posted a sneak peek picture of my mani...   

Jungle Queen swatched... It's a beautiful darker smoky gray with a lavender/purply undertone to it. It is ABSOLUTELY beautiful. In most lights it just looks almost charcoal  and then a slight adjustment of the hand and let it catch the light and that is when you get flashes of that gorgeous purple.

 

Unfortunately, i was REALLY bummed about the quality of this polish. Sad because it is so beautiful! It was THICK and hard to apply evenly. Above is just one coat without a topcoat. I think a few drops of polish thinner may be able to fix it. I don't know if anyone else had this issue or not, but I would be interested to hear what your experiences were regarding this polish!  Though i MUST say this: for as thick as it was, it dried insanely fast!

So after it dried, I immediately decided that i wanted to attempt to top it with some glitter...i went to my polish station looking at my collection of untrieds and saw my Selena Gomez NOPI glitters i had picked up. Inner Sparkle jumped out at me and i felt like it was going to be a good match. 

Inner Sparkle swatched...it's a clear base packed full of fine gold glitters and larger lavender and baby pink glitters. Totally girly and i love it!   Again, in some lights, at the right angle, it just appears to be a gold glitter polish...then change the angle, you catch glimpses of those pinks and lavenders as well.

Inner Sparkle applied like a dream. Nice even placement and isn't much of a top coat gobbler like some glitters can be! You can see here ⬇ that in some lights, it appears to be gold, while in other lighting, it comes off having glimpses of those colored glitters. 

Overall, i am rather pleased with how this mani turned out. Sure it had it's hiccups, but it was a good match ultimately!  

Thanks for reading and i hope you enjoyed!

Frustration

UGH, I was thinking that this whole page setting up business would be easy, BUT apparently i was WAY wrong! I have spent the last two days trying to figure out how to add widget/gadgets that involve html links or whatever and have failed MISERABLY. For example, the darn influenster widget, yeah if it could laugh at me, it would be rolling in the corner, gasping for air from laughter  -_-

if anyone is willing to help me out and offer me advice, it would be greatly appreciated!

Starting With The Basics

                    Doing my nails has always been a favorite 'activity' of mine for as long as I can remember- Even as a small child, getting into the stash of polish in the bathroom...it's been going on for a long time. In middle school, I was always wanting to wear black and red as they were both banned colors in the house growing up. I was told red was too 'sexy' or adult like for me and black was telling everyone i was into witchcraft. I was neither sexy, as I was extremely klutzy and FAR from 'sexy' -as sexy as a middle schooler can get, and witchcraft? REALLY?! It's a freaking color on my nails! I wasn't running around wearing all black, black liner, jet black hair and listening to metal... Though i do get asked all the time if I'm Wiccan because of my tattoo on my foot- but that's another story for another day!

                    Anyways, when i was younger, i didn't have the slightest idea about nail care. I was a nail biter, polish picker, used em as if they were tools, and i certainly didn't bother with a base or top coat. So I thought i would share with y'all, my favorite base and top coats as well as polish removers/cuticle oils and such...

Base coats- I use a wide variety of base coats as i feel that when i use the same ones over and over, they lose their effectiveness on my nails. 

Essie Grow faster-I've just started this recently and seem rather pleased with it so far. Revlon Calcium gel nail hardener is a good one i have used off and on for a few years now. Sally Hansen's Thicken up/Triple Strong/Maximum Growth are also a few i alternate. OPI Nail Envy is pretty darn good as well and i use it fairly regularly. Nail Magic-i had heard people rave about this but it hasn't done much to improve my splitting/peeling weak nails. Lastly, Sally Hansen's Hard as Nails. This stuff is great, IMO for a cheap base coat/hardener. i find it is as durable as Nail Envy and is wayyy cheaper!

Top Coats- THERE CAN ONLY BE ONE AND IT IS SECHE VITE! i had tried others and none dry nearly as fast or have the same high quality shine or last nearly as long!            

This is hands down, the only top coat i will ever use! Well, unless they come out with a cool glittery version or something, I won't be deterring from it! I have three young children and i am always cleaning up after them and seche vite has held up through rounds of scrubbing tubs and toilets and floors and everyday chores as well like dishes!

Cuticle Oil and Polish Remover- When i am removing glitter, i  always reach for a plain bottle of acetone-walmart or target brand, whatever is on sale and cheap, doesn't matter as long as it's 100% acetone and gets the glitter off in a timely manner. BUT for regular polish removal, Lacey of Lace and Lacquers (I'm going to try to figure out how to link her haha-bear with me)  http://www.laceandlacquers.com/ had mentioned a while back that she was trying out Cutex's Advanced Revival and that she ended up liking it. WELL i decided to follow her lead and try it out and it is AMAZING. Yes it has acetone but it does NOT leave your finger tips feeling dried out the way most acetone based removers do! This one is fabulous!  Cuticle oil, I am loving Orly's cuticle oil. It smells good and doesn't seem as oily as others. It seems to absorb fairly quickly which is good in my book! 

 

So there we have it! I guess this means i have survived my first REAL post! Thanks for taking the time to check it out! :) 

                  

INTRODUCTIONS

HI THERE! I thought I would take the time to introduce myself! I am NEW to blogging...I've talked about blogging for quite a while, but with three kids-i have three small boys- it isn't always easy to find a quiet moment to sit down and blog. I am an Air Force Veteran, Wife and mom of three- but i've already mentioned that! :)

My name is Marianne, but my 'online' name in general is Mavoreen. Mavoreen is my nickname from my husband from when we first started dating. It's irish/gaelic for "My Beloved".

My interests include anything to do with nails, beauty or fashion. I love to cook and bake-i am a MAJOR foodie. I enjoy listening to music and reading as i find them both to be relaxing and my escape from reality when this momma needs a break.

FUN FACTS-
  *My oldest two are twins, born 7 minutes apart and there is only 17 months between my twins and my youngest
 
  *I was adopted as a teenager
 
  *I have Fire Engine Red hair
 
  *Before I left for bootcamp, i was asked if i would be interested in singing at the local junior college for sporting events but had to turn them down as i was leaving shortly after their inquiry.

  *Textaholic-i am always texting, ALWAYS! I find it easier to text than be on the phone as my kids are VERY loud creatures haha

  *i was baptized in the Jordan River in Israel and then spent my 11th birthday in Switzerland

  *Places we have been stationed-(besides Lackland and Sheppard AFBs for training) Eglin AFB in Florida, Elmendorf AFB in Alaska, Kirtland AFB in New Mexico and we are now at Cannon AFB which is in New Mexico as well

So there you have it! I hope you enjoyed learning a few things about me!

New Year's Resolution

I've decided for the new year, i am going to make a point to try to actually blog. I am always posting swatches of my polishes on instagram, posting photos of some of my favorite foods/products, so why not? I'm not going to be JUST about nails, but a pretty good chunk of it will be! :)