Funky Fingers - Berried Treasure, Fro Yo, Puffo Gelato and Mint Choco-Chip Swatches & Reviews

So yeaaaah, these polishes have been around for a while. They were on clearance at my local Five Below for 5/$5 so I was like what the hay-hay.

What the hay-hay indeed.

I tend to overlook Funky Fingers as a brand, mostly because my first experience with them made me go 'meh'. I've since gotten a few colors that are actually quite excellent, and for the normal price of 3/$5 it's hard to be too upset with them if they're not, like, a-maaa-zing, you know?

Three of the four polishes (Berried Treasure, Fro Yo and Mint Choco-Chip) consist of a milky crelly base with various sizes of black and sheer white hex glitter, while the other (Puffo Gelato) is a crelly base with only black hex glitter in various smaller sizes. The glitter with these dudes (with the exception of Puffo Gelato) was all kind of clumped at the bottom, and I struggled to get an even amount of it out, as you can see in my pictures. I would have liked them a lot more if their glitter was like PG.


First up is Berried Treasure, the sheerest of the bunch. The soft, little-puppy-nose pink is sweet and feminine but even after three coats you can still see bald patches on the nail.

Shown below is three coats with topcoat.

Fro Yo is a pastel purple. The formula was better with this one in terms of sheerness. The white glitters, consequentially, weren't very noticeable as a result.

Shown below is three coats with topcoat.

Puffo Gelato is my favorite, and not just because it's blue. This one is the most egg-speckly, least sheer and lacks the white glitter (which, honestly, they all could have done without since the glitter is also sheer). I muuuch prefer the smaller glitter in this type of polish; the distribution ends up being more even and more interesting to look at, in my humble opinion.

Shown below is three coats with topcoat.

Finally there's Mint Choco-Chip. It's, uh, mint green and like, just below Berried Treasure on the sheerness scale. I've said the word 'sheer' like, a hundred times I feel like. It's just such a better word than 'milky'... gag. Anyway, I don't know. It's a nice color and all of that. Things.

Shown below is three coats with topcoat

So there you go, guys. Swatches of an older set of polishes you can probably still find at your Five Below, possibly on clearance. I don't hate these but I'm not in love with them either. I like the idea of them, you know? I wish the glitter was more eager to hang out with me, on my nails. OKAY BUT FOR A DOLLAR. Okay, I know. For a dollar each, they're cool.

Too Fancy Lacquer - Set Fire To The Rain Swatch & Review

Hi there.

Remember that tear I was telling you about in my middle finger nail? That I thought was holding tight with the teabag repair? Welp the other day I was at the grocery store, and I don't know exactly when it happened but my nail peaced right on out. Traitor. So it's back to nubs we go.

Fortunately, Set Fire To The Rain by Too Fancy Lacquer looks pretty great on nubs. In fact, this polish would look stellar even on, like, tree bark if that's what started growing out of my fingers. It's insanely pigmented and I had zero problems with staining (but I was also very careful not too flood my cuticles just in case), and the color is the most perfect shade of blue you've ever seen --cerulean-- which is MY FAVORITE COLOR!!! Cerulean blue for everybody!!!

Sir-oo-lee-in.

It's got that imbedded linear holo that doesn't just look like a rainbow is sitting on top of the base color. Blue rainbows. Not to mention that the formula was fantastic to boot.

I give everything such glowing reviews (except those Essies... shudder and weep), don't I? I need to be more critical. I dunno, I think I just luck out with my polish purchases. I just really like this polish, okay guys? Ceruuuuleaaan.

Shown below is two coats with topcoat in direct sunlight (which I'll be using more now that it's warming up FINALLY. I love my OttLite and all, but nothing beats the blang-inducing power of the sun).

I feel like there's kind of a richness I'm lacking with my pictures. Plus the color is like, the tiniest bit warmer and more saturated in real life. In real life, as opposed to in the fake life of the internet.

Anyway, whatever to my glowing reviews. This polish rules.

I really suck at closing statements. I wish I could skip this part sometimes. Like, weeeell... those are my pictures. Okay, bye!

Legend of Zelda Triforce Nail Art

Just to, you know, really drive it in that I'm a huge geek.

Let me tell you a little story about my first Legend of Zelda experience. I was 12 and I was staying at my dad's apartment for the weekend. I had brought my Nintendo 64 over for entertainment purposes (not that he wasn't entertaining, exactly, he was just studying to be a paramedic) and we had rented Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. I haaaated it. My problem was that I couldn't find the frigging Kokiri Sword. I played for all of 20 minutes, decided the game was lame, and went about my life.

Fast forward a year; waiting at a bus stop with my friend from elementary school's big scary sister. I was a freshman in high school and I didn't belong anywhere. This big scary sister and I started talking video games, and she lauded about a game called Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. I was like, girl, whaaaat? That's shit's lame. And she's like NO. So she let me borrow it (and helped me with the sword) and thus began the most epic journey of my life up to that point and a best-friendship that's still intact to this day.

We defeated Ganondorf during New Year's Eve of 1999/New Year's Day 2000. EPIC.

Ocarina of Time is very near and dear to my heart (I say it's my favorite video game of all time but I'm pretty sure that's just in a sentimental way... it's definitely in my top 3). That's the end of my story.

Courage! Wisdom! Power! I know I'm holding a GameCube controller here (I don't know where my N64 controller is, thanks) but just go with it. Windwaker was pretty great too, if we're going to get all crazy about it.

Colors used were:
Zoya - Storm & Raven
Sinful Colors - Ruby Mine & Emerald Envy
Ciate - True Blue
OPI - Oy-Another Polish Joke!

I was going to freehand the Marks of the Goddesses instead of just the individual Triforce bits but I just so happen to be taking a medicine that makes my hands kind of shaky, which is also super awesome for doing nail art.

I was going to re-take the pictures after I reviewed them because I kind of hated how they turned out, but I was going to do it after we went to the grocery store. But then something suck-filled happened, which you can read about tomorrow </3 

Bath & Body Works Color Drops - Sour Grapes

Hey.

Bath & Body Works should start carrying nail polish again, IMO. Not only were the bottles adorable, but they all came with a little charm on the cap and smelled like things. Plus the colors (that I remember) were actually pretty cool. I used to have a few more of these guys, but heck only knows where they disappeared to over the years.

Sour Grapes is a warm-toned grape purple (nooo, really?) with greenish shimmer (not entirely unlike Rescue Beauty Lounge - Scrangie from what I've seen by swatches online). It used to smell like regular grapes when it dried! I kind of forgot to smell it before slapping on topcoat so I can't testify to whether or not it's managed to hang onto its scent. Sorrryyyyy.

The shimmer translates a bit differently onto the nail in a less saturated way. It's still pretty, and beyond its time, and all of that. The first picture below shows three coats with topcoat in direct sunlight, while the second was taken under OttLite.

I owned this polish for at least 15 years and didn't use it for 14 of those, so I gifted it to an absolute angel of a human being who I know will appreciate it more than me. It's just not a color I'd wear all that often, you know? And with 300 other choices, what's the point in hanging onto a polish just for sentimental value? I AM NOT A HOARDER, GUYS. SEE?

...

Any vintage polish collectors out there?

Influenster - Mary Kay Sun-Kissed MKGlam VoxBox First Look

DUDES.

First and foremost: I received this righteous box free of charge from Influenster to try and review products honestly. Such make up. So Mary Kay.

But the real star here is the sweet chair the box is on.

Today I got the Mary Kay MKGlam VoxBox which features products to "brighten your spring look and get ready for the summer!" The sun-kissed theme is carried out by warm colors; peach, coral, etc. Heck yes, I'm ready for summer. I'm also ready for my face to look like it's ready for summer.

O hai!

Isn't the box cute? It makes me feel good from the get-go! Hello right back to you, you charming box! I'm loving the design of this one. I'm, uh, reviewing literally the box right now. Moving on...

On the top here is a card detailing the items within the box, a card telling me that I should enter this thing to win 500 bones and $100 worth of MK products, and the current Mary Kay catalog. Under the baby-pink tissue paper and a bunch of (biodegradable, mind) packing peanuts, we find the good-goods:

LOOK AT IT,

We've got Mary Kay Gel Eyeliner with an expandable brush applicator in Jet Black,

Mineral Cheek Color in Shy Blush, Bronzing Powder,

 

NouriShine Plus Lip Gloss in Mango Tango (which I decided to immediately try out),

If you could just ignore the crater-like pores, that'd be greeeat.

Lash Love Mascara in I ♥ Black,

Cream Eye Color in Apricot Twist,  

Translucent Loose Powder,

and a Cream Eye Color/Concealer Brush and a Powder Brush (which wasn't listed on the card).

Not to rub it in y'alls faces but this is $133 worth of product that I received absolutely free just by joining Influenster, linking my social network sites, and giving my two cents about things -- probably stuff you're already doing! (I feel like I'm kind of sounding salesman-y here; all I'm trying to say is that free stuff rules. I'm totally an advocate for free stuff).

Part of the deal with receiving a VoxBox (and to make your chances better at receiving future ones) is doing tasks about the products, like writing blog reviews (*cough*), sharing your opinions on Twitter, uploading an unboxing video on YouTube, etc. Easy flippin' peasy.

So! Overall I'm super excited about this box (could you tell?). The colors are pretty, on-trend and not out of my comfort zone. I don't typically wear a lot of makeup, but when I do I like to keep my color palettes simple and natural. I'm most excited to try the blush, as the shade of pink is already pretty great but it also has a golden shimmer. Me and golden shimmers these days.

As for the one product I did test out so far (the lip gloss), I'm pleased with it. It's a bit sticky but it doesn't drive me bananas, plus the pop of color is actually quite flattering on my face, if I do say so myself.

And there it is, folks. Brandy's Mary Kay MKGlam VoxBox breakdown. Will likely post swatches of the other products in the near future.

ORLY - Pink Crystal Swatch & Review

1. I found out from this blog post that ORLY sends polish colors that didn't quite make it to market to discount retailers like TJ Maxx and Marshalls (except, apparently, to the ones in all of flipping northeast Ohio) to be scooped up by fancy polish connoisseurs.

2. I couldn't find it around me (see above) but one popped up on Storenvy! Scoop!

3. I guess go ahead and google another one of these kinds of ORLY rejects called Just Peachy if you want to quietly sob while gently stroking your computer monitor. I love Pink Crystal, don't get me wrong, but I would seriously consider cutting off one of my toes for Just Peachy. A toe, guys. If you think an actual human toe is a fair trade for a bottle of nail polish, please get a hold of me immediately. We can hash out the deets lates.

ORLY - Pink Crystal is a super-sparkly cool-toned berry pink texture polish with gold shimmer. The shimmer was much more apparent in real life, of course. The formula was great and super easy to work with and the little texture chunks dispersed evenly.

Shown below is two coats in direct sunlight.

With topcoat (under OttLite, which for some reason brought the gold out more than sunlight):

Uh, yeah, right? And this for some reason didn't make the cut? What the heck, ORLY?  Even mind-blowinglier was that Just Peachy didn't make it. What doofus looked at those two polishes and was like "no, you know... I just don't think there's a market for these".

ORLY! I AM YOUR MARKET FOR THESE! HI, I'M BRANDY!

So you pretty things, keep your eyes peeled for awesome little treasures like this floating around at your local TJ Maxx and Marshalls. If you find Just Peachy, don't even tell me unless you plan on having one of my toes.

Daphine Polish - Lullaby & Purple Gradient

Hay.

What in the HELL. We're all sick with another cold. I just can't even.
My child does not sleep if he can't breathe through his nose (which he cannot). Also every time he sneezes mass amounts of snot comes flying out. So much. So many. His head is so tiny... where is it all coming from?

Summer. Summer. Summer.

Oh hey, it's our three yeah anniversary today, my boyfriend and mine. We're celebrating by being sick. We're gonna do something fancy over the weekend doe.

Oh hey again, I won nail the Mother's Day Duo from Daphine Polish in a giveaway at Colorsutraa! I don't win things, like, ever. It was all Rafflecoptery and things!

From Daphine Polish's Etsy Site:

"Lullaby is a glitter topper with light pink, light blue, lavender, violet, and mint matte glitters, iridescent glitters, light pink matte butterflies, and light blue matte hearts, all packed into a multi-colored shimmer base.

...and Goodnight is a darkened royal purple polish with dark grey micro flake and gold shimmer."

I decided to layer Lullaby over a gradient consisting of ...and Goodnight, Essence - Oh My Glitter! & Enchanted Polish - April 2014 because I don't do glitter toppers often so I wanted to make this'n special. I won a thing!!!!! Ayeeyeeyeeyee!!!! and so on.

The first picture was taken in direct sunlight while the second was taken under OttLite, showing two coats of Lullaby.

Spring-y and adorable, right? I had to do quite a bit of fishing for the larger shaped glitter but I'm not complaining! I'm completely happy with my winningsss. This was my first frolic in the meadow that is Daphine Polish aaand I'm certain it won't be my last with how lovely this duo is.

WingDust Collection - Steel Town Girl Swatch & Review

How was your holiday, if you celebrate Easter? Otherwise, how was your Sunday?

I drank a bunch of wine at my boyfriend's grandma's house with his mom's side of the family for brunch. Not only wine for brunch -- Andy's grandma happens to be one heck of a chef. Then we went to my dad and stepmom's house for more delicious food, and then we came home and unsuccessfully tried harvesting Blaze Rods in the effing Nether. I swear that's not innuendo.

I've heard nothing but great things about WingDust Collections, and I've had on my eye on Steel Town Girl for quite a while now so when I saw it restocked at Llarowe I had to get it. Duh.

Steel Town Girl combines pretty much everything I love in a nail polish: the color blue, holographic whatnot, gold leaf, and THE WOW FACTOR. No but seriously, this polish is like the big bang happened inside of my hands and little flat strips of the result are squeezing out through the tips of my fingers.

Like little galaxies, y'all.

Steel Town Girl is a linear holographic deep steel blue base filled with metallic light blue, iridescent and holographic shards and 23k gold leaf flakes. The description sounds kind of over-compensatingly complicated but the actual product is baaaaaaaaaallin'. Plus the formula was super easy to work with, and even though WingDust disclaims that the flakes and shreds might be a little stubborn, I had no problems getting a nice amount on my nails.

Shown below is three coats with topcoat.

There's a lot of depth to this polish that usually takes multiple polishes to achieve. I also had zero issues with the shards or flakes trying to do sticky-up stuff anywhere, so that was a nice added bonus. I hate when shards are all pointy and think they can just do whatever they want.

Easter Candy Nail Art

Happy Easter!

I'm the kind of mom who shares a pint of Cherry Garcia with her 21-month-old while watching Grey's Anatomy. Just a little bit of insight into my parenting style, here. I obviously don't have major issues with our kids eating crappy food in moderation, but Lord knows my threshold for a sugar-induced house-destroying running-around-squealing eff-fest is only about 28 minutes, so I'm not real big on kids + candy. That being said, with the abundance of grandparents involved in our blended family, there's going to be crap tons of Easter candy in this house soon and I'm gonna eat it all and the kids won't even KNOW.

Okay, I probably won't eat it all. I don't know. I can't predict the future, guys.

I'm not real big on pastels. Bunnies and duckies and flowers and little cracked eggshells with cute little black peepers peeping out are all super sweet and adorable and Easter-y, but candy.

As a true blue-blooded American, I wanted to go as commercialized as I could with this manicure. It's how we roll.

Valentine's Day = Chocolate & Roses
St. Patrick's Day = Beer
Easter = Candy

I'm pretty sure it's written in the Constitution. We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, do candy for Easter and stuff. And dye eggs. Amen.

Actually I think that's the whole thing.

So anyway, God, this post is such a mess. I did NAIL ART on my NAILS and I will show it to you now.

L to R: Cadbury Mini Egg [the cop-out nail], Jellybeans, Chocolate with a Bite Taken Out, Bunny Peep.

The jellybeans look less suck in real life, promise.

O hay guise.

So there we have it. Candy on my nailz. Not the cutest, pastelest thing in the world, but it works for meee.

PinkDipsyBulle - Hades and Rapunzel Swatches & Reviews

Easter's on Sunday and I haven't done any Easter manicures yet. Lame.
I also haven't gone Easter shopping for the kids yet which is kind of double lame. Procrastinationnnn!

Today I have two LE polishes from Pink Dipsy Bulle - Hades and Rapunzel.

Hades is a dark grey polish (that leans purple, like eggplant kind, in certain lights) with linear holo. The formula was smooth and leveling; no issues to report.

Shown below is three layers with topcoat. I've warmed up the tone of the second picture to show the eggplantiness of the polish. The third picture is taken in direct sunlight.

Next up is Rapunzel, a purple/fuchsia with soft aqua shimmer. I had the tiniest bit of an issue with streak-times with the first two coats but by the third the polish looked evened out. I'm a huge fan of the color of this polish. Huge. So huge. So big.

Shown below is three coats with topcoat.

PinkDipsyBulle has a way with contrasting shimmers in her polishes. I love the simplicity of them. Most of the time all I want is just a nice pop of color, you know? But something more interesting than a plain creme. Bam! PDB to tha rescue.

Side note: I am so. Over. Stinkbugs. Seriously. I've had to put duct tape around my stupid fireplace to keep them out and they're still getting in, and my cat, bless him, can't catch them because he has the coordination of a door knob.

You can find these two lovelies here for six bones a pop (they're 10ml bottles, just so ya know) but they're quite limited so hurry the heck up if you want them. There are two other LE colors that I'm considering getting but they're a bit darker and we know what dark polishes do to my spindly witch fingers. They make them look even spindly-witchier, is what they do. Why don't you know that? Don't you read my blog? I mentioned that, like, eight posts ago or something. Geez. Oh also they're Fairy Tale themed, because they weren't already the pinnacle of cute.

Colors by Llarowe - Oops! Bag (round two) + Teal Oops Comparison

Hi everybody! Hi new friends! I just want to take a couple seconds here to thank you guys for reading and following. Without sounding like too much of a giant poop, I don't often feel very accomplished. I'm a stay at home mom (who majored, but didn't earn a degree, in printmaking) and it's difficult for me sometimes to find, like, merit in my life. I know "being a mom is the hardest job in the world" blah blah blah. It has its ups and downs, but the thing I struggle with the most in being a SAHM is that there isn't any sort of universal scale I can use to see if I'm doing a good job, you know? The kids are alive and fed and clothed most of the time, so I'm at least getting passing review. Oh, and loved. Can't forget about that love thing.

Aaaaanyway, that all is to say that it's really awesome to be able to look at my blog stats and see an increase in readership, more comments, things like that. You guys rooting me on. I know it's just one silly nail blog in a sea of thousands of (mostly better) nail blogs, but the support is thrilling. I mean it.

[insert cute 'thank you' GIF here]

Colors by Llarowe had another restock on Oops! Bags so obviously I had to get one. Super pumped to have only received one duplicate (Oopscat, actually, which I'm pretty all right with!) out of the three polishes that are included in the Oops! Bag.

The two new ones I received are:

1. Pink Sprinkles Oops!
This guy was the result of bleeding glitter but actually turned out to be a favorite amongst customers. The base shade of pink is so freaking pretty (and flattering on my skin tone) and the addition of the magenta glitters brings a nice little addition to an already great polish. I've only seen one swatch of OG Pink Sprinkles and I like the Oops! waaaay better.

2. Teal Oops!
I saw a bottle shot of this color after the last Oops! Bag restock and wanted it desperately as I am a TTW (total teal whore, which I just made up, which I am totally going to implement henceforth).

... remind you of anything? Liiiike, maybe a certain Literary Lacquer called Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster? I compared the two, if you wanted to see:

Yeah, they're pretty much identical. The only real difference I noticed was that Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster has the edition of holo micro glitter. Whaddya think about THAT?

I mean, I looooooove P.G.G.B. so whatever whatevs. It was just kind of like 'oh, hey...'. The formula's great on both of them so no complaints.