Darling Diva Awesomeness!

Hello lovely people out there! Is everyone ready for Halloween? Do you have special plans? Since my kids are older, we usually buy candy and sit around watching scary movies and hand out candy. I love to see all the little ones in their costumes. I may dress up this year, I haven't decided yet (procrastinator, I know!).

Today I have some lovely Darling Diva polishes to show you. Darling Diva is one of my favorite indie brands out there. I have a total of 26 of her polishes, and I am always on the hunt for more. There is such a beautiful variety of finishes to chose from too! She has holos (both scattered and linear), glitters, glitter toppers, glow in the dark, and even thermals. While I did capture pictures of one of the GITD polishes, I forgot to take pictures of it glowing, so I decided to leave that out of this post and will do it another time. You can visit the Darling Diva store here to see what goodies she has and make a purchase.

First up is Zen Pool. Zen Pool was the first Darling Diva polish I  purchased. It is super pretty! It is described on the Darling Diva page as, "a beautiful creamy shimmery tealy blue crelly base with various round pink (two sizes) and white round glitters with some added larger matte hexes in a pale blue and to that I added a scatter of teal holographic glitters". She also warns that a good basecoat is needed due to staining. I have both used, and not used a basecoat with this polish and I never had any staining, but as we all know, everyone has different body chemistry and different results. For this photo, I used a Sally Hansen Insta Dry polish as my base. It is called "Blue Away". I have two coats of Zen Pool on top.

 

Here is the photo:

 

 

Next up is Soap Poisoning. This is a beautiful crelly white polish with very light colored pastel glitters in it. There also is some beautiful shimmer to this polish. I did one coat over Zoya Blu. It appears this polish is discontinued, however, I still enjoy showing you the discontinued polishes because you may see it on someone's swap or sale board.

 

 

These last two polishes made me ooooo and ahhhh when I had them on!

First we have Purple Rain from the Prince collection. It is described on the Darling Diva page as, "Dark Purple with blue overtones and a lovely soft slightly linear shift." Since this polish is not made with Spectraflair, she can offer it at a lower cost than some holo polishes. It goes on very nicely and I only needed two coats to make it nice and opaque. My photos show the polish as a more pink colored finish, but I can assure you there is a purple and pink shift in there with the blue overtones.

 

With flash:

 

 

Without flash:

 

 

Finally, we have We Will Rock You form the Queen collection. It is a multichrome polish of awesomeness!!! We Will Rock You was LE polish from the Queen collection. I am so happy I was able to get my grubby little digits on it when I did!

 

No flash:

 

 

 

With Flash:

 

What do you think of these beauties? Would you buy any of them?

 

Please follow me via BlogLovin or Google + and like me on Facebook! There is a giveaway HERE you can enter and then for each time you share the giveaway, you get another entry!

 

These polishes were not sent to me for review. They are from my personal collection and all of the opinions about them are my own.

 

My son painted my nails!

Heeeeeyyyyy! Happy Friday! Are we excited for the weekend? I am in the sense that it means watching TV late, and sleeping in! :)

Today I want to share a little about me! Before anything else in this world, I am a mom. I have four boys ranging in ages 14 to 22. Each of them is awesome, so I thought I would start with my youngest, and highlight some awesome stuff about them each in the blog for the next few Fridays.

 Noah, is the youngest of my boys. He is 14. He wrestles and is a national wrestling champion. Last year, he was ranked 3rd in the nation by wrestling USA magazine for his weight and division. Two weeks ago we started this season with four trophies!

 

This is me and Noah last year after one of his duals.

 

 

As you can imagine, things around my house are very masculine. Not much girly girl stuff going on at all! Noah had been bothering me for weeks to paint my nails, and honestly I was flattered he was taking in interest in something I love! So, I finally let him paint my nails. The colors he chose were Zoya Reva, China Glaze Blue Iguana, and Zoya Opal. We had a blast while he painted them!

 

 

 

This is the finished product, pre-cleanup. I think it came out pretty! A little staining on my cuticles because it was EVERYWHERE, but still pretty! He chose a combination I would not have and it looks really good together. I would never have tried Opal over these colors, and honestly it looks awesome!

 

 

 

That's it for today. Don't forget about my giveaway HERE. I hope everyone has a fantastic weekend!

Best Friends and Nail Polish

GOOOOOOOOOD Evening Readers! Today I had a great day! I made approximately 15 dozen cookies and then made the most delicious chicken scampi for dinner! *drools* I thought a lot today about what to write about for tonight's post, and I hope you enjoy it. I know that I am not the only person who has been this fortunate in the nail polish community, and I would love to hear your stories about friendships you've made in the community.
 
Almost a year ago, I stopped biting my nails for the first time in my 39 years. I started polishing my nails. A Facebook friend was posting photos of manicures from a few well known bloggers. I started following those blogs myself, and then found nail polish "groups" on Facebook. The very first one I joined, I didn't participate much. Once I did start to join in, a special event was set up for our group. It was a conflict within this event that introduced me to some GREAT ladies in the nail polish community. Today, I admin a group with those same ladies, and I don't see them as co-admins, I see them as my friends. We have all chatted and shared personal stories, and I feel like these ladies could care less that I am not perfect. Something I have a hard time with, with other people. (I love you girls!!!) In the group I admin, I have met some fabulous ladies. I have had great swaps and sales with them, I have got to know their families through chatting, and some I share physical ailments with. I have exchanged phone numbers with a select few of them, and it is a wonderful feeling to know that if I need a friend to talk to, they will be there to listen. (I would do the same for them.)
 
One particular girl though, has been there through a bunch of my crap. I've shared a bunch with her. We have never met in person, but we have had hour long phone conversations and text regularly. Some days I am having a terrible day, and she always says the right thing to make me feel better. (she knows who she is, I LOVE you! :) One day, she asked me what my favorite polish colors were. I never thought anything of it, other than her just asking. A couple weeks later, the most beautiful polish showed up at my door and she explained she had it made just for us. It is from a mutually favorite brand, and OMG, the colors she chose, hit the nail on the head! (Haha, you see that I was kind of punny there!)
 
This polish is a teal with purple shimmer in it!!! It is my absolute favorite polish, both because of the color and formula, AND because it was given to me by someone special. Let me share with you this gorgeous beauty, meet CS003 from Mentality Polish:
 

 

 

 

Since I was on the subject of Mentality Polish tonight, I thought I would share a few other beautiful polishes from Mentality with you!

 

Meet Moe. Moe is from the Mentality "Stamper" collection, and is described as "a purple holographic duocrome nail polish with a blue flash that dries to a semigloss finish.

The Stampers are a collection of holographic nail polishes designed for stamping and are great stand alone polishes." This polish is absolutely stunning alone!! I also experienced flashes of pink. I needed 2 coats to get the coverage I wanted, but here it is with flash first, and then without.

 

 

Next up is Morality. Morality is part of Mentality's "Black Light Holo Collection". It is described on Mentality's store as "a stamping grade black jelly multichrome holographic nail polish with a color shift from purple to silver to green." I only needed one coat to get a completely opaque polished nail. Here it is first with flash, then without.

 

 

 

You can purchase Mentality Nail Polish HERE

 

Do you have any of these Mentality polishes? What one is your favorite? I LOVE each of them equally, except my CS003. THAT one is my favorite polish in my entire stash.

 

Have you formed friendships because of you passion for nail polish? Let me know! I love hearing those stories!

 

Have you entered my giveaway??? You can check that out HERE!!! Go enter! :)

 

 

 

 

 

Let's talk staining and some Nail's Inc French Tips

Hello lovelies! Sorry for no post yesterday, but I felt awful! Migraine headaches are not fun! I slept most of the day and still slept last night until 10:00 am today. Do any of you suffer from migraines? What kind of things do you do to get some relief?

Now, let's talk about staining! I usually do not get stained nails from polish. I always wear a basecoat and can do almost any polish without an issue. I don't really care about staining, but when I want to do a French design, it can be an issue. Zoya Song is one of my favorite polishes, but it always stains me! Even with a base coat. Right before I did the French nails below, I removed Song, and had to go through a cleaning and stain removal ritual. I use a mixture of warm water, baking soda, and peroxide. I then buff my nails very gently afterwards to remove any left over color. It works pretty good! What ritual do you use to remove stains from your nails? I've heard of people using whitening toothpaste, and I have tried that but it doesn't usually work.

After my stain cleanup, I made some adorable cute French tip nail art using a polish by Nails Inc. This is one of my favorite blue polishes! This one is Chelsea Psychic Garden from the Ice Cream Shop collection. The application is smooth and the color is adorable!

To achieve this look the only tools I used were a dotting tool with two different sizes, and a white nail striper. I painted my tips with a base coat, added CPG on my tips, used the striper to create a line to hide imperfections, and then added white dots. Afterward, I used Zoya Dana to make two large dots and a small dot in the middle for the bow then I pulled some of the polish down to create a ribbon look. Simple right?

Here is my results. I would love to see some of you attempt this look and show me!

 

 

I also want to remind you about my current giveaway HERE. You can do an entry daily by sharing the link to the giveaway publicly. Good luck y'all!

 

You can also now follow me via Bloglovin!

 

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You are now enetering... a DIFFERENT dimension!

Good evening and HAPPY MONDAY! OK... so not so happy Monday, but we can't change that it IS Monday, so might as well try to be happy! I HATE Mondays! I just cannot seem to get my bearings today either. I feel so lazy! Must be the rain and cold outside.

Today, I decided to show you a few polishes from DIFFERENT dimension polish. I just recently discovered this brand a couple of months ago on someone's swap/sale board. I had seen swatches of the polish before, but never purchased directly from DD until after I bought off from someone else. I now have 8 DIFFERENT dimension polishes and I love them all! This is another indie brand of polish that is so versatile! There are glitters and toppers, plus some gorgeous holographic polishes.

For today's post, I am going to show you Ocean's Daughter, Whatever, Comfortably Numb, and Wish You Were Here. Let's talk polish!

First up is Ocean's Daughter. This is a beautiful holo polish! It is described on the DIFFERENT dimension page as "an minty blue holographic polish that is opaque in 2-3 coats." I used 2 coats only and had great coverage. I wish the photos showed how beautiful the holo-ness really is, but you can see some of the shifting colors in these photos.

 

 

An up close and personal photo.

 

 

Next up is Whatever. Again, two coats and I had great coverage. It also applies super smooth. It is no longer on the DD Etsy shop page, but I believe it was part of the 80's Baby collection. Again, you may ask why I show you discontinued polishes. First of all, it allows you to see a makers versatility. Then there is the fact that swap and sale boards in nail polish groups could always pop up with one of these beauties on it!

 

 

Next up is Wish You Were Here. It is a gorgeous shiny glitter topper! It is described in the Etsy shop as "an amazing glitter topper! Pink, fuchsia, blue and silver glitters in a variety of shapes and sizes are mixed throughout. This polish may require some extra patience in applying and may be best dabbed on." However, I didn't have to dab anything. It went on pretty easy I d recommend that if you want to place particular larger glitters on the nail bed, that you apply the polish, then gently use a toothpick very gently to "scootch" the glitter around. I don't normally do that, but in instances where I want particular placement, that's my solution.

 

 

 

And finally, Comfortably Numb. This one is a doozy! It goes over so many polishes. It is also a glitter topper. It has bright pink and yellow glitters in many shapes and sizes in it. I placed it over a very pale blue shade. This is another polish that I could not find on the store page, and I am not sure if it is discontinued, or just out of stock.

 

 

That's all of the DIFFERENT dimension polish I have for you today. I have several of these on my wishlist, including glitter toppers and holographic polishes. I love that they have a great variety for those of us who love both.

 

You can visit the DIFFERENT dimension HERE to purchase or browse their great polishes.

 

Please don't forget about my current giveaway. You can access it HERE. Please share my blog and please like my Facebook page for updates.

 

These polishes were not provided to me for review. They are from my own stash and the opinions are my own. I was not influenced in any way to publish anything about these polishes.

 

My love for Jindie and a brand of polish that is a MUST have!

Howdy Lovely People! I seriously think we need to have a conversation about Jindie polishes AND another awesome polish to have in your arsenal of polishes!

Jindie Nails is an awesome indie polish maker in my opinion! I have several reasons, but one of the biggest reasons is the ability to make a variety of different types of polishes. From glitter polishes and glitter toppers, to shiny and sparkly polishes. Today, I have a few Jindie polishes to show you. They are a couple of my favorites. I am showing you a few discontinued polishes, and you may be asking why. First of all, you may find these on someone's sale or swap board, and they are still obtainable. Secondly, the variety I used will show you the versatility of the maker.

First up is Happy Dance. It is described on Jindie's store page as "red, hot pink, teal and grape purple matte satin glitters in a white creamy base.". This is a discontinued polish and is sold out, which is a bummer, BUT... it is listed on Jindie's store as "exclusive to Harlow & Co." once sold out on her page. So, you might still be able to get your hands on this beauty! I used 2 coats and it went on nice and smooth with no issues.

 

Next up is Choose Me. This is another shade that is discontinued, but I HAD to show you how pretty it is! It is a purple like color with tiny rose flecks. Two coats of this gave me great coverage.

 

 

Finally, this is where I want to talk to you about a polish you ma have in your stash, and if you don't... GET THEM and this beautiful glitter topper from Jindie. Sally Hansen's Insta Dry polishes are great for numerous reasons. First of all, they dry within seconds of applying. This means if you want to use a glitter topper, or need undies for a polish, you do not have to wait 20 minutes for your base coat to dry, you can normally add your topper or next coat within minutes. Secondly, I next to never have streaking with them and can have my nails done in one coat, and be out the door. Another reason, they are CHEAP and easy to obtain from just about anywhere that sells nail polish. My fina reason, and how I found out about Insta Dry polishes, is because you can stamp very easily with them. There you have it!

 

For this next Jindie polish, I have Baby Doll. Baby doll is a GORGEOUS glitter topper. I used it over Sally Hansen Insta Dry in Blue-Away and Silver Sweep. Baby Doll is described on the Jindie store as "a really pretty glitter topper full of satin pastel hex and square glitters, plus white and iridescent glitter all in a clear base with color shifting gorgeous shimmer". This shade is also sold out and discontinued. Again, do not be discouraged because you can always find it on sale and swap boards!

 

Close up!

 

 

You can purchase Jindie Nails' Polishes HERE at the Jindie store.

 

 

Now that we are through with the good stuff, I am hosting a giveaway that includes a Jindie Nails Polish. Water for elephants! YAY! Other prizes include Zoya Mason, and an Orly Aragan Cuticle Oil.

PLUS: a $15 gift certificate to Llarowe!

 

Check out the Rafflecopter below!

 

 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Depression and Nail Polish

Hello friends! I am curious, how many of you suffer from depression? I do! Recently (couple of months ago) my medication was switched. I ended up completely stopping my meds, and I wonder if this is because the new meds weren't working. I had no desire to even take my meds. One thing that does help me, is nail polish! During the evening hours, I like to sit and paint my nails. Sometimes a couple times a night experimenting with colors and nail art. I find that painting my nails is soothing. It relaxes me and keeps my mind occupied. I am not great at the nail art, but I do see improvements every time I try something new. Does nail polish and painting your nails have this same effect on you? I am sure there are other more productive things  could be doing, but I always go hide in my nail polish room with music playing and I escape for hours.

We moved into a new house last month. I had my polish room all organized for the most part, but was missing some boards for my bookcase to tier my polishes up. Today, I got the DH to cut those for me and I rearranged them! One thing that bugs me more than anything, is my polishes being store in an unruly manner! HAHA! So I thought tonight I would share my polish shelves with you, and a little bit of nail art, and an explanation as to how to achieve that particular look.. :)

 

Here is my mail bookcase. I am hoping I have SOME room to grow. LOL!

 

My Emily De Molly polishes on top of the cabinet in my closet.

 

 

My desk. On the very top is my collection of OPI James Bond polishes and The Bond Girl Liquid Sand Collection. Also on the very top is my Nails Inc polishes, my Mentality collection, and my Adventure Time polishes. On the lower shelf is my Sinful Colors.

 

 

In the cabinet in the closet, I have a melmer. This is it... I know exciting right? In the bottom drawer are my cheapest polishes, middle drawer is Sally Hansen, Ulta, Finger Paints, Julie G, and a few others. In the top drawer is Indies, Deborah Lippmann, and Illamasqua, along with my coveted Chanel and Urban Decay.

 

There, now you have seen my little over 800 polishes and how I store them. Eventually the hubby is going to build me an awesome rack we designed together.

Now onto the nail art I promised. :) For this mani, I used Zoya Breezi (tealish) and Dana (bright pink).  This look is super easy to achieve. First paint your nails with a base color for the mani. If you want an accent nail like I did here, just paint one or more an opposite color. Using white polish (for this mani I used Sinful Colors Snow me White) I dotted down each nail, close together just barely touching. I then took a smaller dotting tool and connected the dots. I then painted the opposite color I used into each of those white dots using a smaller dotting tool. Easy peasy! :)

Here are my results.

 

 

Please comment below and let me know what you think of this mani, or this post in general! I Love to get comments!

 

 

 

 

ILNP Birefringence and a very cool "Eerie Eyes" tutorial.

So to give you fair warning, this post will be graphic intense. It may take some time for them all to load on a slow connection, but I AD to share this polis with you and this nifty tutorial for some awesome Eerie Halloween Eyes.

To start, let me say I L<3ve nail polish was my very first nail blog I followed, and my very first Indie polis that I purchased. The polishes are beautiful! The glitter toppers and multi chrome polishes both have very nice unique qualities that are worth the looksee!

For this post, and my tutorial I used Birefringence from the Ultra Chrome collection. It is GORGEOUS, and it does not disappoint! The colors shift so well! To keep down the use of coats of the polish, I used a coat of back polish as undies. (Revlon Stiletto). The polish is described on the ILNP store page as "Birefringence shifts through an array of incredible blues, purples, reds, oranges, yellows, and even subtle greens!" This statement is FACTUAL! :) So many pretty shifts. The formula was also fantastic. There was no streaking and it dried rather quickly.

Now onto the pictures:

 

 

 

Now for the tutorial! :) So, after I was done admiring the beautifulness of Birefringence, I decided it would make a very cool polish background for a Halloween mani. At this point I pulled out my yellow acrylic paint (You can use polish),and added little eyes and eyebrows. For the eyes, I used a tiny paint brush and a dotting tool. I dotted the yellow on and then used the brush to pull some of the paint out to make them pointy and eerie. Then using a striper of black I added the brows.

 

 

Now, if you have purchased yourself a bottle of the China Glaze or Sinful Colors low in the Dark topcoat, and wondered what it could be used for other tan the whole nail, tis is where this becomes fun!

 

Very carefully using the same tiny brush, I dipped it into the GITD polish and put it over my yellow eyes (after they dried of course!)

 

Turn off the lights and this is what I had...

 

 

I decided to go a step further and add little black dots to the eyes, which made it glow even cooler. I wish my camera hadn't flaked at this point. Here is finished in the light:

 

 

I also made little pumpkins with glow eyes and mouths! They turned out equally as cool, but again, my camera flaked!

 

Did you try this tutorial? Post it on the Covered By Color Facebook page so I can see! Also, leave me a comment and let me know what you think! I love to hear from readers!

 

Birefringence is available HERE at the I Love Nail Polish store.

 

 

 

These polishes were not provided to me for review. They are polishes from my own nail polish collection and the opinions are my own and were not influenced in any way.

 

 

Skittles Rock, and so does PhLL Skittle Tits!

Who doesn't love Skittles? If I could chose one candy to take with me to a deserted island, it would most definitely be Skittles! I love all the flavors and I always have a jar nearby my polish desk, in my polish room. Do you have a favorite candy?

Speaking of Skittles, today's post is all about a new to me brand of polish. Recently I purchased Skittle Tits from Philly Loves Lacquer and I also received Liberty Verdigris in a swap from Esther Fox, the owner and creator of Philly Loves Lacquer.

Both polishes are polishes for a cause. $1 from each purchase of these polishes goes to "help save a cat's life" at www.forgottencats.org . I love kitties! So, this polish is well worth your hard earned dollars.

I now look back and wish I would have captured photos of Liberty verdigris without Skittle Tits on top so you could have seen how pretty it is! At the time I posted this, both polishes were unavailable in the Philly Loves Lacquer Etsy shop, however it is my understanding that those polishes may be restocked in the near future.

The formula was fantastic! No fishing for glitters, smooth application for both polishes, and vibrant colors!

For my mani, I used a clear base coat, 2 coats of Liberty verdigris, and then a coat of Skittle Tits. All photos are shown with a top coat. Now on to the photos!

No Flash for this photo.

 

 

With flash.

 

 

Close up of the pretty!!!

 

 

You can check out the Philly Loves Lacquer Etsy store, Liberty Verdigris, and Skittle Tits HERE. She has a GORGEOUS Halloween collection available for pre-order on her site!

These polishes were not provided to me for review. They are polishes from my own nail polish collection and the opinions are my own and were not influenced in any way.