China Glaze Champagne Kisses

Happy Friday, wonderful readers! <3

Today, continuing with China Glaze's Holiday Joy Collection, I have another gorgeous and fun glitter to share with you. Champagne Kisses is a champagne and rose gold glitter with tons of small, sparkling, scattered holographic glitter pieces.

Just like Glistening Snow and the two glitters from the China Glaze Safari Collection, these glitters in Champagne Kisses are small, holographic, and build to a nice opacity. For the swatches, I applied two coats. This is not as thick as Glistening Snow, so the glitters in here spread out easily, making application a breeze. Overall, I'm loving this polish. The champagne/rose shade is beautiful, and it's a more subtle way to wear glitter.

You can find Champagne Kisses at your local nail salons and at beauty stores such as Ulta and Sally Beauty for a retail price of $7 for 0.5 fl oz.

** This post contains a product that was provided to me by the company for honest consideration. How I obtain the products does not influence my opinion. For more info, please view my Disclosure Policy.

China Glaze Glistening Snow

Today, I've got another beautiful sparkling glitter from China Glaze's Holiday Joy Collection to share with you. Glistening Snow is a silver scattered holographic glitter that sparkles like crazy under the lights.

This glitter reminds me of the two glitters in the China Glaze Safari Collection from earlier this year. The glitter pieces have similar sizes and fine gritty textures, and they have the same scattered holographic effect. Glistening Snow is just a little thicker than usual, probably due to it being a glitter. For the swatches, I used two coats and then dabbed to fill in any remaining blank spots. Even though it still has some thin patches in the pictures, in person you can't see them at all and it looks totally opaque. I wore this by itself, but I think it would also be pretty as a top coat over another color.

You can find Glistening Snow at your local nail salons and at beauty stores such as Ulta and Sally Beauty for a retail price of $7 for 0.5 fl oz.

** This post contains a product that was provided to me by the company for honest consideration. How I obtain the products does not influence my opinion. For more info, please view my Disclosure Policy.

China Glaze Pizzazz

Hi you guys! Happy middle of the week! :-)

Today, continuing with China Glaze's Holiday Joy Collection, I've got a fun glitter to share with you. Pizzazz is a multi-colored, small and medium-sized, mixed-shape glitter in a sheer base.

I applied Pizzazz over With Love because I think the glitter and the red base is a fun and festive combination. Application is surprisingly easy for a mix-sized glitter. The glitter pieces go onto the nails with good density and variety, and you need not fish to get the bigger pieces onto the nails. I did one coat in the swatches, with a few strokes over each other to even out all the pieces.

You can find Pizzazz at your local nail salons and at beauty stores such as Ulta and Sally Beauty for a retail price of $7 for 0.5 fl oz.

** This post contains a product that was provided to me by the company for honest consideration. How I obtain the products does not influence my opinion. For more info, please view my Disclosure Policy.

China Glaze With Love

Hello! Today I've got another red from China Glaze's Holiday Joy Collection to share with you. With Love is a medium tomato red with a creme finish.

This red leans just a little warm, with a hint of orange that shows up in certain lighting. The formula is smooth and even, drying to a glossy shine. It is also pigmented. One coat is pretty much opaque and you can stop there, though I did two in the swatches to get closer to the depth of color you see in the bottle. This isn't the most original red, but it is a pretty one to have if you don't already have one like it in your stash.

You can find With Love at your local nail salons and at beauty stores such as Ulta and Sally Beauty for a retail price of $7 for 0.5 fl oz.

** This post contains a product that was provided to me by the company for honest consideration. How I obtain the products does not influence my opinion. For more info, please view my Disclosure Policy.

China Glaze Cranberry Splash

Happy Monday, you guys! :-)

This week, I'm excited to be bringing you some of the polishes from China Glaze's Holiday Joy Collection! To kick off the collection, I've got a beautiful and festive red to show you. Cranberry Splash is a slightly cool-toned medium, vibrant red with tons of red shimmers in a metallic finish.

Of the four reds in this collection, this is definitively the red that I was most looking forward to and it did not disappoint. It is a jewel tone that has the vibrant, glowing-from-within quality to it. On me, this leans just a bit cool with a blue undertone, resulting in a slightly raspberry red on the nails. The formula is smooth, even, and pigmented. Although this is a metallic, it isn't streaky at all. And I needed just two coats for opacity.

You can find Cranberry Splash at your local nail salons and at beauty stores such as Ulta and Sally Beauty for a retail price of $7 for 0.5 fl oz.

** This post contains a product that was provided to me by the company for honest consideration. How I obtain the products does not influence my opinion. For more info, please view my Disclosure Policy.

Julep Minka

I'm super excited to show you Julep Minka, one of the suede polishes from my November Classic with a Twist Maven Box. Minka is a reddish, brownish copper with lots of silver shimmers that dries to a matte finish.

This is a gorgeous fall color and I fell in love with it the second I put it on. As with all mattes I have used, application can be just a little tricky. It dries fast, so you need to work fast. Use thin coats because there isn't a lot of time to smooth over any extra polish once it's on the nails. You can tell exactly when this polish is dry to the touch because the finish changes from the initial wet metallic finish to the matte finish once it's dry. It's nicely pigmented, and I needed just two thin coats for opaque coverage.

Julep Maven November 2012

Hi, lovely readers! Hope you guys are having a great holiday weekend! I'm a little behind on my posts. I thought I would get a chance to work on the blog over the long weekend, but I should have known better. I could not concentrate in the midst of so much turkey and shopping. :-)

Today, I'm excited to show you my November Julep Maven box. This month's theme is suede polishes. I've been hoping Julep would include their suede polishes as part of their Maven boxes ever since they introduced them to Sephora a few months ago, and I'm happy they finally did. This month, I chose the Classic With A Twist box instead of my usual Boho Glam.

As usual, everything came nicely wrapped in their signature black Julep box. The nail polishes for Classic With A Twist this month are Minka (a copper red suede) and Brit (a graphite silver suede). This profile also came with a jar of Pink Grapefruit Body Frosting. It smells lovely and fresh, and I can't wait to try it. As a bonus, this box also contains three individually wrapped polish-remover pads, which will be super useful when traveling. I've already tried one of the polishes and will have swatches and reviews of that up shortly (assuming I don't get side-tracked with more shopping lol).

If you are wondering about Julep Maven, it is a subscription program that normally retails for $19.99 monthly with free shipping. Over at Julep.com, you can take a style quiz to determine your personal style. Every month, you will receive a Maven box that best fits your style filled with over $40 worth of Julep goodness. The program is flexible, allowing you to skip any month free of charge, send a box to someone else, or switch your box to a different style. And you can cancel anytime.

To join and get your introductory Julep Maven box for only ONE CENT, just click HERE, select the Become a Maven tab, and use code PENNY at checkout. The code is available for a limited time.

** This post contains my referral link. If you click on the link and sign up, I will earn credit towards free Maven boxes.

Zoya Logan

Today, I'm wrapping up Zoya's Ornate Collection with another gorgeous color and a favorite of mine from the set. Logan is a dark forest green with tons of sparkling gold, bronze, and green shimmers.

The base green color leans quite cool and you can see the hint of teal in it. It's the sort of green that is evocative of the holidays, with its pine trees and festive wreaths. The micro-glitters in here are bright and sparkling and give off this glowing-from-within look. The formula is terrific. It's smooth and pigmented, coming out in thin and even coats. I need just the two usual coats for opacity.

Overall, I think this is a fabulous collection! My favorites are Ziv and Logan. The only one I would pass on is Electra because I'm not a big fan of bar glitters, but other than that, I'm really loving all the colors. I would love to know what you think of this collection in the comments below. What are your favorites, and which ones will be making it onto your wishlist?

You can find Logan on Zoya.com for $8 for 0.5 fl oz. If you are new to Zoya, you can get your first two bottles of Zoya for $8 total and free shipping! More info HERE.

** This post contains a product that was provided to me by the company for honest consideration. How I obtain the products does not influence my opinion. For more info, please view my Disclosure Policy.

Zoya Ziv

Hi, you guys! Today I'm continuing with Zoya's Ornate Collection and I've got one of my favorites from the collection to share with you. Ziv is a gold foil with densely packed gold and silver shimmers and larger golden flakes.

I would say in terms of "gold-ness", this color lands somewhere around 14 karat gold. It's a rich and classy shade that isn't too yellow to make wearing it hard. This is quite close in color to a number of other gold foil polishes, but what makes Ziv really stand out is the larger golden flakes scattered within it. They add extra depth and interest that really elevates this color. The formula is great. Each coat came out thin and even without any dragging, pooling, or lumping. Wait time between coats is short, and two coats is all I needed for opaque coverage.

You can find Ziv on Zoya.com for $8 for 0.5 fl oz. If you are new to Zoya, you can get your first two bottles of Zoya for $8 total and free shipping! More info HERE.

** This post contains a product that was provided to me by the company for honest consideration. How I obtain the products does not influence my opinion. For more info, please view my Disclosure Policy.

Zoya Electra

Hello! Hope you guys had a great weekend! As for me, I think the time just flew by and before I knew it, the weekend was over and I don't remember having done anything. :-)

Today, I'm continuing with Zoya's Ornate Collection and I have Electra for you. Electra is made up of a dense population of silver holographic bar glitters in a clear base.

I used Zoya Storm as a base in the swatches above because I wasn't sure how dense the glitters would be, but as it turns out, I didn't really need to. I did only one coat, but in my effort to smooth the bar glitters out, I did a few strokes over each other, which is what you see. I think if you are a better glitter-applier than me, you probably could have gotten this sparser. :-) Otherwise, if you like full coverage, you can skip the base color altogether. I had a bit of difficulty getting edges neat with this polish, but that is to be expected with bar glitters.

You can find Electra on Zoya.com for $8 for 0.5 fl oz. If you are new to Zoya, you can get your first two bottles of Zoya for $8 total and free shipping! More info HERE.

** This post contains a product that was provided to me by the company for honest consideration. How I obtain the products does not influence my opinion. For more info, please view my Disclosure Policy.