polish purchases: october edition

yes yes, i know october's not over yet. but i wanted to go ahead and post this, since i'll be away for several days for my grandfather's funeral. . . . so there's a pretty good chance i won't be stocking up on more polishes during this trip (although i wouldn't put it past myself. i'm pretty obsessed).

revlon nail art moon candy milky way, sinful sinfully magnetic polar opposites, essence grey-t to be here, sinful happy ending

revlon gold coast, revlon fig jam, zoya chloe, china glaze kalahari kiss, color mates nail art opal glitter

here's what i (compulsively) bought this month:

sinful happy ending ($0.99)- i saw a swatch of this lovely green shade here, and couldn't believe that there was a drugstore green with gold shimmer that i do not own! much less a sinful! so i bought it yesterday during a $0.99 sale at walgreens. sweet.

sinful snow me white (not pictured- $0.99)- it's always good to stock up on my favorite white stamping polish, especially when it's on sale.  

color mates nail art opal glitter ($1)- like last month, i saw this polish at dollar tree and couldn't resist its beauty or its price tag. the cardboard packaging it came in said "color mates" but if you look closely on the bottle, it says "nail art by diamond cosmetics." hmmm. . . . which is it? are they sister companies or something? intriguing. . . .

revlon gold coast ($1.50)- i bought this and the other revlon above at the same time at walgreens (both on sale for $3), but then it rang up as $1.50 at the register! there was a bogo 1/2 off sale for revlon going on, and i didn't even know about it! i took that as a sign that i needed this one, and it turns out i was right. it is the most gorgeous sheer gold layering polish ever. it adds beautiful gold shimmer (one of my favorite things in the world) to anything it's painted over. amazing. i wish i could buy like 5 more. 

essence grey-t to be here ($1.99)- my very first essence! stupid name, beautiful polish. i visited my sister at college earlier this month, which happens to be in a town with an ulta (nashville doesn't have one. . . . boo). so of course i had to take advantage of my location and see for myself what ulta was like. i loved it and limited myself to only 2 polishes. amazing, right?

sally hansen xtreme wear black out (not pictured- $2.50)- i bought this just to see if it's a better black stamping polish than my wet 'n wild black creme. i haven't tested it yet, but we shall see. . . .

revlon fig jam ($3)- i'd been drawn to this one every time i saw the display at walgreens, but didn't want to pay $4.99. apparently it's fig-scented, although that's not why i bought it. i bought it because it's a beautiful coppery rose gold metallic with flecks in it. pretty unique, if you ask me.

china glaze kalahari kiss ($3.29)- another one i wanted, but only for the right price. apparently $3.29 was the right price.

revlon nail art moon candy milky way ($3.74)- confession: i actually just bought this polish today lol. it was calling out to me from the clearance bin at target, and i was powerless to resist. can't wait to see what those holographic flakes look like on the nail!

sinful sinfully magnetic polar opposites ($4.99)- i thought that i was done with the whole magnetic thing. . . . until i saw this swatch, with the lovely blue shimmer and star design. this is definitely the most i've ever spent for a sinful polish, but it's worth it!

zoya chloe ($5.99)- i was soo glad to get my hands on this one at ulta! i'd wanted chloe for a while, but not enough to place an online order (too expensive). happy to add this to my flaky collection (which probably consists of less than 5).

GRAND TOTAL FOR OCTOBER: $29.98

so 10 polishes for about $3 each. not too bad, not too bad. although i did go a little over my $25 budget. and i somehow managed to spend $30 on polishes i hadn't even planned on buying in the first placce lol. but that's ok, because i love all of them.

31DC2012 DAY 12: stripes

went the lazy route again with this mani. i relied on a magnet to make stripes for me, instead of having to do any actual artwork/stamping.

1 coat unnamed nabi magentic

sunlight- most color-accurate

this magnetic polish gave me a little bit of trouble. the magnet (which is inside the cap of the polish) isn't very strong at all, so i had to get my nail super close to it for the diagonal lines to show up. which of course meant that i accidentally smudged a couple of my nails by getting too close to the magnet, and had to start over. i would've just painted over it with another coat and tried again, but i discovered that 2 coats made the color much darker and just generally ickier. i liked the effect of 1 coat, which is totally opaque anyway.

the other thing that bugged me was that in the bottle, this shade is a gorgeous warm rose gold with lots of gold/copper shimmer. but after using the magnet, all the copper gets pulled to the front, and you can't see the rose gold anymore. just a too warm copper that looks horrid with my skin tone.

very pretty in the bottle. . . .

overall, this wasn't my favorite look. but that's ok, because i only paid $3.99 for this polish at walgreens. so no biggie. maybe i can wear this on its own without the magnet? that way it would just be a lovely rose gold metallic. or i have a hunch that this would be great for stamping. all is not lost!

magnetique

hello new readers :). would you like to see my first magnetic polish encounter?

1 coat unnamed magnetique polish

i wasn't too sure about the whole magnetic trend when it first sprouted up, so i bought a cheap one to experiment with. i got this magnetique at rite aid for $4.99. i picked a color (bronze) that i would like even if i didn't have a magnet. however, i haven't quite mastered the star-patterned magnet that came with it, so i used the wave magnet from the new sally hansen magnetics:

so what do you think? i quite like it. you obviously can't capture this in a photo, but the silver magnetic part shifts when you move your hands. it looks like a cat's eye stone. a really weird but cool effect! i'm glad i tried this. even my brother (who mocks me mercilessly for always staring at my polished fingers) thought they were cool and kept grabbing my hands to look at them. ha!

nail extravaganza (rite aid haul)

last month rite aid ran a nail polish promotion where if you spent $30 on any nail-related items, you got $10 to spend on anything at rite aid. at first i was like- how could i spend $30 on nail polish at one drugstore in one month?? but then ummmm. . . . i found a bunch of polishes i wanted. so yup.

here's what i bought for $30, in case you're into that sorta thing:

wet 'n wild color icon the crown is mine (limited edition!)
petites universe (which is kind of a strange name for a gold flaky. . . .)
revlon whimsical
petites epic! (another weird name. . . . what's with the exclamation mark?)
petites color fever banish

nyc water street blue

petites color fever peach blush (why is this cap different than the other petites color fever bottle above??)

sinful colors fig (one of my top 10!)

magnetique magnetic nail polish (unnamed)

nyc grand central station (i needed a few more cents to meet my $30 requirement, so i bought an extra of my favorite top coat!)

so 10 polishes for $30. . . . now i'm no mathmatician, but i figure that's $3 per polish. not bad, right? but really i got 3 more with my $10 back, so less than $3 per polish! part of me is pleased with my purchases, and part of me is ashamed of how many polishes i bought this month at just one store.

btway, rite aid is running the same promotion this month, if you want to be as lame as me. and no, you don't have to buy them all at one whack, your polish purchases accrue during the month!