Last Weekend's Shopping

Last weekend I bought some of the new skull-bottle Wicked brand nail polish sold by Hot Topic.  They had a large part of the collection out on display on the store in my local mall, and the store clerk said that they were getting more selection in the future.  The entire collection is available online at Hot Topic's website.

I bought Deceit, a flakie polish similar to China Glaze's Luxe and Lush, except where Luxe and Lush has a clear base, Deceit has a very pretty light pink base with a little purple to the pink shade.  It's very dainty and girlie and delicate on its own; I don't know what it would look like layered over another polish.  The flakies are like shards of mylar, and the polish base is thick.  Sometimes a flakie will want to stick out, and you need to either push it flat or remove it or use cuticle nippers to nip off the part that is sticking out.

I also bought Royally Screwed which looks more dense and opaque in the bottle, but it's more of a top coat with royal blue small glitter and larger hex glitter.

Then I went to Claire's at the mall.  I bought Claire's Color Club Little Dipper, a beautiful orange shimmery polish with golden orange shimmer.  I also bought Claire's Candy Shop, a dupe for Deborah Lippmann's Candy Shop, a pink base with glitter in many sizes and colors.

And, you could get one Revlon polish of your choice for 99-cents at CVS last Saturday (after Extra Care Bucks and a $1 off manufacturer's coupon), so I got another bottle of quick dry top coat.

Most exciting of all, Sally Beauty Supply was having a large clearance sale, and I had a coupon for 15% off my entire purchase.  I didn't get any of the clearance polish, but I did find a bottle of Finger Paints Special Effects!  I found (and purchased, of course) Flecked!  I will offer this polish to my Finger Paints Special Effects giveaway winner if they don't already own it.  Then they can have 3 different ones of these hard to find flakie polishes.  Flecked has mostly green flakies and some blue flakies.  I also bought another set of nail wheels at Sally's.  It's what I intended to buy when I went there.  I can always use more nail wheels.

Here are some pictures of the bottles and some swatches of the polishes:

From left to right:
Finger Paints Special Effects Flecked, $4.24 + tax
Claire's Color Club Little Dipper, $5.09 + tax
Claire's Candy Shop, $3.91 + tax
Wicked Deceit, $5 + tax
Wicked Royally Screwed, $5 + tax
Revlon Quick-Dry Top Coat, $.99 + tax

Blurry picture of the package of nail wheels.  They're very inexpensive.  I paid  $4.58 + tax.

ONE COAT OF EACH:
#3 is Claire's Color Club Little Dipper
#4 is Claire's Candy Shop
#5 is Wicked Deceit
#6 is Wicked Royally Screwed

TWO COATS OF EACH, #3 through #6

THREE COATS OF EACH #3 through #5
TWO COATS OF #6

On the left #16 is Spoiled Vitamin C.
To the right is Claire's Color Club Little Dipper.
They are similar but I like the Color Club formula better, and it's more vibrant.

On the left, #3 is Revlon Orange Fizz.
To the right is Claire's Color Club Little Dipper.
They are slightly different shades with a very similar glass fleck or shimmer effect.
Also, the Revlon is more sheer and is scented.

On the top wheel, #17 is China Glaze Luxe and Lush which has the most similar flakies to Deceit on the bottom right.
On the bottom left at #18 is Luxe and Lush over black polish.
On the top wheel, #18 is Finger Paints Motley, and #16 is Finger Paints Twisted.
On the top wheel, #15 is Essie Shine of the Times.

Royally Screwed (#6 on the left) has similar sizes of glitter to Revlon Radiant (#10 on the right).

The glitter in Royally Screwed (#6 on the left) are most similar in color to  Sinful Colors Midnight Blue.

So hard to capture the sparkle in Deceit's flakies!

Thank you for reading my blog!

My First Giveaway!

I've been blogging for over a month now, and I have over 25 followers and over 1,000 page views, and to celebrate, I'm having my first giveaway!  I am not publicizing this giveaway much because I want my first few followers to have a better chance of winning.  You don't need to be a follower to enter my giveaway, although I would love to have more followers, so hopefully you will like my blog enough to follow it.  I also have a Facebook page here, but you don't have to like it in order to enter this giveaway, although I would appreciate a few more likes.  All you need to do to enter the giveaway is to follow the instructions in the Rafflecopter widget below and add a comment to this blog post letting me know what your favorite polish color and favorite polish finish are.

The giveaway prize is two bottles of Finger Paints Special Effects flakie top coats (Asylum and Motley) and one bottle of Essie's Shine of the Times flakie top coat.  These bottles are brand new and have never been used or swatched. I bought them myself, and I bought them specifically for this giveaway.  I have no association with Finger Paints, Sally Beauty Supply Stores, or Essie.

The Finger Paints Special Effects polishes were only sold at Sally Beauty Supply Stores and not online, and they sold out quickly.  You can no longer find them in stores.  Asylum has red and blue flakies.  Motley, a favorite flakie of mine, has green and blue flakies and looks amazing over dark green polishes like China Glaze Glittering Garland.

Essie Shine of the Times is a multi-colored flakie that over a dark polish flashes some beautiful gold and green colors.  I especially like it over Essie Little Brown Dress.  It looks like fall in a manicure that way.

From left to right:  Finger Paints Asylum, Essie Shine of the Times, and Finger Paints Motley.

At number 14 on the nail wheel is Finger Paints Asylum over Wet N Wild Black Creme.   At number 15 on the nail wheel is Finger Paints Motley over Wet N Wild Black Creme.  At number 17 on the nail wheel is Essie Shine of the Times over Wet N Wild Black Creme.

The giveaway is open to those people in the continental United States only.  I had to educate myself on the post office's laws with regard to nail polish.  In summary, I can ship the nail polish by ground transportation only, not by air, so I'm keeping things simple by limiting the giveaway to the continental United States.  In the future, I will try to figure out international shipping rules, but right now, for my very first little giveaway, I don't want to have to worry about customs forms and customs taxes for internationally shipped products.  If you are outside the continental United States but can provide an address in the continental United States, for example if you can use a friend's or a relative's address, then by all means enter my giveaway!

I will do my best to package the polish securely, and I will get a tracking number.  However, I cannot replace the polish if it gets lost or stolen or breaks in transit because I don't have more bottles of these hard-to-find Finger Paints Special Effects polishes to give away.

This giveaway ends on May 31, 2012.  I will notify the winner by posting the winner's name (the name that shows up with their blog comment below) here on this page and also on a separate post once the giveaway is over, and I will post the winner's name on my Facebook page.  If I don't receive an e-mail from the winner (with their mailing address where I can ship their prize) within 72 hours, I will have to pick another winner.

You can enter my giveaway by following the instructions in the Rafflecopter widget below.  Please give Rafflecopter a few seconds to fully load before you start your entry.  Good luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway