Ulta Underneath It All

Hi dolls!

I hope everyone's weekend has been going well, today is my Saturday.  I got another mini set, so I'll be doing a 4-part series on these.  Today's polish is Ulta's Underneath It All, from the Lust in Lace set that came out during the holidays.  It's four dark, shimmery polishes plus a top coat, all from the Ulta professional line.  Ulta has two different lines of polishes, one for about $6 a bottle, and then a higher end one for about $7.50 a bottle.  The Lust in Lace collection comes from the higher end line.

Underneath It All is a blackened almost chocolate brown/bronze color with crushed glass shimmer.  But on further inspection, it has a green holo in certain lighting, giving it that kind of spilt chemicals look.  So I'm going to classify it as an industrial color by default.  It is a very dark and sensual shade to have on your nails, but put it in direct sunlight and the colors come to life.  Total win in my book.

I took way too many pictures of this and for some reason my camera would not pick up the green, so I gave up.  But you can see in the pictures that it is definitely a blackened bronze.  Enjoy!

Ulta Fuchsiamania!

Hey loves!  =)

Not being on vacation stinks.  Vacation is nice, that's why you look forward to it so much.  Oh well, back to reality.

This is Ulta Fuchsiamania!  Let me begin with that I love pink polishes.  They're girly and make me happy.  This polish, however, did not make me happy.  The formula was decent, full opacity in two coats, but it was a bitch to clean up.  And it chipped so easily, I have no idea what was going on with this manicure.  When my polish chips like that I kind of freak out and obsess over it.  OCD much?

I know Ulta has a regular line and then they have a Professionals line which is like $1.50 more.  When they changed the bottle design of the regular line did they also change the formula?  Does anybody know?  I've only used one of the "new" polishes( Lav-ish) so maybe I just got a bad batch.

The only upside to this sad story is that I ended up getting this bottle in a 5 for $5 deal!

Direct sunlight

Shade

Super shiny and highly pigmented, but it chipped all to hell.  Sad face.

Sweetheart Pink

Hello all!  I took a little break from blogging to recover from the holidays, but I'm back now.

This is a mani that I wore before the holidays, I think a couple days before Christmas.  During the very busy and hectic retail holiday season I was using my nail polish as a coping tool, sometimes redoing a manicure the next day just because I was stressed.  But this one came at a time when I felt like I needed something pink in my life.  Something to get me centered and feeling like myself again.

Funny how I always turn to pink for those times....

Anyway, this is the Ulta brand of nail polish and it's in the old bottle so I got it for SUPER cheap (I think I might have paid a dollar for this bottle).  I found this one to be almost the perfect consistency formula wise, had a lovely cream finish, and the color just made me happy.  It's Barbie pink.  And what self-respecting girly girl doesn't like Barbie pink?

This manicure would have lasted me much longer without chipping than I let it stay on my nails because I got my lovely Christmas pressie from Herself and Brother (you can find Part 1 here).

I did kind of feel like Barbie while wearing this color, except I don't have 8 different careers and all of Barbie's stuff.

Ulta Sweetheart Pink normally retails for around $6 US.  But I got my bottle in a 5 for $5 deal.  =)

New Year's Nails!

Happy 2012!!!

2011 is almost over, baby 2012 is about to crawl in.  2011 has been a great year for me, all around.  I have wonderful friends and family, we welcomed a new addition to the family (my precious niece Duckie), I got a great new job that will hopefully turn into an outstanding career, and I started my blog!  Those were just some of the nice things that happened to me this year, hopefully everyone else has had a fantastic year too.

This post is really just for absolute fun, no real review of a polish today.  For my New Year's Eve nails I did Ulta Alter Ego, which I will do a real post of sometime later, and Nicole by OPI Rainbow in the S-kylie.  This is more of a Rainbow The Sequal.  I think I'm going to revisit a couple of my glitters and ones that I had trouble with later, but not right now.

This manicure looks kind of like a peacock, but I like to think that it could also look like those silly party hats and decorations that go with the celebration.  =)

Tried to get a close up so you could see just how glittery it really is.

It's much more glitter-ific in person.  I think the flash reflected too much off of the silver bits but without it the pictures just looked horrible.

So have a wonderful New Year!  2012 is going to be the best year yet.  Leave a comment on your favorite polish of 2011 or even send me a pic of your New Years Nails!

Size Matters

Yes it does.  In all aspects.

Hello everyone!  =)  This is the second week in a row that I haven't done my Sunday posts, but I have today off, so I'll post now.

Essie has a really fabulously smooth formula, there is no way around it.  It goes on like silk and then you just have to admire it on your nails.  At least that's what I do.  Essie's Size Matters from the current 2011 winter collection is the same way, and it's almost a dark brick red.  I wanted to call it poinsettia, but they actually have a color called Poinsettia, which is a slightly brighter red.  But really, I think this is almost a wine red, like Merlot.

Essie Size Matters

Now, I unwittingly found a dupe for this lovely color from Ulta, which Twin provided me with.  Deep Desire is exactly the same color. but the formula isn't as great to work with.  Plus it chipped all to hell after about a day.  

Ulta Deep Desire

Great dupe color wise, but if you're going to quality it's hands down Size Matters.

Essie Size Matters full bottle retails for $8 US, the winter cube retails for $17 (includes Size Matters, Bangle Jangle, Cocktail Bling, and Bobbing for Baubles).
Ulta Deep Desire retails for $6 US.  Ulta also usually has awesome sales for their brand of cosmetics like buy two get one free, buy two for $8, etc.

**Deep Desire was provided to me for review.  I did not purchase this color myself.

Lav-ish

TGI-Saturday!  I survived Thanksgiving and Black Friday!  Yay! =D  I can't believe I actually had an alarm for 2:30 AM to wake me up on Friday to go to work.  That's just insane to me.

Also, now that it is past Thanksgiving, it is officially holiday season.  So I can start wearing my winter shades!  Excited!

This was my BF manicure, which was very muted since my work shirt was highlighter yellow and kind of blinding.  I used Ulta's Lav-ish, a gray/lavender, almost a mauve color with a gold micro shimmer in it.  If it had been just a plain creme, I'd say it was more of a fall color, but withe the gold shimmer I'd classify it as a winter shade.  I used three coats of this polish since it was a little thin.  Most of the time Ulta's formulas are kind of thick with the creams, but this one was almost watery so I used an extra coat.

This polish would have lasted me longer than two days if there hadn't been about an hour where there was nothing for me to do while at work on BF.  For some reason, we had about an hour where the entire mall was dead (I think it was because people had gone home to sleep after shopping since midnight).  My nails are actually really thin and have a bad habit of peeling, so once they get a certain length they will break off at the quick.  I ended up breaking six (that's right, 6) nails and destroying my pretty manicure.  But before that happened, someone did say it was a very pretty color.  =)

Both pictures were taken under artificial light, but at different levels of light.  The second one is more blurry that I thought it would have been.

Ulta's Lav-ish retails for $6 US plus sales tax.

*This color was supplied to me for review by my friend, Twin.  I did not spend any of my own personal money.

 

Halloween Set

More Halloween colors!  Unfortunately I can't remember the name of this polish (gasp!) and I can't find the pack it came in, but it's from the same Ulta Halloween 4pc set the last post was from.  This one is a dark purple and actually stood up to 2 days of hitting my hands at work all day before this picture was taken.  I'm very surprised!  Ulta had recently relaunched their nail polishes and I didn't think anything of it to begin with; I just thought they had redone the bottles.  But the professional line of polishes are very high quality, applying opaque in one thick coat and don't chip easily.  This color will probably stay in my collection for many seasons I like it so much.  Forgive my cuticles.

Ulta Halloween set $7.99 US (plus sales tax), OPI top coat $8.50 US

Here's a pic of the entire set.

Witchly Thinking

Ok, so the picture is of a terrible quality since it was taken from my phone and it only has a 3.2 mega pixel camera.  But whatever. 

  So I have terrible ADD with my nail polish and habitually change the polish every 2 or 3 days.  It is almost my only form of expression in my everyday wardrobe since my job's dress code is pretty strict as far as what I wear goes, so I change it every chance I get.  I'm pretty rough on my hands anyway.  I work in retail so I'm constantly hitting my hands on counters and hangers and other things; understandably my nails take a beating.  The polish will change the same day it chips, without fail.  So here we go!

Ulta's Witchly Thinking from a mini Halloween set and Orly's Tiara.  Originally I had thought Witchly had been black, but it turned out to be a dark navy blue.  It applied opaque with one coat with minimal drag or bald spots.  The accent nail took about four coats of Tiara glitter polish, like glitters usually do, and it came out kind of grainy, so if you use it be sure to load up on a top coat for optimal smoothness.  I used Revlon's quick dry top coat to seal it and add some extra shine.  

  The Halloween set came with 4 colors for $7.99 US (plus sales tax), and Tiara was also a mini for $3.50 US (plus sales tax).