Cath Kidston Nails

Aren't they pretty? I really liked them. Mix and match floral nails will NEVER get old. And the base color for the middle finger really was the same color as the medium pink of the roses. I think my camera hates me.

A salon franken

Yup. I went into a dusty planning on looking for some cheap but rare polishes but didn't find anything that looked interesting until I saw this. I have NO idea how they made it/acquired it, but it's obviously not *actually* OPI. Anyway, it's pretty.

EDIT: Apparently I stumbled into OPI Paris Couture For Sure. Lucky me!

In which I am very much not dead

SO SORRY!

Life just gets in the way of blogging. Things, like school, happen and then there's no time in the day to post. And, to make matters more stressful, I'm in a play right now. We opened last week and close this Saturday. At the conclusion of all that, I'll actually be allowed to paint my nails. It remains unknown if I'll actually have time to post. The winner of the giveaway was Becca O.
Fun facts: most of y'all like To the Stars and Daddy's Girl. Some of y'all are awful at reading instructions, much to my amusement.
Anywho, here's nail polish.

I was sent this Bon Bons polish for review. Isn't it AHDORABLE?!
These are ittsy-bittsy cheap polishes intended for, as far as I know, use as party favors and such. I know I had quite a collection of Bon Bons polishes when I was little. This color's a frosty white. Here's the amazing thing, though: that was two coats. Two. Coats. Of cheap polish. That's WHITE.
A two coat white, y'all. Color me amazed.


Some items shown in this post were sent to me for review. That did not, in any way, change my opinion or representation of the product.

You have me in stitches

Bows and stitching and navy blue (China Glaze First Mate), oh my!
Love this, so cute and fun. I had some issues with the bows on my right hand, but that was to be expected.
Idea is stolen from this tumblr

Here's your last warning- ENTER MY GIVEAWAY NOW! Go here.

Sally Hansen Polished Pearl

LOVE this one. It's super pretty and clean and got a ton of compliments.

My giveaway ends TONIGHT, so enter here (click the word 'here' to be taken to the right entry)

Painting the roses red

I love me some floral nail art. This isn't my usual floral+rhinestones+glitter, but it's still super pretty. Super-duper pretty. Base color was OPI A Grape Fit and the swirling colors were ChG Ruby Deer and Milani White Canvas nail art.

Don't forget to enter my giveaway here! Three more days left on it!


Some items in this post were sent to me for review.

A pretty (rare) polish

Found a bottle of OPI What's Dune? in an old nail salon. It's a duochrome holo polish from ages ago. Make my hands look red as lobsters, but it's mesmerizing in the sun.

lovely layering

OPI I Pink I Love You was an Ulta Valentine's Day exclusive two years ago (I think. Don't quote me on that, maybe it was three?). It's so pretty and jelly and filled with itsy-bitsy gold glitter and I LOVE IT. But, it's rather hard to get ahold of nowadays, so I have to conserve.
I wore it over Lippmann Pop Life, a pretty creme pink. Honestly, you don't *need* Pop Life, tt's a pretty standard color. I got it for cheap, I certainly wouldn't have dropped $16 on it.

If you haven't entered my giveaway, do so now!

Modern Animal

I loved this. The pictures just don't do it justice, it was so shiny and SO pretty. All freehanded, obviously I need more practice. Still, love it!

This is one pretty polish

I bought this ages ago, when the collection first came out. It's nothing new, obviously as China Glaze hasn't made a holo this fabulous since the OMGs. Very holo and very pretty and very pink. I like it lots.

If you haven't entered my giveaway yet, you're obviously insane. Get your booty over there and click a few buttons for the chance to win some AWESOME polish!

500 Follower Giveaway!!!!

Hey all, it's finally that time! There's a reason why this took so long for me to get together. That secret surprise I mentioned? Well here it is!

I'm starting my own line of nail polish! I honestly love these frankens. I'm not saying that because I'm trying to sell them to you all, I own my own bottles and I wear them on a regular basis (and get SO many compliments every time. People love these!).
I'll be selling my Jane Eyre polish collection for $7.50 a bottle or 3 for $20. The collection is three beautiful greys, all smoky with that mysterious and tragic feel of my favorite novel of all time: Jane Eyre (of course!).














The colors are (in order from top to bottom!):
A Strange and Unearthly Thing- light grey with delicate green/blue shimmer. The shimmer is more apparent on the nail than my pictures would like you to believe.

Mrs. Edward Rochester- a something blue that isn't the usual. Light slate blue with fine holographic microglitter. Gorgeous.

To The Stars- a dark grey chock full of that beautiful holographic shimmer. A bit of blue in there, too, to keep it interesting.

Email me at paintedtips@gmail.com if you're interested in purchasing, limited amounts are available, so buy soon! Shipping will be $2.50 for the first polish with $.50 for every additional bottle.

And now for the giveaway! I'm giving to you, my lovely followers, a FULL set of my Jane Eyre polishes. All three of them will go home to one lucky winner.
BUT, that's not all! SinfulColors has teamed up with Painted Tips to also offer SIX lovely polishes. That's a total of NINE polishes in this giveaway, three of which you can't get anywhere else!
Sinful will send one lucky winner one bottle of each of the following polishes:
This Is It
HD Nails
Forget Now
Vacation Time
Daddy's Girl
Midnight Blue


So what do you have to do to win? Easy!
1) You have to be following me. There's no ifs, ands, or buts on this and I'll check to make sure the winner is legit. Press that little follow button, it's not too hard.
2) Fill out the following form.

Yup, that's it! If you do decide, though, to up your chances, here's ways to get bonus entries:
1) Put me on your blogroll. It'd be awfully nice if you'd keep me there, too.
2) Tell me which of the Jane Eyre polishes is your favorite and which SinfulColors is your favorite.
3) Suggest another color I should franken. I may end up end up making it!
4) Comment on my posts. Anyone who has commented at least 5x will be getting one more entry.
5) Recruit someone to my blog. They have to enter, too, and tell me that you've recruited them or it doesn't count.

So that's all! Just fill this in :D
Also, please note that this is only open for my US ladies. Sorry, international gals, I'll have another giveaway sometime for you!
This ends on February 10th. No entries after that date will be counted.

A post, a post!

CND Plumville
It's pretty but I don't love it on me. Too red, maybe?

Awful lighting because the polish and my camera don't like behaving.

New favorite color combo

CC Take Me To Your Chateau over Lippmann You Can Leave Your Hat On. Bundlemonster stamped. It looked great matte, too.
I love the light blog over the nude, so interesting looking. I really loved this.

Sweaters for my nails!

It snowed! It snowed here and it so rarely does, so I made little sweaters for my nails :D
I didn't take pictures like normal because... well... this is more fun. Yeah, let's go with that.
I used Wet n' Wild's French White Creme and Red Red and then an itty-bitty brush. A little messy, but they looked good enough, I thought. I like the moose the best :D
(Inspired by NeverTooMuchGlitter)

I'm working on getting the give-away stuff together. It'll be soon, I promise. Thanks for helping me hit 500, everyone! Remember, I'm rather partial to people who are with me PRE give-away, rather than post. There might be an opportunity for an extra entry if you've been active on my blog before I announce what you can win ;)

News on My 500 Follower Giveaway

I'm at 498 followers, 2 away from a HUGE milestone.

So, when I do get those two, I'll be revealing exactly what it is you might win. So, if you're reading but not following, now's the time to follow.

Can't wait to let y'all in on the big surprise!

China Glaze- Go Go Pink

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An oldie and a goodie. A bit streaky but that perfect pale pink that just screams femininity. Adore this one.

Essie Sand Tropez

I liked this.

Serena Williams' Polish

She partnered with OPI and made these shades, each sold in a duo with a corresponding crackle.

I didn't mean to buy any. No, I swear, I didn't want the crackle and I didn't want her nail polish.

The crackle was separate at Ulta and on sale. I had lots of coupons, and it totaled somewhere around $4 a bottle, so I bought several colors (black, silver, white, and gold are now all of my OPI crackles. I think. Uh oh, I might be missing a few)

And then the polishes were on sale, 30% off at Trade Secret. I bought these three. The names are silly (aren't they always?!) but the colors are complex and pretty. Please enlarge all pictures. Really, do it. And just in case you won't, I provided an enlarged bottle photo for each. Unique colors with complexity like we don't see very often from OPI, I'm sold!

I really should photograph Simply Smashing, the other SW for OPI color I have. I might just do that now. If so, I'll edit this post with it. I don't have Rally Pretty Pink because someone (achem, Valarie) talked me out of buying it 30% off. She's mean. I also don't have, or really desire, any of the Wimbledon polishes.

Love is a Racket-
This is going to be my V-Day mani. It'll be my own personal inside joke and I will enjoy it (and maybe do a crackled heart on it, that went well last year). It's this incredibly complex pinkish red. Or reddish pink, I don't know.
It has these itty bitty flakies (or, as I call them, microflakies! Let's make that catch on, yeah?) and pretty shimmer. I liked this one the best, actually.

Spark De Triomphe-
A clear based silver glitter with large circular gold glitters. I think. Honestly, this one's so odd I don't even know. I've seen it described by bloggers as gold, champagne, silver, greenish, yellowish.... Just look at the close-up, okay?

Pros and Bronze-
I see what you did there, OPI. Clever name.
This one was pretty sheer. A rose gold-y, bronze-y color. I can't decide if I like this on me, but it's interesting. Please note, immediately after taking this photo I filed my nails so they don't look so silly. I promise they're better now.

Grrrrr

Google took away my ads because they suspected fraud. I made $60 in no time flat, and I swear I didn't cheat. I never once clicked my own ads, and I have nowhere near the expertise to make some kind of auto-clicky thingy-majig. So I lost the $60 and the ability to have ads. It is really awful that I can't contest this because I DIDN'T DO ANYTHING WRONG.

Anyway, I just got a new baby, a Canon Rebel T3. Yup, finally I'm upgrading. I still need a macro lens before I can take nail pics with it, but look at the lovely pictures I took. (I'm proud of myself, I don't consider myself any kind of photographer, but I took these AND edited them all by my self :D)

I obviously have a thing for high-contrast, darkened, saturated images. And broken buildings. And doors, but no wonderful pics came from that small obsession.

Two quick photos

Attached to the SinfulColors holiday collections (see it here) were these two nail art polishes. A silver glitter in a clear base, Fashionista, which I found sparse, and a gold shimmer, Flower Girl, which I adore. The latter is a very, very yellow gold. A bit gaudy, and entirely perfect. They're shown here over AA Imperial Purple in a variety of designs (otherwise known as me goofing off). I have animal print and scroll-work in Flower Girl and a full coat of Fashionista as well as some stripes.


Now this is a fun one. American Apparel Neon Green with Dare to Wear Celestial Blue on top. Isn't it lovely?! So fun and summery. Celestial Blue is from DtW's Crack-m-Up line. It cracks nicely and is shockingly pigminted. I have one last Dare to Wear to show off (another crackle :D), but that can wait.



Some of these polishes were sent to me for review. I still gave an honest and fair opinion of them

On the technicalities of blogging....

I have been thinking about things recently, puzzling over a few small changes I'm thinking of making to the blog. I thought I should let y'all chime in, after all, you are the reason I'm blogging.

So, you might have noticed that there are a lot more posts with items given to me recently. Firstly, please understand that my review is entirely honest. I'll tell you if I hate the product, I'm not going to compromise my integrity and the integrity of this blog just for the sake of free stuff.

Now, you also may have noticed (thought I wouldn't blame you if you didn't) that I never post about upcoming launches. I don't like that usually when other blogs do it as the colors are SO different from the promos generally. Here's question one: Would you like it if I posted the launch info I get emailed to me from various companies?

Question two is also about advertising, more specifically if I should put up paid ads on the blog. I'm trying to save up some cash for travel (hence the no-buy) and monetizing the blog would help. But I don't want to degrade Painted Tips with those icky ads Google puts up. I'm thinking about selling some ad space independently, but I'm not even sure how to go about that or if I really want to. Would you mind if there were ads on this blog? If you blog, do you have ads? Why or why not?

It'd be AWESOME if you'd answer a few of these questions for me. And it might possibly help you out in the next giveaway (but don't hold me to that. There won't be one, likely, until I hit 500 followers, and even then, I AM trying to save some money! But, any giveaway I have will have little extras for my long-suffering readers like yourself).

Edit: I put ads up. If they aren't making enough money to be worth it, I'll take them down. Still, any extra cash for my trip will be helpful. I do promise that ads won't be so blended into my blog that my content and paid content are indistinguishable. Let me know if you have any strong feelings about this!

THESE ARE SO PURDY

I've ranted and raved about how awesome Valerie is (find her here) before. Here's her polish. No, it's not polish I got from her, it's literally her polish. She mixed it and is, last I heard, planning to sell it. I got it for my birthday from the lady herself.
IT'S SO PRETTY. It Came in the Night is this uber complex jelly purple with iridescent pieces. I LOVE IT. Fluffed Dove is pretty, reminiscent of Glitter in the Air (a polish Valarie loves, I know), but not super my taste. Yes, I do enjoy it, but not like I do ICitN. ICitN will be on my tips for the rest of eternity. Or maybe just 2011 (don't worry, I have some stored pics for y'all if that ends up being the case).

I think I'm getting a new camera soon, so keep with me and my awful pictures for a bit, please! The lamp I used to use to light photos broke and the new one and my camera do NOT get along. Nothing I shoot is fully lit AND color-accurate, only one or the other. Ugh.

Dare to Wear a Dollhouse

Hehehe, I'm clever. And funny. No really, I am.

or not.

Anyway, Dare to Wear sent me their lovely Dollhouse collection. This was one of the most exciting moment of my month as the colors are GORGEOUS. A hint of pastel, holographic glitter, and a jelly base. YUM.

I wanted this collection for its yellow glitter, Fashion Fever. Sadly that yellow glitter is actually a green-yellow, emphasis on the green. So my quest for a bright yellow glitter continues....

They all have small specks of silver glitter, medium sized holographic circles, and holographic bar glitter. I repeat: yum.

I like Pop Artist, a bubblegum pink, the best, I think. Though Rock Star is awfully pretty, as is Social Butterfly. Lady Luck would be PERFECT for St. Patty's Day, and Dream Princess is a unique and rather odd shade of pale orange, I've never seen a glitter quite like it. All in all, they're gorgeous.







The products in this post were sent to me for review. This did not, in any way, affect my opinion.

SinfulColors' Holiday Collection!

They're all re-promos, I believe, meaning that we've seen these exact colors before and the only thing that's changed is the display. I did own Midnight Blue and Daddy's Girl before receiving these, and, as far as I can tell, there's not one thing that's changed. However, these are (for the most part) PERFECT for the holidays. I'm thinking of doing a Hannukah manicure (I've previously moaned and groaned about holiday collections falling flat due to CHRISTMAS themes. I like me some red and green, but bring on Gelt-Gold and that shade of blue that matches Israel's flag! But I digress) with Midnight Blue and Out of This World. Daddy's Girl is rather 'odd man out' for me, as I don't traditionally associate purple with any hoiday. Whatever, it's so pretty.

The shimmer in all these is INCREDIBLE. Super complex and pretty. Enlarge the photos if you dare, but I must warn you that my nails are awful right now. Awful. I swatched Last Chance right before one tore and I had to cut them all. I miss my long nails :/
Last Chance- A green creme/jelly. Pretty. I wonder how it compares to Illamasqua Rampage... A bit less jelly, I think.

Out of This World- Possibly my favorite from this collection. A pretty, delicate white shimmer. So complex and very, very dainty. I wore this one with white shatter.

Midnight Blue- An electric navy. The shimmer looks almost alive.

Daddy's Girl- So much more purple in real life. SUPER purple. A purple jelly. I promise, this is purple. It's not blue. It's purple. Pink shimmer.

Sugar Sugar- Some gold flecks, pink shimmer, and a red base. Pretty standard but the gold makes it interesting. Very pretty.


The products in this post were provided for review. This did not, in any way, affect my opinion or my review.

Easy Galaxy Nails

Wet 'n' Wild Morbid coupled with this pretty flakie make for nails that could be otherworldly- no? Significantly less of a hassle than either galaxy nails method (see one here) and stunning in its own right.

Barielle Sailors' Delight

LOVE this pink. It's so universally flattering, I brought it to a slumber party and it looked incredible on everyone. It's also $4 at Ulta right now, so go snatch it up. And, to top it all off, it looks incredible with OPI's Gold Shatter. Yup.