Julep and I are having a sort of love-hate relationship right now. I keep getting suckered into buying mystery boxes with the promise of beautiful polishes and goodies, and I keep getting disappointed. But they seem to take much more care with their Maven boxes; I’ve gotten two so far and absolutely loved them. So clearly I need to stop buying boxes if I don’t know what’s in them.
Julep Nan: Nantucket red crème
I still have a few more days of school, but summer is officially here in New England; it’s 60% humidity right now. Someone once joked that New England has four seasons: nearly winter, winter, still winter, and construction. So true.
There are a lot of tutorials for building your own nail polish rack out there. When my collection grew large enough that I wanted to see all my colors displayed (ostensibly so I didn’t buy more of the same, but let’s be honest, I’ll keep buying blues and neutrals), I went searching for polish racks. To buy the acrylic racks salons have is expensive. I brought up the idea of building my own, following all the great tutorials out there, but my mother, who thinks I’m less DIY than I really am, came up with a different solution.
Polish rack!
Click here to read more about building a polish rack from a premade utensil rack!
I’m late to the Zoya train, but I love these polishes: the colors are gorgeous and the formula wonderful. Right now, Zoya is relying on their fanbase to choose the colors for a summer mini trio. The potential colors are the 2013 summer collections: Stunning and Irresistible (swatched at these links by ThePolishAholic).
All you have to do is go to Zoya’s Instagram page, click on the photos for their summer collection colors, and “like” the ones you want to see in the trio (you can choose more than three). The ones with the most votes will get packaged together, but all the colors combined have to receive 20,000 likes in total for Zoya to take the next step.
That next step is a giveaway! They’ll give 2000 of the mini trios away free with any $10 purchase (plus S+H) from the Zoya website. Now, that’s a bit of a catch, because polishes are $8 and PixieDusts $9, so you’d have to buy at least two polishes, but since there are dozens of gorgeous shades available, it’s not hard to find two to love. Their brand polish remover ($9.99, argh!) is excellent and nourishing, unlike the acetone I usually use, so that’s worth a purchase, too.
Votes need to be in by Sunday, June 23, 11:59 EST!
Here’s the fine print direct from Zoya’s site:
*Terms and Conditions
This contest is valid on the Zoya Nail Polish Instagram page ONLY from 6/17/13 – 6/23/13 11:59pm EST. Giveaway is contingent to number of likes achieved – Promotion code will be released on Zoya’s Instagram on 7/01/13. Mini trios will be given away free with any $10 purchase online at http://www.zoya.com only, while supplies last. Continental. Shipping & Handling fees apply. Continental US Only.
I totally resisted the texture trend for a long time. Although I love matte, I didn’t want rough surfaces on my nails, I thought. Until I broke down and bought Zoya PixieDust in one of the original colors, Godiva.
So much sparkle.
I originally planned some sort of epic nail art with fish and a little crab and everything, but the truth is, I’m bad at art. 🙂
Click here to go under the sea!
Holy smokes, guys, I have 30 followers! I think that’s more than I’ve ever had on any blog, even when I was semi-fandom-famous. 😀 Thank you all so much!
Here’s my final manicure for the June SquareHue SoBe Collection. You can see swatches at The Silver Nail, and see the art I did with the first color here and the second color here. The final color I used was Collins Avenue.
3rd color: Collins Avenue, with OPI’s Tomorrow Never Dies
Still loving the June SquareHue SoBe Collection. You can see swatches at The Silver Nail, and see the art I did with the first color here on Formulated Phrase. The second color I used was Ocean Drive.
2nd color: Ocean Drive and Yellow Submarine
My first video game console was an Atari, and my cousins used to play the Smurfs game on it all the time. My one cousin lived with us for a few years when I was in grade school, and after we were supposed to be in bed, he would sneak into my room to play Ninja Gaiden on my Nintendo. My ex-boyfriend put Final Fantasy VII on my computer when he was rebuilding it before I went to college, and I got hooked. Another ex-boyfriend let me essentially crash in his dorm so I could play FFVIII on his PlayStation. Becca and I met through our love of Final Fantasy XII. And in tutoring a student on Brave New World this week, I explained that the Cyprus Experiment was an example of “we do what we must because we can” (the kid totally appreciated the reference).
I’m not a huge gamer, but I love the ones I’ve played. One of my favorites is Nintendo’s flagship RPG, The Legend of Zelda.
May’s SquareHue was a huge disappointment for me: three shades of pink, a color I hate. One a neon, which is tough to work with, one a frost, which is a finish I dislike, and one a creme, which is the only one I kept. So I was nervous about June’s SoBe (South Beach) collection.
I got it (and, like, four other nail polish packages — I have a problem!) earlier this week, and was deliriously happy when I opened the box and saw three colors I loved. The Silver Nail swatched it fast (she’s got great swatches of a variety of polishes on her site, along with breaking polish news like new collection press releases), so I thought instead of swatching it like I did with the Bloom Collection, I’d show some nail art I do with each color.
1st color: Lincoln Road
formul8edphrase 