Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Punki Purple

On my nails right now I have on another color from my haul, Nina Ultra Pro Punki Purple. It's a vibrant purwarm purple that is nearly neon in sunlight. It dries to a rubbery matte kind of finish which I wasn't fond of, but with top coat it's nice and glossy. Shown in the pictures is 3 coats of color. While organizing polish yesterday, I realized I had a extremley similar polish, Sinful Colors Dream On. When I swatched them they were definitly dupes. I think I'll do a comparison post later on, with some other dupey color swatches. Now my polish collection is still a baby, and nothing compared to some other bloggers, so for me to have 2 of one color is rare. So out of all the Nina's the fact that I grabbed one identical to one I already had is funny. I must be attracted to this bright magenta purple shade.
This shade by the way, was extremley hard to photograph. For some reason my camera was just not picking up any of the blue tones and my pictures were all coming out pink. After failed attempts in different lightng I decided to just fix the color in photoshop. So I adjusted the color, but I'm afraid my skin tone might look odd in some pictures. The polish is pretty accurate although a bit more pink than in real life. This was a tricky polish to capture.

Here's in bright indoor lighting
Again, a bit pink. 

This color is more accurate


In bright sunlight. The nearly neon was hard to capture.

Bottle is pretty accurate in this picture

Now as I write this I don't have the light I did yesterday morning, and it definitely looks more purple and the color is richer. I tried taking pictures but they turned out too dark and muddy. :/ Super frustrating. However, this is an awesome color and I love looking at it on my nails. I planned on doing nail art or at least adding tips or glitter, but the smooth bright surface looks great enough on its own and I've been wearing it plain. 
Hopefully I'll get better at capturing color, but for now If you're interested check it out at your local Sally's. This was also my first time using a Nina Ultra Pro, and won't be my last! Besides being affordable, I really liked the formula. It went on smoothly with no problems and dried in a decent amount of time.

I'm currently debating whether to change my nails today...I'm really liking this manicure. But that's all for now and I hope everybody is enjoying their wednesday.

Monday, January 23, 2012

Some Like it Haute

I have to say I definitely do after I've been wearing this manicure! Last night I put on Some Like it Haute from China Glaze, and took some pictures this afternoon. I took a lot of pictures of this one, It's a really cool polish. It has a clear base packed with tiny charcoal gray glitter, and larger pieces of circular holographic glitter. I've seen pictures of a very similar Wet N' Wild, as well as a Nails Inc. I think, but I don't have them myself to compare. Anyway, on to the pictures!

Here it is in dim indoor lighting

Normal indoor lighting

In natural light



With flash


In bright artificial lighting

Close up of bottle

And to better show the holographic bits I took some pictures of the polish in the bottle and on the nail moving or blurred so you can see the colors better.

Here's in the bottle

And on the nail

Just click on an image to see it better :) I'm off to do some work and enjoy my sparkly nails, so thats all for now!

January Haul

I've been dying all month to go shopping and yesterday I was able to go to Sally's and Walmart to pick some things up. I still want to go to a Walgreens and pick up some Wet N' Wild palettes and polish though, but thats for another day. So heres some pictures of what I got yesterday :)

From Sally's
China Glaze- Some Like it Haute, Lemon Fizz, and For Audrey

Orly- Shining Star, Nina Ultra Pro- Punki Purple

Besides the polish I bought a new buffer block, cuticle oil, and a full size and mini of my favorite top coat, Out the Door.
Right next to Sally's was a Walmart so heres what I got from there.

An Essie in....
 Shine of the Times! Yay! I was so excited, and I snatched up the last one :)

Flakey Goodness!!

 They had Nailene french tip polish guides for a dollar and change, so I thought I'd try them out.

And I had wanted to try one the removers you stick your finger in to get the polish off because I heard they were really good for glitter polish. This is Walmart's version, which was $3 and for the same price they had positively ancient looking Sally Hansen ones, and some other brand with 100% acetone. 

Weird foamy stuff inside! If you look closely, there is 3 slits in it to stick your fingers in. I messed up my thumb while doing them last night so I tried it out, and it feels really strange. 0__o It seemed to work alright but the real test will be a glitter. 

And the reason I wanted to go in the first place! Physicians Formula Happy Booster Blush. I picked out the Rose one. At $11 dollars it's pricey for a drugs store brand blush in my opinion, but theres a lot of product and I've only heard good things. So although I rarely wear blush I had to have this one because its so darn cute, and Valentine's is coming up and its perfect for that :) I have other pictures but I think I will save them for a full review with swatches. 

Also at Walmart I got a new cuticle pusher, which is boring so I didn't take a picture, but when testing it out I really like it! Only 97 cents too, unlike the $17 ones at Sally's, which I would personally never pay just because there is so many cheaper options.
I am also wearing one of the my new polishes so you'll see that in my next post :)

Friday, January 20, 2012

My Lifesaver and first Konad

I had been wanting a pastel creme, so for this manicure I decided on one of my favorites My Lifesaver, from Nicole by OPI. This was released with the Justin Bieber collection, which is no longer on the Nicole by OPI website but I've still seen bottles at stores. This color is a pale teal, close to mint, but with more blue tones. I like the consistency of this one and find it applies well after the first coat, which can be a bit streaky. The second seems to even things out nicely though.
Please excuse the little bit of polish above my middle finger, I didn't even notice it until I was looking at my pictures!

In indoor lighting




 Next to a window with weak natural lighting.

 Then, while I love the color and sometimes enjoy just a plain creme, I could not resist playing with my Konad. I got it for Christmas (and spent all day playing with it!) but I haven't used it in a manicure yet. It took a bit of trying and experimenting but I think I finally got the hang of it :) For the black I used Wet n' Wild Black Creme, and it worked really well. I found the little metal scraper it came with was scratching the plates, so an old gift or credit card worked just fine and didn't scratch.
I used plate m2 and stamped the leafy flower design 2 or 3 times on each nail, and then freehanded a black tip. For my first Konadicure, I'm happy with how it turned out!


Naked Nails 1/20/12

Today I was way over due for a fresh manicure, so after I removed my polish I thought I'd take some pictures of my nails. So far this winter has been good to them and I'm happy to say theres minimal damage :) A little bit of peeling on the corners of a few, but i filed most of that off, and the've been fine.
Last chop was in November, and i had teeny tiny nubbins that didn't reach the ends of my fingers. I made the mistake of going out in the freezing cold with completely bare nails one night at the end of October, and one of my ring finger nails broke clean off with out me even noticing :(
But they're back! So heres some pictures of the naked nails.

Here's right after removal and filing


And then with some much needed cuticle oil and hand lotion


Next post will have the manicure that followed :)

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Welcome :)

Hello :}
I'm Liz and this will be the first post in "The Pretty Lizard", a blog about nails, make-up, hair, and beauty in general. This is also my first attempt at starting my own blog, so it's a new experience all around.  I can't wait to get started!


Leopard print mani! Colors used were Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Lacey Lilac for the base color, Nicole by OPI in Prized Possession Purple for the spots, and then the spots were outlined with L.A. Colors Art Deco (the stripers) in Black.