I Just Wanna Fly: Cult Nails Let Me Fly

All around the worlddd statues crumble for me, who knows how long I've loved you...

Do you have the song "Fly" by Sugar Ray stuck in your head now? Then I've done my job here. Earworm successful!

And that lovely song lyric was inspired by the polish Let Me Fly from Cult Nails. The Cult Nails website describes the polish this way, "Let Me Fly is the trifecta for polish enthusiasts. Its vividly pigmented dusty turquoise base, paired with her dazzling silver shimmer and flawless formula, establishes her pedigree of perfection. Let Me Fly was originally offered as part of the “A Day at the Races” Collection, 2011."

I would say the official description is spot on! Let Me Fly is actually a perfect fall color. It's a polish with a lot of depth and the silver shimmer gives it a little pop so the color doesn't fall flat. I'll admit that when I actually wore this color during the summer (which is when the swatches are from), I didn't love the color. But now looking back at my swatches, I think I'd love wearing now that the crisp Autumn air has rolled in. I think my hesitation with the color was that it didn't feel like a summer color. I'm sure it will be added into my fall rotation.

Cult Nails does not disappoint when it comes to application. Let Me Fly was two easy coats over a base coat and covered with a coat of Wicked Fast. Let me also say that Cult Nails Wicked Fast is easily in my top 2 of favorite top coats, along with Seche Vite. I've been trying a few new quick dry top coats out lately and I've been disappointed with most of them. The other top coats seem to dull the polish and I end up with dings even hours later, which doesn't happen with Wicked Fast. I'm going to have to order some more soon!

All in all, I've grown to love Let Me Fly over time. It's a gorgeous jewel-tone creme with a great shimmer. This polish has been around for a while so I'm sure many of you already own it.

I just wanna fly!

What's your perfect fall color? Do you like dark colors, including greens and blues? Or are your perfect fall colors strictly vampy reds, oranges, deep purples, and browns?

Captivated by Scandal

Happy Friday lovely readers! It seems that life is so busy lately! I know a lot of people dislike the "busy" excuse, but seriously, it's true. This week was my 1 year wedding anniversary, a full week of work of course, and on Wednesday I went to see Eric Hutchinson at the Highline Ballroom with my cousin and some friends. Overall, it's been a good week, but it's left no time for blogging.

I've also decided that I have so many untrieds that I've never worn and a bunch of other polish that I may have worn, but never posted. So in the interest in catching up, I'm going to give you shorter posts in the future. (Except this post.) Shorter posts will allow me to do more posting and get through my stash. I hope you all don't mind, but to me, a shorter post is better than none.



Today's post features two Cult Nails beauties, Scandalous from the Divas and Drama collection and Captivated. Scandalous is a gorgeous coral jelly creme polish and Captivated is a sheer coral jelly with gold and coral flakes and glitter pieces. The pictures are of 3 coats of Scandalous and 2 coats of Captivated, using Cult Nails Get it On and Wicked Fast.

This is probably one of my favorite Cult Nails layering combos that I've tried so far. The mani even lasted a whole 5 days with no chipping! Plus, it looks even better in person.

What do you think of this combo? Have you tried it yet? Let me know in the comments section!

Moar Cult Nails Nail Mail!

Happy Monday all! I hope everyone enjoyed their weekend. Now that it's back to the work week, here's some nail mail to brighten your day.

I have gotten a lot of nail mail in the past few weeks, which is always exciting. In the past, most of my nail polish has come from stopping at my local drug store(s) and picking up polish that catches my eye. Now that I've become part of the nail blogging community, there are so many more options for buying polish! This may be bad for my wallet, but it has introduced me to so many great brands that are not available in store.

Anyway, in addition to ordering the Divas and Drama collection, I also took part in the Cult Nails $5 sale. The sale was to celebrate Cult Nails (and Maria) reaching 5,000 likes on Facebook. It's quite a milestone and Marie was nice enough to treat us Culties to this great sale. It's essentially a 50% off sale, since her polish is normally $10 a bottle. She did limit it to 3 bottles at $5 in order to make sure it was fair for everyone and for her as well.

I definitely took advantage of the sale and even stayed up till midnight to order. I usually never go online at the exact time things go on sale, but this one was worth it.

Because of the timing of the new collection and the sale, these ended up arriving a few days after the Divas and Drama collection. It was an epic nail mail week for me. As  you can see, I picked up Let Me Fly, Enigmatic and Captivated. 

From L to R: Enigmatic, Let Me Fly, Captivated

They are all gorgeous colors and I can't wait until I've worn all three! Here's some bottle spam in the meantime.

Did you take part in the $5 Cult Nails sale? If you did, what did you end up getting? Did you stay up until midnight Eastern time like I did? 

Cult Nails Manipulative with Seduction Accent Nail

Happy Sunday readers! I had a nice, quiet weekend that involved wine, shopping and a haircut. How was everyone else's weekend? Today has been rainy and cold for most of the day, so I've been finishing up Mad Men on Netflix and relaxing. For a Sunday, the pace has been nice and slow. I never want Sundays to end, so I'm enjoying it while I can.

Now onto the polish! I have yet another Cult Nails related post. Once I got my Divas and Drama collection, I had to put it on ASAP and this was the first mani I did with the collection. I started with two coats of Manipulative, which is a blue creme polish with a very subtle shimmer. Manipulative leans a little green as well. The color was a bit darker than I thought it would be after seeing Maria's swatches and pictures, but it's gorgeous anyway.

I also love Maria's swatches of Seduction over Enticing, so I recreated the layering combination as an accent nail on my ring finger. I used two coats of Enticing, which is a sheer baby pink creme polish. It's a gorgeous polish on its own and two coats provided great coverage. One of these days I'll have to wear Enticing without covering it up. 

After everything was dry, using Wicked Fast top coat of course, I added the accent nail of 2 coats of Seduction. I also used Cult Nails Get it On for the base coat. 

So there you have it, yet another gorgeous Cult Nails combination. I think what I love most about the Divas and Drama collection is that all of the colors go so well together. They're just made to be used together, whether it's layering, accent nails or nail art. It's a collection that I'm doubt I'll ever get tired of. 

The Divas and Drama collection from Cult Nails is available here for $40 or you can buy the individual polish colors for $10 each. 

Have you tried this combo yet? What have been your favorite manicures using the Cult Nails Divas and Drama collection? Let me know in the comments section!

Nail Mail: Cult Nails Divas and Drama Collection

Last week I finally received my Cult Nails Divas and Drama Collection pre-order! I have been really excited about this collection and after waiting, it was great to finally have them in my hands!

I love the Cult Nails polish burritos! It's such a cute idea and environmentally friendly too. 

Seduction from the Divas and Drama collection has become my new favorite polish. It is absolutely gorgeous and I just want to wear it all the time. I keep thinking of new layering combos that would work great with the purple jelly base. I just love it! Plus, it's a "cousin" of Cult Nails Unicorn Puke / Clairvoyant, which I probably will sadly never own. This is the definitely the next best thing. 

Ahh, look at those flakies!

The whole order. I also added the Cult Nails Get it On Base Coat and Wicked Fast Speed Dry Top Coat to my order. They work perfectly with the rest of the Cult Nails colors.

The Divas and Drama collection from left to right: Scandalous, Enticing, Seduction and Manipulative. The entire collection is available now on the Cult Nails website for $40 for the collection or $10 each if you just want one or two. However, if you want Seduction (which I know you do) be sure to order it sooner rather than later because it's a Limited Edition (LE) color. So once it sells out, it's gone. I already missed out on Toxic Seaweed. 

I'll be posting my swatches soon hopefully. Lately this collection seems to be all I've been wearing, I love it so much!

Giveaway: Cult Nails Jason Wu Giveaway

Hey readers! I apologize for being MIA lately. I've been working on my own personal Etsy shop (coming soon!), which has taken up a lot of my time. That's not including my full-time job and social activities. It's been pretty busy over here!

Anyway, I wanted to share a great giveaway with you! Maria, the creator of the amazing Cult Nails, is hosting a Jason Wu giveaway with two different prizes! If you weren't part of the frenzy, Jason Wu is a designer who recently released a Target line. As with most big designer Target lines, much craziness ensued and most of the items sold out in most places in record time. Luckily, Maria was able to find some pieces and was generous enough to host a giveaway with her finds.

It's a really simple giveaway, which I love, with various ways to enter and there are some great prizes! You can check it out on Maria's blog here. Hurry and enter though because the giveaway ends February 24th!

I also can't wait until Cult Nails reaches 5,000 likes on her Facebook page because Maria will be holding a $5 sale. I don't care when it happens, when it does I will be purchasing a few of those beauties!

Did you enter the Cult Nails Jason Wu giveaway? What are your favorite Cult Nails colors? 

Fail'd It, My First Stamping Attempt

For Christmas my hubby got me Bundle Monster plates along with the Konad accessories that I needed for stamping. This weekend I finally got around to trying it out.

For my base color I used Cult Nails Time Traveler. I had ordered it during the Cult Nails anniversary promo that offered free shipping. It came in the mail last week and it was so gorgeous in the bottle that I just couldn't wait to use it. Time Traveler is a dark royal, almost navy blue creme polish. The formula was great and I ended up using only one coat for the base. ONE COAT! It's an amazing color and I was kind of sad that I was going to stamp over it.

Cult Nails Time Traveler. Isn't it so pretty? 

I wanted to use a full nail pattern, but it didn't work out too well so I ended up trying two smaller designs from BM 223. On my left hand I stamped the bell from the plate using Mary Kay Gold Leaf. On my right hand I tried a another design with Maybelline Express Finish in Brassy that looked like a tattoo design. I don't have pictures of my right hand because despite my attempts, I just could not get a good photo.

I guess for a first stamping attempt it isn't too bad. But I've seen so many flawless examples of stamping that it's hard to think this was good. I'll just have to keep practicing and working on it. Next time I'll try some of those Sally Hansen Color Quick pens that I picked up from Big Lots for stamping instead. Until next time!

What was your experience with your first attempt at stamping? Do you have any stamping tips or advice? Which are your favorite plates: Bundle Monster, Konad or Red Angel? Let me know in the comments section!

Breaking (Bad) Resolutions and Treat Yo Hands with products from The Body Shop.

So it's not even two weeks into January and I've already broken my nail polish resolution. There have been some incredible sales and promotions recently. a-england's anniversary 30% sale, the Zoya get 2 free promotion, and Cult Nails free shipping for their one year anniversary/birthday.

After deciding that a-england would be a major splurge (the pounds to US dollar conversion is not good for the wallet), I decided to go with the Zoya 2 Free promotion instead. A total cost of $6.95 for 2 polishes and shipping is a GREAT deal, so I couldn't pass it up. Zoya Kelly and Zoya Yara will be the two new additions to my collection and my first Zoya polishes ever. I can't wait until they arrive!

I also took part in the Cult Nails free shipping promotion. I decided to purchase Time Traveler since the swatches I've seen from other blogs are gorgeous. Time Traveler will be my first Cult Nails purchase as well. I love trying new brands!

I'm considering these part of my birthday present, since my birthday was last week (January 5th, yay me!) and I've gotten some birthday cash from my family. With "treat yo self" being the motto for my birthday (courtesy of Parks & Recreation), I went in search of a great body butter for my hands. I was going to stop by Bath & Body Works, but after 60 seconds in the door I realized it was way too crowded for me. It was during my lunch break so I didn't have time to wait on a long New York City line.

So I went across the street (gotta love the city) to The Body Shop, which was also having a sale and had no line. I didn't end up finding a butter (I'll just get Lush Lemony Flutter), but I did purchase a three pack of The Body Shop hand & nail creams and some lip balm. The three pack included 3, 1 ounce tubes of hand & nail cream, which normally retails for $25 (ouch!), but was on sale for $12.50 (way more my style).

From left to right: Almond  Hand & Nail Cream (for all skin types), Hemp Hand Protector (very dry skin), and  Wild Rose Hand Cream (mature skin).

The Almond Hand & Nail Cream is a good everyday moisturizer. It smells good too, nice and subtle, not overpowering. All of these hand creams take a little time to absorb.

The sales person at The Body Shop told me that the Hemp Hand Protector was named the top beauty product of the year in the industry. I don't know the exact publication/website/blog, but I figured I would give it a try. I am not a fan of the smell of the Hemp cream, but you can instantly feel the softness on your skin after using it. I think I'll end up leaving the Hemp Hand Protector at home and using it before bed. 

The Wild Rose Hand Cream is probably my favorite of the three based on smell, but I like the smell of roses to begin with. The smell is a bit strong though, probably because of the rosehip oil. So if you're sensitive to smells and don't like floral scents, this probably isn't the hand cream for you. 

Overall, I'm a fan of all three of these. I keep reaching for them whenever my hands feel dry and I keep at least one in my purse. Between the cold winter weather and all the acetone I use, having a good hand cream is key. The Body Shop also won me over as a new favorite store. After buying these products, I went onto The Body Shop website to look at their products again, where I found out that they don't test on animals and use a lot of Fair Trade, natural products. These things are a big plus to me right now as a consumer and it's great to find brands like this. I will be shopping there more often from now on!

Are you a fan of The Body Shop? What are some of your favorite hand creams or butters? Share your thoughts in the comments section!