last post of the decade

hmm. it's been a tough week. a tough year. a tough decade really. so far, i'm as old as i've ever been (haha). but this blog has given me a lot of joy and a hobby and a passion that i can turn to when things get rough. and i love it. i can only hope for amazing things in the next 10 years.

Miss Ange-Marie recently tagged me for the "Beautiful Blogger" award, thanks sweetie! and what better way to end the year and decade than to tell you some weird/interesting facts about me? haha, stuff that i've learned about myself over these last few enlightening years from adolescence to adulthood. i can't believe that 10 years ago i was 13! so weird :)

here goes!

1.  i will never be able to be satisfied with the knowledge in my head. i wish i could be a bit dumber to be honest, as they say ignorance is bliss. i fear i have too many thoughts in my head to ever be truly content. 
2. my favorite smell in entire world is clothes that are laundered with Tide brand laundry soap and then dried using Bounce dryer sheets. best combo ever.
3. i am a "by-myself-er". i'm beginning to find out that most of my immediate family is too and the people that i admire the most are as well.
   
4. i change my mind about 80 times a day. or more. about a million things.
5. i think high heels and boots are incredibly sexy but i NEVER wear them. my feet are permanently used to flip-flops and vans slip-ons. i'm very casual. my nails and makeup are the only fancy thing about me.
   
6. even though i love music almost as much as air, i think i would be ok if the only thing i could listen to for the rest of my life was string quartet music. there is nothing more soothing or exciting to me.
7. i secretly wish i was a little person (i.e. a dwarf). not for the attention, just because i really like being short. and i'm not short enough :)
   

i tag:
Emerald Sparkled
HappyBerryNaiad
Jellynat
and Polish Galore

HAPPY 2010 EVERYONE!!! 

SEE YOU NEXT YEAR!!!

polish present

this is a short post because believe it or not, even though school is out for a while and i'm back from vacation, i'm still kinda swamped right now haha. haven't gotten any posts together juuuust yet but i will be back with a vengeance soon :D

a while ago on a post i made a comment about two zoya polishes that i had been wanting forever, and one of my lovely kind generous amazing readers Amy contacted me letting me know she had the colors i had been lemming and didn't care for them. and imagine my SURPRISE when a few weeks later i received a giant box full of polishes from her! miss Amy sent me all of these polishes pictures below (i apologize for the poor picture quality). tons of zoyas including Pasha and Ki, the ones i had been desperately wanting, some china glazes, a hard candy, an opi and my first nicole polish!

i was flabbergasted at my good fortune and wanted to thank Amy personally again. can't wait to show you all the swatches! i've already worn a bunch of them ♥

lots of love

just dropping a little line to all you wonderful folks out there in the world who come by my little corner of the web and read/look at my blog :) thank you so very much for all your support and love this year! happy holidays and cheer to you and yours. be safe, merry, and keep warm!

essie luscious lips

this lady-like pale pink is called luscious lips by essie. it came out with the summer 2009 collection, with some of my very favorite essie shades--chubby cheeks and cute as a button. it has a very nice formula, i needed only 3 coats. i was expecting it to be streaky but it pleasantly smoothed out by itself. i had shorty nails when i wore it as you can see and i hate having to layer on tons of polish with short nails, it makes for tons of clean up and can feel yucky.

i decided to spice it up a little and took a que from steph over at steph's closet a.k.a. "the queen of polka dots" and try some white dots. i used a small dotting tool i got at walmart or somewhere like that and some acrylic paint. then i covered w/ seche vite because the acrylic paint is not waterproof. i really liked the result :) what do you think? (some of them look weird but it's just the shine of the camera haha)

tagged!

this tag is courtesy of my bestest blogger friend, miss maria from denmark over at Polishign the nails!

5 guys I used to fancy when I was younger (and maybe still do a little!)

1. Devon Sawa

ohhh gosh, what can i say about this hottie? haha please, have mercy on my poor little adolescent self! he was my dream man when i saw "Casper" and "Little Giants" and seeing him in "Now and Then" sealed the deal. i was in llllooooovvveee hahaha. he looks like such a dork now! did you see "Final Destination"? ew.


2. JC Chasez from 'NSYNC

yep i was definitely an 'NSYNC girl, no backstreet boys for me! i had their concert videos, all their cds, everything. i would vote for their videos on TRL everyday! i taped all the old Mickey Mouse club shows that JC and Justin Timberlake were on when they came on special on the Disney channel one summer and I'd watch them over and over. haha, i think JC might be gay though...oh well! he did have the best voice!

3. Mark-Paul Gosselaar

saved by the bell = best show ever! i seriously wanted to be kelly kapowski. mostly so i could be with zack morris! i would do my hair like hers and everything haha. hey i got to be cheerleading captain, so theoretically i was halfway there? haha! this is one guy i definitely still crush on though, he's still hot!

4. Leonardo DiCaprio

what young girl didn't have a crush on leo? c'mon really? i think you're lying to yourself :) titanic was monumental for me, seeing that tragicness at the tender age of 12 can really mess with you! leo was my hero for YEARS after. plus, romeo and juliet? ummm YEAH. hotttttt.

5. Brad Renfro

so sad, but brad's life ended early last year. i loved him in "Tom and Huck" and "The Client" and "The Cure". he was so talented. seems like so many young and promising stars are taken so much earlier than they should.

also i wanted to say rest in peace for Brittany Murphy. she was always one of my favorite actresses and i can't believe she's passed on. the world is truly saddened by her loss.

secret santa gift

i was lucky enough to be a part of nicole of magic maid's blogger secret santa gift exchange this year and thought i would do a post to show off my nice gift from pam of nail-e-glance. she sent me some awesome diamond cosmetics polishes--the matte collection, and some nail art beads and sunscreen.

matte smoke is a nice grey that went on very well. i found that all these mattes were pretty easy to apply as far as mattes go. they dry to a more "satiny" texture than stark matte in my opinion. but i really like the finish.

matte mulberry is a pretty purpley-orchid color that i haven't seen before in a matte shade so i like that this is unique and bright compared to the other dark shades you usually see in matte collections.

matte burgundy is probably my favorite out of these three, it went on the easiest and it's so vampy and the satin texture is really awesome on such a dark polish! these were my first diamond polishes and i am super happy with them. thanks again miss pamela!!

latest chuckle

it's gonna be a ra-ga-ga-christmas

best line? "she's super into jesus"....nice :)

essie meet balls

hahahahahahaha this polish name just cracks me up, i know i know, i'm so immature :D but you know you love me! essie's meet balls is an orangey medium brownish reddish coralish color with gold shimmer. it's sort of hard to describe haha. but honestly, it's really flattering and i was surprised how much i liked how it looked on me!

two opi pinks

pink. it's the color of passion, to quote aerosmith. actually, in my humble opinion, it is the color of awesome. one of my absolute favorite pinks is elephantastic pink by opi. great opi formula, it glows bright but not too bright that its overwhelming, it's slightly warm in tone which sets it apart from other petal pinks, and looks absolutely unbelievable against any skin color. it does start off semi-sheer so three coats are the ideal, which seems like a lot for a creme but it is so worth it. this is also amazing as a pedicure varnish, as it looks so happy and cheerful on your tootsies. you might think of this as just a "spring" color, but heck i wear this all year round! everyone could use a dose of color in the cold chill of gray winter right? ;)

this second pink is called shootout at the ok coral, also an opi polish. i've made it no secret that i am in la La LOVE with corals! and this color is a combo of pink and coral that has a bright opalescent flash of bluish fuschia. it is stunning! this is three coats. i had a little trouble with application of this one if i remember correctly, because it ran a bit thick. i didn't want to thin it because i borrowed it from a friend. i'm going to have to get my own and see if it was just a fluke or if it was the polish in general that was the problem.

i have two finals today! :( wish me luck because they are going to be doozies haha. hope everyone is having a great week ♥

l.a. girl matte orange

i'm not a huge fan of matte polishes as i find them a little hard to work with and with the recent promotion of matte topcoats i don't see much point in them. however, when i saw this candy orange shade, i just had to have it. i love orange, it is underrated and happy and just adorable! it wasn't too difficult to apply, but it does dry really quickly, about as fast as the nubar matte shades do. this is two coats. i also love the bottle shape of these l.a. girl polishes, it fits in my hand really well and is aesthetically pleasing haha :) hope you are all having a great week! happy wednesday ♥

brand new skates

opi's brand new skates came out with the Holiday in Toyland collection in 2008. it is delightful-looking in the bottle, shimmery metallic charcoal goodness! i found it sort of hard to apply though, very watery and sheer on the first coat which led to lots of clean up. but it does build on itself nicely, and the end result is pretty much worth it. i like how it can look dark and just slightly glimmer with a greenish tint in low light and silvery with the gold and silver sparkles really showing through in brighter light. this is about 3 coats. i think it is a nice shade for this time of year and think it was a good choice for a holiday collection. if you've got this guy on your shelf from last year, now is a perfect season to take him down and show off some glitz!

china glaze white-kwik-silvr

friday friday friday! why has this week been soooo long and yucky? i know. it's the middle slump of december when it's not quite close enough to christmas for me to be in the super holiday spirit, but be annoyed by the influx of shoppers in the stores and on the roads. it's way colder than last week which is siiiiiick. it's the week before finals so no more assignments are due but it's not the right second to start cramming for the tests. the heater is still broken in my office so i'm in a sweatshirt, snuggie, and blanket and slippers. blah. lame.

so what better to perk me up than a manicure of this fantastic varnish from china glaze! white-kwik-silvr it is totally my favorite white polish ever. it is one of the "glass flecked" polishes ala grape juice and watermelon rind etc. it looks amazing on anyone and it's perfect for winter :) this is three coats.

i know i've posted a picture of this before, but hey what's wrong with a re-do? nothing in my book :)

Disclosure Policy

Ok here's my arbitrary FTC disclosure policy. As of today, I have never received any samples or cash or promotions or whatever from any companies. I have won product contests, sometimes readers send me polishes (cuz they are awesome and love me ♥), and occasionally a free product comes with an order that I have placed from an etailer or something. However, this statement is to let you guys know that i will always let you guys in on where something comes from and what i get outta the deal. i will always be 100% honest with you about what i like and dislike, what works and doesn't work, and what is crap and what is good stuff. so here is it!

This policy is valid from 10 December 2009: This blog is a personal blog written and edited by me. For questions about this blog, please contact me at kelliegonzoblog at gmail dot com. We write for our own purposes. However, we may be influenced by our background, occupation, religion or lack thereof, political affiliation or experience. This blog may accept forms of cash advertising, sponsorship, or other forms of compensation. We believe in honesty of relationship, opinion and identity. The compensation received may influence the advertising content, topics or posts made in this blog but will not influence the opinions given. That content, advertising space or post will be clearly identified. The views and opinions expressed on this blog are purely the blog owners. If we claim or appear to be experts on a certain topic or product or service area, we will only endorse products or services that we believe, based on our expertise, are worthy of such endorsement. Any product claim, statistic, quote or other representation about a product or service should be verified with the manufacturer, provider or party in question.

To get your own policy, go to http://www.disclosurepolicy.org

sally hansen diamond strength

here are a few swatches of some sally hansen diamond strength polishes i picked up at a rite aid a while ago. i don't love these so much. i don't care for the extra looooong necks on the bottles at all. because the brush handle then has to be really long and that makes me clumsy because i have small squat hands and short fingers....and i'm naturally a klutz. the formula seems like it doesn't dry very fast either which tends to cause bubbles more often than not.

floral taffeta is my favorite out of these three, a pretty reddish strawberry color with a nice subtle diamond shimmer. i managed to get this one to dry sans bubbles thank goodness. this is three coats.

precious peach looked more...i don't know, um PEACH in the bottle to me. (wow, why would i think that?) on the nail it looks much more orange. i don't like it, which is weird because i usually really enjoy orange. and the shimmer in this one makes it look cheap to me. i may have to give this guy away...

champagne toast is totally the wrong name for this light pink shimmer. it is a nice safe shade with a hint of dazzle, but it is not the color of champagne or toast. le sigh...so weird. this went on pretty streaky no matter how long i waited between coats or how many coats i applied. i stopped at three (coats) on the second try.

i'm glad i got these bottles on clearance or else i would be upset. in stores they can run you around $7 a bottle! no thanks, i would pay that much for a good quality opi but for drugstore polish? nah.

icing lily

ahhh dear icing, such a love affair we have. it seems every time i go in to an icing store there are new colors. which is awesome. because i have to admit i love to window shop and i get sick of stores that take forever get new products, haha. so i adore icing! and their polishes have great formulas for the most part. this is one of their really great ones. it's a pale lavender creme that looks as delicate and lovely as the flower it is named after, lily.

hope you all are having a great week! happy hump day :)

purple x-ing

i got this nina ultra pro at sally beauty, called purple x-ing. me and my comrades are at a stand-still argument at how to pronounce it, i was saying it as: purple crossing, while my friend mickelle was saying: perplexing. either way, it's a pretty fabulous polish! lovely medium-deep purple (less blue than in the pics, my camera as well as most does not play well w/ purples) with tiny and slightly bigger holographic sparkles. this is two coats. the day i wore it, three of my co-workers went out and bought it AND i saw it on two other nail blogs! weird... it's like the second you learn a new word you start hearing it everywhere. or something :)

you don't know jacques suede

i la la love opi's suede collection! it is seriously genius. although i agree with pretty much everyone on the planet when i say that i think that they got lazy on naming them after polishes they already had, especially since they barely resemble their namesakes. oh well!

this guy is you don't know jacques suede. i left him matte cuz i like it like that! although they are breathtaking when covered with shiny topcoat. this is two coats. i found these much easier to work with than the previous matte collection, they dried less quickly but they were still not as easy to apply as regular polish. you really have to plan where you're going place your brush strokes or else you end up with a mess IMHO. i need to get all of the suedes, i'm just procrastinating. idk why haha.

the bottom picture is slightly more greyed, which i think is more color accurate than the top pic. i couldn't fix it :P

and the winner is...

i have been super crazy busy with school and i got really sick over the holiday weekend so i've been on crazy mode for a while but i was able to enter all of the comments/names into "The Hat" program to find out who will win the great polish giveaway I posted a while ago.

the screen shots of the program with all the names entered

and the winner is...

...

...


...

CucumPear!! Congratulations!

I will be emailing you soon :)

thanks so so much to everyone who entered and who has supported my blog. i love each one of you so much and it means so much to me that you all take the time to read my blog and look at my pictures. i promise there are more giveaways to come down the road. happy holidays everyone! and as soon as my hellish week of school nightmare slows down i'll be posting regularly again :D

essie risky business

i really enjoy essie polishes. i love cremes so that's probably why haha. they rarely step out of their little creme box. but when they do, i feel like they really knock something loose and cool. like...ever heard of starry starry night? well I HAVE! haha for instance, this jelly electric orangey/red called risky business, is far from your typical essie varnish. it's super shimmery! it's a JELLY! it's awesomely pigmented. and it's totally fun. and it's not pink. are you suuuuure it's an essie? yup pretty sure! haha, i love the little essie bottle, so sophisticated and clean. so i'm a sucker for them. and i am a sucker for risky business. this is 3 coats & no topcoat. i love it!