Deborah Lippman Sarah Smile & CND Gold Sparkle

This is a polish I fell head over heels in love with. It wasn't love at first sight, but after I had her on my nails, Sarah Smile by Deborah Lippmann had me swooning with delight. Deb created this with Sarah Jessica Parker because she wanted something that wasn't too pink and wasn't too white. It goes on sheer, but y'all know me, I built it up to opacity in four-ish coats. I freaking adore how this looks with my skin tone! It did bubble a bit, but oh well. It wore like IRON too, no chips for a week!

After the third day, I decided to spice it up a little with two layers of CND effects Gold Sparkle (which is more of a gold flake). This is seriously a ga ga gorgeous combo, one of my very favorite manicures EVER!! Very simple but elegant and sexy!

What do you think my lovelies?

Valentine's Day Gifts from CND

Embrace the Love

Love is in the air.  Seductive scents, siren red nails and kissable lips ensure your place in the spotlight.  Whether going steady or crushing on a special someone, look and feel your best with these fun gift sets.  Save the teddy bears and balloons for "Get Well Soon" and snatch up these CND must-have items before they're gone

Scentsations™ Heart Duo

Get close to your sweetie this holiday season, and give your lips and skin a sweet treat with the Scentsations™ Heart Duo.  Fragrant, silky-smooth skin, and shiny, subtle pink lips ensure that Valentine's Day comes sealed with a hug and kiss!  Includes an 8.3 fl oz bottle of Heart Lotion scented with a blend of citrus, white flower, and warm amber, and a .39 fl oz tube of sheer-pink Heart Lip Gloss. 

Suggested retail price: $17.90 US / $22.40 CAN

Red Hot Colour Collection

Dress up your digits for a night of hand-holding and romance with CND's Red Hot Colour Collection.  This alluring, ruby sparkle layering combo will be sure to steal hearts!  Includes a .33 fl oz bottle of Just Red Colour and a .33 fl oz bottle of Red Sparkle Effect.  

Suggested retail price: $20.00 US / $25.00 CAN

Available for a limited time only in salons and professional beauty supply stores.  

For locations visit cnd.com.

Images provided by PR.

xoxo,
kelliegonzo

CND Sweet and Sugar Sparkle

Ooooh I'm still so excited that I have these two polishes that I can hardly stand it! CND puts out limited edition sets sometimes and this spring they did a polish and effects set called "The Look" Sweet and Sugar Sparkle. I missed out on them while they were "in season" and alas thought I was doomed to roam the earth forever wanting. Then my fab friend Miss PolishPauper said she'd love to swap them with me and I positively JUMPED at the chance! Thanks again sweetie :)

Sweet is a gorgeous pink crème, bright and cheerful, warm toned. I wore it in two coats.  It was surprisingly a slightly streaky versus the other CND colors I've worn before, unfortunately.  But the color is really flattering; I like my pinks :)

On to the shining star of the mani, Sugar Sparkle! This "effects" topcoat is a clear base swimming with silvery/white/clear flakes that are irregularly shaped and look almost like shattered ice. It really is what I see in my mind's eye when I hear the words "sugar sparkle". This is only one coat of SS over Sweet, maybe I'll do two or three next time to really pump up the bling :)  The sparkle chunks did dry a bit...hmm...flatter (?) than I expected, but oh well, it still dazzles!!

I can't wait to see what CND comes out with next. Their "Night Factory" set that came out this fall (teal sparkle and urban oasis) was uber sexi! I didn't get their silver and gold sparkling glitter topcoats for the winter, but I've heard great things about them. I am crossing my fingers for more fab-u-lous effects, they make my heart go pitty-pat!

xoxo,
kelliegonzo

cnd night factory

hiii kiddos :) how are you today? i've been migraine-y for a few days now and it's no bueno! but other than that i'm alright, my sister and nephew are coming to visit me from nevada tomorrow for labor day and we plan on getting into all sorts of shenanigans. do you have any special plans for the holiday US'ers? what are you doing with your weekend, international readers? whatever you get up to, make sure to act like a BOSS ;)

i have to show you today two awesome polishes from CND, that make me feel like a BOSS (hehe). the duo together are called "Night Factory" and separately they're known as crème colour urban oasis and effects teal sparkle. the creme dried SOOO fast it was crazy! i thought i was going to have to put a topcoat on then maybe put the sparkle on so i wouldn't get any color on my brush but nope, it was dry lightening quick so there was almost no wait time before i was able to put the sparkle on! i like this color of "teal" because it's not really blue but it's not really green, just a great mix. and with the giant flakes of sparkle on top? ooohh-weeeee HAWT!

p.s. i used china glaze's fast forward top coat on the finished mani.  i got it when i ordered my "awakening" set from Victoria Nail Supply online and it STINKS!  literally haha, like sweet chemically garbage and candy barf.  sick huh?  but honestly, it's awesome other than that.  it's thinner than most quick dry top coats i'm used to so it's easier to apply.  i didn't have any trouble with dry time, no dents, dings, or sheet marks so i'm a happy girl!  have you ever used it?  what did you think of it?

xoxo,
kelliegonzo

this product/products were sent to me for review purposes. please see disclosure statement for more information.

cnd colour & effects

i've been spelling "colour" wrong when i've been talking about the "colour and effects" line by cnd (creative nail design)! it's the lovely international way of spelling it, with a "u". sorry about that ;)

this colour is called smoochie. it's a sexy hot pink that's not neon, yesss! finally a cnd i can get on board with! i really love this one. very swingy and kind of retro but still summery and cute. and get this...this is ONE coat! hell yeah!

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remember the effects i used in the other cnd post?  well i of course tried them on this creme colour as well.  sapphire sparkle and violet shimmer gave this punchy pink a cool pop that i liked very much.  i would wear either of these looks!

love blues?  so do i!  the blue i got to try out from cnd was called anchor blue (like the store haha).  i like this color a lot, and it also had the awesome creaminess like the other colours of course :)  it was probably the most flattering colour i got to test out.

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i think the sparkle effect looked particularly good on this, because they were both blue tones.  the shimmer really stood out as purple, so i thing both these effects are wins when paired with anchor blue.

i've shown this particular colour before, inkwell but there's nothing wrong with new updated pictures is there?  this color is such a dark inky blue that it almost looks black.  i needed three coats on this one.  i mostly wanted to re-do this swatch to show you the effects on top of this deep colour.

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sunlight

i think the effects look absolutely amazing against this "black" colour.  the sparkle turned duochromey and the shimmer popped off the nail.  WOW.  la la love these looks!  i would wear this again in a second.  and like i said, the effects are great investments because you can use them on any polish, not just cnd's.

do you have any favorites when it comes to the "colour and effects" line from cnd?  i might want to get some effects for myself :)

this product/products were sent to me for review purposes. please see disclosure statement for more information.

more cnds

what can i say? cnd cremes are lovely. highly pigmented and rich and they apply very smooth. their "genius" comes in with their effects polishes.  they are sparkles, shimmers, and pearl topcoats in different hues. cnd gives you 50 colors and 15 effects and that essentially equals endless combinations.  plus you can use the effects on polishes you already have.  i am not super into layering, so honestly, this line isn't extremely appealing to me. however i do see its merit and there is one topcoat effect (sugar sparkle!) that i do want really badly haha.

but for real i can appreciate their cremes, mostly because i love me some cremes! it's my favorite finish--no joke. i just love the way they look on me, very simple yet you can get crazy with the colors. and they photograph extremely well haha. so naturally, i like the color line from cnd. but $9 for a .33 bottle of polish is a bit pricey in my opinion, considering i can get a bottle of china glaze for $5-6 and that's .5 oz, or even an opi for $8 and that's .5 oz as well. oh well, let's see some pics, already you say. ok i'll stop rambling ;)
eclectic purple is a nice purple, not particularly noteworthy. it does appear to be flattering on my skintone but i wouldn't necessarily pick it off a shelf. it did apply amazingly, as anticipated :)

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i used the effects sapphire sparkle, a blue tinged fine glitter topcoat, and violet shimmer, a purple shine glaze over the top of eclectic purple to see what kind of look i could get.

i like both of those better, but again, i'm not much of a layer-er...maybe i should start doing it more haha!

taffy pink is more of a pop princess kind of pink.  again, not really my style, but cute nonetheless.  creamy lovely again.  *sigh* i feel a bit boring writing about these.  there's just not much to say about them.  they are very simple, and i'm sure that is exactly how cnd intended them to be.

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again, i added the effects to see how it changed the look of the polish.  the effects were more subtle on this lacquer shade.

i have three more colors to show you from this cnd "haul".  i bet you're so excited ;)  have a great one my sweeties!

this product/products were sent to me for review purposes. please see disclosure statement for more information.

cnd girlie pink

cnd girlie pink is a great pink creme. and it's girlie. hence the name. barbie? yes. sweet? yes. adorable??? yes! the cnd color and effects line isn't the most cost effective polish available, but it does do what it offers well. the solid color cremes are very pigmented and very smoothly formulated. this color went on easily, albeit a little streaky on the first coat--but i expected that for a light pastel-ish color. in three, this one was a perfect pristine baby pink piece of heaven.

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the thing i don't care for regarding the cnd nail polishes is the cap.  the rubber handle is great in theory, ala orly right? but these ones attract fuzz and lint.  no bueno.  also, there seems to be extra space or something up there, because polish somehow pools up into it and when i close it, it freaking leaks out around the neck!  when i got these, the blue one had polish leaked out and dried around the edge already.  the pooling happened in the course of my swatching session with 6 out of the 9 polishes they sent so i knew it wasn't just the one bottle.  hmm, i was not happy about that.  does this happen with anyone else's cnd's?  

i'm in a bit of a funk this week :P i had to get new brakes on my crappy car yesterday!  eww!  but i did win an awesome contest from the lovely miss NailSwatches.  go check out her awesome blog when you get a chance.  it's great and i want her nails!

this product/products were sent to me for review purposes. please see disclosure statement for more information.

banana puddin' & haul

i have a big wish list. i don't think i'm aspiring too high or something like that, i just like to know what i want! keeping track of them in a spreadsheet is the way i've found to organize them, to help me keep them in mind so eventually i will get to them haha. it's like keeping a goal list or something. because it's easy to say oh yeah i want that one day but then forget about it and then come across it someday and pass it by :P anyway, my point is that i have gotten a few of my "wish list" items recently and i'm pretty excited about it.

perhaps my FIRST lemming since i started blogging is maybelline banana puddin'. it's long discontinued and hard to find. the sexy pale creamy custardy yellow creme is very milky and slightly sheer, but i was prepared for that. this is 5 coats, and you can see the weird imploded trapped bubbles below the topcoat but i don't care haha. this color does not disappoint at all and i feel like it's very flattering on me.

sunlight

(oopsie, smudge!)

flash

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sunlight

i got some nail mail today and wanted to share some pictures with you. i wanted to mention that these are all from my new camera, which i'm still getting used to. it's a canon sx210 powershot and i am not quite sure if i like it yet, but i'm getting close.

this is another one of my hugest lemmings, opi ds fantasy. a gorgeous dark blue with the diamond dust holo glitter. *siiiiiiigh*

this polish is called opi at your quebec & call, from the canada collection back in the day. another one of my hugest wants! it's an awesome olive golden green with shimmer.

i also got some amazing streetwear polishes from Claudia over at Chromatic Misadventures, thanks girl! i seriously think they should be making more polishes like this, bring back the brand revlon!

i was also VERY happy to see a sweet package on my porch when i got home from CND with some polishes to review. i have to say i love their bottle design, but i haven't tried a lot of their stuff. excited to see how they work out.

welp, that's the all i have to show you today :) did you enjoy? how do the pictures look, i'm still a bit worried about it o_O have a great weekend everyone *kisses*