a scandalous original

my darlingly scandalous, and sometimes, shocking, friend Ange-Marie made a pretty orange holo polish just for me! she mixes up her own polishes a.k.a "frankens", as i've mentioned before, and is the queen of franken-holographic polishes! we were chatting one day on twitter and i was saying how i wanted an orange holo and she was like OK! i bought a polish from her on a blog sale and she sent this guy to me as an extra special prize, cuz she's just that awesome!

unfortunately... this story has a tragic plot twist. my dear postal service decided to be royal buttheads and somehow the polish bottle ended up breaking in transit!

it was apparent the second i got within a few feet of the package that something had gone terribly wrong.  i smelled that all too familiar smell of polish and i PRAYED that what i had thought happened, hadn't.  turns out it did.  Ange remarked that it looked like they had played kick-ball with the package!  for real, that's a shatter, not just a break!  but miracuously, the polish was still wet enough to quickly paint with, so i set out at record speed to salvage a mani with this fallen soldier.  here is the result.

because of the inability to mix the polish a bit before i painted, and having to take "dips" from different sections of the pool, the color differs from one finger to the next, but OH WELL, it's still awesome!  this is an light orange holo, the likes of which i've never seen before.  very pretty and i mourn the loss.  i've named my late hero orange-a-tan, cos when i was little i thought you pronounced the word "orangutan" like orange-y-tan for some reason (i was special huh).  and orangutans are so damn cute!  case in point:

image credit

a side note, you may notice that i've stopped watermarking my photos.  i realize that my time is better spent than by adding ugly watermarks to every photo.  they look nicer w/o them anyway.  anyone who has manners knows not to steal photos, but i'll say it here just in case.  please do not steal photos, even though it happens and if it does, i'll probably live =)

xoxo,
kelliegonzo

this product was a gift from a friend. please see disclosure statement for more information.

smitten with mittens

opi smitten with mittens may be a distant memory for some of you, coming out around the holidays last year. however i can't get it out of my head! i never did buy it when it was first out, i resisted, thinking it was too similar to polishes i already own, but my sister had it and i kept seeing it popping up on blogs, and i got suuuuch a lemming for it! i really, really have deep love for my china glaze ruby pumps, and this looked very similar to me, so i kept fighting the urge to get it. but then i found it in a Smith's Marketplace for $5.99 so of course, being unable to resist a bargain, i had to get it!

SwM is a deep red, with a jellyish base (brighter in flash) that is packed full of compact micro glitter/shimmer. idk what it is about it, but when i had this polish on, i felt so...glamourous! really regal almost! maybe it was the combination of my long nails at the time and a good mood and idk what but i could not stop adoring my mani. i felt a little weird because i was looking at them so much haha, it was seriously getting almost creepy haha!

*sigh* even though we haven't hit full force on halloween polishes, i can't wait until we get holiday polishes!

xoxo,
kelliegonzo

i purchased this myself. please see disclosure statement for more information.

occ blackboard

obsessive compulsive cosmetics is a total pigment explosion! i'm telling you, if you're looking for color, go look at the occ website, and you'll find it! this company has made their name famous by creating pro-quality makeup and for having amazing and innovative products, like their lipstick/gloss hybrid "lip tar". these folks know how to do makeup, but do they know how to do polish? i didn't doubt them really, but of course i had to find out :)

i've seen a few swatches of a couple colors on other sites and there was one varnish color that i knew i HAD to have. occ blackboard is the EXACT color of a classroom chalkboard, deep dark satiny green! la la loveeeee :)

this is three coats. the formula was slightly watery but opaque enough. the problem i ran into with this polish was that i found the brush to be a bit awkwardly shaped. the hair seems to be thinner at the top than at the bottom, in almost a bell shape (think like a fat blush brush). this made my application of the polish feel clumsy and bunglesome. other than that though, i'm loving this polish!

ooohhh lemming = fulfilled!  these are $8 at occmakeup.com.  has anyone tried any of their polishes before?

xoxo,
kelliegonzo

this product was sent to me for an honest review. please see disclosure statement for more information.