Body & Soul July Massini Contest

***Click Picture For Detail***
Because July is the seventh month, I'll be giving away 7 Massini Nail Lacquers! Massini polishes are rumored to be manufactured by Forsythe, who is also the manufacturer of Color Club. Their bottles sometimes have the same names or are dupes for other Color Club shades. They're a bit larger in size, .6 oz. as compared to the standard .5 oz. of most other polish brands. They apply and wear extremely well and can only be purchased at Meijer stores, which are limited to about 6 Midwestern states. Also included will be a couple of Bath & Body Works products, including Aromatherapy Hand Cream and a Lip Balm. Each winner (there will be 2 drawings, 2 winners)will receive 7 Massini polishes, including (L-R in top picture above) Magic Attraction (sound familiar?), Lightening Blue, Electronica (hmmm, also familiar), Emerald Depths, Infusion, Drama Queen and Orange Sunset. They will also receive one of the hand creams and one of the lip balms. The Lightening Blue, Infusion and Orange Sunset are much more neon looking than the way they show up in the picture. I have quite a few of these colors along with many others not shown in my own collection, so I'll try and do some posts showing them to you on my nails over the next couple of weeks. Check the box in the top right corner of my blog for entry details. All you need to do is be a follower (it's okay if you follow through a means other than Blogger's box, just let me know that in your e-mail entry.). One drawing will be held 7/15 and another on 7/29. Good luck!

Click here if you're interested in buying Massini polishes.

NOTD: Barry M Coral

Above & Below: Barry M in Coral. All indoor lighting with flash because out sunshine has left us again today, along with our warm temperatures.

Below: Simply Karen Mineral Makeup I'll be trying out.

This is the last of my Barry M's from Helen and I'll say it again...I love these! All 5 have covered well in 2 coats and the colors have all been very pigmented. This is a true, bright orange coral, no hint of pink in this one. It's very close to the bottle shade in real life, just a bit darker on the nail. It's one of those polishes that I'll call self-leveling, for lack of a better term. What I mean by this is, as you're applying it, you may see a darker streak or an area that looks like it may not have covered completely. However, when the polish dries, it has evened itself out perfectly. The formula reminds me of many of the Misa polishes.

I'll be trying out some new mineral makeup I received yesterday and I'm very excited about it. I'm always on the hunt for a mineral foundation that matches, looks natural and is easy on the skin, so after doing some Google searching I came across a site called SimplyKaren.com. I sent her an e-mail and a link to a picture of myself and asked her to pick out some shades she thought would work for me. I received the goodies yesterday along with one of the softest, most luxurious brushes I've ever touched. I'll be trying these out and then share my thoughts with you in the upcoming week. I can't comment on the products yet, because I haven't had a chance to use them. But my first impression of the company is wonderful. Karen answered my e-mails promptly and was very kind and informative. She took the time to pick out the shades she thought would work for me, and I appreciate that very much. As many of you know, customer service with many of our suppliers is seriously lacking in many cases, so it's always nice to deal with someone who actually responds!

A Busy Weekend

Above & Below: My nieces at Julie's baby shower that we hosted today. Michelle is on the left and because she didn't have any polish on (yes, she really is my niece! I'll have to get on her about that) she was not allowed to show her hands. Julie is on the right, due with baby in November. She is wearing China Glaze Limbo Bimbo. Below is Kaye, one of our guests. She's a hair stylist and even had her polish in her purse! She's wearing OPI Flashbulb Fuchsia.

Below: This punch was so good and my niece kept calling it swamp water punch because of the color, but all I kept thinking was, "Damn, why didn't I wear Misa Dirty Sexy Money?" because in real life it was exactly that color!

Below: Oops, while I was shopping for baby clothes I accidently found myself buying this. It won't really work for the baby, but it'll work for me :)

This weekend was filled with preparing for my nieces' baby shower which we had today, so I haven't had time to post until now. My own nails are wearing Sally Hansen Insta-Dri in Flashy Fuchsia, but I'm too tired to get up and take a picture! I knew I'd be too busy to take pictures of my nails or post much today, which made me feel a bit bad. So I made sure to take some pictures at the shower, posed intentionally to show their nails, and they were all good sports about letting me do that for my blog. We all seem to have worn bright pinks, even though the baby is going to be a boy. I think everyone had a good time and it's always nice to get together. I hope you all had a great weekend too!

I got behind reading and commenting on everyone else's blog this weekend, so I apologize and will get back into my routine tomorrow :)

Color Club Velvet Rope~A One-Coat Wonder

Above & Below: Color Club Velvet Rope, one coat. A red polish with slight gold shimmer. It photographs a bit on the pink side, but it's more red in real life.

Above & Below: Fresh Michigan strawberries...yummy!

Yesterday I went to get some fresh Michigan strawberries, as their season is coming to an end soon and we wanted to enjoy their sweet goodness one last time. Naturally (and oddly, I admit) my first thought was 'hmmm, what polish would match these?' I didn't get a perfect match, but I chose Color Club's Velvet Rope because it was a nice, solid red with a bit of gold shimmer. What I did find perfect about this one was it's application. This is only one coat. I normally would do two just out of habit, but this covered consistently and completely in one coat, so I didn't bother with a second coat. It was smooth and flowed very nicely. I don't think I've ever used this polish before but I'm very happy with it. Color Club makes a great polish and it's quite inexpensive also. My July contest will involve Massini nail lacquers as part of the prize, and from all that's been able to be determined, Massini is manufactured by Forsythe Cosmetics, the same company that manufactures Color Club. Some even have the same names. They also have their own different colors and the bottles are a bit larger. I have quite a few quarts of strawberries to cut and freeze today, but last night we enjoyed them over ice cream and they were delicious! I hope everyone's enjoying their weekend :)

NOTD: Orly Green With Envy

This is one of the Orly's I picked up at Sally earlier in the week. There were 11 shades (including the Goth I showed you a few days ago) in the core display with tags on the bottle neck reading "New/Nouveu". I went back yesterday and picked up Prince Charming, a mushroom brown creme, because I couldn't get it out of my mind! Green With Envy is a nice medium green creme that applied flawlessly in 2 coats. It's extremely shiny with no top coat and very smooth in texture. Now I'm excited to try out Prince Charming. How can such a small bottle of polish give us so much pleasure?!! I also received a small Sephora order and samples this week. I wanted to take advantage of my free birthday gift (the Sephora lip glosses) and I had a $30.00 birthday gift card to use, so I ordered more of my favorite eye lash primer by Shiseido. I also added the Stila lip glaze trio trying to get up to my $30.00 and had a free ship code for $25.00, so that order cost me all of $3.00.

On another topic, yesterday we certainly lost 2 cultural icons. Farrah Fawcett was the envy of many girls when I was younger and I imagine the fantasy of many guys! Michael Jackson, no matter what you may or may not believe about his private life, entertained and influenced so many people. He was a teacher and an inspiration to many of today's popular musicians and an extremely talented singer, dancer and producer. He was certainly one of my generation's most iconic and cultural legends. I grew up watching him grow up, as we're the same age (I'm old, I know!) and remember being entertained by him on TV as a little 10 year old singing with the Jackson 5. When MTV hit the airwaves (and it was good back then!), you couldn't go an hour without seeing Thriller or Billie Jean being played. I'll admit, I moon walked across the living room floor more than once! He was, by all accounts, right up there with Elvis and the Beatles. To lose someone that large so unexpectedly, certainly makes you think once again about how uncertain life really is. To me, music is kind of a soundtrack of our lives. When we hear certain songs, it can take us right back to a time in our lives when that song was popular and evoke so many different emotions and memories, depending on where we were at that point in our lives.

He now joins a very long list of people who have entertained me during my lifetime and are no longer with us. So to him and so many others, I say thank you for making me smile and for sharing your many talents with us.

Barry M Vivid Purple & Massini Purple Medallion

Above & Below: Barry M Vivid Purple, indoors with flash.

Below: A close up of Barry M. It has red and blue shimmer.

Below: Massini Purple Medallion...too many pictures probably, but this looked so beautiful over Barry M Vivid Purple, I couldn't stop taking pictures! Various lighting used.

Below: My lovely niece, Zia. She just got a horse, one of her life-long dreams. His name is Duke and he's a Quarter Horse. I used to have one too, so now I can live vicariously through her :) She cleans up from her 'barn' look to her 'glam prom' look very well!

Here is another Barry M polish from the lovely Helen and I swear, every time I use one of these I think, "Ooooh, how pretty, I think this is my favorite", until I use the next one and then I change my mind. I have one more left to show you (Coral), but today we have Vivid Purple. It's a glowy grape colored shimmer that had the most perfect application and coverage in just 2 coats. Even my husband commented on what a pretty shade it was. Since I'm trying to practice my Konad stamping while my nails are still short (it seems easier when they're shorter), I thought I'd stamp them using Massini Purple Medallion. I had good luck using a Color Club holo glitter the other day, so I thought this one would be a good choice. Wrong. It didn't pick up and transfer the polish very well at all, so I just decided to paint a solid coat of the Purple Medallion over the Barry M. I've used this Massini many times on it's own, but wow! Over another similar shade it takes on a whole new life, and I like it. What am I saying...I love it! What do you think about it? I've been trying to figure out what type of prizes to offer in my July contest (where the heck did June go so fast?), and with all of the upcoming collections due out, I was a little confused and overwhelmed. After playing with this Massini and recalling how great these polishes are and the fact that they're difficult for many people to obtain, I think I'll put something together using Massini's as a prize. How does that sound?

Not related to nail polish, but my niece (who loves nail polish and make up!) recently got a horse and I wanted to share some pictures of that with you. She lives in South Carolina, so I only see her about once a year. She'll be 16 next month, even though she's still a little girl to Aunt Mary! My sister (her Mom) asked me to get her some Konad items so I'll be sending those her way shortly. Maybe I can get her to e-mail me her finished nails once she's had a chance to use it and I can share those here.

Click here if you're interested in buying Massini polishes.

Barry M Mint, Orly Nail Armor & Our June Contest Winner!

Above & Below: Barry M in Mint. Excuse the mess around my cuticles, I took these pictures when we were without power last week from the storm and obviously didn't have the previous dark polish cleaned off enough :)

Below: A close-up of Orly Nail Armor. It's a slightly milky base marketed as a 'silk wrap' product. The little textured particles you see are Kevlar, which give the nail added strength.

Today was the drawing for our final June contest. The winner will receive 6 BB Couture Polishes, a bottle of Nubar V For Men to mattify any polish, and some other treats. Our winner today is:

Gladys from Nail Fanatic!

If you aren't familiar with her blog, you're missing out on some fantastic photos and reading. Gladys has lovely nails and shares a wide variety of polishes. So congratulate her, check out her blog and add yourself as a follower if you like what you see.

Today I'll share a swatch I did of one of the Barry M's that Helen at Helen & Sheenie's Nice Things blog sent me. Keep in mind I swatched this over the weekend when we had no power, so it's not the neatest of jobs. But it gives you a good idea of what a perfect mint green this is. Incidentally, the name of this polish is Mint. Such a practical name, don't you agree? It covered nicely in 3 thin coats and dried quickly. I used this over a base coat of Orly Nail Armor. I often use Nail Armor if I think that I might need a base with a bit of milky color to it and one that the polish might adhere to a bit better than a standard, clear base coat. Lighter cremes and sheers tend to give me a bit of a problem when it comes to even coverage, so that's why I opt for Nail Armor. It works well in my opinion and another reason I like it, is when I've used non-clear bases in the past, many of them tend to pool around my cuticle, and this one does not. It also has tiny particles of Kevlar in it, which you can actually see the texture of, but they don't show through the polish. Kevlar is a synthetic fiber manufactured by DuPont that is a lightweight strengthening fiber used in home building, space craft, and apparently, nail polish base coats. There's our science lesson for today!

Orly Goth & Konad Plate # m57

Above & Below: Orly Goth as base, Color Club Magic Attraction as design using plate m57.

Below: I tried to get some outdoor pictures, but the sun isn't quite high enough yet. That's a Clematis vine in the background.

Above & Below: Orly Goth shot indoors with flash.

Above & Below: I've been using a small angled brush for my cuticle area clean-up and I find it works better than a Q-Tip. I just dip it in acetone and clean around the cuticle if needed. The picture below gives you an idea of the size of the brush head.

Below: Here's a picture of my micro haul at Sally Beauty, minus the Beauty Secrets NP Remover.

Good morning! I stopped at Sally Beauty yesterday to pick up some more Beauty Secrets nail polish remover and thinner. Well, you know I had to come out of the store with more than just that. I noticed the Orly core display had 11 polishes with little cardboard rings on the bottle necks stating "new/nuevo" So I picked up Goth and Green With Envy. I almost picked up Prince Charming, which is a very cool mushroom brown creme and I think I'll go back and get it, because it just looked so unique. Goth is a very dark charcoal gray with silver glitter. I thought it was black, but after studying it, I really believe it's a super dark charcoal base. It applied perfectly in 2 coats. I then topped it off with Color Club Magic Attraction using Konad plate m57. Now that my nails are shorter, I enjoy using my Konad much more, it just seems easier for some reason. I updated my 'Mini Bar' column with some more products I've been using, so check that out if you're interested.

Boggi Brites Punky Pink & Free Shipping @ RBL

I received an e-mail this morning from Rescue Beauty Lounge stating that they are offering free shipping today and tomorrow. I didn't see a code, but it did state not available on bath items. So if you'd like to order some polishes and save on shipping, check it out.

Today we have Boggi Brites Punky Pink neon, which I picked up at Sally Beauty a couple of weeks ago. I believe they run $3.99 per bottle and they're in a little tabletop display with 5-6 colors, a white, blue and green are the others I recall, and they're all neon or fluorescent colors. I don't really know why I bought this, I think I was intrigued with the bottle. It applied nicely, although I did use 3 coats because I had a few areas that didn't cover completely, and it dried at an average speed. Keep in mind that these dry with a fairly flat finish, as do most neons. I did not apply a top coat, so any shine you see is simply from the flash. It looks to have a slight satin finish in the photos, but don't be fooled. It is flat. They are super bright neon shades though, and I think for summer it would make a great color on my toes.

FOTD

When I started my blog I wanted to focus on nail polish but have a mix of other beauty products thrown in here and there. So today I thought I'd branch out and do a FOTD from a couple of days ago. I adore all make up and although I have quite a bit, I tend to use a minimal amount. That may be due to my laziness, I'm not sure! I wish I could find a foundation that works for me, but I never have. I usually just use a mineral powder or a bronzer, but I'm seriously considering trying Smashbox Halo Powder, although I can't really justify spending $59.00 for something that I can't get a sample of first to see how it works. What do you like to use as a foundation product? Maybe I can get some better ideas of what to look for. Here's what I used:

♦ Face: MARK Bronze Pro Powder, MAC Springsheen Blush

♦ Eyes: MAC Moth Brown over lid, MAC Springtime Skipper over Moth Brown, tight line waterline with MAC Brun (my first MAC product, hence the usage!), Shiseido Mascara Base and MAC Mascara X.

♦ Lips: MAC Lustreglass in Hey, Sailor topped with a gold shimmer Avon Glazewear (I can't make out the name on the label).

PS: Don't any of you mark the 'funny' box for my first FOTD!!!

Barry M Raspberry & Fuchsia

Above 3 pictures: Barry M Raspberry.

Below 3 pictures: Barry M Fuchsia.

As much as I used to love to watch Little House on the Prairie when I was younger, I could never live that way. We've been without power for days and it came back on this evening. I seriously thought I may go insane earlier this afternoon, so I once again appreciate AEP and the hardworking linemen! But I did spend the afternoon watching them climb up and down poles with their tool belts on, and it was a rather pleasant view. We've been having torrential rains with very strong winds and Thursday and Friday saw quite a bit of lightning, so it was bound to happen sooner or later. It did give me time to swatch all of my Barry M's (albeit in the dark, so excuse the lighting and messy application) which was also a plus. Helen sent me these from England and I am very pleased with them. They only needed 2 coats and applied and dried like a dream. I've got 3 more to share with you in the next couple of days. Have you ever tried Barry M? What are your thoughts on them? I love them and thanks again, Helen!