Swatch and Review of Avon Cherry Jubilee and Untamed

Press Sample

Today I have two polishes that were generously provided to me in return for my honest review. Jodi Stevens, an Avon Representative wanted to make sure the products she is selling are up to her high standards and offered some for nail bloggers to review. I was provided Cherry Jubilee, a deep and true red with a darker undertone and Untamed, a taupe brown/grey. Let's start off with Cherry Jubilee:

Swatch and Review of OPI: My Private Jet

Today I have My Private Jet from OPI. This is an older shade and I have heard that the color has actually changed over the years. OPI continues to market this color by the same name, but in reality it isn't the same. Regardless, it is a pretty interesting color. It is a dark brown with some holographic glitter. It is so dark, it could be considered sort of a grey/charcoal but it depends on the lighting. Take a look:

Swatch and Review of Revlon Parfumerie: Autumn Spice

I love fall! I am one of those people who want to pumpkin spice everything! Pumpkin spice lattes, pumpkin spice brownies, pumpkin spice candles and now pumpkin spice nails! Revlon recently came out with Parfumerie- a new line of scented polish. I saw this at my local Fred Meyer on sale for $3.99, so I had to try it! Autumn Spice is a brown based polish with orange and red toned flakie glitters. Take a look:

I love the subtle flakie glitter in this polish! The formula was amazing! I only needed two coats, and it was wonderfully self leveling. I really liked the way this polish applied. However, the selling point of this polish is the scent. I made the mistake of inhaling the polish fumes by trying to smell it from the bottle- not recommended! The fragrance starts to come out as the polish dries. I am not sure if you are or aren't meant to add a top coat, but instinctively I added a top coat. It had a great scent after everything dried. It reminded me of a pumpkin spice candle more than a baked good or a drink. I was really happy that the scent was good and it seemed to work. The problem was that halfway through day two, which was really less than 24 hours later, I couldn't smell it anymore. Now, after a full day of work I can only catch a faint scent coming off of my nails, but not even enough to really notice. I think this polish fails in that sense. If you are looking for a really strongly scented polish that lasts, this isn't it, but it has a beautiful color and an amazing formula which makes it worth buying!

Nail Art: A Random Sampling

 Hello all! I have a somewhat unusual post for you today. I have a few nail art designs I never shared with you on my blog, but I didn't think these deserved a post on their own, so I decided to lump three nail art designs into one post! If you haven't figured it out yet, I like to play with nail designs a lot. Often I feel like the design doesn't live up to my expectations so I'll leave it on for maybe a day an take if off. The next few designs were of that variety of nail art. The first was for #nailartsep on Instagram (@HandtasticIntentions) and the theme was football. My husband is a Niners fan and I automatically thought I could represent his team on my nails for a little while at least. I'm not a huge fan of football, but why not make my husband happy and do a little nail art in the process?

The next design was one of which I wished I had taken more pictures! I wanted to try a natural colored leopard print nail and I actually think it turned out pretty well. I used some simple dotting tools to achieve this look. Nude: Ruffian, Naked, Brown: OPI, Wooden Shoe Like to Know, Black: Ruffian, Ciré Noir, Top Coat: NYC, Matte Top Coat. Ruffian nail lacquer can be found at Birchbox which is exclusive to the site. I bought the classics set which came with a nude, black and red. Once I finished my design, I felt like I had to have a matte finish, and I really enjoyed the final look. Makes me wish I had a better matte top coat!

This last design is one I had originally planned on writing it's own post about, but I didn't really like this one as much as I thought I would. It was inspired by one of Miss Jen Fabulous' designs seen on her YouTube channel. Pretty easy to do if you have dotting tools and an interesting look. I might try this again with different and more contrasting colors. I used A England Tristam for the dark blue and OPI Thanks a Windmillion for the lighter blue.

This was a pretty random assortment of designs, but I hope you like them! Let me know if you want a tutorial on any of these!

Nail Art: Ruffian Nails

Ruffian manicures are becoming more and more popular these days. Ruffian manicures are an interesting trend. You paint a base color and add an accent color over top in the same shape as the nail, but farther down, which creates a crescent moon shape at the base of the nail. I tried this out with Essie: No More Film and butter LONDON: Brown Sugar. I love these two colors together!

I'm not sure if I like this style yet, but I'd love to know what you think! It is an interesting new look and I love how the solid colors and metallic colors look great together. This look requires no tools and only two colors, so it is great for the starter nail artists! I think this may be my September tutorial, so stay tuned. Thanks!