Illamasqua Speckle

I HAD to buy this the other day at Sephora. I may even need to go back and buy all the colors! If I can restrain myself I'll only get Fragile and Mottle. I figured this was the least like anything else I've had since I dont have much in the pale purple department.

How awesome is that? I love the different sized spots. This is three coats but someone with enough skill could use two. It went on really nicely and you dont really need to adjust the glitter but you can really easily, the formula is thin without being "watery". It is a bit cuticle flood prone so be careful!

I thought this random low light shot might give you a better idea of color, its not as grey as the first shot made it out to be.

Have you seen these or any like it? I know Hard Candy and Deborah Lippmann have some out like these but I think their glitter is all the same size... this is better in my opinion. Plus it goes on smoother than the Hard Candy one looks like it does, but I am headed to Walmart to see if I can find them anyways... the price on those (HC) are super.

})i({ -Amy

Takko Lacquer Kiss The Sky

Ok, So I had wanted Takko Lacquer... any color, since I had seen swatches from Mei Mei's Instagram. For all of you unaware, sometimes you can get hard to find, hard to get, indie polishes from this site in Singapore... The prices are in $SGD and google can convert for you pretty easy. Shipping is relatively cheap, considering where its coming from. AND as I am writing this she has what appears to be the full Enchanted Polish Beatles collection and quite a few Takko Lacquers.

I didnt get this one from her though... This is Takko Lacquer's Kiss The Sky. I bought it during the last restock of 2012... when I say I bought it, I mean that I called my boyfriend every half hour on the day of the restock, from work, making sure he knew where to go and what to buy and what to buy in case what I wanted was sold out, and which was most important(this one), and explained all about cart jacking... and I still only got one from the restock: THIS ONE!!! Yippee. The other one I really wanted was Wanderlust... but he ended up feeling so bad (because despite all of my calls and warnings he forgot and got to the restock 10 minutes late!) that he bought me Kaleidoscope Eyes from Mei Mei. I will do a post of that later, it just got here yesterday!



I LOVE this color... I think the reason I had wanted it so badly is because it kind of looks like Max Factor Fantasy Fire in the bottle... That being said, If you have been lemming Clarins 230  you should go get it on Ebay (eek I know, I know, evilbay) HERE because that is the best price I have seen in forever...
I want to buy one for myself because, come on... its unicorn pee for fu**'s sake, but my grandma is super sick and I have spent all my moneys on a plane ticket back east... le sigh. That is actually the reason I painted my nails this color... it makes me really happy, what a pick me up! It is also the reason I haven't posted anything lately or shipped out any of the things I said I would (Cynthia, I am looking apologetically at you, I have a package here on my desk just yelling at me to get off my lazy behind! I'll post it before the week is through, PROMISE!)

This is three thick coats of squishy awesomeness. It does flash orange red and green but I suck at taking photos! I love the color, love the consitancy: it could be considered a bit thick... but I like the way it applies.This picture is less fantastic but shows that there is not so much VNL as my camera flash would have you believe! These are not the best pictures of this polish, you should google it... then sit in amazement of its glory, then go to Mei Mei's and buy it. This is a polish I will use again and again this year. LOVE IT!

What do you think? Like the color? Have you used Takko before? Whats your favorite color from them?

})i({ -Amy



...and sorry I rambled so much, I am just so scatter brained. I wasnt the closest with my grandmother but this whole situation is one big deja vu for when my father passed two and a half years ago. The same kind of phone call from my sister... when my father got sick and went to the hospital I refused to acknowledge that it was something major (he had been in and out of the hospital for years and in my mind was going to be around forever), so I didnt fly out when I should have and he had a stroke. He died while I was stuck between flights... and I never got to say goodbye. He called me just two weeks before that... but was so loopy from all his medications he probably didnt remember the call. He told me I didnt call enough and that he wished I lived closer and could see him more often... super sad stuff. So when my sis called and told me Meme (short for grand memere) was sick I felt like the universe gave me a do over. I have been running around like a chicken with its head cut off, and I fly out next Sunday. The  good news is that she is feeling a bit better, I hope she will make a full recovery!

Untrieds photo heavy... (more like another Photo Dump)

Since I have only recently started my polish addiction... I have a lot of additions to my collection that I havent tried yet... mostly cause I like to buy polish more than I like to apply it... too much nail care to worry about. I have a couple days off and not much to do except probably go hang out with my little brother tomorrow. So today I exercised for the first time in a bit over a year... it was pretty tough even though it was only a half hour of running up and down the stairs (because last night when I ran up and down once I was so out of breath I disgusted myself), le sigh. I thought it would be a good idea to sit at my desk and paint my nails for hours, and I cant really move if I wanted to. Please excuse my nails in some of these pictures, the acetone really dries out my skin and cuticles. click "read more" to see the photos

Nfu Oh 51 Vs Layla Ceramic Effect The Butterfly Effect

So I was at Ulta poking around in the nail polish and on the bottom shelf of a woe-begotten fixture in the back of the store there was a small display of Layla's Ceramic Effects. The Ulta I go to doesn't highlight Layla very much; when I wanted one of the Hologram Effect polishes all of the people there said they didnt even carry Layla (but I had seen it a week before and just wanted to know where they moved it to!) When I saw The Butterfly Effect I lost my shit. I bought it because I wanted to do a comparison with Nfu 51 so badly... I didnt even realize it was 14 bucks (but thats ok cus I paid almost 30 to get my Nfu.)

Ok, here we go. Layla's formula is a bit thicker, BUT THAT MEANS IT GOES ON MORE OPAQUE!!! You can kinda see it in the picture with each polish at three coats. Layla has more flakies but Nfu has more pink shimmer.

Both are a similar color too; they have that shift from pink to purple to blue. 

Overall I like Nfu's smooth formula better but if I could go back in time I would probably get Layla's instead; it was cheaper for me, it goes on thicker, and I like the abundance of flakies. Is it an exact dupe? No, but it's pretty damn close.

What do you think? I have heard there's another dupe for 51, does someone know what its called, and where I can get it? 

})i({ - Amy