Sorry I've been away for a few days. I have strep throat, and if you've ever had it, you know the first few days can be torture! I did spend some time working on the giveaway entries, though. Over 300 people entered, and after adding the bonus entries, there were over 700! I've past a couple milestones while this giveaway was active, so I picked a grand prize winner and two others as well.



The winner of my NYE giveaway is:





Lina. Congrats, I hope you achieve your goal this year!



The other two winners are: Kathleen and Silverstragirl. They will each receive a NARS blush and an OPI polish.



Please contact me asap so that I can ship your prizes.



Congratulations, winners! Thanks so much to everyone that entered, I wish I had a prize for every one of my followers! I am only a few followers away from 400, so I sense a giveaway coming up very soon. :]

I did a little hauling at American Apparel. I loved the polishes I got so much, I had to have more. All of the shades I have tried so far have a great formula and apply like a dream.

Mannequin, Echo Park, Mouse, Office, Trenchcoat

MacArthur Park, Army Jacket, Cameo Blue, Hunter, Raccoon (needs to be shaken)

Rouge, Downtown LA, Port

Sally Hansen has created a variety nail strips, similar to Minx, that allow users to easily create salon-quality nail designs at home. The appliques are made of real polish and removed with polish remover. I picked up two sets:

Frock Star, Kitty Kitty

Each set comes with 16 nail strips, a nail file, a wooden cuticle stick, and detail instructions:



Price: $10 at Walgreens. Pretty pricey, considering how many manicures you can get with a bottle of polish. It's cheaper than a professional mani, but don't people pay for the service (shaping, cuticle care, etc) and not the polish? Most people bring their own polish, anyway. I don't think I like this price point.





Application: I had no problem applying these. They are very flexible, so they melded to the curvature of my nails very well and I had no issues with wrinkles or air bubbles. The problem I had was the fit of these. My cuticles are just not round enough for these. Cutting 10 nail strips to fit isn't my idea of fun.  Plus, any hope I had of getting two manis out of one package was dashed once I realized how much adjusting I had to do.



Wear: I only wore this for two days, so I can't be the best judge of wear, but I didn't experience any chipping, tip wear, or peeling. I didn't use a top coat. I can't imagine these lasting a full 10 days with out at least some top coat, though. Maybe a week at the most.



TL;DR: Try these if you wear manis for a week+, suck at all things nail art, or need a quick mani for something special. Ignore these if you change your polish as often as I do.



Here are some pics of Frock Star, which looks practically identical to Deborah Lippmann Happy Birthday:

2 coats

This is my absolute favorite Butter London, so of course I had to include it in my swatch week. Marrow is a reddish purple with a fine silver shimmer. The application and pigmentation are flawless! The wear on this is great as well. I wore it for 3 days with no tip wear (wrapped tips) or chipping.