NOTD: Green Glitter Double Accent

Tonight I have another nail of the day to share with you! In keeping with my St. Patrick's Day green theme, this is a recent manicure I wore featuring two Julep polishes-- Selena and Colbie. They don't exactly match (I originally thought they were closer in color) but I still think they compliment each other well. I love the "ugly-pretty" color of Selena and Colbie was easy to build up by itself, without using a base color.

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Hope you enjoyed this manicure!

Rescue Beauty Lounge Recycle

Tonight I'm going to kick-off of a series of manicures featuring the main color of St. Patrick's Day-- green! I have a classic green for you tonight, Rescue Beauty Lounge Recycle. This was actually one of my first RBL polishes ever! And it took me forever to wear it, too. Which is a shame, because it's really a gorgeous color. Recycle is described as a "deep blackish emerald green" and that's pretty spot-on. While the color is very deep, it's not necessarily dark, despite what the description says. You can always tell that Recycle is green, even in lower light.

The formula on Recycle was perfection. It goes on smoothly and easily, no problems at all. Even better, it dries to a ridiculously shiny finish! Below I have used two coats and no top coat. And yes, that's how shiny it is.

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Recycle is available for $20 at Rescue Beauty Lounge-- it's a limited edition color and was recently "brought back" by popular demand. While the price is a little on the steep side for a creme polish, the formula and color are perfection and I would go so far to call this the perfect green creme.

Julep Joan

Tonight I have the other polish from my February Maven box, Julep Joan. Named after Joan Crawford, this polish is an extremely rich, luxurious red. Julep describes Joan as a "raspberry plum with rose gold shimmer" and that's a pretty accurate description. The shimmer seems more flakie in nature than a fine, even shimmer and it gives the polish a fiery appearance in some lights.

The formula on Joan is great and it goes on very easily and without any issue at all. It's nicely pigmented and I only used two coats here. Joan does dry down to a matte finish so you definitely need a top coat to make this nice and shiny. The shimmer is gorgeous, but the removal process was a bit of a pain!

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This is such a rich, gorgeous polish. The gold shimmer and the deep raspberry color looks it make very luxurious-- like velvet.

Julep Sally

Even though it's March, I finally have the polishes from my February Maven box to share with. This was actually the last month of the American Beauty box. Tonight I have Julep Sally for you, one of the two polishes in the box. Named after Sally Fields, Sally is described as a "antique ivory creme". I take a bit of issue with this description-- to me, ivory, even antique ivory, would be a slightly yellow off white and to my eyes, Sally seems much more orange-- like a very light pastel creamsicle orange. In the bottle it did look fairly yellow in color, but definitely not on the nail.

Sally actually had a pretty decent formula, given the color. It was a bit streaky, but not as terrible as it could have been. Here I have only used two coats, but they were on the thicker side.

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I did have some bubbling with this. I think it was because I used thicker coats and maybe didn't let them dry long enough in between. In the future, I would probably use thinner coats to prevent any bubbling.

Random NOTD: Flakies!

Tonight I have a random nail of the day (or rather, manicure of the day) to share with you. I actually wore this back in January, but of course haven't gotten around to posting it. I'd been waiting to play with some of my flakie polishes and liked the idea of using a red base. So I pulled out Julep Keira, which is a jelly oxblood red and then grabbed my bottle of Nails Inc The Donmar, which is mult-chrome flakie polish that shifts from orange to gold to green. The color shift is gorgeous and readily apparent.

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I love this look! It was so pretty and I couldn't stop staring at my nails. Now I just need to stop being lazy and pull out my other Nails Inc flakie polishes!

Essie Very Cranberry

Tonight I have an oldie but a goodie! Well, I actually don't know how old it is, really, but it's been out for several years and I picked it up in 2011 on super sale (for $1!!) at a Trade Secret. And only wore for the first time last year! I have too much polish. Essie Very Cranberry is a "dashing creamy cranberry," though I might call it a deep pink-red muted cranberry with subtle shimmer. I wore this as part of my Thanksgiving manicure.

Very Cranberry had an ok formula. Not great, but not that bad either. The color definitely deepens the more coats you use. I used three here. Two probably would have been ok, but I like the depth three coats has on the nail. I think the shimmer, which actually seems more apparent on the nail than in the bottle, really helps make this polish more unique.

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My only disappointment was that Very Cranberry doesn't actually seem all that "cranberry" too me-- it's too pink. But it's still very pretty, even if the name isn't quite correct. It is a gorgeous pink-red that

March is Colon Cancer Awareness Month!

You may or may not know it, but March is Colon Cancer Awareness Month. And why am I so interested in this? This past September, my sister's boyfriend was diagnosed with colon cancer. It was a very frightening time for our family, especially my sister (and of course, her boyfriend, who we consider to be our family as well). The scariest part was that he's only 26 years old and has no family history of the disease! Even though I'm a few years older, it never would have crossed my mind to worry about colon cancer and I've never known anyone close to my age that has been diagnosed with any type of cancer. Luckily, they caught the cancer early and were able to remove the entire tumor and he'll be done with his precautionary chemo treatment by the end of April. Hooray!

March 1st is "Dress in Blue Day" which is meant to raise awareness for the disease-- which is good because I think a lot people shy away from talking about due to the fact that it's located in well, your colon and/or rectum. But science has made great strides in the screening and treatment of this particular cancer, moreso than a lot of other cancers out there! To that effect, here are some facts about the disease:

-Colon cancer is the 3rd most commonly diagnosed cancer
-Colon cancer is the 2nd leading cause of cancer deaths in America (men & women)
-1 in 20 people (or 5%) will be diagnosed with the disease
-If found at the local stage, the five year survival rate is 90%

In honor of colon cancer, I'm wearing one of my favorite blue polishes ever, Revlon Royal. I actually layered Royal over Rescue Beauty Lounge IKB: 2012 to make it a little more opaque. (It worked in real life, but my camera still picks up visible nail line, grr!)

The perfect blue for raising colon cancer awareness! Even though most of you who read this blog are probably too young to worry about the disease, encourage your families who are to get screened! 

(Facts are provided by the Colon Cancer Alliance.)