I Love Fall: My Fall Favorites!

Love For Lacquer tagged me in her I <3 Fall post about all her favorite fall things, so I decided to follow suit and share all of my favorite fall things with you guys!  Fall is my favorite time of year so I can tell you that it is going to be very hard to pick my favorite things about the season!

Favorite Fall Lip Product

I have been going through a huge lipstick/color phase lately so I picked three of my favorites that I think are great colors for fall.

Benefit - Bene-tint

Revlon Lip Butter - Berrie Smoothie

ELF Matte Lip Color - Rich Red

Favorite Fall Nail Polish

I picked three once again.  I wanted to keep it even! Haha! I have been really obsessed with the Zoya Glossy collection this fall so I picked two of those colors and one of my all time favorite OPI's

Zoya Katherine

Zoya Frida

OPI Take The Stage

Favorite Fall Starbucks Drink

For this one I am going to have to go with the Pumpkin Spice Latte.  It is one of my all time favorite things about fall.  I have to say that the Salted Carmel Mocha was a close second though.

Favorite Fall Candle

This is a hard one for me since I do not buy a lot of candles, but I did recently smell the Yankee Candle Apple Cider Candle which was really nice, so that is my pick!

Favorite Fall Scarf or Accessory

I would say that my Ray Ban Aviators are my favorite fall accessory. I wear them every day and their green lenses look really cool with many of my fall outfits.

Haunted House, Haunted Hayride or Haunted Corn Maze?

I would have to say Haunted Houses, but real haunted houses.  I used to go to Salem, Mass every Halloween and I love going on ghost tours and seeing houses and sites that claim to actually be haunted.  They are really cool and I highly recommend them if you ever get a chance to go there!

Favorite Halloween Movie

I'll be honest I can't really think of many Halloween movies, and I am not a huge fan of scary movies so I guess I will go with the only Halloween movie that I know which is the classic "It's The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown".  It is such a cute movie and it has such a sweet message.

Favorite Candy to Eat on Halloween

Orange Kit Kats! They are white chocolate Kit Kats that are dyed orange and they are awesome!

What Are You Dressing Up As On Halloween?

This year I will be dressing up as a grad student who has a Public Relations Midterm.  Unfortunately I not only have class on Halloween but a Midterm, so I will not be dressing up as anything fun this year. :(

What is Your Favorite Thing About Fall?

If I had to pick just one thing it would be the leaves.  I love how they change colors and look so beautiful, but I also love how they crunch beneath your shoes after they fall.  I used to love jumping in the leaves when I was a kid and to be honest I still love doing it today!

And that is it for all of my fall favorites!  Thank you to Love for Lacquer for creating this! Feel free to share your fall favorites in the comments section below or with me on the Polished Paradise Facebook Page!

Druzy Ring Inspired Nails

Hello friends! I am so sorry that I have not been posting as much lately.  I just started grad school last night and the last few weeks of summer have been very busy!  But today I have a very exciting post for you all!

A couple of weekends ago I went on a weekend trip to Newport, Rhode Island.  It is a very beautiful summer town that has a lot of awesome shops in it.  While looking in one of the shops I found a beautiful cocktail ring that just caught my eye.  It had a beautiful deep blue stone that seemed to have a lot of glitter in it.  I am a sucker for rings and I bought it for myself.  After talking to the woman who owned the store I found out the stone was called Druzy and I have used it to inspire my post today.

For this manicure I used Zoya Frida (from the Fall 2012 Glossy Collection) and Color Club Sugarplum Fairy.  I created the look by using the steps of a typical jelly glitter sandwich.  I started with two coats of Zoya Frida, then I added one coat of Sugarplum Fairy, then I added two more coats of Frida on top.

The bottom two pictures show the ring I bought in comparison to the nails.  The stone is a little darker of a color than the polish that I used, but I still think that it looks really pretty and it has the essence of the stone.  It is a really fun play on a jelly sandwich and I love how it matched my nails.  Usually I am not a matching kind of person, but to me this was really cute.

What do you think of this manicure?  Leave a comment here, on Facebook, or tweet me @Polish_Paradise!

Marina and the Diamonds Nail Art!

Hello friends!  I know it has been a while since I last updated but that will all be changing soon as the summer starts to slow down.  I have been a very busy bee with work for the past few weeks but things are finally starting to wrap up be for September when I start my first semester of Graduate school.

Anyway... I am a huge fan of the band Marina and the Diamonds!  She is a Welsh singer who is quite awesome.  Recently she came out with her second album called Electra Heart and was touring.  I got lucky and I am able to see her twice during this time period.  Yesterday was the first of two!  I got to see her YouTube Presents performance live in the studio with around 200 other fans!  She was so close I could almost reach out and touch her!  She played a really awesome acoustic set that featured 5 songs off her new album.  Tonight I am going to see her at a larger venue in NYC which I am extremely excited about!  In honor of all this excitement I decided to paint my nails in a Marina and the Diamonds theme!

I started out with two coats of Zoya Kimber on all my fingers except my ring finger where I used 3 coats of Barielle Starchild.  Marina is all about being a pop icon that is why I chose pink and the glittery accent nail kind of looks like diamonds from the distance.  The Diamonds are not actually Marinas backing band; Marina considers The Diamonds to be her fans,  that is why I decided to use it as my accent nail concept.  Then using a Bundle Monster stamping plate that had a small heart design on it and Essence Black is Back, I stamped two hearts on each nail.  Then I added Nails Inc. Electric Lane holographic top coat on top of each of the hearts to give them an electric look making them Electra Hearts!

Here are some pictures from the show:

And if you are interested in hearing what Marina sounds like I have included a link to a YouTube video of her doing an acoustic performance of one of my favorite songs off her new album called Lies.

Have you ever done nail art based off of music?  Leave a comment here, on Facebook, or tweet me @Polish_Paradise!

Olympic Fever!

I don't know about you guys, but I have been totally obsessed with the Summer Olympics the past few days.  I love watching swimming and  gymnastics and I have been so happy to see so many talented American athletes take home metals.  It is so excited to watch someones dreams come true right before your eyes! Seeing the America girls gymnastics team take home gold the other night inspired my manicure today.

For this manicure I decided to focus on themes of the Olympics not just the USA.  I painted my pointer, middle and ring finger on each hand with gold, silver and bronze to represent the Olympic metals and on my thumb and pinky I painted the 5 Olympic rings using large and small dotting tools on a white base.

For the gold, silver and bronze fingers I used Julep Oscar, Zoya Trixie, and OPI Take The Stage; and for the rings I used Wet n' Wild French White Creme, Essence Walking on Air, Wet n' Wild Black Creme, China Glaze Poinsettia, China Glaze Solar Power, China Glaze Holly-Day.

To create the ring design I used the large side of a dotting tool to make 5 dots, one of each color featured in the ring design then I used the smallest size dotting tool that I had to add white dots inside the color dots to create the illusion that they are rings.

I am really excited with how this design came out and I have been getting complements on it all week! I also love how simple it was to get the olympic ring look.  Also on a side note this is probably the most bottles of nail polish I have used in one manicure!

What are you wearing for your Olympic mani?  Leave a comment here, on Facebook, or tweet me @Polish_Paradise!

Rainbow Jelly Sammich!

After I did my first jelly sandwich a few weeks ago I kind of became addicted to them.  They are a really cool way to use jelly polishes and a simple way to spice up a manicure!  Today I have on a Jelly Sandwich with Zoya Coraline and OPI Rainbow Connection.  This sandwich is much brighter and festive than the last one that I did.  They really look like nails that would be perfect for a party!

Recreating this look is very simple.  I started by painting one coat of Coraline on all of my nails.  Next I painted one coat of Rainbow Connection over  that.  After that was dry I painted two coats of Coraline on top of it and then topped it off with a coat of top coat.

What do you think of Jelly Sandwiches?  Leave a comment here, on Facebook, or tweet me @Polish_Paradise!

500 Fan Giveaway!

I am so excited to present to you the Polished Paradise 500 fan giveaway!  If it was not for all of my amazing fans who follow this blog, Facebook page, Twitter, and Pinterest, I would never have come this far with this blog.  All of the people who read this blog inspire me to keep going with new material and also to find ways to get everyone involved!  For all of that I  thank you all with this giveaway!

Now for the exciting stuff! The giveaway details!

This giveaway consist of 3 great prizes.  There will be 3 winners and each winner will win one of the prizes.

The first prize is two bottles of China Glaze polish from the Prismatics collection.  The colors are Liquid Crystal and Full Spectrum!

Prize number 2 is a Zoya mini trio with mini bottles of Zuza, Kimber, and Myrta.

Prize number 3 is a mini set of Sally Hansen Xtreme wear polishes. There are 4 in the set, and they would be great for skittle nails!

- Must be 18 years old to enter.
- It is open to people living in the US and Canada (sorry to my international fans! The rules for mailing polish out of the country and overseas are crazy. But still enter if you have a US address you can have it sent to!)
- Please be honest with the things you enter below.  I will be verifying the winners entry and people who make up fake entries will not win.  Honesty is the best policy!
- The winner of the giveaway will be contacted by email and must reply within 48 hours from the time the email was sent or a new winner will be drawn.
- The Giveaway will end at 12:01a.m. on August 1st. a Rafflecopter giveaway

Fan Chosen Tutorial: Sponge Gradient!

Hello everyone! I know it has been a little while since my last post, things have been really crazy with work and life, and it has been really hot here in New York which makes me feel too hot and lethargic to polish my nails.  But that is all about to change, I have some really cool post coming up for you guys and one of the new series I am going to be doing is a Fan Chosen Tutorial Series.  Every week I will post a survey question on the Polished Paradise Facebook Page and the fans on my page will vote to choose what tutorial they would like to see this week.  This weeks tutorial is a sponge gradient that won with 14 votes!

For this tutorial I decided to use polishes in the blue family; China Glaze For Audrey, Zoya Charla, and China Glaze Blue Year's Eve.  It is such a simple nail art design that is sure to jazz up your manicure for the summer!

Step One:
I like to start out with a base coat of the lightest color polish that I am using. In this case I put down two coats of For Audrey.

Step Two:
I use a cosmetic sponge and paint three lines of the colors that I am using for the gradient.  I prefer this methods to others because I find it to be the easiest, and also it wastes less polish and cosmetic sponges than the other methods.

Step Three:
Then I press the sponge over the nail making sure to get good coverage of polish.  I also tend to dab the sponge a little more at the top of the nail to make sure that the darkest top color gets dark enough coverage.

Step Four:
Repeat steps one through three on all of your nails and then cover them with a top coat.  The top coat smooths out the polish and helps the colors all blend together.  Then enjoy your nails!

Gradients happen to be one of my favorite designs.  I think that they are so versatile and you can do so many things with them.  If you want to add more to the look you can add stamping or dots to it which can give another cool spin on this look.

Have you ever done a gradient on your nails?  Do you have any good tips?  Leave a comment here, on Facebook, or tweet me @Polish_Paradise!

Happy 4th of July!

Hello everyone! Happy 4th of July!  I hope that you all have a wonderful day celebrating tomorrow!  I personally will be working for part of the day but after that I will be relaxing with my family.  Today I have some 4th of July nail art for you!  I used Zoya Charla and China Glaze Ruby Pumps as my polish colors for this manicure, and to create the rest of the design I used Kiss nail art decal stars and white striping tape.

I painted Charla on my thumb and pointer fingers to create the blue background for the stars on the flag.  Then I painted Ruby Pumps on my last three fingers and added white striping tape to make it look like the American flag.  It was definitely an experience working with the striping tape so much in one manicure, but towards the end I got a much better hand on how to use it successfully.  I also made sure to put many layers of top coat to help prevent the stars from falling off, and also to prevent the striping tape from curling and pealing.  So far they are holding up well, but we will see what tomorrow brings!

What did you wear for your 4th of July manicure? Leave a comment here, on Facebook, or tweet me @Polish_Paradise!

Zoya Charla!

I hope all of my wonderful followers all had great weekends!  Mine was pretty relaxing and my younger brother went to his senior prom!  It was really fun seeing everyone take prom pictures... and it made me feel super old at the same time!

Anyway... I recently got another $10 credit to Copious.com so I decided to by another Zoya polish that I had my eye on... Zoya Charla.  It is a beautiful dark green-blue foil metallic polish.  On its own the polish is amazing, unfortunately I painted my nails with it on Saturday nice, and I had lent my brother my digital camera for the prom since he does not have one of his own, so I do not have any pictures of it by itself.  But I do have two awesome pictures I took of my nails today!

Sunlight

Indoors

Since I have become obsessed with my dotting tools I decided to do something simple with dots on my nails. I used Zoya Trixie, Wet n' Wild French White Creme, and Wet n' Wild Black Creme.  I stared with large dots and worked my way down to smaller ones across my nails in a triangle pattern.

I have to say that I really love the color of Charla and I will defiantly be using this polish a lot more!  If you haven't checked out Copious.com go an check it out!  You get a $10 credit for signing up and there are a lot of cool things on their website to spend it on!

Have you checked out Copious.com yet?  Let me know what you think, leave a comment here, on Facebook, or tweet me @Polish_Paradise!

Design: Spots on the Sun

Recently I have really been feeling the color orange.  It is such a beautiful bright summery color and I wanted to pay homage to it in my design today.  How I came up with this design, I don't even know.  One thing led to another and poof! I had my end result, which I have to say I am really excited with.  For this design I used Zoya Arizona, China Glaze Poinsettia, China Glaze Riveting, and Wet n' Wild Black Creme. Check out the steps below to recreate this look for yourself!


I started out by painting my nails with two coats of Zoya Arizona as a base for my gradient.

Next I used a cosmetic sponge to create my gradient.  I decided to try a different technique for creating a gradient that I had seen online.  For this I painted stripes of each color on my gradient on the sponge all at once and then pressed the sponge over my nail.  It created an even gradient with half the effort of sponging each color on one at a time.  I put Poinsettia as the top stripe, Riveting as the middle stripe, and Arizona as the bottom stripe.

These colors all went so well with each other, and it was really nice that Riveting brought a little bit of shimmer to the other two creme polishes.  I really liked how these colors came together... but it wasn't enough for me, I wanted to add something else to my nails.  What should I add is all I kept thinking.  Then it finally came to me, keep it simple and add some black dots.  And that is what I did.

I used Wet n' Wild Black Creme and a dotting tool to add two different sized dots in a random pattern around half of my nail.  The colors of the orange polishes together remind me of the surface of the sun and the black dots are kind of like sun spots.  I am really digging this design and I think I am going to wear it thought out the weekend!

How do you create gradients?  Leave a comment here, on Facebook, or tweet me@Polish_Paradise!

Tutorial: Zoya Blogger Trio Dotticure!

I really wanted to put all of the awesome nail products I have received recently to work, so I decided to see how many of them I could use in one manicure while having it still look cool.

The pictures above are what I ended up with.  For this design I used Zoya Kate, Zoya Coraline, and Wet'n'Wild French White Creme to create the dots.

To create the dot look that is on a majority of the nails I started off with two coats of Zoya Kate on each of the nails I wanted to have dots.  After the two coats were dry I use my medium sized dotting tool (you could use a toothpick if you do not have dotting tools) dipped in Wet'n'Wild French White Creme to create the polka dot pattern on each nail, making sure to evenly space the dots out.  After all the dots were dry I went over them with another coat of Kate so that they would have light pink color and would look like they were sandwiched in the layers of the jelly polish.  Then I topped it off with a coat of Seche Vite top coat.

For my accent nail I started off with three coats of Zoya Coraline.  After that was dry I put two stripes of green striping tape criss crossing each other on the nail.  Be very careful when trying to cut the tape flush to the nail.  They ideal tool to have to cut the tape would be a cuticle nipper, but I unfortunately do not have one of those so I used a scissors which did not cut the tape close enough to the edge as I would have liked it.  They I topped the tape off with one of the flowers from the nail art rods set.  I used an exacto knife to cut a very thin slice off of the rod and then adhered it to my nail with a generous dob of top coat.  Once again if you do use an exacto knife for cutting anything please be very careful because they are very sharp.  I then covered the nail with a generous coat of top coat to make sure that the flower was completely adhered to the nail.

I really love how this design came out! It incorporated all of the things I wanted it to with out it looking to crazy!  I think its a cute summer look! But I have to say that my favorite nails are the polka dot nails.  I am in love with Zoya Kate and I love how the dots look with the polish.

What are your favorite summer nail looks?  Leave a comment here, on Facebook, or tweet me @Polish_Paradise!

Birchbox Zoya Blogger Trio

*PICTURE HEAVY POST*

I finally caved and purchased the Zoya Blogger Trio from Birchbox.  This past weekend for Memorial Day they had a 15% off code for the trio and free shipping and I could not pass up that kind of an offer on these truly beautiful jelly colors.  For this Limited Edition Trio set, Birchbox teamed up with Zoya and top beauty bloggers to create these custom polishes based off of mood boards that different bloggers made.

The first polish on the far left in the box is Coraline.  It is a red-orange jelly polish that goes on very sheer at first, but then builds up to be a bright pop of color.

One Coat:

Two Coats:

Three Coats:

This color is so beautiful and perfect for summer!  It reminds me of orange candy because it is so shinny.  No top coat on these nails and they still look just as shinny as if I had put some on!

The middle polish in the collection is called Kate.  It is a pink-red berry colored jelly polish.  It is a little bit brighter after one coat then Coraline was so you could probably use less coats of it.  I still did three to show you what it looks like.

One Coat:

Two Coats:

Three Coats:

I absolutely love this color! I have to say that it is my favorite of the trio!  It is once again so shinny! I also love how it reminds me of berry juice.  I can totally see myself wearing this polish all summer long!

And last but not least we have Belle! Belle is a very sheer bright pink with a shimmer.  It also has a jelly finish, but the shimmer adds a nice summery flair to it.

One Coat:

Two Coats:

Three Coats:

With Flash

Natural Light

Belle was probably the hardest to photograph of the group; it was very hard to get the shimmer to cooperate with the camera hence why there is pictures of it with and without flash.  I think that Belle, like its name is a very dainty color.  It is the perfect girlie summer polish color, and it is subtle enough to go with anything.

I am really glad that I decided to buy this trio.  It was well worth the money that I paid for it.  All the colors are so beautiful and very different from anything that I currently have in my polish collection.  If you are interested in buying one for yourself you can find it on the Birchbox website.  I would scoop it up while you still can, it is a limited edition set and soon it will be gone.

Do you have the Zoya Blogger Trio? Tell me what you think of it!  Leave a comment here, on Facebook, or find me on twitter @Polish_Paradise!