Clouds with Zoya Jacy

Hey dolls, today I'm wearing Zoya Jacy, one of the shades I got during the last Zoya promo. This is a magenta polish with red undertones that has a blue shimmer. It's a super gorgeous shade that went on flawlessly. I used two coats for full opacity.

I love everything about this! I don't have many polishes in the berry family, so I'm glad I picked this one up. To jazz it up, I decided to try one of Nailside's gorgeous clouds as an accent using this tutorial. I chose Zoyas Carey and Tallulah for the cloud colors.

This combo is so adorable! The clouds were super easy to make using the tutorial. Tallulah is a bright, shimmery blue that I can't wait to wear as a full mani.

Do you think you'll try a cloud mani?

SpaRitual Sacred Ground

Hey dolls, I just put on a polish that I'm in love with and I'm regretting that I only have a mini bottle of it. SpaRitual Sacred Ground is such a unique color. Sacred Ground has a gray base that is filled with gold, blue, and copper shimmer. It flashes so many different colors in the sunlight! The formula was easy to work with and I used two coats for full opacity. You will definitely want to click to enlarge these photos!

I took so many pictures of this polish! I love everything about Sacred Ground. It's definitely unique to my stash. I think I need a full bottle of this one!

Pink Wednesday ~ Essence Time for Romance

Hey dolls, I was in the mood for something cute and just a little girly after my last mani. I decided to go with gray and pink because I love how those colors compliment each other. I started with two coats of Barielle Coalest Day of the Year. This is a gorgeous gunmetal gray that is filled with silver shimmer. The formula was good and flowed smoothly onto the nail.

I then sponged Essence Time for Romance onto the tips and as an accent nail. Time for Romance is filled with fine and hexagonal glitter. I had no difficulties getting the hexagonal glitter dispersed over the nail.

This is much, much better! I'm loving all of my goodies from the Sweet Sugar giveaway!

Fail ~ Green Ombre Mani

I'm sure you all have had times like these. You have a vision for a mani, you polish your nails, and then you sit back to view the job you've done. If you're a blogger, you take some pictures and then upload them to the computer. In my mind, I knew I wanted to do a green ombre mani. I decided to take the easy route by choosing 5 different greens from my untrieds pile. Typically when doing ombre manis, I choose one base color and then progressively add white to lighten the color several shades as seen here and here. Well, I was feeling lazy and it was late, so 5 different greens it was. Here's what I chose:

FingerPaints Tough Art to Follow; Joe Fresh Mallard; Ulta Limelight; SH Xtreme Wear Green With Envy; OPI Gargantuan Green Grape

So far so good; I've got my greens. Fortunately after applying 2 coats of each, except Gargantuan Green Grape (3 coats), this ombre mani looked a tad bit better in person than it does below.

The colors just do not look good together at all. It looks like I decided to do a skittles mani. Mallard looks way more blue above than it did in real life and Green With Envy wasn't that bright. Everything about this was just off. Then I decided to try to tie it all together by adding a pink sparkly topcoat, Essence Feels So Good. 

It didn't help. While I love the way it looks over the last 3 colors individually, collectively, this is just a mess. Feels So Good reminds me of FingerPaints Sparkle Topcoat. I did this mani late Sunday night and it was promptly removed after taking the last picture in the sunlight on Monday. I wasn't inspired by this mani at all, hence no inspiration board. The highlight of this post, I have five less untrieds!

Don't you hate when a thought is just a total fail!

Abstract Striping with China Glaze Skyscraper

Hey dolls, as I make my way through my untrieds, I came across this beauty in my melmer. I bought China Glaze Skyscraper when it was first released with the fall Metro collection, but hadn't gotten around to wearing it. Skyscraper is a dark blue base filled with silver glitter. I described it to a friend as a starry night sky in the country. The formula was fine and I applied 2 coats. The camera picked up on a little sheerness and visible nail line, but it does not look that way in real life.

Love this shade. Super fine glitters are all good in my book! I saw this abstract striping on The Nail Network a few days ago and I knew I had to try it. I received some striping tape from Lucky Lacquers in a gift exchange that was just waiting to be used. I applied the tape in a random fashion and then used 2 coats of Orly Flirty. The tape was removed while Flirty was still wet.

I love everything about this! The colors compliment each other so well. The striping tape was very easy to use and I'm excited to use it more. Thanks for the inspiration Chelsea!

What are your thoughts on this accent nail?

Guest Post ~ Pandora's Nails

Today I'm sharing with you a guest post from one of my favorite bloggers, Rebecca from Pandora's Nails. She takes amazing pictures and is the main reason why I'm having a love affair with a-england polishes!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Wow!  Me as a guest poster, I am so honoured and would like to give a big thanks to Refined and Polished for having me.

I had a bit of a difficult time deciding what this post should be about, should it be amazing/complicated/artistic/detailed....... and then after a million ideas had came and went I decided best to stick with what I know.

So the post I have for you today is a mani I enjoy to wear and always love it when I do, it is simple and easy to do, yet striking.

First we start with a-england Lancelot which is a black polish with a hint of red. This is 2 coats over the Knight (a-england base coat). No top coat.

 

Then I added 1 coat of Nails Inc Electric Lane Holographic top coat. This is a scattered holo and shown here with 1 coat of the Shield (a-england top coat).

And sometimes I also wear it this way, mattified with Nails Inc Westminster Bridge Matte Effect top coat, 1 coat.

Which way do you prefer Shiny or Matte?

I hope you like my post and thank you again for having me here.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This is simple, yet gorgeous...my kind of mani! I really like the way it looks matte. Make sure you check out Pandora's Nails to get more of her gorgeous nails and layering combinations. Thanks Rebecca for sharing with my readers!

Pink Wednesday ~ Zebra Stamping

Hey dolls, I really didn't want to take off Cult Nails Feel Me Up quite yet, so I decided to add some pink stamping. I used the zebra image from the Bundle Monster 223 plate and Color Club Hot Like Lava. These foils are great for stamping if you haven't tried them out yet.

I am aware that this is by no means perfect stamping, but I like it. I have to work more on image placement so that it comes out neatly. I'm going to attempt to practicing stamping before taking old manis off...that way if it's a fail I won't mind since I'm taking it off anyway.

Happy Hump Day!

Cult Nails Feel Me Up

Today I'm wearing one of the limited edition beauties from the Cult Nails Black Friday sale. I love yellow polish, so I had to have Feel Me Up. Feel Me Up is a perfect buttercup yellow creme-jelly hybrid. The formula was one of the best I've ever used for a yellow. It was opaque (at least to my standards...I can deal with a little VNL) with 2 coats for the most part. I had to do 3 coats on a few nails to make sure it wasn't patchy near the cuticles.

 

Feel Me Up reminds me of two wonderful fashion looks:

Source

Source

Paula Patton looks stunning in this gown above, as it perfectly compliments her skin tone. As you can see, J-Lo inspired the board above (I've been lusting after a yellow coat since seeing this look). Feel Me Up is such a gorgeous yellow!  I tend to wear bright colors to brighten my mood, and Feel Me Up worked for sure.The only thing that could have made it better would be if a little shimmer was included. Maybe I'll ask Maria about that over on the Cult Nails facebook fanpage. I definitely think this color should be released in an upcoming collection for all of the yellow lovers! 

Are you a yellow lover like me???

Awesome Giveaway Winnings

Every so often, I get lucky and win a giveaway. This last one from Sweet Sugar's 2 year anniversary was so awesome that I just had to share it with you all. Take a look at all of the international goodies that came all the way from Belgium!

Top: Catrice Dirty Berry; Deborah Lippmann Bad Romance; Classics 3D Effects Flakies in red, pink, silver, and purple; Essence Colour & Go Time For Romance and Blue Addicted

Bottom: P2 crackles in Violet Fusion, Red Volcano, and Blue Thunder; Essence Nail Art Twins Chuck and Blair; Misslyn zebra and cheetah nail stickers; Essence Topcoat Effects in We Will Rock You, Feels So Good, Hello Holo, and Circus Confetti

Looks like lots of sparkly posts are in the future! Thanks again Gwenn!!! If you aren't following her, you should be!

Zoya True & Fleck Collections

Hey dolls, I'm excited to share with you the spring releases from Zoya. I've been wearing these shades for the last week and a half and it's really a great collection! All of the shades from the True collection had the typical Zoya formula and were opaque with two coats. The three flakies from the Fleck collection were a little thicker in formula, but were still easy to use and one coat was used in all of the pictures. I'll describe those now, since each is layered over the True shades. Chloe is a sheer coral pink base and contains flakies that flash red, orange, gold, green, and blue. Opal is a sheer green base with green and blue flakies. Maisie is a sheer blue base with green and blue flakies as well.

Up first is Cho, an opaque yellow-toned light soft peachy beige with a hint of ultra fine silver shimmer. I was pleasantly surprised with this nude and how much I liked it.

 I like how the different base colors of Fleck collection are apparent over Cho.

All 3; Chloe; Opal; Maisie

Farah is an opaque light khaki-beige with subtle sandy greenish undertones. It has a putty or cement-like look to it. This one wasn't bad on me, but I have other nudes from Zoya that I would prefer over Farah.

 The Fleck shades also change the base color of Farah. I love the way all 3 look on my index finger.

All 3; Chloe; Opal; Maisie

Bevin, a dusty, medium sage green with teal tones was one of my favorites. You just can't go wrong with a dusty mint green. I wore this one for the longest time (3 days) and the wear was amazing!

day 1; light box

day 3; sunlight (only a small chip on my middle finger)

I love the way Chloe looks over Bevin! If you haven't noticed already, Maisie and Opal tend to look the same over darker colors when you can't see their bases.

All 3; Chloe; Opal; Maisie

Skylar is a medium steel blue with a softened, dusty look and speckled by visible gold and silver shimmer. This was another win! Skylar is packed with shimmer and it looks amazing when the sunlight hits it.

I really didn't even want to put the Fleck topcoats on because Skylar is so pretty on its own. The flakies didn't show up much in the sunlight, but the shade photo reflects how it looks in real life.

All 3; Chloe; Opal; Maisie

All 3; Chloe; Opal; Maisie (shade)

Lotus is a soft dusty blue-toned amethyst purple with colorful shimmer that reflects pink, red, and gold. This is another one where the shimmer is just gorgeous. A lot of people were concerned that Lotus was similar to Neeka, but several bloggers have done comparisons and they are not.

All of the Flecks looked good over Lotus! I love how the shimmer still peeks through.

Chloe; Opal; Maisie

Last up is Tru, a red-toned grape purple with speckled shimmer that reflects gold, orange, and red. Tru is absolutely perfect in my book! The shimmer is gorgeous and its the perfect shade of purple. I'm still wearing this one.

The Flecks also look good over Tru, but my favorite is the combo of all three.

All 3; Chloe; Opal; Maisie

All 3; Chloe; Opal; Maisie (shade)

Overall, Zoya has produced another great spring collection. The only thing that could have made it even better would be if there weren't two nudes. Lots of people prefer them though, so they have their place as well. My favorites from the True collection were Tru, Skylar, and Bevin. Chloe was my favorite from the Fleck collection. As the other two look similar over dark colors, you don't really need them both. Flakies are being released from lots of companies now, and I'm glad Zoya has given us some pretty ones.

Have you ordered any of these yet? What are your favorites?

*Zoya products can be purchased HERE. All products featured were sent by PR for review.*