A Polish Problem's First Birthday Giveaway!

To celebrate A Polish Problem's first birthday/my first bloggiversary, I've put together (what I consider to be) a great giveaway.  You may recall a few weeks ago, I asked for opinions about whether or not to break this up into multiple gifts, and in all honesty, that's what I wanted to do.  However, I also know I have a tendency to flake out on stuff, so I decided to do one giveaway and do it well, rather than half-assing 4 little giveaways.

 

The theme of this giveaway is "my favorite things".  Think of it like Oprah's Favorite Things, only on a much smaller and nail-polish-themed scale.  :P

 

Prizes:

• NARS Dovima - pretty much, my favorite red.  It's a perfect, tomato red that isn't too orange, so it looks great on any skintone.  I took it out of the box to photograph it, but it will come boxed.
• Essie Viva La Vespa - my favorite purple.  This is a gorgeous tyrian purple shimmer.  This is a HTF, long d/c'd polish (though I think Essie brought it back in LE, along with SSN, a few years back), so it's OF.
• ChG Emerald Sparkle - my favorite green, and probably one of my top 5 polishes.  ES is a deep green jelly packed with tons of emerald green glitter.  This one was released in 2008 and re-released for Holiday 2009.  This the original color, but from the 2009 release.
• ChG Sky High Top - my favorite medium blue.  It's a cerulean blue shimmer.  It's included in this giveaway (along with the nail art decals), as I used it to create of my favorite manis from 2009 (please ignore the long glue-ons).  I never thought I would like this color of blue on my nails, but lemme tell you, it's what completed my blue-love conversion.  LOL.
• Cina 3-D Nail Art decals in Daisies - my favorite nail art decals.  These look great with the blue of Sky High Top, but they are a great accent for a myriad of colors.  I really like this with a warm pink, like OPI ElePhantastic Pink. 
• OPI Absolutely Alice - You know, when VH1 or E! has those "countdown" shows, and the #1 pick is a relatively new movie/TV show/star/scandal?  I hate it when they do that, and that's what I feel like I'm doing here.  LOL.  However, AA is definitely deserving to be in a list of "my favorite things".  It's my favorite glitter (even over my much lemmed and loved RBL Locavore), and my early pick of best OPI of 2010.  I know Mad as a Hatter from AiW got the most press and love, but AA blows it out of the water.  I love it so much, I bought back-ups, my first ever.
• ASP Manicure Saving Claw - this is one of my top products.  I don't know how I'd ever live without it.  I use it mainly for konadding, but this would be perfect for redoing your pedi when you didn't want to screw up your mani. 
• Ruby Stone Crystal Nail File - I really like this file.  It's pretty cheap in price, but I have no problems with quality, and I love that it's in it's own sheath.  My husband calls it Excala-file.  :P

(all products are new)

 

I was going to use a contest generator to keep track of my entries, but it looks like the one I used in the past is offline now, so I'll just do this manually.  Oh well, at least this way, I can offer extra entries.  :)

• I ask that everyone that enters be a follower of my blog (new followers are just fine).
• Giveaway is open to US and International followers.
• To enter, please reply to this post.  If you don't have your contact email in your profile, please include it in the reply or send it to me in an email (apolishproblem@gmail.com).
• You can obtain 1 extra entry (for each) by...
• following me on Twitter
• tweeting about my giveaway (please include link in your reply)
• mentioning this giveaway on your blog (please include link in your reply)
• adding me to your blog roll
• For the extra entries, simply mention in your reply that you tweeted/blogged about this, are following me on Twitter, and/or you've added me to your blog roll.  Each reply can receive up to 5 entries.
• I will close the contest on 2/15/10 (a week and a day from now).
• I should contact and post the winner by 2/18/10.

Whew, I think that's it.  LOL!  If you have any questions, please email me.  I'm pretty new at the giveaway thing (I had a previous one that I had to retract due to finances), so bear with me.  :)

Happy Birthday, A Polish Problem!

Bwahahaha.  I went looking for a "Happy Birthday" picture and when I found Homer, I just had to post it.  It cracks me up.  LOL.

Today is the first birthday/bloggiversary of A Polish Problem.  A year ago, I had the bright idea to start a polish blog.  I figured I'd keep with it for a few weeks and then abandon it, like I did every other blog I'd had.  It was touch and go for a while, but I'm pretty proud of the fact that I haven't given up on it.  That's a huge achievement for me.  :)

I'm very fortunate to have 175(!) followers, over 20,000 hits and the opportunity to try new products and review them.  This experience has done very little get my addiction under control.  In fact, in the year I've had this blog, I went from about 30 polishes to almost 350!  I swear, they are breeding.  :P  I've gone from being a slave to glue-ons to polish my own, albeit short, natural nails.

Also, as I mentioned about a week, I'm having a giveaway to celebrate this event.  After much hem and hawing, I decided to go with one or 2 big(ger) give aways.  I'm heading to Sally's tonight to round out my prizes, so I'll know what I'm going to do, either 1 or 2 after that.  :)  Tomorrow, I'll probably post the contest information.

Thanks again for reading my blog!

KOTD: OPI Lunch at the Delhi with Migi White

Sorry for the craptastic pic, but I wanted to go on and post this while it was on my mind.  If I think about it, I'll take another pic in the morning.

LatD is a muted, corally red.  When it was released, OPI described it as a coral.  It does have a hint of coral, but it's definitely a dusty red.  I used b/c I was kinda lemming Essie Chubby Cheeks, but LatD looks close and there's no need for a dupe of this kind of color, no matter how pretty.  This is 2 coats, though it could have used a third, you can still see VNL IRL.  If I wasn't doing a konad, I would have done a third.

As for the konad, this is another one of the fauxnad eBay plates.  I have a small obsession with lobsters and crabs (not live or cooked ones (blech), but cute ones.  LOL) and I was lemming this plate something awful.  Unfortunately, it didn't apply/release all that well, so it wasn't great, but I still love it.  I think it would look awesome in the summer.

EDITED to change my 2am typos.  :)

KOTD: ChG White Out w/ ChG Heli-Yum and Migi Black

I was in the mood for something black and white and very graphic with a pop of color.  I think this one fits the bill, but there's also a lot going on.  I don't consider it a fail, but I won't cry when I take it off tonight.  LOL.  BTW, pardon the dry cuticles.  I hadn't had a chance to moisturize yet this morning.

The base is 3 coats of ChG White Out.  I wanted a very stark white and WO works, but it takes so freaking long to get the desired look.  I've heard OPI Alpine Snow Matte is a great white base and is opaque in one coat.  Plus, if you use a TC, no one is the wiser that it started off as a matte. 

After almost 2 hrs of drying time, I applied a full nail konad in the houndstooth pattern using plate m63.  The color is ChG Heli-Yum.  H-Y is amazing for konadding.  I find of all the non-konad and non-nail art polishes (like Migi) polishes, ChG is the most consistent and best for using with the konad system.

Then, because I am horribly addicted to layered konads, I applied a flower using plate m21 in Migi Nail Art Black.  I'm sure you've seen that I've used my white and black Migis in konadding quite a bit now.  I was sent these a few months back by Migi and I mainly used them for dotting my nails.  Then the pen tip on my white quit working, so I had think of another use.  They have a brush and they are very thick, so I figured they'd be perfect for konadding.  Turns out I was right.  :)

KOTD: CC Fashion Addict with ChG Grape Pop and Migi White

I've actually had naked nails now for about 3 days, so it was nice to get back to polishing them.  I'm letting my nails be sans polish more and more lately, so I'm hoping this isn't becoming a bad habit.  I've been dealing with some personal crap (church crap, not relationship crap) lately, and it's really taken the wind out of my sails.  Plus, several weeks ago, my laptop migrated from the kitchen table to the living room.  I need to stick it back on the kitchen table because it's so much easier to polish my nails and then immediately do an update.

Anyway, this is CC Fashion Addict with ChG Grape Pop and Migi Nail Art White.  Plate is m57, and I did a layered design with the zebra pattern and then the accompanying flower.  I've recently discovered a love for holo polishes, as shown by my recent obsession and acquisition of holo OPI MPJ.  I've had a few holos in the past, most notably OPI Exclusive, but I ended up giving most of them away, as I didn't like them.  Yep.  I have up Exclusive.  I'm a dumbass, though I just gave it to my sister, so I can get it back if I need to.  However, lately, I've been loving all things holo.  Don't know why.  Probably the same reason I've been gravitating more towards cremes than shimmers.

Fashion Addict is from CC's 2009 Catwalk Queen collection.  It's a light lavender holo, that reminds me very much of CC Worth the Risque, only a very light purple rather than silver.  I decided to pair it up with ChG Grape Pop, from the U&A collection, in a zebra pattern and then an accent flower in Migi Nail Art white.

I love this one.  It makes me happy, and goodness knows... I can use some happy right now (I'm not trying to be vague.  In fact, I don't mind spilling my guts on what's been going on, I'm just tired right now and don't feel like writing a (longer) novel).

BTW, yesterday was my 10w anniversary of getting rid of the glue ons.  My nails still aren't 100%, and I'm still getting breaks because they are so thin in places, but I think they look pretty dang good.  :)

KOTD: OPI MPJ (holo) with ChG Flyin' High

Ah, the saga of OPI My Private Jet holo. Tell me Suzi, why in the world did you feel it necessary to replace the original, amazing, possibly the best polish OPI’s made, MPJ with the sad thing now billing itself as MPJ? MPJ 2.0 (4.0?) is an okay color, but it’s nowhere near as awesome as this. Silly Suzi.


This was a lemming I didn’t even know I had. I was fine with my current MPJ, but then I saw a pic of the original MPJ and it became a crazy obsession. I took a risk with an unknown seller, whose picture clearly showed a holo MPJ, only to have it be a regular MPJ. Said seller is now selling holo MPJ under a different item with jacked up shipping. Incidentally, if you remember my previous post about this, she never responded to my complaints. I don’t feel like really fighting it, though, so I guess I’ll let this one slide and chalk it up to bad judgment on my part.

Anyway, I managed to get another bottle off eBay, from a reputable seller, and though it was on the high side (around $20), I’m extremely happy with it. I wore this alone yesterday, and I kept looking down at my hands in amazement. I apologize for not getting a pic of this alone, but I do plan on doing a comp between holo and non-holo in the near future, so I’ll get one then.

The design is from plate m65, and I used ChG Flyin’ High as the color. It actually looks better in the pics than it does IRL, but I still like it.

BTW, I promise to get to those requests soon. I did them and then the pics didn’t turn out okay, as my camera lens was acting hinky, but I will re-do them and take pics soon.

Previous KOTD: Chocolate and Roses

Pardon the tip wear, this was after 2 days.


Given my success with RBL Plie and Sally Hansen Insta-Dri, I figured I’d try another RBL crème to see if it was a fluke. Au Chocolat was the RBL crème that gave me the most trouble. The first time I applied it, it bubbled and was slow to dry. This time around, I still had some bubbles and it dried slower than Plie, but compared to my previous application, it was tons better. Yay!

I’m quite happy that it’s playing nice with the Insta-Dri because Au Chocolat is the most amazing color. It literally looked like someone melted milk chocolate on my nails. This was 2 coats, one normal and one thin. Application was really easy on this.
My goal all along when applying AC was to create a Valentine’s Day konad. I realize Valentine’s Day is 2 weeks away, and when I created this mani, it was almost 3 weeks away, but I had a spark of inspiration and I had to go with itl LOL.
The idea I had was “flowers and chocolates”. Silly, I know… but I was probably sleep deprived when I thought of it. I used a large/small rose design from my recently acquired fauxnad plates. Again, if you are interested, I can look up the seller, just let me know. The colors are all a mix of ChG U&A and Romantique (Sugar High, Something Sweet, and Emotion).