Rescue Beauty Lounge Thank You Swatch/Review

Hey guys! I had a little bit of time earlier this week to swatch, so I should have some stuff coming for you within the next week or so (hopefully!). The book project is going well (albeit a little stressful) but I'm so excited to see the end result! But today I have swatches of one of Rescue Beauty Lounge's newest shades, called Thank You.

Thank You is a very soft faded pink with purple shimmer and I used two coats here for this mani. I love almost every single RBL shade that I own and this one is no exception. The formula was good, but annoying. You see, RBL has a very different formula than most other polish and doesn't play well with any of my regular base coats. It streaks and is extremely difficult to work with. RBL makes their own base coat (which I will not purchase because who the hell spends $18 on a BASE COAT?) so I purchased Essie's ridge filling base coat, which I've heard is similar. This works much better, but still not perfect. My ultimate point here is that I need to plan ahead when I want to do an RBL mani and make sure that I have time to be careful and apply slowly. I personally feel like if I'm spending $18+ on ONE bottle of polish, I should be able to use it with whatever base coat I have laying around.

But anyway, there you have it. Although this shade isn't something I generally would wear, I'm a huge fan of it and will definitely wear it often.

What's your favorite RBL shade? Do you have issues with the formula too?

Jenna's Prom Nails!

Good morning everyone! I haven't done anything interesting with my nails lately, so I thought I'd post the nails I did for my sister's senior prom over the week. Jenna sent me this photo from @noemihk on Instagram and asked if I could recreate it to match her dress and I said "of course!"

We started out with one coat of Zoya Trixie to get a pretty solid silver base down and then I used three coats of OPI Which is Witch for more bling.

Once that was completely dry, I slowly and carefully painted the white sections using Milani White on the Spot with the brush from the polish. I used Zoya Ibiza for the navy blue and used a striping brush to paint those sections. That was the painstaking part!

And here is the beautiful little lady all dressed up! It seriously shouldn't be legal to be this good looking...

I absolutely loved her hair. She has the longest, thickest hair I've ever seen and it looked amazing.

And here's a shot of the front of her dress. She picked a good one!

Are you going to prom this year? Or, if you're not quite so young, did you go to your senior prom? What do you remember most? My prom was rather boring, unfortunately!

Nails for Boston!

Hey guys! Long time no nails, right? To be perfectly honest, my nails have barely been polished the past few weeks *holds back tears* but I finally have a mani to share! I ran my first 5k this weekend, so I thought it would be appropriate to do blue and yellow nails in honor of the victims of the Boston Marathon bombings.

I used Zoya Solange and Liberty (two of the new summer PixieDusts) for this mani. I layered one very thin coat of each over Zoya Darcy and Orly Sweet Peacock and then topped it all off with two coats of top coat for a smooth, glossy finish. I love the PixieDusts with top coat; they are so glittery and pretty! I'll be reviewing them all for you guys eventually (hopefully soon!).

The Zoya products in this post were provided for review.

P.S.
I started a blog as a way to keep track of my running and write about the races that I do, so if you're into that kind of thing, check out it here: www.runlikea-princess.com ;-*

An Apology & Some Exciting News!!

Good morning everyone! Firstly, I want to apologize for not posting consistently lately. I've had a lot on my plate (I graduate college in less than a month, weee!!!) and I haven't had as much time for blogging as I would like. This also relates to my exciting news...

I'm writing a book! It will feature a whole mess of nail designs all created and photographed by me! I'm so unbelievably excited for this opportunity, but it is also going to be something that unfortunately interferes with blogging. However, this project should be completed and I will be able to focus solely on the blog again by July.

So, at this point, I am not going to commit to a rigid posting schedule for The Nail Network. I will continue to swatch and occasionally post as best I can when I can, but I cannot promise a certain number of posts per week. I hope you all understand and are willing to hang with me until I finish this huge, awesome project! :D

Pretty and Polished The Algebraic Addition Collection: Part One Swatches/Review

Hey guys! I have part of the second Adventure Time collection from Pretty and Polished to share with you today. These four shades are inspired by locations from the show Adventure Time.

Candy Reign is a light, baby pink jelly with a mixture of glitter suspended in it. This is three coats. This polish is meant to represent the Candy Kingdom.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of awesome glitters in this that I was unable to get out of the bottle. They stuck to the bottom side of the bottle and even leaving it sit upside down didn't seem to really help.

Whatevers 2009 is a frosty purple with multiple sizes of purple, green, and blue glitter; inspired by Lumpy Space. This is three coats.

House of Heroes is a mix of brown, green, and white glitter in a clear base. This one represents Treefort and this is two coats over Zoya Jacqueline. I had the same issue here getting glitter out of the bottle as I did with Candy Reign.

Watch It In CD is my favorite of the group, a lovely mix of pink and purple glitter and shimmer in a clear base. This is two coats over China Glaze Tart-y for the Party. This one represents Crystal Dimension.

These shades are available in Pretty and Polished's shop and Etsy store. Keep updated with P&P on Facebook. I'll have swatches of the other half of this collection up hopefully on Friday! Stay tuned!

The products in this post were provided by Pretty and Polished for my honest review.

China Glaze Hologlam Collection Swatches/Review

Good morning! I have my review and swatches of the China Glaze Hologlam collection for you all today. I'm going to show you the swatches first and then I'll voice my thoughts at the end of the post. Enjoy!

Don't Be a Luna-tic is a soft sea foam green holo. It needed three coats for opacity.

Infra-Red is a warm, bright magenta that needed two coats for opacity.

Astro-Hot is a light, baby pink holo that needed three coats for opacity.

Get Outta My Space is a pastel lavender. Three coats shown here.

OMG A UFO is a warm shade of mossy green. Two coats were sufficient here.

Galactic Gray is a dark gunmetal gray and one of my favorites of the bunch. Two coats here.

Cosmic Dust is a silvery holo. I used three coats here.

When Stars Collide is an awesome deep warm purple. I've never seen a purple holo like this and I really love it! Needed two coats.

Strap On Your Moonboots is a navy, midnight blue shade. Two coats.

Take a Trek is a cool blue shade, seems to border on turquoise/teal. This is two coats.

Not in This Galaxy is a lovely, warm coral. Needed three coats.

Sci-Fly By is a light, silvery shade of blue. It needed three coats to be opaque.

This was a collection that a LOT of people were excited about. Unfortunately, there's been many mixed reviews and feelings since it was released. I think people were expecting these to be much more holographic, so when you receive them and put them on it, it's honestly kind of a disappointment. It's really a shame since there are other brands who have released insanely holographic polishes lately.

However, even though the holo effect is not very strong here, I still think these are very pretty shades. They border on chrome-like at some times and holographic in very strong light. Galactic Gray and When Stars Collide are my top picks! This collection is available right now in stores like Sally Beauty and Ulta and online.

 The products in this post were provided by China Glaze for my honest review.

Fandom Series: 'Bad Wolf' Doctor Who Nail Art

Good morning! I hope everyone had a lovely weekend! I have a second design in my Fandom Series to share with you today and it is Doctor Who themed! Very fitting since I believe a new episode aired over the weekend. It sucks not having BBC America!

Also, happy birthday to the greatest fiancé in the world! Love you! :*

In honor of one of my favorite companion, Rose, I chose to do Bad Wolf nails instead of the typical TARDIS-inspired art. I started out with two coats of ManGlaze Matte is Murder and then hand painted the words using a plain white polish.

Do you watch Doctor Who? Who was your favorite companion?