Midwestern Beauty Bloggers Present: A Fall Giveaway

A while back I joined a group of beauty bloggers from the Midwest and I'm excited to announce this morning that we're hosting our first giveaway!  Five other bloggers and I are hosting this giveaway and we've got some pretty awesome prizes, especially mine (not that I'm biased...).

The bloggers participating are:

Confessions of a Sarcastic Mom

Darling Nails

The Girlie Tomboy

Liquid Jelly

Plastered Polish

Ruby's Nails

For my portion of the giveaway I'm giving away Essie Chinchilly, Zoya Tomoko, and a bottle of OPI Avojuice Coconut Melon hand cream (upper left photo).  I picked these polishes because these have been my two favorite colors to wear this fall.  Essie Chinchilly is pretty much a fall must-have for me, and I've been enamored with Zoya Tomoko since the collection launched.  The OPI Avojuice hand cream is my favorite scent and lotion is a must have as the weather grows colder and more dry.

The rules:

• PRIZE: Prize Pack from Confessions of a Sarcastic Mom, Prize Pack from Darling Nails, Prize Pack from The Girlie Tomboy, Prize Pack from Liquid Jelly, Prize Pack from Plastered Polish, and a Prize Pack from Ruby's Nails.
• TO ENTER: In the Rafflecopter widget below enter your email address for one entry; additional entries may be obtained by following blogs, liking Facebook pages, etc.
• GIVEAWAY CLOSES: Wednesday, October 9th at 11:59 pm CST.
• NUMBER OF WINNERS: One winner per prize pack.
• PRIZE SHIPS: This giveaway is open to just the United States.
• OTHER STUFF: One entry per person is permitted.  Duplicate entries will be deleted.  The winner will be selected using Rafflecopter and announced on Thursday, October 10th as an update to this post.  Once the winner has been selected they will have 48 hours to respond by email before a new winner is chosen.  

a Rafflecopter giveaway
Thank you and good luck!

Happy Birthday

Happy birthday to me!  For my birthday manicure, I copied this manicure from Paulina's Passion.

I started with a three-coat base of Bourjois Bleu Model.  Across the lower third of my nail I painted two coats of Zoya Sweet, a bubble-gum pink.  The pink accent stripes were added using Orly Flirty and a dotting tool.  For the white frosting I used Wet n Wild Wild Shine French White Crème and the cherry was made with China Glaze Salsa.  To create the sprinkles I used OPI What's With the Cattitude?, China Glaze Sweet Hook, Ruby Wing Gypsy, and Essie Tart Deco.

Zoya Dhara

Today marks the end of the Zoya Pixie marathon.  The last color I have to share with you is Zoya Dhara.  This copper orange has orange glitter and seems to sparkle with an inner fire.

Pictured here is three coats of Zoya Dhara.  This formula was a little sheer, but not as bad as Carter for example.  I think I'm going to be pulling this polish out again near Halloween.

Zoya Arabella

Zoya Arabella is similar in style to Zoya Carter.  It's a deep, fuchsia pink in a matte, textured, sparkling finish.  Like Carter, instead of silver or gold sparkles, the sparkles in Arabella are pink.

Pictured here are three coats of Zoya Arabella.  I could have gotten away with two coats, but I bumped my polish before it fully dried and I added an extra coat to smooth everything out.

Zoya Carter

Welcome back to week two of the Fall 2013 Zoya Pixie Dust extravaganza!  I'm starting this week with Zoya Carter.  Zoya describes this polish as "a royal purple in a matte, textured, sparkling metal finish."  Instead of being imbued with sliver or gold sparkle, Carter has sparkling purple glitter.

What I'm wearing here is three coats of Zoya Carter.  This polish is interesting and quite different than every other pixie dust polish I have.  The formula is runny and applies like a glitter topper.

Zoya Sunshine

The last polish I have to share with you this week is Zoya Sunshine.  Described by Zoya as a "'Van Gogh' navy blue in a matte, textured, sparkling finish" I found Sunshine to be a sapphire blue polish with lots of silver sparkle throughout.

Pictured here is two coats of Zoya Sunshine.  The formula applied okay, not great, and this one chipped horribly on me in less than 24 hours.  Sunshine was the only Pixie Dust in this collection I had a problem with.

Zoya Chita

The next polish I have to share is Zoya Chita.  Zoya describes this polish as "a forest green in a matte, textured, sparkling finish."

Pictured here is one coat of Zoya Chita.  Chita has my favorite formula in this collection.  It's the perfect viscosity to apply perfect coverage of a color to your nails.

Zoya Tomoko

Brace yourselves, it's time for some Zoya Pixie Dust polish spam.  :)  Last month I bought the entire fall collection and have been wearing them over the last couple of weeks.  I'm starting with my favorite from the collection - Zoya Tomoko.  Zoya describes Tomoko as "a romantic champagne silver with a matte, textured, sparkling metal finish."

Pictured here is three coats of Zoya Tomoko.  I found the formula to be very sheer for a Pixie Dust polish.  I'm used to them being rather thick but this was on the watery side.  This slight formula issue aside, I think Tomoko is a "must have" from this collection.  It's also a great color to wear to work!  It's a little sparkly, but it really does fly under the radar enough to pass off as a business appropriate polish.

Moar Leopard

A different type of accent to share this morning.  I usually do a leopard accent but surprise!  It's a solid color accent nail.

For my leopard nails I used three coats of OPI My Vampire is Buff, then added the spots using China Glaze Call of the Wild and Sally Hansen Black Out.  For my red accent nail I used two coats of Zoya Sooki.

OPI Alcatraz...Rocks

OPI's new collection this fall is based on San Francisco.  It's a pretty collection, full of typical fall colors.  There was only one color that stood out to me and that was Alcatraz...Rocks.  It's really a great fall color.  

Pictured here is two coats of OPI Alcatraz...Rocks.  It's a deep navy and purple textured polishes imbued with color-shifting glitter.  Depending on the lighting, the little specks of glitter appear gold, silver, green, purple, orange, red, etc.  It's fantastic.  The formula was very nice and thick too, so I probably could have gotten away with just one coat.  

Del Sol Ruby Slipper

On a trip to California this summer I picked up a couple of color changing nail polishes from a Del Sol store I came across in a tourist trap.  This polish, Del Sol Ruby Slipper, was one of them.  I like color changing polishes because they're so fun to wear in the summertime!  They can be a bit of a hazard however.  Wearing color changing polish on your toes can cause you to trip and stumble when you look down at your feet and see a different color polish than you were expecting!  Hehe.

Pictured is three coats of Del Sol Ruby Slipper stamped with Bundle Monster plate BM-314 using Konad Special Polish in Black.  

Indoors, Ruby Slipper is a pale glittery polish.

Outside, Ruby Slipper turns into a red glittery polish.

One more. :)