July 4th Big Top Nail Art

Hello, everybody! For all of my American readers, I hope you're having a wonderful July 4th! Today, I have a quick nail art design that I made in honor of America's Birthday, utilizing Essence Style for Summer Nights, Zoya Song, and Zoya Rekha. It was actually surprisingly easy and reminds me of a circurs for a reason I can't put my finger on!

Anyway, I hope that you enjoy your afternoon and evening! I might do a second nail look for fireworks tonight that you'll see tomorrow. Hope you like the nail art!

Birthday Floral Nails

Happy Hump Day! The week is halfway over... don't stress yourself too much!

Today's manicure is actually my birthday nails. I painted them late Wednesday night and am still wearing them. Seriously. I LOVE them!

I never had the confidence to try the shabby-chic floral look. But after seeing a manicure from The Crumpet, I changed my mind and took a stab at it. (Also, after failing miserable in trying to do a water marble featuring Cult Nails Time Traveler, which left my hands stained navy blue for a night after it went terribly wrong. Oops.)

2nd Annual Cosmetics for a Cure - Raffle to Benefit Autism New Jersey

After the immense success of last year's Cosmetics for a Cure, thanks to the support and the generous prize donations of fellow bloggers, nail polish companies, beauty e-tailers, and polishaholics alike, I decided to bring it back for a second year! I am a strong believer in paying it forward and since you have all given me so much love and support in the past year, I thought that it would be wonderful if I could pass that on to as many people as possible.

I chose to launch the raffle in April because it is Autism Awareness Month and this year's charity is Autism New Jersey, the beneficiary of the Ride 4 Autism.

Why the Ride 4 Autism?

I became a volunteer for this ride in its first year in 2001, having grown up with a cousin diagnosed with Autism. The diagnosis was made at 18 months, which was incredibly early back in 1993. While great strides have been made in early intervention, education, and awareness, Autism spectrum disorders still affect approximately 1 in 150 individuals and the financial burden on families of individuals with autism can create extreme hardship. The beneficiary of the Ride 4 Autism, Autism New Jersey, is a non-profit agency providing information and advocacy, services, family and professional education and consultation. They encourage responsible basic and applied research that may lessen the effects of, and potentially prevent, autism. They are also dedicated to ensuring that all people with autism receive appropriate, effective services to maximize their growth potential and to enhancing the general public’s overall awareness of autism.

How Does Cosmetics for a Cure Work?

Entries in this raffle correspond to donations made via my fundraising page. Please visit my DONATION PAGE to donate however much you'd like. $5 for 5 entries is the minimum, but certainly not a maximum. From $5 to $99, it is the same $1 an entry. (Ex: 15 entries are $15, 50 entries are $50, etc.) All donations of $100 or more will receive 2X entries. (Ex: $100 = 200 entries, $200 = 400 entries, etc.)

DO NOT check the box that will list your name as anonymous, as I will be unable to validate your entries!

I will record your name in an Excel sheet, with the number of entries equaling the number of times your name is listed. When the raffle ends, I will use my Excel sheet and Random.org to select the winners and announce them on this page. Winners will have 48 hours to respond via email.

The raffle starts today and ends on May 1st at 12:01 am. OPEN INTERNATIONALLY ! 

Please note: Princess Polish is NOT responsible for a third party's failure to deliver a donated prize or mishandling/loss of packages by any postal service. You must be 18 years or older to enter this raffle.

For every monetary milestone reached, a new prize will be added to the pot! And believe me, they're awesome. If you would like to donate a prize, please contact me via email at PrincessPolishBlog@gmail.com

Check out what's up for grabs (so far!) below! More prizes will be listed, so keep your eyes peeled here, on Facebook, and on Twitter!!!


Here's the list of the monetary milestones and the corresponding prizes:

2000 Facebook Likes/1000 GFC Followers Giveaway

I've been teasing this for a month now, so I'm incredibly excited for the giveaway to go live!

Check out all of the available prizes and enter via the widget below! (Please note: Due to the ongoing issues with international shipping, this giveaway is open to the United States and Canada only!)

The mega giveaway ends at midnight EST on 3/13... Good luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Top of 2012: Orange

Now, I'm not really an orange person. So it's rare for me to find any that I like. But there were three in 2012 that really caught my attention.

The big brand trophy goes to China Glaze Desert Sun, a dusty mandarin creme. It was just orange enough to make a statement, but subdued enough that I can rock it any day of the week.

The indie crown, without a doubt, goes to SoFlaJo Pendragon. You can wear it as a dainty peach shimmer or layer it over black for a smoldering orange-bronze sparkle. Either way you choose, it's still awesome.

And the best bargain brand orange, weighing in at a steal at $.99 a bottle, is Essence Wake Up! It's a little more tangerine in person, but it was bright and summery and GREAT to wear if you have a sports team with orange as a color. (I have both the Mets and the Knicks... score!)

Orange you glad you checked this one out? (Cue: rim shot.)

ANNOUNCING: Breast Cancer Awareness Month Giveaway

Hello, all! I've been teasing it for a little while now, but I just wanted to announce my newest giveaway!

As many of you know, October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. So I wanted to commemorate the cause with a pink-themed giveaway.

Up for grabs are three prizes:

 

butter London Disco Biscuit

Essence Color and Go in Sweet as Candy and Party Princess (with Berry Sorbet lip gloss)

A Custom Pink Holo Polish by Princess Polish

Three totally AWESOME prizes and many different ways to enter. Check out the Rafflecopter widget below to enter!

The giveaway ends on October 15th at 12:01am EST.

Best of luck!
Princess Polish

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Swatch and Review: Essence Wake Up and and Walk on Air

Today I have two awesome nail polishes by Essence Cosmetics for review called Wake Up and Walk on Air. They are from the Colour & Go Collection.

According to Essence, the Colour & Go Collection features a flat brush and requires only one application, as well as possesses an extra fast-drying formula.There are ten new colors for the spring, bringing the total offerings of the collection up to 22!

Wake Up is on the left and Walk on Air is on the right.

First up is Walk on Air, a Dodger blue creme. This applied like butter and was opaque in two thin coats. I'm super manic about thin coats, so with one decent coat this probably would have been opaque. At first, I thought this was going to take more than two in order to be opaque, but it layers VERY well. I love this shade because it's a muted blue that I feel like I could wear all year long and not feel like I'm wearing too loud of a color.

And you see how shiny that is? Yeah, that's WITHOUT a top coat. Gorgeous!

This is Wake Up, a bright rust colored nail polish. You may remember this from my New York Sports marble earlier in the week. Again, the application was perfect and even with a thin coat was opaque with one coat. I liked this shade a LOT. First off, it's a richer orange than any other orange I have and feels completely wearable. I didn't feel like I had a neon shade on my nails when I went outside. And you know it's a stunner when Queen Polish and the Queen Mum (aka, my Nana) are fawning over it. 

 

Again, look at how shiny that is! Both polishes dried fairly quickly, which was a plus for someone running after two dogs. Granted, it's usually the nearly four-month old Pebbles who gets into trouble, but it's Dakota who always manages to find some piece of paper to run around the house with. 

There are two things I LOVE about this polish, aside from how beautiful it was. Number one, you can can get the entire collection of 22 nail polish shades for JUST UNDER $22 DOLLARS! Number two, I love the fact that Essence offers all of its products (including polishes, as well as eye, lip, and face products) within the $0.99 to $3.49 range. You can barely buy a gallon of milk for $3.49 these days, so that's super refreshing!

The Essence Colour & Go line of quick drying nail polish retails for just $0.99 and is sold in the United States at ULTA, HEB, and Fred Meyer. It also recently launched in Canada, where it will be available in Shoppers Drug Mart locations nationwide. Please visit Essence-Cosmetics.com for more information on their full line of products.

So what do you think, everyone? Are you going to be on the lookout for these polishes? Or have you already fallen in love? I, for one, have still yet to find Blue Addicted and it is officially a LEMMING!

Princess Polish

Disclaimer: The product(s) in this post were provided to me by the manufacturer or their PR company for consideration. For more information please visit my Disclaimer page.

New York Sports Water Marble

It was a weekend full of water marbles for Princess Polish, having rocked the Relay for Life Water Marble Friday and Saturday and a new water marble Sunday and Monday.

It's no secret that I'm a huge fan of sports. I love it all. But my two biggest loves in life are the NY Knicks and the NY Mets, the latter of which I am fortunate enough to call my employer. So with the Knicks clinging tightly to a spot in the playoffs and the Mets off to the best April start since I was in high school, I thought it was time to break out the blue and orange.

Selecting the actual polishes to work with was much harder than you would think it'd be. The shades used by both teams are very similar and vivid. So I couldn't choose something too pastel in the orange family and it was difficult to find a blue that wasn't too light or too dark on the spectrum.

The orange was easier to select, since I only have a handful in my orange polish drawer. But the blue... well, it's the heaviest of the drawers. That should pretty much spell it out for you.

In the end, I went with Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Blue It and Essence Wake Up (more on that shade a little later in the week).

I found out that blue and orange are hard colors to marble together because if you're not careful, they'll blend together to look brown. But I figured that out only one nail in and was super careful after that.

This is my right hand all marbled up. Unfortunately, I thought my left hand came out nicer, but managed to crack a nail shortly before I was ready to take a picture. The whole hand looks like my middle finger. So you're stuck with my right for now. Sorry, everyone. This was (Daniel?) Murphy's law at its best. (Mets fans will get that joke)

Now here is the ultimate problem: REMOVAL.

Essence Wake Up applied like butter and came off as easily as it should have. Sally Hansen Blue it made me want to cry. It stained my cuticles to the point I had to take a shower, use cuticle remover, and then soak my hands in warm water. And that was before I even tried to take the polish off. (Confession: I got a manicure so the nail tech had to do that for me. Bless her heart.)

While I love my Mets (Oh hey, David Wright!) and my Knicks (Oh, welcome to the party, old Carmelo Anthony. So nice of you to join us with 15 games left in the entire season.), I don't think I would ever do this again. It was too much of a headache to remove and clean up. I'll just stick to my good, old-fashioned Metsicure.

Although, if the Mets make it to the World Series, I'll double barrier with tape and Vaseline. May this be my problem come October.

Until tomorrow!
Princess Polish