ANNOUNCING: Olympic Nail Art Contest!

I hope everyone is enjoying the Olympics thus far! I know I'm LOVING the gymnastics events… they're my favorite.

I teased it over the weekend, but wanted to launch it officially today. Princess Polish is hosting an Olympics Nail Art contest!

The rules:

1) The manicure you submit must be Olympics-themed in some way. It can feature an event or country, but must tie back to the Olympic games. Country flags on every finger don't count. :-P

2) The manicure you submit MUST be your own. It is very easy for me to cross-reference your image with the trillions on the internet. I will find out if you steal from someone else.

3) The contest is open through August 8th at 11:59pm EST. Winner will be announced on the closing day of the olympics, August 12th.

4) All submissions must be be submitted via email with the subject "Nail Art Contest" to PrincessPolishBlog@gmail.com. If you do not use that subject, the email will be deleted. Also include your first name, last initial, and if you have a blog, its URL.

5) This is open internationally!

The prizes:

1) Gold: Essie Metallic Go for Gold and Art Club stripers in Red, White, and Blue!

2) Silver: Essie Metallic No Place Like Chrome

3) Bronze: Essie Metallic Penny Talk

Good luck, be creative, and have fun!

Princess Polish

Swatch and Review: Dazzle Dry Calypso Romance

Good morning, all!

Today, I'm bringing to you a shade from the just-released Summer Scape collection by Dazzle Dry called Calypso Romance.

In the bottle, Calypso Romance has a prominent blue shimmer. But did it translate to the nail?

ANNOUNCING: China Glaze Summer Neons

Heat Up Your Summer with China Glaze® Summer Collection

Los Angeles, CA – (March 2012):  The sun has nothing on you this summer!  Rival its brightness and heat with China Glaze® Summer 2012 collection, Summer Neons.  Featuring 12 new sizzling shades perfect for surf, sand and nightlife, the all new hot hues in China Glaze® Summer Neons include:

·         Pink Plumeria: Light pink with gold shimmer

·         Under the Boardwalk: Fluorescent raspberry

·         Splish Splash: Bright sky blue shimmer

·         Love’s A Beach: Sizzling hot pink

·         Hang-Ten Toes: Bubblegum neon with iridescent purple shimmer

·         Beach Cruise-r: Glimmering fuchsia grape

·         Orange You Hot?: Bright orange with attention-grabbing gold glimmer

·         Surfin’ For Boys: Glistening bright coral

·         Flirty Tankini: Shimmery strawberry smoothie pink

·         Ride the Waves: Dark ocean blue

·         I’m With the Lifeguard: Glimmering lime green

·         Sun-Kissed: Hot highlighter yellow

Also available 8-piece box collection featuring Under The Boardwalk, Ride The Waves, I’m With The Lifeguard, Sun-Kissed, Orange You Hot?, Surfin’ For Boys, Flirty Tankini and Pink Plumeria.

Here are the bottle shots:

ZOYA ALERT: Birchbox Exclusive Blogger Collection

 

This is a limited edition collection by Zoya for Birchbox, so once it's gone, it's gone!

Exclusive - Zoya BirchBox Blogger Collection by Birchbox - now available exclusively on BirchBox.com for $22 with FREE SHIPPING! Three custom Zoya Nail Polish shades designed exclusively for Birchbox - order your trio at BirchBox today.

Hurry - supplies are limited on this special LE collection! But wait! There's a bonus offer!

You will receive 200 Share the Love Points from Zoya.com! 

Forward a copy of your Zoya Blogger Birchbox Trio proof of purchase (confirmation email showing the purchase) along with your Art of Beauty (Zoya/Qtica) Customer Number (you can create a new  account here) to sharethelove@artofbeauty.com. Zoya will deposit 200  "Love Points" into your account, redeemable for free items!

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.

500 Follower Giveaway: Zoya Beach and Surf Collection

 Over the past six months since I actively began posting to Princess Polish, I have become overwhelmed at the support and loyalty of fans of this page. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would ever break 100 followers, let alone 500.

As a thank you, I am giving away a complete set of the BRAND NEW Zoya Beach and Surf Collection!

All you have to do is enter via the Rafflecopter Widget below. Open to US Residents Only.

Once again, thank you for all of the support you have given me. I truly love reading your comments (and yes, I read EVERY SINGLE ONE) and wish you all the best of luck!

Princess Polish

Announcing: Zoya The Beach & Surf Collection

Zoya BEACH Collection:

Reagan: deep cerise pink cream
Lara: vivid cerise pink cream
Shelby: soft pinky pink cream
Arizona: soft coral orange cream
Tracie: sea grass metallic
Wednesday: soft aqua cream

Zoya SURF Collection:

Rory: lotus pink foil metallic
Carly: thalia purple foil metallic
Kimber: magenta pink foil metallic
Myrta: coral orange foil metallic
Meg: mermaid green foil metallic
Zuza: aquamarine foil metallic
 
Zoya is the new color of fashion…

The Zoya BEACH and SURF collection was designed and inspired by resort runways and tropical get-a-ways.
Ultra long-wearing, glossy nail lacquers by Zoya are free of harmful industrial chemicals like toluene, camphor, formaldehyde, resin, dibutyl phthalate (DBP) that are known to cause cancer and birth defects.
Find Zoya BEACH and SURF as well as over 300 other ultra high-fashion Zoya shades at www.zoya.com. As always, each and every Zoya color is made for women so we name them after women.

Zoya Beach & Surf will both be available on April 1st and contains 6 colors each for a total of twelve new shades. The polishes will retail for $8.00 per .5 fl oz bottle. 

Ah, SO excited for this one! I knew a new collection was on the horizon as soon as the B3G3 promo popped up in order to clear out some stock.

I am thinking that an AWESOME new giveaway may be down the road… hmmm…

I don't think there is a single color on this list I don't want to try. Even the oranges are super intriguing! The names are wonderful and too perfect.

Official Press Release: China Glaze Prismatic Collection

Array your nails in a myriad of color this spring with China Glaze® limited edition Prismatic nail polish collection! Inspired by the colors formed by the refraction of light through a prism, Prismatic by China Glaze® combines glitter and holographic particles to create the ultimate eye-catching, 3-dimensional manicure.

Bursting with color and dimension, Prismatic shades include: 

Ray-Diant: Greenish-gold shimmer filled with specks of silver, pink, green, orange and blue.  

Polarized: Silver metallic sheen sprinkled with yellow, pink, orange and green glitters  

Liquid Crystal: Bright blue holographic with purple tint dusted with silver, gold, green, pink and orange.  

Prism: Grape purple holographic gleams with pink shimmer and glitters with pieces of pink, blue, green, orange, silver and gold.  

Full Spectrum: Baby pink bursts into holographic magenta to party with silver, gold, blue, pink and green particles.  

Optical Illusion: Aqua green glimmers with a hint of purple filled with pink, yellow, silver, orange and green flecks.

China Glaze® Prismatic will be available April 2012. Individual shades retail for $8 (US).

(Hat tip to The Nail Files for first piquing my interest in this collection!)

I don't know about you, ladies... but this collection already has me salivating. I know Kayla Shevonne already has a preview up of the swatches until I snag my collection. What you do all think?