Friday, January 30, 2015

Cult Nails Iconic & Nevermore

Happy Friday! I had a nice easy week thanks to snow days and I'm looking forward to a relaxing weekend filled with Netflix. And I suppose I'll watch the Superbowl, although I really only pay attention to the commercials and half time show.

I received my Cult Nails order earlier this week and knew that Iconic needed to be the next color on my nails. Iconic is a deep reddish purple with gold flakes. The flakes spread out easily and evenly and really give this polish some amazing depth and dimension. I used Cult Nails Nevermore on my ring finger and was seriously impressed. This is a true one coat super opaque black.

On my ring finger nail I used my new gold 3D nail art stickers ($4.96) from the Born Pretty Store. These were super easy to use! I used tweezers to peel them off the sheet and carefully placed them on my nail after the polish dried. I then used my thumb to gently press them down. Swipe on a top coat and that's it! I can't wait to use these stickers for upcoming manicures.

There are a TON of stickers in this set and I can't wait to use them!

A close up of the rose stickers I used for this mani.







I am seriously loving this mani and I'm excited to rock it this weekend. By the way, when you place an order with BPS make sure you use my discount code ASYW10 for 10% off! Have a great weekend everyone!

xoxo,
   Brooke



Disclaimer: The product in this post was provided for my honest review. All opinions are my own.

Tuesday, January 27, 2015

Cult Nails First Impressions

Hey everyone! Okay, just let me grumble for a second about how they predicted a crazy snow storm and then we literally did not get any snow. Grumble grumble. Alright, I got it out of my system. We still had a snow day so I can't complain that much.

For the longest time I wanted to place an order from Cult Nails, an indie brand that I've heard awesome things about. Then I saw that they were liquidating and closing down shop (get the full scoop here), so I jumped at the chance to grab a few polishes for my collection at a huge discount. These took a while to ship, totally understandable considering how many orders must have been placed, but I finally got them yesterday and I wanted to share the colors I got.


From left to right: Nevermore, Iconic, Wanna Be, & Love at First Sight

You will definitely be seeing these beauties on my nails in the upcoming weeks. Cult Nails will be doing a second round of liquidation soon, so keep an eye on their Facebook page for updates on when that will be happening.

xoxo,
   Brooke

Monday, January 26, 2015

Studded Leopard: Born Pretty Store Studs

Happy Manicure Monday! THE SNOW IS HERE! Am I too old to be this excited about snow days? Oh well. I don't care. I have off from school today and tomorrow. Any other teachers out there with snow days?

Anyway, I got some awesome studs from Born Pretty Store (BPS) that I couldn't wait to try out. BPS has every nail art product imaginable, all at affordable prices. I could spend hours looking at all of their goodies! The studs I used today are the silver 1.2mm round ball studs ($2.98). They also have 2mm and 3mm in gold or silver. These cuties come as a 100 piece set in a little bag. The 1.2mm are tiny, but I absolutely love the size for my nails and I think they look so delicate and pretty!

You have to be super careful not to lose these!




I did the stud placement a little differently on my right hand.

Here's one photo of my mani in natural light.

Later this week I'll be doing a mani with the other awesome nail art product I got from BPS, so stay tuned for that. When you place an order with BPS make sure you use my discount code ASYW10 for 10% off!

xoxo,
   Brooke


Disclaimer: The product in this post was provided for my honest review. All opinions are my own.

Friday, January 23, 2015

FrancesaCon Mani!

Hey everyone! TGIF for real I am so over this week. Is it bad that I'm kind of hoping for a snow storm soon? Teachers, you know that magical feeling of the snow day phone call.

Anyway, this weekend my brother and I are going to FrancesaCon in the city. Mike Francesa is a sports radio talk show host whose following is called Mongo Nation. They're kind of super intense but also hilarious. My brother got me into watching Mike so I guess I've become a Mongette (as opposed to a Mongo). I thought it would be fun to do a mani for this event and here's how it came out! I used Essie Urban Jungle as my base and Julep Taylor on my ring finger.

"Hello deah" is what Mike says to women who call in to the show. And that's him on my ring finger, inspired by the picture from this shirt.

I know this one was kind of silly but I had fun creating it :) See you on Monday!

xoxo,
   Brooke

Monday, January 19, 2015

Zoya Willa & Thea + Zoya Matte Topcoat

Happy Mani Monday! Anyone else have off from work today? It is going to be so lovely to have a four day week. If you didn't have off today I hope your week goes by fast!

So I've been wanting to do matte nails for a while and I finally decided to create a matte look today. I used Zoya Willa, an awesome true black, as the base and used the Zoya Matte Topcoat over it. I love their Matte Topcoat! It dries super quick and creates and awesome matte look. I finished off the mani with kind of a glittery sideways half moon using Zoya Thea. Thea is one of their Magical PixieDusts (aka crazy awesome glitter) and it is a deep amethyst with a bit of orchid. My little trick to keep the lines crisp is to use those hole reinforcement stickers for hole-punched paper. I'm sure everyone's got a pack of 'em laying around!




I'm really enjoying the matte look and hope to try some other matte manicures in the future.

xoxo,
   Brooke

Thursday, January 15, 2015

Birthday Mani!

Happy birthday to me! Today I turned 24 (eek!) and wanted to do a very special mani to celebrate.

I've known for a while that I wanted to use Zoya Brooke, my namesake, for my birthday nails. It is such an awesome shade of slightly frosty pink with a little red, violet, and fuchsia mixed in. The formula is also a winner. On my ring finger is the most adorable little cupcake, which was actually way easier to make than I thought it would be. I did some glitter placement (similar to my NYE mani) to make the 24 on my middle finger.

I took a whole bunch of pictures in different lighting so in some pictures my nails look more glossy than others. I would say that in real life they definitely look very glossy and a tiny bit frosty.








Aaaaaaand my sad right hand. Haha I kinda like it!

I had so much fun creating this mani! I hope you all have an easy Friday and a great weekend. I'll see you on Monday!

xoxo,
   Brooke

Monday, January 12, 2015

Zoya Lael & Julep Brooke

Happy Mani Monday! I had the best weekend, despite the bitter cold on Saturday. BF took me out for an awesome birthday dinner and I received some amazing gifts. He's a keeper ;)

We went to Scarpetta and had a fantastic meal. We arrived on time for our 6:30 reservation and 20 minutes later we were still waiting to be seated. A manager came over with two glasses of Prosecco and apologized for the wait! We finally sat down at 7:00 and ordered two appetizers; the Tuna 'Susci,' which was basically an inside out tuna roll with marinated vegetables rolled up inside, and the Braised Short Ribs of Beef with vegetable and farro risotto. The waitress brought us an extra appetizer, again apologizing for the wait to be seated. The customer service at this place is really outstanding, especially considering that we didn't even complain about waiting! For dinner we both had the famous Spaghetti and it did not disappoint. It was served steaming hot and perfectly al dente. Yum! Of course we had to order dessert (I mean duh you know I love my sweets). BF had the chocolate cake and I had the warm banana bread. Everything was absolutely delicious. Oh, and the bread basket was on point. I highly recommend that you put Scarpetta on your restaurant list.

As promised, here are some pictures of the food.

The appetizers

The amazing spaghetti

Dessert!

The BF really spoiled me with gifts this year! He got me the Rouge Louboutin nail polish (which I rocked over the weekend), Julep's 2014 Gem Collection, a Rebecca Minkoff Mini M.A.C. in black with gold hardware, and a beautiful opal Hamsa necklace from Israel!


 Love the packaging for this collection. You can see all of the names of the colors here.

My very special Rouge Louboutin!

Rebecca Minkoff Mini M.A.C. in black with gold hardware.

Opal Hamsa necklace on a sterling silver chain.

Onto my nails for Manicure Monday! I have been dying to put on Julep Brooke (my namesake!) that I bought from someone a while back. I used Zoya Lael, a beautiful rich purple with a creme finish. In my search for a dark purple creme, I realized that Lael is the only one I own! I guess I need to look for a few more. I topped it with Julep Brooke, a gorgeous, glittery, flakey purple topper that is everything I hoped it would be. I can't wait to try it over other colors!






If the sun comes out to play this week I'll take some pictures of this beauty in the sunlight. It is so hard to capture those flakies in artificial light! I hope everyone has a wonderful week.

xoxo,
   Brooke

Friday, January 9, 2015

Rouge Louboutin

Happy Friday! I am sooooo happy that the weekend is here. This week went by so slowly I didn't think it would ever end! The BF is taking me out for an early birthday dinner on Saturday (my birthday is January 15th). We're going to Scarpetta, which was founded by Scott Conant. We are both huge fans of Chopped so we thought it would be fun to go. I'll be sure to take pictures!

A couple weeks ago BF gave me one of my birthday presents early. Are your ready for this? ROUGE LOUBOUTIN!!! Eeeeeeek!

(Photo is from the Louboutin website)

Okay so I know $50 for one bottle of nail polish seems insane, but level with me here readers. In my opinion I feel like these bottles are works of art. I have it on display right now! I can't say that for my 100+ bottles of polish sitting in boxes. Aside from the gorgeous packaging, the formula is absolutely divine. Like better than any formula I've ever tried. The whole experience is just luxurious.

I have a lot of photos to share with you. I kinda got a little camera crazy with this one. The first few photos were taken in my bathroom and the rest were taken under my desk lamp. By the way, I used one coat of polish for this mani.








I hope you all have a wonderful weekend and I will see you on Monday!

xoxo,
   Brooke