Grace-full: What a Girl Wants

Press Sample

Six Ella Ann girls were chosen to have their inspiration picture used to make a polish. As well as one designed by
Kristen from Ella Ann Cosmetics and another designed by Theresa of Grace-full. The collection is a total of eight polishes and I've received six of those to review. The polishes that are missing from the below are:
Deeply in Luxe – a linear light coral leaning to champagne colour holo with pops of rainbow pearl flecks throughout
Red Spherical Dress – a pink red linear holo with deeper red micro flakies through it. This is Theresa's inspired creation.

I've used the brand's descriptions and added my comments beneath each.

As with all other Grace-full polishes I've reviewed, the formula for all of these was fantastic. Many are opaque in one coat, but I used two to insure good coverage for brightly lit photos.

Dark Orchid - a linear Radiant Orchid coloured holo with violet flakies
This and Purplerazzi have to be my favorite of the collection. They're both stunningly beautiful, and... PURPLE





Chuck’s Berry – a hot pink linear holo with darker hot pink flecks throughout
Beautifully done bright pink shade. I especially love where the purple/blue portion of the holo flame are visible, its fantastic.





1000 Oceans – a deep royal blue linear holo with blue sparks through it
Gorgeously done bright blue - what more need I say?





Purplerazzi – a deep purple shimmer with bright purple sparks and navy and turquoise micro glitter
Favorite! When I first saw its inspiration photo, I had doubts, but Theresa totally nailed it.





Amazonite Mermaid – a mid blue/green with pops of flakies throughout
Mermaid in a bottle ya'll, seriously!





Stop the Show - a bright pink with micro silver flakies through out. This polish is Kristin's creation and comes with a red jelly polish to be used as a tint over the top of it. The tint gives you the flexibility to wear it bright pink or red, whichever your heart desires.

I was wowed by the finish of this polish. It is so sparkly and shimmery and silvery looking. It reminded me of what a sequin covered dress might look like from a distance.





Red Tint over Stop the Show
This left me in awe - how a red jelly could morph a polish like this. It adds depth and in person it looks something like a candy apple. The shimmer underneath was amazing to look at!





The What a Girl Wants collection will release on July 31st at 7pm AU time at Grace-full's shop and again on the 31st at 9pm Eastern at Ella Ann Cosmetics.

Quilt Retreat!

It's time for the quilt retreat trip with my mom this year!
I had a blast last year and am super excited to go this year. I've done up some special nails for the event with a bundle monster plate, mdu white, loreal jellies and a few others.
It's super late, I still have a few things to pack, which means that's it for this entry!




I hope you enjoy them and I'll see ya next week!

Miss Ashleigh: Berry Delicious

Press Sample

I love a good purple polish and Berry Delicious from Miss Ashleigh does not disappoint! In this review, I share my first impressions of the polish by Miss Ashleigh, sent to me from Ella Ann Cosmetics.

The polish comes packaged in a white designer box, with the super cute heart logo in a bold modern style. The box also has a window cut out so the polish color is visible before it's removed from the box.
The brush is a round classic style brush and the formula is fantastic. It is very fluid, easy to control, no clumps or dragging and almost opaque in one coat. I used two coats and topcoat to make sure I had good even coverage for the photos. I've worn the polish for two days now and plan to wear it for a few more and so far, I've not had any chips or cracks. The mani still looks freshly applied.




Last night I decided to try out a new Infinity stamping plate that has some of my favorite Sanrio characters on it. I stamped with MDU 25 and a candy head stamper.





I hope you'll give the Miss Ashleigh line a try. I think you'll be glad you did! Berry Delicious and many other shades are available at Ella Ann Cosmetics. In fact, many of them are on sale and she's offering a shipping special. Please visit her webpage for more information about those!

I've had a good experience working with Ella Ann Cosmetics and she sent me quite a few (17) polishes to review, so you'll be seeing more of those here at xoxojen.com

Thank you for stopping by today!

One Cotton Ball to Remove Them All!

Yes, you read that right! I'm going to share my secret with you of how I remove a full manicure with only one jumbo cotton ball.

The trick is to create more surface area. We're going to do that by unrolling the cottonball so that its a strip and no longer a ball.

You'll notice the rolled up ball looks like a hay bale or roll of toilet paper. So, I kind of pick and pull around the rolled edge (like I would a roll of toilet paper!) until the end starts coming loose. Then gently unroll it the rest of the way.



Next, cut small strips/squares from it to match the size of your nails. We're going to cover each nail with these pieces. If you have small nails and make careful cuts, there may even be a tiny cottonball leftover!

Once the pieces are cut, soak them with 100% acetone one by one and apply on top of the nail.
There are a few ways to soak them with acetone:
1. Put a small amount of acetone in a glass dish and toss the pieces in to soak it up. (watch for drips)
2. Hold five pieces together at the bottle opening and tip it, then separate them to apply to the nail. (spill risk)
3. Using a pump bottle, which is the way I prefer most. It's less risky of spills/drips and can be done with one hand.

Apply the soaked cotton pad to the nail and let sit for a bit. About a minute is a fair time frame for a couple of layers of cream polish. Let it sit longer (and reapply acetone if it dries out) for more layers or polishes with shimmer.



Remove each piece by pressing down near the cuticle and sliding the cotton to the free edge of the nail. This will remove most if not all of the polish. Avoid scrubbing back and forth, as this will just smear the color from the cotton onto the skin. If there's a litlte polish left on the nail grab a clean square and remove it in the same manner, dragging from cuticle to free edge until it's gone.



Above is my result! I had about three layers from my previous mani.
Afterward, I used the tiny cotton ball remnant and removed the little spots of leftover polish.

This method is very similar to the foil method, but without the foil. I've come to love the unrolling technique that I have used since 2008, it is key to making a bag of cotton balls last much longer.

I hope you find this useful and try it out some time!
What are some of your your tips and tricks to remove polish?

Stamped Stars mani

I hope everyone who celebrates it, had a wonderful holiday this July 4th!
Jas and I went to the city's fireworks display, which was excellent, on the night of the 3rd. But even more magical than that was the view from the place Jason goes to run. We had a nearly unobstructed 360 degree view of all the fireworks in the area, and we were the only ones there. We stood outside the car for nearly an hour and it was absolutely breathtaking.

Anywho - below is what I wore for the holiday. Albeit a little late, I thought I would share anyways. I used plate JQ4, MdU 1, and a GPS stamper to stamp the stars. The gradient was made with a base of Polish My Life Stripped and Essie Style Cartel. Which matched the gradient of my shirt perfectly! (linked shirt image is from cj banks catalog, not taken by me)




If you don't celebrate, I still hope your day was fantastic! Thanks for stopping by!

Indie Polish Shop Links

I've just recently done a major overhaul of the Indie Polish Shops Link List.
I checked the majority of the shops listed to make sure they were active, and removed those that either had dead links or no sales this year.
It'd be great if you all would take a look and let me know what brands I can add to it!

Elevation: Sample GVY #22

One of my long time favorite polish companies is Elevation. Over the years that I have purchased from them, they have been very consistent with customer service, formula, and their launch dates are the same each month. This is a company that I stalk for every launch, and sit online waiting for the new shades, samples and sbps to be available.

The polish I'm sharing today is a sample, which means it was only available once and in a very small quantity of one to three bottles. Luck was on my side at the time it was listed. It's a beautifully done brown holo with golden shimmer. The formula was perfect and opaque in one coat.





After I wore it a few days, I double stamped over it with a Vivid Lacquer plate design that was custom made for me - and is available to everyone on plate number 14. I used my GPS jumbo stamper and MDU stamping polishes in #33 and #43. I love how it turned out, and wore it for the remainder of the week last week.




I hope you've enjoyed the photos - what is your favorite Elevation polish color?