Bottle shots left to right: Two Timer, Alter Ego, Doppelganger, Deception, and Charlatan

Change the lighting and you can see some of the shimmer start to shine through in the bottles. left to right: Two Timer, Alter Ego, Doppelganger, Deception, and Charlatan

Left to right Cruisin' Nude, Vicious, Time Traveler and Nevermore

Now for the top coats. They are all over Crusin' Nude, Vicious, Time Traveler and Nevermore, the order of the base polishes is the same in each of the pictures below.

This is showcasing Alter Ego. Alter Ego casts a gold and green tinge over your polish. It casts a golden sheen on Cruisin' Nude, while on Vicious and Time Traveler you get a more duocrhromatic effect that goes from gold to olive and a super enhanced olive shimmer over Nevermore.

Deception casts a pink/purple sheen over your polishes. If you like the pink shimmer in Cruisin' Nude, this intensifies that effect! Over the other colors is shimmers between pink and purple.

Two Timer is another amazing color changer. It casts a green shimmer over Cruisin' Nude, which ironically was how I originally made this color, and ended up switching the shimmer to pink in the process. Personally I love it over Vicious as it makes it appear more duochromatic between the purple color of the polish and the green shimmer of the top coat. The jewel toned Time Traveler and Nevermore though are quite amazing too!

I did my nails using the dotting tools I bought over a year ago finally! I have been afraid of this manicure for some reason. It looked like it would be hard, but OMG, I think it's one of the easiest mani's I've done! I think you'll be seeing more of them from now on. I even planned this post before I broke my nails! Check me out this week! I'm on a roll!

I bought my dotting tools on Amazon. I put a drop of polish on a piece of paper and then using the various sizes of the dotting tool, I placed dots on my nails. That's it! Well OK, maybe it wasn't THAT easy! I made the mistake of using a top coat too soon after the manicure which made the dots run a little. So me being me, I redid the whole thing. I painted my nails, then added the top coat, THEN did the dots and then called it good. I will put top coat on later, but I just haven't gotten around to it yet.






If you want me to take a stab at any other nail art or do any other tutorials, just let me know! I'm game for the challenge!

I was contacted a few weeks back by one of the co-founders of the website Gloss 48 to partner with them to bring you and their fans some Cult Nails polishes at a discounted rate. Gloss 48 is a new beauty site that combines brand stories, product demos, editorial reviews and the best pricing online to give beauty lovers a daily glimpse of beauty nirvana. New items are added a few times each week and Cult Nails will be a featured brand starting on August 24th!

Right now Gloss 48 only ships domestically within the U.S. and their quantities are VERY limited, so I suggest acting fast if you see a color you like. They will be offering many of our Cult Nails lacquers at a special rate of $7.00 during their sale. As an added bonus, three of our 5 upcoming top coats will be added to the sale! WAHOO!

Again, this is a limited time sale only available at Gloss 48, you need to be a member, but membership is free, so if you are needing some polishes, you might want to check them out!

(Sorry I have no swatches on this one for you. I'm scheduled to take swatch pics of the new collection this weekend. But Polishgalore and Chit Chat Nails should have swatches posted soon!)

When I was at Cosmopof NA, I had an opportunity to discover some new to me beauty brands. One of the brands I came across was Gorgeous Cosmetics. I had never heard of them before, but their booth display instantly grabbed my attention. I stopped and talked to the wonderful ladies representing the brand and they gave me two products to test, review and share with you guys.

I couldn't wait to try these products out. I have been looking for the perfect foundation primer so I was so excited to be able to try First Base Foundation Primer. I recently discovered and fell in love with a primer from Reviva labs, but after about 2 weeks I started getting acne and so I stopped using the product to see if that was doing it. As soon as I stopped using it, the break outs stopped. I don't know if it was necessarily their primer as I was using a new moisturizer as well after the 1st week so it may have been a combination of the two. But I continued to use the moisturizer just fine, so who knows.

As for the powder foundation, I have a powder foundation that I LOVE. The problem is is that it is a loose powder, which I HATE. I have tried other pressed powder foundations and have always gone back to my tried and true loose powder, thinking that this was just the way it would be. So I was excited to try Gorgeous Cosmetics Powder Perfect Pressed Foundation. I wasn't expecting much, but you never know.

I have been using both of these products for the last 3 weeks now and I have to say that I am seriously impressed. So impressed that I actually put away my holy grail loose powder foundation and replaced it with Powder Perfect! As for the primer, I received a few others to try and purchased a sample of another that I have heard great things about, so I am putting away this primer so I can test the others. But I love this one.

I'm getting ahead of myself though. Gorgeous Cosmetics was founded by makeup artist David McConnell back in 1999 in Melbourne, Australia. It is now one of the main beauty brands in Australia. They are now available to those of us state side through www.beautybar.com. I am so glad to have another brand to play with here!

Not my best looking pic, but here I am wearing First Base Primer and Powder Perfect Foundation for a natural look. This is how I do my makeup for the day time. I love a soft natural look for day.

First I want to talk about First Base Foundation Primer. This primer is enfused with Aloa Vera to calm and sooth the skin while it prepares it for flawless makeup application. It helps hide fine lines on your face and helps keep your makeup in place for hours. It feels like a smooth moisturizer going on. I could only like this primer more if it had some of the anti-aging properties of my moisturizer. If I could eliminate the step of using a moisturizer and only use a primer, it would be perfect. Unfortunately this primer is just a primer and not a treatment. As for making my makeup last. It absolutely does. My makeup stays in place and doesn't settle into any fine lines (real or imagined). My makeup looks just as good at the end of the day as it does when I first apply my makeup. After 3 weeks, I haven't had any breakouts and my skin looks amazing. Overall I love this primer, but since I have a few others to test out, I am going to stop using this one for now. But I am really sad to stop using this one. I absolutely love it. Like I said though, I wish it had some anti-aging benefits to it as well. Gorgeous Cosmetics First Base Foundation Primer retails for $30 at BeautyBar.com



I have also been using Gorgeous Cosmetics Powder Perfect Pressed Powder Foundation for the last three weeks as well. Now this I LOVE! It is my new holy grail powder foundation. It helps even out your skin tone and provide you with a flawless finish. It leaves you with a slightly airbrushed look, but natural at the same time. Like you have amazing skin, not like you're wearing makeup at all. It offers sheer to moderate coverage, so if you need full coverage, this one probably isn't for you. It is silky smooth and feels super light on my face. I don't feel like I'm wearing any makeup and it doesn't settle into any fine lines. It helps keep my makeup in place and I have not had any acne outbreaks while using this product.  An added boys I have received so many compliments on my skin since getting back from traveling. I went to a dermatologist the other day and she even said my skin looked like a commercial ad for her services. Now that's a compliment, especially since it is the first time I went there! Powder Perfect retails for $32 at BeautyBar.com


I am super excited to welcome Gorgeous Cosmetics state side and I have a feeling we'll be hearing about them a lot more in the future. What is your beauty routine like? Do you wear a primer when you do your makeup? Are you inclined to try these products or have you tried them? I'd love to know what you think!

I decided to add a Youtube review for this as well.  Let me know what you think of the video and if you'd like to see more like these. But, this is my very first makeup review video, so please be gentle. :)

I have been wanting to try the Feather Manicure for a few months now, and have yet to have the time or patience I thought it would require to do it. But yesterday I knew I had to do this manicure. I went to Michael's after work and bought a bag of mixed color feathers and I was set to go! Well actually I bought the mixed color feathers and black and white feathers. I thought this would be an awesome look with just black and white, but in the end the idea of wearing multiple colors of feathers just was too good to resist.

I posted a pic on Instagram last night and the manicure was a hit, with lot's of people asking for a tutorial. So I put together a tutorial for you guys really quick this morning before the day got hectic, but then I didn't have time to finish it until now. So here it is!










Here's a quick step by step picture guide of the feather manicure for all you pinners:

We recently spent some time in MA and got together with a few Culties while there. This meet up was destined for failure before it even began and not because of me or the Culties who came! You see about an hour before our meet up monsoon like weather hit and the rain was just insane! Driving to the meet up was a bit scary because there was no visibility on the road. I knew at that moment that there was no way any Culties who lived any distance and were planning on traveling were going to show up.

The view out my car window as we drove to the meet up

My travels in July started with a trip to Vegas for Cosmoprof NA. This is when I take a step back and realize just how much of a dream life I am living. I now can officially say I work in the beauty industry.   I attend Cosmoprof for a few reasons. As a brand I am there to see what else is going on in the industry as well as for the benefit of the Cult. Nothing I am ready to share just yet, but I can tell you I met some interesting companies that will help me bring Cult Nails to the next level. YAY!

I also get the fortune of attending as a blogger. I talked to several companies about Cult Nails and what I do and made some connections with some that appear to be amazing companies. I know a lot of bloggers went and it was nice to see some companies really interested in working with bloggers. I didn't canvas as hard to make connections like many of the other bloggers did, so I am looking forward to seeing who they connected with and what they discovered.

I totally forgot my camera, so I was at the mercy of my iPhone, which as much of an Apple fanatic that I am, I think I am about to give up on the iPhone and go to a Droid phone soon. So I apologize for the not so great photos. Anyway! Here is a small photo view of just some of my Cosmoprof trip. (I didn't take any photos of meetings, I don't think you care to see those! LOL!)

I was invited to attend the Katie Carzola dinner during Cosmoprof. I don't know why I didn't take a pic with Katie. But there were so many bloggers wanting pics with her, I just thought I would talk to the amazing bloggers there and then go back and talk to Katie and meet her again. I mean Katie is great, I admire her so much, but once I got to talking to the ladies there, I kind of forgot to go talk to Katie and get a picture with her before she left! Oops! Instead I opted for pics with my favorite bloggers.













I'll have future posts with reviews of some of the products I get to try! I can't wait to share those with you guys. In the mean time, I will bring you all bits and pieces of my vacation in upcoming posts.