Buon Anno!

2015 is bringing some changes here at Casa Volpe!

I've given my resignation at the firm I've been working at.  Trekking up and back from Roma has been exhausting and I'm going to be working on establishing myself independently and I'm starting an MBA program with Syracuse University.  I've also decided to see if I can make this blogging thing a 'thing', have a real go at not just nail blogging, but lifestyle blogging, hence the change in title and direction.  That along with taking full custody of Mia is going to keep me busy enough!

I look forward to everything the New Year will bring and all the opportunities I hope to create for myself!

Buon Natale!

Buon Natale!

My #mysterypolishedladied Secret Santa box arrived yesterday and I've been so overwhelmed.  I though I'd take the time to sit and express my gratutude, not just to my Santa, Stephanie, but to the whole little nail community I've found.

Stephanie went out of her way to spoil not just me, but Mia.  I am so thankful for her and already working on a thank you box.  Steph is a gorgeous person, inside and out!

Thanks to her I'll get to try so many new companies!  KB Shimmer and Cult to start with!  She also sent so many Sally Hansen goodies I'm going to water-marble my but off.  She was also kind enough to include a huge selection of China Glaze and I love every shade!  I'll also get to try some indie polish remover from SMG and Gothic Gala and well as some yummie lippies from Cinema Secrets, so really, I'm being introduced to so many amazing new things!  

Over the next couple of weeks I'll be posting #gratitudemanis in her honour and I hope to post some reviews here, as well!

Many blessings this Christmas!

First Impressions!

My long awaited order of Mundo de Unas stamping polishes arrived and I ripped into that box as soon as I could!  I thought I'd sit and write out a quick first impressions review!  You an order them from Llarowe.com, however, I ordered mine directly from Mexico.  I ordered on 16 November and they arrived on 22 December.  I do have a domestic US shipping address, so this is probably the average wait!

First thing I noticed?  Other than how sharp the colours are, is the smell.  

I asked an expert, though, and she assures me this is normal!

I would describe it best as a strong plastic smell.  It's exactly like the smell of the weird rubber tiles they sell for the floors of nurseries and stuff.  You know, these things.

Once you get over that, though, you're left with the thickest, richest, most opaque polish ever.  And it's not clumpy or goopey at all.  I don't think you'd want to pint your nails with it, but you could.  It is so richly pigmented that it stains your fingers when you wipe it off with acetone, so don't get it all over if you can manage.

They have both  14ml full sizes (3.50$) and 5ml minis (1.65$) to chose from as well as a variety of sets.  I grabbed colours ala carte, sort of with certain designs in mind.  I ended up with 10 full sizes and 6 minis, with one duplicate.  

It's thicker than I'm used to working with, so I had to be a little careful in applying the polish to the plate, you don't need nearly as much as I'd normally use.  The thinnest lines came out crisp and clean.

The best thing, the very best thing, about this polish is that it did not smear or move at all when I applied my top coat.

I cannot recommend this polish enough!

It's a Mystery!

My Rainbow Honey Mystery Bag for December arrive today!  Actually my Mystery Bags arrived, I get both the mini and the full size.

Included this month are:

• The Master, a scarlet red polish filled with gold and silver flakes.
• Woland, a glitterbomb of black and silver holo.
• Muscovite solid perfume, top coat, cuticle balm, and body lotion.

Muscovite is described by RH as reminiscent of the crisp and chilly Moscow air.  To me it's a little fruity with a soft base of something cuddly, like fabric softener.  I was expecting it to be like the typical 'cold' or ozone scents, but thankfully it's not entirely.

Did you get this month's mystery?  What did you think?

Mani of the Month: A Review

I love monthly boxes.  It started with Julep, but they screwed around on their billing and then their shipping and I had to part ways.  I moved on to Indies and found Black Sheep, Glitter Daze, and Rainbow Honey.  It seemed only natural to order the Mani of the Month kit which is a collaboration between Dream Polish, Nails Redesigned, and Heather's Hues.

I placed a preorder for the December box in mid November and it arrived 7 December, having been mailed on 28 November which was exactly as expected.

 When it arrived I was so impressed!  It was packaged beyond carefully and it was literally like opening a present, complete with a personalized holiday thank you.  Inside all the little goodies were wrapped up in bright little packages which made me hate to open them.

The box cost 32.95$ which included shipping and contained:

From Dream Polish

• A 5 ml Gem Stick Base Coat in Strawberry Champagne
• A 5ml Gem Glam Top Coat in Strawberry Champagne
• A 4.4 ml tube on Gem Glow Cuticle Balm in Strawberry Champagne

From Heather's Hues

• A polish mini in Bling in the New Year
• A full sized polish is Tonight We Celebrate - Thermal

From Nails Redesigned

• A sheet of champagne vinyl decals
• A sheet of vinyl swirl guides
• A sheet of fancy chevron vinyl guides

There were also a small bag of little black and silver placement stars and a little bag of gemstones.

All in all it is an AMAZING deal.

The Gem Glam top coat dries quickly, floats over art and wears like iron.  You can read my previous review of it here.  The Strawberry Champagne scent is exclusive to the box.  It's fruity and somehow bright and not overly sweet. The cuticle balm is really nice and nongreasy.  Really handy to toss in your purse, etc, and really helps to keep your skin smooth and nails hydrated.

The chevron vinyl design is just brilliant.  It reminds me of the swirls on top of a cappuccino.  Sort of ornate with an amazing long point.  They apply easily and come with a really easy to follow directions card.

I was blown away by the polish, Tonight We Celebrate, from Heather's Hues.  It's a thermal and I have a love hate relationship with thermals.  A lot of them don't do anything.  No matter how hot or how cold I get my hands... nothing.  And they often have this really weird consistency.  This one is perfect.  It is opaque in two coats, smooths nicely with the Gem Glam top coat, and THERMALATES like a dream!

Cold.

Warm!  Yes, my hand is wet.

Mid-transition.

All three companies contributed completely one of a kind product!  I would 100% recommenced the Mani of the Month box and plan on preordering the January kit as soon as I can.  I really hope that each box is as outstanding as this one was.  It's a really unique combination.

Indie Dossier: Dream Polish

My second Indie Dossier features one of the companies I use literally everyday! Gem Glam Top Coat is the only top coat I've used since I discovered it! I asked Vanessa if I could feature her and she was kind enough to accept! Don't forget, you can win a Dream Polish gift set in my Naughty or Nice Giveaway! 

 

How did you get into the polish business? 

I have loved nail polish ever since I can remember! And I love all things crafty. When I found out people make their own nail polish, I was sold. I KNEW that somehow, some way I had to be involved. All my life, I have been searching for a job I can enjoy, and it was like a light bulb went off in my head. This was definitely it! Something I can use all of my skills and talents doing, from science to crafting to marketing to customer service. I get to express myself through all these outlets AND help others achieve a great manicure! It's the most amazing feeling ever! 

Did you know right away you wanted to open a shop? 

 Dream Polish was kind of a happy accident. A little over a year ago, I really wanted to make my own polishes and colors. However, I was very intimidated by the hundreds of established indie brands out there. Like, what do I have to offer that they don't already? There were already so many awesome and beautiful choices. One day I stumbled on a how-to article for scented nail polish, and the idea snowballed from there! But instead of scented colors, I chose to do scented top and base coats so you could have the option for any color. Also you can combine scents to make your own fun and unique fragrance creations. Science and Chemistry have always been my best subjects. The nail care aspect went seamlessly with this idea, and I have a lot of experience in the natural body care industry as well. Both from purchasing for a HABA department of a health food co-operative, and creating my own products. 

 How long did it take you to organize? 

I got the idea in January of 2014. I was a little overwhelmed at what I wanted to take on, but I spent a couple months on the sidelines. I interacted, observed and made friends in the indie nail world both locally her in Phoenix, and online. Then I spent a couple more months beta testing with a team of 8 nail lovers that I knew personally from all over the country. I trusted their opinions and results. A couple products never saw production but new ones were born and I opened shop on Summer Solstice, June 21, 2014. As you may already know, I'm a bit of a whimsical hippie inside! With a modern, funky twist. 

 

What was the biggest challenge? 

My biggest challenge always is formulation! Getting the products the perfect consistency. Constant and continuous beta testing and quality control. Making sure a scent is not too weak or strong. Whether it be for a product or scent, when you are working in small batches they can be very fickle! Or when I think of a scent that I think will be fabulous but when the ingredients arrive, it's a totally different story! That's another one, making mistakes. I had to be OK not just with making mistakes, but learning from them and making it a positive experience. Public failure is a hard lesson to share! 

 

How did chose your brand's name? 

 I thought of a lot of cool names, but they all sounded more like polish colors then a company name. Then I thought about what I was offering, and what I wanted to do for my customers. Another light bulb went off! Dream Polish. I wanted to make using polish and doing manicures a dream. The top coats, base coats and cuticle care aspect was so boring to me. I was always so anxious to just get the color on my nail. What could I do to make that aspect more exciting? What don't most people like about regular polish manicures? They smell bad. Too many chemicals. Slow dry time. Sloppy results. Animal testing. The list goes on, but I wanted to communicate with my company name that we can change all that for you!

 How do you formulate your product and chose which scents you'll offer?

 In the beginning, I tested out dozens of bases and products available in the market. I found those that were closest to what I wanted, and manipulated them with individual ingredients to make the actual product base. As far as scents go, I have several suppliers that I use for the fragrances. Some are fragrance oils and some are essential oils. Sometimes a scent is made up of just one carefully selected ingredient, and others are custom blends that I have made myself. In the beginning, I chose scents I liked and that my beta testers approved of. My most recent collection, the Winter Treats Trio, was 100% based off of customer requests. I will continue to do a combination of both! Do you have a favorite scent? It depends on the product! To this date, I haven't released a scent I wouldn't wear myself. So in theory I like them all. But after a long day of custom scenting a couple dozen orders, I don't like any of them!!! For top coat, Pink Sugar is the most popular, followed by LE Candy Cane ant LE Hot Cocoa. I love Peach cuticle oil and base coats. And my favorite balm right now is LE Candy Cane. 

What are some of your other favorite indie brands? 

It's rare that I come across an indie that I don't like!!! Loaded Lacquer was really neat to watch evolve, and Heather inspired my dream of owning my own line. Some of my personal favorites are Candied Apple Polish, Heather's Hues, Nails Redesigned, and anything from Lacquer Chic Shop. Forever Polished has some really great products, and Mango Bunny Polish is a newbie that I am obsessed with! I have gotten great polishes from Digital Nails, KB Shimmer, and Polish My Life too. I am excited to try Lavish Polish and Beyond the Nail. I hear Santa might be dropping a few of those indies in my stocking! 

Where do you see your brand in a year? 3? 5? 

 I just had my 5 month anniversary, and I can't believe how far I've come. In the next year, I definitely plan to continue offering more products and exclusive scents. I love collaborating with other indie nail and body care companies as well, so you can definitely expect to see more unique offerings of that sort. In 3 years or 5 years, I want to be available all over the world! I plan on staying in the forefront of the industry, and continue to enhance the overall manicure experience. For both home and salon manicures. I'm very excited to see where this journey takes us all!

Naughty or Nice?

Are you Naughty or Nice?

It's up to you to chose!

If you're Naughty, you'll want one of these collections for yourself.

If you're Nice, you'll want to give a collection away to someone you think deserves it!

The collection includes*:

• Piperita, a Custom Apple from Candied Apple Polish
• A Dream Polish mini collection in Candy Cane
• A mini balm and cuticle oil from 365 Sunny's Skin Care in Jack Frost
• 2 Peppermint and 2 Choco-Mint Mani Bombs from Forever Polished
• Teaspoon of white snowflake glitters
• A sheet of holo snowflakes from Lou It Yourself
• A Holiday Kinderegg
• Italian Peppermints

For a Naughty entry you must be following me, regram this post on IG, making sure to use the tag #00naughty (try not to tag me, it gets crazy confusing) and tag a friend.  You must be 18 years or older to enter, I am in Europe and I can't budge on that, sorry.   Open internationally. No giveaway accounts.  Only one Naughty entry per person, please.

For a Nice entry, comment the post directly, tagging the person you think should win and tell me why!  Share your best stories and spread some holiday cheer!  Again, the person you nominate must be 18 years or older, open internationally, no giveaway accounts, one Nice entry per person.

You can only win once, either entering yourself as Naughty or as nominated as Nice, but you an both enter and nominate!

For a chance to win a runner-up prize, head on over to Facebook and give my page a 'Like', it's a little lonely over there, and tell me what your favorite thing about the holidays is, no matter what you celebrate. 

That's three prizes and two chances to win!

Giveaway ends 15 December with winners to be chosen on the 16th.

This is not a sponsored giveaway.  Everything seen was purchased by me.

Just an aside, if you enter and then unfollow after the giveaway, you will be blocked so that you'll be unable to enter upcoming giveaways.  As you can see, I host one about every month, sometimes throwing in a 'flash' giveaway along the way.  If you have unfollowed in the past, you may already be blocked, sorry!

Head on over to IG and good luck!

 *Not everything is pictured!

Pinterest!

I've been trying to figure out how to organize a Swatch Gallery to catalog all the polishes I've used.  Nothing seemed to work out, until I remembered Pinterest!

Click HERE to head over and see how much I've got done so far.  I had spent a few hours yesterday finding and organizing some of my work!  You can also always find it by clicking on 'Swatch Gallery' in the menu options above!

Vinyls

I wanted to show you what I've been working on!

Last week I got a Silhouette Cameo, a digital cutting tool. I wanted one to make custom stickers and decorations, but realized as it was on it's way to me that I would actually be able to make nail vinyls on it as well.  And I can.  I can take just about any design ever and put it on my nail!!

 This is my first attempt.  It's a free file I downloaded and then shrunk and then sat and 'fixed' making sure all the lines, now smaller, would cut correctly.  I really love how it came out!

A sheet of two of these will be included in my Naughty or Nice giveaway, which starts this weekend!

I'm also currently working on creating a whole bunch of other things, from laces to stripes to little motifs. I can't wait to share more of them with you.

If you have any requests, please let me know!

Duo-Duochrome: A Tutorial

• Apply two duochrome polishes with similar tones (but different accents!) each to opposite sides of a square stamper pad.

•  Using a long and thin striping brush, flick it back and forth, from one side to the other, using soft strokes.  You can chose to only flick part of the stamper, or the entire length.  The amount of your flick with vary the amount of blending the two polishes achieve.

• Set it aside and let it dry about 15 to twenty minutes.  You don't want it to be wet, but you don't want it to be completely dry to the point it flakes.

• Carefully peel it off from the stamper and apply it to your nail like you would the decals in my previous tutorials.

• Tidy up, if required!

This is a fairly complicated look although it's very simple to make.  The effect is completely depended on the duochrome aspect of the polishes you picked and even more intense in varied lighting!

Born Pretty: A Review

My long awaited Born Pretty stamping plates arrived yesterday.  I ordered set 02-10 and it cost $14.39, shipping was free and I applied a discount code.

Sadly, they are nothing like I expected.  They are so disappointing in so many ways!

The designs are not as pictured.

Not only are the discs arranged differently, some motifs are missing all together!  You can see that best in the plates shown below.

The designs are tiny compared to the picture!

Some of them wouldn't even fill the shortest of nubs!  It seems like they shrunk the designs so to fit as many on a plate as they could with no regard to quality or ease of use at all. 

Many of the designs are missing all together!

Most of the designs I had most looked forward to ended up not looking anything like pictured on the site!

The designs are poorly etched.

Many of the designs are wobbly when stamped because some parts are deeper than others.  The fine motifs are very hard to print, the details hard to catch because they're uneven.

I am so disappointed in not only the excessive time it took to arrive to the fact it's not what I had hoped for.  I cannot recommend these plates at all.

 

Faux-ter Marbeling: A Tutorial

This tutorial this going to start just as if you were going to do a traditional watermarble.

• With some filtered room temperature water, fill a small ceramic/glass/plastic glass.  I learned the hard way that disposable cups don't work!
• Using your polishes, drop them one by one into the center of your water, letting them spread in concentric circles.  I used Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in White On, Fingerpaints in Art You Wondering, China Glaze in Turned Up Turquoise, And Kiko Lacquers in 381, 819, and 527.
• Using a fine tipped something (pin, dotter, toothpick) create your design.

• Now... Let it sit for about 45 minutes until it's completely dry.  If you  have cats, put it someplace that they cannot get it because I also learned the hard way that it's a pain to get watermarbled cat toes clean. 
• Once it's dry and set you can remove it from the glass in one piece, sort of like a piece of thin plastic.  Be gentle.  If it wants to cling or fold, leave it set and dry some more.  Depending on your designs, it might take a bit longer.

• Carefully pat it to dry.
• Using a pair of small sharp scissors, trim the polish into nail sized pieces using the design areas you like best or that turned out the most interesting.
• Apply a sticky top coat to your nails or a white base.
• When the topcoat is still tacky, place the dried polish to your nail and gently press it into the nail until it's clinging.

• Carefully trim the excess using a cuticle pusher and a file.
• Coat with a quick dry topcoat.
• Tidy up, if required! 

This colour palette and design was inspired by Alex Minksy.

If you're inspired to try any of my tutorials, please tag them with #00Inspired on Instagram!

 

Squishy Face Polish: A Review

I've been sitting here the last ten minutes trying to remember where I first saw Squishy Face Polish.  I'm sure it was on Instagram, but for the life of me I can't figure out who's page I saw them on!

I do know that as soon as I clicked over to the shop I ordered two of their three polishes, Where's My Tiara and Princess Polish.  I had to, you see.  I love holos and GITDs and hence, had to.

One of my main complaints with ordering anything from a Big Cartel shop is that you have no idea when things ship.  There is no notice, no transaction history to check.  My order came quickly enough, although without any invoice or anything inside.  The polishes were carefully wrapped and undamaged, so that's really all that counts.

Princess Polish is a glow in the dark pastel pink crelly with gold and lavender shimmer, also packed with micro glitters and iridescent glitters. 

The formula is wonderful.  A lot of times light crellies like this are gloopy and apply very patchy.  Princess Polish is very smooth.  The above swatch is two thin coats and a top coat!  The glow is very lovely and the flecks of iridescent glitters makes it more dimensional.  It would be a great everyday, there but not there, not-so-nude shade.

Where's My Tiara is a bright pink linear holo with lavender shimmer.

I wouldn't say it's the strongest linear holo, but it's such a gorgeous colour!  The formula is also outstanding, it's opaque in two light coats, which I love.  It's also great to stamp with, which I love!

 I used Mo You London Princess plate 11 for the hearts in the mani below.  It's so subtle and so dainty.

Over all I'm very impressed with the two polishes I bought!  I'm really hoping they will release more, I'd love to see what else they come up with!