What's your Klout? What is it getting you?

Hi Lovelies! How many of you have heard about Klout? How many of you know your Klout score? How many of you like to get free things because you are an influential person?

As long as you answered yes to one of those questions (preferably the last lol) you will appreciate this post!

Klout is a website that monitors your activity on social media sites (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc) and determines how influential you are. I don't know all the math and algorithm parts, but they go by how many times you're mentioned on Twitter; how often you're retweeted; how many comments you get on Facebook, etc etc.

Klout also determines what topics you are influential in. Some things it automatically detects; some things you can add yourself; and some things other people add for you (people that are your "influencers" or those "influenced" by you.) Klout doesn't always get it right. When I first joined, Klout said I was influential about "dolls"... hmm. I had deleted it, but it somehow has shown back up! Not gonna lie, I had a number of dolls when I was younger; and truth be told, if it were socially acceptable, I'd probably still play with Barbie dolls on occasion... lol But how am I influential about dolls? The world my never know...

Anyway! Based on your score, different companies/organizations often offer "perks" through Klout! I've been fortunate to receive a couple of these lately and wanted to share them with you! (I've yet to receive any free dolls. Apparently I'm not influential enough in that category yet;)

First was some tea from Lipton!

I got a number of these sample packs which have the one serving powder packs that you can dump in a bottle of water, shake up, and voila! Flavorful tea! Each packet came with a coupon so I can buy even more of them!:) The flavor I got was Mango Pineapple and I was a little nervous about it, because I'm really not a fan of mango. In fact, mango is probably my least favorite fruit (though really, I think it's more the texture/consistency I don't like than the flavor. Same thing with avocado! I *love* guacamole, but actual avocado? The texture disgusts me lol) Back to the tea! I was hoping I would've gotten one of the other flavors to try, but I've got to tell you... this Mango Pineapple tea is DELISH! It tastes very sweet and tropical! Definitely a nice change from plain water:) I would recommend this product and will probably buy it for myself (since I have so many coupons now! lol)

The other product I recently received from Klout was a bottle of Essie polish! (yay for being influential in nails!;)

It's a full size bottle from the new Summer 2012 line! There were so many fab colors in this collection, and I was somewhat disappointed I got the green one. I feel silly even typing that; how can I be disappointed with something I got for free, ya know?

The color is called Mojito Madness, and truth be told, I actually really love it. I have very few green polishes (and the only ones I have are because I needed one for my Skittles Mani and I have the green one from the Hunger Games collection because I wanted to have them all lol) But I am so thankful Klout sent this to me because it got me out of my comfort zone. I used this polish in my Rainbow mani this week, and I can actually see myself painting my nails this color as a solid mani some time too!

So, dear friends, go to Klout. Sign up! Link your social media accounts! Add me as an influencer! (okay, that part is optional lol;) And start getting free stuff!!!

Have you gotten any Klout perks yet? Have you tried the new summer colors from Essie? Do you have a favorite? Do you like sweet tea?

Nail Challenge Week 25: Rainbow/Pride Nails

Another week and another challenge! I've got to tell you, one of my favorite things about these nail challenges is how open they are for interpretation. Like some of the past ones stripes, floral, dots, etc. it can be ANYTHING. And you can have 5 people doing the challenge and you'll have 5 different manis! I don't just mean the colors, like completely different styles!

This week's challenge is Rainbow/Pride nails. I figured a lot of people would do rainbows on each nail or possibly a different color of the rainbow on each nail--pretty straight forward right?

I, however, decided to go a slightly different route... I wanted something fun and festive but not *too* out there. I wanted to have the rainbow on my nails, but without my hands looking like clowns.

So here is what I did. After my usual OPI Base Coat, I used two coats of Revlon's Sheer Cotton. This is a fun color because it's kind of nude/neutral (at least for pale people like me;) but it's also got enough color in it that you can still tell my nails are polished.

Then, I picked out the rainbow from my collection. In order ROYGBIV. (did anybody else learn that acronym for learning the colors of the rainbow? Is it just an American thing?) Red Orange Yellow Green Blue Indigo Violet--ROY G. BIV. lol

Sinful Colors Go Go Girl, Sinful Colors Cloud 9, Sinful Colors Innocent, Essie Mojito Madness (thank you Klout!;), Teal (not sure what brand this is; funny story, this is the ONLY polish I have had since high school. I believe I came in a set of four and some of the polishes were scented!), and Revlon Grape.

And this, my friends, is what I did:

So it may not be easy to see, but what I did was put all the colors along the tips of my nails--French style--and the colors change from red to orange.. orange to yellow... yellow to green.. green to blue... then blue/indigo/violet ended up on my thumb. lol. Just like a little pop of color!

What do you think? How would you do rainbow nails?

Nail Challenge Week 15: Easter Day Mani

Happy Easter, Lovelies! I hope you all are having a fabulous day celebrating with friends and family! This week's nail challenge is Easter Day. Obviously the first thing that comes to mind with Easter is bunnies and eggs; flowers and crosses; and pretty pastel colors!

Instead of using all pastels (I know a lot of girls used yellow and minty green), I stuck with just pink, purple, and blue. I wanted to keep it simple; so I did it in the same order on both hands... purple, pink blue, purple, pink, blue, etc.

 I used Essie "fiji," Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear "Lacy Lilac" (my favorite polish!), and Color Club "Hydrangea Kiss."

I was going to leave my nails just like that. I liked the simplicity of it. But it seemed too boring to blog about, so I added a little nail art using both my Sally Hansen Art Pens and my Migi Nail Art Pens.

I started by using the Sally Hansen pens just to do some little zigzag marks and dots on my nails--kinda like decorating Easter eggs. Then I decided to do a little something more on each middle finger as an accent nail and put tiny flowers using the Migi pens.

This is how it turned out:

I think they turned out pretty well; and in the end I almost wished I'd done flowers on all of them! But, I'm sure I'll get around to that in another nail challenge;)

What do you think? How did you do your nails for Easter? Have you tried the Sally Hansen and the Migi Nail Art pens? Do you have a favorite? :)

Nail Challenge Week 13: Ruffian Nails

Hi Lovelies! Yes, I am still a week behind, but tomorrow you will see that I am caught up;) For now, I want to show you my Ruffian Nails!

Now, I had *no* idea what "Ruffian Nails" were. "Ruffian" to me sounded like some kind of street urchin in Oliver Twist or something lol. So, I Googled. And I found out: "This manicure is created by Creative Nail Design (CND) especially for the NYFW Ruffian Fashion show. Since then everybody has been calling this manicure the Ruffian, or Ruffian inspired, manicure." To me, it just looks like an upside-down French manicure (if done correctly.)

Mine, however, is not nearly as nice as what it could be. But alas, the whole point of the Nail Challenge is just to try new things! Doesn't mean you'll master it the first time you try!

Here are the polishes I used:

After essie all in one base coat, I applied one coat of Color Club Jackie Oh! (from my March Birchbox!:) This polish goes on so smoothly and perfectly that one coat is all you need! And it is simply stunning!!

After that, one coat of Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Black out:

And Hard Candy's Matte Top Coat, so the finished product looks like this!

I love how the matte makes it look! I think these colors together really compliment each other! Clearly I'm not a Ruffian expert (yet), but I really do like the effect; so I may try it again and do some other polishes and techniques as well!

Have you tried this mani? What do you think of it? Do you do it free hand or do you use french tips stickers?

Nail Challenge Week 11: St. Patrick's Day Nails

Hey Lovelies!! This week's nail challenge is St. Patrick's Day nails! I'm sure a lot of girls are going to do four leaf clovers, Irish flags, lots of green, etc. I took a slightly different approach. I'm not Irish, but I'm a fan of Irish things... potatoes... sauerkraut (or is that German?:) lol... But my FAVORITE Irish thing is LUCKY CHARMS!! I was rarely allowed to eat this cereal as a child (too much sugar; my mom was all about feeding us "good" cereals like Kix and Life lol) so I now always have Lucky Charms in my house!

I started with a base of Essie All in One Base, two coats of NYC Quick Dry polish in Mulberry Street, then used my awesome Migi Nail Art pens (post on them coming soon! Promise!) to draw the marshmallows!:)

Left Hand

Right Hand

And here are a few closeups of ones that turned out pretty good:)

rainbow

pot of gold

heart

moon

horseshoe

And there you have it! My St. Patty's Day Nails!!:) How did you do yours? Are you having as much fun with the Nail Challenge as I am??:)

Nail Challenge Week 9: Vintage Nails

Hi Lovelies! For Week 9's Nail Challenge, it's Vintage Nails. I racked my brainmost of the week trying to figure out what I was going to do! As always, Google is my friend;) When you first search for "Vintage Nails" on Google, a lot of the images are pretty baby blue and mint green nails with pink and red roses. I understand this is very vintage'y and looks like a Victorian curtain or couch or something lol, but I just don't think I can master that on my nails.

So! I kept looking. I decided to interpret vintage as to what ladies used to do to their nails in the 40s or something! I found some good links and decided I'd try for something like this:

via

via

So this is what I did!

Two Coats Essie Innocent

Migi Nail Art Pen

Finished!

What I used

Another challenge completed! It's not fabulous, but it was definitely fun to try doing my nails similar as to what was done in the past:)

Have you done Vintage Nails yet? How did yours turn out??

NOTD: Pretty in Pink

Today is just a quick post to show what I'm wearing on my nails right now!

As usual, I started with OPI base coat. Then I used two coats of Essie Fiji (one of my all time favorite pinks! It's just a soft feminine baby pink). Over that, I used two coats of Sinful Colors Glass Pink (which by itself hardly shows up, it's just so light. But over colors the shimmer really shows through!) Then I used CoverGirl Boundless Color City Lights just at the tips to add another dimension of colored sparkle. Finished with a coat of Seche Vite dry fast top coat and Voila!

with flash

without flash

The pictures honestly don't do it justice. They are waaaay more sparkly, shimmery, shiny in real life! I'm really happy with them:) However, with so many coats of polish, I'm sure they'll probably be chipping in no time, but for now my nails are pretty in pink!!:)

Q&A Nail Polish Brands

OMG, it's been so long since I've sat down to blog! I just realized I hadn't even opened my netbook since my last post! What a slacker! A lot to catch up on! But first, I know a lot of you were interested in my doing more Q&A times. (if you have a question, just tweet me @GlossandGlaze or email me at glitterglossandglaze@gmail.com; I promise to answer each and every one of them!)

Q. Dear K, what is your favorite polish brand? Do you think the expensive ones are actually better and last longer? ~Emily


A. Dear Emily, I'm really glad you brought that up. Nail polish comes in all different colors, textures, types, brands, prices, etc. You don't have to be rich to have a lot of bottles! I'm going to give you some thoughts of what I think, but keep in mind, these are just personal opinions and you might think other ones are better for you. I'd say all my polish falls into about three price ranges: cheap (I prefer to say "affordable"; as cheap has some negative connotations:); average; and expensive (and really the "expensive" ones to me are not THE most expensive on the market!)

Affordable
So for affordable, there's Sinful Colors (which you'll see in a lot of my pictures!). You can pick it up at Walgreen's, CVS, etc. for about $1.99. It comes in a variety of fun colors and doesn't get gloopy at all. Also, N.Y.C New York Color and Wet 'n Wild (which I talk about a lot too!) and are both about $.99-$1.99, and they have come a LONG way since when I started polish back in the 90's. With the proper base coat and top coat, these polishes work great and don't look cheap at all! Because they're cheap, you can pick up a whole bunch of them and still stay well within your beauty budget!! :) I have found that they may take a few extra coats to get the strong color that you're going for. Because of that, sometimes they cheap a little more 'cause there's so much polish layered on. (or I'm more tempted to pick at them 'cause it just peels right off!)

Average
This is where I'd put polishes that are in the $4-$6 range--Sally Hansen, Revlon, etc. I have one Revlon polish--it's a scented polish (which I plan to do a whole post on!) It's fab, but very light and chips pretty easily. Now, I can't say this about ALL Revlon polishes because I only have this one. Sally Hansen on the other hand is pretty much a-maz-ing! There's a bunch of different kinds in the line (there's the Hard As Nails, Diamond Strength, etc.) and they are heavy duty! My one complaint with Sally Hansen is their sorry excuse for a crackle polish--it was clumpy, didn't crackle at all. I ended up taking it back to Walgreens. Good try, Sally, but I'll pay a little extra. Which leads me to the...

Expensive
Now as I already stated, these are "expensive" to me (since a lot of my polish is from the "affordable" section) lol, but I know a lot of girls buy only the "expensive" kind, and that is totally cool. These are your $7.50 and up polishes. The O.P.I, Essie, Zoya, etc. My favorite thing about O.P.I is all the different kinds they have--the different lines they come out with (still haven't gotten the Muppets yet, but I reallllllyyyyy want to!!!). It's a smooth polish that doesn't need a lot of coats and lasts for a long time. I only have one Essie and I'm pleased with it, but I'm not sure I'd say it's THAT much better to be worth what it costs. I have yet to use a Zoya polish (how sad, right??)

So, what are the bottom lines? What are my favorite polishes? Here's the breakdown, my base coat is always O.P.I. Partly because I got a bottle for free when I bought my shatter polishes this summer, but I really do think it works extremely well! Even using cheaper base coats, I would still sometimes get that orangey, dingy look to my nails; since using this one, my nails always look natural and healthy:) For color, Sally Hansen wins this category for me--especially the Hard As Nails. I think it's the longest lasting (for the price)! My top coat that I've been using for a while now is N.Y.C super shiny; but mostly because my Nicole by O.P.I. is getting too low to get any on the brush! I'm really not picky about my top coats (but I'm sure if I were even the cheaper polishes would last longer!)

I know I got all rambly, but I hope that answers your question!!

(note: I know I didn't discuss ALL of the nail polish brands out there; I have some ORLY ones, Nicole by O.P.I; but I focused more on some of the more popular ones in my collection:)

xoxo