Anna Sui 701 and the cutest nail polish packaging ever!

Ever head of Anna Sui?  She's an American fashion designer  (a pretty darn successful one too!)  and happens to have a very cute line of cosmetics available at Urban Outfitters.  I know at my local UO, they do not have her products in stock at the store, although I don't know if that is true of all of the UO stores.  Now that I'm looking, it does appear that UO has all of her products available only on their website for purchase.  I think that's a mistake, but what do I know?  I have been an admirer of her nail polish for few years after I saw that the bottles were shaped like roses (they have since been updated - read ahead), but have never bought one until now.  If her other items weren't so expense, I would have loved to have tried a few them out.  I can tell you that just from a packaging stand point, they are really beautiful.  These are kind of cosmetics one would have on display on their vanity, to be mostly admired vs used.  Case in point,  her nail polish bottles.

Check this out:

How cute are they?!  Reminds me of the Nfu-Oh bottles, but more sweet and simple. 

The color I ended up with is a nude with shimmery silver micro glitter, which looks like it may even have a few tiny holo bits in it in certain light.  I thought this was really lovely when I saw the photos online and was just as enthused when I saw it in person.  Nudes can be so boring, but really everyone should have a few good nudes in their nail polish collection and this one spices things up in the nude department for sure.  

For this mani I used my usual Bonder base and then 3 coats of Anna Sui 701.  As you can see, it is a little bumpy in texture, but I smoothed it out pretty well with a thick coat of SV.

This polish reminds me of Brittney Spears' hot nude outfit from the 2001 Mtv VMA's and her glitter bodysuit from her Toxic video in '04. 

Photo by Getty Images/Youtube via http://au.launch.yahoo.com

 Am I high?  Or is that spot on?

Anna Sui polishes are priced at $15.00 a bottle.  I know, pretty steep!  But I think of how much people pay for Deborah Lippman and MAC polishes ($18 and $16 each, respectively). I feel that the Anna Sui polishes are definitely in the same league and the packaging is obviously veeeery special.  Usually UO will have free shipping on purchase over $50.00, so maybe someday you'll spy something you don't think you can live without on UO and will opt to add one of these pretties to your order just for the helluvit.  That's what I did! Not only did I get a great winter coat for a steal of a price (UO.com clearance sales are INSANE!), but I also got my very first Anna Sui.  Win, win!

Until next time ☺

Copycat Dot Manicure - So cute I had to steal it!

I saw this manicure done by Sarah at Chalkboard Nails  (<-- click here and follow her Blog because she is AWESOME!) and I just had to nailjack it for myself.  You can see the instructions so simply and eloquently stated by Sarah on her Blog for more info on how to execute it.
I used the same tools, only different colored polish.  I had just received my dotting tools by mail via Ebay purchase the day before I decided to do this.  In other words,  I was a dot manicure virgin, so please excuse any mistakes you might see.  I do have to say, with this being my first go at it, that I did pretty good and can't wait to try another one.

 Here are the tools:
I bought these on Ebay for $1.89 and free shipping.  They came all the way from Hong Kong!

Here are the colors (you can find Essence @ Ulta for $.99 a little bottle):

I used some plain old tin foil to put the nail polish on to use for the dots.  Easy clean up.

And the results:

So simple and yet such impact.  What do you think?  Think you'll have a go at a dot manicure yourself?

Until next time.  :)