Polish, The Accessory

I think this post is a turning point in my blogging life. I have had plenty of turning points since 2009. That is when I first starting blogging on Meadowtree. What started out to be a gateway for me to practice my photography actually became three different venues. 

It's time to return to my roots. I will always love polish and will always consider it part of my overall style. But it is not an end to itself. At my age I want to do other things. I will return to B'nails occasionally, when I need to post photo for my Pinterest boards.

So here goes. This is Study In Black and Grey #1. These are the accessories that I wore to the symphony last weekend.

KOCO's Set In Stone, a darker grey creme.

For the symphony, I added some top glitter with Salon Perfect's Black Diamond. 

And that is it for a while, Take care Terri

Snowflakes-December Hobby Polish Blogger's December Linkup

Hi Everyone and welcome to this months Hobby Polish Bloggers link up. 

Our December Link-Up is a winter/holiday theme. 

I picked probably one of the most used motifs ever, snowflakes. I found this design in the December issue of Nails magazine. The design is called Winter Wonderland and can be found here. 

Skinny Jeans

Hello on a Monday. I thought this would be a good color for a Monday post because it is blue. This is Koco's or Kco Colors' (I am not sure what Beauty Brands is doing exactly with the name of the product line anymore), Skinny Jeans, a very dark blue shimmer.
 It takes about three coats to get a nice looking application. But here's the big thing, it did not stain. I though there was a possibility but it didn't. What a relief!

And with a name of Skinny Jeans, I thought jean seams and a back decorated pocket would be a cute design (and simple and quick).

Here's a single shot in natural sunlight.

Koco sells for about $5 a bottle at Beauty Brands, a regional beauty store in the Midwest and west. 

That's it so take care and think shiny!

Terri

KCO Colors by Beauty Brands-Guilty As Charged and Back In The Saddle

Hello Everyone on this Tuesday. I hope everyone's weather is treating them well. It's a bit overcast here but it is suppose to get into the 80s today. That's a bit warm for me in April, but on to KOCO

Today I have a couple of colors by my hometown, Kansas City's own Beauty Brands polish Koco.

First up is Guilty As Charged. The latte brown caught my eye right off on this one and the fact that it is charged with bronzy gold shimmer makes it better. 

In natural light this is quite a stunner but not so much that you could not wear it to work. 

I went ahead and added a shade shot so the true color could be seen. Indoors, you would see something more like this, just a great neutral wit a small amount of shimmer coming through.

Another color that I really liked from KOCO is Back In The Saddle. It is a pure cream mixture of brown and red. I would like to call it a terracotta pink. It's not too pink or too brown. I think it is pretty sophisticated and decided to use it as an accent nail and added some dots going from larger to smaller for some design interest.

Second view of  Back In The Saddle.

This is just a drama shot I really liked so I threw it in.

Both of these polishes were a good consistency and I got opacity in just two coats. KOCO is a great polish for it's price. You can usually get it for $5 a bottle if you wait for a sale.

Beauty Brands has limited store fronts (it is pretty regional) but it has a website all anyone else and all their KOCO products can be seen there. They must be doing pretty good because the lineup keeps expanding. 

Here is a link to Beauty Brands website site. They seem to have changed their logo a bit. The bottles still say KOCO, but now everything is being promoted as KCO Colors.

That's it for this one. I hope everyone has a good week. Take care until we meet again, 

Here are my other reviews of KOCO polish and makeup.

*Introducing KOCO by Beauty Brands
*Blue Moon By KOCO
*Open Mica Night
*Peek A Blue

Koco by Beauty Brands- Peek A Blue

It has been a while since I have put up a Koco,  the signature label,  my hometown beauty store Beauty Brands. This is Koco's  Peek A Blue. 

This is a dusty denim blue with flashes of mini blue and turquoise glitter for extra added attraction. It went on smoothly and was opaque in two coats. Peek A Blue is part of the 60 color collection that Beauty Brands offers.

For the price, it is a really good three season blue. I believe I got it for $3. Many times Beauty Brands has really nice deals on Koco.

Check out Beauty Brands' polish. They will ship nationwide.

This post was short and sweet, as they say. And so until we see each other again, Take care..................

Tri Polish Tuesday#2-Stiletto Heels, Grey, Turquoise and Lavender

Here is my second week effort for Tri-Polish Tuesday. 

I've seen this set up called the V-Gap but I like calling it The Stiletto Gap and the longer your nails, the higher the heel.

Today I am using China Glaze's Turned Up Turquoise, Koco's Set In Stone and Cosmetic's Art's Lavender Foil.

  The Line Up

"no name"by cosmetics arts, Set In Stone by Koco and Turned Up Turquoise by Chine Glaze

dconstruct Bracelet Inspiration

These are the day after nails from the wedding. 

Back when I first posted about Koco's Open Mica Night and Butter London's Lillbeth's Jubilee, QueeNMiseRy of Misery Loves Blues suggested matting the surface and doing nail art on it. 

It didn't take me long to figure out what to do, just took me awhile to get around to it! I just gathered polishes that pretty much corresponded to the bracelet and started making dashes. Some darker ones were also added because contrast was desperately needed. 

I am not even going to list the polishes; there were too many.

This is a bracelet that I own from dconstruct out of Canada. I love their jewelry. 

"dconstruct designs and manufactures unique, eco-friendly jewelry right here in Canada. Every piece is made of recycled resin.

Our work is inspired by nature and minimalist design. dconstruct’s jewelry is handmade from leading architectural materials. Each piece contains a minimum of 40% pre-consumer recycled material. The recycled content would otherwise be waste from producers of sky lights, store fixtures and vending machine covers.

Our organics and textiles are sourced from artisan communities in developing countries around the world. Through this process, we can help local tradespeople in struggling communities develop their skills, their businesses, and boost their local economies. The healthier the community, the more effectively they can fight poverty, poor living conditions, and illiteracy. It’s about starting small, and building a future, brick by brick."

This a direct quote from their web page. But I just could not have said it better myself.  

I also own some earrings. I got my pieces at the Nelson Atkins Museum of Art's gift shop. But you can order directly from dconstruct. 

That wraps it up this time. Until the next, take care...................Terri

Tri-Color Tuesday-Tealberry Bush

This is the first of my September Tri-Color Tuesday. Actually, this is my first Tri-Color Tuesday ever. The colors this month are turquoise, lavender and grey/silver. My design started out as a very simple and stark Asian influenced design. It looked great on paper, but I didn't like it when I actually got it on all my nails. So the bushes sprouted a lot more berries!

There Was A Wedding

 Well, the wedding has come and gone. My baby is married. We worked on nail ideas earlier this summer and this is what she decided on.

 I am sharing two nails from the wedding. The first is Rachelle's, the bride. And I am proud to say she did them herself.  I can't show you the polishes because, although mine, they are at their apartment and they are in the Dominican Republic for their honeymoon. 

KOCO by beauty brands-Open Mica Night with Butter London's Lillebeth's Jubilee

Open Mica Night is the third Koco polish I have purchased. 

Beauty Brands divides their polishes into color families with no descriptions of what type of finishes they have. I liked the gray with the hint of purple and consider Open Mica Night to be a foil finish. 

 I just knew it would complement Butter London's Lillebeth's Jubilee (also a foil).

I first painted my nails with Open Mica Night and then did a sponge gradient with Lillebeth's Jubilee. You can see that Lillebeth's Jubilee is a much more lavender foil as compared to the Koco. They will eventually be a base for some type of amethyst toned nail jewels.

Lillebeth's Jubilee was an special edition polish. Butter London developed it in celebration of Queen Elizabeth's 60th Jubilee. It is now discontinued, which is too bad. It is a gorgeous one.

You see, I am planning for my daughter's wedding coming up in August. I have had these nail jewels lying around for over a year. I think they will go with these two polishes and it is time to use them. What do you think?

That's it for this time. Take care, Terri

Genevieve's Choice

My contest is over and now I can show the prize. The winner got to pick three Koco products. The winner was Genevieve and she picked Sinner Takes All (glitter), Sparks In The Dark (glitter), and In The Clear (top and base coat).

Sparks In The Dark, In The Clear, and Sinner Takes All

Congratulations Genevieve. That's it for this post. Until next time, take care.

Terri

KOCO by Beauty Brands-Blue Moon

Blue Moon is my second polish that I have from Koco by Beauty Brands.

My eyes see this as a dusty (or grayed) blue with just a hint of green in it. When I first picked it out, I thought it might be a dupe for OPI's Mermaid's Tears, but it isn't even close. I have a fair amount of blues, but don't have anything like this.

On day three I added Cult Nail's Wax That for a matte look. Sorry, I can't find any pictures if I took any.

On the forth day, I added some nail art. I took this with my new I-Phone and it is obvious I need to work on focusing.

Last month was buy two and get one free. The other two things that I threw in were an eyeshadow (Worthy-a matte dark brown) and lipstick (Natural Born Beauty). Natural Born Beauty is a fairly dry creamy lipstick or much drier than Miami Vice. Since getting it, I have worn it constantly.

Natural Born Beauty lipstick, Blue Moon polish, Worthy matte eye shadow

 And don't forget about my Koco giveaway. So far there are only fourteen entries.

G+ Circles-when you add me it shows up in my G+ feed and I will add you back. If we are already friends, let me know your G+ ID so I can make sure you are in one of my circles.




a Rafflecopter giveaway

The Koco Giveaway Is Over

My first give away is on although not exactly in the form that I originally planned. Uncle Sam has made it loud and clear that I cannot send polish on a plane. It is considered a hazardous material. I have heard of some getting fined up to $1000.

So here is the deal.

·      If the winner lives in the continental US or Canada all three categories are open.  I can ship ground parcel post to the US and UPS to Canada

·      Elsewhere in the world, and this would include Hawaii and Alaska, the only two categories to choose from will be lipstick and eye shadow. You can still have three products, of course.

So that is the deal and the contest is on now. See the Rafflecoptor  form below. I don’t have many things on it. I set up the blog comments so you can get an extra point for each day that you comment somewhere.

The contest will run from June 19^th to July 7^th.  

 I know that I have a rather split personality when it comes to Google+. One day I am posting nails and polish and the next day I am trying to find a home for a dog or cat. Everyone who is my friend on Google+ can enter and please do. You will have to go to the Boomer Nails site to do

so.

When the winner will be picked, she or he will be notified and given the links to the Koco line. They can decide what they want and let me know.

 Good luck!

To review Koco products, here is a LINK to my post about them. 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

KOCO by Beauty Brands

KOCO is the new in house brand of beauty brands. KOCO includes 60 different shades each of nail polish, eye shadow, and lip stick. Eventually, the line will include makeup brushes.

So you have never heard of beauty brands? This does not surprise me. It's the Kansas City, Missouri (USA) home grown beauty store.

There are stores in twenty cities, throughout eleven states.  There is also a website to shop online.

This makeup line is cruelty free. I emailed beauty brands and asked KOCO's status. They answered me within the hour. Their reply was,

"Hi Teresa,

Thank you for taking the time to contact us.  Yes, our KOCO products are cruelty free and never tested on animals.  We appreciate you asking!"

 I picked a product from each category and didn't coordinate colors. What caught my eye first went home with me. 

This is primarily a nail blog so I am going to start out with my polish pick.

The Polish-Apricotious

Apricotious caught my eye the minute I walked up to the display. It was just so 1930's silk charmeuse slinky gown. I see this as a duochrome that is mainly golden apricot but flashes a pinky peach.

It is neither thick or thin and went on smoothly. I used two coats. It wore well and I finally took it off on day three. This is a great summer color and I think a good quality for the price. The shape of the bottle and labeling appeals to my design sense. I will be purchasing more KOCO polish.

KOCO Eye Shadow

I fell in love with this matte dusty violet. It is not in my possession at the moment. My daughter saw it and just had to take it home to play with. It is fairly well pigmented and I am going to build a color palette around Mystic. I like the fact that there are 20 mattes and 40 shimmers to choose from and I can have a customizable set.





 Here's is the look I am aiming for:

And Finally The Lipstick

Miami Vice

This was a no brainer*. I saw the name and had to have it. It is a gorgeous coral orange and I am going to (and already have many times) wear it a lot this summer. 

 

This is the first time I have ever presented lipstick (or shadow) and wanted to do something extra. I put together a chart for how skin tones effect the appearance of the lipstick. You could say this is a makeup version of Warhol meets Josef Albers.

I am just so happy that beauty brands has created a makeup collection that is on trend and reasonable priced.

OTHER POSTS ABOUT KOCO

Guilty As Charged and Back In The Saddle
Blue Moon by Koco 

Open Mica Night 
dconstruct Bracelet Design 
Peek A Blue 

A last parting shot of Koco. All displays emphasize color and are organized from warm to cool shades. This makes so much sense to me.

Again, here is the link to the Beauty Brands website.

  There's some fun extra I added for this post. But, you are going to have to "read more".