China Glaze - Sun-Kissed

Hello hello! Whew, long time no blog. Busy birthday month for me. Good busy, though. :) China Glaze's new neons have made it even better! Look below to see why.

Sun-Kissed makes me want to hoard polish, even though I almost never wear polish twice. Why? It's a real neon yellow that applies better than most regular, non-neon non-yellow colors! I was slackjawed in amazement with how buttery this was. Two coats and my nails were covered in perfect summery yellow full of shimmer. I really don't know what else to say. If you don't get this, you will regret it. Trust me. My nail line was hardly visible at all IRL, not sure why it shows up so much here.

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China Glaze - 108 Degrees

Hello there! Do I ever have a pretty summer color for you today.. This is fabulous! I'm only a year late getting it. :P

108 Degrees is a bright, shimmery/glass-flecked pink. When I say bright, I mean bright! This is a real attention-getting pink. The pink-purple flecked shimmer in it makes it just glow in the sunshine. Best of all, it has a great formula. 2 smooth, easy coats and I was done! I regret not getting these summer colors from last year's collection while they were in stores. Guess I'm on the hunt now!

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Color Club - Feelin' Groovy

Hi everybody! Here's a bright summery color that might be up your alley. Feelin' Groovy is a BRIGHT lime green jelly that I picked up a long, long time ago. I needed a pick me up and this helped. I wasn't super pleased that it ended up being this sheer, but perhaps I got a bad bottle.. looking at other reviews, it's apparently supposed to be a creme? I shook this pretty well to make sure it was well-mixed but perhaps I just got a strange bottle. Anyways.. it reminds me of lime Jello. This would be fun with some fimo clay fruit slices on it or maybe underneath a layer of this, kind of like those jelly sandwich manis I see people doing! It would look like a 50s fruit Jello mold. What you see here is 3 coats and you can definitely see my nail tips.

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Essie - She's Picture Perfect

Hi everyone! Here's another post as I try to get back on a good schedule. Yes, I have nubbins again. I broke off my left middle nail opening my car door.. I always break nails doing the silliest things. I think I need to invest in some Derma Nail, I read about it over on loodie loodie loodie's blog and it sounds like what I need. My nails are so brittle and peely and need a lot of moisture. :(

She's Picture Perfect is from Essie's new Resort collection for 2012. It has a lot of great colors and I picked up a few. SPP is, I think, my favorite light purple! It's a lovely shade of lilac with very faint pink shimmer. The biggest thing for me is that it's a light, almost pastel, purple that has NO application problems at all. This was 2 coats with no special care taken to smooth it out. I was bowled over by that. You know my contentious relationship with Essie's formula, so I think you can understand why I'm so pleased. I can't recommend this color enough. I don't have anything like it!

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Color Club - Antiquated

Hello there! Gosh, it's been a while, hasn't it? I've had a really busy month and as a result, not much time to blog. I'm trying to get back on track now though and this is a great polish to do it with.

Antiquated is a really lovely gold foil, definitely cool toned. It almost looks like a rose gold on my nails. I really love a good gold foil and this is a great one! The finish is almost mirror like, not streaky, and it goes on really nicely in 2 coats without being patchy or sheer. This went through a fairly heavy wear test as I wore it on a vacation to Las Vegas during which I did a decent amount of heavy lifting and carrying and it made it through with only a handful of small chips. Foils always seem to wear really well, so I like to put them on when I know it'll be a little while before I can change my polish. I have a few more foils from this collection and I'm looking forward to trying them.

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OPI - Elephantastic Pink

Hi everyone! Here's a fresh, fun summer color for you. I've been feeling a strong itch for pinks and corals lately, maybe because they remind me of summer so much. This has been sitting in my untrieds for a while and I was happy to give it a try. If there's one thing you can trust OPI with, it's pinks and reds. I think they make every shade of those known to man!

Elephantastic Pink is, well.. pink! It's a nice simple pink creme that's slightly yellow-based and pretty darn bright but not quite neon. There's not really much else to say than that. My only complaint was that it took 3 coats and my eyes still see a tiiiiiny bit of VNL. The formula was good and I like the color but frankly, there are a million pink cremes and I'm sure I can find a dupe that's fully opaque in 2 coats with no problem. With colors like these, I have zero tolerance for even slight problems. I'm really trying to keep my collection to its current storage so I don't hesitate to get rid of colors I'm not completely in love with.

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Zoya - Skylar

Hi everyone! First things first: IT'S SUMMER. I'm very excited obviously. Still waiting to see how my class grades end up, but for now I'm just enjoying my freedom. Hopefully with all this free time I'll be able to post more frequently.

Zoya Skylar is a nice subdued blue that reminds me of faded denim. It's deep but still soft and gentle and is flecked with an interesting sort of shimmer that isn't really in the polish but more on top of it.. honestly, it reminds me of hard water spotting, haha. It's pretty though. The formula was pretty good, only two coats, but you can see that I had some tiny thin patches on my index finger. I'm not going to complain though.

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Color Club - Worth the Risque

Hello everyone! What a polish I have for you today.. boy! Holos have been in somewhat short supply in the last few years. Apparently the supplies to make them are pretty expensive. :( There has been somewhat of a resurgence now with some great holos by Layla and HITS but they're still pretty darn pricey. I only own a few holos and hoard them a little bit.. can you blame me? Color Club made some great ones a few years ago and I'm trying to collect them all. Worth the Risque is one of these and it's all mine thanks to a kind swapper on MUA. :)

Silver holos are pretty common so the color of this isn't too special but it's the holo effect that makes it so fun and enchanting. It really is like having rainbows on your nails! One of the best things about this is that the holo is fairly strong and the formula isn't bad; some stronger holos need special bases to make sure they apply smoothly. This was two quick coats with no topcoat since some topcoats dull the holo effect. The nice thing about holos is that they generally dry quickly so not having topcoat isn't a big deal. I've had this on for a few days and have noticed something interesting: the polish seems to be rubbing off in places instead of chipping. I've never seen that with any other polish! It's certainly not bad, as you can't see much wear at all in my picture, just interesting.

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Zoya - Adina

Hello everyone! Today's polish is a definite oddball.. in a good way. I've never seen anything like it! After wearing such a traditional color like my last post, you know I had to put on something a little wild. :) Adina definitely fits the bill! It's a super-flashy purple/green duochrome that makes me think of space and beetles and those really cool custom cars with duochrome paint. The purple base is a little more reddish than it shows here but the green is just about spot on! It looks so cool in both bright sun and low light. Since it's a duochrome, the formula is a little thinner but no problem at all. This was three quick coats. I bet it would look awesome over black! Please excuse the tipwear, I apparently had a bit of shrinking with this.

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Zoya - Sarah

Hello everyone! Here's a little surprise for you.. a red! I've spoken before about how infrequently I wear reds. It's not that I don't like the color, there are just so few that catch my eye. Sarah definitely did, though. I got this when Zoya had their Valentine's Day promotion this year where you got a free red polish and free shipping with any order. They're one of my favorite companies so I knew I'd find a great red.

Sarah is a multifaceted red, full of subtle color changes that make it a joy to look at in all lights. It's especially vibrant in sunlight, though! You can see the sparkle and liveliness on my middle nail and a hint at how it looks in indoor light on my pinky nail. There's also a subtle golden flash that emerges sometimes in bright light. The formula was superb, very smooth and easy. I only needed 2 coats. Just be careful with your application and cleanup! It's so pigmented that you can have a tiny bit of staining and some of the sparkle might stick on your skin after you go over it with your cleanup brush.

I think I'm going to stay at this shorter length for a while. I do miss having my long nails but this is more manageable for sure!

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Essie - Navigate Her

Hello there! Here's a quick post of a new color. Navigate Her is a recent release from Essie for Spring, and I think it's a great fit for the season. It's a slightly yellow dusty light green that makes me think of pistachios and mint milkshakes and fresh, tiny tree branches. It's fun and clean. :) I know I've complained about Essie's formula in the past and I still wouldn't say it's one of my favorites, but I've learned how to deal with it. This applied fairly easy for an Essie. The first coat was streaky but the second evened things out nicely. It will look uneven before you put on top coat but these Essie cremes seem to just need some time to settle down and get smooth.

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China Glaze - Fast Track

Hello everyone! I can't believe it's the first of April already. It feels like New Year's Day was just yesterday.. I hope you're having a pleasant Spring so far. :) You'll notice my nails are much shorter here. It's no April Fool's prank! I broke my thumbnails in two separate incidents and developed a bad nick in another nail, so I trimmed them down. Thankfully I didn't have to go to full nubbins, but these definitely feel very short. I needed to do some filing down anyways.. I just never expected it to go this far!

Fast Track is another polish from the Hunger Games collection. It's the one I've looked forward to most and I'm extremely pleased with it! The base is a greyed yellowish beige that's FILLED with golden shimmer! It's really striking in the sun, just sparkly and lovely. In the shade the shimmer is more subdued, but still visible. I think you could probably get away with this at work. It's definitely more interesting than your usual beige. When  I put it on, I was reminded somewhat of Zoya Jules; while they're somewhat similar (though you can't see Jules' gorgeous shimmer too well in that old picture), Jules has a much more grey-brown base, much cooler toned than Fast Track, I think. I can't get enough of these types of colors though. I think they're classy and chic without being dull. The formula was a pleasure as well, two simple coats giving me the coverage I wanted.

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Milani - Orchidia

Hello everyone! Here's a quick post. I've been super busy for the last week or so, but for an excellent reason: my brother is leaving Saturday to go teach English in Japan! We just got the news last week so it's been a whirlwind of activity. I'm so proud of him. Needless to say, I haven't had much time for polish.

I picked up Orchidia while I was at CVS the other day, browsing around. Milani isn't a brand I pay much attention to, frankly. I love Hi-Tech and probably need to get the rest of their holos but the other colors have never struck me. I saw this in a spring display and figured I'd pick it up. Orchidia is a mid-toned purple, light enough to be springy but not pastel. It's full of really interesting silver shimmer that's very subdued. The formula was good but I'm not quite sure what happened when it was drying.. my coverage was good, I thought, but you can see some obvious patches and thinness in this picture. Strange, but oh well. Maybe if I wear it again, I'll do 3 coats instead of 2.

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China Glaze - Riveting

Hello everyone! Yes, I'm alive. I can't believe it's been so long since I posted. Yikes. I've unfortunately been busy with school & family stuff. Add to that the capricious Florida weather & it doesn't make for a good blogging atmosphere. Anyways, I'm here with one of the new China Glaze Capitol Colours polishes. These have been talked & talked & talked about, and for good reason! The first time I saw this press release, I actually got excited about new polishes for once. A lot of collections just haven't been exciting, but this collection has some great colors. I bought Riveting, Agro, Fast Track, & Harvest Moon. The colors of the collection would have made a great Fall release, I think, but you know that won't stop me from wearing them now. :)

Riveting is a wonderful, BRIGHT orange filled with gold & orange shimmer. This color seriously jumps out at you, which is why I bought it. I do love a good orange. :) Even better, the formula was fantastic! Two coats & I was done, no problems. It even cleaned up nicely. You know how some shimmers will leave little glittery bits on your fingers, no matter how much you clean up afterwards? Not with this! It's just a great, glowy golden orange.

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Support Independent Filmmakers!

Hi everyone! This is a non-nail post, just a heads up. It is very close to my heart though. There's a documentary being produced called Circle the Wagen that chronicles two guys on a roadtrip in a '72 VW bus and their experiences with the vintage VW culture along the way. It looks like a really nice, interesting film & I'd love to see it get finished. As you may or may not know, I own a '70 bus myself and I wouldn't trade the experience for anything. I've had countless breakdowns, problems, high repair bills, and sweaty summers in her un-air-conditioned interior but I still love Marianne with all my heart. There's nothing like cruising down an open road on a nice, breezy day with the engine purring away or curling up on the bed at night in some peaceful park. That's why I'm so excited for this project! The vintage VW community really is full of kind, wonderful people and I think it's great that this movie will show this culture to the mainstream.

Marianne at a car show a few years ago.

The producers are asking for funding from people through a website called Kickstarter, where people can donate to help projects, like this movie, get made. The only problem is that if they don't reach their goal by the end date they've set, they don't get any of the money they've raised.. even if they're $5 short. As of this writing, they need just under $2000 in the next 2 days to make their goal. I know this might not interest a lot of you, but if you love documentaries as much as I do and maybe have fond memories of old VWs, please consider donating! The link to their Kickstarter site can be found here: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/charliepecoraro/circle-the-wagen

OPI - Pros & Bronze

Hello there! Here's a rare OPI post for you. I don't own many OPIs simply because a lot of the colors don't really strike me, but the ones that I do like, I like a LOT. This is a good example. Pros & Bronze is one of the Serena Williams colors that came out a few months ago. I picked it up at my grocery store just a few weeks ago, lucky me! I liked it when I first saw it online but didn't want to get the duo. This is a really cool bronze that's also full of pink shimmer, there's a sort of duochrome effect when you shift your nails. I love the color but this was another one that's on the sheer side.. yes, another 4 coater, and that's even with me doing fairly thick coats! The thick coats got me in trouble with my right thumbnail which got dented like nuts but oh well. I know I seem to complain about sheerness a lot, I must sound like a broken record by now but really, I don't understand why so many polishes need 3+ coats! I know I need a little extra coverage since my nails are so long, but c'mon.. Anyways. :) Overall, a cool color and a good addition to my growing collection of copper and bronze colors.

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Nicole by OPI - Too Rich For You

Hello there! Quick post. I get crabby sometimes when polishes don't live up to my expectations. This is a good example. I was tired and wanted to put something on quickly that wasn't a matte. I looked at this and thought 'Oh, it's dark, it should cover nicely'. WRONG. 4 coats for this. Four. That's two too many for me when I'm feeling lazy! It's a nice color, but not 4 coats nice. The formula was smooth, at least. My camera isn't getting the slight green in this so I'll refer you to Paillette's post to get a good view of this polish.

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Essie - Van D'Go

Hello everyone! Whew, it's been a hectic week. Glad I finally found time to get a post together. This is a polish I recently received in a swap. Van D'Go is a peachy pink, not too orange to look odd on my pale skin but peachy enough to be different than a regular pink. This did take 3 coats with some streaking but, well.. it's a light pink. What else do you expect? I'm not the biggest fan of Essie's formula in general anyways, but it's tolerable for this. It's a nice, fresh, girly color that I think would look great with some stamping or other art on it. I was tempted to use my Hello Kitty stickers but I'll save those for another day. :)

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My First Anniversary!

Wow, I can't believe my blog turns 1 year old today. It seems like so much longer than a year has gone by since I decided to start putting my nails on the web. I've definitely changed since then, in both my general life and in my polish hobby. I've really enjoyed interacting with those of you who come and comment and I thank all of you who visit my site and give it meaning & purpose. Thank you so, so much. :) I may be doing an anniversary giveaway soon so keep an eye out for that.

Nicole by OPI - Positive Energy (Matte)

Hello again! I have another Nicole by OPI matte to show you today. This was released at the same time as the matte version of No Limits. I really like mattes for quick manis but this one wasn't quite up to my standards. Most mattes that I've tried cover in 2 coats, some in 1. This took 3. I'm willing to do 3 or even 4 coats for a regular polish, but when I'm using a matte I need to be done as quickly as possible and not worrying about coverage. That said, the color is nice, even if it's not unique. The matte look does make it an interesting take on silver but I feel you might be better off just topping your favorite silver with a matte topcoat.

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Color Club - Revvvolution

Hello everyone! I picked a gorgeous, unique polish for today. Revvvolution is a really cool charcoal grey holo, one of the few holo polishes put out in recent years. The neat thing about it is that it's sort of a mix of a frost and holo, at least to my eyes. It's definitely not scattered but it's not fully linear either. There are holo and non-holo versions of this polish floating around, unfortunately, so you may not get this version if you order online. I think it's well worth it, though. The coverage was so good I almost got away with one coat, I only needed a second for some tiny patches that needed covering. One nice thing about holos is their quick dry time, this was no exception. I really, really love this one! I wish the holo showed better in the pictures but it's somewhat subtle in real life as well.

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Essie - Turquoise & Caicos

Hi everyone! Back with another post. I recently did some more purging & reorganizing of my collection and while I was moving my Essies, I decided to give this a shot. T&C is, well.. turquoise! It's got a strong green hint to it but still has that nice greenish-blue mix to it. The color is great but the formula is lacking. Opacity took 4 coats for me and I can still see a little bit of my nails. I know that with long nails, I'll generally need an extra coat or two sometimes to fully cover VNL but 4 coats.. not a fan. Especially not since this reminds me a lot of China Glaze For Audrey which, if memory serves me right, will give me a pretty similar color in 2 or 3 coats. T&C also ended up with a few sheet marks and bubbles, which I'm not a fan of. Overall, I'd say it's not bad but not unique enough to merit putting up with the problems I encountered. I've always been on the fence about Essie because the formula can definitely be hit or miss and this was, unfortunately, a miss.

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China Glaze - Hey Doll

Hey all! I'm finally back with a swatch. This is a polish I received in a swap and it's a good example of how tastes change over time. This came out with the Vintage Vixen collection, which I believe was in 2010. I remember looking at the promo pictures and swatches and feeling very 'meh' about a lot of the colors, especially this one. A brownish rose color? BORING! But now I'm very fond of subtle, classic colors like this. It has a little bit of pizzazz as well thanks to the tiny bits of silver glitter throughout the polish. It gives it something extra to keep it from being boring. It unfortunately looks a bit dark in this picture despite being in full sunlight, but it's the best I could do. Trust me when I say it's a lovely color and a great way to ease some brownish polish into your collection even if you don't like brown.

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Update & Swapping

Hey everyone. Sorry for the lack of updates. Things have been really busy. My mom broke her arm last week so it's been a big thing to get her all taken care of. I've not had time to do any blog related things or paint my nails at all but I should be returning soon.

I just added a bunch of things to my MakeupAlley swap list. If you're a member and want to see what I have, click on the Contact Me tab above and you'll find my profile link.

China Glaze - Thataway

Hello everyone! I hope you had a wonderful time ringing in the new year. I sat on my couch and watched Anderson Cooper and Kathy Griffin on CNN before going to bed around 12:30. Can you tell I'm not a partier? :) Anyways, here's my first swatch of the new year. I got this along with some other new polishes at Sally Beauty a little while ago. I think people forget sometimes how great the core colors of brands can be! Limited edition collections are great but there's so much more. Thataway is part of CG's core collection and a really great polish. It's a soft, almost peachy-coral orange full of yellow shimmer. It initially looks frosty when wet but then settles down into a nice diffused shimmer. It went on super smoothly in 2 coats and has been a very cheery escape from winter. It's been unseasonably warm recently but in the past few days we've had a hard cold snap with temperatures in the 20s at night! That's a big deal for us sub-tropical folks. I'll stay inside and keep warm by painting my nails. :)

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