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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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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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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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 - Emerald Fitzgerald

Hello everyone! Sorry I'm so late with this post. I've been snapping photos of this polish in all different light and can't get it to come through, so I figured I'd give you the best I can. Emerald Fitzgerald is a lush, deep shimmery green. It looks almost black in the bottle but lightens up slightly on the nails. However, it becomes a pain to photograph because under most light it ends up looking blue on camera when it's really more of a dark foresty color. Sigh. I did the best I could here. This is in partial sunlight coming through my window. The formula is great, like most China Glazes. 2 quick coats and I was done. Hooray! It did stain a little when I did cleanup though, but I can understand that since it's dark and well-pigmented.

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Sinful Colors - San Francisco

Hello there! This is my green polish for the week to help promote depression awareness. Sinful Colors is a brand that doesn't get enough press, in my opinion. They make a lot of great colors that get overlooked. San Francisco is no exception. It's a bright shimmery true green that I think would be great for the holidays. It looks slightly deeper in the bottle and I can tell you why. SF is unfortunately rather sheer, needing 4 coats to get this level of opacity with slight VNL under bright light. Despite this, it applied well with no dragging or streaking. I rarely have patience for anything over 3 coats but I'm willing to do it for a great color. While SF isn't the most unique shade, I still like it.

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I took this photo indoors under a new fluorescent bulb I bought for my floor lamp that claims to have a similar 'light temperature' to sunlight, meaning it is supposed to show things as if they were in sunlight. What do you think? Is this just as good or better than my normal outdoors swatches? Since winter's coming, I may not always catch the sun in time to get a photo so I'd like to have a backup system.

Zoya - Edyta

Hello everyone! As I mentioned earlier in the month, I'm trying to post one green polish a week to promote depression awareness in the month of October. I have Zoya Edyta for you today, a great smoky green that's perfect for fall. The photo I have here is unfortunately not the best but it's been terribly cloudy here lately. I may get an Ott-Lite for indoor swatching soon. Edyta is a deep forest green that's full of greenish-gold shimmer. It makes me think of big, lush, old forests. I know this was really popular last year when it was released and I can see why! It went on very smoothly in just two coats. Zoya continues to be one of my favorite brands for putting out great colors like this.

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Orly - Meet Me Under The Mistletoe

Hello! As I mentioned the other day, I'll be trying to post one green per week to promote depression awareness. This week's green is actually from a Christmas collection but hey, it's a nice color all year round. Meet Me Under The Mistletoe is an emerald green filled with pretty light green sparkle flecks. It's definitely a cool color since it has a blue base but I think it would look good on anyone. It does tend to be a little thin, needing 3 coats, but it applies well and dries quickly. I don't have many Orly polishes but the ones I do have are nice. I wish the brushes were wider but, well, I wish most brushes were wider! Anyways, this is a great polish and I believe it's now part of the core collection so you should be able to buy this anywhere you find Orly polishes being sold.

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Orly - It's Not Rocket Science

Hello everyone! Today's polish is another selection from last year's  Cosmic FX collection by Orly. I've showed you one of its polishes before, Galaxy Girl. It's Not Rocket Science gets lots of points for being green, sparkly, and having a funny name. :) It's a unique green in my collection because the base color is a sort of swampy yellow-brown green but it's full of green (and possibly gold?) shimmer that sparkles like crazy. I've heard some people describe it as ugly-pretty and I guess I would agree. I've also heard that it's similar to China Glaze Zombie Zest but I don't own it to make the comparison, so have a look around on other sites if you're curious. If I recall correctly, this was two coats and applied smoothly. I was happy it only took two coats because some of these flecked/shimmery polishes can be pretty sheer and I don't always have the patience for that.

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Essie - Pretty Edgy

I'm back! How's everyone doing? Miss me? :) My swatch for today is a super-fun color and definitely one of my favorites. Pretty Edgy is green, green, green! It does pull ever so slightly blue on me but that may be my coloring. I think after putting on PE I've made my peace with the Essie jelly-creme formula. Sometimes it can be frustrating due to streaks, but on the whole it's smooth and is definitely the shiniest polish formula I've seen. My nails look like they're dipped in green glass. This covered nicely in 3 coats. I know it might seem a little out of place to have such a summery green in September but Summer doesn't end around here until late October, at least! Even then, I wear what I want to wear regardless of season. :)

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China Glaze - Peace on Earth

Hello everyone! It's the time of year when summer starts winding down and everyone heads back to 'real life'. I'm about to begin my next year of school so I thought I'd pick a polish that somewhat represents my school's colors, green and gold. China Glaze's Peace on Earth is a Christmas color from last year that I got in a MUA swap. It's a really pretty olive color full of gold shimmer that runs through it like little rivers. It is somewhat similar to Nina Ultra Pro's Mossy Britches but MB is a little darker and dustier. PoE applied really smoothly in two coats and has held up well through all the packing and moving that comes with heading back to school. The tipwear you see here is after about 5 days of wear including lots of packing and lifting and hauling, so it looks great!

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Sinful Colors - Innocent

Hello! I've got a new favorite to show you today. Sinful Colors make up almost a whole drawer on their own in my collection for a good reason, they have great colors and pretty good formula for really cheap. I love greens so I had to get Innocent when I saw it. It's a very interesting color.. very yellow, slightly murky. I think dirty chartreuse is the best way to describe it. It's certainly bright! The formula is a jelly-creme, meaning it can get streaky on you if your coats are very thin. I did one thin coat and then one thick coat on top. Since the formula is on the thin side, the thick coat did run into my cuticles a little bit but I always do cleanup anyways, so it wasn't a big deal. It evened out nicely with a great shine that only got glossier when I added topcoat. I really love these slightly unusual colors and I'm glad that Sinful Colors is there to bring some diversity to the drugstore nail polish range.

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Sephora by OPI - Leaf Him At The Altar

Hello! Today's polish is one of the few Sephora by OPIs I have in my collection. Their colors aren't generally stand-outs but you get some real winners from time to time! Leaf Him At The Altar is a light green full of silver shimmer, really the closest I think I've gotten to finding a true green foil polish. It reminds me a lot of sage plants, very calming color. If you don't like frosts or frost-ish colors you might want to avoid this one though, as you can see in the sun it does show brushstrokes. It's not too bad, though. This went on smoothly in 3 coats with no problems.

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China Glaze - Tree Hugger and Color Club - Object of Envy

Sorry it's been so long since my last post! The past week has been rough and bumpy nail-wise, to say the least. In the matter of a few days I managed to crack 2 nails pretty severely. Thankfully I got them fixed with Orly Nail Rescue, which I'll be reviewing shortly, but that left me with hands as such: 3 nails with patches, 2 nails cut to nubbins and growing out (my thumbnails, which I was wearing fakes over), and only 5 good nails between both hands. It was getting rough. This past Friday I was having breakfast with a friend at Waffle House and as I got out of his car and closed the door, I smacked my hand on something and SNAP! Lost my left pinky nail all the way to the base. It was one of the patched nails so it was already weak, it didn't hurt at all thankfully. So I came home and snipped them all down with only the slightest bit of free edge surviving. It really sucks but that's life, hm? I'm certainly not a fan of having short nails because they make my fingers look stumpy but they do offer some advantages! You don't have to worry about gunk getting under there, you can wear sheer colors, and keypads aren't a pain to press.

So here are my new nubbin nails. I kept on the color I had when they broke because it's really pretty! The friend I ate breakfast with said it reminded him of a granny smith apple and I think he's absolutely right. Tree Hugger is a fresh, lovely green with pearly light green shimmer running through it that really does remind me of a granny smith apple's skin. It applied really smoothly in 3 thin coats.

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When I took off my fake thumbnails (don't worry, no nail glue, just stick-on pads) I decided to do accent thumbs in Color Club's Object of Envy. I've showed this briefly before in a pedicure but here it is on my thumb. I wish this picture was better, sorry! Object of Envy is a nice emerald green glitter that mixes small and large pieces for a more multidimensional shine. Unfortunately for good coverage it took me about 4 coats, even when I made sure to grab gobs of glitter on the brush. It certainly is nice and glittery though!

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I hope I don't offend any of my short nailed friends out there, I think a lot of people have really cute nubbins but it just doesn't work for me! What other benefits to short nails are there? Let me know in the comments, I'd like to hear your ideas for how to maximize these minis. :)

Nina Ultra Pro - Mossy Britches

This reminds me of Sea How Far You Go in that both of them are unusual, olive based colors. Mossy Britches is a very nice olive green with gold shimmer. I'm really starting to like these kinds of colors! I recently got China Glaze Peace on Earth which I've heard is a dupe for this.. Even if they're the same, I have the feeling I can never have enough olive green. I'm really impressed with these Nina Ultra Pro polishes, this went on smoothly in two coats and looks great. I apologize for the tipwear, it took me a few days before I got to take pictures. I know my skin looks more yellow than normal, I had to color-correct the picture to get the polish to show correctly.

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Milani - Hi-Tech

Milani came out with these holographic polishes a while ago and I've just now gotten around to trying one. WOW. Like.. wow. Oh my. Hi-Tech is a yellowy spring green full of holographic goodness. It went on really easily, dried like lightning, and proved to be very distracting whenever I was in the sunlight. :) This was 3 quick coats. A note on holographic polishes: some topcoats can dull the holographic effect! I use Color Club Vivid Dry topcoat and it worked just fine with this, I've also heard good things about Sally Hansen Insta-Dri but have no personal experience with it.

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I also made a video of the polish in the sunshine. I'm sorry it's not sharper but this should hopefully give you an idea of how cool it looks as it moves!

OPI - Stranger Tides

Stranger Tides is an interesting color, unique for sure. It's a light creamy dusty yellowish-green. I was concerned about the yellowness when I applied it but it doesn't really translate onto the nail much, hooray! This is the only color from the collection that I really wanted so I'm happy I got it. This was 3 coats.

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Nina Ultra Pro - Salsa

Wow! It has been a long time since I've worn a green polish. This is my first experience with Nina Ultra Pro and I'm very happy. I think you can only find these polishes at Sally Beauty, I picked it up a while ago. This is a really great green that went on in 2 coats on most of my nails, 3 coats on one or two of them. I'm surprised at how nice   it looks on me because it's a fairly yellow-based green. Normally anything yellowy looks a little odd, but this is great! The color reminds me of a green pepper's skin, very fresh looking. I was surprised at how glossy this ended up being, too.

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Essie - Mint Candy Apple

Here's a fun little spring manicure for you. Essie Mint Candy Apple is a nice mint green color but it suffers from the same watery streakiness that Borrowed & Blue does. You have to let it flow onto the nail, not paint it on. It did go on in two coats though, so that's always nice. I did have some dings and bald spots but it didn't matter too much since I was planning to decorate it anyways. These nail decals are from Sally Beauty Supply and are made by Cina. Really easy to put on.

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Have any spring plans? Looking forward to the Easter bunny's visit tomorrow?

Sally Hansen - Emerald City

Sally Hansen polishes can be quite the mouthful sometimes.. This is Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Xtreme Wear in Emerald City with tips painted in Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure in Gilty Pleasure. Whew! These are my school spirit nails, we're having a bunch of celebrations all week and I thought I'd do my part. :) Emerald City is a very pretty green, similar to Finger Paints Sketch n Etch that I reviewed earlier. It went on nicely in two coats. Gilty Pleasure was, as usual, a pleasure (haha) to work with! These tips are one coat.

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