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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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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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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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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China Glaze - Strawberry Fields

Hello everyone! I recently bought polish for the first time in a while and this is part of what I got. I've seen a lot of raves about Strawberry Fields so I had to try it for myself. It's a juicy pink packed full of gold shimmer. It reminds me a lot of China Glaze Ahoy!; the main differences are that Ahoy!'s base color is deeper and its shimmer is more of a pink-gold, whereas SF is a lighter, less berry pink and the shimmer is purely golden. The shimmer also shows up better in SF. It was an absolute pleasure to put on, fully opaque in 2 coats and smooth. I haven't been buying much polish lately because I have so many untrieds and there aren't many colors coming out that I'm very excited about, but I'm sure I'll never run out of colors to wear. :)

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Finger Paints - Ripe Peach

Hi everyone! I have a real, honest to goodness swatch for you today. I know it's been quite a while. This lovely color isn't very Christmas-y but it's sort of hard to think of tinsel and trees when it's been 80 degrees every day for the past week or so. Nevertheless, this is a great color for any time. I've always been a bit hesitant to wear peaches and corals because of the orange undertones but this one looks great. It does remind me of the blush on a nice ripe peach and even has some of the silvery appearance of a fuzzy peach thanks to the soft, subtle silver shimmer. The formula was a little fussy and sheer, needing 3 coats and leaving some thin spots here and there, but it wasn't too bad. I apologize for the massive growth gap, I've had this on for about a week. But the lack of tipwear or chips should show you how happy I am with my Color Club Vivid topcoat and Essie Feed Me basecoat! Everything wears like iron.

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Zoya - Kiki

Hello everyone! First of all, I hope that if you're celebrating Halloween today that you have a fun day. I'm not doing anything for the holiday, unfortunately. But I am bringing you a great swatch today! Zoya Kiki is a very bright pink full of blue shimmer, almost bright enough to be a neon. I felt like wearing something eye catching and this sure fits the bill! The only downside is that it is somewhat sheer, being shown here at 3 coats with some nail visible. However, I do very thin coats so perhaps you other ladies with long nails might have better luck. Overall this is a really nice polish for when you want a pop of pink with a cool twist. :)

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Unfortunately, this is the last you'll see of my long nails for a little while. I had a very severe break earlier in the week on my right hand that went into my nail bed and even after I repaired it, it was fragile enough to require me cutting it and the rest of my nails down to nubbins. I hope you'll stick around with me while I grow them back out.

In happier news, thank you to everyone who entered my giveaway! I'll be posting the winner later in the week. :)

Zoya - Rica

Hi everyone! After the quick foray into Fall from my last post, I'm bringing it back to Summer today. It's still plenty hot and bright here in the Sunshine State, after all. :) Rica is from the recent Sunshine collection to which Faye also belongs. Both are great, sparkly shades for whenever you need a little sparkle in your life. Rica really screams Summer to me, though. It has a juicy coral pink base full of golden shimmer that is almost blinding in the sunlight. Zoya always does an amazing job with these glass-fleck type finishes. It does take 3 coats to become opaque but it's for the best, thin coats mean the sparkle comes out better in my experience. I'm trying to swap for the rest of the Sunshine collection, I want them all!

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Color Club - Electro Candy

Hi there! Here's a little something to brighten your day, literally. I picked up Color Club's Electro Candy collection from Ross a long time ago but have only swatched one of the colors before this, Tangerine Scream. I felt like putting on something bright so I chose the pink of the collection, Electro Candy! All of the colors in this collection have a really pretty blue flash to them (except for TS, which flashes white) and it looks really cool against the neon pink of EC. It's certainly an attention-getting shade! I was pretty pleased with the application, it was very smooth and not streaky in the slightest. However, being a neon, it was fairly sheer and needed 4 coats to reach opacity. You can't see any nail line in the pictures but I can see a little bit in person at certain angles. My only complaint with this is that it seemed to take much longer than normal to dry! I always use a quick drying topcoat; in fact, the one I'm currently using is what came with this collection, the Vivid topcoat. My nails are usually fully, completely dry after 30-45 minutes but even after an hour I managed to get some dents and smudges with this polish. It only happened on 2 or 3 of my nails though, but it was still surprising to me. Overall I really like this color and think it's a great, fun shade for summer. :)

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China Glaze - Ahoy!

Based on the number of polishes from the Anchors Away collection I've swatched here, it might be fair to say it's been my favorite of the year. I've shown you First Mate, Life Preserver, and Sea Spray before, so here's Ahoy! to round it out. Ahoy! is well-pigmented like the rest, needing only two coats. It's a yummy juicy raspberry pink full of pink-gold shimmer that unfortunately isn't showing up too well here. I've worn this on both my fingers and toes and it's just such a great summer color.

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Sally Hansen - Coral Fever

Hi everybody! Sorry again about the late posting, it's been tough getting sunshine to snap pictures in lately. This is Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure in Coral Fever, part of the limited edition Spring collection. I wasn't particularly excited about any of the shades from swatches I saw but I ended up getting this, Model Behavior, and Delphinium when I saw the display at a local store. I generally like the SH CSM polishes, they go on smoothly and have a BIG WIDE BRUSH which is great for my wide nails. Coral Fever was a good example of SH CSM quality, pretty well pigmented and went on nicely in 2 coats. The drying time on its own is pretty fantastic, too! Just maybe 5 minutes after I painted my last nail and finished cleanup but hadn't applied topcoat yet, my mom wanted me to help her take out and play with my rats. I had her open the cage so I wouldn't dent anything and stood there playing the 'my fingers are made of lava, don't touch anything' game until one of the girls went tumbling onto the floor! I scooped her up quickly and I know my nails brushed against her, the carpet, and a wooden bed in the process but when I went to examine the damage.. there was none! My nails were perfectly glossy and unblemished. High-five, Sally Hansen.

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OPI - Hawaiian Orchid

If you're looking for a nice, traditional color with a little kick, then Hawaiian Orchid is for you. It's a semi-sheer salmon pink with a beautiful blue flash that shows up in the sun. The picture you see here is 3 coats and I figure it'd need at least one or two more to be fully opaque so keep that in mind. It went on really smoothly so I have no complaints there. It's a nice enough color but I hate having visible nail so this is going to be put up for swap on MakeupAlley. You can find me there as sqrrlgrl if you want to see what polishes I have to trade!

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I'm still getting used to having short nails but there are some definite advantages I'm seeing. I don't have to worry about banging them on anything or getting caught, for one! I was able to eat juicy, messy ribs yesterday without worrying too much about what got under my nails, too. I still can't wait for them to grow back out to the length I prefer but for now, I think I can handle this. :)

Essie - Your Hut or Mine

When I was younger I hated pink, protested it with all I had. It was mostly because of the girly connotations but I also could never find a pink that looked good. Now that I'm older I wear pink on occasion. I generally prefer richer tones as opposed to powdery pinks. When it comes to my nails I've been on an absolute pink spree lately! Your Hut or Mine is definitely one of my new favorites. It's a yummy light color that reminds me of watermelon or guava and it has the prettiest pinkish gold-orange shimmer in it too. Best of all, it's not a fussy Essie like a lot of the others (ahem, Mint Candy Apple and Borrowed and Blue, looking at you), it went on nicely in 2 coats.

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Nicole by OPI - Shell Me The Truth

This polish is a recent release from Nicole by OPI and I believe it's only available at Target. I reviewed another polish from this collection a few weeks ago, Sea How Far You Go. These are both really great and I might look at getting some more colors before they disappear. Shell Me The Truth is a beautiful cotton-candy pink that is positively loaded with gold shimmer. This really looks and acts like a foil polish, it's so shiny! It does remind me of the pink-gold iridescence you see inside of seashells sometimes. My only complaint is that this took me 4 coats but if you have shorter nails then you won't need to apply as much to avoid your nail peeking through. Click the pictures to enlarge.

Here's a good shot of what the base color looks like without the shimmer showing off.

I told you it was something, didn't I?

OPI - Shanghai Shimmer

Hello everyone! Yes, another OPI. This one is called Shanghai Shimmer. It's a great pinkish-mauve with really cool green shimmer that unfortunately shows up as white shimmer in the photos. Trust me, it's there. This applied like a dream in two or three coats. I love this one!

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Sinful Colors - Boogie Nights

So I love/hate the name of this polish.. It's so fitting but it got the song stuck in my head! Oh well. Boogie Nights is a beautiful orange-y coral that still has just enough pink in it to keep it looking good on me. When I first applied it, it made me think of melon candy. It's a jelly-creme finish that leans more jelly which you can see here by my visible nail line after 3 coats. Normally VNL would bother me a lot but I love this color so much I'm willing to give it a pass. It's perfectly summery and super glossy! I filed my nails down into a rounded almond shape since my nails tend to curl a lot when they grow long and the corners will break if you look at them. So I figured, hey.. no corners, no breaks! It's worked out great so far. Can you tell any difference?

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Let me pick your brains for a second.. Would you like to see what things I'm gathering for a 50 follower giveaway as I pick them up, or should it stay a surprise until I hit that number? I'm ITCHING to do a giveaway but haven't quite got the numbers yet! Perhaps it'd be motivation? :) I'll tell you a little secret about it, there's two hard-to-find polishes in the prize bucket as of right now..

Bejeweled

This is somewhat of a swatch, but more like me playing around. I've been thinking about ruffian/moon/reverse French manicures a lot lately (more info here) and decided to do one with my existing Zoya Happi manicure. To do this, I placed adhesive French tip guides on my nails to give the black a nice clean line. Then I added my first coat of Zoya Raven, a beautiful inky black with subtle silver shimmer. It's very important to remove the tip guide immediately after painting this first coat. If you remove it when it's dry, it can ruin the polish! After that dried, I carefully painted on a second coat of Raven and I was done!. But that wasn't enough, oh no.. I had these Cina nail art decals (available at Sally Beauty) that are essentially rhinestones on a sticky back. I stuck them along the black line, smothered the whole nail in top coat to help the decals stay on longer, and presto! They're kind of edgy princess nails, I think. 

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Zoya - Happi

Hello there! I have another fun polish for you today. I noticed I've been leaning towards these iridescent colors lately, they're so pretty and fun. Zoya Happi is a light sort of blush pink with an amazing yellow-gold iridescence to it. It really just flashes and glimmers in the sun. The effect almost reminds me of mother of pearl or a pretty beetle wing. Even in low light you can see the yellow sheen on the pink, it's really very pretty. This is 4 thin coats. I could likely have done 3 and been okay but I hate having my nail line visible, even a tiny bit! 

I also want to say hello to all my new followers! Thank you so much for joining my little blog. I'm hoping to have a giveaway when I hit 50 followers. Please don't hesitate to comment or email me, I'd love to hear from you.

OPI - Teenage Dream

I've been looking for this polish for ages and finally picked it up this weekend! Teenage Dream is from OPI's recent Katy Perry collection. It is a cotton-candy pink loaded with silver shimmer and big flecks of rainbow glitter! I'd noticed from other blog posts that it seems to be sheer, so I layered it over Sinful Colors' Easy Going, an almost-white pink that helped to make this solid. What you see is one coat of Easy Going topped with 3 coats of Teenage Dream.

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I also took a video of this in the sun so you could see how it sparkles and shifts.