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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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Color Club - Nouveau Vintage

Hello there! I hope you all had wonderful holidays. It's amazing that the year is coming to a close, and that my first blog anniversary is just around the corner in February! This will likely be the last swatch of 2011 but there's always more around the corner. I'm planning on doing a favorites post as well. With that said, let's have a look at today's polish. Nouveau Vintage is a fairly new release, having come out this year. I was quite excited by it in the promo pictures and in swatches, and I finally got my hands on it via swap. It's a lovely fall-type color, a rich brown-bronze with hints of gold and green. In the bottle it looks quite green and I was hoping for more of that to show on the nail but I'm still very pleased with it. Color Club makes some great polishes and I think they deserve more attention! The formula on this was fairly good, generally even and opaque in 2 coats.

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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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OPI - Lucerne-tainly Look Marvelous

Hello everyone! Still on schedule. Let's hope this keeps going. :) This polish seems good and wintery to me. Grey always makes me think of winter. It's a very shimmery charcoal color that makes me think of wet asphalt. I was a little disappointed because in the bottle, there are cool flecks of pink and green shimmer that I just don't see on the nail. I won't complain too much, though. It's still really pretty. The formula was thinner than expected, needing 3 coats, but it applied well and wasn't a pain to clean up like some of these shimmery or flecked polishes can be. You know how sometimes you'll clean up and the shimmer will just stick? Yeah. It didn't do that, thankfully. Overall, thumbs up from me. I'm pleased that my nails are growing out slowly but surely. My final length for the near future will be just slightly longer than this. I liked having the long talons that I once did (see my posts in June for those) but they required a lot of caution and maintenance.

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Sally Hansen - The Real Teal

Hello everyone! I hope you had a very happy Thanksgiving, if you celebrate it, or a happy Thursday if you don't. Today's polish isn't very seasonal but it's a fun one. The Real Teal is just what it says, teal! It does lean a little turquoise but it's close enough. My favorite part of it is the cool green shimmer that runs through it and lights it up. I don't own very many Sally Hansens simply because the color selection isn't that exciting but there are some neat ones like this. The Xtreme Wear formula is a great one, requiring only 2 coats and having no problems at all. This is a nice, fresh, fun way to bring a little bit of summer to your nails as it gets colder outside. :)

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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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Nicole by OPI - Yellow It's Me

Hello everyone! I finally have another swatch for you. This is my first post with my new, very short nails. I don't think I picked the best color for short nails.. Yellow It's Me is a really cool color in the bottle, light yellow packed with pink shimmer. It always makes me think of raspberry lemonade or something like that. However, the yellow base is jelly. Yellow + jelly = not the most flattering results. To me, it makes my nails look sickly. I'm also not a fan of jellies since they tend to be sheer, you can see the tiniest bit of VNL here after 3 coats. However, I still think this is a really cool color that would look great layered over a bright, solid yellow to give it some more punch and keep it from looking washed out. The first photo is most color accurate for displaying the base color while the second photo shows the true color of the shimmer. It really is a cool color combination.

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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. :)

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.