Nicole by OPI - Fresh Squeezed

Here's another fun summer color! This came from a spring or summer collection from last year so if you really want it, try MakeupAlley or eBay. It's a semi-sheer orange with very pretty pink and yellow shimmer. I must be really changing, I'm becoming tolerant of these sheerer colors nowadays. They used to drive me mad! I'd still probably prefer this with a solid layer of orange underneath though. This is 4 coats.

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Essie - Borrowed & Blue

This color makes me so very happy! Part of Essie's new bridal collection, Borrowed & Blue is the perfect pastel blue for me. I really wanted to love Hard Candy's Sky but it was a streaky, terrible mess. B&B has its own problems but with a careful hand and two coats, you get great results. This is a perfect color for spring and would be a great base for some spring or summer related nail art.

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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..

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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Zoya - Jules

Today's polish is another selection from Zoya's Intimate collection for this spring. Jules is really something else! It's a soft warm grey beige packed with gold shimmer. There's even the tiniest hints of pink and green shimmer in there which isn't obvious unless you catch it in the light. I've honestly never seen a color like this before and I just really, really love it. It makes me think of the color of wood that's been left outside and sun-bleached, that soft grey with a touch of brown. This was two coats.

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Essie - Sexy Divide

Normally I choose my polish on a whim, eying colors until something pops out at me. But this was worn with intention. This beautiful blue-toned purple from Essie with pretty pink and blue shimmer went on my nails for a cause. My college club, the Feminist Student Alliance, just put on our annual charity production of Eve Ensler's The Vagina Monologues. If you've never heard of TVM, it's a series of monologues that touch on female experience. Some are funny, some are sad, some are uplifting. We talk about the stories of all kinds of women and through these stories hope to help other women love themselves. For the performance, we wear all black with an accent color. This year's color was, you guessed it, purple. We chose it not only because it's pretty but also because it's the color generally used for domestic violence awareness. This matters because our primary beneficiary this year was The Spring of Tampa Bay, a wonderful volunteer-run local domestic violence shelter. Through the generosity and support of the community, we were able to raise about $3000 for The Spring. The remainder of the money goes to an organization called V-Day that acts as our parent organization for TVM. Their portion of the money will go towards global efforts to help women and girls. It was a tremendous, scary, and exciting process to direct and bring this year's production into fruition and I can't wait to do it again next year.

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Zoya - Blair

So I know I wear a lot of blues and greens. Today I have a very rare appearance of a red polish! I'm not generally a red polish girl but sometimes I'm in the mood. Zoya Blair is a cousin to Zoya Suvi in that both have a smoky, blackened base. This makes Blair a beautiful, deep garnet color with great shimmer and depth. It's very vampy but still a classic. It only needed two coats and that's always a plus.

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