China Glaze Watermelon Rind

Love this color--and it held up.  This is after a week of wear.  Well done, China Glaze!!

It's a beautiful dark green with a hint of blue and lovely glass flecks throughout.  A part of the permanent collection, I believe--you need it!

Sorry I have to run--no time these days.  Thanks for reading!

OPI Here Today...Aragon Tomorrow, suede

Ahh...another lovely color.  As autumn is right around the corner, I was thinking of some of my favorite fall shades of polish.  Deep emeralds flatter my fair skin and dark hair, and they go great with the brown, red and orange fall color palette.  After polishing on two coats of HTAT, I decided to go with a shiny finish versus the matte suede.  I love the shimmer hidden in the polish and I think it comes alive with some seche vite.  I think I like this better than the original!

This color is fabulous--you need it!  Thanks for reading!

Zoya Kelly

Zoya Kelly is a rich grey creme with blue and purple undertones from the Wonderful collection.  This is two coats and it's all creme-y goodness!  I'd say it's more of a slate or smoke than a charocoal, but this is a pretty trendy color.   I don't think I have any dupes, but I plan on doing a grey comparison swatch real soon just to see.  All of these pictures are in direct sun.

Sorry for the wear on these--I've been polishing at night lately and haven't been home during daylight hours to take a next day pic.  I use my hands all day at work and there's often tipwear by the time I get home.  The color is accurate anyway!

Thanks for reading!

Orly It's Not Rocket Science

I'm sorry I've been MIA for a bit--I forgot how much going back to school changes my entire life.  I started this blog at the start of the summer as a way to pass the time and share my finds, but now I have no time to pass!  Anyway, I finally made it to Ulta this week to check out the new polish collections.  Though I'd been waiting forever to see the Orly Cosmic FX collection in person, the $10 price tag still upset me.  I picked up this one, It's Not Rocket Science, as I was feeling the swamp thing vibe it was giving off.

Bottom line: I love this color.  I've seen that there are two dupes (a SpaRitual and one of the new China Glaze halloween colors) but I have neither of those and so I don't care!  This is one of those pretty ugly colors that you either love or hate.  I love.  This is two coats of INRS and one of seche vite--it was more opaque than I had thought it would be; I was anticipating three coats.  INRS is a darkened olive shimmer with a hint of gold--at some angles there is even a bit of a teal tint.  It's definitely a cool color--not for the weak!

Here you can see a bit of teal at the corners!

And here it looks a bit more brownish.

Well, hope those sold you on it!  I am going to try to get on more of a regular blogging schedule.  Teaching just wears me out!  What color did I wear for the first week of school you ask?  Chanel Paradoxal--it was the perfect nod to the end of summer and looks oh so professional with the right outfit. Hope all is well in your part of the world--thanks for reading!

Ulta Vintage

Hey all!

I recently got my hot little hands on the Ulta "I Got the Denim Blues" collection (which I will hopefully have time to swatch next week) and I just wanted to give you a bit of a preview.  For $9.95 you get 5-0.24 oz. polishes ranging from a baby blue to a deep navy.  Of course they're all blues, and they're all fabulous.  I would be sure to pick this one up while it's still in stock!

This is Vintage--a deep peacock blue, two coats and one of seche.  Try to ignore the tipwear--I didn't take the pic on day one and I neglected to wrap my tips.  Plus, I've gone back to work this week, so lots of typing!

Thanks for reading!

Color Club Wild and Willing

School has started...again.  And I need sparkle therapy!  Wild and Willing is a gorgeous sparkley, shimmery duochrome from the Wild at Heart collection (fall 2009).  It's a copper rose-gold foil with hints of green in some lights.  I don't even know how to describe it--it's gorgeous!!

This is after two days of wear (two coats and one of seche vite!).  This totally satisfied my craving for shimmer.  I love this one!

Thanks for reading!

Urban Outfitters Orange 2

Sorry I haven't been around in a bit, but Northern California was so amazing.  I did not want to come back to the humidity of the East Coast, but I am here.  I have to face reality again--and I will do so with another UO Polish on my nails!  This is Orange 2 and, while it looks a bit more "burnt" in the bottle, it comes out as a nice bright pumpkin creme on the nails.  This is two coats with some added sparkle and a coat of seche vite.  I was in a sparkly mood and so I went with CND effects in Gold Sparkle....a wise choice, I think.

I hope you've all had a wonderful week as well.  Back to school on Monday...ugh.

Thanks for reading!

OPI Paris Couture for Sure!

I'm away for the next week--headed to the West Coast for some RnR (and vino!).  As you are reading this, I am hopefully eating something delicious on the bay!  I swear, my only reason for vacationing is to try restaurants/trendy food spots that I've heard about.  I eat my way through every vacation...at much more than $40 a day (suck it, Rachael Ray)!  You should have seen me during my year in Europe--not pretty.

Anyway, speaking of European cities where I made a glutton of myself, this is Paris Couture for Sure.  It is a smooth silver glitter holo, labeled as a "glitter top coat".  I have a lot of silver holos, but this one is my favorite.  One of my OPI oldies, I think it's discontinued, but I believe you can still find it on ebay.  I love this silver holo, though I am still lemming the Nfu-Oh one.

Since this is a top coat, it is a bit sheer.  This is three coats and I still have some vnl, four is perfect.

Thanks for reading!

Nature Nails!

This was my entry for Polish Hoarder Disorder's "nature" challenge.  My favorite season is winter--I love when everything is frosty and cool and I love to see the trees covered in snow!

This is three coats of Sally Hansen Complete Manicure in Silver Lining.  I then sponged on Wet n Wild French White Creme and used a Sally Hansen chrome in Aqua Chrome along with bundlemonster plate bm19 for the leaves.  My nails really felt icy!

Milani Dress Maker

This is going to be a quick post today as I need to make a four hour drive in a little bit and I still have lots to do!  This is three coats of Milani Dress Maker--I saw the new(?) Milani Haute Value collection at my local CVS yesterday and I picked up a few of the colors.  After I polished this on, I did a bit of research and this is said to be a dupe for Chanel Jade.  Now, I've never really been into the Jade hype, but it's good to know for those of you who are still looking and don't want to shell out your life's savings for a bottle on ebay.

This is a pretty opaque jade green with a slight shimmer--very pretty.  Three coats:

Thanks for reading!

Sally Hansen Silver Lining

This sparkling gem is from the new-ish complete salon manicure line.  I have a number of silver foils, but this one is very different.  It leans towards a cloudy sky grey with a very faint blue shimmer with a pinkish duochrome.  It's incredibly difficult to describe.  Though this color is quite sheer, I think that the four coats it takes to make it opaque are totally worth it.  My fingertips feel icy and gorgeous.

Click on the images to see the touches of blue glitter throughout--it's lovely.

I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.  I adore this polish.  Thanks for reading!

Essie Perky Purple

I needed some neon today...bad.  Unfortunately, this color doesn't show up anything close to accurate on my camera.  I tried to mess around with the hue and such and this is the closest I can get.  Sorry about the green skin!

This is from last summer's neon collection.  I polished on two coats of Essie Perky Purple with one of Seche Vite and I probably could have used one more coat, but I was in a rush.  This is a neon purple/pink and so it dries matte...and shows every flaw.  Have some topcoat ready.  I do love how awesomely bright it is though.

Hope you all had a nice weekend.  Thanks for reading!

Vampire Nails!

This was my entry for Polish Hoarder Disorder's weekly challenge: Vampire Nails!

My nails look like little mouths!  This is a coat of Wet n' Wild  (WnW) Black with OPI Dim Sum Plum (mixed with white) for the tips.  I used WnW white for the teeth, and WnW red for the blood with some China Glaze Ruby Pumps for the glitter on top!  Hope you like them.

Thanks for reading!

Deborah Lippmann Across the Universe

By now, I'm sure you've all seen many swatches of this brilliant beauty.  I've been sitting with the bottle for a while, but I just haven't felt like wearing it until today.  I think I needed a nice sunny day to show off such a gorgeous glitter!

This is three coats of ATU on one coat of Beauty Secrets Ridge Filler and a coat of Orly Bonder, and topped with a coat of Seche Vite.  The glitter in this polish is amazing--small bits of sky blue, mixed with larger blue and green hex sequins.  It is gorgeous--and all floating in a navy jelly base.  Three coats made it perfect, though I had to wait for it to dry between coats in order to allow the hex glitter to settle in its spot.  It was slightly bumpy to the touch, but the SV seemed to smooth most of that up.

All of these pictures were taken in the sunlight.

Bottom line: you need this.  I cannot stop staring at my nails; they remind me of the scales of a fish, or the tail of a mermaid.  It really looks like my nails are made of sequins!  Gorgeous, Deborah Lippmann.  Well done!

Thanks for reading!

H&M Summer Nails Set

Hey folks!  I just got back from a three-day power outage!  We had terrible windstorms on Sunday and it pulled power lines down all over the DC metro area.  It felt like I was Amish!  Oh well...power is back and here are some swatches.

I stopped into H&M this weekend and came out with this "Summer Nails" set of minis.  H&Ms here never have polishes and so I grabbed these.  They had some single colors too but I figured I only needed this for now.  Each polish is 0.1 fl. oz. and while they don't have the best brushes, I thought it was a nice sized kit for only $4.00.

Look at those creative names!  Purple, Green, Blue, and Pure White.

We'll go in reverse order.  All of these are two coats.

Pure white was exactly that--this white was a nice formula and was opaque in two coats.  It felt as if I had white out on my nails--not something that I necessarily hate, but I'll probably use this more for frankening/nail art.

Blue was quite comparable to Zoya Robyn.  I loved this fresh, smooth shade of sky.  So perfect for summer!

Green was a deep jade with a hint of shimmer.  I love this muted green and can see myself wearing this a lot.

Purple is the one I chose to wear for the day.  I adjusted the color on my computer so you could see how red this purple is, so excuse the weird skin.  Again, perfect application in two coats with a bit of shimmer.  I love these kinds of purples.

Overall, I think this is a great kit for the price.  There's nothing original about the colors, but they certainly are perfect for summertime.  And this would be great to take on a trip for touchups or to keep in your purse.

And of course, I had to add a bit of Hidden Treasure to the second day mani.  Love those flakies!

Do you have any H&M polishes?  I'd love to try some more!  Thanks for reading!