China Glaze- Stone Cold

I recently wore China Glaze- Stone Cold. This was released in the Hunger Games collection this spring. It is a matte finish polish that is supposed to capture masonry from District Two of the Hunger Games. I am in love with matte finish polishes, but they do not wear very well. I took this picture right after I did this mani and I even cleaned up a bit. I figured if I didn't take the picture right as I finished, that it would be chipped before I would have another opportunity- I was right! They say not to use a base coat with mattes because it will mess up the finish, but I used OPI Nail Envy Matte. It didn't really make that much of a difference with the wear time, but I'm sure it helped strengthen my nails. The formula was pretty opaque. This is two coats and the picture is with the flash. I get much better pictures in the daylight, but I did this mani at night.

Here is a picture without a flash. I reminds me of OPI- Suzi Skis in the Pyrenees Suede. Suzi Skis in the Pyrenees has much more silver shimmer in it. This one reminds me of charcoal or coal. As a Hunger Games fan, I feel as if Stone Cold would be more fitting for District 12. Although I love matte polishes, I still struggle with the application. It was even more difficult with China Glaze's brush which is smaller than the OPI brush. You have to put a lot on the brush because it dries so quickly and you want to be able to cover the whole nail, but then it's finding that happy medium between having the polish dry too quickly to cover your entire nail or having too much running all over the place. The latter usually happens to me. I enjoyed the polish and the color though. Mattes aren't made to last that long.

Zoya Kimber

I decided to try out one of the Zoya minis from the free Pinterest trio set. This is Kimber. It is a darker pink with a gold shimmer to it. I'm not really big on pinks but I really enjoyed this. This picture is without the flash, but it was the most color-accurate one that I could take.

Here's a picture with the flash. It looks much more pink in this.  I just love the gold shimmer in this!! I really like the size of Zoya's mini bottles too. They're pretty big for minis. I usually don't get minis but these were free thanks to the many promotions Zoya does. The formula was wonderful and I only needed two coats. Kimber is from Zoya's summer Surf collection which was recently released.

Zoya Noel and Some Sweet Nail Mail

I finally decided to wear Zoya- Noel from the holiday 2011 Gems and Jewels collection. It's definitely one of my favorite blues that I own. Although out of season, it definitely reminds me of these vintage frosted blue Christmas ornaments that my mother used to have. It was very shimmery and almost like a foil- but not quite. I took the picture after wearing it for two days so there is some minimal tipwear.

Here's another picture without the flash in the sunlight.

I got some pretty sweet nail mail! I stumbled upon a blog sale with a ton of vintage polishes (which I love!!) Most of them were 50 cents to $1 each!

 Here are some old Wet n Wild Fantasy Makers that they release during the Halloween season: Mystery, Nightscape, Night Crawler, and Shinin'.

 I also scored some Maybelline Coloramas. I own a decent amount of these. I bought a ton of them at the dollar store in high school in packs of 3 for $1. I'm glad that I kept them all. This is Cocoa Motion, Ruby Rays and Candy Apple. The last one on the right is Mohda- Esmalte HD. I don't know anything about this brand. It was 50 cents and it looked unique so I just decided to get it. 

 I got two black label OPI's: Double Decker Red and SoHo Nice to Meet You. This Covergirl Sparkle topcoat is called Pink Twinkle and it has flakies in it!!

 Here are some gems. This Loreal's look OLD! I'm guessing late 80s at the earliest or early 90s. The bottle and cap design is so unique. These are both sheer "safe" colors. This is Pink Vibrant and Sea Shell.

Last but not least, Revlon Street Wear- Slick. It looks like a sheer polish with a purple flash to it. I finally got Max Factor- Fantasy Fire too!! I got this off of another girl in the local polish group I'm in on facebook. I don't really have any way to get international polishes, and I was so happy she was selling it. I can't wait to layer Fantasy Fire over black!

Juicy Radioactive Orange

I'm wearing three coats of China Glaze- Sun Worshipper topped off with two coats of Color Club- Covered in Diamonds. This reminded me of a juicy orange, but it's so bright it's radioactive. I don't own a lot of neons, and I only have a couple oranges in my collection. I have nothing like this. Normally I'm not really drawn to neon oranges. Covered in Diamonds is very versatile and can be layered over many other colors. The possibilities are endless. I did have some issues with it though. It has iridescent flakies in it, but they aren't the kind of flakies that lay flat on the nail. These ones are more like shards. The sharp edges on them were sticking out and catching on things causing this mani to chip prematurely. I removed it shortly after it started chipping. I actually got a few compliments on this mani though.

I took a couple pictures of Sun Worshipper before I added Covered in Diamonds.

This is pre-clean up and without the flash. You can see that it has a matte finish instead of a glossy one. That's usually characteristic of neons. They also are more jelly-like and sheer. It is recommended that one layers them over a white cream, but I didn't do that (I should have). I used three coats, and it was a streaky mess. I was not pleased with the application.

With the flash, it shows up WAYY more yellow than it actually it, but the brightness in the sun is pretty close. This isn't color accurate at all, but just for fun.

I got some nail mail too!

My expose sale Lynnderellas came in the mail! I'm still debating on whether to use them or sell them in the future.

KBShimmer- Vegas Bomb

Today I wore KB-Shimmer Vegas bomb, and WOW! I am in love with this. It is all kinds of colors, shapes, and sizes of glitter in a sheer yellow jelly base. I don't own many yellow polishes in my collection either. I was lucky to get a good sun picture of it also. I just love how the glitter looks layered under the yellow jelly.

It's so pretty! I can't stop looking at it. It needed three coats for full opacity but it built up very well. I predict it will need aluminum foil and acetone for removal!

Purple Glitter Combo

I have a combination today. This is two coats of Sparitual- Chill topped off with one coat of All That Glitters- Plum and Plummer. At first I was a little iffy about how both of these shades would look layered, but I was extremely pleased with the results! Chill was more blue-toned, and Plum and Plummer made it look more purple.

All that Glitters is one of my favorite indie brands. The polishes wear so well on me. I'm sure I could have worn this for another few days without chipping.  Remember Very Peacockish? The pictures were taken after two days of wear. Plum and Plummer has small pieces of purple glitter, medium purple and black hexes, and jumbo-sized silver hexes. The application was pretty smooth. In order to get the large silver hexes, I had to fish around a little bit. 

 Here's a picture of Chill before I layered Plum and Plummer over it. It's in a little mini bottle. It's a violet toned blue creme, that's almost greyed in some sense- I guess you can call that Periwinkle.

Some nail mail arrived also!!!

I had a $5 gift card to Sephora, so I purchased Sephora by OPI- It's My Pink! I LOVE Betsey Johnson, and it's such a shame that she recently declared bankruptcy and everything is being discontinued. I really wanted this for my collection. Plus, I don't own that many hot pinks, and it's scented! I got Pretty & Polished- Bayou Blitz. This was an impulse buy. I have the mini, but I really wanted a full-size so I'll keep the mini aside to swap/sell at some point. My friend Heather had a really old OPI- DS Elegance. The bottle is halfway empty, and the cap used to be silver, but it was heavily used. She gave this to me!! She said she didn't really use it that much anymore and she knew how passionate I was about my collection. I felt guilty accepting it because the old OPI DS shades are highly sought after, but she insisted that I take it! 

I managed to catch Llarowe's flash sale of Lynnderellas last week and this is what I got: 

I also bought three more bottles from Traci from The TraceFace Philes after certain events have transpired which I'm not going to go into on here. They should be arriving soon in the mail though. I ordered Boy-Girl Party, She Lived in a Swamp, and Love, Lace and Lilacs. I'll just say that as more things unfold, the less I even want Lynnderellas in my collection. I probably will keep them for a while and then consider selling them off in the future.

Green Apples and Stars!

I'm wearing the OPI ULTA Exclusive Hot Fun in the Summer-lime topped off with Kleancolor- Blind Date. This had a lot of air bubbles, and it kind of reminded me of a green candy apple. Hot Fun in the Summer-lime had a great formula. It was practically a one-coater, but I added two. It is a bright lime green creme. I only used one coat of Blind Date, but I dabbed and dispersed the stars where I wanted them to go. I just love the multi-colored stars in Blind Date. I used a toothpick to embed each star into the polish so that the edges wouldn't catch on this, and then I added a generous coat of Seche Vite. This mani didn't take too long to dry and normally I have drying issues with Kleancolors. Kleancolors definitely have a distinct scent! After two days of wear, a couple of the points of the stars are sticking up, but that's to be expected. I don't think many polishes with larger glitter shapes are meant to be worn for long periods of time.

I was very curious has to how close Hot Fun in the Summer-lime was to Green-wich village from OPI's permanent collection. I did a comparison.

 Hot Fun in the Summer-lime is on my pointer and ring fingers while Green-wich Village is on my middle and pinky. This picture shows one coat of each polish, and the difference is obvious. Green-wich Village is practically a jelly and it is more muted and yellow-toned while Hot Fun in the Summer-lime is brighter and more of a creme.

With two coats of each polish, the difference is more apparent. This is without topcoat. Green-wich village is more shiny due to it being a jelly and you can still see how Hot Fun in the Summer-lime is brighter.

UPDATE: Hot Fun in the Summer-lime stained my nails horribly, although it was a gorgeous color. I always use basecoat for my manis, and my nails turned bright yellow! Just thought I'd warn anybody before trying this out. Green-wich Village did not stain however, so this may be a better one if you want a similar shade but not the staining. It's also part of OPI's core line.

China Glaze- Optical Illusion

Over the weekend I wore China Glaze- Optical Illusion. This is from the recent Prismatic Chroma Glitters collection that was released this spring. These are very unique! I don't have anything in my stash quite like them. I know Wet n Wild came out with a similar collection, but the bottles were smaller  and the prices were higher for the amount of polish, so they didn't really appeal to me. Optical Illusion has multicolored mini hex glitters in a duochromatic blue/green base that flashes purple in some lightings. It's very hard to describe! The sun wasn't really cooperating today, but I took this picture by the window, so at least I got some daylight.

It looks more silver in this picture, but this is under artificial light. You can see the purple flash just a little bit. This took three coats for opacity.

The light is really yellow here, but I tried to get a shot of the different colors in this polish. The duochrome effect is very subtle and it's actually more apparent in the bottle. In terms of the wear time, it chipped a little bit after a day. I worked on more unpacking this weekend so that could also be why. Fortunately I'm almost completely done with unpacking! Yay!

My mom came to visit me and gave me this polish that she had. It's Revlon- Blushed. I have no idea when this came out but she said that she had it for a long time. I looked on ebay just to get an idea if it was rare, and it was only around $5. It looks like a pretty shade though! It's definitely work safe.

Nail Venturous FLOAM!!!

I was so excited when I was able to purchase Nail Venturous- Floam! This was one of my top lemmings and it definitely did not disappoint. I love everything about this polish. The matte glitter, the 90s Nickelodeon nostalgia, the texture, and the color combination! I'm wearing three coats of this. It was really sheer for the first coat, and I was questioning how build-able it was going to be, but it looks perfect with three coats.

If I chose to layer this over a green or blue, it probably only would have needed two coats. You can even choose to add just one coat of this for some extra glitter instead of an opaque look. I'm completely mesmerized by this. I could not stop staring at my nails. I am impressed with the matte glitters that indie sellers have been releasing lately. I don't want to remove this! The label on my bottle was a little worn, but it arrived like this.

I got some nail mail!!!

Here's Pretty & Polished- Hearrts and Daggers. This is red, black, and white matte glitter of various hex sizes, bar glitters, and hearts! This is absolutely amazing and I cannot wait to try it!

 I went into American Apparel for the first time yesterday, and although the clothes were gorgeous, I was drawn to the nail polish! They were regularly priced for $6 a bottle, but they had a 3 for $15 special, so I just went for that. I got Violet Panache, Meteor Shower, and Galaxy. Violet Panache reminds me of a bluer glass flecked version of Rescue Beauty Lounge- Scrangie (which I still NEED to get). I don't own that many "shard" polishes, so Meteor Shower was a must. Gaxaxy was the polish I was drawn to first because I just love multicolored hex glitter! I own so many rainbow glitters and I just keep buying them.

My free Zoya Surf collection minis from the Pinterest promo arrived today. Here's Kimber, Zuza, and Myrta. I only had to pay shipping, but it was still an awesome promo! I already have a full-size of Zuza so I may consider swapping or giving the mini away to a friend.

There will be more hauls coming up! Yesterday Llarowe was selling Lynnderellas in her store and I was able to get 5 of them before she sold out. I got Chocolatta Love, Gotta Love Brains, One Nutty Fruitcake, Very Pretty Vampire, and Mercurial. Luckily yesterday was my payday. I may have to go on a no-buy in the near future due to this.

Sky Blue and Orange- What a Combo

 I had my fiance pick out this combo for me. Usually when he selects a combo, it's almost always something with crackle. He chose Funky Fingers- Orange Scales and Deborah Lippmann- Let's Hear it for the Boy. I just chose to do an accent nail with the crackle because I thought it would be too much on all of the nails. Let's Hear it for the Boy is a beautiful sky blue creme. It was opaque in two coats. It was from the Footloose collection. I really like the crackle effect the Orange Scales had. Many different shades of Funky Fingers crackle have been showing up at 5Below. I apologize if this mani is a little messy. Unpacking is still a bit hectic.

I got some indie hauls!!!

From Amy's Nail Boutique I got Pink Lemonade and Fiesta! Both of these are gorgeous matte glitters. I'm loving the matte glitter trend.  From Candy Lacquer, I got Argyle. This is another matte glitter polish with glitter in the shape of bars and dimonds.

My Lynnderellas from the wish list finally arrived! I got Sweets to the Sweet and Matter of the Heart. I now own 5 Lynnderellas, but I'm greedy and I want more! I plan on doing another wish list :)

Claire's- Candy Shop

I have a quick post today. If you noticed, I cut my nails off again. I wore Claire's Candy Shop over the weekend. Unfortunately it only lasted for 24 hours because it started chipping and peeling off. I was doing a lot of moving/cleaning, so I don't know if that has any correlation with it. This is an exact dupe to Deborah Lippmann's Candy Shop, and it's rather unbelievable that it has the same name. I wanted Deborah Lippmann's Candy Shop for a long time, but after this came out, that lemming was crushed (and it saved my wallet!). Candy Shop is pretty much your standard multicolored hex glitter with different sizes, only it's in a pink jelly base.This mani was beautiful while it lasted, but I just needed to do another mani because the chipping was so terrible. I'm only wearing two coats here. It built up very well. Now that I'm examining the image with the flash, I can see some bare spots. Oops!

KBShimmer- Shipwreck

I have a special polish today. Recently I have been buying more indies. This is KBShimmer- Shipwreck. It definitely reminds me of under the sea. There are so many colors of glitter in it. Silvers, greens, golds, light and dark blue, and little micro pieces of orange glitter. It is all suspended in a blue jelly. I am wearing three coats of this. The blue jelly is quite sheer, but it builds nicely due to the abundance of glitter.

The finish was a bit gritty due to the amount of glitter, but it wore really well. Some pieces of glitter stuck up, but I just pushed them into the polish with a toothpick while the polish was tacky. It was a topcoat eater, but fine with one coat of Seche Vite. This definitely needed aluminum foil and acetone for removal! 

KBShimmer polishes can be purchased on Etsy. Currently there is no nail polish in stock, but they are planning for another restock this month. I believe that they retail for $8.50 each. KBShimmer also has a great assortment of soaps and bath products!

Color Club- Santa's Cinnamon

Yesterday I wore Color Club- Santa's Cinnamon from the 2011 holiday Scentsuous collection exclusive to Sally's. The polishes from this collection are scented and this one smelled like Cinnamon. The smell was somewhat strong and delicious! I am wearing three coats here. There were some bare-looking spots with two coats, so I just did three. Most people could probably get away with doing just two coats.

In terms of the color, it's not very unique. Everyone has seen the red glitter jellies like China Glaze- Ruby Pumps, OPI- Speak for Your-Elf, etc. This one is a bit different in the sense that the glitter is larger than the micro glitter in other red glitter jellies. The glitter is more prominent and the texture is a bit more gritty. Red glitter jellies are really difficult for my camera to capture for some reason, but you could definitely see the glitter more in person. I got a few compliments on this polish too!

Although it smelled good, the color was pretty, the wear was TERRIBLE! This was taken less then 24 hours after application. (Sorry my camera was low on battery power and going out of focus). The polish is coming off in sheets!!! It also chipped on a few of my other fingers. It just started peeling off of the sides. I wasn't doing anything with my hands that would make polish chip. I'm wondering if there's an ingredient in scented polish that makes them chip easily. I remember Color Club- Gingerbread Man, also from this collection chipping less than 24 hours later also.

I embarked on some shopping trips, and here's what I got!

 First I stopped at Rite Aid and they had this brand called Colorphase. I got this chrome light purple which doesn't have a name. You're supposed to apply the purple first, and then there's a clear coat with a nail art brush in it that you can use to decorate the base color. The color then changes to a darker purple in the spots where you put the topcoat. I swatched it and it worked pretty well. I thought the packaging was unique. I then went to 5Below and they had some Sally Hansen HD's for $5 for 3 bottles. I got Digital, Blu, and Cyber.

At Charlotte Russe, I found this LA Girl Glitter called Celebrate. It's red, silver, and blue glitter. I had yet to add a patriotic glitter to my collection. I got nail nail from Tini from Narcissistic Nails. She found some China Glaze Kaleidoscope polishes at a beauty supply store, so I bought Rated Holographic from her. 

Sinful Colors- Nail Junkie and ULTA haul

My new apartment has tons of light, so I think I'm going to start doing sunlight pictures when the sun is out. I'm wearing Sinful Colors- Nail Junkie. This has multicolored glitter in a sheer teal jelly. This took three coats. It's stunning. It reminds me of if OPI- Sparkle Teal Sunrise and China Glaze- Atlantis had a baby.

In this one you can see more shade, and this is what it looks like when it's indoors usually.

Here's one fully-immersed in sunlight.

I made a trip to ULTA to seek out the OPI Too Haute to Handle ULTA exclusive collection, and I ended up spending more than I thought I would. On to the goodies!

It was spend $17 in OPI products, get an ULTA exclusive OPI for free. My ULTA only had two out of the four exclusive shades (which were thankfully the ones I wanted!). I purchased Nothin' Mousie 'Bout it (from the Vintage Minnie Mouse collection), Hot Fun in the Summer-lime, and Flowers are Blue-Ming. Hot Fun in the Summer-lime looks a lot like Green-wich Village. I am curious to see if they are dupes. Flowers are Blue-Ming definitely looks unique.

They also had the new ORLY Glam Flash FX polishes. These are pricey- $10 each, but I just couldn't pass them up! Here's Mermaid Tale, Sashay My Way, Can't be Tamed, and Spazmatic. I cannot wait to try these out! Apparently ORLY is releasing 22 Glam Flash FX shades. I better start saving up because I'm sure I'll want them all!