Manis Galore

This is China Glaze- Gamer Glam from the Spring 2011 Tronica collection. It is a light purple subtle holo. I just loved this.

I only got one picture of it in the sun while driving (and unfortunately it chipped quickly on one nail). Like most holos, it applied in thin coats and required three coats to be opaque.

Next is a Spanish combo! Amy's Nail Boutique- Fiesta is layered over OPI- Dulce de Leche. These shades work really well together.

Fiesta is composed of medium sized matte multi-colored hex glitter in a clear base. I only used one coat of it because I really liked Dulce de Leche. It applied fairly evenly utilizing a dabbing motion. 

Here it is indoors with the flash

Indoors without the flash

Here is OPI- Dulce de Leche indoors with the flash. It was released as part of OPI's Fall 2002 European collection. I believe it is now a permanent shade. It's a nude creme with a pink tint. The formula was great and it had a smooth, opaque application in two coats. This was taken indoors with the flash.

Indoors with the flash

Now this is a legit gold mani. I layered OPI- Man with the Golden Gun over A-England- Holy Grail. I wore this for four days. It lasted a long time without chipping, plus it was so gorgeous, I didn't want to remove it.

OPI-Man with the Golden Gun is composed of real 18 karat gold flakes suspended in a clear base. It is slightly different from the Sephora by OPI Gold Flake topcoat. I prefer this one over the $OPI because the gold flakes are larger.

Man with the Golden Gun was released with OPI's Holiday 2012 Skyfall collection. I had difficulty tracking this one down at Ulta, and my mom ordered it for me on ebay.

Taken indoors with the flash, you can see the combination of the gold on gold. Wearing this combination on my nails made me feel very luxurious. 

Here is A-England- Holy Grail on it's on taken indoors with the flash. I adore gold nail polish, and I own quite a few; but this may be one of my favorites. It is truly like an old, antique gold with a yellow shimmer.

Indoors without the flash. Impressive formula! It only needed two thin coats for opacity.

Next is Wicked Polish- Gangrene. This was released as part of the Pestilence collection (which is one of my favorite themes!) It is composed of small and large bright yellow and medium green neon glitter suspended in a milky white base. Indoors, the glitter was somewhat difficult to see, but in outdoor lighting, you can see it fairly well.

This picture was taken indoors with the flash. This polish was somewhat sheer and needed three coats in order to be opaque. I had no issues with distributing the glitter evenly.

Indoors without the flash- It's very difficult to see the glitter here. You can only really see the green.

Next up is Claire's- I Luv the 80's. This is one of those layered polishes. It's composed of multiple colors and it is intended to create a marbled or color swirled effect on the nail. I was very intrigued with how the bottle looked. There is actually a sticker that says "Do not shake" on the bottle cap.

Although the effect of this is pretty cool, I was somewhat disappointed because I expected all of the colors in the bottle to show up on my nails. You can't even see the green or purple at all. The top color in the bottle appears to be orange, but it's actually a bright yellow and pink that got mixed together from using the polish. I tried my best to make sure that the bottle wasn't disturbed, but the colors mixed together somehow. I'm not a huge fan of orange (it's pretty, but I prefer other colors.) I used three coats of this, and the effect was hard to see unless you looked at it up close. It also chipped fairly quickly because without topcoat it had a matte-like finish due to being a neon.

I was absolutely in love with this combo. This is Dollish Polish- The Koopa King layered over Claire's- Earthy/Happy. The Koopa King is part of the Mario Brothers collection. I love anything that has to do with Mario, so I was all over this collection. Earthy/Happy is a mood polish from Claire's and it changes colors according to temperature. In this picture, the polish is green; so I'm guessing that's the Earthy color.

Earthy/Happy shifts from a kelly green to neon yellow. I captured a good picture of this changing. It looks like a sponged on mani almost! This worked really well a a base color for The Koopa King, since that shade was inspired by Bowser. The Koopa King was filled with various colors and shapes of glitter. My favorites were the black thin bar glitter and the prismatic silver diamond shaped glitters. It applied evenly and I only used one coat because I didn't want to hide the color-changing polish.

Here's a picture of Earthy/Happy on it's own taken indoors with the flash. It dried to a matte finish since the color was neon. With the flash it's a bright green. The color-changing effect didn't really kick in until this polish had a couple hours to dry. After that, it started shifting like crazy!

Here's a picture of Earthy/Happy indoors without the flash. It looks completely different than the picture with the flash. This is not a color accurate picture at all. This shade only needed two coats.

This is Essence- Gleam in Blue. It is a light blue shimmer. I actually don't own another blue like this.

This only needed two coats, and it came out to a nice, smooth finish. I'm a fan of the Essence Colour & Go mini bottles. You can find them for $1-$2 at Ulta. Definitely worth it for the quality of polish that you get!

Last, I have an old gem. This is Covergirl- Ghost layered over China Glaze- Jungle Queen. Covergirl crackles are a treat for collectors of vintage nail polish. They were the first crackles produced by a major nail polish brand. The effect is different than the new shatters released a couple years ago. I believe that these were released in the early 2000s. This was around the time I was in middle school. I remember walking to the drugstore near my school after class for the day with friends and admiring the crackle polish and thinking "What science is this?!". Unfortunately I didn't have any money at the time, so I didn't buy it. I was able to snag this beauty on ebay in a lot! 

Application of this is similar to the newly-produced crackles. You have to wait for the base color to dry completely, and then apply the crackle in one even coat. I noticed that you have to put this type of crackle on a little bit thinner if you want it to crack more. This crackle takes much more time to dry. It also chips off quicker than the new crackle, but it's definitely worth time! I got many compliments on this. I believe Barry M has a crackle out called Croc Effects and the Kleancolor Crackles crack like this also.

China Glaze- Jungle Queen was my base color. This was taken indoors without the flash. It is a gorgeous plum color with a subtle shimmer. The shimmer is very hard to see. Wearing this under crackle, you could not see it at all. I'm glad I took these pictures beforehand. Jungle Queen was released as part of China Glaze's Fall 2012 On Safari collection. 

With the flash, you can see how the shimmer looks in different lighting. This had a flawless application in two coats.

Massive Accumulation of Polish!

I figured I would make another post dedicated to the amount of polish that found its way to my house within the past couple weeks.

Here are all of my new bottles huddled together :)

My friend Traci sold me OPI- Glow-ink in the Dark and Boo Berry, I purchased OPI- Hoodoo Voodoo?! off of ebay, and OPI- Black Spotted finally found it's way to me! I purchased that one from a seller in France.

New A-Englands from the promo. Luckily I ordered early in the promo and they were able to ship in the US. I hope they can ship to the US again soon so that I can order more! Here is Lancelot, Dragon, Saint George, Holy Grail (new version), and She Walks in Beauty.

OPI Skyfalls: Moonraker and Live and Let Die, ORLY-Synchro, China Glaze- Jungle Queen, and Sinful Colors- Beau Khaki

New Color Club Halo Hues! Beyond, Over the Moon, Kismet, Eternal Beauty, Miss Bliss, and Cosmic Fate

Chiralitys; Special BTK, Raisin Gein, Bundy Berries, Dahmer Crunch, Bloodshot, Kale, and Katydid

Cult Nails- Scandalous, Sally Hansen- Diamond,  and Nailtini- Frappe

Color Club- Electro-Midnight, Nails Inc- London Town, and Revlon- Hearts of Gold FX

Wet n Wild Saved by the Bell Collection: Pom Pom Kelly, Straight A Jessie, Pin 'Em Slater, Nerd Alert: Screech, Chick Magnet Zack, and Fashionista Lisa

I won a Rescue Beauty Lounge Lot on ebay. Here is Mismas, Scrangie, and Orbis Non Sufficit 

I received these goodies from a Valentine's day swap that I participated in. Here is China Glaze- Awakening and Unpredictable, Savina- Hearts (my first Savina!), OPI- Bling Dynasty, and Essence- Make it Golden

A England- Avalon

Here is the lovely A-England- Avalon. This is one of those shades that almost looks underwhelming in the bottle, but stunning on the nails. It was released as part of the Mythicals collection.

This is a vibrant purple shimmer. Super shiny. This was the first A-England I tried, and it had a great formula and brush. The drying time was fast also. I applied two coats.

I've received many compliments on this mani. I recently ordered some more A-Englands during their promo, and I'm patiently waiting for them to arrive :)

Sally Hansen Blue Away and Glass Slipper

I paired two Sally Hansen polishes together. I layered three coats of Glass Slipper, part of the new Diamond Strength shades over Blue-Away. This is a very subtle layering combination. Even with three coats of Glass Slipper, you can barely see the flakies. They are unique flakies in the sense that they don't shift from one color to another. They just have a tiny bit of shimmer.

Here is Blue-Away before I layered Glass Slipper over it. The formula on this was great. I'm actually enjoying the larger brushes that the Insta-Dri bottles have. It was completely opaque in two coats. It is the perfect sky blue creme.

I just had my birthday on Thursday, and some nail mail came. That was appropriate for the occasion. 

 OPI MAD AS A HATTER IS FINALLY MINE! This has been a lemming for YEARS! Seriously I've wanted this since I first started to get into collecting polish, but I didn't want to pay ridiculous Ebay prices for it. I found this on Copious listed for $40, but I had a $20 credit for starting my account. I got this brand new bottle for $20! It was an awesome deal!

 A-England just had a great promotion where the polishes from the Mythicals collection were only 5 pounds. I love A-England, but I usually don't order from them that often just because the shipping and pounds to US dollars conversion rate really adds up. It came to nearly $40 for these 6 polishes. I got Lady of the Lake, Tristam, Avalon, Holy Grail, Perceval, and Elaine.

I did some clothes shopping today and saw a small Kleancolor display with only 4 colors (the other two I had). I picked up Holo Yellow and Pinky Moon

China Glaze- Riveting and Mini Haul

I wore China Glaze- Riveting for the past couple days. It is from the recent Hunger Games collection. I'm actually not really a fan of oranges, but I love this one! It is one of the stars of the collection. It is more of a red-toned orange. The formula was amazing- it was practically a one-coater but I added two out of habit. It has glass flecks in it. The only downside (and it's not even polish related) is that people kept asking me if I was a fan of the Philadelphia Flyers because yesterday was game 4 between the Flyers and Pittsburgh Penguins. I hate the Flyers! (No offense to Philly fans). I'm a devout Penguins fan, but the timing I wore this mani was a little off. The Penguins won though :)

Here it is with the flash. You can see the orange of the glass flecks. I love this! It definitely reminds me of the girl on fire.

I got some nail mail yesterday. I placed an order with A-England when they had their 20% off sale. I wanted to try this brand for a while, but the polishes are so expensive when they're regular price. I purchased Princess Sabra, Ascalon, and Bridal Veil. All of these are holos and they look beautiful! I'm eager to try out Ascalon, because it looks like a duochrome and holo combined. It flashes from purple to green, but it's hard to capture. 

I'm really going to try to limit the polish I'm purchasing. I'm waiting on a few packages to arrive in the mail still. I have so many untrieds!