Wet n Wild - Blazed

Hooray February 29th! Happy birthday to those of you born on this glorious and rare day! Here's just a quick post. While perusing Walgreens for the millionth time in the past week (due to their Sinful Colors sale - 99 cent polish, baby!) I decided to get this color. I've been drawn to pink-y colors lately, and cremes on top of that. So when I saw this coral/peach/pink polish I figured why not? It was only a dollar.

I was worried that it would be too warm for my skin tone, but I actually liked it. This is 2 coats, the formula was sheer at first, but opaque after the second coat. I don't like these brushes though, they're really long and thin. But I can deal with it for a pretty color! This color is a creme, but it is very close to being a jelly. Look how shiny and squishy it is without a topcoat! Reminds me of candy. Yum.

CM

Sally Hansen - Platinum

Lately I've had a thing for whites that don't look like white out. Like whites with shimmer, whites with duochrome, etc. So, naturally when I saw a new Sally Hansen Diamond Strength in Platinum I got ridiculously excited to see this white that looked like a pearl in the bottle. Sadly, I was really disappointed by the color on the nail.

For the following pictures -
Pointer/Pinky: 3 coats of Platinum
Middle: 2 coats of Platinum over 2 coats of Sinful Colors (white...can't remember the name, sorry!)
Ring: 2 coats of Platinum over 1 coat of SH Black Out.

Sunlight.

Shade.

Shade.

Shade.

Definitely not what I was expecting. It's too sheer on it's own, does nothing really over white and although it comes out beautifully over black, it's not anything that I don't already own or can recreate with other colors. I went through my collection last night and I've started to put aside colors that I'm getting rid of and this is definitely one of them. So disappointing. 

Have you ever been so excited by a polish in the bottle and disappointed with it on the nail? It's happened to me more often lately, and it's starting to suck. A lot.

CM

Glitter Gal- Lizard Belly

I have heard nothing but amazing thing about this dark green holographic polish from Glitter Gal called Lizard Belly. Seriously, it seemed like every person who was in to nail polish had this. So, of course, I had to jump on the band wagon. And I'm so glad that I did! Glitter Gal is a another wonderful Australian brand. Maybe I should just move there, ha!

Lizard Belly is a very dark green, almost black. In fact, it's really hard to tell it's dark green unless you're in direct sunlight (and let's face it...you're wearing a holographic polish, of course you'll be in the sun 24/7!!!). And this baby is packed with holographic amazing-ness. Seriously, it is so pretty. But so hard to capture on film! But, I did my best with my camera, so here we go! Click on these pictures to make them bigger so you can really see the rainbows on each nail!

Seriously, every nail looked like that last bottle shot. So pretty, it was blinding! But in a good way! All of these photos were 2 coats and taken in the sun. I bought LB from Llarowe for $14 and she does ship almost everywhere! Just so you know this is a mini bottle, so you are paying a lot for a little bit of polish. I get impatient when I see something I like and don't look at all of the fine details so I was shocked to see how small it was. But totally worth it! Next time I'll probably layer it over a dark green (maybe NARS Zulu) to conserve the polish.

CM

Butter London - Disco Buscuit

I don't have very many Butter London nail polishes. In fact I only have 3, and that was a set that my mom got me for Christmas. And I haven't even used those yet! But when I saw a swatch of this I immediately fell in love. It was so gorgeous! And the name...disco biscuit? How can you not love it? Well...you'll see what I mean.

Disco Biscuit is a bright pink jelly with purple micro-glitter. In some of the photos my camera does some crazy thing with the micro-glitter, and it looks blue in some shots too. That's just how it is when photographing anything purple.

Sunlight.

Sunlight.

Direct sunlight.

Shade.

Shade.

Bottle shot.

See? Isn't it amazing? The formula was pretty sheer, this was 3 thick coats and at times I could still see my nail line. I think next time I'll layer it over something, just to cut down on the coats. And, it doesn't look like it, but this baby EATS top coat like none other. I was not expecting that. Seriously, about a half an hour after these pictures were taken the top coat had soaked in to the micro-glitter and it was chunky and rough again. Kind of crazy! So I would suggest a thicker top coat, and a few layers.

And just for fun, I layered OPI's I Lily Love You over this to freshen it up after a few days.

They go together so perfectly. Butter London can be bought at Nordstrom, Ulta and from their website for $14. I bought mine off of Amazon and got free shipping (yay!).

CM

Deborah Lippmann - Mermaid's Dream

I'm so excited for this post! I know I normally do an every other day schedule for my posts, but I love this one so much that I couldn't wait and I didn't want to push all of my scheduled posts back (because I have some great ones coming up!).

I got my very first Deborah Lippmann polish, ever! Normally I don't buy her polish because it's $16-18 a bottle, plus Revlon usually comes out with a dupe of their most popular polish anyways (Whimsical). And, lately, Claire's has as well, but that'll be a post coming up soon.

Mermaid's Dream is a seafoam green foil/frosty base with gold micro-glitter and larger round blue glitter. The texture is very gritty and chunky and, based on swatches that I had seen, I had a feeling that I was going to hate the texture and load up on several coats of a thick top coat to make it smooth. So I was pleasantly surprised to learn that this texture is what helps make this polish unique and beautiful. It totally matches the whole mermaid theme. This polish is in my top 10 of all time (that I own) and it was worth every single penny.

Sunlight.

Sunlight.

Shade.

Artificial light.

Artificial light.

Shade.

Close up of thumb to show the texture (before top coat)

Close up of thumb to show the texture (after top coat)

This was 2 coats. Formula was great and it dried ridiculously fast. My thumb is the only finger that has top coat, otherwise I don't have any on to keep the texture. And even that thumb ate up the top coat so fast, so it doesn't matter anyways. So far it's holding up great! I bought this from Zappos.com for $18 and free shipping, but you can get Deborah Lippmann at Nordstrom, HSN.com, etc.

CM

Klean Color - Bluebell

While browsing around eBay one day I came across a brand called Klean Color. And, of course, the most popular colors that were being sold were these chunky holographic colors. You say holographic and I'm on board! On eBay, they were going for $5-$10, which seemed a little high for a brand I had never even heard of. So, after some research, I found this site here that sold them for $1.75 each. DONE! So I bought six (I think...) and today I have the one that called out to me first: Chunky Holo Bluebell.

All of these photos are -
Pointer: 2 coats Bluebell
Middle/Pinky: 2 coats Bluebell over CG First Mate
Middle: 2 coats Bluebell over SH Black Out

As you can see, Bluebell is a sheer polish and best used for layering. Is it holographic? In my eyes, no. I see it as more of a duo/multi chrome chunky glitter. Do I love it? Yes! I love all of the colors that it brings to the nails, especially when layered. 

Caution...these polishes SMELL. And I mean really, really bad! So if you have a weak nose I would suggest doing your nails in a very open and aired out space. I'll have more posts later with the other colors that I bought, and perhaps even a comparison coming up! 

CM

Sally Hansen - Sturdy Sapphire

Today I have a new (ish) polish from Sally Hansen's Hard As Nails line, a blue called Sturdy Sapphire. Judging by the color in the bottle I was not expecting it to be as sheer as it was. It just looks so saturated in the bottle But I'll let the pictures do the speaking.

The shimmer that runs through it is really pretty. But so sheer! That's 3 thick coats for the pictures above and you can still see right through to the whole nail! And it's not the color blue that I was thinking for a sapphire, but maybe I'm mistaken.

So, anyways, I figured I would try layering it over 2 colors: Sally Hansen's Xtreme Wear in Black Out and China Glaze's First Mate from the Anchors Away collection. 

Pointer and Ring finger: 2 coats of SS over Black Out
Middle and pinky finger: 2 coats of SS over First Mate.

Pointer and Ring finger: 2 coats of SS over Black Out
Middle and pinky finger: 2 coats of SS over First Mate.

Pointer and Ring finger: 2 coats of SS over Black Out
Middle and pinky finger: 2 coats of SS over First Mate.

Pointer and Ring finger: 2 coats of SS over Black Out
Middle and pinky finger: 2 coats of SS over First Mate.

That's close to a sapphire blue, but I still think it's more of a cobalt blue. Layering it definitely helps the color become more opaque though, so I can't complain too much. As is with most sheer polishes, the formula was thin and runny. This can be bought at any drug stores such as CVS, Rite Aid, Walgreens, etc.

CM

Zoya Tru (and even more layering)

Zoya has their new Spring 2012 collection out, called True. There were two colors that really called out to me in the collection: Lotus and Tru. Today I have Tru to show you. Tru is a "red-toned grape purple with speckled shimmer that reflects gold, orange and red." (Taken from Zoya's site here). It was hard to capture the shimmer in this baby, but you can definitely see it in the bottle. This polish is so pretty in real life, my pictures do not do it justice. Enough talking though, on with the pictures!

There's a good shimmer shot in the bottle.

This collection was released in conjunction with their Flecked collection consisting of 3 flakies. I haven't gotten any of them, simply because I don't have the money to, but that doesn't mean I can't play with the flakies that I already have! So I layered my newly acquired Twisted (from the Finger Paints Special Effects collection) that my mom stalked 12 Sally's Beauty stores for (no joke!) over it. Take a look!

Ew, dry hands! Hardcore dry hands, sorry about that! But isn't that so pretty? Twisted is like a rainbow in a bottle, there's blue, green, purple, orange, yellow, red. So pretty and complex! 

By the way, this is the longest that my nails have ever been. But, sadly, I couldn't operate with them (more specifically, I couldn't take my contacts out without tearing them...it's happened twice with these bad boys). So now I have nubbins again. Ok, they're not that short, but compared to these, they're so short! Oh well. 

Have you hopped on to the flakie band wagon?

CM