Jelly Sandwich

Mmm, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich sounds good. But that's not the kind of jelly sandwich I'm talking about today! I wanted a palate cleanser for my nails after wearing Mermaid's Dream for nearly a week (which survived really well, even through deep cleaning parts of the house!). I recently bought Essie - Marshmallow, which is a sheer, white jelly. I heard about it on Makeupalley (MUA) and everyone there seems to have a love/hate relationship with it. But I thought I would try it for myself. Plus, jellies are one of my favorite finishes...so squishy and shiny! And what better color to serve as a break from others...white?

I put on 1 thick-ish coat, and wasn't satisfied. I wanted something a smidge flashier, but still simple and cleansing. So I added one coat of OPI - Rainbow Connection from the Muppets collection, and finished off with another thin coat of Marshmallow (and that's how you create a jelly sandwich). I LOVE this manicure, so much! I might even do it again! Marshmallow turned Rainbow Connection into a muted, pastel glitter. Here, take a look:

I love it. Maybe I'll do it again sometime soon, but I'll probably change it tomorrow or Wednesday. We'll see. Have you tried any jelly sandwiches?

CM

Rock It vs. The One That Got Away

Today I have Orly's Rock It from their Mineral FX collection and The One That Got Away from OPI's Katy Perry collection (which started the shatter/crackle phenomenon). Both of them are pink with a bit o a gold shimmer/flash running through them. Let's see how close they are!

Bottle shot under artificial light.

I honestly cannot remember which polish is on which finger. I want to say that the ring and pointer has OPI's TOTGA and the middle and pinky are Orly's Rock It. Either way, I would definitely say that these two are close enough to be dupes. There are very very very subtle differences between the two. I think the base shade of Rock It is just slightly deeper. Sadly, not much of the gold shimmer/flash shows up on the nail. It does a little bit but no where near what it is in the bottle shots.  I love both of them, but you probably don't need both in your collection. So I deem these as dupes. What do you think?

CM

Jade Is The New Black vs. Don't Mess With OPI

This was a comparison that I hadn't even considered until RV decided to paint my nails with Jade Is The New Black and it hit me that these two were really similar. Jade Is The New Black is from OPI's Hong Kong collection that came out last year. Don't Mess With OPI is from their Texas collection that came out earlier this year. They're both a dusty green creme and both from OPI. So let's take a look...are they dupes?

Bottle shots under artificial light. 

JITNB on the pointer and ring, DMWO on the middle and pinky. Artificial light.

JITNB on the pointer and ring, DMWO on the middle and pinky. Shade.

These two look very similar in the shade, as you can see from the pictures up above. But under the artificial light JITNB becomes a darker green, which actually leans more towards a green/teal on my skin tone and right next to DMWO. DMWO is more of a grassy green. Not close enough to be dupes. Formula was great on both of these, but I found DMWO was a little bit on the runny side. Nothing that you can't work with though!

Overall, I like JITNB better. There are plenty of grassy green colors out there, but I really have nothing like JITNB, so that's my winner. Both are pretty greens though, and if you're a sucker for greens then yeah, get 'em both. But if you're not that into them and only want a few, I think that JITNB is the one to go with. Which one do you prefer?

CM

Frankly Scarlet vs. An Affair In Red Square

Today I have Revlon's Frankly Scarlet and OPI's An Affair In Red Square. AAIRS is one of my absolute favorite red polishes, ever, hands down. So when I was organizing my collection I noticed that when I swatched these two they were pretty similar. Well let's see how similar they really are!

Bottle shot under artificial light.

Ignore my gross stained thumb. FS on pointer and ring, AAIRS on middle and pinky.

Artificial Light. FS on pointer and ring, AAIRS on middle and pinky.

Artificial light. FS on pointer, AAIRS on middle.

These two are similar, but definitely not dupes. They both have a fine shimmer running through them that make them glow. Both formulas were great, although FS was a little bit thinner (as most of Revlon's polishes are). FS leans more to an orange red on my skin tone, where as AAIRS stays a true, glowing red. The winner for me is OPI, and it is still one of my favorite reds, ever. OPI retails for $8.50 in most places (Ulta, Target, etc.),  and Revlon retails for $4-$7 depending on where you buy it (Target, CVS, Walgreens, etc.). I don't think FS is still available anymore, it is a fairly old polish, I think one that I inherited from my mom several years ago before I was really into this sort of thing. So which one do you prefer?

CM

I'm Back!

It has been quite a while since my last post. But I am back home in San Diego! My room is all set up and 95% of all of my things are put away, going to good will or going in the trash! I've been so exhausted lately, I think everything from the past couple of weeks has all of a sudden caught up with me and I've just been exhausted ever since. So here's just a quick post of nail polish!

Richard bought me the Nice Stems Collection from OPI, because he's just amazing like that! (: There are 4 colors in the collection, all varying shades of pink. Really only two called out to me, but I'll find uses for the other two (which is a pale pink and a coral pink). But, for today, I have Be A Dahlia, Won't You and I Lily Love You (which is an amazing top coat, by the way).

Here's BADWY on its own. Its a bright pink with loads of shimmer in it. Its beautiful on its own...but I just had to play around with I Lily Love You, so...

ILLY has a bunch of different shaped glitter and flakies suspended in a pink jelly base. It is very sheer on its own, and of course meant for layering (which is always fun!). As you can see from different angles there are multiple shapes. There was a huge flake on my pinky, as you can see in the last photo! In these I had some fun and used Hard Candy's Matte Top Coat (Matte-ly In Love, I think?), on my ring finger and Seche Vite on the rest. This manicure lasted for 2 weeks before I finally had time to take it off...and that's two weeks of intense cleaning, playing with 2 kids, traveling, packing, moving, etc. All there was was tip wear and the obvious growth. Pretty good, thanks OPI!

I hope to have my engagement ring posted up soon! (:

CM

4th of July

Hello! I hope everyone had a great Fourth of July. Mine was pretty laid back. My dad, Richard and I went and walked around the mall (and bought my engagement ring!), then took fatty naps, then cooked hotdogs, then went back to the mall for Flagstaff's lame fireworks. No joke, they were extremely lame. We left before they were over.

On a much brighter note, this is the last day of this awful class. I'm not coming tomorrow because I have everything turned in and I am done. Plus, my dad and I are leaving for Montana tomorrow morning to see my brother, niece and nephew, so yeah.

 I just wanted to do a quick post, in case anyone missed my patriotic manicure! It was actually pretty easy, but I could have done the job a little bit neater, so the lines were more straight. But here it is:

Enjoy! 

CM