Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Don't get too crazy tonight! And be safe in this rainy weather. I celebrated last night with a shot of Nyquil and going to bed before midnight. So crazy. Anyways, just a quick post on my St. Patty's Day mani. I did 2 coats of Zoya Shawn with ring and thumb accents of Sinful Colors Green Ocean. I'm still sick so there was no motivation to do this mani, but I still like it. But while taking pictures I smudged my ring finger...which you'll see. Oh well, this'll probably come off tomorrow!

Really dark photo, but it showed Green Ocean the best.

Shawn is a grassy green creme polish, the formula was great. Green Ocean is a mixture of blue/green flakies in a slightly tinted green jelly base. It was a gloopy mess and is taking forever to dry, even with my quick dry top coat. That's why it's smudged in the photos. But I still love it...it's my love for anything flakie. Anyways, enjoy and be safe!

CM

Zoya - Charla

Today I have Zoya Charla which is a "tropical blue sparkling metallic" as described by Zoya. I got this in one of their many promos where Charla and Ivanka were free with any order (I believe that's what it was). But seriously, if you haven't already Liked Zoya on Facebook you really should! They're so good to their fans and offer so many promotions it's ridiculous (in a good way)!

Seriously, this color is so beautiful. It's a blue-turquoise-green that reminds me of the water or a mermaid's tail or something along those lines. (Which I'm loving all of the mermaid related nail polishes coming out lately, by the way). The pictures below are all 3 coats.

Sunlight.

Sunlight.

Sunlight.

Shade.

Shade.

See? Gorgeous! But be warned...this polish has major staining issues. You'll get really bad smurf fingers if you aren't careful taking it off. And I would suggest doubling up on your base coat for this one. She may be a pain, but she's worth it! Zoya can be bought from their website here for $8, or you can order a color spoon if you're not sure if you'll like this color on you for 50 cents. 

CM

Some Flakie Magic

Just a fun fact to start the post: Flakie polish is my absolute, hands down, favorite kind of polish. I hoard flakies, even if they're dupes. And I have been traveling all over trying to find all of flakies from Finger Paints and have only found 3 of the 5. (So if anyone has Motley or Twisted I would be willing to buy them from you!!!). People are selling them for ridiculous prices on eBay...they're only $5 at Sally's Beauty. Stupid. Anyways, on to the polish.

Today I have NARS Zulu, which is a gorgeous dark green jelly. It's seriously so shiny without a top coat. I love it. I decided to do some layering with Finger Paints Flecked, which is green and blue flakies in a clear base. It brought Zulu to life. So pretty! Take a look:

First, Zulu all alone. Pretty! This was 3 coats.

This is 1 coat of Flecked over Zulu.

Here's a good shot of the duochrome flakies, they flash green and blue.

Look at that! The polish glows from within. So pretty.

This is in natural sunlight. 

So what do you think? Do you like the whole flakie trend? Personally, I don't think you can ever have enough. (:

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

Glittering Garland

This green is so gorgeous! It is from China Glaze's 2011 Holiday collection, Let It Snow. It has green and gold micro glitter and glass flecked amazing-ness in a dark forest green jelly-ish base! It was very opaque and could have been done in just 1 coat, but I used 2 out of habit. Enough talking, on to the pictures! Click on the pictures to make them bigger!

The micro-glitter adds so much depth to the dark green base, it's beautiful!

With flash.

No flash. Lovin' my Revlon top coat, makes everything SO SHINY! Look at that reflection on my nails, haha!

Artificial light. Love it!

I have some comparison posts coming up. Quite a few actually, but I'll try to break it up with other posts so everyone isn't bored with just my nail polish. 

I also updated my Excel spreadsheet and nail polish collection...I'm at 287 (threw out 6 polishes) and I'm officially out of room in my storage bins. Looks like I need to go buy some more storage...and polish! Aiming for that 300, haha. Some of you may think that this is crazy, but it's really not. Some of the blogs that I follow have thousands of polishes. No joke. This is my hobby and I love it, don't judge or hate! Until next time.

CM