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Rancho Cucamonga, CA, United States

Tuesday, December 28, 2010

Designer Series Sapphire

Hey there!

In case you couldn't tell by the blog's name, I love holographic polishes. Like shout it from the rooftops, introduce them to my parents, ghetto-blaster above my head playing "In Your Eyes" in love. With that in mind, today I have the one holo in my collection that I am merely in like with, OPI Designer Series Sapphire.




 ^ Direct Sunlight ^

  ^ Indoors w/ Flash ^

^ Indirect Sunlight ^

Now don't get me wrong, this is a pretty color... it's just not what I expected. In real life it's not as blue as almost all these pictures make it out to be. The closest picture color-wise is the last one which shows how icy and almost silver this color is, but it doesn't show the slightly pinkish pearl effect that appears in low light. I love how holographic this color is, and it's surprisingly opaque for a color this light (all pictures above are 2 coats). 

Like I said, in like with this holo, but not in love.

Sunday, December 26, 2010

My First Lemming.

Hope everyone had a very happy non-denominational capitalist winter-time gift giving season!

Today I am happy to say I have fulfilled my first ever major lemming, that is to say, the first HTF polish that I saw and just HAD to have. The story of this lemming started with Lextard and her Flickr of amazing swatches. There it was tucked into her superbly organised lists. For a year now I had scoured ebay, amazon, 8ty8beauty, transdesign, VNS... no where ever had it. Then came the awesome blog sale of Michelle at A Stroke of Color that I stumbled upon a little after midnight on my birthday. My biggest lemming was ordered, coming to me like like a sweet sweet present on Christmas Eve...

The original version of China Glaze's No Way Jose.




I love the gorgeous glass fleck and the bright-yet-pale purple of this baby. This was 3 coats for complete opacity, and drying time was kind of on the long side (due to the fact that this is old-school non-B3F), but I sooooo don't care (that's what they invented Seche Vite and drying drops).

Sunday, December 19, 2010

Called On Account Of The Rain

Sooooo yeah...

Haven't posted in a while... was hoping to rectify that in the upcoming week, but the meteorologists keep saying storm of the century, so no sunlight to swatch in. In the meantime I've had a birthday and a week to accumulate more polishes, all of which I'm dying to try swatch as soon as the sun comes out.

In the meantime, here's my cat Annabelle caught mid-roll. She's adorable, and I need a polish the color of her eyes.

Thursday, December 2, 2010

Cry Me A Riva

Hello,

Firstly, be warned... I lost a fight with a mop at work two nights ago and came out with three nails broken down to the very nubbiny-ist of nubbins... it's not pretty, but they will grow out, and I actually think it's kind of cute with today's color choice, which leads me to...

A nice franken (that is to say, a homemade mix) of the much hyped, much overpriced Chanel Riva. I personally have no problem paying some steep prices for polishes (I'm looking at you, Rescue Beauty Lounge)... but I draw the line at Chanel's normal $23 a bottle... needless to say I wasn't gonna cough up $30 for something I could make on my own for $4 with polishes I bought at Target.

Anywho, here's my (from what I can tell based on swatches of the real thing) very good dupe of Chanel's Riva.

^ Direct Sunlight ^ 


^ Shade ^


^ Indoors, Indirect Sun ^

The first and last photos show that lovely in-the-bottle shimmer that Riva has, but the second I think is slightly more accurate to the color. This franken has a bit of the squishy look that Riva seems to get when built to full opacity, but the difference is that this is opaque in two light coats.

My Recipe for it is as follows:
1/2 Wet and Wild in French White Creme
1/3 New York Color in Cashmere Creme  
1/6 Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Blue Me Away

I also added a few drops of Revlon's Powder Puff because it was initially not light enough but I had run out of the W&W... but I don't think it changes the outcome too much.

All in all I'm quite happy about this color... is it entirely new and unique like Jade or Paradoxal was? No, no it's not. Is it a pretty pretty light blue that makes me happy? Yes, yes it is

Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Gems for Trixie

Hey there!

Today I have my very first Nail Of The Day... A blindingly blingy combo which was described by my brother as "a clown exploded on your nails" composed of one coat of Zoya's Trixie covered by one coat of Milani Jewel FX in Gems.

 Gems is a fantastic glittery explosion of medium sized silver, orange, gold, and green hex glitter, and small blue, green, silver, gold, and red round glitter in a clear base. I think this could be totally opaque on its own in 2-3 coats, and it is relatively smooth for a glitter this chunky.

Look at that bottle... sooooo pretty.




^ Indirect Sunlight ^


^ Uber-sparkle in sunlight ^

To my layman's eye this looks a heck of a lot like Lippmann's Happy Birthday, which I will do a comparison of once my bottle of Happy Birthday arrives. The main difference I can see is that Lippmann's hex glitter seems larger in other swatches I've seen, as well as having more colors of glitter, and possibly being less opaque, but if these things aren't super important to you and you're looking for a less expensive alternative, Gems is a real winner.

Monday, November 29, 2010

A little bit of an intro...

Hello All.

My name is Heather (who'd have guessed right?), and I'm a 20 year old massage therapist/pet-sitter/health food clerk/nail polish addict. I'm aiming for this blog to be a way to share my love of all things nail polish-y with others who share my predilections.

My addiction started young, with an aqua jelly packed with holographic glitter from Claire's when I was 5. I wore it to my first day of kindergarten and was promptly chastised for it being distracting... I ran with this and wore nothing but blue or silver nail polish for the next 13 years, it was my little way of being the rebel in schools filled with pastel pinks or thick, ugly, square-tipped acrylics.

Then, I discovered the nail blogs. I was inspired, elated, ravenous for new polishes, and soon filled my collection with different textures and colors. My little collection went from being able to be kept in a small clutch to filling my first Helmer in 8 months with no signs of stopping.

Well, that's my intro for today... I hope to post NOTD pics and swatches tomorrow.