OPI Designer Series: Design & Extravagance

Hello Lovlies!

Finally some sun to swatch! I've decided to start showing two polishes at a time, because I will never get through them in a timely manner at the rate I'm going. Today I have the last of my stronger linear holos, Design, and my favorite of the non-linear holos, Extravagance.

Design is a gorgeous linear tan holographic polish. In person, this is a perfect match to my skin, so I get holographic mannequin hands, which I find so very pretty. The above swatches are 2 coats, and there is no visible nail line in person, but for photos I could have used 3.  

Extravagance is a rich raspberry scattered holographic. Photos don't really do this polish the justice it deserves. The first one above only hints at the kind of lush, subtle holographic goodness I see in person looking at this color. Coverage on this is wonderful... the above are 2 very thin coats, but 1 thick one would probably suffice. The only downside to this one is visible above... it's tough to clean up, and like many in the red family, it tends to stay visible in cuticles.

Until next time,

HeatherS  

OPI Designer Series: Original

Hello Lovelies!

Today's OPI Designer Series polish is Original! Original is a pretty lilac holographic polish that covers beautifully in 3 thin coats as you see below.

They say you always remember your first, and Original, as the name would suggest, is the first holographic polish I ever got, so I can thank it for starting my holo obsession. Of all my holos it's seen the most wear over the years. I attribute this to it's versatile color... it's subdued enough to not be completely off the wall, but it's still purple and funky and different. 

Until next time,

HeatherS

OPI Designer Series: Signature

Hello Lovelies!

Continuing on with the OPI Designer Series today is another classic holo: Signature.

Signature is a lovely rose pink holographic that is definitely more cool toned than warm toned. It's very understated in low light, looking a bit plain and mauve. It has one of the strongest holo effects of all the old DS polishes.

Now, I'm not really a girl who likes pink polishes... in fact pretty much every other polish color outnumbers pink in my collection, but this is a really pretty one. 

Until next time,

HeatherS

OPI Designer Series: Glamour

Hello Lovelies!

Alright, today I have my absolute FAVORITE of the OPI Designer Series... Glamour. My amazing mother got me this polish for my birthday 2 years ago and I've been head over heals with it ever since.

*swoon*

It shouldn't really come as a surprise that I love this color so much, its a rich royal blue holographic polish that appears a bit indigo in low lights and applies like a dream in 2 coats. This is definitely high on my list of favorite blues, and it would probably make the list for favorite polishes.

Until next time,

HeatherS

OPI DS Diamond

Hello Lovelies!

Continuing the OPI DS swatches today is Diamond. Diamond is a bit of a holographic ugly duckling. It's too silver to be a purple, too purple to be silver, too dusty to be lavender, with a touch of taupe in certain lights... I've determined it's probably best to call it a thistle color. The holo is strong, but not super linear, and it really doesn't show well in the bottle.

 Initially when I bought this color I was sort of underwhelmed. Yes, it's a fairly strong holo, yes it's unique, but it was sort of... safe? Something about the kind of dusty thistle color of it didn't really appeal that much to me, so into the drawer it went, never really brought out again until it needed swatching. Then something odd happened... I put it on, and it was like a completely different color than I remember. It suddenly seemed chic, and a little edgy with it's dusky looks. I honestly didn't take it off for about 3 days, and so many different people commented on how pretty it was. I sort of love when a polish surprises me like that.

Have you ever had a polish that deserved a second look?

Until next time,

HeatherS

OPI Designer Series: Desire

Hello Lovelies!

So I have decided that I want to start off 2013 swatching all of my OPI Designer Series polishes. I have already shown you Sapphire, but I may redo that one. As I mentioned, I collect the old school DS polishes, with the really linear gorgeous holographic details. I have a few from the second series with the more scattered holo and metallic effects, but I'll be saving those for towards the end.

To kick-start, here is Desire... and what a pretty thing it is. Desire is a milk chocolate-y holographic brown shown here with 3 coats. I usually layer this over a brown creme like Essie's Little Brown Dress, but I wanted to show it to it's full potential on it's own. The first photo below shows it in shade to give you a better idea of it's color.

*Please pardon the beagle hair... I didn't see them until uploading.

 *sigh* So pretty. I really hope with China Glaze and Color Club releasing new holographic collections that OPI will do the same.

Until next time!

HeatherS

Gothic Lolita + DV8

Hello Lovelies!

I hope everyone had an enjoyable holiday season, whatever you may celebrate.

Now that the obligatory Holiday nails are done with I wanted to bring you some out of season brightness. For some odd reason I always tend to gravitate towards nail colors that are the opposite of the season, i.e. vampy colors in summer, neons and brights in winter. It's an odd quirk, but it leads to some pretty combinations like today's.

This is China Glaze Gothic Lolita stamped using China Glaze DV8 on Cheeky XL plate C. In low light the design is really subtle, but I love the combo in the sun. Gothic Lolita is a pretty hyacinth purple with a lovely blue shimmer, and DV8 is a super linear holographic teal that works so wonderfully for stamping.

Until next time!

HeatherS

He's Going In Circle's Under Water

Hello Hello Hello.

I recently was stocking up on some cotton balls at Dollar Tree (because we all know how fast us polish lovers go through them) and I saw that my local had restocked all the 2 packs of nail polish that they sometimes have. This time it was tons of the old Maybelline express finishes, and I scooped up some beautiful shimmers, one of the matte finished ones, and a bunch of the water polishes (the super sheer jellies).

Now here is a confession... I kind of hate jellies. Now don't get me wrong, I adore the super shininess of them, and the OPI "sorbet" finishes are gorgeous, but in general I hate that they never seem to dry quickly and ALWAYS show nail line. So naturally it kind of surprised me that I got a bunch of super super sheer jellies, but immediately upon returning home I realized an awesome way to wear them... layered over pale holographic polishes.

This is my first attempt: China Glaze's He's Going In Circles (a super pale seafoam green holographic) topped with 2 layers of Maybelline Express Emerald Water (a very blue leaning green ridiculously sheer jelly).

Layering these two polishes just amped up the color of HGIC but didn't take away any of the holo effect.

What do you think? Are you a fan of jellies on their own or do you have to layer them?

Until next time :)

Oh Em Gee!!!!!

Hello!

Earlier this year I posted about my first successful lemming capture with China Glaze's No Way Jose. Today, I have the Holy Grail of lemmings for me... China Glaze's OMG. I lucked out on ebay and while it's the most I've ever spent on a singular polish, I didn't get scalped for it, and it's worth every penny. OMG is the most holographic holo that I own. It's a crisp, cool, super linear holo silver that pictures really don't do justice to... but I'm posting them anyway.

I love it so much I want go to bed with it and kiss it in many soft private places. The only downside to this saucy little minx is that it's fickle; the wear time is next to nothing before it starts chipping. That's okay though, I still love it.

What's your Holy Grail polish?

Until next time.

Tronica Completed

Hello all!


Today I had enough of a break in the torrential rain to get super fast swatches of the last two polishes from the China Glaze Tronica Collection. So here we have Gamer Glam (holographic dusty purple) and Hyper Haute (holographic raspberry pink).

As you can see, Gamer Glam is much more holographic then Hyper Haute, but it's still not a super heavy holo. I think both are gorgeous color wise, and they both applied wonderfully just like the rest of the collection... the above swatches are each 1 coat, no topcoat, no streaking or bald spots and dried completely in less then two minutes. Overall I can say that this entire collection, while not quite as holo as I would have liked, was definitely a welcome addition to my stash.

Until next time!

Holy Holographic Batman!

Hey there!

Today I got a "Get anything of your choosing free" coupon from Sally Beauty in the mail, so I decided to stop in when I was out and about. Well, as I was opening the door my eyes zoomed over to the display for the Tronica collection from China Glaze (which officially launches tomorrow in Sally's but mine put them out early). Well, I damn near ran to it and promptly picked up every color in the display (sadly Hyper Haute and Gamer Glam were nowhere to be found). Here I have sunlit skittles of the other 10 in the collection.

Note: Please pardon the lack of clean up... My hand is still broken (I took off my splint for the pics), and I didn't have time before I lost the sun to clean up the cuticles.

Electric Magenta... pinker in real life, and more holographic then this picture indicates

3D Fantasy... GORGEOUS... rosy, bright, slightly less holo then the rest of the collection, but the color makes up for that.

Digital Dawn... holographic roan... brown with a strong red lean, really different

Cyberspace... Pretty holo neutral. one of the strongest holo effects in the collection.

Hologram... great holo silver... reminds me of Color Club Worth the Risque and China Glaze's OMG's lovechild. 

Virtual Violet... My favorite new holographic purple... rich, not too red, fairly strong holo-y goodness.

High Def... pretty, kind of acid-washed looking blue. One of the least holo in the collection.

Techno Teal... Teal, pretty, but underwhelming. Not a very strong holo, but applied beautifully.

Laser Lime... The most holographic polish in the collection... Not this pale in real life, very summery feeling.

Mega Bite... Much yellower in person, with a stronger holo... I prefer this to the gold from the OMG collection.

A note about these holos... They are a softer holo then the OMG polishes, but they apply so much better then the OMG's, with no bald spots and seven out of ten of these swatches are 1 coat, the 3 with 2 coats are Laser Lime, Hologram, and Cyberspace. The pigmentation of these are lovely, all of them are bright and attention grabbing (with the exception of the very neutral Cyberspace, which gives me holographic mannequin hands in person, though these pics don't show the awesomeness). Anyways, that's my haulage... I feel that I will pick up the last two from the collection as soon as I find them.

Until Next Time.

Giving Me A Technicolor Whirl

Ok so the title of today's blog is random, but this polish always reminds me of that old Disney Channel movie Zenon: Girl of the 21st Century, which I must have watched a hundred times or so growing up... and to be fair it totally fits with this polish.

This is China Glaze's Nova, one of the 50 glitters they put out a few years ago, and it's pretty amazing. It's lots of silver and holo hex glitter shoved in a clear base. Super shiny, super sparkle-y , super pain to get off, but totally worth it if you want crazy crazy glitter nails. So here we go...

^Direct Sunlight^

 ^Direct Sunlight, Blurred to show the ubersparkle^

^Indirect Sunlight^

^Indoors with flash^

This is 3 coats with two coats of Seche Vite for a smooth finish (but with a little shrinkage, alas). 

Thanks for following, I'll see ya soon.

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.