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 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

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 :)

I'm Cracking Up!

Hello All!

How is everyone? I've been crazy busy, but ridiculously happy.

Today I have a quick photo of a super pretty crackle polish combo... it reminds me of a venetian glass necklace my mom had when I was growing up and I'm super smitten with the different finishes contrasting.

This is OPI's Rising Star (a super rich, almost copper leaning gold) topped with China Glaze's Crushed Candy (a bright turquoise crackle polish).

  
I'm not a huge fan of gold or turquoise, but somehow the combination is very appealing to me. As I said, the real beauty of this manicure is the differences in the finishes, with that rich gold metallic shimmer that glows underneath the creamy turquoise when light catches it.

Until next time!

Chaotic & Colorful

Hey All,

Sorry I've been gone for so long, work had our manager fired and another girl quit on the same day, so I've been covering both of their hours. All the chaos at work though inspired today's manicure, a super bright and crazy colorful water marble.

This is my 4th water marble, I'm finally getting the hang of it. This was OPI What's With The Cattitude, Who The Shrek Are You, Zoya Mira and Areej, and China Glaze Happy Go Lucky.

The thumbs are my favorite.

Are you a fan of nail art? If so, simple, crazy or both?

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.

In A Tizzy Over Tanzy

Hello all!

As a general rule, I severely dislike summer. I don't like 110 degree temps, I don't like kids being out of school everywhere, and as a natural redhead the sun is my worst enemy. The thing I do love about it though is the nail polish collections, filled with neons and sparkles and glass flecks oh my! So since my southern California weather has decided that summer is on its way, I chose to break out one of the absolute beauties of the new Zoya Sunshine collection that I used the BOGO code they released to get. This is Tanzy, a stunning tangerine sparkle, foil, something or other (not sure what to call the finish on this one except to call it AWESOME). I am completely in love with this color, even in super dim light it glows, seriously can't-stop-staring fantastic color!

This was two coats. This polish applied beautifully, dried fast-ish, no word yet on ease of removal, but I'll let you know when I take it off (though I'm expecting it to be a sit and soak kind of removal without a lot of rubbing a la OPI Burlesque's shimmers).

Until next time!

Geek Meets Gleek

Hello!

Ever had a polish that the name just brings something to mind that makes you happy for some geeky reason? For me that polish is Jesse's Girl "Firefly". Every time I think of it, I immediately picture Nathan Fillion in tight pants and suspenders aimin' to misbehave, and I love that. You may or may not remember this polish from my photo-fail day. Today I was super feeling wearing Firefly and giving it another shot to do well in photos, but the problem is that it's not even remotely opaque, so I searched my stash and came up with a gorgeous combo.

This is 2 coats Sephora for OPI "Slushied" from the Glee collection with 1 coat Jesse's Girl "Firefly"

So far this has been my favorite combo for layering "Firefly". It's bright and shimmery and awesome.

Is there a polish that brings out your inner geek?

Until next time.

Essie Has A Dirty Mind

Hello all!


Anybody ever notice the craziness of some of these polish names? OPI and China glaze tend to try and be punny and/or sexual (Mmm... Vould You Like A Lick-tenstein/Limbo Bimbo), some brands intentionally go for slutty and crazy names (Cheeky Monkey, which I'm dying to get my hands on some day), but I find that Essie has some of the most overt names to their polish (Meet Balls, After Sex, one of my favorite reds BTW). Today's swatch is one of those crazy named semi-sexual polishes, Over The Knee.


Over The Knee is a super-cozy chocolate milk color with gorgeous red shimmer in it, like a lighter redder version of China Glaze's Ingrid. Colorwise it's most like the first and last pictures, but it changes a lot depending on the lighting I've noticed.

Well there it is, hope everyone is doing well. Until next time.

Not So Drab...

Hello!

Okay so today's polish I can't find swatches of anywhere. It shows up on no lemming lists, and there isn't a swatch on a google search to be found, which is a total shame, because this polish is capital B Beautiful. Seriously, I can't believe Scrangie wouldn't have this posted anywhere.

I found this lovely little girl when I walked into a beauty supply store on my way to work hoping to find OPI's Teenage Dream from the Katy Perry collection. When I managed to get the only one in the store (I just love being that lucky girl) I decided to do a quick scan around. I found myself at the Jessica rack, and while most of the rack (like 99%) was your typical reds, pinks, and nudes, the very last slot had this one lone ugly duckling that just screamed "Take me home with you!"... so I totally did.

This is Camouflage by Jessica, a metallic, shimmery, olive green with heavy golden tones.

This was really hard to photograph because of the gold to it. Really it's slightly greener (The second sunlit picture is most color accurate). I don't have anything quite like it in my stash, Zoya's Irene is too green with none of the gold, China Glaze Peace On Earth is too dark, more brush strokey, and has none of the shimmer.

A note on formula: This was a little weird... first off, CHEMICALS... this is so not B3F and stank to high heaven. It takes a while to dry even with a coat of Seche Vite and some dry drops. As for application, I found that it wasn't hard to work with per se, just odd. Some nails applied thick and almost...chunky, maybe? But they leveled out smoothly, while other nails were thinner. I suspect I may have just needed to give it a good shake, but anyway, oddness, and definitely a pretty one that is deserving of more blog-lovin'.

Until next time, be good humans.

I Need A Hero

Hey there!

Ok so a quick one pic post of my 2nd attempt at nail art (my first was some horribly deformed Stormtroopers). I was actually pretty happy with this one, but alas, it is gone now after a rough night of work.

So without much ado... JUSTICE LEAGUE NAILS!!!!

I was really shocked at how well Superman came out... Batman disappointed me though.

My other hand just had little random dots in corresponding colors to each of the above nails. Am now thinking I should do an Avengers manicure (for Thor or Captain America movie... whichever comes first).

Until next time... Be good humans.

Good News & Bad News

Hey there!

So the good news first... I'm finally getting a break from my crazy crazy work schedule, meaning I'm having the time to polish and post (cue the emoticon cheerleaders)

*\o/*   *|o|*   *\o/*

The bad news is I broke my hand. Specifically the hand I photograph for my swatches. Granted, I'll still photograph it even with it in it's ugly ace-bandage-y brace (because I refuse to cast it), but it means I can't change my polish anywhere near as much as I was planning to, so bear with me.

In the meantime, here's a pretty pretty I had sitting in my unposted folder.

This was one coat of China Glaze Happy Go Lucky under two coats of China Glaze Lighthouse. I wish these showed how multicolored the shimmer in Lighthouse was... there are tiny flecks of green or blue in it and they are STUNNING. I couldn't stop looking at my nails with this combo.

I love yellow polish. Especially bright happy uber-shimmery yellow polish.

Anywho, I'll be back soon with some of my more awesome formula'd polishes.

Bad Blogger, No Cookie.

Hey There!

Yes, I know I am a very bad blogger, but unfortunately (and fortunately I guess) I've been working crazy crazy mad hours this month since a girl at my work quit and I've been covering everyones' shifts...  I'm planning on getting on a blogging schedule as soon as the month is over and my hours normalize again, so bear with me... In the meantime, I have a couple of different manis to show you today... one of my photogenically fail mani from this morning (that in person was STUNNING... stupid photo fail), and one of the current shiny non-photo fail mani... so here we go...

This was Sephora by OPI (SOPI)'s Who Let The Dorks Out from the new Glee collection, a super gorgeous metallic teal with a slight purple duo-chrome, topped with Jesse's Girl High Intensity nail polish in Firefly, a slightly milky whitish jelly base with gold/green/blue glass flecks... In reality it had this light underlying purple flash and depending on the light those gorgeous little gold flecks looked spring green, but alas this was the only photo I could get of it that was even half way decent so I took it off this morning. 

Now on to current events... OPI's Show It & Glow It from the Burlesque Collection

This is a super pretty mostly purple and silver glitter polish with bits of orange, blue, yellow, and a teensy bit of green thrown in. Two coats to be completely opaque, dries in a flash, miserable to remove, needs thick topcoat to be smooth, but is so very very pretty.

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.

I Wore My Black & White Dress For

Hello all,

Today I just have a quick swatch of a franken I made at 2 AM this morning during yet another bout of crazy crazy insomnia that I call The Birthday Massacre (named after a band, with a song that the title of todays blog comes from).

Now, I was going for a Big Sparkle-y Glitter in a black base, and overall I'm marginally satisfied with my results, though I think I added a bit too much black and not enough clear to the base, because this is SUPER opaque in two coats with not enough glitter shining through for my complete satisfaction... anywho, to the pictures

^ Multi-colored large hex, medium green square, and micro gold, blue, and green glitter in black ^ 

^Sunlight, showing some of the micro glitter^ 

^Sunlight, showing the full opacity^

So that is it for now... promise to get to some other lovely choices now that the weather seems to be improved.

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.