Why I'm Blue About One Day Without Blues

Hello all!

So a couple of weeks ago there was news around the nail blogs about Toms Shoes and Essie teaming up to give away 5000 bottles of a "special" color called One Day Without Blues, a tribute to Toms Shoes annual One Day Without Shoes in support of impoverished children. The deal was go on Toms facebook page, like them, potentially win a bottle of this super special polish. Well I did win one, but when it arrived today I instantly thought it looked familiar, and upon comparison, my suspicion was confirmed that One Day Without Blues is indeed Coat Azure. Don't believe me? Here are the pics.

Thumb, middle, and pinkie: One Day Without Blues
Index and ring: Coat Azure

Index and ring: Coat Azure
Middle and pinkie: One Day Without Blues

Now, that being said, I still love and adore this color... it's a beautiful shimmery blue that applies wonderfully, I was just disappointed that it's a re-release under a new name. Granted, that means if you didn't win the promotion  it's not like you can't get your hands on this color if you don't have it already, which is good.

As always, 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!

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.

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.

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.