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OPI Every Month is Oktoberfest
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Quick update!
So...I've been on vacation for the past few days, which is why I've been a bit MIA! Unfortunately though, I lost my phone on the trip, which also served as my only camera for this blog. Until I get my replacement phone in, posts here may be a bit patchy. I hope to be back in business soon, as Halloween is such a fun time for seasonal manis!
I had a couple posts in the works before I lost my phone, and until then, have a picture of a autumnal skittle mani that I didn't really think deserved its own post:
![Fall Autumn Skittle Manicure]( "Autumnal Skittle")
**Edit to add polishes used**
Green is China Glaze Budding Romance
Yellow is Sally Hansen Butterscotch
Orange is China Glaze Life Preserver
Red is Essie Alligator Purse layered over Sally Hansen Red Zin
Brown is Finger Paints Sketchy Character
I had a couple posts in the works before I lost my phone, and until then, have a picture of a autumnal skittle mani that I didn't really think deserved its own post:
**Edit to add polishes used**
Green is China Glaze Budding Romance
Yellow is Sally Hansen Butterscotch
Orange is China Glaze Life Preserver
Red is Essie Alligator Purse layered over Sally Hansen Red Zin
Brown is Finger Paints Sketchy Character
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Wizard of Oz Nail Art
Wizard of Oz nail art. This is vaguely Halloweeny, yes? I miss when what I was for Halloween was like, the most important decision I had to make all year. My favorite costume from when I was little was when my parents and I went as "Cat Burglars". We dressed in all black with burgling masks, cat ears, tails, whiskers and carried around sacks filled with mice and balls of yarn. This has nothing to do with this nail art. Ooops. Anyway! My new phone (and also camera, so I can take pictures again!) should be here soon, I'm so excited.
Polishes Used:
Pointer: China Glaze Desert Sun, China Glaze Kalahari Kiss, L'Oreal Brownie Points
Middle: Sally Hansne Whirlwind White, China Glaze Kinetic Candy, NYC Raindrop
Ring: Sally Hansen Celeb City, China Glaze Ruby Dear, OPI Smitten With Mittens
Pinkie: OPI Jade is the New Black, China Glaze Desert Sun, L'Oreal Brownie Points
Thumb: China Glaze Something Sweet, Sally Hansen Celeb City, China Glaze Glistening Snow
So...a lot of polish.
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The Worst is Just Around the Bend...
Not only am I phoneless this week, I have come down with the flu! Ugh! I'm quite doped up on cough syrup right now, so I hope this post isn't too weird! This is the last un-posted mani I have in my back log, and will have to suffice until my new phone comes in (hopefully today!).
![Nightmare Before Christmas Nail Art Sally's Dress]( "Nightmare Before Christmas Nail Art")
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This manicure is inspired by Sally from The Nightmare Before Christmas, the only holiday movie you can watch twice a year! Confession time: when the movie first came out, I was too scared to watch it! I didn't actually watch it all the way through until I was in middle school.
This nail art was a great opportunity to use all those dusty and muted polishes that come out in the fall!
Polishes Used:
Light Purple-Sally Hansen Concrete
Greenish Gray (pointer & ring) Orly Decoded
Red-Essie Alligator Purse,
Orange- China Glaze Desert Sun,
Dark Gray- Sally Hansen Gray Area
Green- Finger Paints Vintage Velvet
Purple (on pinky)- Color Club Uptown Girl
Pink (thumb)- China Glaze Dress Me Up
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Sinful Colors Crystal Crushes Collection Swatches and Review
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| Guess who got their new phone iiiiin! |
Soooo excited to find these at Rite Aid yesterday! Sinful Colors has come out with its own take on the texture trend, a gorgeous collection called Crystal Crushes. These are $2.99, as seems to be the case with all the silver capped Sinfuls. There are eight colors in the set, but I skipped on the yellow and orange. I'm so happy with these though, I may cave and pick those up too! One thing I'll note is that these are a bit different than other textures I've tried, which make the finish somewhat unique. For the most part, all these polishes have a consistency which is combination of the glittery kinds of textures and the creme, non-shimmery kind. Anyway, onto swatches! These were quite hard to capture, like many textures, so I included many pictures. Click any to see them larger!
Sinful Colors Treasure Chest is a teal texture polish with golden shimmer. This is the one I was most excited by, and I was not disappointed! So pretty and shimmery, the name is certainly apt! This was two coats.
And here it is with topcoat! As always, I had to use a coat of Gelous and a coat of topcoat to get these smooth.
Sinful Colors Ruby Mine is a red texture polish with golden and pink shimmers. This one leans a bit pink, and took two coats.
With topcoat!
Sinful Colors Purple Gleam is a lilac texture polish with pink and iridescent shimmer. I looove this one, as evidenced by the ridiculous amount of photos. Like most purples, the color is a bit off, I tried to correct the best I can. It's a touch bluer than pictured. This took two coats.
And shiny!
Sinful Color Emerald Envy is a shamrock green texture polish with golden shimmers. This is definitely my fave from this collection, So freaking sparkly! Two coats.
Topcoat.
You can kinda see the pink in this one.
I like this a lot better with topcoat, this pink glitter is whimsical and pretty, like pink stars!
Sinful Colors Got A Blush On You is a magenta textured polish with pink and blue shimmers. This one is the only one of this set that lacks the creme-ier consistency. It's closer to Zoya Pixie Dust, formula-wise. It was thinner than the rest and needed three coats.
And with topcoat!
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Maybelline Brocade Collection Swatches and Review (Fall 2013)
Maybelline has come out with yet another knockout Color Show line! The Brocade Collection is a group of glitter bombs that really do evoke lovely silky and metallic brocade fabrics. What ties this collection together is the iridescent shimmers in these polishes, which reflect gold, green and purple, they're so pretty! I'm on the lookout for the final two in this collection, but here are the eight in the main display.
Maybelline Beaming Blue has an almost duochrome base that shifts from blue to violet, packed with golden iridescent shimmer and two sizes of blue hex glitter. It reminds me a bit of the China Glaze Prismatics collection. This is probably my fave from the collection, so pretty! Three coats.
Maybelline Emerald Elegance is a green jelly base with green and golden iridescent shimmer and green hex glitter in two sizes. This one is amazing! I already love green polishes a biased amount, but this one is truly special. So lovely and sparkly, and almost a one coater!
Maybelline Black N Mirrors is a mix of tiny black glitter, gold hex glitter in two sizes, and golden iridescent shimmer is a charcoal jelly base. Oh I love this one, like carbon ore or something. So sparkly. This is two coats.
Maybelline Gilded Rose has a clear base jam packed with the golden iridescent shimmer that permeates this collection and two sizes of pink hex glitter. Oh this is lovely! Even in the shade is sparkles. This need three coats for opacity.
Maybelline Ruby Refined is a red jelly base packed with red and golden iridescent shimmer and two sizes of red hex glitter. Oh my, is this pretty! I don't have anything like this. It can lean a bit pink in some light. Two coats.
Maybelline Lavishly Lilac has a pale purple jelly base with tons of purple and golden iridescent shimmer and two sizes of purple hex glitter. This almost has the qualities of a duochrome in certain lighting, the purple shifts into gold quite a bit. Super flashy. This is three coats.
Maybelline Embellished Blues is another tough one to capture! It's a navy jelly with golden iridescent shimmer and blue hex glitters. I will say that this dries a bit lumpier than the rest! I actually thought it was meant to be a texture polish at first! Top coat will clear it up though. This is two coats.
Maybelline Amethyst Couture has a deep plum colored base filled with golden iridescent shimmer and purple hex glitter in two sizes. This doesn't have a jelly base like the other, it's almost a creme! This is super rich looking, but hard to capture. Two coats.
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Sally Hansen Triple Shine Drama Sheen and Make Waves Swatches and Review
Oooh! I was at Ulta today and one of the sales ladies was putting the display for the new Sally Hansen Triple Shine Line! They were $4.99 a piece and there was a pretty good combination of cremes, shimmers, and glitters in the line. I picked two to swatch today!
Before the swatch pics, here are some shot of the bottle and brush. My Sally Hansen drawer is such a jumble of bottle styles, so I guess yet another won't hurt! These bottles are an odd squared off bullet shape that actually kind of reminds me of a coffin. Morbid, I know.
The bottle has an overcap that snaps into place, but it I ntoiced it was a little jiggly on some of the bottles. The brush on these guys is a paddle brush, which I prefer but I know many people hate them. My only complaint is the stem is a little wide for the bottle neck, so it got a little messy if I was careless when I wiped excess polish off.
Onto swatches!
Sally Hansen Drama Sheen is a pale, grayed out lilac with a bright pinky lavender flash. I really like this but the formula was soooo thin. I usually can't tolerate a polish that needs more than three coats unless the color is worth it. I really love the delicate color and shimmer, but I'll probably be wearing undies with this. It took four coats for opacity, but on the plus side they were streak-free and it dried pretty quick. Also, true to the name, this one was super shiny.
Sally Hansen Make Waves is a duochrome that shifts from aqua to chartreuse with the teensiest hints of purple. What can I say? I can't turn down a duochrome! This was a bit thin, but three coats were enough for opacity. I will say that the line name is apt, this is definitely shiny, even pre-topcoat!
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Candy Corn Halloween Nails
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Revlon Parfumerie Autumn Spice and Italian Leather Swatches and Review
Had swatches of these babies in the line-up for a couple weeks and totally forgot to post them! Ooops! Here are two of the awesome new Revlon Parfumerie collection polishes. I am glad that these are a permanent collection so I can slowly collect them all. The bottles are absolutely adorable and I'm really happy with the two shades I've picked up so far. I'm impressed with the subtlety and sophistication of the scents, too! Sometimes scented nail polish can really whack you in the nose with artificial bubblegum or whatever, and it's no fun. I hope the others I eventually pick up are just as nice!
Revlon Autumn Spice is a gorgeous brown that contains copper and pink shimmer. This color is absolutely beautiful, super sparkly and what a perfect name. The smell is delicious, too! Smells are so hard for me to describe, but it's sweet, creamy, and a bit spicy! Like a kitchen after baking every autumnal dessert you can think of. This was two coats.
Revlon Italian Leather is a a muted mossy green with fine gold shimmer. I love these muted colors for fall, and the gold shimmer is so delicate and pretty! This can lean a bit gray in some light, especially indoors where the gold doesn't bring out the green. I still quite like it though. The smell on this one only slightly reminds me of leather, and I think it's just the name making me smell it at all. It's a bit too clean for leather, almost a citrusy, vanilla scent. It's a nice smell either way. This is two coats.
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Butter London Petrol
So a couple weeks ago during Ulta's Friends and Family sale, I managed to snag three Butter London shades for eight bucks a piece! I could never bring myself to pull the trigger on a $15 polish, so they are my very first of the brand! Today I have for you Butter London Petrol, a lovely douchrome shimmer that shifts from turquoise to purple. I am in love with this, it may be in the running with Color Club Port-folio as my favorite duochrome. This is marketed as an overcoat, but I found it built to opacity in three careful coats. After the cut is approximately a hundred billion more shots. As with all duochromes, this is a chameleon and looks totally different in even slightly different lighting. And believe me, I had to edit this post down to somewhat sensible levels.
As always, click any of the pictures to view them larger!
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China Glaze Queen B
Quick post today because I'm going out of town for a few days. China Glaze Queen B came out with the Fall 2013 Autumn Nights collection! I was a bit disappointed by the high levels of frostiness in this collection, but there were some real winners (foils galore!). It's hard for me to get too excited by cremes these days, but China Glaze Queen B definitely caught my eye. It's a slightly dusty deep blue-violet. Super rich and great for fall. The formula was a bit thick, but made for a one-coater. I'm not quick to call anything a true one-coater, since I tend to like at least two coats as a rule, but this definitely qualifies!
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Finger Paints Enchanted Winter Holiday 2013
Checked out my local Sally's the other day and was excited to find the new holiday collection by Finger Paints, Enchanted Winter. Now, I didn't see anything saying this was a texture collection, but I had my suspicions, and I was correct! I only got three shades, but I'm pretty sure the rest were also textured, as evidenced by this blog post by Burb Beauty!
Finger Paints Winter Chill is a black texture polish with pink and blue sparkles. I don't own a texture like this, but it does remind me a lot of Hard Candy Bite of black...just textured. This is the thinnest formula, it needed three coats for opacity.
Here is Winter Chill with topcoat, super sparkly and galaxy-esque.As always, this took a coat of Gelous and two coats of QD topcoat to get smooth.
Finger Paints Sparkle in the Sky is a denim blue texture polish with multi-color sparkles, most noticeable purple and green. This is verrrry similar to OPI Alcatraz...Rocks, as I'll show below. This was two coats.
And here it is with topcoat. Like a night sky, took the regular Gelous+topcoat to smooth it out.
Here is a comparison swatch of Finger Paints Sparkle in the Sky verses OPI Alcatraz...Rocks. The only real difference is that the OPI has a slightly deeper and cooler base. This was taken in shade, but it bright light the difference is much less obvious. If I had to choose I'd pick the OPI, but I think the formula is a bit better on the Finger Paints, dries faster, needed fewer coats. Near dupes, normal polish fiends probably don't need both. Good affordable alternative to the OPI!
Finger Paints Enchanted Winter is a rust colored texture with pink and gold sparkle. This is very lovely and took two coats. As you'll see below, it's very close to Nicole By OPI Cinna-Man of My Dreams.
And with topcoat, soooo lovely! It's weird, the ring finger looks darker than the rest in all these photos, I'm really not sure why.
Here's comparison swatches of Finger Paints Enchanted Winter verses Nicole by OPI Cinna-Man of my Dreams. Again, the Finger Paints doesn't have as dark of a base, but it's very slight. Formulas are pretty much the same, two coats. Nice dupe!
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Wishbone Nail Art
You know, as someone who kinda has a thing fornail artfeaturingfood, you'd think I'd have a super easy time thinking up Thanksgiving manicures...but I've been pretty uninspired. Until today! I figure a wishbone is part of a turkey, right?
These shots are without topcoat, I actually kind of liked the dimensionality of the gold polish.
I admit, I was too tempted to resisted mattifying the whole shebang. I used one coat of Essie Matte About You.
Polishes used:
Base: Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure Dune
Gold: China Glaze Passion
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Retro Christmas Tree Light Flower Nail Art
Okay, so in theory I hate doing anything too specifically Christmas-y, especially nail art, before Thanksgiving is even over, but I just could not get this idea out of my head! I was inspired by all the cute retro Christmas lights in funky colors I've been seeing all over the place. I may have to get some to decorate the tree with this year! I need to buy a tree first, I guess...
Polishes Used:
Gray: China Glaze Pelican Gray
Gold: Orly Glitz and Glamour
Green: Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Green With Envy
Purple: Essence Break Through
Blue Wet N Wild Listening to Blue Reed
Orange: Wet N Wild Sunny Side Up
White: Wet N Wild French White Creme
Topped with Essie Matte About You
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&#?@! Nail Art! A quasi tribute to Black Friday
I do not hate myself enough to go shopping on Black Friday (and especially not Thanksgiving evening), but to all the brave souls who did, this (late!) manicure is for you. I've heard way too many horror stories, and witnessed my fair share (6+ years in retail) of how normal, nice people can lose it over cut price Elmo dolls. I never had a customer actually cuss at me until my very first Black Friday as a cashier at a fabric store. Evidently us not having enough teddy bear flannel to clothe a nation was Serious. Business.
Polishes Used:
Wet N Wild French White Creme
Sinful Colors Ardoise
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Finger Paints Holiday Love Affair Swatches and Review (Winter 2013)
So I saw another winter Finger Paints collection, Holiday Love Affair at Sally's, and was intrigued! I never usually see more than one full collection per season for Finger Paints, but this year has felt different! I wonder if it's because their other collection, Enchanted Holiday, was all textures, so they wanted to do something different? I dunno, but I can't complain about more polish!
There are five shades in this collection. I skipped a red shimmer and this red glitter from Teen Polish Junkie's blog. You can also check out more pictures of all five shades at TheKarenD's blog! (You should be following her anyway if you aren't already!)
Fist up is Finger Paints Frolic in the Snow, a white bar glitter suspended in a clear base with pink micro-shimmer. I don't know about you, but I'm about done with all the matte bar glitter, and I like the trend. I know it isn't that popular, so I hope this dies down a bit soon! I suppose Finger Paints had to get in on the action, and to be fair this is unique with the inclusion of shimmer, a bit like China Glaze Flying South. I swatched two "coats", aka dabbed layers and every finger but my ring, where I did one coat over Wet N Wild Black Creme so that you could better see the shimmer.
Second is, Finger Paints Sugar Cookie for Two, a mix of black and gold bar glitter in a clear base. I like this one much more than the one above. It reminds me of Grandma's "party sweater" with all the metallic threads. Just for contrast, I swatched it over China Glaze Ruby Deer on my ring finger, and two coats on all the rest.
Lastly is my favorite, and one I almost skipped! Finger Paints Golden Kisses is a mix of tiny silver glitter and golden flakes. I love the depth this one achieves! It's a similar idea to many silver/gold polishes, but I think this may be my favorite in terms of execution! This is super dense and only took two thin coats. I'm not sure if this was intended to be a texture polish, as the last collection was all texture, but it did dry quite gritty! I inlcuded some shote without topcoat for the curious.
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| No Topcoat |
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Mint Green Candy Cane Heart Nail Art
When I was little my mom used to stick candy canes on my presents in the shape of a heart, and I stole her idea and do it for all the gifts I give now. Because there is always time to give people candy. I'm still being hesitant about doing full on red and green for Christmas, but I can feel it coming.
Polishes used:
Green is Orly Coachella Dweller
White is Wet N Wild French White Creme
Pink is OPI Steady As She Rose
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Water Color Snow Flake Nail Art
It really doesn't snow in Atlanta, but I've found myself inspired by all the snowflake manicures I've been seeing! Plus, I saw Frozen the other day and it was soooooo pretty! So I'm tossing my own snowflake nail art into the ring. I used Mr.Candiipants' awesome (and hilarious, as always) snowflake tutorial video, as well as a modified version of The Nailasaurus' amazing pastel galaxy tutorial for the background.
Polishes Used:
China Glaze Tarty for the Party
China Glaze Kinetic Candy
China Glaze Something Sweet
China Glaze Dandy Lion Around (Sponged this all over to make everything milky and sparkly)
Wet N Wild French White Creme
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Snow Angel Nail Art
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Candles in the Dark Nail Art
Here's a quickie for today, I haven't been feeling very well and this has been in the queue for awhile. Candles are semi-Christmasy, right?
Polishes Used:
Background is OPI I Saw...U Saw...We Saw...Warsaw
White is Wet N Wild French White Creme
Orange is Wet N Wild The Clock Strikes Orange
Yellow is China Glaze Happy Go Lucky
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