Lippmann Call me Irresponsible and Do Ya Think I'm Sexy, sandwiched

Oof. I love this combination. 

My roommate called these nails "grown up Lisa Frank nails," because the color pattern looks like Lisa Frank stickers or something. It's the perfect description.

 And in the sun:

Cheap thrills

I AM DONE WITH HIGH SCHOOL

YES, EVERYONE, I WILL NEVER TAKE ANOTHER HIGH SCHOOL CLASS AGAIN. IN FACT, I WILL NEVER STEP FOOT IN MY HIGH SCHOOL AGAIN. IN FACT (AGAIN), I WILL BE MOVING ACROSS THE COUNTRY FROM MY HOMETOWN AND THUS WILL LIKELY NEVER SEE MOST OF MY PEERS AGAIN.

So, I'll be able to post more because it's summer but may be MIA again as my whole family packs up and sells our house and then moves 3,000 miles away. 

(I'm a little worried)

NYC Preppy Pink is a blue-toned pink that is just so valley girl on the nail. Very nice for pedicures.

 NYC- Midtown Mimosa. Look! A yellow jelly! I want to do a sandwich with this but I'm not sure what glitter to use.

 Fuchsia Glamour is one of my new favorites. Look how clean and pretty and dainty and lovely and-
And it's so tame but I adore it.

Though that name makes about as much sense as that Pure Ice purple with "taxi" in the name.

Want to see something beautiful?

Deborah Lippmann's Cleopatra in New York

In the words of Rachel Zoe: "I die"

(two or three coats over black, I believe)

Yum

Pure Ice Five-Some is a black jelly with some blue, red, purple, and silver glitter thrown in. It's really pretty! Three coats to opacity and dries a little gritty, so be sure to put some topcoat on top! Unless you're into the mock-liquid sands look. I don't think I am (sorry, OPI).

Disclaimer: Sent to me for review. That didn't do anything to change my opinion.

I am obsessed

Hey everyone!

Just finished up my first semester of senior year. This makes me a second-semester-senior, which I hear will inspire laziness like no other. I'm not the type to just stop caring about school, though, so don't expect posts during times of heavy work-load. That said, I should be able to post quite a bit more now.

I've also discovered the queue function, so I can write a ton of posts when I have a chunk of time and then schedule them. This'll help a lot!

Anyway....

Pure Ice sent me some awesome polishes for review, so those'll be the subject of the next few posts (I have seven swatched, so I can guarantee regular updates for a while!). I really put off trying Monte Carlo because it looked like a berry creme and... eh..

GUYS, IT'S A JELLY. A REALLY GORGEOUS JELLY. A JELLY I NEVER WANT TO TAKE OFF.

 I have helpfully provided you with a TON of photos.

The lighting on this one's kind of weird, but it was showing up really pink with the indirect light by my window, so I tried to balance it out with a darker indoors shot.

Then I thought that it needed glitter, so I added First Party, just for kicks

 But I soon grew bored of that, so another coat of Monte Carlo was thrown on top and.... 

 I am in love. I can't even handle how gorgeous

 Like, do you see this? It's like Valentines Day subtly threw up on my nails

I think I'm ruined for every polish ever now. I never want my nails to look like anything but that ever again. It's too beautiful.


Disclaimer: The unusual amount of enthusiasm displayed in the above post is because of drop-dead polishes. While they were sent to me for review, that had no bearing on how much I ended up adoring them. I rarely get this excited about polishes, free or purchased. 

Essence Peaches

It's SO pretty. A very soft sherbet-like orange jelly polish that I wore for almost a week, which is crazy as I'm, well, me!

It refused to photograph but I did the best I could. Please keep in mind that it's actually pinker than the photo, though I couldn't capture that.

Station Polishes!

I'm missing two of the six sent to me, Stirring Silver and an unnamed (or, at least, nameless due to label adhesive issues) red jelly with red glitter. I need to swatch these again as it appears that I saved them to the wrong folder and thus lost them. D'oh!

One & Only Orange is AWESOME. My favorite of the group. An almost neon jelly orange with an easy formula and a good shine when dry. This is already on my toes.

Lemon Pearl is a pretty pale yellow with silver shimmer. I like but don't love this. The formula rocks, though. I could see some darker toned gals rocking this color.

This one was impossible to photograph! Miss McTeal is a teal (duh) with a good dose of blue shimmer. Very murky/moody/pretty.

Power to the Purple is a purple, of course. It practically broke my camera, hence the blurry photo. Anyway, it's a red toned purple with gold and red shimmer. Easy application, if I remember correctly. 

I liked most all of these. Lemon Pearl didn't look super terrific on me, but I'm going to give it another shot when I'm a little tanner. Of the six, One & Only Orange is the most glaringly obvious necessity. Power to the Purple looks dupe-y for $OPI Hell to the No, which I'll compare soon enough. 

I did get these for review, but I stated my opinion on each polish honestly and without any bias.

It's still sunny here

Errr, well, it was. And then it started raining so hard the roads flooded and we almost beat some records. Anyway, when it was sunny, I took these pictures. 

OPI Sanderella. A hard to find and super pretty purple holographic polish. I can post a comparison of my purple holos if you're interested, it'd just take awhile to edit and I don't want to do that if no one really cares.

Talk about late to the party. Wow. The OPI sorbets are so pretty, why didn't I get any when they first came out?! Guy Meets Gal-Vaston is a corally color that is pretty enough on but it's really Too Pink to Hold 'Em that's my favorite. It looks like raspberries. 

Butter London No More Waity Kaitie redux

Well, I swatched this once before, but thought it could use a better picture. It's such a pretty polish, a murky base and bright lavender glitter.

Anyway, if you haven't entered my giveaway yet, do that. And if you haven't checked out my Etsy yet, do that. I'll have some new polishes in stock soon enough, included some GLITTER :D

Pale Pink Comparison

Confession: I love pale pinks. Maybe that makes me a bad nail blogger, but I rather adore that perfect look that seems fake but isn't. Glossy, near opaque, and that pink-white that is just a bit 'off' from the nail bed but still seems rather natural.

I do, though, hate those pinks that turn clear on the nail. For the purposes of distinguishing such pinks and helping out my fellow pink-lovers, I've made this comparison. I chose four pinks in close shades from different brands and price-points to show y'all. Here you go!

Now, a quick bit on each of the pinks in order from index to pinkie:

Wet n' Wild Sugar Coat-
This one is either the best or the worst for me, depending wholly on how the bottle feels like applying on any given day. I've seen some people wear it PERFECTLY but it can often just be a streaky mess. Honestly, it's all that brush's fault. The polish itself is quite nice, a white-pink with some warm tones that is more opaque than translucent. Four coats.

China Glaze Go Go Pink-
Maybe a mistake to have included in this comparison. It's very opaque and kind of jelly-ish. This is the least natural of all the included pinks and boasts a pretty intense pink color in comparison. I like it a lot, though. It's pretty cool toned. Three/four coats.

Lippmann My Romance-
Very melon colored. A deeper pink that isn't, again, quite natural. It's very jellyish and can be built to opacity but also looks good transparent/lucent.

Essie Better Together-
As of now, this is my holy grail pale pink. Less white than Sugar Coat, lighter than My Romance, less opaque and saturated than Go Go Pink, it somehow manages to look natural and flawless. It's what my nails would look like if I got gel manicures regularly and somehow managed to have more attractive nail beds (mine are currently stained and gross). It's not perfect, I'll still by buying pale pinks to see if I can do one better than this polish, but it's pretty darn close to what I really want. I might wear it for prom on Friday :)

China Glaze- Moulin Rouge

Such a pretty color! Gifted to me by a friend after I gave her Nars Orgasm (pics to come. It was pretty, but I knew she would go ga-ga for it, so it found a new home). Anyway, this is a red jelly with iridescent glitter. YUM.

lovely layering

OPI I Pink I Love You was an Ulta Valentine's Day exclusive two years ago (I think. Don't quote me on that, maybe it was three?). It's so pretty and jelly and filled with itsy-bitsy gold glitter and I LOVE IT. But, it's rather hard to get ahold of nowadays, so I have to conserve.
I wore it over Lippmann Pop Life, a pretty creme pink. Honestly, you don't *need* Pop Life, tt's a pretty standard color. I got it for cheap, I certainly wouldn't have dropped $16 on it.

If you haven't entered my giveaway, do so now!

THESE ARE SO PURDY

I've ranted and raved about how awesome Valerie is (find her here) before. Here's her polish. No, it's not polish I got from her, it's literally her polish. She mixed it and is, last I heard, planning to sell it. I got it for my birthday from the lady herself.
IT'S SO PRETTY. It Came in the Night is this uber complex jelly purple with iridescent pieces. I LOVE IT. Fluffed Dove is pretty, reminiscent of Glitter in the Air (a polish Valarie loves, I know), but not super my taste. Yes, I do enjoy it, but not like I do ICitN. ICitN will be on my tips for the rest of eternity. Or maybe just 2011 (don't worry, I have some stored pics for y'all if that ends up being the case).

I think I'm getting a new camera soon, so keep with me and my awful pictures for a bit, please! The lamp I used to use to light photos broke and the new one and my camera do NOT get along. Nothing I shoot is fully lit AND color-accurate, only one or the other. Ugh.

Dare to Wear a Dollhouse

Hehehe, I'm clever. And funny. No really, I am.

or not.

Anyway, Dare to Wear sent me their lovely Dollhouse collection. This was one of the most exciting moment of my month as the colors are GORGEOUS. A hint of pastel, holographic glitter, and a jelly base. YUM.

I wanted this collection for its yellow glitter, Fashion Fever. Sadly that yellow glitter is actually a green-yellow, emphasis on the green. So my quest for a bright yellow glitter continues....

They all have small specks of silver glitter, medium sized holographic circles, and holographic bar glitter. I repeat: yum.

I like Pop Artist, a bubblegum pink, the best, I think. Though Rock Star is awfully pretty, as is Social Butterfly. Lady Luck would be PERFECT for St. Patty's Day, and Dream Princess is a unique and rather odd shade of pale orange, I've never seen a glitter quite like it. All in all, they're gorgeous.







The products in this post were sent to me for review. This did not, in any way, affect my opinion.

SinfulColors' Holiday Collection!

They're all re-promos, I believe, meaning that we've seen these exact colors before and the only thing that's changed is the display. I did own Midnight Blue and Daddy's Girl before receiving these, and, as far as I can tell, there's not one thing that's changed. However, these are (for the most part) PERFECT for the holidays. I'm thinking of doing a Hannukah manicure (I've previously moaned and groaned about holiday collections falling flat due to CHRISTMAS themes. I like me some red and green, but bring on Gelt-Gold and that shade of blue that matches Israel's flag! But I digress) with Midnight Blue and Out of This World. Daddy's Girl is rather 'odd man out' for me, as I don't traditionally associate purple with any hoiday. Whatever, it's so pretty.

The shimmer in all these is INCREDIBLE. Super complex and pretty. Enlarge the photos if you dare, but I must warn you that my nails are awful right now. Awful. I swatched Last Chance right before one tore and I had to cut them all. I miss my long nails :/
Last Chance- A green creme/jelly. Pretty. I wonder how it compares to Illamasqua Rampage... A bit less jelly, I think.

Out of This World- Possibly my favorite from this collection. A pretty, delicate white shimmer. So complex and very, very dainty. I wore this one with white shatter.

Midnight Blue- An electric navy. The shimmer looks almost alive.

Daddy's Girl- So much more purple in real life. SUPER purple. A purple jelly. I promise, this is purple. It's not blue. It's purple. Pink shimmer.

Sugar Sugar- Some gold flecks, pink shimmer, and a red base. Pretty standard but the gold makes it interesting. Very pretty.


The products in this post were provided for review. This did not, in any way, affect my opinion or my review.

Del Sol polish!

For you today I have some pretty interesting polishes. And I don't mean interesting with that long, drawn out breath that is actually a polite way to say "weird". I mean genuinely curious polishes. They change color under UV rays, aka, the sun.
And, for the most part, it's a dramatic change. You'll notice, I promise.

First up, Ruby Slipper. Shown in the sun and in the shade. This polish is easily my favorite of the bunch. Every company seems to have the "Ruby Pumps" polish. A polish with a red jelly base and glitter, and they're all the same. For the most part, I avoid purchasing any more of the dozens of re-incarnations of Dorothy's slippers because, frankly, once you've seen one, you've seen them all. Well, not this time. This polish is a demure little silver glitter. Pretty and almost elegant, and not too eyecatching. I adore this, and, funnily enough, my mother does to. She has me give her pedicures, something neutral and natural, and one day I slipped this into the routine. She was really, really not appreciative until a few days later, when she asked me to patch it up. And then, a week later, she had me re-do her toes in a blood red. This polish single-handedly converted her! A must buy, I think. Different than anything you own. 3 coats.




Peek a Boo is quite a shy one. It appears in the bottle as a clear with a tinge of yellow. On the nail it shows (eek) all the imperfections and discolorations that come with daily polishing. A polish you could wear to work. And then, take it into the sun, and BAM! Red! A jelly red, too. I'm not a fan of the indoor color (and I REALLY need to buff my nails out. They look awful) but the outdoor color is really special. My second favorite. 2 coats (should've done three).




Foxy's a pretty pink. A color that's a tad generic, not something that'd get compliments as it's just a shade that I think we've seen a hundred times. But it's a pretty pink, and, if you don't have one in your collection, it's worth a look. And, oh yeah, it changes to a gorgeous red-purple in the sun! The color change is MUCH more subtle than the first two, but it's there and it's pretty. 3 coats.




The only one that wasn't complete love from me was this, the last, Electrick. Frosty blue. Streaky with brushstrokes. The indoor shade is BLEGH and the outdoor isn't any better, a pale lime that's not saturated enough to show the change in color as much as I'd like. I wore this to camp and the kids ADORED it. While I'm not a fan, the color change is visible and very, very entertaining to six year olds. 3 coats.




Things you gotta know:
-These polishes aren't cheap, but they're something you don't see a lot. Maybe the color change is a gimmick, but it's undeniably fun.
-Your topcoat likely has a UV protector in it. Don't apply it over these, if you do, you won't see any change in the sun.
-If you don't buy Ruby Slipper, you're clinically insane.

Disclosure- Some of the polishes in this post were sent to me for review. That did not change my opinion of them.