Forever 21 Nail Polishes - Sea Foam and Light Yellow

I went on a little bit of a bender the last time I went to Forever 21 with only the intention to pick up an accessory or 2.  Fortunately for my wallet, Forever 21's Love & Beauty brand is wonderfully cheap and I had some cred left over on a gift card, so the 7 polishes I bought didn't hurt one bit.  You can find Forever 21 polishes in their polish bins @ a store near you or online here: Forever 21

Here's a couple for you:

Seafoam  - This was 4 coats in order to reduce the VNL.  No top coat.  Love the shimmer! Reminds me of butter London's Victoriana.

And here's Light Yellow.  4 coats again, no top coat.  Also super shimmery...reminds me of an egg yolk.

What do you think?  You can't beat such cool colors for under $3.00.  It's practically unheard of!!!  I also picked up Confetti Crush which I am dying to use in a jelly sandwich, if only I could find the right color to sandwich it in.  I guess you'll have to wait and see what I choose.  Suggestions are welcome.  :)

Until next time.

More Revlon love with Posh

This is another great color from Revlon to add to the nail polish lemming list.  I don't think the photos I took really convey what a lovely and wearable color this is and as you can see, the color changes slightly from picture to picture as I changed settings trying to capture the way it actually looks in person.  Posh reminds me more of a jade green than how it looks in these photos, which I think comes across as a Kelly green.  Regardless, if you see this polish at your local CVS, Walgreens, or Ulta, I would highly recommend giving it a chance.  This creme applies smoothly, dries fairly quickly and has a good shine on its own even without a top coat.

For these pictures, I was wearing a base coat of Orly Bonder, 3 coats of Posh, and  top coat of SV.

Without further ado,  POSH

Revlon Blue Lagoon + Deborah Lippmann Happy B-day Jelly Sandwich

A new trend in nail polishing these days is called the "jelly sandwich".  I don't know who started it, but I'm a big fan because I now have a new purpose for my glitter polishes.

Here is my second go at a jelly sandwich using Revlon's Blue Lagoon and Deborah Lippmann's Happy Birthday.  The end result reminds me of Revlon's Whimsical, but better.   I invite you to follow my middle finger on its sandwich journey....

Here are the products:

Revlon Blue Lagoon

Deborah Lippmann Happy Birthday

I started with a base coat of Orly Bonder, then 2 thin coats of Blue Lagoon.

Then a coat of Happy Birthday...

 Followed by another thin coat of Blue Lagoon and a coat of SV.

I am totally digging this manicure.  I have been wearing it for almost 5 days, which is practically unheard of for me as I usually change my nail polish every other day.  I love that it's so light and summery looking.  Blue Lagoon is really a stunning color.  Revlon has been hitting them out of the park lately.  My boss nailed it when she said it reminded her of those robin speckled chocolate eggs they sell at Easter time.

What do you think?  Will you be trying your own jelly sandwich and if so, what colors/glitters will you be using?

Until next time!

Deborah Lippmann Across the Universe - Glitterfest

I have been a very bad blogger.  I started this blog with the intention of posted daily and sharing my love for all things polish, but unfortunately good old life gets in the way.  :(

So after much time here is a long overdue one dedicated to one gorgeous polish - Deborah Lippman's Across the Universe.  I love love love love this polish.  It's has an almost midnight blue base and has hexagonal pieces of blue and green glitter and then also teeny tiny blue microglitter. The description on her website is "blazing blue and metallic green glam in sheerest navy (glitter)".  It's so pretty the way the glitter looks suspended in the base and actually builds up quite nicely.  I believe this was four coats and even though you can still kind of see a little bit of VNL, it's of no consequence.

The other thing I adore about this polish is the name - Across the Universe is hands down my favorite Beatles song of all time.  

Now I'm not going to lie, Deborah Lippmann polishes are what I would call an "investment" because they are pretty pricey (to me, anyway) at as little as $15.50 a bottle to $18.00 a bottle, but if you can't find a good dupe, it's worth it, I say.  I have not seen a dupe for this baby as of yet.  Revlon seems to be the "go to" brand for a good handful of DL glitter polishes.  

Here you go:  

American Apparel - Berry & Army Jacket Swatches

More pics, less words I say!
American Apparel makes great polish.   Reasonably priced, wears well, shiny even without a top coat (even more shiny with a top coat), easy to apply with a totally workable formula, and has a great selection of colors.
I adjusted my camera settings to get the truest colors I could.  Berries and reds are always so tough to shoot though!

Here we go!

Berry - 2 coats with SV top coat.  Sooo pretty!

Army Jacket - 2 coats and SV top coat

Icing Magnetix - Magnetic Nail Polish from Icing

I was lucky enough to get the heads up today from one of my favorite polish bloggers, the PolishAholic, that the accessory store, Icing, was selling magnetic nail polish.  Of course, I ran to the mall immediately and picked up their last 4 magnetic polishes, of which I did a quick skittle swatch for you today to get a peek.  They were buy 1 get 1 half off, regular price $9.00 each and there are four different colors, none of which have names on the bottles. 
All of these are 2 coats and the blue one has a top coat of SV as it looks a little on the dull/matte side without it.

So what do you think?  I think you can't beat the price considering the Layla magnetic polishes I bought were $15.50 a pop via internet order and they didn't have the nice little mess up guard on the caps like these do.  I know China Glaze has their magnetic collection coming out soon, but I am not sure what the pricing will be like on those.  I have a feeling they'll be around $12.50 or so, but I hope they are less.  I like that I achieved full coverage in 2 coats and that these the colors and designs are interesting enough.  My favorite was the pink/rosie one and it's squiggle design, followed by the gold one (which looks way more cool in person).  Now the one negative I do have about these was the brushes.  In a nutshell, they sucked.  They were all wonkey and twisted up.  I think out of the 4, only one was normal. Despite this, I managed to get around the irregularity pretty easily, especially since right now my nails are so short (due to a middle finger nail casualty I suffered last week). 
I really hope you can find these gems for yourself.  If you can't find them right away due to sell-out, the sales girl my local Icing told me that it was their first shipment of Magnetix, so I imagine they'll be restocking soon.  I also observed that Icing actually has a pretty damn good selection of polishes and nail skins that are very reasonably priced.  Who would have thunk it?  Not me.  I avoid the mall like I avoid people with the sniffles.  I still haven't tried nail skins, so that just might be something I'll pick up on my next haul. 
Edit - so apparently the magnetic cap on these polishes pops off so that you don't have to struggle flipping over a loaded brush with cap and hovering it over your wet nail bed. Bonus points!!!!

Btw,  today's nail haul included 3 American Apparels I've been jonesing for, 2 of the new Special Effects flakeys from Finger Paints that I picked up at Sally's and a new butter London from their spring collection, that I grabbed at Dillard's.  I can't wait to get all these swatched soon!

Until next time...