Halloween Manis!!

I don't know about you, but I love Halloween.  Hands down it's my favorite holiday - the polishes, the accessories, the skulls the crossbones and all the black cat merchandise!!!  :::swoons:::  For you today, I have some recent manis featuring Halloween specific polishes.  I also picked up the cutest Halloween decals on a trip to Walgreens that are almost versatile enough that they could probably be worn outside of October. Check it out...

First up, is Sally Hansen Pumpkin Spice.  It's a smokey black jelly with orange microglitter that was very thin in consistency and took multiple coats to build up.  It looks great in the bottle, but the application was not so great.  I think over a black base or maybe even a dark purple base, this may have come out better.  Generally, I'm not a fan of being able to see the vnl.







Above, is Haunting from the China Glaze Haunting Collection.  This one is ni-iiice.  Black with silver microglitter.  Super smooth application and a microglitter that lays nice and flat.  I believe I used 3 coats and a top coat of SV.  I like that this is a color that I could wear year round - more bang for the buck. 

Remember that god-awful CG bile yellow polish called Trendsetter that I reviewed a couple of blogs ago?  Well, I tried to save that mani by adding a few layers of this next polish from the same CG Haunting Collection.  This is It's Alive!  Please ignore the underlying yellow polish peeking through.  :::blushes:::

This one is a combo of your standard sized swamp green glitter as well as green micro glitter and was well executed in 2 coats of polish with 2 coats of SV to smooth it out enough so that it wasn't snaggy/snarley feeling.

Last, from the CG Haunting collection is Ghoulish Glow glow-in-the-dark top coat.  I tried it over Haunting and it worked well and glowed quite nicely, but for some reason I couldn't capture it on my nails with my camera.  Trust me though, it looked pretty freaking cool and was translucent enough that my actual mani underneath still came through in daylight. 

Finally, my Halloween decal mani.  Sadly, I completely forgot to take some pics of the decal packaging and neglected to make a mental note of the brand...then I gave half of the decals away to a work friend for her Halloween manicure.  So...I have no idea who makes these but just know they are super cute and have kind of a rock n' roll/Halloween combo vibe.  See for yourself...

These are basically tiny stickers that peel off and can be applied directly to clean nails with no other prep work.  The kitty cats were my fav. <3  I put a coat of SV over them to make sure they are nice and protected.  These were applied over 2 coats of American Apparel nail laquer in the color Lopez Canyon. 

I'll be showing you the other American Apparel polishes I picked up in a future blog and guarantee you will love them too. 

Happy Halloween!!

China Glaze Metro Collection Fall 2011 - abbreviated version

When I shop for new polishes, I basically do my homework by checking about a dozen blogs that I follow for the lastest lines and colors and then I whittle down the collections and colors to my "favorites"  or the ones I find to be the most interesting or prettiest of the collections, then I hit the web or the stores.  For the most part, I don't buy complete collections unless I can get an oustanding deal.  Nail polishes aren't cheap these days, especially if you are shopping for the better brands like OPI and Orly, SpaRitual, etc.  As a result, the colors I do end up buying, to me, are the best of the lot.  With that said, I can also make some mistakes in my pickings, especially if I'm shopping online and basing my decisions on whether or not I think a polish I'm seeing is unique or a color I've never worn before.  For example, meet Trendsetter by China Glaze...

It's not a horrible color on its' own, but with my skin tone, it is down right hideous.  One of my friends actually asked me to not wear this color again! It's a shame too, because I actually find the color to be unique and interesting.  Eh, I guess you can't win them all.

Next up from the Metro collection is Brownstone.  Brownstone is the kind of color makes me swoon and the formula and application was flawless.  It's a gorgeous color and it's shiny as hell.  I will definitely wear this one again...someday.  Loooove it!  (Please excuse the messiness of this mani)

Lastly is the super sparkly CG in the City.  For this one, I layered CG in the City over Misa's Date Night in the Twilight to assure opacity.  I don't like a spotty glitter manicure if I can help it.

Here's a shot a little out of focus so that the holo aspect of it can be seen.

 All of the above were 3 coats except for CG in the City which was 2, as it was a tad bit thick.  I used SV as a top coat for all, and laid it on thicker for CG to make sure it was as smooth as a glitter like this could be. 

Do you have a strategy when it comes to polish shopping? If so, what is it?  I would love to know.

Until next time.

Orly Mineral FX Collection and Orly Fowl Play

Oh, how I wish I had a bottomless nail polish fund so that I can buy any polish I wanted at any time and to my little heart's content.  That would truly be my Xanadu.  It's nail polishes like the current Orly Mineral FX collection that cause me to be a certifiable polish-aholic.  Soooooo gorgeous!  Now, I couldn't get all of them because they are hella pricey, at least to me they are, but I picked 2 of the ones that I thought were the prettiest at Ulta along with Fowl Play from the Birds of a Feather collection, using a store credit I had (thankfully!) and then picked up Rock It on a recent trip to Sally's.  FYI- at Ulta, they had Orly polishes buy 2 get 1 free (of equal or lesser value).  Deal!

All the colors in the Mineral FX collection are part of a "Rock" or "Stone" theme.  First up is what I thought would be my favorite, Rock the World.

This color is so beautiful...it's like...I have no words.  It's just such a pretty rosey shade on it's own, and then they went and added in the lovely gold microglitter, for the WOW factor, plus a formula that is what we have come to expect from a standard Orly - not too thick, not too thin, workable and manageable -  in a nutshell it's perfect.  Seriously, all the Orly's I own are just wonderful polishes and this goes on my list of Fall favs.   Good job, Orly. 

Now onto Rock Solid.  While I did wear Rock Solid, I opted to not take photos, just because it turned out to be my least favorite manicure due to some bubbling issues.  I do NOT like bubbling.  It's pretty awesome in the bottle, as you can see, but on the nail, for some reason it wasn't as impressive. 

Next is the belle of the ball, Rock It.  Now this is a color that made it onto my lemming list after reading multiple reviews and seeing photos.  Then when I saw it at Ulta in person, I only felt "Meh" about it.  I thought Rock the World was way prettier, so I left Rock It at Ulta.  On my recent visit to Sally's, there was Rock It again.  I thought, screw it, I'll give it a chance, and wowey wow, I'm glad I did.  This is a HOT color.  Check it out...

I should have taken a pic of how it looks in the bottle, but I was running out of sunlight.  It is a super saturated shimmery micro glitter reddish pink, but not too red and not too pink.  This is one of those colors that you need a thesaurus in order to describe adequately.  The only thing I didn't like about it was some tip wear that happened within 24 hrs of application.  I put 3 coats on the night before last with a topper of SV and I already have had to add another coat to keep it looking nice and chip free, but that small nuisance is worth it for a color like this.  Hiiiiighly recommended. 

Finally, I thought I would throw in Fowl Play from the Orly Birds of a Feather Collection, because it was the only one that I really found to be stunning and worth the price. 

This is what I would consider to be a "jelly" polish with flakes of flat irridescent glitter and some microglitter.  I feel like it's rare to see flakey polishes from anyone other than Nfu-Oh or Nubar, so seeing this is a real treat for me.  Fowl Play's formula was surprisingly thicker than I would have expected.  I imagine, it's probably for ease of application and proper suspension of the flakes, but that's only my assumption.  All in all, I find it to be a really special polish and a nice change of pace from the norm. 

In case you didn't know, there are 3 other polishes in the Mineral FX collection: Emberstone (orangey-red), Rococo A Go-go (deep shimmery purple & super pretty) and Stone Cold (blue flakey jelly) that will also be sure make you're heart pitter patter. 

Until next time.

Magnetic nail polish, finally!!!!!

So I have been lemming (refer to the glossary!) magnetic nail polish for about a year now, but there hadn't been a magnetic polish sold in the states for some time.  All the blogs that I read where magnetic polish was profiled were from bloggers in the U.K. or U.S. gals who had done some awesome trading with polish lovers from overseas.  Well, the wait is over and magnetic nail polishes are in the states and are a-plenty in various brands and colors. 

I am very pleased to say that I am the owner of 2 magnetic polishes by Layla that I purchased through http://www.aveyou.com/ who had a $1.00 shipping promotion for purchases $50.00 or more ( I bought several of the SpaRitual polishes from their fall collection that I'll be swatching soon and are GORGEOUS).  I was so giddy and excited to get my package in the mail and put a full manicure on immediately in Golden Bronze.

For those of you unfamiliar with magnetic nail polish, the polish has tiny magnetic particles in it and the polish cap has a built in magnet that will put a simple design on your nails when you hover the cap over a wet coat of polish. The more layers of polish, the more intense the effect. You can see a Layla tutorial here: Layla Magnetic Nail Polish Tutorial to really get the idea.  P.S.- the lady's accent in the tutorial cracks me up and I question if it is a real accent or a just put on.  Anywho, Layla has a simple stripe design, while some other brand polishes will have a star design as well as the stripe as a choice.  Either way, the effect is really something that I never seen and find to be truly mesmerizing. 

So, for you today, I have my first try at a vertical stripe mani, which was very subtle and gave a look of almost a tiger eye stone to my nails.  I got many compliments while wearing this manicure and thought the color and effect was to die for. 

And then I tried to mix up the lines and the intensity...

The above effects were acheived with 2 coats of nail polish, which was nice and easy to apply and had the perfect consistency.  The top mani photos had a top coat of SV and the second mani had none.  And just so you know, the Layle Magneffect bottles are a little bit smaller than the average bottle of nail color and at aveyou.com they are $15.50 a pop.  Kind of pricey to some folks, but to me, the price is totally worth it based on the results.  I'll be swatching Purple Galaxy in the near future and have a feeling it's going to be just as, if not more awesome than Golden Bronze.

Until next time.

2011 Color Club Boho Collection (Part A)

I can't believe it's Sunday night already.  I vote for a 4 day work week, 32 hours - that's it!  Who's with me?!

So, in nail polish obsession news,  I made an unscheduled stop at my favorite Ross store here in Tucson yesterday, as I was wasting some time with a friend before going to see the movie Warrior at the mall.  In the short browse-fest, I scored Color Club's 2011 Fall Boho Collection (part A - they didn't have part B, but I will be casing my 4 nearby stores regularly to see if it magically appears) and the best part is, it was only $7.99 for 6 polishes and 1 top coat.  What a steal!!!  I should add that I found the Color Club Wicked Sweet Collection of scented polishes for the same price a couple of months ago at a different Ross. P.S.- I <3 you, Ross!  Granted Color Club isn't typically an expensive polish, but at a normal price of around $3.75 a bottle, this little gem was a definite savings.  And who couldn't be pleased with that?

Without further adieu...

And on the nails...

The colors are listed on the package as they are painted on my nails in order from pinky to thumb. 
I covered up Nomadic in Nude on the pinky finger with Red-ical Gypsy for this next pic.

Most items found at Ross are close-outs or slightly defective items, so of course I wondered what was wrong with these?  But I found these polishes are in perfect condition and are a brand-new just released line.  That makes me go "Hmmmm?".  The only defect I could find was that this collection came with a top coat vs the base coat which is what is described on the box they came in.

The colors you see in the above pictures are as accurate as can be (even the red!).  I am very happy with Color Club's formula in all the other bottles I've purchased before and this set didn't let me down one bit.  I didn't use a base coat for these pictures and I applied 3 coats for all of the colors with exception of Red-ical, which was only 2 coats.  Since I was merely doing a swatch set, I did not use a top coat and as you can see, these polishes are super shiny even without it.   Now, while some of you may find this collection to be a snooze fest, I actually thought all of the colors were very pretty and appear to be extremely wearable with just about anything.  I'm looking forward to wearing a full manicure in New Bohemian, Shabby Drab and Rad Nomad.  What do you think?  Now, if I could only get my hands on Part B...

Until next time.