Anna Sui 701 and the cutest nail polish packaging ever!

Ever head of Anna Sui?  She's an American fashion designer  (a pretty darn successful one too!)  and happens to have a very cute line of cosmetics available at Urban Outfitters.  I know at my local UO, they do not have her products in stock at the store, although I don't know if that is true of all of the UO stores.  Now that I'm looking, it does appear that UO has all of her products available only on their website for purchase.  I think that's a mistake, but what do I know?  I have been an admirer of her nail polish for few years after I saw that the bottles were shaped like roses (they have since been updated - read ahead), but have never bought one until now.  If her other items weren't so expense, I would have loved to have tried a few them out.  I can tell you that just from a packaging stand point, they are really beautiful.  These are kind of cosmetics one would have on display on their vanity, to be mostly admired vs used.  Case in point,  her nail polish bottles.

Check this out:

How cute are they?!  Reminds me of the Nfu-Oh bottles, but more sweet and simple. 

The color I ended up with is a nude with shimmery silver micro glitter, which looks like it may even have a few tiny holo bits in it in certain light.  I thought this was really lovely when I saw the photos online and was just as enthused when I saw it in person.  Nudes can be so boring, but really everyone should have a few good nudes in their nail polish collection and this one spices things up in the nude department for sure.  

For this mani I used my usual Bonder base and then 3 coats of Anna Sui 701.  As you can see, it is a little bumpy in texture, but I smoothed it out pretty well with a thick coat of SV.

This polish reminds me of Brittney Spears' hot nude outfit from the 2001 Mtv VMA's and her glitter bodysuit from her Toxic video in '04. 

Photo by Getty Images/Youtube via http://au.launch.yahoo.com

 Am I high?  Or is that spot on?

Anna Sui polishes are priced at $15.00 a bottle.  I know, pretty steep!  But I think of how much people pay for Deborah Lippman and MAC polishes ($18 and $16 each, respectively). I feel that the Anna Sui polishes are definitely in the same league and the packaging is obviously veeeery special.  Usually UO will have free shipping on purchase over $50.00, so maybe someday you'll spy something you don't think you can live without on UO and will opt to add one of these pretties to your order just for the helluvit.  That's what I did! Not only did I get a great winter coat for a steal of a price (UO.com clearance sales are INSANE!), but I also got my very first Anna Sui.  Win, win!

Until next time ☺

Color Club Ho Ho Holly & X-mas Dot Mani

Christmas is bearing down on us with a fury as the days are just flying by faster than ever, it seems.  I haven't even started my Christmas shopping yet.  Fortunately for me, I don't have too many people to shop for.  Is it awful for me to say that I'm waiting for December 21st to come and go before I start my shopping?  Yup, call me crazy, but it's true.

To get us in the holiday mood, I did my nails up in Color Club's Ho Ho Holly and then when I grew tired of it added a little dot magic for fun.  Ho Ho Holly is part of the Winter Affair Collection and to me, is the prettiest one of the bunch.  I picked it up at Sally's last month for under $5.  It really is a stunning green with lots of shimmer, shine and sparkle.  Very Christmas-y, indeed.

For this mani, I used Orly Bonder base, with 3 coats of Ho Ho Holly and topped with SV.  This polish went on very smoothly, no streakies - not too thick and not too thin.  Perfection in a bottle. I have to also add that it is wearing very well.  I'm on day four and am hardly showing any wear at all.  

After 2 days of Ho Ho Holly all by its lonesome, I decided to dot it out with some red and gold dots.  I'm not going to bother listing the colors I used for the dots, because you get the gist of it.  I have learned that laying out your dot pattern using a white dot base before layering on the color to the dot is best when using a darker base color or polish.  That way, the contrasting color dot can be sure to stand out as it's supposed to.  

I really like the way the dots came out on this one.  They're raised and look like little buttons or candy dots.  And I love how easy dot manicures are to do and yet they can have so much impact.  What do you think?  Are you going to X-mas decorate your nails this season?

Well that's about it from me, for now.  Happy Holidays!!!

Butter London - Scouse!

Oh my!  I do believe that my butter London nail polish collection is growing and growing!  They just seem to be coming up with color after color that I looove.

For this post I layered Scouse, which butter London describes as "Sheer, royal blue and indigo duochrome nail lacquer with pink, purple, and blue microglitter.", over Nina Ultra Pro's Cobalt.

The definition of Scouse is a "Brit slang referring to a person from Liverpool"

Cobalt is such a stunning color, and is HOT HOT HOT this season, but it is so hard to photograph, as blues usually are.  I did have to fiddle around with my camera and settings in order to get to capture it's "in real life" color, so please forgive the brightness of some of the shots. 

For this manicure I started with the usual Orly Bonder base followed by 3 coats of Cobalt and topped with a coat of SV to render it super shine-tastic.   I had to include a partial shot of the ring I wore with this mani, which is a sterling silver setting with a chunk of a Ming vase in it.  What can I say?  It matched perfectly. 

After I grew bored of Cobalt all on it's own I layered on 2 coats of Scouse to my mani and topped again with SV.  That's quite a few layers of nail polish, but it all held up very well. 

Scouse is an exclusive color that can be found only at Dillard's stores or via the butter London website and sell for $14.00 each.  Cobalt can be found at Sally's online store  for $4.19 with their beauty club card.  I picked mine up in person and believe it was actually priced at under $4.00 in store with my Sally's card.

Will you be jumping on the Cobalt band wagon this season?  Please do!

Until next time...

☺ 

OPI GoldenEye is GORGEOUS!

Hello folks!  I couldn't wait to put up some pictures of GoldenEye from the recently released OPI James Bond Collection because it is to die for.  I grew up watching James Bond movies on the TV with my dad so I was super excited when I found out there was going to be a nail polish line inspired by Bond.  And then to have that line be by OPI?  Swoon! The whole collection is pretty darn awesome, but this one is the one that grabbed me.  Let me tell you, I received many compliments on this polish and I could not stop looking at my own nails for the couple of days I had it on.  It's just ridiculously ah-mah-zing.  I have never seen a gold polish that can even hold a candle to this one.  The color is so saturated that is makes your nails look like they have been covered in sparkly gold leaf!

For these photos I used a base of Bonder, 3 coats of Goldeneye and a top coat of SV.  I noticed that the polish would seem to apply a little bit more sparse as I got to the top of the nail with the brush so I ended up having to splat some polish at the top first and then I would dip again and start application again from bottom to top.  A fourth coat probably wouldn't have hurt as it dried very well.

Here is GoldenEye - which I have been calling Goldfinger for the last 2 weeks (Gee, I wonder why).  Oops!

So what do you think of this shimmery sparkly golden goodness?  Gotta have it?

Until next time!!  ☺