Manicure Monday

GUYS! I DID IT! I finally finished wearing every single one of my polishes. It would have happened sooner if I could have stopped myself from picking up new ones, but...whatever. New Year's resolution DEFEATED. Boom.

This is a pretty massive post, so I'm going to try and keep it short(ish) and sweet(ish). I got gradually less successful at being brief over time...

Sally Hansen Rosy Outlook with Wet N Wild Waves of Enchantment, taped

WoE is sheer, but it's really pretty layered over Rosy Outlook.

Manicure Monday

So much for resuming super regular posting, ha! Comes as no surprise, I'm sure. Working on an abstract due at the end of July, so I haven't had much time for anything besides coding lately. This still isn't all the manis I've worn and not posted about over the past few months, but it's some! And I'm down to less than 15 unworns, HUZZAH!

Zoya Storm with Sally Hansen Golden Tourmaline

Two holos, both lovely in their own way. Storm is opaque in 2 coats and is a scattered holo; Golden Tourmaline is a one coater and linear holo. Taping is fun! This was taken on day 2, hence the tip wear. Keeping them both!

Manicure Monday

Hi, y'all! Sorry I've been so MIA (I mean, even more than usual). I'll ease into posting again with a new Manicure Monday––it's been more than 2 months since my last one (wtfffff), but I've been trucking along with my NY resolution. It might go faster if I stopped buying new polishes, but...well, I'm only (a nail polish addicted) human. This isn't everything I've worn, but I'll include the rest in my next MM :)

Color Club Eternal Beauty

This is a polish I haven't already posted, in spite of having had it for, like, a year. It was part of the set gifted to me by the lovely Amanda! All the CC holos are super holographic and incredibly pigmented (this was one coat!), and really fast to dry. Unfortunately, it doesn't get along with uneven nails, and chipped on my middle fingers (both of which had lost the upper layer of nail on the tip). It's real pretty, though, and good for days I don't have much time to devote to my nails. I also want to use it with others from the line in nail art! Rainbowy holo goodness.

Manicure Monday

Still truckin' along with my NY resolution! Here's some of what's been on my tips the past couple weeks.

a england St. George

Amazed I haven't reviewed this already! It's a gorgeous dark teal with subtle holo, opaque in one coat. I remember disliking the a england brush, but it was fine this time (except for my ring fingers, which both ended up with polish on the cuticle, how annoying!). I wasn't going to photograph it because my nails are super short, due to one breaking, but then I discovered I haven't featured this polish yet, so I figured it's better to have stubby photos than none at all. Now I want to try Dragon again to see if maybe it will behave better than I remember...

Manicure Monday

Wow, it's been forever since I've done one of these. Which is silly, because I've been wearing nail polish pretty much constantly! So this is pretty mondo, sorry.

The boy's birthday was the 7th, so I asked him how he'd like me to do my nails. He requested an ombre from turquoise to dark blue; turns out I have enough polishes matching that description to make all 10 nails different! I used 12 polishes, most of which I hadn't yet worn this year, so it made a nice dent in my new year's resolution :)

rawr

Pinky to thumb, left hand: Sally Hansen New Wave Blue topped with Finger Paints Art You Wondering?; Wet N Wild Caribbean Frost; Zoya Wednesday topped with Golden Rose 52; Color Club Blue Heaven; Zoya Yummy

Manicure Monday

Only two manis (though three polishes!) for your viewing pleasure this week.

Zoya Yummy and Maybelline Beaming Blue
Zoya's polish names are ostensibly all female names, but...Yummy? I certainly hope that's no one's name. I picked it up because I wanted something to layer under Beaming Blue, picked up a few weeks ago, and from the online swatches, it seemed the closest in base color out of Zoya's blues. Happily, it's perfect! Though it doesn't look as wonderful in pictures as in person.

Beaming Blue is much prettier and more
interesting than it looks here. Yummy is pretty
accurate, though!

I did two coats of Yummy on all my non-layered fingers, and 1 coat topped with 1 coat Beaming Blue on the others. It was very pretty! Beaming Blue has a beautiful lavender duochrome, though it still does not outshine Lavishly Lilac (and I of course neglected to photograph it...), and Yummy is interestingly pastel-bright. I see it being ideal in spring!

Manicure Monday

Betcha didn't think I'd be posting again so soon, didja? I'm so on top of things, guys.

Sinful Colors Ice Dream
I saw this one at the drugstores last winter and passed on it, only to later decide I wanted it and go back to find it gone. So I was very happy to see it again this year, and snatched it right up! It's a very sparkly, very pretty silver shimmer with blue small hexes (I think they're hexes, at least; they're very wee!).

You can build it up to opacity on its own in 3 coats, but I was lazy and just did it over one coat of Wet N Wild Silvivor, which gave almost exactly the same effect. Only one coat of top coat needed, too. Very wintry! Here's hoping we get snow this year so I can wear it and feel like the Ice Queen.

Manicure Monday

Another Monday, some more manicures!

Color Club Halo Hues Beyond

Another one of the polishes I got from Amanda a few months ago. Like the others, the formula on Beyond is flawless––it could have been a one-coater if I'd been more careful in applying, and it just glides on like butter. No issues over my current base coat (p2 8-in-1, purchased in Berlin), and super holographic. Awesome stuff.

Manicure Monday

It's quite remarkable how much work there is to do before leaving the country for a month––who knew?! So even though I had topics for Sunscreen and Skincare Saturday, neither ended up happening. Whoops! But here's a couple more of the Color Club Halo Hues shades, taken with my phone because that's what all the cool kids do, right? Right.

Starting with the less-good picture, here's Color Club Miss Bliss. It's a pink holo, very pigmented and holographic, with noticeably lilac undertones. It's very pretty, quite girly, and have I mentioned the rainbows?!

2 coats

Manicure...Tuesday?

WHOOPS. Here, have some holo.

I did a swap with Amanda a few weeks ago, since she had an extra set of Color Club Halo Hues that I wanted, but between the end of the term and planning for my trip (post on that coming soon!), I didn't have the chance to paint my nails. But I finally did this weekend, starting with the blue Over the Moon.

Formula was great, nearly a one coater, though I fear my thickish coats contributed to the bubbling I saw on a few nails. Bad Amy. Dried fast, quite shiny without topcoat, and SO HOLOGRAPHIC. It's amazing. Even in indirect sunlight, usually a holo-killer, you can still see some rainbows, but under direct light (either sun or lightbulb), they really pop (though I was less than successful at getting pictures to turn out right, so I resorted to using the flash). Sigh. I love holos. Especially when they have this kind of formula! Only one nail had chipped after 3 days, and that was entirely due to part of the nail falling off (I failed miserably at keeping my nails in anything resembling good shape towards the end of the term, and they're still recovering). Great stuff. I'm looking forward to wearing the rest of the shades! Have to get in my holo fix before going without polish for a few weeks (*sob*).

Have you tried any of the CC holos? Do you like holo polish?

Quick Comparisons

Here's a very brief post of comparison swatches for two of the polishes featured in Manicure Monday.

The Purples

Left to right, 2 coats each of: Milani Hi-Res, Zoya Aurora, Zoya Carly

Hi-Res is, as I suspected, lighter and sheerer than Aurora, and has finer holo particles. Carly is a similar shade to Aurora, but completely different in opacity (almost a 1-coater) and finish (not holo).

Manicure Monday

More manicures! This is going to be brief, again, because I have a bunch of quizzes to grade and a sure-to-be-confusing syntax article to read (the life of a grad student is just an endless party, y'all).

OPI Every Month is Oktoberfest
I caved and bought this when I spotted it in New York. Yes, I hate OPI's terrible punny names, but the color is SO GORGEOUS. And after using it, I have to say the OPI formula (okay, based on a sample size of 1, so take it with a grain of salt) is fantastic. I will be paying more attention to their other collections now! And I will be wearing this polish all the freaking time.

Manicure Monday

Yay, yet another alliterative feature on the blog! Manicure Mondays are when I plan to show the previously-unshown polishes in my collection that I've managed to wear the week before. This past week I only wore 2, and each only for a day, because pretty much from Thursday on I was completely swamped in work. But the two I wore are super gorge! And both discontinued and somewhat HTF. Sorry.

Sally Hansen Nail Prisms in Golden Tourmaline

A red holo! The pigmentation on this is insane––this is one coat. ONE COAT. FOR A HOLO. Not to mention IT'S A RED HOLO! It's not as holographic as others from the line, but I'm willing to forgive it because it's red and so pigmented. I took these pictures a day after I applied it (well, okay, more like 18 hours), and it was already showing tipwear, but that may be due to my crappy nails or the base/top coat I used. I love it no less. (Also, most MMs will be taken the day after application, which helps give some idea of how well the polish wears, but I apologize for the inevitable tipwear-filled photos!)

a england Dragon (from The Legends Collection) Nail Polish Review and Swatches

I'm, like, two months late to this party. Adina is the lovely creator of a england polish, which debuted with The Mythicals, a collection inspired by King Arthur in late 2010/early 2011 (this was before I got into polish hardcore) to much acclaim. Earlier this year she released another collection, called The Legends, inspired by the legend of Saint George. 6 out of 7 of the shades are holographic and 3 of those are duochrome, so needless to say, I was beyond excited to see swatches. I managed to restrain myself to just one choice, though I'm still dying to get St. George (awesomely glowy dark turquoise) and Bridal Veil (holographic black! aaah!), and Princess Tears (light pink-lavender with grey shift) and Ascalon (darker purple with grey shift) certainly call to me, too, especially given my fondness for lavender polish. But anyways! I ended up only getting Dragon because it seemed the awesomest of the awesome choices. And wow, how awesome it is.

2 coats Dragon

Some Random Polish Swatches

I'm not wearing polish on my nails for the time being while I use Nailtiques on them to try and make them not suck, but I have some swatches from before my self-imposed polish absence that I don't care enough about to write individual posts for, but that I would nonetheless like to be able to get off my computer, so I figured I would just throw them at you! And use a really long sentence to do so!

Essence Where Is The Party?

How it looks in the bottle most
of the time

The name of this polish makes me laugh, because you would never hear it said like that (except by ESL speakers, which I would guess the namers of this polish are, since Essence is a German company). It sounds so formal! So funny how little things like not contracting sounds so weird (even though I wrote that sentence, I was still momentarily confused by the status of "sounds". I've clearly spent too much time linguisting...).

And how it looks in the bottle at an angle!

How it looks in head-on light

Crazy color shift!

Anyways. Linguistic entertainment aside, this is a pretty cool polish. It was the first duochrome I got, though I've actually yet to wear it as a full mani. It's a purple-green duochrome, and shifts from being a rich purple head-on to being a softer grey-purple that shifts to green in different light. It's got a slightly frosty finish, so you do have to be a bit careful about applying, but it's not really high-maintenance. It's a little thick, too, so you have to let it dry between coats if you ever want it to fully dry, but for a buck, I can't complain! I think this was 3 coats, but it's been awhile, so I'm not sure. You can get Essence at Ulta and Fred Meyer, as far as I know, though there may be other retailers, and from drugstores in Germany (and possibly elsewhere in Europe?).

Milani 3D Holographic Nail Polish in 3D and Hi-Tech Review and Swatches

Yet another item from my Milani Black Friday haul (wow, that was a long time ago!): the gold "holo" 3D and green (legit) holo Hi-Tech. I got these so I could do holographic Duck nails, though I knew (based on other reviews) that the gold one wouldn't be the greatest polish that e'er polished. The green, however, is frickin' awesome, and together, they're pretty ducky. Yeah, I went there.

Milani Hi-Tech (left, ignore the weird orange tint) and 3D (right)

Color Club Holiday Splendor Nail Polish (from the Beyond the Mistletoe Collection) Review and Swatches

This is one of the CC glitter/holos I got from Ross. It's the only one of the 6 that has a tinted base, and it's really gorgeous. Not quite as blingtastic as Sugarplum Fairy or Beyond the Mistletoe, but the formula is better (didn't need to be thinned!) and the color more than makes up for the more muted holo.

Color Club Holiday Splendor

Milani 3D Holographic Nail Polish in Hi-Res Review and Swatches

Another Milani nail polish, woohoo! This one is from their 3D Holographic line, which has 6 colors, of which I have 3. I wanted something that would be easier to apply and remove than a glitter, but not as boring as a cream, and this polish fulfilled both those desires!

Milani Hi-Res

Color Club Gingerbread Nail Polish Review and Swatches

This is the second one of the Color Club polishes that I got at Ross that I decided to wear. The combination of cool-toned gold glitter and rainbow holo particles could not be resisted. And really, why would I even try?

3 coats Gingerbread

Color Club Beyond the Mistletoe Nail Polish in Sugarplum Fairy Review and Swatches

So, I posted a little while ago about an awesome find I had at Ross: 6 new Color Club nail polishes, plus top coat, for $7.99. It's called Beyond the Mistletoe, and it's the new holiday collection, priced normally at $48. You can imagine my extreme satisfaction at finding out that not only did I have 6 new glitter/holos in my collection, but that I'd gotten them for 83% off retail. That's, like, the most a poor (monetarily, not pathetically, though I suppose the latter could be considered, too) beauty junkie could ever hope for. I was, frankly, paralyzed with choice about what one I should wear first, but ended up deciding to go for the most holographically glittery awesome one: Sugarplum Fairy.