Swatch: Revlon 'Royal'

Good morning! First off, I just want to say that I am STILL rocking my 'Who The Shrek Are You?' mani from Tuesday night. This is UNREAL. More than 80 hours of wear, I'm shocked and still in love with it. It will come off tonight but I will love every remaining minute of it's existence. Haha. (So dramatic.)

Today I bring you the famous Revlon jelly polish: Royal. I have to be completely honest - I'm not sure what the hype was about this polish. Maybe I apply polish really bad (somehow I don't think that's quite it) or maybe I picked up a bad bottle. I found that it didn't level itself well, so some areas have thicker pigmentation while some spots appear to be sheer/translucent. 

Now the colour is gorgeous but it wasn't just the application that had me confused about all the hype, it was also the wear. I had this polish on for about 5 hours before my middle finger polish popped off. Yeah, that's right, 50% of my polish popped right off. I was at work and couldn't fix it - I wasn't pleased. By the end of work 3 nails were wrecked. I'm not normally that bad on my nails and wasn't doing anything out of the ordinary so I know it wasn't related to anything I was doing. *sigh* I really wanted to love this polish.

Excuse the messy cuticles please & thank you.

This polish dried with a strange, almost semi-matte/suede finish.
CORRECTION: It dried plastic. (Thanks Ulmiel!)
I added a coat of Seche Vite for shine.

It looks so dark here. Lighting really affects the way this polish looks.

I have been finding that Revlon is a brand where it is 'hit-or-miss' almost every time. I purchased Emerald City, Fire Fox and Powder Puff, their new polishes with the matte-suede finish, and they all seem like winners. (I only swatched them so I don't know what their durability is like but they apply like a dream for me.) However, Royal and Beach (from their scented polish line) have been giving me issues. Oh well, you can't win them all I guess.

Have you tried Royal? What is a royal pleasure or a royal pain in the butt? 

(I know, I know ... lame humour, I'll stop. Heh.)

Thanks for reading. :)

OPI 'Who The Shrek Are You?' and a Glitterbomb

I am a fan of polish colours that some people may consider to be 'ugly'. Muddy browns, murky greens, strange oranges ... yeah, I dig them. Sometimes I get sick of the generic pink mani and want something really unique and eyebrow-raising. I love when people look at my nails and go "They're polished really nice, but the colour..." because I know I've found something that they probably haven't seen before. I'm always on the hunt for different polishes! With that in mind, today I am showing you a polish that I have been wanting since I first started seriously collecting/growing my polish collection (back in March): OPI's "Who The Shrek Are You?". 

Base colour OPI "Who The Shrek Are You?"
It's uneven in some places and the light was highly unforgiving.

Gorgeous colour. I'm in love.

Ring finger: Wet'n'Wild "The Wonder Yellows" as base colour
Sinful Colors "Call You Later"
Sally Girl mini polish - no name. Gold hex glitter & small round glitter in clear base.

As you can tell, this mani started out with all 10 fingers being 'Who The Shrek Are you?' however I tried to add something fun to my accent nails (ring fingers) and it didn't turn out the way I wanted. My initial solution was to remove the polish on those fingers and re-polish with the OPI but then I saw 'The Wonder Yellows' and voila! The final result. I applied this mani Tuesday night and I'm still wearing it. Almost 48 hours! That is almost unheard of for me now. Needless to say, I LOVE THIS! Very different and right up my alley.

What do you think - Who The Shrek Are You? - rock it or toss it?

Thanks for reading.

100+ Followers & Pink Wednesday: "Diagonalized"

Happy Wednesday! Before I go any further I just want to say a MASSIVE:

THANK YOU!

As of right now I am at 101 followers - unbelievable. Thank you for commenting and sharing your thoughts with me. I truly love getting to know you all and am looking forward to getting to know you all even better! These past few months have been so much fun and I'm glad that you are joining in the fun with me. Stick around for many more posts to come!

xo

All right, back to the mani! I purposely planned this manicure for today. I did this look almost 2 weeks ago now but it fits perfectly with today's pink theme. Is it considered cheating if I'm not actually wearing pink? I hope not. I'm currently sporting OPI's "Who The Shrek Are You?" that I purchased last night before my 'date night' with the hubby and I'm loving it. You can see that tomorrow! ;) 

This look is a diagonal tape mani or a "Funky French" as some call it. See below.

Pink is Color Club "Yum Gum" (scented)
Purple is Color Club "Alias"

I added a pink flower rhinestone for fun. It matched perfectly!

I love the green shimmer in the bottle, unfortunately it doesn't translate very well on the nails.

This mani didn't last too long. I felt really weird wearing something so obviously "girly". I think I would have been fine if the pink was changed for a green or something but I doubt I will do pink and purple like this again. Anyway, it was fun and I hope it's enough pink for "Pink Wednesday". I think my goal will be to post a mani with at least a little pink every Wednesday or do a swatch of all my pinks. What do you think? Do you follow "Pink Wednesday"?

I hope you are all having a wonderful day!

Thanks for reading.

Starry Galaxy

What the heck: two posts in one day?! Believe it. I had the day off today and was absolutely hating my bubbly mani so I re-polished and came up with what you see below. Wait! Before you jump to the photo's I have to say: BLACK POLISH IS A PAIN TO CLEAN-UP! I haven't worn black on my fingers in ... 2+ months? At that point I wasn't doing the very detailed touching up like I do now. It's a pain.

That is all. Onto the good stuff!

Base colour Wet'n'Wild "Black Creme" with Claire's "Galaxy" swiped twice down the center of the nail. This makes me think "black tie affair" which is actually something I have planned for a future post! ;)

Pretty silver micro-glitter. No top coat yet, folks. It shines so nicely.

For fun I added stars and rhinestones to jazz things up.
One coat SV on index & ring
 2 coats on thumb, middle & pinky

My thumb, middle and pinky got "bling-y". The ring finger can't have all the fun. ;)

I'm pleased with how this mani turned out - much more than what I had prior. I picked up two Claire's polishes yesterday and I just had to try out Galaxy. I owned nothing like this and was excited to try it out. Needless to say, I was not disappointed. :) Have you tried out any of Claire's polishes? What do you think of them and which colour do you own?

Thanks for reading. 

Nail Look: Teal You See Dots

Uhh, so I should have done stars on my nails instead of polka dots so the title of this post could make more sense. (Teal You See Stars ... get it? Ha ...) Anyway, I'll stick to my day job and quit the horrible attempts at humour, I promise.

Last night while watching 'Due Date' (I love me some Robert Downey Jr.) I, to my husband's dismay, decided to redo my nails. I have to be honest, I don't know what it is about late night polishing, but for me it never works. Case in point: my first ever mani with bubbles. ACK! I wanted to take a sewing pin and pop them. Am I crazy? Surprisingly enough as I write this I am still wearing this look. 

The bubbles make me itch. (Figuratively) Weird? It's like my nails have hives. Ew.

With flash. Do you see the purple in the bottle? It's hard to catch on the nails, but it's there.

I added Sally Hansen "Chartreuse Chase" on my ring finger and dotted  my base colour (L'oreal "Blue Marine") on top.

Some purple on the middle finger.

Taken this morning in better lighting. You can definitely see some purple. (Ignore the smudged polish on the ring finger, I went to bed too soon after doing this.)

Another shot to show that purple duo-chrome. So pretty, minus the bubbles.

Unfortunately, the bubbles started just as I did my second coat of 'Blue Marine'. Had I waited an extra 2 minutes and done a slightly thinner coat of polish this bubbly disaster could have been avoided. Oh well, that's my impatience for ya. Off to re-polish! 

Have you ever had any bubbly mani disasters? Make me feel better and let me know!

Thanks for reading. :)