Wear Your Pearls, Darling

As you know, I've been trying to use more of my nail art supplies and came across my nail wheel of flat back half pearls. My wheel has a variety of sizes of these pearls and I chose the biggest size. Why not, right? Let's see what I did.

Grey: OPI - "Sheer" Your Toys, 2 coats
Accent nail: Holographic franken, 1 thin coat
Top coat: Seche Vite, 1 coat

 

 

"Sheer" Your Toys was released in the Holiday Wishes collection, winter 2008. I found it while snooping around drug stores in my area and found it amongst 60 other discounted OPI's over a year ago now. (Yes, I left with multiple polishes.) I can't believe that I'm only JUST getting to wear it now. I saw it posted on KarenD's blog "Frazzle And Aniploish" a few days ago (I love going through all of her posts, it's therapuetic for me in some strange way) and decided to finally give it a go.

"Sheer" Your Toys is a very pretty light grey polish. In the bottle you see what appears to be red specks, but they don't translate very well onto the nail. It ends up looking more shimmery, which I'm completely good with. The picture captures the grey side of this polish quite well but it lower lights, it has a strange color shift effect. Not like a duochrome persay, more like the polish looks lilac toned instead of straight up grey. KarenD also mentioned this in her blog and I was interested to see that I had the same result as well.

Hope you are having a fantastic Tuesday!

OPI "Animalistic"

To date, this was literally one of the hardest polishes for me to photograph accurately. In retrospect, I really should have taken advantage of the sun that I had that day and did an outdoors shot, however we are all much wiser after the fact...

OPI "Animalistic" 3 coats

Short and sweet for today.
I will be posting a new, recent mani in a few days time!

Mint Polish Comparison Post

This is rather late, but better late than never, right?

I have NO IDEA what is going on with my formatting, but please bear with me.

1. Gosh "Drizzle" - 2 coats

Not even close to mint, this polish is a very greyed out and
dusty, faded green creme.

2. Revlon "Minted" - 3 coats

This is like a more muted cousin of Sally Hansen's "Mint
Sorbet" (#10). Smooth and very pretty.

3. Essie "Turquoise & Caicos" - 4 coats
Jelly based polish, needing 4 coats for opacity. Leans slightly
more green and is darker than the others.

4. Essence "You Belong To Me" - 2 coats
More blue toned rather than a "true" mint. Great coverage
and application.

 

Round Two

5. Gosh "Silky Mint" - 3 coats
Medium warm toned green creme. Although the name says
it's a mint, it leans just a little too green for it to be
considered a traditional mint. Gosh has great formula's,
very easy application.

6. OPI "Mermaids Tears" - 3 coats
A dustier version of "Silky Mint" (#5). Love this colour,
perfect for a more muted mint polish. 

7. Cosmetic Arts, un-named - 3 coats
Very cool, blue-leaning mint creme. Wish it had a name. No
complaints with application.

8. Color Club "New Bohemian" - 3 coats
This is the quintessential mint - my favourite out of them all.
It leans the slightest bit more blue than green and I think
that's why I like it. It works well on my skin tone (it causes
the least amount of lobster-clawness out of all the swatches)
and looks very refreshing.

 

 

Round Three
 

9. Sally Hansen "Green Tea" - 3 coats
Pale, muted mint green. Pretty and whimsical. I love this
type of greyed out polish.

10. Sally Hansen "Mint Sorbet" - 3 coats
Vivid but pale green mint. Perfect for summer; looks
awesome on tanned skin. Application was slightly thick.

11. Avon "Aqua Fantasy" - 2 coats
Very blue but has a very slight edge of green so I included it,
just to compare. White shimmer gives it a frosted feel and
the application was AMAZING. I need more Avon polish in
my life. Like yesterday.

12. Wet'n'Wild "I Need A Refresh-ment" - 2 coats
I kind of hate the name of this polish ... but the polish is
beautiful. More blue than green, the creme formula glides
on smoothly. Pretty but not quite mint. Mint-esque.

 

I wasn't exactly strict with my polish picking; I wanted to
include some polishes that lean a bit more blue (or green) just
to show the contrast to the what is traditionally thought of as
a mint polish. Personally, I feel like this helps the comparison
process.

My favourite "true/traditional" mint out of these 12 that I've
shown is Color Club's New Bohemian. As I mentioned
above, it is a great polish against my skin tone. Unfortunately
for me, most polishes in this colour family give me lobster
claws and a bit bonus, and part of the reason why New
Bohemian won out, is that it didn't cause my hands to look
so red. The fact that it is the perfect blend of blue and green
also helped, haha. ;)

My friend J wanted a review on Minted by Revlon which I
swatched in this post, so for J and all else who want to know
a bit about this polish ...

Application was good although a little thin on the first two
coats. I added a third to smooth everything out and make it
perfectly opaque. It dries shiny in case you're wondering. (I
would still add topcoat for longevity.) I can't comment as to
the wear of the polish because I only swatched it but I find
Revlon to be fairly decent. I don't wear polish for much
longer than a 2-3 days and it lasts well during that time. All
in all, I would give you a big thumbs up and green light:
go buy it! :)

What is your favourite mint polish? Let me know!

- A Polished Touch

HAUL: I've Been A Bad Girl

I was planning on doing a monthly haul post to show what goodies I picked up during the month, however it is June 5th and I already have almost 50 polishes for this month alone. AAAAK. I'm on an extreme "low-buy" (let's face it - I simply do not have the will power to do a "no-buy") for the rest of this month. That being said, my birthday is in July so I can make myself feel better by thinking they're early birthday gifts to myself. That, and the fact that I got almost all of these polishes for 50% off! :)

Also, a sidenote because I feel it's important: this post is in no way, shape or form me bragging. I work hard for my money and this is how I choose to spend it. Polish is my hobby, my indulgence. I am very fortunate to be able to have the things I have - I do not take it lightly or for granted.

That disclaimer is for any possible hate that might be generated by this blog post. I truly hope there will be none.

Okay, let's indulge! :)

*

 Overview Shot of Everything

(L-R)
Borghese Borghese Capri Coral & Espresso Brown
Del Sol Trick-or-Treat (turns black in sunlight)
Sally Hansen Black Tie & No Hard Feelings

(L-R)
Revlon Get Reddy, Minted & Red Hot Tamale
Quo by Orly Orange Pop & Steel Heart (Canadian brand)

(L-R)
China Glaze Champagne Bubbles, Hook And Line,
Luxe And Lush, Mahogany Magic, Poinsettia, Twinkle Lights

 (L-R)
OPI Bronzed To Perfection, Divine Swine,
Gettin' Miss Piggy With It, Pepes Purple Passion

(L-R)
Icing Cherry Blossom, Pampered & Primped
Rave Royalty, Text Me Later

 (L-R)
Orly AFter Party, Bubbly Bombshell, Butterflies,
Crawfords Wine, Ruby, Spark, Swizzle Stick

(L-R)
L'oreal Boozy Bruch, Butterfly Kisses, Check Me Out,
Eiffel For You, Greycian Goddess, Penthouse Pink,
Stroke Of Midnight, Sweet Nothings, Tangerine Crush,
Violet Vixen, Walk On The Beach, Wishful Pinking

If you're counting, that's 44 bottles of polish. The mini bottle you see in the very front of the first picture is a mini sample size of Poshe quick dry top coat that I got as a free sample with my Sally's purchase. Woot. Free samples?! I'm all over that!

I found the OPI's on clearance for $4.99 and the newly released L'oreal's I found on sale for 50% off at $3.99 a pop. Most of the Orly's I purchased for $3.99 as well, on clearance. Same goes with the Icing: $2.49 for those. Three of the China Glaze (the holiday ones) I found in a 3-pack for $3.99 - unreal, right?! I was ECSTATIC.

If there is anything that you would like to see swatches and/or fun mani's with, let me know in the comments. Any requests in the comments or emails, I try to do within a week or two so never hesitate to ask! I love making my readers happy. :)

- A Polished Touch

Blue Monday: Watermarbling Edition

Last summer I attempted watermarbling and it was a huge fail. I tried it again about a week ago and, in my opinion, it was a success. I can't wait to try this out with different colours soon.

I forgot to take pictures until after the second full day of wear so please excuse the chipped polish on my pinky finger.

I started with a base coat of OPI No Room For The Blues and then did my watermarbling with that polish and OPI Sunbody Loves Me (pictured above) and then a coat of Seche Vite.

I find that, as with most things, practice makes perfect - I'm very much looking forward to trying this again when I have some spare time. (This took me just under an hour to do ... I had a lot of clean up to do, I forgot to use tape, gah.)

Have you tried watermarbling? Fail or success?

Lots of Layering featuring China Glaze, OPI & WetnWild

Layering is one of my favourite things to do with polish. I love creating different combinations and seeing the result. Today I have one that I really love and hope you will too!

China Glaze Frosty

1 thick coat, just to see what it looks like on its own

Frosty was released with the China Glaze 'Tis The Season To Be Naughty or Nice 2010 holiday collection. I wish I could have found a backup bottle however there was only one left when I found the collection in April 2011 at a hair salon, marked down to $3.99 a bottle. (Needless to say, the entire 16 piece collection made its way into my home over a period of 10 months; I searched everywhere to complete the collection and thankfully didn't have to resort to online ordering, I dusty hunted. ;) Haha.)

Look at all the layering!

The above two pictures consist of Wet'n'Wild French White Crème (2 coats) with 2 coats of Frosty layered on top.

I added 2 coats of OPI I Juggle ... Men (a pink and blue shimmering, layering-only polish, you will never reach opacity with this on its own) on top of French White Crème and Frosty. I think the result is very pretty although it was much nicer IRL. I wish it would translate better on camera, alas it does not. You'll have to take my word  for it, or, if you have the polishes, try it out yourself! (If you do, I would LOVE to see!!)

Side thought: Do you have a "go to" black and white polish that you use for layering? I do ... somewhat. My black go-to is Black Crème by Wet'n'Wild. It. Is. Perfection. I figured that if W'n'W can nail a basic black that they could nail a basic white as well. I'm kinda 'meh' about French White Crème. It doesn't apply as evenly nor as opaque in one coat as Black Crème. Ah well. It did the trick, I guess. 

Although the finished look is a little thicker than I would like, I guess that's to be expected of 6 coats of polish. Quick note, I didn't use any topcoat for the photo's. 

What do you think of this layering? Does it remind you of the glimmer and shimmer you see on freshly fallen snow? That's what it reminds me of. :)

2012 Challenge: Valentines NOTD

HAPPY VALENTINES DAY!

I hope you have had a lovely day doing whatever it is you love the most with those you love the most. 

Mr.Polish bought me some polishes that I have been wanting for Valentine's Day. I knew he was getting them ahead of time because otherwise I probably would have picked them up myself. He figured that because they weren't a surprise I was going to have to work for them, so he created a scavenger hunt for me, haha. Lots of fun! Did your loved one(s) get you any polish today?

Here is my Valentines Day Nail of the Day! (Can you believe it, I am actually posting a current mani?!?)

Sally Hansen Bubblegum Pink

2 thick coats, no topcoat

Bubblegum Pink is a light pink polish with white shimmer. I found this polish to be quite thick and rather difficult to apply. I will add a few drops of polish thinner to Bubblegum Pink the next time I use it.

Dots:

Dark Purple - OPI Funky Dunkey

Light Purple - OPI Do You Lilac It?

White - Wet'n'Wild French White Creme

Silver - Wet'n'Wild Silvivor

I added some polka dots to create a fun, different mani. I'm a huge fan of dotticure's and I have proof ... the last 3 mani's I've done have been done in this style, and all with hints of pink to celebrate Valentine's day. (You will see them this week!)

What was your mani today?

My First Guest Post!

I'm very excited to let you all know that I did my first guest post. 

Where, you ask? Over at Laura's blog Laura's Lacquers.

That's a sneak peek of what to expect, hope to see you lovelies over there showing her blog some love!

Come back tomorrow to see THREE Valentine's Day mani's. Woot! ;)

Layering: China Glaze Holly-day & OPI Fresh Frog of Bel Air

I just realized how close Valentine's Day is and how I haven't posted any Valentine's themed mani's yet. I'm not extremely creative and cannot for the life of me do any type of freehand (hearts are beyond my talent level, even when using a dotting tool) so the ones I have done have been "dotticures" or dotted manicures. I'll share them starting on Monday.

Onto the swatches.

China Glaze Holly-day

2 coats, no topcoat

Holly-day is a perfect medium green crème, two coats to be opaque. This levelled pretty well for me and application was like warm butter. I love it and have nothing quite like this in my collection. I feel like it is the right combination of everything I like in a green: it's deep but still very obviously green and might very well be my favourite green crème polish!

OPI Fresh Frog of Bel Air

2 coats layered over Holly-day, no topcoat

Mmm, so pretty. 

Fresh Frog of Bel Air is the only one I picked up from the Muppets collection. Honestly, half the reason was because I have very few green glitter polishes and the other half is because I'm in love with the show Fresh Prince of Bel Air. 

This polish consists of green round micro glitter and medium silver hexagon glitter. I layered two coats over Holly-day and think that the two are perfect together. Application was good, no complaints. I wish there was a little more silver hex glitter on the nail but I'm still happy with how this turned out.

What polishes did you get from the OPI Muppets Collection? 

OPI "Spark De Triomphe"

Lately I have been really into layering polishes. Part of this new obsession is that I'm trying to swatch my whole collection and I have a large amount of glitter polishes in said collection. I have for you Spark De Triomphe which I purchased in the Serena Gram Slam pack with the White Shatter. (I also got the Rally Pretty Pink, which I swatched last year, with Red Shatter duo.) I layered it over Elf's Metal Madness from this post here.

 Spark De Triomphe, 2 coats - no top coat

Layered over ELF "Metal Madness"

Ouuu, so pretty. Every time I see a glitter mani I think:

1. Pretty

2. Oohh, that's gonna be a pain to remove.

Haha, who's with me, huh? I actually saw a really neat trick to remove glitter polish that isn't the foil method. *gasp* I know, right!? I'll try it out on myself first and then share it with you in the coming weeks.

I have to admit, when trying to describe this polish everything I was trying to put into words was ... lacking. My solution? A copy and pasted description, courtesy of Michelle from All Lacquered Up.

"OPI Spark de Triomphe is the bright shining star of this collection.  This clear based glitter is chock full of so many kinds of glitter; silver and gold micro-glitter, silver and gold foil pieces, gold hexagonal glitter.  It’s a cornucopia of glitzy goodness.  The overall effect comes off more gold than silver but the gold is more champagne than yellow. Adding the silver particles definitely keeps this one neutral.  One could use this as a topper but the glitter is SO jammed in the base that it really steals the show from whatever color you layer it over." - Michelle, All Lacquered Up

How perfect is her description? Seriously, wow. Thank you, Michelle! Needless to say, this is an amazing glitter polish and if you can find it, you should definitely pick it up! (I've seen the duo's on sale for half price at various Canadian retailers.)

Did you buy either of the Grand Slam duo's?

Sally Hansen Purple Pizzazz & OPI Siberian Nights

I hope you don't mind seeing some swatches from a few weeks ago when my nails were a bit shorter ... you're good with it? Excellent. :) Let's press on.

Sally Hansen - Purple Pizzazz, 2 coats - no topcoat

Indoors, indirect sun

Outdoors, direct sun

I admit, I hate this. I have seen a few swatches of this polish on its own and usually they are done with 3-4 coats. At the time of doing this I didn't have the patience to do that many coats. I removed it and grabbed OPI Siberian Nights, one of my favourite polishes.

Siberian Nights, 2 coats - no topcoat

Indoors, indirect sun

Indoors, tilted to show the deep grape tones

Yikes, sorry about the hasty cleanup!

Sunset, somewhat indirect

I figured that this would make great "underwear" for Purple Pizzazz so I then layered it back over Siberian Nights. Oh, the process!

Indoors

Back to my usual, trusty setup - sans sun ;)

Now this, I love. I found Purple Pizzazz to be troublesome when worn alone. With its jelly finish I found that it would build at the tip of my nails and therefore look more opaque there. The unevenness of it bothered me. However, layering it over a similar, opaque base colour really seemed to do the trick. The glowy shimmer really jumps out against the darker, pigmented base.

Siberian Nights was an absolute dream. She was on my wishlist for a while until I impulsively purchased her and am so glad I did. I could have gotten away with one coat but I wanted to make sure she was camera-ready. ;)

Do you own Purple Pizzazz? If so, do you wear it alone or layer it?

Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Silver Sweep & OPI Black Shatter

Who is completely over the whole crackle/shatter/fracture polish craze? I have a confession to make. I never caught the fever, so to speak. I think it was just the whole overload of it in the blogosphere that made me back up and not even want to try. Well, that's a lie, I did do a post on my Turquoise Shatter from OPI last summer, but I only wore that mani for a day or so and then never touched my crackle/shatter/polishes again.

Today I have what I consider to be the original/traditional crackle mani. Silver and black.

Silver Sweep, 2 coats - no topcoat

Silver Sweep has good application, a little streaky but I don't mind because I usually use this as layering polish. One thing that bothers me about the Insta Dri line is that the brush is huge and the bottle opening is tiny. It doesn't make any sense to me. *shrugs*

With Seche Vite, 1 coat

Left hand shots ... and now for something absolutely comical ...

I swear my pinky doesn't look like this IRL, I was holding 

the bottle tightly with, apparently, my pinky. ;)

Hahaha. Welcome to the my pathetic attempts at photographing my right hand. Look at my pinky, all squished and looking really odd. *chuckles* So, so bad. I had to share, we all could use a good laugh now and then, no?

Black Shatter applied nicely, no complaints. Average, I would say, though I really did like this mani. Very quick and simple, yet it earned many compliments from co-workers and customers. I was pleased.

Be sure to stick around; I'll be posting a "non-traditional" crackle mani in the next couple days. ;)