Zoya Edyta

It's fall, which means time to break out the darker colors. Here I have Zoya Edyta, a blackish green with gold, green, and (I think?) red shimmer. In most lights, it translates to a murky silvery sheen. The bottle shows off mostly the gold shimmer, though. Since I wore this last week too, I know that the gold shimmer actually sinks to the bottom of the nail. Oh well; it's still pretty!

I'm having a really difficult time describing this polish, to be honest. My brain wants to call it green, and the rest of the internet calls it green in general, but it's really not that green. Edyta actually comes out as a dark gray shimmer, more than anything. From observation, the base of the polish seems to be a dark teal color, so I think the prevalence of gold and other warm-toned shimmers balance out the blue. Anyway, the formula itself was beautiful. It's one of those special Zoya shimmers, kind of like Fei Fei or Daul, where it's semi-sheer but packed with a complex mixture of glitters and looks almost gritty. I got complete opacity with two coats. The texture was smooth and super easy to work with, not too runny or too thick.

Julep Rebecca: My Namesake!

I've always been kind of sad that my favorite brand, Zoya, doesn't have a polish in my name. Little did I know that Julep already has me covered. One of college friends who's going to be doing an internship fall term gave me Julep Rebecca as an early birthday present and I'm in loooove. Since this is a new brand for me, let's cover some basics. Julep nail polishes come in a chic-looking rectangular bottle, reminiscent of a small tube of lip gloss or something. They aren't cheap either, at $14 for only 0.27 fl. oz. That's almost only half the size of a normal bottle of polish. Good thing I didn't buy this myself...

Rebecca itself is a pretty periwinkle blue creme. The formula is creamy and opaque, yet weird at the same time. Usually when I apply polish, I will dollop a sizable blob onto my nail, do the classic 3-strokes, but then I'll swipe over the completed nail once or twice to wipe off excess polish. I found that if I do that last step with Rebecca, it ends up lifting off some of the color rather than simply removing the excess. This could have been a one-coater, but because of my application technique I had to do 2 coats to cover some bald spots. Overall, though, I'm very pleased. Very pigmented, smooth application for the most part, lovely color. Yay!

Sparkly Sea: Forever 21 Seafoam

A couple weeks ago, I wore this combo of Forever 21 Seafoam and China Glaze Midnight Kiss on the accent nail. Seafoam was an impulse buy from the Forever 21 website after I saw it on sale for 99 cents; who could resist that? Online, the color seemed a bit lighter and mintier. In real life, it was a darker, dirtier sea green. Basically it was Zoya Bevin with gold fleck shimmer. And I already have Bevin. Nevertheless, I did enjoy this nail polish. The formula was surprisingly excellent, creamy and completely opaque in two coats (it may even pass for a one coater in some cases). I've come to expect very little from Forever 21 nail polish after my friend bought a ton of them and realized at least half were disgustingly sheer, but Seafoam didn't disappoint! I do wish the gold shimmer stood out a bit more. I decided to accentuate the shimmer with a gold foil accent. Did I mention I have a terrible weakness for blues/greens/blue-greens?

OPI DS Sapphire

This week I've been wearing OPI DS Sapphire (DS 010). This is part of OPI's older DS series, which has a bunch of rare-ish holos. I found my bottle randomly at the CVS near my school. It was priced just like any other OPI ($8.50) even though it sells for double that or more on eBay. Yay for surprise discoveries!

DS Sapphire is a very light steely blue linear holo. In the shade, it has a slight pink duochrome. In direct sunlight, the holo explodes and makes it look silvery. The formula was a bit sheer but smooth and easy to work with. I used only 2 coats but probably could have used a third for complete opacity...oh well. Another note: this smelled pretty chemical-y since I think these were made before OPI went 3-free. Oh well, again. It's a happy color. And as with all holos, it's better in person!

4th of July Skittle Mani

Double post! Today (or rather yesterday) I decided to try a skittle design for 4th of July. I knew I wanted to use red, white, blue, and silver but the other details were pretty hazy. In the end...I came up with this amalgam.

I painted two coats of Sinful Colors Snow Me White on all my fingers as a blank canvas. Snow Me White is a basic stark white creme; the formula is okay but pretty chalky/not self-leveling. The polishes I used for the designs are: Forever 21 Silver glitter (I don't think this has a real name...), OPI Russian Navy, a mystery red OPI mini, and Zoya Trixie. Using Scotch tape as a guide, I made the chevron design on the ring finger. Using striping tape, I did the red and white stripes on the middle finger. The index finger is a coat of Russian Navy plus a very thin coat of the Forever 21 glitter. The thumb is a solid coat of Trixie. And finally, the pinky has a gradient tip using the Forever 21 glitter.

The colors used

It didn't turn out as neat as I would have liked. First, I guess I globbed on too thick of a layer of the OPI colors since they tended to pool out after I removed my tape guides. In other words, those crisp lines weren't so crisp anymore :(. Second, my CND Air Dry top coat caused the red OPI polish to streak. Uuuugh. It looks alright from far away at least? So far, I do like my CND Air Dry, but I have to keep in mind that it tends to cause my polish to streak, especially red pigments it seems. Overall, it looks messy and random. I probably should have done one or two types of designs, rather than having all five nails be different.

Coral Sparkle: Zoya Cassi

Last week, I chose to go with the pretty and feminine Zoya Cassi, one of the first Zoyas I ever got. Cassi is a coral pink with very fine whitish silver shimmer. In some lights, the shimmer even looks gold. I love corals, and I know they look good on my yellow-toned skin. It's perfect for summer (even though it's been raining here for literally 2 and a half weeks straight).

Cassi's formula was good, but not as good as what I've come to expect from Zoyas. It's slightly sheer so I needed 2-3 coats for full opacity, depending on how thick the coats are applied. The polish glided smoothly so I didn't find the sheerness to be a huge problem.

I'm into rings lately.

Dots Gradient Rainbow Skittle Mani

A few days ago, Vivs and I were hanging out again, which means nails fun as always! I tried out dotting tools for the first time and came up with this dotted gradient look. The colors used here (from thumb to pinky) are: Sinful Colors Boom Boom, Sinful Colors Big Daddy, Sinful Colors Innocent, China Glaze For Audrey, and Sinful Colors Aquamarine. This was all over a single coat of OPI Don't Burst My Bubble. I started off by putting on a section of densely-packed and large dots on the tip of the nail so that it's completely covered. As I moved towards the cuticle, I gradually switched to smaller dots that were spaced further apart. The end result is a gradient made from dots. Quite adorable, if I say so myself. This might be hard to do on yourself, but maybe I'll try it someday.

Cool Minty Mani

Under Vivian's influence, I've been doing extra stuff to my nails aside from a basic, solid-colored mani. Here I have on China Glaze Re-Fresh Mint, topped with a coat of China Glaze Snow Globe, and finally a coat of OPI Matte Top Coat. Re-Fresh Mint is a true mint green and lies on the very light and green side of the spectrum (compared to Essie Mint Candy Apple, at least). The formula was okay, opaque but watery and hard to control. I got complete opacity in two coats but there was some unfortunate cuticle-flooding. Snow Globe is an iridescent glitter with large and small hexagonal pieces. It flashes green, orangey-gold, and blue. The formula was nice too since I didn't have to work too hard to spread the glitter around. Along with the matte top coat, Snow Globe makes this mani look very cool and icy in a way. I am obsessed with the matte top coat, by the way. I must get my own bottle!

Nail Party! - Vivian & Lush Lacquer Clowning Around

Part two of the Nail Party!  Last Thursday, I received my most recent addition to my nail polish stash - Lash Lacquer Clowning Around!  So all I wanted to put on my nails was that, and didn't bother with doing anything complicated :) I started off with two coats of OPI My Vampire is Buff, and proceeded to apply one layer of Clowning Around.  Although one coat provided a satisfactory amount of glitter, Rebecca and I did find that we had to spread out and place the glitter ourselves.

with CND Air Dry

I decided that wasn't enough, and since I've been looking for a reason to use my OPI Matte Top Coat, this was the perfect opportunity!  I have always loved the look of mattified glitter, it still seems cheerful but subdued in a classy way... 

with OPI Matte Top Coat

Which do you prefer?  

nail polishes used :)

Nail Party! - Rebecca's Colorful Nails

(left to right) Innocent, Big Daddy, Aquamarine, Clowning Around

Hey all! Yesterday was a nail party night, as it often becomes when Rebecca and I hang out together xD Since all the photos are with me, I'll be posting everything :) Up first, Rebecca's nails!

Since she didn't want to completely take off her Orly Kiss the Bride, she decided to do some funky nails!  The polishes she used are Sinful Colors Innocent, Sinful Colors Big Daddy, Sinful Colors Aquamarine, and Lush Lacquer Clowning Around.  Bottle shots below! 

She then layered Aquamarine over her thumb nails - a beautiful bright one-coater, even without a base color!  Big Daddy went over the pointer finger, and Innocent over the middle - Innocent was a bit streaky and might need a second coat.  As you can see, Clowning Around was on the ring finger, and with the help of some striping tape, beautiful diamonds were created on the pinky!  You can see some streaks from the top coat being applied too early though :( 

Speaking of top coat, Rebecca got a new bottle! She decided to try CND Air Dry Fast-Set Top Coat.  To me, the formula seemed very watery (in fact, I dropped some on my desk!) but seemed to do the job fairly well :) 

CND Air Dry

Orly Kiss the Bride

Orly Kiss the Bride is a light pink creme. The formula was pretty disgusting. It was streaky, watery, and didn't level out so I had to rescue the mani with a thick layer of top coat. Ugh. I guess I'm still on the lookout for the perfect light pink.

The last pic is most representative of the color.

L'Oreal Safari Chic

Last week I had on L'Oreal Safari Chic, a grey and olive-y sort of green. I would classify this as a creme with silver micro-shimmer. By that, I mean that the shimmer barely shows up on the nail so it pretty much looks like a regular creme, which is actually quite nice in my opinion. The formula was nice and covered well in two coats, although it was slightly thick if you held the brush out for longer than 2 seconds (I guess it dries fast?). This was my first L'Oreal and I'm pretty satisfied!

Dat micro-shimmer

I think it looks really pretty with gold!

OPI Don't Burst My Bubble

Double post yay! This week I decided to back off the bold colors and go for something neutral, and so I present OPI Don't Burst My Bubble. This was part of the Oz the Great and Powerful Soft Shades collection from this year. So I've been looking for the perfect light sheer-ish pink for the past few months, to use for layering, French manicures potentially, and just to wear as a nice classy color. I was debating between Essie Ballet Slippers and OPI Bubble Bath but then thought those would be too cool-toned/straight pink on my skin. So then I went with Don't Burst My Bubble, which is a light whitish pink jelly. While it's lighter than Bubble Bath, it's still a bit too cool-toned but not enough that I don't like it. The formula is perfectly fine, but not as smooth and streak-free as I hoped (so no using this for French manicures, probably). At least 3 other people have tried this before I actually put it on myself, and on them 3 thicker coats was enough for opacity. I had to use 4 on myself. The good thing is that the layers dry super fast so I can lightly swipe over my nails after a few minutes without damaging the polish. This looks so soft and feminine and just...pretty.

It's not purple at all. The last pic is a bit deceiving.

I'm still on the lookout for the perfect sheer pink though. I think the color of Del Sol Knock Out would be ideal, but with a way better formula.

OPI Jade Is the New Black

This post is about two weeks late. Actually, before this I wore Essie Lilacism but didn't feel like blogging about it for personal reasons.

Anyway, I've been on a green obsession lately. More specifically, blue-greens. During a moment of weakness, I decided to order OPI Jade Is the New Black from Amazon as a treat for myself (although I haven't done anything to really deserve it...oops). I thought this would be more blue-green than what it actually is, which is pretty much a forest green with the smallest hints of blue. It might be the yellow in my skin that's bringing out the yellow tones more, but the end result is more emerald than jade in my opinion. But hey, emerald is the Pantone color of the year and therefore super trendy right now, so no complaints. Jade Is the New Black is still a lovely color. The formula was amazing, not too thick or thin, completely opaque in two thin coats. Plus, the OPI Prowide brush is so frickin' easy to use. OPI definitely deserves its good rep.

This is from the Hong Kong collection OPI did in 2010; the other colors look pretty interesting as well!

Creamsicle

This week's mani is 10 Creamsicle. The brand here is "10" and the name of the actual polish is "Creamsicle." I've never heard of the 10 brand, but apparently my friend got this bottle from a CVS discount bin. Alright then. So, Creamsicle is a sheer peachy pink jelly. The formula was easy to use but slightly watery, and required a full 4 coats for decent opacity. I even used a fifth coat on some fingers; oh the horror!  The good part was that each coat tried super fast, enough that I could touch the nail without smudging after a couple minutes. The result is the soft, juicy-looking color you see here. Unfortunately, I'm not a huge fan of this. The color sort of blends into my skin, yet it's not a nude...overall just bleh. I think Creamsicle would work on people who are either paler or darker than me so there's more contrast.

Essie Turquoise & Caicos

This week I wanted to go bright and happy. I decided to go with the popular Essie Turquoise & Caicos, a  gorgeous turquoise creme. The formula was slightly watery, streaky, and sheer but I managed to get it to look nice in 3 thin coats. Unfortunately, Turquoise & Caicos dried abnormally slowly (even though the formula is thin??) so I messed up a couple nails enough to redo them. And that almost never happens. Oh well. The color is so darn pretty that I can forgive the formula. At least it's not as bad as Mint Candy Apple.

I had to redo another 3 nails on my right hand because I accidentally got nail polish remover on them. Why? So I got gum stuck on the bottom of my shower shoes, and it was not coming off at all. Using my organic chemistry knowledge, I postulated that since gum was basically a plastic, and acetone is an organic solvent that dissolves plastics (such as nail polish), acetone should be able to help get the gum off my shoe. AND IT WORKED! But I had to sacrifice a few nails in the process. I'm such a nerd lol.

I felt like doing something more fancy this week, too, since two of my suitemates had special manis on. One has a pastel skittle manicure, the other one a pastel-ish skittlette manicure. I decided to use the striping tape again and came up with this stripe design. All I did was lay down 4 pieces of striping tape vertically and spaced apart about 2 mm, then paint a single coat of Sinful Colors Snow Me White (a basic stark white creme), and finally take off the striping tape when the white was still wet. Friends have told me it reminds them of peppermint candy. I think it looks like a retro wallpaper. Bottom line is that it's adorable, even better in person.

Not Like the Movies

This week, I have on OPI Not Like the Movies, which is a purple-blue/green duochrome with little bits of silver glitter. Not Like the Movies is from OPI's Katy Perry collection from a couple years ago. Formula was pretty good, but a little sheer. It took 3 coats for full opacity and a good amount of duochrome-ness. Let me say that I cannot stop staring at this. The purple and green flashes are nice and strong, and the glitter bits put this color over the top. I even got a comment on my nails from a prof lololol.

Dat blue-green color shift

Yay!

This is what it looked like under overcast sky.

Thanks to my suitemate who let me use her bottle! (Yep, this isn't mine, but I wish it were.)

Blocks of Blue

In order to comfort myself about the severe lack of spring weather, I decided to do a bright(ish) and fun mani!  I spotted some manis with color-blocking the last couple weeks, so I decided to do a skittlette with that :) I stuck with shades of blue, because that gave me the largest amount of nail polishes to choose from xD After sneaking two Essie's from my roomie, I ended up using the following shades: Essie's Go Overboard, a gorgeous dark teal-blue cream (bottle pic is most representative); Essie's Turquoise & Caicos; and Sinful Color's Aquamarine, which remains true to its name.  As for Turquoise & Caicos, the color for me was more of a sea-foam green, rather than the turquoise many other bloggers describe it as.  I don't know if it's just this bottle, but it definitely was not the famous Tiffany blue shade.  It worked quite well for this mani though!

Go Overboard (left), Turquoise & Caicos (center), Aquamarine (right)
best representative pic for Go Overboard

I started out with one coat of Aquamarine on my thumb and index fingers, two coats of Turquoise & Caicos on my middle and ring finger, and one coat of Go Overboard on my pinky.  I decided to sleep on these, to ensure that the polish was completely dry before starting to tape off areas. 

best representative pic for Aquamarine and Turquoise & Caicos :)

After waking up, I began color blocking!  I started out with tape on alternating sides of the two nails, and painted it the respective colors of the nail next to it.  I wanted to keep the full blocks of Turquoise & Caicos next to each other, to give a softer transition... if you know what I'm getting at >.< Slightly confusing, but I'm sure you know what I mean haha :) 

my tips are getting better! i think? haha

Then, I headed off to class!  Boring, I know, but as before, I wanted to give the nails a good amount of time to dry.  I came back and blocked off the final section (upper corner of the nail).  Looking back on it, it seems that my taping was a little crooked... well, practice makes perfect I suppose :) 

I decided to switch up the solid colors between my left and right hand, so each color got an equal 3 nails haha xD It made sense in my head... I suppose there wasn't a legitimate reason for doing so? I like it though, it keeps up with the funkiness! 

final effect!

I didn't include any pictures in sunlight/shade/all that... the colors all looked essentially the same to me, so figured there wasn't really a need to.  I'll leave it off at that then, I need to stare at my nails some more!! xD

Fiery Red

This week's nails aren't my favorite. I honestly couldn't pick what to wear, so I ended up using a mystery red OPI mini that I got for free when I bought Orly Snowcone. OPI minis unfortunately do not have labels, and since this looks like every other shimmery red on earth, I have zero idea what the name of the actual polish is. The formula was good; it took only 2 thin coats for full opacity. However, it looked extremely boring by itself so I tried to jazz it up with Essie Shine of the Times, an iridescent flaky top coat.

Bottle shots

The end result is an interesting scale-like effect. It seems almost reptilian to me, like dragon scales or something magical.

"Firsts"

Hello all! This post marks a couple of "firsts" for me - first blog post, OPI nail polish, first attempt to take good pictures of my nails xD. My addiction to nail polish began in college, when I finally had the chance to sit down and grow my nails out to a decent length.  Playing violin in high school meant that my nails had to remain at a short length, and I never found that length "elegant" enough for nail polish - but that changed in college! I started to buy drugstore brands, accumulating colors quickly.  But that wasn't enough, plain colors get tiring after a while. That's when I discovered nail art - striping tape, dotting tools, all that fun jazz!  Now all my "splurge" moments are buying nice brands of nail polish (that sounds sadder that it actually is!) and I have a decent sized collection.  

Before I get to the good stuff, I just have to warn you - all the pictures below are from my crappy phone cam, as I left my good camera at home... but it does a decent job of it!

In this mani, I debut my first OPI polishes ever - I Saw...U Saw...We Saw...Warsaw of the Euro Centrale collection and Which is Witch? from the Wizard of Oz collection.  I was instantly hooked when I saw swatches of these, and decided they were worthy of the price. 

I Saw.. U Saw...We Saw...Warsaw (left) and Which is Witch? (right)

I received these in the mail last Monday, and immediately removed my nail polish to put these on. Originally, I only had I Saw...U Saw...We Saw...Warsaw on my nails, but after a couple of days, I couldn't resist and put Which is Witch? on the tips!  I Saw...U Saw...We Saw...Warsaw is a gorgeous dark midnight blue, it only took one coat for opacity!  I loved it by itself as well, but I couldn't resist trying out my the other bottle xD Unfortunately, I don't have pictures of I Saw...U Saw...We Saw...Warsaw by itself, but the bottle shot does the color justice.

Direct Sunlight - the reflection from the glitter was too bright for my eyes haha

I decided to stick with applying Which is Witch? to just the tips, as it's a little too intense for full coverage. I dabbed on one coat!  As other reviews have said, it has a super pretty combo of silver microglitter, regular sized hex glitter, and tiny bar glitters.  I did notice that I didn't get very many regular glitters on, but I'm thinking that was due to bad application on my part - there are tons in the bottle.

Shade

If all OPI polishes are this nice, I may have to invest in more xD  I already have a list going, we'll see if I can resist for much longer.. 

Under my desk light, after a week of wear - see those scratches? >.<

Unfortunately, my nail shapes are a little bad >.< I usually go for square or squoval tips, but I've decided to master the round tips! So you'll have to bear with uneven tips for a while ;)  

Below are some of my old mani's, couldn't resist showing these also!  I'm just the teensiest bit narcissistic haha :)  Ideally, I should have blogged about them, but it's been a hectic semester!  Almost to the end though - I will survive! I think xD

Smokey Chic-ness

This week's mani is Ulta Smoke Screen. I got it as part of some Ulta sale that was buy 2 things for $4. Smoke Screen is a nice dark grayish purple (grurple?) creme. Formula was thin but very nice to work with, and took only 2 coats for full opacity. Maybe I could have used another coat, though, because the nail color looks a lot darker than the bottle color (in real life at least). Oops. The pics here are making it look really blue for some reason. Well...there is some blue in there but not thaaaat much...and ugh. Hard to explain.

Today, since my nails are growing out pretty fast and the mani doesn't look perfect anymore, I decided to experiment with French tips. Vivs sent me a bunch of striping tape that I haven't had a chance to use, so why not now? It worked like a dream. I applied some tape near the tips of my nails, leaving about a 2 mm space for the tip color. Then I painted on a single layer of China Glaze Midnight Kiss (a typical gold foil polish), being careful not to go over the striping tape. While Midnight Kiss was still wet, I took the tape off and voila! Perfect gold French tips. I AM OBSESSED WITH THIS. It looks unbelievably good and spiced up my old mani like a thousand times.

IT LOOKS EVEN BETTER IN REAL LIFE

Minty Spring Mani

With spring technically here (still too cold and dreary looking), I opted for a bright and fun manicure. This is Essie Mint Candy Apple, a pastel blue-green, and China Glaze It's a Trap-eze!, a multi-color glitter suspended in a milky white base. Obviously, It's a Trap-eze! is my accent nail. This just reminds me of candy.

Indirect sunlight

Fluorescent dorm light

It's a Trap-eze! is surprisingly opaque and covers well enough for me in 2 coats. I had to manually move around some of the glitter to make it more spread out, which isn't a huge deal.

Mint Candy Apple and I have a love-hate relationship. I love the color but the formula is a streaky, goopy mess that required me to apply 3 careful coats to even things out. Even then, it wasn't self-leveling so I had to depend on a thick layer of top coat to hide all the little bumps and ridges. ALSO, even though the color is nice, it isn't what I really fell in love with. My friend has a bottle, which I tried over a year ago (see below). I don't know if it's my camera, but it looks a lot greener than my own Mint Candy Apple. Google images also seems to show either a bluer version or a true mint green version. What are you doing Essie....

This is much greener than my current Mint Candy Apple....hmm...also derpy nails lol