Uhhh, IDK

Behold the lavendar holographic goodness that is China Glaze's IDK! I've never worn a holographic polish before and didn't know quite what to expect. I was actually a little skeptical of it not being in any way glittery. But I was wrong. WRONG I tell you! Holographic polishes are freaking amazing! Go out and buy some, pronto! I plan to expand my holo stash by quite a lot as soon as I can.

IDK is a smooth, slightly runny polish that dries very quickly. It creates beautiful little rainbow prisms on your nails. It doesn't matter if you're indoors or out, you will notice that it is holographic. As is typical with nail polish, the effect is extremely stunning outside in the sun, but is still stunning inside.

I did have a bit of a weird application. As I noted before, it's a little runny, but not terribly so. The main problem is that it tends to take off the polish underneath if you work at it too much. So try not to fix any little problems ... which is essentially saying try not to make any mistakes, which is impossible. ;D It's not a huge issue, but it was a little annoying.
Scrangie says that she thinks a top coat ruins the effect, but I didn't have a problem with my Seche dulling the beautiful little rainbows.

(btw IDK is from China Glaze's OMG collection of holos)

China Glaze Wagon Trail!

*Ding Ding Ding!* Wagon Trail (from the Rodeo Diva collection) won. That is, I decided to put it on first. :)
Wagon Trail is a funky olive green with tons of shimmer. The shimmer isn't apparent when indoors. See? It looks more like a very dark murky brown when under artificial lighting. A pretty cool color, but once once you get out in the sun ... BAM! you have gold, green, and orange shimmer. Woo-hoo! I lurve shimmer.

China Glaze Haul!

Look at what came for me in the mail today! Eek! :) I'm a very happy girl right now.


The polishes are (l-r) Strawberry Fields, Cowgirl Up, Midnight Ride, Rodeo Fanatic, Wagon Trail, Watermelon Rind, Shower Together, Caribbean Blue, Secret Periwinkle, IDK, and OMG in between the 2 rows. I'm very flustered as to which of these lovely colors to put on first. I'll let you know tomorrow of my decision. :)

Essie Fiji

Here is Fiji, a very very light pink creme. I have absolutely no idea what collection this
color is from, I just found it last time I was at Ulta. I typically don't wear colors like this. Actually, I typically hate colors like this. I have no idea what possessed me to buy this. But the thing is, I like this color. I like it a lot. This might be due to the fact that (a) it is not sheer and (b) it isn't too pink. While I supposed this would technically be called baby pink, I like it because it's almost white and therefore very chic and sophisticated feeling. Almost French feeling. My hands look very clean and well-groomed with this color on.

(note: I took the picture above in bright sunlight and it's kind of hurting my retinas, so I'll stick another one in that d0esn't hurt my retinas so badly.)

Application was pretty bad. I had to apply 4 coats in order for the streakiness to subside. Even with the 4 coats you can still see some unevenness if you look closely. But if you're looking for a nice "appropriate" color that won't make you vomit from boredom, I'd say that this is a pretty good pick.

Nicole by OPI Respect the World

After my dark manicure (somehow it seemed dark to me, even though the main color was supposed to be Sparked ... whatever) I decided that I needed a bright, happy color. Preferably a blue. Because I just love blue. :) I found this lovely little bottle @ my H-E-B, which is a Texan grocery store. So if any of y'all aren't in TX, sorry. ;) My H-E-B has a wonderful nail polish selection ... it's really pretty crazy. It takes them a while to get new collections, but they have OPI (for a dollar cheaper than @ Ulta!) and Orly and all other kinds of stuff.

Anyways, about the color. Respect the World is a very pretty aqua, which in my terminology means that it is a blue-green leaning towards the blue side. It has quite a bit of gold shimmer and reminds me of the Mediterranean. And sometimes of rain. Very springy-feeling and happy either way. In this picture it actually looks way bluer than it is in real life ... my camera failed to pick up the green very well.
As pretty as this color is, my bottle had absolutely horrible application. It was a gloppy mess. I used 3 coats. All 3 coats were necessary in order to even out the color. Here is a close-up just because I feel like putting one up. :) Oh, and please don't enlarge the pictures as I had some sort of weird black fuzz on my fingers while I was shooting ... I have no idea what it is.

About how I'm an impatient person

Hey y'all! I just ordered 11 China Glazes off of Transdesign and am now waiting very eagerly and impatiently for them, even though I ordered them about 2 minutes ago. Ugh. ;) I ordered 2 polishes from the new Summer Days (which is, obviously, now available @ Transdesign, but is not yet available @ any other e-tailers.) collection, Watermelon Rind and Strawberry Fields. I also ordered a few from Rodeo Diva, Bahama Blues, OMG!, Ecocollection and Operation Colour. Am so excited. :D
Oh, almost forgot to mention. China Glaze polishes are $2.60 @ Transdesign, which beats 8ty8beauty by 8 cents. But 8ty8beauty beats Transdesign's OPI price by 25 cents.

Sparked! Mmhm, can't think up a clever title.

Here we have pink sparkles layered over black. To be specific, the black is 2 coats of Sally Hansen Salon Line in Black Patent and the pink sparkles are 1 coat of Wet'n'Wild Wild Shine in Sparked. (btw I just found out the Spanish word for sparked is 'etincelante'. Much better sounding than 'sparked', no?) The thing that I like about this manicure is that it makes think of my beloved Grown-Up Dorothy Shoes. They are pink sparkly pointy-toed stilettos and they are fab, darling. ;) I love them so much I'm even showing you a picture.

All right, so it's not the best picture in the world, but you get the idea. Pretty similiar, eh? The glitter in Sparked is a mixture of rather large dark and light pink glitter particles. It kind of made me think of sand on my nails at first. I didn't like that idea and so for all of yesterday didn't like my nails. But today I've warmed up them and quite like them. :)

Essie Mesmerize es muy hermoso. :)

Ahhh, look how pretty! Essie has absolutely outdid itself this Spring with this lovely cornflower blue. Mesmerize is not your standard bright blue creme (Is there such a thing as a standard bright blue creme? I have no idea.) ... it is more subdued. I like to call it a lady-like blue. Scrangie was spot on when she called this color 'muted'. I used 3 coats for the picture above. 2 would have been enough if I wasn't so messy when I apply! :)

p.s. I apologize for the state of my manicure. I had thought that my bottle of Seche Vite had one last application left in it, which it evidently did not! I also did not clean up very well. Bad Faith!

Rescue Beauty Lounge Spring/Summer 2009 Collection *dies*

Y'all have got to get your booties over to All Lacquered Up and Scrangie's sites. They've got pictures of Rescue Beauty Lounge's blingtastic wonderful sparkly Spring/Summer 2009 collection. I want them so dearly. Locavore is just sooo beautiful. But $18 is a bit much for a single bottle of (very beautiful wonderful) nail polish, no? Ack, I already want so many of RBL's colors and now there are 3 more for me to covet from afar!

Essie Status Symbol

Yesterday I went to my Ulta to take advantage of the buy-2-get-1 that I posted about earlier this week and got three lovely polishes. Or at least I hope they are all lovely. Status Symbol was one of them. SS is from Essie's Spring 2009 collection.

Oh my, how I love this pink! It makes my fingers look like candy - I just want to eat them! I keep trying to think of colors to describe it - azalea, carnation, bubble-gum? Whatever color it is, it is very pretty and Springy. :) Status Symbol applied very well and looks almost like a jelly finish. It is going to be my Valentine manicure, which means that I'll have to keep it on until Saturday. That doesn't sound too hard, seeing what a pretty color this is, but you never know with me. I get bored extremely easily. ;)

p.s. I'm posting 2 pictures b/c I like it so much.

Wet'n'Wild Wild Shine Caribbean Frost

Mmm, frosty turquoise. I like. :) I love love love turquoise/aqua/teal. A mixture of green and blue? I'm so there. :) Now the picture above does not do this color justice, for which I aplogize. The sun is refusing to come out and so I am forced to take my pictures indoors. The picture below is a little better in that it shows the color more faithfully, but, alas, it is blurry.

Ulta sale!

Hello y'all! I lurve Ulta, they always have amazing deals. This week, well, these next TWO weeks (February 8-21) Ulta is having a buy 2 get 1 free on Essie nail polish. Plus Ulta now has Essie's Spring 2009 Collection in stores. Yay! I'll definitely be heading over there this week. Here is the current ad so y'all can see the rest of the deals and sales Ulta is having. The Essie deal is not available online, sorry!

Maybelline Sheer Shining Star

I bought Sheer Shining Star last summer, at the beginning of my polish obsession, before I realized that I despised sheers. I've only worn it a couple of times, and haven't worn it since probably August. Soo, it was a bit of a shock to put it on and discover that SSS is actually opaque after 3 coats! *dances* I'm pretty sure that SSS was meant to be worn sheer, seeing as the word sheer is in the name, but I really don't like sheers. When worn opaque, SSS is a lovely opalescent white that isn't harsh at all. I'm posting 2 pictures of this color as the picture above doesn't show the nice opal-y parts.

N.Y.C. Skin Tight Denim Creme

Skin Tight Denim is a dark blue (almost navy) with electric blue shimmer that keeps it from being a blackened blue. It is very nice, but I somehow remember this as darker and as more of a creme ... I guess my memory is weird. Here is another picture in the shade.

I would really like this color except for one thing. This polish chips like mad! I applied it on Monday night, by Tuesday night it was so chippy that I had to do some major touch-ups. (Plus one of my nails broke ... stupid coke cans!) I took these pictures today, less than 24 hrs after the touch-ups, and you can see all the tip wear. There are 2 or 3 chips as well that I tried not to show in the pictures. So while the color is very pretty, the quality of this polish is horrible. Don't buy it! OPI and China Glaze both have some beautiful dark blues that won't chip like this. In this case, more expensive is definately better.

Essie Buy Me A Cameo

Now I know that it looks like my nail stash is 3/4 Essie polishes, but that's not true. I've simply been reaching for colors that have happened to be by Essie lately. :) I have about 35 nail polishes and perhaps 7 of those are Essie, so while I do have quite a few Essies, they by no means dominate my nail collection.

Buy Me A Cameo is a rather odd color. It is what I can only describe as a metallic taupe/nude. It would be a very boring and rather ugly color if it wasn't metallic. Buuuut, it IS metallic and that somehow makes it beautiful and intriguing.

p.s. You may have noticed that this picture is a bit bigger than normal. This is because I have decided that my previous pictures were a bit small. All pictures from now on will be this size. :)

p.p.s I'm wearing BMAC to yet another college visit tomorrow ... this time there will be an interview. Let's hope that the interview lady will be so impressed by my beautiful nails that she decides she just has to give me that lovely huge scholarship.