OPI Done Out In Deco

Ooo, looky at this color. I'm loving it. Done Out In Deco is from OPI's South Beach Collection, 2009. It is the only interesting color in the collection. But, thankfully, it is amazing. Done Out In Deco is also only the second OPI that I own. The other one is Bastille My Heart, which is amazing and which I need to post about. I've been meaning to buy more OPIs, because, quite frankly, the brush is amazing. I lurve it. It makes it verrry easy to apply polish. This particular polish would have applied beautifully except for the fact that my base coat is horrible. HORRIBLE, darlings! I'm going to post about that soon too. :) Soo, the polish went on a bit streakier than I would have liked, but that was entirely my base coat's fault.
So, about the color. It is a muted lilac. Some people have been terming this as 'dusty', and I can definitely see why they would call it that. It's got a kind of grey-ish or mushroomy quality to it, which makes it very chic and not just your normal light purple. I feel a little French. :) Here's another picture. (note: my clean-up was not so great, and the polish is a little uneven due to my base coat, so be warned if you're planning on enlarging these pictures!)

Zoya Pru

Isn't Pru the ugliest name? I guess it's short for Prudence or something. (my apologies if any of y'all are named Pru!)
Pru is a purplish-mauve-y color infused with gold shimmer. It looks to me like the mauve version of Essie It's Genius. I would almost call this a work-safe color, for those who work in conservative offices. While it's a little blingy, the bling is pretty unobtrusive, and the color isn't in your face.
The formula is verrry smooth and nice, flows beautifully onto the nail. No streakiness at all. However, it is pretty sheer. I've got 4 coats on in this picture. 3 coats would have been enough for most people, but I just felt like the fourth was necessary for me. :)
So sorry that I didn't post yesterday, but it was stormy all day and I was hoping today would be better for pictures ... but alas, no. Cloudy again. Houston in the spring-time is a little volatile. :)

Zoya Ki

Zoya Ki is a DUOCHROME, y'all! My very first one. :)
Ki is a strong duochrome of ashy (meaning, for me, gray-ish), rather dark purple and forest-y green. The purple is dominant, with the green coming out in dim or florescent lighting.

Here is a blurry picture showing the green. I'd place the green as somewhere inbetween China Glaze Gussied-Up Green and China Glaze Wagon Trail.
I was really happy that the duochrome was so strong. Everyone can tell immediately that you are wearing a freaking awesome color on your nails. I got lots of oohs and ahhhs, and how-cool-is-that!s at work yesterday. :)

Strawberry Fields Forever ...

In the short weeks that have elapsed since I've worn Watermelon Rind, I had kind of forgotten about the fabulousness of China Glaze's Summer Days collection. I remembered as soon as I put Strawberry Fields on.
Strawberry Fields is a cool-toned bright pink that is injected with loads of gold shimmer (maybe I should call it gold glass flecks? Seeing as this polish is glass-flecked). I love it. It's a pink that's actually interesting. I don't like pinks very often, so when I find one I like, it's gotta be good. :)
Application was a little tricky. The polish drags a teeny bit, making 3 coats necessary in order to even it out. But I'm not going to complain about the application if the color is this beautiful. :)
I'm trying really hard to get Orange Marmalade and Grape Juice, but my Sally's is still stocked up on Romantique and doesn't have the Summer Days collection in yet. Boo!

China Glaze Shower Together

I love anything 'green', (i.e., ecofriendly), and so was happy about the idea of China Glaze's Ecollection (which came out in '05, can be found @ e-tailers). It consists of some very pretty colors; a green, a blue, 2 browns, a yellow, and a grey. I've got the blue, Shower Together.
Shower Together has the potential to be absolutely awesome. On the nail, however, it was a little disappointing. Dare I call a bright blue boring? But somehow it is. Maybe a better way to describe it is flat. A beautiful bright sky blue should pop and wow the eye. I'm not saying that this is a bad color, it just isn't what I thought it would be.
Application was pretty good, not gloppy. A little runny, but if I had to choose between having a gloppy or a runny polish I would definately choose runny. Much easier to handle. I needed 3 coats in order to even out streakiness.
The picture above doesn't really show the true nature of ST ... it's a shade or 2 darker and has a green tinge to it. This picture is a closer match, but not such a great picture.
Did y'all get any Ecollection colors? What did you think of them?

Zoya Zara

I had very high hopes for this color after seeing The Polish Addict's swatch. Zara is from the Zoya Flourish Collection. It is an ethereal lilac chock full of gold shimmer ... stunning, really. Angels would wear this color.
My mummy thinks Zara is a very Easter-y color. I hadn't thought of that, but it's true. It's the more sophisticated version of pastel purple that shows up everywhere during Easter season.
Zara gave me the same lovely application as the other Zoya's I've tried (but a bit sheer, 3 coats were needed). I'm thinking that a smooth, mess-and-streak-free application must be Zoya's trademark. If so, I'm sold on Zoya! :)

Zoya Richelle

Now I know what y'all are thinking.

Faith! You, a nailphile, not wearing green nail polish on St. Patrick's Day?! Blasphemy!

I know, it's pretty bad. But I wasn't thinking clearly when I applied this yesterday ... I guess I kinda forgot that today was St. Patrick's Day and that I should have been putting on Sinful San Fransisco or something. Buuut, I'm thinking of Richelle as the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. :)

Richelle (from the Pulse Collection) is an extremely pretty and blingy gold. It looks like I stuck gold leaf on my fingertips. It is sparkly goodness indoors, and outdoors it blows your mind. Kind of makes me feel like Sasha Fierce.

I could easily have gotten away with 2 coats, but I made it 3 just to be sure. Beautiful application, not messy at all. Here's a close-up so y'all can see the glory.

An Indigo Moon

The other day All Lacquered Up posted about the moon manicure trend and I got inspired. They're on the Fall runways, but I don't really care if I'm seasonally correct in my manicures ... I just like to do what makes me happy. ;)
Here is my first attempt at a moon manicure. I used one of my new Zoyas, Indigo. If you click on the picture you'll see how very very messy the moons are, but practice makes perfect and I haven't had any practice. haha! I'm pretty happy with the look, especially since I normally despise all forms of nail art.
Indigo is a lovely dark blue. In the bottle it's got this amazing rainbow glitter (I'm pretty sure it's not holographic) that, unfortunately, does not show up on the nail very well. :( You can see a couple of little sparkles, but not too many. Boo! It may be that the glitter goes WHAM in the sun, but I wouldn't be able to tell you that since there's been no sun in Houston for the past 4 or 5 days.
This is also my first foray into Zoya territory. I'm pretty satisfied with the application. Zoya is Big 3 Free (no Formaldehyde, DBP, or toluene), but their polish is neither too thick or too runny. Yay Zoya! I only needed 2 coats to achieve nice even coverage.

Having Fun With Ladylike Nail Polish ... Or Not

Hey y'all! Sorry for not posting yesterday but what with Flute Festival and my daddy's birthday party the day got a little crazy. Oh, and this picture was taken indoors, as you can probably tell. Nooo sun around here at all in the last few days. And now onto the review we go.
Ohhh, boy, look at that. A sheer. *screams in horror* Sweet Moses, how I hate sheers. But as I said previously, I felt like I needed a non-distracting color when I performed. Don't want those judges mesmerized by my fabulous polish and forgetting to listen to the music! ;)
I thought that Rimmel Princess Pink was going to be more opaque ... I must be bad @ telling if a polish is sheer or not while it's in the bottle. I never shop for these colors, so I normally never have that problem. haha! I give Princess Pink props for being a jelly, cuz I luuurve a jelly.
I used 4 coats in an effort to opaque it up, with semi-success. I got more of a pink look and less of a VPL-all-over-the-place look. ;D Still quite a bit of VPL (for those not knowing what VPL is, it stands for Visible Polish Line, meaning that the nail white is visible.) though.
My sister laments the fact that I bought this nail polish, calling it lobster bisque. I tend to agree with her, but it had to be done.
On a happy note, I got honorable mention (meaning 2nd place) for my room in Flute Festival yesterday! I've only been taking flute for a year, so this makes me happy. I played an Andante by Mozart ... you've gotta love the Mozart. :)

Brown Paper Packages, tied up with string ...

Looky what came in the mail today! My Zoya Polish Exchange polishes! I'm going to show y'all them 3 at a time in order for you to see the beauty better. :)

We have (l-r) Rihana, Faith - which I may possibly have bought because it's my name and I was super excited about it - , and Pru ...

Richelle, Akyra, and Indigo (click on the picture to see the fabulous rainbow glitter) ...
Ki (a duochrome! Purple and green, can you see?), Zara, and Juno. Woot! This is my first foray into the world of Zoya, hopefully my excitement about these will be rewarded. :)

China Glaze Watermelon Rind

Hello ladies! Back to China Glaze! :)

This beauty is Watermelon Rind from CG's new Summer Days collection. All of the Summer Days polishes have the glass-flecked finish that apparently made China Glaze famous. All I know is that I freaking love this color!

First off, let me apologize for the horrible picture. The sun came out for literally 30 seconds today and this is, believe it or not, the best picture I got during those 30 seconds. :(

I tried to take a picture indoors, but it just wasn't working for me.

Anyways, about the color. Gorgeous green. I mean GORGEOUS! This might just be the prettiest green I own. I absolutely love it. The glass-flecked finish truly is amazing. It gives the polish translucency and depth ... it kind of feels like I'm looking down into a sparkly green sea.

This green has quite a bit of blue in it ... my sister thinks that it's too blue to be called watermelon rind, but I think the name is spot on. The glass flecks are silver. Kind of like really really cool silver glitter. I'm wondering if this means I'll have a really hard time getting it off? Hope not. hehe.

Application was beautiful, not thick or gloppy or runny at all. Oh joy! :) I used 3 coats, it was still slightly transparent at 2.

I bought 2 lacquers from the Summer Days collection, Watermelon Rind and Strawberry Fields. What with the gorgeousness of this color, I'm definately leaning heavily towards buying Grape Juice and Orange Marmalade ... and possibly Cherry Pie. :)

Check out All Lacquered Up's review of the Summer Days collection to get a better description of the glass-flecked phenemenon and better pictures! Her picture of Watermelon Rind is perfect. The color is actually much greener than my picture shows, Michelle's picture is spot on.

Rimmel Climax

Um, I may have bought a few Rimmels when I was @ the grocery store (emergency chocolate run!) the other day. Make that 3. I got Princess Pink, Climax, and Hard Edged (I've owned Passion, which I posted about the other day, for a while). I went to the nail polish section specifically to get a sheerish pink. I KNOW, blasphemy. But I've got Flute Festival on Saturday, and I want the judges attention on my flute skills, not my fingers. :( Since I didn't have any sheers, I had to shop. But I wasn't about to spend over $5 for a sheer, since I'll probly only wear it once. Haha! I thought Rimmel'd be a good choice since they kind of have funky shades and only cost $2.50. You'll see Princess Pink come Friday (or Saturday depending on how lazy I am ...).

But for now, look @ Climax! Naughty name, pretty color. Y'all know I'm a sucker for purples. I'm a bit irritated with this picture, it's the best of the bunch but doesn't capture the color correctly. In real life Climax has quite a bit more pink in it. The shade in the picture is lavendar, but I'd really call this a lilac. A dreamy lilac! It is so pretty. The finish isn't super shiny ... but I really like it. It makes me think of satin ... lilac satin! Mmmm.

p.s. I'm thinking that this is the color China Glaze IDK would be if it wasn't a holo. What do you think?

Zoya Polish Exchange

Ok y'all, I just got an email telling me my shipment of polish from the Zoya Polish Exchange will be here Friday. SO excited. :) If y'all don't know what the ZPE is, let me enlighten you. You find all of your old, yucky, or boring polishes that you don't like (opened or unopened, it doesn't matter). You've got to have at least 6 polishes and no more than 200 (I know, 200!). Then you go to this link and fill out the form. You get to pick out however many bottles of new beautiful Zoya polish as you're sending in. Then you pack up your old polish and send it in along with your order form. You pay s&h for the new stuff ($3 a bottle). And that's it. Woo-hoo! I sent in 9 bottles.
The ZPE is being extended until April 28. So what are you waiting for? (well, I guess you could be waiting until April 1, when the amazing new collection comes out. ;))

Rimmel Passion

And we take a brief break from the China Glaze madness to bring you Rimmel 60 Seconds Vinyl Shine Nail Polish in Passion. I was just really feelin' like a very bright red, and I didn't get any of those in my CG haul.
Rimmel isn't kidding when they say it takes 60 seconds to dry ... it might even be 30 seconds. Coverage was perfect in one coat. I used two, as I find that one coat gives more chips than 2. The brush kind of dragged on the second coat. Beautiful creamy poppy red though. It's got quite an orange glow to it in the sunlight. You may have noticed that this picture was not taken in the sun like normal, the sun refused to come out today. Boo.
I've lately been craving red polish ... I know, weird, right? I normally find red really boring! But all of a sudden, I'm like, 'RED, I want RED!' I'm so weird. :) What I really want is a beautiful red jelly. Do y'all have any suggestions?

Cowgirl Up, Y'all!

And on with the China Glaze Blitzkrieg. When I got this bottle I was like, "oh, this doesn't look nearly as cool as I thought it would. boo," even though I saw that it had blue shimmer in it. Silly me! This color is absolutely positively GORGEOUS! It's perfect. A shimmery (blue and red) warm purple with almost a metallic feel (is not metallic @ all though). I was trying to think of a color name to describe this particular shade. My co-worker came close, she said plum. If plums came in this pretty of a color, I'd eat them every meal! :) I think that it is probly a mix of plum and black cherry. But I don't know. How would y'all describe it?

Oh, and guess what? The application was amazing! I know! After all those annoying gloppy polishes, I finally get a beautiful smooth one! :)

China Glaze Caribbean Blue

Ok, so if you haven't guessed by now, I love blue. Especially sky blue. In fact, I'm always on the prowl for the perfect sky blue. I bought 2 lighter shades of blue from China Glaze for this reason. Caribbean Blue is one of them. CB is a bright sky blue heavily laced with silver glitter. I'm gonna go ahead and call it glitter since it is pretty large for shimmer.
I compared my nails to the very sunny Houston sky today, and while it is very very close to matching, I think that a truly perfect sky blue would be ever so slightly darker (and not sparkly, hehe). I do like the silver glitter in this, it keeps the blue out of neon territory while still letting it be happy and cheerful. My nails keep catching my eyes and I keep thinking, 'oo! Look at that pretty color!' :)
I used 3 coats, application was a bit thick and gloppy. (what is with me and getting all these gloppy polishes lately? I don't know why I don't have any thinner yet, definately need to make that investment.) Unfortunately the wear on this polish isn't the best either. I don't know if you can tell, but I already had tip wear when I took this photo. And I just got a chip (2nd day of wear) on a finger. Still, its an extremely pretty color that you should definately own. :)