OPI Lucerne-tainly Look Marvelous

(my apologies for the poor clean-up)

Here, at last, is the other polish I bought from the OPI Swiss collection, Lucerne-tainly Look Marvelous (can we please have a collective groan for that name?). Its punny name aside, LLM is a beautiful silvery dark gray shimmer/foil. I don't think it quite qualifies as a foil, as the shimmer isn't as overwhelming as a foil tends to be.

This color is both celebratory and quiet, and makes me think of downtown Christmas lights reflected in sidewalk puddles. I think it would work marvelously for occasions that need something sophisticated and yet it also works for something that you would wear holographic glitter eyeliner to.

LLM doesn't have super great wear, but it doesn't do terribly either. I believe I got around 2 or 3 days before any chipping, so it doesn't wear like a glitter or anything. All in all, I've been liking this quite a lot for winter, and want to pair it with black tights and sweaters. I'm also contemplating it for my New Year's manicure, although I think I might want something a bit more over-the-top.

I'm Back

(The Bradham Christmas tree)

My dear friends,

Hello.

I have finally gotten the blogging bug again! Let's hope it stays. :) As y'all probably guessed, I have been completely uninspired to blog for the past couple of months. However, I think I have gotten over that, and am ready to blog once more. I am going to shoot for once or twice a week, but please don't murder me if I renege occasionally.

Part of the reason that I took a little hiatus is that I'm a bit bored with straight-up polish blogging, especially because I am too poor to buy many new polishes anymore. So I'm thinking that I will mix traditional narcissistic blogging about me with my usual polish posts, plus whatever else I feel like, and we'll see how it goes from there. But don't hold me to any of this - I have a history of fickleness. ;)

It would seem that I did not blog for a full semester, meaning that y'all missed a bit of what was happening in my life. In these last three months, I...

1. Declared English! I am now officially an English major at Trinity, giving me the perfect excuse to do nothing but read. Happiness.

2. Joined the Trinity Review in an effort to become more involved. The Review is our campus' literary magazine, published yearly. I am on the PR team, meaning that I get to do fun things like chalk quotes all over campus to promote our events and/or the Review itself. Everyone on the magazine staff also votes on all of the submissions. I've got 202 submissions right now sitting in my Dropbox waiting for me....

3. Started work in Special Collections at the campus library. I worked in the Costume Studio last year making costumes for our mainstage productions, but while I loved the actual work, my boss was hell to work with. She just didn't like happy people. But I absolutely love Special Collections, and actually look forward to going to work instead of dreading it. It also helps that I generally have time to do some homework while I'm there.

4. Became the loving owner of 5 high-end nail polishes. (There's the polish reference you've been waiting for. ;) ) I now own 3 RBLs, 1 Lippmann, and 1 NARS. Photo evidence below.

(l-r, Across the Universe, Drifter, Sheer Red, Dead Calm, Zulu)

And yes. That is NARS Zulu. So gorgeous. I will have reviews of them up soon, I promise. :)

I'm leaving quite a lot out, but suffice it to say that I both kept my old friends and made new ones, maintained my grades, and had lots of fun. I hope college never ends...

I hope that y'all had a very merry Christmas indeed, and that your New Years are looking to be fantastical as well!

Love, Faith

OPI Ski Teal We Drop

Y'all. I bought new nail polish. Whoa.

It was extraordinarily exciting, but I was only able to purchase two polishes, sadly. The good thing is that my 2 new polishes are from the OPI Swiss collection, which I was originally not excited about at all. However, after seeing swatches, I got all hot and bothered and decided that I needed about half the collection. I came home with Ski Teal We Drop (which I keep wanting to call Ski Teal The Cows Come Home, oddly enough) and Lucerne-tainely Look Gorgeous.

Ski Teal We Drop is a dazzling teal (thus the name, obviously) creme that applies like butter. I only had to use 2 coats to get a perfect non-streaky finish, and I could not take my eyes off my nails. Even better, the lasting power is top-notch. I went to the beach the day after putting this on (smart move, eh?), and got absolutely no chipping or tip wear the entire day. In fact, STWD didn't wear at all until about 3 days after I applied it, and I was not using my nails gently.

Ski Teal We Drop is fabulous and that is all there is to it. The End.

Withdrawal

arlings. I want new nail polish so very badly. I have had to be unbelievably good for the past few months and refrain completely from nail polish, seeing as I have to spend my money on boring practical things. It's awful! :( Thankfully, I will be able to spend about $50 on nail polish soon, and it will be glorious. I literally have not bought new nail polish since spring break. Horrible thought! In order to somewhat abate my withdrawal symptoms, I thought I would show some of the new collections/some of my lemmings.

'm sure y'all have seen swatches of the new RBL collection by now; isn't it lovely? I wish they had done all of Henry VIII's wives, but I know that RBL doesn't do collections larger than 4 polishes. Here are Scrangie's beautiful swatches, if you haven't seen them yet.

http://www.scrangie.com/2010/07/rescue-beauty-lounge-fall-2010.html

atherine H is calling to me. Such a beautiful soft blue! Catherine is gorgeous as well, and seems so very Spanish and regal! I have always felt terribly sorry for poor Catherine - her first husband died after less than 6 months of marriage, while we all know how abominably the second treated her.

PI is coming out with a Swiss Collection for Fall, which I was at first disappointed with, as it seemed very samey and boring. However, upon seeing All Lacquered Up's swatches, I have recanted. The non-red part of the collection is wonderful! I don't like The Color To Watch, but then I've never liked pearly colors like that. The rest are gorgeous and I need them in my life.

http://www.alllacqueredup.com/2010/07/opi-swiss-collection-fall-2010-part-1-swatches-review.html#more-3342

As for the red half, Scrangie has pictures up of them. They look very pretty, but I doubt I'll be buying any.

http://www.scrangie.com/2010/07/opi-swiss-collection-fall-2010-swatches.html

ssie has also released a couple of fabulous shades for summer that I will most definitely be buying. I want want want the green, and the bright peach/coral is very nice as well. Yum yum, summer colors.

http://www.scrangie.com/2010/06/essie-summer-collection-2010.html

p In The Air by China Glaze is completely to-die-for as well. I want pretty much the entire collection, but I think I will settle for Grape Pop, Re-Fresh Mint, Peachy Keen, and possibly Four Leaf Clover and High Hopes.

http://www.alllacqueredup.com/2009/12/china-glaze-swatches-review-comparisons-part-3.html

http://www.alllacqueredup.com/2009/12/china-glaze-swatches-review-comparisons-part-1.html

http://www.alllacqueredup.com/2009/12/china-glaze-swatches-review-comparisons-part-2.html

p.s. I might have gone a little overboard with the drop caps this post, eh? But they were so pretty, and this post was so boring with no pictures! Isn't the owl-ie O just the cutest thing ever though?

Top Coat Trials: The Legendary Poshe

Now for some more of the illustrious Top Coat Trials, in which I try to find a match for the Holy Grail of Top Coats, Seche Vite. Poshe is commonly known as the equal of Seche (some people even call it better), so I was excited to try it and see for myself. Would something finally measure up to Seche?

Upon buying Poshe, I was disappointed to find out that it costs about $7-8, which is only a couple of dollars below Seche. This meant that if the top coat was measurably inferior to Seche, it wouldn't be worth it to buy Poshe instead of Seche. So home I took my little bottle, happy for an excuse to change my nail polish immediately. Poshe applies quite smoothly and nicely, leaving no bubbles, and keeps the polish chip-free for a reasonable amount of time. However, it did not measure up to Seche's glass-like shine and length of wear. Seche will keep your polish on at least 4 days no problem, while Poshe is pushing it at 3.

Also, I was severely disappointed once I reached the bottom half of my bottle. It has all the same problems as Seche (heavy bubbling, extreme thickening, etc.), with even worse thickening! I felt like I was trying to put glue on my nails. :( I've gotten much better results from several of the drugstore top coats I've tried so far.

The verdict: Poshe is nice, but not worth it. Buy Sally Hansen Mega-Shine, and get the same results a whole lot cheaper, or cough up the $10 for Seche Vite.

I'm A Stupid Blogger

Darling Readers,

Let me recount to you a tale of my stupidity. I am such a bad blogger that yesterday I got onto blogger intending to write a new blog post, since, as I'm sure you're all aware, I haven't posted in over a month. Do you know what I did? I wrote a post on OPI Stars In My Eyes, which I already reviewed just a few posts ago. DURP. The worst part is that I didn't even realize it until my friend Libby wrote on my facebook to tell me how dumb I was. Ack! So, my apologies if a post appeared in your feed/blog list for a few hours and then abruptly disappeared. It was just my stupidity. If all goes well, I shall have an actual post for you tomorrow or somewhere abouts there.

Humbly Yours,

Faith

Summer Polish!

Hola dolls! Guess where I am? The beautiful state of Colorado. :) We come here every summer on vacation and it is so lovely to escape the Houston heat. I'll put up some pictures of las montañas later on in the week.

Now for the polish part of the post. I've never been one for only wearing light colors in summer and darks in the winter, but lately I've been craving bright cheerful colors for summer. I just want things that will make me think of popsicles and happiness. :) So, here are a few of the ones that have particularly calling to me lately (that sentence sounds terribly incorrect, but I'm too lazy to fix it, sorry. ;)) Here are some warm colors.

Now this is a dreadful dreadful picture, but you can get the general idea. The purple is OPI Louvre Me, Louvre Me Not. This bright shimmery purple is a good way to go summery but not leave vampy colors totally behind. The other OPI is Cajun Shrimp (I know it looks pink in the picture, sorry), which just screams summer to me. I am aware that coral carries bad associations of old ladies with matching hand bags, but believe me, this color is completely not old lady. ;) Next is China Glaze Orange Marmalade, a glass-flecked orange that doesn't hurt the eyes. Finally we have one of my favorite pinks of all time, Essie Status Symbol, a carnation pink jelly. My normally pink-disdaining self adores this juicy color. :)

And now cool colors. As y'all know, I cannot get enough of sky blues. I want them ALL! Sally Hansen Blue Me Away is a perfect balance of bright yet not neon. Teals are very in for summer, and Essie Greenport is a great example, with it's slight dustiness keeping it from being boring (p.s. in my review of this color I complain a lot about the formula - I have worn Greenport several times since that review and have not had nearly the trouble. I think most of the blame should go to my dying topcoat). Finally, for those times when I want something easy to maintain and calming to look at, OPI Time-less Is More is a classic sheer white.

What are some of the colors y'all have been craving this summer?

Top Coat Trials: Wet n' Wild MegaLast Quick Dry Ultra Gloss Topcoat

Isn't that name ridiculous? Companies really should give their products shorter names. Here I am with another topcoat review in my long search for a wonderful topcoat. For some reason I'm feeling too lazy today to give a real review to Megalast, so here are the pros and cons of this topcoat.

Pros

- very quick drying (dry to the touch within 5 minutes)

- quite shiny

- extremely cheap! (about $2) :)

Cons

- it did really weird things to one of my friends; it actually dulled her polish rather than enhance it. I didn't get that, but I thought I would just throw it in there.

- didn't protect the nail well enough. My polish would chip very quickly.

- *sigh* the usual con. Extreme thickening in the last half of the bottle!

So, overall we have 3 pluses and 3 minuses. But I was very irritated at the end of my bottle, what with the inferior wear-and-tear of the polish, and the stupid thickening. I know that several people love this polish, but I wouldn't recommend it. I haven't found anything to replace Seche Vite yet! This is the fourth topcoat I've reviewed, and if things don't start looking up soon I'll be back bowing before Seche's altar.

Toes!

I don't think I've ever talked about feet on here before, have I? Probably because feet just aren't very beautiful. ;) Yet I feel completely naked and just plain wrong if I don't have polish on my toes - I can bear without polished nails for a few days, but plain toes? No. I don't do that.

So, I thought I would share some of my favorite polishes for toes. There are three polishes that are my fallbacks for toes; China Glaze For Audrey, Essie Buy Me a Cameo, and any red polish (although OPI Comet Loves Cupid has been a favorite recently).

I love a classic red on toes and think it looks put-together and polished. The light aqua of For Audrey (which I can't BELIEVE I've never posted on... what is wrong with me? I thought for sure that I had!) is funky enough to be different, yet still looks lady-like on the toes. And I absolutely adore Buy Me a Cameo on my toes. I hate it on my nails and get ineffably bored every time I wear it on my nails, but somehow this polish turns into a wondrous thing on toes. It is a nude metallic, so it is like wearing a nude polish on toes, except that it is metallic. If you don't see how awesome that is yet, it makes my whole foot look clean and well-cared-for, as well as keeping my toes presentable without drawing huge amount of attention to them. Just realized that I made that sound like I have really ugly feet. I don't, but I do love Buy Me a Cameo.

Of course, I don't just keep it to those 3, but those are my standards... I probably wear one of these 3 at least every other time I give myself a pedicure.

What are y'all's favorite toe polishes?

OPI Stars in My Eyes

Mm, look at what I found in my mother's bathroom? OPI Stars in My Eyes, from the 2007 Holiday in Hollywood collection. I grabbed it and ran to put it on and then put it in *my* nail polish collection. Oh, the joys of stealing from one's mother! ;)

SiME is a lovely (and work appropriate!) rather sheer silver shimmer. Except it's not an in-your-face silver shimmer... it's more refined than that. I think of this on some glamorous personage wearing black and diamonds living in restrained elegance. I used four coats to get this level of opacity, but it actually looked great at one coat, just far too sheer for me. In fact, this polish didn't get streaky or uneven during any of my 4 coats, which is wonderful.

And the strength of this stuff! I had it on for 4 days before tip wear appeared, much less chipping. I was very impressed. When I took it off after 5 (or was it 6? I can't remember.) days it was simply because I felt like a new color, not because it was chipped all over the place. I also couldn't keep my eyes off of my hands the whole time I wore this - I kept marveling at the beautiful color, and at the wonderful way it set off my hands. It made my fingers look longer and slimmer, always a nice thing (I play piano so much that my fingers are weirdly muscular, and extra length always looks good. :)).

The verdict: 5 out of 5 stars.

Summer Reading

Lovely blog readers of mine,

How does your summer reading come along? I, as y'all know, am simply obsessed with reading. I have a love affair with reading. I can't remember not being able to read, and I can't remember a time in which I didn't adore reading. When confronted with an excess of free time, I prefer to plop down with a stack of books and make my way through them.

Some would think that college would make me read more - sadly, it makes me read less. See, I spend so much time on homework and reading for school that I have no time for reading for me. It's quite unfortunate. Now that I'm home and homework-free, I'm simply going overboard. I am, in fact, having to restrict myself to one book per day, as reading more than one book per day makes me mix up the stories in my head. Also, a lot of the time spent not reading is spent figuring out which books I want to read, or organizing my shelves on goodreads (a nifty little book reviewing website). I think I have a problem.

So far I have read:

The Gargoyle ~ Andrew Davidson

Le Petit Prince ~ Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Wide Sargasso Sea ~ Jean Rhys

A Farewell to Arms ~ Earnest Hemingway

Into Thin Air ~ Jon Krakauer

Lord Sunday ~ Garth Nix

White Tiger ~ Aravind Adiga

My reading list at the moment is:

The Red Tent ~ Anita Diamont

The Invention of Hugo Cabret ~ Brian Selznick

Mao: The Unknown Story ~ Jung Chang

The Narnian ~ Alan Jacobs

I want to get all of these read by the end of the week, when we go to Colorado. My list for Colorado reading is:

War and Peace ~ Leo Tolstoy (my big book for the summer! :) )

Earthly Powers ~ Anthony Burgess

The Last Queen ~ C. W. Gortner

One Hundred Years of Solitude ~ Gabriel Garcia Marquez (I can't believe I haven't read this yet.)

One Thousand White Women: The Journals of May Todd ~ Jim Fergus

Hooray! :) Sorry if this was an infinitely boring post, but it's what's on my mind. Nail polish will resume shortly. ;)

Have y'all read any of these books? What did you think? What you reading this summer?

Ruby Pumps Re-Do

Mkay dolls, I'm giving y'all better pictures of China Glaze Ruby Pumps today. I did post about it before, but I failed miserably with the pictures, and didn't give a good representation of what the polish actually looks like.

If you're going to wear a red glitter, Ruby Pumps is the best way to go. It is a gorgeous red jelly absolutely packed with red glitter. Since it is a jelly it takes about 3 coats to get rid of VNL, and since it is a glitter it chips within 3 days. However. Ruby Pumps is unspeakably beautiful. I want to swim in it. Here's another look.

Look at the depth in that stuff! And it is pretty much the perfect shade of red too.

OPI Louvre Me, Louvre Me Not

Whoaaaa, I've been posting regularly for about a week! What's up with that? Today I'm on my way to go visit my beloved roommate, Alli, in Austin, but never fear, I have another post scheduled while I am gone. I am super excited about visiting Alli, by the way. We haven't seen each other in TWO WEEKS! We have severe separation anxiety, if you couldn't tell. She lives right by Lake Travis, so there will be plenty of swimming and kayaking, plus she turns 20 (aaaah my roommate is SO OLD!) tomorrow, so we might go clubbing. :)

Today I've got a lovely polish from the OPI French collection of 2008... I know that this is an old collection by now, but I really really loved it. When I first started obsessing over nail polish, purple was my favorite polish color, and I went gaga over this mainly purple collection. I think I'm working my way up to owning most of them, although this might be hampered by OPI's decision to stop allowing etailers to sell its products (SO sad about this). I understand where they're coming from though - apparently OPI had not authorized most of the etailers to sell OPI products in the first place.

ANYWAYS, stop rambling, Faith. Talk about the nail polish. This is Louvre Me, Louvre Me Not, a bright (but not neon at all) medium red-based purple loaded with blue and pink shimmer. The shimmer creates a bit of a blue flash in the sun, which is fun. It goes on like a true OPI polish, lovely and smooth, and covered in almost one coat. I used 3 out of habit, but could probably have stopped at two.

Eek! I apologize for my poor clean-up job and for my dreadfully thirsty cuticles... they've been neglected lately. :(

Louvre Me, Louvre Me Not fared pretty well wearage-wise. I believe it chipped after about 3 days of hard use, which I was quite pleased with, and there was scarcely any tipwear. Hooray! I do like an OPI polish.

Happy Sunday, my lovelies! Remember how I said I'd been to Florida? I thought I'd show y'all some pictures of the beautiful beach. :)

This is from the walkway on the second floor of our hotel... so yes, we were extremely close to the water. I rejoiced greatly.

Whoa guys. The water is blue. Whoa. For someone who is used to Galveston's brown water and brown sand, this was a wondrous change. I could see my feet when I went in the water! Waves. :) There were scary manta rays migrating through! Although, as you can see, they weren't harmful... they swam away if we got too close... even though they themselves came pretty close to us. They can swim extremely quickly though, and look like they are flying through the water. I got quite sunburned - to the point where it hurt to take a shower. But that's fairly normal for me, as I'm so pale that I can burn through 70 spf! I got this burned on the day that I only reapplied once... I reapplied about 4 times the other days and got away with only minimal burnage after that. One last picture of the beautiful water. :)

So there is a little bit of my fantastic trip to Florida.

China Glaze Atlantis

Ok dears, these are truly terrible pictures. Please excuse them. I had no sun for days, and by the time I reconciled myself that I wasn't going to have sun for awhile, my nails had chipped pretty terribly. So... try to concentrate on the polish and not on the state of my nails? *embarrassed face*

This is China Glaze Atlantis, from the specialty glitters collection. As the name implies, these are pure glitter polishes, and therefore wondrous polishes. Atlantis is especially lovely, as it contains smallish medium holographic glitter in a teal/aqua jelly base. I was surprised that the base contained so much pigment... I was expecting it to be weaker. As it is, I love love love the way the rainbow-ed glitter hangs suspended in the watery aqua, evoking exactly the sort of images that the name implies. It is a perfect Atlantis, conjuring up visions of rainbow scaled mermaids and silvery spires piercing deep waters.

Here's another gross-shiver-inducing picture, but I was trying to capture the way that the holographic glitter looks. Aaah, love it. This took about three coats, and chipped pretty quickly. But so worth it. SO worth it.

China Glaze Dorothy Who?

DARLINGS!

I'm here. Alive. Done with school. Back from a week long trip to Florida with a group from Trinity. Florida was fabulous, and I will post some pictures when I finally stop being lazy and upload the pictures from my camera. :) Right now I have something unheard of, something scandalous. Pictures of nail polish. I know! Strange. But here they are.

Today I've got the last of the Wizard of Ooh Ahz for y'all; Dorothy Who?

She's truly lovely. Dorothy Who? is a blingtastic silver glitter in a medium blue jelly base. Gorgeous. The glitter is heavily dispersed and creates a stunning effect. It is, essentially, a blue Ruby Pumps.

You can see the glitter better in this picture. Dorothy Who? had the same problem as all the other polishes in Wizard - it chipped like none other. I'd say I have chips within 2 days with this polish. Sad face! But it is so fabulous that I think it's worth it. :)

Even though the base of this is a jelly and therefore rather sheer, I found that I didn't need too many coats to get it opaque. I believe I used three coats, but I could have stopped at two - I just wanted maximum intensity of glitter. :)

I just thought that y'all should know.

I AM DONE!

School is out. Over, done, gone. No more finals, no more papers, no more staying up til 5 am studying. Lordy, Lordy, Hallelujah!

I am officially a rising sophomore - no longer the baby of the school.

But... what am I going to do for three desolate months without Trinity? I love Trinity so much - it's a hugely weird feeling to leave for an entire summer. What will I do without my friends? Plus, Winn 323 feels like home, and it's weirding me out to think about never living here again. I know that I'm being totally dramatic and that I'll come back in the fall, but hey, drama defines me.

Not only will I miss all of my friends here, I will also have to get readjusted to my family - things are different now, not in a bad way, just in a different way. We've always been an extremely close family, and now there is a sort of separation between us. I've become independent and more grown-up in the last 9 months, and I'm not sure how that will turn out once I get home.

Sorry, I didn't mean to dump on y'all, but these are just the things at the top of my mind presently. However, one good thing about school being out? I can freaking start posting again. Woot! Oh. my. god. It's still sinking in. I don't have to go to class for a whole summer! No homework! (no ihop runs at 3 in the morning, no random solo dancing in my underwear to wake myself up while Alli watches dying of laughter, no fitting the maximum possible number of people on my bed, no cuddle fests with Libby, Sarah, Alli and Michael, no fits of mock despair in which I pretend to jump off the balcony while first delivery a monologue to the poor people across the quad, no sunning in the rape fields pretending to study, no laughing until Texas tells us to shut up.)

I am excited to go home (and to sleep!), yet I will miss Trinity so dearly over the summer, and cannot wait to come back.

Oh, the Goodness

Darlings. I know it's been a while. But just imagine! Only 9 more days of schoolwork, and then I'm FREE! :) Happiness indeed. While y'all are waiting, I thought I would just give you a glimpse of what it is like to live in Winn 323 with Faith and Alli. Taking a glance into the freezer, what do you see? Well, only one thing.

ICE CREAM!

So much ice cream. There are 8 pints of ice cream in there, guys. 8 pints. We have a serious addiction. You might note how we vary the flavors and brands, too. :)

My Life = Homework

Hallo dolls. Guess what? I only have one week of regular class left, then 10 days of finals, then I'm DONE and regular posting will resume. I know that I said in my last post that I would aim for twice weekly posts, but you see, I forgot that it was the end of the semester and that my life was going to be sucked up into the vast, black abyss of homework. I am so paper-ed and exam-ed out that I think I am going to die, and I still have 2 weeks to go! I can do it, I can do it. Thankfully I'm doing really well in all my classes this semester, so I don't have to worry about pulling up any of my grades. It's amazing what not taking a science class can do for your grades. ;)

Anyways, I'm sure y'all want to see some pretty pictures. So here you go.

Ok, so maybe I didn't do any clean-up before I took this picture, but it shows the pretty polish, and that's all that counts, right? Right...

This is C-C-Courage, from China Glaze's Wizard of Ooh Ahz collection. It is fabulousness itself. It is a medium purple (kind of lilac-y, but deeper) with small round purple and pink glitter in it. Sounds disgustingly girlie, but it's actually quite lovely and edgy. Edgy isn't the word I'm looking for... hmm. The word-maker in my brain just decided to shut down. This might be because the library is about to close. Anyways, I was mesmerized by my nails the entire time I wore C-C-Courage. It took me awhile to wear, since I was like, "meh, just another purple." But I was wrong! Don't ignore C-C-Courage in favor of Dorothy Who?, since this is a gem.

Um, and did I mention my brain hurts from the amount of homework I've done lately? Yeah. Please excuse the horribly-written-ness of this post. I'm blaming it all on homework. My roommate and I are quite indignant that no one warned us of the sheer amount of homework involved at college.

p.s. I forgot to say that, like most of the polishes in Wizard of Ooh Ahz, this one chips pretty quickly - I'd say 2-3 days. But don't let that discourage you.

Urban Outfitters Sparkle Blue No. 5

Hallo darlings! Just look at this fantastical color my beauteous friendling Libby bought over spring break! I stole it as soon as I saw it. Unfortunately she made me give it back, but not before I got a lovely manicure out of it. :)

This is a polish from Urban Outifitters. I believe that UO polishes generally run around $8, although you can normally get a 2-for-$10 deal, I think. I've bought some polishes from them before, but have not been happy with the quality. However, this polish is wondrous. It is a blue (almost blurple) jelly with opalescent flakies. I KNOW, right?! Anything with the words "blue", "jelly", and "flakies" in it is definitely a good thing. All of those are some of my favorite attributes of nail polish. Hooray!

The wear and tear of this formula was strictly all right; nothing spectacular but nothing terrible. I think that I got some chips after 3 days, which isn't bad at all. There was some significant tip wear, but I was too distracted by the beauty of the actual polish to care. :)

I very much want to go out and buy all of the Sparkles from UO now... oh noes! my poor wallet!

Spring Break-ing...

Hey, dolls! Just letting you know that I am not as a matter of fact failing in my resolution to blog more - I am just in the midst of spring break at the moment and not feeling like doing much. My lovely friend, Candace, came from Indianapolis to see me and left this morning to go back home. :( Happily, I'll see her again this June when we go visit Indy. I had lots of fun while she was here - she turned 20 on Tuesday, so we had a tea party for her, which was quite fun. SO MUCH CREAM! We made clotted cream for the scones, the strawberries were stuffed with it, and it seems like everything else had some sort of cream or at least massive amounts of butter in it. :) Super yummy but super fattening. I'll have to be extra good the next week or two to make up for it. Actually, this has been kind of a fattening week... Candace and I kept going out and buying large amounts of candy when we were bored. Oopsy! Ah well, what are friends for if not to make you fat?

In other news, it is gorgeous outside, and I think I am going to read a book in the lovely sunshine.

A Post! And Some Topcoat Trials

Hey dolls. So I've been MIA for a while, yes? It turns out that taking 18 credit hours plus working 9 hours makes for quite a busy Faithy. I'm going to try my hardest to post more regularly from now on. Say, shocker, twice a week? That would be nice, seeing as I haven't posted in more than a month. Now on to your scheduled entertainment. Remember the lovely Topcoat Trials in which I try to find a topcoat that's just as holy grail-ish as Seche Vite without all the yucky parts that Seche entails (i.e. thickening, bubbles, short brush, $$$)? Yeah, that's what this post is about. Last time I believe I showed y'all a Sally Hansen. This time I have CND Speedey for you, which I found on sale at Ulta. I had heard many good things about Speedey, so I picked it up along with CND's basecoat, Stickey (which I absolutely love, by the way).

How do I feel about Speedey? Well, it is most definitely speedy, and does not disappoint in that category. I do hate a long drying top coat. Life is much too short to spend waiting for your nail polish to dry. I'd say it's dry to the touch in 5 minutes, and completely ready to go in 10. About the same as Seche, actually.

Speedey did not get thick or gloppy on me, which is lovely. I also hate thick top coats. Thick nail polish in general is probably one of the most infuriating things ever. I know that that's what thinner is for, but when you have to keep adding and keep adding thinner, it gets annoying. There was minimal bubbling as well. I think the only times I had bubbling issues were when I did a poor job applying the polish and was too lazy for the necessary thin coats.

So thus far we have three wins. Speedey is cheap (at least, it was $3 on sale. But I think it is about $6 normally), fast, and stays thin. But I did find it to be a little unsatisfying. I couldn't get that beautiful glass-like shine from it like I can with Seche, and my nails felt a little unprotected while wearing it - I think because it didn't feel as thick as I like. Oo, explanation is needed here. Or maybe just a broadened vocabulary. When I say thick in this sense I don't mean the same thick that I mentioned in the last paragraph. This thick is that protective coating over the polish, not that yucky draggy will-not-spread kind of thick that I was talking about before. All better? Good. :) Also, the brush is rather short. Boo short brushes! Come on polish companies, please make brushes that reach all the way down the bottle! It is so irritating not to be able to get that last quarter of the bottle!

I believe the final count is 3 wins: 2 losses. That's a winning record overall. However, I am continuing the search! I shall not rest until I find the holy grail. :) Hopefully that does not mean I have to go back to Seche... I'm starting to think that I'll never find anything comparable.

Orly Enchanted Forest

Hallo, all. Looky at what I have! I finally got Enchanted Forest over break. EF is from Orly's Once Upon A Time Collection of last fall. This is my first Orly ever, since I've been shallow up til now and not bought any Orlys because of the ugly bottle. However, this collection comes with pretty little charms on each bottle, which makes up for the ugliness.

Enchanted Forest is a beautiful dark green creme, and is smooth as butter. I think I used 3 coats to ensure a non-streaky finish, since dark colors tend to be streakier than others. I wish that it was a tad brighter and less dark, as it tends to go towards the black side in poor lighting, but other than that, this is a wonderful green. Yay Orly!

Books I Read Over Break

I read 9 books over break. Woot! I love books oh so much. It was glorious to be able to read novels all day long for weeks on end. Here is the list.

Loving Frank ~ Nancy Horan

I, Claudius ~ Robert Graves

Wild Swans ~ Jung Chang

Shanghai Girls ~ Lisa See

The Mayor of Casterbridge ~ Thomas Hardy

Geisha: A Life ~ Mineko Iwasaki

Unwind ~ Neal Shusterman

The Looking Glass Wars ~ Frank Beddor

The Poisonwood Bible ~ Barbara Kingsolver

Has anyone read any of these? What did you think?

Moon Over ME

Just look at this gorgeous polish! OPI Moon Over Mumbai is from the India Collection of '08, and is a light grey almost-creme with hidden reddish shimmer.

I love it. I generally don't like sheers or light colors, but this one is just beautiful. I gaze at my hands constantly all day whenever I wear it. It does take 4 coats to get to this level of opacity.

Well, I was wondering how y'all would feel about a profile of one of my college friends each week. My friends feel left out of my blog, and I would like to post about other things than nail polish, as I've said before. So, what do you think?

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BLOG OF MINE!

So, as it turns out, I missed my blog's first birthday. I thought it was January 19th, but it was January 9th. Oops! That's ok, birthdays can be celebrated anytime. Or you could pull an Alice in Wonderland and celebrate unbirthdays. :)

HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY, GREAT LACQUER HUNT!

Thanks for reading me this past year!

Chine Glaze Cowardly Lyin'

Hallo, darlings. I go back to school tomorrow! It has been a good break, and I plan to try to post about a few things that happened, as soon as I get the time, and upload the pictures. :)

Here is Cowardly Lyin', from CG's Wizard of Ooh Ahz collection. Lovely, eh? CL is a very yellow light gold, with gold circle glitter. It is a very quiet gold glitter, meaning that it does not lend your fingers the appearance of flashing gold foil, but instead prettily adorn it with gold that is, on close look, a glitter. Fascinating.

I believe that I used 3 coats to get opacity. The one thing that has given me trouble with the all of the polishes from The Wizard of Ooh Ahz is the wear and tear of the formula. It invariably chips within two days... which isn't a problem if you change polish that often, but since I started school I find that I don't have enough time to change my polish more than about every 4 days. However, the colors are so fabulous that I think they will overcome any objections about wear.

OPI Comet Loves Cupid

Hola, dolls. Just look at that gorgeous red up there! :) I'm a big fan of Comet Loves Cupid from OPI's Holiday Wishes collection. It is a diva red - really really bright, but a creme, thus sophisticated. LOVE. I couldn't quite capture the true red of this color on my camera. It is actually quite a bit blue and is not nearly so orange as this pictures make it out to be. CLC went on smoothly and covered in one coat, but I used two so as to keep the bad voodoo from getting me. I wore this baby as my Christmas manicure.Once again, this polish had a rock solid formula. It didn't stay quite as flawless for 4 days as the other 2 I've tried from Holiday Wishes, but that is because it lasted through much cooking and partying and unwrapping of gifts. :) I must say, bravo to OPI on this collection, especially since their last two major collections have been completely boring. I hated South Beach except for Done Out In Deco, and was completely bored by España. The Suede and Mattes I'm sure would be interesting to someone who likes mattes, but I am not a fan - I like my polish glossy! I know I'm in the minority, but hey, at least I like green and blue, right? ;)