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?

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.

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.

OPI Sapphire in the Snow

Ah darlings, at long last I bring you Sapphire in the Snow, from the 2009 Holiday Wishes collection, which is quite a lovely collection, if I do say so myself. :) I have 4 polishes from Holiday Wishes (Sapphire, Comet Loves Cupid, Smitten With Mittens, and Holiday Glow), and am going to get Merry Midnight as soon as I can get my hands on a bottle.

Sapphire in the Snow is a stunning blurple (blue/purple mix), which leans to the blue side. It is a pure creme, absolutely no shimmer or sparkle. It is gorgeous. My only problem with it is its tendency to look black indoors. However, when the light hits it, the loveliness of the polish shines through and makes me want to sing with joy.

The wear and tear of this formula surprised me greatly. I wore it 4 days with absolutely no chips. *cue Hallelujah chorus* Wunderbar! OPI outdid itself on the formulation of this collection. Four days of flawless blurple creme goodness makes for a happy Faith.

We'll Always Have Paris, Darling.

I just realized that this picture was blurry. So sorry!

But the color is lurvely. In fact, I lurve it. Greatly.

We'll Always Have Paris is a vampy browny purple from the Fall 2008 French Collection. I love that collection. I pretty much have or want every color from it. Fabuloso.

I believe I only needed 2 coats to get good color coverage, and there were no streaks. Um, hello, that's awesome! :)

My brain's failing now. I want to think of something witty and interesting about this nail polish, but I can't. Not because it is ugly, but because I didn't get enough sleep last night. Oops. See, I meant to go to bed at 12 ... but when does that ever happen? Never, apparently. Everyone was like, "you're going to church tomorrow? what's that? STAY UUUUP! Be sociable!" So I did. They all got to sleep in (and they aren't awake yet, sadly), but I had to wake up at 8:30. Boo! Church was, however, quite lovely.

Anyways, I wanted to say, that yes, I've been doing like one post a week. I'm sorry about that. I know that lots of people blog regularly when they're in college, and I'm going to try my hardest to do so. I just think it'll take some time for me to get back into my groove (and to actually have some free time). So, please bear with me!

Tonight is the start of Hallympics, I should be able to get a post out of that, as I decorated an awesome t-shirt for it yesterday, and it sounds pretty fun. Until then, adios! :)

Better Pictures: OPI Done Out In Deco

This is the last of the Better Pictures for a while, in case you're wondering. ;)
Done Out In Deco is from OPI's spring 2009 South Beach collection, and is the only polish I bought from that collection. I found the rest of the colors to be superbly boring.
However, Done Out In Deco is anything but boring. It is this stunning greyed-out lilac. It's warmer than Parlevous-OPI? (from the French 2008 collection), and in my opinion, way better.
DOID gives my hands a clean, stream-lined, modern look. Somehow it made me think of skyscrapers. Whatever, I'm weird. But I love this polish! Here is my original post.

OPI Ink

OPI Ink, ah what a wonderful color. Ink was released a few years ago in the OPI Night Brights collection, which was a pretty fabulous collection, if you ask me. I've got My Private Jet and (obviously) Ink, and I've got my eye on the rest of the colors, except for Light My Sapphire, which seems a little boring compared to the rest.
ANYWAY, about Ink. Ink is this amazing deep blue/purple with a crapload of shimmer. Like, seriously, this thing is dang sparkly. I refuse to call Ink blurple, because blurples always seem boring, like they can't make up their mind. Ink is so not boring. It's dark, but not so dark that it looks black indoors.
And the shimmer, oh the shimmer. Can we just talk about it for a moment? Thanks.
Ok, here's the thing. The shimmer is iridescent , yo! At first glance, Ink looks like an indigo base with large amounts of hot pink shimmer, which gives the impression of purple. But wait, wave your fingers (or the bottle, for that matter) around, and what do you see? The hot pink turns blue! When the shimmer looks blue, the base seems to be royal purple. See why I'm confused as to what base color this actually is?
I don't really care what the base color is, the overall polish is so amazing that it doesn't even matter to me. I wore Ink for 3 days without getting bored of it, and I would have worn it longer, except that I was babysitting and did some dishes ... and ruined my manicure. O well.
So, in summary, INK IS HOT! And claims a spot in my favorites. :)

OPI Lincoln Park After Dark

Ok, so I know that I promised y'all this post on Saturday ... and today is Monday. Yes, I'm a bad blogger. But I ended getting only 5 hours of sleep on Friday night and therefore didn't feel much like doing ... anything, really. I don't function well on less than 8 hrs of sleep. ;D
But the polish, oh the polish. Lincoln Park After Dark is from the Chicago collection of I have no idea when. 2002 maybe? As you can see, it is a lovely lovely vampy purple. It looks black indoors and dark dark purple outside.

Aghhh, these pictures are hurting my eyes, I'm so sorry to subject y'all to them. The fact is that I applied this right before leaving for a weekend in Austin and didn't have time to clean up before snapping pictures ... *sigh*
However, y'all are getting the idea of the color, right? LPAD reminds me of blackberry pie, lusciously dark and jelly-like (it's not a jelly, just to be clear). I hate blackberries, but I love this color. ;) Pretty much the perfect vamp.

OPI Russian Navy

When I looked at this in the bottle, I thought, "hmm, a less sparkly version of Ink", but I was wrong. In the bottle Russian Navy has a strong purple cast and doesn't seem very blue ... I was wondering why it was called NAVY. haha. :D
But once I put it on, the purple faded to the background and the glowy blue came out in full force. Lovely! :) This color is sophisticated and hot. Awesome.
I could have gotten away with 2 coats, but I used 3 anyways. As with all dark colors, the 3rd coat made it that much closer to black, so if you're trying to stay away from a blackened blue, use 2 coats.

Flying Dragon!

Ok, one more China Glaze and then perhaps I will start posting about other brands again. ;)

Here is Flying Dragon, from the Ink collection of last fall. First off, how awesome is that name? Flying Dragon? Hellz yes!
FD is a sparkly neon purple. Umm, sparkly + neon + purple? Hellz yes again! haha. It actually isn't as neon as I would have liked ... while it is definately bright and will never be mistaken for purple, I wish it was just a tad brighter. The sparkle is definately not lacking, it's full of hot pink and baby blue glittah. Makes it awful to take off, awesome to have on. ;) Oh, and one more thing. The neon and the glitter make this matte and bumpy. I've got a coat of Seche Vite on here; I wasn't feeling the whole bumpy thing. hehe.
I was all set to write a glowing review of this polish when I first applied it. But then after about 12 hours of wear, it chipped. Like, not a little oops-I-dinged-my-nail-extra-hard-on-that-bookshelf kind of chip, I mean like 5 big ones that made me sad. :( It seemed like it was cracking ... like that chocolate sauce that crackles when you stick it on icecream ... except this was my nails and I didn't want them to be crackly! hehe.
But if you don't mind either having to fix chips after a hours or only wearing if for a few hours before taking it off (like I did), then you should definately buy this. Actually, you should buy this just because of the name. And maybe the glitter. :)

More China Glaze ... I seem to be on a ChG streak, yes?

Here is Secret Peri-wink-le, from China Glaze's Operation Color collection of last Fall.
First off, the name irritates me. What's with all those dashes? I guess they're trying to be cute and emphasize the 'wink' part ... but that's just annoying.
The color's really nice though. :) It is, obviously, periwinkle. The picture above was taken in the shade, b/c I feel that that it shows the color more accurately than the pictures I had of it in the sun.
I think that SP has that same fantastic quality about it that OPI Done Out In Deco has which I love so much. I don't know what to call it - extra creamy? milky? Whatever is it, I really really like it. :)
The mixture of blue and purple in this periwinkle is just about perfect; not too blue, not too purple. Granted, in some lights it looks bluer or purpler than others. Here's a picture of it in dapply sun to show y'all kind of what I'm talking about.

Can you see it?
I used 3 coats to try and even out some streakiness. It was still a bit streaky after the 3 coats though. I don't know if that's a problem with the polish or a problem with my application skills. But even with the streakiness, I'd say that this is definately a very pretty color. :)

To Drink, Or Not To Drink? Ok, yeah, that was bad.

This is the last of China Glaze's Summer Days collection that I own ... I don't have either of the reds. I've contemplated Cherry Pie, but I don't think I'll end up getting it.
I of course had to buy Grape Juice. I mean, it's purple! How could I not get it? ;) And not only is it purple, it is sparkly silvery purple! Meaning that it is chock-full of silver sparkles. Or rather, silver glass-fleck thingys. This gives it an effect that is a teensy bit like a more laid-back version of Rescue Beauty Lounge Locavore.
I do not think that this looks like actual grape juice. Grape juice is dark! Like a royal purple! This is light! To my mind, this is amethyst. Beautiful sparkly amethyst.
I used 3 coats in order to get maximum opacity. Excuse the tip wear in this photo, I had this manicure on for a few days before I managed to take some pictures!

Essie Sexy Divide

I can't believe I haven't posted about this awesome color yet. I also can't believe Essie came out with such a beautiful, bold color. :)
Sexy Divide is a deep shimmery purple that morphs into different shades of purple depending on the lighting. The above picture is of SD in the shade. You can see the the bottle has tons and tons of blue and red shimmer, but the shimmer isn't super apparent in the shade (or indoors), and that it is a very blue-toned purple. But here it is in the sunlight. *BAM!* It's red-toned purple now! And the shimmer is visible! Ok, so you can't really see the shimmer in this picture. But I swear, it's there. I'm pretty bummed that the shimmer doesn't show up indoors, as that would have made Sexy Divide the perfect polish. As it is, Essie came pretty close. :) Here's a (very bad) picture of Sexy Divide indoors.
You can see that while it's a very dark purple indoors, it by no means looks black. Hooray! I'd call it an eggplant, or aubergine when indoors. :)

Zoya Juno

Juno is from Zoya's Utopia collection. I lurve the Utopia collection, there are some really awesome colors there. I have Juno and Akyra, and I want Irene. I'm loving the name Juno for this purple. In Greek mythology (or rather, Roman, since this is the Roman name), Hera is the wife of Zeus, king of the gods. Hera and Zeus translate to Juno and Jupiter in Roman mythology. :) So, a purple totally makes sense for a queen of the gods. Very royal.
This particular purple is pretty fabulous. Bright yet rich, and very fun. It's pretty reflective, making me think it's metallic or frosty at times, but it's not.
Application was great, as is usual with Zoya. My problem with this one is that it chips in, oh, 12 hours. Yeah, that's not so great. But if you're willing to put up with some wear issues, this polish is fantabulous and you should definately buy it. :)

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. :)

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! :)

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?

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! :)