Current Nails

OPI’s spring collection this year is based on New Orleans. I took a trip to New Orleans a few years ago and absolutely fell in love with the city. It is my favorite place that I have ever been and am kind of sentimental about it, so I tend to go nuts over New Orleans themed things. The collection is a really pretty spring collection and I love the names, but the shades are not super unique. I want to get more of the collection for the names, but I am waiting for them to go one sale somewhere. With the being said, I did pick up Show Us Your Tips because of the name (duh, I think it’s hilarious) and I think the shade is unique. It reminds of a cross between Smooth Sailing and Bikini So Teeny from Essie (those shades are still at my house in Cincinnati, otherwise I would compare them here for you). It is a baby blue shade with a dense, silver microglitter.

  
It took three coats to build this shade up to opacity, but I was expecting that. I have a couple more polishes from OPI that have this formula and they all take three coats well. It is a thin polish, but it is not too thin that you feel like it is going to run all over your nail. It make it pretty easy to work with since you need three coats and they dry pretty quickly. These shades can also be a bit of a pain to remove from my experiences in the past; I tend to like to use pure acetone to make the job a little bit easier.

I am a little undecided about how I feel about this shade on me. I like the color a lot on its own, but I don’t know that it looks the best on me. While this polish might be a little more time consuming with three coats needed, it is easy to work with. If this is a shade you are interested in, I do recommend it.

Orly Epix Review

A few days ago, I shared the Sally Beauty Box that I received. In that box, I received a sample of the new Orly Epix line. The polish shade that I received was Headliner, which is a warm neon pink. I am a little familiar with the Epix line but I had tried it up until this point. I have heard hit or miss things from other friends that I have tried and was curious to see how it would perform for me.

  
For one, you are not supposed to apply a base coat with this line. And I usually am not a fan of those type of systems. For one, that can lead to staining and secondly, base coats tend to smooth the nail over and give the polish something to stick to. But I decided to go ahead and wear this like you are actually supposed to and not wear the base coat. It took three coats of the polish to get it to look somewhat even and opaque. Neons are pretty tricky to deal with to begin with because they usually do apply streaky and patchy. I really would have liked to have done another coat, but seriously, who wants to do four coats of nail polish?! The coats of polish did dry pretty quickly at least. The top coat added some shine but was nothing to write home about. The big claim of this line is that the polish is actually flexible, so chipping should be reduced and wear time should be increased. The morning after applying this polish, I had to do some chopping for a beef stew that I was making. After I was done, I looked down and two of my nails had chipped (you will notice one in the photos). I was pretty disappointed by that because I had not even done anything very intense. I thought it would be all chipped off by the end of the day, but shockingly, no more chipping occurred. I was able to wear it for three more days before more chipping occurred that was a day that I had to clean snow and ice off of my car.

  
All in all, I am a little undecided about this polish system. I am curious to pick up another shade and see how it performs. I definitely would go for a shade that is not a neon so I could hopefully get a better application from it. I also am interested in trying it with a base coat to see how it applies and wear with one. Have you guys tried the Orly Epix line before? What are your thoughts?

 

Current Nails

I am so surprised that I have not actually shared this polish on my blog before. I know I have mentioned it when reviewing other polishes, but Warm Me Up by OPI from the 2013 Mariah Carey holiday collection is one of my all time favorite polishes.

  
Warm Me Up is a dark, silvery, taupe shade. It’s almost a charcoal shade, but there definitely some brown in it. The formula of this polish feels very thin, but it is fully opaque in two coats. I don’t find it to be runny even though it is more a thin formula. It is super easy to work with and I feel like it even dries a little more quickly than some of my other polishes. It’s only downside is that I also find that it is one of my shorter wearing polishes.

Warm Me Up doesn’t look to be very special in the bottle, but there is something about this shade that I love so much. It is a fairly unique shade and the darkness of the shade is appropriate for the fall and winter without being vampy.

 

Current Nails

I found out early in December that OPI was coming out with a Hello Kitty collection. I am a bit of a Hello Kitty fan and I just knew that the collection was going to be fun and girly and that I would want to pick up some of the shades. I first found half of the collection at Sally’s the day after Christmas and I picked up two of the shades. The one that I am currently wearing is Charmmy & Sugar and it is the glitter polish of the collection.

  
Charmmy & Sugar has a light pink, pearly base  with pink, blue, and silver holographic glitter. Immediately I was in love with this shade and while definitely not dupes for each other, it reminded me of Teenage Dream from the Katy Perry collection. The formula of this polish was fantastic, especially for a glitter polish. It is opaque on its own two coats. The glitter evenly distributes itself and no extra work is needed to get the glitter on the nail. Glitters can tend to be on the thick side, but I did not find that to be the case with this polish.

  
I absolutely love this polish. I think that this is going to be one of the more popular polishes from the collection due to its uniqueness. If you think you want this polish, I wouldn’t wait too long to decide to pick it up.

Current Nails

I made a trip into Ulta last week and found a couple of the China Glaze Holiday polishes on clearance. I actually wanted a lot of the collection but could not find them anywhere. Luckily one of the polishes I found was one that I had really been wanting and it was Don’t Get Elfed Up.

  
Don’t Get Elfed up is a dark, blackened teal base with a brighter teal micro-glitter running through it. I found the formula on this polish to be super runny. I definitely had to make sure that I cleaned the brush off well or I would be flooding the nail with too much polish. It goes on very sheer on the first coat but it built up to full opacity in two coats.

  
I really do love the shade of this polish and find it to be quite unique. The formula was not the best on this polish but it is definitely something I can work with. If you can find this polish, I do recommend picking it up.

 

Current Nails and Chit Chat

As I previously mentioned,  I have been pretty worn down lately and just flat out exhausted. I had my last weekend off until January this past weekend, but it was a wonderful weekend. The boyfriend got us tickets to the Ohio State/Michigan State game, so we booked a hotel for the weekend to spend some time together and to make life easier. For those of you who are not as familiar with college football and Ohio State, campus and the area surrounding it basically shuts down on game days. The game on Saturday set a record attendance of over 108,000 people. Yes, 108,000 in the stadium. Add into that the students that don’t go to the games and all the people that just come to campus to tailgate and hang out, and it is just a sight to see. I graduated from Ohio State and seeing campus turn scarlet and gray on game day is still something that amazes me. Of course I had to make sure my nails were scarlet and gray before heading to Columbus. I used OPI Over and Over A-Gwen as my base and OPI Gettin’ Miss Piggy With It on top. Gettin’ Miss Piggy With It is one of my all time favorite nail polishes and is perfect for the Ohio State fan.

   
 We arrived on campus around 10am even though the game was at 330. College Game Day set up on the Oval, so that was our first stop. College Game Day came to Ohio State a couple times while I was there but I never ventured over to it. My boyfriend went the last time they were on campus and actually made it on tv and everything, but he said this time didn’t even compare to then with the amount of people that were there. It was kind of insane seeing how many people were there. We went to grab some lunch and then headed back to the oval to see the picks and the head gear selection, which was pretty exciting for me to see in person. Afterwards we met up with one of my friends for some tailgating and got to meet Beanie Wells! He is actually my boyfriend’s all time favorite Buckeye and the first Christmas we were together I got him a Beanie Wells autographed mini-helmet and he got to meet him and get another autograph when he went to a game earlier this year. But of course he was super excited to meet him again and get another autograph.

   
 The game itself was obviously a massive let down. Ohio State lost in a way that I cannot even describe. I don’t think I have ever seen such a badly coached and called game. Add on top of that the wonderful weather conditions. And by wonderful, I mean a full on downpour for the first half of the game in the cold with a whipping wind. We were three rows from the top of the Shoe and definitely felt the swirling wind. My coat was still wet Sunday morning. We still managed to have fun and were happy we went to the game. On Sunday, we met up with some friends that live in Columbus for breakfast before heading back to Cincinnati and Cleveland.

   
   
  
Overall, it was a much needed weekend for me to recharge and get myself ready for Thanksgiving and Black Friday. I am going to try and get back into regular posting but am making no promises. I bought the Kat Von D Mi Vida Loca Remix palette and haven’t even had time to play with it 😦 Working retail during the holidays certainly is no picnic.

 

 

Current Nails

It feels like it has been a while since Essie has come out with a collection that had a polish I had to have. I have just been a little underwhelmed from Essie lately but quite a few nail bloggers that I follow have been raving about Virgin Snow from the winter collection. I thought the shade was pretty but since it was getting such rave reviews, I decided it was worth a try. The shade is a light, periwinkle blue. At first it seems like an odd winter shade, but it has a certain icy feeling to it if that makes any sense.

  
The formula on this polish is what I tend to expect from an Essie polish. It is on the runny side and it takes three coats to be opaque and not streaky. It had a tendency to run and pool up at the side of my nails and I felt like I really had to clean the brush off to try and prevent this from happening. If you are more careful when painting your nails, you might be able to get away with two coats. Some of my nails looked good at two coats, but some of them were still streaky. All of my nails were good after three coats.

  
The formula many not be the best, but I do like the shade of the polish. It some lighting it looks like a more subdued shade and in other lighting, it seems to pop a little bit more and look brighter. I think this is going to be the only shade that I pick up from the collection, but I do think it is beautiful.

Current Nails

Today I am sharing two more of the polishes in the Butter London Invite Only set for the holidays. I have on Lock In, which is a dark navy blue and Peep Hole, which is a metallic aqua shade. Peep Hole could definitely have been layered over Lock In. I think the next time I wear these polishes, I am going to try that because I think the two would make a very interesting and pretty combination.

  
The formula on Lock In is wonderful. It is opaque in one coat, but if you do two coats, the shade deepens up quite a bit to match the shade in the bottle. It is not super thick, but it is more on the thick side to give it that opacity. I personally prefer this consistency of polish. Peep Hole has a more sheer, thin formula. That is why it would be great to layer over other polishes. I have on three coats for total opacity and totally hide my nail line. It is thin, but not runny, so it is easy to work with. One thing I did not mention when I reviewed Pash was that even though these are mini polishes, the brush is not mini. I personally do not buy mini OPI polishes because of how tiny the brush is, but these brushes appear to be the same size as a normal Butter London polish. That makes these polishes easy to work with.

  
I have a thing for navy blue polishes and Lock In is no exception. It is a super dark, midnight navy but it never quite looks black. It is really a gorgeous polish with a gorgeous formula. I like Peep Hole, but it is not a favorite polish of mine. Like I previously mentioned, I am very interested in seeing how this polish layers, but I do like the way these two polishes look together in this manicure. So far after testing half of the polishes in this set, I am really happy with it and am really excited to try the other three polishes in the set,

Current Nails

Butter London came out with a nail polish set for the holidays called Invite Only. It has six mini nail polishes in it that can be mixed and matched to create different looks but you obviously can also wear them on their own as well. Butter London is definitely not my favorite nail polish brand, but there were quite a few shades in here that I really like and I kept going back and looking at the set, so I decided to just go ahead and buy it. The first polish that I wanted to try out was Pash. Pash is described as a berry shimmer.

  
The formula on this polish is actually pretty good. With these metallic, shimmer polishes they are almost always sheer on the first coat and that is true with this polish. It builds up to full opacity in two coats. It is a little thin for my liking, but I tend to like a thick formula. It isn’t really runny though, which makes it easy to work with. This polish doesn’t really show brush strokes but it will show ridges in the nail.

  
I like this shade on the nail more than I even thought I would. The shade reminds of raspberry jam and I think it looks so pretty on the nail. Normally I have issues with the way Butter London polishes wear on me but I have worn this one or 3 days so far with no issues, which is doing pretty well for a Butter polish for me. I will show the rest of the shades in this set as I wear them, so keep an eye out for that.

Current Nails

The 2011 OPI Muppets Holiday Collection is still one of my favorite collections that has ever come out. I picked up like half of the shades and still love to wear them. Designer De-Better is another one of my all time favorite nail polishes. It doesn’t look very unique at first, but once it is on the nail, it is stunning. It is a champagne metallic shade with an orangey-copper micro-glitter running through it!

  
The formula on this polish is surprisingly good. It is very sheer on the first coat; so sheer that you think you are going to need a lot of coats for it to be opaque. Luckily, that is not the case. It builds up beautifully and can be opaque in two coats. If I am being lazy about painting my nails, sometimes I will need a third coat to even it out and make it opaque on all of my nails. This polish also does not show brush strokes. I find the formula to be super easy to work with, which makes this shade even better.

  
I am sure that this polish is very hard to get your hands on, as it is four years old at this point! I cannot believe that this collection came out that long ago, especially I always go back to the polishes in this collection. I have yet to see a dupe for this polish, so if anyone has any recommendations, I would love to hear them!