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!

Buyer Beware

I believe that I have mentioned on here before that you need to be careful and selective about where you are purchasing your beauty products from. Professional or Salon quality hair care products are the major no-no when it comes to purchasing them at the drugstore. Many of these places are not authorized to sell these items. If you read many of the bottles, the bottles actually say that the product can only be guaranteed when sold in salons or that the item is only to be sold in salons. There is already a ton of information on there about diversion and these issues, but I thought I would share one with you today that might not be as easy to recognize.

  
Target is not authorized to sell OPI nail polish. I so badly wish I had a picture that I took on my phone years ago of some OPI that I found on day on Target. There was a warning label on it straight up warning you that it might not be real OPI. But on a recent Target trip, I found another blatant example like this. Sitting on an end cap was a display of OPI nail polishes and I spotted a gorgeous, kelly green polish that I did not recognize. I picked it up because I was curious as to which polish it was and when the polish came out. As soon as I flipped the polish over, I knew something fishy was going on.

  
Despite the fact that I recognized the name of this polish and knew what that actual polish looked like, it was beyond obvious that this was not the real label on the bottom. It was a printed off label that was very badly cut out and did not even totally cover the original label. It was not very hard at all to peel the label up and see what they were covering up. The sketchy label said that this polish was Fresh Frog of Bel-Air. I knew that this polish came out in the Muppet’s collection that came out in 2011. This is one of my favorite collections OPI was ever come out with and I have close to half of the collection. I also knew that this polish was a pure glitter polish and definitely not a cream like the polish in this bottle. After peeling the label up, I discovered a label that said “Forrest My Case.” This is a polish that I am totally unfamiliar with. Despite quite a bit of research, I cannot find out when this polish originally came out but I have seen posts with it from 2012. If you are a nail polish junkie like me and have more information on this polish, please enlighten me!

  
Despite my curiosity, I definitely did not take this polish home with me. Please beware when you are purchasing these type of beauty items. You never know what you might actually be purchasing. For me, an avid OPI fan, I was able to recognize quite a few warning signs, such as the name and fake label. One tip off when it comes to older OPI labels that is visible when you compare the labels is that the writing on real OPI labels is actually a dark green color and not black. Also notice that places like Target tend to sell older and discontinued polishes. Have you come across any really obvious cases like this?

Current Nails

One of my all-time favorite nail polishes is OPI Warm Me Up. It is a gorgeous charcoal, silvery, taupe shade. It came out with the Mariah Carey Christmas Collection in 2013. The 2014 Gwen Stefani collection included a shade named Love is Hot and Coal, which was a more charcoal, less taupe, slightly purple version of the shade. For some reason, my Ulta did not get this shade and I could not find it anywhere but luckily my best friend randomly found it one night and surprised me with it. This same best friend knows how much I love these shades also bought me Zoya Claudine for my birthday. Claudine is in the same polish family, only it is the most silvery charcoal of the bunch and has the least amount of taupe.

  
Claudine, however, has the best formula of the three. But what did you expect, it is Zoya. Claudine could be a one coat polish, but if you apply two, the color deepens up a bit and is true to the shade in the bottle. The shade has the perfect consistency and glides onto the nails with ease. No pooling or running and it’s not thick and goopy either. I have mentioned before that the Zoya brush is my favorite because of the amount of control it gives. Pair the brush and the formula together and I had very minimal cleanup with this polish as well.

  
Obviously I have a major weakness when it comes to this polish shade. I absolutely love all 3 of these polishes and I really start to get into wearing this time of year through winter. If you know of any more polishes in this shade, let me know because I clearly cannot say no.

Current Nails

Purple hair means purple nails, right? My nails actually had a bit of a purple stain to them from not wearing the gloves when I rinsed the color out of my hair and it reminded me that I have not done truly purple nails in quite a while. I own a lot of really pretty purple polishes in my collection, but I decided to put on OPI Grape, Set, Match from one of the Serena Williams duos from a few years back. I also love the classic pairing of purple and gold, so I opted for an accent nail of OPI All Sparkly and Gold.

  
Grape, Set, Match is slightly sheer but is opaque in 2 coats. It has a really easy formula to work with as well. It is a super unique polish the the blue and pink/red sparkles in the polish. The name is super cute and I had to have it just because of my love of Serena Williams. All Sparkly and Gold is a gold microglitter polish that came out with the 2013 Mariah Carey holiday collection. I am kicking myself for not picking up more of this collection, but I have been considering hitting the internet up for some of the polishes I missed out on. If you know of any reputable sellers, let me know! All Sparkly and Gold can be built up to full opacity in 3 coats, which is what I did here. The polish has a thin consistency, which works well if you want to build the polish up because it does not get thick and goopy on the nail.

  
I love how well these two polishes paired together. All Sparkly and Gold is the perfect accent nail polish, but it is also pretty as a full manicure as well. Grape, Set, Match has been in my collection for a while but I don’t have anything else in my collection that is quite like it.

Current Nails

Today I am sharing one of my first Zoya polishes with you. And this is one of the polishes that helped to solidify Zoya as one of my favorite brands. Valerie is a dark purple, almost black base with red micro glitter. It is such a gorgeous dark and vampy polish.

^I couldn’t resist sharing one of my favorite Amy Winehouse songs…

  
The formula of this polish is simply perfection. I did two coats on my nails because they are not in the best of shape but this polish is a one coater. A super dark base with red micro glitter and it is a one coater?! I don’t know how Zoya does it, but their formulas are the best in the business. The polish isn’t too think and it isn’t too thin; it just glides onto the nail. Zoya’s brush and the length of the brush makes it so easy to control where the polish goes. It also picks up the right amount of polish so you don’t flood your cuticles.

  
If you have not tried Zoya polishes, you really need to. The formulas are always amazing and they have some of the most unique and gorgeous shades. They also have a lot of classic shades with absolutely perfect formulas. I have had Valerie for almost 5 years now and I keep going back to this polish.

All About Polish Tag

All of the nail polish youtubers that I love and watch created this tag and after watching their videos, I thought this would be one that I would enjoy doing on the blog. As you all can probably tell, I am obsessed with nail polish and have way too many to even count at this point, so I am totally qualified to do this tag 😛

1. What is you favourite nail polish finish (eg. creme, crelly, glitter, etc)? I love cremes, glitters, and shimmers. I am really not a fan of jelly polishes and at all and am not the craziest about crellies either (a hybrid of a jelly and creme finish).
2. What is your favourite “pretty ugly” shade? I don’t feel like I go for the “pretty ugly” shades. I typically think of chartreuse, mustardy type shades to describe what “pretty ugly” means. I think the only shade that I really have in my collection is Did It On Em from the OPI Nicki Minaj collection.
3. Which polish in your collection is the most sentimental to you? I have a lot of polishes that are sentimental to me. That might be a weird thing for most people but I always plan what nail polishes I am going to be wearing for special events and such. I wore OPI Kiss Me On My Tulips when I graduated from Ohio State because it perfectly matched the bow on my dress and is a very classic pink shade. I bought Moon Over Mumbai by OPI (I no longer have this polish because it was so old) when I got accepted to Ohio State so I could do scarlet and gray nails. Bad Romance by Deborah Lippmann was my first Deborah Lippmann and was purchased specifically for me to wear to the Lady GaGa concert.
4. If you could go back in time and but any collection, what would it be? Without a doubt it would be the OPI Alice in Wonderland collection. This is right as I was getting into nail polish and I missed out on Mad as a Hatter. I did get Absolutely Alice, Off With Her Red, and Thanks So Muchness. I would also love to have more of the OPI holiday collection that included Merry Midnight. If only I would have known how into nail polish I would be.
5. What is your go-to “all occasion” polish? I love to wear classic, neutral shades. Sand Tropez by Essie, Don’t Bossa Nova Me Around by OPI, and Zoya Elisa is my go to red.
6. What items are essential to your nail care routine? I love Orly’s Tough Cookie nail treatment for when my nails are in bad shape. I also love the Up & Up Nail Polish Remover Advanced Formula or Zoya Remove+ for taking polish off. They are both super quick at getting polish off and are not as harsh on the nails. I love the OPI Infinite Shine base and top coat as well. Oh, and I absolutely love drying drops!
7. What is your favourite “newly discovered” brand (indie or mainstream)? I keep things pretty mainstream when it comes to polish. I know that there are so many good Indie brands out there, but I don’t like buying polishes that I cannot see in person. Zoya is the only nail polish brand that I have ever ordered. Zoya is by far my favorite brand, so I will just say that is my answer.
8. What is your go-to “bad ass” colour (the colour that makes you feel sexiest or most bad ass)? I love Die Another Day from the OPI James Bond collection. The name is bad ass and it is a pretty, orangey red shade that looks super sex on the nails.
9. Indie or Mainstream? Mainstream for sure.
10. Which brand’s collections do you most look forward to? I always love Zoya’s collections. And I know that the formula on Zoya’s are always going to be fantastic, so I never feel the need to see reviews on the polishes first. I love OPI’s holiday collections. They always do some really stunning shades and I cannot wait to see the collection this year.

Current Nails

I am still gravitating towards darker nails, but I didn’t want to wear something that was more of a traditional vampy color. Deborah Lippmann has some of the most unique and beautiful glitters and while I own several of them, I always seem to forget about them. As I was going through my polishes. Across the Universe caught my eye and I knew it was exactly what I was looking for.

  
I layered two coats of Across the Universe over one coat of Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Black out. I love the Sally Hansen Xtreme line for layering because a lot of the time, those polishes are opaque or almost opaque in one coat. You can get Across the Universe opaque on it’s own but why waste such a gorgeous polish. I also think the blue, green, and teal really pops over the black. The formula of these Deborah Lippmann glitters is so easy to work with. You never have to fish for glitters or work to get them evenly on the nail. You really just apply them the same way you would apply any other polish and the glitter is even on the nail.

  
Deborah Lippmann polishes are expensive. I luckily got a lot of them on clearance when Ulta stopped carrying Deborah Lippmann and this was one of them. This polish is so unique and stunning that it would me a great splurge item or a present. I definitely recommend the polish if you are interested in it.