Four randoms and some news

Hey! I actually won a blog giveaway today! WOO HOO! I never win anything! But I DID win Chromatic Misadventure's giveaway! Go check out her blog!

I HAVEN'T HAD STREET WEAR POLISH SINCE HIGH SCHOOL! I'M SO EXCITED I MIGHT POOP! Hee hee.

Anywho, I'm trying to drag out posts of the swatches I did Sunday. I actually broke down and bought all five of the Claire's mood polishes (I liked the first one so much, I had to go back and get the rest. It's a problem. Really.), but I'm wearing one polish a day every day this week, so I won't have pictures and a post until Friday or Saturday.

So I'll just drag out my unposted pictures for as long as I can. Which should be about a week. :) These are four polishes I picked up at Sally Beauty Supply. Mostly on sale! Mostly...

I picked up ANOTHER of the Orly Sweets at Sally. I really do fail at not buying. Anyway, I got Pixy Stix. Lately, I am really digging Orly's formula. I am so not an OPI girl. Give me Orly and China Glaze, dammit! OPI chips too easily and is too expensive and, frankly, boring (at least most of the time, although they do have their moments).

Anyway, here's Pixy Stix. It's a bright pink that leans a little coral or salmon. This is two coats. Someone with more skills probably coulda gotten away with one.


And here's an older (last year?) Orly I picked up -- Prince Charming. It's a very dark taupe. Almost brown, but greyed out enough to be called taupe. Also two coats.


I also picked up the only polish from China Glaze's Up and Away collection that I felt I NEEDED. Light as Air. It's a very pale lavender, and while I have a similar color, it's Essie (Lilacism, to be precise). I freaking hate Essie's streaky ass polishes, and crappy brushes, and $8 price tag. I will never buy another Essie. As God is my witness. Light as Air is similar, applies better, and is WAY cheaper. I need to do a comparison. I have several polishes I want to compare. Maybe next weekend.


Last, I picked up (on clearance!) a Nina Ultra Pro in Viva La Velvet. This is a bright, nearly pink, red metallic. I LOVE this type of red on me. I foresee myself using this a lot around Christmas time. This one also applied nicely, two coats.

Nails of the last three days

Man, I've been so busy at work lately and then so tired when I get home that I don't want to take the time to upload pictures and post them. So, my apologies for not being on top of this!

I have just about abandoned Seche Vite in favor of Poshe topcoat. I started suffering from the dreaded tip shrinkage (that sounds dirty but isn't). It's when you use Seche Vite as your topcoat and within hours you can see the tips of your nails. It grabs the polish underneath the topcoat and shrinks it. Meh. Poshe doesn't dry as quickly, but it doesn't shrink either.

But anyway!

Here were my nails on Tuesday, March 16. I used Wet N Wild Morbid. I really dig this color. It's almost black, but has enough green shimmer to be interesting. I cannot remember if the reason you can see the tips of my nails is because of shrinkage or if it's because I've been really hard on my hands this week. My new job is much more hands-on than my last job and I come home nearly every day with the tips worn.




This was my St. Patrick's Day mani, which sounded much cooler in my head. I used China Glaze Emerald Sparkle and stamped the houndstooth Konad design on top using Orly solid gold. Then I threw some tacky nail stickers on my ring finger. It was festive. :D


Today I used the second polish I got from the Orly Sweet collection -- Gumdrop. I LOVE this color. I was expecting it to be much more green, but it's a really pretty turquoise. I would like to do a side-by-side comparison of this with China Glaze For Audrey. Maybe Sunday I'll spend some time comparing polishes and taking pictures.

I've been using Orly Bonder lately as my basecoat. This was done using Bonder, two coats of Gumdrop (although the formula on this is freaking awesome -- I probably could have just done one coat), and a coat of Poshe on top. Let me tell you, I was HARD on my hands today. I was moving stuff around and opening up computers and was just generally rough on my nails today. I just knew that this was going to chip or wear off, but I took this photo at the end of the day, after I got home, and had barely any wear at all. You can see a minor ding and minimal tip wear, but nothing major. Good stuff!

Cheat Day

So, I'm not wearing green today.
I am going to a friend's Alice in Wonderland-themed party later on this afternoon. We're supposed to dress in appropriate attire, but uh, I don't have any Wonderland-y attire, so I'm just going to go looking... insane. When in doubt as to what to wear, go for the insane and/or homeless look.

Anyhoo... Of course I had to do something fancy to my nails. And of course I had to use one of the OPI Alice in Wonderland polishes. And of course there are no greens in that set. So, I'll go back to greens tomorrow (probably tonight, actually). But for today, it's blue and gold.

I sort of did the ruffian-inspired thing. Except, instead of using a dark color on my tips, I used Absolutely Alice. I painted my nails with Orly Solid Gold, applied tip guides around the base of my nails, and slathered on a few coats of Absolutely Alice on the top part. I like how this brings out the gold glitter in AA. This could've been neater (yeah, if someone else were doing it!) but I like it anyway. :)

Green(ish) of the Day!

Day three of greens is China Glaze Metallic Muse. This isn't as green on my nails as it is in the bottle. But... I like it nonetheless!

What will JJ pick for me tonight?!?! I'm so curious!

Orlys and Ultas and China Glazes, oh my

So, this is the last of the stuff I got last week. I'm on a no buy til May. MAY!!! Hehe. I need to use what I have, though, and not end up on A&E's Hoarders, so it's just as well.

I have 3 Ultas, 3 Orlys, and 3 China Glazes to show you. Let's start with the crappiest ones -- the Ultas.

So, a couple of weeks ago, Ulta had this deal where if you spent $17.50, you got a bag o' their makeup for free. I'd never used Ulta's brand makeup before, and finding $17.50 worth of stuff to get wasn't that hard, so, you know, score. Note: I am not a fan of Ulta's makeup. Srsly. Oh well, it was free. Anyway, I ordered one nail polish and two polishes came in the free bag o' makeup. The one I actually paid for was pretty cool. The two free ones were NOT.

This is what I bought -- After Party. It's silver and red glitter in a clear base. This was... 3 or 4 coats. I'd probably layer this over a red if I were actually wearing it and not just swatching it, but this is all by its lonesome.


The two free polishes I got were Sunny Romance of St. Tropez, a shimmery yellow, and Something Blue, a shimmery medium blue.

These were both pretty sheer, and sort of hard to use. Look at this brush! It's miniscule!


And this is FIVE COATS. And I don't even like yellow. But I didn't have a shimmery yellow, so, you know, welcome to the collection.


This is Something Blue. It's ok. Pretty enough. I don't hate it. I'll probably never wear it again. At least it was free. This was, I believe, 3 coats.


So, basically, the Ultas get a big ol' "meh" from me.

On to the Orlys!
So I got two of the Foil FX polishes and the only one of the Sweets collection that blew my skirt up (at the time... I am now sort of lemming a couple more of the sweets, but we'll see how I feel in May).

I love the Foil FX! It's so shiny-shiny and pretty!
This is Shine.


And this is Rage, which I loved way more than I thought I was gonna! It's Rose Gold and/or Bronze depending on your definition.


And this is Snowcone! I don't have another blue like this. I really like it! This is one coat...


ON TO THE CHINA GLAZES!!!
So I picked up Metallic Muse, because I didn't own a green chrome and also because I wanted to use it for Konad. I swatched it anyway. ;) The bubbles are awful.


I also picked up another of the OMG collection - QT. It's awesome! Dark pink holo!


ANNNNND... I got Grape Pop from the Up and Away collection. At first I was really wanting some of the pastels in that collection, but when it came time to order I talked myself out of it. Grape Pop is a really nice "royal" purple creme. I also don't own another color quite like this -- my darker purples are all shimmers. :)




SO... what now? I think tonight I'm going to pull out all my greens and try to do a green a day til St. Patrick's Day. I'm pretty sure I own 17 greens. If not, I'll see what I can do about having a different green-themed mani every day til St Pat's.

Orly

Here are the three Orly polishes I own.

The first is Poison Apple, which I picked up on clearance at Sally a couple of months ago. Sally, I love your clearance table! In other news, the $5 I spent for a year on my Sally Beauty Rewards card is probably the best $5 I've spent in awhile. This is an orange-y tomato-ey red. It's okay. Reds aren't really my thing, and when I pick a red, I tend to go towards a red with a more blue/violet tone than an orange tone.


The second Orly polish is one of their mattes -- Purple Velvet. I really like this matte. In fact, I like it a lot more than any of the OPI mattes I own, but not as much as the Man Glaze mattes, which are, I think, the best mattes EVER. I'll post those later. :) This applies fairly easily if you work fast. This swatch isn't the best ever, but it'll do for this purpose. It also dries quickly, but I think that's standard for matte polishes.


The third and last Orly polish in my collection is one of their Metal Chic polishes -- Solid Gold. This is a shimmery, metallic matte, sort of like the OPI suedes. I found this on sale at Sally last week. Are you seeing a theme here with me and Sally and sales? Hehehe.
I really want to try this with a topcoat one day, and I'm sure I will. You know, eventually.