Random swatchery

Yo! Sorry I haven't posted in a week. I've been, uh, busy. Yeah, yeah, that's the ticket. Busy.

Lately I've been on a search for the perfect coral and the perfect off-white polish. I have no idea why. Those aren't usually "my" colors, but to be honest, coral is totally growing on me.

Sooo... today I just have some photos of some random polishes. There is no rhyme nor reason to this, just stuff I've worn lately and have never posted here. Enjoy! Hopefully tomorrow I'll have more... I'm backlogged once again!

So I finally got around to wearing the last Zoya Sparkle. This is Gilda. Color me underwhelmed. To be honest, the only colors from this collection I NEEDED were Charla, Ivanka, and Mimi. The pinks and reds were just meh.


OMG. This was another polish I didn't like at all. This is OPI Fiercely Fiona from the Shrek collection. Okay. A) Terrible color for me. B) Three icky coats. I put this on, took a picture, and immediately took it off. Like, before it dried. Thank god it was only a mini.


This was an unexpected surprise. First of all, it's orange. Second of all, it's Petites, which is hit or miss, but you can deal with a miss if it only cost $1.50, right? I LOVED this color on me. I think this is what set me off in search of the perfect coral. As you can see, despite the fact that this is called "Passion Orange," it's really more coral than straight orange. I think this was three coats.


This was my first attempt at finding the perfect off-white. This ain't it. This is Sally Hansen Insta-Dri in Beige Blast. Three coats, I believe.


Beige Blast alone was boring as hell and a little too sheer, so I Hidden Treasure'd it up.

Black Holos

My fiance had surgery Thursday, so I'm caring for an invalid. He tore his left achilles playing soccer last weekend. He will be hobbling down the aisle in a boot at our wedding in two weeks. Poor guy! He came home from the hospital today and is slowly trying to get around with crutches. That has nothing to do with nail polish, just thought I'd mention it.

Ok, so if I had a favorite type of nail polish, it would probably be the black/charcoal holographic, since I keep buying them. I never have owned the original OPI MPJ, and probably never will (I'm not too keen on the idea of trying to track it down, but if I happened to see it someplace - HAHA - I'd pick it up).

I do own a few black/charcoal holos. I know I don't have Diamond Cosmetics' Chainmail Charm. I need it. I really should grab it since it's only a couple of bucks or so on their website, and I've liked the swatches I've seen of it. One day I will.

When I was out and about trying to track down the new Sally Hansens (I just want the flaky one... but nowhere here seems to have it), I saw the new Petites Color Fever line. They have a color called Black Diamond, which is really pretty close to Color Club Revvvolution. I was skeptical about paying $4 for a Petites nail polish, since their quality hasn't really been the best, and their original line costs what? A dollar, maybe two? However, I was really pleasantly surprised with Black Diamond. Observe!

The holo effect is fairly weak with this one, but it IS there. This is in indirect light. It didn't really come out much better in direct light. :/


You can at least see the effect a bit here.


Then I decided to do a comparison. Then I ran out of time to remove it, so I've actually been rocking a black holo "skittles" manicure for the last two days.. LOL.
Here's what I compared:
L'Oreal Bijou Crystals in B.Rebellious, Color Club Revvvolution, Icing Blackout, and Petites Color Fever Black Diamond.
Icing, your brush sucked. I love this shade, and the formula isn't bad, but the horrible mop-like brush makes this polish nearly impossible to use. I have some spare clear polishes lying about, and I think I'm going to try dumping the clear polish out and decanting the Icing polish into a bottle with a less shitty brush.


I had a terrible time trying to get a good picture of these four. Part of this is because I've been at the hospital a LOT in the last couple of days and just haven't had time.
My observations are this. The L'Oreal polish is probably my favorite of the four. It is the sparkliest. It isn't a "smooth" holo, but is a dark, dark grey that is interspersed with a TON of holographic glitter.
The Icing polish is the only one of the four that is actually BLACK. It also isn't a smooth holo, but is interspersed with holographic glitter.
Color Club's polish has the smoothest holographic effect and also the hardest to capture.
The Petites polish isn't technically a "smooth" holo, but it is smoother and the glitter is finer than in either the L'Oreal or the Icing polish. It is REALLY close to Color Club Revvvolution, and I think that if a person owned one, they wouldn't need the other.

Now for the pictures! Clicking on any of these to get a larger image might be helpful.
On my thumb and pinky are Petites Color Fever Black Diamond
On my index finger is L'Oreal Bijou Gems in B.Rebellious
On my middle finger is Color Club Revvvolution
On my ring finger is Icing Blackout


And again... this one shows the holo-ness a bit better.



Also, I had to run to Sally's this afternoon and found that they now have the China Glaze Poolside collection. They also still have all polishes buy 2, get 1 free. So I picked up half of the collection. I got Pool Party, Sun Worshipper, and Towel Boy Toy. The yellow and green didn't much appeal to me (neon yellow looks icky on me), but I was torn between the pink and the coral. I might go back later this weekend and pick up the other three, but I'm going to sleep on it first. :D


Our Sally's hired a new girl to work there, and while I was talking polish to the cashier, she butted in and was trying to inform me of the "new mint green trend" in nail polish. I wanted to LOL. "Excuse me, missy, but DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA how many nail polish blogs I read?!?" Also, mint green is SOOOOO last season. I dunno, it was just funny. But I'm not a bitch, so I said, "Yeah! I have a bunch of mint greens and I really like them!"

Good Morning!

It's Monday, and while all y'all government employees have the day off (jerks!), I am sitting at work, playing on my little netbook, waiting for stuff to break since that is the nature of my job.

I added more blogs to my bloglist. I want to add every nail polish blog there is. I appreciate the followers I've amassed in the last week or so, and I want to try to help other people out. :)

Anyway, today I'm going to post some colors I swatched over the weekend. Some of them are the ones Jill sent me. I think I may hold off on posting the pictures I took of the dark OPIs she sent because I couldn't get decent sunlight at all on Saturday or Sunday because it was raining all weekend. The colors really just look black unless they are under direct sunlight, and none of them are actually black. I'm off work Wednesday, but guess what?? It's supposed to rain! So we'll see. There's always next weekend.

I also have some packages coming in the mail. They were in Atlanta yesterday, but since today's a postal holiday, I suppose they'll be here tomorrow. Hooray! (And HOORAY for Amazon gift certificates!)

So, one of the polishes Jill sent was Sally Hansen Nail Prisms in Diamond. I love this! It's a lovely holographic silver. I really want to try layering some sheer colors over this to see if I can get different-colored holos out of this. The application was easier than the one China Glaze OMG I own. This formula was pretty thin and a little sheer -- I used three coats.


This was the Maybelline Express Finish in Bolt of Blue. It was a sheer sky blue with silver glitter in it. This was either three or four coats, and I managed to smudge my pinky.


This color drove my CRAZY trying to photograph it. I was inside at night (there's error number one -- although I usually get decent lighting and accurate colors in my kitchen because it's bright in there). I was using my little Nikon and decided to switch to my Canon and STILL could not get this color to photograph accurately. So I left it alone. I may reswatch it if it's ever sunny on one of my off days. This is Petites in Dare. This is a really interesting color. It was a dusty royal blue, if that makes sense. It also had some small silver glitter and some silver flakes in it. It's a really pretty color that my camera HATES!
The color is NOT as bright as this picture would have you believe, but you can see the flakes in it pretty well. :)


This is slightly more color-accurate.


This is actually a color I picked up at Dollar Tree. You would be surprised at what old-ass discontinued nail polish you can find at Dollar Tree. And now that I know that polish revivers exist, I don't worry about them being thick or goopy or dried up because I can totally fix that. :)
This is a Sally Hansen shade called Trendy Creme. Sidenote -- I am actually on a sort of hunt for a nice olive green. I don't own a good olive green. I thought this might be it, but this is too light. I'd call it "avocado." I used to live in this ratty old studio apartment, and all the appliances in it were this color.


And this is one of the new Sally Hansen Xtreme Wears in Wet Cement. I have no idea why this color appeals to me. It's a straight light grey. You know, like wet cement. :)

Thank you, Jill!!!

So my friend/future sister-in-law, Jill, told me several days ago that she was going to mail me a package of nail polish. I got it today!

BACKSTORY! Jill is my fiance's sister. She is also awesome. I met her when I lived in Nashville. She introduced me to her brother in March of 2007, we dated long distance for a year, then I moved to Georgia to be with him. He and I will be getting hitched in May of this year (awwww).

Anyway, look at all the good stuff she sent me!!
(Also, pardon my junky table -- it's been a hectic couple of days here and I was so excited to take a picture that I didn't bother to clear the junk away.)


From left to right:
Scherer Petites in Dare
L'Oreal Bijou Gems in B.Strong (man, I used to have a bunch of these Bijou polishes years ago and I threw them away!!!)
Sally Hansen Nail Prisms in Diamond
OPI in Significant Other Color
OPI in Lincoln Park After Dark
OPI in Midnight in Moscow
OPI in Oh...to be 25 Again (indeed)
Maybelline Express Finish in Bolt of Blue ("every time I think of you, I feel shot right through with a bolt of blue"... I'm totally going to have that song going through my head the rest of the night)
L'Oreal Bijou Crystals in B.Rebellious
And a cute little OPI mini in My Chihuahua Bites


So awesome! I have so much swatching to do!

AND!!! I went to a thrift store today and bought these awesome giant pink sunglasses with white polka dots. Off topic, I know, but I LOVE them and don't want to take them off!

Petites

Oh yeah, I'm on a cheap nail polish ROLL tonight.
Alas, this is the last of my super cheap nailpolish collection.

I have three Petites polishes. Two of them have been hanging out in my makeup collection for years.

The first is a shade called Cabernet. This was, once upon a time, my go-to nail polish color. I cannot remember how many years ago that was. Six? Seven? It's been awhile. But this bottle is still kickin, and it's still a pretty, deep red. Pardon the specks on my fingers in this pic. I think it's glitter from an earlier polish? Not sure, but they're gone now. :)


This is a shimmery pinky-gold called Rose Quartz. The formula on this was really thickened up, so the application was a bit gloopy. I've also been carrying this one around for years. I have some polish restorer, but am not sure that I want to waste it on this particular polish. I might just let this one die a natural death.


And this... this is a very sheer iridescent blue called Ocean Breeze. It's very pretty, but never achieves opacity. It might, but this is four coats and I was losing patience. However, this looks really cool layered over a black polish.