Orly Space Cadet

Ok, so this is the one color from the Orly Cosmic FX collection that everyone is going nuts over. I can see why. I must say, though, that I am disappointed in the bulk of the collection. Bummer. I had such high hopes for you, Orly Cosmic FX!!!

But this color!!! This color is duochromatic awesomeness. I took a billion pictures and a couple of videos.

The colors, but not the finish, reminded me a LOT of another duochrome I have, Rimmel Zeitgeist. The colors are much the same, but Orly is more glittery and sparkly, whereas the Rimmel is almost metallic.

I will let the pictures speak for themselves.

These are all just Orly Space Cadet on its own.












And here is Space Cadet vs Zeitgeist. Space Cadet is on my thumb, middle, and pinky. Zeitgeist is on my pointer and ring fingers.





And here are a couple of videos to show you what I mean when I say there is a definite resemblance.

Cleanin' out the ol' Flickr

Hey! Guess what, you guys! Transdesign has Vintage Vixen up. I decided to take some of my birthday money and order all the colors I wanted out of that collection. I've been stalking Sally's to see when they'll get it in, but it's cheaper to buy from TD (at least, it is if you're ordering enough to justify the $7 in shipping). Just thought some of y'all might wanna know. :)

I have a TON of stuff to post! Today, though, I'm just going to post what's in my Flickr and hasn't been posted yet.

I made another Zoya order before the end of June, and honestly? I shouldn't blindly order nail polish off the internet. A lot of what I got in that second order was nice enough, but wasn't an appropriate shade for my skintone. I have a friend at work who's into nail polish. She's black, I'm white, and I showed up one day wearing Zoya Annie, which SO did not look good on me, but would SO look good on her. So I brought it to her the next day and she brought me some stuff that didn't look good on her. So it ended up okay that I cannot order appropriately for my skintone! LOL.

So anyway, today's post is unposted things, and Zoyas, Part I.

First, the RANDOMS.
So I found this 4-pack of mini Borghese polishes on clearance at Walgreens for $5. I'm pretty sure this was a holiday collection. It had a mini of Stellare Notte, two glitters, and a nice burgundy that unfortunately exploded on me so I never got to swatch it. Nail polish catastrophe, y'all!
Anyway, this is one of the glitters. It is, honestly, one of the butt ugliest, least sparkly glitters I've ever used. A brown jelly base with silver and red glitter that didn't SPARKLE. BLAH.


This is another of those discontinued Rimmel Play Fast polishes in a shade called Push It. It's a little frosty for my liking.


And now on to the Zoyas!
This is Kotori. It's a black, or maybe dark grey, jelly base with tons of blue microglitter. I LOVED this! It's gorgeous! The first coat had me a little nervous, 'cause it was way streaky and gross. I think I used three coats for this, but I was very pleased with the end result.


This is Gaia, which was described as white with gold shimmer. I just wish the gold shimmer had been more apparent, but I didn't hate this color.


And this is Yummy. I really liked this one, too. It applied nicely, but it reminds me a LOT of Orly Snowcone and/or Essie Lapis of Luxury, and I have both of those. I should do a comparison.



And now I'm caught up! So I can dump my memory card onto Flickr and not get confused about what I have or have not posted here! YAY!

Hey you guys!!!

Guess what!
Tomorrow is my birthday, and I'll be 32. Holy CRAP, how did I get to be 32?!


Some other stuff...
I'm trying to do the Dave Ramsey thing, so I suppose that means I should quit buying nail polish. Curses. Or at least not buy it ALL the time, huh? I need to rediscover some old faves, anyway.


And pics! Just some randoms in my Flickr.
Rimmel Play Fast in Street Wear. Pale taupe with shimmer. Pretty, but not as pretty as I'd hoped.


Neon orange! Not really my color, but fun anyway. :)


OPI - Parlez Vous OPI.


China Glaze Orange Marmalade. Another one I didn't like as much as I'd hoped. It just looked so JUICY in the bottle!


Essie Midnight Cami. Holy smurf fingers, batman! This is pretty on, but removal kinda sucks.





ENJOY!


P.S. I should have a shipment waiting on me when I get home. Paradoxal. I hope I love it as much as I love everyone else's pictures of it, not only because it's going to be my birthday mani, but because it may be the last nail polish I buy for a WHILE!

Recent Fauxnadicures

Wow, Fauxnadicures totally gets the red squiggle underliney thing.

So, I've been having a ton of fun stamping lately since I ordered the Bundle Monster plates. I really prefer the full-nail stamps. I do hate that the Bundle Monster full nail stamps are so narrow. I have fairly narrow nails, but they don't cover my entire nail width. I bet these things would be really horrible for the ladies with wider nail beds than mine. STILL, I've been stamping away. Here are some of my recent looks. I'd tell you what plate the images came from, but I'm way too lazy to go look. However, all of the stamps came from the Bundle Monster plates, and not my Konad or other Fauxnad plates.

Here is Essie Splash of Grenadine with Konad Violet Pearl on top.


China Glaze Flip Flop Fantasy with Konad Special Polish in Black. This one got me a LOT of comments. The neon-y-ness of Flip Flop Fantasy is really hard to capture in photos, but this was BRIGHT.


This was OPI Who The Shrek are You with Konad Violet Pearl for the checkerboard tip pattern. This was my first attempt ever at stamping tips, and let me say... it is NOT easy to get it straight. My right hand was pretty crooked, but I wore it anyway. My pointer finger was a casualty of my job.


This is Essie Lapis of Luxury with Sally Hansen Insta-Dri in Whirlwind White for the stamp. I think I'm going to have to break down and buy the special Konad white polish because I cannot find a white that stamps decently to save my life.


I didn't have adequate sunlight to capture this one, and it was very, very subtle, but I liked it. It reminded me of, say, curtains in a funeral home. LOL. The base is Rimmel Hard Edged stamped with Nina Ultra Pro in Viva La Velvet.


This is what I'm wearing today and I LOVE IT. It may be my favorite one yet. Then again, I love the color combination of aqua and dark brown. This is a base of Orly Gumdrop stamped with Kleancolor in Dark Brown. OH... Kleancolor. I had no idea where to get this stuff, but I went to an asian beauty supply store close to my house, and they had a TON of it for $1 apiece. This is some GOOD STUFF. I actually have another post planned about my trip to the asian beauty supply. :)

Giveaway ENDING and nail polish haul

Ok, so I'm supposed to pick a winner for my giveaway today. I just got my spreadsheet caught up with my blog comments, so let's say that I'll count anyone who enters until 5pm Eastern time today (about 3 hours from now). Then I'll pick someone. YAY!

Oh yeah, and I GOT MARRIED ON SATURDAY! YAY! I had a really good time, and hey! I got married! We aren't taking a honeymoon at this time, so no, I'm not posting this from my honeymoon. :)

I also hauled on some nail polish while we were down in Florida. I also finally found Hidden Treasure! YAY! We drove from Athens to down in Florida where we got married. I stopped at a random Walgreens in Montgomery, AL, and there it was! FINALLY!

I wanted to go to the Del Sol store in PCB to get some more of their color change polish, but I didn't have time. But on the way back home, we stopped in another random Walgreens in Florida and they were selling Del Sol! Yay!

And then I hauled in the clearance aisle at Ulta.. and I picked up some other stuff there too.

So, I have all of that plus all the Zoya I got last week. I have a LOT of stuff in my untried drawer right now. This is a picture of everything I picked up on my travels. I also don't really have time to swatch right now, so I guess I'll be doing a nail a day for a bit. :)



And, just because I know I'm going to get terribly backlogged with my nail pictures, let me just go ahead and show you what I've got unposted pictures of. Enjoy!

So, I tried Illusion D'Or over everything for a few days. Here it is over black:


And here it is again over L'Oreal's High Tide.


And here it is over Rimmel's Milk Chocolate!


This is La Playa from the new Orlys that are out now.


Sinful Colors "Rise and Shine," which JJ declared "hideous."


Minted, one of the new Revlons.


Orly Glam, which I found on clearance at Sally..


And the ONLY Zoya Sparkle I've photographed so far, Charla. I really loved this color!!

Comparisons and blues

So, I've had a few polishes in mind that I'd wanted to do comparisons of. I finally got around to swatching them last weekend, and I guess I'll finally get around to posting the pictures this weekend. ;)

In other (but somewhat -- you'll see in a minute -- related) news, have y'all seen the new Finger Paints display at Sally's? It's like four blue shades with a sheer iridescent topcoat and a silver... topcoat? foil? I can't quite tell and didn't want to buy it to find out. But the blues are LOVELY. I bought two of them.

The first is a pastel creme, called Blissfully Blue:


The second is a medium blue shimmer, called Add and Abstract... or is this blue? It's really sort of teal. There is some definite green in this and I think it's GORGEOUS.


BUT... both of these reminded me of other colors. So now, on to the comparisons.
From left to right: Finger Paints Blissfully Blue, China Glaze For Audrey, Orly Gumdrop, Essie Mint Candy Apple.


The nails are in the same order (I have Blissfully Blue on both my thumb and pointer here). As you can see, Gumdrop and For Audrey are the closest. Blissfully Blue is much more, well, BLUE than the others.


THEN... Add and Abstract vs. Rimmel Lasting Finish Pro in Marine Blue.


I have the Rimmel on my middle finger and pinky, Add and Abstract on my index and ring.

Those are really so close you don't need both.

So then I wondered what the difference was between China Glaze Lubu Heels and Milani Garnet Gems.


The difference is MINIMAL. I have China Glaze on my index and ring. Milani on my middle and pinky.



Seriously, you only need one of these. Not both.


And that's it for comparisons today. I have some good news to post here, but probably won't get to it til Sunday. I'm sure you'll all be on pins and needles. :D

Two manicures

So, oddly enough, I had no sheet marks when I woke up this morning, despite Castaway not being dry when I went to bed last night. So here's a decent, color-accurate, non-iphone picture. It really is a cute color.


And I never did post the other picture I planned to post yesterday. This was the Nfu-Oh 51 I borrowed on top of my favorite purple - Rimmel Art of Noise. I think I preferred it over black.

Mannequin Hands, attempt 2

I think I actually found my mannequin hands shade. I found this Rimmel "Milk Chocolate" on clearance for 1.09 and figured, "Why the hell not?"

Oddly enough, I think I like this, even though I am more apt to choose a glittery or vampy color (I have to feed the inner goth girl, I tell you!). I might just wear it once I get rid of my crazy leopard print.

Glossy... Almost mannequin hands.


Full hand shot. Look at my pudgy lil hands. :)


And with Matte Magic topcoat... I think I have the right shade now.


Not-quite-full hand shot.

Four Randoms

Here are four random polishes I own. And now... it's only new stuff or interesting manicures I'm doing from here on out. Hooray!

First up is Rimmel Torrid. I love this color! It looks much browner in the bottle than it does on. But as you can see, it's a shimmery dark red with maybe some brown tones.


This is Finger Paints Decked With Dazzle. It's a shimmery, glittery, almost foil-y bright pink. It was one of their Christmas polishes and I picked it up at Sally on the cheap. I didn't like this as much as I thought I would, but I can't put my finger on why.


Here is Orly Goth. It's black with silver glitter sparkles. I love this! I have to nurture my inner goth girl from time to time. This is probably my favorite black.


This is DV8 from the China Glaze OMG collection. This collection came out before I really got into nail polish. We'll refer to that time as "the before time." However, there are still plenty of e-tailers selling this stuff. From the swatches I'd seen online, I thought this color would appeal to me the most. I love it! Holographic teal, hell yes! The formula was, um, less than great. I kept pulling the polish up on my first coat, leaving bald spots, and it was a little frustrating to apply. This is two coats, though, so it evens out decently well. This is totally going on my toes when I get a chance to redo my toenails.



I didn't do anything interesting with my nails tonight. I removed the zebra Konad from yesterday and applied some Mad as a Hatter, so that's what I'll be wearing to work tomorrow. I guess I should stop doing my nails once a day. :)