China Glaze Party Hearty

Party Hearty, like O.P.I.'s Absolutely Alice, was a polish that made a home for itself on my wish list, but wasn't something I'd ever expected to own. And like with Alice, I happened upon a blog sale at the right time. I'm not a lucky person, but sometimes it happens. Kind of like when I drop a box of dog treats on the ground and my dogs, after an initial second of surprise, dive like pigeons.  

It's not a unique or inventive glitter, and I certainly don't believe the eBay prices are justified, but it is a really lovely little bottle of Christmas that I still pick up and marvel at. The components just add up to something more than the sum of its parts. 

It's a clear base filled with medium-sized bright red hexes, small emerald glitters, and minuscule silvery-gold glitters. It looks a bit overwhelming in the bottle, but comes out surprisingly delicate on the first coat. Subsequent coats tend to gunk up and look clunky, so I'd recommend sticking to one. 

I've seen it over reds, greens, and golds, but I think the most flattering base for this polish is a sheer white. I'm using two coats of Funny Bunny, which I really need to get another bottle of; I've been wearing it pretty much all December. I can't get enough of it. I have frosted sugar cookie nails and I love it. 

Rescue Beauty Lounge Recycle

I've always been vocal about green and I not getting along, but if there's one green that wins me over 100% of the time, it is emerald. And since I heard that RBL will be closing its doors at the end of the month, I thought I'd pull out Recycle and see how it looks. I'm happy to say that I cannot get enough of this color. It's a rich, blackened (but never mistaken for black) emerald green that hits all the right notes: it compliments my skin tone, it's deep and brooding, and the depth of color is fantastic. 

RBL really knows how to do dark, moody colors, so it's a shame that Ji has decided to shut down. They were very pricey polishes, but very high quality, and the attention to detail, along with the creative thought that went into the colors and descriptions made them extra special. They are among my favorite polishes in my hoard. And since my switch to Nail Envy, they are the about the longest-wearing on me, barring textures.

Everything except the most recent Fan Collection is 50% off right now, and I may or may not have ordered quite a few farewell bottles. 

I added butter LONDON's Bit Faker for a little sparkle, hopefully it doesn't come off as holiday. I'm really excited for winter and holiday-mode to kick in, but I'm trying to restrain myself until at least Thanksgiving.

Essie Hubby For Dessert

I would say sorry for the hiatus, but I'm pretty sure only one or two people even know of this blog's existence. To those one or two, sorry. Life just got in the way. February was a rough month-sister left for Seattle and I only got to have a couple days of empty nest, sorry-for-myselfness before I had to take my grandfather to the emergency room. He was diagnosed with Congestive Heart Failure, and was in the hospital for well over a month. We now have a caregiver for both my grandparents for the day and I can get some much-needed rest from taking care of them. I got a new (enormous) bed, and my friend and her husband installed a 40-inch TV onto my wall, and I spent like a week in bed just watching movies. Oh.Yes.

March was another bad month though. One of the caregivers came in with "allergies" and gave my bedridden grandmother an upper respiratory virus which turned into pneumonia in a day. She was in the hospital for a week and a half. To say that I was enraged is an understatement. And terrified. But she pulled through fine, though she was on oxygen for a few weeks afterward. After she came home, I finally bought myself an Ikea Alex for my nail polish (I'm starting to notice a pattern here...family member goes into the hospital, I make a furniture grief purchase...) and spent an aggravating evening putting it together, and a glorious day organizing my babies in it. 

So we'll see how I do at getting back into blogging. I've obviously forgotten how to take pictures, because these look awful. I really need to stop thinking that taking pictures a few days after wear will look okay. 

Hubby For Dessert is a lovely lilac jelly. It's cleaner and brighter than O.P.I.'s Care to Danse?, which looks almost grey by comparison. I layered 3 coats of it over one coat of Go Ginza, because it is quite sheer. Go Ginza gave it a bit of a pink cast, alone it's pure lilac. This was after 4 days of wear, not bad right!? I've been using O.P.I. Nail Envy and it's been making a big difference in terms of my nail strength. 

Boom Boom Pow accents for reasons.

Christmas 2014: Polka Dot Gradient in Festive Colors!

How was everyone's Holiday? Mine was infinitely better than last year. I put our tree up, and me, my grandmother, my aunt, and my boyfriend spent a couple days putting all our decorations on it. It's gorgeous...I want to keep it up until at least January 6th! This year's Christmas season has been such a period of comfort and happiness for me. I'm also sitting on quite a lot of cash and gift cards, so I foresee some very happy shopping days ahead of me. 

Anyway, here's what I wore for Christmas Day. I saw it on a Holiday Peachy Polish post, and knew I had to do it. I used the same O.P.I. Funny Bunny base that she did, but for my cascading dots I used O.P.I. L.A,M.B. for the gold, O.P.I. This Gown Needs a Crown for the silver, China Glaze Phat Santa for the red, and M.A.C. Screening Room for the green. I think it turned out really well...I'm still wearing it, in fact. I just can't bring myself to remove it. 

I spent the 25th watching old Christmas movies with my family, eating food (I grossly overestimated the amount of treats and snacks we could all eat, and as a result we are STILL munching our way through the various cookies, cakes, pie, fudge, crackers, and cheese that I loaded up on), and enjoying our tree. 

Now I have to figure out what to wear on New Years...

Probably my favorite tree we've ever done.

Gratuitous blurry shot, cause it looks awesome.

Insta-Manis

The weather has been sketchy (which I looooove), but it's not really conducive as far as making color-accurate pictures. So here's what I've been wearing, Insta-style:

O.P.I. Baby Please Come Home. I feel confident saying that this Liquid Sand is, hands down, my favorite texture polish. The silvery-lavender color, the way the glitters catch the light...IT.IS.PERF.

Essie Tuck It In My Tux & Essie Rock at the Top. As far as I'm concerned, Rock at the Top can do no wrong. It is such a versatile glitter. Slap it over anything, and presto! Holiday manicure. Tuck It In My Tux is an off-white creme-jelly. Took me four coats before I was happy. Cute, but I'm sure there are better versions of this out there.

O.P.I. All I Want for Christmas (is O.P.I.). Yer darn tootin'. Gimme all the O.P.I.'s. I was hoping this would be my holy grail red. I'm looking for something that is bright, but deep. Like a maraschino cherry, but a shade or two darker. This wasn't quite it, but it's a very pretty red, and no one can do a red like O.P.I. 

O.P.I. Red Red Rhine & Maybelline Color Show Precious Pearl. Probably the most Christmassy one I've done so far. I've got 10 to 15 bottles of holiday polish on my bedside table and I have so much trouble picking out the next manicure that I get overwhelmed, and not do a manicure at all. However, it was obvious these two belonged together. Red Red Rhine is maybe a touch brighter that All I Want For Christmas, but really, you can't distinguish between the two in the bottle. I probably couldn't tell them apart side by side. But I actually like it more than All I want for Christmas because black label O.P.I.'s wear like iron on me. I'm going on day two of this manicure and no chips (day two is when chips happen for me; it's like a domino effect...one nail chips, and all the others follow suit). 

I would say I hope the weather clears up and I can get some sunshine to show off what's on my nails properly...but I'd be lying. I hope it stays cold and overcast and rainy forever. 

Essie Recessionista & Rock at the Top

'Tis the season for all the silver and gold and red I can stand! I have been sitting on so many pretty holiday polishes and I wish I had 7 more hands so I could wear them all. 

Sorry for the tip wear on this one, I've had it on for a few days and only just found the time (and sunshine) to photograph them. 

Recessionista is a pretty berry color that can transform into a very red-based purple in sunlight. Not a groundbreaking shade, but I love it. I found Rock at the Top all by its lonely self in an Essie display, but I'd never heard of it before so I'm assuming they've put out more Luxeffects. It sounds basic on paper-neutral gold hexes with smaller and then tinier glitters peppered throughout, but the effect is gorgeous. Over a dark color like Recessionista it really pops and looks like nail art. I did one coat, and I tried not to pay too much attention to the glitter placement-I'm usually hyper-focused on making sure each nail has the same amount of glitter, and that it's spaced out nicely. Not this time; some nails have more, some have less, and I love it. 

Both were delights to work with. Recessionista went on like butter, and Rock at the Top's base was the perfect consistency; not too viscous, not too runny. It'll be hard to take this one off. 

Birthday Mani 2.0: O.P.I. Emotions, My Favorite Ornament, & Wonderous Star

This is, without a doubt, the most decadent manicure I've ever done. I've had this idea floating around in my head for a while, and what better day to wear it than yesterday/today? Tonight I will be frolicking around at the Grove wearing a gold headband and a black beaded sweater. Winged eyeliner will be featured. I'm super excited...28 is going to be a much better year than 27 was. 

And so I celebrate with one of my favorite color combinations...you just don't get much more luxe than black and gold glitter. I used Emotions (black texture), My Favorite Ornament (champagne glitter), and Wonderous Star (champagne glitter with black glitter hexes), and tied everything together with some black rhinestones. I kept pausing while I was doing this manicure, thinking to myself, is this too much? Am I going overboard with this? 

Naaaaaaah. Gotta celebrate yourself, you know? It's a hard lesson to learn, but nothing is more important than celebrating and loving yourself.

I did 3 coats of My Favorite Ornament and Wonderous Star, and 2 coats of Emotions. I've got to express just how beautiful Emotions is. It's faceted, like marcasite, and catches the light so beautifully. I was waiting and waiting for O.P.I. to do a pure black Liquid Sand, and they did not disappoint. 

Birthday Mani: Maybelline Neutral Statement & O.P.I. My Favorite Ornament

Sorry about the lighting in these pictures. Sadly it will only keep getting worse, so I have no idea how I will do any of my holiday manicures justice. 

I'm 28 today!! Since I didn't even acknowledge my birthday last year, I'm making up for it this year. I'm going to spend the day with my family today, have an amazing dinner tonight, and tomorrow night I'm off to downtown L.A. with my boyfriend, bestie, and her husband. We'll eat at Canter's, squeal over Christmas decorations at the Farmer's Market, and more than likely I will buy bon bon's from See's and possibly a very expensive pair of shoes. I will also wear a freaking amazing bow in my hair. 

I also worked up the courage to try a ruffian accent nail, which I think I nailed (heh). If I'd known how easy they are to do, I'd have been wearing them constantly. I used a base of Maybelline Neutral Statement, which looks better in real life than it does in the pictures-the sun sort of warmed up the color too much-there's less beige and more pink-white in it. There's also some sparse deep coppery-gold sparkle that you can detect close up, but fades into the background at arms' length. 

My Favorite Ornament is one of my favorite pale gold glitters. Expect to see it over and over in the next month. 

The formula on Neutral Statement wasn't the greatest-a more patient painter could have gotten away with 3 coats, but I did four to even out the streaks. My Favorite Ornament was flawless (no surprise there) at 2 thin coats. 

Anna Gorelova by Dance Legend Lebedushka

 Say hi to one of my first Dance Legends! This is one of the prettiest blues I've ever seen; I saw swatches of it on lovevarnish.com (those girls make nail polish look amazing) and in five minutes I was on Llarowe ordering a couple. Here's Lebedushka (Swan Princess):

Lebedushka is a very, very pale, watery blue with gold-green sugary sparkle. It's a texture, but only just. You could get this glassy and smooth with a coat of top coat very easily. The overall effect reminds me of a mid-day sun sparkling on a tropical ocean. Beautiful and summery. 

Be warned, it is quite sheer, so I layered two coats of it over a couple coats of Essie Find Me an Oasis. It's the lightest blue I own, so it didn't affect the tone of Lebedushka. 

Lebedushka's formula was wonderful; the consistency was perfect, and although the brush was on the fluffy side, it didn't affect my polishing. 

P.S. How freaking cute is the bottle!? Lookit that little owl, all cute and chubby!!! Hands down, the most adorable logo ever.

O.P.I. Absolutely Alice

Absolutely Alice is a polish I never thought I'd own. Really. I'd Google it every so often and stare jealously and hate myself for not buying it when I had the chance. The cheapest I could find it online was around $30. There was no way I'd ever pay that without physically crying, so I held off and pined. 

It was sheer dumb luck that I stumbled upon an unopened bottle on a blog sale. I'd never bought from a blog sale before because I've always been a little intimidated by them, but in less than a minute I'd emailed the owner of the blog and hoped to God it wasn't already spoken for. Needless to say, I squealed (actually squealed) when she emailed back and said it wasn't. And that's not the best part...I paid all of $16 for it. I was so stinkin' pleased with myself. 

If you don't own this polish, I am so sorry. I really am. Here I am smooshing it in your face. But things like this don't happen to me very often. It is available on eBay and Amazon, but for a horrendous price. Or maybe not; I mean, Louboutin is making a polish that is $50...and that's just for a red creme. So I guess it depends on what your definition of horrendous is. 

If you do own this polish, you'll know what I mean when I say pictures do not do it justice one bit. No matter how good the camera is, or the photographer, I've never seen a picture that's been able to capture the subtle nuances of this polish. It's way more than just a blue glitter with gold interspersed throughout. It's freaking poetry. 

Two coats was more than enough to fully cover my nails, and clean up was fairly minimal (I don't know why but my hand is steadier with glitters than any other finish). It inhales top coat though. In order for me to get a somewhat glassy finish, I had to apply around 4 coats of top coat. I don't mind though, it makes removal easier: when I'm ready I just peel it off. Not great for my nails, but it beats scrubbing for hours. 

Please don't hate me for posting this, it was too pretty not to share.

L'Oreal Too Dimensional?

Sorry for the mini-hiatus, I've had low morale/a color hangover for most of the week. And various nail breaks. And PMS.

Allow me to introduce you to the prettiest of the L'Oreal Gold Dusts. Period. No contest. I don't even know what to do with myself, guys. It's a sparkle-splosion of glittery magic. I want to dive headfirst into it and emerge covered in glittery goo and shoot up into the night sky and spray it everywhere like Smaug. 

Also the name is silly. 

I'm sad it didn't photograph properly, but this was as good as I could get it. Too Dimensional? has a deep, inky blue/purple base and is full of the most intense goldy-lemon shimmer, as well as more sparse green and orange shimmer. To top it off, there are lavender/silver hex glitters peppered throughout. This was the only textured polish I've considered top coating; with all the shimmer and glitter, the base gets a bit lost. But it's gorgeous both wet and dry. Much like a good burrito. 

This was two perfect coats, no clean up. L'Oreal, if you are reading this, MAKE MORE GOLD DUSTS. IN ALL THE COLORS. 

Looking forward tonight. I helped my bff get an awesome job, so she's taking me out to dinner at Maggiano's. I don't frequent Los Angeles much, but when I do, Maggiano's is usually involved. Or Canter's. Or Grand Lux Cafe (amazing beignets).

Basically I'll go there for food. 

Hare Polish Let Them Eat...What?

I'm slowly working my way through the rest of my Hare polishes. I've had this one on for three days, hence the bit of tip wear. This is a first for me; I've never had a polish last this long on me and still be in such good condition.  

As always, the description of Let Them Eat...What? is taken from the Hare Polish website:

"Let them Eat...What? is a soft white jelly with a blend of various shapes/sizes of hot orange, baby pink, white & gold glitter. This shade is highlighted by a delicate silver shimmer."

I would have liked to layer it over a white jelly but I don't have one yet. I might actually get one today, if I have time. In the meantime, I layered it over Essie Blanc. It's a pretty, cheerful polish with the right amount of glittery goodness. Formula was great, nice and thin. I did have to 'place' some of the glitters, but that is to be expected with these kinds of polishes. Dry time was wonderful.

Ignore the bits of green on the skin around my cuticles. Taking off my previous manicure was a nightmare. While the polish doesn't stain your nails (which is awesome), it does like to stick to skin. It's such a beautiful color though, so it's hard for me to fault it. I documented my struggle on Instagram...riveting, I know. This is what my life is like now. 

Pretty low today. However, tomorrow's nails will be amazing (and they may possibly make you puke from sweetness overload), so that's something to look forward to.