Urban Outfitters Silver Holo

Even though the holographic craze is still going strong, the scramble to get them is dying down, and I’m really happy about that. One reason I haven’t broken into the indie polish craze yet is because it’s so damn hard to get your hands on them; I’m really turned off by how they’re sold and how quickly they go. I just don’t want to have to fight a thousand other girls for a nail polish. Also, very few of them impress me. I think Hare has made a few that I would be interested in buying, but whenever I go to Llarowe, they’re gone. And I have to look up times for the next sale, and wait, and…just ugh.

Mass manufacturing has ruined me, I guess.

But holos are becoming more readily available, and that’s really wonderful, because everyone deserves to have a good holo in their arsenal. My first was a Sally Hansen Nail Prism (which I still have and love) way back when, and to date, those remain my favorite types of holos. But when I saw the Urban Outfitters one, I was willing to give it a try. For the amount you get, it’s a very reasonable price, I think ($10 for .5 oz).

Silver Holo is…well, a silver holo. I mostly love it, but there are aspects of it I don’t like. In the sun, it just explodes. My pictures are poor conveyors of how holographic it really is…think of the amount of rainbow you see and double it. Triple it, even.

The formula is thin, even, and streak-free. And the really cool thing is, when indoors, the flat silver will reflect yellow light and look almost pale gold. So you get almost a duochrome effect, but not quite.

What I do not like: unless you’re in the sun and you get the explosive rainbow effect, or in soft light where you can see the gold elements, this polish has the look and reflection of dull car paint. Which is of course to be expected, but it sill makes me sad. I want sparkle all the time! I also experienced a tiny bit of bubbling, but that was on my end-I didn’t wait for  the previous coats to dry before applying the next.

3 coats of Silver Holo over a coat of Nfu Oh’s Aqua base, and no top coat. I wasn’t sure if it would dull or not, so I erred on the safe side. So…gorgeous, yes? I’ll probably be wearing this a lot during the summer, and just hang out outside staring at my nails.

China Glaze For Audrey

Ah. The blue that started it all.

Do I even need to explain this color? Pretty aqua/robin’s egg blue inspired by the Tiffany’s box.

My best friend and I perused the Tiffany’s store at South Coast Plaza once, and I about passed out when I saw some of the price tags. Cute stuff, but good god. I don’t wear a lot of jewelry to begin with though-just a gold wire ring, and a gold locket my sister gave me (I like gold).

My middle finger nail is a bit messed up because of a peeling incident, but other than that, I’d say this is one of the more perfect mani’s I’ve done while under the influence of my sleeping pills. I am officially awesome.

3 coats of For Audrey, and a coat of Out the Door, which is approaching the very bottom of the 2 oz. bottle (that’s how much I love it-I bought one of those huge ball bottles); I’m literally at the dregs, and it’s awful. I’m curious about the NYC top coat I’ve been hearing about, I might pick it up once I can’t fish anymore OtD out of the bottle.

O.P.I. Pirouette My Whistle & O.P.I. You Callin’ Me a Lyre?

Sorry, these aren’t the best pictures but it’s Friday, and every moment I’m not in my room, in my underwear, with the lights off and the fan on eating Claim Jumper chocolate pie and playing video games is a moment wasted.

No, just kidding. I have a paper to write first. Then underwear-fan-pie-gaming.

I gave my thesis presentation on Wednesday and it has literally taken me from Wednesday till to today to feel back to my normal self. I am a frightened rabbit when it comes to public speaking up until the point when I’m looking at the audience. Then my adrenal glands burst and  I get this kind of superhuman strength and am able to pretend I’m a competent student that does amazing research while balancing a normal social life rather than what I really am-socially apathetic and prone to spending days at a time home in my room reading up on carnies, leaving only for groceries and shampoo/nail polish.

And don’t even get me started on the outfit I had to shop for…I practically had a meltdown at the mall. I LOATHE buying any clothing in-store-I do most of it online, and as a result, I have several nice, ill-fitting, unworn pieces in my closet. I’ll go to the grocery store, the drug store, beauty supply and the mall when I’m with my best friend and we’re just tramping around for exercise while drinking massive amounts of diet coke. Everything else is online.

ANYWAY, once my fight-or-flight has subsided, I’m left exhausted and physically sore, so all I can really do is sleep it off. But I feel much better, and was in the mood for something soft and sparkly today.

The New York Ballet collection is probably the best thing O.P.I. has ever done, with the exception of a few individual polishes, in my opinion. I’m still minus Don’t Touch My Tutu, but I’m having massive amounts of fun with the others. I chose You Callin’ Me a Lyre?, which is a soft pinky-peach jelly with a divine, streak-free formula, and put Pirouette My Whistle on top (because why not?). It’s so girly and fresh and springy. I still can’t get over the cute rose-colored glitters that are interspersed with the silver sparkles and pearly hexes. It’s just so unexpected.

So this was 3 thin coats of You Callin’ Me A Lyre?, and one of Pirouette My Whistle. Dry time was a bit longer than average, but that’s to be expected with jellies. And in my exhaustion I forgot to take pictures of my presentation nails, but they were awesome. I chose O.P.I. My Very First Knockwurst (one of my top 5 all-time favorite polishes) and put China Glaze White Cap on top (I told you guys I was obsessed with layering it over everything-it can do no wrong!) and the effect was great-nice, clean, professional-looking nails…WITH SPARKLE!

Time for paper writing. Till next time!

Deborah Lippmann Boom Boom Pow & O.P.I. Thanks a Windmillion

Here’s my second attempt at a gradient tip; I’ve gotta say, it’s an improvement from my first.

Since Boom Boom Pow’s already been seen, let’s dive right into Thanks a Windmillion. It’s a gorgeous, soft green, a bit more greyed out than the pictures let on. I thought it would be closer to O.P.I. Mermaid’s Tears, but it seems to be slightly darker. Still beautiful though, and perfect for spring. I haven’t had this manicure on 24 hours and I’ve gotten three compliments on it. 


The way Boom Boom Pow compliments Thanks a Windmillion is just lovely-I never want to take this off.

China Glaze White Cap & Revlon Gum Drop

Why does every lavender I own seem to want to bubble up on me?

I mean, look! Even through White Cap’s shimmer you can see massive bubbles. I’ve even gone so far as to test other colors [pink, navy, and green so far] and i haven’t had problems with them! Has the world gone mad!? All I want to wear right now is lavender and life isn’t letting me. :(

I’m going to try to try and look past those two irritants. But ugh, it’s hard.

Gum Drop is one of those scented polishes Revlon released a while ago. I guess it’s supposed to smell like bubblegum or something, but it reminds me more of those cotton-candy flavored gourmet lollipops you see in drugstores. It’s pretty powerful at first, but peters off after a few hours. Anyway, it’s a truly sickening shade of adorable lavender with a crelly-ish formula, and slightly blue-based.  It’s the epitome of spring, and I love it so much and I hate that it’s bubbling! GAAAH.

As for White Cap, it’s magic in a bottle. I’ve been layering this over every color I can get my mitts on; it just makes everything look good. It gives this ethereal glow to lighter colors and a gorgeous white-gold sparkle to darker ones. I haven’t tried it on its own yet, but I imagine it could make even my uneven smile lines beautiful.

Misa Dance Fever & China Glaze Kinetic Candy

My sponging skills are still pretty poor, but I LOVE LOVE LOVE this manicure. I’m just head over heels for the color combination.

Dance Fever is a full-coverage silver glitter in a slightly tinted grey base. It’s your standard silver glitter, but something about it makes me love it more than other silver glitters I’ve seen. I couldn’t tell you what makes it different…maybe the formula? I’m about a fourth the way down my bottle and it hasn’t gunked up on me yet. And it just seems to sparkle more, even in the shade.

As for Kinetic Candy….hubba hubba. It’s a beautiful, watery pale blue with a PERFECT formula. Just outstanding. No bubbling, self-leveling…not to mention the China Glaze brush which is great. Plus…no lobster hands, yay! I really can’t rave enough about this color, and China Glaze in general, really. I’m most definitely going to be using this color a TON in the future.

So…3 coats of Kinetic Candy, and a sponging of Dance Fever on top. Like I said, I’m still honing my sponging skills, but for a first attempt it’s not too bad. Right?

And also, I have no clue why Tumblr is messing up my photo arrangements, it’s annoying. I may have mentioned before, I HATE inconsistency. It makes my skin crawl.

Essie Da Bush

Please excuse the dry cuticles (too tired and lazy to moisturize last night) and the dents (as if I wasn’t going to munch on Pringles whilst watching tv). Even though I love this polish, my heart just wasn’t into manicuring last night…I was in ‘watch-30-Rock-until-I-pass-out-while-eating-junk-food’ mode.

Da Bush is a soft, dusty sage color with just a drop of yellow, but I like to think of it as “creamed seaweed”. In some lights though, it can look more taupe-y grey/khaki colored.

This was three thin coats, dry time was great (I swear, I was just too impatient to wait for it to dry before shoving my hand down the Pringles tube).

I’d love to do a sponge-gradient with some silver glitter on this!

Revlon Blue Slate

These ColorStay polishes are RIDICULOUS. I’ve had this on almost a week, and look how well it’s held up! I need more of these.

So this is Blue Slate, a gorgeous blue-grey. It sort of reminds me of a Sally Hansen CSM I saw on the blog circuit recently, but I feel like Blue Slate may be just a hair greener. And for whatever reason, when I see this color, I think Parisian blue. I have no idea if that’s even a thing…I know there’s Parisian red, but blue? Regardless, that’s what I think. And whenever I put it on I inevitably pull out my black and cream colored stripey shirt (and possibly a floppy beret) and walk around feeling chic. It’s a perfect “dark spring” color.

The formula on this is like buttah. And holy cow is it pigmented…I needed only one coat, but of course did three because I’m neurotic. I was also experimenting with toppers, and can confirm that China Glaze Whitecap looks DYNAMITE over this.

I’m in a really relaxed mood…yesterday was my year anniversary with my boyfriend, and I’ve gotta say, it’s been the happiest year of my life. That man is amazing. So we had a day filled with all the things we like to do best-picnic, marathon tv-watching, gaming, and so on.

Also, hello to new followers!!! Sadly I cannot follow back since this is a secondary Tumblr, but rest assured I am keeping up with your blogs on my primary!! Thank you!

CND Copper Shimmer & Orly Bon Bon

Oh Bon Bon. My beautiful problem child. It’s the one polish in my stash I long to wear all the time, but can’t because it throws such horrific tantrums.

It’s a lovely greyed-out lavender jelly with just a drop of slate blue. It’s understated, edgy, AND a jelly…it’s my polish soul mate. But the bubbles. Oh the bubbles. I’m not sure if I got a bad bottle, but no matter what temperature it happens to be when I apply it, I get terrible bubbling. Like the type of bubbles sand crabs leave at the beach. The formula is thick, though not unmanageable, but also a bit…fluffy. I’m hoping if I thin it out (more than I already have), it’ll behave itself.

So what do I do when the urge to wear this becomes overwhelming? I slap CND Copper Shimmer over it. This stuff is GOLD (but not really). I LOVE CND’s effects polishes, and have quite a few on my wish list. Copper Shimmer is just amazing…it transforms any manicure into awesome. And the beautiful pinky-copper sheen it gives Bon Bon is pure magic. MAGIC I SAY!

This was 2 1/2 coats of Bon Bon and one of Copper Shimmer. Dry time was terrible, thanks to Bon Bon, and I definitely experienced sheet marks, mostly on the left hand, which I will omit for perfectionist reasons. I’ll try this again once I thin out my Orly and I’ll see if I can’t make it even more magical and princess-y (perhaps a Boom Boom Pow accent nail? My brain might explode).

China Glaze Glistening Snow

I wanted to wait until my nails grew out a bit before doing another manicure, and while I was waiting I had a horrible, horrible week (and no, it was not because I couldn’t wear nail polish). Suffice to say life could be a lot worse…but it could be a lot better too. So I decided that I needed glitter in my life. Lots of it. Glitter has this way of cheering me up, despite it being a pain in the ass to remove. I don’t wear full-coverage glitters very often, but when I do, I really enjoy them.

This polish was released last winter, but it certainly can be worn year-round. Glistening Snow is a GORGEOUS, and surprisingly tame glitter-fine, pure silver glitter with holographic glitters interspersed in it. Inside it takes on a really soft grey-ish hue and the rainbow particles glitter when the light hits them, but once its in the sun it becomes a disco ball of sparkles. But the cool thing about it is that it’s a tame disco ball. I can’t think of another term to describe it! It’s not over-the-top blingy, but almost chic and grown up. Probably the most fun polish I’ve put on all year.

This was 2 1/2 to 3 coats. Dry time was reasonable, and two coats of top coat-one of Out the Door and one of an old Sally Hansen that I had lying around and want to get rid of. I really need to get that bottle of Gelous, because even after two coats it was sort of gritty. I actually liked it sans top coat (it’s kind of similar to the new texture polishes that are big now-matte and gritty but quite sparkly) but I thought it would chip faster if I didn’t seal it up.