O.P.I. Chiffon My Mind

Here's another from the O.P.I. spring collection, and I tried so, so hard to get pictures to show the shimmer in it, but of course failed miserably. I'm just not a good photographer. 

Chiffon My Mind is an ethereal pink-tinged white with lots and lots of multi-colored shimmer. It's pretty subdued under artificial light, but really twinkles and pops out in the sunlight. Unfortunately though, the formula is a bit difficult to work with. The consistency is fine, not too thick or thin, but it applies pretty sheer and streaky. A better and more patient painter (with less ridges) than I probably could have gotten away with 3 coats, but I got to 5 before I was happy. Now I don't mind multiple coats of polish as long as the end result looks good, but 5 coats doesn't come without complications...slow drying, bubbles, lumps...ugh. So I turned my stash upside down looking for a good base. Which was harder than I thought, considering it isn't that unique of a polish. 

Luckily I own Orly Cake Pop, which is perfect. It's a pink-tinged white creme from their spring Sugar High collection. It should still be readily available, and hopefully I'll remember to show it on here later because it really deserves its own post.

So. You're looking at 2 coat of Orly Cake Pop and two of Chiffon My Mind. Dry time was great for both polishes. 

O.P.I. Act Your Beige! & Petal Soft

MOAR FLOWERS!

I make the mistake of letting the Soft Shades go by me every year, then around six months later regretting it and scrabbling around trying to get my mitts on them. Not so this year...I bought them ALL. Even the frosty silvery gold that everyone is complaining about (spoiler: I LOVE it). One I even bought a back up of. 

Here's Act Your Beige! and Petal Soft. I've noticed flower glitter is becoming more and more popular, and for good reason. It's freaking adorable. I did one coat, and the flower glitters came out in a huge glob. On my honor. I've been reading reviews about how people have had to fish them out and anyone who says it's easy to get them out is a liar...I can only assume that I've had dumb luck a couple times. I wore it about a week ago over one of my favorite O.P.I.'s ever and got lucky then too, as you can see on my Instagram...3 flowers just came out in one huge glob. I'm curious whether I will get lucky a third time...I'm going to try layering it over Care To Danse? later this month. 

Act Your Beige! isn't a unique color, but gorgeous nonetheless. It looks like a white/beige in the bottle, but seems to read more pinky-white on me, though perhaps it's the pink glitters in Petal Soft bringing the pink tones out. Either way, lovely combo. And I could wax idiotic about the brush. It's the same size all the O.P.I. brushes are, but somehow softer and more pliable, which you need with sheers and jellies to avoid streaks. 

I did four coats of Act Your Beige! and one coat of Petal Soft, which has soft, slightly satiny hex glitters in pink and white, in addition to the cute white flowers. Probably my favorite Soft Shades glitter since Pirouette My Whistle. Nothing could ever top PMW for me, but Petal Soft is giving it a run for its money. 

O.P.I. Taupe-less Beach

Not much to say about this color, except it's perfect. I'm just so in love with mellow, quiet colors right now. 

3 coats. 

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.

China Glaze Pine-ing for Glitter

Finally some time to take some proper photographs! I've sort of forgotten how, but I did my best. Also, I apologize for my dry cuticles...my Zoya remover is running low so I've just been using straight acetone. Probably a bad idea in winter. 

I love this manicure so much, it reminds me of sparkly-frosted sugar cookies. Pine-ing for Glitter is different sizes of pine-green glitter in a clear base. It is also the most easily-spread glitter topper I've encountered. I did one coat over a Wet n Wild white creme and one coat of O.P.I. Funny Bunny (the Wet n Wild looked way too stark). 

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. 

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. 

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.

O.P.I. DS Coronation

Today is a day for a holo, and I've been sitting on a really pretty one since I bought it back in February. The Korean market I like to frequent also has a makeup and skincare section, and a big rack of random O.P.I. polishes. I snapped up Coronation, along with a red and the Liquid Sand from the Oz collection. 

I read that people weren't very happy with Coronation when it came out in 2011. I guess holo ingredients were short then, and people really wanted those IN-YO-FACE holos. However, I'm a fan. I like my holos to be a bit soft around the edges, not blindingly linear. Coronation has a steely silver base, and a very mellow linear holo effect. It's perfect. 

The overall effect is rougher than butter LONDON Dodgy Barnett, which is the only other silver holo I have (I don't count Nfu Oh's #61 since I got one of the bum bottles), and definitely rougher than the Sally Hansen Nail Prisms (my very favorite holos to date-I used up bottles and bottles of those). 

*EDIT* I forgot I have Urban Outfitter's Silver Holo. It is MUCH more linear than either Dodgy Barnett or DS Coronation. 

It is sheer, however. I used four thin coats over Nfu Oh's aqua base to eliminate all the little bald spots. The effort is worth it though, when you see it in sunlight. Just lovely.

4th of July 2014: Yet Another in a Long Line of Unfortunate 4th's.

Ah, hey there 4th. I hate you. 

I mentioned last year that the 4th of July and I don't really get along. Maybe not always the specific day, but the general time is just a low point in the year for me. Let's tally up what's going on, shall we?

1. Finally got my period after two and a half confused months, and I know this joke is soooo old, but the elevator doors in The Shining? Yeah.

2. We had to put Ripley into a special boarding facility because we can't foster her anymore and no one else at the rescue she is with can foster her either. And her adoption process is taking way longer than it should. 

3. She got loose during adoption day and was running around a major highway for at least an hour and a half, and when my boyfriend finally found her she'd torn up her pads somewhat. Not to the point where they were bleeding, but we had to put special ointment on them. 

Boyfriend ended up having to take her alone because I would have been crying the whole time, and I didn't want her to be nervous or scared. I really, really love that shy, skittish little dog. The facility is really nice, the dogs have free run of the place and an outside area to play in, and their own little runs, but we can't visit her. The owner said it isn't allowed unless it's someone looking to adopt her because otherwise if she saw us, she'd think she was going home. That made me cry even harder. I'm still constantly worrying about if they are being patient with her shyness (Boyfriend assures me they are) and if they know her special little ways. 

So anyway, my motivation to do a 4th of July manicure was low, but I'd just gotten China Glaze Dorothy Who? and the glitter was calling to me. Glitter generally has the ability to cheer me up. 

'Merica. Freedom. Yay.

I did three coats of Dorothy Who?, which is basically the blue version of Ruby Pumps with some silver glitter thrown in. Gorgeous and glittery and smooth. China Glaze needs to make a glitter like this in every color. Then I painted my ring and pinky with O.P.I. My Boyfriend Scales Walls and topped it with one coat of Hare Polish Married to the Monarchy. Last year I layered it over Big Apple Red, which was a mistake since the red glitters got lost in it. I like this pairing much better. 

I'm not wearing this for the 4th. I took these pictures yesterday and immediately took it off and put My Boyfriend Scales Walls back on, which is such an awesome grey-tinged white. Definitely keeping it on for a few days.

O.P.I. Chillin' Like a Villain

A while back I promised more peach manicures, and while I wanted to make good on that I have to admit that I was a little intimidated. While I really liked what Jenna Hipp Hashtag on me, peach is not an easy color to pull off. 

Chillin' Like a Villain is awesome though. It's a really soft, white-based peaches-n'-cream color that isn't stark at all. After seeing so many swatches of it I gave in, thinking that if it didn't look good on me I could always pawn it off on my sister. Luckily though, I am in love. 

Application was a bit of a chore, though; it's a little streaky. You're looking at four thin coats and I still had to cross my fingers (carefully) and hope that top coat would take care of the unevenness. Dry time, however, was amazing.