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. 

Finger Paints Santa's Little Topper

Hopefully this won't be my last Christmas manicure, but it's a distinct possibility since I'm working full-time this week, running errands, and doing the Christmas shopping. I have a couple ideas rolling around in my head, and I was hoping for a chance to try something new, but I would be okay with redoing my manicure from last year, which I really enjoyed. 

I tried a few times to photograph this exact manicure last season, but just never got the right light angle, or it would chip before I could get good pictures of it, or any other number of reasons I didn't get many good holiday manicures documented last year. Santa's Little Topper is such a nice, gentle, subtle Christmas glitter; it looks good over almost any color, but my favorite combination is with Essie Mint Candy Apple. It's sort of a pastel, marshmallow-y, retro Christmas combination. Or snowdrifts and birch branches and holly berries. Santa's Little Topper is, I believe, the only glitter I own that contains bar glitter, which I would never, ever own under usual circumstances because bar glitter offends every atom in my body. But I can overlook it in this case because it is so small and sparse. 

Another thing I like about Santa's Little Topper is that the suspension is slightly red-tinged, so it sort of changes the tone of the base. Mint Candy Apple is a little intense for me as a winter polish, but a thin coat of a clear, red-tinged topper like SLT and it becomes a little dirtier, and a little more grey, which reminds me more of snow. 

1 coat of Santa's Little Topper over 2 of Mint Candy Apple. A few of my little students like to see what new nails I have every week, and they really, really liked this one. 

Essie In The Lobby

September! Pre-Halloween month! I was at CVS the other day and they already had out decorations and candy and lots of Fall nail polish collections. I got really excited, so even though I'm nursing a really bad head cold, I couldn't resist using one of the new Fall Essies. 

In The Lobby is not a unique color by any means, but it's just what I need after a summer of friggin' color. Inside it is your garden variety vamp. It could be red, or purple, or even brown...but you'll never know until you get into better light. Sunlight and bright artificial light reveal it to be a deep purple wine. Again, nothing ground breaking, but really refreshing.

This was two coats, another would have just been gilding the lily. It definitely applies darker than it is in the bottle, but c'mon. Vamps. Are. The. Best. 

Now I'm off to nurse this stupid cold and prepare for all the Fall things. 

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. 

American Apparel Berry

I forgot that when you wear dark colors, any little smudge will show up. Boo.

I was in the mood for something dark and moody to go with my nubs, but I didn't want anything overtly Halloween yet. Enter Berry.

American Apparel Berry is a purply, berry-red color. It's nice and rich, and really comes to life in sunlight. Inside it comes dangerously close to becoming a garden-variety dark red, but there's enough purple in it to keep it from being boring. All I needed was two coats.

They must have improved on the brush because it wasn't nearly so floppy and long as the other American Apparels I own. I had great control, and needed barely any clean up.

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. I Sing in Color

I hadn't expected to pick up any of the Gwen Stefani polishes except Love.Angel.Music.Baby., but Sally's was having a sale and how does one say no to $4 O.P.I.'s? I dropped in after a doctor's appointment on Tuesday and ended up buying L.A.M.B., I Sing in Color, and Hey Baby. If I'm being totally honest, I really, REALLY wanted to find Over and Over A-Gwen; when it came out I wasn't willing to pay $15 for an O.P.I. creme and some stencils I'll probably never use. If I can find it cheaper somewhere else, I'll definitely pounce, but I just don't understand why that one had to be sold with stencils and stuff. Why not just sell them separately? Or in a box with minis? Ugh. I don't know. I'm annoyed by everything today. 

I Sing in Color is a pretty standard vamp. It looks very deep brown or black most of the time, but it's really a deep burgundy red. Pretty, but not anything special. It doesn't outstrip my two favorite O.P.I. vamps (Give Me Moor! & Black Cherry Chutney), but it's always nice to have a stash of vamps. What I didn't expect was the streaking! The first coat of I Sing in Color is just an absolute brat-uncooperative, streaky, patchy, and dragging issues. The second coat covered most of it up, but I could have done with a third coat-not sure why I decided against it. 

This is just begging for some gold. 

Revlon Parfumerie China Flower

Who's up for a neon red? I sure as hell am, and surprisingly, so is my grandmother! 

She lets me paint her nails with Deborah Lippmann Diamonds and Pearls because she doesn't like color on her nails, but enjoys the shimmer. But she LOVES red nail polish. I've been sitting on China Flower since January and when I asked her if she'd like me to paint her nails with it she said yes:

She can't stop looking at her hand, guys. It's adorable. I wish I'd been able to do a better job on her manicure, but it's SO HARD to paint other people's nails. The girls at physical therapy are going to be so excited to see her nails. 

China Flower is a neon red. That's the best I can do explaining the color, and my camera freaked out at the brightness. It's about a bazillion times more saturated in real life. I'm not a fan of neons at all, but red is a bit of an exception, since it's amazing in every way. It's bright, punchy, in-your-face, and very summery. I told my sister (who has really lovely olive skin) that she HAS to wear this as a pedicure, it'd look dynamite on her. It's so bright that any skin tone can pull it off, even me. 

The gimmick with these Parfumerie polishes is they have a scent. I don't know what china flower is supposed to smell like, but I doubt it's what's in the bottle. It smells very musky and woody, not unpleasant, but nothing like a flower. The smell is super mild, not overpowering at all. I have to be careful though, I keep bringing my fingers up to my nose to sniff them...don't want to do that in public. 

So yes, a nice punchy color to usher in spring. I used three coats on myself, and two on my grandmother. I've got quite a bit more visible nail line than she does, and while it doesn't bother me to have it, I wanted to soften it a bit. Plus, you know, three coats is the magic number. 

O.P.I. Got the Blues for Red

VA. VA. VOOM. Also, HUBBA HUBBA. And PHWOAR.

Is there such a thing as sex bottled as nail polish? The answer is yes, and it is Got the Blues for Red.

It was apparent that yesterday was not my day. It was full of struggle and sadness and frustration; when it came to a close I needed to do something for myself. So off to S-Mart I went.

S-Mart (and no, not the same S-Mart from Army of Darkness, although the first time boyfriend and I saw it we became giddy) is a charming little Korean supermarket that is pretty much the most amazing thing ever. They have TONS of different types of food, a beautiful little bakery, and a makeup and nail polish section. Food? Nail polish? Baked goods? Cool, I'm in heaven now.

They sell this absolutely DIVINE chiffon Swiss Roll cake so I picked up that, as well as some lychee jelly cups (gals of my vintage will remember swapping them in elementary school-you were the bees knees if you had them in your lunch box),  then dove over to the nail polish rack. They have an O.P.I. rack where the polishes are around eight bucks. I found DS Coronation, What Wizardry is This?, and Got the Blues for Red. YUM.

Got the Blues for Red is a deep, rich, sexy, blue-based blood red. It's ridiculously shiny on its own, and with the addition of top coat it's so damn reflective that it picked up EVERYTHING as I tried to photograph it, which is sort of obscuring the color a bit (note to self: make a freaking light box!). Indoors it takes on a browner color akin to a rich chocolate-dipped cherry, but under sunlight and bright indoor light you can see the blue tones. They may be a dime a dozen, but nobody knows how to do a red like O.P.I. All my favorite reds are by them. It looks so femme fatale and expensive.

So I guess when you need a fresh start, don't use a palate cleanser. Use the deepest, sexiest red you can get your hands on. I can't express what a morale booster this polish has been.

This was three perfect, buttery coats, with GCS on top, and hardly any clean up, since it went exactly where I put it; my cuticles are over the moon about this.

I think it's time to pull out my spring/summer colors for a change of pace, but I'll be keeping Got the Blues for Red on while I'm doing it. I can't bear to take this beauty off so soon.

butter LONDON Saucy Jack

It's been a while since I've worn a good, old-fashioned red creme. So long, in fact, that I've forgotten how to photograph them. These pictures are pretty awful, and the third one is the only really color-accurate one (in sunlight, anyway. Like all deep reds, it's a bit of a chameleon). Still, I feel like a fox. 

I hadn't planned on buying anything from butter LONDON's Last Orders sale, but for $7.50 a pop? Not too bad. I picked up five and Saucy Jack was one of them. Not a unique color in the slightest, but damn if I don't feel like a million bucks in this polish. There's just something about dark red, right?

Formula was excellent. It has a similar creme-jelly formula to Jaffa, but without the blood, sweat, and tears. Three coats and I was good to go. Under sunlight it brightens up, but the rest of the time it stays dark and demure. 

Now that I've got this on, I almost don't want to go back to my texture binge. 

Almost.