Surprise Love - Wet n Wild Blitzen

Honestly, I just bought this one for the name (of course, because I have a white shepherd named Blitzen). This sat in a drawer since last Christmas, untried because I wasn't actually interested in the color.

Wet n Wild Blitzen (over HITS - Hermes)

I was wearing HITS Hermes earlier and just wasn't feeling it (actually, I was ready to take it off right after swatching it yesterday, but chose to give it a chance), so I decided to try and save it by putting Blitzen over it. It definitely helped. I'm putting off more swatching now just so I can wear this a while longer because it's just too pretty! Blitzen has a sheer cream shimmery base, with gold micro glitter and a dash of magenta hex glitter. It was a bit of a pain getting the magenta glitter onto the nail, but I discovered a trick. After wiping the brush on the bottle edge, the magenta glitters tend to stick to the bottle, so if you wait for the nail polish to run down, you can scoop up some extra glitters pretty easily. It took a little pushing around to get it even, but it didn't take long and the result looked flawless.

This was from Wet n Wild's Megalast collection for Christmas 2010, but I think looks more like a Valentine's Day polish. In fact, I'll probably wear this again for Valentine's Day but maybe I'll try it over a pink or a red!

HITS No Olimpo - Hermes

This is the only HITS No Olimpo polish I've tried so far. I've been looking for the perfect gold holo, but still don't feel like I've found one.

HITS - Hermes

These pictures show three coats, but in my opinion, it was prettier at two. When I added the third coat it became more grey/green-ish instead of the warm light gold it was at two coats. It still looks neat, and I like the finish it has. It hovers between a metallic and a pearl finish, with a subtle, linear holo effect. Here is what it looks like in indirect sunlight. You can see that the holo is very subdued. This is very much a work appropriate color, and it does look quite elegant.

For some reason I haven't been feeling the need to get the HITS No Olimpo collection. Maybe it's because I have a bunch of Spectraflair that I should probably use to create my own new colors (including my perfect gold)?

EDIT: I forgot to add that I got my HITS No Olimpo from Llarowe. They're a little pricey at $10 for 6mL (normal bottle of polish is 15mL), and they're in and out of stock a lot, so you just have to get them whenever you find them available.

Essie - Armed and Ready (with comparison)

Ever since I first saw swatches of Essie Armed and Ready, I knew I wanted it. I love army greens and I love gold and copper shimmer.

Essie - Armed and Ready

Armed and Ready is a greenish, bluish grey with a subtle gold/copper shimmer. Like Rescue Beauty Lounge's Piumosso, the shimmer doesn't show very much in low lighting, but shines more in direct sun. It's pretty opaque and takes only two thin coats to cover fully. Honestly, I was a little disappointed. I like more prominent shimmers in polishes, and I was hoping it was more of a drab olive green. Oh well, it's still pretty, just not as much as I was hoping for.

Essie Armed and Ready & S-he 466

It didn't occur to me to compare these two until I grabbed up S-he 466 to give as an extra little something for the giveaway. But they are actually very close! The base in 466 is a tiny bit lighter and bluer, and it's not as opaque. You can see a couple of bald spots in the pic, so it could maybe use a third coat. The shimmer is a little more evident in 466 and a tad bit more yellow gold than the bronze-y gold of Armed and Ready. From a distance, I can't tell the difference at all, so in my opinion, there's no need to own both.

Essie's new collection (including Armed and Ready) is now available in stores such as Target, Walgreens, and Ulta.  The S-he is a little harder to get in the US.  I got it in a swap with a girl in Slovenia (Dolores from Colorful Bottle).

Gelish - Twinkle

This is my first ever Gelish manicure. Now I should start out by saying that I am NOT a professional nail tech (not licensed either). But since I bought a SensatioNail kit at Wal-Mart recently, I've been so excited to see which other products work with the mini LED lamp that it came with.

Now I've seen the Gelish Mini system at Sally's, so does this mean they are marketing it for DIY at home use? I have no idea, but their Mini selection is kinda limited so I went searching the internet for the more sparkly and unique Gelish polishes. This I bought from a seller on Amazon for about $12 (not bad considering the Mini's cost $12-13 each at Sally's).

Gelish - Twinkle

Let me tell you, I searched high and low for a good swatch that showed the true color of Twinkle (and Bronzed as well... I was deciding between the two) but hardly found one. I KNEW I wanted a gold glitter soak-off gel (we all know how I LOVE gold glitter!) and I figured it'd be reasonable to buy a full-size bottle.

OHMYGOOSES, I'm in love. This has that wonderful bronze-gold glitter that looks somewhat like Butter London West End Wonderland and Milani Gold Glitz (except this glitter is all one color, not a mix). As if that weren't awesome enough already it also has a tiny bit of IRIDESCENT GLITTER too! *GASP... SWOON* It's hard to portray just how captivated I am with this color, especially because I praise almost everything I put on my blog, but seriously, it's perfect. The only thing about it is that it takes four coats to look like this picture, and because of that it's a little bit thick.

So here's the deal.  I have no idea how this will wear or even how long I'll keep it on, but if it DOES chip or have problems, it's probably my own doing.  Again, I'm not a nail tech and as this is supposed to be used by a professional, I don't really think I can fault the Gelish itself if it doesn't last.  However, I will comment on the wear of it in the future just to give you an idea of how it lasts.

Here is what I used for this manicure:  SensatioNail clear base/top coat gel (1 coat), Gelish Twinkle (four coats), and Red Carpet Manicure Brilliance (top coat gel, 1 coat), each layer cured for 30 sec in the SensatioNail 3060 LED lamp.

I will be posting a review of the SensatioNail kit as a whole shortly, as well as giving away the starter kit and an extra shade for my next giveaway at 500 followers!

The Trial Giveaway WINNER!

So, the giveaway for Essence Bonnie and Clyde is over!!  And it went really freaking smoothly (Rafflecopter makes it REALLY easy to manage and verify entries and pick a winner)! Now I'm super excited, and am really looking forward to doing a giveaway at 500 followers.

Now on to the winner!

Rafflecopter chose entry number 13 as the winner, and this was SARAH from Chalkboard Nails! If you haven't checked out her blog yet, it is AWESOME! Plus, she's a fellow Arizona nail blogger, so she's really SUPER awesome :o)

Congratulations, Sarah!


a Rafflecopter giveaway

NYC - Prospect Park Pink

You will not often see pink polishes on my blog, but sometimes I find one that I have to try. The other day I saw a swatch of what was labeled "NYC Uptown," so I figured I'd look for it when I went to Wal-Mart. As it turned out, Uptown was much more cool-toned than the picture had shown (maybe it was mislabeled, and I haven't been able to find the picture again), and what I was looking for was more of a warm salmon pink. So I looked through the rest and noticed Prospect Park Pink which looked just like the picture I'd seen!

NYC - Prospect Park Pink

Cool-toned pinks (like many other cool-toned polishes) make my fingers look "dirty" for some reason. But nice corals and warm pinks are quite flattering, just usually not up my alley. This one is quite pretty and took two coats to be opaque.  It has a subtle white, pearly shimmer. Very nice!


Just a reminder, tomorrow is the last day to enter my giveaway for Bonnie and Clyde! 

Some Nicole by OPI Kardashian Kolors

Here are my picks from the Nicole by OPI Kardashian Kolors collection. I find myself buying a LOT of glitters lately, and I'm actually WEARING them all, despite the dreaded removal. (If I'm completely honest...  I peel glitter off a lot of times.  I know it's not good, but it actually doesn't seem do do much damage at all, or I wouldn't keep doing it).

Nicole by OPI - Kendall on the Katwalk (over Khloe Had...)

What an awesome blend of glitters! How had someone not done this combo before (that I've seen)?! I used to think glitters were best on their own (built up to be opaque), but lately I think that they seem to have more depth over a similar base color. Plus they're easier to remove that way. This is stunning in person. Super shiny and eye catching!

Nicole by OPI - Disco Dolls

We all know how much I LOVE gold glitter, and this is no exception. The multicolor glitter in this and it's bronze-gold glitter base just set this one apart. This is two easy coats and it's perfectly opaque. My favorite here, and I knew it would be. *swoon*

Nicole by OPI - Follow Me on Glitter

Seems to be the same formula as Disco Dolls, but with pewter color glitter instead of gold. And somehow, the colors seem to be a little "lost" in this. It is still an awesome color (along with every other charcoal grey glitter), but just not as showy as Disco Dolls. This was two coats on it's own.

Nicole by OPI - Follow Me on Glitter & Wet'n'Wild Diamond in the Rough

I managed to compare this to Diamond in the Rough before I took it off the other day. I think this is the reason I feel that Follow Me is a bit... dull. The holo glitter amongst the grey is just so much more flashy than the colored glitter. Diamond in the Rough also had a slightly bluer base glitter.

Nicole by OPI - Khloe Had a Little Lam Lam

Not sure why I liked this one so much to get it, but it's an awesome teal. Smooth and glossy on it's own, and just plain pretty. Two easy coats.

Nicole by OPI - Khloe Had..., OCC Blackboard, and RBL Teal

I thought I might have a dupe in my collection, but I don't. The two closest I had were Obsessive Compulsive Cosmetics Blackboard and Rescue Beauty Lounge Teal. Blackboard is obviously much lighter and much greener. Teal looked like a dupe in the bottle, but on the nail it is obviously a tad bit lighter (hard to tell here) and more blue. The funny thing was that Khloe got darker and greener when it dried than when it was first applied. Both Blackboard and Khloe had more of a jelly formula than Teal, which is a very opaque creme. I think my favorite of them was Khloe, because I like green base tones with the darker shade.

Which were your favorites from the Kardashian Kolors?


If you haven't already, be sure to enter my giveaway here to win Essence Nail Art Twins Bonnie and Clyde!

Sephora by OPI - To the Glitter End

There's kind of a funny story behind getting this polish. I'll tell it after the swatches. To begin with, I got this because it looked like a dupe for Deborah Lippmann's I Love the Nightlife. I don't know if it's a perfect dupe since I don't have Nightlife, but it looks pretty much the same.

Sephora by OPI - To the Glitter End over ManGlaze Fuggen Ugly

This is another one of those chunky hexagon glitters like the Milani Jewel FX in silver and gold (by the way, I actually found Silver at Wal-Mart the other day!!). It'd be difficult to get to be "opaque," but probably possible. But I love the dark charcoal color of the glitter. I'm pretty sure that every time I want "black glitter," this is the color I REALLY want.

Now here's the story:

I went into Sephora at Union Square (the one at the end of the Powell cable car line), and asked one of the sales reps if they had this color. I had picked up the display one to show her which one I wanted. She made a big show to say "Wow! That's not even supposed to be out there! We're not allowed to sell that one yet!" Yeah right... I'd been to at least two Sephora's in the Phoenix, AZ area and they were all sold out of it, and it was available online but I didn't want to pay shipping. I told her both of those things, but to no avail.

Let me tell you, she was just MAKING SHIT UP. Maybe was just too lazy to go get some from the back, but whatever.

So later, my sister went in to see if she could get it. As it turned out, the guy she asked went right in to the back and put more on the shelf and gave her two to buy. I was SUPER happy that she got one for me, but still pissed about the lazy, full-of-bs sales rep. I kind of wish I would have gone back to her and warned her that she's losing business for her store and it will probably come bite her in the ass...


If you haven't already, be sure to enter my giveaway here to win Essence Nail Art Twins Bonnie and Clyde!

TRIAL GIVEAWAY: Essence Nail Arts Twins - Bonnie & Clyde!

Ok, so here's the deal.  I've never done a giveaway simply because I didn't really know how.  But now I'm starting to do my research and figure it out a little.

When I hit 400 followers last weekend, it made me realize how much I would love to give back to all of you for your wonderful comments and providing me with motivation to keep swatching and blogging.  So in the works is a giveaway for when I hit 500 followers, but in the meantime I wanted to test out this giveaway stuff and see how it goes and iron out any wrinkles that I discover.

So here is the motivation for this giveaway:

1. To provide a little something to my wonderful followers.
2. For ME to gain some understanding in the giveaway department so any in the future will go smoothly and easily
3. To promote my new Facebook page for Goose's Glitter.  It's new, and I haven't gotten all of my pictures into the gallery yet, but it's developing and I'd love for all of you to join me there if you'd like!
4. To maybe gain a few extra followers in the process to reach that 500 goal mark so I can start planning a "real" giveaway. 

On to the fun stuff: THE PRIZE!

For this little trial giveaway, I decided to make the prize kind of small to keep it a bit more simple.  When I did a swap with Dolores over at Colorful Bottle, she sent me some extras (duplicates), and I wanted to share a couple with you.  This is Essence Nail Art Twins Bonnie & Clyde:

And the swatches:

Essence - Bonnie

Essence - Bonnie and Clyde

The color is a tad bit more green than the picture shows, but for some reason my camera has a hard time with teal/green.  Bonnie is almost a one-coater, and is perfectly smooth and glossy at two coats.  And don't you just LOVE the square holo glitter in Clyde?!  I don't know why other companies haven't jumped on THAT bandwagon in the midst of all the "multi-glitter" polishes out lately!

The prize bottles are brand new and unopened (as far as I know - they don't have any wrappings on them or anything).

And now, on to the not-so-fun stuff: the rules.

• All entries must be submitted within the Rafflecopter widget below (requires Javascript).
• All entries will be verified.  Broken links or unverifiable "follows" or "likes" will be disqualified.
• Duplicate entries will be disqualified.
• Comments on this or any other post will NOT be counted as entries.
• This is open to everyone.  While I cannot GUARANTEE that it will get to you, I will do my best to ship both within the US and internationally.

This list of rules is not exhaustible, as I may have left some out since this is my first giveaway.  I plan to learn some by experience, so keep this in mind.  I do reserve the right to cancel or postpone this giveaway at any time should problems arise, but I will do my best to work them out (and of course, I will keep you updated should I encounter any issues along the way).

I look forward to seeing how this goes (good or bad!) so that I may improve on it for the next time!  Thank you all for your support and good luck!

Pure Ice - Year of the Dragon Swatches and Review

I've been over the whole crackle thing for a long time now. In fact, I don't even know if I ever really liked it. I can only think of one time that I left crackle on my nails for more than a day. Somehow, this one blew me away! When I first got the press release email, I instantly loved it and hoped it was going to be awesome in reality. It is.

Here is the promo shot for the Year of the Dragon (ShowStopper - Crackle Duo Gold and Red) set by Pure Ice:

From the press release:

"In 2012, Chinese New Year Day will be celebrated on January 23. The New Year festival will start from January 22 (Chinese New Year' Eve) and end on February 6 (Lantern Festival). 2012 marks the 4710th Chinese New Year, and this time it is the Year of Dragon according to the Chinese zodiac calendar.

The Dragon is the 5th sign of the Chinese zodiac and it is regarded as an auspicious symbol which stands for power, good luck, success, and happiness.

Since ancient times, the Chinese New Year was considered as the time to honor ancestors and heavenly deities. In addition, it was the time to organize family gatherings and grand feasts.

There is a legend associated with the celebration of New Year in China. There was a monster named Nian who used to harass the villagers by eating their crops, cattle and taking away their kids. The villagers had no other option but to place food at the entrance to their homes so that the monster would eat it and go away without harming them.

One day, the villagers realized that the monster was scared of red color. So, they adorned their doors and windows with red paper cutouts and spring scrolls. The villagers also burst crackers to frighten the monster. Since then, Nian never came again to the village. Hongjun Laozu, a Taoist monk, was the one who captured the beast later on. Since then, the Chinese have been celebrating the capture of Nian on their New Year's Day."

Here is the gold from the set by itself:

Pure Ice - Gold

It doesn't have a proper name that I can find, but man this gold is pretty! Some may not like it as much because it's a very bright orange-yellow and it may not suit all skin tones as well. It took two coats and was quite easy to apply. This color makes me think of cooking with curry, and the bright yellow color that it turns when mixed in with oil. Now I'm hungry...

But it looks even better with the red crackle over top!

Pure Ice - Gold and Red Crackle

This just FEELS like the Chinese New Year to me. It makes me want to be wandering around Chinatown in San Francisco, observing all the colors and festivities. It's very vibrant and the metallic gold shows through the red just a bit to give it a lot of depth.

This red crackle works just like most of the others, but the result you see was just from a quick, simple application - no special thicknesses or stroke directions. I considered "waving" the brush around to get a more random crackle look, but I thought the normal vertical cracks would be perfect for the Chinese New Year look. So I would say it applies nicely and cracks pretty well.

I decided to try it with a matte top coat (Essie Matte About You):

Pure Ice - Gold and Crackle (with Essie Matte About You)

Very nice, too, though I was so in love with the shiny version that I'm just not as impressed with this. It still feels very "Chinatown" to me, and has an awesome effect.

Honestly, I can't believe how much this wowed me. I didn't think I'd find a single crackle combination I actually LIKED, much less LOVED. If all the other crackle polishes in the world disappeared, this is the one combination I'd want to keep.

This set is available on the Bari Cosmetics site as well as at Wal-Mart and Walgreens. I'm not sure on the retail price, but Pure Ice usually runs under $2 each, so I'm sure this one is reasonable as well!

Happy New Year of the Dragon!

(This item was sent to me for review.)

Wet'n'Wild - Diamond in the Rough

Yet another beauty from the Wet'n'Wild Ice Baby collection (Coloricon): Diamond in the Rough.

Wet'n'Wild - Diamond in the Rough

This time I decided to layer the glitter over a solid color. I used one coat of Zoya Raven (doesn't matter if there are slightly bald spots - they're covered by the glitter anyway) and two coats of Diamond in the Rough. As it turns out, I kind of think it has more depth at only one coat, which is what I did on my other hand (not shown). It looks pretty much the same color (maybe a tiny bit darker, but not really noticeable), but for some reason, one coat of the glitter seems to have more "depth" than the two coats. It's also smoother and less "lumpy."

This one is either very close or a dupe for China Glaze Some Like it Haute, Sally Hansen Glitz Gal, and Nails Inc Sloane Square. Some of those may be a little easier to find since this was limited edition, though a tad bit more expensive.

Some Manglaze Swatches and Review

After reading so many good reviews and seeing awesome swatches of ManGlaze nail polishes, I figured I should try some of them!

First of all, can we talk about how AWESOME the names are of these polishes?? They all go right along with the attitude of the company, which is straight-forward, brutally honest, and not in the least bit "work safe." And yet because of their antics ("If we don't hear from you, we will assume we sucked ass" on the receipt), they are incredibly likable. I'm not one to throw obscenities into my daily speech, and I think it's for that very reason that I can truly appreciate how amazing it is to have a polish named something as perfect as "Fuck Off and Dye." I suppose my blog may get a "mature filter" for that statement, but oh well, SOPA is going to censor the internet anyway, right? (Holy gooses, I hope not... please sign Google's petition here if you haven't yet!)

Manglaze - Mayonnaise

ManGlaze - Mayonnaise (with top coat)

Mayonnaise was really the reason I wanted to try ManGlaze. Gotta love the name, and the color is awesome too! I have a couple shimmery whites, but this is the only matte one, and also the only one that is an off white instead of stark, bright white. It's as wonderful as I'd hoped, though it took three coats instead of two.

ManGlaze - Fuggen Ugly

ManGlaze - Fuggen Ugly (with top coat)

This is one I threw in to the order just because it was on sale... and it ended up being my favorite of them all. Not only does it look so drab chic matte, but it turns out to be a stunningly edgy gunmetal shimmer with a top coat. I don't know which I like better! Two easy coats.

ManGlaze - Matte is Murder

ManGlaze - Matte is Murder (with top coat)

And last is their matte black shimmer: Matte is Murder. This is one of the blackest mattes I've seen, although with a top coat it becomes a lovely charcoal shimmer that has amazing depth. Could be my new favorite black shimmer. Two coats and super easy to apply!

All of these can be bought directly from ManGlaze on their website, or from their Amazon store or Facebook store (all three link can be found here).  Fuggen Ugly and Matte is Murder are still on sale for $6.66 as of this post!

Revlon Rain Forest & China Glaze Glittering Garland Comparison

When I saw Revlon Rain Forest in the new displays at Walgreens, my first thought was "Ooooh!" but my second thought was "I bet it's a dupe for Glittering Garland." I was kinda right. They ARE very similar, but have a couple little differences:

Revlon Rain Forest (index and ring) and China Glaze Glittering Garland (middle and pinkie)

First off, both have very nice formulas and cover very well in two coats, so I suggest getting whichever looks better to you. They both have slightly duochrome gold glass fleck glitter, but the base color is where they differ the most. Rain Forest has a darker, more yellow-toned base than Glittering Garland's emerald green. For this reason, the glitter seems to "pop" just a tad more in Rain Forest, but it shows up more densely in Glittering Garland.

Overall, I say they are similar but not dupes, and it's up to you whether you want both. I like different aspects of each of them, so I don't think I have a favorite of the two.

Revlon Rain Forest is now available in most places that carry Revlon like Walgreens, Walmart, Target, and Ulta.  Glittering Garland was part of the China Glaze Holiday 2011 collection and is still available on some sites like Trans Design.

On a side note, I was super excited when I realized that the sparkles in these appeared to be duochrome in the bottle (I can even see blue and purple!), but sadly, it really doesn't translate at all on the nail.  Oh well.

American Apparel - Meteor Shower

I was in San Francisco this weekend and was wandering around the Haight when I figured I'd check American Apparel to see if they had any new cool polishes. They did, and this is one of them: Meteor Shower.

American Apparel - Meteor Shower over Hassid

First of all, Hassid is an amazing black creme. One coat and it's nicely opaque and dries fairly quickly. Meteor Shower is a clear base full of random sizes and shapes of a kind of gold foil flake. More like random shards of gold. One thing about them is that a few of them do NOT lay flat, and for this reason I don't know how long this will last on me... the scratchy points are bugging me a little bit. But other than that, it looks pretty neat to me. I love black and gold together and this combination looks classy and edgy at the same time.

Zoya Swatches - Greys and Blues (pic heavy!)

Sometimes I like when bloggers have a lot of one brand in a post so I can see which colors I want to buy. So here are all of my greys and blues from Zoya (however, I don't have all of them).

Zoya - Dove

Zoya - Harley

Zoya - Cailtin

Zoya - Kelly

More blue-toned than shows in this picture

Zoya - Freja

Zoya - Raven

Zoya - Cynthia

Zoya - Indigo

Zoya - Kotori

Zoya - Crystal

Zoya - Jo

Zoya - Tallulah

Zoya - Akyra