OPI - DS Design: Swatches and Review

I'm such a sucker for nude/gold holo polishes lately, and I was lucky enough recently to get OPI DS Design at an incredible price!

OPI - DS Design

Design is a perfect nude base with tons of sparkly holo pigment, just like the others in the DS series. For some reason, the rainbow colors seem a bit more subdued in this one, but it's still very stunning in the sun. In the shade, it matches my skin tone PERFECTLY.

Unfortunately, DS Design is discontinued (along with all the other holo DS polishes) and can be tricky to find. I found mine in a blog sale, so keep your eye out and you might just get lucky!

Wet n Wild - Cost is No Issue: Swatch and Review

We all know I love glitter, so I was pretty thrilled with a lot of the Wet n Wild Ice Baby Collection. Here is yet another beauty from that set. (The first two I reviewed were Diamond in the Rough and Back Alley Deals)

Wet n Wild - Cost is No Issue

Cost is No Issue is a clear base chock full of teal micro glitter and small sky blue hex glitter. This is my FAVORITE glitter combination (mix of micro and small glitters in complementary colors that are opaque in a couple coats), and this one is quite pretty. Nails Inc Fitzroy Square is a dupe.

This is not a dupe for Deborah Lippmann's Mermaid Dream, but honestly I love this one so much more. Mermaid Dream always looks so... chunky. I've heard that it's actually smooth, but I don't care for how it LOOKS so bumpy and textured. So to me, this is Mermaid Dream's way more awesome sister - a wonderful, even more sparkly alternative! WIN.

I think it'd be very unlikely to find this one in stores anymore as it was released sometime last year, but Nails Inc Fitzroy Square may still be available (though a bit more expensive).

Dollish Polish - Toxic Avenger: Swatches and Review

Funny story about this polish.

Dollish Polish - Toxic Avenger

Toxic Avenger is an amazing duochrome AND holo foil. The duochrome is similar to Orly Space Cadet or Hard Candy Beetle: it's a purple to gold/green duochrome in a teal base, but this has a ton of holo pigment added to it. Usually, the holo takes over in the sun, and the duochrome really comes out in indirect light. Basically, it's just all-around interesting! It's also not being made anymore, so I'd pretty much given up hope at ever finding a bottle.

This was from a couple Dollish sales ago when the "bonus mystery shade" was a mini bottle of the original Toxic Avenger. I actually didn't know about the sale until it was already 15 minutes into it or something, and all the Toxic Avengers were in carts already (if you don't know, Big Cartel SUPPOSEDLY will hold it for 30 minutes once it's in someone's cart so it doesn't get taken from them while they're in the payment process).

So I waited for another 15 minutes (wildly refreshing the page) until it was finally dropped from someone's cart into MINE... WOOHOO! I was so excited and hurriedly went to payment and just as I was about to pay on Paypal's site... BOOM, it's gone out of my cart (obviously, Big Cartel's hold does NOT always work). OH, MISERY!

So I sat there for ANOTHER half hour wildly refreshing waiting for someone else to let go of one in their cart. And FINALLY, I got one and was able to pay for it, and you can bet I did it LICKETY SPLIT.

I know the story sounds dramatic, but really, even if I hadn't have gotten it I would have just moved on with my day. I LIKE the chase of nail polish sales on Etsy/Big Cartel/whatever. I think it's fun to try and snag the polishes I'm longing for, but to me it will always still be just nail polish. At the end of the day, there are so many more important things to me.

But yes, I DID spend an hour of my life refreshing a web page so I could get this polish, and it was totally worth it!

Like I said, unfortunately (because of availability of ingredients) Dollish Polish isn't making this polish (at lease with this particular formula) anymore. It could be she releases it with a new formula in the future, so be on the lookout for it!

Pixi Polishes: Swatches and Review

This is the first I'd heard of Pixi polishes. Here are three that are perfect summer colors:

(no topcoat)

(with topcoat)

Pixi - Vivid Coral

Vivid Coral is my favorite of the three. It's bright neon watermelon red-coral jelly that is mostly opaque in three coats and dries with a satin finish. The formula is nice and easy to work with, but it IS a jelly so it still shows a bit of VNL at three coats. But isn't it just SOO juicy? It makes me crave a watermelon Jolly Rancher!

Pixi - Very Violet

Very Violet is bright magenta purple creme that's completely opaque in two coats. A typical neon purple, but I actually don't have any in my collection to compare it to! It's extremely vibrant - much more that the photo shows.

Pixi Very Violet with one coat Max Factor Fantasy Fire

This makes an excellent base for Fantasy Fire that varies from the typical dark blues and purples. It is really glowy in person; you'll have to try it to see what I mean.

Pixi - Paradise Pink

The last one is Paradise Pink, a bubblegum pink creme. This one is quite cool toned and therefore doesn't really flatter my skin. The formula is wonderful: two easy coats and fully opaque. Nice color and application, just not my type.

Overall, I liked two of the three Pixi polishes I tried. I'd really like to see Pixi come out with a wider range of colors, though (greens, golds, and glitters please!).

Pixi polishes are available for $8 each on Target.com but they appear to be on backorder at the moment. Zappos has Pixi polishes as well, but none of the names seem to match, so I'm not sure if they carry these colors.

Zoya Rica and Tanzy: Swatches and Review

One of my favorite things lately is to paint the nails on each hand a different color. I usually try to pick colors that are similar enough so that it's not obvious at first glance that it's actually two different colors. My favorite combo so far has been Zoya Rica and Tanzy from the Sunshine collection.

Zoya - Tanzy and Zoya - Rica

Tanzy is an amazing light orange base that's absolutely packed with sparkly golden glass flecks. Rica is the same formula except with a coral pink base, and both are absolutely amazing. Zoya's Sparkle (summer 2010) and Sunshine (summer 2011) are two of my favorite collections of all time from any company, which is why I was a little disappointed in the 2012 summer collection. Oh well, maybe next year they'll come out with something even more spectacular!

It started out as one of those "I can't decide which one I want to wear!" days, and since I never actually made a decision, I just ended up painting one hand with Tanzy and one with Rica. Turns out, the crazy gold sparkles in both pulled them together into an awesome mismatched manicure, and I ended up loving the rebel feeling of having two different colors. I will certainly be doing this again!

Both of these are shown at two easy coats, but for some reason these have a longer-than-normal dry time.  They were still slightly dentable after a couple hours even with Cult Nail Wicked Fast (quick dry) topcoat.

Zoya Rica and Tanzy are both available on Zoya's website for $8 each, but if you love gold sparkles, I highly recommend picking up the whole Sunshine set. Every single one is a stunner.

Atrophie - Bathysphere: Swatch and Review

Unfortunately, I found the atrophie Esty shop a little too late. I saw so many polishes that I loved while looking through the past sales, but the one I wanted the most was a beautiful teal jelly with gold glitter: Bathysphere.

atrophie - Bathysphere

Isn't it squishy and sparkly and AWESOME?! I had almost given up all hope when I decided to post on facebook that I was looking for Bathysphere (and other atrophie polishes) and was SO surprised and excited when I got a reply from someone who had an extra bottle (THANK YOU SO MUCH)! I am so lucky to own this! I have to say, I like it best on the short nails in the listing, and next time I have to file my nails down because of a break I'm definitely wearing this one again.

Now, I know it says that it's named for the Cat Power song (I don't even know if I've heard it), but what it makes me think of is this:

Bioshock Bathysphere

I know, I can't help it. I'm a bit of a nerd. If you like video games and haven't played Bioshock, DO IT. It's such a trip.

Unfortunately, I don't really think there's any way to get atrophie polishes anymore. Hopefully someday in the future the shop will open once more, and if it does I have a whole wishlist of polishes ready!

Claire's Starstruck - Cosmic: Swatch and Review

I haven't gone to Claire's polish-hunting in awhile, so I was pretty excited when I found this pretty polish the other day.

Claire's Starstruck - Cosmic

Cosmic is a sparkly purple with what looks like micro glass flecks in violet and blue. I think it's a tad more purple (less blue) than the pictures show, but it's close.  It is part of the Starstruck line, which parallels the Color Club Take Wing collection (the Claire's polishes actually say "Color Club" on the back), except that Take Wing doesn't have this purple, and Starstruck doesn't seem to have the yellow. I love the chunky square bottle it comes in.

4th of July Nails

Happy 4th of July!

Right now I'm missing my family in Michigan because we usually have a huge party that lasts all day/night with tons of beer, food, and fireworks. I LOVE family parties!

These are the nails I did to celebrate (I DO get to go over to my grandparent's and have a little party with them and my aunt and uncle). I used Revlon Royal for my left ring finger, China Glaze Phat Santa for my right finger and OPI You Callin' Me a Lyre? for the base on the rest. Then I layered All That Glitters Glitter Glory over the ring fingers and sponged it on in a gradient French over the others. It is very easy to apply with the brush, but I had a little trouble sponging it. I do love the result, though!

I bought Revlon Royal in a drugstore a few months ago, so I think it's readily available. Phat Santa was part of the China Glaze 2010 Christmas collection, but there are a lot of red creme/jellies like it. Glitter Glory was purchased from the All That Glitters Etsy shop, but it doesn't seem to be in stock at the moment. Hopefully it will return!

Born Pretty Microbeads Review

Accent nails have been very popular lately, so I decided to go crazy and dress up my favorite nail polish (Layla Hologram Effect Flash Black) with all sorts of accent nails.

Layla Hologram Effects 

(with Born Pretty microbeads, Hot Topic holo bar glitter, and American Apparel Light Year)

When I got these micro beads from Born Pretty to review, I originally had a full "fish eggs" manicure in mind, but once I got it, I realized that there wasn't enough of each color. I think this wheel of microbeads is more for nail art using the bullion pieces to create patterns like Sammy's manicure inspired by fashion. If you're looking to do a full fish egg manicure, I'd probably go with the jars of microbeads instead.

The container these came in is a little tricky.  Every time I turned the top clear piece to move the opening to a slot of beads, micro beads from all over would stick to it (static cling) and migrate into the other colors. You can see what I mean in the picture below.  It makes them a little bit hard to use as solid color accent nails, but I would imagine it'd still be fine for delicate nail art.  

The Born Pretty microbeads can be purchased from their site as well as a lot of other awesome nail art decorations and polishes and nail wraps! You can also use the code GG5J61 to get a 5% discount on your order!