Orly Androgenie, Piggy Polish Finger Festival, & Orly Shine On Crazy Diamond

Orly Androgenie, oh how pretty you are in the bottle!
Alas, your beauty does not *quite* translate to the nail, but that's ok, I still love you.

I started with a thick layer of Revlon Stiletto (black creme) then the pretty black Orly jelly, Androgenie.
The look wasn't quite the POW! I was hoping for, so I added some Piggy Polish Finger Festival (dense holgraphic glitter) on the tips then a layer of Orly Shine On Crazy Diamond (a not-so-dense holo glitter)over everything. POW! lol

Sinful Colors Let's Talk & Funky Fingers Anna

I swatched too long last night, ran out of time, and had to paint my nails in the car after I got to work this morning. Clean up? Please. lol
This is Sinful Colors Let's Talk, an amazing electric purple and Funky Fingers glitter Anna from their Frostbitten aka Frozen collection.
Two coats of Let's Talk covers well, but I really don't recommend polishing in the car. : P

Bundle Monster Sun-Kissed Collection 2014

I'm so happy with these! When the design transfers nicely, it's like magic! lol

I wasn't done wearing the combination of China Glaze Take a Trek and Hit Polish Pegasus, so I added some stamping from Bundle Monster's 2014 Sun Kissed collection. I purchased the set off Amazon and I love the designs.
I had to redo my thumbs, so I used China Glaze OMG a UFO and Sci-Fly By from the same Hologlam collection. The green in OMG a UFO didn't show through Pegasus as well in person, the blues did the best I think.
I'm so impressed how even the mermaid's teeny hand and arm stamped cleanly, especially since I'm only using the little pink stamper that came with the small Essence intro to stamping set I picked up at Ulta. My Cheeky stamper from Amazon is on its way... any day now! I may *also* be expecting plate packages from Born Pretty, Messy Mansion, AND Loja BBF! SQUEE!!

Hit Polish Pegasus & China Glaze Take a Trek

I really love discovering new companies that not only make a great product, but have reasonable prices and lovely customer service!

I placed an order with Hit Polish through their Storenvy site and I'm so glad I did! My only wish is that I could have purchased more! I've been enjoying the cuticle oils I received and I just tried out this amazing glitter polish last night.
Pegasus, besides having an awesome name, is really lovely. There's a ton of silver/irridescent shimmer and larger holographic glitters. The formula is a good kind of thick and all you need is one coat! I layered it over a coat of China Glaze Take a Trek... I think the blue pairs so nicely with the glitters and it looks so pegasus-y!

Finger Paints Enchanted Winter 2.0

Huh, I forgot that I'd posted about this polish before... well, more pics!

This is two easy peasy coats of Finger Paints Enchanted Winter, a coppery textured polish. I used this because I know it's pretty, application is simple, and it dries fairly quickly.
All good things when you've spent the entire evening swatching colors, not feeling any of them, and you have to throw something on because people would express concern at your stained nekkid nails at work the next morning. lol

Nicole by OPI My Cherry Amour

Sparkly! This is two coats of Nicole by OPI My Cherry Amour, part of their Gumdrops collection.

The polish dried matte and kind of dull, I like it better with some top coat. Eat top coat, it does though! This is two coats of Sally Hansen Insta-Dri and it's still kind of bumpy, but that's ok.
With this much top coat, I feel like this polish could last a month! lol

Orly Rococo A-Go-Go & Sally Hansen Debut-Tint

This is a couple coats of Orly Rococo A Go-Go, then a thin layer of Sally Hansen's gold shimmer Debut-Tint.
I'm not super thrilled with this look, it's nice and all, but I think I'll be doing something different tonight. It reminds me of Seche Nostalgic, which I have and love, but if I wanted that look I would've work that! lol

Halloween swirl! aka my first nail 'art'

So, this happened last night! I really haven't ventured into nail art, other than beginning stamping. I saw this tutorial online and since I was swatching last night anyway, I figured what the hey.

I was actually really impressed with myself! LOL
I used thick side-by-side swipes of Sinful Colors Black on Black and Orly Chica Boom then swirled them together with a largish needle.
I wasn't quite ready for a full-on Haloween look yet, so sadly it got removed... but I'll definitely be doing this look a bit later in the month! I also want to try neons, just because... : )

NOPI Purple Yourself Together & Piggy Polish Finger Festival

I love these Marshall's/TJ Maxx finds! This is two coats of Nicole by OPI Purple Yourself Together. It's an interesting color, kind of in-between purple and mauve with a strong gold/copper shimmer.
I tried stamping over it, but ehhh... that's didn't turn out the way I thought it would so we won't talk about that. lol

On a few nails, I used a layer of Piggy Polish Finger Festival. It's such a nice dense holo topper! You can still see the base color, but it's just so pretty in the light.

China Glaze Be More Pacific & my first foray into stamping!

WELL! Stamping is NOT as easy as it would appear to be! lol
Between finding colors that work well together, picking polishes that stamp well, and transferring the image to the nail... yeah, there's definitely a learning curve here.
I used a couple coats of China Glaze Be More Pacific (that name makes me happy for some silly reason) then stamped this neato pattern from my first set of plates, BundleMonster 2014 Sun-Kissed Collection.
I thought it would look better matte so I used Sally Hansen Big Matte Top Coat, but even though I gave it lots of time to dry, it never did and all the under layers of polish got mushy so I took it off.
I'm still yet to wear a fully stamped mani outside the house... been doing lots of playing/swatching around at home... but when my skill level gets up there a bit, I'll be excited to rock the images from these plates, they're really nice.

Orly Masked Ceremony & Sally Hansen Pearly Whites

This look is a couple layers of Orly Masked Ceremony topped with Sally Hansen irridescent shard topper, Pearly Whites. Many times I want to like shard-y glitter, but I have a hard time with liking the look. This, though, is pretty cool!

I think it's because the shards blend in with Masked Ceremony, just leaving little confetti bursts of color. I got good coverage with Pearly Whites, I think that helps too... more sparkly shards = me liking it more!

I like Masked Ceremony on its own, but it kinda swallows its own glitters (white squares and fuchsia teenies) so another polish giving it that umph helps it along.

OPI Don't Talk Bach to Me & Orly Lavish Bash

This is one of those polishes that tooks me a while to come around to. I saw a couple bottles on clearance at Ulta for $.50 each... but ehhh, I wasn't loving them in the bottle, even though lime-y acid greens are totally my thing.
WELL.
I got home and started looking up bloggers' swatches and really, really liked it- especially for $.50!
I ran back to Ulta the next day and grabbed both bottles... no regrets!
This is two coats of Don't Talk Bach to Me then a layer of one of my all-time favorite glitter toppers, Orly Lavish Bash. It added just the right golden sparkle to Bach, without covering up the unique green color.
I think I'll need to wear Bach again soon... it'd look great with some spiders for Halloween!

OPI Blue Chips

This is officially my 100th post! So, yeah, that's kinda cool. : )

For a special post, I'll feature a special polish... this is OPI Blue Chips- an OPI Mystery Polish!

Until recently, I didn't know TJ Maxx and Marshall's sold polish, much less nice brands like OPI and Orly. I went to both stores and found lots of two packs of OPI polishes with unique names. Some of the polishes looked familiar though...
I found this lovely post on imabeautygeek.com and aha! Mystery solved!


I picked up several sets, this "Blue Chips" was part of one of them. Turns out it's really The Flowers are Blue-Ming from the 2012 Ulta collection. I'm not really a bright blue polish kind of gal, but the scattered holographic bits sold me... it's so pretty, especially in the bottle. This is two coats; it does dry kind of gritty and the holo bits don't show up inside very well. I meant to put a layer of Fairy Dust or Shine on Crazy Diamond over top, but I forgot. Next time!

Orly Pebble & Sally Hansen Debut-Tint

This is Orly Pebble, I picked it up as part of a two-pack at Marshall's. Love this color! Totally worth the $3!

It's interesting how different the two photos turned out... the color is more like the top photo.
I used two coats of Pebble, but not every nail really needed two coats. A while ago, I read on a blogger's site how much she loved Sally Hansen Debut-Tint and I'm so glad I took her advice and picked up a couple bottles of it on clearance at Ulta- it's awesome!
Debut-Tint doesn't just add gold shimmer, there's also copper and green in there, though the pictures don't do it any justice.
I'm holding a bottle of ShinfulShine Prosecco, someone was asking if there are any dupes for Prosecco out there and I think this layering combo is a decent recreation if you can't get your hands on the hard to find Prosecco. I had to trade for mine, local Walgreen's seem to be slimming down their SinfulShine offerings lately, but thankfully some of the core colors can be found at WalMart.

And yes, I have nubbins again. Le sigh. My right pinky got caught in my dog's collar and snapped right off, all the way down. It would take too long for it to catch up to the others so off they all came. : (

YAY for good deals!

Last Tuesday morning, I went out hunting for good polish deals and happily, I found some!

I picked up the last bottle of Color Club The Uptown whose formula has recently been reformulated so now I have a backup. Ulta's clearance section has supplied most of my collection, this trip I found a lovely maroon shimmer by SpaRitual with the prettiest name- Days of Wine and Roses. It reminds me of the book I'm reading, 'The Passage' by Justin Cronin. So yes, I did get this half for the name. : D

Five Below had the Halloween glow-in-the-dark polishes, but I didn't pick any of them up. I may go back for the orange Pumpkin King, but this time I picked up several backup bottles and the rest of the neon rave collection and Varsity Blue.

It was the first time I looked for polish in Marshall's and they had a great selection! It was hard to limit what I brought home, but a two-pack of Orlys and a couple of the OPI Duos with mystery names needed to come with me, also a pretty blue Mariah Carey glitter.

And finally, the main reason I went out, I grabbed a couple Essie nail strips from Dollar Tree! I found the two styles that I wanted, I'm happy about that. I've never worn nail strips/stickers/etc so we'll see how that goes some time in the near future...