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Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Rainbow Nails!

  First off I want to share with you my new plan for the blog - I am really hoping to stick with it... but don't be too mad at me if it takes awhile to get into the swing of things.  :)  I am going to try to set up posts each weekend to post automatically on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday of every week.  Let's hope I can keep with it! :)

Outdoors, shade
  I want to share with you a really fun rainbow manicure I wore several weeks ago, created with all sparkly Zoya polishes!

Polishes Used
  For these nails I used Zoya Reva, Zoya Tanzy, Zoya Apple, Zoya Crystal and Zoya Danii.  I used three coats for all but Reva, which only required two coats.  Almost all of these polishes have been reviewed elsewhere on my blog, but I am sure you are all aware of how sparkly and gorgeous these all are!

Outdoors, direct sunligh
  For the design, I wanted something simple that wouldn't take away too much from the fun of the colors.  I chose a design from the new Bundle Monster plates - which are amazing, by the way - and used the design from plate BM-223 and Konad Special Black polish.  Topped it all off with Seche Vite! A very fun, very colorful manicure. :)

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

OPI Blue Shatter Collection - Swatches and Reviews

  I did these forever ago and I am just now getting to posting them - this summer has been insane!  Today I have for you all the OPI Blue Shatter collection, which features three shades of blue in OPI's awesome shatter formula!  I will showcase each polish on four basic colors to give you an idea on how it looks on a variety of bases.  You will see black (Sally Hansen Black Out), white (Sally Hansen White On), gold (Nicole by OPI Not a Gold Bigger) and light blue (Nicole by OPI Baby Blue).  Polishes shown without topcoat.

Turquoise Shatter

Outdoors, shade
This is definitely my favorite of the three.  Not only is this one of my favorite colors ever, this shatter polish also has a little bit o shimmer to it that makes it really stand out!  Click to see the shimmer details.  While this kind of washed out over the baby blue, it looked great with the other three colors.  I think my favorite combo on this one is black!


Blue Shatter

Outdoors, shade, no flash
Gorgeous royal blue shatter that looked great over all four of my test colors.  Hard to pick a favorite combo here, but I really like the white and the gold... and the blue and the black, haha.  Hard to pick.  Very pretty color!

Navy Shatter

Outdoors, shade
 Okay, I had some problems with navy shatter and I am not sure why.  See how it looks kind of stringy and streaky?  I did this three times and each time this happened, even though I put it on quickly (I know that taking too long can make it streak like this).  However I have seen a lot of people did not have this problem... bad bottle perhaps?  At any rate, it is a really nice color even with some application issues and I will give it a go again in the future.  Lovely over all test colors besides black (doesn't show up), but I love the gold and the blue the best I think.  Any ideas on application?

Overall Review
I really enjoy these shatters in general - it is a super fast way to spruce up a manicure without too much time and effort.  And it can really revitalize a color that you are getting tired of wearing but don't have time for a complete polish change.  All three of these colors are gorgeous, although the turquoise is definitely my favorite!  Make sure you wait for your polish to dry completely, and add your shatter quickly to your nail for a clean look!  And don't forget your topcoat, or the shatter pieces will come off.  :)


DISCLOSURE: The polishes featured in this post  were provided to Polishology by OPI for review purposes.  This is an honest and independent review and was in no way influenced by the company.

Thursday, June 23, 2011

Pirates Pink Flowers

  Dan and I have been having an emotionally rough week... we are trying to decide whether we should keep Nova or give her to my in-laws.  We absolutely adore her but we are worried we will not have enough time for her when we go back to med school/residency (think: 80 hr work weeks).  They love her, she and their dog get along amazingly and she is so happy there.  It is tough to decide, especially since I know I need to put her best interests ahead of my own... it is a very tough decision.  We are on "trial separation" right now and I miss her like crazy.  Any advice?

  On a happier side here is a simple fauxnad from a few weeks ago with OPI Sparrow Me the Drama.


  After two coats of the base color, I used Bundle Monster plate BM12 and Zoya Areej to create the flowers. I really like the pink combo here!  A cute and simple mani, perfect for summer.


  Just a quick picture to remind you of how adorable my puppy is.  :(

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

OPI Pirates of the Caribbean - Swatches and Reviews

  I am sure most of you have seen this gorgeous collection by now, but for those who haven't or who want a second look, here it is!  This fabulous collection of cremes and a silver sparkly shatter were released to coincide with the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie - which I still have not seen but would really like to!  While some say this collection doesn't really "fit" with the Pirates theme I disagree - these totally make me think of sailing out on the open sea and mysterious tropical islands!  All colors shown with no base coat, with top coat.  No top coat on the shatter pictures (although you will want to use a topcoat for normal wear).

Skull and Glossbones


A pale ivory creme.  Three coats, very nice application - which I was a bit worried about with how light it is.  This is a really gorgeous neutral!


With Silver Shatter.  This polish is a bit too pale to really pop under the shatter.

Stranger Tides


Pale sage green creme.  I wasn't so sure about this color at first but I really love it on!  This one also took three coats for a full opaque finish.


With Silver Shatter.  Still a bit pale in my opinion for this duo.

Steady As She Rose

Pale rosy pink creme.  This pink has a bit of a purple tone to it as well.  I really like this as a light, soft feminine color.  This was two coats, again applied beautifully (like all of the polishes in this collection...)


With Silver Shatter.  Starting to get a bit more contrast between the base and the shatter, so I am starting to like it more and more!

Sparrow Me The Drama


Bright... yet somehow dusty.. pink creme.  I really like this color - there is something about the color that makes it bright but not too bright and in your face and it is bold and just very pretty.  Yea that makes no sense, I know, haha.  But it is a very pretty pink.  Two coats here.


With Silver Shatter.  Really starting to love these combos!  I think the silver really pops over this one.

Planks A Lot


Medium purple creme. This has a lot of blue tones in it.  Very pretty dusty pastel color.  Two coats.


With Silver Shatter.  Love this combo as well!

Mermaid Tears


Dusty turquoise creme. I also liked this one quite a bit.  Two coats.


With Silver Shatter - another great combo

Overall Review

I really like this collection - I find the collection of muted dusty pastel cremes to be rather unique in my polish collection.  And I love Silver Shatter - it is probably my favorite shatter from OPI yet!  While it loses its impact a bit on the lighter colors it looks really great over some of the bolder colors of the collection.  I can't wait to see how it will look over some other darker colors as well!  Overall this was a really great collection, and I loved pretty much every polish in it!  There is something about a nice collection of cremes that is so simple and pure and satisfying!

DISCLOSURE: The polishes featured in this post  were provided to Polishology by OPI for review purposes.  This is an honest and independent review and was in no way influenced by the company.

Saturday, June 11, 2011

I'm back! Giveaway winner and blog news

  So I am back from my vacation and ready to spend some serious time on this lovely little blog.  First off, I just want to say a big THANK YOU to all of you wonderful readers and followers - I just hit 700 followers, yay!  I am very excited that my little blog has taken off so well, and I couldn't have done it without you!

  Now, after tallying the entries and randomly selecting the winner, the winner of the two Zoya polishes from the previous giveaway is...

Kelly

 from Posh for Polish (previously Konad and Polish)
Congratulations Kelly!!

  Thanks to all of you who entered the giveaway!  I will most likely be holding another one sometime soon!

  That is all for today but I am going to spend a lot of time tonight and tomorrow getting a bunch of posts ready to go.  I have a lot that is almost ready to share with you, such as various new collection swatches and reviews, comparisons, lots of nail art, some tutorials, and a review of the last 18 days I spent wearing CND Shellac!  I am going to plan to start preparing posts on the weekends and have them auto-publish during the week, so that I don't run into these time crunches and go so long without postings.  Thanks for all of you who have kept coming back even after a couple of long breaks!  You guys are awesome!