Merry Christmas!

  Merry Christmas to all!  Hope everyone is having a wondering holiday with family and friends.  I had a really hard time deciding what to do with my nails this year for Christmas, but I really love what I came up with in the end.

Outdoors, sunlight

  For my Christmas Day manicure, I started off with two coats of one of my favorite reds, OPI An Affair in Red Square.  I stamped on some glitzy gold snowflakes using OPI Glitzerland and plate BM-323 to give just a touch of an interesting pattern to the background.  I then added a variety of designs using Konad special white and special black polish and plates BM-319 (snowflakes), BM-318 (snowman and ornament), and BM-323 (lace).  I added a few accents with Glitzerland and topped it all off with two coats of Seche Vite.

Outdoors, shade

  This is actually not what I originally set out to do when I started painting my nails, but the design sort of evolved over time and the result is festive and classy.  I like how the gold accents tie in with the barely-visible gold snowflakes in the background.  They are faint but enough to make you take a second look when you see the nails!  I love the little snowman and his black hat too.

  Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas!

Jolly Winter Holly

  Today I have for you China Glaze Winter Holly from their Holiday Joy 2012 collection.  This stunning medium emerald green is speckled with green, gold and scattered holographic fine glitter in a clear base.

Outdoors, indirect sunlight

  Unfortunately I didn't have the best day for snapping photos of this one outside.  You can see a little bit of the holo in the picture above, but the sun was just barely peaking out from the clouds.  Here is a slightly fuzzy, artificial light shot to get a real sense of the holo glitter.

Indoors, artificial light

  The holo in this makes it one of my favorite Christmas greens of my collection.  It applied well in three coats, not too thick or gloopy.  A bit on the gritty side, but not more so than other similar glitter polishes.

Outdoors, shade

  While you lose the holo in the shade, the green and gold combination still make this a gorgeous polish, and perfect for the holidays!  This is definitely one of my new favorite greens!

  Merry Christmas Eve to all!  Check back tomorrow for my Christmas Day manicure!

Holiday Sweater Nails!

  I stumbled across this lovely design idea on YouTube from So Long Kitty, and I fell in love with it.  Of course I had to create some sweater nails of my own, and I absolutely loved them!

Outdoors, natural light

  I started off with two coats of Zoya Sooki, followed by a layer of Deborah Lippmann's Addicted to Speed topcoat, and then came the stamping!  I used plates m59 (snowflakes), BM-214 (reindeer), and m57 (borders) with Konad Special White stamping polish.  This was a lot of stamping but the results were definitely worth it - what a fun and festive manicure!

Outdoors, natural light

  This is definitely a manicure I will be wearing again next year!  Or perhaps later this week... :)

Lovely Aurora and Giveaway Winners!

  Hello to all of my wonderful readers and Merry Christmas Eve Eve Eve!  I'm just a tiny bit excited for Christmas, can't you tell?  :)  I am using some of my time this morning to sit down and really crank out some posts for this little blog, and am hoping (once again) to get things moving!  First off, what I know everyone was probably once waiting for but has now somewhat forgotten - giveaway winners!  Remember back in September when I launched the 2nd anniversary giveaway?  I am slightly embarrassed to admit that the winners were never drawn - third year of med school has been even more challenging than I anticipated!  Luckily I am loving every minute of it!  But finally, here are the long overdue winners of the giveaway!

1st Place... Anneke from Pin Point Polish

2nd Place... Olivia from Olivia Frescura

3rd Place... Abby

  Congratulations!  Winners will be receiving e-mails shortly to choose their polishes, and I will get them out ASAP.  Since it's been so long and it's right around the holidays, I will give you a week to respond but if I don't hear back by next Saturday I will draw a new winner so I can get these polishes out!  Thanks to all who entered!  Assuming I can keep things running over the next month or so expect another fun giveaway sometime around February!

  Now on to the polish of this post, the lovely Zoya Aurora.  This has got to be my favorite polish from the Ornate collection, the holo is stunning and the color is gorgeous.

Outdoors, evening sun

  Zoya describes this polish as "a full coverage, medium sugarplum purple flecked with a high concentration of micro fine diamond holographic glitter," which I think is a pretty good description of this one!  This medium red-leaning purple is such a pretty color, I want to go put this back on right now looking at these pictures.  This also appears to be the most intensely holographic of the Ornate collections.  This is 3 coats (although 2 was probably sufficient).  This also lays smooth and flat, which I liked.

Outdoors, evening sun

Outdoors, shade

  Still gorgeous in the shade, but this polish obviously shines in direct light!  If you were only going to pick one polish from the Ornate collection, this would be my choice.  I'll have the rest of my picks from this collection up over the next couple of weeks!

Happy Thanksgiving!

  Hope everyone is having a very Happy Thanksgiving!  Here is a quick post of my Thanksgiving nails - we've got to hit the road to make it to my in-laws in time for turkey!  My nails today started off with three coats of OPI Pros and Bronze and was topped off with two coats of Hit Polish Thankful, a gorgeous clear-based glitter full of different sizes and shapes of yellow, brown, and orange glitter.  My favorites are definitely the yellow flower glitters - so much fun!

Outdoors, shade

Outdoors, shade

  Thank you so much to Becky for the awesome glitter top coat!  :D

  I know I have been saying this for awhile now, but I really do plan to spend some time getting things going here again in the next couple of days.  Check back this weekend (probably Sunday) for a catch-up post including Giveaway Winners as well as the polish I wore for Halloween.... it may be almost a month late but it was really cool so it deserves to be up here anyway, haha.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Imperial Blue

  Happy October!  Sorry for the absence last week - things are ever-crazy in the world of medicine.  Some nights I pretty much get home, eat dinner, and fall asleep... but I will continue to make more of an effort to make time to post as well!  Thanks for all of the great giveaway entries and hello to all of the new followers!  Stay with me while I get back into the groove of posting and I promise I won't disappoint!  :)

Outdoors, natural light

  This manicure was done with one of my all-time favorite light blues, OPI What's With The Cattitude?, which is a gorgeous bright sky blue creme.  This shade is just totally perfect and gorgeous, and I love it.  Super application with two coats.  I added stamping using both images from the Bundle Monster 2012 set, plate BM-315, with Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Brisk Blue and Konad Special White.  Love the finished product!

Outdoors, natural light

  Do not forget that TONIGHT is the last day to enter my giveaway!  I will plan to have the winners announced no later than this weekend, so stay tuned!  :)

Pink Bubbles

  Here is a fun stamping manicure I wore earlier this summer.  Got a lot of great comments on this one, as it was my manicure during my short (but still way too long) hospital stay in June.  All of my nurses loved it!

  Started off with two coats of China Glaze Dance Baby, with houndstooth pattern in Nicole by OPI All Kendall-ed Up using plate m63, and the circles in Konad Special White using plate m85.  I love the depth the houndstooth pattern in a slightly darker color gives this, even from far away.  Happy Pink Wednesday! :)

Polishology is BACK - 2nd Anniversary GIVEAWAY!

  And.... we're back!  I have survived the first 12 weeks of third year and I am ready to get my poor little blog back up and running.  Plan on posts hopefully at least three times a week, including some old stuff I have been storing up over the summer, as well as a lot of fun new things.  I am really planning on making time for this as much as possible, but bear with me while I get back into the swing of things!

  Polishology recently turned two - we had a quiet celebration at home, haha.  Now it is time to celebrate with all of you wonderful readers, especially those of you who have continued to check up on the blog over the last couple of months while I have been a bit MIA.  In order to get things started up again I am going to hold a second anniversary giveaway, featuring the fall collections of some of my very favorite polish brands!

Polish prizes!

  For this giveaway, there will be three winners of 6 polishes each.  The first winner drawn will receive their choice of 2 OPI, 2 China Glaze, and 2 Zoya polishes of those available.  The second place winner will receive second pick of the same combos, and the third place winner will receive the remaining polishes.  Prizes include the following polishes:

OPI Germany Collection

German-icure by OPI, Deutsch You Want Me Baby?, Unfor-Greta-bly Blue, Suzi and the 7 Dusseldorfs, Every Month is Oktoberfest, Schnapps Out of It! 

China Glaze Bohemian Collection

 

Unpredictable, Want My Bawdy, Swanky Silk, Deviantly Daring, Rare and Radiant, No Plain Jane

Zoya Diva Collection

Song, Elisa, Daul, FeiFei, Ray, Suri
 

  To enter: Fill out the Rafflecopter below.  This is my first time using it, so if something isn't working right please feel free to comment and let me know.  The giveaway is open to all followers, both here in US as well as internationally.  If you don't follow via GFC, just let me know how you follow.  The giveaway will close at the end of the day October 1st, giving you two weeks to sign up, and I will contact the winners then!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

  I'm really excited to get Polishology running again.  I have some awesome polishes and great design ideas I can't wait to share with you all.  Thanks to all of you for being great readers over the past two years - I am hopeful that our third year will be another great one!

Luna welcomes you back to Polishology!

Stars and Stripes Forever

  I may not be able to wear nail polish to work... but that doesn't stop me from painting my nails for a favorite holiday on my part day off!  I wanted to do something fairly quick and easy (since I only get to wear it for one day) but also fun and festive.

Outdoors, direct sun

    For these nails, I used two coats of either OPI An Affair in Red Square or OPI Into the Night as the base colors.  I then did stamping with Konad Special White and plates m82 (stars) and RA-106 (stripes).  A quick and festive mani!  Love how this one turned out!

Outdoors, shade

  Hope all of my American readers have a very Happy Independence Day!  And to all of the rest of you... hope you have a fabulous 4th of July.  ;)

Happy Birthday To Me....

  My 26th birthday was a couple of weeks ago, and I did this fun brightly colored water marble for the event.

Outdoors, sunlight

  I started off with a base coat of OPI Pink Friday, and then marbled with OPI Funky Donkey, OPI Fly, and Nicole by OPI All Kendall-ed Up.  I added the tips using Konad Special White and plate BM17.  Of course I had to top it off with some China Glaze Fairy Dust.  These nails were perfect for my birthday, since these are some of my very favorite colors!

Outdoors, shade

Back up and running....

  Hello everyone!  I know it has been over a month since I posted here - time has really gotten away from me a bit the last two months or so.  I just wanted to let you know that I am hoping to get things going on here again, although for awhile it is going to be in a bit slower on posting.  I have recently transitioned from working in the lab back to the clinical years of medical school!  While this is really exciting and has been a lot of fun, it is also a lot of work and pretty much takes up the majority of my free time.  Additionally, I am starting off in the surgery rotation, in which nail polish is not permitted.  So... especially for the next couple of months I am not going to have a lot of time for nails.  I will continue to do some swatching and a few designs here and there on weekends, and I have some greats things saved up!  But for awhile I will most likely be cutting down to 2-3 posts a week and we'll see how that goes.  I am going to try to get the posts for the week planned out the weekend before.  I am really hopeful that I will be able to continue this blog while in medical school, as I really love doing it.  For now we'll take it a week at a time!  Thanks so much for all of you who continue to check the blog and I hope you keep coming back for more!  Expect new nail posts again starting Monday!  Hope you are all having a great summer!

Nicole by OPI Spring 2012 Target Exclusives - Swatches and Review

  Up today are the four most recent Target-Exclusive Nicole by OPI Shades, including three shimmers and one glitter.  All swatches shown without base coat, with top coat.

Great Minds Pink Alike

Outdoors, natural light

Detail Shot

 This medium pink is packed with purple and pink shimmer.  While I was a bit on the fence about this one when I saw the bottle, I love it on - it is a really great pink!  Three coats for full coverage.

Purple Yourself Together

Outdoors, natural light

Detail shot

 Light red-leaning purple with fine copper shimmer.  While this shade might look familiar, it is actually lighter and with a finer shimmer, making it unique among the other purple-with-copper-shimmer polishes we have seen this spring.  Three coats.

That's Totally Red-ical

Outdoors, natural light

 This bright red has the most subtle shimmer - my camera didn't pick it up at all and honestly it is pretty hard to see in person as well.  However, it is still a really gorgeous color - it is bright without being too bright and has just enough pink in it to make it fairly wearable.  Two coats.

Look At Me, Look At Me!

Outdoors, natural light

Detail Shot

 Silver glitter with blue and fuchsia glitter throughout.  I love this one!  While the overall look is definitely silver the color throughout gives it a really unique look.  Two coats.

Overall Review

 I really like all of the colors in this collection, and they are mostly unique to other colors we have seen so far this spring.  The shimmer in the pink and purple shades is just gorgeous, and the silver glitter is really fun.  It is hard to pick a favorite here, they are all really great polishes!  Formula was good on all of them, they didn't give me any trouble.  Personally I am pretty pleased with the entire collection!

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.

Liquid Crystal

  Here is one of the amazing polishes from the China Glaze Prismatics collection - my personal favorite from the collection!

Outdoors, natural light

  Liquid Crystal has a gorgeous base of medium blue with purple duochrome flash and is filled with medium-sized rainbow hex glitter.  While I was a little bit bummed when I initially found out that these polishes were not holographic (as they claim to be), duochrome with rainbow glitter is still pretty good!  Pretty smooth application for a glitter, I used three coats for full coverage.  It was a bit hard to do justice the the duochrome with the camera, but here is a slightly better shot.

Close-up of purple flash

   Once again, while these are not holographic and that was a little sad, they are still really pretty and the prominent purple flash on this one makes it my favorite.  I think the rainbow glitter is really fun as well.  Love this polish!

Bright Spring Plaid

  Here is a very fun little spring mani I wore a couple of weeks ago.

Outdoors, overcast

  For these nails I started with OPI Did It On 'Em from the Nicki Minaj collection, followed by stamping using Nicole by OPI All Kendall-ed Up using plate M64 and Konad Special White using plate m82.  As a finishing touch I added pink rhinestones to the center of each large flower.  I really like how this one turned out!

Zoya Surf Collection, Summer 2012 - Swatches and Review

  First off a huge THANK YOU to Becky, who was nice enough to swatch the Beach collection for me since I have been completely out of time lately!  She did a really great job.  Today I have the other half of the summer 2012 collection from Zoya, the Surf collection!  This side features some really amazing foil metallics in bright beach-ready hues.  All swatches no base, with top coat.  All were two easy coats!

Carly

Outdoors, shade

 Deep plum metallic foil.  This one seems a bit dark for summer, but is still totally gorgeous!  Something about this color is just so... Zoya, haha.  

Outdoors, sunlight

Kimber

Outdoors, shade

 This is a really amazing bright pink foil with a bit of a golden flash.  Perfect color for summer!  I wore this on my toes for a long time.

Outdoors, sunlight

Myrta

Outdoors, shade

 Bright coral-orange foil with tons of golden shimmer.  The pinkish coral tones in this one make it a really wearable orange shade.

Outdoors, sunlight

Rory

Outdoors, shade

 Lavender-pink metallic foil.  I really like this one a lot - it is kind of girly but the metallic finish also gives it a bit of an edge.  Very pretty.

Outdoors, sunlight

Meg

Outdoors, shade

 This is a light apple green foil, with silvery particles that give it a really great finish.  I don't wear a whole lot of green but this is a really great color (especially in the sun) and I can definitely see myself wearing it.

Outdoors, sunlight

Zuza

Outdoors, shade

 My favorite of the bunch!  This is bright turquoise foil metallic that really just glows.  I totally love it.  :)

Outdoors, shade

Overall Review

The formula on these was really great - two fairly smooth coats for full coverage.  Just make sure you don't keep running the brush over the polish or it will start to get kind of clumpy.  The foil finishes are really nice, the colors are gorgeous, and the application is easy - what more could we ask for?  While my favorite might be Zuza, there is a not a polish in this collection that I don't really like!  Overall a really great turnout from Zoya for Summer 2012!  I can't wait to see what they will be bringing us for fall. :)

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

Zoya Summer 2012 Beach Collection - Swatches and Review

Hello! Today I have the Zoya Summer 2012 Beach Collection for you. Actually, this is Becky, Jenny's little sister, reviewing today. Jenny has been super busy with work recently but didn't want to leave her blog in the dust, so here I am to help out. :-)

 Left to right: Wednesday, Reagan, Lara, Arizona, Shelby, Tracie

Wednesday

 Indoors, natural light

Outdoors, sunlight

Wednesday is a lovely turquoise cream. I used 2 coats for this swatch. Unfortunately, my peely nails showed up on these pictures more than they do in person, sorry! But this applied really well. It is much greener than blue, and a bit faded -- the indoors picture is much more true to life.

Reagan

Indoors, natural light

Outdoors, sunlight

Reagan is a fuschia creme. I used two coats here, but you can easily get away with one if you are careful, which makes this a winner in my book! I really like this color. It is a nice in-between of purple and dark pink/berry, which is one of my favorite shades. In person it is probably closer to the indoors picture, but a little lighter. This is my second-favorite of the collection, even though I think it seems a bit more fall than summer. It makes a great pedi color though :-)

Lara

 Indoors, natural light

Outdoors, sunlight

Lara is a magenta creme. I used two coats for this one. It is not nearly as bright as the second picture; much closer to the indoors picture. 

Arizona

Indoors, natural light

Outdoors, sunlight

Arizona is a bright orange creme. It is not neon, but it is very bright for sure! It reminds me of macaroni and cheese. It was a bit thinner than the others, and needed 3 coats. I don't usually wear oranges much, but if bright orange is your thing, this is a nice one.

Shelby

Indoors, natural light

Outdoors, sunlight

Shelby is a light pink creme. Like Arizona, it was a bit thinner, and needed 3 coats. This one is super girly; reminds me of bubblegum. It's a little softer though, and not all that bright. 

Tracie

Indoors, natural light

Outdoors, sunlight

Tracie is the only non-creme of the bunch -- it is a pretty green shimmer. I don't usually do greens, but this turned out to be my favorite! Two coats here. It is a soft and a touch frosty -- the Zoya website describes it as both "pistachio" and "avocado" and I think both of those are quite accurate comparisons.

Overall

The entire collection is quite nice on formula. It is a little thicker than some other Zoya cremes, and mostly applied quite well in two coats, three coats tops. My favorites were Tracie, Reagan, and Wednesday, but I am sure there is something in here that will appeal to everyone.

For fun, I did a skittles manicure with some fun stamping from Konad plate m30; I wore it for two days so there is some tipwear, but I thought it was cute:

And here ends my first swatch and review! Hope I was helpful; and hopefully Jenny will be back soon to blog for you :-) 

Have a nice day!

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