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!