Nicole by OPI Pitch Black Glimmer Gradient

This is one of my favorite manicures of all time. Gradient done over OPI Bubble Bath. Hot Damn.

CND Night Factory Funky French

CND Urban Oasis and CND Teal Sparkle

Essie Winter 2012 Collection Swatches and Review

Huzzah! My first full collection review! Swatching is hard! Anywho, here's Essie Winter 2012 (or, the Leading Lady Collection. Not sure which is official. The display says Winter 2012):

Beyond Cozy is an antiqued silver micro glitter in a clear base. Super dense, it only took two coats to be completely opaque. Since it's so opaque, it's not the best layering polish. It totally overtakes the base color you layer it over. Super pretty.

Butler Please is medium blue creme. This one was hard to capture. It's got a bit of purple in it, but it's not blurple. It's also slightly dusty. It dried to a satin finish, so perhaps there's some neon pigment in there, too. I used top coat to make it shiny. Three coats.

Leading Lady is a red glitter in a red base. It looks a little pink to me, so it's a raspberry red. Two coats. You can see my comparison between this and Ruby Slippers here. If you have Ruby Slippers, you probably don't need this.

She's Pampered is a pink-leaning red jelly-creme hybrid. I love this. It's totally appropriate for winter. Two coats.

Snap Happy is a tomato red-orange jelly-creme hybrid. Hot damn, this is awesome. It's so bright and squishy. Three coats.

Where's My Chauffeur is an aqua creme. Leans blue. Way gorgeous. It changes in different light, hence millions of pictures. Three coats.

The formula on these were amazing. The cremes flowed wonderfully, spread evenly, and were not streaky. The jelly-cremes applied like butter. The glitters were opaque and not lumpy. They are thick though, so you may have to thin them after each use.

I really love this collection. It doesn't feel totally "winter" to me, but I think it works. The vampy and jewel-toned colors that usually saturate winter collection start to get repetitive after a while. If I was forced to pick only two, I'd go with Beyond Cozy and Snap Happy, with She's Pampered as the runner-up.

I found these at the brand-new City Target (seriously, that's what it's called) in the Chicago Loop, so I don't know what the availability of the collection is at this time. I haven't seen it anywhere else yet, nor have I heard of anyone finding it yet.

I'm planning a comparison post within the next couple days, so feel free to make requests on anything you'd like to see! Thanks for reading!

Essie Ruby Slippers v. Essie Leading Lady

So, I found Essie Winter 2012 at Target today. I grabbed the whole collection, and I noticed that Leading Lady reminded me a lot of Ruby Slippers. So I did a quickie comparison.

RS on the left, LL on the right. Three coats of each.

Not dupes, but EXTREMELY close. LL is a tinge more pink and is more of a jewel-toned red. LL is also a hair more opaque, but otherwise the formula is identical.

Grab Leading Lady if you see it! It's a stunner, and will probably kill your lemming for Ruby Slippers!

OPI Save Me

One coat over...a pink. Sorry, I don't remember at all. Anyway, Save Me is a bar glitter and it's totally awesome.

The name "Save Me" is quite appropriate because I've been totally bummed lately. You guys, the NHL is locked out right now. Only preseason games have been cancelled at the moment, but things are not looking good. I don't know HOW I'm going to get through the winter. (Sidebar: I hate snow, cold, and weather in general.) I hope we will at least get a shortened season, which would be better than nothing at all.

Jelly Sammich ft. RBL and NYC

My first jelly sandwich. I was inspired by an indie (Candeo Jellybean, I think) and I'm super happy with the result. I used Rescue Beauty Lounge Squarepants and NYC Starry Silver Glitter. To achieve depth, this is how I layered them:
1 coat RBL
1 coat NYC
1 coat RBL
1 coat NYC
1 coat RBL

So squishy and awesome.

Nicole by OPI Disco Dolls

Oh my god. I'm so terrible about this. I've had a ridiculously busy two weeks, capped off by my boyfriend's sister's wedding on Friday. Here's what I had on my nails for the wedding:

Three coats. This baby was THICK. I thinned it once during application and it needed to be thinned again almost immediately. Such a sloppy application. It was also very thirsty. Two coats of top coat barely smoothed anything out. Alas, I am in love with this polish. The rainbow glitters strewn about are totally awesome. Gah, it's so pretty.

Wet N Wild Glitz Matte

Flashback...here's a SUPER old mani I never posted:

This is probably 2 or 3 coats of Glitz, and a coat of Essie Matte About You. I remember FREAKING OUT about how awesome matte glitter looked. I mattified every manicure for like, a month after this! I need to start using a matte topcoat more often; I've kind of been neglecting it.

OPI Sparkle Teal Sunrise

One coat of STS over Julep Megan. Gorgeous.