Jelly Sandwich with OPI Houston We Have a Purple and Sinful Colors I Miss You

Houston We Have a Purple is a delicious purple jelly.  It looks quite dark in the bottle but goes on so sheer that it looks more magenta on the nail.  My pics make it look more pink than it is.  Since I was layering this I only used 2 coats of HWHAP- it would prob take 3-4 coats to be opaque on its own.

Bottle shots of Sinful Colors I Miss You and OPI Houston We Have a Purple

The assembled jelly sandwich!  2 Coats HWHAP, one coat SC I Miss You, one coat HWHAP and seche vite topcoat.  The glitter had this awesome pink/purple duochrome effect going on and the holo glitter in I Miss You still looked holo through the final coat of purple.  Beautiful!

Deborah Lippmann's Mermaid's Dream

As soon as I saw this polish I just had to have it.  It also helped that Beauty.com had a promo when you spent $10 on their site you got a free Deborah Lippmann polish called Dream a Little Dream of Me.  Free DL polish?  I'm IN!!  So I got Mermaid's Dream and Spa Ritual's Sacred Ground to make the order over $25 to qualify for free shipping.  2 Deborah Lippmann's and a Spa Ritual polish for $28-  not bad!

Mermaid's Dream is a seafoam green foil with tiny blue and gold glitter and larger blue round glitter.  The color combo is of this world- the finish looks pretty frosty and bumpy so I'm not entirely sure how I feel about that yet.  I thought it would look better with extra topcoat so I used 2 coats of gelous and  a coat of seche vite.  It's still a bit bumpy even with this and it looks heavily textured- sort of like gravel.  The color is incredibly flattering and unique so I still like it.  Formula was excellent, 2 coats below.

Essie Smooth Sailing

This lovely blue shimmer from Essie is part of the Summer 2011 collection.  I got this in a 4 mini cube set from TJ Maxx.   On first glance it looks quite similar to the shimmer in Zoya Skylar, OPI I Have a Herring Problem and I Don't Give a Rotterdam from the Holland collection.  But then when you look closer it has this gorgeous pink shimmer along with the silver.  Opaque in 2 coats and the formula was great, smooth and easy to use.    Essie mini polishes are the best because the brush is the same size as the full bottle!  Genius, Essie!

China Glaze Prismatic Glitter Full Spectrum

So I got the whole Prismatic Glitter collection from China Glaze today!  I knew I'd like these from the swatches I've seen, but I was still stunned when I saw them in person!  *Wipes drool*  These have to be seen in person to be fully appreciated.  There is a subtle duochrome shift of the base color in most all of them excluding Polarized (silver).  But I thought it would be great for gradients so I got it too!  (Justify however you need to)    I haven't had time to swatch the others, just threw this on as a full mani tonight.

This one is primarily pink and shifts to darker pink and mine shows some purple shift as well, maybe because it was layered over a purple?  The formula was excellent, thin but opaque, no cleanup whatsoever.  

2 coats over 1 coat of OPI Planks a Lot.  Not really necessary to layer this one, I just wanted to make sure it was opaque and maybe bring out the purple more.

I adore this collection!  I'm not even a pink fan but this is wonderful!

Wet N Wild Spoiled Trust Fund Baby

Trust Fund Baby is a unique mix of hex gold and blue glitter and SQUARE black and pink glitter.  Yes, I said square!  As if it wasn't good enough to give us black glitter- they went ahead and made it square.  Be still my beating heart!  I wanted to put this over something that would really contrast with the glitter so I used an unnamed silver foil by Color Club.  This is one of those glitters you have to "dab" on rather than brush on.    Love, love this!

2 Coats of silver foil, 1.5 "dab" coats of glitter, no topcoat

Color Club Love 'em/Leave 'em

Look at this mother- a nude holo!  Don't see that everyday, do ya?  Color Club makes great holographic polishes, they should make more of them!  The formula was excellent, went on like buttah.  2 coats pictured here, no topcoat.

Look at the rainbow in that bottle!  OMG!

Not the best pic here- I only had a small patch of sunlight in my garage to work with!

Indoors, in light box- still a nice shimmery nude!

I found this for $3.99 at Christmas Tree Shops- random, huh?

Sinful Colors Mint Apple

This is a lovely dusty mint green shimmer from Sinful Colors.  Opaque at 2 thick coats, would have been better with 3 thinner coats but I was short on time.  Good formula, minimal cleanup needed.  Fine silver shimmer throughout that shows up well on the nail.  Pics are with Seche Vite topcoat.  Really like this one, would be great on lots of skin tones.

Kleancolor Blue Satin with Ruby Kisses Crazy Night Out

Another Kleancolor polish for you today.  This looked amazing in the bottle!  Drool-worthy, really.  But alas, the magic did not transfer to the nail.  Dark blue polish with silvery-grey glass fleck and iridescent hex and bar glitter.  I definitely have a huge weakness for bar glitter.  But the glitter was sparse and sank under the layer of polish.  *SIGH*  A little disappointed here.  Maybe I'll try it again and see if I can "place" some of the glitter on the top of the polish.

Look at that bottle!!

Just "meh" on the nail for me.

Looks better in this macro shot

Then I added this Ruby Kisses polish Crazy Night Out over it and WOW!  This is such a great glitter- tiny fuchsia glitter along with medium silver holographic hex glitter and larger fuchsia hex glitter. 

So PRETTAH!!!

Kleancolor Holo Chrome

You know the only thing I love better than Holos?  Cheap Holo's.  ($2.99)  I have never been able to find Kleancolor polishes locally until this week.  Then I found a display of them at 2 stores in one day- Score!  They did not have any of the chunky holo glitters that I am lusting after, but I did find 4 that I had to have.  Purple + Holo= I'm always in!  So this one obviously came home with me.  Sheer jelly base, scattered holo effect.  I had heard about how stinky Kleancolor polishes are- they are certainly strong smelling, nothing I can't handle though.  There is a faint artificial grape smell to this one.  Honestly, Seche Vite topcoat smells worse.

This was ridiculously hard to photograph and I had no sunlight so this is indoor artificial light.  3 coats.  The holo showed up well indoors.

In my lightbox- very nice polish even without the holo effect showing up! 

As you can see here there are blue glitter flecks that give the polish visual interest even when the polish is in non-holo mode.  

Nicole by OPI A Million Sparkles

I have been hunting this polish down for weeks now!  It finally showed up at my local Target and I was thrilled!  This is one of the most unique glitters I have ever seen.  Small blue bar and hex glitter, larger gold hex and salmon colored bar glitter.  Good formula- could probably be opaque in 3 coats but I chose to layer  it over Orly Sweet Peacock- a vibrant blue foil.

Something about a foil with glitter over it just knocks my socks off!

Sweet Peacock on it's own- 2 coats.  I adore this blue foil!  Great formula, dries fast, flattering color- what's not to love?

OPI Manicurist of Seville and Black Cherry Chutney

I found this duo of OPI polishes in Marshall's for $7.99!  The colors are not the most unique and not the kind of thing that usually excites me, but it was such a good deal I couldn't pass it up!  

Manicurist of Seville is a berry creme- really great formula on this one.  Thin but opaque, really almost painted itself on.  From the Fall 2009 Collecion de Espana.  More vivid and purple than pictured here.  2 coats.

Black Cherry Chutney is a vampy burgundy/plum with subtle red shimmer.  From the Spring 2008 India Collection.  It's quite dark, looks almost black in some lights.  This had a great formula too, 2 easy coats here.

I have no idea why these 2 random older polishes were grouped together and sold as a set, but I ain't mad at it!

Butter London Wallis

Wallis is an incredibly unique golden-green metallic.  I have just recently started to love green polishes so this was a must have for me.  The formula was perfect- smooth and opaque in 2 coats.  Has a beautiful old tarnished metal look.  What else is there to say?  Love.

Layering with Sinful Colors Nail Junkie

This beautiful creature was one of my best layering experiments ever!  I don't know about you guys, but I am still so in love with flakies!   I hope they stay popular for a while longer!  This was definitely more green than the pictures show.  This was an unbelievable 11 coats of polish on my nails!  I'm not even kidding.  Base coat, 3 coats of Unknown Color Club green creme, 2 coats of Sinful Colors Nail Junkie glitter,1 coat Gelous and Seche Vite topcoat.  Wore those eight coats for a day and then added 2 coats of Finger Paints Flecked and more topcoat.  That's a lot of layers!

Layering flakies over glitter gives this amazing fish scale effect!

This Color Club came in a TJ Maxx kit that was labeled incorrectly but I think it may be Edie.  It was so much greener than this picture shows.  Looks more turquoise here, either way- lovely color.  3 coats.

Look at that bottle of Color Club Nail Junkie!  This glitter has a teal jelly base with aqua, royal blue, green and gold glitter.  AMAZING!  You need this if you like glitter at all.  Could probably be built up to opacity in 3-4 coats, I chose to layer it here.  I like it so much I have a backup bottle.

Still nice before the flakies

Macro with the flakies added.  Reminds me of the ocean pictures you see around some tropical place like Tahiti.  

St. Patrick's Day Glitter Gradient

What a great excuse to wear green this week!  I love me some St Pattie's Day!  An Irish holiday centered about drinking- Yesss!  I'm too old for all that mess now, but back in the day I was all about it.  Now I'll just paint my nails green to celebrate.  This mani uses 2 Bonita polishes.  They don't have names- these came in sets of 6 that I found in TJ Maxx for like $5.99.

Here's the final product.  I thought I was done at the pics below, but it needed a little something extra.  I wanted a gold rhinestone to put on the ring finger but I don't have any so I used a chunky gold glitter polish on the outer corner to accent.  Loved this!

The base was 3 coats of Unnamed Bonita Green Shimmer.  2 coats would have been fine, I just used 3 to even things out for pictures.  This was a really great polish- went on smoothly and the color is gorgeous.  Sometimes these cheap polishes can surprise you with their quality!

Then I sponged on Sinful Colors Call You Later in a gradient starting at the tips.  This is a great layering polish.  Green round and larger hex glitter with small gold glitter.  I realized when I looked at the macro that the gold glitter is square!  Yea for square glitter!

It was a little gritty so I did a coat of Gelous and then a coat of Seche Vite- smooth as glass now.

Don't forget to wear your green!

Nicole by OPI OMB

I don't love red polishes, but this shimmer just has that "something special".  Cherry red shimmer bomb with a little gold shimmer running throughout.  The brush however-  probably one of the worst I've EVER encountered.  Huge, flat, stiff, spiky mop.  It would have been easier to paint your nails with a spatula, I think.  But I will put up with it for the color- maybe I will decant it in another bottle.

Please ignore the black streak on the middle finger- my cleanup brush bled black paint onto the red.  And the clumpy thing on the index finger.  2 coats, no topcoat here.

After a day I needed to spice it up so I added 2 coats of Finger Paints Flashy

Pardon the tip wear- aren't these color flashes amazing?!?  Gold, yellow, green...amazing!   I couldn't stop staring at my nails!  I loved it so much I wore it for 3 more days.

Love. Flakies.

Nicole by OPI Sounds Grape to Me

This is a nice burgundy/purple color with duochrome gold/pink glass fleck shimmer.  The color shift is subtle in real life- looks more dramatic in this photo.  The brush on this Nicole polish was nice- a normal thin brush unlike some of the ragged oversize mop brushes a lot of these polishes have.  Formula was nice, good opacity and flowed smoothly.  And the price was right too- $3.49 a bottle!  I have trouble paying $7 for some Nicole polishes, but give me 50% off and I'm all over it!  I've had my eye on this one since the fall, glad it went on sale so I would finally buy it.

2 coats, no topcoat

Nicole by OPI Fabulous is My Middle Name

This Nicole glitter is Part of a Spring 2012 collection that is a Wal-Mart Exclusive.  This glitter is unbelievable!  There is so much going on here- I see tiny gold and silver square glitter along with  red, gold, violet and blue bar glitter.  Bar and square glitter in the same polish?!?  Whaaaaaat?  Well done Nicole by OPI, well done.

Unfortunately my bottle looks like it was desecrated by some little a-hole who painted all their nails (and some of their friend's nails too) since a small amount of the polish is gone and its all dried and crusted around the rim.  I didn't notice this during my fit of pure joy in the store.  So I paid $7 for a used bottle of polish but I don't care, it's that good people.

I coat layered over 2 coats Sally Hansen Salon Manicure in Navy Baby.  Please click to enlarge so you can experience the joy!

Navy Baby is a navy jelly with hidden shimmer- look at the bottle to see it!  Really nice!

1 coat over 2 coats Revlon Violet