SinfulColors Sweet Tooth & Last Day to Enter

Today's the last day to enter the Fun Friday Giveaway: Sinful Edition, so I'm showing you one of the colors that I'm giving away.

Sweet Tooth is a warm light purple with the subtle hidden shimmer of Cotton Candy and Orange Cream. While Sweet Tooth is a warm purple, it only leans pink. It's still obviously purple, not a purplish pink like OPI Lucky Lucky Lavender.

If you don't like pink-leaning purples with red undertones with your skin tone, I recommend getting Candy Coated, the blue toned purple of the Sugar Rush collection. That one also has slight shimmer.

Back to the polish! Sweet Tooth goes on fully opaque in two coats. Just be sure to thoroughly wipe the excess polish off the brush because this is a thin formula.

This is another winner from the Sugar Rush collection. Speaking of winners, don't forget to enter the giveaway! You still have a few more hours and you could win a new bottle of Sweet Tooth for your own!

Fill out the contest form after the jump!

SinfulColors Orange Cream & Fun Friday Giveaway!!

Here's another shade from the SinfulColors Sugar Rush collection!

This one's Orange Cream, which actually happens to be peach. It's soft and light enough to be reminiscent of an orange creamsicle, so maybe that's where the "orange" part came in? Orange Cream also has a hidden shimmer, which is a little bit more visible than it was in Cotton Candy.

Orange Cream is even easier to work with than Cotton Candy and fully opaque in two coats!  

In case you're wondering how peachy Orange Cream really is, here it is under my Ott light which really brings out the true tones of a polish. It's slightly more orange than it is in normal lighting...

... until you look at it compared to true light oranges like Essie Tart Deco (Art Of Spring - Spring 2010 collection) and SinfulColors Luminary (Girls in Pearls - Spring 2012 collection).

Orange Cream, Tart Deco, Luminary, Orange Cream

In comparison, Orange Cream practically looks like a pink. I think everyone should have a really good peach polish for spring and Orange Cream is getting my recommendation. It's opaque, easy to work with, affordable and has a cute hidden shimmer to make it special. This is the shade that has been disappearing first from my nearby Walgreens Sugar Rush displays so if you see it, get it!

And to wrap up this week of SinfulColors, I'd like to do a small Fun Friday Giveaway: Sinful Edition!

Unicorn, Show Stopping, Sweet Tooth

Unicorn is a core color featured in the Sugar Rush collection, Sweet Tooth is the new light warm purple from the Sugar Rush Collection, and Show Stopping is the pink holo glitter from the Almost Famous/Paparazzi collection.

I know Unicorn isn't new and Show Stopping is a possible dupe for Sally Hansen Strobe Lights and OPI Teenage Dream, but if you haven't found these displays or if you're on a no-buy or if you just like free polish coming to you in the mail, then fill out the form after the jump to enter this giveaway!

SinfulColors - Morning Star, Soul Mate, Greek Isles

I picked up some SinfulColors polishes during last week's 99 cent sale at Walgreens.  They've had so many limited edition seasonal collections recently that I went to town buying all the new shades I could find.  Here are the three I've worn so far this week...

Morning Star - a new shade from their Girls in Pearls Sheer Shimmers collection

This is a light blue shade with silver shimmer flecks.  It's a soft sky blue that doesn't lean purple on me - I've seen it get more periwinkle with lavender tones on people with other skin tones. Nice and delicate and very spring-like.

Soul Mate - I think this one's from the core collection

This dusty rose pink was thick. I tried to use two coats with all of these polishes, but Soul Mate could've worked with one coat. This shade is getting some thinner added before I wear it again. It still went on pretty smooth for a $1 creme. This is a conservative color, but it was a nice spring-y pink to wear before we jump into summer neons.

Greek Isles - a new shade from the Spring 2012 Cast Away collection

Indirect Light - my poor hands needed moisture and a little touching up

Under the Ott light after shaping & clean up

This is Tiffany blue cousin that leans green with a touch of gray. I decided that even at half off prices, the Zoya Earth Day sale still exceeded my low buy budget when I factored in S&H. Greek Isles is the shade I bought to console me from missing out on Bevin.

SinfulColors go on sale pretty often, but some of these new shades might be limited edition.  They have decent opacity, a slightly thick but workable formula, and wear great with my Cult Nails Get Even base coat and Poshe Fast Dry top coat.  If you find some of the seasonal shades that jump out at you, don't wait for a sale. Go ahead and spend those $2 so you don't end up with buyer's remorse like I almost had with the Cast Away and Girls in Pearls collections.  I walked away and almost didn't find them again.

Not sure if the shade's new or just a misplaced core polish placed in the display?  Check the bottom of the bottle - if it has a number in the thousands (i.e. 1107, 1116), it's a new shade.

OPI Stranger Tides

We were out shopping with friends in Tucson when I spotted a nail supply place named "Andy's." That's kinda my name and it's a nail supply place, so I dragged my friends. What did I find? Affordable OPI!! I recently sold some polish in my blog sale, so I took my new funds and picked up some new shades.

They had all the shades from the OPI Pirates of the Carribean On Stranger Tides Spring 2011 collection. Since I'm on a limited polish budget and could only get one bottle from that collection, I went with the shade that would be the most unique in my beloved set of OPI polishes.

Stranger Tides is a light green creme with touches of gray to give it a murky feeling. I felt the formula was a bit watery so this is three thin coats to get full opacity. It set quickly, dried shiny, and wore like iron, so it was well worth all three coats.

On my hand, this green definitely leans yellow - most likely due to my olive skin tone.  I like the quiet oddness of this shade, but the heat has hit AZ hard in the last week. This pastel shade doesn't fit my "summer's here" mood so I'll be putting this away while we're in our triple digit days.

Maybelline Pie in the Sky

I know the Maybelline Sweet Things collection has gotten a notorious reputation for its bad formula, bad brushes, etc, etc. Their Express polishes have found their way in and out of my collection because I can't make their formula work, but I'm in a blue polish mood right now and I *needed* Pie in the Sky.

After extensively searching all my local CVS, RiteAid, and Walgreens (checked the Duane Reades, too, just in case), I couldn't find any of the polishes from this collection except for the random pinks. BOO! Then I saw the Essie Resort comparisons from All Lacquered Up and happily decided I didn't *need* Pie in the Sky. I was going to get Lapis of Luxury and successfully have my cornflower blue polish. Take that, impossible-to-find drugstore polish!!

Then my husband randomly got sick to his stomach (he's never, ever, ever sick) and I had to rush to Rite Aid for meds. What did I find the same day I had declared to be done with my Pie in the Sky search? Frickin' Pie in the Sky. Last one of its shade on the display. With a coupon!

Now that Pie in the Sky's mine, I have to agree with the blogosphere. What's going on with this brush? Mine had stray hairs that did not want to get clipped in to shape. What's going on with this formula? Runny and chunks?!

After all of that, though, the polish did have some good qualities. It's opaque in two coats. This is probably because the first streaky coat self-leveled itself for me. Really. I think it did. The chunks and bubbles and streaks went on and a minute later it was dry, smoother, and decently shiny. After the second coat, there was still evidence of tiny bubbles or some kind of mess in the polish, but in very trace amounts. Overall, the color and end result made up for this polish's very funky first impression.

I've seen other pictures that show it as a bright sky blue like Zoya Yummy, OPI Just Groovy, or Misa Right Here Now, No More Later. It's not that kind of blue. This is a light cornflower or periwinkle blue shade - meaning light blue with purple undertones.  Not even my picture really captures the purple-ness. Even though my index is a little bit out of focus, it's getting closer to being more color-accurate than the other fingers. Imagine a little more purple, a smidge more gray, a little darker, and that's what it looks like!

I thought it was an excellent color to wear right before Easter. I wanted to have a calm color that helped me feel quiet. I was so glad that's exactly what this one did and in only two coats!

Barielle Beaches & Dreams

It's Spring Time!!!  Well, it feels like spring in the City so I'm celebrating this nice break in weather while it's here.  

Beaches & Dreams is a light peach creme from the Spring 2009 Shades by Barielle Sun Goddess Collection.  This was a very work appropriate collection and I think this was the "edgiest," most unique shade from this group.  I like pastel cremes that have a starkness to them.  I think it makes me look a little tanner while still feeling spring-like and feminine.

This polish is nice and opaque.  It only needs 2 coats.  Really.  A third coat would make it look too thick and it's so pretty in two.  I don't remember Beaches & Dreams being this easy to apply last year, but it was a breeze to put on this weekend.  I know my clean up's a bit spotty, but that's on me for trying out a new brush - not the polish.

Ok, time to head back outside.  Suzie has been stuck inside so much this winter because she's only a lil Toy Poodle and bad winter weather doesn't agree with her, so I've got playtime to make up!  One more YAY for spring weather!

China Glaze Lemon Fizz

China Glaze Lemon Fizz is a light yellow creme from the Spring 2010 Up And Away Collection.  I have a few polishes from this collection and they are a like a confectionary delight.  They are beautiful pastels that make me think of cupcake sprinkles on a spring day.  Really!

I wore this color to Florida to celebrate our wedding anniversary with my grandparent-in-laws.  We got married a year ago on a beautiful spring day in Phoenix and this kind of yellow was our wedding's main color.  Perfect color to wear for a spring vacation to Florida to celebrate our wedding, right? 

This manicure was only 2 coats except for the middle finger which got a little bit of OPI Banana Bandana on it (I went polish shopping at the flea market).  I put this on Wednesday night and took the picture on the Monday we came back.  All of the polishes from this collection have had excellent wear.

I think this shade of yellow is green enough that it doesn't make you look red, but it's warm enough that it brightens the hand.  This shade is very flattering without your hands looking like big yellow taxis.  This is the kind of shade you should try first if you're interested in dipping your toe into the pool of yellow polishes.  Or if you're a yellow lover and you don't have an easy-to-apply, long wearing pale yellow in your collection yet.