SinfulShine I'm Blushing & Amazonian

*Press Sample*

As you know, I'm a big fan of SinfulColors - they have a wide range of shades, tons of new collections, and a wallet friendly price.  This year, SinfulColors launched their new SinfulShine line, which is being exclusively sold at Walgreen's.

I wanted to try out two SinfulShine shades that were completely different from each other, so I went with a work appropriate creme and a vampy, fall-ready shimmer.

SinfulColors describes I'm Blushing as a light pink. Their description is straightforward and accurate. I'm Blushing is the lightest of ballet pinks with a creme finish. I wasn't expecting this shade to be so opaque! I'm Blushing was on the thicker side, but went on smoothly and was nearly opaque in one coat. I used two coats for this mani.

Sunlight

Indirect Light

Not only did I'm Blushing go on smoothly, I swear it self-leveled itself even more as it dried. The pictures above were taken without top coat. This is definitely a shiny polish. Due to its opacity, I'm Blushing might be a tad stark on me to be work appropriate if I was in a conservative office, but I think it would be perfectly fine in a more casual office setting or a paler skin tone.

I also tried out Amazonian, a sparkly jungle green.  This shade's formula was even easier to work with, but I still used two coats. Here's Amazonian with no top coat.

 

Amazonian is ridiculously pretty! It's dark, it's green, it's so shimmery!! Since Pantone made Emerald the color of 2013, I've been working on trying out more green polishes. I'm ok with them, but only a few truly make me stop and go whoa - like Nars Zulu, China Glaze Emerald Sparkle, and Zoya Ivanka. Amazonian has made that short list with its shimmer's depth and sparkle.

While these SinfulShine polishes dry on the faster side of average and they do have glossy finishes, I don't recommend skipping a top coat. I'm rough on my nails with typing and dishes, and I got tipwear on the first day with these manis. I suggest putting a top coat on to seal and protect if you want to wear these polishes for more than a day - which you're definitely going to want to do with Amazonian!

SinfulColors Savage + Orly Sparkling Garbage

Matte polishes are sneaky. Some times they're labeled, some times they're expected because they're in a matte collection, other times it's a complete surprise. It happens most often with bright colors that don't look neon in the bottle, but must have neon pigment in their formula because they dry matte.

And then you have SinfulColors Savage. Looks like a blue on the darker, greener side of teal in the bottle. Then you start applying it and something about the application seems off. It's really opaque but a little thin, a little streaky. It dries and bam! It's a matte?! Yep, even though Savage is an older shade from the core collection, I didn't know this when I bought it.

With a top coat, it's beautifully glossy and shiny. Unfortunately, I hadn't prepped myself or my nails for matte application which requires slightly more effort. I ended up with a few thin spots and ripples where I didn't pay enough attention.

Two coats of Savage + Shiny Top Coat - mani's not bad, but it's not great

I picked up a pretty holographic topper for about two bucks at the most recent Sally's Clearance sale, so I put it on to hide the flaws.

This is Orly Sparkling Garbage from their 2013 Summer Mash Up collection.  This is a very sheer holographic glitter in a dark seafoam green base. I put two coats on over Savage to pump up the rainbow effect. Sparkling Garbage had a very fine grit to it, so I used two coats of top coat for extra glossiness and smoothness.

Here it is all blurry, so you can see the sparkly rainbow effect. This is much closer to this mani sparkled in real life than the pictures above. 

I'm really happy with this layering, which is good because I was low on time to do polish changes this week and this mani wore like iron! I didn't get tip wear until Day 5! I'm not sure if it was the base coat, Savage, Sparkling Garbage, the top coat, or the combination of them all that made it so magically long lasting, but it was incredible.

Only downside was the terrible staining from Savage during removal. Even letting the remover soak on the nail for a few seconds and pulling it all down in one swipe to minimize cuticle staining, I was still left with blue cuticles and nails. I haven't had any staining like this from any of my recent SinfulColors blues, so I don't know what made this shade so stain-crazy.

China Glaze Grafitti Glitter & Mosiac Madness

Before I head on over to Sally's for their Clearance Sale this weekend, I thought I'd try out two of the polishes I got from their last sale.

Mosiac Madness & Graffiti Glitter

Both of these polishes are from the China Glaze Winter 2013 Glitz Bitz 'n Pieces collection. They're microglitter, hex glitter, and bar glitter combinations in clear bases. It's ridiculous how easy the application is with these polishes given how much glitter is packed into each bottle.

Graffiti Glitter is the green of the collection. The tiny round, small hexes, and large hexes all come in a vibrant emerald green and black. The largest of the hex glitter and the bar glitter are black. Here is one coat layered over China Glaze For Audrey.

Mosiac Madness is the sapphire blue version of Graffiti Glitter. There's blue and black round, small hex, and medium hex glitters with black bar glitter.  Here is one coat layered over China Glaze Lemon Fizz.

Ott Light

Indirect Sunlight

I don't know why I didn't play with these glitters sooner!  They were so easy to use and the layering combinations are endless. No dabbing, pulling, or placing - just load up the brush, swipe, and done. I can't wait to try them over raspberry pink, mint green, or a dove gray!!

Claire's Dream Catcher & A Winner!

I wanted to do a cute St. Patrick's Day mani. I was going back and forth in my head between ombre or gradient. Since I didn't think any of my greens leant themselves to a nice festive ombre (I could have done murky and/or olive-y) and I wanted to get to bed sooner than later, I skipped the gradient and went with a straightforward oldie but goody.

Claire's Dream Catcher started showing up in the blogosphere in 2010 and really gained a lot of steam when people noticed it was a dupe-ish cousin to Chanel Jade. Dream Catcher is a yellow-toned mint green with a fine blue shimmer. After quite vigorous shaking (and subsequent resting) to dissolve tiny chunks that had formed in my bottle, this polish went back to its old thin self and went on in three coats.

Dream Catcher is still one of my favorite light greens because of that blue shimmer. It might take three coats to get everything smooth and streak-free, but it dries fast and gets decent wear, so it's all good.

I hope everyone is having a happy Friday, especially the winner of the Sinful Colors giveaway.... April G.! Thanks to everyone who entered. I appreciate your participation and I loved reading what your favorite polishes of 2013 have been so far!!

SinfulColors Lush Life

Like most people, I picked up a few bottles of SinfulColors during their latest Walgreens sale.  My Walgreens had the Almost Famous (aka the Rite Aid Paparazzi display that we don't have in AZ because we don't have Rite Aids so I have to visit every single one I see when we go on out-of-state trips) and Sugar Rush displays fully stocked. 

I'm leading off with one of the glittery ones from the Almost Famous collection. Lush Life is a greenish turquoise glitter in a clear base. To me, the small glitter looks round, but, on an extreme zoomed-in look at the picture, they appear to be small hexes. Since the pictures don't lie and it might be time for me to get a new contacts prescription, I'll go ahead and say this polish has large and small hex glitter.

Here's one coat of Lush Life over two coats of Color Club Blue-topia, which is a dark navy jelly.

Lush Life is a nice layering polish with enough glitter to be visible and sparkly with just one coat while still leaving the base color nice and visible. It's also nice that the larger hexes don't curl up at the edges. Some low-quality large glitters do lift up which ruins a mani in every way possible - visually, texture-wise, durability, blegh.

If your eyes are sharper than mine, you might have noticed that my ring finger looks slightly different from the other three. Since Blue-topia is a jelly, I experimented by alternating two coats each of Blue-topia and Lush Life on that nail. You can see the navy colored up some of the first layer of Lush Life making the lower hex glitter royal blue. It was a very subtle effect because Blue-topia is pretty opaque in one coat. Still, I think I'd like to try alternate layers with Lush Life and another jelly polish next time because I liked the swimming glitter look this had in person.

Untried Greens - Zoya Gemma & Yara

I pulled out some of my untried Zoya greens for the week leading up to St. Patrick's Day.  These are from collections last year, but they were both so pretty that I had to share.

First, we have Gemma from their Spring 2011 Intimate collection
- a soft sage green shimmer.

 

I wanted this shade for its flash of blue-violet shimmer, but I didn't get around to buying it until I found it in an Ulta clearance bin.  The formula was pretty thin and watery, but I think that might have been my fault.  The poor thing had been sitting around for awhile - it probably needed a lot more rolling to get it mixed back up to normal consistency.  I needed three coats to get it opaque, but it might work with two if I mix it better next time.

For those of you in parts of the country where it's still feels more like the end of winter than the beginning of spring...

here's Yara, an olive green with gold flecks,
from the Mirrors half of the Fall 2011 Smoke and Mirrors collection.

Yara's formula was thicker (maybe because it's also newer and needed less shaking?) and went on easily in two coats.  I really enjoyed the soft, spring-like effect of Gemma, but I LOVED Yara.  This is such a beautiful color.  Why didn't I wear this all fall?? It's smoky, it's subtly sparkly, it's so pretty!

Cult Nails Toxic Seaweed

As I get ready to go from my current low-buy into a full no-buy for the next 40 days, I want to share one of the last polishes I've purchased.  If you don't have this polish yet and you've decided to not buy polish in the near future too, buy this polish now! and then start your no-buy.  Really!  It's limited edition, may never come back, and it's too pretty and unique not to add to your collection.

This is Toxic Seaweed from Cult Nails Spring 2012 Let's Get Nekkid! Collection.  This collection is Maria's take on nudes and this is her nude shade for ETs.

If A Sparkle Yule Love was an updated Carnival Lights, Toxic Seaweed is an updated Atlantis.  The jelly base is on the greener side of teal, the gold microglitter is more uniform, and the bronze flakies are It for 2012.  Toxic Seaweed is the perfect name for this shade.  The glitter rests at different levels in the base and flashes gold, green, blue, and silver, depending on how the sun hits it.

Toxic Seaweed refines the chunky glitters we were enjoying the last two years into something that's equally complex in depth and color while giving it a smoother and, in my opinion, more sophisticated finish. The application was nice - nothing gloopy or gritty about this jelly-based glitter.  I used two coats in the mani above, which left the shade squishy while still covering the majority of my nail line.  If you use three coats, the green deepens and darkens.  I wore this with their Get Even base and Wicked Fast top coat.  After 4 days of full time work typing, there wasn't even a hint of tip wear.

If Cult Nails gets about 500 more likes on Facebook, there will be a $5 sale on Cult polishes, but why wait?  Especially on a polish like this?  Don't miss out on getting your own bottle!

MAC Dirty Martini + Comparison

 It's almost Halloween and it's time for a murky, swampy olive color!

I used to think light blue polishes were too crazy for me to wear - so stark, so bright, so blue!  I even gave my bottle of Barielle Swizzle Stix away because I just wasn't ready for it in 2009.  I also wasn't ready for the ugly-pretty camouflage colors that were starting to show up.  For its name alone, I bought Dry Martini from the MAC Fall 2009 by Jin Soon collection.  After two years of taupe, mushroom, and greige, I've slowly grown to enjoy these types of shades and I'm finally ready to love this polish!

Dry Martini is a dark, brown-leaning olive green creme.  On me, this polish looks green indoors and brown outdoors.  My bottle had been untouched for so long that it needed some really good mixing.  I don't think I mixed it enough, so it took me three coats to get this polish on opaque and even.

I was so happy with the look of Dirty Martini that I tried to put on an ombre mani with some of my other drab green cremes (I know the OPI has a faint shimmer, but it's only visible 2% of the time so it barely counts as shimmer!). 

Rescue Beauty Lounge No More War (index), Zoya Shawn (middle),
Dry Martini (ring), and OPI Here Today... Aragon Tomorrow (pinkie)

Shawn is a bit dingy looking in the bottle, but it looks so vibrant when it's in the middle of all these brown-tinged greens. I don't have Zoya Dree (still on a low-buy), but I think that green would've fit in much better with the other olive shades. I used two coats on No More War and Shawn and three coats on Dry Martini and Here Today Aragon Tomorrow.

Since the greens looked so different on the hand than they did in their bottles, this mani turned out just to be a comparison swatch.  It's still a useful look at these popular polishes, even if it isn't a real ombre mani!

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.

Zoya Ivanka & Charla

If you haven't heard, Zoya is offering a free bottle of Ivanka AND Charla with any online purchase (US Only) while supplies last or until Thursday, June 16 at 11:59 EST.

Both of these polishes are from the Zoya Summer 2010 Sparkle collection. I've worn both these colors so far this summer because the warm weather has put me in the mood for bright shades. I want sparkle and iridescence until the hotter triple digit days of July when it looks like everything is radiating heatwaves - that's when I'll wear my neons. These polishes are definitely bright and sparkly!

According to Zoya, Ivanka is a "mermaid green sparkling metallic." The gold-with-hints-of-blue duochrome are very visible in the bottle. On the nail, this translates to a green that is bright and cool with tons of gold shimmer.

Charla is a "tropical blue sparkling metallic." I love turquoise polishes and this is one of my favorites. It's not a neon but it's still so bright and sparkly that my camera thought it was radioactive in the sunlight. Charla is packed with gold and green glitter that doesn't disappoint in any lighting.

Both of these polishes ran on the sheer side, probably due to the thin formula that lets the glitter swim through and set at different levels in the base. With three coats, you get sparkly depth and almost-full opacity. Zoya is not known for being a fast drying polish, but these polishes dry extremely quickly - even with three coats. They also dry smooth and grit-free.

If you don't have these two polishes or any of Charla's known dupes, don't wait to take advantage of Zoya's deal. They almost sold out today, but kept the deal going because their VP had them fill more bottles. Rush, rush, rush and go get some awesome free polishes!

More Revlon Top Speeds

I definitely judge a shade of polish based on what I see in the bottle. This is not a good strategy because there are so many ways for a polish to surprise you once it's actually on that nail. Look - it's a darker shade, there's a hidden shimmer, the incredible opacity gives this so much depth, happy wows like that. Of course, a polish could also end up being a sheer, watery, streaky mess that won't dry but let's be optimistic!

Here are some of the Revlon Top Speeds that I was just gifted - and each one of them was a very pleasant surprise for me. After my binge on spring pastels, I had to wear a shade that was edgier and earthier. Time for taupe!!

Stormy is a taupe creme that looks kinda drab in the bottle, but loves to change colors on the hand. This shade leans gray, brown, or purple depending on lighting and skin tone. Based on other reviews, it seems like Stormy has a hit or miss formula. It's streaky, thin and hard to work with for some people. I was lucky and my bottle had an excellent formula - smooth and creamy in two easy coats.

Stormy Can Lean Brown

Stormy Can Also Lean Gray

I couldn't stay away from spring pastels for too long and I tried Jaded next. In the store, I thought this was the Top Speed dupe for their non-Top Speed shade Minted, but I was wrong. Jaded is a little bit lighter, a little bit more yellow, and it has a subtle silver shimmer! This wasn't as easy to apply as Stormy, but I still only needed two coats for a sufficiently smooth finish.

And the biggest, trippiest surprise of all was Cloud. I've seen swatches of Cloud and sometimes it looks a bit blue or a bit gray or a bit dusty, but it pretty much always looks light purple. Not On Me!!! Cloud looks periwinkle! In real life, in every lighting, in every picture - it looks like a light blue that leans purple.

Shade - Looking Soft and Bit More Lavender

Sunlight - Looking Stark & Blue
which is how it looks on me about 95% of the time

I actually Cloud a lot more like this because it's completely unique in my collection. The ease of application was right in the middle of Stormy and Jaded and I still only used two coats. I got the most compliments on this shade and I kept asking what shade they thought this polish was - no one said light purple. It was pastel blue or periwinkle or light robin's egg, so it's confirmed that I wasn't seeing things. Crazy colors!

Revlon Black with Envy - Last Day to Enter!

Guess what my Ulta just got in? A full Revlon Backstage Revealed - Runway 2011 display... which means that I was able to get my hands on the limited edition Black with Envy!

For anyone who can't find Wet N Wild Morbid from their Craze line, Black with Envy is also supposed to be another close cousin (aka probable dupe) to Chanel's Black Pearl. This small display is only supposed to be up from March through the end of May, so you'll have to look quickly to find this shade. 

Is it worth the search? It was for me because I wanted a polish like Black Pearl without having to pay $25 for it. Black with Envy went on in two coats - it has the graphite base with blue-green shimmer - it's worn nicely with only minor tipwear after housework and dish washing.

Sun - Graphite with Green Shimmer

Shade - Green Shimmer gives a pearl-like finish

But if you don't feel like dealing with the frustration of a potentially fruitless polish hunt, just enter my giveaway because Black with Envy is the tenth polish I'll be giving away! I'll also be giving away the new addition to the Lippmann Happy Birthday dupe family - Ulta Piñata-Yada-Yada!

Black with Envy, Piñata-Yada-Yada

You have until midnight PST tonight to enter. Don't miss out on your chance to get all of 10 of these fantastic polishes! The winner will be announced tomorrow afternoon so hasta mañana!

Holiday Season! - Milani Gems

I know it's late and tomorrow's a Monday, but I had to fit in this post because... I loved our four day Thanksgiving weekend, I love the holiday season (counting down the days to Christmas in AZ), and I love my husband for going out of his way to find Milani Gems for me.

I've been looking for Gems - it's a Milani Jewel FX off their Rockstar Heavy Glitter display - and the one display that I've found had all of the other polishes and two empty spaces where Gems was supposed to go. So close, so far!!  That was the only display I even found after looking in many other Duane Reades, CVS, and Rite Aides.  It's becoming a pattern with drugstore collections that the polish gets found once I stop looking for it.  And that happened again this time.

My husband goes out in the windy cold weather to get us some Dunkin Donuts breakfast - I'm addicted to their coffee - and comes back with the last bottle of Gems from the last CVS in Staten Island that I hadn't checked.  He's too sweet... awww.... so I put Gems on as soon as I could to show my appreciation.

My goal is to wear festive holiday polish looks through New Year's and here's my first post-Thanksgiving Jolly manicure - Orly Enchanted Forest layered with Milani Gems.

The Bottle Buddies Pic - aww, they like each other!

1 coat of Milani Gems over 2 coats of Orly Enchanted Forest

I love this festive glitter! Gems is supposed to be the $5 sibling to a Lippmann Polish that's more than three times that price. It's true that when macro shots of the two polishes are compared there are slight differences. Gems has large and small hex glitter and the color combination is slightly different. Lippmann's Happy Birthday has large hex glitter and small *square* glitter with a little more pink in the mix. I think Gems is definitely a good dupe-ish substitute and I'm so happy to have it!! 

Good luck to everyone else who may be on their own drugstore searches - you can find those polishes!

Nars Zulu

My Zulu finally arrived on Tuesday evening! After all the hype, I was kinda nervous about my first face-to-face encounter with Zulu. When I finally got the nerve up to open the box and put it on, my fears were quickly assuaged. This dark green jelly flowed on to my nails like it wanted to be there. It was opaque, smooth, and very shiny in two coats.

I thought I loved Zulu because of what it symbolizes to the polish community - rare, coveted, completely beloved for its long awaited return. After it applied like a dream, I decided that Zulu had lived up to my expectations. Then I wore it to work this week and it completely blew me away!

My coworkers often check my polish to see the new shade I'm wearing. Normally, they come up to my desk and check my hand. Not with Zulu! They spotted it within minutes of saying hello from cubicles away. We'd be discussing something else and suddenly "What are you wearing? What's it called? Can you bring the bottle to work tomorrow?" They've asked the name of my polishes before, but never for a bottle loan. These ladies get their nails done, but they're not hardcore polish fans and Zulu still reached out and pulled them in.

What did Nars put in this polish? Zulu is bottled magnetism! (That's why I took my pictures with a magnet while my bottle was out on loan with a coworker.)

Sun - Visibly Green & Jelly - see those edges

Shade - Glossy & Dark

This is my first Nars polish and Zulu has incredible wear on my nails. When I took it off on Saturday evening - 4 full days of typing, baking, and even washing dishes without gloves - I still had polish on 4 of my 5 nail tips where I had wrapped the ends during the original mani! I rarely get chips, but I tend to get tipwear within hours even with wrapping.

I think I need a backup of this polish! I wonder if I can still find it anywhere...

LA Colors Color Craze!

These are Dollar Tree finds and I need to pick up some more because these three are awesome!  Just a note, their names are not printed on the bottles themselves - just the packaging.  And these names are cute, but have nothing to do with the actual color.

My first was Static Electricity.  I was not prepared for the opacity and vibrancy of this shade. I was hoping for a cheap dupe of Suzi Says Feng Shui, but there wasn't a bit of dustiness to Static Electricity on the nail. This is a bright sky blue - like the sky I would see in AZ on a clear day.  Here's one coat with a few touch ups and that was all for such a pretty, smooth, and shiny shade!

 Shade Shot - This shows how smooth this polish looks on the nail. 
And I like how the sun still hit the bottle so you can see how intense the light blue base is.  Ooooh...

Next up was Atomic, a teal-leaning green jelly-leaning creme.

This is two coats and the jellyish nature was more visible in person.

I love China Glaze and I wish I had the funds for the entire Up & Away Collection, but since I didn't, I'm very happy that I have some of their "cousins."  Really - Atomic & Static Electricity have the pigmentation and ease of application to be close relations to Up & Away.

Last, but definitely not least, is Wired. This was my favorite and I'm wearing it as a full mani this week!! I wasn't at all ready for the intensity of this blue shade - it's electric! This color blew my poor lil camera away, too, so I had issues getting it to focus and take a nice accurate shot. This is two coats of a royal blue infused with blue and turquoise metallic shimmer.  

Shade Shot - I think this is more accurate. I love the metallic intensity without the metallic brushstroke isses.
Check out the bottle - the turquoise shimmer in the middle is visible on the nail, but the purple or dark navy color at the top is nowhere to be seen.

All of these colors dried slightly lighter and a lot brighter than the bottle colors, so each one was a pleasant surprise as it was being applied.  Also, this brush was much nicer than I expected - these swatches were all done without cleanup.  I know the lack of cleanup is visible on my slightly blue-tinged cuticles, but really, there wasn't a stray hair on any of these brushes and they flared out so nicely. 

I can't believe how many times I passed this brand over in the dollar store.  My Lesson Learned: Don't judge a polish by its price tag!