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!

Sally Hansen Salon Effects Speed Dating

Happy Valentine's Day to all!

I was actually able to find a full display of the Valentine themed Sally Hansen Salon Effects strips.  After never being able to find the winter ones, I was treated to two of these patterns by the DH.  I decided to wear Speed Dating for the week leading up to Valentine's.

This pattern are red hearts of various sizes on a light gold background. The hearts have a textured appearance like they were made out of pieces of red foil. The light gold has a metallic finish that looks a bit smoother in comparison.

 

After the temperamental application with Ghoulie Girl, I skipped the base coat this time.  I think that was the trick because these went on nice and easy. These strips are shiny enough that a top coat didn't really add to the shininess on my first day of wear.  Top coat helped to refresh the shine on my third day of wear, but it didn't improve overall wear time because these strips resisted tip wear even on the nails that weren't top coated.  After almost five days of wear, these were still a good looking mani.

...and in case you thought I forgot this year... It's here at last!  Happy Centennial Day in Arizona!!  I hope everyone's getting their fill of celebration on our state's 100th birthday.  I know I'm optimistically looking forward to a second century based on progress, hope, and cultural understanding.

OWWWP - OPI A Sparkle Yule Love

Can you believe it's February already?  I'm in the mood for lots of pinks and reds, so let's get started with a pink. This is A Sparkle Yule Love from the OPI Ulta Exclusive Holiday 2011 Deck Your Nails mini-collection.  I don't have Excuse Moi from the Muppets collection, but this may be a dupe of that shade. 

A Sparkle Yule Love is a pink jelly with tons of glitter - silver and pink microglitter and larger multicolor glitter in tons of colors like blue, yellow, and green.  Here it is with two coats and two layers of top coat.  It's not a gritty glitter, but it does need a little bit of extra smoothing.

I think I like this shade so much because it's like a remix of China Glaze Carnival Lights, one of my favorite glitters from their Specialty collection.  It's the same kind of idea - colors, multicolor glitter, jelly base - but with a few tweaks to make it feel updated.

This is a very sparkly polish, so be sure to wear it when you need something extra twinkly on your nails.

Wet N Wild Ice Baby Collection

I have a fabulous friend who gifted me with the entire wet n wild coloricon Holiday Glitter 2011 Ice Baby Collection.  The entire set!!

Let's get started with a look at these cute little bottles...

Rockin' Rubies - Believe Me, It's Real - 24 Carats - Give Me A Price Quote

It's All In The Cut - Back Alley Deals - Cost Is No Issue - Diamond In The Rough

Here's one coat of these glitters over one coat of black creme polish.  All of these polishes are clear-based and their opacity varies, but I wouldn't describe any of them as sheer.  They are gritty, top coat-sucking glitters so I think layering makes wear and removal easier.  If you want to wear them solo, you'll only need two or three coats to get full coverage.

Rockin' Rubies - red microglitter with pink hex holo glitter
Believe Me, It's Real - blue microglitter with purple hex glitter
24 Carats - yellow-gold microglitter and bar glitter
Give Me A Price Quote - warm gold microglitter with gold and orange bar glitter with pink flash. I can't tell where that pink is coming from, but it's there.

It's All In The Cut - lavender microglitter with pink hex glitter

Back Alley Deals - purple microglitter with red hex glitter

Cost Is No Issue - light greenish blue microglitter with blue hex glitter

Diamond In The Rough - charcoal microglitter with silver holo hex glitter

As a glitter fan, I love every single one of these polishes. The colors are bright, the color and texture combinations are creative, and the overall feel is so playful.  They cover the nail easily, dry quickly, and wear for days without chipping.

If I had to pick my Top 3 Favorites from the Ice Baby collection, I'd go with... 

Back Alley Deals - It's like an awesome glitter version of China Glaze Flying Dragon.

Believe Me, It's Real - Blue and purple and it's all glitter? oh yeah! 

It's All In The Cut - It's so girly and Lisa Frank-like.

I'm wearing these all as NOTDs, so I'll have future posts showing them off on their own.  If you live by a Walgreens and find this collection, buy these polishes! Pick up your favorite colors and I'm positive you'll be wearing them non-stop through the winter/holiday season.

Sally Hansen Salon Effects Ghoulie Girl

By request from a friend, here's a quick look at my Halloween nails.

My mom treated me to the Sally Hansen Salon Effects Real Nail Polish Strips in Ghoulie Girl.  This pattern has rows of alternating orange and white ghosts on a black background. The little ghosts look like the guys from Pacman, which was my absolute favorite Atari game when I was a kid.

 

Last time I wore these strips, I had much better wear using a separate top coat.  Since the patterns look a little matte after they're applied, the top coat also adds much appreciated shine.

Unfortunately, I wore a separate base coat this time, too.  Can you see the chip on the tip of my index finger?  That happened within the hour of putting these on.  I don't have peeling or splitting or anything else going on with that nail to explain immediate chipping, so I think the addition of the base coat affected the strips' wear.

The Lesson Learned - Sally Hansen polish strips work well with top coat, not base coat!

I hope everyone has a safe and Happy Halloween!

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!

OWWWP - Ulta Grin & Berry It featuring WnW Correction Tape

Even though our days are still warm (we're talking highs in the 90s), it's October so I'm wearing some fall shades.  I think berry is a great shade of pink for fall.  It may be on the conservative side, but it's a little darker and richer as it moves us closer to the deep jewel tones of winter.

I'm wearing Grin & Berry It from the Ulta Salon Formula line. I picked it up because it was on clearance (they were changing from the rectangle bottles/black caps to the new round bottles/silver caps) and I thought I saw an orange-gold flash. That flash of color isn't really visible on the nail except slight hints of it in low lighting.

It's a berry shimmer that definitely looks best with three coats. The brush and the formula made the application really easy.  I wore this for a few days this week and I had really bad tip wear, but no chipping. The shimmer and the color of Grin & Berry It is so rich that it kept playing with my camera so I could only get a decent shot of it in indirect light.

This berry shade made me think of one of the glitters in the new Wet n Wild Fast Dry polishes I just found.  Yep, I was lucky enough to find a full display of On the Prowl, their limited edition Halloween 2011 collection.  Here's Grin & Berry It with one coat of Correction Tape layered over it. There was slight bubbling on one nail, but nothing at all like the Party of Five Glitters bubble-fest.

I was on the fence with buying Correction Tape because of the awful time I had with Party of Five Glitters but look! There's more glitter coverage with one coat. It has hex and square glitter pieces. I even like the color combination of Correction Tape more - check out that black glitter!!

I did want more glitter on the nail, but I didn't go any farther because I already had three coats of Grin & Bear It on.  Next time, I think I'll use multiple coats of Correction Tape on an accent nail or over a base color that needs less coats for full opacity.