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!

Zoya Edyta

There was a one day sale for Zoya Remove+ about a week ago. I picked up Edyta from the Fall 2010 Wicked Collection and I put it on as soon as I brought the box in from my doorstep. 

In their promotional preview, Zoya described Edyta as a "fern green sparkling metallic."  Since then, Zoya has expanded their description to "A complex mixture of gold, olive, blue-green and smoky grey with a sparkling metallic finish. A dark shade balanced with sparkle for a dramatic look." 

I've tried out some shades hoping to find a nice dark olive-like green shimmer and they've never worked out because they look too black or too gold.  Edyta isn't a true olive green polish, but it is the shade I've been looking for!  This is one of the first polishes in awhile to make me just stop and say "....whoa..."  It flowed on to my nails and I felt like they were... gilded.  Gilded in green opulence...  Andi Translation:  This polish was like velvet on the nails - luxurious, textured, rich.

This is two coats, but it probably could have gotten away with just one with touchups because it's that nicely pigmented.  These are both shots in direct sunlight, but with different angles that show off the color differently.

See the blue-based green base

and the sparkly charcoal & gold effect visible on top and throughout the shade.

There's so much shimmer and sparkle to this polish in the sunlight - green, gold, blue.  I had the feeling of opulence when I wore Edyta and I'm looking forward to wearing this rich polish through the fall and winter.

China Glaze Medallion

I really love the glitters from the China Glaze Specialty Collection.  I saw them on Scrangie, got some to try for myself and I've really been hooked ever since. Honestly, NYC weather can make me feel pretty gloomy.  I don't like gray clouds and drizzle for days and days. I like putting on glitter polishes when I'm feeling kind of down and China Glaze Medallion helped me make it through the dreary, cold winter.

Since it has been a pretty dry summer in the city, I haven't worn it in a few months, so I decided to wear it for a very happy weekend just to celebrate. What was I celebrating? A roadtrip to DC to see Idina Menzel and Marvin Hamlisch in concert for my birthday!!

This is a clear-base cool gold glitter. There is a ton of holographic and larger hexagonal glitter thrown in among smaller gold and silver glitter. It's a rainbow of glitter. Blue, pink, green - you see something different sparkle up at you every time the sun hits it.

This swatch is taken with two thick coats. That's it. And check out the coverage! China Glaze didn't promise full coverage in two coats and I definitely wasn't expecting it since this has a clear base, so I was surprised and very pleased when I put on the first coat, let it set for a minute, put on the second coat, and... hey, it's time for a thick top coat - already?! - incredible.

The first time I wore this, I kept looking at my nails and thinking BLING-TASTIC!!! That's why I wore it for New Year's, my birthday, and every other time I wanted to feel extra sparkly.

Orly Country Club Khaki

Talk about Nail of the WEEK! Country Club Khaki is from the Spring 2009 Orly Prepster Collection, which was only one of three collections they released that season.

My husband has been encouraging me to invest in some more Orly polishes because of their wonderful rubberized top.  He tends to be my polish opener because I can never get bottles, jars, anything open. Before Country Club Khaki, I had one Orly polish that my mom had bought me randomly because it was on clearance at Sally's. 

This was such a nice polish to put on - easy to open, easy to apply, opaque and smooth in two coats, wonderful!  My cuticles have been such a wreck from the new soap at work.  I use lotion afterwards but nothing can defeat the dryness of that awful soap!  This polish made my hands feel elegant but edgy. It's a light brownish taupe creme that worked on my skin tone like a Nude But Not shade.

I liked this shade so much I put it on in Tuesday and didn't take it off till Friday night.  I wore this polish for almost an entire work week!  Go Orly!!

Never Again!!

I've used the Incoco Dry Nail Applique polish strips before and I really like them. I stock up when they're on sale at Walgreens because they're easy to use, last forever, have a nice finish, and they come with everything you need in the kit from a polish remover pad to a little orange stick. Only reason why I don't use them more is because I like to change my polish way too often.

Since I like the Incoco polish strips so much, I figured why not try out the Avon polish strips. They can't be that different, right? WRONG!

I got the Avon Instant Manicure Dry Nail Enamel Strips in a few colors when they were on clearance. Do you know why they were on clearance? Because they suck! I picked Bayberry because it looked like a light watermelon. Turns out it was a dull, matronly mauve mess on me - and when I say mess, I mean MESS!

The Horror!

I am pretty good at applying dry polish strips and these strips would not stay in place, they would not stop wrinkling, and look at that tip wear! This is what happened after wearing after wearing the strips a few hours. The tips lifted and tore right off like I was doing yardwork when all I was really doing was flipping through a magazine while we drove out to visit some relatives.

Awful color, awful application, awful wear - these Avon dry polish strips are hereby banned and will never be worn again.

Color Club Tru Passion

I've been so under the weather lately that I've barely been able to sit upright, much less polish and post.  We're supposed to be in the middle of the worst allergy season ever and, since I already have bad allergies, I've been knocked out.  So I picked a polish that I would love to see on my nails for awhile - of course, I picked a glitter *tee hee*

This is Tru Passion from the Fall 2008 Color Club Glitter Vixen collection. Flinty from Polish or Perish noticed this polish resembles Nubar Hyacinth from their recent Sparkles collection. 

I think of this polish as a lavender glitter. This glitter is a medium grit lighter purple, leaning more towards pink than blue, in a clear base. It's very sparkly, very opaque, very long lasting. I took this picture on Sunday and I've been wearing this mani since Wednesday. I only used two coats, but I think I should have used 3 on the fingers I used really thin coats, like my pinkie. To be honest, I was timid with application because I've read so many horror stories with this collection's removal. I put two coats of Redi Quick Dry topcoat on and I swear this polish got more shiny and sparkly as I wore it.

I love good glitters :)