My Arizona - Barielle Falling Star

I was born and raised in Phoenix, and I lived over 6 years in Tucson while I went to school for my undergrad and grad degrees. Both sides of my family have lived in Arizona for the last century. AZ is never far from my mind, but I couldn't think of anything else this weekend since the tragic shooting in Tucson on Saturday morning.

After all the news coverage and phone calls with my Arizonans, I wanted to step away from the shock and sadness. This isn't a political blog, so this is a polish post dedicated to peace for my home state. 

 AZ FACTOIDS

Arizona became the 48th state on February 14, 1912 (yep, Valentine's Day!).

In 100 years, the State population has grown from 200,000 people in 1910 to over 6 million in 2010. 

The State Economy's growth and development is attributed to our 5 C's:

Cattle, Cotton, Citrus, Climate, & Copper

Phoenix is one of the sunniest cities with an annual average of 85% possible sunshine and 8 inches of rain.

Falling Star is from the Barielle Fall 2009 All Lacquered Up Collection. This shade is a medium blue creme base with small round copper glitter.  In some indoor lighting, it takes on a darker dusty cornflower hue.

This polish is thick and runny so I had a learning curve trying to get it on nicely. Practice helps and, after a few manis of experience, I'm able to get it on smoothly and opaque in two thinnish coats.

I'm learning how to use my new Ott!

As soon as I saw the preview of this polish, I knew I had to have it. This is a pretty shade of blue and a unique glitter-base color combination. The formula might not apply like butter, but this is still one of my Top 10 Favorite Polishes from 2009.

I see copper - I think of the 5 C's. I see a deep medium blue - I think of the afternoon sky after a summer monsoon rain. I feel like I have a little piece of Arizona on my nails when I wear Falling Star, so I'm going to wear it a few more days as a personal visual reminder of hope for a future without violence.

Blue Mooooon

This was a random draw from my Untried box this morning - Wet n Wild Blue Moon. It was one of the new Wild Shine shades released last year in their main collection.

My husband's been playing Fallout New Vegas recently. Blue Moon is one of the very few songs that plays on the game's "radio" and I had been planning on wearing this shade soon. I kept putting it off because I figured it was going to be a plain, maybe even a little boring, navy shimmer. I put two coats on... and when I look the moon had turned to gold... lol - ok, not really, but Blue Moon really is very pretty.

It gleams, it flashes and it doesn't look black in any light.  I'm so glad it was sunny for a bit before the light snow we're supposed to get today so I could see all of this awesome blue and green shimmer. 

Sunlight - The Gold Shimmer doesn't make it from the bottle to the nail
but the Teal/Green Flash does.

Shade

It's affordable, easy to find, and I personally haven't seen a navy shimmer this interesting to look at since OPI came out with Russian Navy (which this isn't a dupe of - RN is darker with a pink/purple shimmer).  For a buck, everyone should have their own bottle of Blue Moon.

Milani Silver Dazzle

After I found Gems, I took a better look at the other polishes in the Milani Rockstar Heavy Glitters collection. I love dark gray polishes. I've always liked the shade before, but lately I have to have a polish if it's charcoal, gunmetal, or steel, so I picked up Silver Dazzle.

Silver Dazzle is a charcoal gray glitter with silver and black microglitter throughout. It dries rough and dark like fresh asphalt, but it becomes a cool almost-blue shade with a shiny topcoat. In the sunlight, it looks like it has blue and green sparkles at times, but there isn't any blue glitter in this polish. It's all gray sparkly goodness!

Here it is with one full coat and one touch up coat of polish and Gelous + Poshe on top.


Indoor Lighting - No Flash - It leans so blue inside!

Sunlight - More obvious Charcoal Base with Blue/Green Sparkles
Blurred & Focused to show off the Sparkle

After seeing the fabulous-ity of Silver Dazzle, I really really want Purple Gleam, too. I'm so glad Milani is going to be making this collection part of their permanent line this year. Glitter for everyone!

My coworkers have renamed this polish, too - it's now Steel Magnolias (but I've really been calling it Be Steel My Heart in my head -shhhh....)

Snowed In! China Glaze Nova

We made it back to the city hours before the blizzard hit on Sunday. Our borough had an unofficial snowfall of 23 inches - the snow was bad, the response to the storm was worse. We were lucky to have our power, cable and internet stay on the entire time, but not all of my friends were so fortunate. And they have little kids. So they watched Beverly Hills Chihuahua on DVD over and over and over... so I call this layering mani "Blizzard Blackout" and dedicate it to all the New Yorkers who were snowed in this week.

I used one coat of Jesse's Girl Blackout (a freebie I received at Nails Night Out) and two coats of China Glaze Nova. These shots were taken in indirect sunlight. I think the first picture shows more of the holo rainbow sparkles, but the second is the crisper glitter shot.



I really like the brush on Jesse's Girl polishes. I didn't have a cleanup brush (I dropped mine *in* the bottle of acetone) and I couldn't get out to get a new one, but it turns out I didn't even need one. I wish the cap wasn't so large and rectangular because it makes it unwieldy, but it's still a great brush.

Nova is a glitter from the China Glaze Specialty Collection. It's filled with small silver square glitter and larger holographic hex glitter in a clear base. This is definitely a sparkly eyecatcher!  Next time, I'm going to try layering it over silver like Dori at Kiss My Acetone did earlier this month.

Related Side Story: I wore Nova to work and a coworker asked if I had snowflakes on my nails. The other ladies who were able to make it to the office quickly deduced that I had a "blizzard" mani on and renamed it "De-licorice-ous" to get our minds off the snow-filled streets. De-licorice-ous!!

Revlon Perplex - UWS Brunch Time

I love Broadway musicals.  When I was younger, living thousands of miles from the Great White Way, I'd make my siblings, cousins, friends, everyone watch PBS's Great Performances, the Tonys, and the odd random tour performance with me.  Now that I live here, I like suprising friends with tickets to actual shows (thank you, TKTS!).  This Sunday, we took our friends to see In The Heights and they took us to brunch on the Upper West Side. 

If I was going to be dining on microdairy cheeses and gourmet sausages while sipping bellinis, I figured I should switch up my sparkly holiday polish for something chic... perfect time to try out Revlon Perplex!

This is a dark grayish taupe with a faint purple shimmer - much like its pricier alternative Paradoxal.  Like other taupes, it can pull purple, gray, or a muddier brown, depending on skin tone.  For $4-5, it's definitely worth trying this shade out if you can find a bottle.

Indirect Sunlight - Dark Gray with Purple Tones on me

Flash to see the Purple Shimmer on Nail & in Bottle

Perplex went on deep and glossy on me in two medium coats.  It didn't agree with my Gelous-Seche Vite combo, though.  That's not tip wear in the pictures. That's major shrinkage :( Even with wrapping, it just pulled away from the edges.  Since I'm changing back to my holiday glitter bombs tomorrow, I'm not that upset, but next time I wear it, I'll try another top coat. This shade is awesome - I gotta make it work without shrinkage!

Color Club Magic Attraction

More sparkly snow-inspired polish because we're supposed to get stuff that sticks to the ground tonight!  I'm trying to also get myself mentally psyched up for tomorrow's expected high of 24 degrees.  Heh... 24.  That's about 55 degrees lower than the expected high in Phoenix... on to that sparkly polish!

Color Club Magic Attraction is from the Fall 2008 Glitter Vixen Collection - one day I will have the entire set! Magic Attraction does have a couple of relatives out there in the polish world. According to Scrangie, it's an available option for the hard-to-find OPI Paris Couture for Sure. It's also related to Hocus Pocus from this year's Color Club Halloween minis. If you're not a frequent glitter wearer and you'd prefer a smaller bottle, this would be a good time to look for that set on clearance.

The chunky holographic glitter throughout Magic Attraction makes this clear-base, silver glitter look sparkly and multicolored. This polish has dense glitter like the other Glitter Vixens so it covers the nail in one coat.  With two coats, it gets as close to opaque as you can get with a clear base glitter. This isn't a fine-grit glitter so double up on the thick top coat.

Despite looking very silver in the bottle, I think this has a pinkish tint in some angles when I wear it.

Indirect Sunlight

Direct Sunlight - Different Angle
but look! I caught some of the rainbow holo sparkle effect in the photo!

Bundle up & stay warm! More glitter to get me through this winter to come *wink*

Zoya Luna

What a Tough Tuesday!  Really!!

It started in the morning and didn’t stop all day - snow flurries came down during the morning commute for the first time this winter, I get yelled at by a crazy lady when I’m trying to get my takeout, I finally catch a bus after work & get told the stop right by my house is being removed soon, our upstairs neighbors overrun their sink and flood our kitchen with disgusting yellow water, I spill my chili dinner on our living room carpet – BUT I changed my polish to something very happy successfully so the day ended on a very positive note.

This is Luna from the Zoya Winter 2009 UltraGlitter collection.  I love Zoya's descriptions, so here's an excerpt - light, shimmering sheer silvery dove gray base loaded with silver glitter.  Just a quick side note - one reviewer on Zoya's website commented they expected a clear base so they must have gotten a bad bottle. Maybe they should read the description before buying and definitely before posting a review?  Sorry for the snark - I said I had a rough day!

Since the day was overcast and snowy, I have some indoor shots.

Looking a little matte, but still glitteriffic...

A glossier angle!

-Flash-

I put Luna on in two thick coats - if you use thin coats, you'll need 3 to get full coverage. This was the sparkly version of today's flurries - the little glitter is the falling snow flakes against the milky gray base that looks like that cloudy sky. This is a lot more sparkly and twinkly than the real stuff we had today, and it definitely brightened my day. Ultra Glitter!