OPI Gargantuan Green Grape

This colour I loved in the bottle, sadly the application process was a big fat mess. It took four coats to reach opacity, and the formula was streaky and hard to control. It also took foreverrrrr to dry, even with SV. A few nails smeared badly when I tried to do clean up so I had to repaint them. I tried using a few coats of white polish as underwear to beef up the colour payoff, but nope. Still took three coats on top of white, so that's pointless. 

That all said, the colour itself I really do love. It's a springy and fresh light green. It's too yellow to be minty, but not murky enough to be pistachio. It looks like fake pistachio, like ice cream or pudding! It's definitely a unique colour in my collection. If only the formula was better! But, I like the colour so much, I'll probably still wear it from time to time, like a sucker! Haha. 

Ick. I am so sorry about my cuticles in the pictures too. I had put on cuticle oil like 10 minutes before taking the pictures but I guess they were still thirsty :( And I have no clue what that random speck on my ring finger is. 

First two in sun, third one the sun hid behind a cloud.

Knotty

First of all, happy Memorial Day  to any American readers! I hope you had a good long weekend and observed the holiday in some way.
Knotty is from the Anchors Away collection for Spring 2011. Right now I have this color and Ahoy! but I think I'll be placing an order for quite a few of the others.
Knotty is pretty unique, it's a glass-flecked nude polish. The silvery shimmer is very fine and gives the nude color a really cool glow factor.  It would be great as a work-safe colour with a little something extra! At the first coat I wasn't sure if I liked the polish, but I think it grew on me. I'm not sure if it really goes with my skin tone or not, but the polish itself is pretty. Formula wise it was quite good, sheer at first but I liked how it built up after three coats. I'm a habitual three-coater anyway, the thought of one-coaters weirds me out a bit! Pictures are three coats plus SV.
The first two pictures are in sun, and the last in shade. The shimmer looks crazy in the shade!

Sweet Hook

Hi! This polish is from the Electropop collection China Glaze put out for spring. Personally I prefer soft and muted colors most of the time, so the lights from this collection were right up my alley! Sweet Hook is a very soft and muted lilac color. It looks very clean and sophisticated on the nail, and feels very mod. I love it. Formula-wise I remember it being a little thick and streaky on the first coat. I ended up using three coats on most of my nails, but it was definitely worth it. I know I'll be reaching for this shade again, probably as a palette cleanser after wearing bright or holo shades!
It was overcast this day so pictures are inside with natural light. I love how shiny it is with a coat of SV! I want to go put it on all over again!

Color Club Wing Fling

This is the last of the Take Wing collection I have right now, I might eventually go pick up the other three though. I can't resist a good glass fleck! Wing Fling is a bright, hot pink but the shimmer makes it seem...classy?  Can hot pink be classy? If so, this one is! The polish in the bottle shows some orange duochrome, but it unfortunately doesn't show on the nail. The shimmer is enough to keep the color interesting though, lots of depth and glow. Formula was good, a little on the thin side but very easy to control. By three coats it had good opacity, and it dried quickly and didn't feel "dentable". Of course I added my SV topcoat to seal it and give it extra shine, but I think it would have been okay on its own.
First two in shade, second two in sun. Look at that depth in the shade and sparkle in the sun! Awesome.

HITS Mari Moon Daring

Before I get into the polish stuff ( I know, I know, the point of my blog in the first place) I have some other stuff to talk about! I haven't been able to blog for the last few days because my boyfriend discovered his laptop had some issues so it had to go to the Geek Squad to get fixed, and I was left with just my iPad. My iPad is great for looking at OTHER people's blogs, but to actually work on mine? Thumbs down. I hate tapping out long messages on the screen, and I actually couldn't get pictures on it from my camera. No USB port. And when I tried to email the pictures to myself, that didn't work either. But now that Lappy is back, I have some catching up to do!

This post (actually two manicures ago now) is HITS Mari Moon Daring. This color I got because it seemed similar to Ozotic Pro 505, which seemed similar to the first ever polish I ever loved, the legendary Sally Hansen Turquoise Opal. My bottle of Turquoise Opal turned a lame, murky, multichrome-less grey with age, and my heart wept. Amazon and evilbay searches yielded nothing. Then I found Llarowe, and Ozotic 505. Which was sold out at the time, so I decided to try the much cheaper HITS. Side note- since Ozotic discontinued all its awesome polishes last week, I went on a frantic spree and bought about 5, including 505. Yay!! 

HITS Daring, while nice, isn't the TO dupe I was hoping for. The multichrome just isn't as strong. It looks grey most of the time, but at different angles it shows teal and purple. But subtly, not the in-your-face gorgeousness I  wanted. It was also sheer, 3 coats for decent opacity but I also tried it layered over a coat of black creme and that was a little better. Anyway I doubt anyone is actually reading this anymore, so on to the pictures!

The first three are on its own and in sun. You can kind of see the different tones in the polish but I had a hard time getting them to show. The fourth and fifth pictures are with black underwear, the color looks a little deeper and you can see the shift a little bit better. 

Layering Experiment!

So after wearing the pink jelly on it's own for a few days I decided to see if I could make a jelly sandwich with it. I added Essie Shine of the Times and another layer of the polish. Unfortunately I thought it was a little TOO opaque so I ended up putting another thin coat of the flakes on top. Guess I made an open face jelly sandwich? Haha. Anyway I had been hoping it would look similar to one of the summer Deborah Lippmann shades. I can't remember the name but it's gorgeous. I did like my results but it wasn't close to the DL, mine was too orange! Oh well! The first picture is the color on it's own, the second two are with the flakie and in sun.

Color Club Metamorphosis

Metamorphosis is from the summer collection Color Club just put out called Take Wing. The entire collection is a bunch of beautiful glass fleck shimmers, and Metamorphosis is no exception. This is a beautiful teal, the kind of color I just keep buying! At certain angles and in the bottle it seems to have a tiny bit of purple flash, I couldn't get it to show on camera though. I used three fairly thin coats, it looked good at two but I'm paranoid about bald spots/ patchiness going on so I added another. Application was great though, barely any clean up!
First two in sun, third in shade.

Anne + Florio B49

This nail polish was a gift from Leigh, an amazing client of my boyfriend's. She recently got married and went to Thailand for her honeymoon, and she picked up this polish and one other for me while she was there! I was really touched by her thoughtfulness! She's awesome :) And so is this color! It doesn't have a name, just B49. It's a bright pink, almost neon. BUT the finish is a jelly! I am in LOVE. I've barely been able to stop staring at my hands since I put it on last night. So bright, and shiny, and squishy. lovelovelove. I have a feeling I will be reaching for this color a lot over the summer!
I used three coats to get it to an opacity I liked, and cleanup was a little bit of a hassle just because it's so bright. The formula was good, but I'm a spaz and get paint everywhere. I'm REALLY excited to try a jelly sandwich with this polish with the Essie luxeffects flakie Shine of the Times. I'm hoping it might be a similar to the summer Deborah Lippmann shade.

 shade

China Glaze Gothic Lolita

Purple has been a favorite color of mine as long as I can remember, especially medium purples like this one! Gothic Lolita is from the Electropop collection put out this spring. Most of the shades are creme finish, but Gothic Lolita has a subtle shimmer that really gives it something special. It's also a warm purple, it doesn't lean to the blue side.

I topped my accent fingers with a cool Color Club flakie I picked up in my recent Winners haul. Once again the bottle isn't marked, but when I did some digging I found that it is most likely Diamond Drops from the Blossoming collection. Diamond Drops is like a cross between a flakie and a glitter, it seems like it's made out of shredded plastic and it reflects a bunch of different colors! Yellow, orange, green, blue, teal! Pretty but the base is thick so you do need to place the flakes somewhat, and it dries with texture. I slopped a thick coat of Seche Vite on those fingers and it seemed to help!

This mani was a few days old by the time I photographed it, so you can kind of see where I had to cover up chips with more paint, ignore that! ;)

Color Club Sky High?

Today I have a Color Club polish I picked up at Winners recently. I THINK this is part of the summer 2012 Take Wing collection but I can't be sure because the bottle has no label. They were being sold in packs of two, and there was a blue, green, pink, orange, teal, and yellow. So it looks like the same colors, but I'm not 100% positive.
The blue I got, which appears to be Sky High, is gorgeous. It's a bright, almost electric blue with glass fleck shimmer. To make it even better, at some lights and angles the shimmer seems to flash purple! Just gorgeous. I really liked the formula on it, the first coat was sheer but by three coats the color was deep and opaque. No issues with bubbling either! I used Seche Vite topcoat to seal it and give it more shine.
The first two pictures are in natural light, the third is with flash, and the fourth is in indoor lighting. I was being a spaz so the picture isn't focused, but it shows the purple flash in the bottle!
It really is much better in real life, almost as bright as the third picture and with just the greatest shimmer. I'm no photographer by any means so hopefully as I keep doing this my pictures will get better!
The last picture is a quick shot from my phone. It shows the true color the best!

China Glaze C-C-Courage

So today I have a polish from The Wizard of Ooh Ahz collection China Glaze put out in 2009. When I did some digging, I found out that this was actually a re-release of a collection originally from waaaaay back in 2001. It was re-released due to popular demand, so that's pretty cool!

C-C-Courage is a blueish purple with silver microglitter. The base color is shimmer as well, so it has a nice multidimensional look. It does dry with some texture, so be sure to use a topcoat for a nice glossy finish. I used three coats to be safe, if you use thicker coats you might be able to get away with two. 

I just bought this on TransDesign a month or so ago, so at least part of this collection is still around!

 Sun

Shade

Sun again!