Deborah Lippmann - Glitter in the Air

Three coats of Glitter in the Air on two coats of Zoya Get Even Ridge Filling Base Coat, topped with Julep Fast Dry Topcoat.

Halloween manicure… in April. >_>

Zoya - Raven
Sephora by OPI - Traffic Stopper Copper
Essie - Matte About You topcoat

Butter London - Rosie Lee

The formula was a bit of a nightmare—I don’t know if this is indicative of the brand in general, this particular polish, or just this one bottle—and it started peeling in chunks on day 3, but the color is just so damn pretty, I’m willing to forgive it practically everything. However, I was bummed out about it, especially since I completely caved in Nordstrom when I saw that they had a Butter London display, and bought Rosie Lee at full price. Plus tax. Lesson learned: stay out of Nordstrom when you’re in a hurry.

Back around Earth Day (aka forever ago), Zoya once again held their nail polish exchange: half price and free shipping on all colors + safe disposal of any old polish you sent back to them, minimum order of 6 bottles. I was only going to order six, but figured a deal like this wouldn’t come around again until probably next year, if ever, so I bumped it up to all nine colors on my wishlist at the time. Trying all the colors I have even once should keep my nails covered through the rest of summer. The first picture above are all of my Zoya polishes, minus Richelle, which I got in another promotion later.

from the Flame Collection (also known as Fire and Ice, winter 2010)
Tiffany can be best described as a peach, metallic dust base, which gives it a foil-like finish, with gold flakes. Crystal is a powder blue, metallic dust base, giving it the same foil-like finish as Tiffany, also with gold flakes. Valerie has a dark, eggplant purple base, with deep magenta metallic dust and gold flakes. Its finish is the standard Zoya “sparkle” polish look. I was slightly disappointed in Valerie, since it was a lot more dimensional, giving off glints of purple, magenta, orange, and gold, in the bottle than on the nail.

from the Sparkle Collection (summer 2010)
I’ve seen Charla described as a mermaid blue before, and the description fits the color completely. It’s a deep aquamarine that glints in light gold, spring green, and teal. It also stains like nothing else. A base coat is definitely a must with this one, unless you want your nails to look like long-lost Smurfs relatives.

from the Mod Mattes Collection (limited edition, summer 2011)
Speaking of Smurfs, Phoebe is a Smurf blue matte, with a super slight shimmer courtesy of silver-colored dust in the formula. The consistency takes some getting used to—this is my first experience with a matte—but once you get the hang of it, it isn’t difficult to work with. My problem with it is that it shows every bump and ridge on my nails. Although you’re not supposed to wear it with a base coat, if visible ridges bother you, I would suggest investing in a bottle of Zoya Get Even Ridge Filling Base Coat. Alternatively, buff your nails very well before painting.

One thing is for certain: OPI knows how to do a glitter polish. While I’m trying to get through wearing all my Zoya colors at least once, I keep running into OPI glitters—both old and new releases—which keeps setting me back, since I’m always tempted to try them ASAP. Teenage Dream was already in my stash from much earlier in the year, so this is more about my two newer acquisitions.

from the Glam Slam! France Collection (May 2011)
Spark de Triomphe

This polish is Teenage Dream’s older, classier sister. Just like Dream, Spark is a clear base packed with microglitter and medium glitter, but in silver and champagne gold for both glitter types, instead of Dream’s champagne pink for micro and holographic for medium. The result is much like someone taking the Arc de Triomphe and its oh-so-slightly yellow stone and blinging it out. (Fun fact: the interwebs can’t seem to agree whether the Arc is made of limestone or marble.) It may look slightly greenish/bluish on the pictures because Zoya Charla did a number on my nails the week before by staining them blue, which I guess at certain angles showed through even two thick coats of Spark.

from the Burlesque Collection (Holiday 2010)
Bring on the Bling

Of the six glitter polishes in the collection, five are clear bases packed with small glitter in six colors: gold, silver, orange, blue, green, and purple—Sparkle-iscious is the odd woman out. Each glitter, with the exception of silver, takes a turn making up a much greater proportion of the mix, creating a different overall hue. Bring on the Bling’s featured glitter is gold. Depending on the light, the mix of colors makes this polish shine anywhere from entirely bronze-gold to mostly silver with bronze-gold lowlights.

When I first skimmed through the collection swatches, nothing really caught my eye, but after finally renting the movie, I decided to give the polishes a second look. It’s kind of funny that the movie made me want to look at the polish and not the other way around. Bling stood out to me this time, and I was so excited to try it when I received it, even though I had painted my nails with Spark a couple days before, that I decided to try my first tape manicure and paint on an accent stripe. It turned out well, though the result was rather subtle.

OPI + glitter = magic. I hope their holiday and collaboration collections continue to deliver in the sparkle department. Or maybe not, so I can avoid adding any more polish to my wishlist!

Last month I was getting some things from Sephora—they really sucked me in with promises of a philosophy Vanilla Birthday Cake bubble bath birthday gift—and to get free shipping, I added two tokidoki sale glosses in Burger (sheer orange) and Rocketeer (sheer deep black red <— which is… purple?). I’ve read mixed reviews of the Prisma glosses online, so I was ambivalent about these. There were people both loving and hating the taste and smell, saying the gloss is way too sheer, adoring the cute packaging, but noting that the product is expensive for the quality and that you’re basically paying only for the box.

After getting and wearing both the glosses, my verdict is that I love them. However, one caveat: they aren’t worth the full price of $15. The breakdown:

{taste+smell} I’m firmly in the “love it, it’s amazing” camp. People complained it reminded them of children’s cold syrup, and I wish I had syrup this yummy as a kid! They have a mild, sweet smell that reminds me of berry Jell-O and a sweet taste.

{color} Yes, these are super sheer. However, Rocketeer definitely shows up as a deep berry purple and noticeably changes the color of your lips. Burger won’t make your lips bright orange—and I don’t necessarily think that’s a bad thing ;)—but will give them a nice, warm, orange cast along with the shine. I definitely see it, despite the sheerness, but then again, my eyes are more sensitive to color than most.

{packaging} is out of this world ADORABLE, both the outer boxes and the tube itself. The graphic designer in me squee-ed a little when I saw it. I do wish there were fewer glitter particles in the cap though, so that the character inside would be more visible. Burger has less of a problem with this than Rocketeer.

{application} The applicator is something I’d never seen before: a silicone, spatula-like tip. It takes some getting used to, but I don’t think it’s any better or worse than your standard doe-foot. Maybe it’s less of a harbor for bacteria because it’s sleek as opposed to fuzzy?

{longevity} As time went on, my lips absorbed the gloss and the color became less pronounced. I would say, in general, I needed to reapply every one-and-a-half to two hours and after eating and drinking. This absorption is great, though, because:

{other} These glosses are amazing lip balms! They got my lips softer and more nourished than my Chapstick. My usual problem with glosses and lipstick is that they dry my lips out like whoa, and I always end up needing to put on Chapstick before applying them. Not with these! In fact, if they weren’t so pricey, I would get a couple more colors and say bye-bye to other lip balms.

Verdict: yummy, adorable, nourishing, and great for everyday wear. Subtle, sheer colors, with lots of shine. Not worth $15, but a great deal for $7. As cute as the branding and packaging are, I wish Sephora would ditch it and lower the price on the whole line.

Nail polish mega post!

It all started last December with a secret preview of the Hello Kitty collection at Sephora; I saw the nail polish and thought the bottles it came in were the cutest thing ever. I didn’t particularly care about the quality or color of the polish when I ordered it, I just wanted the adorable bottles! When I finally got to use it, I was pleasantly surprised. Minty is the perfect retro turquoise I had been looking for for months—it even matches my KitchenAid. Bubblegum is a classic and adorable girly pink.

Then, less than a month after receiving the Hello Kitty polishes, I was introduced to Zoya by way of a promotion. On offer were three bottles of my choice just for the cost of shipping—which was less than the cost of one bottle. Jumping on the opportunity and spending way too much time looking through the 300+ colors Zoya sells, I settled on Ali, Hope, and Kelly. I wore Ali as French tips with Bubblegum, since I really wanted to try both of them out and just couldn’t wait. No pictures of Kelly; it’s a fairly standard asphalt grey.

By the time I finished playing with those, Zoya served up another promotion: buy one get one free from the summer 2011 collections—Sunshine, Summertime, and Mod Mattes. After looking at some swatches online to get a better idea of what the colors looked like, I picked Apple, Faye, Kimmy, and Sooki. Apple is great layered on Minty because I don’t have to use much of either polish to get great coverage. Since I still hadn’t tried Hope yet, I thought doing tips in purple-gold Faye would work out great. It turned out to look like prom dress trim though. Or some royal curtains. I didn’t like it at all. :( The only time it looked sort of decent is under my nightstand light.

Thankfully I didn’t have to keep it for long, because the best color ever arrived at my doorstep: OPI’s Teenage Dream from the Katy Perry collection. I obsessed over this color for two weeks after finding out it existed, before finally cracking and buying it. No words can describe how much I’m in love with this sparkly champagne pink with holo glitter. It’s my new favorite color and I will be very upset when I run out. The best colors always have limited production runs, it seems. :(

Kimmy and Sooki are next on my list to try; since they’re both red, layering one on top of the other seems like a good way to go. And since the Zoya Earth Day Nail Polish Exchange is in full swing, I’m going to soon have even more colors to play with!