My Picks: Top 10 of 2012

Hi everyone! Happy New Year's Eve!

I hope you're all having a great day with lots of plans later! I'm working today, so I won't be able to relax as much, but it is my last day before I head back to school for the next semester!

Today's post will be a bit of a picture spam of my top 10 polishes from this past year. I'm already excited to start making a list for next year... I have my eye on some of the polishes from the spring Zoya collection!

Anyhow, let us begin! Here are my favourite polishes that were released this year, in no particular order! I also think that there were a few greens that are honorable mentions since I didn't want my list to be too overwhelmingly green. ;)

China Glaze - Riveting

I absolutely loved this polish when it came out, and I still do. I never thought an orange polish could steal my heart like this one did, but maybe it's the fact that it's gorgeous shiny and also great matte. I find the gold shimmer in this polish addicting.

Zoya - Zuza

I thought this polish was okay in the bottle, but when I put it on... it was just amazing! I love the finish on this and the colour... now only if they made this finish in different colours... It's like a silver-y but not quite foil-y metallic. Love.

Cult Nails - Coveted

You guys have heard me yapping on about this one before. It's a green version of Iconic and since I love both, of course this is going to be on my list. I'm that predictable haha. :P

A England - Dragon

Dragon! It's so aptly named... it's really the colour I can see dragons as being! and holographic! Oh man, I can't believe I don't even have St. George yet... obviously I feel behind in my polish buying! :P  To sum it up, green + holo = win.

Cult Nails - Evil Queen

I don't know what to say about this one. I love the look of red polish but it was really hard for me to find a red that would match my skintone. Of course then I got this polish and it was amazing, the colour is great and the formula is fantastic. This is now my go-to red!

Cult Nails - Feeling Froggy

This one is on my list being it's green and amazing. I was at IKEA one day and saw a sofa in this really pretty dusty sage green and I knew I HAD to have a polish in that colour. Fast forward a week later when I get my Cult Nails Fairy Tale collection pre-order and this polish is there staring up at me! It's almost perfect I think. The only test left is to wear it on my nails and go to IKEA again to compare. 

Cult Nails - Flushed

This is amaaaaaaaaaaaaazing. I love the shade, I love the shimmer... no more words necessary. I fell in love with Flushed as soon as I unwrapped the bottle.

Sephora + Pantone Universe - Purple Parachute

I originally purchased this one thinking that it'd be my go-to bottle so I could conserve my precious Scrangie. In the bottle it looks almost exactly the same as that famous Rescue Beauty Lounge polish... and it doesn't break the bank. I almost danced in the store. Of course then I went home and did the comparison and found that it's just a bit different... the shimmer isn't as blatantly obvious on the nail as it is in Scrangie. I was a bit disappointed at first, but after I put it on for the first time I fell in love. Now I think I love it even more than Scrangie. Scrangie has a little problem with being a bit sheer, but this baby has all the opacity, and I think I might even prefer the more subtle shimmer. 

Cult Nails - Charlatan

I love how versatile this polish is. It's a topcoat, so you can wear it over whatever base colour you fancy and it'll give this stunning pink-blue duochrome. It's amazing. I've worn it over so many polishes and I'm constantly in awe of how amazing it is. I haven't done a formal post about this polish yet since whenever I wear it I have the misfortune of not having enough time to take proper pictures, but here are some pictures from my phone that I've posted on twitter at one time or another.  Pictured below are Charlatan over Devious Nature (pink) and Vicious (purple).

OPI - Goldeneye (or Sally Hansen Gilded Lily)

I think I've gushed about this polish in the post I did, but here's a summary of how gorgeous it is: it's like having solid gold on your nails. It's fantastic. I did a comparison a few posts ago to SH's Gilded Lily and they're dupes (hence the or... part in the polish title). I still love it though. My only complaint would be that it takes a few layers of polish to get it to opacity, but that allows you to also wear it layered over another polish. 

 

Whew. That was a lot of typing lol. That's all from me on this last day of the year! See y'all in 2013 and I hope you have a great New Year! 

Lots of love, and thank y'all so much for supporting my wee blog! I really really appreciate it even though my posting is so sporadic! 

Marisa

KBShimmer All Decked Out

Hi everyone! Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all of you!

EDIT: I found it! Here are some pictures of a great festive Christmas Polish! This is KBShimmer's All Decked Out! I have a bunch of other Holiday themed polishes I have yet to show, so expect those to be posted before and after the new year!

Thank y'all for reading! Merry Christmas again everyone! Happy Holidays!

Cult Nails Flushed

Hi everyone!

Sorry for not posting more recently, but I've been pretty busy doing holiday related stuff! I'm also a bit sick now, so I never really feel like doing much unless it has to do with sleeping.

Anyhow, today's post will be short on words, since I think this polish can speak for itself! I love it! :D

You can't really see it in these photos, but in person the shimmer in this shifts from red-gold-green.

Sorry for the short post (word-wise), but thank you for reading!

Marisa

Cult Nails Coveted

Hi everyone!

Sorry I haven't posted in a while, but I've been super stressed out at work lately, and I really haven't had much time for polish changes! I'm really excited for the end of this month though... I'm looking forward to actually having free time during school instead of coming  home late every night and feeling like a trainwreck!

Anyhow, I noticed that the length of my nails really annoys me when I have them naked and they're a bit on the longer side. In these pictures you can see my current length (pretty much as nubby as ever) which I actually really like. I'm thinking I'll keep my nails around this length. Also, I noticed that my ring finger nails look a bit gross in pictures sometimes when they're longer... so I apologize for any weird looking, flared out nails in the future.

BUT ASIDE FROM ME RAMBLING... today's polish is amazing! I love it! I wasn't really sure if I'd like it at first, but now that I think about it... I love green, and I love Cult Nails Iconic... so why the heck would I not love this polish? It's amazing. It totally reminds me of the Emerald City in the Wizard of Oz. WAH-BANG! That was the sound of this polish blasting its way into my top ## picks of this year!

I'm definitely going to covet this baby!

What do y'all think? isn't it gorgeous? Also, what do you think of my new nail length? My nails were feeling extra brittle last time I had them nude, and they were really starting to peel and split. Talk about a nail polish fanatic's nightmare, huh?

Thanks for reading!

Marisa

Glitter Gal Light as a Feather

Hi everyone! Happy December!

I only have one month left of my work term, so hopefully I'll be able to post more frequently after that! I'm going back to school next semester (starting in January) so I'll have more time for polish then! woohoo!

Anyhow, my goal for today is to finish my work report and get it out of the way so I won't have more stress about it later. That being said, today's post is pretty picture heavy so I'll leave the pictures to do the talking! Here is the fabulous Light as a Feather!

Thanks for reading! See you all soon (after I finish my paper D: )!

Marisa

Cult Nails Deal With It

Hi everyone, hope you all had a great Thanksgiving and Black Friday if you're located in the US!We had our Thanksgiving about a month ago, so all I could do was drool over all of the food posts on twitter while I was at work... lol!

Anyway, a short-ish post for now... today I have one of my biggest lemmings ever that spanned pretty much from when it came out. Deal With It came out in the Cult nails Untamed collection that came out a few months ago for the summer. Long story short, I was obsessively looking at swatches of this collection for a while but was uncertain of getting this shade - mostly because I wasn't sure if it would be flattering on my skintone. After much debating and wiffle-waffling (yes, I use this phrase a lot), I finally decided to get this polish during the last Cult Nails sale.

I'm so glad I did. I love this polish!

Deal With It is an awesome lime green with stunning gold shimmer. I looove the shimmer in this polish so much - I'd love to get my mitts on a bright blue or purple polish like this too! ;)
I didn't really notice it at first, but it does seem to dry a tad on the matte side... I put on some top coat for these photos and it was amazing how glossy and even more beautiful it became. Then again, I'm not really sure if the amazing glossiness just came from the Wicked Fast topcoat I was using... :D

Anyhow, I'm going to stop rambling about this polish now. If you've been undecided on Deal With It like I was... I definitely think you should get it! It's an amazing polish. I'm so glad I caved in!

Thanks for reading! I hope you all have a great weekend, and spent lots of money on polish for the weekend/cyber monday polish sales (since I'm on a strict no buy)!

Marisa

HARE Polish King of Carat Flowers

Hi everyone, hope y'all had a great weekend! Personally, I wouldn't mind having a few more days off... who wouldn't? :D

Today I have another quick-ish post... I've decided not to ramble too  much. I've also just had a look at my credit card statement so far for this month and it's not good. It wouldn't be too bad I guess if I hadn't taken my kitteh to the vet ($234 right there), but it's okay because I love my furbaby.

ANYHOW. Today's polish is the second HARE polish I snagged from the Fall 2012 collection! King of Carat Flowers is a gorgeous light grey creme-jelly with lots of really pretty gold glitter in different sizes and shapes, light purple square glitters and a spattering of bright blue iridescent glitters. In the pictures below I layered 2 coats of King of Carat Flowers over China Glaze's Elephant Walk. 

 

 

So, what do y'all think? Personally, I am loving this polish! I've been sucked pretty deep into glitters lately ever since I figured out the DIY peel off basecoat - I absolutely detested removing glitter in the traditional way before and it was one of the main reasons I didn't buy more indie polishes earlier.


That's all for now! Thank you so much for reading and I hope you have a great Monday!

Marisa

Essie: Leading Lady

Hi everyone! I hope you all had a great weekend!

I kind of feel like this weekend went by wayyy too fast... I'm not ready to go back to work! Most my time this weekend was spent on fiddling around with lightbulbs and lighting for blog pictures. I really dislike the blue tinge that daylight bulbs give off, so I've been trying to find something more suitable. I'm still in the process of tweaking things around, but hopefully I'll be able to find a good set up eventually.

Anyhow, today's polish is a very pretty polish from Essie's winter collection. I usually don't buy many Essie polishes (mostly because I find them a tad boring and expensive), but I gave in and bought this polish when I saw it at my local drugstore.

 
I really like this polish. This is actually my first polish of this kind since I've put off buying China Glaze's Ruby Slippers. The only thing I do't like about this polish is the fact that it dries a bit gritty... but that's typical of most glitters.

What do y'all think? I'm off to change my polish and fiddle around with my lamp a little bit more!
Thanks for reading!

Marisa

Quick Comparison: Sally Hansen Gilded Lily vs. OPI Goldeneye

Hi everyone! TGIF!

Today I have a very brief post for y'all. Erin commented on my previous post on OPI's Goldeneye from the Skyfall collection mentioning that it looked very similar to Sally Hansen's Gilded Lily. I ususally don't really pay much attention to Sally Hansen polishes here since the price tends to be a bit steep (for my cheap self ;) ), but I was already thinking of getting another bottle of Goldeneye and since they did seem rather similar... you get my drift!

I don't think I really need to explain what I think the differences are since I think my quick comparison picture says it all (or most of it!). In the photo below, Gilded Lily is on the index and ring fingers, and Goldeneye is on the middle and pinky fingers.

See any difference? I'd definitely get confused as to which finger is which if I didn't make a note of it earlier. Formula wise these are both pretty much the same - Goldeneye may be a smidgen more opaque, but to know that for sure I'd probably have to use a magnifying glass or something (it's THAT small of a difference!).

IMO, if you already have Gilded Lily, you don't need Goldeneye (or vice versa). Me? You already know I'm a crazy hoarder, so I'm happy to own both (as back ups of each other).

That's all for now! Thanks for reading! :D

Marisa

HARE polish Atolla

Hi everyone! Sorry for being away for so long! *waves*

I've been using a lap at work lately to take pictures of my polish... the only problem with this though is that I keep forgetting my camera at work! Thank goodness I remembered to bring it home for once... I can't wait to share these polishes with y'all! I'm pretty much at work for all daylight hours now, so I'm only able to take pictures at home using my lamp. It uses a daylight bulb, but for some reason I always feel like the pictures always turn out too blue. I'm going to try to get something set up where it isn't too blue (I'm thinking of trying another kind of bulb).

Anyhow, onto the polish! Atolla is absolutely, stunningly gorgeous. The blue iridescent-y glitter is so bright it freaks my camera out and so I've only managed to take some semi-decent shots. Sorry for the blur on the second one!

Gah. It's so amazing. The glitter is so bright that even if I stare at it, I can't make out the individual glitter particles. Love this polish. Formula wise, it is a magenta jelly - so it is a tad sheer. If you have nubbins with not very much visible nail line or if you look the semisheer-ish look, this polish definitely won't be a problem. For me, I have some very dark stains (ew) on my nails that stand out a bit more than normal VNL. I used 4 thin coats for the above, but still could kinda see my nail line.

So, what do you guys think? I absolutely love this polish and I'm in love with the Fall HARE polishes! :D

Thanks for reading!

Marisa

Innisfree 82

Hi everyone!

Sorry that I've been MIA lately, I've been pretty much an uninspired polish wreck. Hopefully that will be over soon though, because I got some EPIC nail mail today! I got my first HAREs and two of my most lemming'ed Cult Nails polishes! WOOHOO!

Hopefully those polishes will be swatched soon for y'all too, but today I have another great polish I wore a while back. I really love this one.

Innisfree 82 is a gorgeous combination of cantaloupe and light green hex glitters and tiny light green glitters suspended in a light yellow based green base. Above I have it laytered over Orly's Jealous Much?

That's all for now! Thank you for reading! I can't wait to share my first HARE polishes with y'all!

Marisa

Pahlish Chemical Swirl

Hi everyone! I hope you're all having a great Sunday!

Today I have another indie polish that I purchased from llarowe! I'm eagerly awaiting another package (with my first HARE polishes!) that I'm expecting in about 2 weeks. Ever since I discovered the DIY peel off base coat (pretty much just nontoxic white school glue), I've definitely fallen hard over glitters. Before that base coat, I would always avoid glitters for fear of removal. I mean, I know the foil method is pretty easy, but I really hated how it made my fingers dry... and I didn't really have the patience for it. Nevermore!

Today I have Pahlish's Chemical Swirl. I have one coat layered over Cult Nails' Charming in the photos below. Since the weather sucks over here (overcast/rainy), the colour isn't quite accurate... it's a bit more red purple than blue (as it appears here). Check it out!

Chemical Swirl is a light purple jelly that is absolutely jam PACKED with all sorts of glitter and some awesome flecks. I won't even try to describe all of the glitters in here since I know I'll never get them all. Squares, hexagons, a few bars... it's amazing.

What do y'all think?

Thank you for reading, and I hope you all have a great week!

Marisa

Sephora + Pantone Parachute Purple

Hi everyone! Hope ya'll are having a good Sunday!

The weather here definitely took a turn towards miserable here... the forecast is for rain all week! I've been fairly busy at work, so I haven't been able to do my nails as often as I would like. I also haven't been as inspired lately, so I've taken to wearing some of my favourite colours that have come out over the past year without anything special.

That being said, today's polish is from the vault!

When I first saw Parachute Purple in store, I immediately thought that it was the closest dupe (maybe even dead on dupe) for Rescue Beauty Lounge's Scrangie. Even though I own Scrangie, I couldn't resist buying a bottle of Parachute Purple (for half the price of Scrangie, who can?). I initially intended on using PP as a way to save my precious bottle of Scrangie from being used up, but I actually think I like PP more than Scrangie.

Parachute Purple only requires two coats of polish to reach opacity (compared to Scrangie's many). However, there is a drawback... since it is so opaque, the shimmer in PP is more subtle. Also, the base colour in PP is more blue toned (as opposed to red leaning a la Scrangie).

I like Parachute Purple more than Scrangie... I don't mind the more subtle shimmer PP has, and the bluer base looks better on my skin tone. I also like the fact that I only have to use 2 coats that dry relatively fast... but then again, I usually layer Scrangie over another polish so I don't necessarily need to use many coats there either.

Which do you prefer more, Parachute Purple or Scrangie? I think if you missed out on Scrangie, Parachute Purple is probably the best alternative that is currently out there. I generally avoid RBL polishes because I find the hidden shimmer always a bit too hidden for my taste, and the price point ($20/bottle) including international shipping (another $20) is wayyy too expensive for me. I also make it a rule never to blow over $200 on nail polish in one go, so unless I'm buying with other people, I probably won't ever reach the free shipping requirements. :P

Thank you so much for reading! xoxo

Marisa

OPI Goldeneye from the Skyfall Collection

Hi everyone! Happy Tuesday!

Today I have a GORGEOUS polish from the new holiday collection from OPI that is based off of the upcoming James Bond movie of the same name! I don't know about you, but I've seen pretty much all of the Bond flicks out there! Or a short side note, I wonder why none of the gold polishes are named Goldfinger... that seems like a pretty apt name for a Bond inspired polish, no? :P

But back onto the polish... I really love Goldeneye. Take a peek!

Goldeneye is a gorgeous pure gold foil polish. It is amazing. The best way I can describe the colour of this polish... it's like a gold bar on my nails. Pictured above is 4 thin coats of Goldeneye. This polish is pretty sheer, so I can see this as a great gold top coat as well.

The onyl thing I wish I could have now is a polish like this but with a completely smooth surface. In low light/indoor this polish looks pretty close to being an unbroken smooth surface, but it isn't really 100% smooth. If someone came out with a metallic like this and was this reflective... I'd own it for sure!

Hmm, that's all for now! Couldn't wait to share this one with y'all!

Thanks for reading!

Marisa