OPI San Francisco Mini Set Swatches

Disclaimer: The products featured in this post were given to me as a gift from Sisi of Color4Nails. I am under no obligation to promote her polish store and do not gain anything from doing so. Any opinions presented in this post are my own.

Hi Everyone!

*Gasp* - another post! So soon... it's a miracle! Well, I found some time to sit down and write a post (who am I kidding? I'm supposed to be wading my way through academic papers right now). I figure you've all seen polishes from this collection about a million times by now, but I'll just swing some of my own quick swatches for you. I recently received the OPI San Francisco Mini set in the mail as a gift from Sisi at Color4Nails (I gave her permission to use some of my swatch pictures on her Facebook page and she wanted to send me a gift, which was very sweet of her). Thanks to her, I was able to try some polishes that I probably wouldn't have purchased on my own (I wasn't too impressed by the promo images of the collection).

Anyhow, I won't bore you too much with my rambling! Onto the polish!

In the Cable Car-pool Lane: A fairly standard dark plum/burgundy. Not an extremely exciting colour for me - I probably wouldn't be able to convince myself to buy this polish if I had seen it on a shelf somewhere since I'd probably have something very close to this in the 600+ bottles of polish that I own. It does have a very nice jelly-esque squishiness to it though. I used 3 coats.

First Date at the Golden Gate: A kind of reddy-burnt orange shade. Like In the Cable Car-pool Lane, it has the squishy look of a jelly with the more opaque formula of a creme. I used 3 coats for this swatch.

Peace, Love, and OPI: Silvery sage-blue-purple duochrome that reminds me of the northern lights. Undoubtedly one of the most buzzed about polishes from the San Fran collection. Initially I had only planned to pick up this polish from the collection, and I'm not too disappointed. I knew from prior swatches that it was going to be frosty, but the duochrome is actually really strong in this polish and kind of makes up for it. Streaks aside, I was pleasantly surprised that the formula isn't too thin - I used 3 thin coats for my swatch here.

Muir, Muir on the Wall: The dark horse in the collection for me. I would have completely passed this one over if it weren't for this mini set. When I swatched this polish I pretty much fell in love with it then and there, and ran out to buy a full size bottle. I can't even describe this one, but the important thing is that it has this beautiful red-coppery slightly duochrome shimmer that is absolutely gorgeous. I love it.

So, what do y'all think? I'm glad I got to try Muir, Muir on the Wall, since I probably wouldn't have known about how awesome it is if I didn't! It's seriously one of those colors I pass by on the shelf/counter and don't look at more closely. Thank you Sisi for your generosity!

As always, thank you for reading! I hope you all have a great week!

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 #85

Hi everyone, TGIF!

Today I have an awesome polish from a Korean brand to show you! I didn't even know this polish existed until this one night where I stayed up reading nail blogs... when I saw swatches of this polish I instantly went and bought a set on EBay. I had pictures of the polishes in my haul post a while back, but today I have one of them to show y'all!

For this look, I decided to layer #85 over OPI's Steady as She Rose. I used a DIY peel off base coat (it's just liquid white, non toxic glue like those they use in schools). I love these polishes as they remind me of Deborah Lippmann's Glitter in the Air, but with different colours of glitters and bases. I usually don't like wearing glitters since I despise removing them, but with this base coat, I don't have to suffer through that anymore!

Anyhow, here's the polish!

Sorry about the odd shape of my pinky finger! I took this picture a while back when my nail was a really strange shape!

Thanks for reading!

Marisa

Picture Polish Monroe

Hi everyone!

Sorry for the lack of posts lately, I've been feeling really unmotivated (so much that I haven't changed my nail polish in over a week! eek!)

Since I haven't changed my polish in a while, I have no new NOTDs to show y'all... so this post is coming from the vault-ish!

This picture might be a tad old, but the polish is still gorgeous. Unfortunately it's discontinued now, but you may be able to pick up a bottle somewhere... I'm not really sure how many are left or if it's all sold out now. Still very pretty though. I picked this up at Llarowe's birthday sale along with Mask-a-rade, since I couldn't decide on which one to get. I'm very glad I got both though, since they are both stunning!

Monroe is a a beautiful blood red jelly-ish with tiny sparkling holo particles suspended in it. The holo bits are really small, and make a gorgeous scattered look in the sun. This being jelly-ish, it dries super glossy and smooth (not to mention squishy looking!).

I was initially worried that this would be one of those red bordering on black polishes, but this turned out to be the perfect shade of red.... no too dark but not too bright either.

That's all for today! Thank you for reading and I'll try to do something to my nails today (along with work on my term paper haha)!

Marisa

Cult Nails Divas and Drama Collection

Hi everyone! Happy Monday!

Today I'm feeling a bit.. meh about the swatches I'm going to show you. I trimmed back my nails last night and now I just feel like they're super short. My right index finger is definitely too short, so I left it out of the swatchfest today. In other news, I got most of my anticipated mail today, so of course I had to swatch them asap! I also got my jewellery supplies from etsy... I'm happy with most of the order, but one of the rings I got seems a bit low quality. Oh well.

Anyhow, onto the colours! I ended up getting the Cult Nails Divas and Drama collection with my $5 sale order. My sister put the order through, so together we got 2 bottles of Seduction, Scandalous, Enticing, Manipulative, Feel Me Up and Nevermore. The Divas and Drama Collection consists of Seduction, Enticing, Manipulative and Scandalous.

First up...

 Enticing: This is a sheer, creamy pink with subtle shimmer. I love how clean this one looks on the nails... this is the most perfect neutral pink ever. It can be worn sheer, but it can be worn opaque. I used 4 coats to get a nice opaque look, and the best thing is that it doesn't really feel like 4 coats. I've tried some sheer polishes before and 4 coats just piles on and gets goopy-feeling. I definitely don't have that problem here.

 Manipulative: This is a pretty blue with a slight tinge of green that kind of greys out the colour. I love it. It also has this shimmer in it that's super gorgeous. Formula-wise, it was a dream in 2 coats. I have lots of love for this.

Scandalous: This is a fantastic creamsicle orangey-pink jelly. I love it. I've had my eyes on this since forever, so I'm super happy it's finally in my hands. It's fabulous. This is three coats, with slight visible nail line.

Seduction: And now, the crown jewel. If you've missed out on Unicorn Puke/Clairvoyant... run to pick this baby up. It's pretty much UP/Clairvoyant without the green flakes, which makes it different enough to warrant a bottle of both, I gander. Pictured is 2 coats of Seduction over 1 coat of Nevermore (which will be featured in another post later).

Overall: I love this collection. It's fabulous. I've very happy I picked it up, and I can't wait for the preorders of the Fairy Tales collection to be shipped, so I can get my hands on those babies as well. I've never really been disappointed by any polishes I've ordered from Cult Nails and I can't wait to see what Maria comes up with in the future!

Cult Nails nail polish can be purchased HERE, and you should seriously consider liking them on Facebook and/or Twitter(@cultnails) for some great sale opportunities!

Hope you guys have a fabulous Monday!

Marisa

China Glaze Summer Neon Collection (9/12)

Happy Saturday everyone!

Today I have 9 polishes (out of 12) from the China Glaze Neon collection for Summer 2012. I initially only bought Ride the Waves (since I'm pretty much obsessed with bright blue cremes for now) but I ended up going back to buy the 8 polish set. I mainly bought the set because my inner hoarder told me to, but now I'm really glad I gave them a try!

Left to Right: Orange you Hot?, Surfin' for Boys, Love's a Beach, Pink Plumeria

Left to Right: Beach Cruise-r, Ride the Waves, Splish Splash, I'm with the Lifeguard, Sun-Kissed

Lots of pictures in this post so I'll put them under a cut! Please click "Read More" below to see the swatches!

OPI - Guy meets Gal-veston

Hi everyone,

I've been doing some prep for some scheduled posts while I'm away (we're leaving on the 25th), and yesterday was my swatching day. I was going to post a lot earlier, but I finally got around to editing all of the future post pictures (there were a lot) and now I'm too tired to talk much.

Today I have OPI's Guy meets Gal-veston from the Texas collection for y'all! This is the only polish I picked up, but I've always been meaning to get more.

Guy meet's Gal-veston is a yellow based red sorbet (i.e. jelly) finish polish. This was 3 coats. There is a little bit on visible nail line in the picture, but it isn't really as noticeable in person.

I really love jelly polishes.. I love their squishy look and smooth feel, so because of that I may go out sometime and pick up some of the other "sorbets" from the Texas collection.

Hmm, I'll also include this picture I snapped of a moth.. it landed on my lamp while I was reading and it looked like it really belonged there! I love the detail in the picture, so I purposely left it really huge.. I think it's super pretty, but Jen thinks it's gross. :P

That's all for now everyone, thank for reading! <3

-Marisa

Cult Nails Week - Captivated

Hello everyone!

I hope you're all well this morning, I know I'm feeling pretty good myself. :D

Today I have a lovely blingy polish for Cult Nails week.. Captivated!

Captivated is a lovely coral jelly with tons of glitter in it!

Captivated is another one of my favourites from Cult Nails. It's always positively glowing! In the sun, it shines and in the shade, the gold glitter really pops out at you! This is gorgeous.. I don't think I've seen anything like it!

Sooo pretty. I'm glad I didn't decide to put this on during my study week and midterm exams.. I think I would have gotten side tracked a lot by just staring at it!

That's all for now, I hope you enjoy your day!

Captivated and other Cult Nails polishes can be purchased online for $10 each at the Cult Nails website.
-Marisa