HONEY AND CLOVER: St.Patrick's Day Observed

Here we have Maybelline Express Finish in Go Go Green, stamped with Konad special green polish using plate BM03, and a slick of Sinful Colors Green Ocean to top it off.




I picked up the Maybelline at some point last year and thought it would make a good spring color. I'm not overly likely to use green polish, but it has a gold gleam to it that struck my fancy. I will say that the 50-second-to-dry claim on the bottle is an OUTRIGHT LIE. The Sinful Colors is a blue-and-green flake in a sheer, slightly green base, and I dote on it over black.





I had THE WORST time trying to catch a decent picture of this. It was 7:30 in the morning while I was trying to prepare for a journey south, and the light would not cooperate. Also please disregard the slopped-over topcoat as Maybelline's quick-dry lie gave me rage issues after midnight.





But you get the idea. Everyone at work Monday was amused/horrified, and then I took it off.

WHAT'S A KARDASHIAN? all that glitters

(seriously, who are these people? but anyway)

Tonight for your excitement I present two offerings from the Nicole by OPI "Kardashian Kolor Holiday" collection. I must disclaim that I am ALL about the gratuitous K inserts, but that makes me hella want to vomit and if these two polishes had not been grade-A for awesome there is no way I would support that garbage in any way, shape, or form. MOVING ON....




Here we have Disco Dolls under Rainbow in the S-Kylie (I persist in trying to append "With Diamonds" every time I think that name). I have read that Skylie Diamonds is a dupe for the OPI Muppets' Rainbow Connection and had a passing interest in that but not enough to stalk it down so picked this up instead. Disco Dolls met my impulse purchase criteria of "gold" and "glittery" and "available."




Guys, these are the glitziest nails I have ever had, for serious; I am amazed there weren't birds dive-bombing my hands. I expected it to take three hours wrapped in foil to remove, but it lasted pretty well for about five days and then came off in sheets. There are, in fact, two large pieces of it still in my coat pocket because OMG SO SHINY SO SO SHINY.




Of course we had no sun worth mentioning for the duration. But I tried. For you.




PRINCESS SEAL OF APPROVAL although I'm kind of ashamed of it. And I proudly proclaim my love for Ke$ha. WHERE IS HER NAIL POLISH COLLECTION? OPI GET ON THAT RIGHT NOW.

THIS WILL BE OUR YEAR: took a long time to come

I eschewed work during the dead week between Christmas and New Year’s and was rewarded for my trouble by finding a cache of my lemmings at a nail salon. I only allowed myself to purchase ONE so chose OPI’s It’s My Year hoping it would be a good luck charm for 2012.




Pictured here with the very similar Rally Pretty Pink from one of the Serena Williams sets (if anyone figures out why they paired that with a red crackle, enlighten me, because vomit).




Rally Pretty Pink for comparison on my ring finger (second from bottom) (three coats of each, could have used a fourth). In most lights these looked almost exactly alike.




You can see the difference more here. Rally Pretty Pink is second from the top.




It’s My Year on top (I think). Purple and gold are my best non-mermaid colors, so a warm purple with gold shimmer was more or less made for me.

TWELFTH NIGHT: Carey in Lorelei's Tiara

I wasn’t going to post this one due to the horrific cleanup (or lack thereof), but I had more compliments than usual on it. Inspired by the one snow we’ve had so far this winter.




Three coats of Zoya Carey from the Feel Collection with China Glaze Lorelei’s Tiara from the Eye Candy collection splashed on the ends.




I felt obligated to purchase Carey as it is my namesake polish but didn’t expect to be very excited about gray as my skin demands warm colors. The glitter brightened it up enough to be okay. I think I’d prefer Kendal or Kennedy standalone. I got almost five days out of this one before I had to take it off, which is above average in my Zoya experience.

The glitter is highly adequate. I think the blue bits make the polish.

Also for your entertainment, my magical hair that I wore at the same time. I went to a semi-classy restaurant like this. I am that girl.




Surprisingly, the other girls did not make me sit at a separate table.




The man in front of me at the salad bar said he was glad I was there as the room was on the dark side. I LIGHT UP THE WORLD.

WORK INAPPROPRIATE AWARD: OPI Candy Mani

OPI recently posted an inquiry on Facebook regarding a "candy mani." I was all whut until Google informed me this is a a synonym for "jelly sandwich," a term I had seen before. I have had boring nails lately so decided to try this.




IT IS SHINY AND I WANT TO EAT IT. I think the jelly candy EAT ME effect is best with large shaped glitter - hearts or stars or skulls or tigers rather than sprinkle glitter - and it's a pain in the whatsis to fish enough glitters out of the jar for each nail. So this is not an every-week adventure.




You can't tell from these pictures, but I had one purple nail on my left hand (ring) and two on my right (ring and pinky). This is my favorite color split.




Purple nails: two coats China Glaze Urban-Night, careful coat of Timothy, one coat OPI Houston, We Have a Purple jelly.




Pink nails: two coats OPI You're Such A Kabuki Queen, carefully-applied Nicole by OPI Step 2 the Beat of my ♥, one coat OPI Do You Think I'm Tex-y jelly. ( FYI, I despise two of these three polish names.)

(EDIT: Pink also has touches of Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Extreme Wear Rockstar Pink; purple has touches of the same in Strobe Light.)

This all reminds me of my second-favorite art form: JELLO MOLD SUSPENSION!




I promised Orly Mineral FX but was too depressed to post it last weekend. So I will do it later.

COMING UP NEXT: Nina Ultra Pro - sadly underrated!

UPTOWN GIRL

These are from the China Glaze Fall 2011 collection, Metro. I suppose this collection is meant to be gritty? edgy? on trend? something like that. It offers a fairly wide range of colors. I'm trying to break away from my pink-red-purple-gold-teal rut and considered getting Westside Warrior, one of the newly popular puke greens (some people call this "olive"), and Trendsetter, which is sort of mustard (see Scrangie's lovely post here) but played it safe for this round.

I ordered these from Trans Design because a) the people who work at the Sally's Beauty Supply by my house are scary, and b) my Ulta gets its stock about eight months late. Also, Trans Design sells China Glaze for $2.99, and Sally's is $5.99 with the card if they aren't having a sale. So it tends to be cheaper even factoring in shipping. I visited a Sally's far away from my house today and viewed the puke green and the mustard in person. Trendsetter would look like my cat threw up on my hand, but I kind of did want Westside Warrior. I need to live more vivaciously.

Street Chic (Uptown)







This is a perfect dupe for Essie's Hot Coco. I wore the two alternating every other finger to work one day, and no one could tell. It's a deep taupe creme with a hint of purple; I think it dries a little darker than it looks in the bottle. Essie's formula is a smidge more runny than China Glaze, if it makes any difference to you.

Loft-y Ambitions (Downtown)








This is a nice burgundy creme. There are probably 347 dupes out there for this one too, but I don't own any personally. Like I said. It's nice.

Urban-Night (Uptown)








Lovely deep purple creme. Again, not that original. but I like it. I could probably wear it to work even if my office wasn't a freak show.

P.S. I'm such a murch that I didn't get the pun in the name until I'd worn it two days.


CG In The City (Uptown)










As you should know, I am ALL ABOUT THE GLITTER. This works well as a layer over any of the other polishes, as demonstrated above. I think it would take too many coats to be worth trying on its own. If you do, let me know.

COMING UP NEXT WEEK: Orly Mineral FX. In a word, SHINY.

CATASTROPHIC NAIL FAILURE

I suffered a hideous break tonight, no doubt karmic punishment for admiring my glittery nails so under a direct light on Friday, and have whacked them all down to match in keeping with personal policy. In addition, all the pictures I took this week SUCKED, in large part due to vile weather conditions. So you will have to content yourselves with a picture of these lovely Halloween glitter polishes I picked up at Hy-Vee for < $2 apiece.




Their names are CHUNKY NAIL and PUMPKIN NAIL ENAMEL (or EUSTACE and TIMOTHY as I prefer to call them), and they reek of formaldehyde death. I put the purple one over what was on my toes, and it appears that this may build up to be wearable alone. Time will tell.

COMING UP NEXT WEEK: selections from the China Glaze fall 2011 collection, Metro. Displayed for you with love on my tiny, tiny stubs. Sigh.