Random NOTD: LA Colors Electric Charge

My nails are in absolute deplorable condition. All of my life I have had an issue with picking on my nails and the skin around my nails and only my obsession with nail polish has helped curb that. Except when I get nervous or stressed the old habits emerge. School has been stressful lately and all my nails broke off and I managed to pick big ugly wounds in my cuticles and the sides of my fingers. I need to work on getting them back in shape because it isn't even fun to wear nail polish when it looks like you stuck your fingers in a sausage grinder. Okay, maybe that is hyberbole, but they definitely aren't pretty.

I happened to find a a few swatches from before I even started blogging that I'll share with you today. I bought this color at Dollar Tree for well, a dollar, and I love this smooth, bright pinkness of it. I don't wear pinks that often, but when I do I like them to be obnoxiously bright.

LA Colors Electric Charge

LA Colors Electric Charge

It isn't quite as vibrant as it looks here. My  camera likes to turn everything more neon.


Thank you for reading and have a great day/night/whatever!

Black Jelly Glitter Puke Franken

My boyfriend convinced me to watch Goodfellas and now he's giving me the "hurry up" looks so I better hurry and finish this post. Doesn't he know that blogging comes before everything?!  This makes like 3 nail posts in a row, but I'm obsessed with making frankens.  So here is my black jelly glitter puke franken.

This is 2 coats with base an top coats.

Taken in the sun

Sorry for the bit of tip wear. I decided it would be a good idea to wash the dishes right after painting my nails.  It has a jelly finish but I only needed 2 coats to reach opacity.

Remember this picture? All those 6 polishes in the background are the ones I used to make this polish, along with about 20 drops of a black creme.

Taken in the shade.

This wasn't super lumpy either. I only needed one coat of Seche Vite to make it smooth and shiny.

macro shot

So what do you think? I've really been loving the holo frankens, but I like this one just as much or even better!


Thank you for reading and have a great day/night/whatever!

Revlon Just Tinted Nail Polish Swatches

I had a poopy day today (well, technically yesterday by the time this posts in the morning), and I'm exhaaaaaaausted. It's only 9pm and I'm already ready for bed. 9 pm is obscenely early to me. No matter what time I have to wake up, I can't sleep unless it is already the next day, aka after midnight.

Here are swatches of Revlon's Just Tinted nail polish collection. This one is a limited edition summer collection. I'm not sure if it's still available in stores or not as I bought these like 2 months ago and am barely posting them. I'm such a procrastinator!  I was really looking forward to these as I thought they would be similar to OPI's "sorbets" from the Texas collection, which I surprisingly liked. These are more sheer. I don't love them and can't decide if I even like them. Oh, they also dry to a semi-matte/satiny finish, which is weird since they look kinda jelly-ish. I didn't like the satin look so all of these are swatched with a top coat.

These are all 2 coats of the polishes over one coat of an opaque nude polish on my index finger and 4 coats on my other 3 fingers.

Revlon Dawn in the sun

Revlon Dawn in the shade

Revlon Victorian in the sun

Revlon Victorian in the shade

Revlon Desire in the sun

Revlon Desire in the shade

Revlon Mystical in the sun

Revlon Mystical in the shade

Okay, now I'm really going to bed. Sleep sounds freaking amazing right about now.

Thank you for reading and have a great day/night/whatever!

Wet n Wild Everybody Loves Redmond and Party of 5 Glitters Swatches and Review

Eep! I'm super late posting. And I'm a bad girl today! I use the alarm on my phone to wake me up for school in the morning, but I forgot to take my phone of silent from when I was in class the previous day! So I overslept and missed my lecture AND my lab. I feel bad, but I have to say, all that extra sleep was reaaaaaally nice. Oh well, I'm doing really well in my classes so I guess one day isn't going to hurt me.

I received Everybody Loved Redmond and Party of 5 Glitters from Wet n Wild recently for review. I have been lemming Deborah Lippmann's Happy Birthday polish for a long time but didn't want to pay nearly $20 for it. So I was really excited to try the less expensive Wet n Wild version (they aren't exact dupes, but the concept is the same, large and small pieces of multicolored glitter in a clear base). I wasn't expecting much from Everybody Loves Redmond because it is just a red jelly, but I ended up loving it the most.

Wet n Wild Everybody Loves Redmond

I LOVE this red. Like most jelly-finish polishes it is a tad sheer. I used 3 coats to get the polish as opaque as possible, but I was happy with it at 2. This is the perfect red and it only cost around $2! The formula is smooth and non streaky and it builds well. It is a bit on the thicker side, but it didn't cause me any problems in application.

Wet n Wild Everybody Loves Redmond and Party of 5 Glitters in the sun

Here is 2 coats Party of 5 Glitters over Everybody Loves Redmond. I REALLY wanted to love the glitter, but I just don't. It was too sparse at one coat, but 2 coats made it way to thick for me, I think it would have looked better with a third coat, if it was possible. And I just don't like the way the large glitter looks on me. I love looking at it on other people and in pictures, but it's just too... messy and unorganized and it bothers me (a weird quirk I have).  And this isn't the fault of this particular polish; I would dislike ANY polish like this one. So really, I'm glad I never bought Happy Birthday because I know it would have disappointed me.

It's so strange, I like the way the glitter looks in the picture, but when I wore I didn't like it at all. I disliked it so much that I removed it immediately after taking the picture. Yeah,  I'm weird.

Wet n Wild Everybody Loves Redmond and Party of 5 Glitters in the shade

Available:

•  Fast Dry polish retails for $1.99 and can be found at most Wet n Wild retailers such as Wal-Mart, Walgreens, CVS, and Rite Aid 

Thank you for reading and have a great day/night/whatever!

Disclosure: These polishes were provided to me by Wet n Wild for review purposes. As always, all opinions are completely my own.

NARS Zulu and Midnight Express Are Just Meh

Hrrm, feelin' kinda introspective today. Probably because I'm sick. And just a little down in general. I'm a weak person. Well, I find people in general tend to be weak, haha. But, the areas I'm weak in, I try to avoid.  Like I know I'm weak when it comes to drama. I try to avoid it because it is so freakin' easy for me to get sucked in to it. It starts out just chatting with friends and devolves into this terrible beast of a thing. At the time you don't realize that what you're doing maybe isn't the best and people could get hurt or whatever. But then afterward I'm just kinda sick at all the drama I participated in. So, I try to avoid it altogether.

And you know what? People always associate drama with women, but men are just as bad. I didn't realize this until fairly recently. My boyfriend is a firefighter and he is in an environment that is 100% men all the time (they have no female firefighters. I think it's partially a cultural thing here and mostly because the physical test you have to pass it freakin' hard. Only like 10% of the guys pass it.) Anyway, he tells me that men are just the same as women. They gossip about each other, get mad at talking behind each other's backs, and are just as petty.

Anyway, I have a couple NARS nail polish swatches for you. Unfortunately I dropped and broke both the bottles (ugh) while rearranging my polishes so I had to salvage what I could and put it into random bottles. For me personally, I think Zulu and Midnight Express are overrated. I don't care for polishes that look black in most lighting so I'm not even sure why I bought them. But if the formulas were perfect I might could overlook that. They are both fairly streaky and take 3 coats on my to even out. As GSP would say, "I was not impressed by your performance." (if you get the reference I love you forever). I actually like Midnight Express a little. I might be tempted to wear this one occasionally.

These swatches are pretty turrible, but that's okay. It goes with my turrible mood!

NARS Zulu in the sun

NARS Zulu in the shade

NARS Midnight Express in the sun

NARS Midnight Express in the shade

Available:

• There retail for $17. Sephora doesn't have these shades listed on their website, but there are still a few places online you can find them.

Thank you for reading and I hope you have a better day than I am having! Haha.

Cult Nails Inaugural Colection Swatches and Review

Cult Nails is a new nail polish brand started at the begining of this year by a fellow blogger named Maria.  I thought it was really inspiring that she had this dream to start her own company and actually followed through with it and is doing everything she can to make it a success.  Of course I immediately wanted the whole collection.  I couldn't afford it at the time so I saved for awhile and about a month ago I bought both the Inaugural collection (5 polishes) and the Day At the Races collection (5 polishes and mostly limited editions). Their collection for Fall called Hypnotic is up for pre-sale on their website and I love their polishes so much that I purchased the collection the first day they put it up!

And now I know why Cult Nails is quickly becoming, well, a cult favorite.  The formula of the polishes is amazing.  I didn't have any issues with streakiness, or too thibk or thin formulas, or bubbling.  All of the ones that are supposed to opaque were opaque in two coats. Every time I would start applying one I would think it was sheer with the first coat.  And then with the second coat it would become perfectly opaque.  I shouldn't have been surprised when this kept happening over and over, but this held true with the entire line.  There are a few polishes that are intentionally sheer and even those build up pretty well.

At $10 each these aren't the cheapest polishes around.  But I wouldn't expect them to be.  This is a small company with no employees but the owners. Unless you are producing/selling in massive quantities like brands that are sold at drugstores and such, you have to charge more.  $10 really isn't so bad if you think about.  You can tell that Maria puts a lot of thought and love into the polishes and her company and it really shows.  You know that your $10 is buying quality.  Sometimes you aren't even guaranteed that with $25 Chanel polishes.

Cult Nails Quench in the sun

This was 2 coats but would need more to fully eliminate VNL. This is a glossy jelly red, so like most jellies, some VNL is expected when using fewer coats.

Cult Nails Quench in the shade

Cult Nails Iconic in the sun

This is a berry reddish pink with gold shimmer and flakies. I've heard somewhere before saying this is a dupe for Barielle's Elle's Spell but I have that one also and it is most definitely not a dupe. (Here is Elle's Spell for proof) I think Maria should do more polishes with flakies! (hint hint)

This was 2 coats.

Cult Nails Iconic in the shade

Cult Nails My Kind of Cool Aid in the sun

This is a greyed lavender with silver shimmer. But not the ugly frosty silver shimmer. This one is subtle and pretty.

This was 2 coats.

Cult Nails My Kind of Cool Aid in the shade

Cult Nails Living Water in the sun

This is a deep blackened blue jelly base with blue and green glitter. This is so gorgeous and I can't think of any colors that look similar to this.

This was 2 coats.

Cult Nails Living Water in the shade

Available:

• Cult Nails polishes sell for $10 each and are available on their website.

Thank you for reading and have a great day/night/whatever!

Under-appreciated Brand Alert! New York Summer Nail Polish Swatches

New York Summer is probably an under-appreciated brand because it isn't that easy to find.  The only place I've seen it sold is on the website of one of my favorite nail polish e-tailers, Transdesign. The polishes are only $1.59 and come in a HUGE range of over 50 colors ranging from neons to glitters to jellies.  Most of the colors I have are jellies.  In a way, the remind me of polishes that could easily fit in with OPI's "sorbet" finish.  If you loved OPI's jellies and were looking for some more, these are some great ones.  Plus, they're super cheap!  Oh, another color I recommend is a green jelly called Amaranth, but I forgot to swatch it. :(
All of these are swatched with no base or top coat.

New York Summer Hot Baby Blue in the sun

This was 3 coats.  It's a little more opaque than some of the others.  It is also a near perfect dupe for Essie Turquoise & Caicos.

New York Summer Hot Baby Blue in the shade

New York Summer Hot Sky Blue in the sun

This is 4 coats and you can still see my nail line easily.  Also, it must have some neon pigment in it because it dries to a satin finish.

New York Summer Hot Sky Blue in the shade

New York Summer Summer Fun in the sun

This was 4 coats.  I really like this color- it seems pretty unique.

New York Summer Summer Fun in the shade

New York Summer Hush in the sun

This was 4 coats.  Like most yellows, this was a bit of a pain to try and get streak-free.

New York Summer Hush in the shade

New York Summer Poppies in the sun

This was 2 coats.  It's the only non-jelly out of these swatches.  This is such a rich, gorgeous purple.

New York Summer Poppies in the shade

I was thinking Poppies might be similar to NARS' Purple Rain so I did a comparison.

Left- NARS Purple Rain  Right- New York Summer Poppies

You can see that they aren't dupes at all.  They do hae a similar feel, but Purple Rain has a more blackened base and isn't quite as reddish purple.

Available:

• New York Summer sells for $1.59  at Transdesign.com (Scroll down and click Polish on the left side. New York Summer is just called "New York" in the top tabs)

Thank you for reading and have a great day/night/whatever!

Where Is Texas in OPI's Texas Collection? Swatches and a Complaint

I'm a die-hard Texan.  I was born here, I live here, and I will most definitely die here.  Just hopefully not any time soon.  Or actually preferably not at all.  So needless to say, I had high expectations for the OPI's Texas-inspired nail polish collection. Being the overly-dramatic Texan I am who takes offense to any perceived slight to my beloved home, I was outraged at the seeming lack of thought or research that went into picking the color palette.  I immediately saddled up my horse (we all own one ya know; it's a requirement to live here) and began the trek to OPI headquarters to express my outrage.  Okay not really, I just experienced mild distaste and decided I didn't need any of the colors.  Plus, I don't know anyone who even owns a horse.

Anyway, the color palette does not evoke Texas to me at all. And while the fruity-colored "sorbets" are pretty, I would like to know exactly what about Texas inspired them?  And while we're on the topic... c'mon, sorbets?  Really?  We all know they're jellies.  Stop pretending that you invented some groundbreaking new finish. Honestly to me it feels like they picked the theme AFTER they had picked the colors.

So I was grocery shopping a few weeks ago and came across a display with these on clearance (I guess all my fellow Texans were offended also.  Either that or no one expected to find OPI at the grocery store).  I bought Austin-tatious Turquoise because Austin is my hometown, where my family lives, and where I long to be. *dramatic sigh* I know the color is sheer and not-so-great from what I have seen on other blogs, but I had to have it for the name.  And how could you not love a city who's motto is, "Keep Austin weird."  I picked up a few of the sorbets (JELLIES!) because they looked pretty in the bottle and one other because it had a really pretty pink shimmer that does not show up at all in pictures.

These are swatched with no base or top coat.

OPI Austin-tatious Turquoise in the sun

 This was 5 coats and you can still see some VNL.  To be honest U was expecting this one to be a lot worse.  What disappointed me the most is that the cool purpley-pink shimmer you can see in the corner of the bottle does not show up on the nail. :(

OPI Austin-tatious Turquoise in the shade

OPI It's Totally Fort Worth It in the sun

This was 5 coats.  Okay, this one looks sort of boring and gross- a frosty, brushstrokey mess.  But in real life it has this really pretty pink shimmer/flash thing that sort of redeems it.  I don't know why it's so camera shy.  So is this one "Totally Fort Worth It"?  Probably not.

OPI It's Totally Fort Worth It in the shade

OPI Y'all Come Back Ya Here in the sun

For all the sorbets I used 1 coat of a nude polish on my index finger to hide VNL.  This was 3 coats on my index finger and 4 on the other fingers.  I'm not sure you would ever be able to get rid of VNL without an opaque base.

OPI Y'all Come Back Ya Here in the shade

OPI Guy Meets Gal-veston in the sun

This was 2 coats on my index finger over the nude base and 3 coats on my other fingers.

OPI Guy Meets Gal-veston in the shade

OPI Houston We Have A Purple in the sun

This was 2 coats on my index finger over the nude base and 3 coats on my other fingers.

OPI Houston We Have A Purple in the shade

 Available:

• This is a limited edition collection but may still be available at some places.  Check OPI's website for a location near you that sells it.
• This collection is still available on Transdesign and they sell for $5.75 each.

Oh, and just because I'm homesick, here are a few pictures of some of my favorite places/things in and around Austin.

Krause Springs

Image credit sonfotografias on flickr

 Austin skyline at night reflecting off the lake

image credit Michael Connell on flickr

Texas Longhorns

This is my momma before a Longhorn football game.  Shh, don't tell her I put a picture of her here.

Hamilton Pool

image credit Knowsphotos on flickr

This is one the most beautiful places I have ever seen.  Apparently it's a collapsed underground river or something.  They even let you swim here sometimes.

There are so many other places I love but this is getting a bit long. :)


Thank you for reading and have a great day/night/whatever!