China Glaze Light As Air & Konad M69 with China Glaze IDK

I sort of forgot that I had one pastel left to show you from my 10 Up & Away polishes: Light As Air. A very whitened pastel purple creme, I was pleasantly surprised, when I finally got around to trying it, that I loved it! Its formula was excellent, it was perfectly opaque in two easy coats, it dried well. The color is a tad dainty for my taste, but oh well! I'll wear pretty much anything.

Here's 2 coats of Light As Air:

Intrigued as I have been by subtle Konads lately, I whipped out a favorite design from M69, and Konaded it using China Glaze's IDK from the OMG Collection. The results are subtle and pretty, but my camera pretty much failed to capture the holographic nature of the Konad. Here's a few pictures of my handywork:

I really like that plate. Anyway, I'm not sure what's coming next! I have a ton of untried polishes, like any collector, but I don't have many "new" ones. I guess I can try and finish out the remaining five American Apparel colors that I have. I also have a bunch of Barielles I got forever ago that haven't seen much (if any love). Also I have some old school Sally Hansens that I scored at Dollar Tree around Christmas that I haven't done much experimenting with. Hmm, decisions decisions!! I guess we'll see what I decide when tomorrow rolls around. Thanks for looking!

Zoya Swatches Part 2

OK, here's my second batch of Zoya swatches! I just want to profess my love for this brand. I love their freebies and have excellent luck with their customer service. I love their color and finish selection and the quality of their products. I love the bottle, brush, and generally the formula. I love that they're "green." Yay Zoya! Enough of my babbling, onto the swatches :-)

Here's a few links back to polishes I've already featured:

Zoya Verushcka

Zoya Nova

Zoya Rea

And the rest....

Dominique. One of my favorite reds, very opaque, very bright. More orange toned than blue, but not overly so. 2 coats.

Deidra. Kind of a toned down version of Zara, but more taupe. Very cool. I never wore it before this swatch and I underestimated it. 2 coats.

Meadow. 2 coats. Like Zara also, but pink. 2 coats. Not my speed but a pretty polish.

Avril. Very opaque pink based neutral. 2 coats.

Buffy. Bought this just for the name (Huge Buffy the Vampire Slayer fan). Frosty beige shimmer, not that flattering on me, but perhaps so on darker skintones. 2 coats.

Demi. 2 coats. Pinked mauve creme. Nice formula and opaque.

Trixie. Silver foil, photographed terribly. Very blingy and pretty. 2 coats.

Emme. Awful light pink frost. OK formula, just awful looking on me. 2 coats.

Juicy. A neon red purple jelly. 3 coats.

Dakota. One of my favorite pedicure reds. Didn't realize how sheer it was until I put it on my nails. I can't remember if this is 2 or 3 coats. Very pretty blue based red.

Pippa. Yellow creme (not neon). Tricky formula. 2 coats.

Paz. Neon orange creme. Very sheer. This is 3 coats. Definitely needs something under it. Very bright.

America. A muted coral-red, very pretty. 2 coats, great opaque formula.

Goldie. A super shimmery (frosty?) gold, hate this shade of gold on me, but nice polish.

Harlow. Matte velvet. Pink shimmer, a bit purple too. Love matte velvet formula. 2 coats.

Dovima. Shimmery matte velvet black. More matte than this, it wasn't totally dry. 2 coats.

Loredana. Ultra shimmery matte velvet grey. 2 coats. Love this one.

Posh. ONE coat. Gorgeous matte velvet red shimmer. One coat. LOVE.

Dita. Gorgeous saturated fuchsia creme. 3 coats.

Katy. Pretty medium bright pink shimmer. 2 coats.

Also, on another note, if you're experiencing any difficulties viewing anything, let me know! I recently moved this blog from my old gmail account to its own gmail account, but I think I've got everything working. I'm excited for sparkly paints. to have its own identity though!

Thanks for looking!

Zoya Swatches Part 1

So, my friends, here is my first installment of my Zoya swatches. They were sorta quick 'n' dirty, meaning that I used only basecoat and however many coats of color it took to be opaque. No topcoat, no cleaup. I wrote a couple thoughts on each just to be helpful. Without further ado, here's the first batch!

Savita. Matte Velvet. 2 coats. Medium purple shimmer, kinda pinky duochrome in certain lights.

Ali. Neon pink creme. 2 coats.

Renee. Neon pink, leaning more coral. 3 coats.

Blair. Awesome velvety blackened red shimmer. More depth than pictured. 2 coats.

Sloane. Deep shimmery purple/wine color. 2 coats. Beautiful.

Envy. Deep green creme. Mine is very obviously green, some say it's very blackened. I disagree, but that's me. 2 coats. Gorgeous.

Sofia. Pinked purple. Maybe magenta? 2 coats, lovely.

Ginessa. Gross shimmery white with silver glitter. Pooled and looked lumpy. 3 coats.

Racquel. Warm red creme, 2 coats, great formula.

Sam. Deep blood red, so gorgeous, 3 coats, excellent formula. My most used Zoya.

Roxy. Medium fuchsia jelly with glitter. I only put on 2 coats but you need three. GORGEOUS.

Zara. Light lilac with intense gold shimmer, so pretty and understated. 2 coats.

Lael. Slightly darker than this, a straight up plum creme. Great formula. 2 coats.

Rihana. Medium pinked purple shimmer with a definite gold flash (can't see below though). 2 coats. Like Blair, much richer in person.

Jo. Medium periwinkle shimmer. 2 coats. First time I wore it I hated the formula, but while swatching it was nice! Hit or miss, I guess. Cool color.

Yasmeen. Definitely one of Zoya's stars, a deep shimmery purple with strong gold flash. 2 coats, deep, rich, velvety gorgeous (like Blair & Rihana, better in person). Love.

Tallulah. Wicked bright shimmery blue. Love this!! 2 coats. So happy and pretty.

Pinta. A blue toned plum creme (Lael leans more red). 2 coats, another gorgeous Zoya creme.

Richelle. A gold foil shimmer, mine had the WORST formula, similar to Ginessa. Lumpy and pool-y, I hated it! The color is so neat. 2 coats.

Midori. Shimmery spring green with strong gold shimmer, 2 coats. Very fun.

Phew!!

I've got another whole batch coming at you tomorrow! Thanks for looking :-)

ALSO!!! There is a wicked RBL giveaway happening here. GO ENTER for a chance to win all three new Surf Collection colors!

L.A. Colors Wired

I found this fun electric blue shimmer at Dollar Tree, and yup, it cost $1. The formula was great, it was opaque in 2 coats and yup, it dried awesomely with Seche Vite. Awesome win for this L.A. Colors polish, from the Color Craze line. It's the first that I've tried and I'm very impressed. I've never seen these at my DT before, but I'd grab another based on this one. I also took a bit of length off my nails, as you might notice.

Some photos, but it was much more awesomely vibrant in real life. The perfect cerulean shimmer:

Gosh I loved this so much! What a blue! The nearest in my collection to this would be China Glaze Frostbite, but I think this is brighter somehow. Love it.

OK, so my Zoya project? The other night, I swatched ALL of my 35 some-odd of my Zoyas. It was overwhelming!! But awesome. And, I guess I'll be posting these in parts over the next couple of days once I figure out how to group them. I also have to redo a couple (Ginessa, Richelle and a few others were brats and photographed awfully). They're not perfect swatches (a smidge messy, no cleaup), but they ARE pretty color accurate, so they may help any Zoya decisions you may be making in the near future :-) I sent in my exchange on Friday and got an email today that it's already processed and on its way back to me!! Excellent customer service, just like last year. I only traded in six polishes this year because I wanted the Sparkle collection, which I got in its entirety. Annoyingly enough, I realized there was another polish I've always wanted, Sienna, that I forgot about. Either way, it runs until the end of June so maybe I'll do another if I round up a few more polishes.

OK, so Zoyas coming tomorrow! For more info on their Earth Day Polish Exchange program, visit artofbeauty.com, and you should see a box for it on the left hand side. The online form is a bit tricky, be warned.

Thanks for looking!

ETA: Remember in this post I got the new Borgheses Menta and Pistacchio? Well, I returned them! They were sheer to the point of being awful and pointless. Save your $$!!