Nina Ultra Pro Glamrock

I recently encountered this lovely little beast at Sally Beauty Supply. There seemed to be a bunch of new Nina polishes there, I'll have to give them further inspection when I go back. These are almost twice as much here as they are at home in the States, which is kinda silly. Glamrock is a jelly-black with tons of super shiny silver glitter, which overall gives it a pewter effect. In the bottle it looks more black based, but on the nail it pulls pretty grey. But I like it a lot, lots of glitter, lots of sizes and super shiny, as I mentioned. It reminds of Borghese Nero Magico (excuse that crap swatch), a seriously great polish, but with a less opaque base and more glitter. I actually like the more vampy Nero Magico slightly better, but you really can't compare them in the end, as they're pretty different.

I'm going to a concert tonight, so this felt like a fitting manicure. Who am I going to see? Don't laugh, but Rancid and Against Me! Yes, I'm 25 (14?). In all seriousness, I'm going to see Rancid mostly, as they were my gateway drug into punk rock (along with the Clash) when I was 14. I've seen them twice before but not in a very, very long time. Plus there was a Groupon for it, and I have nothing better to do tonight.

Anyhow. Glamrock.

Sorry my camera can't handle the glitter! Another nice polish from Nina. The formula was pretty chunky though... but there is a shit-ton of glitter in this thing, so that's probably why. Only two coats for this coverage. I used Gelous under Seche Vite to smooth it out, because it definitely was gonna be a bumpy ride otherwise. If you see this, grab it! It's very pretty and definitely a welcome addition to my already over-sized collection (hoard). Nina polishes are a Sally's house brand but kinda underrated I think. Purple-Xing is a favorite, I know, I also have Emerald City, In A Tiff and Sailor... plus a few others somewhere from that metallic Velvet collection that came out a couple Christmases ago. I always wanted Salsa but never found it. What's your favorite Nina Ultra Pro polish?

Color Club Wild at Heart

There is so little to say about a polish this amazing. After filing down my nails, I was craving something darker, and I realized I had not worn this polish in a long time and I don't think I've ever posted on my blog. Wild at Heart is a beautiful purple holo, I got this version when the collection came out a couple years ago. I'm not sure if there are "dud" versions of this color like there apparently are of Revvvolution, Worth the Risque  and Fashion Addict. I don't have too much to say, as this polish is pretty close to perfect. It has that perfectly starry rainbow holo going on, the purple is deep and rich, the formula is flawless (this was 2 coats but one is pretty decent coverage), and it dried so shiny. Seche Vite didn't dull the holo for me (though I don't usually find that it does).

Here she is, in all her glory:

If you don't have this color, you simply must. Color Club makes excellent polish, and this is no exception. Oh Holo, how I love thee.  You are always a special treat to wear on my nails.

The OPI Serena Williams Grand Slam Duos: A Retrospective

Starting early this year, OPI teamed up with Serena Williams to release sets of polishes called Grand Slam! duos to be released in conjunction with the major tennis matches this year. As you probably know, Serena is also a nail tech/polish enthusiast, so this is a pretty cool idea in theory. This month, the final duo of this series was released. I got most of these duos during my blogging hiatus, so I decided to finally swatch them all for this retrospective post. Swatches of all of them in one place! I loved this series. It was obviously a smart collaboration with someone who loves polish. It was a little heavy on the Shatter polishes, but with the exception of one set, I liked the pairings. Here we go!

First, around March and to coincide with the Australian Open, came the first set: Simply Smash-ing! and Black Shatter.

Simply Smashing, 3 coats. A pretty tennis-ball yellow-green. I like it much more on the nail than in the bottle.

Excuse my application of Black Shatter here, the pinky went well, but the other 4 fingers did weird things. I had just thinned it, so maybe that's why. No top coat here.

Then, later this spring, came the France duos for the French Open, which consisted of 2 different sets: Rally Pretty Pink with Red Shatter and Spark de Triomphe with White Shatter.

Rally Pretty Pink, 3 coats. 

RPP with Red Shatter on top. The shatter look strange because there's no top coat. I apologize. This is the one pairing that I'm not crazy about.

Spark de Triompe, 3 coats. Silver and gold glitter. I love this and I bought a backup.

SdT with White Shatter on top. This one does not crack a lot, but it looks pretty neat with the gorgeous glittery veins peeking through. Again, no topcoat so ignore the texture.

Next, we have the England sets, which were released at the beginning of the summer to coincide with Wimbledon. There were also two sets in this release: Grape...Set...Match! with Servin' Up Sparkle and Your Royal Shine-ness with Servin' Up Sparkle.

Grape... Set... Match! 2 coats. This polish is much, much prettier in person. So shimmery, with lots of red and blue flecks happening. 

GSM with Servin' Up Sparkle on top. Very pretty, though the large hex glitter is pretty sparse. Sorry, my camera is a glitter-phobe lately.

Your Royal Shine-ness, 2 coats. I feel like this one is totally underrated. I totally completely disagree with anyone that says this is just a silver foil. It reminds me of pencil lead (but with much finer shimmer than Chanel Graphite). It's silver but got some brown/gold/pewter tones. Very, very pretty.

YRS with Servin' Up Sparkle. It was kind of a dumb idea on OPI's part to release two duos for the England sets with the same layering polish. I think most people bought one or the other, but not both. This could have easily been paired with Navy Shatter (looks gorgeous) or another darker glitter. SUS looks really cool on top, don't get me wrong, I just don't think it was great marketing.

And finally, in August, the US Open duo: Love is a Racket and Pros & Bronze. I know y'all saw these recently, but deal with it! Here they are again. 

Love is a Racket, 3 coats.

Pros & Bronze, 3 coats.

I don't feel like it's been mentioned much, but on the back of this set, OPI recommends layering these two polishes. Since that was the purpose of all the other duos, I guess it makes sense, but Pros & Bronze doesn't much strike me as a layering polish. It goes a bit haywire over Love is a Racket, but they definitely go together and create quite a blingy look (the kind my camera hates). If you want more in depth reviews of these colors you can check here and here.

So, let's break it down. You can create a lot of looks with these polishes. On the whole, they're unique and gorgeous, there's a variety of finishes, and pretty much something for everyone. Like I said before, clearly imagined up with someone who enjoys polish. However: most of the shimmer are very similar to that Orly Cosmic FX-Zoya Sparkle finish we've been seeing a lot of, and there's a lot of Shatters going on, which the market is also over-saturated with. And, as I mentioned, there are two duos with the same layering polish, which is pretty lame. A smarter idea would have been to create a trio for the England set, with both polishes and the glitter.

My favorite polishes in the sets: Spark de Triomphe, Simply Smash-ing, Your Royal Shine-ness and Grape Set Match. My favorite overall set is the Spark de Triomphe/White Shatter duo, and my least favorite is the Rally Pretty Pink/Red Shatter duo. In all honesty, a lot of these polishes are available individually on eBay, so it may be your best bet to pick and choose what you love and just grab those (I did this with Simply Smash-ing because I already had Black Shatter from the Katy Perry release, and I should have done it with Your Royal Shine-ness so I didn't end up with two Servin' Up Sparkles). 

All in all: this was a great job, I thought. What did you think? Did you grab any and/or all of these? 

Mail Call!

Just popping in quick for a haul post, which I haven't done in a long time!

I know we all have the occasional beef with the postal service, and I'll admit my personal bias, as my mom is a postal worker, but I sometimes truly believe that the Postal Service delivers happiness. I love getting mail, even if it's just junk and flyers. Today was a happy day, as my postal working Momma sent along a package full of goodies I had sent to her house.

OPI I Eat Maine-ly Lobster, Holiday Glow, Uh Oh Roll Down the Window, Teenage Dream, Roadhouse Blues. (Flash is making everything way brighter than it is in reality here). These are all from Aveyou.

Essie Bonded, Splash of Grenadine (I was surprised at how pink this was IRL), Playa del Platinum, Power Clutch. These were also from Aveyou.

aaaaand, Chanel Graphite & Peridot from Neiman Marcus, Sally Hansen Purple Diamond & Golden Tourmaline from eBay! Question for those of you who are not Chanel noobs: The square cap. Is it supposed to not work as a functional cap? Is it supposed to just come off and you polish with the smaller cap underneath? 

So so so excited to try all these out. My first Chanels! It's like awesome overload. The only thing that didn't show up was my OPI Zom-body to Love, which my mom told me she had... maybe she ran out of room in the box?? Hope I can get it for Halloween though! Any thoughts on which one I should wear first? I'm thinking Peridot personally... :D

OPI Pros & Bronze

Today I have for you my newly shorn nubs and OPI Pros & Bronze, the other color to be featured with Love is a Racket for the US Open Serena Williams set. This polish is pretty cool. I thought it might be like Zoya Tiffany but it's not pink enough. It's a very foily bright bronze with gold and rose-gold-pink flecks. It's pretty complex, and thus, hard to capture. 

This is three coats (please excuse my Lemony Flutter-ed cuticles and crappy cleanup):

Trying so hard to capture some detail on this one! It's really nice, but not exactly a color I love. That bright bronze/yellow gold isn't my favorite with my skintone. My husband liked it. I didn't *not* like it, I think I'm just biased about these colors on me. A really great sparkly polish though, and quite unique. What did you think? Did you grab one of both colors from this duo?

FYI: A big, huge, retrospective post of the OPI Serena Williams duos to come tomorrow!

OPI Love is a Racket

I'm guilty. Of what, you might ask? Guilty of buying all of the Serena Williams duos that have been released. Yup, I bought them all. When I saw the promotional pictures for the US Open Grand Slam set, I was not impressed and secretly pleased that I wasn't interested. My wallet rejoiced. I bought a couple Chanels. Then... pictures started leaking and that panic set it. Crap. I needed these.

So the other day, out of boredom, I said to myself "Self, let's just go take a look-see at the mall." There are a couple Sally Beauty Supplys in Winnipeg, which is cool because I had a bunch at home in NY and I get most of my supplies there. In Winnipeg, however, there are also Chatters Beauty Supply stores as well. They carry China Glaze and OPI mainly, but at Canadian retail, nothing is ever cheap there. (I miss my NY beauty supply that had coupons!!). There are a couple smaller salons that sell OPI cheaper as well. Anyway, the duos here have run me anywhere from $17-22 depending on where you buy them. So I went to this particular mall, which has a good salon and a Chatters in it. I walked into Chatters and found the duo, on "sale" for $18.86 (originally $19.90). I frowned, but wanted it and didn't feel like driving around town to save a buck. So I bought it, and this weekend everything happened to be 20% off, so I ended up only paying $15+tax for it, which was a refreshing surprise. So far, I've learned that nothing in Canada is cheap, so I'm really relishing the bargains when I find them.

Sorry, this is getting verbose. This duo comes with Love is a Racket and Pros & Bronze. They're so pretty in person. Love is a Racket (which OPI calls a red), is really pretty corally (or pink, as my husband proclaimed). It's incredibly glowy, and the shimmer in it is very intense large glass flecks (and there are a lot of them, the polish is quite dense. When you apply it, it looks *amazing*. But the one caveat for me was that when it dried... it was somehow not as spectacular and ate topcoat and was kinda dull. I ended up having to slap a coat of Barielle Manicure Extender on top in the morning because it just had a strange finish. So pretty though, and impossible to capture digitally--you just cannot see the detail of the shimmer.

This is 3 coats, but you could probably get away with two:

You can actually see the size/shape of the shimmer in the bottle better than on the nail. It has a great formula, too. A nice summer color, I think I'll wear it as a pedicure next. Anyway--what do you all think of this one? Pros & Bronze is up next. Did you buy any (or if you're a nut like me--all) of the Serena duos? 

OPI Get in the Expresso Lane with Dare To Wear Strobe Lights

This manicure was actually kind of ugly in the end, but I wore it for two days (laziness). After the glitterbomb that was Date To Wear Social Butterfly, I went in a totally different direction with Get in the Expresso Lane from OPI's Touring America collection. I've found that this collection isn't getting a lot of love, but my love of OPI creme polishes and drab colors made me lust for a couple of them. I'm waiting on Roadhouse Blues, I Eat Maine-ly Lobster, and Uh-Oh Roll Down the Window (which makes me giggle), which are en route from the States (Aveyou shipping to Canada is too expensive so I send them to my Momma!). Anyway, I don't know much brown polish. I'm not even sure I own another brown that couldn't also be considered taupe. What I like about this color is that it's not a straight up choco-poop brown, it's very grey-ed. I think it if was warmer and more yellow-toned, it would be a no-go both for my sensibilities and skin tone. This, however, works. It had a great formula, and two coats was perfect glossy coverage.

Now, I didn't get a picture of Get in the Expresso Lane on its own, which is a shame. Because the devil in me needed glitter. So I put Dare To Wear's Strobe Lights on top... a super shiny holographic gold glitter with large & small hex and bar glitter. It's crazy nutso, except the base is also slightly gold-ish. Which yellow-ed up my brown polish, rendering it semi-choco-poop-like. And... I dunno. This is just one instance (and I don't often say this) where I feel like glitter just didn't work. Should've left it alone.

Here it is:

Yuck, right? Sorta fun but... yuck.

Dare To Wear Social Butterfly

Dare To Wear is not a brand I'm very familiar with but I've always coveted their polish. Recently, I took a chance and ordered 2 sets of theirs: Disco Tech and Dollhouse... glitterbombs, both of 'em. The Disco Tech glitters are blingier and more for layering, while the Dollhouse glitters tend to be more opaque and can be so in three coats. This is the first one I've worn from the Dollhouse set.

So I'm not sure if you know this about me, but I'm not a fan of pink. Occasionally a very deep, jewel-toned magenta or fuchsia... but generally no. Maybe once in a while, ironically. I wear a lot of black, I'm tattooed, I love rock'n'roll (especially 70's punk), I live in boots and an army jacket. My nail polish (and former makeup obsession) is pretty much the girliest thing about me (and I do embrace it), BUT pink is just stretching it a bit too far for me. Anyway. For some sick reason, Social Butterfly called to me today. And I answered.

These types of glitters: chock full of all shapes of hex & round & bar glitters, generally apply like oatmeal. The first two coats went OK, but the third was a bit of a chore. I'd definitely recommend keeping thinner on hand. Some of the glitter is holo and some is opalescent, but the pink base has a blue flash to it, and it gives the whole thing a pretty cool effect.

It's pulling a bit warm in these pics, and as usual, the glitter makes my camera go haywire. It reminds me of OPI Teenage Dream but more Barbie pink, and obviously with bar glitter. I kinda love it! It's totally against type, but maybe I need that every once in a while :)

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On a totally unrelated note, I just got the most hilarious phone call from the Bay, where I had called to inquire about the status of the fall Chanel polishes. I recently decided that I needed Peridot and Graphite. Never bought a Chanel before. I got put on a list to be notified, but my experience with these "lists" that stores create is that you've got about a 50-50 shot of them actually calling you. And for an LE item that may sell out, this fact is unsettling, so I did some other research. In the interim, I decided to buy the polishes from the States and have them shipped to my mom's (and saved myself $20), but I have to wait a little longer for them. Since I hate shelling out the $$ to begin with, I decided I could wait. But today the Bay called! But seriously, this woman... where the heck did they find her?? She had *the most ridiculous* and possibly (most likely) fake French accent! I just about died. She raved, "Sar-huh!" (that's how she pronounced my name)  "Zee collec-shun is ahh-mahh-zeeeng!!" I almost laughed at her. Oh, Canada. 

China Glaze Midtown Magic

Today I tried out the second polish that I purchased from China Glaze's recent Metro collection: Midtown Magic. I had no desire for this one until I saw it in person, and I knew it was coming home with me. I love polishes like this one: deep browny-plum with greeny-gold (and tiny flecks of red) shimmer. The formula on this one was also excellent. Two coats for perfect coverage. Very vampy and nice for fall, and I bet it would look really nice on shorter nails. The one caveat was that the wear on this one was not great (lots of tipwear very quickly), but it's super pretty.

So, I seem to have a penchant for these types of colors, so I dug the two most similar (in my mind) out of my stash, these being OPI DS Mystery and OPI Tease-y Does It (one of my favorite polishes).

So in this crappy comparison here, we have (from left to right) DS Mystery, Midtown Magic, and Tease-y Does It. Obviously, Tease-y Does It is not a dupe, it's much more plummy, and the shimmer is redder. They are closer in life than they appear in this shot though. As for DS Mystery, it's much closer to Midtown Magic, except (and this is not visible in any picture I could take) the base is *much* cooler and bluer (you can sorta see it in the fleck I got on my finger, whoops!), and the shimmer pieces are larger and lacks the red shimmer apparent in Midtown Magic. The closest of the three are DS Mystery and Midtown Magic, but they're not dupes. But if you have one, you may not really need the other (DS Mystery has better wear on me).

What are your picks from China Glaze Metro collection? Did I miss any good ones?

Nubar Reclaim

Let me start off by saying that, for me, Nubar is a relatively hard brand to come by. I've never seen it in the wild, and their site has very high shipping. Usually, I buy off eBay, but I have purchased off their site before. I don't own a lot of Nubar polishes for this exact reason. There are just so many other polishes out there that are less of a pain to get. The first Nubars I purchased were their Matte collection, which came out 2 or 3 years ago, when matte polishes were just hitting it off. I didn't end up wearing them much because shortly after Zoya knocked it out of the park with their Matte Velvet collection. Hands down the best matte polishes out there. Nubar's green collection, with Reclaim and Wildlife, finally did me in, and for the longest time these were the only Nubars that I owned. Originally, I didn't like Reclaim (what was I smoking?), and I was ambivalent about the formula of Wildlife. Then, the Sparkle collection. Until a recently casualty (RIP Petunia Sparkle, you are missed), I did end up buying all of these. They're amazing. Other than that, however, Nubar is just a brand I don't much take the time to track down. Maybe I should or shouldn't, but I'm getting to the point where something has to be pretty dang amazing for me to have to put a lot of effort into it.

But, as usual, I digress. Nubar Reclaim. I wore it when I got it, and I don't remember being all that impressed. It was being heralded as the perfect holo green, and I just felt it was too silvery and not green enough. Well, I take it back. It's pretty darn amazing, and for a holographic polish it has an amazing formula.

This is 2 coats:

Pretty gorgeous, right? It's super holo, too. Do you guys love Nubar? Are they worth the hassle to get? This one certainly is, in my opinion. Tell me your Nubar favorites :)

Sephora by OPI If You've Got it, Haunt It

This is an oldie but a goodie, and also a color I'm not sure got much press around the time of its release. This is from last year's Sephora by OPI Halloween collection, and I saw it online maybe once or twice and wanted it really bad. I ended up finding it months later at my hometown Sephora in NY, in the clearance bin, no less. In retrospect, I don't even think it ended up ringing up on clearance, but I wanted it bad enough that I didn't argue or really care.

This polish is kinda like Nicole Pitch Black Glimmer, but better. If You've Got it, Haunt It is flat black glitter, superfine silver glitter mixed with blue opalescent glitter, all in a smoky very-jelly gray base. It's almost opaque in 2 coats but I did three. It can get thick, so probably a good pointer to keep thinner on hand while applying.

In the second picture you can really see the individual types of glitter. This polish makes me wicked happy, and it's probably in my top 20 of all time. Nicole Pitch Black Glimmer is good, but I doubt you could ever achieve opacity. This does it, and it does it well. It's smoky and complex, and not bumpy at all, even with just one coat of Seche Vite. So, if you can find it anywhere, or have it hiding in your stash, I highly recommend you bringing it out. I wore it before, but my nails were much shorter, so I thought this deserved a second wind. Definitely a favorite!

China Glaze Trendsetter

Trendsetter. I'm not sure if this color will ever catch on, but here it is. This was the only polish from the recently released Metro collection that I felt like I needed, based on pre-release swatches. The glitters don't look that exciting and the cremes, while pretty, weren't calling to me. This color. It's... green, in my mind. But super yellow-brown leaning green. Kinda like spicy brown mustard + pea soup, with shimmer. I love these colors in theory, but in practice... I just don't know! I used to think I was cool-toned but I'm not sure anymore. I wear both gold and silver jewelry. I wear both warm and cool red lipsticks. I think I'm quite neutral, in the end. My heritage is mostly Greek and Italian, but with Irish, German and Dutch hanging in there as well, so I'm very dark-haired, but pale, freckled and light-eyed. In MAC, I buy NW15, but I've used NC15 too. So, in other words here, I can't really help you in deciding if this will fit your skintone. It's a strange color.

This is two coats:

In these pictures, the color is pulling *a lot* more yellow than in real life. Here it reads total mustard, but I assure you, it's not. I wore this one for a few days, but I'm not sure how I feel about it. I definitely don't own anything else like it, but I'm also not sure I'll wear it again. What do you think?? Love or hate it?

China Glaze Sea Spray

China Glaze is probably one of the most versatile and customer friendly brands on the market. They're readily available and fairly inexpensive. I buy at least one polish from pretty much every collection they release, and usually more. One thing I sometimes have a problem with, however, is formula. China Glaze polishes don't always like me (or my basecoat/topcoat combination). At any rate, I feel like lately China Glaze has vastly improved their formula (or my body chemistry has changed). Sea Spray is an amazing polish, and the first thing I noticed about it was the formula. A color like this shimmery light blue is usually streaky and awful, requiring three or more coats. This one was good in two, perfectly self-leveling, and I love the color.

Unfortunately, all I got was this crappy picture. It's true to color, but you can't see any of the silver shimmer (even with the flash on, which usually picks up anything). It's pretty subtle in real life anyway, so maybe it's not too much of a surprise. Love this color, it's super summery but also kinda drab at the same time. I know I'm late to the game on this one, but this one is awesome.

Thanks for looking!

Also: PS! Follow my blog on Bloglovin!

Neon Leopard

I'm super annoyed with myself. I had a whole post written and set up about Essie Absolutely Shore, and my photos have disappeared. They're not on my camera, hard drive or Photobucket. *seethes* Anyway, I'll share another manicure that I wore this weekend for general partying, swimming and lazing at Grand Beach north of Winnipeg.

I take no credit for this one, but people on the MakeupAlley nail board have been trying it (I apologize, but I'm not sure who it originated with, but to you--kudos! Good idea!), so I decided to give it a whirl. It reminds me of something from my punk rock teenager-dom mixed with the Lisa Frank-dom of my elementary school years. All of this is kinda awesome.

Here's my rendition:

This is after 3 days of wear, so excuse the growth and lack of shine. I lacked a clean, crisp white, but I used American Apparel Cotton instead. The image plate is the ever-ubiquitous m57 (the first plate I ever bought), with Konad black Special Polish. The spots are all Color Club neons: 220 Volts (blue), Yell-Oh! (yellow), Pucci-licious (purple), Screamin' Fuchsia (pink), Limelight (green) and You got Soul-ar (orange--this has glitter, I couldn't find my basic neon orange, I must've left it in NY). I put those on with an ancient L'Oreal dotting tool I had lying around. Despite Seche Vite sorta smudging the black (and macro being unforgiving--it makes my clean up job look super shitty), this was definitely fun to wear, and my mother-in-law was pretty much freaking out about it, which was cute.

Hope your weekend went well! Anyone out there have any other great Konad ideas? I have like 90-something image plates (uhhm, yes, I have a problem), so hit me up with ideas. It's a creative wasteland over here.

OPI Miss Universe Swimsuit... Nailed It!

I was originally going to post my swatch of this with the other two Miss Universe polishes that I bought (Crown Me Already & It's My Year), but after swatching all those sparkly purpley pinks, I decided that this one deserved a post of its own. Swimsuit... Nailed It! is seriously and most probably my favorite blue polish of all time (most certainly of this past year). It is the most perfect shade of vibrant, shimmery, true blue foil. I love it, and even though I love Crown Me Already!, I must brainwash you into agreeing with me in that this is the gem of the collection.

Two coats, flawless application, long wear, ohmygod beautiful.... and as the polish and Andy Bernard like to proclaim, OPI seriously nailed it here. (I'm just, as I type this, getting the double entendre of "nailed it." Nail polish. Doh.)

The best and worst thing about these photographs is that they're a bit washed out (not to mention that my camera hates this type of foily shimmer). So in real life, this is even more deep and vibrant and amazing. Buy it. Buy it now! (This was in no way endorsed by OPI, I swear!). So that's my love letter to Swimsuit... Nailed It! Was there any polish you loved this much this year? Do tell.

The Case of the Sparkly Purpley Pinks: OPI It's My Year, OPI Rally Pretty Pink & Zoya Faye, A Comparitive Study

Last week, I posted about OPI Crown Me Already from their recent Miss Universe collection. That polish was amazing, I couldn't get over it. During my little blogging hiatus, I also wore the other two polishes that I picked up from this collection: It's My Year and Swimsuit... Nailed It! So I re-swatched them for you all (so no nice, cleaned up manicure shots, sorry guys!) and included a comparison swatch for It's My Year, as a few polishes looking quite like this one have appeared on the market recently. (We'll return to Swimsuit... Nailed It tomorrow, because it deserves a post of its own.)

We'll start with It's My Year. I apologize in advance for the way this type of shimmer makes my camera freak out. It's like it can't properly focus on it because it's so blindingly awesome! This swatch is 2 coats, which looked opaque until the flash. In practice, I recommend 3 coats for this color.

You may find yourself thinking that this looks a lot like another recently released OPI polish: Rally Pretty Pink, which came out in one of the Serena Williams sets with Red Shatter.

Here's Rally Pretty Pink (3 coats):

Are they dupes? Nope! In the bottle they look much closer than on the nail. RPP is much, much warmer, more of a mauve than a pink, and the gold shimmer is much, much more apparent. Much, much. Haha. So, at this point, you're probably asking yourself what they look like side by side. Here you go:

That's IMY, RPP, IMY, RPP, from left to right. See what I mean? And now, of course, you're thinking that both of these polishes look a lot like another little pretty (which actually came out first) called Zoya Faye. Which I also happen to have (I have a problem... as my husband would say, "It's some kind of itis.")

From left: Zoya Faye (3 coats), OPI RPP (3 coats), OPI IMY (2 coats).

Obviously, as you can see, Faye and RPP are the closest of the three polishes. They share a softer quality, and a rosier, mauve shade. Equally high on the gold shimmer quotient. IMY is more straight-up purple, though it's still red-leaning. Between Faye and RPP, I'd say there are subtle differences. Faye is...  slightly, ever so slightly, more subtle than RPP. I can't explain it, it's just softer. You most definitely don't need both.

Final summation: all three of these polishes are beautiful. You most definitely do not need all three. I prefer the OPI formula, so between Faye and RPP, it's RPP all the way for me. Faye is great though, so if you have it, rest easy. If I had to pick one of the three, however, the winner here is It's My Year. It captures the vibe of all three polishes, but I prefer the more vibrant purple base. If you're really into polish, you may be able to justify owning both IMY and RPP, but honestly, even that's overkill. It's My Year all the way!

Hope this helps someone out there! 

China Glaze White Cap over Essie Marshmallow

A couple posts back I mentioned that I had recently decided I needed a couple polishes from China Glaze Anchor's Away, a collection I had passed on (with the exception of Ahoy!) more times than I can count since it debuted. One of the polishes I decided I needed was White Cap, and here it is.

White Cap is pretty ridiculous, it's this softspun white with crazy golden shimmer that is ever so slightly opalescent. You could probably make it opaque with numerous coats but instead I wore it over my favorite white, Essie Marshmallow. For the record, Sally Hansen Hidden Treasure over Essie Marshmallow is one of my favorite manicures of all time. It's like having opals on your nails. Marshmallow is a jelly white, and its formula is kinda bitchy, but I love it anyway. It's the perfect blue toned squishy white.

This is 3 coats Marshmallow, 1 coat White Cap.

I wore it to an interview, and kept it on. So pretty. I may even try it over other colors. I don't know if I've ever publicly proclaimed this on my blog, but I kinda hate layering. I'm not very original about it, I often pass up polishes if they necessitate layering. This may stop I guess, because I find myself gravitating towards them again and again lately.