OPI Gold Shatter

I was pretty excited to stumble upon this, since I thought it was supposed to come out with the Muppets holiday release. I refrained from buying any of the gold China Glaze metallic crackles because I wanted this one. And it's a great gold. Not too pale, not too yellow. Shiny and bright. And I was super-duper excited to try it over my Orly Stone Cold manicure from the previous day.

But then this happened:

Again, I apologize for the way my camera goes haywire with shimmer. If I am soon employed, a new camera is surely on my list of things to get.

The first nail shattered nicely, the next one less so, the next one even less so... and so on, basically ending up in a major fail. As you can see, my index finger, while blurry, barely shattered at all. My right hand is just awful. And I only did thick enough coats to ensure the gold was opaque, but nothing crazy. Damn you, Gold Shatter,  I want to love you so!! You are super blingy and gorgeous but you don't shatter all the way! It didn't appear to need to be thinned (but I may try this), but I guess my next go will have to be trying it over wet-ish polish rather than dry, as I know some mentioned having more success with certain OPI Shatters this way. But for now, the jury's out on this one.

OPI Steady As She Rose

The past couple weeks have been interview crazy. I applied for two jobs (among many) that were interested, and after multiple rounds of interviews, I'm starting to get sick of nudes. Ugh. I have so many nice polishes lined up waiting to be used, and I've gotta wear something neutral. In good news, if I get either job, I think I'll be able to wear whatever I want polish-wise, which is refreshing. But for interviews, I'm always better safe than sorry. My standbys so far have been Revlon Grey Suede, RBL Grunge, Essie Demure Vixen, and Borghese Almondine. I was about to pull out one of these when I happened to see Steady As She Rose hiding in the back, untried for quite some time. Happily, I pulled it out and wore it to an interview.

This is either two or three coats, I can't remember, but the formula was great, and it dried super shiny and fast.

Kind of a strange color to describe, but it pulls pale pink-lavender-grey on me, and at the same time, it's almost nude-ish. I really like it, and I think it may become a new interview standby. This one was from the OPI Pirates of the Caribbean collection, which I ended up buying a few from even though I didn't plan to. OPI does that to me, they're evil in the best kind of way... and their cremes are my absolute favorite. Any-who, that's my story for today. I'm scheduling this post in advance, so hopefully by the time it goes live, I may know if I have a job or not! Fingers crossed!

OPI Big Apple Red

I am popping in today to pay homage to my favorite red polish: OPI Big Apple Red. It's almost identical to OPI Color So Hot It Berns, my other favorite red, except it recalls images of my homeland. I'm a New Yorker, through and through, I was born and raised Upstate, but I lived in the city for a time, too. While I'm enjoying my time away, I miss home quite a bit, and this polish will always have a warm little place in my heart because it reminds me of home. Guess I must be homesick today :)

Here are three kinda messy coats of my most favored red polish:

Ugh, love it. I usually like it when my nails are a touch shorter, but it just kills. Vodka & Caviar looks dull on me, but the unabashed brightness of this is just sexy. It's badass and totally out there, unforgiving, classic, fun. Big Apple Red, I love you.

OPI Uh-Oh Roll Down the Window

I have another polish from the OPI Touring America collection today, and it was one that had a lot of chatter about it going on beforehand. People were refusing to buy it, based on the sophomoric name. I, however, enjoy having conversations about my three-year-old nephew about who is the bigger poophead, so I think it's actually pretty funny. Whether it's a puke or fart reference, I'm down. Anyway, I also like the color. It's another kinda gross yellowy-green color, definitely army-esque. I like it, the formula was excellent. 2 coats, shiny and perfect.

As you've seen here and here, I am really digging these Touring Americas. I still have Roadhouse Blues to try, but I doubt I'll be disappointed. The formula on these has been flawless. So, what's your opinion on this one? Do you think less of me for liking it?? Do tell.

OPI I Eat Maine-ly Lobster

This is the second OPI Touring America color that I've tried, out of four that I picked up. (See In the Expresso Lane here.) A lot of people were disappointed with the collection, and yeah, I agree: it wasn't that original. But--I think it is a great fall collection, and I love OPI cremes and the theme of the collection in general, so I had a to pick up a few. This color called to me for a reason I cannot pinpoint, I tend to give away or purge corals. Usually, and seriously no pun intended here, they give me lobster hands. This one I really like. It's so pretty and soft--but still bright! I love the hidden shimmer, too. Another problem I tend to have with corals--no matter how opaque they seem, they always seem to have VNL when in bright light (RBL Coral, I'm lookin' at you). I didn't have this problem here, so this polish will stay with me. Perfect way to finish out the summer.

This is three coats, and if you look closely, you can catch that hidden shimmer:

Mmm. This color isn't really my speed, but I am just loving it right now. In other news, I stumbled across China Glaze Halloween and Orly Mineral FX the other day, so I've got some fun stuff coming up to show you! Fall/Halloween/Holiday polish is my favorite, I'm so glad it's that time of year again!

OPI Pink Shatter

OPI's Pink Shatter is being released in conjunction (if not a little early) with October being Breast Cancer Awareness month. As per the tag, it's the "Pink of Hearts 2011" color, as they release a pink every year for the cause. The shatter idea is fun (if not overdone at this point), but this pink is kinda lackluster. I ended up seeing it at a random salon, and grabbed it for the heck of it. While OPI Shatter polishes are my favorite of the lot so far, this pink suffers from being way too ordinary. It's a medium pink, not terribly bright, shimmery (but the type of shimmer we'd consider frost if it weren't a shatter polish), and not very eye catching. It shattered just fine over dry polish.

This picture makes it look brighter than it actually is. This is one coat over 3 coats of Borghese Almondine, which was my job interview polish (someone even complimented me on it). I took this under a desk lamp (sorry), so I apologize in advance for the glare.

If this pink had been a bit brighter, perhaps even neon, I might have liked it better. I have to say that this is my least favorite OPI Shatter so far, but there's nothing *wrong* with it per se, it's just not that remarkable. Will you pick up Pink Shatter if you find it? For those of you that have found it--what do you think?

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.

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?

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! 

OPI Turquoise Shatter over OPI Guy Meets Gal-veston

Both of these polishes are kinda old news by now. After trying crackle/shatter polishes from Cover Girl, IsaDora, China Glaze, La Rosa, etc etc, I think I like OPI's the best. The shimmers are a bit difficult, they need to be thinned and are a bit finicky about how wet/dry the polish underneath needs to be. The creme/jelly ones: Black, Navy, Red, White, all seem to work pretty well. But keep thinner on hand, it really is your friend as these little brats get chunky in a hurry. Similarly, the OPI Texas collection came out quite a while ago, and originally, I bought nothing. And then... a bug bit. I ended up with three of the "sorbets": Guy Meets Gal-veston, Houston We Have a Purple, and Too Hot Pink to Hold 'Em. I also bought It's Totally Fort-worth It, but I hate it. So pretty in the bottle, but awful on the nail. The sorbets, however, are wicked nice. Great formula and super shiny.

I wasn't really sure what to pair with Turquoise Shatter, which is a beautiful, glowy, shimmery turquoise. I first thought gold, but then decided to try it with Guy Meets Gal-veston, a juicy coral, underneath. The result is kinda tropical, and I love it. I think a chartreuse would also look cool under it. Neon yellow too.

3 coats of GMG, and Turquoise on top:

I'm basically in love with this, I'm wearing it for the long weekend here (a civic holiday, yay Canada!). Spending time with the in-laws and nephews. Enjoy your weekend!

OPI Crown Me Already!

Blogger has improved so much since I regularly blogged last. It's awesome. So I tweaked the layout and took one of their backgrounds until I can find something new that I like. Yay! Also, I can make my pictures bigger... I had so many problems uploading images to Blogger before, and now I can just link them and the resizing is so much easier. 

So let's talk polish. OPI released a Miss Universe collection recently, and I hate myself for loving them. I got three of the four: Swimsuit... Nailed It, It's My Year and this one, Crown Me Already! 

It applied like uneven oatmeal but not in a bad way... if that makes sense. It was thick because it is so seriously loaded with glitter I'm not sure the polish can handle it. I especially love the uber large hexes going on here. Like platelets. It's really shiny, almost platinum, not as warm as it's pulling in my pictures.

That's three coats. You could probably layer it over a similar colored silver foil so you don't use so much polish. This polish is super sparkly and distracting, and I sort of love it (my camera, however, does not!). 

Did you grab any polishes from this collection? How about Swimsuit... Nailed It! ? That is some serious blue, it might be my favorite of all time. I didn't grab the berry colored shimmer that came with this collection... Miss Congeniality-something or other? Any opinions on it? 

Thanks for stopping by!

OPI Big Apple Red & Kleancolor Chunky Holo Scarlet

I've been job hunting, which is, needless to say, a demoralizing process. My background is in writing, English, film, with a bit of arts education thrown in. I've worked with non-profit and for-profit theatres, music venues and arts education programs. And honestly, the semi-lame salary that often comes with being an arts person (whose value to society is not quantitative and therefore under-appreciated, in my opinion) is so worth it. My dad is an actor, so I grew up in a theatre (which was state funded until late last year, and was shut down by New York State because, again, the arts have no quantitative benefit to society... can you tell I'm bitter much??) But try finding a job. It's awful. It's starting to look more and more like I'm just going to be a cubicle rat, doing Administrative stuff for "the man." Shoot me. For crap pay (despite my Masters), at least let me do something rewarding, not staring at Excel sheets for 8 hours.

Anyway, anyway! I shouldn't let all this out here. It's supposed to be a happy place. Here's a recent NOTD: OPI Big Apple Red with Kleancolor Chunky Holo Scarlet on top. Pics are OK, but still not quite up to snuff...

Big Apple Red is pretty amazing. It's so vibrant, and my favorite tone of red. Slightly warm, I think. Scarlet compliments it well, and the warm red glitter, which is slightly duochromey, look so pretty on top. BAR had a great formula, but Scarlet was a bit weird. It was pretty thick, and took a bit to dry down... and smelled like chemical awesomeness, as Kleancolor has a reputation for.

These chunky holos are kind of awesome, and I'm not much of a layer-er when it comes to polish (though is pretty much my jam when it comes to fashion, kind of a bag lady chic thing I've got going on here). They're quite pretty, and I can't wait to try out Black! Gorgeous. But... not really black? I digress.

Hope you all are well and thanks for looking in! :0)