Orly Emberstone

Sorry for my hiatus, but here's a post (finally!).

Let's call this the "I GOT THE JOB!!" mani, because well, I was wearing it when I got the call. It's an Administrative Assistant position with a non-profit that I have been *dying* to work for, and it's my first "real" job, seeing as I've been in college or grad school and working part-time (for various other non-profits and a restaurant) for the eight and a half years. And then I moved, so I've been unemployed since late April, and it is hard to find a job right now out there. The HR girl at the company told me she received over 400 applications for certain postings, which is nuts! Also, I took a gamble and turned down another (awful) job with the vague hope that I'd get this one... and I did. I started almost two weeks ago, and it's been stressful so far, but hopefully things will even out :)

OK so--Emberstone! Pretty, it makes me think of dying embers in a fire. It's a red-orange or really, an orange-red. It's an awesome glass fleck shimmer, and I think it looks even better on the nail than it does in the bottle. It's so eye-catching and pretty. Orly, you're knocking my socks off with these Mineral FX polishes. Reminds me of molten lava or something.

It was a tad sheer, so this is 3 coats:

It's got some wicked cool blue/purple shimmer going on in there. So super lovely, and definitely a bright happy color for an awesome day! Maybe this will be a good luck color for me from now on. What's your good luck color?

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.

Orly Stone Cold

I can barely contain myself from buying blue polish, so this was obviously no exception. It's got the same fantastic shade of blue as OPI's Swimsuit... Nailed It! but with the super duper large glass fleck glitter that reminds me of OPI Love is a Racket. Except the shimmer doesn't sink in the base as much, make it uber blingy and with tons of depth. I love it. This was 2 coats, and because of the size of the shimmer particles, it can be a bit tricky to apply.

Anyway, I'm in love. So in love, in fact, that I've got nothing more to say on the issue. This one is a must-have people, especially if you love blue polish.

Orly Rock Solid

Gah, Orly. I love you. Seriously. Your collections are often smaller, and fewer, than other (bigger?) brands like OPI, Essie or China Glaze, but y'all do what you do so well. It's refreshing. Like last year's amazing Cosmic FX, this year we have the Mineral FX collection. They're pricier (I paid $8.99 with card in Canada), but crap. I might buy them all. And one of them is a definite dupe of the whole Zoya Faye/OPI Rally Pretty Pink/ OPI It's My Year color & finish, but I still want it. It's a freakin' sickness. They're a wicked kind of gorgeous and vary a little more in finish than last year's Cosmic polishes. Rock Solid, which is featured here, is a charcoal foil shimmer with holographic glitter thrown in. No photo I've seen of it, including mine, really captures it. It's kind of an odd polish, but it's so fun. Others I got: Stone Cold (super huge glass fleck glitter/shimmer, and blue, so I couldn't deny it), Rock-It (this deep, shimmery, jewel-toned magenta I picked up and put down and actually went back to Sally's for because it haunted me), and Emberstone (see my description of Rock-It except this is a super shimmery red-orange with multi colored flecks). There are two others: Rococo-A-Go-Go (shimmery and complex deep purple) and Rock the World (the aforementioned dupe)... well, crap. I'll go back for them, I just know I will.

So, Rock Solid. You are a strange little bird. Here you are with two coats. You eat topcoat a bit, and I spent yesterday at the beach, so you're not as shiny as you ought to be.

Blurry glitter shot!

So Mineral FX.... how are we feeling about these? Redundant? Amazing? I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Chanel Graphite

When I saw this polish in promo pictures, I died a little inside. I had to have it. That grey-gold-pewter shimmer.... it looks exactly like pencil lead (its namesake). I needed it in a sick sort of way. I also decided to grab Peridot after seeing a slew of photographs, too, and that whole hype sorta brainwashed me into thinking that I might like Graphite less. In the end, my gut won out. This is a super gorgeous polish, amazing and faceted and shiny and deep. Again, I'm late to the game here, but you'll have to deal with it, because I am just in love.

Again, I apologize, as this kind of shimmer makes my camera flip out. With or without flash, it just blurs like crazy! But look at the the depth of the color. 

So many flecks of color: silver, pewter, platinum, gold, green, and black...

Without flash, ambient light:

Mmmm. I just love it. Again, I had a bit of trouble with bubbles. Not sure what's up with that, it's not a problem I usually have, but it appeared with both Graphite and Peridot. So the jury's out on whether or not Chanel and I agree with each other overall, but I'm glad I shelled out for them in the end. 

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?

Chanel Peridot

Sorry for the short break, I got caught up last week with a couple of pretty important job interviews (**crossing fingers**), so I neglected to line anything up to be posted until today, which is Labour Day here, and Labor Day at home ;-) 

This isn't anything you haven't seen but here is one of two polishes that finally made me splurge on Chanel. Nothing, including Jade--which I was around for, and could've purchased--has prompted me to splurge until now, and I bought both Peridot and Graphite. So Peridot: I shouldn't like it in theory. I hate golds on me, except for very light, bright, white golds (this applies to yellow, too). Greeny-golds are hit or miss. This color is... green, gold, sorta blue, and all kinds of duochromey goodness.

While pretty, I have to complain: the formula sorta sucked. I mean this polish had a ton of hype, but a lot of people fail to mention its main flaw (in my opinion): it's frickin' frosty. Seriously. As in I had to apply it twice to get it right, because I kept trying to get the brushstrokes right and this caused bubbling. And, I got shrinking at the cuticle, which I never seem to have a problem with. So, formula-wise, Peridot is kind of a nay from me. However, it is beautiful.

I ended up using three coats. Here are my attempts to capture the color:

With flash:

Without flash:

I kinda love it, even though it's a fickle little thing. Glad to have it as a part of my collection, though. Definitely unique, and thus worth the money for me.

Happy Labour/Labor Day! Enjoy :)

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? 

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? 

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?

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!

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!