OPI Pink Me I'm Good

Wow, three days of OPI glitter over here.... it just happened that way. I see more OPI in the near future, too, of the DS variety.... perhaps I've said too much. So, I have absolutely no idea what the name of this polish means. Not even a clue. It's an Ulta (Spring? Valentine's Day?) exclusive, which is fine and dandy for those of you who live near Ultas. I, alas, live in New York. Which has something like around 12 or 15 Ultas, all of which are over 100 miles from my house. New York is not that big. I live "Upstate" which is really "mid" state but on the Eastern border of the state. Anyway, not an Ulta in sight. A nice MUAer picked this up for me and, well.... I don't much care for it.

This is a pink jelly with gold and silver glitter, and it can be quite electric, but it pulls oddly orange on me and makes my hands look pink. Weird. The formula also left something to be desired, thick and it took three unwieldy coats to achieve almost-opacity. It dried well though, which I was thankful for... but I love OPIs. They always dry and wear well on me. This was no exception. I think my issues lie in the fact that I don't much adore pink. This was fun though, I might try it matte next time, I think it would be really awesome.

Here's my 3 coats:

Pretty. And I do enjoy glitter very, very, very much. But... Pink Me I'm Good? Pick Me I'm Good? Pinch Me I'm Good? WHAT!?

Thanks for looking!

MAC Blue India

Oh, MAC. You and I used to have a major cosmetic-based love affair. I spent so much time and money buying you and following your collections. It's been a year since we fell out of love, but it's all good. I've sold off most of my collection, but I still adore your makeup, especially your lipstick. Best colors and formula hands down. Aside from your shitty mascara, your second worst effort is usually your nail polish. For years, I had one: Gee Whiz. I think you discontinued it but it was a really great bright fuchsia creme. Unlike others, my main complaint with MAC polish is that there never seemed to be much thought put into the colors. They were mostly boring. Until last year's Seasonal Peach and Peppermint Patti. You guys were way ahead of the game with that mint. Also, the gray On The Prowl from Hello Kitty. I'm sure there are others, but those are the three I bought. Now, with today's release of Liberty of London, we get another gem: Blue India. An amazing slate blue creme. Kinda like a drab blue, so awesome. I hemmed and hawed about shilling out the cash for this, but now that it's on my nails I don't regret it one bit. It's part of MAC's recent collaboration with Liberty of London. (Is it bad I have no idea who/what Liberty of London is except that they are also doing a collaboration with Target, which I only know about because I've seen the commercials?? I mean, I'm relatively fashionably inclined, but I have no clue!)

I don't have a problem with MAC's formula like some do. This is 2 coats, and the formula on this is excellent. You almost don't need the second coat. Dried very well and Seche Vite made it SUPER shiny. These pictures pull a bit brighter than it is in real life, it's a bit more grayed. Anyway, if you haven't already gotten it: RUN. It's already sold out online. My counter had plenty, but I live in a not-so-major city (we do have 2 MAC counters though).

And the packaging, which is CUTE. I love those little flowers, they remind me of a tattoo idea I've had for a long time.

Also, I walked away with an eyeshadow for the first time in forever. I've spent so much time selling off my collection on eBay and Livejournal, I haven't bought anything new except to replace stales. This shadow, Birds & Berries, is a gorgeous blackened teal and it just called out to me when nothing from MAC has in so long. I doubt the MAC bug is biting again (I still have so much!) but it was nice to see something good from them. I wanted the gray but it was chalky in real life :-( But here's Birds & Berries:

Anyway--long post. And makeup related! Still a MAC junkie at heart I guess, once one always one.

Thanks for looking!

OPI Mad As A Hatter

In honor of the fact that I wore Absolutely Alice the other day, I thought I'd throw in a swatch of the other Alice polish I bought: Mad As A Hatter. It's an uber-glitter, featuring silver, charcoal, pink, gold, red, green, blue... all kinds of colors. It pulls a pewter-ish color from far away. I got quite a few compliments the first time I wore it, and it grew on me. The formula was great, and I think I used 2 coats here, but you definitely need three for full-on opacity. You can see through to my nails in quite a few of these shots. Dried & wore well as an actual manicure.

This is just a quick swatch, not applied or photographed all that well but for posterity's sake:

Woo! Blur! Sparkles.

Thanks for looking!

OPI Absolutely Alice

Well, call me cliche but in honor of the fact that Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland opens this weekend, I have put this polish back on. I wore it back in January once after I bought it, and now again. It's pretty awesome. But first, let me just talk about how much I adore Tim Burton. I do. I have a tattoo of one of his sketches (not a cliche Nightmare before Christmas thing, mind you), and I own all of his films... Edward Scissorhands, of course, being my favorite movie of all time. It's funny, when you start blogging about one specific thing (i.e. nail polish) you realize how little a part of your life it is. For instance, I would not rank nail polish in a list of things that define me. I am much more passionate about literature, writing and film, which I've studied for many years and through multiple degrees. I have a deep and strong love for the music of Bob Dylan. I also once loved punk rock for many years and had a mohawk. I consider myself, above many other things, a writer. I will not claim to put forth much effort to my commentary here, this is just me rambling, not "writing."

Another point... have you ever noticed how we seem to deem certain collections more frivolous than others? Have 500 books or films or lovely paintings? You must be literate and cultured. Have a collection of Barbies? Wow, how devoted of you. But 500 nail polishes? Are you bonkers? I actually find it to be a pretty creative hobby, which I think is what entices me most of all. I'm, among other things, a failed photographer, a decent ceramicist, and a bang-up knitter, so I think this is just an extension. It's about making yourself an piece of art that reflects your own...art, the same philosophy I have for makeup and hair and body modification.

Have I rambled? Yes. Do I love Absolutely Alice? Yes. We're talking mega-cerulean-blue-with-a-bit-o-gold GLITTER. 2 coats is distracting enough that you should basically wear it on a day when you want to do nothing but stare at your hands. Not safe for driving.

My photos? They suck. They wash out the blue so much. It's actually the most perfect shade of blue... so, photos as evidence but not proof, you get me?

And now, we'll turn on the blur, for super blingtasticness.

So, hope you all enjoy Alice if you go to see it. Another random fact about me? I memorized the Jabberwocky poem from Through the Looking Glass. I once did a piece of interpretive theatre to it that involved me reciting it and playing the violin. Which I also do. I also once wrote a paper that argued that Lewis Carroll wrote the Alice tales as brainwashing material for young girls, to teach them not to listen to the frivolous and stringent notions of placed on them by adults. I got an A on it. Weird how one sparkly blue polish elicits all this jabber from me.

Thanks for looking and tonight, reading.

Sinful Colors Happy Ending

Happy Ending is one of several new Sinful Colors greens you'll be seeing grace the pages of this blog. Out of the four I got (not including Green Ocean), I chose Happy Ending as the first to try. Why? I love bright lime/spring green. I went through a phase with it. I'm quite drawn to it. And the shimmer in this? Golden and dazzling. It's quite gorgeous. It also exactly matches my desk lamp. After almost 4 days (unheard of, I know, I got burnt out) of BB Couture's Dark Knight, I was ready for something much much lighter. The shimmer in this one... you can see it in the bottle but on the nail it really shines. Also, what's with the name? Is it dirty or are we talking fairy tales here? Not sure. It doesn't seem to fit either way. Sinful has weird names sometimes. I'm blanking on another example but I'm sure there is one. Also: what's with Sinfuls being all gummy around the cap lately? I haven't bought Sinfuls in a year or so, but the 5 I got recently were ALL gummy with polish when opened... like they'd been used very ineptly. I wonder if it's some quality control issue or something.... So, because of this, mine was a bit goopy in general, so I added a bit of thinner before proceeding.

I used two coats here, but a third would've been ideal.

On my desk lamp--seriously, it matches exactly. Gold flash & everything.

So there's some Sinful. Applied pretty well after the thinner (not sure about before). Kind of weird consistency. Built up nicely, and dried very well. Now that I've thought about it, I don't know if I've actually ever worn a Sinful polish that wasn't a glitter topcoat before, and I own quite a slew of 'em. Damn Walgreen's BOGO, I overloaded and never bothered to catch up. This one ain't half bad.

Thanks for looking!

BB Couture For Nails Dark Knight

Oh, another seriously gorgeous vampy winner. First of all: Batman? YES. Second: black with intense white-gold shimmer? HELL YES. As you can see, this one is just awesome. Everything about it. As you can see, I had to take a bit of length off my nails. I had 2 breaks on the hand I usually feature, not that you could tell (middle & ring), thanks to the successful use of Orly's Nail Rescue Kit. I had a weird bendy spot on my right hand's middle finger left over from a bit of momentary insanity where I picked off all my nail polish and took a nice bit of nail with it. It held up OK until it grew out to the tip, where today that chunk at the corner of my nail broke off, despite attempts to patch it. This happened in Walgreens, whilst buying...what else? Nail polish. Ironic? Maybe. But, I took it as a hint to take all the repairs off my nails, which a good soak in acetone did, and file 'em down. I hated doing this. I worked for so long to grow my nails and I loved the length they were. But my nails have been doing well lately, and growing pretty fast, so they should recover nicely.

Anyway, enough rambling... here's 2 coats of Dark Knight.

OH! More fun news: my fiance, lovely guy that he is, went to American Apparel and got a few of the colors for me! Mount Royal, Mouse and Berry! The only semi-sad part is I won't get them until the 22nd of March when I go to Winnipeg for a lovely 10 day long visit. He lives only a couple blocks from the city's only American Apparel store, so it's likely I'll come home with a few more once I get to see them in person... I have to take a moment to rave about this guy, because I know he reads this and he has always been supportive my hobby. Which most people think is weird tinged with a tiny bit of cool. He had BB Couture's Joker sent to me a few weeks ago. He even bought me all the Sally Hansen Project Runway Canada exclusives. He asks me pretty frequently to paint his nails, though I haven't obliged him yet. He's a keeper, but I knew that a long time ago :-)

I also managed to pick up a bunch of new Sinful Colors polishes--all of which happen to be green. Mint Apple (which I already got a few weeks ago) was joined by Happy Ending, Innocent, Rise and Shine, and Green Ocean. I guess that despite the fact that I'm only 1/8 Irish, I may be celebrating March with green nonetheless.

Thanks for looking!

BB Couture For Nails Sea of Cortez

More BB! I looked forward to this polish so much! And did love it? Not really. It was thick and sheer and just didn't build well. I may have to thin on the next go-round. It has a jelly quality to it, but the tips of my nails showed through despite a few thick-ish coats, like tipwear that wasn't caused by actual wear or shrinkage. But it's so pretty. A sheer bright sky blue jelly with seafoam green sparkles. I got many compliments. But, I'll admit--I wore it less than 12 hours. Because of its thickness, it didn't dry properly. So problem child, but lovely to look at. Honestly, I could've given this bad a boy a little more love and effort, but I just didn't. We're gonna have a rematch at a future date.

This is 3 coats and way more pictures than is possibly necessary:

These are showing a bit brighter than life, but it's close enough. So far, I'd say this is the "dud" formula-wise on the BB Coutures that I've tried. But, like I said, I didn't thin it yet but I definitely would next time I use it. It might work better with 4 very thin coats.

That's all I got for now--thanks for looking!