[Review+Swatch] China Glaze The Giver Collection

Press Sample

Hi everyone! I just noticed I've been posting a lot of China Glaze recently. Today's collection is not an oldie, but a new one inspired by the book-turned-film, The Giver. This was one of my favorite books as a child, so I'm excited to see it gain some popularity again. :)

[Review+Swatch] OPI Ford Mustang Collection

Press Sample

Hi everyone! I have a quick review of OPI's limited edition Ford Mustang collection for you today. :)

China Glaze Avant Garden Spring 2013

Today I have 6 of the new colors from China Glaze's Spring 2013 collection: Avant Garden!  Two from the Blooming Brights set, and four from Pastel Petals.  The following four are from the Pastel set, although I'm not sure if I'd exactly consider them pastels.  They're a bit darker and brighter on the nail than in the bottle.

Orly Au Champagne

3 coats, satin matte.  I think Polishaholic said this too, but this color reminds me of the Misa Wishes Spring 2011 collection.  It's dries semi matte, so I'm wearing top coat in all of these to make it shiny.  This is a really nice pearly white and a palette cleanser for me.  Click 'read more' to see more pics! 

Happy Fourth of July!

Or just happy Monday. :)

Here are my 4th of July nails.  Sorry, I actually don't do clean up with my nails, but this one definitely needed it!  I was in a hurry to catch the sun before it set, so it also came out a little...messy. >_<  Kind of embarrassed to post these, but I don't have time to redo them.  Oh and if you haven't noticed, I cut my nails!  A lot.  They're actually still long, but they look like little nubs!  I realized I was not blessed with long nail beds.  Hehe.  Anyway, hope you're all enjoying the (holi)days! :)

Challenge Tag: Fail Mani

Cristina from Opinionated Little Finger tagged me to do this 3 polish challenge tag.  Cristina's a new nail blogger from France!  She has lovely polish pictures and good reviews so be sure to check out her site. :)

Here are the rules for the challenge:

1. Go to your lacquer stash

2. CLOSE your eyes and pull 3 random items - JUST 3

3. Create a mani from them

4. Post your mani when you post the tag

5. Tag 3 bloggers

I have this things where I need my polishes to be standing upright.  I cringe whenever bloggers post pics of their polishes in a pile, lying on their sides or upside down.  I don't know why, it bothers me. -_-  I feel like it's better for the polish to stand upright, but I have no logical proof for this.  So I gently placed my polishes in a large bag, quickly grabbed three and set them back on their shelf upright. ^^

The three I picked were:
Sinful Colors Mint Apple
Sinful Colors Unicorn
China Glaze Strawberry Fields

I hope this wasn't cheating, but I also used Milani Nail Art polish in white.

I know this challenge has been going on for a while now, so I'd like to tag anyone who hasn't done it yet and would like to.  If you'd like, link your challenge post as a comment, and I'll go check it out. :)

So here's what I did.

Sorry, dry cuticles. >.<

In other words, it was a fail mani.  This was my first time doing legit free hand art, so be gentle. :P  Weirdly enough, I did kind of like it.  It must be that weird pride you get in doing something for the first time.  In case you can't tell, the white is supposed to be a tree branch and the pink flowers. -_-;;

Anyway, if you're eyes are suffering from that, I have a cute mani I'll post later today!


Liz

Sinful Colors Haul

Second post for today!

Here's my Sinful Colors haul of 6 polishes.

From L-R: Unicorn, Black on Black, Social Ladder, Timbleberry, Mint Apple, Green Ocean

This was my second time buying Sinful Colors.  The first time I bought Let's Meet (a shimmery lemon yellow) and What's Your Name? (black with teal glitter).  Both didn't quite live up to my expectations in terms of color and formula, but since these are sold at Walgreens for $1.99, I guess I shouldn't have expected too much.  However, Sinful Colors has some really cute colors and there are some colors that are total gems.  You just have to find them. ;)

From L to R: Social Ladder, Unicorn, Timbleberry, Black on Black, Mint Apple

I used three coats for all of these.  Social ladder is this pale pink tinted white with pink and green shimmer, although the green doesn't show up as much on the nail.  It's pretty and opaque in three coats, but can be a tiny bit streaky.

Unicorn was my least favorite from this haul.  It's a bright light yellow and extremely streaky.  Even after three coats I wasn't satisfied.  Seche Vite did make it more even, but still streaky.  Yellows are known to be streaky, so if you're looking for a good yellow, I'd suggest spending a few more bucks for one with a better formula.  The yellow was also bit too bright for me.  I was expecting a more soft, pale yellow.  This polish also stained my nails yellow! Yuck :(  Be sure to use base coat with this one!

Timbleberry was my favorite out of these and all Sinful Colors polishes I own.  (Hint: This is one of the gems!)  The formula was great and the color was extremely pigmented.  It's this gorgeous bright hot (x100) pink coral.  I could have used 1 coat for this, but two is better.  In the swatch I did three for consistency.  Also...timbleberry?  I don't know if it's supposed to be spelled like that or if was a typo.  It looks like it goes by both Timbleberry and Thimbleberry, but my bottle's label is missing its "h."

Black on Black also had a nice formula like Timbleberry.  I was a bit hesitant to buy it, but Erika from Chloe's Nails seems to love it so I had to give it a try.  And I'm glad I did!  This was also a potential one coater, although I recommend two.  I also layered Green Ocean over it as seen below.

Green Ocean is a clear base with green flakies and regular green, blue, and orange glitter.  The orange seems to be more of a flash but I'm not sure.  I'll let you know once I do a full manicure with it. This is so pretty against a black base, BUT it's so lumpy!  And won't smoothen out. :(  Otherwise, I love it.

Finally, Mint Apple, a shimmery mint green with a subtle gold shimmer.  I've heard a lot about this one, so I bought it to see if it lived up to the hype.  The formula was a bit sheer, but overall it was okay and not streaky.  My swatches aren't showing the exact color of Mint Apple.  This color just wouldn't photograph and my pics are making it bluer than it really is.  It's a lot greener and minty-er...(well, duh).  It's a nice color, but I don't know if I'm loving it as much as the other bloggers.  I think I prefer the more blue Ocean Love Potion from Sephora by OPI.  I haven't done a full mani with this color yet, so maybe my opinion will change.  I'll also do a comparison when I get the chance.

Unicorn was in the Polka Dots display for Sinful Colors, so I tried using it for the dots with Timbleberry as the base color.  As you can see, I suck at doing polka dots.  Next time I'll make them smaller and more spread out.  I also decided it looked too summery for right now, so I tried this:

This is Unicorn topped with Nicole by OPI Make a Comet-ment.  The dense holo glitter did a good job of hiding any streaky-ness.  It looks nice in this pic, but I really did not like this.  Because the glitter is so dense, it looked like gray dust against the light yellow.  I think Make a Comet-ment looks better with dark colors, or if you do top a light color, don't do the whole nail.  Instead do something like this:

This is a mani I did for my little sis before leaving for school.  The blue is China Glaze First Mate; the light blue is Essie Coat Azure, and the glitter is Make a Comet-ment.


Whew!

Hope you all enjoyed your Saturday, and I'll see yous tomorrow! :)


Liz