Sinful Colors Cinderella

I'm a fan of light blue polishes. I'm also a fan of cheap polishes. So when Sinful released Cinderella and people went crazy, obviously I had to have it! I picked it up at Walgreens for 99 cents. But unfortunately, I wasn't as in love as I had hoped...









3 coats Sinful Cinderella
1 coat Poshe

Cinderella is a pale blue with subtle shimmer of pink with a gold/orange shift. This polish had the potential to be something really special... but I really think it missed the mark. The shimmer just isn't right. It's not present enough to be interesting, but it's not subtle enough to just a little something extra. As I looked at my nails throughout the day, all I could think of was LITERALLY a Disney Princess polish for a 5 year old girl. I generally have no boundaries when it comes to polish color. Nothing is too bold, young, old, tacky, I'll wear any of it. But this just looked cheap and young. Not flattering IMO.

This was by far the oddest polish ever. You know how some polishes self level? Like they look uneven, maybe streaky, then they settle into one smooth, even layer on their own? Well this polish started to settle... then kept going. The polish sort of pooled to the perimeter of each nail, leaving the center of the nail thinner. I've never seen anything like this. It's bizarre.
I've mentioned before that my nails are quite convex. I don't have flat nails. I imagine that someone whose nails are not as heavily curved as mine probably would not have this problem. But because I do have this problem, it makes my nails look wide and fat.
Two nails came out perfect. My right hand middle finger and index finger. The rest didn't look very nice. I don't know why I disliked this polish so much, but I did. I could not take it off fast enough!!

Swatches & Review - E.L.F. Holiday 2011 Nail Polish Set at Target

This is the second 5 pack of ELF polishes I own... bringing my total to 10 ELF polishes lol. This is the 'tis the season to be beautiful set that is currently at Target for $5, I found mine on an end cap with a bunch of other holiday sets. I couldn't say no. I mean, there are some interesting looking polishes and 5 polishes for $5? Yes, please!!

I don't usually review polishes. I guess I always write a review on my polishes when I post them, but I'm treating this as more of a formal review, hence the title. I'm just swatching the polishes and talking about the formula. Instead of waiting for me to wear these, I figured I'd do it all at once. I hate when I can't find swatches of cheaper polishes, so I hope this helps you decide if picking up this set is worth it!!

The 5 polishes in this set are:
Mod Mauve
Royal Purple
Red Velvet
Metal Madness
Golden Goddess

The cap is NOT a vanity cap. You will be painting with the square cap, but I did not have any problem doing so. The brushes are oval and very slightly flattened. It is obvious that there are two sides to the brush for you to paint with because it is not round. Overall, the brushes were better than the spring set I reviewed, but two of them could still improve.

Scroll all the way down for photos of each polish with Golden Goddess top coat

Mod Mauve





2 coats Mod Mauve

This was the worst brush, but it wasn't that bad. It had one stray bristle that stuck out the side of the brush. But it was just one. This was also the widest brush of the 5, not necessarily a bad thing. It wasn't too wide. The end of the brush wasn't even, it was on a slight slant, which made it a little difficulty to paint evenly around my cuticles. But it still wasn't that bad.

Mod Mauve is a kind of chocolately mauve creme, kind of an auburn almost. Definitely looks different in different lighting. I don't think it's too "old" of a color. Something about it (the chocolately part?) makes it seem more current. Nice, simple.

The formula was smooth, not streaky but seemed uneven, then it self leveled and was not uneven. The consistency was great. Medium consistency, nicely pigmented. Not too bad at all!!

Royal Purple






2 coats Royal Purple

This brush was fine. Royal Purple is a blue based fuchsia-violet with a shimmery sheen. The shimmer seems almost silvery in the bottle, but comes across fuchsia/purple on the nail. Very pretty.

The formula was FANTASTIC. Reminded me of the old, non 3 Free polishes (but it is 3 Free). Thin, easily workable but very pigmented despite it being thin and flowy. Smooth and not streaky at all. I like this formula better than mod mauve, but it's that formula difference between a creme and a shimmer. I find that it's not uncommon for them to be different and have their own qualities.

Red Velvet






2 coats Red Velvet

This brush was a little thinner than Royal Purples. Not in a bad way, just an objective thing.

The color looks much richer with a second coat. I was skeptical when I saw the first. But with the second coat, it's a lovely, foil-y berry undertones red that I'm going to say is perfect for a darker winter/Christmas red. I liked Golden Goddess best over this color.

The formula was just like Royal Purple. Like exactly the same.

Metal Madness






2 coats Metal Madness

This brush was going back to being like Mod Mauves, it had kind of a slant.

This is a charcoal base with holographic micro glitter. Very interesting. The glitter is more prominent in real life than in the photos.

The polish went on without problems. It does need two coats, it was kind of sheer with just one, but totally opaque with 2. Wasn't streaky, stayed even, thicker than Royal Purple and Red Velvet but seemed less pigmented, which is probably why the two coats is necessary.

Golden Goddess




This is a glitter top coat in the bunch. It will not become opaque, which is fine seeing as how I'm assuming that was not the intention of the polish.

It is well packed with gold micro glitter and it was round iridescent glitter. The round glitter isn't too plentiful when on the nail. Just painting it on gives you several pieces, but not a ton. They don't have a problem sticking to the brush, I just think there's SO much micro glitter and not as much of the round glitter. Not a bad thing, still pretty.

Here is Golden Goddess over all of the other colors:


Over Mod Mauve


Over Royal Purple


Over Red Velvet (my fav)


Over Metal Madness


So overall, is this set worth $5? ABSOLUTELY!!

Wet n Wild Sugar Coat

I picked this up a WHILE ago in hopes of my job allowing us to wear nail polish, and because I heard it's dupe-ish for OPI Bubble Bath, and I love cheap dupes! So this is Wet n Wild Sugar Coat.






1 coat Wet n Wild Sugar Coat
1 coat Poshe






A second coat Sugar Coat over the 1 coat and 1 coat Poshe (it'd probably look cleaner if there wasn't a layer of Poshe sandwiched in the middle).

Sugar Coat is a milky pink sheer but buildable polish that gives your nails a very clean, natural look. One coat is nice, but it can probably reach opacity at 3 coats.

The formula was decent. Biggest problem I ran into was having enough polish on the brush to go down the length of my nail. Could be because my nails are a little long. I just had to make sure I had more polish on the brush... which didn't happen on my pinky in my two coat photos.

Overall, just a simple, clean polish that you can wear sheer or opaque. Not too bad!!

Essence Choose Me!

Can I just say that I totally love cheap dupes? Especially this one. Choose Me! is a dupe of several polishes - OPI Catch Me In Your Net, Zoya Charla, and Orly Halley's Comet. I don't own the other three, but there are plenty of awesome comparisons on other blogs. Some say they are slightly different, but they're close enough to be called dupes to me! Best part? Check out how CHEAP Choose Me! is compared to the other three:

OPI CMIYN retails at $8.50 for 15mL. That's 57¢ per mL.
Orly Halley's Comet retails at $10.00 for 18mL. That's 56¢ per mL
Zoya Charla retails at $8.00 for 15mL. That's 53¢ per mL.
Essence Choose Me! retails at 99¢ for 5mL. That's only 20¢ per mL!!

I'll definitely choose Choose Me! lol
















Closeup



2 coats Essence Choose Me
1 coat Poshe

Ugh this is so pretty!! It's a foil-y super micro glitter/micro flakie filled polish with a teal jelly base and the glitter particles are these green/teal with a subtle gold shimmer. Truly gorgeous. I'd say unique, but we know there are at least 3 other polishes identical or near identical to this. But I still think it's amazing.

The formula was just plain awesome. Thin and easy to use but still opaque in 2 coats. And I TOTALLY loved this brush. For how lame my brush was on MAC Bad Fairy, there's no excuse for that when this 99¢ brush was flawless. Reminded me of the Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear brush, but when I held them next to each other, the Essence brush was just a LITTLE smaller. But the shape and density seemed nearly identical. And I love the Xtreme Wear brush.

Sunburst After A Hurricane

Found this at Ocean State Job Lot the other day. It's from the Bloom Collection that came out in Spring of this year. OSJL also had Collecting Pollen and Cherry Blossom, but I passed on those two. Def woulda bought Garden Hose and Bird Bath if they had 'em. Anyway, in an attempt to find the perfect peach color, I grabbed this with the intention of trying to franken it (which I’ve never attempted) to be that color. In the meantime, I might as well give it a try on its own.









Direct Sunlight




3 coats Wet n Wild Sunburst
1 coat Poshe

I might think this color is ugly? Myabe not ugly, but I don't know how I feel about it. It’s a yellow-toned light orange crème. Wet n Wild called it pastel. I'd say it's definitely not pastel. Light, yes. Pastel, no. It starts to remind me of the orange powdered cheese that comes with Kraft Mac and Cheese, but ultimately, I don't think it does. It definitely looks more attractive in different lighting, though. By the end of the day I started liking it more.

The application was… confusing? Gosh this polish is ridiculous. From the bizarre color to the strange formula. Anyway, it seems to be decently pigmented, the consistency doesn’t seem thin and it‘s definitely not thick… but it’s SO uneven. You can kinda tell in photos. I’m surprised the macro didn’t accentuate it! But you can definitely notice the cuticle drag on my pinkie.
Its like my base coat straight up repelled this polish and I have no idea why. I have NEVER had this problem. I have two bases I use. Nail Tek Intensive Therapy II on my non-silk wrapped nails and then Sally Hansen Double Duty on my silk wrapped nails (only 2 are silk wrapped right now). The ones with the Nail Tek REALLY hated this polish. It acted similarly to a Tronica polish. It had the drag up that holos get, but not sticky like a linear holo. I’m truly dumbfounded, but I will say use a sticky base coat if you’re applying this polish.

BONUS!!


And I had to throw in this photo of Paisley squinting up at me in the bright sunshine! Haha! So cute.

Forever 21 Love & Beauty Pink

L&B has the most obnoxious names for their polishes. Their names are literally the color of the polish. This one is called "Pink". More specifically, it's MA120 Pink, just in case you were curious.

I have been dying to wear this because it's so similar to a peachy color I've been wanting. However, this one is just a little too pink, so I think I have to take a trip to NYC and pick up Illamasqua Purity. Anyway, here's "Pink".

**This polish was EXTREMELY difficult to photograph accurately. This first photo is as close as I could get to the actual color**


Sunlight




Shade




2 coats Pink
1 coat Poshe

This polish is one of those neon (bright) pastels. Definitely not a true neon, though it photographs almost as difficult as a neon, which is a HUGE pain. It's a bright creme salmon that goes on several shades darker than the bottle. It has more of a peachy hue than the photos show, it has almost a coral kinda feel. It is also brighter in real life. From photos I've seen, it looks VERY comparable to Orly Cotton Candy, however I do not own Cotton Candy to compare directly.

The formula was totally fine. Opaque and streak-free in 2 coats. First coat seemed a little uneven, but that was totally fixed with the second coat. No cuticle drag, either. The brush is pretty average, and that's actually not a bad thing!!

Forever 21 Mint Green

MY BLOG!!!!!! I've missed you!! I know I only posted 3 days ago, but those nails were actually from almost a week ago. I have had an INSANE week with no time to sit down and do anything. I didn't even get to do Fourth of July nails :( That really sucks because I had SO many ideas and I was SO excited for them, but I worked the first through the third and can't wear polish to work. So that was out. And I was trying to hurry up to get to the beach with some friends on the 4th. I tried using these nail polish strips from Nailene, but they were SO horrible I gave up after 3 nails. I'll make a post about those soon, hopefully.

Anyway, I was at Forever 21 recently with my sister, and I picked up 3 polishes. Can I please say again how much I LOVE Forever 21 polishes (they're actually called Love & Beauty)?? Huge selection of colors and finishes and great quality. Best thing? They cost $2.80. Worst thing? They have the most stupid and frustrating names. Online the names look better, but when you're in the store, the names are just dumb. I picked up "Mint", "Lime", and "Taupe". The most frustrating thing is there are different polishes with the same names.

Anyway, today I'm wearing Mint.

DISCLAIMER
These photos make my cuticles look disgustingly dry. That's NOT my cuticles. This is the result of a brand new bottle of Poshe that was so not-viscous it leaked all over my cuticles and dried so it makes my cuticles look all nasty. Please compare to my previous post to prove my cuticles aren't actually gross.







2 coats Mint
1 coat Poshe

I got a defective brush with this one :( This is the only bad brush I've gotten from Love & Beauty. I have 7 others were perfect brushes. I'm going to say this is my own fault for not checking. The 2 others I bought that day have perfect brushes. I even opened this polish to check consistency. I wanted to make sure it looked like it was going to be opaque. But I paid no attention to the brush. It actually wasn't THAT bad, but the spread of the brush was uneven, and the bristles just weren't dense and even. The result of this was I had to be more meticulous around my cuticle. Other than that, it was okay.

The color is lovely. It's a very light, blue based mint green. It's very fresh looking and will make your hands look SUPER tan.

The formula was fine, but the wonky brush made it a little difficult. It was opaque with 2 coats, not too thick or too thin, just a great creme. As a result of the brush, I had quite a few bubbles that I noticed with my macro photos. Not noticeable in real life. But I do remember seeing bubbles when I painted, and I know it's because of the weird bristles and spacing of the brush.

Love & Beauty Coral

I'm pretty sure I've mentioned this before, but in case I haven't, I LOVE Forever 21 polishes. If you see a color you like, do not hesitate to pick it up. They cost $2.80 and I haven't been disappointed yet! And they have a good range of finishes, not just simple cremes like many stores do. Love & Beauty if the name of their cosmetics line, but I tend to use Forever 21 and Love & Beauty interchangeably when I talk about their polish.

Looking on their website at their polish, it looks like they have interesting names such as "Fun Fuchsia", "Feminine Wiles", "Liquid Silver", and "Clear Skies". However, when I'm in the store, their polishes don't have those names at all. My small collection of Forever 21 polishes consists of names such as "Pink", "Nude", "Taupe", and "Light Green". And that's how I see them labeled in the store. I had also noticed that in the store, there was more than one polish called "Pink" for example, but they were certainly not the same polish. I don't know if the interesting names are just for online purposes and they're the same as the ones in the store or what. Regardless, it's odd. But anyway, here's "Coral".













Close Up


2 coats Coral
1 coat Poshe

Not a color I tend to gravitate to generally, but it's really gorgeous. By the name, it obviously suggests that it's coral, but it's definitely a red coral. The other thing that I love is the very fine gold shimmer. It gives the polish a nice dimension that greatly compliments the overall look and adds a warmth to the polish while still maintaining that it's definitely a summer color. It's clearly not just a creme. The shimmer is more noticeable in the bottle, and because of the orange-ness of the color, the polish certainly does not look gold on the nail. It's just beautiful. And I don't tend to wear reds. Granted I wouldn't call this strictly red, but it definitely leans that way. I do love coral, though.

The formula was great. Opaque in 2 coats, not streaky or uneven at all. The polish consistency was on the thin side, but thin like old OPI before the formula change, not thin like watery and unworkable. So this makes for a very easy to work with polish. The brush average size and is rounded and very dense with clear bristles. It could be a little more flat in my opinion, but it doesn't do that stupid flare thing at the tip like some round brushes do. I think it's because the brush is so dense.