Holy Freakin' Unreal Emberstone!!

Be prepared to be bombarded by photos. No joke, I have like legit 8 pictures. I took these a while ago and this is quite a late post. I've been trying to cut down on the number of photos, but since I had already cropped and tagged all of these, I figured I'd just include them.



















2 coats Orly Emberstone
1 coat Poshe

Emberstone... is amazing. I'm a HUGE fan of the Mineral FX collection, as I posted Stone Cold back in December. Emberstone is beautiful. It has almost a coral type of feel. This polish is definitely easily worn in the summertime, I thought it was going to be more of a cold red. Some photos show it as a cherry red, but there are a couple that show the orange-y coral feel, and you definitely see that quite a bit in real life. It also has this hot pink feel to it. I definitely see hot pink flakes in this polish, just a little less frequent than the orange. This isn't really a glitter, they're more particles of shimmer than anything IMO. It's a little different than Stone Cold in that the particles aren't as separate. They're much more fluent with the base of the polish where as they stood out far more in Stone Cold. This does not make the polish any less amazing. I still stand by what I said with Stone Cold and that is words and photos cannot describe this polish.

Seriously, you have to wear these polishes. When you wear them, they're so much more lively that photos show, than they look in the bottle, or even how they look as swatches in the store. Don't underestimate these. They're not a regular shimmer.

The formula was totally fine. It glided on great, not too thick. Polish went and stayed where I put it. Amazing to work with, great coverage. Beautiful all around.

Orly Prelude to a Kiss

As soon as I saw the press releases for this polish, my interest spiked. As soon as I saw swatches, I knew I HAD to have it!! I've been searching for a similar color for quite some time. The right peachy, vintage-y, not too neon, not too pink, not too orange, not too dark color. I still want a polish a little darker, but I'm loving this for now. I saw Essie A Crewed Interest swatches and fell in love. Then I saw The PolishAholic's comparison to Prelude to a Kiss and obviously I'll pick Orly over Essie! Essie's pastel/light creme formulas frustrate me to no end!!
I went to my Sally's that doesn't usually carry new collections. I didn't see it out, so I started to walk out the door when the SA asked what I had been looking for. I told her I was looking for the new spring Orly collection but didn't see it. Then I re-asked to confirm that they don't sell new collections? She told me they're starting to get new collections in and she's sure she saw that collection in the back! I honestly couldn't remember the name of the polish so I looked it up on my phone quickly. She went to the back, grabbed that polish for me, and here we are!! Yay for AWESOME Sally's SAs! Not my usual experience with Sally's, but they're getting FAR better!! I'm so excited!

Side note, not gonna lie... I hate the name of this polish. I swear Orly really sucks sometimes at naming polishes. It's almost as annoying as Fancy Fuchsia.











2 coats Orly Prelude to a Kiss
1 coat Poshe
*photos taken on 3rd/4th day of wear (put on Thursday evening, photos taken Sunday morning).

This color is beautiful. As I said above, it is a light peach creme that does not lean too pink or too orange. It's not fleshy, I like it on my yellow/olive toned skin, don't know how it'd look on very pinky toned skin. It's a brighter pastel without being a neon pastel. It has a vintage feel that I am SO excited to do some pretty nail art to.

The formula was not fantastic, but it's what I expected for a pastel peach. The polish is thick and pigmented but very manageable. Completely opaque in two coats. Did have a little trouble with cuticle drag on the second coat, but the polish self levels pretty well, so it essentially fixed itself. This is one of those polishes where you need to let the brush rest in the bottle for a second before you go from nail to nail. But it wasn't bad.

Up All Night with Orly Twilight

I picked up Orly Twilight and Shining Star at Sally's on clearance at the end of this Christmas season. Got 'em for $2 each! I wanted to try Shining Star on Enchanted Forest because I love gold and green, but I've really attacked you guys with Enchanted Forest as it's one of my favorite polishes. I had on Up All Night and I figured it might look pretty with Twilight.













2 coats China Glaze Up All Night
1 coat Poshe
1 coat Twilight

Twilight is an interesting TOP COAT. Yes, it is a top coat. I saw a couple of reviews on MUA rating this polish low because I don't think they realized it was meant to be a top coat. But as a top coat, it's actually very pretty.

The formula was fine. It's a top coat, hard to screw that up when it's something simple like this. It did not smear my polish underneath. You could use a light touch and get just a little shimmer, or go over it a few times (which is what I did) to pull out a lot of shimmer.

Orly Poison Apple - The Best Red EVER??

I'm continuing on with Orly's Once Upon A Time collection that I intended to have finished in November, but that clearly did not happen. So here we are in December, but now is a pretty good time to be wearing reds, so I figure it worked out!!

These first photos were taken in artificial light*








These photos were taken in natural light*












1 coat Orly Poison Apple
1 coat Poshe

*I have two "sets" of photos because the second ones make the polish look very blue-based. I wanted the first "set" so you could see that it's not as blue-based as it appears. And so my description doesn't make me sound like a nut. Lol. Oh, and the indoor/artificial light photos were taken today (after 2 days wearing the polish).

This is a subtly rusty red creme, not your typical bright, blue-based red, so it's not super in-your-face and aggressive. For that reason, it also leans warm, though I think it'd be INCREDIBLY flattering on any skintone. It appears blue-based in some photos, but it's almost got a tomato-y quality. Like I said, subtly rusty, almost with a hint of vintage red. I really do think it's the perfect red for any skintone. Seriously.

I have very high expectations for reds. You figure there are SO many reds out there, there's no excuse for a red to be too thick, too thin, require too many coats, be streaky, etc. Application needs to be nearly flawless and Orly didn't disappoint!! This polish flowed beautifully, only requiring one coat for full opacity. I'm a big fan of Orly's brush, and I think the amazing formula paired with their awesome brush made application that much easier. There is NO clean-up in these photos. The polish went on where I put it, did not flood my cuticles, and just glided on to shape to my cuticles perfectly. An amazing formula to match possibly the most amazing, universally flattering red EVER!! Own this. Seriously.

Swirly Stamped Mirror Mirror

I was going to just do a fun top coat over Orly Mirror Mirror for something fun. Then I decided stamping with black would be PERFECT! I found the designs I wanted to use, then went from there! Here's what I came up with.















2 coats Orly Mirror Mirror
1 coat Poshe
Swirl stamping with bundle monster plate BM-201
-Black is Sinful Black on Black
-Silver is Pure Ice Silver Mercedes
Stamping on ring finger with Essence stamping plate
-Black is Sinful Black on Black
1 coat Poshe

Yup! I top coated it... well, some of the photos have a top coat. I took photos beforehand in case the top coat smudged the design. But it didn't! So I retook a few more photos with the top coat.

My initial intention was to make this kinda subtle. Obviously that went in a different direction! The silver didn't contrast the way I wanted it to, so I decided to do the rest of the swirls in black because I didn't want to bring a vibrant color into the design. I left the silver on my ring finger and decided you couldn't see the silver well enough and it looked like I forgot to stamp a nail. I had my Essence stamping plate right next to me, picked a design off of it, and went with it!

I think it looks really pretty. I'm a sucker for whimsical, swirly designs (obviously) so I really like it! What do you think? Should I have gone with a pop of color? Is there just too much going on? Lemme know!!

Orly Mirror Mirror

I had planned on doing all of the Orly Once Upon A Time collection back in November, but it didn't happen. So I'll try to finish it up in December! So here we have Mirror Mirror.













2 coats Orly Mirror Mirror
1 coat Poshe

Mirror Mirror is a light grey creme that can look a little different in different lights. Indoors in not so bright like, it looks blue-ish almost with a lavender feel, and in brighter lights it can look like a light cement or it can be a little darker. Regardless, it always looks like a lovely light grey-light/medium grey. I would expect this polish to not work great with my pale, warm toned yellow/olive skin tone, but it actually works very well.

The formula was unfortunately NOT like most Orly cremes. Orly does a great job with pigmented, smooth, flawless, opaque cremes that are amazing to work with. This polish did not fit that standard. It is on the thinner side, which would generally be an ok thing, but the pigmentation isn't there. If you use too many brush strokes, the polish already put down lifts from the nail. By the second coat, it is completely opaque, but it is VERY uneven. Uneven in the sense that it's not smooth. I have like 2 ridges in 2 nails, and the way this polish leaves the finish makes it look like my nails are not smooth and have lots of ridges.

I overall suggest that you make sure you use a generous coat of a thicker top coat (SV, Poshe, etc), and if you have imperfections on the surface of your nail, use a good base coat or a ridge filling base coat to help smooth the nail and give you a good surface. Other than that, the uneven surface is combated well with a thick topcoat. And the color of this polish is just beautiful.

Enchanted Forest with Tips of Rage

I actually have a ton of other ideas for fun nail art-ish things using Enchanted Forest as a base. Gosh I'm obsessed with this color!! Anyway, this isn't quite what I envisioned, but I wore it anyway:











Close Up




2 coats Orly Enchanted Forest
1 coat Poshe
I used fun shaped scrapbook scissors to cut tape that marked off the tip.
Tips with 1 coat Orly Rage

I initially wanted to do more of a geometric type of thing using Enchanted Forest and Rage because I think they're SO complimentary. But when I tried that, it just wasn't working. So I grabbed some scrapbooking scissors and tried to cut tape a few different ways. I actually didn't want to do tips, I wanted to split the nail with each color vertically, but the tape was too skinny and not cooperating so it was tips or I was throwing the scissors and tape out the freakin' window. Driving a mile down the road to Target to get the right kind of scotch tape was not an option... but as I type this and I'm remembering I have packing tape that would have worked perfectly, I'm not actually really annoyed. Wow.

Gorgeous Orly Enchanted Forest

Welcome To My 100th Post!!
Was gonna do something special for it, but couldn't think of something. Lol, so bad I know. But instead...
Continuing on with my Once Upon A Time polishes, here is Enchanted Forest. One of my FAVORITE greens, creme or otherwise. It's just beautiful. Have a look...











Direct Sunlight








2 coats Orly Enchanted Forest
1 coat Poshe

The color of this green is beautiful. It's an obvious blue-based dark green creme, which I think is a nice change from yellow-based greens (which I love too!). I've seen some photos that make this polish look yellow-based. No idea how that was managed, but let me assure you it is definitely blue. In some lights, it almost looks like a deep green teal. Those "some lights" is the lighting as I sit in front of my computer typing this. Anyway, I think the name Enchanted Forest fits it perfectly. I imagined Orly choosing the name Enchanted Forest for an unknown color, and this is what they came up with.

The formula was lovely. Not as thick as some of Orly's newer cremes, but beautifully and easily opaque in 2 thin coats. First coat seemed a little uneven, but it was perfectly evened out with the second coat.

Prince Charming

I'm so sorry I keep disappearing :( This is the second polish I'm showing from Orly's Once Upon A Time collection. Again, I'm going over this entire collection because I think it's one of the best collections ever, especially for fall. Orly captured everything about the fall season with the collection. It's amazing.













2 coats Orly Prince Charming
1 coat brand new, super thin/runny Poshe

First off, this polish was like painting with chocolate. Does it look like chocolate? Eh, not totally. But you know how when you melt chocolate, it looks lighter and darkens as it hardens? This polish darkens enough so that the second coat going on is lighter, so it legit reminds me of painting my nails with melted chocolate... and now I want a s'more with the yummy melted chocolate and my delicious vegan marshmallows!! lol

So more about the actual color since it isn't identical to chocolate. It's definitely in the taupe family. I spent half the day thinking it was warm toned and the other half thinking it was cool toned, so I'm going to say it ends up being fairly neutral. It almost has yellow-ish undertones, but there is such a purity to the taupe color itself that I find it hard to pull out true undertones. At one point I swear I saw grey undertones and another time I definitely saw violet undertones. Regardless, it's beautiful.

The application was great! It was actually unlike Orly's more recent cremes. Orly's newer cremes seem to be opaque in 1 coat and on the thicker/highly pigmented side, while still being perfectly manageable. NOT the think/pigmented/dries on the brush in like two seconds and is goopy and pulls and is difficult to work with. But this polish is thinner but still well pigmented. The first coat was kind of uneven and is where I saw more yellow-ish undertones. If you thickened the first coat, it wasn't uneven. But either way, it went to perfectly opaque and perfectly even with the second coat. A very easy to work with polish.

Side Note
I feel awful about these big gaps in not posting. As I said, I'm moving on November 1st, and as a result, I've been OUTRAGEOUSLY busy. There are tons of things I need to get, and I've been picking up tons of hours at work on top of going to school (where I've had two exams in this past week). And I've been sick for the past week as I sit here with my left ear completely blocked and coughing like whoa (no stuffy nose, though! And I've still got energy). Ugh. So anyway, I haven't photographed too many of my nail designs. I'm going to have to go back and redo things as I've already worn another one of the Once Upon A Time colors but never took any photos. I'll try my best to get on it!! The other crappy thing is I have two silk wraps on my photographing hand (my index finger and ring finger), so I'm avoiding glitters and it stinks because I have so many new glitters!! Gahhh!!!!