OPI Tease-y Does It

The last time I wore this polish was over a year ago when it came out. It's from the Burlesque collection that way released last winter. I picked it up on clearance at Ulta. The reason I haven't worn it since was because I really did not like it when I first wore it and saw no reason to really wear it again (I'll go into that after the photos). But anyway, here it is. Giving it another shot.















Bottle Shot




2 coats OPI Tease-y Does It
1 coat Poshe

Tease-y Does It has a deep black/brown base with a deep pink/red shimmer with very minimal flashes of a golden shimmer. Disappointingly, this polish looks a lot more dynamic and lovely in the bottle. I should add a disclaimer. Vampy, deep colors are not my favorite. I'm sure that this is an amazing polish for those who like blackened colors. But the bottle shows significantly more shimmer with a dark pink to gold shift that doesn't translate as well on the nail. The shimmer is not very apparent. I tried to get the polish at a ton of different angles to show that there is a bit of shimmer. But I think the first photo is more accurate at how dark and... plain this polish really is. Nothing like the bottle. :(

The reason I didn't like this polish the first time was because I remember I had gone out with a bunch of coworkers and I had at LEAST 3 people comment on my "black" nails. I mentioned it's not black, but in the lighting we were in, you couldn't tell there was anything more to it. It just annoyed me because I spent money on what looks like a "black" polish to other people... and to me. That's why I didn't bother to wear it again.

If you've read my blog, you know I don't like OPIs brushes. Apart from that, the formula was perfect, opaque in 2 coats. It seemed to migrate a LITTLE towards my cuticles, but stopped before it got there. It was kind of funny, actually!

While I wasn't a fan of this polish, I just want to reiterate that if you like these nearly black colors, I'm sure you'd find this one beautiful!!

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!!

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.

China Glaze Up All Night

Sorry I've been MIA. No excuse other than I've been very busy and it's difficult to find time to upload photos. I have to do it at my parents house because they have a desktop I'm used to working with and I'm currently using a Mac and it drives me nuts to crop and tag on. So I only upload photos when I can get to my parents. Anyway...

I picked up Up All Night a couple of yeas ago at Sally's when it was on clearance. I grabbed it along with some polishes from the X Collection (VII and VIII). I've worn it here and there since, mostly in the colder weather because I tend to wear "appropriate" colors for the season. It's a pretty nice, basic polish.

Direct Sunlight








Not direct sunlight






2 coats China Glaze Up All Night
1 coat Poshe

Up All Night is a deep, dark blue that I actually don't think tends to look black. You know how some vampy, dark colors just look black when you look down at your hands? This boarders pretty dark in some lights, but I never noticed it truly looking black. The bottle has a shimmer that doesn't translate clearly on the nail and it looks like more of a creme finish with some extra shine.

The formula was fine. I found that it's not perfectly opaque in 1 coat like I'd expect colors like this to be. Not a problem, though. It looked amazing after two coats and I will never complain that a polish requires two coats. That's like a standard. The consistency was great. On the thinner side so it was very workable, but not so thin that it would flood cuticles.

Happily Ever After

MISSED YOU!!

It's been 2 weeks since I've updated my blog. I've obviously continued to paint my nails while not blogging, but I've just been way too busy with work and school to take photos, crop and mark them, upload them, write the posts, etc. Beneficially, I used that time to rewear a lot of colors I've already posted on my blog that I'd assume people don't really care to see again.

So while I was MIA, the first day of fall came a few days ago on the 23rd. While I happily told my patient's to have a great first day of fall, my mind continued to float not only to everything awesome that comes along with the fall season, but also to wearing all the GORGEOUS fall colors!! So be prepared.

Also, I'll be moving at the end of October/beginning of November, so around that time you'll see my nails lose some length. I'd much rather file them shorter than snap them off in the moving process! That and my Mom has shorter nails and she was wearing some gorgeous deep, rich red like a week ago and I realized how freakin' adorable her nails looked. But since I'm weary about making my nails shorter, I figured when I move is the best excuse to do it!!

End Unrelated Intro
Over the coming days, I'm going to be posting my FAVORITE fall collection ever. Orly's Once Upon A Time Collection from 2009. This had been the only full collection I owned up until like a week ago when I found Color Club's Wicked Sweet collection at TJ Maxx for $9.99.
Anyway, this collection has such simplicity but at the same time, captures everything about fall and is just gorgeous. So we are starting off with Happily Ever After.













And here's the shimmer in the bottle




2 coats Orly Happily Ever After
1 coat Poshe

Happily Ever After is a deep berry that looks like a creme in almost any light, but the bottle has a gorgeous fuchsia shimmer that is nearly undetectable on the nail even in bright outside light, which is definitely unfortunate. It's still a gorgeous color, rich without really crossing into vampy thought it does look darker in indoor dark lighting. It just woulda been absolutely amazing and super unique if the shimmer was apparent. Oddly enough, the hidden shimmer gives the polish kind of a dusty feel. Reminds me of the finish of Revlon Perplex (I don't own Paradoxal, so I don't wanna say it's also like Chanel's finish).

The formula was ok. Opaque in 2 coats, but the first coat looked uneven. Not streaky, just uneven. And I feel like if you did two thin coats, the color would look lighter than if you did two medium/thick coats.

Orly Nite Owl... Give This Polish Some Love, Please!!

So all the hype has been about Fowl Play and its dupe-ness for OPI Merry Midnight. While I was able to get my hands on it, that's not the polish from the Birds of a Feather collection that I was really dying to try. If you follow my blog, you might know my love of Orly polishes. If you don't, let me just tell you that I LOVE Orly polishes. More specifically, I love Orly fall collections. I personally think (despite my affection towards Orly in general) that over the past few years, Orly has put out some of the most amazing fall collections out of all nail polish fall collections. Their Once Upon A Time collection from 2009 is the only full collection I own by any brand (I will be posting all of these throughout the fall). Their Cosmic FX polishes in 2010 were a huge hype, too. I only have Space Cadet due to their increased cost. And now Birds of a Feather.

I love that Orly GETS fall. They understand the colors that are very "in" colors for fall. Colors that I love seeing because they immediately make me think of fall which then makes me think of fairs, apple picking, leaves changing colors, sweaters, delicious fall smells. All amazing things.

So here we have Nite Owl.













Closeup of the gorgeous shimmer

*Kindly ignore the Poshe smeared on my cuticle that I didn't bother to clean up.

2 coats Nite Owl
1 coat Poshe

Apparenly Orly describes this polish as a beige shimmer. I'm disagreeing and saying this is definitely not beige. It's obviously taupe. The shimmer is a very fine silver shimmer that gives this polish an overall cool tone as opposed to warm. My skintone is important to know for this polish. I have a warm/neutral skintone, but I have olive/yellow undertones. I am pretty pale, like a MAC NC20. Normally, I wouldn't expect this polish to work for me being that it's a cool-toned taupe, but it does. And I love it. Let me try to explain how much I love this polish. If I had to severly downsize my polish collection to like 10 polishes, this would be one of the first ones I grab. If I were a person to switch between 2 polishes a season (instead of my different polish every day), this would be one of those. I love the color, I love the color on my skin, I love the shimmer, I love the overall look, I love the fall-ness, I love the neutral-ness, I LOVE this.

The formula... was fantastic. This was opaque in 2 coats, maybe opaque in 1 thick coat? Let me say it is flat out impossible to make this polish streaky or uneven. Say you missed a spot on your nail when painting. You can just paint over that spot instead of going all the way from cuticle to tip to keep it even. It is easily one of the most forgiving polishes I have ever used. I wore this to a bridal shower today, BTW. Getting ready for the FIFTH wedding I'll be attending this year!!

My final remarks? STFU about Fowl Play for a second and please give Nite Owl some lovin'!!

Orly Royal Navy

I've been working marathon weekends the past two weekends, which severely limits my capability to post. Because I can't wear nail polish to work, my nails stay naked for the weekend. So no posts.

As I was driving around with my partner at work yesterday, I saw a royal blue van that made me completely decide I'd wear Orly Royal Navy today. As we approached it (we were on the highway), I thought maybe I'd avoid blue because I wear it SO much. As we passed the van, he had a US Navy bumper sticker. That had me sold! Royal Navy it is.

Shade






Closeup in Shade


Direct Sunlight




Closeup in Sunlight


2 coats Royal Navy
1 coat Poshe

This polish is wicked gorgeous, very, very unique. It's a royal blue jelly packed with a green based turquoise shimmer/microglitter. I hate wearing darker colors in the summer, and not that this is NOT a summer color, but you can see how pale it makes my hands look especially in the not direct sunlight photos. If you compare it to my last post, you can see the HUGE difference. But it's still so pretty. I have a warm/neutral skintone, but I have olive/yellow undertones. This polish brings out some random pink-ness in my skintone, so I have no idea how those with a cool skintone/pink undertones would fair with this polish.

The formula is interesting is a good way. Because it's a jelly, it's a thin, almost watery consistency, however it is very pigmented. It goes on even, and if you don't mind VNL, you could probably get away with 1 generous coat. I went with 2 because I didn't want the color to be too rich, and even though you can see VNL in the photos, it's not nearly that noticeable in real life. But it's so easy to work with it's amazing. Reminds me of the old, non-B3F polishes.
My biggest annoyance with this polish is the microglitter settles at the bottom of the bottle and you haveta shake the crap out of it to get the particles to suspend in the polish. I'm assuming this is due to the jelly, thin consistency. But because it's a jelly, you can shake it for 10 minutes and put it on immediately, and you won't have any problems with bubbles.

Summery, Sparkly Finger Paints

My Finger Paints collection isn't particularly huge because whenever I try them, I tend to be disappointed by their formula. That, and their colors don't tend to stand out to me. I own some pretty old ones, but prior to this one, the last FP I bought was Chrysanthe-Mum's The Word... which was horrendous.

So anyway, I had a coupon for a free Finger Paints if I renewed my Sally's card this month. Ironically, I had been at the casino recently checking out some Butter London's and I kept staring at Henley Regatta. I came super close to buying it, but figured I'd wait. I had been looking into Butter London for a while, but if I'm spending $14 for polish, it has to be super awesome and not dupe-able. Lucky I didn't purchase it, because I then came across this post from The Poslishaholic that compares Henley Regatta to Finger Paints All You Need Is Color. Not exact dupes, but close enough for me!! So I picked this up 2 days ago when I renewed my card.

I had been trying to think of a base to use because the thought of glitter removal 9 times out of 10 (ok, more like 99 times out of 100) deters me from even bothering. I figured a base would help with the removal, and I wouldn't have to use like 3 layers to get the glitter opaque. This was actually the reason for me choosing my mani yesterday.

So here's what it looks like today.











Close-Up


2 coats Orly Bailamos
1 coat Poshe
1 coat All You Need Is Color
1 coat Poshe
*See the bottom of this post if you're wondering why you're not seeing my pinkie in my left hand photos.

This polish is packed full of blue and green glitter in a thick, clear jelly base, and the base is a good thing because it allows the glitter to be packed together instead of sparse. Judging by some swatches I did on a nail wheel, it looks like without a base coat, you'd need 3 coats of AYNIC for it to be opaque on the nail. I'm pretty happy with using Bailamos as a base because it color matches super well and even though you may see it peeking through in my photos, you'd have to stare very closely at my nails to see those gaps in real life.

I elected to do just 2 accents nails on each hand more so for removal purposes. Even with the foil/felt method, I'm still dreading it. 4 nails seems much easier than 10 9. Stupid pinkie... still wrapped in a Band-Aid because I have no idea what to do about it still. Maybe I'll silk wrap it Sunday.

Bad Day for Orly Bailamos

Lately I've been painting my nails at night for the next day. I never have problems with sheet marks or anything like that, and it leaves me time in the morning to get ready doing other things besides my nails. So last night I decided I was going to wear Orly Bailamos. This is one of my favorite Orly polishes!! It was in their summer Viva! collection. My sister chose this for me for my birthday last year, and I actually ended up getting a back up bottle when a girlfriend of mine who works at CVS saw it on clearance there for like 99 cents.

As I said, I did my nails last night. Well today is ucky and grey and is supposedly going to rain in the afternoon and evening. This meant AWFUL lighting for photos of this polish I'm so disappointed. This could be solved if I had a light box, but as of now, I'm not interested in making one. But the photos aren't THAT bad, their just not as bright as they could be and aren't showing the full potential of the polish. The benefit of them, however, is you can see a very realistic version of this polish, instead of it being in the most ideal setting on a gorgeous summer day.









2 coats Bailamos
1 coat Poshe

The color is amazing. Gorgeous, summery, ocean-y, just amazing. It is incredibly dimensional with a duochrome feel, but it's definitely not a duochrome. I've seen most photos that show the aqua/turquoise in the polish, but mine are really showcasing the teal and cerulean side. In some indoor lighting, I've noticed it even looks arguably green-ish. It has a cohesive shimmer that blends well with the base colors, and I think it's the shimmer that gives this polish so many interpretations. Think deep Caribbean ocean.

Great formula, opaque in 2 coats, no streaking. A very happy medium between thin and thick. I find Orly's cremes to be on the thicker side, but this is thinner than that. A huge reason why I love Orly.

I have plans for this polish tomorrow. Not much, but I can definitely build onto it for a couple of days. Unfortunately, I only have 2 days with this polish (due to work), and it looks like rain both days. I'm so irritated with the weather here. Because of these random 1 or 2 nice days, then straight back to cloudy, rainy, chilly, it just still hasn't felt like summer :(