Hi there everyone and welcome to Monday. I finally got a chance on Friday to sit down and film my most requested video, my OPI polish favorites. I did film this once before but I wasn't happy with my picks and felt like some got left out. I ended up picking out 18 of my favorite polishes which seems like a lot but when you have over 260, it becomes quite a challenge. I included both swatches and a video so you can view them whichever way you prefer. Not much new is going on around here so let's get right into it. Also I would love it if you left me a comment with you favorite OPI polish :) OPI Done Out in Deco-This greyed-out dusty lavender purple cream is one of my oldest OPIs and it's one of my favorites because it's so sleek and sophisticated on the nail. Great formula in two coats and it remains a favorite of mine when I want something with a little color but still on the neutral side. OPI Muppets World Tour-A relatively new polish, this one is a glitterbomb of silver and white glitter with sparse metallic fuchsia and metallic blue glitters. I wear this one all the time as an accent nail. OPI Pompeii Purple-This polish is one that my husband surprised me with and it's surprisingly interesting. At it's base it's a medium dark fuchsia pink but it does have a light purple iridescence. Great formula as well.
OPI Rose of Light-Another new polish, this glitter is halfway between rose gold and yellow gold and it gets even more interesting with silver holo square glitter. OPI I Sing in Color-Vampy alert! This polish has a burgundy wine colored base and builds up really dark and super glossy on the nail. Very similar to this is OPI Visions of Love, which is a touch lighter, but just as good.
OPI Mod About You-My favorite pastel polish of all time, Mod About You is a white-based pastel lilac cream. As opposed to polishes with a semi crelly formula like OPI You're Such a Budapest, Mod About You is very opaque on the nail.
OPI Teal the Cows Come Home-Another one that my husband surprised me with, the polish is a frosty bright teal blue, think Dining Al Frisco but bright instead of dusty. Smooth and buttery formula. OPI Don't Bossa Nova Me Around-It took me fully wearing this polish to appreciate how pretty it is. This polish is a pink-leaning nude cream and it's beautiful on the nail. OPI Pamplona Purple-I don't normally go for warm purples but imagine my surprise when I applied this red-toned purple and absolutely loved it.
OPI Strawberry Margarita-This warm medium pink is my favorite pink OPI polish, followed closely in second by OPI Hotter than You Pink from the new neons collection. This cream polish is buttery and smooth and it's gorgeous.
OPI On Her Majesty's Secret Service-This polish is my most favorite shimmer polish and it's a combination of dusty blue, grey, and gold. You do need three coats to build up the color but it's SO worth it.
OPI You Are So Outta Lime!-My favorite bright OPI, this is a brand new polish from this year's neon collection.
OPI Lucky Lucky Lavender-I love this warm lilac lavender purple cream and it remains a staple for me in Spring. OPI Unfor-greta-bly Blue-OPI does come out with a lot of deep metallic blues but this one is unique because it has a greeny teal lean to it. OPI My Vampire is Buff-My favorite nude polish of all time! This polish is a cool leaning vanilla cream and I do have a backup of this one.
OPI Live.Love.Carnaval.-This one is inconspicuous in the bottle but on the nail it's a vibrant fiesty coral red. OPI Green on the Runway-I've worn this one once and immediately knew it had to go in my favorites. The duochrome is fantastic on this one and it switches from a metallic deep green to red/brown, to a shimmery glowy copper. OPI Lost on Lombard-A straight up maroon brick red cream but I think the reason I love it is because it doesn't lean warm. It also is fantastic matte.
Hi there everyone, welcome to Sunday. It's going to be another lazy day here. Last night was really fun because we had fireworks going on in our town and our house is at a high point with a field in the back so we always have a great view when people randomly decide to shoot them off. Yesterday was spent putting goopy gel into my eye but things are much better already for my stupid scratched cornea. I don't think I really did anything productive but there will be no complaints here.
After my last nail of the day post, I started documenting my nails each day because they always change. Once they really started accumulating, I decided to post each month in increments. So without further ado, here's what has been on my nails.
June 5, 2014--OPI You're So Vain-illa with Rainbow Honey Magic Cake
When I wore You're So Vain-illa it reminded me so much of vanilla cake mix so I picked out a matching cake themed polish as my accent nail :) This was a normal work day mani for me.
June 6, 2014---OPI Sorry I'm Fizzy Today with Beyond the Nail Vintage Dress
June 7, 2014---OPI Need Sunglasses?, OPI Chic From Ears to Tail, and OPI Rose of Light
June 8, 2014---OPI I Love Applause with Wet N Wild Flossy Flossy
I ended up picking up several of these Wet N Wild glitter polishes. My trick for getting them $1.49 each was to wait until Walgreens had a sale from three dollars to two fifty and then I used $1 off coupons that I had found at Walgreens the week before. It's also pretty common to find those coupons in the paper. Flossy Flossy is a delicate pink, silver, and gold glitter combination.
June 9, 2014---OPI You're So Outta Lime! This one is definitely my favorite pick from the OPI Neon collection, I'm seriously considering a back-up bottle I love it that much.
June 10-June 11, 2014---Zoya Wednesday with Wet N Wild Kaleidoscope Eyes Shock horror, the same mani two days in a row ;) I wore this mani when I went up to Chicago for fieldwork. This is also the same mani I wore to get my hair done.
June 12, 2014---OPI Kreme de la Kremlin with OPI You Pink Too Much This is the base that I wore during the work day before I did my neopolitan gradient when I got home that night. It is pretty common for me to use a nail of the day as the base for nail art later on.
June 13, 2014---Barielle Hawaiian Sunset Review coming soon of this pretty little number. I think I have to automatically love it because it's a Hawaiian-themed polish (I was born in Hawaii).
June 14, 2014---China Glaze For Audrey with OPI Fresh Frog of Bel Air My nails for this Saturday. I had such a bad eye-ache that I had asked my husband what to do on my nails to which he replied "something that looks like eyes". Haha! I took a little creative license with this one ;)
June 15, 2014---China Glaze Sun Worshipper
A totally random pick from my untrieds stash, I went with this because I think it's supposed to rain today and I wanted something bright. I think I'll end up doing some nail art on top of this but right now I'm drawing a blank. A full review of this neon polish will be up soon.
There you have it, what's been on my nails recently. What polish have you been wearing recently?
Hi guys, welcome to Saturday. I'm pre-writing this post because hopefully this morning I will be on my way to the eye doctor. Sounds totally random right? I've been having pain in my eye since Tuesday. At first I blamed it on my contacts but quickly realized that wasn't the case. It's gradually gotten worse over the week and finally yesterday I was in so much pain that I just could sit around and have my eye closed. Hopefully they can squeeze me in so I can figure out what the heck is going on, plus I'm sick of having these horrible migraines from the pain. I never put all these things together until it's been days later and usually too late in the day to do anything about it haha! Four or five years ago I had a dislocated jaw and waited a day to get it checked out, I just went to work and sipped things through a straw. I didn't figure that out until later as well ;) My husband seems to think I'm being stubborn! I like to think of it as hoping that the problem will fix itself (it usually never does).
Update: I was able to get into the doctor's this morning. She tested my eye and I do in fact have a scratched cornea. The good news is that she numbed my eye and gave me a prescription for ointment to heal it. I also found Essie Cute as a Button on clearance while picking up my prescription from Walgreens. I can't see out of my eye so I guess I have an excuse to rest on the couch :) Obviously I wasn't really in the mood to do some nail art but I did pick a polish from my stash of untrieds. China Glaze For Audrey is a cult classic that many people own and it's one of those polishes that I've always wanted to pick up but ended up bypassing in the store. One day I was in Sally's and saw this cute little mini of For Audrey for 99 cents and thought it was the perfect opportunity to give it a try :)
For Audrey is a dusty medium aqua blue cream, totally my kind of color. I was pleasantly surprised at the quality of the formula. This polish was very opaque and smooth, a breeze to apply. I used two easy coats with topcoat below. Sorry for the state of my cuticles, I can't seem to get anything to work on them right now :/
Overall I am very pleased with both the quality and color of this polish and I'm very glad I was able to pick it up. I can definitely see now why this is a cult classic polish and one that everyone talks about. Do you own this polish and what do you think of it?
Hi there everyone, happy Friday! My post is up late because I decided to treat myself to a Friday off of work. I've just been a little under the weather and not sleeping so I decided to take a day to just relax at home. Also I just realized it's Friday the 13th and yes, I am superstitious, but that's definitely not the reason I'm at home ;) So far there are no plans for this weekend, which I don't really mind because I like being at home. I know that How to Train your Dragon 2 is coming out today so maybe the hubby and I will go see that. I swear we see most cartoon movies and pass up most movies meant for adults :)
Today I have a quick gradient that I whipped up last night. I recently found OPI Kreme de la Kremlin and on me it leans a little bit chocolatey even though it's a pink terra cota color. I found that most swatches online lean rosy but this definitely pulls brown on me. I took that and ran :)
During work I had worn the combination of OPI Kreme de la Kremlin with a simple accent nail of OPI You Pink too Much which is a pale pink and silver glitter combination. Because my nails reminded me of a truffle color I wanted to create a soft neopolitan gradient. For the vanilla color I used OPI You're So Vain-illa from the new Coca Cola collection and the strawberry color is OPI Kiss Me I'm Brazilian.
I'm very pleased with the final result of this soft neopolitan mani. Neopolitan was always one of my favorite ice creams, particularly the strawberry mixed with the chocolate :) Have a great Friday everyone.
Hello everyone, happy Thursday. I've been a little incognito the past two days because I was up in Chicago for fieldwork. Also my phone decided that its life was done and I ended up with a dead-looking android on it and then it refused to turn on. Boy it felt weird being without a phone. I also ended up without my laptop so I was pretty much removed from the blogging world. But, I'm back home now and have a shiny new cell phone so we're back in business :) Today I have another three magical pixiedust polishes released by Zoya for the Summer. The magical pixiedusts are chunky, glitter heavy textured polishes. Three were released in Spring and I was surprised at how much I liked those. Will I feel the same about these three? First up is Zoya Arlo which is a radiant orchid amethyst purple chunky textured polish. Enough descriptors? ;) One thing I noticed about these three compared to the Spring polishes is that these have a jelly base to them, whereas the last three were pretty opaque. I really like the color of this polish but I found this one pretty slow to dry and pretty sheer. I needed three coats below to create an opaque look.
Second of the group is Zoya Bar, which is a chunky nude topaz color. As opposed to the other two, I found this one to dry really quickly. It also had a sheer base and I needed three coats for the look below.
Last of the three is Zoya Ginni, which is a chunky rosy pink polish. This one was like the first polish in that it took a long time to dry. It was also on the sheer side and needed three coats.
Overall I can't say that I'm in love with these polishes. While I really liked the three Spring offerings because they were surprisingly opaque, I'm not really a fan of the jelly type base of these. That being said, I do really like the colors in this group but I felt like they were Spring colors as well, although I am happy to see a radiant orchid color. If you like more sheer or jelly polishes, these could definitely be for you, they just aren't my cup of tea. What do you think of these polishes? *Polishes were sent for review in exchange for my honest opinion.
Hi there everyone, welcome to Tuesday. This post is going to be going up early because by the time 8 o'clock rolls around I'll be on the road and on my way up to Chicago. Usually I'm more nervous about site visits but today is also hair day so I think that nervousness trumps it :) Today's TT theme is 3D nail accents and I was really stumped until I realized that my friend had given me some cute 3D nails charms for Christmas. I whipped them out and and decided to use the cute heart pastry as my main starting point. My base nail color is OPI You're So Outta Lime, which is a polish I've been in love with from the OPI Neon collection. I then finished off with one medium pink, one light pink, and one red rhinestone. I attached everything over top of one coat of Seche Vite.
There you go, my take on 3D nail accents. Wish me luck! Don't forget to check out these other fabulous ladies below.
Hi there everyone, welcome to Monday. I'm not excited that it's Monday but I am excited to bring you a review of this collection. I've been wearing these shades over the past week and have fallen in love with some of them. Nothing new is going on around here. I went to my friend's baby shower yesterday which was really fun and I also filmed my very first chit chat get ready with me video. It will be up on my channel by the time this post goes live. I also edited it myself, woo! Tomorrow I will be headed in the field for work for two days. Normally I would be really down about it but I decided to change up my hair so I am really excited about it. I think I'm going to go a light/medium auburn and do some bangs but I would love your thoughts on it. I have had the same color for over a year now and that's an eternity in my book ;) Enough of my chit chat, let's get right into the polish! First up is OPI Coca-Cola Red, which is a vibrant classic Coca Cola red. The polish leans a little more red-orange than I thought it would so it's really not a true red red. The formula on this polish was fantastic and I needed one coat for the look below. I didn't use two for photos or anything, just one quick coat. All swatches for all the polishes will be with topcoat. I also only just realized that I only compared these polishes to other OPIs so if you would like a comparison to other brands, leave me a comment and I will do that.
I recently re-organized all of my OPI polishes so it was really easy to do these comparisons since all the tones and colors were already in order :) These all look pretty similar but the first two are more orange than the Coke polish and Dutch Tulips is a tad darker and deeper.
Next up is OPI A Grape Affair, which is a dark cool-toned grape cream. The formula on this polish was great and I needed two easy coats below.
This polish was extremely similar to OPI Vant to Bite My Neck? but they aren't exact dupes. Vant to Bite My Neck? is slightly more clear and vivid purple and A Grape Affair was slightly more warm and dusty. The difference was very small though.
Another polish close to an older one is OPI Get Cherried Away. This polish is a deep plummy wine cream. The formula was also good on this one and I needed two coats below.
This polish is very similar to OPI Anti-Bleak, but again, not dupes. From my picture below, Anti-Bleak looks a little more red toned and Get Cherried Away looks a little more raisin toned. Extremely small differences though.
Oooooh boy, this next polish! This polish is called OPI Green On the Runway and it's a metallic green/brown duochrome. Duochromes aren't really my thing but this one is so darn cool. The main color is a metallic warm toned deep green and it has a red/brown duochrome. In certain lights, it also shows up a bronze/copper color, which I managed to capture in the last picture in the sun. The formula was great and I needed two coats.
Next up is OPI My Signature is "DC" which is a silver polish but it's different in that it looks like shimmery foil. I noticed specks of silver flecks in this one and you can really see them when you move the nails around. This one had a great formula and dried really fast. I used two coats below.
I thought for sure that I would have a dupe in my OPI collection but I am pleased to see that they were all very different.
Next up is another unique offering, OPI Orange You Fantastic!, which is a mix of Fall colored glitter in a yellow tinted base. I planned originally on layering this one, but I ended up building it up in three coats. This looked so cool on the nail and I really liked how unique this one was.
Another cream polish, OPI Sorry I'm Fizzy Today is a peachy pink cream. The formula was a little bit streaky on this one and I did need three coats for full coverage.
I thought I would have something similar but I really don't. Sorry I'm Fizzy Today is much warmer and peachier than anything I have.
Second to last is OPI You're So Vain-illa. This one is a warm toned nude polish. I thought it wouldn't work with my cool skin tone but I think it wasn't bad. I would definitely consider a backup of this one. The formula was just okay, I used three thin coats below.
My Vampire is Buff is lighter and cooler toned than Vain-illa and every other nude I had was darker.
Last up is OPI Today I Accomplished Zero. I love the name of this one and I think it fits the soda perfectly. This polish is a deep grey/black jelly base filled with red microglitter. I was happy to see that the black base didn't drown out the glitter. I used three thin coats for a fully opaque finish. This one looks very similar to a textured OPI liquid sand from the Mariah Carey collection but I got rid of that one so I couldn't compare.
Originally I wasn't really thrilled with the idea of this collection but wearing the polishes has definitely changed my mind. The only thing I don't like is that some polishes are similar to older polishes but I think that is trumped by the amount of unique polishes. My standout favorites are Green on the Runway, Orange, You Fantastic!, Today I Accomplished Zero, and You're So Vain-illa. Will you be picking up any from this collection?
