China Glaze Hunger Games - Smoke and Ashes

Happy Friday!! Did any one go out and watch the Hunger Games last night or throughout the day today!? OMG Im super excited to go watch it this weekend!!
Okay so today I have the last of the four polishes I got from the CG Hunger Games collection! This is Smoke and Ashes which is a MATTE!! Usually I have seen companies put out matte polishes as their own collection of a few matte colors. I totally did not expect for them to sneak in a matte but I am so happy they did cause this polish is awesome!!
Smoke and Ashes is a dark charcoal grey with a fine metallic silver shimmer that dries completely matte. For the most part I know mattes can be pretty thick. I have worn this twice and did not have any issues with the consistency. I mean it is thicker than normal polish but I didn’t find it to be as thick as other mattes I have. It is completely opaque with one coat! I love it when that happens (:



MORE PICS BELOW THE JUMP!!

China Glaze Hunger Games - Riveting

Hope you all are doing well! Two posts in one day, sure does feel good to be off a couple days in a row LOL! So this is the third polish out of the four that I got from the Hunger Games collection! Check it out (:





Riveting is a super awesome red-orange with a stunning gold shimmer running throughout. (Can you tell I have been really pleased with the polishes I got from this collection haha!) I have always been a sucker for cremes but when I get a shimmer like this that just looks so amazing… kinda makes me wonder of what all I have been missing!It applied like butter and is completely opaque at two coats. I think this going to be my go to red for whenever I want to wear red but feel like something more than my usual red cremes that I love (:

China Glaze Hunger Games - Electrify

Okay so this is the second polish from the Hunger Games collection that I have to share with you guys!! I sported this amazing glitter last week when I went to the Houston Rodeo and actually ran into a fellow polish lover standing in line at a carnival ride that was wearing the same exact one! Its such a small world (:

Electrify is an absolutely gorgeous opaque glitter. Its a mix of fine gold glitter and red hex glitter. I really love that one color doesn’t over power the other and instead compliment each other so nicely!




So one thing about application >> make sure to mix the bottle well before starting to apply. When I initially starting putting it on my nails, I didn’t really mix the bottle and so it was coming out really sheer and sparse. Once I gave it a good roll, it applied nearly opaque with one coat! This here is two coats with a coat of Seche Vite over top. The colors remind me of the exact colors used on the cover of the second Hunger Games book, Catching Fire. I could totally picture Katniss wearing this polish with her “girl on fire” costume before the Games! Ahh, Im so excited for the movie (nerd.)!!

China Glaze Hunger Games – Luxe and Lush

Hi everyone! As promised, here is the first post that will cover the four polishes that I picked up from the China Glaze Hunger Games collection!!
Luxe and Lush is the fabulous flakie out of the whole bunch. Its a mylar texture flakie which is a lot thicker and chunkier than most flakie polishes out there. Keeping that in mind, if you put this polish over a polish that is not entirely dry, the flakies can look like they sink in or embed into the polish. I personally don’t have the patience, and in many cases time, to let polish completely dry I guess anytime I use this it will look this way. I don’t mind though, I think it looks cool like that! As for the color pay off, its just so pretty! The colors are definitely cool hues that range from blue, pink, purple, and green.


The application was easy and the flakie pieces did spread out nicely. To be honest, the most difficult thing for me was picking a color to put it over to really show off the awesome colors. I ended up applying two coats of Luxe and Lush over an opaque white (Sally Hansen White on White). Im sure there are a lot of other colors that could look really interesting too! This does definitely need a generous application of top coat to minimize the bumpy feeling once it dries unless you don’t mind it.
I do really like this polish! I think it so unique compared to other flakies I have seen or have in my stash. The flakies look like little pieces of shattered glass in the bottle. I recently wore it as an accent nail over Sally Hansen Pacific Blue (click here for swatches of Pacific Blue) and got a lot of compliments (: I really look forward to trying it over other colors too!

China Glaze Hunger Games

I am so super excited to share these new polishes I have with you guys! I am a big fan of the Hunger Games books and I am really looking forward to the movie coming out later this week!!

From left to right: Luxe and Lush, Electrify, Riveting, Smoke and Ashes

The entire collection is a variety of 12 shades that correspond to each one of the districts from the book. There are some shimmers, cremes, a glitter, a flakie, and a matte! These four are the ones that really caught my eye (:
So over the next couple of days, I will be posting pics and a review of each shade so make sure to keep checking back!!!

Update!

Happy St. Patty’s!! Hope everyone is having a good weekend so far!! I have to work tomorrow so my weekend was only one day ): I just wanted to take this opportunity to update you on my lack of posts for the past week and a half or so. So as I mentioned in one of my earlier posts, my mom had surgery about three weeks ago. Unfortunately, she had a bit of a complication and had to be readmitted to the hospital to take care of the problem. Thankfully, she is finally doing really well and everything is in the clear. So as you guys can imagine, the stress of being worried and making sure she is okay and helping her out on top of trying to settle into my new job which is pretty stressful to begin with too… well that pretty much sums up not having a whole lot of time for much of anything.

With all that being said, I have been working on some stuff here and there and will have new posts coming up later next week (like Tues or Wed). I have also picked up some new polishes that I am SUPER excited to share with you guys!! So STAY TUNED!! (:

- Monica

Revlon Whimsical

Hey there! Hope everyone is having a good week! Today I have a polish that I had been wanting for a while but was never in stock in any store I went to. If you guys follow more nail polish blogs then Im sure you have seen it before. I thought I would write a post on it anyways to share how I wore it and my personal take on it (:
Whimsical is known across the nail polish world as the dupe for Deborah Lippmann’s Up in the Air. From what I can tell in photos, its pretty dead on.


So this polish is a relatively sparse multi glitter in a sheer light blue jelly like base. Don’t let the pictures fool you, its is definitely sheer! I think if I had not used a base color, I would have been there for hours trying to get it to be opaque. For this mani I used 2 coats of Whimsical over 2 coats of China Glaze Kinetic Candy (which you can see what it looks like alone here). This definitely needed at least 2 coats to get the pretty pink and light blue hex glitters to look more spread out. There is also some small green and sliver round glitter that you may or may not be able to see in the photos.
Im sure you could layer this over different colors to get some interesting effects. Personally though, I don’t think this is a glitter I will be reaching for very often. I think the concept of glitter not being in a base that’s the same color as the glitter is pretty cool but I guess I would have liked for the glitter itself to be more opaque on the nail.
What’s your take on this? Would you go for this $5 dupe or for the $16 real deal?

Sally Hansen Pacific Blue

Hi guys!! How have you all been doing!? Im so sorry I have kind of been M.I.A. but I have been super busy getting used to my work routine and helping my Mom out since she recently had surgery. Thankfully, she is doing a whole lot better and work is going really well. So I know this post is finally going up a few days after I originally hoped for but… better late than never!
This is Sally Hansen Pacific Blue from their Xtreme Wear nail polish line. This is part of their permanent collection but as I mentioned previously, it was never in stock around where I live =/
Pacific Blue is an absolutely gorgeous bright royal blue creme. Like Blue Me Away! it applied like butter and was nearly opaque at one coat. I really think this could be a one coater with careful application. I applied two and a coat of Seche Vite over top for the photos below.

I am so happy I finally pick this polish up cause I am totally IN LOVE with this polish. The application and the color are just so awesome. I know I will definitely be sporting this color often (:
Overall, the Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear nail polish line is one that has so far never disappointed me…

• Great price. Like less than $3 dollars at most drugstores!
• Great variety. There are a lot of cremes, metallics, shimmers, and glitters!
• Great formula. Most of the creme ones I own are almost one coaters and are really easy to apply.

Let me know if you would like to see more of these nail polishes on my blog. I do have a handful of these in different finishes that I could swatch for you guys if you are interested. And Im pretty sure I will be picking up more of these along the way so you can definitely stay tuned for more posts!!

OPI Holland Collection: Pedal Faster Suzi

Hey guys! Hope your weekend is going great, its almost the weekend!! Turns out that I have to work this weekend and working three 12 hour shifts in a row is not going to leave me much time for blogging ): So this means that I might have to push back the post I promised for my other Sally Hansen polish I picked up.
With that said, I did have a chance to pick up one of the OPI Holland polishes a little while back and was able to polish my nails with it and take some pics last week. Check ‘em out (:



What do you guys think? Pretty huh?
Pedal Faster Suzi is a cool leaning pink with a scattered silver micro-glitter shimmer. I was actually pleasantly surprised at how much I turned out really liking this since you guys know Im a creme addict. This can sort of look like a creme in darker lighting but it lights up beautifully when the right amount of light hits it so its like the best of both worlds for me!
The formula on this polish was slightly on the sheer side. Two coats still had a little bit of nail showing through and it was opaque for me at three coats (shown here). Honestly, this looks so pretty that I don’t mind the extra coat to fully cover.
There were some other colors that looked nice from the OPI Holland collection but Im still not sure if Im going to go back and get another. Pedal Faster Suzi is the only one that really caught my as being different than what I already own and different compared to other polishes available at this time.
Do you guys have any of the OPI Holland polishes? Which ones?

Sally Hansen Blue Me Away!

Happy Monday! Hopefully you guys had a good start to the week (:
So there are two Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear polishes that I have been having my eye on for quite some time. For some reason I would always pick them up and look at them but end up putting them back on the shelf. And when I would finally tell my self that next time I went to the store that I would get them, they would be sold out! WTH! Any who, this past weekend me and my bf visited some family out of town and just so happened to stop by a Walgreens and lo and behold, there they were, waiting for me!
Blue Me Away! is a part of the Xtreme Wear permanent collection so it should be easy to find. I guess it was difficult for me to find cause my lovely ginormous city of Houston ALWAYS seems to be sold out or late to put out the cool things on the shelf no matter how many CVS, Walgreens, Wal-Marts, Targets, Ultas, and HEBs are within close proximity to each other! *steps down from soapbox*
LOL. Okay back to the review…
Blue Me Away! is a loud, bright, absolutely gorgeous blue creme polish. It was a dream to apply and pretty much a one coater. I applied two probably just out of habit and good measure. Check it out!

So umm yeah, this polish is awesome! I will get you guys some pics/review of the other Sally Hansen polish I got so stay tuned for a little later in the week (:

Revlon Zealous

Hope everyone had a great weekend! I have a quick post for you guys today… enjoy (:
I stopped by Ulta the other day to visit the OPI Holland collection in person and also came across some new Spring shades Revlon has recently put out. I did end up picking up one of the OPI polishes and three Revlon ones since they had a buy 2 get 1 free deal going on at the time! This is one of the Revlon ones…

Check below the jump for a review and more pics!!

L’Oreal Color Riche Boozy Brunch

Hey guys ITS FRIDAY! I know Im definitely looking forward to the weekend (:
So the other day I finally picked up one of these new L’Oreal Color Riche nail polishes that are like all over every store I go to. When I first saw the display I didn’t really notice any one color that really stood out to me. Then once I carefully scanned all of them, the only ones that caught my eye was a sort of teal color and this one… Boozy Brunch. I do not have any true oranges in my stash so I thought this would be a good time to get an orange and try the formula.



So, Im not the type of girl that lets my polish get chipped. Especially since my job specifically points out that the only way we can wear polish is if its nicely manicured and NOT chipped! The display claims that this formula will wear for 10 days. Just so happens that when I wore this, I got so busy I was not able to change my polish and ended up wearing it for like 3 days straight. It TOTALLY started chipping so I really don’t see how this could wear for 10 days.
With all that said, I do still absolutely love this. The formula was easy to apply and completely opaque at two coats. This last photo I think is the one most true to the actual color. And since I change my polish often enough for it not to chip on me, I don’t mind the fact it doesn’t/wouldn’t last the 10 days. Its definitely a bright creme but its for sure not a neon. I actually prefer that because it makes it a lot more wearable.
Im thinking Im going to need to go back and buy that teal color I been having my eye on, LOL.
Have any of you guys tried one of these L’Oreal polishes? Which one?

Color Club Very Merry Berry

Hi there! Hope everyone is having a good week so far… getting really close to the weekend, yay! This one is going to be a quick one so I’ll get right to it (:
This glitter polish is a mix different sized round bright blue glitter and different sized fuchsia hex glitter. The base looks pretty clear in the bottle but once I applied it over Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear White On, which is a plain stark white creme polish, I noticed that the base has a just a hint of a translucent pink.

 

I don’t know how but I guess my camera was really behaving well because if you look closely, you should be able to see just how sparkly and bright the blue looks!

For this mani, I used one coat of Very Merry Berry over two coats of the white. I definitely think that another coat of Very Merry Berry would have look very nice but I actually liked how the one coat turned out not too sparse or too overwhelming.

So this polish is a part of a glitter collection that came out last year somewhere around the holidays that was exclusive only to Sally Beauty Supply stores. All of the polishes are actually SCENTED! I guess this one is supposed to smell like berries but to me it just smells fruity, even after a coat of Seche Vite. I personally am not really fond of scented polishes but at least its not a super strong smell.

Hope you guys like!

Nicole by OPI Sounds Grape To Me and Green Up Your Act

Hi everyone (: I know its been a little while since my last post but man I have been really busy these past couple of days. This week is also going to be really busy since today was my first day at my new job AND I have some family stuff going on this weekend too!
Today I have for you guys two polishes I picked up that were from the Something About Color Collection.
Sounds Grape To Me is a deep burgundy almost brown with shimmer that shines copper to gold in different light. In the bottle it did look like more of a purple, hence the “Grape” part of the name. But as you guys can tell from the pics (and in person too) it does not look at all purple. It applied nicely and was opaque at two coats.



Green Up Your Act is a dusty grayish green creme. I really like this color! I think it’s a nice green that’s pretty neutral and not too in your face if you’re testing waters with green polishes. This also applied very nicely. Opaque at two coats (:

Hope you guys like and I will definitely have more posts later this week!

China Glaze Love Marilyn

Happy Valentine’s Day!! Hope everyone is having a good one so far. My boyfriend is so sweet! He sent me flowers and chocolates (: Today I have for you what I am wearing for Valentine’s Day. I know there are a whole lot of cute nail art tutorials out there but I must admit… I am not the best at nail art, LOL. So since Love Marilyn is a polish I really really wanted and for some reason the stores around me were always out of it, I thought it would be perfect to wear today (and any day really cause its so awesome).
The distribution of the red and silver glitter is perfect because neither one overpowers the other. Initially, I started applying it with only a clear base coat on bottom and putting Love Marilyn directly on top. That did not come out how I thought it was going to. It seemed like the glitter didn’t want to spread evenly throughout the whole nail which for sure would not have been opaque =/ So I took it off and decided to give it a little “help” by laying down a single coat of a bright red creme (I used Sally Hansen Salon Manicure All Fired Up) and then put two coats of Love Marilyn over that and sealed it with Seche Vite.


So although the application was not exactly what I had hoped for, I am absolutely in love with the end result!! Having had to layer it over the red creme I used is nothing compared to how stunning this looks in person.
On another note. I’m not sure if you guys can even really notice… but my nails are short! And I’m going to have to keep them this way for my job which I actually start next week yay!! I did do some swatching over this past weekend where I did still have my longer nails so the next few posts will be with my longer nails. After that though, these are what they are going to look like. Just FYI.
So what do you guys think about CG Love Marilyn??

China Glaze Ruby Pumps

Hi everyone! Today I have an AMAZING color to share with you (: Ruby Pumps came out a while back and is available in the permanent collection but I just barely got it recently. I seriously don’t know how I was going on day by day so oblivious to this beauty, LOL!!
Honestly, the pics don’t do this polish any justice. I tried taking photos of it in direct sunlight, in the shade, indoors, and no matter what I did the way it looks in person just cannot translate through photos. So these shots are the ones I thought looked best and closest to the actual thing.


Do you like?? LOL.
Ruby Pumps is a gorgeous red glitter in a bright red jelly base. I have always had a weakness for red cremes which is probably why I took so long to pick this up but I am so glad I did. This is perfect if you love a classic red (like I do!) but want a little extra oomph with the sparkle. I used two coats plus a top coat and it applied like butter!

Revlon Sparkling

Hi lovelies! Today I have a new, pretty, girly glitter from Revlon. When I first saw it on the store shelf, it first reminded me of the recent Essie Luxe Effects A Cut Above glitter because of the rose gold looking color. But then I picked it up and saw that it’s a mix of different sized glitter. So when I got home, I did a little research and found that this is supposed to be a dupe for Deborah Lippman Some Enchanted Evening. LOL! In my last post I had a rainbow glitter that I specifically picked up because I thought it looked a lot like DL Happy Birthday. And then, without knowing, I pick up another glitter that is “supposed” to be a dupe for another DL glitter. Obviously I must really (subconsciously and consciously) want a DL glitter polish, hahaha!
Check out the pics!


So the mix of glitter floats in a clear base. It consists of medium and small hex glitter and some small round glitter. Surprisingly there’s also some small holo glitter that is spread out and sparkles nicely when the light catches it. I used one coat of Sparkling over OPI I Brake for Manicures (alone in the pic below).
I didn’t try Sparkling alone but I can tell from when I put it on that it wouldn’t be opaque. Overall, I do think it’s pretty but I don’t absolutely love it. I think I would have liked it a lot more if the bigger hex glitters wouldn’t apply so sparse.
But since I do love the beautiful eggplant creme that’s almost a one coater that I layered Sparkling over, I decided to show you a pic of it alone (: This is two coats of OPI I Brake for Manicures.

Thanks for reading!

Claire’s Glitter Polishes

Hope everyone had a great FRIDAY! I finished the first book of the Hunger Games Trilogy today (woo hoo!!) and I just started on the second one so I’m super excited for that (:
I have some polishes I recently picked up to show you. Two of the polishes are from Claire’s which are the first Claire’s polishes I’ve ever tried. The other is a really pretty dark blue from NYC that was marked down from $1.72 to ONLY $0.86!! Hahaha, how could I pass that up? Especially since I didn’t already have a color like this in my stash.

More pics and reviews below the jump!

China Glaze Blonde Bombshell

Hi there! Hope everyone is having a great day (: I just want to take a quick moment to thank you guys for checking out my blog. I have a gotten a great response from those who have and I am super excited and thankful for that. Hopefully more and more polish lovers will soon be tuning in!
Today I have a polish from China Glaze that is a part of the Eye Candy Collection, which actually are all glitters, that came out late last year. I picked two of these babies up this weekend, Blond Bombshell and Love Marilyn (actually Love Marilyn was on my wishlist so I can scratch that one off, yay!). But more on that one in a future post, I’m kinda thinking of sporting that one for V-day.
So, Blonde Bombshell has several different types of gold glitter floating around in a clear base. There is mostly a fine glitter that pretty much serves as a backdrop for the rest of them which are a small-medium glitter and some small bar glitter. I feel like the bar glitter is more easily visible in the bottle and not so much on the nail, unless you like really really look at it close.

As far as application, it does go on slightly on the thin side but it definitely is buildable. I did use two coats but on my pinky you can kinda see some nail showing through. I used a bit of a heavier hand on the rest and they did turn out opaque. I did feel like it NEEDED a top coat. Before the top coat, it sort of looked like all one size of glitter and the top coat really made it shine and “define” the different glitters.
Overall, I do think it’s a really pretty gold. If you don’t have a gold glitter, this is nice because it’s so easy to work with and can be opaque on its own or layered over something else!
How would you guys wear it? Alone? Over what color?

China Glaze Electropop 2012

Hello everyone!! So this is my very blog post ever and I am super excited and nervous at the same time!! To quickly introduce myself, as mentioned in my little about me section over there >>>, I’m Monica. I am a recent college graduate and I am so looking forward to finally having the time to start this blog. Ever since I can remember I have had an obsession with nail polish. Recently, in the past year and a half or so, I stumbled upon nail polish blogs and was so glad to learn that there are other people out there that really love nail polish like I do!! Yay! I am totally still learning this blogging shindig but I hope that if you stumble upon my blog, that you enjoy what I have to offer and stick around.
Well, on to the fun stuff. Being that this is my first post, I was really torn as to what my first post should be. I was having a hard time deciding on something passed but classic or something fun and new. Although I am aware that there a so many other swatches of these polishes out there, I decided to go with the China Glaze Electropop polishes that I picked up. These definitely are fun, new, and more importantly I just really loved the colors and quality of the colors I picked up!!

Click “more” for my review and bigger pics!