Cosmo (Zoya)

So how was your Valentine's Day weekend? I'm still in recovery.

I happily spent mine with some of my girlfriends and we partied into the night celebrating singledom and friendships strengthened by bad movies (#50shades), burlesque, cute outfits, loud music, and hilarious uber rides.

On my nails for my fab weekend?

Cosmo from Zoya's "Magical" Pixie Dust line which was their upping the amp on their previous Pixie Dust collections. The texture is not my favorite, the original Pixie Dust texture is in my opinion the best glitter texture out there and anything messing with that is superfluous. Application is literally rough, and getting even coverage and an even line is awkward.

 
I will say this, however: I got this from the New Year New Hue sale specifically for occasions like Valentine's Day weekends where I'd need a bit of extra sparkle glam on the tips. Which it does deliver! Packed with silver glitter of all sizes and a sprinkling of holo hex glitters, it's a stunner on the nail.

Indie Love: The Woman Who Walked The Earth (A Study In Polish)

This is the beautiful The Woman Who Walked The Earth (A Study In Polish) from their Doctor Who inspired collection. I chose this out of the others because, well, Martha Jones is everything! She saved the world, and was strong enough to walk away from The Doctor before she was irreparably damaged. Add to that, she came back and fought the good fight on her own terms.

Enough about my Martha Jones stan situation, on to the polish she inspired. The Woman Who Walked The Earth is comprised of a purple base mixed in with holo round and hex glitter. It's a jelly so it's sheer, but three coats did the trick for the most part.The glitter applied with relative evenness and I didn't have any major issues with this loveliness.

A Study In Polish is available on Etsy.

Valentine's Day Flirt with Hearts Collection: Pink Smart (SinfulColors) & Love Sprinkles (SinfulColors)

SinfulColors is revving up for the new year, planning ahead for February with the Valentine's Day Flirt with Hearts Collection.

This is Pink Smart a lovely standard bubblegum pink creme that was easy to apply and quick drying in two coats. Meant to be layered over it is Love Sprinkles. It's made up of white and pastel pink hex glitter of multiple sizes and white heart glitter. Very pretty, but almost too girly. If I did wear the glitter I'd use it on perhaps just an accent nail. Fair warning, you will have to fish for the heart glitters.

Pinky Glitter (Sinful Colors) & Hottie (Sinful Colors)

These pretty darlings are Pinky Glitter (Sinful Colors) and Hottie (Sinful Colors).  

Pinky Glitter is a lovely baby pink glitter packed with multi-size small glitter flakies. It is a very sheer jelly, but three to four coats is worth it for the final look. I'm loving it for my extra femme days when I want my tips to feel all dainty and the like.

Hottie is a blue jelly packed with the same kind of glitter in Pinky Glitter. It has the same consistency and needs the same amount of coats. These would also look good over other polishes, especially Hottie over dark polishes. Throw a top coat over these two for maximum glitz; they don't dry matte but not as shiny as it could be.

Zoya Holo Jellies of Awesome - Dream, Aurora, Storm, Payton

Dream (Zoya) is a brilliant cobalt blue jelly filled with holo glitter. It applies smoothly and covers at two to three coats. It's absolutely phenomenal, I have no complaints about it!

I love this polish as much as I love its cousins. I realized that I had Storm and Aurora but for some unearthly reason never swatched them! I did have Payton already swatched, here it is.

Payton

Aurora and Storm have the same composition as their gorgeous cousins. Jelly bases of their primary color and lots of holo glitter packed in. I think the only one of this kind from Zoya that I don't have is Blaze and that's just because I didn't like the red so much at first sight. To be honest with myself though, there's a high chance I acquire it before the winter comes (if Zoya doesn't give us more goodies... preferably in greens!). The best part of these polishes is that they aren't rough or textured and go on quite smoothly. Love em!

Aurora

Storm

Spotted A Bit Of Yellow Out There - Yellow Spotted (Sinful Colors) & Yellow Out There (Sinful Colors)

I'm enjoying yellow nail polishes recently. They get a bad rep because of their formulas but I can sometimes get past it because of how pretty yellow shades look with my skin, especially when worn in the summer. Sinful Colors has been on a nail polish release marathon for spring and summer, here's two more I picked up recently.

Yellow Spotted (Sinful Colors) is a bright yellow with lots of shimmer, enough that it changes the consistency from a creme to something... else. The formula makes it a cousin to Cinderella (Sinful Colors). Polishes with this kind of formula usually have troublesome application, which this did. It was very sheer, and I barely got some opacity at three coats. Allow for the polish to dry between coats to allow for any success in application. Aim for three even coats.

Over it, I layered Yellow Out There (Sinful Colors), a yellow jelly base with with a sparse spread of small round and bar glitter. I swiped two coats over Yellow Spotted to get the look I have in this pic. It was a bit too sheer to work alone, but it looks absolutely great over other yellows. I also like that the bar glitter is spread out and not at all overpowering. Lovely :)

Vega (Zoya) from Magical PixieDust collection

Vega is a gorgeous light blue texture polish packed with multi-size holo glitter from Zoya's Magical PixieDust collection and it is very very pretty! However, application sucks quite a bit though- and this is where I have to be cautious with texture polish that does far too much. The payoff is amazing, it looks great on the nails, but really too much of a bother for me to keep long term. Let's not even get started on taking it off!

Before these babies, I'd say that Zoya had the best texture polishes. After these I'm going to have to dock them half a point. Big glitter and texture polishes doesn't really work well. I will say I would have absolutely loved to see this level of sparkle without the very large granules of glitter.

Alma (Zoya) - Tickled & Bubbly Collection - Summer 2014

This one is Alma (Zoya) from their summer Tickled & Bubbly collection from earlier this summer.

It's a sheer gold jelly packed with holo glitter of and golden shimmer. This is three coats. It was easy to apply but it is also incredibly sheer. I'm not quite sold on the idea despite how lovely it looks. Perhaps I'll try layering over other yellow toned or gold polish.

 

21. Belugaria (Essie) from Essie's Encrusted Treasures Winter 2013 - A Polish Was Hated But Is Now Loved

Now this one's an odd blast from the past!

How do I even begin to describe this?

Named after Beluga caviar (and I shall happily remain ignorant in my sampling of this particular dish), Belugaria (Essie) is very rough textured polish composed of black granular glitter and large holo hex glitter in a black base. Pictured above is two coats, I could have used three. I am completely on the fence about this polish. It's so ugly it's gone right around to intriguing and I still can't bring myself to rid myself of it (and keep in mind this is from Essie's Encrusted Treasures collection for winter hols in 2013!).

What do you think?
What are some of your favorite so ugly it's cool polishes?

---

Polish that:

was hated but is now loved


reminds me of a special day
is sexy
is a pastel
is hard to apply
i can't pull off
would be worn to a wedding
is blue
is new
is from a favorite brand

has a name that describes me
is a glitter

is easy to apply

is vampy

was coveted
is from my favorite collection

has never been worn

is boring

is inexpensive

makes me happy

is my favorite
is my least favorite 
is "so me"
is worn often
was gifted to me
is from a least favorite brand

was loved but is now hated
is overrated

hasn't been worn in some time
matches my favorite outfit

Indie Mondie: Seaweed Salad (Wing Dust)

I am placing a ban on myself. No more green polish! I am not allowed to buy new green polish (unfortunately the majority of what I haven't swatched yet is polish in shades of greens *fml*).

Anyway, I went indie polish shopping last week and this was one of the ones I got! I haven't tried this brand yet, it's Wing Dust, and this is Seaweed Salad. It is a muted green jelly packed in with small silver glitter and slightly larger reflective green hex glitters. Seaweed Salad applied okay and took three coats to build up opacity. It's so pretty- I'm sure if I wasn't so off greens, I'd be more excited about it!

Peppered Amazon (Sinful Colors) & Splash (Sally Hansen)

Peppered Amazon (Sinful Colors) is an absolutely stunning green with silvery flecks all throughout. This polish is BRILLIANT. Applies like butter and achieves opacity at two coats. I have zero complaints and I absolutely encourage you to get this as soon as you can!

Okay fine, just one complaint.
It will STAIN.

Here it is with Splash (Sally Hansen). Splash is a mixture of royal blue, light blue, and white hex glitters in a clear base. It doesn't have a very good distribution of glitter, but the combo is pretty enough.

Too Dimensional? (L'Oreal) - from the Gold Dust collection

Second in stunner status only to The Statement Piece in L'Oreal's Gold Dust collection , this is Too Dimensional?.

It's a beautiful purple base packed in with purple and green-tinted gold glitter. The sparse addition of the larger glitter sequins gives it even more dimension and kicks what was already a gorgeous polish up a notch. Application was good and at two coats I had good coverage, albeit with some visible nail line that was noticeable only at a close-up. A third coat might cover the VNL up, but trust me it is all but unnoticeable unless you're looking for it in extra bright lighting.

If The Statement Piece's neutral champagne gold was not your flavor, try this grapey loveliness.

L'Oreal Paris Colour Riche Gold Dust: The Statement Piece & Hidden Gems

This lovely champagne looker here is The Statement Piece from L'Oreal's new Gold Dust textured polish collection. It applies with no issues at all and is perfect at two coats. I made a sound when I first got it on my nail because it's so pretty! I'm kind of sad that the holiday season is over because this would have been absolutely perfect but you best believe I'll be rocking it at the first opportunity in-season or not! If you get one bottle from this collection, grab this one.

Hidden Gems is a deceptive one.  In the bottle, there's a "hidden gem" of a purple sheen in all the black, teal, and silver glitter that sold me on buying the bottle but unfortunately, it's nowhere to be found on the nail. The teal is kind of cool, mixed in with the black glitter and the silver gives it extra pop, so it does redeem this polish but after The Statement Piece my standards were set pretty high. Application was not that great at three coats and it dried pretty quick though I find that to be so with most textures.

Vanilla Bean (Forever 21)

I don't always love it when mainstream brands try to imitate indie polish but in this case I have to give it to Forever 21, especially when I got it for only $0.99! Vanilla Bean is a slightly blue toned white base mixed in with lots of black matte glitter. It applied easily in three coats, but if I'd let the first coat dry I would probably have gotten in the clear at two.

I have to say that it's a bit distracting, my nails keep inciting ice cream cravings. What are your favorite indie to mainstream dupes?

Downtown LA (American Apparel) and Bold Gold (Sally Hansen) Swatches & Review

This is a mani I'm definitely going to recreate pretty soon!

Downtown LA is a standard red crelly that can be found in most brands' collections at least once. Still, it's pretty lovely and a year round standard. Application was okay, but a bit sheer and at two coats I could spot VNL in bright light but it wasn't so noticeable as to be distracting.

one coat; no topcoat

This has been a year of mainstream brands biting indie style. Bold Gold is a recently released glitter from Sally Hansen. It's got multi-size black and gold glitter (and thankfully the only way to do bar glitter, sparsely!) in a clear base. It's not easy to get a great mix of everything, the base is very thick so by the time you tap or swipe the excess of the brush, you lose quite a bit of glitter. Still, black and gold to switch up the standard black and white mix; I love it for the season.

24/7 (Sinful Colors) Swatch & Review

It was 80 degrees out here yesterday.

In December.

If the weather gives me summer temps, then I feel I have to give as good as I got. With respect to the particular madness that is the weather out here lately, which usually means we're in for an ice storm or something like that, I broke out a neon.

24/7 (Sinful Colors) is a blue-toned neon pink polish. It dries matte like most neons and application is to the standard of matte polishes. This means a little care is required but I managed it with two coats for these swatches. I've seen it marked as a dupe for Shocking Pink (China Glaze), but then again it's not exactly difficult to find neon pink dupes.

One the best ways to wear my favorite black & white glitter polish, Sticks n Stones (Ninja Polish) is to layer it over a neon. I'm never over how fun this glitter is. No nail ever looks like the other and I feel like I discover a new shape or size of glitter (even though by now I had to have seen all the shape and size combos).

What are your favorite layering combos?

Mermaid's Tale (Sally Hansen)

Mermaid's Tale (Sally Hansen) is a glitter made up of various types of blue and teal large hex glitter with some smaller round glitter in them as well suspended in a dark teal base. I'm not a huge fan of this polish by itself. It's extremely sheer even with the darker base and the glitters can be a bit cumbersome. One coat over a black or dark blue would probably be preferable, but alone it takes four coats and there's still some patchiness all over. One good thing about this polish is that the glitter doesn't require direct sunlight to sparkle through and it's pretty vibrant even in the shade.

Holiday Rebel (SinfulColors) from the Glitz & Glittered collection

Businesses in my area already have their holiday decorations out and on grand display. So I guess it's not too soon to figure out what to wear to all the winter holiday parties. This is Holiday Rebel from SinfulColors holiday Glitz & Glittered collection. It's a fun mix of multi-size red & green hex glitter with a surprise sprinkle of large holo glitter.

over Rags to Riches (Rimmel London); that flare is the holo catching the red from the other glitters

over Gold Medal (SinfulColors)

Grape Shifter (Sally Hansen)

Spotted Grape Shifter (Sally Hansen) in the new Sally Hansen displays. It's made of fine blue-toned silver glitter, small round purple glitter, and large holo hex glitter. It can probably be built up with enough coats but I think it makes an excellent layering polish for blue and purple toned shades.

one coat over Enchanted (SinfulColors)

Bats My Eyes (China Glaze) from the Monster's Ball Halloween Collection

Now this is a cool one. Bats My Eyes is from China Glaze's Halloween collection. I completely passed on this collection as largely uninteresting but the more I saw swatches of this particular one, the more I thought I should get it. I'm really glad I did. It is a confuddling black jelly with gold glitter; the glitter is pretty great too, made up of multi-size gold glitter and gold to orange reflective bar glitter. The black jelly base is also not so sheer that I can't build it up and it was all good in three coats. The sparkle is great, practically lightning up in the sun while still being visible in the shade and indoors. Love it!