NOTD: Nicole by OPI All is Glam, All is Bright

Nicole by OPI has been on a roll lately as far as I am concerned. Their Target exclusive fall collection was stunning for the most part and their new Target Exclusive Kardashian holiday collection (I know I cringe at the idea of giving that family a cent of my money but cannot.resist.gravitational.pull.of. awesome.polish!!!) has a few gems too. When   I saw this beauty in the store, I absolutely had to have it. People meet All is Glam, All is Bright:

outdoors afternoon sun

outdoors shade

Itty bitty adorable little nano glitters make this polish up--I see red and silver and baby blue. Absolutely stunning--like a christmas ball in a bottle. When on the nail, the polish almost gives off a sort of lavender hue but all the individual glitter colors are still discernable and the red just pops out so beautifully. This polish is definitely unique and gorgeous and the absolute must-have of the Holiday collection if you ask me. 

The formula takes a little coaxing. I applied 3 thin coats to reach opacity and there was a bit of balding and dragging involved. I applied a coat of Gelous before finishing with Seche Vite because the polish had a slight grittyness to it by itself. Also, alone, the polish dries fairly matte so if you want smooth shinyness you're gonna have to work a little for it but in the end it is sooooo worth it.

Have you picked up any of Nicole by OPI's recent offerings? They really have been impressing me lately!! It's hard to find unique polishes to add to your collection when your stash is 1000+ bottles strong, but Nicole keeps hooking me up!

some "Hooray I survived Sandy" swatch spam

WOOOHOOOO! Unless you live under a rock, I'm sure you heard about Superstorm Sandy and how shizz for us east coasters was all like:

well, I am happy to say my family and I made it through the storm. We lost power for a while and saw some trees out back come down (NONE of which came down ON us, thankmyeverlovingod), but we're good now. So, in celebration of our new lease on life, and also because I desperately need to clean out my "to post" folder, howzabout a ton of pics of lots of awesome recently released polishes? You down? Ok sweet. Let 'er rip!

First up, lets all admire the gorgeousness that is Sally Hansen Diamond Strength Twist of Lime, from the Fall 2012 Limited Edition Collection that started popping up about a month ago. This is 2 coats of Twist of Lime layered over 2 coats of Zoya Midori. On its own, this polish is really sheer so I definitely  recommend layering it and BELIEVE me, it is worth the layering. Freakin beau-dee-ful!! Gorgeous glass fleck yellow green that flashes either kelly green and gold depending on your angle of view. 

Next, we have another shade from the limited edition Diamond Strength collection. This one is called Blue Frosting and it is another multichromatic stunner. This one shifts from sky blue to lavender to a deeper purple and blue. I have2 coats of Blue Frosting layered over Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Lacey Lilac. Like Twist of Lime, Blue Frosting is painfully sheer on its own and definitely needs underwear to bring out its true awesomeness.

Moving on we have YET ANOTHER limited edition Diamond Strength shade (yea, I admit, I bought the whole damn collection when I saw it). This one is Moonlit Dance--gorgeous gold-flashing orange glass fleck amazingness. This is 2 coats layered over Sinful Colors Courtney Orange.

Here's the 4th Diamond Strength shade I have to show you today (I haven't gotten a chance to try the others yet). This one is called All Aglow. This one lacks the color shift that the others have but it is still a beautiful glass fleck finish polish. This one requires no layering--this is 2 coats of All Aglow on its own. Oh Sally Hansen, why you do spoil us so?!

(nail decals courtesy of Kiss)

Here we have Nicole by OPI If the Blue Fits, which is from ANOTHER amazing fall collection--this one Target Exclusive. Beautiful sapphire blue and purple flecks in a navy blue base. I am seriously loving the ubiquitousness (not sure if that's a word or not--meh...) of this polish finish this season as it is one of my absolute favorites. I love the depth & multi-dimensional shimmer  it lends. This is 2 coats of If the Blue Fits on its own--seriously glossy even without topcoat!

 Lastly, we have Python from New York Color. This polish is from their limited edition fall 2012 Fashion Predator collection. This is the only polish in this post I am "meh" about. It's pretty enough--nice olive green glass fleck polish but I've seen it done better. Also, the formula on this one was thin and runny. I'm wearing 4 coats in the pic. C'mon, NYC, I know you are capable of better!

Anyway, hope you all enjoyed my spam. And hoping all east coast peeps are safe and haven't experienced too much Sandy-induced drama!!

I'm back--and I got spam!!

hey, remember me? yep I'm back to blow the dust off this blog and see if I remember how to post. It's funny, I somehow thought I would have more time to post once my kids went back to school. Man WHAT was I smoking?? Between shuttling them to & from places, homework, tutoring, soccer & the fact that their little brother doesn't know what to do with himself when his beloved big brothers are gone (and is therefore very cranky and VERY prone to getting into anything and everything the minute I turn my head), I have my hands more full than ever! BUT every now and then I do get a chance to paint the nails on those hands and when I do, I make sure to snap some pics, so here's some NOTD (nails of the day) spam for yas:

The above little lovely is Legal Assasin by Dandy Nails. It's part of her newly debuted Halloween collection and I picked it up when she did an impromptu pre-sale. It is basically the DREAM halloween glitter I've fantasized about making if I had ballz enough to make my own polish--black, purple and green micro glitters hanging out with bigger orange hexes. I wore it layered over OPI French Quarter for your Thoughts because I wanted the glitter to take center stage. I only needed 1 coat of LA to cover those gray undies up and only needed 1 coat of Seche Vite to make it all smooth. I loves me some dense yet flat glitters!

And next we have R.I.P. by Orly--3 coats topped with Seche Vite. Small gold and large orange hex glitters in a sheer black base (I showed its sibling polish in my previous post). Once again, Halloween in a bottle and I lurve it. I gotta mention the formula was a bit of a pain, though. Orly you need better suspension bases for your glitters!! I had to pick this bottle up and shake it several times during my mani because all the glitters just wanted to sleep at the bottom of the bottle. This tends to be a problem with lots of Orly glitters--Androgenie, and most of the Flash Glams, I'm looking at YOU! 

Here we have a fail art attempt I wore to celebrate the start of Football season. I'm not much of a sports person in general but I'm ALL about the football. I'm a Philadelphia Eagles fan (although I'm reluctant to admit it at the moment--damn, guys did you have to let the Cardinals run ALL over you like that?!) and the closest polish I have to Eagles green is Zoya Suvi. I did a silver glitter gradient with a silver glitter nail art striper polish & a bit of sponge and the silly little pigskin accent nail is OPI Suzi Loves Cowboys with a white Kiss nail art striper for the laces. 

And I saved the best for last. Behold the majesty of Nicole by OPI Just Busta Mauve:

(PLEASE enlarge these pics and scope all those gorgeous bitty flakes)

full sun

full sun

partial shade

full shade...be still my little heart!!

Just Busta Mauve is part of the Fall 2012 Target exclusive collection (yes that means you can only get it at Target--but it's also available on their website. This beauty is made up of tiny  blue, purple, copper, red, and gold metallic flecks and the amazing thing about this polish is that all the individual shades are actually discernable--it's like gorgeous cosmic multi colored tv static or something!! LOVING it! Nice job, Nicole. Now if you just ditch those ugly, awkward saggy boob-looking bottles, you'll be golden! (oh yea, and this is 2  perfect, easy coats of JBM over Nail Life ridge filler base and, as always, Seche Vite is on top!)

So I hope I made up for my absence with this spam...now I gotta run and get my kids ready for school (yep I woke up extra early just to write this post cuz I love you guys that much ;)...I'll be back soon, I promise! 

NOTD--Count on Marley's Harmony--a funky french mani

Don't you just love when nail bloggers combine polish names to make dorky post titles? Today's dorky title is brought to you courtesy of Nicole By OPI Count on Me, China Glaze Harmony and Zoya Marley, which (in case you somehow couldn't extrapolate this from the title) I used together in a funky french manicure.

Count on Me is a super sheer and super gorgeous iridescent lilac polish that flashes pink, purple, blue and even teal in some angles. It came out a while back as a Walmart exclusive. My camera is completely disrespecting this beautiful polish in these pics as it shows absolutely NONE of the multi-chromatic flash. I layered 2 coats of Count on Me on top of Zoya Marley, a greyish lilac cream polish with a super secret shimmer (from the Spring 2011 Intimate collection). Then I let that dry, taped off my tips with Orly french tip guides, and painted the tips with China Glaze Harmony, a metallic purple from the Romantique collection (which I basically got exclusively for its stamping awesomeness). After that, I peeled off the tip guides and put on 2 more coats of Count on Me, followed by a coat of Seche Vite. Then my clutzy ass smudged my index finger before it dried, hence the random caviar accent finger (oh, wait, I forgot only Ciate can call that 'caviar'...I suppose I could go back and change the word...meh), which I created by painting the nail with Gelous and then dipping it in some light purple microbeads I got at Michael's. 

So have you ever rocked a funky french? Do you need tip-guides or are you able to free-hand the tips (in which case I am jealous as I have NO free hand nail art skills whatsoever)...

Nicole by OPI 'A Lit-teal bit of Love' & 'A Million Sparkles'--swatches and review

The last time I was at CVS, I blew all my extra-bucks on 2 of the new Nicole by OPI shades (note--these are NOT part of the CVS exclusive 2012 Kardashian Kolors collection): 

Left: A Lit-teal bit of Love. Right: A Million Sparkles

Let's take a look-see (all swatches are taken outside in natural light because I'm a chronic procrastinator and haven't built a lightbox yet):

(click to enlarge)

flash

Left: A Lit-teal bit of Love (2 coats, no top coat). Middle:  A Million Sparkles (2 coats, no top coat). Right: 2 Coats of A Million Sparkles over 2 coats of A Lit-teal Bit of Love (no top coat).

no flash

Da scoop: A Lit-teal bit of Love is a very pretty blue foil made up of itty bitty nano blue and silver shimmer particles. Despite the name, this doesn't really read as a 'teal' to me (in my mind, a teal color would have more green in it), but its questionable name aside, it's a gorgeous polish that covers smoothly and effortlessly in 2 coats. There's nothing super unique about it. In fact I'll tell you about a dead-on dupe that I already had in my collection in a sec...

A Million Sparkles is another one of those crazy glitters that I can never stay away from. It's got large hex gold, small hex blue and pink and blue bar glitter (the blue bar glitter is a bit thinner than the pink bar glitter). Now I'm a massive sucker for bar glitter, which is why I snatched this up and I'm so glad I did. I don't have any glitter that comes even remotely close to this in my collection. This glitter looks awesome over A Lit-teal bit of Love but I'm sure you could build it up to opacity by itself as it's pretty dense. Despite its denseness, it applied easily with none of the typical annoying clumping that these kinds of polishes sometimes suffer from (oh the glitter clump--the bane of my polish-hoarding existence)...

Moving on to the dupe search for A Lit-teal bit of Love:

 The suspects in their line up

left to right: Orly Stone Cold (from the Mineral FX collection, Color Club Cold Metal (from the Color Club Foiled collection), Orly Sweet Peacock (from the Birds of a Feather collection) and A Lit-teal bit of Love itself

 (no flash)

left : A Lit-teal bit of Love, middle: Stone Cold, right: Cold Metal

(flash)

I don't really know why I even bothered including Orly Stone Cold in this comparison. It's too blue and its finish is truly unique--some kind of crazy mix of glass fleck and flake and it is one of my absolute favorites of all time. Maybe I just wanted an excuse to play with it again cuz it's just so frickin gorgeous. Cold Metal has a similar finish but is still a little more blue than A Lit-teal bit of Love is.  Ok, these guys are off the hook. Moving on to Orly Sweet Peacock...

 flash

left: A Lit-teal bit of Love. Right: Sweet Peacock

 no flash

OK, THAT'S more like it. These 2 look like near dead-on dupes to my eye. Maybe if you stare at it til your head hurts, Sweet Peacock might appear to be a ghost of a whisper more teal, but really you do NOT need to own both of these polishes. If you had to choose between the 2, I'd say go with Sweet Peacock simply because it comes in a bigger, less ugly bottle (I truly do hate that Nicole by OPI bottle--WHAT were they thinking when they came up with that saggy boob-lookin mess?). Both polishes were pretty much the same formula-wise. Covered easily and gorgeously in 2 coats and both dried super fast as foils tend to do. Also, you can get the Orly for about a dollar cheaper (or more) depending on where you get it. I usually buy my Orly polishes from online nail supply sites like Transdesign where they're only $4.25-5.32 a pop. Nicole By OPI polishes, on the other hand, are usually about 8 bucks and I have yet to find them on any online discount shop.

So that's the straight dope on A Lit-teal Bit of Love & A Million Sparkles. And now I gotta go do boring housewife stuff. Rap to y'all later!

Nicole by OPI at CVS? Since when?

(meant to post this earlier...anyfrickinway)
I've never seen Nicole by OPI at a CVS before...those dang Kardashians are just frickin inescapable, huh? I DO see room on this new display for other                        non-Kardouche-ian (as i call them) shades but so far all we got is Kim & ko (dear God now I'M replacing Cs with Ks, too)....
Incidentally, CVS's price for these is 7.99 a pop. Walmart's got 'em cheaper (7.49 there)...
***edit*** ok i cant un-sideways the frickin pic from my stupid blogger-to-go app. It's ok. We all know the Ks are quite accustomed to being horizontal (at least Kim is)