RBL scrangie & plie

i had to take advantage of the huge sale Rescue Beauty Lounge had a while ago, seeing as how i would probably never spend $18 on a single (small) bottle of nail polish and i really wanted some of their colors. plus i was dying to know if their formula was really as boss as everyone says it is. so...it being around christmas time, i asked my lovely amazing older sister clarrisa if she would get me some as a present. which she did! she got me scrangie, recycle, and starfish patrick. and she picked out plie for herself. here are the first round of pics.

scrangie, created by the beautiful scrangie, is everything i thought it would be. shimmery, slightly red based, blue, purple duochromey amaze-a-balls goodness. lovely! this is 2 coats.

lamp light

sunlight

w/ essie's matte about you

plie, borrowed to swatch, is a creme, which i hear is Ji Baek's specialty. and wow, seriously, idk if the polishes are worth $18....but maybe close to it. they're pretty darn good. this beautiful nude pinky neutral was a dream to apply. i didn't especially love the color on me, however after wearing it a day, it seemed to wash me out a bit. but i'm sure my sister will love it! this is 2 coats.

lamp light

more to come, have a great sunday everyone!

china glaze up & away pt. 1

here are the first few China Glaze Up & Away collection polishes that i have worn so far. there hasn't been enough sun (or effort on my part heehee) to do a swatching session with all of them, so i've been just wearing them as full mani's and doing flash pics. so sadly there is only one sun pic below. oh well! i think the colors are pretty accurate nonetheless.

something sweet is a lovely opaque pastel pink. this is 3 coats. the formula on this was a bit thick, but one of the easier ones to manage from the collex. 2 coats still looked a bit streaky, but 3 covered them nicely. i love the bit of lavender undertone the color has, which makes it look a bit mod.

high hopes was definitely one that i loooooved, it being a CORAL and all (i heart corals) and this one did not disappoint. super pigmented, as with all the other polishes in this collex, it looks almost neon in some lights. this is 3 coats, only because it leaned towards one of the thicker ones. i got so many compliments on this polish i could not believe it.

weak sun

lemon fizz was the hardest polish to work with out of these few. it was very thick and streaky, but so are MOST yellows, so i'll let it slide. a few drops of thinner next time and i'm sure it will be cake. mmm...yellow cake. haha, anyway, i really loved how this turned out tho, very nice color. 4 coats.

i wanted to do a comparison shot between lemon sorbet by nubar and lemon fizz by ChG.

lemon sorbet is on the left, lemon fizz on the right. as you can see, sorbet is the slightest bit  more pale and dare i say..easier to work with. fizz is great for those who need a warmer tint to their yellows tho.

grape pop is my favorite out of the bunch so far. it cannot do wrong in my opinion! two coats and you're outta there! and i swear, i probably could've done just one. the second coat just MELTED into the first, like my nails were painting themselves. and hardly any cleanup with this one. perrrrfection. i think the color is pretty close to how it looks in the pics, but maybe a tad less blue.

 *the above polishes, with the exception of grape pop, were sent to me for consideration from the PR company. all opinions stated above are my honest opinion.*

big polish haul

i had some time before class tonight so me and my sister (who i haven't seen in almost two weeks and that i usually see daily) got to hang out and shop a little. yeah...

i binged.

big time.

above are the OPI Hong Kong polishes: suzi says feng shui, red my fortune cookie, dim sum plum (minis), hot & spicy, and jade is the new black

these are random ones i picked out at the mall: hot topic (no name) kind of easter looking colors minty teal and bright lavender, icing mint 2 be and weekend rendezvous, and OPI Louvre me, Louvre me not.

and that's not all the polish i've gotten in the last week...

i bought some of china glaze's amazing up & away collection from transdesign, then china glaze sent me three polishes for review purposes. (i'm missing grape pop in this picture, but i purchased that one too): lemon fizz, something sweet, peachy keen, re-fresh mint, heli-yum, flyin' high, four leaf clover, and high hopes

orly provided me with some polishes from their bloom collection: ginger lily, wild wisteria, and thorned rose

orly also sent these polishes from their new sweet collection: gumdrop, pixy stix, and lollipop - with their adorable little matching flavored/scented mini lip gloss key chains

AAAANNNDDD i picked up OPI smitten with mittens on sale at smith's market, of all places, my sister got me the sephora by opi ocean love potion, china glaze golden spurs was from my transdesign order, the orly prisma gloss gold (which i forgot to shake up before i took the picture) and orly enchanted forest double pack was on clearance at sally beauty so natch i snagged it up.

*PHEW* i have a lot of swatching ahead of me. a. lot. not that i'm complaining ;)

gift from maria

here is a quick post on a present i got from my dear maria from "polishing the nails!" blog (aka rijah). what a sweetie huh! it was our own little christmas exchange. she gave me the awesome essie "cuddle with color" collex minis, three depend polishes(!), and a barry m polish i was majorly lemming, racing green :D she also wrote the nicest note and sent me a sweet little reflective ghost! i named him "Bernard (BER-ner-d) Mason Swallow" and he is hanging next to my desk at work!

have a great day my sunshines!

my mannequin hands

ok, i don't really follow the "trends" all that much, but when the mannequin hands thing started showing up i was like, ok that's a train i can jump on pretty easily. unfortunately i didn't have the perfect nude in my arsenal at the time, so i went and picked out a new polish (twisted my arm, haha) and chose one of the sally hansen complete manicure line. now, i hated the polish process with this guy, because it has the crappy long neck, the yucky long handle, and the flat/skinny squarish round brush. not my fav. but ok, the polish on me looked pretty darn close to "mannequin" as i think i'll ever get. the problem here? i can't remember the freaking name of the polish!! sorrrrry kids! mostly cuz i returned it the next day. i love our rite aid, they have a money back guarantee on cosmetics so if you use it and hate it, back it goes! i'm almost positive it was either cafe au lait or nude now. oh well, here are the pics!

these are taken with that old crappy camera that i returned (i'm the queen of returns!) so excuse the poor quality. also, wtf's up with my cuticles?? boo! haha.

meeting gildedangel

i had a great saturday this weekend! so i am from utah, utah valley to be more specific, and i found out a while ago that me and gildedangel from Naive Nails blog and i live pretty close to each other! she lives a hop, skip, and a jump up north from me in the salt lake city area. how awesome is that?? so we of course had to plan a get together to meet and swap and go polish shopping.

it is way cool to finally get to talk to someone in person that you feel like you already kind of know thru blogging and twitter etc. although i did bring my (fellow polish fiend) friend mickelle with me just in case...haha :) we both had the best time with samantha (aka gildedangel)! we met up at Ulta, bought WAAAAY too much polish, then headed over to have lunch at Chipotle, mmmmm good, and then trekked to the closest mall to stake out their Trade Secret, Beauty Express, Icing, Claire's, and a bunch of other places. it was amazing and i love having a polish/blogger friend so close!

this is me and samantha in icing

mickelle buying waaaay too many earrings (she's so funny!)

this is samantha with the coolest most ridiculous "mink" muff thing on a chain we saw. i wanted it so bad, cuz it was so crazy haha!

this is me in forever 21 with a selection of their ugly hats and glasses, woo hawt!

samantha and i before we parted ways for the afternoon

samantha, me, and mickelle cheesing it up for the camera!

my haul from Ulta: ChG custom kicks, ChG sky high-top, ChG paper chasing, OPI in my back pocket, and essie st. lucia lilac

my swaps from samantha: sinful colors burgandy apple, OPI significant other color, OPI DS reflection, OPI bogota blackberry, and OPI fuchsia fling

you can read her post and see her haul HERE :)

china glaze millennium

china glaze put out a khrome collection a few months ago and millennium is the one i picked out of the bunch. it's a true chrome-like silver polish with a gorgeous metallic shine. these polishes dry almost immediately so they can be a bit tricky to apply but they are opaque in one coat so you could forgive them that :) this is two, because i had some brush strokes to cover.

we're finally getting some snow here in utah, it's been a surprisingly mild winter compared to last year! bad air pollution this time tho, due to being located in a valley--so i've already gone a few rounds with bronchitis and coughing-colds. fun times huh. hope your week is going well!

opi designer shades 2009

opi's designer series put out some new shades this past fall, glow and mystery. i didn't purchase these, i borrowed them to swatch, although i loved them both so much that i will probably have to get my own sooner or later.

glow is full of bronzey gold shimmery goodness. it's kind of a chunky metallic flake kind of polish that i've never really had before and it wore like IRON. i swear this stuff would not chip or budge! i dare say it wouldn't be that flattering on many skin tones unfortunately, but i liked it on me haha.

mystery is the perfect name for this deep dark purple. i thought it was black but the first coat shows that beyond a shadow of a doubt it is purple. the golden sparkles in it show the depth. gorgeous gorgeous. i loved it (as evident by the amount of pictures i'm showing you!)

opulent cloud

i have a love hate relationship with sally hansen nail polishes. i really really love some of their colors and the formula on a lot of the polish lines rock. but...some of their bottle shapes and brush designs are just about unforgivable. the long neck design is just unbelievably difficult to work with and unnecessary. the brush handle is equally long and stupid. and i think they do way too many frosty colors haha.

opulent cloud is one of those polishes that came out with a bang, à la sopi metro chic or chanel jade. an instant classic that caused hundreds of polish-fiends to race to their local walgreens, rite-aids, and CVS stores to find the elusive unicorn polish. it's a light steel lavender-blueish gray, with a frosty gold shimmer. i don't really love it to be honest. but hey, i've had worse ;)