China Glaze Bogart + Revlon Watermelon Fizz

This manicure began with Bogart, a cool, eggplant foil by China Glaze.

To warm it up I added a layer of Revlon Watermelon Fizz nail polish.  This is a clear reddish orange jelly from the Summer 2011 collection.  It has these really pretty flakey glitter particles that I love.  It also smells delish!  Just like watermelon candy.  Since the Fizz polishes are pretty sheer, I prefer to layer them over other nail lacquers.

~ Allison ~

OPI DS Bold & Temptation For Fall 2011

Here are the latest OPI DS polishes for Fall 2011, two glitters in red (Bold) and purple (Temptation).

Bold is a pale silvery pink glitter in a red base.  The base is darkly tinted so it builds up nicely on its own.  While this polish is OK, I’m not really thrilled about it.

Temptation is a deep purple glitter with specks of blue and silver in a blue base.  I found this to be the more appealing of the two since I’m a sucker for purples.

Apologies for the non-existent cleanup – that glitter did not want to budge from my skin.  That was a turnoff.  Maybe I was just having a bad polish day, but I couldn’t for the life of me get a clean gap.  Although these colors are OK, I don’t have too much to say about them.  The glitter was very gritty and needs about 2+ layers of topcoat to even out.

I purchased these up from Ricky’s (an NYC beauty retailer) for $9.99 a bottle.  What are your impressions of this new DS series – will you skip them or scoop them up?

~ Allison ~

Orly Rock the World + Sally Hansen Salon Effects Nail Polish Strips

This is Orly Rock the World, from the Mineral FX collection.  I just found this at my local Sally Beauty Supply 2 weeks ago.  It has a deep plummy red base with some major gold foil, giving it a strong duochrome effect.  This seems to be a close relative to OPI It’s My Year, although it looks like the gold in RTW is much warmer and it could have a darker plum/red base.  I might do a closer comparison later.   I’m wearing Rock the World here with an accent finger of Sally Hansen Salon Effects nail polish strip.  The style is called Laced Up.

This was my first time using the Sally Hansen nail polish strips, even though I’ve amassed quite a little collection of them.  They are very easy to use and last a long time.  Here, I’d been wearing my strip for 4 days.  Aside from a tiny tip wear it looks perfect!  I have a few suggestions to make application easier and neater.  First, hold the strip up to your nail and trim it with scissors before applying.  You want it to be slightly longer than your actual nail, so you have a little extra to wrap underneath the nail for added security.  Also, I found that rubbing the strips between my hands helped warm them up and mold better to my nails.  Get the strip as close to your cuticle as possible, so when your nail grows out you won’t have a giant gap.  You’ll want to add a top coat (I used Seche Vite) because otherwise the strip finish is kind of flat and dull.  Finally, you can easily polish another color on top if you don’t want to remove the strip yet.  I did this and it helped the top layer of polish last extra long.  However, it also made for really frustrating removal!  I used acetone-based remover and soaked each nail briefly to loosen up the tough bedrock layers of polish, then scrub scrub scrubbed with my cotton ball.

I can’t wait to show you more Sally Hansen nail polish strips soon!  Especially the Halloween designs, which I’m flipping over.

~ Allison ~

Hard Candy Glossaholic Lip Glosses Review

When I saw these Hard Candy Glossaholic lip glosses in WalMart I HAD to have them.  They’re lip gloss with flakies!!  I picked out Fabulous (a dark red – left) and Lush (a peachy pink – right).

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Random Multicolored Lacquer Swatches for You

I am so behind on my swatches.  Enjoy six quickies!

Milani Totally Cool

Royal purple jelly with rose gold foil.  I found this one in the K-Mart 99 cent clearance bin!  Although this polish is really pretty it’s a bit sheer.  Even with the 3 coats I used here my nail line is still peeking out – boooo.  Still, that color.

Milani Feisty Flames

Cutest name!  Another K-Mart 99 cent wonder.  It’s a basic tomato red creme with a jelly’s squishiness and major shine – how do they do that?  Although I don’t buy much red polish this color was fun to wear.  A great choice to coordinate with your 50’s pinup looks.

Rimmel Lava Red

I am a sucker for these “blackened” colors.  Although this metallic red pearl looks almost burgundy in low light, in the sun it appears lit from within!  And look how glossy.  This one is sure to make you feel vampy and seductive.

Rimmel Hard Metal

Dark pewter metallic frost.  The formula was creamy – a pleasure to apply.  This is 2 coats.  I appreciated the fact that even though this is a frost-leaning finish my brushmarks didn’t dry streaky and visible.  Again, pretty shiny on its own.

Pure Ice Spitfire

This is a mauve-pink holographic glitter in a clear base.  Naively I hoped this could be worn on its own for discoball impersonation nails, but that wasn’t happening.  Next time I will layer it over a base color, for sure.  Anyway, this baby was very holographic and reflective in the sun.  Let’s do more glitter, shall we?  We shall!

OPI Uh Oh Roll Down the Window + Milani Gold Jewel FX

UORDTW is from OPI’s latest collection, Touring America.  It’s a dark olive green creme that reminds me of camo.  I like the fact that OPI included some off-the-beaten-path green/beige/brown shades along with their pinks and peaches.    My bottle is so strange – it looks like the pigments got separated, but no amount of shaking will mix them up again.  I don’t think that affected the application, though.  The color looks darker in the nail than in the bottle.  Then I decided to glam up this puke green with glitter!

This is Gold from Milani’s Jewel FX collection.  Sure enough, it’s big gold hex glitter that’s pow, in your face.  Very easy nail art.

No more for tonight; I must eat dinner.  Thanks for viewing/reading and I’ll catch up with you soon!

~ Allison ~