More Purple!

So I mentioned that during Spring Break I stopped at Ulta, which I had never been to before. I hadn't even planned on going to Ulta, but on the way to the Imax theater we passed by one and after getting tickets and 3-d glasses we had some time to kill. So after convincing 2 men that there would be guy stuff too (there wasn't), and after crossing the stoplight-less and pedestrian-awareness-is-apparently-optional Highway of Death, I made it. And it was heaven. So much polish! So much hair stuff! So much makeup! So many sales!!! I bought a bunch of the 2 dollar Ultas. My favorite was the line up of about 6 shades of coral. It's like they heard I was coming and made a display just for me! Today I pulled out a medium purple cream (which I can't remember the name of). It's right in between ChG Spontaneous and Grape Pop, but of course try telling my camera that! It's a true purple, not the blurple you're seeing.

Application was a roller coaster ride of emotion for me. While the formula applied just fine and the brush was neither amazing nor sucky, I had major issues with little fuzzies. After 2 coats the color was perfectly opaque but the finish looked like I had sat like a statue for a week and let dust collect on me! There was much cursing. I reached for the acetone, but somehow talked myself off the ledge and put on SV. And surprisingly, it came out fine. So I'm not really sure if this is what all the polishes are like, or maybe it's just the cream ones, or maybe it was my fault (though I'm discounting that, I'm pretty awesome :P), but since my nails look okay I'm not going to condemn this polish.

The glitter... it's multiplying! Hide the children!!!

I wanted a quick and lazy mani that I wouldn't have to clean up or worry about the finish on, so I pulled out ChG Flyin' High and Medallion. Cream is usually my favorite finish, but for once I didn't want to have to obsess about my every move just to make sure I get a flawless finish. 1 coat of Flyin' High and 1 coat of Medallion was the plan. I did this late at night, slapped on some SV and went to bed... and woke up nearly blind. I do not remember there being that much glitter! Other than the problem of my glitter mating like bunnies when I'm not watching, I really like this look. Turquoise and gold is so cute!


I love the little holo pieces mixed in the gold!

Lemming List

Anyone else have frequent dreams about a polish that's on your mind? I keep thinking about how bummed I am I missed the first RBL pre-sale, and last night I had a dream that I was wearing Diddy Mow. Waking up was a disappointment, lol. So I'm not going to post my entire lemming list, because there are hundreds (just like every other nail fanatic lol!), but these are a bunch of new polishes that I keep thinking about:

RBL Surf's Up: I'm still undecided on Bangin' but the other 2 are SO going to be my b-day presents!

OPI's Shrek Collection: I really wanted to like more of it, but the 2 purples look exactly like the 2 from Up & Away. And after seeing swatches on THIS blog I don't know if I can wear Goose Poop (LMAO!). But What's with the Cattitude, Who the Shrek are You? and Ogre the Top Blue all won me over!

Essie Resort Collection: WTF Essie that's not pink or red or sheer or boring?! Sold! Lapis of Luxary, Splash of Grenadine and Turquoise and Caicos are instant winners! I'm really hoping some swatches turn up soon, because I'm little confused why they would call the green Turquoise when it looks not very turquoise-y. I'm still not sold on the other one, Playa del Platinum, because I heard it's supposed to be a sheer, but it might be a nice neutral for summer.

China Glaze Vintage Vixen: When I first saw pictures of Up & Away, I freaked out and declared it Best Collection Evar. But even with this picture being the only thing I've seen, I think Vintage Vixen has it beat! This is the collection for Fall, which is rumored to be coming out in August, and it's all glitter, glitter, and more sparkly glittah!! Based on this picture (found here) and the names alone I need them all. So friggen gorgeous!


What upcoming or newly released colors are you crazy about?

Did NOT fall in a lake...

It's been a long and fun Spring Break! I'm sad it's over, but I need to get a new mani!! I've been wearing RBL Recycle since Tuesday night. Between St. Paddy's day, going to Minneapolis, then making a trip to Duluth, I didn't have a spare second to even take a picture so I did this afternoon. While putting it on, I wasn't super impressed with the RBL brush, it didn't make application the easiest. But I'm seriously amazed at how this thing wore on my nails. This picture is after 5 showers, a combined 2 hours swimming and another 3 or so hours in hot tubs, PLUS many many hours playing slot machines and all I have some normal tip wear and zero chipping. Very nice, RBL!


I also ventured for the first time in to Ulta and picked up a bunch of the Ulta brand NP, stopped by Sephora (which I haven't been to in 2 years! Far to long) and picked up several $OPI's, and came home to 3 swap packages, so I have too many new colors to choose from... I can hardly contain my excitement!

NYS Amaranth

I had to switch back to greens for today! One of the bars downtown hosts a St. Patty's day parade and they have green beer today, so I most definitely had to be festive. I debated between sparkles or jelly and jelly won. NYS Amaranth was a big lemming for me for while, partly because of the color and finish, and partly because of the amazing Zulu franken that Dr. Frankenpolish did. Of course shortly after buying Amaranth, Nars announced the fall return of Zulu, so no need to make my own. Works out perfectly since I love this color all on it's own! It's a bit richer in real life, it's a very true kelly green. Application was a little finicky, I got a little cuticle drag because it took longer to dry between coats than I expected, so give it some time when applying. Top coat is a must, there was almost no shine and it took a very long time to dry. Even an hour after SV I got some dents when I was putting on some lotion. This was surprisingly opaque, I could have gotten away with 2 coats but did a 3rd just got get that yummy depth that jellys give.

We interrupt our regulary scheduled greens to show you...

BLUE INDIA!

My MAC order arrived this morning exactly 7 minutes after I got out of bed. That NEVER happens to me; if shipping says 5-7 days, it always takes 7 for me, and UPS the guy never gets here before 5 pm. But MAC upgraded my shipping for free and I guess the UPS guy owed me one! I could not have been more excited... Until I put on Blue India. I love this color. Love. We are getting married. It's been raining here, and I love the rain, and this color goes with it (I think I should just start coordinating my nails to match the weather). Most people are calling this blue, and it's even in the name, but I think of it more as a moody gray that leans heavily on the blue side. But my camera doesn't feel the same way! These pictures are quite inaccurate, and I tried everything possible to show you the real deal because this polish is amazing. It's much more gray than what you're seeing.

This was my first MAC NP and I've been extremely worried about application. You know you're a polish-holic when you're MORE worried about applying a polish you haven't even gotten yet than you are about your pharmacy unit exam. It's a sickness, people. I literally sat up an extra half hour last night thinking about what I was going to do if this didn't apply well when I should have been concerned about barbiturates. All that aside, I had zero problems applying this. If not for the different brush I could have compared this to an OPI polish. The consistency was perfect and I only needed 2 coats.

Inside, no flash, under an ott light:



Outside with flash:

Are you getting Blue India? Or any of the new Rescue Beauty Lounge's? I want all 3 of them but I vowed to wait for my birthday. I think miss Ji is bluffing when she says she's running out of them!

Oh, and I got an A on the test. :D

Just for lols

Apple has an OPI app, it's hilarious! You can "try on" any OPI color you want, as long as you don't want to see what the color actually looks like. I scrolled over to Jade is the New Black and took a quick snapshot with the REAL Jade. According to the app it's kind of a minty green. Also everything looks like a cream, there's no shimmer or glitter. I had a good laugh at Mad as a Hatter, it shows up as a cream powder blue! It's a cute idea, but based off this app I wouldn't buy any OPI. They should have made a game, like applying NP as quickly and neatly as possible... it can be a tough game lol!

Greens #10, 9 & 8

I was trying to save my most anticipated greens for next week, but caved and put on OPI Jade is the New Black today. I was hoping it would live up to the hype, and it totally did! I can tell I'm going to be wearing this one a lot, it's the perfect dusty cream green. It applied flawlessly and was perfect in 2 coats. Also I filed down my nails yesterday, it seems like every 3 weeks my classes all pile up big papers and projects and I do a lot of typing. It's so much easier to do the work with nubbins!

It's raining out today (OMG rain! I've missed you!) so I took pictures under an Ott light. I've never done it before but this picture is completely accurate!


I swatched China Glaze Paper Chasing yesterday. I adore this color, so much so that I wore it for 4 days straight last August. But when I took it off I had terrible stains, so this is another one I'd steer clear of. If that doesn't deter you, it took 3 coats to get this and it chips easily. I was sad about this one, it was one of my most anticipated from the Kicks collection. And green #8 was butter LONDON Thames. I like it, but it's similar to the Essence I wore a few days ago, and I like the Essence much more because it's less blue. I'm swapping it away; I won't miss the color but I will miss the little square bottle... so cute!




Also MAC's Liberty of London collection came out yesterday, YAY! If you're interested in the Blue India NP you can use the code LIBERTY and get free shipping with no minimum amount. My awesome mom placed an order for me last night, along with a bunch of lipsticks I've been lemming. I'm pretty excited!

Greens #5, 6 &7

I just put on my 7th green and I'm loving this theme month. I've been saving my greens for so long and pulling them out now is so much fun! Yesterday I put on one of the Sally Hansen HD's, Hi-Def. These came out last summer and this green was actually the start of my collection. And it was a big sad disappointment. Streaky, sheer, and so many bubbles! Also since this was the first nail polish I had worn in 8+ years, my family teased me about my "Kermit fingers". They've gotten used to my love of greens now though so it's all good. But even though I didn't like the formula on this HD, I bought another 5 colors, mostly because I didn't know where to buy other nail polish in my tiny town and I still hadn't heard about Transdesign (discovering that was like the best. day. evar.), and partly because the rainbow of 8 colors looked so cute together. Anyways, I pulled it out again yesterday to see if my feelings had changed about it.... Nope. Still hate it. This was with 4 sloppy coats.



I only wore Hi-Def for about 45 minutes before pulling out one of my new Sally Hansens, Going Green. I've never tried Xtreme Wear, but I loved it! Check out this green! I thought it was a cream and was a little disappointed when I brought it out in the sunlight at home and saw shimmer, but after wearing it I was really happy with it. This is with 2 coats. I liked the application with this, the brush was pretty wide but super manageable; this picture was taken with no cleanup! I'm such a klutz and I've never been able to stay in the lines but this polish made it easy.



I've been stalking my Walgreens and even Walmart for 10 days trying to get the new Maybelline Minty. A wonderful NBer read about my plight and offered to swap me her extra, which arrived yesterday. I just put this one on for green #7, and wow. Wow. Wow!! This is my new favorite mint! The application was maybe not as smooth as my all-time favorite, RGB Minty, but it was a lot better than 90% of my other mints. The first coat was streaky, the second evened it out a bit, but the third coat was flawless perfection. I need to go back to stalking the drugstore so I can get a back up!




I also did a quick comparison swatch but I didn't take the time to clean up as acetone is drying out my skin terribly, so please excuse the mess. Left to right is China Glaze Re-fresh Mint, Maybelline Minty, RGB Minty and Essie Mint Candy Apple. MCA doesn't really have anything to do with Minty, but it seems like everyone has MCA so it's a good one for comparison.



I'd also like to let you all know that in addition to being a klutz with nail polish, I'm totally forgetful. Wonderful reader Isa asked me who the winner of my Who Loves Purple? giveway was and I realized I completely forgot to post the wrap up! Reader Caitlin, who is new to nail polish, won 3 awesome purples to expand her collection. Congrats, Caitlin!

I'm planning on doing another giveway sometime in April and was planning on doing a theme of my newest obsession, coral. But since YOU guys are the one winning polish, I'll let you decide! Vote in the poll on the sidebar for which color family you'd like to win! I'm also accepting write-in votes, leave a comment on this post with your suggestion.

Green #4

No one told me that the China Glaze Summer Days was so completely awesome. I kept thinking they were a shimmer, but according to ALU they are glass flecked. And awesome. These are AWESOME. I tracked down Watermelon Rind to wear for March and it came in the mail yesterday. I'm completely in love with it and am working on tracking down the other 5 from the collection (anyone wanna swap? lol). I used 3 very thin coats of this, I think I could have gotten away with 2 slightly thicker coats but the polish was a little runny at first. Even with 3 coats it dried really fast, I did laundry just 10 minutes after applying Seche Vite and didn't get a single dent (even when my fingers got caught in the little holes of the laundry basket... don't ask how that happened)!

Green #3

Today I'm wearing Rimmel Camouflage. The entire Rimmel brand has always been hit or miss for me, and this one is pretty good. The brush is a little weird to use, probably since I've been spoiled lately from using so much OPI, but after my first nail I got the hang of it and each nail only took 1 coat! I'm surprised this lived up to it's 60 second promise! I also really love the color on this, it's a perfect true green loaded with green and gold shimmer. I only own one other bottle of the old Rimmels, it's one of the purple ones, and it did NOT hold up well... granted I decided to take it camping last summer since I needed a quick mani in a tent. But I can't BELIEVE a $2 NP wouldn't hold up to the abuse of fire starting, fishing, rock hunting and swimming... okay, in retrospect I was pretty hard on it lol.


In non-np news, I've been back to my regular work out routine for the last week and a half now and I'm feeling great! At the beginning of Decemeber I pulled a muscle in my foot that took until the end of January to heal, and then at the beginning of February I started up again with too much agression and got shin splints. But I've been easing back in to my routine and am now pushing myself every day to my goals. My problem is I haven't updated my workout playlist in about 3 months and I have NO idea what to pick for music now. I'd love to hear some suggestions! I usually listen to upbeat stuff, pop music and some alt rock, sometimes a little metal (if it's not screamy) to get through tough parts. What music do you work out to?

Greens #1&2

I'm planning on doing greens for the first 17 days of March! A new one every day, most of them untried, right through St. Patrick's day. Yesterday I swatched Mint Mojito but was reluctant to leave it on because I heard it stained. I liked the color, but not enough to risk it, so I took pics and changed to Essence All Access. Mint Mojito is a 2 coater and Essence only took 1. I had great sunlight today so the shimmer really shows on All Access!


What greens are you most excited to wear for March? I'm saving my most anticipated, OPI Jade is the New Black, NYS Amaranth and RBL Recycle, for closer to the 17th!