Last days of summer...

Summer is winding down and for the last month I've been going through my favorite brights like crazy! With the last couple weeks I'm going to try and finish all my summery untrieds before moving on to Fall, and Fall-inspired hauls. Yesterday I knocked 2 colors off my list with a fugly-yet-cute gradient mani. I used ALU's gradient method with Butter LONDON Chuffed layered on top of OPI Who the Shrek Are You? then topped the whole thing off with 2 coats of a sparsely dense flakie from Urban Outfitters. I got sick of it by mid-afternoon but it was fun for a little while!

Vampy Sunday: Off With Her Red!

So it's not really a vampy color, but after seeing last weeks True Blood preview I thought this would be the most appropriate color seeing as how the Queen of Louisiana is making an appearance tonight. Seriously, is there a better Sophie-Anne color? She wears red herself and the name couldn't fit any better. I'm seriously in love with red creams right now, this one is no disappointment. It's slightly tomato-y and a perfect pin-up color. This was 2 coats and a trouble-free application. And look, so shiny!! What's not to like?

New Butter London's

Butter LONDON announced their new shades last week and I could not wait to buy Marrow. I've been hyped about it since it was shown during fashion week. I have an extreme passion for dark purple! So I ordered that and, oops, the other 3 new shades jumped in my cart too! I'm so excited to do full mani's with these, but I needed a small taste of them today so I did a quick skittles. They clash with the other 6 fingers still being pastel blue, but it's okay to have an ugly-eccentric nail day every once in a while!

From left to right is Marrow, Victoriana, All Hail McQueen and Bumster. Marrow is a deep purple with a whisper of shimmer. You have to know it's there to even see it, and even then it really doesn't show, but it does add a certain depth to the color. Victoriana is, color-wise, dupey to RBL 360, except this baby is loaded up with silver shimmer, it's so pretty! All Hail McQueen is the total star of this collection. It's a holographic neutral, something that I normal wouldn't even look twice at. It's not that I'm not a huge holo or neutral fan, I just never really go for them. But together they make the cutest little taupy-holo baby! I'm so glad I did with this one, I think it looks great with my skin tone! Lastly is Bumster, which confuses me so much. It is gold. I wish I could just leave it right there. But without a shimmer it doesn't really seem gold, it seems like a caramel color. But it really is gold! Not sure if it goes with my skin tone too well but I'm still going to rock it because the color is so interesting to me.

It was cloudy today so I didn't get the best pictures to show off the holo. When I do a full mani with it I'll pick a sunny day! But for now, here it is with super flash:

And no flash:

OPI What's with the Cattitude?

Okay. I'm not even going to be humble about it. This polish looks friggin' amazing on me. It's like a cashmere sweater for my fingers. Sadly, it's not a very "me" color... one of my friends even grabbed my hand and asked me if I'd fallen and hit my head before doing my nails! Even though What's the with Cattitude doesn't really go with my personality, I love, LOVE the color. It's amazingly cute, and with the buzz about the upcoming Chanel, it's looking like it's going to be a trendy color. This was with 3 coats; 2 thin and 1 thick, and it applied really well for a pastel shade.

Vampy Sunday - Mrs. O'Leary's BBQ

Now I see what all the fuss is about. I've seen OPI Mrs. O'Leary's BBQ on so many 'must have' lists but never thought twice about it. I picked it up just because I don't have anything like it, and it's changed my view on colors like this. Now I'm super excited about the Swiss collection, there are a couple colors in there that are on my 'must' list after seeing how much I love this one!

This color is awesome. It's a deepened berry-ish red with just a hint of a brown undertone to it, a surprise to me that I'm really liking about the color. This was with 2 coats, which dried with a high gloss shine. I think I got an older bottle because it didn't have the Pro-Wide brush, and while it wasn't the worst brush I've ever used it really isn't as nice as the newer ones.

Vampy Sunday is going to be my new thing, in honor of new episodes of True Blood on Sunday nights. It's the best night of the week in the Summer! I only have a few more untried vampies, so this is the perfect excuse to haul some more!

China Glaze Orange Marmalade

I know orange really isn't the most flattering color on me, but I can't help but love it. Especially when it looks like this. I wish China Glaze would come with a glass flecked collection once a year so that I could get this formula in every color imaginable! Orange Marmalade just glows... I love it. This was with 3 coats and there's still a bit of a VNL, which I can forgive, and you really need 2 coats of TC to make the shimmer sing, but I can also forgive that.

Color accurate picture:

Glass flecked sparkle awesomeness:

OPI Yoga-ta Get This Blue

Seriously, you do! I don't even have words for it. It's bottled blue shimmery perfection!

For only the second time in a year, I cheated on Seche Vite, but this time it was with the notorious Poshe. And wow... I might be a convert. It's less thick than SV so I didn't get any bubbles (though I rarely got them from SV I was still always paranoid), and I'm on day 4 of this mani and it still looks exactly like day 1, not even a bit of tip wear! The only downside to Poshe was that it wasn't as shiny as SV when I first used it, but what really makes it better is that it hasn't lost any shine like SV does and it hasn't scratched up from normal day to day abuse. It still looks exactly like I just put it on. Poshe, I do believe this could be a forever kind of relationship! I need a few more trials runs before I dump SV though.

I also have Russian Navy, and considering how much I love this one was thinking about tracking down Ink. Thoughts? Is it worth it if I already have the other 2?