Velvet Two Ways

So for today, I have Orly's Velvet Rope done two ways. The first is the basic Velvet Rope. And this is a great color. It's a nice deep pure purple with little teeny silver microglitter running throughout.

Next is Velvet Rope, but with two coats of OPI's stunner Serving up Sparkle on top of it. Serving up sparkle has a great holo glitter with big hex pieces mixed in. It was somewhat difficult to apply the hex glitter evenly. You really have to shake the heck out of the bottle. Frequently. But it was super pretty.

This combo is actually how I rang in the new year and it definitely felt appropriately festive!

Lucerne-tainly Look Marvelous

I had an occasion to dress up in September, and I went and got my nails did. Because I was rockin' a bright blue dress with sparkly gunmetal shoes, I went with a sparkly gunmetal polish. I heart the matchy, matchy.

Lucerne-tainly look Marvelous is from OPI's Switzerland collection from fall of 2010. Its a shimmery gunmetal grey -- maybe a foil? It's close if it's not a true foil. It is SUCH a great color for us pale, cool-toned girls. Pictures below.

CG in the City

So that hiatus happened. I apologize for the delay in posting. It's been the crazy busy season at work and September and October zipped by before I had a chance to catch my breath.

Today, I have for you CG in the City. It's been posted everywhere at this point, but here's my two cents. I didn't expect to love this given a lot of the negative buzz in the blogosphere. It's a multi-color glitter in a clear base. It took me three coats to build it up to a mostly opaque finish. Once I had done that, though, I adored how it looked!

I'm a sucker for all things silver, and this just looked like a silver glitter bomb on my finger. I have two pictures below for you. What do you think?

Essie Steel-ing the Scene

I'm a silver fan from way back. I used to rock silver Mary Jane's to school back in the 90s... when I was in high school (yuck... it's not even the aughts anymore). My very first OPI was this silvery sparkly concoction whose name escapes me now.

Thus endeth my silver-love resume.

So you can imagine my excitement when I found Essie's Steel-ing the Scene in my local Ulta as part of their "buy two get one free" promotion (which was still happening when I was there on Monday -- get thee to an Ulta). Its flippin' gorgeous in the bottle.

Unfortunately, it was less so on my nails. It has a really cool yellow undertone you don't frequently see in a silver. It gives it kind of a weathered-metal look and it's really unexpected in cool. I'd go as far as to say it's AWESOME. On someone who has warm-toned skin. On me? Kind of lobstery. You will see for yourself in pictures.

The formula itself was thin, but buildable. On the images below, the pointer finger had four coats, middle finger had three thick coats, ring finger had two and the pinkie had three thin coats. OPI natural base coat and Seche Vite (which once again shrank my tips) atop. One application note: be careful when applying as this color (like most metallics) has a tendency to be brush strokey if you're not careful.