Takin' a Walk...

On the Wild Side...

I bought this lovely from the blog sale @NailStah (her twitter handle) had. I picked up several good ones there, in fact!

This is a color from Color Club. The formula Color Club doesn't seem to work as well for me as other brands. This is only my second, but I'm noticing that for me, I have a tendency towards premature chipping with both of the colors. It's absolutely a shame, too -- other people rave about them, and I LOVE their colors -- particularly their new bohemian collection! I'll probably still give some of those a chance... my body chemistry and/or the combination with Seche Vite just has seemed to reject so far.

This color, though, is fantastic. I feel like if you could paint your nails with a pencil, that's the color and sheen you get. It has a very graphite look about it (not Chanel Graphite... pencil graphite). I love the color a ton, but painted my nails last night and am already experiencing tip wear.

Branding Iron Is the Hotness.

In one of my very first e-tailer purchases, I bought China Glaze's Branding Iron. Despite the fact that it was spring at the time, it caught my eye and I thought I'd wait and use it as a fall mani color. Well, it turns out I'm crap at waiting and wore it in mid August. I got a ton of compliments on it, and it's really and truly a special color. I went to transdesign to see if they still have it, and it seems they're out of stock. 8ty8beauty does still show it on their site (at least as of last Thursday).

The formula was great, and I'm a big, big fan of China Glaze brushes. The color is a deep red shimmer that leans more towards rust, rather than burgundy. It's one of those "glows from within" colors that I'm a HUGE fan of. HIGHLY recommend.

Torn Up Nail Bed = Mani Fail.

I ran out of my beloved acetone-based remover that takes any polish off a nail in 2.3 seconds. I had some old non-acetone remover rolling around and had to use it. Because I'm used to the fast-acting stuff, I got aggressive with my nails. And then more aggressive. The "gentle" non-acetone remover caused massive damage and tearing to my nail bed (my fault, not the remover's).

Then I decided to paint anyway. Then this happened. Bumps, bubbles, chipping and tearing. It's pretty much the mani from Hades. The color is Orly's Toast the Couple, but I don't think it's a fair representation of what that color could be on a healthy, well-adjusted nail.



I'll try this color again at a later date.

Essie Chinchilly + me = Love

I visited some family a week or two back and did some manual labor that resulted in a horribly messed up mani. The upside to that kind of thing is that it means you get to go shopping for a new color to replace said jacked mani.

On this particular trip, I found Essie Chinchilly. I've seen it around the nail blogosphere for quite a while, but I haven't ever seen it in the wild. The color is a gray creme that I feared would be a dupe for ChG Below Deck/SH Commander in Chic. I was pleasantly surprised to see it wasn't. This color is substantially lighter with far fewer purple undertones.

As I've been finding with Essies, it applied like a dream. The nails in the images below required no post-paint touch-ups. And I am not the world's greatest polisher by a long shot. In short, I would recommend this color to a friend.

Perfect Kiss

I've been a fan of most of the Misa products that I've tried. I found this past spring's Wishes collection to be an exercise in magic. Light, sparkly colors? Some of which seem to shimmer in multiple colors? IN. I've bought some of their earlier stuff as well -- Dirty Sexy Money was a big pedicure crowd pleaser, and I've posted about my adoration for Spinning Out of Control on this very blog (and it's my twitter avatar -- @tinybottle if you're interested). So when I was creating a new haul, it seemed only natural that Misa would be represented. I bought two colors that were new to me: Perfect Kiss and It's You!

Today I'm reviewing Perfect Kiss. This color is a deep, bright fucshia with a lot of shimmer. I had a bit more trouble than normal with the formula on this -- it came out really thin for some reason. The color was nice, and had great depth, but I'm not crazy about it. I think my newly-formed nail polish obsession has me "over" the brighter pinks already.

Picture below contains blur to best see the shimmer and the depth of color.

Sea How Far You Go

About a month ago when I was going through my crazy nail polish shopping spree, I saw some Nicole by OPI shades on clearance at my local Target. A couple I was ambivalent about, but I had to grab this beauty.

To me, Sea How Far You Go looks like a gold doubloon that's been sitting at the bottom of the ocean for centuries. The gold has darkened and has gained a green patina around it. I love this color and it was one of my most complimented colors of the summer.

The shape of the bottle, admittedly is odd, but the formula and brush are both easy to work with. Overall, I'd say grab this lovely shade before it's forever gone from your local Target.

Orly Rage

I find I delight in Orly products for the most part (one sadly undelightful manicure post will be coming up shortly). This was one of the good ones. Rage is a champagne with multi-color sparkles in it. It went on smooth and light and looked good for nearly an entire week with only minor tip wear. I got this from Sally's last month on sale for 4 dollars. I'd recommend them to anyone who likes sparkly neutrals.

Moon over Mumbai w/Nubar 2010

It's been a while! Unfortunately, work and life have taken me away from regular blogging, but I'll be getting back to it as my life settles down a bit.

Today I have a two polishes for the price of one! Both were purchased from a blog sale. And both are wonderbar.

The first is OPI's Moon Over Mumbai from the OPI India Collection. It is a light, sheer grey. A little research showed that it was one of the first true greys that came out. So there's that! The formula on this was a little thin, but it built up reasonably well. Moon Over Mumbai on it's own has gone into my mental file as "great for conservative work days."

Atop Moon Over Mumbai, I put Nubar 2010. Oh man, I am in love with this polish. It is insane-level gorgeous. I've seen it over dark colors and it looks like it's on fire. Over a light color like this, it looks sweetly iridescent. This is a true beauty. The formula on this was outstanding, and it's chock full o' beautiful flakies.

The pictures below are three coats of Moon Over Mumbai and two coats of 2010. Under the color is OPI Natural Base and atop it all is Seche Vite.

Thanks for looking!