Football Friday: Cult Nails Vicious

So, last week was the Huskies first conference game and we managed to hold off Cal to get our first conference win of the season, making us 3-1 so far this season!! This week holds our first conference road game of season, against Pac-12 newbie, Utah. Despite being new to the conference, Utah is a very good team-- in fact, for several years they have been a Top 25 team, something we are still a long way from. This will definitely be an interesting match-up. The Huskies certainly have the offensive power, but we're going to have to play good defense and not get emotional if things don't go our way, like our mental breakdown during the Nebraska game.

Because this week is an away game and I'm still recovering from my cold and dealing with my husband's crazy work schedule so I was not feeling super creative. But luckily I got a brand new polish in the mail last week-- Vicious, a new creme polish from Cult Nails that Maria has recently added to her collection! I *believe* this is a permanent polish, but I'm not sure. Vicious is a gorgeous, creamy eggplant purple. Unfortunately, my notes aren't so great for this, but the polish has a great formula: thin, but not watery. It flowed well on the nail and was extremely pigmented. Probably could get away with one coat, but I used two coats here. I also used Cult Nails new treatments, Get It On (base coat) and Wicked Fast (top coat) which work awesomely and I find myself liking more and more.

Artificial light:

Artificial light with flash:

Natural light - shade:

Natural light - sun:

Fabulous purple shade! Really gorgeous and the formula is perfection. The color on the nail is a little darker than the bottle, but only slightly. It's a seriously great purple.

Julep Cameron

I wrote a post awhile ago about Julep's new Maven program-- this is the first polish of theirs I am getting around to reviewing. Since its inception, the program has had a few bumps in the road, which has caused several bloggers (and other nail fanatics) to cancel their subscriptions. I won't go into detail, but needless to say I have not decided to cancel my subscription as yet. My interactions so far with Julep have been satisfactory, although at this time I still haven't received a tracking notice for my October Maven box, which supposedly shipped Tuesday. And I live in the same city where this company is based! A little weird. I am going to send them an email tonight and see how it's handled.

Cameron is one of the polishes I received in my first Julep Maven box. Cameron is described as an "energetic, summer pink" that is "the perfect pink for every occasion." Pink isn't a color I immediately gravitate towards, but this is a nice bright pink that I really like. Cameron went on very smoothly in two coats. I also used Julep's base coat, which seemed decent. I've only used it once, though, so it's hard to formulate an opinion on the one usage.

Artificial light:

Artificial light with flash:

Natural light - shade:

Natural light - sun:

Overall, I liked this polish and it was very easy to work with, so right now I can say that I'm fairly impressed and like Julep's polishes. I do have more to swatch, so we'll see how my opinion holds up!

Edited to add: So, even though I didn't receive a tracking notice, my October Maven was delivered late last night to my mailbox-- I picked it up this morning! Hooray! 

OPI Play the Peonies

This is kind of a random week for polishes-- next up is OPI's Play the Peonies. This was released this summer as part of OPI's Nice Stems collection. I recently saw this on sale at my local Bartell Drugs and decided to snag it. I had seen it on a lot of blogs and although my initial reaction to this polish was indifference, seeing a lot of pictures softened me up and since it was on sale I could justify buying it. Play the Peonies is a white-based light pink that has a pronounced fine shimmer/pearl finish.

Here I've used two coats of Play the Peonies. It was a little streaky and patchy-- I managed to even it out pretty nicely in those two coats, but this probably could have used three. There's a little of visible nail line, but I think that's more the camera picking it up than actually being able to see it in real life. More interestingly, I used Cult Nails brand new treatments, Get It On base coat and Wicked Fast top coat. This was the first time I used them and I am highly impressed. I am going to need to use them several more times, but so far I really like them. I usually use Essie as my "go-to" treatments, but I have a feeling Cult Nails new treatments may replace them.

On to the pictures!

Artificial light:

Artificial light with flash:

Natural light - shade: 

Natural light - sun: 

In the end, my feelings are still kind of lukewarm about Play the Peonies. It's a nice neutral, sure. It isn't as old feeling as I initially thought it would be. But, it's just kind of an ok polish, at least to me.

Rescue Beauty Lounge Bangin

Tonight I bring you a polish I got in my most recent RBL haul, and while we were having a stretch of good weather at the beginning of September I knew I couldn't let this sit around until next spring. Bangin was originally released in the spring of 2010, which featured three surf inspired polishes. Currently, Bangin is the only one of those polishes that is still available. The RBL site says this of Bangin: "Nothing sets off a tan (bottle or spray, of course) like Bangin, a hot red coral like the sun sizzling on the horizon." Bangin is definitely a hot, hot coral. It's not too orange leaning, which I like, and seriously, the instant I put this on my nails I was in love.

Bangin had a fabulous formula and was so well pigmented it was practically a one coater. I used two coats in these pictures. There is a little bit of visible nail line, but I really don't care. I used RBL's treatment system with Bangin.

Artificial light:

Artificial light with flash:

Natural light - shade:

Natural light - sun:

Isn't this a fabulous coral polish? I'm seriously in love with this polish. I don't normally consider buying "back-up" bottles of polishes, but I would consider buying a back-up bottle of Bangin.

Ulta Shimmer into Summer Review

Ulta's exclusive Shimmer into Summer collection consisted of four polishes. The collection consisted of two shimmers (I'm An Aqua-holic and How You Blue-in?) and two glitters (Glitter-ally the Best Silver Ever and Sparkle Teal Sunrise). Despite the water theme, the two shimmers seemed a little dark for summer for my tastes (what can I say? I love bright polish when the sun is out!), but the polishes themselves were very pretty and could be worn pretty much any time.

I'm An Aqua-holic: 

How You Blue-in?: 

 
Glitter-ally the Best Silver Ever: 

Apparently, though, this set closely replicates a four polish set that was released by Nicole by OPI last summer, based on the tv series Gossip Girl. Here's a picture of those four polishes:

Very similar, huh?

Unfortunately, I didn't manage to snag the fourth polish, Sparkle Teal Sunrise, which was multicolor iridescent glitter (green, blue, pink, orange) in a sheer teal base. But I did find a polish that might suffice: Sally Hansen's Teal-y Cool. I don't understand the name, but it's a very similar polish.

Here's Teal-y Cool layered over How You Blue-in. I used two (or maybe three, I don't remember) coats of Teal-y Cool here. The glitter was a little hard to get on the nail and disappointingly, even though it seemed like the polish was really packed with glitter, it was hard to get it out of the bottle and onto the nail. Which sucks, because I love it in the bottle, but I wish it had translated better on the nail. It's not terrible, but I wish it had been easier.

And that's the Shimmer into Summer collection... plus a little extra! 

You can check out a review of the Nicole by OPI Gossip Girl collection over at Vampy Varnish.

The PolishAholic has a nice review of the Shimmer into Summer collection.

Football Friday: a-england Avalon and Sally Hansen Set the Stage

We're nearing the end of September, though for some reason, Seattle has decided that it's summer again and it's incredibly humid here right now. Ewww. I'm sticky and heat and gross. However, this does means that I might be able to wear shorts to the game tomorrow!

As we start conference play tomorrow, I decided to pull out a really great, true purple: Avalon by a-england. In Arthurian legend, Avalon is mysterious, hidden island where Morgan le Fey or Morgaine lived and the place where King Arthur is said to be buried. The polish Avalon is described as an "incandescent regal and royal purple". It's a simple description, but it pretty much sums up this polish in a nutshell. Avalon is extremely gorgeous, a brilliant royal purple. In some light, it just glows. There were times when I could not stop staring at my nails. I received so many compliments on this polish.

Warning: this polish did not photograph color accurately at all! Avalon has tons of little red and blue shimmer particles in there and the polish is predominantly a red-leaning purple, but for some reason my camera picked it up as a blue-leaning purple. I'm not sure why purples are the most difficult polish colors to capture accurately, but they are. Bummer for me, since I have a lot of them!

Artificial light. These pictures are probably the most color accurate ones I have. Still not quite accurate to what my eyes see, but these look realistic than some of the other ones do.

Artificial light with flash: this is extremely color inaccurate. Way too blue.

Natural light - shade:

If you look at the bottom of the bottle in this picture, you can see a little but more what the true color of the polish is. It's a much more reddish than these pictures would lead you to believe.

Natural light - sun:

I apologize for the grossness of my tips. Yuck! I had been wearing this for two days when I took that last picture. The following pictures aren't much better, unfortunately. My sincere apologies!!

For reference, here's a picture of Avalon from the a-england website. I'd say this photo is pretty color accurate-- you can really see the red in the polish, as opposed to my pictures, where the blue comes out.

Even though Avalon is a beautiful polish, I decided to get a little creative and layer Sally Hansen's Set the Stage over it.

Set the Stage is a medium gold glitter suspended in a clear base. There are very small circular particles in addition to larger hexagonal pieces. It's very pretty, but a pain in the butt to work with. It was extremely difficult to get the larger pieces onto the brush and get them placed on the nail. Very frustrating. I managed to do it, but it was a little sloppy. I used two careful coats to get some sparkle on my nails without overwhelming the Avalon.

 Natural light - shade: this picture doesn't have a top coat on it-- you can see the polish lines from Set the Stage.

Blurry picture you can see the sparkle! This has a top coat on it.

Pretty, huh? I wish the glitter was easier to work with, but I think the combination is really pretty. I can't stop staring at my nails.

OPI Glitter-ally the Best Silver Ever

The next (and last, for me... more on that later) polish from Ulta's Shimmer into Summer Exclusive OPI polishes is Glitter-ally the Best Silver Ever. The name is extremely literal, but in this case, it's also accurate. Well, ok, I'm not sure if it's the best silver glitter ever (this is pretty much the only one I own, I think), but it is indeed a very shiny, very pretty polish.

The pictures below are all three coats, though I still had some issues with patchiness. You can definitely get this polish to full opacity, if you're so inclined. The polish is a little thick, and I think it was due to dragging that I ended up with some bare patches on my nails. A light touch is definitely necessary here. I also think this polish is sheer enough that it could be used with other base colors, as long as you don't use a very thick coat. I will have to try it and let you guys know.

Artificial light:

Artificial light with flash:

Natural light - shade:

Natural light - sun:

I will post a review tomorrow or Friday which will also include a little something extra!

OPI How You Blue-in?

The next polish from the Ulta's "Shimmer into Summer" Collection is How You Blue-in? This is a teal shimmer in a black base. Like I'm An Aqua-holic, this is also a sheer polish in one coat, but evens out nicely in two coats. When I went back and looked, I still had some patchy spots, so three coats might have been better. However, it wasn't terribly noticeable unless I was looking really closely. I also think this color is a little dark for summer, but it's really gorgeous. I will definitely be wearing it this winter.

Artificial light:

Artificial light with flash:

Natural light - shade:

Natural light - sun: