Monday, April 30, 2012

Sinful Colors Glass Pink

Tonight I have another Sinful Colors polish for you, but from a different collection also released this spring. This is Glass Pink, from their Wishful Collection. Glass Pink is a soft sheer pink with a strong gold shimmer throughout the polish.

 Like I said, Glass Pink is a fairly sheer polish and it took 3-4 coats to make this polish opaque. You can definitely do it, but it might be just easier to layer this over a light pink polish. The polish was ok to work with, though I noticed it got a gloppy the more coats I put on. That said, it was pretty easy to work with.

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Maybe it's due to the name-- but this totally reminds of Cinderella's glass slipper (stay tuned for tomorrow's post, hint hint). This is such a pretty delicate color-- it's soft and flattering.

Sunday, April 29, 2012

Sinful Colors Neptune

Since I showed you Sinful Colors Zeus yesterday, today I have the other color I grabbed from the Cast Away collection, Neptune. I know I'm not the only who's irked about the fact that a collection centering around the GREEK Isles has 'Neptune' as a polish, considering it's a Roman name, but... I guess I can get over it. I had seen a few swatches of Neptune floating around on the many blogs I follow and I decided I definitely needed to grab it.

Neptune is a beautiful medium blue with a fairly dominant green/gold shimmer. Certainly, if you were making a polish named after the god of the sea, the color of this polish definitely fits the bill and very spot on. Personally, I'm a huge of blues so I think this is a great color! I love the shimmer, which gives this a very aquatic, summery feeling. Neptune had a good formula-- it was a little sheer with the first coat, but two was enough to reach opacity.

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Isn't this a gorgeous color?! I love the shimmer!

Saturday, April 28, 2012

Upcoming no/low buy!

So I have recently come to conclusion that a)  I have a ton of polish and b) I have spent an exorbitant amount of money on said polishes. Therefore, it's time that I go on a no/low buy. I buy all the polishes I put on the blog, and there are a lot more you don't see! With help from the lovely Amanda of Fashion Footing, we are going to help each other from caving to the pressure of buying new polishes (or at least, too many polishes)! We are attempting two months, starting May 1st and ending July 1st. I am doing a no buy (with exceptions) and Amanda is planning a low buy limit.

I have a couple of goals from this no/low buy. The first is catch up on swatching of a lot of polishes that have gone by the wayside-- I bought them in a hoarders fit and they are languishing in a drawer somewhere. The second is to update my excel spreadsheet of all the polishes I own and get it in some semblance of organization. Lastly, I hope that this no/low buy will help me to reaffirm that I don't need nor can possibly have every.single.polish out there and it's a little unhealthy to be so obsessed. I would actually like to see if I can extend this a little further, in hopes to give my bank account some relief and go on setting a low limit for myself over several more months. We'll see! There are of course polishes I want, but nothing I can't live without if I really think about it.

There are, however, a couple of notable exceptions.

1) Lynnderella order from Llarowe. I submitted this order months ago (February 27th, to be exact) and it looks like my name is *finally* coming up this weekend-- assuming they actually get through to invoicing the R's. If not, it'll probably fall into the period of my no buy. It's going to be hefty, but since I've already waited two months, I'm not going to pass it up.

2) Dior Les Violets Hypnotique Collection - this has been released in Europe, and honestly, I don't even know if it's due to be released in the US, but if it is... I'm buying them! Or maybe they were already released and disappeared and so then it's a moot point.

3) Since my birthday also falls smack dab in the middle of the no buy period, I am also reserving the right to use any birthday money on polishes as a treat to myself, in particular if Rescue Beauty Lounge releases any polishes in my no buy window. If that doesn't happen, maybe some fun Etsy polishes. Or maybe the two Chanel polishes I want right now. You get the idea.

But anyway, wish me luck! I will of course still be reviewing polishes (and lots of them!) but I will be refraining from buying any. Of course, I still accept gifts! Kidding... sort of. ;-)

Other things we discounting: Julep Maven subscriptions don't count as part of the no/low buy, but add-ons would (at least for me).

Friday, April 27, 2012

Spring Football Friday: Sinful Colors Zeus

If you've been following my blog for awhile, you know I am a huge college football fan. Spring football for UW is wrapping up this weekend with the annual Spring Game! It's been almost 4 months since we got to see the Huskies last play so of course it's an excuse to break out the purple. Well, I hardly need an excuse, but there you go.

I have a bunch of purples kicking around but honestly, I didn't have time to swatch any this week and conveniently, I had this new Sinful Colors polish just swatched-- Zeus! This is from a recently released collection (I swear, Seattle gets these later than everyone else does) called Cast Away, which seems to be inspired by Greece. I was initially looking for another polish from the collection, but decided to grab Zeus as well when I was looking at the display.

Zeus is a periwinkle purple with a fairly strong pink shimmer throughout the polish. In certain lights it takes on a more greyed out appearance. I found the formula on Zeus to be a little on the gloppy side, but honestly, it wasn't that difficult to work with. I only needed two coats to get nice opaque coverage. It's an interesting color combo-- I kind of flash back to my late elementary/early middle school years when Lisa Frank was all the rage. Something about purple/pink just reminds of that, even though Zeus is not that loud.

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I how it looks in the sunlight-- it truly shows Zeus in all its (his?) glory. I mean, it's pretty in all lights, but this polish is at its best when you can see the gorgeous purple color and the full shimmer. At first I wasn't sure I would like this combination, but I find myself loving it a little more each time I look at it.

Thursday, April 26, 2012

Cult Nails Seduction

And I saved the best for last-- Seduction! This such a fabulous polish. Maria made this polish after a friend mentioned that she wanted a flakie polish without green flakes after seeing Clairvoyant. So Maria went to work and created another amazing flakie polish. Seduction is described as "a purple/red sheer jelly base with red, blue and pink iridescent flakes."

Here I have one layer of Seduction over one coat of Cult Nails Vicious (which is a deep purple creme polish you've seen before). Since that base color of Seduction is a sheer purple, I wanted to layer it over a purple to show it off to best effect. It went on easily, no problems with the formula. This also doesn't have a top coat either.

I don't really have a lot to say about this polish because I'll just keep repeating the same adjectives: amazing, stunning, gorgeous, beautiful. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves!

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Usually I hate my artificial light pictures, but I think Seduction looks amazing here.

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This isn't the greatest angle, but you can see the color shift up close on the nail.

And... a freaking crap ton of bottle shots:


Look at how amazing it looks! Drooling.



Look at how amazing this polish is! Seriously stunning. I am huge fan of Clairvoyant, but like a lot of polish lovers out there, I think that I may like Seduction more! I know, it's hard to believe, but it's true! The color shift is a amazing and it looks gorgeous in person.

Because Seduction is made with the same flakies as Clairvoyant/Unicorn Puke, it is limited edition and will gone when it sells out. It's still available on the Cult Nails site for $10.

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Cult Nails Manipulative

Tonight's polish is Manipulative, the third polish from the Divas & Drama Collection by Cult Nails. Maria was inspired to create this polish during a mini-vacation and she was struck by the gorgeous color of the water that was shifting between green and blue. Her description of Manipulative is "an opaque pale blue with a hint of green creme polish with a subtle shimmer that comes out in the sunlight."

This was a great polish-- I only needed two coats for the photos below. I did have to be a little careful not to drag the polish, but really there aren't any issues with the polish. Went on smoothly, dried well, and was glossy without a top coat. The shimmer is subtle but you can definitely see it.

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It appears Manipulative has photographed a little brighter here than in real life. In actuality, Manipulative is a calm pastel blue with strong green tones. Personally, I felt that the green was a lot stronger to my eyes in real life, but the camera seems to have picked up more of the blue. In any case, I can feel Maria's inspiration behind the polish and its a very soothing color. Another great color for summer!