Sinful Colors A-Crush

IWednesday, hump day! Woo! Today I have another polish from the Sinful Colors Chalkboard Matte collection to share with you! This is A-Crush (which I guess is supposed to be a spin on A-plus?! Not sure about that.) and I would call A-Crush a periwinkle satin matte (as opposed to yesterday with Zoya Nyx, which was definitely not periwinkle, despite being described as such).

Ok, real talk: these photos are from August. It's now January. Safe to say, I don't remember a whole lot about this one. I don't think the formula was terrible, but I did see some bubbling when this dried. It's possible I applied the polish too thickly or didn't let it dry. Because I wore this in August, it was also very hot, and that may have affected A-Crush as well. This is at least two coats, possibly three. A-Crush dries to satin matte finish (as opposed to a true flat matte)-- it looks a bit more shiny in my photos than it does in real life, but I did not use a top coat here.

Artificial light (flash):

I think this color is gorgeous, but the bubbling is annoying. Again, with all the heat we had this summer, it may have affected the formula-- or perhaps my coats were just too thick, because I don't think I've seen bubbling in other swatches. Next time I wear this, I will try to apply thinner coats (or potentially add some thinner) to prevent bubbling. 

Sinful Colors Blue Sensation

Let's get Monday off to a great start by starting with a polish I absolutely fell in love with: Sinful Colors Blue Sensation. This is a polish from one of the three (!) collections Sinful Colors put out this fall. I didn't see a display with this polish at first, but when I saw it on other blogs, I knew that I had to have it and had to comb a few drugstores in the area to find it (no one store received all the fall polishes).

Blue Sensation is a shimmery steel blue that dries to a satin matte finish. It has a very good formula and goes on smoothly and I only needed two coats for opaque, even coverage. It dries in good time and not so fast that it's prone to dragging. My photos (without top coat) are making the satin matte finish invisible, but it's there. Nice and smooth! My photos also make this seem icier and lighter than it is in real life-- there is a strong silver shimmer in the polish but it translate to a more steely grey than icy silver in real life.

Artificial light (flash):

I have to say, this is probably one of my favorite polishes this fall! I'm not really good about picking up (or wearing) polishes as they come out, but this has a gorgeous color, great formula, and the satin matte finish I love. So this is a huge win for me and I would definitely encourage you to run out and grab this if you see it!

Happy Monday all!

L'Oreal Aux Chandelles

Here we are at hump day already! How did that happen?! Anyway, tonight I have another polish from the L'Oreal Dark Sides of Grey (yes, based on that book). Aux Chandelles, which is French for candlelight, is a pale grey polish that dries to a shiny wax finish. Aside from Masked Affair this was the only other polish that really attracted my attention, because I'm such a fiend for these satin/matte polishes.

Now, after reading a few reviews, I was afraid of Aux Chandelles, because I had read the formula was iffy. Fortunately, having mentally prepared for this, I was able to apply it without any issues! The formula is a little on the thin side and a bit watery, so the first coat was a bit patchy. I used a very light hand and ended up using three coats just to make sure I had complete coverage. Because of the wax finish, it does dry down quickly, but not so quickly that I couldn't work with it!

Artificial light (flash):

Despite my initial fears about the formula, I ended up really liking this polish and am glad I picked it up. It's such a lovely light grey-- perfect for winter, or really any time of year! I'm very happy with this.

Julep Janet

Hey all! Hope everyone had a good Tuesday! My day could have gotten off to a better start, but it ended up being ok. Seattle is experiencing a small heat wave (not uncommon for May) so we got our window AC units up tonight-- more for the kids, but we benefit as well, haha! Piggy backing off yesterday's cantaloupe post, today I have another polish along the same color lines. Today I have Julep Janet, which was from the March Maven POP! Collection. In this box Julep introduced a new "soft focus" finish and there was a trio available as an add-on. Being a sucker for these matte/satin finishes, I of course had to pick this up. According to Julep, soft focus means "semi-matte" and these polishes dry to a soft, eggshell satin like finish-- there is a bit of shine to them. This seems very similar to the Essie Cashmere Mattes that were released earlier this year.

Janet is described as a "pale peach soft focus" and I would amend this slightly to say it's a peachy neutral. I think in person it looks a bit more peach, but my photos seem to mute the peachy tones a bit. The formula on this was definitely a little bit tricky-- a little on the thick side and it wanted to streak when I applied it (and it didn't want to self level). A light hand is definitely needed when you apply this! I used three coats here, mainly to even it out rather than because it was too sheer or anything like that. With the semi-matte finish, this does dry fairly quickly, though you do have to be careful not to dent it while it's drying!

Artificial light (flash):

Despite the fact that the formula wasn't great, I do like this semi-matte finish. I like how soft this looks! How do you feel about the semi-matte finish?

Sally Hansen Regal

This will be a quick post, because I'm tired and honestly, don't have a whole lot to say about this polish. That's not necessarily a bad thing, it's just the truth. Tonight I have another polish from Sally Hansen's Velvet Texture polishes. This is Regal, which is a royal blue polish. (I guess that's why it's called Regal? Or maybe because velvet is regal? Anyway...) It has that slight textured finish, and a slight satiny shine. The formula was good-- I'm pretty sure that I only used two coats here. As with other matte or textured polishes, it dried quickly, which makes it great it you need a manicure in a hurry.

Artificial light (flash):

This is a really gorgeous blue and I thought it applied well, but it chipped very quickly, which was frustrating.

OPI Love.Angel.Music.Baby

Happy New Years to you all! I am being incredibly boring and working on clearing off my DVR right now while the rest of my family sleeps. Super exciting! Actually, I'll be honest-- I don't really care about staying up until midnight to ring in the new year-- especially now that I have kids and they will definitely not sleep in despite my keen wishes. I honestly haven't even really made any New Years resolutions, except for I need to get organized and pay off my debt. As for the blog, my main goal is to just post more. Oh, and get through my massive collection and not buy anymore polishes (hahahahaha).

Even though I'm not doing anything supremely exciting, I do have a lovely polish to share with you! Tonight I have OPI Love.Angel.Music.Baby, which is from the first Gwen Stefani collaboration I grabbed this on sale from Ulta awhile ago, and this was the one polish from the collection I really wanted so I'm glad I was able to snag it. Love.Angel.Music.Baby is a pretty gold that dries down to a semi-matte satin finish. This has almost velvety, soft feeling to it when it dries down-- it reminds of the Julep suede polishes from a couple years ago. I am pretty sure I used two coats here and it dried to the satin finish in good time (not so fast that you had to worry about messing up your polishing job). Unfortunately, because this is a matte/satin finish, it is prone to chipping more quickly than if you were wearing a top coat (hopefully).

Artificial light (flash):

I love this gold-- it's soft and subtle and a nice metallic pop without being super showy (if you're in the mood for that). Plus, I would bet it looks equally stunning with a top coat, even though I didn't apply one here. 

Hope you all have a Happy New Years! Any resolutions? 

Julep Lola

Today I have Julep Lola to show you. This polish isn't new new, but it did come out in the November It Girl box. I grabbed this to use with my Seahawks Super Bowl manicure, and after using it there I really wanted to wear it as a full manicure (technically, this has yet to happen... unless wearing it on four fingers counts! Twin mom life, yo!). Lola is a "moonlit night blue satin" which is another reason I wanted to wear this-- I knew I wouldn't need a top coat. Anything to save time!

Despite not needing a top coat, I would strongly recommend using a base coat. Blues are notorious for staining because of the pigment so I went ahead and used two coats of my base coat to avoid any potential staining. I did not have any staining, so take what you will from that. I like being on the safe side, just in case. Stained nails are awful! The formula on Lola was good-- almost a one coater, though I used two to get complete coverage. Lola goes on shiny and then dries to the satin finish. It didn't take too long to dry, either, which is nice.

Artificial light:

The natural light pictures were taken after a few days of wear (or at least overnight; I can't remember). You can see (if you blow up the pictures) that without a topcoat there was some denting/scratching of the polish.

Natural light:

One of the best things about Lola was that it did wear like iron. I wore this for several days (on only four fingers-- yeah, I know. Don't judge me!) and barely had any wear on my nails. So that is awesome! These days I tend to wear my manicures a lot longer than I normally would so if they are still looking decent by the time I take them off, I'm happy. 

So in summary: love the color, love the satin finish, love the wear time. Wish it hadn't gotten nicked up, but I still really like it. This is definitely a new favorite!

Super Bowl Sunday Mani!

Hey all! This weekend is the Super Bowl! Generally I am only mildly interested in the Super Bowl, as college football is my true love, but I do enjoy watching and rooting for my hometown team-- the Seattle Seahawks! And now they're headed to the Super Bowl for the second time in the franchise's history! Naturally, I had to have a manicure to celebrate. I've been planning this mani since before the NFC Championship Game! There's a ton of Seahawks spirit in the city right now and it's awesome to see so many people excited about supporting our team.

To put together my Seahawks mani I wanted to choose the right polishes. I found the perfect polish online-- from JENsations, a local Seattle polish maker. It's a glitter polish called Seattle Seahawks and inspired by the team's colors. It features blue and neon green hex glitter, in addition to white bar and diamond glitter. I love the way this looks in the bottle and think it perfectly captures the Seahawks. Given that the team often uses grey as an accent color, I decided to layer this glitter over the now defunct Lex Cosmetics Seattle Sunshine-- it seemed like it was meant to be. Then I added an accent nail of Julep (being a Seattle based company) Lola, a dark navy blue satin. I found some nail tattoos online and ordered those as well, so I put one of those on my accent nail. Initially I was hoping to leave the whole nail without top coat to emulate the helmets (matte blue with a shiny logo) but when applying the tattoo there was some residue that also transferred so I ended up putting a top coat on anyway. The tattoo is a little lost on the nail given the dark base color and the dark colors of the tattoo itself (it's recommended you put it over a white or light colored polish) but I still like the way it looks.

It's not the best manicure I've ever done, especially given my limited time, but I enjoy having spirited nails and was glad I could put together something for my team!

Go Seahawks!!