L'Oreal The Mystic's Future

Today have another shade from the L'Oreal/Project Runway collaboration that was released this fall. I swatched this awhile ago and was saving it for a Football Friday post, but we're past football season now (at least for me) and I wanted to share this with you! The Mystic's Future is a gorgeous shimmery dark purple with strong blue tones.

I had some issues applying this (mainly the formula seemed to get thin as I reached my tips) but it could have been much worse.  I only needed to two coats to get complete coverage. It does dry a bit on the flat side-- I wish I had added a top coat to make it a bit shinier here. In the bottle this seems very close to Wet n Wild Toxic Apple, but The Mystic's Future is definitely more purple on the nail, rather than blue.

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This shade isn't all that original, but I love these shimmery purples and can't seem to get enough of them!

I have to say, I've been pretty impressed with all the L'Oreal polishes I have tried so far. I only have four of them (all from the Project Runway collaborations), but I like the ones I have and they have been easy to work with. In the last year L'Oreal revamped and released a very large core line of nail polishes and I look forward to trying some of those in the future. I've definitely been enjoying their limited edition releases, so I would say this is a drugstore brand to keep an eye on.

Nail of the Day: Triangle tape mani

Today I have something a little different for you-- the current nail look I'm wearing! I was wearing OPI On Her Majesty's Secret Service (swatches to come) and one of my nails started chipping (boo, hiss). Rather than change my whole manicure, I decided to try a new tape manicure-- the triangle tape mani! I ended up using Nails Inc Kensington, a blackened teal, because I was looking for something that complimented the blue flash in the OPI. And incidentally, I hadn't worn Kensington yet!

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I love the way this looks! The triangle definitely gives the appearance of elongating your nail and it's fairly simple to do. I suspect I'll be doing this again a lot in the future!

Maybelline Downtown Brown

I have one other polish from Maybelline's fall collection, Downtown Brown! This polish was definitely raved about in the polish blogging community when it was released because of it's uniqueness, so I made an effort to keep an eye out for this and snagged it when I saw the display out at my local drugstore. Downtown Brown is definitely a unique polish to my collection, especially since I tend to shy away from brown polishes in general. I would describe this polish as a warm medium brown with a strong blue/green shimmer.

The formula of Downtown Brown was a little on the thin side, and the first coat was sheer and streaky. I needed three coats to get nice, even, opaque coverage. It also dried quickly, but I didn't have any issues with applying it.

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To be honest, while Downtown Brown is definitely unique and I like it a lot, but I felt that in real life (definitely not in my photos) that the blue-green shimmer really dominated the polish and overpowered the brown base. I find the shimmer really pretty and love the color combo, which is so unexpected, but I wish it had been a little more on a subtle side.Still, this is a gorgeous polish and I'm glad I have it!

Maybelline Metal Icon

Tonight I have a cool polish to share with you, Maybelline Metal Icon. This was one of the polishes from the limited edition fall collection they released, and I believe Maybelline had revamped their nail polish line prior to this fall release. It took a long time for this polishes to show up in Seattle-- I didn't get my hands on this until October, while polishes and other items from this collection started popping up on blogs in August! Anyway, Metal Icon is a great polish, and one I find to be pretty original. It's an interesting silvery taupe polish. I want to call it a glass fleck, though I'm not convinced that's actually the right term for it, but it's made of very fine different color particles. Metal Icon walks the line between silver and brown, and sometimes even seems to flash a little blue too. Very interesting and lovely-- and perfect for fall (or winter)!

I found Metal Icon to be extremely quickly drying-- in fact, almost too quick. You need to put this down on your nail and not go over it again with the brush because you risk dragging it as it dries. It's also a little sheer with the first coat, but you can get decent coverage with two coats. I used three here and in general, didn't have any issues applying it.

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Have you seen anything that comes close to Metal Icon? Polishes like this seem to be getting more popular, and some similar ones that come to mind are OPI Designer De Better or The World Is Not Enough, though I don't think either of those are dupes.

Zoya Sharon

The last polish from the Peter Som trio that was produced by Zoya is Sharon-- and this is the only polish from the two Fashion Week trios that didn't make it into Zoya's Lovely Collection. Which is a shame, because it's a lovely orange color! Sharon is described as a  "full coverage creamsicle orange. A subtle and soft interpitation of bold color." First of all... can orange ever actually be 'subtle'? Soft, yes, definitely-- but subtle?! Maybe, but I don't think Sharon is a subtle polish, for all that it may be soft. It does have a creamy appearance, but I don't think I would call it subtle. To me, this polish definitely makes a statement, but it's too loud and has a nice softness to it. In fact, I was a little surprised when I first applied it, given Zoya's description.

The formula on Sharon was probably the best of the three from this trio, but was still a bit on the streaky side. However, I feel like this was a bit thinner than the formula on Neely and so a bit easier to control. I used three coats here to get a smooth, streak-free finish, but I feel like you might be able to get away with two coats with careful application. It photographed much brighter than it actually is in person.

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With the flash under my house lights, Sharon looks positively neon. It's not!

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Sharon is a lovely orange creme, so hopefully Zoya will find a way to bring it back in another one of their collections in the future for those who missed it!

New Year's Polish Resolutions

I have decided to make some resolutions in regards to my polish obsession (and let's face it, that's what it is!). I have a lot of polish-- I still haven't counted it, but honestly, it's a lot of polish and more than most sane people need or have.

1) Organize my stash
2) Swatch all my untrieds
3) Reduce my spending on polish
4) Get rid of dupes and polishes I don't need/wear

To this end, I have already organized my stash! For Christmas my husband bought me an Alex storage unit from IKEA and have now been able to mostly get all my polishes in one place. Before I had my polishes all over the place-- in our linen closet, in the guest room, sitting on every flat surface in our house. Now at least it's all in one place, though I could go through and organized

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Yay, clean and organized! Doing this has made me realize that well, I have a lot of polish. A lot! Way more than I need. I am feeling a little guilty about the amount of money I have spent on polish in the last year, so I am curtailing my spending considerably in the new year. Of course, I still plan on buying some polish, but I am definitely going to limit myself. That might mean I might not always be showing current polishes from recently released collections, but I have a lot of polishes that I haven't worn or swatched so hopefully I will be able to entertain you that way.

Additionally, I am always open to suggestions and constructive criticism from you, my readers! I feel like a lot of the times I feel like I show a lot of the same brand in a row (especially Julep, probably followed by Cult Nails) and I am working on remedying that, mostly because I don't want people to get bored with my posts.

Happy New Year everyone!