Ow!

Hi lovelies, I just wanted to let you know that I fractured a bone in my right hand. This is making polishing and blogging very hard and time consuming, hence why I have yet to post the rest of the pretty OPI SoftShades. I actually swatched and photographed them, but cropping the pics and typing is so slow. I will have those up this weekend, but it may be kinda slow around here for a bit!

Zoya Island Fun & Paradise Sun Summer 2015 Preview!

Introducing two new Zoya Nail Polish collections for Summer 2015, Island Fun & Paradise Sun. All in the Big5Free* formula Zoya is famous for.

ISLAND FUN (creams)

Ready for an island vacation, these playful creams embody a tropical getaway! They are strong in color to balance the brilliance of the summer sun, with a flawless cream formula.

• Jace (ZP796) - Modern tropical green in a full coverage and densely pigmented cream formula. A green that is more muted than lime and surprisingly wearable!

• Cecilia (ZP797) - Classic teal in a full coverage and densely pigmented cream formula.

• Talia (ZP798) - True turquoise in full coverage and densely pigmented cream formula. 

• Serenity (ZP799) - Summer purple in a full coverage and densely pigmented cream formula. Reminiscent of beautiful blooming irises, a harbinger of summer! 

• Nana (ZP800) - Deep summer fuchsia in a full coverage and densely pigmented cream formula.

• Demetria (ZP801) - A vibrant poppy red in a full coverage and densely pigmented cream formula.

PARADISE SUN (metallics)

Fully saturated with a gorgeous micronized metallic sheen, these shimmering beauties are much like sunshine sparkling on water. Meant to be used as an independent color, these shades feature a full-coverage, densely pigmented formula.

• Genesis (ZP790) - Crystalline white with a micronized metallic pearl finish. Designed to look like micro-fine diamond dust!

• Selene (ZP791) - True teal with a micronized metallic pearl finish. A unique shade with an aqua fleck that resembles deeper

layers of ocean water.

• Oceane (ZP792) - True turquoise with a micronized metallic pearl finish that reflects the clearest blue ocean waters. 

• Isa (ZP793) - Deep blue-based purple with a micronized metallic pearl finish and an aqua flash that embodies the beauty of exotic island flowers.

• Mae (ZP794) - Warm magenta pink with a micronized metallic pearl finish, reminiscent of vibrant Mediterranean flowers.

• Aphrodite (ZP795) - Vibrant summer red with a micronized pearl metallic finish and multi-hued flash that brings it to life.

AVAILABLE 05/05/15!
ZOYA IS THE HEALTHY COLOR OF FASHION!
$9 (US)
Available in top salons, spas and on zoya.com
____

MORE BIG NEWS…

Watch LIVE as Zoya Nail Polish debuts the NEW Summer 2015 Collections – Island Fun & Paradise Sun on Periscope!

Join us on Friday May 1^st at 12:30pm EST to meet the collection and talk with Zoya Creative Director, Rebecca Isa, on how the new shades blend with summer cosmetic and fashion trends. If you don’t have a Periscope account already, don’t forget to get it set up now!

Broadcast Time: 12:30pm EST
Follow Zoya on Periscope: @ZoyaNailPolish

OPI SoftShades Spring 2015 Swatches, Part 1!

*Sent for review*

After having really nice bright sunshine and temps close to 70 a few days ago, today is chillier and a little bit cloudy. It's just the kind of spring weather that makes me think of soft blushes and beige hues, rather than brights or candy pastels. For this kind of weather, I tried out three of the new OPI SoftShades lacquers! This soft palest silver shimmer is OPI This Silver's Mine. This is a very understated looking silver, not chrome-y or loud at all. It actually almost has some slight pink/blush tones to it. The finish is more pearlescent, not like a chrome or metallic.

This is three coats of This Silver's Mine. It was a little sheer after one coat, so I did think I needed three for full opacity. It looks very brushstroke-y here, but I think it was less obvious in person. If you despise visible brushstrokes though, it might not work for you.

OPI Act Your Beige! is a sheer white beige with pink undertones. It is a very pale buff color, but it's soft looking, not stark. And I am just now seeing the lovely black cat fur on my pinky nail, ugh! Sorry, Binx is shedding like crazy right now.

This is three coats of Act Your Beige!. I did a thin first coat and it was nearly clear, so my second two coats were a bit thicker. The application was pretty good, it's fairly even for such a pale sheer color. There is a bit of streaking on my ring finger, but otherwise very good! I let each coat dry before applying the next. The consistency of this polish is perfect, not too thick, nor too thin.

 This pretty concoction is OPI Make Light of the Situation over OPI Act Your Beige!. Make Light of the Situation is a mix of soft iridescent glitter in a shimmery base. It can be worn alone for a soft sheer sparkly look, or over just about any polish. This look was very pretty in person! The iridescent glitters are several different sizes and they are nicely rainbow-y.

This is just one coat of Make Light of the Situation and it was extremely easy to apply. This is a great topper for any pale sheers in this collection or any you might own already. I think it would also look really pretty over pale spring pastels too. I will definitely try that and post pictures when I do! 

*Sent for review*

I will have the remaining three SoftShades up on Sunday for you! The OPI SoftShades 2015 lacquers are available now at Ulta, Ulta.com and professional salons.

Lynnderella Greener Than You Pink! and Princess Sweet Pea Swatches!

 *Sent for review*

Continuing with my theme of "polishes that look great in the sunshine", I have two holographic microglitter Lynnderella pretties for you today! First up is Lynnderella Greener Than You Pink!, a holo blue-green microglitter with lots of gorgeous pink shimmer and larger accent glitters. This teal green microglitter is really nicely holographic, it's so sparkly and rainbow-y in the sun! The pink shimmer is strong enough that occasionally you get a big flash of it, almost duochrome-like. There are larger green and pink metallic glitters too that peek out of the microglitter.

Greener Than You Pink! was super easy to apply. This is three thin coats and it is perfectly opaque. It was basically opaque in two coats, I really kept going out of habit! Lynn's microglitters keep getting easier to apply and more opaque.

Lynnderella Princess Sweet Pea is actually what Lynnderella calls a "nanoglitter", meaning smaller than microglitter! She describes this as a "pink and lilac holographic nanoglitter with tonal accents in magenta-sparked translucent magenta base". To me, it looks like a purple-y toned pink holo glitter with larger metallic lavender, pink and holographic pink accents (including a large pink holo circle! Yay circle glitter!). Like Greener Than You Pink!, this is super rainbow-y in the sun.

Also like Greener Than You Pink!, application was a breeze. This is three coats, but again, depending on the thickness of your coats, two may be perfect. Lynnderella's microglitters (or nanoglitters) are so easy to apply that they're getting to be my new "nail pajamas". I can slap on two coats of them, sometimes with no base coat, and either leave them like that if I'm in a huge hurry (without top coat, they're sort of like a sparkly texture polish), or use a QDTC for beautiful smooth shiny glitter nails! They dry really quickly on their own too.

*Sent for review*

Both of these beauties are Limited Edition and are available on lynnderella.com and lynnderella.storenvy.com. For more information about Lynnderella lacquers, check out lynnderella-lynnderella.blogspot.com.

I Love Nail Polish Rapture (H) Swatches!

 *purchased by me*

I am loving the sunshine we've been having, mostly because it's a great chance for me to wear ALL THE HOLO stuff!! ILNP Rapture (H) is one of the polishes I wanted to test drive during this sunny period. Rapture is an antique gold Ultra Chrome Flakie that shifts to blue and olive green. The holo version here also contains scattered holo sparkle that really adds to the beauty of the polish. You can see all the twinkly rainbow sparkles mixed in with the beautiful flakies, it's a really cool effect in person!

This is just one coat of Rapture (H) over OPI Road House Blues. I wanted to wear it over a dark blue to make the gold and the holo really pop, but you can wear the ILNP Ultra Chrome Flakies on their own in a few coats as well. This was super easy to apply and has a great consistency. I felt like the flakies spread themselves around well and didn't end up concentrated in one spot.

I'm chalking ILNP Rapture (H) up to another Win for ILNP in my book. I am really loving these Ultra Chrome Flakies! ILNP Rapture (H) is available now at ilnp.com.

Barielle Glitter Mania for Spring 2015 Swatches!

*sent for review*

The weather is starting to get nice finally and I'm in the mood for some fun spring manis. The new Barielle Glitter Mania collection is perfect for bright and cheery spring nails. Barielle Confetti is an aptly named mix of multi-colored matte hex glitters in a clear base. It really does look like confetti, thanks to the matte finish of the glitters and black, white, hot pink, baby blue, and peach colors. Confetti is a really fun glitter and I think it's just perfect for layering over any spring bright or pastel shade.

I used two dabbed coats of Confetti over Barielle Heaven Sent. Dabbing worked best here to space out the glitter evenly over my nails. It was pretty easy to apply this way, but I did have to move the glitter around a bit because it liked to concentrate itself all it one spot.

Barielle Princess Pink is a metallic pink glitter with a clear base. Princess Pink has a couple of different sizes/shapes of the same color metallic pink glitter, so it's more interesting looking than glitter that is all the same size.

This is just one coat of Princess Pink and the coverage was pretty good. I thought it was easy to apply and I used regular brushstrokes, not dabbing, for this. I used Barielle Gray Sky as my base. I like grey and pink together a lot and this would be a great rainy day spring mani!

I have two favorites in this collection and Barielle Gemstones is one of them. Barielle just calls this a "multi-colored glitter", but that hardly captures it's true magic! Gemstones has teeny blue microglitter, larger silvery blue holo glitters and metallic purple orchid glitters in a clear base. I am such a sucker for glitters that mix blues and purples, so naturally, I love this! I love that the larger blue glitters are holo, they give a nice rainbow flash.

This is one coat of Gemstones over Barielle Rain in Spain (also a favorite of mine!). Gemstones was very easy to apply and I liked the coverage I got in one coat. I think this one could be worn alone in a couple of coats if you wanted, but I love it over Rain in Spain. I did regular brushstrokes to apply this and the glitter spread around evenly. The consistency was perfect too, not too thick with base.

 Ooooooh I do like a good teal and copper combo!! This bright copper penny glitter topper is Barielle Orange Flame. Orange Flame has fiery orange-y copper hex glitters in a clear base. I actually have been looking for a glitter topper that only has copper glitters. I find that they are usually mixed with other stuff. I love the way copper looks with blue and teal, so I'll be wearing this a lot!

This is one dabbed coat of Orange Flame over Barielle Under the Sea. With these larger hex glitters, I think it's easiest to dab (like I did with Confetti). Then you can spread them around more evenly. The glitters did have a tendency to want to stick together though, so work fast and spread them out before the polish sets up.

Remember I said I had two favorites from Glitter Mania? Yea, this is the second one. Barielle Mermaid's Fin has beautiful twinkling silver holo small glitters and matte aqua hex glitters in a clear base. With a name like Mermaid's Fin, I'm pretty sure I was destined to love this polish. The combo of the small silver holo glitters and the pastel aqua hexes reminds me of beautiful bioluminescent plankton in the ocean (below, photo from Tumblr).

This is one coat of Mermaid's Fin over Barielle Midnight in Paris. I used regular brushstrokes to apply this and it was nice and easy to work with, no troubles. The consistency was great and the holo glitter is plentiful!

*sent for review*

The Barielle Glitter Mania is a great little collection for the glitter enthusiast like myself. My top two favorites of the collection are Mermaid's Fin and Gemstones, but I really like Confetti and Orange Flame too. Being not a pink person, I could live without Princess Pink, but it's nice if you're looking for a metallic pink glitter topper.

 April is Barielle's blue month, so I wanted to layer some of these glitters over lovely Barielle blues. They really make fantastic blue polish! You can enter to win $50 of Barielle products by submitting your blue nail art on the Barielle Facebook page. 

The Barielle Glitter Mania collection is available now at barielle.com. 

ILNP Fame Swatches and Drooling

 *Purchased by me*

I only have a few more ILNP pretties to show you and then I'll have shown you all of my ILNPs I'll have to buy some more to swatch! Today's stunner of the day is I Love Nail Polish Fame, a silver and gold flakie polish with tons of linear holo pigment. Indoors, Fame looks like white gold flakies of varying sizes. It's really metallic and stunning even in the lowest of lighting. Upon walking into sunlight, you discover that Fame is also REALLY holographic! The linear holo flame is incredible in bright sun. This polish also looks super cool outdoors, but out of direct sunlight, because you can see both the holo and the pretty metallic flakes. Like it's sister, ILNP Happily Ever After, it's like having two polishes in one! Fame is just so freaking pretty- indoors, outdoors, upside down, backwards, on the moon, etc.

 This is three thin coats of Fame and it was nicely opaque. The formula is very good, I have no complaints. It was easy to apply and the consistency was good. Occasionally, a flakie will kind of hang over the edge of your nail, but you can easily push it back on to the nail with no trouble.

ILNP Fame is available now on ilnp.com and I highly recommend you check it out if you like holos, flakies, metallics, or awesome nail polish.

OPI Infinite Shine Swatches and Wear Test!

 *Sent for review*

I've been testing the OPI Infinite Shine system for the last few days and have some preliminary results to show you as well as swatches of all of the colors I received. This pretty sandy neutral creme is OPI Maintaining My Sand-ity. Maintaining My Sand-ity is a pale beige neutral with some mushroom grey tones. I like this color a lot, so I chose to make it one of the shades I tested for wear (read on for more info).

Maintaining My Sand-ity was easy too apply. I am always a fan of the gel-like formulas, as I think they have the perfect consistency. They make it easy to put the polish right where you want it, without flooding the cuticles and with no streaks. This is two coats and it was fully opaque.

The picture above were all taken a little less than a day after I applied the polish. I applied it on Thursday afternoon and took those on Friday morning. All 10 days looked perfect at that point. Below, we have a picture of my nails on Saturday afternoon, so 2 full days of wear. You can see tipwear and a bit of chipping. This is also how my right hand looked.

The next two pictures are after 3 full days of wear. The first is my left hand, the second is my right (dominant) hand.  My left hand isn't too bad, but the chipping on my right hand is what made me stop this wear test after 3 days. I can't stand chipping like that. For this wear test, I followed OPI's directions exactly. I applied one coat of the primer on clean nails, two coats of color, then one coat of the Gloss (top coat). I only took one shower during this time period (no judging, Friday was a busy day! I showered right after this, I swear!).

The first wear test I did, I wore Running with the In-finite Crowd for 3 days. My results were actually worse than this, I couldn't stand to take pictures actually. I did shower all three days that time, and I actually showered only about 2 hours after first applying the mani, so that probably was pretty tough on it. I am definitely not done testing this system yet. I want to try oiling my nails before applying the primer, as that really helps me extend wear time with regular polish. I also want to try it with regular base coat. I read that the primer is designed to remove excess oils from your nails, and with my dry nails, I think that might actually hurt the wear time. After my first two wear tests though, this system is lasting about as long as regular polish does on me and a day less than regular polish lasts when I oil before applying my base coat. I will keep you posted with results of my future tests. (P.S. I'm glad I never take pics of my right hand, I could NOT hold the bottle nicely to save my life! So awkward feeling!!)

And now, back to the pretty stuff! OPI No Stopping Me Now is a bright attention-getting red-orange creme. I'm a huge fan of orange and this one is perfection. It's bright, without being a true neon, and the mix of orange and red is perfect for summer. This one will be going on my toes ASAP!

This is two coats of No Stopping Me Now. It was lovely to apply, one of those polishes that practically paints itself onto your nails.

OPI Set in Stone is the Infinite Shine cousin of the beautiful purple-taupe neutral cremes OPI does so well. Set in Stone is decidedly more purple than You Don't Know Jacques, and more taupe brown, less purple, than Parlez-vous OPI?, so it's kind of a nice mix of the two. It reads like a neutral, but definitely has a nice smoky purple to it so that it's not boring.

This is two coats of Set in Stone. The pigmentation was good, but some of the color came off when I applied the top coat, so be careful to let the color dry most of the way before applying the Gloss. It was easy to apply though, with the same nice gel consistency.

OPI Grapely Admired is probably my favorite of the OPI Infinite Shine colors I received. This is a pinky purple, almost like a more purple radiant orchid creme. It has red undertones, rather than blue like a lot of purple cremes, and I can't think of a dead on dupe in my massive purple collection. It seems a bit brighter on the nail than in the bottle, but I love the color. It's my new go-to purple creme (replacing Essie Play Date)!

This is two coats of Grapely Admired. It was nicely opaque and applied perfectly. I think some of my cuticle oil got on the polish, so it doesn't look as shiny in these pictures, but it was wonderfully shiny.

OPI Raisin' the Bar looks nothing like a raisin and that is A-OK with me! This is a stunning blood red squishy creme. It looks deep and vampier in darker lighting and brighter red in sunlight. It's a really drool-worthy red. As someone who hardly ever wears red, I will admit that I actually want to wear this! Topped with the ultra shiny Infinite Shine top coat, it's a stunner for sure.

This is two coats of the luscious Raisin' the Bar. It has some VNL due to it's gel-like formula. I don't mind the VNL in this case, as it looks like a cherry popsicle! This, like the other Infinite Shines, was super easy to apply and was the perfect consistency.

I posted OPI Running with the In-finite Crowd the other day, so you can check that out if you missed it. Here's a swatch just so that all of my Infinite Shines are in the same place!

*Sent for review*

As I mentioned, I will be testing the Infinite Shines more thoroughly and will update you about the results. After my first two tests, I would recommend that you purchase these if you love the colors and the beautiful shine. The line really has a lot of gorgeous colors (I plan on purchasing two of the blues and another purple) and the shine from the top coat can't be beat. If you're looking for 10 day wear, I'm not sure it's going to happen here. These seem to wear similarly to regular polish for me. Stay tuned for swatches of the three other colors I'm going to buy!

The OPI Infinite Shine Gel Effects Lacquer System is available now at professional salons, including Ulta, ulta.com and beautybrands.com.