Zoya – Louise + Catrice – Have An Ice Day

I recently got Louise and wow, it is just like painting your nails with dark chocolate. It literally looks edible!
(forgive the dry cuticles, ugh!)

Then the lovely Gemma sent me Have An Ice Day from her stash and I had to wear it immediately over Louise! Its a really fine-particle holo top coat. Kind of makes whatever color you wear under it look like it just came as a holo polish!

I might as well share the news now that I’m half way through this… I’m pregnant! 20 weeks now, and I get to find out if its a boy or a girl on Wednesday. 🙂 That’s why I’ve been painting my nails less… not supposed to breathe the fumes and all. I feel pretty safe with Zoya though.

Pure Ice – Pardon My French (lemming!)

My story about looking everywhere for Pardon My French has such a happy ending! Pure Ice sent it to me themselves! I am so thankful to them, I hope they know it. 🙂

They saw my post somehow and answered the call, doesn’t that just make you love them even more? Generous and good to their customers beyond belief!

Anyway, I’ll get to the swatch! It was more than I even expected. I didn’t need a base color layer at all, and it wasn’t globby like a lot of other hex glitter polishes are. It is even a peach-ish color of brown, so it is really unique. So absolutely perfect!

♥

Happy 2013 Giveaway! Featuring Lynnderella’s Snow Angel!

I know everyone wants Lynnderella’s Snow Angel, and even if you already have it, they are selling for a ton on eBay! So I thought it’d be exciting to feature that in my giveaway, since I have a brand new, unswatched, big round bottle of it!

I want to pick 3 winners again. So I’ll ask you what your favorite items are from these, and the grand prize winner will get 4, including Snow Angel! The 2nd place winner will get another 4 polishes, and the 3rd will get 3. Every time I’ve done it this way, I’ve been able to give everyone some polishes that they wanted most, so it was pretty fun!

Here is the list of the polishes in the giveaway! Click if you’d like to see google images swatches for each.

• Lynnderella – Snow Angel
• Color Club – Love Em Leave Em
• China Glaze – Material Girl
• Nox Twilight – Disco Darling
• Nubar – Cherry Cordial
• Kleancolor – Pastel Teal
• Duri – Lazy Days
• Milani – Digital
• Essie – Angora Cardi
• Essie – Pure Pearlfection
• Del Sol Color Changing – Ruby Slipper(Changes from silver glitter to red glitter in the sun.)

To enter, you can do one of two things, or both for an extra entry!

1. Use the giveaway picture and post/blog about this somewhere, put the URL to your post into the form.
Picture to use -> http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8222/8346691467_0d150cc61a.jpg
Link to the giveaway to use -> http://happy2013giveaway.shimmerspark.com

2. Become a facebook friend!
Here I am -> http://www.facebook.com/shimmerspark
(Just put your facebook name into the form, even if you were already my facebook friend.

I will pick the winners randomly, on February 10th!

If you don’t see the form load below this line, click here to go to the original post so that it will load for you…

♥
Holly

4 Browns Swatched – With OPI Shim-merry Chic

Its so hard to wait for these 2 broken nails to grow… I want to get swatching again!

So I’ll just apologize for the first 2 screwed up nails and post anyway.

Here is (from pointer to pinky) LA Colors – Chocolate Shimmer, OPI – Amarillo Almondine, Essie – Armed and Ready, and the pinky and bottle are OPI – Shim-merry Chic:

Shim-merry Chic came out a while ago with Merry Midnight. It has flakies that are a goldish-green, a blueish-purple, and the rest is mostly a neutral brown color.

Armed and Ready ended up looking very dark gray. When you can catch the shimmer, you see the gold flash, but it is a very hidden shimmer.

I love Chocolate Shimmer, so that’s a keeper for sure. Amarillo Almondine might be a little too light for my taste!

OPI – World Is Not Enough over Misa – Lost To The World

In my last post I showed you the taupe Lost To The World. I got World is Not Enough in the mail and had to wear it right away!

I noticed that it was a little sheer with one coat when I swatched it on a nail wheel, so I put it over the taupe and it was perfect!

I wore it for 5 or 6 days and I couldn’t stop staring at it. I love how most of the sparkles are pink!

At some angles, when the pink isn’t showing, it still has a nice taupe metallic tone to it instead of a green or yellow.

Definitely a keeper. 🙂

Misa – Lost To The World

I really found this taupe shade to be pretty perfect. It isn’t as dark as OPI – YDKJ or Essie – Mink Muffs.

Then it gets even more perfect when you see the flash of hidden shimmer!

The shimmer isn’t always noticeable, unfortunately. But since I loved the shade of taupe that it is, I didn’t mind. 🙂

Octoberfranken…

What do you get when you take Orly Rock Solid and pour in a bunch of China Glaze Hawaiian Punch, NYX Maroon, and Spoiled Cougar Attack?

Isn’t it pretty? When I got Rock Solid, I was bummed that it was just gray and not brown at all, so I thought I’d make it burgundy with some NYX Maroon. Then it was too purple and I wanted it a little pinker, so I added the China Glaze Hawaiian Punch. Then I remembered I wanted brown in the first place and dumped the Spoiled Cougar Attack in. haha!

Now I have a full bottle of this awesomeness!

Milani – Chocolate Sprinkles

As you can see, I’ve been having issues getting good swatches here since I moved into my husband’s condo a couple of months ago! We actually already sold it and are looking for a home back in Orange County where we both lived before. Soon I will have a home where I’ll get some good swatching light, but until then, I’ll continue posting swatches that I think at least show the polish, even if they aren’t in the same spot all the time. Its only temporary!

I got a new job too by the way, no more military stuff, no more clearances… I get to work in OC again!

Anyway, here is Milani Chocolate Sprinkles! It came out this year, although it was probably Spring. Its nice and sparkly with a real brown hue to it, instead of a red brown or a bronze brown… its a nice and sparkly dark brown! The sparkles show just as well in a dark room as they do out in the sun. 🙂

I just got Zoya’s new Blaze, let’s see if that one comes next… I do have a lot of great browns I’ve been waiting to try!

Sephora by OPI – Beauty Junkie

When I went to Sephora last week, I was admiring their new aisle they have that is just dedicated to nail polish! With the new fake-nail swatch of each color, I was able to see the polishes in a different way. They even have that for all of the other brands they carry now.

The one that caught my eye was Beauty Junkie! I picked it up and wondered how I had never noticed it before. So I bought it. 🙂

It is really cool because in different lights, it can look brown, burgundy, or really dark mauve! I swear sometimes in the sun, it has looked like a plum even. Its a nice and rich creme, so even though it is really dark, it can’t be mistaken for black… I love it!

Honeymoon!!

I’m in Hawaii!! And finally took off my french tips that were getting all screwed up anyway.

I made this franken before the wedding… RBL Poco a Poco was too light so I added China Glaze IX, Nicole by OPI You’re An Angel, and OPI Gouda Gouda Two Shoes and made this gorgeousness!!

From our beach condo in Maui! Loving this view!!!!

Here’s one from our last beach condo in Kuai, although in that one we had to walk a bit out the door for this view…

My Favorite Franken!

I want to gush about the girl who made this, but she didn’t want me to just yet, so I WILL with the next bottle I get from her! 🙂

I usually love to look at these awesome glitter mixes, but have a hard time wearing them. THIS one is just 100% awesomeness. Brown base with silver and rose-colored glitter. Its SO perfect for me!

I really got so many compliments on this one, so many more than I get with any other polish actually. I hope she makes more of these and gives it a good name. 🙂

I wore it on my Bachelorette Party day and still have it on my toes.

I’ll have to remove it to do my wedding french mani/pedi tonight.

Wedding in 2 days! I’m so excited, I’m a huge spaz.

Oh and I lost 40 pounds since Jan 1st so I could be at the weight I was a few years ago for my wedding day.

Okay, too excited and must stop babbling.

China Glaze – Blue Without U and a Forever 21 Polish

First of all… I’m getting married in EIGHT days! 8 days!!
And I’m moving this weekend.

So if you try to read this from a feed reader or shimmerspark.com, it might choke sometime over the next day or so. It means my server is either on a moving truck or its taking a while to set it up with my new IP in a new place to get it back online. I didn’t disappear. 🙂 I’ll make sure all of these posts are imported to the wordpress.com version of my blog that is always online, although some of the images won’t show temporarily anyway because they are on my server! haha

Anyway, onto the swatching!

I did a quick swatch of Blue Without U before, but my MUA friend Gemma sent me this gorgeous polish from Forever 21 because it reminded her of my wedding color palette, and they looked so similar!

They are both this really shimmery baby blue with specks of other colors all through it.

This is what happens when you put them over black! How crazy is that? Blue Without U turns pink and the Forever 21 polish turns bronze! I did them on alternating nails in case they were going to look so similar you’d need both sides to compare to, but what happened was definitely nothing like that.

I wish I could tell you how to get this Forever 21 polish, but I can’t. When she sent it, I tried looking it up by the SKU number and got absolutely nowhere. And since they don’t have names, how can you ever search for them on swap sites or ebay, or blog sales, etc!?

In case you do know a way, here is the label for you! 🙂

If you like Blue Without U, I’ll post an excerpt from the blog post about this one swatched alone, over black, and over white:
Here it is by itself on the index and middle fingers, over white on the ring finger, and over black on the pinky – Its almost kind of ugly by itself, but over white it is a really pretty blue… and over black, all you can see is the pink!

Okay… well, I’M SO EXCITED about my wedding next week!!
If you don’t hear from me for a few weeks, other than announcing the Spring Giveaway Winners, its because I’ll be on my honeymoon!!! Hawaii here we come, and we couldn’t need it more than right NOW when we are running around like chickens with our heads cut off trying to finish 100 wedding details with all of these wedding vendors AND packing and moving in together!
xoxo

BB Couture – Lazy Bum

I LOVE this polish!

I thought it was going to be too light of a taupe but it dried to the perfect medium brown taupe. And it has tons of complexity actually. Lots of silver glitter, brownish sparkle… there’s nothing like this one for sure!

Don’t be thrown off by the name and the dirty color, its gorgeous!

China Glaze – Foie Gras

I still can’t get enough of these creme polishes that are this rich color that looks taupe sometimes, plummy at other times, kind of greyish…

They always surprise me! I have to compare this to Below Deck, of course. It has a similar mix of shades but this one is more brown.

I also have to rave about the formula. It is so opaque that two coats is perfect and it didn’t dry too fast and become gloppy like some other brands I have polishes like this in. It will dry a tiny bit darker than the color you see in the bottle.

Speaking of that though, if you notice a little bit of bubbliness to this swatch, it isn’t the polish’s fault this time, I just overdid it on the Mavala Barrier Base + Sally Hansen Nail Quencher layers beneath it since my nails had gotten dry.

With the next post, its giveaway time again! 🙂

MeMeMe – Amethyst

I’ve gotten 2 MeMeMe polishes now through swaps and I love them!

This one is called Amethyst but it is a lot more like a burgundy brownish wine color, and its very shimmery!

I’ll have to try some more of these!

OPI Holland Collection Swatches – Gouda Gouda Two Shoes, Wooden Shoe Like To Know, Dutch Ya Just Love OPI, and Vampsterdam

I was dying to try these out, mainly for Wooden Shoe Like To Know. I don’t really have a brown like this that glows with shimmer! I’m so excited about it, I’m going to wear it on my business trip this week. (I’m going to Colorado Springs for a meeting, and it is going to be freeeeeezing.)

I also got tired of having to file my nails every 5 days because they’re growing so fast from my supplements, so I filed them way down! I figured at least this will last more than a week this time.

Anyway, here are 4 of the new Holland Collection swatches!

Sorry about the way my window screen left some weird grid shadow… I just wanted to get the swatches up ASAP.

Here they are in the shade, so you can make sure that even when the shimmery glow isn’t shining through, you still like them!

As you can see, the Gouda Gouda Two Shoes looks horrible on me in general lighting, ick.

Vampsterdam is the only one of these that isn’t a cream with inner glow. Its more of a frost, with really silver highlights all through the dark eggplant color. I love this one as well.

I find the Dutch Ya Just Love OPI to be too purple on me, exactly like Zoya Tru, so I’ll post the comparison of those two next… they are exactly the same.

So I put the two purples up on my MUA swap list and I’m going to try and franken the Gouda Gouda Two Shoes since I do love the glow but hate how the tone isn’t dark or light enough. I’ll probably add a sheer dark brown!

China Glaze Crystal Ball over You Move Me

When I was going to visit family, I thought the brown tone looked weird with my gray shirt, so I grabbed my trusty Crystal Ball and layered it on top.

Whenever something looks a little weird, I put Crystal Ball on it, and it becomes amazing! haha

China Glaze Magnetix – You Move Me

I think this is the first time where I got a package with nail polish and sat down immediately to do a mani so I could wear it *right now*!

I have other magnetic polishes but the fact that its a China Glaze just made me so excited! And of course, I had to get You Move Me, to add to my other 20 something browns. 🙂

When I first saw it, I was like awww, its a light goldish brown with silver glittery wisps to it, and I only like dark browns… but after the magnet did its magic, the parts around the shape got really really dark brown, so its so perfect!!

I used the star magnet obviously, but look at how the magnet comes! 3 designs in one magnet.

While I was doing this, I accidentally used the stripes part of the U shape on accident and re-did that one, but the stripes were amaaaaazingly sharp! If you used a red with the stripes, you’d have perfect candy cane nails that easily.

I did each nail one at a time because the magnet really pulls on the right parts when the polish is still really wet. I noticed a thicker wet coat makes a sharper star too. When I put my top coat on, I kind of dragged a little too much on my middle nail there, but the lines it leaves that are the lighter color are so gorgeous to look at, almost like its 3D and changes at different angles. And it isn’t bronzey at all, its dark brown and light latte brown. Ahh, I love this stuff. I also got Instant Chemistry so I’ll swatch that soon too.

I definitely recommend these, you have to try at least one to see how pretty it looks in real life when you move it around in different lighting.

OPI – My Private Jet (holographic green label)

So this is supposed to be the 2nd batch that is still holographic but the “teal flash” version!

I swapped it on MUA for my backup of Nfu Oh 61, and I’m wearing it today.

I think the holo effect is a lot stronger in the bottle than on the nail, it is kind of scattered on the nail. This is over the Nfu Oh Aqua Base Coat too. In the sun it looks amazing though!

I wonder if I will ever find the real original one!

Sephora by OPI – 212

I don’t know why I waited so long to post about this one! The awesome Ms. Gemma (greencurry on MUA!) swapped this one to me for my maybe fake My Private Jet since they were kind of similar!

Its like the greenish version of it but with some flakies in the mix. Not quite green but that Wagon Trail/Seriously Hip kind of brownish green!