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!

OPI – Every Month Is Oktoberfest

My husband’s birthday was on Saturday. I took him to the Magic Castle in Hollywood! We had both wanted to go but had never been, and I was lucky enough to get an invite from a magician’s wife. 🙂

We got all dressed up and I wore this on my nails and toes…

OPI – Every Month is Oktoberfest!
It is so gorgeous! Just as sparkly as Germanicure, but more on the wine/burgundy side.

Actually, the shimmer is a really warm and sparkly red, but the base is so blue that it really makes the polish look more plum or burgundy on the nail. When you actually pull the brush out and see the base, its very blue.

These are the only two I got from the new Fall collection and I LOVE them both!

New Bundle Monster! Butter London – Toff with Flormar – 389

I was so excited to get my new Bundle Monster plates from Amazon! I went to a wedding over the weekend and wanted to try out one of the new designs.

The two plates I tested really worked well! The designs were really etched in deep and they were large enough to even cover my thumb with a lot left over!

Butter London – Toff with Flormar – 389 stamped over, using the new Bundle Monster Plate – BM 314

I reallllly wish their new plates came with a coffee cup design. I thought they said they would with the next set but maybe I’ll have to keep waiting. If you want to see the designs that they did use, check this out:
http://www.bundlemonster.com/top-sellers/25pc-nail-art-stamping-image-plates-2012-collection.html

MAC – Violet Femme

I finally got to wear this one I’ve been looking at for months now.

It is totally my kind of purple, the dark plum eggplant shade I love! It also has this hidden shimmer of a warm color that reminds me of a Chai Latte.

I got a giveaway together, I’ll post it soon! 🙂

Now I have Blister In The Sun stuck in my head.

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!

Illamasqua – Faux Pas

This is one of those purples that isn’t for me, but I LOVE these polishes from their Theatre of the Nameless collection.  These are the ones that all have the waxy, rubberized finish.

I kept Taint and Vice, but I did swap this one already.  It went fast!

I took a look at their newest collection that came out last week, Human Fundamentalism.  The newest colors are a pistachio green and a muted magenta color.  Nomad and Stance.  I don’t think either of them would be a color I’d wear, so I’ll have to wait until their next one comes out!

Zoya – Lotus

I’m having one hell of a time with life lately and I’m already on my way to D.C. again in the morning… whew.

But I shall take a minute to post! Nail polish swatching must go on! 🙂

Here is Zoya Lotus! I loved it more than Tru, I’m just so bummed that I can’t get that gorgeous bottle shimmer to appear on my nails without getting the light and the angle exactly perfectly. Such a tease, huh?

OPI – Dutch Ya Just Love OPI vs Zoya – Tru

These are so exactly the same, I can’t get over it. Just when I thought I might like one more than the other, I realize oops, no it was just the light angle because when I tilt back this way, its the same as the other afterall…

That is the OPI on the index and ring fingers, the Zoya on the middle and pinky.

They do look the same in the bottles as well! The best part about these is the hidden shimmer of course!

Unfortunately they were too bright purple-toned for my liking, because we know how I am so picky about purples, so they are both up on my MUA swap list.

I need to do a blog sale though very soon in case any of you want to just buy them at a discounted price with paypal or a check. I have so many I could put in a blog sale, I just need to make the time to sit here and do that. I must soon!

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!

Ozotic Pro 505 vs 506

These can be hard to tell apart because I found there is only one flash angle where they differ.

They look the same to me at most angles. Here is 506 on index and ring, 505 on middle and pinky (over black, of course!):

(Bottle is 505)

Here are the two in the bottle… 506 on top, 505 on the bottom:

But this is the reason why 505 is my favorite! I prefer the greenish blue flash in the 505 over the midnight blue flash in the 506.

I’m holding the 505 in this picture so you can really see that gorgeous teal-ish flash toward the top of the bottle and on my middle nail:

So it just depends on what shade of blue you prefer if you can’t decide between the two of these. 🙂

Hits Mari Moon – Unconventional (and wordpress dropping GFC?)

This one is SO awesome! I love that its a work-friendly polish too because all of the colors it flashes to are normal colors like purple, red, plum, magenta… so I can wear it all I want without wondering if it’ll be appropriate in a meeting with military folks and everything. 🙂

At the least red angle, it looks like a dark plum purple. I just think this is so gorgeous.

I heard that wordpress blogs aren’t going to be able to use Google Friend Connect anymore soon! Is that really true? Mine is a wordpress.org blog… I actually moved mine from wordpress.com to self hosted wordpress.org so that I could use Google Friend Connect. ha!

So either I’ll have to figure out another change, or a lot of us bloggers are on wordpress and we’ll all move to bloglovin’ instead anyway?

If so, I added bloglovin’ following on my sidebar so we can get going with that. I’ll look for yours on bloglovin’ too so I can add yours there.

I love how this one shows your follower count, although right now mine is 6 so its a sad little cute number. haha

(Just when I thought wordpress.org gave us all complete freedom! Argh.)

I keep wanting to make a “My favorite things” video for you guys and see what yours are so I don’t miss out on other awesome stuff… I was going to include nail products but also hand and cuticle stuff and even fragrance, hair products, eye shadow and lip gloss. I’ve never even made a video that shows my face! Maybe I won’t be such a stranger. 🙂

China Glaze – Urban Night, Makeup Factory – 375, NARS – Tallulah

These 3 dark purples looked so similar to me in the bottle, so I wanted to do a comparison.

Here are China Glaze Urban Night (index and pinky), Makeup Factory 375 (middle), and NARS Tallulah (ring):

The Makeup Factory one got really dark but the NARS and the China Glaze look exactly alike!

GOSH – Purple Heart

I love these oil slick nail polishes. This one is called Purple Heart.

It has a nice powdery dark plum color on the nail, but in the bottle, it really shifts from purple, to green, to a whole oil slick palette on the outsides. See?

I want to do another giveaway soon! I thought it was really fun to choose 2 winners and send them something they chose out of a list so I know that they’ll be loving what they get. I think I’ll get a few really good ones together and ask you what your favorites are… then pick 2 winners and do my best to send them most of the ones they listed. I have 299 followers, so a 300 followers giveaway will be a good reason to have one! 🙂

I just saw this post and oh holy crap, my trying not to buy more polish plan is going to go right down the toilet. I have to have Chanel April, and China Glaze Magnetix!!!!
http://www.squarednails.com/spring-2012-collections-a-rundown/

Also, I’d just like to say that I officially like the Harmony Gelish hybrid gel system more than the CND Shellac! It just works so much better for me in terms of how long it lasts and how well it seals around the edges.

That is all!

Merry Midnight over Goin My Way!

This turned out SO cool! I layered 2 coats of OPI – Merry Midnight over 2 coats of China Glaze – Goin My Way.

I like how the brown underneath counteracts how bluish Merry Midnight can be.

Out of direct light you can see more of the flakies.

Ulta – For Bitten

This one is so gorgeous. In the bottle, it has the oil spill effect where it has halos of different colors like red, brown, orange, purple, red.

It comes out purplish reddish brown on the nail, and in the sun it is so dazzling!

OPI – God Save the Queen's Nails

This color is hard to describe but its so rich and pretty!

Its plum-ish, mauve-ish, wine-ish, a little frosty… a little on the warm side?

Anyway, here it is!

Orly Space Cadet vs Claire's Venemous

A lot of people say that these are close to being dupes. Sometimes I’d see swatches of them together and they did look similar so I was confused and had to do it myself! Plus, I wanted to show the awesome missgreencurry, who sent me Space Cadet. 🙂

I know they have a similar eggplant to olive type of effect, but to me they always looked pretty different. My swatch really showed how different they are.

Space Cadet on index and ring fingers, Venemous on middle and pinky:

They look awesome in the bottles!

I guess if you love duochrome that has a purple to green shift, then these are both similar and both awesome, so I can see the comparison, but some swatches like this one from stephscloset make them look like almost exact dupes, that’s where I got confused. Maybe at a certain angle they do look alike!

If you want to see some awesome close-ups of Space Cadet, I love this post on lacquerized.com! (Her blog is sooo amazing by the way if you haven’t seen it, I always thought her pictures and swatches were the best quality by far!)

Essence – Love Peace and Purple

Another awesome taupe-purple with purple shimmer…

This one is a lot like Chanel Paradoxal! Since I already swapped that one, I put it next to Revlon Perplex:

I think that the base has a little more taupe to it than the Perplex, so I think I like it more.

Also, I MUST HAVE THIS! Its an NYC limited edition 2011 Halloween lip gloss called Blackula!

There is something about a black gloss… it just gives your lips a tint that is neutral and a couple of shades darker. I can’t do black lipstick or anything, but a black jelly gloss just looks SO awesome. I’m in love with my MAC Bling Black gloss and that Twilight lip gloss pot that came out in black… so I just have to have this.

If anyone sees it, please let me know… I’ll keep checking Rite Aid for it and hope to grab some!

Savina Merlot, OPI Catherine the Grape, China Glaze Gamer Glam, and Milani Hi-Res

When I got OPI – Catherine the Grape, I loved the color, even though I don’t usually like purples… so I went and got the other 2 purples I had gotten recently and left the Savina – Merlot on one nail from last time so I could do a comparison.

Savina Merlot, OPI Catherine the Grape, China Glaze Gamer Glam, Milani Hi-Res

I don’t have Gamer Glam anymore, but I kept the other 3!

I have so much to type but my wrist is still a little screwy… it looks really bad actually! I wanted to try the Shellac formula so I got myself a little UV lamp and the base, top and color coats. I put it on this weekend since it is supposed to last for weeks and I’m having such a hard time painting my right hand right now since my left one doesn’t want to work right just yet!

I’ll post about that soon with a video… and I’m going to do a tuffscent.com giveaway of a bottle or two!

BB Couture – Eternity

I love dark plummy brown shimmers like this! How did I miss out on these BB Coutures for so long?

Look how pretty this one is!

I just made a video of my whole polish collection for you guys in case you’re curious what I keep and swap away… I’ll upload it tonight and post it!