This one ended up being too light for my skin tone, but I loved the mix of taupe, pink and pewter that you can find in this polish!
I preferred it over black! On my ring finger, you can see it over black in this swatch. The hints of pink really pop out!
Okay, these Jamberry wraps had me intimidated but it was actually so easy and took less time than a regular session of me painting my nails… plus zero dry time on the wraps really helped since I have a new baby!
This one is City Lights!
They lasted and lasted… after the 2 week mark I just wanted them off for a change but they probably would have gone another week!
Here they were after 2 weeks:
If you’d like to try them, all you need is a blow dryer to seal the wrap, a file to file the end off, and scissors to trim the wraps.
You can use one sheet for 2 mainicures and pedicures! One manicure left so many strips for later on:
You can buy them here!
https://hollycotta.jamberry.com
They sell 8-free polishes too!
Sorry about the lack of editing here, I have a newborn at home! 🙂 Best excuse ever!
Anyway, I wanted to try this treatment line for the longest time but kept putting it off. Finally, a CVS coupon plus a waiting period for my prescription led to me buying one of these!
Sheers To You looked pretty because of the pink shimmer but I couldn’t find any swatches… so here are some swatches! There must be some available online in case you want to see it too!
Not too much to see, but sometimes you still just must see. 🙂
I always thought OPI Man of La Mancha and La Boheme were amazing on their own but since I’m going to Vegas, I wanted to put something pink over black… so this magic happened!
Man of La Mancha over black!
After going through all of my posts to update links for my new server, I kept my favorite Christmasy swatches aside to put in one entry. 🙂
I might as well try the cool WordPress “Gallery in a post” feature!
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. 🙂
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…
I was going to do the new OPI and Zoya purple comparison but I already packed my memory card and camera in my suitcase… I’m off to Colorado Springs today for a 2 day meeting about the next version of my software.
It was snowing there yesterday! I had to go and buy a long wool coat and gloves to go with my scarf and beanie. haha! I’ve been in California since I was 4, so I’m a huge wimp about the cold. Wish me luck. 🙂
Anyway, here is NARS – Saratoga! I found it too light and bright for me since I like darker, richer colors, so I swapped it to Gemma almost immediately. It is like a raspberry tone.
It is really pretty though, and the light really catches all of the warm glints inside!
I’ll be back Saturday. Time to grab my luggage and Xanax for the flight. Eeek.
(Oh, and Wooden Shoe Like to Know didn’t really match my new dark gray jacket and the clothes I’m taking, so I went with Teasey Does It!)
This one was pretty appropriately named since it really reminds me of pink grapefruit! The shimmer is really warm and contrasts well with the base coral color.
I’m in crazy wedding-planning mode now! I finally have a real wedding date, now that I’ve coordinated with the church, the reception place, my photographer, DJ… and all of the rest! Its May 26th!
A lot of people blogged about not really liking this one, but I love it! Its odd because its like a coffee brown metallic foily color with black hexagon glitter, but I think its just a really cool and unique polish that doesn’t strike me as ugly at all.
Look at this!
Anyone around that likes this one like I do? 🙂
And oh my god, we gave our deposit to a wedding venue, so its really coming together! I think our wedding date is going to be Cinco De Mayo! 😀
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!
Sorry about the reflectiveness from my quick dry drops! I wanted to get a nice sunny one since its so pretty in the light.
In case you shop on cherryculture.com, this is a pretty one to grab!
NYX Girls – Red Bean Slush
I don’t know what took me so long to get this one, its gorgeous!!
Its brown but a little on the red side, and really shimmery!
I’ve gotten into black teal colors lately and I’m doing a swatch wheel to compare them.
When I went to Rite Aid yesterday, they had a few new ones, so if you’re into that type of color, check your drug store. There’s Sally Hansen – Teal-y Fast, Wet N Wild – Teal of Fortune, Maybelline – Cool Couture, and on the same Maybelline display, there is this awesome one called Purple Trend that is actually like a dark burnt red with teal shimmer inside. I’ll post swatches of those soon!
When I saw this one in the new collection, I had to get it because its such a pretty bright pink coral color with a matching shimmer.
I feel like it might have been bright enough to throw the picture off a little, so it is a bit brighter than this…
After I had it on, I was like ugh, this does NOT look good on me! Its a shame, I’ll probably swap it away, but it is really pretty in the bottle!
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!
This is one of my favorite dark browns, it is SO gorgeous!
In case most of you have China Glaze – Goin My Way, I compared it to that one. I was surprised to see it was quite a bit darker, although not so dark that it looks black! 🙂
Also, Goin My Way goes on a little sheer with the first coat, but When U Say My Name is opaque on the first coat.
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!)
Here is the video I uploaded to YouTube!
http://youtu.be/ce9SafuJ4go
This is what you need if you want to try this at home! You need a base coat, color, top coat, uv lamp, and rubbing alcohol to just get the tacky layer off once you’re all done.
I wanted to try this quickly since I had sprained my wrist, so I just went to Sally Beauty for it. I wanted to try CND Shellac but all they had was Harmony Gelish, which is the same process, so I grabbed that!
They have this Basics Kit, which is on sale quite a bit! It has everything you need but a color and the lamp.
The color I picked to try was Sweet Chocolate.
The lamp they had at Sally Beauty was a 9w one, so I decided I could wait 2 more days and got this UV light from Amazon, that has timer settings, which I love!
You can get the smaller 9W ones from Sally Beauty or somewhere online, it’ll just have to cure a couple of minutes longer. I’m too impatient, so I went with the full-blast one!
The kit came with a step-by-step tutorial video, so it was super easy! In case you didn’t want to buy that kit, I found a lot of how-to videos on youtube, or if you have any questions, let me know!
Some people even said they used the gel hybrid base and top coat but put normal polish on as the color… it wouldn’t last a few weeks, but it still lasted more than 1 week, so it is an improvement if you wanted to just get the base, top, lamp and alcohol!
Oh, and this stuff doesn’t come off if you use nail polish remover a lot on other people or your toes… there’s this top layer that protects it. So when you want to remove it, you just file a tiny bit off the top glossy layer (just for a few seconds, its really not a pain) and do the foil method where you just put acetone on a cotton/pad and wrap each finger with foil so it sits on the nail. After 10 minutes, you just pull it off with some pressure on each nail and it comes right off! It was so much easier than I thought.
I love this stuff!
I got some Shellac already and I got an OPI axxium of You Don’t Know Jacques… they are coming out with a lot more gel hybrids you can soak off at home too, so it should be pretty easy for you to find colors you like.
I have this on my MUA swap list, so someone asked me to swatch it for them over white and over black.
I didn’t have my black handy so I used China Glaze’s Concrete Catwalk since its pretty dark!
It doesn’t look as great over white, but it is awesome over black! It really shifts from pink to green. It stays pink most of the time, its only green at a certain angle…
I just got Ozotic Pro 506 finally… I’ve had 505 but it was more blue than teal, so I’m excited to swatch a comparison here pretty soon!
I was thinking about giving Julep polishes a try and their facebook page was offering a few dollars off. So I went to look and found one named Holly. So, I had to. It was literally calling my name.
Ever since I tried Misa – Blush Hour, I’ve been in love with these opaque super light pinks that have a greyish tone rather than a blue or coral tone. My other favorite is Butter London – Teddy Girl. Orly – Kiss the Bride is another that is almost exactly the same as Blush Hour but a tiny bit brighter.
So when I got Julep – Holly, I compared it to 3 others that have been in my “new” pile waiting to be swatched!
Sinful Colors – Easy Going, French Tip Dip’s unnamed pink, Essie – Fiji, Julep – Holly
Here they are swatched!
Julep – Holly is the only one with shimmer to it. I can’t wait to get Play the Peonies so I can compare those two.
Essie Fiji is what I decided to wear today. Its really opaque and harder to apply than the others, but it has the benefit of not having thick layers that take longer to dry, which is good since I’m doing this before work! haha!
The French Tip Dip ended up being more of a slightly darker jellyish gray pink, so although its awesome, I put it up for swap on MUA.
Sinful Colors – Easy Going is great. Its a little more glossy and makes thicker layers, which is better for when I have more time to let it dry, so I’m keeping that one too!
shimmerspark.com 
