Mintcicle

I have a *lot* of polishes (three guesses how many), and inevitably some of them have never been worn. That number is dwindling since I do my nails 2-3 times a week, and often layer two or more polishes at a time. Essie Mint Candy Apple was one of these. What's a little disheartening is I remember how much I LOVED the color of this polish at the time when I bought it, when it first came out in Winter 2009, but it went untried until now.

This is 2 coats of Mint Candy Apple, which applies fairly easily for a pastel. I was actually expecting it to be too thick just by the look of it, but it has a nice consistency and very good opacity for such a light color. Mint Candy Apple, while certainly minty, actually has a slight turquoise tint to it, more like Wintergreen Tic Tacs than actual straight-up mint green. It dries slightly darker than the color in the bottle.

As a topper, I applied 2 coats of OPI Pirouette My Whistle, which is one of my favorite topping glitters, filled with silver microglitter and pearly white hex glitter.

My Milkshake

It's time for another palette cleanser! I happened to see a swatch of Wet 'n Wild Megalast 2% Milk and liked it immediately--plus I don't have many pale-colored jellies in my collection, so it was a good fit. It was certainly nice by itself, but I couldn't leave it well enough alone so I sandwiched a coat of OPI Lights of Emerald City inbetween two layers each of 2% Milk. Have I mentioned I'm a sucker for food-themed names? I don't even like 2% milk (I'm much more partial to whole milk, or hemp milk if I can get it), but it's still a fun and cute name for polish.

2% Milk has a good formula for such a light color, and it flowed on the nail easily without being watery or streaky. It's a very nice, clean color that isn't as stark as a plain white; I'd call it an off-white or ivory.

Lights of Emerald City is a unique bird--I haven't seen another polish quite like it, even though the glitter combination of small iridescent squares and large matte white squares is a pretty simple mix. It is glitter-packed, so you don't have to fish for the big pieces of glitter (although giving the brush a swirl in the bottle helps get more of the larger white glitters on the brush).

Overall I really like this combination and I can definitely see myself wearing it again when I'm in the mood for something simple and refreshing.

Cosmic Daylights

My mani for this week is one of those colors that you've wanted for forever, and yet when you finally get it, it sits unworn in your drawer for months while you're distracted by other pretties. As previously mentioned, the ORLY Cosmic FX collection is THE collection that got me into polish, and Hailey's Comet is one of my favorites from that collection--teal is one of my favorite colors, after all, how could I not? Hailey's Comet is a dupe for OPI Catch Me In Your Net and Zoya Charla, but ORLY is definitely my favorite brand in terms of wear and price.

After wearing Hailey's by itself for a few days, tipwear was starting to appear thanks to the shrinkage I got while testing Seche Vite. I wasn't ready to give up my gorgeously sparkling tips just yet, so I patched them up with an extra coat of Hailey's Comet and did a glitter gradient mani with OPI The Living Daylights.

Hailey's Comet is a foil that applied in an easy 3 coats, and had a nice, thin formula that wasn't too watery. The gold particles among the teal was completely stunning! Topped with The Living Daylights, which is a mix of champagne gold, silver, copper, and teal hex glitters, made a great contrast. I don't much like it simply layered over the entire nail, but it's so much fun when done into a gradient mani! The dab method was most effective in depositing glitters with this mani, as the glitter pieces didn't seem to want to leave the brush.

Overall this is one of my favorite manis in a while! It really screams summer to me--I'll definitely be wearing this combination again throughout the warmer months.

Valentine's Day

So V-day is a commercialized holiday. Still doesn't mean it's not fun to dress up! I'll be wearing my heart backseam tights and red cardigan at work today, with Revlon Candy Apple Lip Butter...and on my nails, OPI Guy Meets Gal-veston topped with Happy Hands Cadance.

Cadance is filled with pale pink and hot pink glitters of various shapes and sizes, blue/purple iridescent glitter, and pale pink heart glitter! It's a perfect pairing for Guy Meets Gal-veston. Cadance has a nice, easy formula and was very easy to work with. It was a limited edition polish created by by my pal Kristi of Happy Hands, with proceeds being donated to Covenant Pet Trust, a local non-profit organization!

This is 3 coats of Guy Meets Gal-veston with two coats of Cadance. You can get your own bottle of candylike goodness for $10 from Kristi's Etsy shop!

Jeweled Lizards

Nail of the Day is OPI Just Spotted the Lizard from the Spiderman Collection, one of the many dupes of last year's very popular Chanel Peridot.

JStL is opaque at three thin coats and has pretty decent duochrome action going on, pale gold with turquoise-green flash. Just for fun, though, I stuck it underwater to bring out the full strength of the duochrome:

BAM. Underwater you can see the strong teal shift that appears in the corners of the bottle but never makes an appearance on the nail...under normal circumstances, at least.

Just Spotted the Lizard has a very thin, pleasant formula that is easy to work with, and that coupled with the OPI Pro Wide brush (which not everyone loves, but I do) makes applying this color a cinch. Since it is a metallic, it will have a tendency to show brushstrokes, but if you have good technique it shouldn't be difficult to get a smooth application.

St. Patrick's Day2

OPI Jade is the New Black + Sinful Colors Green Ocean

I see what people were saying when they said Green Ocean's mylar flakies are chunky...a few flakes decided to wrinkle up in horrible lumps on my nail, and it took FOUR coats of GCS to smooth it out! Yikes. On the plus side my nails have achieved a glassy perfection that they rarely do thanks to all the extra topcoat.

OPI Save Me

OPI Save Me, from the Nicki Minaj collection.

I originally bought this as a "secret santa" gift, only to check my giftee's spreadsheet to see she already had it! Drat.

It's super cloudy today so I couldn't capture how super-holo the bar glitter is, so you'll have to just take my word that it is SO HOLO-Y. Very fun to watch change colors.

That being said I've had this on for two days and it just hasn't grown on me...as hard as I try to love bar glitter I think she and I just weren't meant to be. Every time I look down on my nails it looks like there's hair on them. Rainbow prismatic unicorn hair, but hair nonetheless. And something about this doesn't satisfy me somehow--it needs a base color other than clear, perhaps, or some other color glitter to give it some depth. It's too dense to layer well, and the bar glitter just looks messy to me over another color. This one's probably going on the swap list...