Flakies: Nfu Oh 40 and SH Hidden Treasure

I hope you guys had a great long weekend... I'm sad it's over! I think my posts here are going to have to slow down, mostly because I haven't bought anything new in a while XD (that's a good thing, right?)

I've been reswatching some of my older polishes lately to update my spreadsheet, so I thought I would share those updated pics.

Today imma show you my two lone flakies:

SH Hidden Treasure (over black): This was the first polish I hunted around for like mad (I'm sure many of you did the same!) and never found it at the drugstore (CVS, Walgreens, Rite-aid). A couple months after it came and went, I found a single bottle by itself in a random plastic bin in K-mart! I actually went in looking for glycerin (for my acetone remover; Kmart didn't have any btw) and was thrilled to find this instead! :) Ahhh good memories :)



Nfu Oh 40 (over black): During that time I was freaking out about not being able to find HT, I ended up ordering this from Fabuloustreet.com to ease my pain. I decided against the HT-dupe (which is #38, I believe?) which is a good thing since I finally did get my hands on HT! The flakies in this one are a lot larger and a bit more sparse, but they reflect blue-green instead of red-orange-green.



Ironically enough, I hardly ever wear these. The removal of flakies is a huge deterrent for me, even with foil method removal! haha. Oh well, I'm still glad to have them.

Zoya Sparkle Collection

I recently reswatched my three polishes from this collection, and also picked up Mimi in the Exchange.

Zoya Mimi - Bright, clean purple! So pretty. 3 coats.



Comparison: Zoya Mimi vs. Zoya Julieanne - Since you may be wondering whether it's worth having both.


Zoya Ivanka - I love this oneee. It's the one I wanted the first time I saw swatches <3 I didn't get Apple from this year's summer collection, because it looked too similar and not as interesting as Ivanka. 3 coats.




Zoya Alegra - Great pink! Dupe for OPI LMEY.



Zoya Charla - Infamous, and totally dupeable now. OPI CMIYN, Essence Choose Me, Jesse's Girl Glee, and Orly Hailey's Comet. I'm sure there's even more dupes O_O. 3 coats.



Have a great weekend, guys! :D

Orly Royal Navy and Revlon Royal

Oh man, finally the long weekend is here. Just gotta make it through a few more hours at work, then I'm free!!

My nail-related goal for the weekend is to weed through my stash and purge polishes for swap or blog sale (depending how many there are). I'm going to ask myself, for each polish: "Am I excited to wear you again?" and "Do I love you very, very much?". Wish me luck!!

Here are two super bright blues that photograph terribly. It was impossible for me to get them right... I wonder if it has to do with the pigment? Anyway, at least they are both equally inaccurate :D

Orly Royal Navy - Wow, I love this polish! The first time I wore it, I was not impressed because all the shimmer pigment had settled to the bottom! Now I shake it up like a madwoman before wearing it. So gorgeous! I can't remember if I did 2 or 3 coats; whatever it was, the formula is great. Highly recommend this bad boy!



Revlon Royal - Similar to the Orly, but without the shimmers. Ever notice that these kind of blues smell strange? Anyway, this jelly is quite nice as well, with a great formula. It makes a nice base for a lot of layering combinations!

2nd


And here is the comparison of the two:


Have a great long weekend, guys! (And for my Canadian peeps, you already had yers last week!)

Essie Borrowed and Blue

Woops, I just realized that I haven't posted this swatch yet! DBF picked it up for me before my exam back in April.

Essie Borrowed and Blue - The formula on this is kind of a pain, but the colour is very pretty! It required 2 or 3 coats to be opaque, but was not self leveling, so I used topcoat to smooth out the surface.


If you're wondering how it compares to other pastel blues, I only have one other, and that's OPI WWTC...

Comparison: Essie Borrowed and Blue vs. OPI What's with the Cattitude? - Big difference, eh?


I have been neglecting hockey (bad Canadian, bad!) but since the Canucks have made it to the finals, I guess I should try and watch the final series? ... We'll see!

Joe Fresh Fig

Woohoo, hump day! I'm eating carrot cake for breakfast.

Joe Fresh Fig - Got this in a swap! I really adore Joe Fresh. We'll probably visit home over the summer, so I can pick up a few more shades at Loblaws :)


Comparison: Joe Fresh Fig and OPI Parlez-vous OPI? - Not exact dupes, but pretty darn close! Fig is a tiny bit less dusty.


It's been almost a month since my big exam, and I've had the laziest 4 weeks in recent memory. Now, I need to attend to my new year's resolution of eating better, learning to cook more, and exercising regularly! I'm seriously not an active person, so I decided to pick up DDR again (used to be a big fan in high school!). I ordered a new pad off Amazon yesterday and it'll get here before the weekend. I also ordered two new cookbooks (Ina Garten's "French" cooking book and Mark Bittman's book). So fingers crossed that I can be productive after work, instead of bumming around watching Netflix!

BTW, thanks to the power of Netflix, I finally got around to watching Billy Elliot! I loved it! So adorable and heart warming <3 I haz the warm fuzzies.

China Glaze: Frosty and Party Hearty

I know it's as far away from Christmas as possible, but I realized I never posted my ChG holiday polishes! Plus, I finally got my hands on Frosty in a swap a couple months ago. So yeah.

China Glaze Frosty - Yay, it's finally mine! I wanted it as soon as it came out, but they didn't have it at my Sallys! Actually, I think NB said it wasn't showing up at any Sallys for some reason. Anyways, I got it, and I like it. Woot. 3 coats on my little nubs.



China Glaze Party Hearty - I think I was disproportionately happy to pick this up. I still love it. What a great combination of glitters. I wore this to my company Christmas party and got exactly 0 comments. WTH?? Can't wait for Christmas to come around again! My favourite combination is just over white, to be honest.



I wonder if there were any other polishes from their holiday collection I should have picked up...

Zoya Pippa

Oh man, sooo not ready for the week to start :( At least there's a long weekend coming up!

Edit: A reader of mine had requested a tutorial on how I get my polish applied neatly. Well, the perfect tutorial already exists over at Polish or Perish, care of the super lovely Meganchair. So head on over there and check it out! :)

Zoya Pippa - The formula on this is not great, but I guess that's normal for yellows :( I think it is a great colour, though. This is 3 coats.


I took interim pictures while I was swatching this, so you could see what it looks like at each stage.

One coat:


Two coats:

American Apparel: African Violet, Hassid, Mount Royal, and Poppy

Oh man, so much fail. I finally decided to create my blogroll after having put it off for a long time. I added about 15 of my super-favourite blogs, and then, I hit "Back" instead of "Save" and it's all gone -.- LOL. I'll try again next weekend.

Anyway, on to the polish.

I picked these up a few weeks ago when that $10 off coupon was still active. I think I have all the AAs that I want, now! Yay!

American Apparel African Violet - When this group of new polishes came out (along with Army Jacket, Macarthur Park, etc.), I wanted to get this. But, holding it at AA, I said to myself "Man, this looks just like Funky Dunkey, and I rarely wear that" and put it back. Then, I had major regret ever since. So I bought it. (Wow, I should have wiped off the bottle before taking this pic LOL)


Comparison: American Apparel African Violet vs. OPI Funky Dunkey - and it's pretty much a dupe for the OPI, LOL. Well, it is more opaque than the OPI and a tiny bit redder, but otherwise... not a big difference. At least I had a coupon!


American Apparel Hassid - Yes, I bought a black that was not Wet n Wild :( This is quite shiny, but actually not as opaque as WnW. It needs two coats.


American Apparel Mount Royal - I don't know why I didn't get this before! I love it! Kind of blurpley!


American Apparel Poppy - I was blanking out on a fourth polish to get, until I remembered that Steph at Short n Chic had featured it back in March. So I grabbed it! It is a really loud colour, I like!

Zoya Mieko

So I ordered this one because for some reason, DBF wanted all the Japanese-sounding names from Zoya (umm). Thankfully, this shade is absolutely gorgeous! I wonder why it doesn't get more hype?!

Zoya Mieko - 2 easy coats, great coverage and formula. I like how it's a deeper pink compared to other pinks with gold shimmer or flecks.


Comparison: Zoya Mieko, ChG Strawberry Fields, OPI Senorita Rosealita - You may recall that I previously had a dilemma of choosing between OPI SR and ChG SF. Well, based on this comparison, I decided to swap the ChG and keep the other two. As gorgeous as SF is, I never reached for it!



It's Friday!!!!! WOOHOO!!!

Zoya Perrie

Omg, there appears to be sun! Of course.. right after my rainboots get here, LOL. There's still rain forecast for the rest of the week, so hopefully I can try my boots out soon!

Here's another purple Zoya I got during the Exchange. I had wanted to get it last year with the other Flash collection polishes I got (Robyn and Dana), but ended up passing on it. I've got it now, though!

Zoya Perrie - Nice formula. A warmish medium purple.


Since it's hard to photograph purples, I did a couple comparisons.

Comparison: Zoya Perrie vs. Zoya Malia


Comparison: Zoya Perrie vs. Essie Splash of Grenadine

Zoya Lael

Wow, this weather in the northeast is friggin' awful. And depressing. I hate the rain. I wish last week's weather would come back :'(

DBF ordered me some cute rainboots a while ago, but they were too big. He hasn't had the time to re-order in a smaller size or return them, so I just went ahead and ordered a smaller pair yesterday (LOL). Plus side is that they are now on sale at Zappos AND they'll be here TODAY! I'm kind of amazed. Ordered from Zappos yesterday around lunch, and they'll be here today? The original order took a lot longer than that to arrive! I'll post pics when I get them and see if I have a dupe in my stash, hehe.

So back to posting the polishes I got from this year's Zoya Exchange! This one was an instant love on the nail. Great formula, awesome colour... just all around fantastic.

Zoya Lael - 2 coats.


I'm sure it's not an original shade, but my dark, plummy corner of my collection is pretty sparse! The only other shade I have that is along the same lines, is the "Eau de vie macerated fruit" end of my Strange Beautiful duo from Anthropologie. Here's a comparison:


The SB is really lovely too. A jelly-ish formula. But the bottle of the duo drives me nuts. I'm trying to swap it on MUA now haha.

Oh it's Wednesday... I keep forgetting to participate in the Mean Girls' We Wear Pink on Wednesdays. Mostly because... I never wear pink. :) Hope you guys are having a good hump day!

NYX Girls Dorothy - Dupe for DL RRS?

So, I saw this post over at Imperfectly Painted and prompty spazzed out about finding this polish. It was (and still is) sold out at cherryculture, so I ended up swapping for it.

I do not own Deborah Lippmann Ruby Red Slippers, but it looks pretty close, right?

NYX Girls - Dorothy: 3 coats. Application was not as smooth as my DL AtU, I might add some thinner!



I also noticed that NYX Girls bottles are almost exactly the same as the mens' BB Couture bottles! I forgot to take a picture, but now I know where I'm lining up my NYX Girls XD

OPI DS Sapphire

So, the last polish I picked up on Saturday (I think this means I have to go back to posting the rest of my Zoya Exchange polishes! man I got sidetracked!) is OPI DS Sapphire.

OPI DS Sapphire - 3 coats. Nice, smooth formula, but rather sheer. You can see my stained nails, ACK!!!


Layered it over Essie Lapis of Luxury. Loving this combo! I think I might wear it to work :D Coincidently, Fashion Police posted a pic of this same combo yesterday!

Essie Resort 2011

I picked up three of the Essie Resort collection polishes yesterday...

Essie Fair Game - kinda brush stroke-y, but I didn't wait for it to dry completely (presumably they mellow out a bit). DBF insisted I get it, because he has become a backseat driver for my collection O_O. 2 coats.



Essie Your Hut or Mine – I really love this shade! I'm very yellow-toned so it's hard for me to find a good pink! It has a lovely shimmer that is kind of hard to capture... 2 coats



Comparison: Essie Your Hut or Mine and Revlon Sublime Strawberry. Most of my pinks lean to the blue side, so I decided to compare it against one of my favourite Revlons… because of how yummy it smells XD


Essie Da Bush – Even after hearing this was dupe-ish to OPI Stranger Tides, I still had to buy it. I love these shades, LOVE! 2 coats


Comparison: Essie Da Bush and OPI Stranger Tides. While they are really similar, I do not think they are total dupes (at least against my skintone). I think Da Bush is a tiny bit darker and bluer than the OPI. I needed 3 coats of the OPI compared to 2 with the Essie. I can't fathom choosing one of the two right now, so they will both live in my Alex to see another day :)


The formula on these were great. Although not like last year's Resort collection (with the yummy, almost jelly-like finish), I still really like it! But then again, I have a hard time not wanting to buy every Essie collection released…