Nails of the Week: Opi Panda-monium Pink

I'm not the most obvious candidate for a good pink nail varnish, but sometimes a cool, bubblegum pink varnish is exactly what I'm in the mood for. OPI Panda-monium Pink came out a couple of months ago with the Hong Kong collection, and I love it for the rich smoothness of the application and the gorgeous cool-toned pink. It's a deliciously smooth creme. Yum.

Nails of the Week: American Apparel Factory Gray

I don't think I've ever hidden my love of gray nail varnishes, an this one is no exception. It's a lovely, dusky, darkened gray creme. American Apparel have incredibly long brushes, but once you get used to them they are a doddle to apply. I can never quite decide if grays are office appropriate, as they are just on the cusp of muted, quiet colors, but not exactly conservative. I'll try it out and see!

American Apparel polishes retail for $6, or 3 for $15.

Nails of the Week: Wet N Wild Craze

Wet N Wild is not a brand I'm super familiar with to say the least. I've only bought a couple of nail varnishes from them. The first that I tried out was the black, which was uh-mazing. Seriously, why were there no black polishes this good when I was growing up? Not that I was a teenage goth, but I sure would have appreciated the option. This was the second. It's apparently from a new, limited edition line, and was pricey for Wet N Wild - $1.99!! It's a gold shimmer with silver and the odd copper sparkle. This is 2 coats, and it would probably go completely opaque in 3. The brush is lovely and wide, so it was super easy to put on. I like this for summer a lot - it's just a nice, simple idea well executed.

Nails of the Week: Color Club Uptown Girl

Another installment from the Color Club Rebel Debutante collection. I hate purple. I have no idea what possessed me to buy this polish. My review of it is completely biased, based on the simple fact that I think purple is a terrible, terrible color and good things have never come of it. So, um, the formula was thick and easy to go on, but I did use 3 coats here to try and get a more even finish. I guess this color has a nic-ish muted dusty purple feel. But at the end of the day, it's a purple, and I must have had too many glasses of wine when I placed this order. 

Nails of the Week: Essie Eternal Optimist

I picked up this color because it was featured in the J Crew catalog, and if you know anything about me, it's that I cannot resist anything endorsed by Jenna Lyons of J Crew fame. I do like this polish, but I do not think that it is anything particularly special. It remind me of OPI Tickle My France-y a lot, and I'll try and do a comparison later on to compare all of my nude browns, as I have been collecting quite a lot. Eternal Optimist went on very sheer. This is three coats, and although it does not show up too well in this picture, there was a very slight visible tip line. Very slight. You'd need to be freakishly staring at my hands to discern it.

Summary? A good color, not amazing. Most likely dupable.

Nails of the Week: Essie Van D'Go

Essie Van D'Go came out earlier this year as part of their Art of Spring collection. Honestly, I have absolutely no idea why I bought this polish. It is just so not like me! And by so not like me, I mean that it is a relatively sensible color that I could wear anywhere and people won't give me weird looks.

However, after that random rant, I do admit that I like the safe peachy coral color. It's very pretty for the office, and actually I can see going well with tanned toes in a pedicure. However, I'm pretty sure it's totally dupable. The formula on this one was very thin, and it took 3 coats to get a good finish, which was annoying.

Best Ever Nails of the Day Ever. Ever.

Does the title give it away? That I'm ridiculously in love with my current manicure. Maybe just a little? I can't believe I had all the ingredients for this little creation in my nail varnish stash for at least 3 weeks and I have waited so long to try this out. Oh wonderful amazingness, how can I describe why I love you so much? Is it the thick black? The gorgeous pink? The M A T T E N E S S of it all? Is it just a great way of mixing things that shouldn't go together? Is it because it dried in about 3 minutes and took 7 total???? Anyway, total heart.

The black is from Wet N Wild. So wonderful. One thick coat of creamy black goodness. I thought because of the whole 99c price tag that it would be more gray than black, but I was so so wrong.

The pink glitter is China Glaze Glam. I hate glitter. I love this.

The top coat is China Glaze Matte Magic. I've heard Essie Matte About You is better. This is good enough for now.

I'm already sad about the fact that this will be removed tomorrow night and replaced with something much more office appropriate.

Color Club Gossip Column and Dupe

Another pick from the Color Club Rebel Debutante line. This one is a little more Rebel and a little less Debutante, but it's not totally out there wild. I really liked the richness and warmth of this blue. It did feel quite mature and grown up, rather than an in your face bright. As always, I adore cremes as well. It applied very well, with no issues. This is 2 coats.

However, I did have a little bit of deja vu, so compared it with American Apparel Peacock. Ummm, to me, they are total dupes. The American Apparel is a little more tricky to apply due to the crazy long brushes they have. The ring and index are American Apparel Peacock, and the middle and pinkie Gossip Column.

On another note, has anyone seen the new American Apparel line of polishes they are releasing soon? They look soo pretty!

Nails of the Week: Color Club Who Are You Wearing?

Another one from the Rebel Debutante Collection. This is a pretty very light beigey-neutral cream. A gorgeous neutral, and this is just 2 coats. But wait, it looks familiar?! I hunted through my collection and found Essie Body Language. Take a look below and see if you can spot Essie vs Color Club. To me, they are perfect dupes!

(Essie Body Language is index and ring, Color Club Who Are You Wearing is on the middle and pinkie)

Nails of the Week: Color Club High Society

One of the nail varnish launches that I have been most excited about this year was the Color Club Rebel Debutante Collection. A collection of nail varnishes that are office appropriate but a little bit different? I'm so there. Here's the first of my picks from the collection. High Society is a greyed taupe. It reminds me of Essie Chinchilly on my nail, but in the bottle it is more brown. It applied fairly easily - this is just 2 coats.

Nails of the Week: Orly Rage

I don't think a photograph can do justice to this beauty. Wow. It's a gorgeous rose gold with dense, dense shimmer, almost like molten metal. It applied like an absolute dream. This is two coats, but I probably could have done one. There are minimal brush strokes, and it dried super quickly with the help of the China Glaze quick drying topcoat. Seriously gorgeous.

Nails of the Week: China Glaze Nude

I am continuing my love affair with all things China Glaze and all things nude and neutral. I am by far the youngest person in my working environment, and frequently feel that way in my typically scatterbrained approach to things. Sometimes its nice to look down at my nails and they look pretty and sophisticated. China Glaze Nude does that for me. It is quite sheer, so this was 3 coats (and I believe 1 or 2 days wear when I took this picture).

On other nail related thoughts, I received a couple of colors from the China Glaze Poolside Neon collection this week along with a bunch of other colors from Transdesign this week - yay!! So excited to try them out. But I was disappointed to see that Essie polishes have jumped from $4 to $8. I really don't want to pay $8 for an Essie polish!! Can anyone recommend any reputable ebay sellers that sell at around the $4 mark?

Nails of the Week: Essie Tart Deco

This is an example of a nails disaster. I decided to do my nails before work one day last week, and picked out Essie Tart Deco from the recently launched Art of Spring collection. This looked like such a pretty coral pink. I had picked it up in the mini form (because come on, who ever finishes a nail varnish?), and this was the first time I had used a mini Essie before.

Man oh man, this was work. The polish was thick, the brush tiny, and it took three tedious and difficult coats to get a reasonably even coverage. So can you imagine my horror when I used China Glaze's Quick Dry Topcoat on top and it turns from a pretty pink coral to neon orange?! I could have screamed!! Instead I had to go to work with garish nails.

Has mixing brands topcoats ever had this impact on you?

NOTD: China Glaze Recyle & Matte About You

It is no secret that I love gray nail polish. At my last count, I have about 5 of them in my collection (one day, when I have good light and some free time, I'll do a comparison post, I promise!). The latest one came in a Transdesign haul a couple of weeks ago, and I just got around to using it this week. It applied very easily in just 2 coats, and then I topped it all off with Matte About You for an urban edgy look. As you can imagine, I'm pretty pleased with this look. I also can see that after 3 months of applying polish twice a week, I'm slowly getting better at not getting it all over myself and making a mess. Small victories :)

NOTD: Opi Tickle My France-y

 This is OPI’s Tickle My France-y from last Spring. I just picked it up this week as part of my bi-monthly transdesign haul. Well, sort of bi-monthly. More like every 6 weeks. Anyway, who’s counting? I keep a list of things that catch my eye that gets constantly updated as I surf the never-ending world of beauty blogs and nail blogs, and then I make my order. This time I was obviously heavily influenced by All Lacquered Up’s Mannequin Hands series as I had a quite a lot of nudes make it into my shopping cart. One of them was this little beauty.

This is 3 coats, and it is still very slightly sheer at the tops. I really love this polish. It is a cool, pink-toned nude that almost has a touch of taupe-purple in some lights. It was very pleasant to apply. I am terrible, terrible at sitting still for long enough to actually let polish dry, even with quick drying topcoat, but I did these just before I left to work, and by the time I got there, there were nearly dry and almost smudge free. I know this sounds crazy to all of you who have the patience and skill to wait for polish to dry, but for me, a tiny wrinkle on the thumb is a full-blown victory! This is definitely a technique I’ll try again.

Nails of the Week: Sally Hansen Gray By Gray

This is Sally Hansen's Gray by Gray, which I picked up after seeing that it was a dupe for MAC's Blue Indigo from the new Liberty of London collection. I was totally surprised to see the brush on this thing - it was crazy wide and flat. It did make applying the polish pretty easy, once I got use to it. It's an awesome, gorgeous muted blue, chic and sophisticated without being dull. Definite must-have.

This week has been so strange for me. The weather here has been so amazingly beautiful here (apart from since Monday when it started pouring with rain) that I just had to spend all my time outdoors. I started to run again which was great for the first 45mins, and then hell for the next three days while my muscles recovered! I used to run last summer and really enjoyed it, but then fell out of the good habit. Of course starting out with 4 miles was a little exuberant. I've done 2 more runs since then which felt pretty good, so I'm hoping I keep up the good habit.

So that's some good news. The bad news was that I came home from a few drinks on Friday night to find myself a victim of a Google special. I had an email from Google telling me my blog had been deleted for spam, and when I logged in, all it said was my blog was deleted, with no contact details, reasoning, logic, apologies or anything. You know, the usual "Do No Evil" Google corporate nonsense of how they know best and you are wrong. So I tweeted about it, and luckily some Google employee saw it and put me right, getting my blog back up in a couple of hours. Still, I was pretty mad about it, and didn't really feel like doing any posting or writing for a couple of days.

Buuut, because I don't want to leave you with a bad experience, I also was lucky enough to get a new camera this week from my lovely husband. I am the very proud owner of a new Canon G11. I'm still getting the hang of it, but mostly, it's good good times, and a little bit of a break from my DSLR.

How was your week? Did you get a chance to enjoy the good weather?

Nails of the Week: Orly Iron Butterfly

This is one of my all time favorites!! It's rocking, it dark, its matte with a shimmer. I could wear this all year round every single day. The only thing I don't love about this is that it lasts about 10 minutes before it chips. I think that's because it's a matte. Anyway, I wore this for a crazy night out last week and it definitely helped me stay up until 5am :)

The Cutest Nail Files and Tweezers You Have Ever Seen

I mean, seriously? How could anyone pass these up? And they weren't even pricey. The tweezers were $15 and the matchbook style nail files were $4 from Sephora.

Lush Lemony Flutter Softens Me Right Up

 

I have not really been taking care of my cuticles for a while now, so when I came across
Lush Lemony Flutter Cuticle Butter ($13.25 / 1.5oz) I got all excited. Not only does it smell citrusy it divine, it promised to repair my cuticles and even dry patches on my elbows and heels as well. It has shea butter, avocado oil, and mango butters to moisturize your skin. 

First thing to say is that this tub is HUGE! I only need a teeny tiny dab on my cuticles. I literally will be using this thing for years. I'm actually going to take a chunk of this into a smaller tub and keep another tub on my desk at work to keep moisturizing whilst I work on Excel.

When I started using this my cuticles and hands in general were really dry, and not in the best shape. This cuticle butter definitely softened them up and made them much happier and healthier. Definite win. Highly recommended.

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