Merino Cool

Another lovely color! Essie Merino Cool is a nice creamy shade of purple-gray. Fabulous! Like Sew Psyched, it went on nicely and opaque.  The color was achieved in 2 coats, dried fairly quickly too! Sew Psyched lasted a solid week before chipping. I'm a happy camper ^_^

A Green Fall

I recently purchased Essie nail polish in "Sew Psyched" in my hunt for a nice Fall green nail polish.

Flash, No Flash

This is pretty close to Chanel's Khaki Vert:

Essie's version is a little bit more "slate-esque," but still a pretty green.  This was my first time purchasing this brand and I'm pretty impressed.  The color is super opaque at just the first coat, but I did two coats just to get full coverage.  The consistency is nice and smooth and it dries pretty quick too! At about $5-8 a bottle, I think this is a good alternative to Chanel's. 

Fall Plum

This is a very old bottle of nail polish I had from Maybelline's Wet Shine collection: Plum Shine.

Since I have an interview this coming week, I needed something that was more "office" appropriate and couldn't give myself an "unconventional" color manicure.

I've forgotten how awful this nail polish is. The color is okay--a dusty purple (which looks like may be a trend this fall).  I think this particular color makes my hands look older.  And yuck! I think my nails are too long. AND it takes FOR-EV-ER to dry!! I had to do 3 coats for this, and I guess because it's been sitting around for so long that the glue in the brush has been breaking down.  I ended getting 4-5 hairs on my nails, which made me have to wipe them clean and start over. Annoying! It is going in the trash.  After so many redo's, I gave up on giving myself a decent manicure. Say la vie.

I guess I have been spoiled by the speedy drying time of the UO polishes.

Coral Pink

I was at Rite Aid the other day and noticed this cute coral pink color nail polish.  It was by a company I'd never heard of before: "CQ."  It was under $2, so I decided to grab it and try it.  The color is CQ 459: Coral Pink.

No flash, Flash, Brush

My thoughts: Cute color, needed 3 coats, dried pretty quickly, but dinky brush!  We'll see how long this lasts before it starts to chip!

And don't forget!

Teal Squeal

I found this great turquoisey, tealish colored nail polish on sale at my local Target in the clearance section for $5.

Nicole by O.P.I. in PEAS AND Q'S

No Flash:

Flash:

This color is so refreshing and cute! But it takes 3 coats and a little long to dry (compared to the UO nail polishes).  I still like it just because the color is so summery. :)

Soothing Blue 2

It's been awhile since my last blog! I have been S W A M P E D! @ work...

I really need a vacation... somewhere serene and near water, please.

On to the meat of the post! A new swatch of nail polish: Urban Outfitters - Blue 2 (I left my nails bare the last 1.5 weeks because I broke a nail from not using a clear coat base and needed to grow it back to a normal looking shape.)

With Flash:

Without Flash:

This definitely needs at least 3 coats to get the bottle color!  I only did 3 in these pictures, but I'm sure a 4th coat would make it really solid...if you have the time to let them dry between coats.  Drying time is pretty fast though. It's cute & creamy looking, and not too powdery or pastel-ish... perfect for summer!

Happy thoughts, happy colors

Swatch of the week: Red 1 nail polish from Urban Outfitters

with flash:

without flash:

I like this red...it almost has a pinkish hue/base to it.  Like the other UO nail polishes, it has the same kind of consistency.  First coat will be light and streaky, but 2nd coat will complete the look.  It kind of looks like a marble-y cherry pearl-thing. lol.  The photos above were accomplished with 2 coats...a little sloppy, sorry.

Grey all the way!

I loooove grey! It's my favorite "color."  I'm a monochromatic girl at heart, so when I saw this nail polish at Urban Outfitters (2 for $8) I had to get it. It's called Matte Grey 4:

Without flash

With flash

Yay! Matte + grey = ♥

The matte isn't super matte like the greenish color I got from Forever 21, but it is still a nice flat color.  It's kind of a steel blue color.  The pictured polish above was accomplished with 2 coats.

Tokidoki makeup

Updated! Scroll down...

(4.30.10)
I am a big fan of Tokidoki.  I've been following their releases and joint ventures and see that they've created a new line of makeup sold at Sephora. I'm curious to try their lip glosses.

Before they went to Sephora, though, they teamed up with Smashbox for a special limited edition collaboration in spring 2007.

As a big fan, I nabbed up the eye shadow quads "Modella" (model) and "Celebrita" (celebrity) back then. For reasons:  1) I love eye shadow, and 2) I wanted to collect the artwork, I went hunting for a great deal.  They retail for $30 each quad and can still be found on Amazon. Being the frugal bargain hunter I am, I got BOTH (completely new and sealed) for $18 - no tax & no shipping - from eBay in June 2008!

The colors are kind of strange. They don't come on the way they look in the palette, especially true for the "Modella" palette's lighter colors (palette with the brown).  They are shimmery and kind of light (not really pigmented?), but that may be that at the time I purchased these I didn't know about primer.  I may have to retry it.  I'll update this post with photos of how these colors show up on my skin.  I like it, but I don't love love it. The images are def. cute though.

Update (5.4.10):

Here are the Modella colors on my skin, primed, starting with the upper left corner white, blue, orange, brown:

The first 3 colors have a very iridescent quality to them. The white shimmers greenish-yellow.

Flat Matte

I went perusing Forever 21 and ran across this little bargain in a bottle for $2.80: a teal-ish/green-ish MATTE FLAT nail polish! "Veeeerrry interesting," thought I.

So! What do I think? It's pretty cool! Different, definitely.  What I like about this is that it dries super fast.  When it's wet, it's slick and shiny looking and when it's dry--it's flat & matte, no hyper-shiny glossiness!  You KNOW when it's dry because it changes its sheen!

Now, this is cause for concern for top-coat users.  Most top coats I know of make your nails look shiny and are supposed to extend the life of your manicures.  You have to forgo the use of the top coat here and just use an undercoat instead.  BUT, on the up side, if you don't like the matte look, you could easily add the top coat and make your nail polish shiny!

I need to go back and find this in Matte BLACK! That'd be awesome!