Zoya Daul Swatches

Today I have another gorgeous Zoya beauty from the fall collection to show you. This is Zoya Daul, a gorgeous purple jelly base full of gold shimmer. The gold shimmer is so obvious that in some lights the purple base is almost hard to see. It's the same shimmer as Zoya Faye but in a much more purple base.

I was expecting the formula to be sheer (based on other reviews) but this was nicely opaque in two coats. I used SV top coat and experienced a bit of shrinkage, but that's not Daul's fault.

Zoya Daul

Zoya Daul

Zoya Daul

I also want to apologize that my posting has been a bit sporadic lately. I'm still trying to figure out my schedule this semester of graduate school and how blogging will fit in. :)

Sephora Pantone Universe Jewel Lacquers Swatches and Review



When I first saw Sephora's new Pantone Universe Jewel Lacquers I knew I had to try them out I picked out Violet Quartz, Reflecting Pool, and Purple Parachute. PP was the color that origionally attracted my attention, but once I saw what was available I picked out the other two for their beautiful colors and multichrome finishes.



Violet Quartz has a dark brown base loaded with purple shimmer that shifts to amber. (I applogize for my horrible clean up! I blame exhaustion.) The brown base is hardly noticeable because the shimmer takes center stage. This one is quite stunning and my favorite of the three.

Sephora Violet Quartz

Sephora Violet Quartz


Reflecting Pond has a blackened green base with strong teal shimmer that has a slight purple shift that I had difficulty capturing in pictures.

Sephora Reflecting Pond

Sephora Reflecting Pond

Parachute Purple is a dark purple with bright greenish-blue shimmer. The shimmer is more apparent in the bottle than on the nail and the color is a bit darker than it photographed. I've heard that this color is a bit similar to Rescue Beauty Lounge Scrangie, but I'm not sure how they compare.


Sephora Purple Parachute


The bottles are pretty, but it's a lot of glass compared to polish (although the polish is 11 ml / 0.37 oz compared to an OPI or China Glaze that is 15 ml / 0.5 oz) and the brush isn't my favirite. Formula on all of these was pretty nice, it was very thick and dried rapidly so I had to be careful and quick with each brushstroke. I used two coats for each swatch.

Sephora can be purchased from Sephora.com (which is where I purchased them, I'm not sure about in-store availability as I don't have a Sephora near me) and the Jewel Lacquers retail for $9.

Overall I'm pleasantly surprised with these polishes. No, they aren't 100% unique, but gorgeous shimmer, multichrome, and interesting color combinations makes them well worth adding to any collection. Which one is your favorite?

Zoya Elisa: My Swatch and Comparisons

Zoya Elisa is from Zoya's fall collection. According to Zoya it is a "Bright, shining medium crimson red with subtle gold shimmer and a glowing metallic finish." Elisa does seem to glow in pictures, the shimmer turns luminous and bright... however, I was actually a bit disappointed in this color when I compared it on my nails to the pictures. On my nails it ended up being a pretty medium red with shimmer giving it a metallic-like finish. Although it's still a gorgeous polish, it isn't quite as unique as it looks in all of the swatches that I've seen online, that glow is much less apparent in person.

The formula was wonderful, as all of my Zoyas seem to be. I used two coats for these photos but I easily could have gotten away with one if I'd been more careful. 

Although I haven't seen OPI Danke-Shiny Red in person, I'm told it is a very near dupe of Zoya Elisa, Let Them Have Polish has a wonderful comparison if you are interested. With Zoya's sales, Elisa may be much less expensive to pick up than the OPI. 

Zoya Elisa

Zoya Elisa - click to zoom in and see that shimmer.. I dare you!


Here's a comparison I made of Elisa right after receiving it in the mail (back when my nails were nubbins). I was wearing Perceval so I had to see how Elisa compared to another glowing metallic red. ChG Red Stallion was the only other polish in my collection that looked close to Elisa.

A-England Perceval comparison, Zoya Elisa Comparison, China Glaze Red Stallion Comparison
Zoya Elisa Vs. A-England Perceval and China Glaze Red Stallion

A-England Perceval is much darker and China Glaze Red Stallion is much more orange-toned than Zoya Elisa. No dupes here! (Also a note, if you ever want to see a comparison of a polish that I've swatched or used in a post, please let me know. I can compare it to anything in my collection or find another great comparison post for you!)

I'm happy with Elisa, I think I just wanted it so badly that in my mind it was the perfect metallic red. Have you ever wanted a polish with a passion than purchased it only to realize that it couldn't possibly live up to your expectations?

My Birthday Jelly Sandwich!

Hi Y'all!

So today is my birthday! In honor of this occasion I made a jelly sandwich with OPI Do You Think I'm Tex-y and Deborah Lippmann Happy Birthday (it seemed appropriate).

Do You Think I'm Tex-y is a berry-toned pink with a jelly finish (although I believe OPI called this collection 'sorbets'). It's fairly sheer so I started this mani with two coats of Do You think I'm Tex-y, then one coat of Happy Birthday and two more coats of Do You Think I'm Tex-y. I sort of I used the DL brush to dab on some of the multicolored glitter of Happy Birthday because I wanted it nice and dense.

I love this combination! Multicolored glitter in a jelly sandwich looks amazing to me and it is fun wearing Happy Birthday on my birthday.

Happy Birthday Jelly Sandwich

Happy Birthday Jelly Sandwich

The glossy jelly looked amazing, but I decided to add a matte top coat (Hard Candy brand) and I loved it even more. 

Matte  Happy Birthday Jelly Sandwich

Matte  Happy Birthday Jelly Sandwich
What do you think of my birthday manicure? Do you like it better glossy or matte?

Whimsical Nail Polish Flower Child and Magical Mystery Tour


I am so happy to share some new indie polishes with all of my new readers!

When I first saw that Pam was releasing more whimsies I was pretty upset that the release was during my so called no-buy month... Then I bought a couple. So maybe I'm addicted to nail polish, but who can say no to Whimsical Nail Polish by Pam?

Whimsical Nail Polish by Pam

The two I picked out are Flower Child and Magical Mystery Tour (I must have been in a purple mood).


As soon as I opened my package I wondered why in the world I ordered Flower Child. I'm not a huge fan of glitter in creamy bases. The color is gorgeous, but it's inevitable that I won't like it... WRONG. Flower Child is fantastic! The color is sort of a periwinkle blue/lilac purple with shiny pink glitter of various sizes. On the nail this one is soft, feminine, and very, very pretty. Compared to the bright colors I usually wear it's very mellow and neutral. I will definitely be wearing this again! (Is it too early to plan my Easter Sunday mani?)

Formula was nice, I used two coats over Essie Bangle Jangle, I probably didn't need to layer it though I'm sure it could be opaque on its own. As usual with Whimsical polishes the glitter comes right out of the bottle with no fishing. I love it!


Whimsical Nail Polish -  Flower Child

Whimsical Nail Polish - Flower Child

Whimsical Nail Polish -  Flower Child
Magical Mystery Tour indeed has a magical appearance. It's a semi-sheer dark purple shimmer with various sizes of shiny blue glitter. It's gorgeous and I haven't seen anything like it before. I layered two coats over a thin (and patchy) single coat of Julep Morgan. Magical Mystery Tour would probably be opaque with  four coats or so and it would have a lot more depth than it did layered over an opaque color.

Whimsical Nail Polish -  Magical Mystery Tour

Whimsical Nail Polish -  Magical Mystery Tour


Whimsical Nail Polish - Magical Mystery Tour

I really don't know which new polish is my favorite, I truly love them both for different reasons. For an impulse buy I made fantastic choices. :)

Whimsical Ideas by Pam are available from Pam's Facebook page here and they retail for $10.


100 Follower Giveaway Winners!

Now what you've all been waiting for, the winners of my 100 Follower Giveaway!!!

All ready for shipping!


Congratulations to....

Kayla B, Amber D, and Melanie S!!!

These three ladies will be getting an email from me in the next 10 minutes. Kayla took first place so she gets first pick of the three prizes, next is Amber, and last will be Melanie.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

A-England Tristam

Today I have the gorgeous A-England Tristam. To me this color is sort of a navy denim because of the holographic glitter interspersed in the dark blue base. It really reminds me of dark wash jeans, only much prettier! The holo is difficult to see (most visible in the last photo), it is subtle but present, really giving the polish a lot of depth.

A-England is one of those fantastic brands where I've never gotten a polish with a bad formula. This one was almost an easy one-coater, but I added a second coat to cover the edges where I got the polish a little thinner.

A-England Tristam

A-England Tristam

A-England Tristam

For those of you who are wondering I should be done validating entries for my giveaway and will  announce the winner tonight (EST). There were approximately 800 entries, and Polish Etc. blog followers tripled! Welcome new readers!!

Bad Nail Day...

Hey Y'all!

I wish today I had some gorgeous spectacular mani to show you, but I've got nothing! I have a tiny bit of photo editing to get done but really.. life has been busy. It is possible with graduate school this semester that I might only get a post written every other day, so please don't hate me!

It's not that I haven't been doing my nails. It's just that sometimes my manis just don't make the cut, such as this USA Olympics Mani that I didn't like well enough to share with y'all. It's just not good enough. Sure, it looks decent small like that, but it wasn't great up close.





My 100 follower giveaway ends tonight at 12:00 am EST, so tomorrow I will be announcing the winners. Get your last minute entries in today! I'm already thinking about what I'd like to do for my 300 follower giveaway (which appears to be right around the corner!) What would you want to see for a giveaway?

OPI The Color of Minnie and Copious How-To

Here's another awesome wishlist polish that I picked up recently, OPI The Color of Minnie. I actually obtained this polish from Copious for just $1.66 since I had $10 in Copious credits. Want to know more about Copious? Scroll to the bottom for a how to!

First, the nail polish I purchased for $1.66. OPI The Color of Minnie has been on my wishlist since I first saw the collection. I'm a huge fan of red polishes, and this bright red with subtle pink shimmer was right up my alley. The formula is wonderful to work with and I used two coats for the swatches below.

This red is very bright! The pink shimmer just makes it stand out that much more as a perfect summer red.

OPI The Color of Minnie

OPI The Color of Minnie



How does Copious work?

It's a website where people can sell and purchase new and used items with a social networking backbone. The best part? They like giving out free Copious credits to new and current account holders. How it works:

1. Sign up with a referral link (here, have mine www.copious.com) to get $10 in copious credits.

2. Find an item (including shipping and Copious fees) that costs less than $10. I usually search for OPI since they are the hardest brand for me to find locally.

3. Begin checkout by clicking the "buy now" button.

4. On the next page you will see an order summary in the right hand column. Under the order summary you should see a second box saying "You have credit!" that tells you your balance and asks how much you would like to apply to this order.  Type in the full amount and continue.

5. You will still have to fill in your credit card information even if you have $10 in credit and are purchasing an item <$10. In that case they will charge your credit card exactly $0.01.

6. Enjoy your new nearly free item! The Copious credits do expire relatively quickly (I learned that the hard way) but you will have a few days to shop and make a purchase.

*This post contains referral links for the website Copious. I am not affiliated with Copious in any way but do benefit (earn copious credits) if you use these referral links.

piCture pOlish Dorothy

Hey y'all!

Today I have a new acquisition to show you: this is piCture pOlish Dorothy, named for Dorothy's shoes from The Wizard of OZ. I like the name because the glittery red really reminds me of her ruby slippers (more so than say China Glaze Ruby Pumps). This is one of the piCture pOlish mesh shades, which means that it isn't exactly red but it's not exactly pink. The reason for this is that it's a red jelly filled with silver glitter. The silver glitter gives the red jelly a very pink tone. In some lights Dorothy is red, other times, a bright pink-toned red. It's really very pretty, see for yourself.

The formula is great, one coat perfection. I used two coats to add a little more depth, but it definitely wasn't necessary.

piCture pOlish Dorothy
They have such cute bottles too. I love square bottles.

piCture pOlish Dorothy

piCture pOlish Dorothy
piCture pOlish Dorothy
If you look at the two blurry fingers in the last photo you can tell what I am talking about with the pink-toned red that shows through with the silver glitter. It's gorgeous!

Jade Holográfico Fascínio Violeta

The Jade Holográfico polishes are some of the most colorful gorgeous linear holo polishes I've ever seen. I think the brand is Brazilian, and these are absolutely fantastic. They are holographic without that usual faded/greyed out color. Jade holographics are bright, vivid, saturated colors.

Jade Holográfico Fascínio Violeta is a bright violet purple with extreme linear holo. The formula is easy to use, I used my normal base coat and top coat and didn't have any issues with patchiness. I can't read the ingredients since I don't speak Portuguese, but it smells very different than any other polish I have. It's a familiar chemical scent but I can't quite place it, meaning it's probably not 3-free. The wear time was amazing, I didn't think I would get a chance to photograph this one because this is after two days of wear (and it still looks great!).


Jade - Fascínio Violeta

Jade - Fascínio Violeta

Jade - Fascínio Violeta
I couldn't stop staring at my nails when I wore this holo. It was definitely a "distracted by my nails" sort of day. Do you have any polishes that you love so much that you can't stop looking at them?

*Jade Holographic polishes are available at Ninja Polish and Llarowe.

Tape Manicure and Tutorial

Hey Y'all!

I've had a busy day planned today so I'm going to keep it short and sweet. Here is a tape mani that I wore the other day. When I got tired of Cult Nails Feelin' Froggy I did an easy tape mani with Zoya Trixie. The silver added a fun touch.



Here's how to get this look yourself:


Starting with a completely dry manicure, all you need is scissors and tape! Good old scotch tape works great, but I've used paper tape and even sticky notes in a pinch.


1. Leaving the tape on the dispenser, begin to cut the design you want to put on your nail.

2. See the scraps? Make sure that these extra pieces of tape get removed or else they will allow polish under the tape, messing up your design.

3. Cut the design until it's the right size for your nail.

4. Remove the tape from the dispenser.

5. Handle the tape from the opposite side, you want to try not to touch the edge of tape with the design or else it won't stick as well to the nail.

6. Carefully stick the tape to your nail and make sure that all of the edges are stuck down. This is where it is important to start with a completely dry manicure or you will wreck your base coat when pressing the tape securely to your nail.

7. Paint on 1-2 coats of nail polish.

8. Remove the tape promptly after you paint your second coat (or first if you are only using one). For this manicure I made sure to grab the tape from one side and pull in the direction of the zig-zag edge so that the tape did not rip.

9. Finish with top coat and you are done!



Zoya Shay, my favorite nude

I've always had a hard time finding a nude to match my skin-tone. I finally decided to check out Zoya's impressive range of natural colors since I've had such luck with their polishes. I googled a lot of swatches and read a lot of reviews and finally decided on Zoya Shay, a shimmery nude with pink undertones. 

May I just say that I am in love with this polish? It is such a palate cleanser to look down and not see bright colors, but I still love it. I'm glad to finally have a go-to color for when I need a professional look. The formula was excellent, two coats to subtle perfection.

Zoya Shay

Zoya Shay
Are you a nude polish fan?

Zoya Tru

Zoya Tru was on my wishlist for quite some time, and I finally picked it up in my last Zoya order. This is a gorgeous dark, saturated, slightly-dusty purple with red and gold shimmer. It's really a gorgeous color and the formula was perfect, two easy coats. Tru also makes a base color for Max Fantasy Fire/Unicorn Pee and it's dupes.

Zoya Tru

Zoya Tru

*This post contains a referral link for the Zoya Share the love program where I get share the love points if you sign up and complete an order through this link. Also by clicking the link and creating a new account you get a coupon code for a free nail polish. 

Forsaken: Deborah Lippmann's Bad Things (True Blood!)

If you've been a follower of mine for a couple of months, you might know that I'm a huge fan of True Blood, in fact, I sponsored my first giveaway centered around the season 5 premiere. :D When I first learned that HSN was launching Forsaken, a True Blood themed fragrance, with Deborah Lippmann polishes to go along with it I was extremely excited;  I wanted to own everything. I ended up ordering the fragrance, Bad Things Deborah Lippmann mini nail polish set, and the matching nail and lip color also from Deborah Lippmann all as sort of an early birthday present to myself. The nail and lip color are supposed to be infused with the Forsaken fragrance so I can't wait to try those out! (Unfortunately mine are back-ordered.)



Forsaken
Just look at that gorgeous bottle.

I normally only talk about nail polish, but I'm also a bit of a fragrance hoarder. I have probably 30-40 different purfumes and body sprays. The Forsaken fragrance came in the mail yesterday, surprising me since  I just got the order confirmation yesterday morning. I wish I could write a proper review, but I'm not all that knowledgeable about fragrances so I won't pretend to be. All I can say is that I'm very happy with this scent. It's subtle yet deep, it's warm and musky, it fits the theme perfectly, yet something I could wear everyday. The bottle is to-die-for gorgeous. All vampy and mysterious.


Now on to the nail polish, which I'm sure you've all been waiting for.


Bad Things Nail Polish Trio


First up is New Flesh.

New Flesh is a beige toned nude jelly, sheer on the first coat but very buildable. The formula is very interesting because it applied streaky, but dried smooth and flawless. I thought it was going to be a disaster at first but I was pleasantly surprised. The nice thing about having a nude jelly is that it's much more likely to match your skin tone.


Deborah Lippmann new flesh swatch
Deborah Lippmann - New Flesh - 3 coats

Deborah Lippmann - New Flesh - 3 coats

Deborah Lippmann - New Flesh - 3 coats


Strange Love is what I'd consider a 'crelly' finish. On first coat it looks and applies like a jelly, but it's easily opaque in two coats like a creme. This color is absolutely gorgeous. This is the shade I was looking forward to the least and it turned out to be my favorite. It has a very slight subtle shimmer that's hard to see and nearly impossible to photograph but it just makes this polish so beautiful. It also has a killer shine. This one is
with no top coat.

Deborah Lippmann Strange Love swatch
Deborah Lippmann - Strange Love - 2 coats

Deborah Lippmann - Strange Love - 2 coats

Deborah Lippmann - Strange Love - 2 coats

Bad Blood is a sheer dark blood red jelly. I think it's described as sheer black cherry, but in my mind it's a bloody plumb, a bit more purple than it is red. Regardless, it's dark and vampy and very pretty. When the description says sheer they mean sheer. This one reminds me a lot of the pictures I've seen of the Zoya Gloss collection. This is four coats, but I easily could have gone on and done five or six. My only issue with this is the fact that it's only available in a mini bottle, so one opaque mani takes a lot of that little bottle.


Deborah Lippmann - Bad Blood - 4 coats

Deborah Lippmann bad blood swatch
Deborah Lippmann - Bad Blood - 4 coats

Deborah Lippmann - Bad Blood - 4 coats

Overall I'm very happy with Forsaken. I mainly purchased it as the novelty of having True Blood themed fragrance and polish (I've got a classic Fangtasia t-shirt in my closet) but I can see myself wearing all of these colors. Bad Blood would make great jelly sandwiches (I might have to try that soon) and I will wear Strange Love any day!

Did you order or consider ordering Forsaken? Have you ever ordered nail polish just as a novelty item?