Monthly Archives

May 2010

OPI – Damone Roberts 1968 / Nubar – Knight’s Armor and Nubar 2010

Friday, 14 May, 2010

I didn’t know where to begin. I got a box and a puffy padded envelope full of nail polish in under 24 hours. I was squeeing with glee.

I couldn’t make up my mind, so I ended up just trying on Knight’s Armor, then deciding to swatch it. So it’s a sloppier than usual application for ALL these swatches. I just got a little too excited.

As for the Damone Roberts one, I had originally been wearing Knight’s Armor on my left hand and DR1968 on the other. Hah. I liked how DR1968 looked on my right hand, so I took off KA (as you might see some glitter in the DR1968 swatch) and now all my fingers are sporting DR1968…with one lone exception: my thumb. That has Nubar 2010 on top of it. I was all over the place today.

Thumbshot – Damone Roberts 1968 with Nubar 2010. Regular Shade and Sunlight shots below!

I was fully prepared to NOT like this color. I put it on…and I really liked it. I bought a few extra bottles because I plan on having a give away here soon, so stay tuned. Anyway, this formula was slightly thicker than the usual OPI but what I liked most is that it dried fast, which is unusual. This is 3 coats because I suck at applying nail polish.

I think my really bad photography skills came into play here. I feel like I made this polish look ugly. It’s not. It’s so gorgeous. I wanted to compare it to Orly’s Goth, but it wouldn’t be fair to either of the polishes. This glitter is all one size and the base for this is a bit more dark grey. Also, there is more glitter in this than Goth. Orly’s Goth is a black base with different sizes of the glitter. This was truly fabulous. Knight’s Armor is part of Nubar’s Fortress Collection.

The formula dried quickly and wasn’t as gritty due to the glitter. I have the Sparkles collection as well and that glitter collection is beautiful, but it’s so dense that when I applied a top coat, it never was a full glossy shine. You’d end up seeing and feeling the texture of the glitter underneath.

I’ll be swatching Nubar’s Fortress Collection soon, but in the meantime, I just had to get this pretty color out there and into my swatch blog.

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Butter – Scoundrel

Wednesday, 12 May, 2010

Don’t you love that word? Scoundrel. It sounds so old world and yet delivers a punch…these days it would garner a giggle or three. However, I’m not laughing at this color by Butter.

It’s not a glitter, but a fabulous creme. I happened to like this shade because it’s that cross between a darker shade of pink with enough purple in it to fall into an almost pink/lavender category. However, this shade is richer and just more luscious. How can anyone not love this color?!

Application was a little lumpy and hard to work with on the first coat but it all worked out on the second. Still smells kind of nice and not like nail polish.

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Butter – Henley Regatta

Tuesday, 11 May, 2010

I always say I hate glitter, yet I constantly keep buying them…hm. Here is another example!

Sunlight picture is a bit blurry, but I deliberately wanted it like that so you can see the pretty glitter in action.

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MAC – Wham, Bam, Glam

Monday, 10 May, 2010

Let me preface this with one simple statement: I LOVE THIS COLOR.

Application was like any other matte for me – moody and pissy. I can never get them to look nice and even, as you’ll see from application pics with the brush strokes so evident on the nail. This color rocked it matte, but when I put on a shiny top coat? Swoonworthy. Seriously. It’s love. I have this fondness for mushroomy/taupe-y colors.

This isn’t quite like the traditional mattes I’ve been seeing out there – it’s a bit like a Ginger & Liz when this dried…more like the finish of a candle than a flat, dull matte.

Small note: I really am not a left handed person and I need to stop trying to paint colors on my right hand. Please excuse the fountain pen ink on my hand – my pen exploded because I dropped it and I thought I had cleaned it off pretty well. Clearly I didn’t.

Lamer excuses out of the way, in comes the pictures.

See? It’s pretty matte…

But it’s even prettier with a top coat, don’t you think?

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StrangeBeautiful Volume I

StrangeBeautiful, Volume I – Olive Green, MAC Dry Martini

Friday, 7 May, 2010

Since StrangeBeautiful doesn’t name their colors and this is part of their Vol I collection, I gave it the generic name of Olive Green. Khaki wasn’t quite the right one. This reminded me of MAC’s Dry Martini, which I’ve also included in this post. Killing two birds with one stone.

MAC’s formula dried quickly and was not opaque on the first coat. With the initial application it was kind of gross – it looked like…well, poo. I’ll stop right there and let your imagination fly.

Once again, SB’s formula is superb – flawless application, fast drying and opaque when it should be. Strange Beautiful would be my favorite brand, but the fact that they’re limited editions and don’t come out with nearly enough colors to appease me bumps them to the bottom part of my top 7 fave brands.

Enough of the rambling, on to the polish!

Oddly enough, this color looked fabulous on me!

This was a gorgeous color and I really liked seeing it on me. I didn’t put a top coat on this because I forgot to. I had been in a rush. Oops. Sorry it’s not as shiny and perty as it could be!

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OPI Shrek Forever After Collection (2010)

Thursday, 6 May, 2010

This is a limited edition collection OPI released that is based on the new Shrek movie that is due out on May 21. I could be wrong on the date, but I can’t be arsed to look it up. Sorry. I’m too involved with the nail polish!

I was able to swatch these yesterday and I pretty much fell in love with all of the OPI Shrek collection. I like kind of odd, close to putrid colors…plus, these were crèmes, how can anyone not love crèmes?! Formula wise it was a dream – went on well with minor problems and dried fast. Yay! It’s a win, win all around.

OPI Shrek consists of 3 dark colors (blue, purple and green) and 3 not-quite-pastel, but I felt they were to complement the darker colors. Like a mani/pedi combo for the summer thing. Very tips and toes! Come and see what I’m rambling about.

Indoors and in the shade, this color didn’t look so bad on me. I loved the fact that it wasn’t like Sally Hansen’s Yellow Kitty. I thought it might be, but it wasn’t. This is definitely far more opaque and not at all hard to work with.

This is the sister color for Fiercely Fiona…well, at least I thought so. Shrek and Fiona should always be together, right? I love this type of green. It reminds me of a sweater I bought way back in the day. It’s this color. My cousin hated it. Hated it. Hated that shade of green. Made sure I knew it everytime he saw me wearing it. Yet he’d get so incensed when people would compliment me on it, always asking where I got it. When he died, I was tempted to throw that sweater into the casket so he’d spend eternity with it. How wrong am I? Thing is, everyone in the family understood and thought it was funny I was tempted to do that. Then again, that’s just my family’s twisted sense of humor. Some day I’ll share those with you, but for now I won’t.

This color wasn’t so bad on me, but it’s a pastel and pastels hate me. It’s ok. I hate them back. Yet I still try to wear them thinking that I look good in them. NOT.

A very pretty purple crème that’s come a bit too late in the purple game. Sorry, OPI. I mean, I still appreciate it, but Nubar, Rescue Beauty Lounge and China Glaze have beaten you to the punch on this.

Out of the entire collection, Who The Shrek Are You? and What’s With The Cattitude? are my favorites. This isn’t quite as deep a turquoise as it could be, but it’s still pretty darn beautiful. The correct shade that I can really associate it most in terms of gem stones is called Sleeping Beauty Turquoise. Sleeping Beauty Turquoise is mined in Arizona. What makes it different from regular turquoise that is prevalent in Native American jewelry is the lack of intense color. It has a slight shade of purple that runs through it making it less bright, bringing it to a muted shade of turquoise that works well with my skin tone. When set in silver and gold, Sleeping Beauty Turquoise doesn’t look as ‘plastic’ as some other turquoise can. Ok, sorry, digressing. I love jewelry and making jewelry and I shouldn’t pull that into a nail polish post!

Not quite electric but not exactly dull, either. This was the first color I applied and had some issues in application because my brush’s bristles were a little on the uneven side. It took me a few minutes to get used to application and it shows. However, it doesn’t detract from the blue goodness of this color, does it?

OPI Shrek collection is out now…grab the colors while you can. I’ve a feeling they will go pretty fast.

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Spa Ritual Spring 2010 Collection – Believe Collection (Part II)

Wednesday, 5 May, 2010

The second half of this collection focuses on the final three colors of the collection that were … not so great on me. The formula was still the same – wonderful. It dried fast, was a breeze to apply and no jacked up bristles. I had a minor problem that really was cuticle pull. You can see it all below. 🙂

You can see the cuticle issues on my middle finger. This pink had a shimmer in it that was meant for someone either younger or older, but not me. I’m very fussy about my pink nail polish and this is definitely not one for me.

See? Cuticle pull again! This orange…is orange. I love orange nail polish, but this was a bit too sheer and almost a jelly like quality. This is 2 coats and it’s still slightly sheer. Not sure if you can see that.

A lovely creme that I absolutely loved in the bottle. Sadly, it looks like I’ve glued some pastel colored M &Ms onto my fingers. It looks surreal and very odd. I was hoping that it would look ok on me, but it really didn’t. I love, love, LOVE this color. I really wish this would look good on me. Oh well…plenty of polish for me to choose from so I’m not lamenting my lack of choices. 🙂

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