Butterscotch Penny - OPI Rising Star

I've been knee-deep in vampy polishes for a few weeks now, but when I feel the need to lighten up, I usually like to go with a bronze/gold metallic. (My favourite is OPI DS Glow.) Today, I bring you OPI Rising Star. I saw it on vintageortacky on YouTube one day and HAD to have it.



OK so this probably isn't the most flattering shade on me. BUT it is more flattering in person than in this picture. The colour is like a very clean penny coated in butterscotch. Yum. I do like this very much, but I am seriously a sucker for anything gold....

Are you a fan of bronze/gold polishes? Let me know your favs!
kittytokaren

Models Own Bronze Rage

As I believe I may have mentioned, I am a total sucker for a good metallic bronze. This one is pretty similar to Harvest Moon but has a smoother finish and thus looks a bit more duochrome and less sparkly. It's also got a slightly nuttier hue. (Yeah, I am totally trying to justify keeping two very similar polishes...). It was a little sheer so it took three coats to build but it's worth the effort.

I think this is going to be in heavy rotation for Autumn!

Disappointment in Two Photographs - Essie Mirror Metallics

Often on blogs, we tend to post about the things we love - because well, that's what is exciting and fun to share! Sometimes there are polishes that just don't make the grade - usually these are booted out of my house before I have a chance to photograph them. I attempted to take pictures of a couple of the Essie Mirror Metallics for you, even though these polishes really disappointed me. Bringing a little balance to the blogging equation, if nothing else!

Essie Good As Gold

First up, Good as Gold. I tried this over the Revlon Colorstay basecoat. These colours are finicky, brushstroke-y, they pull, and are generally completely pants in terms of application. They seem to especially hate this particular base coat. A shame, as I like the colour quite a bit.

Essie Penny Talk

I tried a different base coat with Penny Talk, and it fared slightly better, though not by much. This is Barielle Hydrating Ridge Filler. Still get the pulling and general ickiness. The colour is absolutely smashing though, so this really hurts my heart!!

So, I like the idea of having an all-metallic collection. Well done on the concept, Essie. However, the application and formula was such a let down for me. Clumpy, streaky, and generally disobedient. I've tried them over more base coats than you see here, and none of them were successful. I even tried over bare nails, my ridges were super super evident, even though they aren't bad at all! I haven't used a formula this terrible in a long time. Such a shame because the colours are truly lovely. Even though I was initially super mad at Essie for putting something like this out there, I've decided to keep these. They actually make lovely nail art (when I say nail art, I mean polka dots, because that's all I can do) polishes.

Still disappointed, but happy to share that with you. Has anyone found a base coat or technique that makes these polishes work for them? I'd love to know!

kittytokaren

More Robot Nails! - Barry M Silvery Lilac

I really wish Barry M was available in the US. It's a lovely little brand that puts out great colours at an excellent price point. At the moment, I turn to the bay of Evil for my Barry M fix, but I just wanted to put it out there!

This is Silvery Lilac - reminds me quite a bit of OPI Not Like the Movies, but for some reason I like this version better.

Silvery Lilac is another polish that reminds me of "robot nails" but it has a healthy dose of sparkle in it. I definitely have to be in the mood for this kind of polish, but when I am, this hits the spot nicely. I also think it would look pretty fabulous under OPI Black Spotted!

Have you tried Barry M polishes? What do you think?

kittytokaren

Copper completes me - Barry M Copper

I have a debilitating weakness for bronze/copper polishes... (For example, I have pledged my eternal love to OPI DS Glow.) When I saw pics online of Barry M Copper I knew I somehow had to get my grubby mitts on it! Luckily I have a fantastic friend in the UK who had already guessed that I wanted it - she is amazing. :)

And yeah, it's frakking incredible. I mean...look at it... Glowing bronzed perfection, I tell you! It strikes me as quite similar to OPI Warm & Fozzie in it's colour composition, but it is a fair bit lighter. Definitely less orange-y than OPI DS Glow. It hits so many nails on the head for me! Plus, application was lovely and staying power was a dream. I will *definitely* be sporting this quite often this summer - it looks phenomenal with a rose gold watch!

kittytokaren

"Kate Spade" manicure - SpaRitual Driftwood & OPI Glitzerland

I got a new wallet for my birthday - after 10 years! finally! - and I think it's fair to say that I'm a little obsessed with it. (In case you're curious, it's this one by Kate Spade in flo coral.) The lining of it inspired me to do another dot manicure (see my other dot mani here), and since the pattern is classic Kate Spade, I'm anointing this the "Kate Spade manicure" - hope she doesn't mind...

And a peek inside my wallet...

I used SpaRitual Driftwood and OPI Glitzerland for the dots.

Nail art is clearly not my forte, but the dots are easy enough to do with the end of a bobby pin, and I think it turned out pretty cute!

Have you dabbled in any nail art lately?

kittytokaren

More Color Club Foiled (Fall 2011) swatches

The rest of the Color Club Foiled collection that CC sent me for review. 

 Color Club Lumin-Icecent

OK... that's a pretty bad name for a polish. But sure, why not. Light blue foil with slight greenish tinge. Really nice one. Two coats. 

Color Club Cold Metal

Ordinary but very nice dark blue foil. One coat does the trick. :) Gotta love those. Dried super fast. Best five minute mani ever. 

Color Club Hot Like Lava

Favorite polish from the collection but worst photos ever! I don't understand what went wrong with my ability to use a camera but all of these photos came out blurry and very, very orange. And my skin looks bizarre in the first one. So annoyed. But the polish was great. Another one coat polish, super fast dry time. This was taken on the third day of wear and is a very aptly named for a hot pink foil.

Some Color Club Foiled swatches (Fall 2011)

I am super behind on Color Club swatches. :( Between what I've bought and what they've sent (such as this collection), I really could wear nothing but Color Club for over a month. It would be a pretty good month. Anyhow, the Foiled collection brought China Glaze Khrome to mind and I couldn't help comparing the two when I applied and wore the polishes, though the two collections actually feel pretty distinct. (Khrome was more metallic, Foiled is more... foil. Brighter, more sparkly, with more of a textured feel.)

I have a weird relationship with foils: I like them but I don't love them and yet I probably wear them more often than most other finishes. Sunlight does fabulous things to them but they're dull as all heck indoors. So I never plan to wear a foil. I only wear foils when I don't have time to do my nails. Application is very forgiving, quite a few are one coat wonders, most dry very quickly and it looks pristine for the first 24-48 hours. Absolutely perfect in a pinch. 

Almost all of my Foiled photos are actually NOTDs because they arrived during an extremely busy week... So I was a little put out when some of the Color Club Foiled polishes were somewhat thin and didn't dry quickly. But it varied from polish to polish. 

Color Club Antiquated

Silvery champagne. The above shows two coats but I think it could've used three: it was pretty thin. It dried very quickly though. Good staying power. 

Color Club Perfect Molten

Darkened seafoam. Two coats was perfect. Oddly, it dried slower than Antiquated. Still, much faster than many polishes. One of my favorites from this collection. 

Color Club Foil Me Once

Cool pink. This one I cursed. Three coats, took longer to dry than the other two, and then started chipping immediately. I was not a happy camper. 

Wet n Wild Believe Me It's Real (Ice Baby) over Orly Stone Cold (Holiday 2011)

Wet n Wild Believe Me It's Real over Orly Stone Cold

I've seen photos of this Wet n Wild and it looks like that it does get opaque but I got really bored of my Stone Cold mani and didn't feel like taking it off. Lots of lazy layering. It made my nails seem HUGE though: between the basecoat, two coats of Stone Cold, one layer of topcoat, three layers of Believe Me It's Real, plus two more layers of topcoat... pretty thick by the end of this process. Extremely sparkly blue glitter with some purple hex glitter mixed in. 

I found most of the Ice Baby nail polishes at my local Walgreens... but not all of them (and that makes me sad because I really wanted Diamond in the Rough). And there MUST MUST MUST be some nail polish blog (or NB) enthusiasts in my neighborhood because the cashier at Walgreens told me that people were in asking for these polishes before they were released (and pretty much snapped up most of the display immediately). I wish I had some nail polish friends locally so I could go a-huntin' and a-paintin' with 'em. 

Orly Stone Cold (Mineral FX, Holiday 2011)

Orly Stone Cold

Blue metallic that's shot through with... micro-flakies, for lack of a better term? Bright, eye-catching. Would make an awesome summer pedi color, imo. Two coats and took a strangely long time to dry (at least one of those nails had been painted more than once because they dried slower than usual with my typical bc/tc combo).

I just recently told a bunch of my college friends about this blog. I'm still being all covert about it with people I know professionally (i.e. all academics anywhere) but the more I thought about it, the stranger it felt to be quiet about Polish or Perish to my friends. Most of these are people I've known for going on ten years now. What was the worst that could've happened? They've known me for awhile, they know a ton about me, and I'm pretty sure I've done some (or many?) things that they haven't totally liked/enjoyed/respected... and yet they still like and respect me anyway. Why would this be any different? So a couple of days ago, I talked about it on my private blog that only longtime friends of mine have access to. And it turned out that while I was writing the post, the most awkward thing about telling people is that I spent years NOT telling people. The post was like, "Hi guys, I didn't tell you this... for a very long time... but I belong to a beauty blog... that is 2.5 years old... and has over 1,200 posts. And I own... many, many, many dollars worth of nail polish. And I kept it a secret from you all... so yeah. That's all. Nail blog."

And then twelve hours later, I realized I had accidentally disabled comments on the post, so it kind of looked like I was so anxious about telling people that I didn't want to hear from them! Which then just made me feel foolish for being so apprehensive about any of it, especially since the people who have commented all think it's pretty nifty that I do this. (It's possible the rest of them might think it's unspeakably flakey. Oh well.)

China Glaze Metallic Muse

I'm totally late to the party on this one. I think practically everyone here has this polish. But I love it! So glad I added it to my last pre no-buy order. Chromes are my favourite finish and aqua-blue is a very frequent colour in my wardrobe, so this fits right in.

The only issue I have with chromes is that they're such a bugger to clean up - I end up with sparkly bits everywhere. There are a few ridgey bits evident in these pictures, but that's my own fault. My favourite way to apply chromes is to sandwich them with a coat of seche vite, which makes them really smooth (base, two coats polish, SV, polish, SV) and gives amazing wear time - my butter london fairy lights mani (a pink chrome) lasted 9 days with no chips. This one was more like 3 days, but then it's only two coats between lumos base and top coat (neither of which are that great, in my opinion).

illamasqua Shrapnel

Illamasqua shrapnel, one of the colours from the design competition from last winter. This is easily my favourite of the bunch. It's a metallic pink-copper (flinty, you'll love this) with tiny silver microshimmer flecks. It's a very cool toned metallic and definitely unique amongst my collection. It's opaque in one coat, but I refuse to do one coat (what if I come under REALLY BRIGHT LIGHT and I can see VNL if I look very closely?!) so this is two.





The colour is described as 'the colour of a new penny'. Just to be really pedantic I decided to test this claim - think of this as the nail polish Mythbusters. So, 2010 English penny in hand, I can confirm that...it's not the same colour. It's considerably pinker. Still really pretty, though!

Trying pink victory! Butter London Fairy Lights

While I'm not usually a pink kinda girl, this one ticks all the boxes. I am obsessed with it. Not a surprise given that the merest hint of a metallic polish is guaranteed to drive me batshit...and this is a rich, pink chrome. Sorry in advance for picture overload. And any lemmings created.



It's fully opaque in two coats. You could even get away with one, but since chromes show imperfections, I use two with a coat of seche vite layered inbetween and lumos on top, which totally hides the fact that I have a couple of teabag patches right now. (You can tell my nails are bad if I'm willing to butcher my precious Whittard teabags to fix it). But rather than waffle on, I'm just going to show you pictures. Which are no-where near as pretty as the polish, so you'll have to use your imagination.


It's slightly blue but is so super shiny that it shifts colours in different lights. Right now indoors it looks baby pink. Outdoors it's darker and cool-toned. In the sunshine it glows white. Being a chrome it's also a whizz to apply and dries really quick.


I have bought a back up since this is limited edition and I tend to wear my chromes a lot. That doesn't count towards the no-buy, right?! (OK, so maybe the other three BLs I bought to make up the shipping do...) /guilt. Looks nice under red shatter, too:

Funky French

After my last black and green flakies manicure (which was every bit as involved to remove as you'd think) I was craving something pale and clean. Inspired by K2K's gold tip french I decided to try my own renditition, which is a bit less subtle.



This is OPI creme of crete (three coats) as the base with China Glaze 2030 tips freehanded over the top. I usually use creme of crete for french tips and I'm not sure what possessed me to use it as a full manicure. It's very runny and streaky and my planned sheer base fell by the wayside because it's impossible to get it to level while keeping it sheer. Nevertheless I quite like the effect, unintended though it is, and it's also covering my first go at a teabag patch (on my middle finger).



I've only ever freehanded french tips - what do you do? Any suggestions for good stencils?

Trying pink: GOSH frou frou & giveaway winner

First things first: in the giveaway there were 122 entries, 116 of which were valid (couple of double posts and some after time). I punched that into random.org and this was what came out. Number 58 was meipinggg, who said:

'hmm, i think that i'd usually end up with coral nail polishes )': i have like 3 nearly identical ones? AND THEY DONT EVEN LOOK GOOD WITH MY SKIN COLOUR D:'

Congrats Mei, I've emailed you! Thank you to everyone who entered, I loved reading your comments.

My favourite was this one from Laurawire:

The number of indentikit brown leather handbags in my wardrobe is so far past the amusing point that I'm beginning to wonder how many I need to have to open a store. Or get sectioned. One of the two.

Laura, if you see this, drop me an email and I'll sort you out a runner up prize.

Abyway, continuing with GOSH, after my last attempt with one of their polishes, which was less than fruitful, I decided to try this one. This is very far out of my comfort zone - it's a shimmery metallic pink, which is about as un-me as it's possible to get - but I saw it in Superdrug and my instant reaction was 'Ooooooooh, shiny!'.

Look at the shiny! Just look at it!

This applies like most of the slightly flaky metallics I own, and the finish is much the same as, say, China Glaze's holiday metallics. The first coat is a total hot mess of patchy glitter, and a second coat evens it out. I stopped at two coats, although there is very slight VNL in bright sunlight, so I can imagine some might want to do three. The brush is pretty average, but drying time is fast. I left it five minutes between coats, and it was dry. This lasted five days before I got bored and took it off, and the chips were really minor (and not noticable because the colour's such a good match on me). Into the lazy pile it goes.

Sorry about the cat hair...

Overall, I really like this. Any suggestions for other pinks I should try?

A festive combo - OPI DS Glow meets OPI Dazzled by Gold!

Reminder: Don't forget to enter the GIVEAWAY featuring Essie Smokin' Hot and a Pradman labradorite ring!! Click here to see the original GIVEAWAY post, or just enter using the widget at the top of the blog - ONLY 2 DAYS LEFT!

With the holiday season swiftly approaching, it seems to be an appropriate time to start trying out some more festive manicures. This mani is putting me in a holiday spirit - which is nice seeing as I will probably be working in the lab over the holidays...

Also this is two of my favourite polishes combined, so how could it be bad right?!

This is OPI DS Glow (see it on its own here) with one coat of OPI Dazzled by Gold (click here to see "the precious" solo) on top.

Oooo sparkly...

and reflective...

By adding a coat of Dazzled by Gold overtop, the red-tone in DS Glow is dampened, which I think makes it more flattering and definitely amps up the "gold" factor.

Even though I will probably be predictable and go with OPI Smitten with Mittens for Christmas and OPI Mad as a Hatter for New Year's (*gasp* k2k would wear a full-0n glitter!?!?!? Yes...on New Year's :P), I'm really loving this 24-karat combo.

Do you have your holiday manicures picked out already? What are they?

kittytokaren

P.S. Congratulation to Piff for finally getting her hands on OPI Dazzled by Gold!!! I no longer feel guilty for posting this. :)

What Chanel Trapeze Should Have Been - $OPI Already Famous

Reminder: Don't forget to enter the GIVEAWAY featuring Essie Smokin' Hot and a Pradman labradorite ring!! Click here to see the original GIVEAWAY post, or just enter using the widget at the top of the blog!

In general I try not to buy Sephora by OPI ($OPI) polishes. I hate the brush, and I think they're mad overpriced. But every once in a while, one comes along that demands my attention. This gorgeous metallic/taupe concoction hits so many of my "need-it-now" buttons that it was a must-purchase! (I alleviated my price annoyance by buying it during Sephora's F&F sale...)

Behold - a non-streaky taupe-metallic-foil dream...$OPI Already Famous.

In shade:

In the sun...it's even more sparkly in person!:

This is basically an amped up version of Chanel Trapeze (see it here). While Trapeze is a shy wallflower waiting to be asked to dance, Already Famous is the first girl out on the dance floor. Yes, the finishes are very different, and Already Famous is probably darker, but I think this is what I was wanting from Trapeze all along - a neutral but sparkly polish devoid of telltale brushstrokes. Sorry Trapeze...you're very pretty, but I think my dance card is full now.

Have you been tempted by any $OPI polishes lately?? Did you buy any during F&F?

kittytokaren

China Glaze Millennium

Well hello, futuristic fingernails! Have you discovered world peace in 2036?


I can't help it, I love some icy silver nails and this puppy does the trick! Millennium is from the Khrome collection from way back when and in two coats it is a shiny, reflective eye-catcher. Sure, you've got some brushstrokes here and there, but whatever! It makes me feel like I should have a flying car and a jet pack... or maybe I just feel like Rhianna. Either way, it's all good.

Silver hotness!

Happy day, all!

Some LA Girl Metal swatches: Pink Steel, Millennium and Metallic Olive

This is one great -- and affordable -- collection for those who like foils and other shiny things. You can generally find these for about $3; they are often on sale on CherryCulture.com.

LA Girl Metal Pink Steel

I don't think the photo properly expresses the awesomeness of this polish. Did you know that every nail polish collection HAS to have a BURNING HOT PINK FOIL? Because I did not know that I needed one until I swatched this beauty. My collection had been unknowingly bereft without it! Three coats here, could have been fine with two. Very smooth application, which is typical of foil polishes. It's retina-searing in the sun. Does not dry glossy though, which may bother some but I like the Suede-like texture of it.

LA Girl Metal Metallic Olive

Dark shimmering green made of nearly-black dark green shimmer, gold shimmer and lighter green shimmer. Three coats. A dark, dusky color that brightens in the sunlight. Me likey. :)

LA Girl Metal Millennium

I liked this one the least out of these three polishes. I guess I'm not a big purple person but there just wasn't anything too special to me about this purple foil. It applies very well though. Two coats.

September 29th (15m cardio).