Awesome Promotion from Zoya! Free Downtown or Uptown Sampler with purchase!

So, you all know by now how much I LOVE Zoya's Downtown collection, right? Well, Zoya loves it too and they want you to have it for free!

Zoya is offering an exciting two-part promo only for my readers!

If you've had your eye on the new Zoya Fall Collections - Pulse and Vibe- here's your chance to get an awesome deal when you order them.

If you order a Pulse collection sampler, you'll get a Downtown collection sampler for FREE!

If metallics and shimmery colors aren't your thing, you can order the Vibe collection and get the Uptown collection free!

Or, if you're like me and love it all, you can order Pulse and Vibe and get BOTH the Downtown and Uptown collections for free!

How sweet is that? All you have to do is add the Pulse and/or Vibe to your cart and use code SCRANGIELUV in the promo code field.

All of these collections are perfect for fall. You get the rich vampy goodness of Pulse and Vibe, the edgy uniqueness of Downtown, and the chic sophisticated colors of Uptown. A lot of variety, and that's definitely a good thing.

Here are the official details:

Exclusive ZOYA OFFER

for Scrangie readers only!

Purchase a Zoya Pulse Sampler (6 - 0.5 oz bottles)…

get a Zoya Downtown Sampler (6 - 0.5 oz bottles) FREE!

Purchase a Zoya Vibe Sampler (6 - 0.5 oz bottles)…

get a Zoya Uptown Sampler (6 - 0.5 oz bottles) FREE!

Get one or both – you decide.

Free items will automatically be added to your order based on your selections.

CODE: SCRANGIELUV

Limit one free uptown and downtown per order.

Offer expires 5PM (EST) Friday, August 22^nd.

Offer not valid in conjunction with other discounts

Special thanks to Zoya for this awesome promo!

Zoya Downtown Collection

This was my first Zoya purchase, and I've been hooked ever since. It's still my favorite Zoya collection, and for good reason. Just look at these fantastic colors! I don't think there's a weak point at all in the collection. I've worn every single one of these colors enough to make a big dent in the bottles, and that's saying something.



Freja. A lovely shimmering charcoal. This is one of those polishes I would have bought just for the name, but the color was so beautiful I didn't have to!


Indigo. A deep, dark midnight blue with just a hint of multicolored glitter. I wish there was more glitter in this one, but it's still beautiful.


Kotori. A very sparkly blue shimmer on a blackish base. It takes three coats to achieve bottle color, but it's worth it. This color is slightly washed out, but it's the best way to show the shimmer. It's a little bit darker in real life.


Lael. The only creme in the collection. Such a wonderful color. Purple creme! There aren't very many purple cremes, but there need to be more. Purple cremes rock.


Rea. Metallic, shimmery, silvery purple. A little bit of a chameleon, it changes from more purple to more silver depending on the lighting.



Suvi. This is a must-have color. A semi-sheer blackened forest green. It takes three coats to achieve bottle color. I can't think of many (if any) dupes for this color.

Every color in this collection is perfect. Application is great, no thick formulas, no messed up brushes, no bubbling. Just pure, dark sparkly awesomeness.

Reader Requests!

Well, it's midnight and I can't sleep, so what better thing to do than to catch up on some awesome reader requests?

Here we go!

For Alison:

One coat of OPI Alpine Snow for tips and one coat of OPI Bubble Bath for the main color. A teeny bit streaky, but you can hardly tell, right? Both of these dry really quickly. This is a very easy look to do!

For Grace:


Thumb to pinkie: Zoya Snow White (3 coats), Rescue Beauty Lounge Underwear (one coat), OPI Alpine Snow (2 coats) , Essie Marshmallow (3 coats), Essie Moon Struck (3 coats). All of them are fairly bright. The brightest is Underwear, followed by Alpine Snow, then Snow White and the least bright are Moon Struck and Marshmallow. Moon Struck almost has a greyish cast to it, and Marshmallow is a nice, soft, squishy 'jelly' white.


Here's one coat of Rescue Beauty Lounge Bikini Bottom over those whites in the same order.
I really like how it looks over Marshmallow. The translucent look of Marshmallow gives Bikini Bottom a watery quality that's really pretty.


Here's Rescue Beauty Lounge Square Pants over the same whites. So soft and lovely! Man, these colors make my hands look like lobster claws or something... Do they look bright red to you?? Freaky.


Here's a shared request- a few different people were asking for these so I decided to do them all at once!


Thumb to pinkie: OPI Parlez-Vous OPI?, Sephora By OPI Don't Go There, Sephora By OPI Domestic Goddess, Rescue Beauty Lounge Purple Haze, OPI Do You Lilac It?

Why do my purples always photograph so BLUE? Well, imagine that these colors look the same, only, uh, purpler. Purpler. I think I like that.


Thumb to pinkie: OPI You Don't Know Jacques, Sephora By OPI Metro Chic, Rescue Beauty Lounge Grunge, OPI Parlez-Vous OPI, Sephora By OPI Call Your Mother.

OMG. I think this could be my favorite mani of all time!! These colors look like they were made to go together. It reminds me of river rocks or something... I am going to wear my nails like this tomorrow!


Currently in the works: OPI Creme de la Kremlin, Silent Mauvie, China Glaze OMG and Kaleidoscope, "car paint" polishes, Konad tutorial, Half-Moon Mani, Red Stallion and Bitches Brew dupes, Rodeo Diva and Downtown comparisons, duochrome mania, Nubar Moodies, China Glaze In The Mood, New York Summer and Sally Hansen Nail Prisms and my favorite polishes.

If you don't see your request in that list, please let me know! And if you have a request, by all means, drop me a line or leave a comment!

Sephora By OPI Swatches!

So the UPS man just surprised me with a box of nail polish from Sephora! I didn't even get a tracking number, they just mysteriously showed up! Hooray, another pleasant surprise!

Swatches first:


Brainiac. Sephora described this as "spiced pumpkin." Whenever I see the word "pumpkin" it's like an alarm goes off inside my brain that says BUY BUY BUY BUY BUY!!! Unfortunately, this doesn't look very pumpkiny to me. It's like a weird muted salmon-coral, or pinkish burnt orange. I still like it, but it's NOT PUMPKIN :(


Cab Fare. I love the color- a bright yellow with yellow-gold shimmer, like Orly Live Wire but not as bright. However... This polish was extremely thick and impossible to work with. See how thick it looks on my nails? That's two coats and it's uneven and lumpy. This was even, dare I say, stringy?


Call Your Mother. Oooh, I like this. Another muted purple. I'm happy that these colors are appearing more often. They're very unusual and I find that exciting!


Charge It! If you don't want to spend $30 on Chanel Gold Fiction, get this! It's not an exact match but the finish is the same. It's a bright, shiny, metallic, polished gold. Love this.


Domestic Goddess. Bright purple creme, woot!!


Don't Go There. Brighter than Call Your Mother, but I don't like it quite as much. It just doesn't do anything for me. Pretty, but meh.


Metro Chic. Another one of these weird colors! I love 'em! Quite similar to You Don't Know Jacques, and I'm perfectly fine with that.


Never Enough Shoes. Not exactly what I was expecting. I had expected more obvious glitter, but this is actually really subtle. I can see red, gold and silver glitter, but it's super-tiny microglitter. I was hoping for something like Petites Black Star.


Run With It. WOO! This is wicked cool! I think they should have named it 'wet cement' because that's what it looks like. It's a muted light grey with the tiniest tinge of red, it looks like. It has a fine shimmer running through it that gives the appearance of concrete- all those little sparkly crushed stones. I really, really love this. A lot. I hope this isn't limited edition!


Truthfully, I wasn't impressed by the quality of these. The main problem I had is that every creme shade I bought has ribbons of unmixed pigment running through it. I normally don't have a problem with this, a little shaking is enough to take care of it most of the time. But, even after a moderate amount of shaking, the ribbons were still there, and worse, created pigmented streaks on the nail!

Formula-wise, about half were good and half were a horrible, thick, gooey, streaky mess.

The brushes are nice, a nicely shaped standard nail polish brush, no Pro-Wides here. I am not a fan of the bottles for three reasons: One, they look like they'll be insanely hard to open if a little bit of polish dries in the threads. Two, they look cheap. And three, they look more like something you'd find in an, um, adult store than a bottle of nail polish.

I'm happy with all the colors I ordered, even if they weren't exactly what I was expecting.

Better pictures: Zoya Pulse Collection

I felt embarrassed about the crappy pictures of the Zoya Pulse collection that I posted, so when I had some sunlight the other day, I snapped a better picture.




Here's Jacy. I think I captured the shimmer a little better this time. If you click the picture, I think you'll be able to see the pretty pink sparkles.


And, the rest:


Thumb to pinkie: Blair, Colbie, Sloane, Rihana, Mikka.

Aren't they gorgeous?

And, a sidenote: I'm working on all of your requests. I know I've been behind in posting lately, but I really love your requests and I'm picky about getting the perfect picture for you! Always feel free to email me (with the word 'request' somewhere in the email or subject line, cause it makes searching my email a little easier ;-) ) or leave a comment with a request. I may not be able to post it right away, but I really enjoy doing them.

If you feel like I've forgotten you, or I'm taking too long, let me know! I don't want to forget anyone! You guys are the best :)

Orly Fall 2008: Gems Collection Swatches

This collection was a surprise to me! I heard nothing about it until I saw it online when I was ordering my France polishes. It's a good surprise, though, it's an awesome collection!

I realized that I don't feature Orly (YARLY.) very much on here... It's not intentional! I really do like Orly, they just don't seem to release new collections as often at the other polish companies. If you can't tell, I'm a sucker for 'new'. I'm always curious about new and exciting polishes, makeup, fragrance, hell, anything 'new'!

The only thing I don't like about Orly is that they take for-ev-er to dry. I always seem to ruin my nails when I'm wearing Orly because I can't wait for them to dry.

Anyway, on to the gems.


Here they are, all lined up. Look, they come with cute rings! They don't fit on my tiny fingers, but they fit the bottle nicely. Star of Bombay, Golden Maharaja, Mandalay Ruby, Sea of Light, Golden Jubilee, Midnight Star.


Golden Jubilee. Bright orangey gold shimmer. Very bright. Sparkly. Mmm.


Star of Bombay, Super deep dark blue with the faintest hint of shimmer. The shimmer is almost invisible on the nail, except on very bright light.


Sea of Light. A peachy-coral-pink kind of color with a blueish-purple shimmer overlay. Almost duochrome, but not quite.


Golden Maharaja. My favorite out of the collection. Gorgeous rich brown with golden shimmer. This bubbled badly seconds after applying. I'm not sure why. Must be an Orly thing.


Mandaly Ruby. Medium red creme. That pretty much says it all.


Midnight Star. Very pretty frosty deep purple. It's like a purple/silver fusion. This one also bubbled very badly just seconds after application. What's up with that?? I bubbled before I could even take a picture of it. Lame! Still an awesome color, though.

Hooray for nice surprises!

On a totally unrelated note, have any of you been having trouble with your China Glaze polishes lately? Every time I try to wear a China Glaze polish, it takes hours to dry. This is happening with old and new formula polishes. The other day I tried to wear Passion In The Pacific with Seche as a topcoat, and eight hours later I could still dent the polish. Same with Side Saddle on my toes. Is it just the weather, or do they really take that long to dry? I didn't have this problem with any of the Ink collection, but every other collection seems to be doing it now. Hmmm...

OPI Fall 2008: La Collection De France Swatches

EDIT: Now with 100% more commentary!
I promised I'd have these up on Monday, and damn it, I am going to post them before midnight!

The odds were against me today. I was supposed to have these on Friday, but UPS decided to reschedule my shipment! So today I waited and waited as all the good sunlight disappeared. No OPIs! I was about to give up hope when I heard the UPS man pull up... at 7:30PM!!! By this time the sun was setting and I had no light for swatches. (I took over 200 pictures of these outdoors in the sunset and not a single one turned out!)

But, here they are, finally, OPI La Collection De France!

I'm tired, so I'll spare you the commentary and let you admire the images without my constant nonsensical babble ;-)

A Oui Bit Of Red
This actually has a bit of fuchsia shimmer to it that wouldn't show up in the picture. You can see the hint of shimmer in the botttle if you look closely. It's your average red shimmer, very pretty, but not something I would wear.

Baguette Me Not
Really odd muted salmon brown sort of color. Another "mom" color, but I really like it. It reminds me of fall. Very soft.

Bastille My Heart
This is a bit more purple in real life. A deep, shimmery, stainy (yikes!) wine shimmer. Pretty, but holy crap does this ever stain.

Crepes Suziette
This is less red in real life. More of a muted burnt orange type of color. Another soft "mom" color that's extremely similar to Baguette Me Not, just a shade darker. In fact, this is a creme version of one of my favorites- Cheyenne Pepper. It's like Cheyenne Pepper without the beautiful golden shimmer.

Eiffel For This Color
Hot. Seriously. It reminds me of Black Cherry Chutney. A deep, dark black cherry color with shimmer. Not terribly unique, but still awesome.

I'm Fondue Of You
LOVE this one. Chocolate brown with a touch of red and gold shimmer. Very 'fall'. It's similar to Rescue Beauty Lounge Noisette, but more subtle (and not quite as pretty!)

Yes... I Can-Can!
Another cherry-colored polish! This says "Moulin Rouge" to me. Vampy, sexy, shimmery dark cherry.

You Don't Know Jacques
This is probably my favorite out of the collection. There aren't too many colors that look like this. It's very unusual! Is it grey or taupe or mousy brown? I'll probably wear this the most often out of all of these.

Louvre Me, Louvre Me Not
Hey, is this Zoya Jacy? Close, but a tad darker. Medium purple/plum with pink shimmer. Gorgeous.

Parlez-Vous OPI?
This is wicked cool. It's a greyed lilac. Like Do You Lilac It's undead zombie sister. This *might* be tied with You Don't Know Jacques for my favorite of the collection. I can't decide. Maybe it's my second favorite.

Tickle My Francey
A coffee with too much cream nude. I don't wear nudes or pale colors, but I really love the way this looks. It's not your average nude, there's just something about it that's unique. It has that Rescue Beauty Lounge Grunge feeling to it, but more natural looking. Elegant, for sure.

We'll Always Have Paris
A deep wine cream. Well, maybe not wine exactly, but purple-red-brown. Man, I think I really suck at describing colors. That's what pictures are for, I suppose. Vampy and rich, definitely not unique, but still beautful anyway.

These colors are not what I expected from seeing the promo pictures. I think there are really only three totally unique colors in this collection -You Don't Know Jacques, Parlez-Vous OPI, Tickle My Francey. They are all really pretty, but I feel that OPI played it too safe. What happened to the OPI that released Night Brights? I can see what they were going for in this collection, and I'm sure the average nail polish consumer would love all of these, but for a nail polish junkie like me, I've seen all these colors before. Red shimmer, vampy shimmer, vampy creme, wine creme, ho-hum.

I'm not saying that I don't like these- I think they're all gorgeous- but I think OPI could have been a little more, I don't know, exciting? Look at China Glaze's Rodeo Diva collection! They did a mixture of traditional and non-traditional colors and every single color came out awesome.

Then again, this is just my opinion and I know that I like my polish colors to be more "out there" and over the top- bring on the glitter, the duochromes and the neons! I do love my vampy colors, but the nail polish market is becoming SO saturated with them I'm starting to become bored! At least I have OPI's Halloween and Holiday collections to look forward to.

There.... I made it! I'll add in my comments when I've had some sleep. Enjoy!

More Fun With Konad

Some more reader requests- Konad stamps!

I know these are a little sloppy and there's pieces of cotton ball all over my nails- I had to rush a little!

I also stupidly forgot to write down what the plate numbers were, thinking I could remember them by looking at them- hahaha, yeah, right Scrangie! I apologize- I will go look at my plates and add them to this post :)

The base color I'm using is Color Club Pink Rush (and Power Play in a few pictures) and the Konad polish is Konad Special Polish in Black Gold.


Flower, flower arch, two flowers with dots, swirly design, large flower with vines.


French tips: Fishnet, animal print, hearts, flowers. Paisley design.


Plaid, dot gradient, argyle, fishnet, zebra.


Double bows, stars, hearts, double flowers, bow with ribbon.


Lovelt with hearts and stars, polka-dotted bow, heart cluster, french tip swirl design, french tip leaves design (my favorite!)


Konad french tip plate.


Butterfly, squiggly thing, weird star with arm things, flower arch, fleur-de-lys



The plate I use most often! Spider, jolly roger, scorpion, cobra, unicorn!


I have tons of Konad plates, so if there's a specific plate or design you're interested in seeing, drop me a line! If I have it I'll be sure to do a picture.

Konad is super fun. If you like nail art at all, you would really like this. I get mine from www.wowsocool.com.

Comparison: Dior Gold Nugget and China Glaze Prize Winning Mare

When grabbed my bottle of Prize Winning Mare and started applying it, the first thing I thought was, "This reminds me of Dior Gold Nugget!"

And I was sort of right, but not 100%. They are very similar in texture, similar in color, but they are distinctly different. Observe:


Pinkie and ring finger are Gold Nugget. Middle and index finger are Prize Winning Mare. Thumb is Prize Winning Mare and Gold Nugget side by side.

Gold Nugget is definitely brighter and more metallic. Both colors seem to have the same multi-colored microsparkle thing going on, but they're not as similar as I first thought they were.

Prize Winning Mare is Gold Nugget's less flashy, more antique looking older sister. Looking perhaps like she's tarnished a little with age- maybe it's the Future Gold Nugget after too many years of hard partying and late nights. Still very pretty and glimmering, but more subdued, a little more dull, a bit more mature- Gold Nugget post-rehab. Like Lindsay Lohan, without the ability to eat your arms. (Kidding, kidding! I think.)

Reader Request: China Glaze Kaliedoscope, Part 1

A request from lovely reader Rose! I'm sorry I've been so late in getting these pictures posted! Anyway, here's a few from one of my all time favorite collections, China Glaze Kaleidoscope.

These are very strongly holographic, much more than the China Glaze OMG collection. They require two to three coats each, but they dry lightning fast. Faster than any polish I've ever used!

These are all the colors I could find- I have the entire collection but I seem to have misplaced over half of them! I'll post these for now, and continue to search in between the couch cushions and under the bed....


Sexagon. My go-to polish that looks good with everything. Light silver based holo.


He's Going In Circles. Green-based holo.


How About A Tumble? Light Purple or Rose-based holo.


It's My Turn. Rich gold-based holo.



Kaleidoscope Him Out. Baby blue based holo.




Let's Do It IN 3-D. Black/Charcoal based holo.


As soon as I locate my missing Kaleidoscopes, I'll have those up. OMG is all lined up and ready to go as well!

I'll also be following up on a request for Konad stamps, so hopefully I'll have those posted soon!

Again, I always love requests! Sometimes it takes me a little longer than I'd like to finish them, but I love them nonetheless! If you have a request, always feel free to email me or leave a comment and I'll do my best to fulfill it in a reasonable amount of time.

I feel like I'm forgetting one, though... I checked through my email and my notepad and didn't see it, but I still have that "I forgot something!" feeling... If it was your request, please let me know!

China Glaze Fall 2008: Rodeo Diva Collection Swatches

These are unbelievable! Out of all the fall collections this year, this one is definitely my favorite, and in my humble opinion, the best. Every single color in this collection has that WOW factor, that extra something that makes you want to stare at your hands all day. Rodeo Diva is a masterpiece, plain and simple. After a few disappointing releases, China Glaze has stepped up and really delivered a gem of a collection.


Branding Iron. Fantastic glowy burgundy, shimmery and eye-catching!!


Cowgirl Up. Shimmery, sparkly, frosty purple.



Golden Spurs in sunset lighting and in bright morning sunlight. It looks very different in both of these pictures, and the real life color is right in between the two. The first picture has a bit of a yellow cast to it, but it really shows the golden shimmer. The second picture is slightly washed out, but it shows the soft, mellow tone of the polish and the depth of the shimmer.


Gussied-Up Green. Not exactly what I was expecting, but still awesome! A dark blackened forest green with shimmer. Finally, some more green!



Lasso My Heart in sunset lighting and in bright morning sunlight. The top picture is accurate color-wise, but the second picture really shows off the frost and shimmer that didn't quite show up in the sunset lighting.



Midnight Ride. Deep, dark, black eggplant. Striking!




Prize Winning Mare in bright morning sunlight and in sunset lighting. Actually, both of the pictures are accurate color-wise, as this one seems to change a little bit in different lighting. It reminds me of Dior Gold Nugget! Shiny, sparkly metallic gold. Beautiful!


Rodeo Fanatic. Breathtaking, luminous, shimmery blue. Can you believe how hot this is?!



Red Stallion. A hot, glowy, shimmery metallic red.



Side Saddle. This one changes colors a bit. It's like the lovechild of OPI Black Tie Optional and Lancome Lizzy Jagger. It's dark brownish plum, but it's also gold and brown and maybe a touch greenish in some lights!


Wagon Trail. HOLY MOLY! It's black with deep golden shimmer. It looks olive green in some lights, but it's really a black/gold fusion. Unique and utterly fabulous.



Yee Haw. Peachy pinky golden metallic. So awesomely pretty, this picture doesn't do it justice. This color GLOWS. It's just too pretty!


Aren't these fantastic? This could be one of the best collections of ALL TIME. China Glaze did an amazing job with this collection, and I can see myself wearing all of these colors all year round. None of them are strictly "fall" colors, and there's a great variety. The only thing lacking in this collection is the formula. It's difficult to apply, runny and goopy at the same time as 3-free polishes tend to be. The colors only needed two coats, but the formula was so gooey that it took a little extra work to make them look even. They also took a bit longer to dry- usually when I'm swatching, the polish is slightly dry by the time I'm done taking the picture. With these, the polish was still completely wet after 5 or 6 minutes. Nothing I can't live with, but disappointing nonetheless.

To paraphrase: Rodeo Diva PWNS!!

Zoya Fall 2008: Pulse and Vibe Collection Swatches

Quick and dirty swatches of Zoya's Pulse and Vibe collections.

VIBE

Alix. Actually, I think I swapped Alix and Dakota when I was naming them, so this might actually be Dakota. Either way, it's a red creme.


Dakota, which I'm pretty sure is actually Alix. I will fix my pictures later, but really, it's just a red creme.


Asia. Another red creme! Zzzzzz.... Snorefest.


Riley. Kind of a berry red creme.


Nina. Ah, that's more like it! Rich chocolate brown creme.



Sam. A pretty reddish brownish vampy color. I can't decide what color this is. Blood red? Brown?

Overall, the Vibe collection doesn't wow me. Sure, the colors are nice enough but none of them are unique, and the only one I can see myself wearing is Nina. Red lovers will love this collection, but it's just not for me. I rarely, if ever, wear red. The formulas were great, I only had application problems with Sam and Nina, which were on the thick side. A word of warning: all of these caused major staining when removed.

PULSE

Sloane. This might be my favorite from the Pulse collection. Unbelievably beautiful deep vampy sort of eggplant shimmer. It reminds me of those almost-black OPI shimmers like Black Cherry Chutney. I really love the way this look when light hits it.



Jacy. A really fascinating medium purple/plum color with purple shimmer. The shimmer is more subtle than the other colors in this collection. I like the muted purple color with the addition of purple/pink shimmer. Very interesting!



Rihana. This picture came out slightly brighter than real life. It's a very pretty purple or burgundy shimmer. Wow, I am really terrible at describing colors. All I know is that this color is awesome!


Mikka. Muted frosty purple. It's like a dusty looking purple with a veil of silver frost. I think this picture makes it look almost wine colored, but it's really purple. Why is it that my purples rarely photograph well? Maybe it was the sunset and the orange cast it was giving to some of the colors.


Blair. Awesome blackened red. Reminds me a lot of OPI Wine Me And Dine Me. I love this type of color that looks bright in the middle and dark around the edges!


Colbie. Almost identical to Blair, but more on the maroon side. Another one of those colors that's bright in the middle and dark on the edges! Maybe it's Mulberry?? I need to take a color describing class!

I *really* like the Pulse collection. All of the colors are extremely sexy, have depth and shimmer and all that good stuff. I see myself wearing every single one of these! The formulas were excellent, I had no application problems at all. They didn't cause much staining, surprising for such dark colors. I'm really impressed with the Pulse colors. They all looked so similar from the promo pictures, but in real life they're quite different! Love them.

I apologize for the quality of the swatches. They were very rushed and the lighting wasn't ideal. If I get some good lighting tomorrow (still playing around with my indoor lighting situation!) I'll try to get better, less blurry, more detailed swatches!

Random Swatches: Creative Nail Design (CND)

Thank you all SO MUCH for the photography tips! I'm going to play around with the different suggestions and hopefully I'll be able to take great pictures indoors on dark days! You guys are the best. Seriously. Love you all.

Anyway, since I haven't been able to do new swatches this week, I thought I'd post a few past nails-of-the-day that I liked. As much as I love new stuff (and I really, really love new stuff) sometimes I just have to go back to my old favorites.

This time I'm going to focus on CND. While I do not like the formula of these at all (they never actually dry, no matter what I do!) the colors are truly spectacular.

Polish Addict recently posted the announcement that CND plans to discontinue almost all of their polishes and keep a core line. This is very sad. If you see a CND polish you like that's not on the list, grab it while you can!!


Okey Dokey Artichokey. Sort of an olive green weird pinkish duochrome. I love colors like this.


Cashmere. I'm not even sure how to describe this other than, "it's awesome".


Family Secret. Sort of a dirty taupe brown color with red shimmer.


Souvenir Junkie. Glowing hot fiery orange shimmer!


VIP Status. A really horrible picture of it, too. It's an incredibly shocking gold and holographic glitter polish that's positively blinding! It explodes with sparkle. I love it to death.



Black Platinum. I think the name covers it pretty well.


Cuppa Joe. I think this is tied with VIP Status and Disco Ball for my favorite CND polish of all time. This polish just makes me feel happy. *sigh*


Deep Velvet. I don't know how well this polish goes with my skintone, but I love the color of it. It really does look like deep velvet. Very interesting to look at.



Hotski To Tchochki. I'm not even entirely sure I spelled that right. This is not only super bright and sparkly, it wins the award of Hardest To Spell Nail Polish Name EVER.


These are only some of the unique and fascinating colors I have from CND, and it's so sad to hear that most of them will be gone soon. I guess I never really wear them very often because of the drying issue, but I sure do love to look at the bottles.

Fun With Konad!!

I love the Konad stamper. It's so fun, and really transforms an ordinary manicure into something special. There are so many designs, from stars and flowers, to animal prints and fishnet. I usually use the small designs, like the little stars and the spider and the little cupcake, but the other day I decided to dust off one of the pattern plates (M57) and this is how it turned out:



Chanel Gold Fiction with Konad Plate M57 and Borghese Espresso Brown F. My thumb has OPI Brisbane Bronze, but as you can see it came out a little too light.

The Konad stamper works best with polishes that are on the thick side. Konad polishes make the most crisp designs, but any thicker nail polish will work.

Once my poor broken nails grow out a little bit more, I'll be doing a post on the Konad French Manicure plates for wonderful reader Carla G.

Also, a small request from me!

As you can tell, I'm way behind on my swatching! I always take my pictures outside in full sunlight, but lately it's been too overcast to get a good picture. Is there a way to get good indoor pictures when it's dark outside? I bought one of those 200w Reveal bulbs yesterday to see if that works well indoors, but I haven't tried it out yet. Do you guys have any tips for me?

I'm currently waiting on some sunlight to do swatches of the China Glaze OMG and Kaleidoscope collections for another lovely reader, and those just don't turn out well unless there's bright light.

So, help! What do I do?

Misa Reviews: The Basics!

I've been testing out these polishes for a while so I can give an honest, accurate review. All of these are colors that I probably would not have picked for myself, but I'm pleasantly surprised by how much I ended up liking these. I only wore them for a day each, but I didn't notice any significant tipwear, chipping or peeling by the time I removed them. There was also no staining, I'm happy to say.

One color from each of the basic nail polish categories- Black, White, Pink and Red.


Camellia Destiny.

A very pretty and delicate pale pink that is somewhat sheer in two coats and completely opaque in three. It applies well, the formula was a little bit on the thick side but it didn't give me any trouble at all.

This is the color I thought I'd like the least, but after I tried it out for a while it grew on me. I'm not usually the kind of person who wears pale pink, but I couldn't stop looking at my fingers with this on. It felt different- my fingers looked so feminine! This color is, like I said, delicate, and gives a healthy clean look to the nails.


Heaven White.

A clean, crisp white.

I half expected this to be a streaky, thick mess like most white polishes are, but it wasn't! I'm always somewhat hesitant to use these sort of pale, "white out" type colors because they are often a pain to apply. This was not thick and streaky, though it definitely needs two coats to look perfectly even. Without topcoat it dried to a glossy finish, unlike some whites that look matte when dry. I think this is a little too bright of a white for natural looking french tips, but it looks great on its own. This would be a great base for sheer polishes, and would look pretty awesome with some glitter over it. It also makes my hands look weirdly tan.



Red Hot Mamma.

This is a very bright color. In the bottle it looks mostly like a barely-shimmery vibrant red, but on the nails it has sort of a fuchsia look. It's bright and cheery and has a touch of shimmer. Again, not a color I would have picked for myself, but once again I'm quite pleased. This applied magically- the formula was the perfect consistency and this color only needed two coats. Even more important was how it removed: Reds usually cause massive finger-staining when I remove them, but this barely left any trace of red on my fingers. It also didn't stain my nails, but I only wore this one for a day, and I used Misa's BackBone base coat, so I'm not sure if the lack of staining was due to the color or the base coat.



I Will Survive.

I can't really think of any way to describe this color other than "black." It's black. Very black. Smooth, even, opaque, super-glossy black. This really only needs one coat to be completely opaque, but I used two anyway. It's important for a black to be opaque in as few coats as possible, because if you use them mostly for layering (like I do) you don't want to end up with too many coats of polish on the nail. Another thing that I like about this black is that it is extremely glossy. This is the shiniest black I've ever used. This picture is taken with no topcoat- see how shiny the polish is?

The formula was great, smooth and not too thick or difficult to control. If you can see in the picture, I had a tiny bit of bubbling. I don't think it's due to the polish formula, because it was nearly 100 degrees and humid the day I wore this one. I should give it another try on a cooler and less humid day to see if it still bubbles.

Overall, I think these polishes are of excellent quality. They apply very well and these particular colors dried a lot quicker than other Misa colors I have used in the past. There isn't really anything too spectacular about the colors, they're pretty basic, but there's also nothing bad to say about them. They're all pretty, plain and simple. Heaven White and I Will Survive are the standout colors here- they would be perfect for layering because they dry quickly and only require one or two coats to cover completely.

I am thankful that I got a chance to try these. Thank you, Misa!

Reader Request: Zoya Candy Collection

This is one of the most fun collections from Zoya, and definitely in my Top 3 Favorite Zoya Collections (number one is Downtown and number two is Chit Chat!).


Creamy, a beautiful lemon yellow. I can't think of very many creamy yellow things... Bananas? Creamed Corn? Odd name, but still pretty!


Sweet. Very sweet and innocent bubblegum pink cream.


Yummy. Fantastic blue-raspberry cotton candy blue! Love this one. It stands out!


Tangy. Green apple green shimmer with slight orange duochrome.


Tart. Medium blue shimmer, very smooth application!


Juicy. This is the only one out of the collection that I don't like. The color is very nice, but the formula sucks. It's extremely sheer and streaky. This picture is five coats. Five coats and it's still see-though and streaky! It needs six coats to look even. This one needs improvement. I could never wear this. If you like this color, you might want to try Color Club Power Play instead, it's completely opaque in two thin coats, it's brighter and it dries amazingly fast!

Reader Request: OPI Soft Shades

A request from lovely Tabe-Chan, here are a few OPI sheers.

These are all three coats, no topcoat.

Please pay no attention to the broken nail...


OPI Bubble Bath, indoors.


OPI Bubble Bath, sunlight.



OPI Get Me To The Taj On Time, indoors.


OPI Get Me To The Taj On Time, sunlight.


OPI Mimosas For Mr. And Mrs., indoors.


OPI Mimosas For Mr. And Mrs., outdoors.


OPI Passion, indoors.


OPI Passion, outdoors.


OPI Privacy, Please, indoors.


OPI Privacy, Please, outdoors.

All very pretty!

Look-Alikes for Misa Poisoned Passion Collection

I've had a couple requests for dupes of the Poisoned Passion collection, but I'm waaaay behind on my swatching! I don't have any new pictures yet (working on it, though!). I do, however, have these pictures that I can use to compare.

If you can't wait until August 15th to get your hands on the new Misa collection, these colors should hold you over...




Misa Forbidden Lust, or....


Sally Hansen Flair, or...


Revlon Primal Purple, or...


NYX Wild, or...


Essie Viva La Vespa (index finger).




Misa A Sin Worth Committing, or...