Formula X Athena

Remember the mouth-wateringly gorgeous Formula X Hera? Well today we're going to take a look at one of her lovely sisters, Athena! Both Hera and Athena are from Formula X's Divine Stardust line which is kinda like a mash-up between glitter and holo and is 1000% awesome.

Whereas Hera was rose gold goodness, Athena is a beautiful shade of sparkling aquamarine. Just look at her, you guys. Are further words required?

*swoon* It's so holo that it freaked my camera out! I could stare at this all day. The formula is a dream as well. This is three coats, sans top coat to keep that holo game strong.

My all-time favorite holos are from a-england and Color Club and now it's safe to say that the Divine Stardust polishes are right up there with them. If you are even remotely interested in holographic polish, you need to check these out!

Twinsie Tuesday: China Glaze Blue Sparrow

This week we're doing favorite color. I could go in two directions with this one. My favorite "real life" color is pink, but my favorite polish color is blue. But seeing as this blog is dedicated to all things polish, I went with the latter. I have a ton of blue polishes in my stash, as you would expect, and I decided to kick it old school this week with China Glaze Blue Sparrow, an electric blue jelly with silver microglitter.

Unfortunately an old school neon also means old school neon formula, so this one is definitely chalky and patchy. I used three coats but I could've done with a fourth due to the uneven application. It also dries ultra matte, so top coat is a necessity.

CG has come a long way with their neons since this one, but it's still a fun polish to revisit because the color itself is still outstanding. It's so vibrant and the shimmer is the cherry on top.

Hope you enjoyed the trip down memory lane and be sure to take a look at my Twinsies' blogs too!

Alaina at The Little Canvas

Alice at Nail Art in Wonderland

Amanda at Amandalandish

Amanda at Fashion Footing

Amber at Nails Like Lace

Bridget at A Painted Nail

Chelsea at Nailed Blog

ChiChi at I'm Just Me...ChiChi

Claire at Kerruticles

Jessica at Blue Velvet Lacquer

​Lisa at The Polish Playground

Marisa at Polish Obsession

Marisa at Polish Those Nails

Megan at A Beauty in the Business

Róisín at Cuti-CLUE-les

Sara at The Call of Beauty

Sarah at Cloudy with a Chance of Lacquer

Savannah at Addicted to Polish

Sharon at Behind Green Eyes

Steph at Lovestruck Lacquer

Tiffany at Polished To Precision

OPI Show Us Your Tips!

For my money, this is the best polish from the New Orleans Collection. I had to have it for the name alone, but the color itself is pretty fan-freaking-tastic. Take a look at this beautiful periwinkle shimmer!

Sunlight:

 Shade:

Please ignore my dry-ass cuticles. Anywho, the formula on this was disappointly streaky. The consistency itself is really easy to work with, so it's got that going for it, but it took three-and on a couple nails, four--coats to build up opacity and cover some bald patches. It wasn't a bad formula overall, just finicky.

I picked up two polishes from the OPI New Orleans Collection (this and Humidi-tea), but my wallet was greatful for the reduced haulage after snagging all of the Hello Kitty Collection. What's on your list from this set?

Twinsie Tuesday: LynBDesigns Benedict

We're doing a romantic theme this week, so I decided to bust out the heart glitter! I actually only have one polish in my stash that prominently features heart glitter and that's LynBDesigns Benedict. Benedict is a glitterbomb with small blue and holographic silver glitters and then of course the aforementioned hearts in shades of holographic blue, silver and red. I layered Benedict over OPI Look At My Bow!, a bubblegum pink.

Benedict is a cute polish, but I honestly feel like the glitter is too dense. I usually can't get enough glitter, but since this is designed to be a layering glitter, I think the overall look would benefit from allowing the base polish to peek through more. I wiped down my brush for each nail and I still felt like I was getting a ton of glitter each time. The end result can get a little crowded-looking--and this is with only one coat of Benedict. Oddly enough, I really had to fish for the heart glitters. There's so much small glitter that they get kind of buried.

I guess what I'm trying to say is I like it, but I don't love it. Anything with glitter is never a total loss. ;)

Alaina at The Little Canvas

Alice at Nail Art in Wonderland

Amanda at Amandalandish

Amanda at Fashion Footing

Amber at Nails Like Lace

Bridget at A Painted Nail

Chelsea at Nailed Blog

ChiChi at I'm Just Me...ChiChi

Claire at Kerruticles

Jessica at Blue Velvet Lacquer

​Lisa at The Polish Playground

Marisa at Polish Obsession

Marisa at Polish Those Nails

Megan at A Beauty in the Business

Róisín at Cuti-CLUE-les

Sara at The Call of Beauty

Sarah at Cloudy with a Chance of Lacquer

Savannah at Addicted to Polish

Sharon at Behind Green Eyes

Steph at Lovestruck Lacquer

Tiffany at Polished To Precision

Lynnderella New Year's Eve Eve

It wouldn't be a New Year's mani without glitter and I figure there's no better choice than Lynderella New Year's Eve Eve! This is a rainbow explosion of glitter in all shapes and sizes that brings to mind the gallons of confetti that will be falling in Times Square tonight.

I layered two coats over Wet N Wild Break The Ice, a pearly white shimmer. I thought it was the perfect base because it lets the colorful glitters stand out while still adding some sparkle of its own.

New Year's Eve Eve didn't have any notable formula issues. Like any glitter polish of this type, you'll get some large pieces that need to be guided away from the free edge of the nail, but otherwise this has a nice 'n easy formula.

I absolutely love this mani and how it looks like a little party on my nails! A big thanks to my buddy (and one-time Twinsie Tuesday member) Tara for gifting it to me!

What's on your nails tonight? Any fun New Year's plans? I'm eating tacos and watching "Archer" with my boyfriend. My kind of night. :)

Nubar Holiday Gala Collection: Review & Swatches

Hey guys! I wanted to start the weekend off right with some holiday swatches for you, so today we'll be checking out Nubar's Holiday Gala Collection! We've got four sparklies to talk about, so let's get to it.

Violet Sparkle is a violet glitterbomb. I like wearing polishes like this alone for a full-on glitter explosion, so I layered Violet Sparkle up to full opacity with four coats. Again, sorry for the cuts on my index finger. Most of these swatches were taken when the cuts were still healing. :-/

Petunia Sparkle is a magenta version of Violet Sparkle. I got soooo many compliments on this one. When the girl working the drive-thru window asks to see your nails, you know it's good. ;) This is four coats again.

Red Ruby Glitz is a classic holiday red shimmer, very much in the vein of China Glaze Ruby Pumps. Since this has a tinted base, it's much more opaque than the previous two glitters and only needed two coats.

The last polish is my favorite of the collection: Celebration Sparkles! This has rainbow hex and micro glitters. This is such a fun polish and would be perfect for a New Year's party! This is two coats over Sally Hansen Celeb City, a silver foil.

You can purchase the Holiday Gala Collection on Nubar's website. Which shade is your favorite? Do you have a holiday nail look planned out yet?


Disclosure: These polishes were provided for my honest review. For more information, please see my disclosure policy.

OPI Give Me Space

I was disappointed with OPI's holiday collection overall, but if there's a bright spot for me, it's gotta be Give Me Space. Give Me Space is a gorgeous shade of midnight blue with scattered silver holo. This would be the perfect shade for a holiday cocktail party!

The formula is a dream. What you see above is two buttery coats. The holo here isn't strong, but I actually think that was the right call with this particular shade. The base color is so gorgeous and having just little glints of holo peeking through really add to the night sky kind of vibe this polish has.

If you only buy one polish from the Starlight Collection, this gets my vote! This is easily one of my favorite OPI polishes of 2015. Now if we could just get more colors like Give Me Space and less holiday reds, I'd be a truly happy polish addict. :p

Twinsie Tuesday: China Glaze It's A Trap-eze!

Hey guys! It's been a minute, right? I know I've been an awful blogger lately, but I'm trying to get back in the swing of things. So what better way than Twinsie Tuesday? :)

This week we're doing manis inspired by our favorite foods. I looooooovvvveee eating, so this was a tough pick for me, hahahaha. But I decided to go with one of my very favorite desserts. Can you guess what it is from which polish I picked?

It's funfetti cake! I know, I know, it's not the most sophisticated choice, but I can't get enough funfetti, especially the frosting!

The polish is China Glaze It's A Trap-eze!, which I thought was the perfect representation since it's got a white base filled with multi-colored glitter. It's A Trap-eze! looked kinda messy with the first few layers, but it all came together nicely in the end. Most of my nails only needed three coats, but a couple needed four to even out some bald patches.

Please excuse the cut on my index finger. I nicked it at work last week and it's taking its sweet time healing. Flesh wounds aside, I hope you enjoyed today's post and that you'll check out my fellow Twinsies today too!

                        

Alaina at The Little Canvas

Alice at Nail Art in Wonderland

Amanda at Amandalandish

Amanda at Fashion Footing

Amber at Nails Like Lace

Bridget at A Painted Nail

Chelsea at Nailed Blog

ChiChi at I'm Just Me...ChiChi

Claire at Kerruticles

Jessica at Blue Velvet Lacquer

​Lisa at The Polish Playground

Marisa at Polish Obsession

Marisa at Polish Those Nails

Megan at A Beauty in the Business

Róisín at Cuti-CLUE-les

Sara at The Call of Beauty

Sarah at Cloudy with a Chance of Lacquer

Savannah at Addicted to Polish

Sharon at Behind Green Eyes

Steph at Lovestruck Lacquer

Tiffany at Polished To Precision

Twinsie Tuesday: Inspired By Your Pet

Hey guys! This week we're doing a mani inspired by our child or pet. I will tell you up front I'm not really happy with how mine turned out, but it is what it is. :-/ I did a mani inspired by my amazingly adorable fur baby, Sapphira!

We rescued Sapphira earlier this year. She is a Snowshoe cat, which is an offshoot of the Siamese breed. Snowshoes are known for their white feet (Sapphira has little "mittens" on all four paws--so cute!!) and often have white faces and stomachs as well. Sapphira's passions include napping, bird-watching, fluffy pillows and catnip. <3

To me, the most striking thing about Sapphira is her big blue eyes. So I wanted to incorporate that into my mani. I started with a white base of OPI Put A Coat On! for all of her white markings, then added Dollish Polish 3 Best Friends That Anyone Could Have, which is a blue and silver glitter, for her eyes.

I like the combo itself, but I don't think it captured my inspiration all that well. I feel like I maybe should have done something more literal. But hey, at least I tried to make up for it with cute cat pictures! ;)

                        

Alaina at The Little Canvas

Alice at Nail Art in Wonderland

Amanda at Amandalandish

Amanda at Fashion Footing

Amber at Nails Like Lace

Bridget at A Painted Nail

Chelsea at Nailed Blog

ChiChi at I'm Just Me...ChiChi

Claire at Kerruticles

Jessica at Blue Velvet Lacquer

​Lisa at The Polish Playground

Marisa at Polish Obsession

Marisa at Polish Those Nails

Megan at A Beauty in the Business

Róisín at Cuti-CLUE-les

Sara at The Call of Beauty

Sarah at Cloudy with a Chance of Lacquer

Savannah at Addicted to Polish

Sharon at Behind Green Eyes

Steph at Lovestruck Lacquer

Tiffany at Polished To Precision

Twinsie Tuesday (On A Thursday): Ms. Marvel-Inspired Nails

I know, I know, I'm two days late (getting over a bad cold), but I didn't want to miss this week's theme: inspired by a favorite fictional character! I've mentioned on here many times that I'm an avid comics reader. One of my favorite books right now is Ms. Marvel. This comic received quite a bit of mainstream attention when it launched, as the heroine, Kamala Khan, is a Muslim teenager. While religion is an important part of Kamala's identity, the comic isn't about religion. It's just awesome stories of a smart, brave and somewhat awkward teenage girl trying to figure out her place in the world while kicking some major ass.

Also, there's a giant teleporting dog. If that doesn't sell you, then I dunno what will.

Seriously, it's an adorable and funny read that I can't recommend highly enough. Even if you don't normally like comics, give this one a try. The writing is very contemporary and accessible, with lovable characters and fresh storytelling.

Now, y'all know I'm not super great at nail art, so I stuck with a simple mani inspired by Kamala's costume.

                           

The blue is Deborah Lippmann I Know What Boys Like and the red is Essie Geranium. I added in one of my Born Pretty superhero nail decals for the lightning bolt. Here's how it came out!

It's nothing fancy, but I like it just the same. Sorry it was so late, but hopefully you enjoyed it too! :) And remember to check out my fellow Twinsies' manis!

                        

Alaina at The Little Canvas

Alice at Nail Art in Wonderland

Amanda at Amandalandish

Amanda at Fashion Footing

Amber at Nails Like Lace

Bridget at A Painted Nail

Chelsea at Nailed Blog

ChiChi at I'm Just Me...ChiChi

Claire at Kerruticles

Jessica at Blue Velvet Lacquer

​Lisa at The Polish Playground

Marisa at Polish Obsession

Marisa at Polish Those Nails

Megan at A Beauty in the Business

Róisín at Cuti-CLUE-les

Sara at The Call of Beauty

Sarah at Cloudy with a Chance of Lacquer

Savannah at Addicted to Polish

Sharon at Behind Green Eyes

Steph at Lovestruck Lacquer

Tiffany at Polished To Precision

Twinsie Tuesday: Recreate Another Twinsie's Mani

This week, we were challenged to recreate one of our fellow Twinsies' manis. We could pick anyone and any mani we wanted. I did some looking and decided on a really cute mani done by Alaina from The Little Canvas!

I would like to preface this by saying that Alaina is a million times better at nail art than I will ever be. So while I am a big admirer of her manis, most of them are things I would never even attempt to try myself! But I really loved this mani of hers...

...and I thought it was something I could pull off. Here's my version:

I used the same base as Alaina, China Glaze Too Yacht To Handle. Then my pinky and pointer fingers are topped with OPI I'll Tinsel You In and my middle finger is Color Club Harp On It. Alaina drew the hearts on her ring fingers, but I cheated by fishing out heart glitter from Lynnderella Evermore.

I had a lot of fun doing this! I like searching my stash for the perfect polishes to recreate a look. I'm excited to see what manis everyone else picked! And please be sure to welcome our newest Twinsies, Alice and Sarah! :)

Tiffany at Polished To Precision

Steph at Lovestruck Lacquer

Sharon at Behind Green Eyes

Savannah at Addicted to Polish

Sarah at Cloudy with a Chance of Lacquer

Sara at The Call of Beauty

Róisín at Cuti-CLUE-les

Megan at A Beauty in the Business

Marisa at Polish Those Nails

Marisa at Polish Obsession

Lisa at The Polish Playground

Jessica at Blue Velvet Lacquer

Claire at Kerruticles

​ ChiChi at I'm Just Me...ChiChi

Chelsea at Nailed Blog

Bridget at A Painted Nail

Amber at Nails Like Lace

Amanda at Fashion Footing

Amanda at Amandalandish

Alice at Nail Art in Wonderland

 Alaina at The Little Canvas

Sally Hansen Lady Libra-ty

I've got one of the Sally Hansen Beachside Astrologer shades for you guys today! This was one of the standout collections of the year for me so far and has really reignited my love for the Complete Salon Manicure line. Lady Libra-ty is a pastel blue creme. It's got a slightly muted quality to it that I just adore.

Really nice formula on this one. I used three coats here. Definitely pick up Lady Libra-ty if you are in the mood for an all-around fantastic creme!

Beautiful blues like this are one of the things that initially drew me to the CSM line. Barracuda, Model Behavior... What are some of your favorite CSM shades? Other than the aforementioned blues, I'd nominate Frutti Petutie and Stocking Nude!

Barielle Mirror, Mirror Collection: Review & Swatches

Hey guys! Today I've got some swatches from Barielle's fall/winter collection, which is called Mirror, Mirror. This is a set of five cremes with some nice shades to bridge the fall-to-winter transitional months. (That may seem far off now, but trust me, it's coming!!) Anywho, let's take a look at 'em!

Feathered Slippers is a dark grey creme. It almost looks like it has a bit of green in it...? Not sure if that's just my imagination, but I dig it. Do you see the green or am I nuts?

Pretty Woman is far and away my favorite shade from this set! My bottle actually says "Pretty Women," but Barielle's website and the little promotional booklet for the collection both say "Woman," so I'm guessing that's just a typo. But whatever it's actually called, it's a very rich shade of Prussian blue. I love how elegant it looks on the nail.

Blushing Beauty is a bright red jelly. It's a very pretty representation of this type of color, even if it's not too unique. Look how squishy and shiny it is--and this is without top coat even!

Ribbon & Lace is a dusty teal creme. This is a perfect example of an autumn-tinged teal. It's got just the right amount of duskiness to it, if that makes sense to anyone other than me!

Silk Stockings was a surprise favorite. It's a nude--and one that I didn't think would go very well with my undertones, at that--but once I put it on, I really liked the taupe-y color it was on my nails. It doesn't go on as dark as it looks in the bottle and it isn't too cool-toned, so I think lots of different skin tones could rock this one.

All of these are two-coaters with nice formulas. No issues to report here--just nice, creamy application!

If you get one shade from this collection, make it Pretty Woman. There is something so chic about that color to me and it netted me quite a few compliments. :) I've got a lot of blue polish and this one is definitely shooting up my list of favorites!

You can purchase Barielle from their website. What's your favorite shade from Mirror, Mirror?


Disclosure: These polishes were sent for my honest review. For more information, please see my disclosure policy.