Twinsie Tuesday: Tulips

This week we have a Twinsie Tuesday take as old as time: I tired to do nail art. It sucked. I cheated. The end. "I tried, it sucked, I cheated" is the Nailed version of "I came, I saw, I conquered."

Okay, so there's a little more to it than that. I found this really cool abstract tulip design that looked easy enough to do. I was actually pretty excited about it. I always have this eternal sense of optimism with nail art that this will finally be the time I can add something to my limited repitoire. It went well for about two nails and then it all fell apart--and not in a "so bad it's entertaining" kind of way (which I fully embrace). It just looked totally lopsided and ugly.

So I scrapped that idea and went with my emergency plan: find something mildly tulip-related and run with it. Enter OPI Kiss Me On My Tulips! It has "tulips" in the name. It's from the Holland Collection. It is the color of (some) tulips.




So here she is!

This polish is still fairly easy to find online (you can consult my handy dandy authenticity guide for shopping OPI online) if you like the look of it. Or it's quite dupeable, so that's an option as well. I'm sure I have a few shades just like this one in my collection, but they aren't named after tulips so we don't care about them--for today, at least. ;)

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: Glitter Placement

Hey guys! So today we are doing manis featuring glitter placement. I've got a couple baggies of loose glitter shapes, mostly from Lumina Lacquer. She includes them with a lot of her glitterbomb polishes so you won't have to fish in the bottle for specific pieces you want. Cool customer service touches like that are one of the many reasons I love indie polish!

For this mani, I used some skull and crossbones glitters that came with Seven Year Witch.

Pink: Zoya Shelby
Black: OPI Never Have Too Mani Friends!

I really need to do glitter placement nails more often. They're super quick and fun. Just grab some tweezers and you're good to go!

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 Wednesday): Birds

Hey guys! Sorry for the late post. There was a little mishap involving my dishwasher and a buncha water, but that's all sorted out now so we can get back to the very important business of nails!

We are doing bird nails this week, so I pulled out some Born Pretty nail stickers from my stash (you can see more about them HERE) and got to work! This particular set has a bunch of different shapes, but I made the owl stickers the main focus here, because...hello, birds?

My base shade is cult favorite OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls. It's a deceptively complex shade that looks white, but has this wonderful hint of blue-grey to it. I thought it'd be a good "clean" shade to let the neon stickers pop, but not so plain that it fades completely into the background.

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 Soft Shades 2016 Preview

Now this I like! The theme for OPI's Soft Shades Collection this year is pastels. I'm a sucker for pastels and when they're OPI pastels? Fuhgeddaboutit!

L to R: It's In The Cloud, This Cost Me A Mint, One Chic Chick

 

L to R: Stop It I'm Blushing!, It's A Boy!, I Am What I Amethyst

Source

I could see myself picking up the mini set from this collection, since I like several of the shades. On a side note, has it seriously taken this long for OPI to do a polish called It's A Boy? Because that seems like a homerun for ladies looking for baby shower favors. 

Look for these lovelies in April. Which ones will you be getting?

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?

OPI Look At My Bow!

Hey guys! Sorry for the lack of posts the past few days. I was battling a nasty stomach bug for most of the week, so I wasn't in the mood to blog or paint my nails. But I'm pullin' one from my backlog for you today, with OPI Look At My Bow! This is a cute bubblegum pink creme from the Hello Kitty Collection.

This has got a nice 'n easy formula. Above is two coats.

Like a lot of the Hello Kitty shades, this isn't a color we haven't seen before from other brands, but it's very well-executed for what it is and definitely worth picking up if you don't already have a similar shade in your collection--or if you're like me and just nuts for all things Hello Kitty. :) If you'd like to see more of Look At My Bow!, take a gander at this past Twinsie Tuesday post, where I used it as a base for glitter.

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

OPI Let's Be Friends!

OPI Let's Be Friends! is a porcelain pink creme from the Hello Kitty Collection. If you're on the hunt for that perfect ballerina pink, this is the polish for you! It's not the most mind-blowingly original color out there, but maaannnn, it's pretty.

The formula is sorta goopy. It's not terrible, but you might need to do some extra finagling when applying. I think the end result is worth it though, because the color looks so crisp and clean on. I can see myself wearing this one a lot this spring!

OPI New Orleans Spring 2016 Preview

I did a sneak peek on this collection a while back and now that we've got all of the official names and such, here's a full-fledged preview post, as promised!

Top row, L to R: Let Me Bayou A Drink, Humidi-tea, Show Us Your Tips, Rich Girls and Po Boys, Take A Right On Bourbon

Bottom row, L to R: Crawfishin' For A Compliment, Got Myself Into A Jambalaya, She's A Bad Muffaletta, Spare Me A French Quarter, I Manicure For Beads, Suzi Nails New Orleans

Source 

I like this collection quite a bit. I'll be needing Show Us Your Tips (that name!) and Humidi-tea, at the very least. I expect we'll be seeing this collection in stores very shortly, so start budgeting for it! ;)

Twinsie Tuesday: Mix and Match

The theme mix and match is pretty broad, so I tried to pick several polishes with different finishes in colors that I thought would be kind of unexpected and edgy together. That was the idea anyways. Instead, I think they just came out...well, I don't wanna go so far as to say ugly, but...it wasn't quite what I was going for. See and judge for yourself.

Index and pinky fingers: OPI DS Coronation
Middle finger: OPI Did It On 'Em with KBShimmer nail vinyls
Ring finger: OPI Metallic 4 Life
Thumb: Illamasqua Scorch with KBShimmer nail vinyls

The nail vinyls are by far my favorite part of this mani. They're a great nail art cheat--super easy and fast--and I love the variety of designs KBShimmer has to choose from. My main issue is with Did It On 'Em. I thought it'd be an interesting pop of color but it seems like it threw off the cohesiveness of the rest of the mani.

Anyways, I'm overanalyzing this. This mani had some hits and some misses, but I guess that's the nature of mix and match! ;)

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 My Twin Mimmy

OPI My Twin Mimmy is a sunshine yellow creme. I love pastel yellow polish but with yellows like these, I have to be really careful. I'm super pale and super blonde, so yellow is generally not my friend. Really vibrant, "traffic light" yellows do weird, unflattering things to my skin tone and you can definitely see that in my swatches, so just a forewarning.

I'm about to give you a very important piece of advice for applying this polish: Be patient. The formula here isn't a complete horror show, but it ain't great either. Yellow polishes tend to be temperamental and this one definitely is. What you see above is three coats. You'll want to allow extra dry time between layers, otherwise you'll wind up with uneven application and bubbling-soooo much bubbling, you guys.  I snapped these pics shortly after finishing my mani, but before long, the bubbles started to appear and there were a ton of them. I should have taken a picture but I was to horrified to do anything other than bust out the polish remover and take the whole damn thing off. Leave yourself extra time and you'll be a-okay. Rush and you'll wind up with complete ass. Such is the way of yellow nail polish.

OPI Kitty White

OPI Kitty White is a mother of pearl shimmer. I'm normally not big on these types of shades, but I actually liked this one quite a bit! It's pretty alone, as you'll see below, but it also makes a nice base for layering (like in last week's Twinsie Tuesday post) or you could put it over top of another shade to add a dash of shimmer.

I kind of became obsessed with photographing this polish. I took swatch pics in a bunch of different lightings, so hopefully that will give you a very thorough idea of how this shade looks!

And then a pic with flash to finish things off. It's been a long time since I posted a swatch with flash but I thought it brought out the shimmer nicely.

 

As you'd probably expect with this type of shade, it's more on the sheer side. I wore three coats above and while that was not completely opaque, it was close enough that it didn't bother me. I was worried this would look frosty or brushstroke-y but it really doesn't, so that's a huge plus in my book!

OPI Small + Cute = Heart

OPI Small + Cute = <3 (I had to spell it out above to get Blogger to accept the HTML tag for this post, but the name is in fact stylized as <3 rather than the word.) is the most adorable shade of ballerina pink. It reminds me a little bit of one of my very favorite OPI pinks, Pink Friday from the Nicki Minaj Collection. Pink Friday is a lot more warm-toned, but they have this same kind of softness to them that I really like.

The formula is pretty nice for a pastel. It self-levels well and isn't too streaky. I used three coats for this mani. I apologize for the messy painting on my pinky. I had some polish peel around my cuticle line there.

I liked this one more than I expected to. Just like the name says, it's really cute! I think it'd make a great base for glitter too.

OPI Super Cute In Pink

We're continuing our journey through the OPI Hello Kitty Collection today with Super Cute in Pink, a magenta crelly. This shade is extremely similar to one of my favorite (and oldest--seriously, it's one of the first polishes I ever swatched here) Essie colors, Splash of Grenadine. I would go so far as to say that if you have one, you don't really need the other unless you're a huge fan of this type of shade.

For some reason, this photographed a little too pink on my nails. It pulls slightly more purple in real life. What you see in the bottle in the pictures above is more true-to-life. The formula here is a smidge sheer, since this is a crelly, but still reaches opacity in three coats.

Twinsie Tuesday: Shattered Glass

I'll admit, I had to look up what this technique was because I'd never heard of it before. But near as I can tell, a shattered glass mani involves large iridescent mylar flakes laid across the nail. The nearest thing I had in my collection to replicate this style with was Studio M Covered In Diamonds, which has a clear base filled with mylar pieces.

I like the way this polish looks but I don't wear it much because 1) it's a bitch to remove and 2) the mylar pieces are pretty jagged and easily get snagged on things. A thicker top coat is a must with this one. (I used Nubar Diamont.) My base was OPI Kitty White from the new Hello Kitty Collection.

This combination didn't come together quite as I envisioned it but it did make for an interesting pairing nonetheless. It has a cool, kind of opalescent look to it that like. It looks way more complex and multifaceted in person than my camera could pick up with all the colorful flakes. I had to layer up Covered With Diamobds to three coats to get it to stand out against the pearly white background of Kitty White, so my nails felt hella rough, but they looked sparkly and shiny so that's what truly counts. ;)

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 5 Apples Tall

Is that the cutest name ever or what? If you didn't know, "five apples tall" is Hello Kitty's official height, according to Sanrio. I'm loving how adorable the whole OPI Hello Kitty Collection is!

The polish itself is an orange-leaning red creme. It's not a unique shade in OPI's color library (polishes like Red Lights Ahead... Where? and Cajun Shrimp come to mind as potential sisters for 5 Apples Tall) but it's beautifully bright and glossy-looking. The shine and color make me think of a candy apple, appropriately enough. This is a classic type of color that every nail aficionado should have at least one of in their collection.

The formula is excellent and covers in two easy coats. I've worn three of the Hello Kitty polishes so far and I'm very impressed with how smooth and buttery they all are, even the pastel pinks!

As I mentioned above, I think this type of color is deserving of a place in any stash and 5 Apples Tall is certainly a stellar example. I think the versatility of the shade coupled with the added collectible appeal of the Hello Kitty packaging will make this a very popular polish!

OPI Alice Through The Looking Glass (Brights 2016) Preview

Happy New Year! And really, what better way to start 2016 than with some breaking OPI news? OPI's original Alice In Wonderland collab spawned two legendary lemmings: Mad As A Hatter and Absolutely Alice. So it's not all that surprising that OPI is launching another collection for the latest Alice In Wonderland movie, Alice Through The Looking Glass.

This collection, featuring nine new polishes, will serve as OPI's annual Brights Collection this year. Sadly, it doesn't seem OPI will be re-releasing any of the shades from the original Alice collection, but I will of course post an update of that changes. For now, let's take a look at what we can expect when the new collection launches in May!

 Source

 I confess I've tried to watch the previous movie several times but always wind up bored to tears. So while I won't be seeing the movie, I'm sure I'll pick up a few of these puppies anyways. I'm eyeing Fearlessly Alice and A Mirror Escape in particular! I don't really think the off-white of Oh My Majesty! or the pastel pink of I'm Gown For Anything! (Can I say too that I hate OPI's insistance on including punctuation marks in so many of their polish names?) have a place in a "brights" collection, but oh well. 

Are you excited for this new collection? Were you lucky enough to snag some of the original Alice polishes? I got Absolutely Alice on Ebay and it's one of my very favorite OPI's! I've never been able to stomach the prices for Mad As A Hatter though...

OPI Ce-less-tial Is More

I didn't do anything super fancy for my Christmas mani this year, but I did make sure to keep it nice and sparkly! OPI Ce-less-tial Is More definitely fits the bill. It's an explosion of silver glitter, complete with holographic accents.

I was expecting this to need several coats, so I was pleasantly surprised at how opaque it really is. I only needed two coats! It feels super gritty on, however, so you'll definitely want an extra layer of top coat. I'm never bothered by glitters feeling rough on my nails but even I found this distractingly gritty. It almost feels like a Liquid Sand polish.

If you celebrate, I hope you had a lovely Christmas today! Did you wear anything fun on your nails?

Twinsie Tuesday: Holiday Mani

The Twinsie Tuesday girls are checking in from our seasonal hiatus to bring you some holiday manis! This time of year is crazy for all of us, but we wanted to do at least one post for December.

For my mani, I went with my favorite holiday color combo of red and gold. Plus since it's the holidays, you know I gotta bring some extra sparkle. So I took the red and white glitterbomb goodness of Lumina Lacquer Candy Cane Lane and layered it over my favorite gold polish, OPI Glitzerland. Candy Cane Lane is such a great polish and I couldn't let the holiday season pass without wearing it at least once. Seriously, who can resist a polish with candy cane-shaped glitter?!

I plan to post again before Christmas but I wanted to take the opportunity to wish all of you a safe and happy holiday season. I hope whatever your plans are and whichever holidays you celebrate, that you feel happy and loved.

                        

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