Twinsie Tuesday: OPI Extra-va-vaganza

This week's Twinsie Tuesday was an exciting one for me: favorite glitter topper! Now, I have a deep and abiding love for glitter polish, so choosing a favorite would be extremely difficult. Instead, I went with one that's dear to my glitter-obsessed heart: OPI Extra-va-vaganza. This orange, green and silver glitterbomb came out back in the Burlesque Collection and it was the very first glitter polish I ever bought!

I didn't consider until after I finished this mani that Extra-va-vaganza may not technically count as a topper, since it's opaque enough to be worn alone, but hopefully my fellow Twinsies will let me fudge the details a bit here. ;)

The formula is wonderful and reaches opacity in three coats. Extra-va-vaganza looks great layered as well. I especially like it over bronze and purple. It's been a long while since we've seen this type of micro glitter polish from OPI but it's one of my favorite types of glitterbomb, so I hope they bring it back someday!

If you ask me, there's no such thing as too much glitter, so head on over to my Twinsies' blogs for more!

Alaina at The Little Canvas

Amanda at Amandalandish

Amber at Nails Like Lace

Anna at Going to the Showing

Anne at Grape Fizz Nails

Casey at CaseyLane Loves Polish

Chelsea at Nailed Blog

ChiChi at I'm Just Me...ChiChi

Elizabeth at Did My Nails

Erin at Paint Those Piggies

Heather at Peace, Love, & Polish

Kelly at Tuxarina

Lakeisha at Refined and Polished

Maribeth at Obsessive Cosmetic Hoarders Unite

Marisa at Polish Obsession

Rachel at Top Coat It

Róisín at Cuti-CLUE-les

Stephanie at A Little Polish

Tiffany at Polished To Precision

Traci at DrinkCitra

Deborah Lippmann Flowers In Her Hair

Deborah Lippmann Flowers In Her Hair is a mint green creme. Like most of the colors from DL's spring collection, it's not a spectacularly unique shade but damn if it isn't pretty! This soft pastel makes me think of spring flowers and mint chip ice cream. :)

The formula is surprisingly creamy for a pastel. It's not streaky in the slightest and it self-levels nicely. Plus it didn't give me lobster hands!

Even if Flowers In Her Hair is not all that unique compared to some of DL's other offerings, it's an absolutely beautiful color with a standout formula. With my admitted weakness for green polish, I can't help but love this one!

Review: Born Pretty Nail Art Brushes

I don't claim to be any type of nail art expert--far from it. But I think part of my difficulties with nail art stem from not having a good set of tools. So when I had the opportunity to try out this 3-piece brush set from Born Pretty Store, I was cautiously optimistic that these brushes might help me improve my abilities. (I'm using that term loosely.)

This set comes with three brushes, each with differing bristle length and density. The bristles are synthetic, so they don't get all gummed up easily or shed everywhere and the brushes themselves feel reasonably sturdy. Here's a closer look:

The middle brush is my personal favorite for drawing, while the other two work especially well for striping--something I always struggled with before I tried these brushes. Sometimes I feel like I can't draw a straight line to save my life!

I used these brushes for two recent manis: my Twinsie Tuesday purse-inspired nails...

...and my Captain America nails!

They were a big help with both manis, my Cap nails in particular. I could never have even attempted that idea without these brushes!

Cleaning the brushes is super easy. I just take a polish remover pad, douse it with remover, then rub the bristles into the pad. The polish melts right off and then the brushes are good to go!

Whether you're a nail art newbie looking to get a starter brush set or a pro that needs a few new brushes for a good price, this is a nice set. It only costs $3.19, so you're only paying about a dollar per brush for some decent quality tools. I'm really pleased with them and look forward to seeing what else they'll encourage me to try!

If you would like to purchase anything from Born Pretty, they offer a 10% off code for Nailed readers:

Disclosure: This product was sent to me for my honest review. For more information, please see my disclosure policy.

OPI Coca-Cola Preview

UPDATE: Now with color names!

Confession time: I am addicted to Coca-Cola. As soon as I am awake and moving around in the morning, my first big task is typically to shuffle over the fridge and crack open a can of Coke. I don't do coffee, so it's my caffeine boost in the morning...and for lunch...and usually dinner too. I've been pretty successful lately at restricting myself to only drinking milk and tea--no pop allowed--in the evenings, but Coca-Cola, I just can't quit you!

So naturally I was intrigued by the idea of Coca-Cola partnering with one of my other addictions: OPI! The collection is rumored to have a June release date--perfect timing for a certain nail blogger's birthday... *bats eyelashes*

 Source

L to R: Coca-Cola Red, You're So Vain-illa, A Grape Affair, My Signature Is DC, Today I Accomplished Zero, Green On The Runway, Get Cherried Away, Orange You Fantastic, Sorry I'm Fizzy Today

Seeing the promo image reminded me that a few months back, OPI posted this shot on their Instagram as a teaser for their then-mystery upcoming collaboration:

Credit: @opi_products Instagram

Looks like three of the polishes on the left side of the promo shot, no? I'll post more images and color names as they become available, but in the meantime, consider this a sneak peek at things to come!

Captain America: The Winter Soldier Nails

To celebrate today's release of Captain America: The Winter Soldier, I decided to do some Cap-inspired nail art! I've mentioned on here a few times that I'm a fan of comics but Cap wasn't a character I really warmed to until I read Ed Brubaker's Captain America run, which is all kinds of awesome. And it just so happens that The Winter Soldier is based on a story arc from Brubaker's time on the Captain America comic, so I'm very excited to see the movie!

Anyways, back to the nails! Cap is sporting a new uniform in the movie but I decided to draw some inspiration from his classic duds for this mani--and of course, I couldn't leave out the shield!

Blue: OPI Dating A Royal
Red: OPI Over And Over A-Gwen
White: Sally Hansen nail striper

I know it might not look like much, but this was way outside of my personal comfort zone! While it's not perfect, I'm still very proud of it! I free-handed this mani using some nail art brushes from Born Pretty (review coming soon) and one striper polish for the white bits. The stars were definitely the hardest part and I'm not 100% pleased with how they came out, but I'll take it.

For my right hand, I knew I wouldn't be able to replicate the same design using my non-dominant hand, so I kept things much simpler and did a design inspired by the character of the Winter Soldier. Sorry for the one nubbin nail. I'm refusing to cut the rest of my nails to match when they're all long and happy right now.

Black: OPI 4 In The Morning
Silver: OPI Push And Shove, plus a little silver glitter from an Art Club nail striper
Red: OPI Over And Over A-Gwen

I hope you enjoyed my Cap nails! I'm not gonna promise that I'll suddenly start doing a ton of nail art but this mani was definitely fun to create and wow, having actual nail art brushes makes it so much easier to draw things! Haha, who knew, right? ;)

 Do you plan on seeing The Winter Soldier? Or if you've seen it already, what did you think?

Butter London Lolly Brights Preview

After showcasing some new age neutrals for their spring Boho Rock Collection, Butter London returns to brights in a big way for their summer collection, Lolly Brights. The collection features a rainbow of color, with six vibrant new shades. Take a look!

Lolly 

Ladybird

 

Chuffed

Sozzled

 

Airy Fairy

Stroppy

It's unusual for me to be so drawn to a red, but Ladybird looks tempting! There are tons of brights released each year for summertime, but it is a bit unusual to see a brights collection with so many shimmers, so I'm looking forward to seeing these!

The collection launches this month and is already popping up online at retailers like Macy's, so we should be seeing it in stores very shortly! Will you be grabbing any of these?

Twinsie Tuesday: Inspired By Your Purse

I'll admit it: I'm pretty much lost without my purse. It's got my make-up, my phone, usually some kind of snack (I almost always skip breakfast--I know, I know, it's bad)...all those little essentials that help get me through the day--to say nothing of my debit card, ID, etc. I own at least a dozen purses in all, so this week's Twinsie Tuesday theme is right up my alley: a manicure inspired by your purse!

One of my very favorites purses is my green L.A.M.B. clutch. I love the pattern and the zipper accents!

L.A.M.B. is Gwent Stefani's line and as I'm sure most of you know, she teamed up with OPI earlier this year, so I just had to use some of the Gwen Stefani polishes for this mani! Here's what I came up with:

Black: OPI 4 In The Morning
Silver: OPI Push And Shove
Gold: OPI Love. Angel. Music. Baby.
Green: China Glaze Running In Circles
Yellow: Deborah Lippmann Walking On Sunshine
Studs: OPI Over And Over A-Gwen Set

This was one of those manis where I couldn't just leave it be. I even took off some extra striping and nail studs because it was starting to look a little too busy. But after so much time adding and altering things, I finally forced myself to be done with it and leave well enough alone. The chevron could stand to be a little neater but experience has taught me that the more I try to "fix" nail art, the higher the likelihood that I'll completely ruin it and have to start over hahaha.

All in all though, I think this mani matches my purse pretty well! Hopefully the inspiration came through in the finished product. :) Be sure to see what my Twinsies cooked up to go with their bags!

Alaina at The Little Canvas

Amanda at Amandalandish

Amber at Nails Like Lace

Anna at Going to the Showing

Anne at Grape Fizz Nails

Casey at CaseyLane Loves Polish

Chelsea at Nailed Blog

ChiChi at I'm Just Me...ChiChi

Elizabeth at Did My Nails

Erin at Paint Those Piggies

Heather at Peace, Love, & Polish

Kelly at Tuxarina

Lakeisha at Refined and Polished

Maribeth at Obsessive Cosmetic Hoarders Unite

Marisa at Polish Obsession

Rachel at Top Coat It

Róisín at Cuti-CLUE-les

Stephanie at A Little Polish

Tiffany at Polished To Precision

Traci at DrinkCitra