Cleanin' out the ol' Flickr

Hey! Guess what, you guys! Transdesign has Vintage Vixen up. I decided to take some of my birthday money and order all the colors I wanted out of that collection. I've been stalking Sally's to see when they'll get it in, but it's cheaper to buy from TD (at least, it is if you're ordering enough to justify the $7 in shipping). Just thought some of y'all might wanna know. :)

I have a TON of stuff to post! Today, though, I'm just going to post what's in my Flickr and hasn't been posted yet.

I made another Zoya order before the end of June, and honestly? I shouldn't blindly order nail polish off the internet. A lot of what I got in that second order was nice enough, but wasn't an appropriate shade for my skintone. I have a friend at work who's into nail polish. She's black, I'm white, and I showed up one day wearing Zoya Annie, which SO did not look good on me, but would SO look good on her. So I brought it to her the next day and she brought me some stuff that didn't look good on her. So it ended up okay that I cannot order appropriately for my skintone! LOL.

So anyway, today's post is unposted things, and Zoyas, Part I.

First, the RANDOMS.
So I found this 4-pack of mini Borghese polishes on clearance at Walgreens for $5. I'm pretty sure this was a holiday collection. It had a mini of Stellare Notte, two glitters, and a nice burgundy that unfortunately exploded on me so I never got to swatch it. Nail polish catastrophe, y'all!
Anyway, this is one of the glitters. It is, honestly, one of the butt ugliest, least sparkly glitters I've ever used. A brown jelly base with silver and red glitter that didn't SPARKLE. BLAH.


This is another of those discontinued Rimmel Play Fast polishes in a shade called Push It. It's a little frosty for my liking.


And now on to the Zoyas!
This is Kotori. It's a black, or maybe dark grey, jelly base with tons of blue microglitter. I LOVED this! It's gorgeous! The first coat had me a little nervous, 'cause it was way streaky and gross. I think I used three coats for this, but I was very pleased with the end result.


This is Gaia, which was described as white with gold shimmer. I just wish the gold shimmer had been more apparent, but I didn't hate this color.


And this is Yummy. I really liked this one, too. It applied nicely, but it reminds me a LOT of Orly Snowcone and/or Essie Lapis of Luxury, and I have both of those. I should do a comparison.



And now I'm caught up! So I can dump my memory card onto Flickr and not get confused about what I have or have not posted here! YAY!

Random Picspam!

So, I'm way, WAY behind on both pictures and untried nail polishes. Good lord, these things (both of them) seem to just multiply... for no reason. My next sentence was going to be "We hit Ulta today, and..." Oops. I guess I just found my reason.

Anywho, most of the pictures I've yet to post can at least loosely be grouped together into semi-coherent posts. Today's post is the random stuff that doesn't fit anywhere else, and it's just been sitting in my Flickr for ages and ages, begging to be posted.

Picspam!

Here is Essie Turquoise and Caicos. I know I used this in a comparison post, but I'd never done a full mani of it. You know... I think Essie, as a brand, is growing on me. I don't hate it as much as I once did, anyway. I really, REALLY liked this color. I think I used three coats, since it's a jelly and a little on the sheer side.


This is Borghese Principessa Ivory. I was still on the hunt for the perfect off-white polish. This one was 75% off at CVS, and I figured I'd give it a shot for $2, ya know? It was streaky as hell, and I think this was like four coats. Must have been why it was on clearance.


This is Sally Hansen HD in Byte. It was okay. Didn't hate it, didn't love it. Pretty sure this was three coats, since it was pretty sheer.


I liked this one! It's a Finger Paints color - Art Appreciation Apricot. I got it on clearance at Sally. It really was a nice orange-y shade (I never used to wear oranges or corals, but they're growing on me). I have no idea why I didn't take a picture of the polish by itself before slapping some Hidden Treasure on top, but I didn't. Anyway, I call these... nails... OF FIYAH!

Stellare Notte

I actually kept this mani on for two whole days trying to get adequate sunlight in which to photograph it, but it never happened! Ahh!

Anyway, this color is sort of like a purple/charcoal duochrome with some teal shimmer and sparkle to it.

In most lighting, though, it just looks like a shimmery charcoal. The duochromeness doesn't show up on the nails as much as it does in the bottle, either.

Another thing -- the wear on this polish is not so good. I got a chip the first night (I repaired it) and I had some horrible, horrible wear at my tips by the time I took it off today. Remember folks, I just put this on Friday afternoon.

This is indoors. You can sort of see the purpley-ness here:


Indoors with a flash. There's the teal I was telling you about. :)


By a window - natural light.


Also by a window.




Overall, I was disappointed by this polish. The chipping and horrible tipwear, for one, and the fact that this looked way, way cooler in the bottle than on my nails. Granted, there were times that this polish looked grey to me, times it looked purple, and times it looked green/blue, and that sort of change is cool, but it was extremely hard to photograph it.

Indoor swatching, blah

So, it's been gross and gray and rainy all day long today. I got quite a bit of swatching done, actually, but they're all indoor photographs since I have better lighting indoors today than outdoors.

I did manage to get out this afternoon because I needed gas in my car. I am on a freaking mission to find those stupid Milani 3D holographic polishes, but I was foiled not once but twice today and decided to come on home. I've found the new Milani neons and nail art pens at K-Mart, but no holos. I went to Walgreens, where they have a whole section with a big "Milani" sign over it, but no Milani anything underneath it. I DID, however, find a couple of other polishes I'd been lemming at Walgreens -- Borghese Stellare Notte and Sally Hansen HD Opulent Cloud. I also picked up SH Insta-Dri Grape Going, since the SH polishes were buy 1, get 1 half off. And that is IT for my polish-buying for now. I swear.
See the pretties!


Anyway, after that, I ran by CVS, where there was a tag on the REGULAR Milani polishes that clearly read "Milani 3D Holographic polishes, $4.99." Which would be awesome if, you know, they actually HAD the polishes. Which they didn't. So I came home.

I put on Stellare Notte once I got home and went to photograph it and my camera would not focus on anything, which is usually a sign that the batteries are dying. We usually have freshly charged batteries in the charger, but not today. Oh well, it's supposed to actually be sunny tomorrow (although I have to work), so hopefully I'll be able to get a shot of it tomorrow.

Now that I'm done bellyachin', here's what I've swatched from my haul yesterday.

China Glaze Flying Dragon. How awesome is this color? It's Play-Doh purple with blue glitter in it! The formula was awful, awful, awful, though. It evened out okay in three coats, but it had me worried through the first two coats.


China Glaze Blue Sparrow. This is from the same collection as Flying Dragon, but the formula was 1000 times easier. This is just two coats. I also love this, but not quite as much as I love Flying Dragon. If I could get Flying Dragon's color with Blue Sparrow's formula, I'd be a happy girl.



After the China Glazes, I swatched the Sally Hansens I got yesterday. First up was Lacquer Shine in Glow. Meh. This is the third color I own that is very similar to this. It's a spring green with yellow shimmer. It's pretty enough, but I don't need three of these.


This is Lacquer Shine in Lustrous. It's a nice black creme. Seems as if it might have a greenish base, but it's definitely all black on the nails -- no shimmer or anything. This was two coats.


This was the first Fire Opal I decided to swatch. What is wrong with this picture?


Ummmm. Yeah. I guess that's Dollar Tree quality for you. Luckily, I am a crafty lady and I have all manner of paintbrushes in my house!
It figures -- the brushless wonder is my FAVORITE of all the opals I picked up yesterday -- at least, on it's own! This is Blush Opal and this is also three coats. I knew these were sheer, but this is the least sheer one I have.


This is the one Star Opal I got, in Red Opal. Does ANYONE know the difference between the Star Opals and the Fire Opals? They're all similar to me. This is a peachy sheer with some green shimmer in it.


And this was the other Fire Opal I got, in Royal Opal. It's a peachy sheer with gold shimmer. I guess the gold is what makes it royal?


Then I tried layering all of them over Lacquer Shine Lustrous. I dig it!
Index finger is Blush Opal, Middle is Red Opal, and Ring is Royal Opal. I LOVE Red Opal like this. Oddly enough, Red Opal over black becomes black with awesome emerald GREEN shimmer (no red to be seen)!