OPI DS Desire

DS Desire is a beautiful brown/tan holo that I've been eyeing around the blogging world for a long time, but haven't been willing to spend the high price for it (I planned on trying to make my own frankendupe with some spectraflair). It's funny, because pictures of this polish tend to give the effect of all different colors: some pinkish-brown, some dark brown, and some golden. Here is the best representation of the color that I could get.

(sun)

(shade)

OPI - DS Desire

In my eyes, DS Desire is a light brown holo that leans a little mauve in some lights, but has a golden cast as well (You can see it inside the rainbows on the sun picture. It looks fairly neutral on my skin tone, and is incredibly flattering.The holo is typical OPI DS holo: very bright colors in a "grainy" linear holo.  This type of holo is lost in dim lighting as shown in the second photo, but shines beautifully in the sun.  I tried layering it over a dark brown and a gold as well, and it was awesome!

Now I'm not one to drop a lot of money on a nail polish unless it was really worth it, but the reason I ended up with this one was because the money from my purchase was going to go to leukemia and lymphoma research.  The girl I bought it from, Christine, lost her brother Derick to leukemia and was raising money through her nail polish sales.  I was very honored to get the chance to contribute and support Team Derick!

butter LONDON - Bumster and Flawless Basecoat: Swatches and Review

Today we have butter LONDON Bumster:

butter LONDON - Bumster

Bumster is a peanutbutter/mustard creme that is fully opaque in two coats. It has a marvelous formula and glides on very easily. This is one of those colors that looks good on some and not on others, though. The warm tones in it tend to clash on cooler skin tones. I personally love how it looks on me! Very chic, egdy, and out of the norm.

I was excited to try Bumster, but once I actually got it I noticed that it looks quite familiar. Bumster is a near dead-on dupe for American Apparel Trenchcoat (which in turn is a dupe for Finger Paints Catwalk Queen).

butter LONDON Bumster and American Apparel Trenchcoat

Trenchoat is a tiny bit cooler than Bumster, but if I didn't know I had two different polishes on I wouldn't be able to tell the difference.  Also, you can see the orange pigment has separated in my bottle of Trenchcoat, so it could be even closer than you see here!

butter LONDON also sent me the base and top coats to try out.  I'm not too big of a fan of the top coat.  It dries on the surface fairly quickly, but it tends to leave brushstrokes in the shiny finish as it dries (you can actually see them if you click on the first picture of Bumster above)

However, I'm kind of in love with the base coat (Nail Foundation Flawless Basecoat).

butter LONDON - Nail Foundation Flawless Basecoat

First of all, it's a GREAT ridge-filler.  It fills in all imperfections and gives you a nice smooth base for under your nail color of choice...  if you choose to wear one.  Which brings me to my next point:  I love how this looks on it's own.  It's a nude jelly that dries to a silky finish.  The bottle claims "matte results so beautiful, you can wear it alone."  And I have, and it looks so elegant!  It's a wonderful palette cleanser in between all the crazy colors and glitters that I wear!

I'm notoriously bad at testing wear (because I like to change my nail polish so often), so I don't have a good grasp yet for how well this holds on nail polish.  I have had it on under Expecto Patronum (with a coat of SV on top) for three days now with no chips or tipwear at all, though!

butter LONDON polishes can be purchased off of their website or at Ulta (in stores and online).


(These products were sent to me for review.)

500 Follower Giveaway - SensatioNail Starter Kit + Extra Color - CLOSED

My last giveaway went really well, so I was super excited to put up one for 500 followers (which I hit sometime on Wednesday night)!

I have had such success with SensatioNail that I decided a while back that I wanted to give away a Starter Kit for those who might like to try soak off gels, so here it is!

The winner will receive a SensatioNail Starter Kit with either Scarlet Red or Raspberry Wine, and one extra color from the choices below.  The names for the colors can be seen on the SensatioNail website.  I have found both Starter Kits and all the colors available in my local Wal-Mart and CVS so I shouldn't have a problem finding them for the winner.

Here is a swatch of Taupe Tulips.  It's a nice slightly greyed nude color and makes great underwear for jelly or sheer polishes!  So far I've found the colors to be pretty accurate to those presented on their website and boxes.

If you'd like to read my full review of SensatioNail or see a swatch of Scarlet Red, you can check it out here.

All entries from the giveaway must be entered using the rafflecopter widget below.  No tweets, shares, or blog posts will be counted unless a link is provided in the widget.

Good luck!


a Rafflecopter giveaway

You Mix Cosmetics Magnetic Polishes

These are amazing.  Every single one, I kept thinking "I'll just put this on for now and swatch the rest later."

Sham Rocks (with chevron magnet)

I wanted to try this one with the chevron magnet to try and make it look like leaves. It does a bit, and I love it. Such a beautiful fern green with amazing depth with the magnet. I think this is my favorite on my nails and probably the one I'll actually wear first.

Now, when Sasha (Nihrida) first posted a magnetic polish without a magnet design I thought it was crazy! Why would you do this?! Well, I can totally understand it now. When the color is gorgeous enough to be worn on its own, then sometimes there's no need for the magnetic "frills." So I decided to show these at one coat (before I put on the second coat and used the magnet on them).

Sham Rocks (no magnet)

Sham Rocks is a pretty subdued green shimmer. Very beautiful on its own.

Blurple (with diagonal magnet lined up straight)

This one is really neat because it shows two colors with the magnet effect. The magnetic shimmer is lavender and the magnet brings out navy blue. It doesn't really seem to have the "depth" of the one-color magnetic polishes, but it still so awesome.

Blurple (no magnet)

This one is not quite a one-coater (you can see bald the bald spots), and it only shows the lavender without the magnet.

Teal Abyss (with diagonal magnet)

This one frustrated me in photographs. It's more green than the picture shows. It's a true vibrant, rich turquoise/teal with amazing dept when it's magnetized. Very stunning!

Teal Abyss (no magnet)

This is one that I would definitely wear alone if I was looking for a plain teal shimmer. I don't have anything else like it. It applies nicely in just one coat, too!

Toasted (star magnet)

This is the one I was most thrilled about when I tried them on swatch sticks. The glitter is so amazing in this one, but you have to see it in person to understand. Also, I'm not sure why it appears slightly green in my photo. It's really more of a tan shimmer with brown jelly highlights from the magnet and gold micro glitter throughout. It's incredibly sparkly. On my nails I had trouble applying the star design. It's hard to center it AND get it close enough without touching the nail. So it took a couple of tries on some of them, but it came out nicely in the end.

Toasted (no magnet)

On it's own, Toasted looks a bit dull (although the gold sparkle livens it up a little). The problem is the brushstrokes. This one for some reason just didn't look nice and smooth like the others.


These are available on You Mix Cosmetics and are $8 each. The magnets they offer are sold separately and are $3 (awesome price in my opinion!). I didn't bother to buy the horizontal one because you can actually see the lines on the diagonal one and it's pretty easy to just rotate it and line it up yourself to get vertical or horizontal lines. The magnets are nice and large enough to cover a whole nail very easily.

Overall, I'm extremely impressed and am already planning my next order! I love the glitter in Toasted because it's not gritty and hangs so perfectly in the magnetic designs, so I want to try more of those!