Mint Mani for Talia Joy: Lilypad Lacquer Aquadisiac

The world lost someone very special the other day: a beautiful, talented, incredible girl named Talia Joy. The idea for the mint mani theme is inspired by Talia's last Instagram posting, which was a mint manicure post featuring the hands of Talia, her mother, and her dear friend Tammy.

Here is my mint mani, in honor of the amazing inspiration she provided in the beauty world.

Just keep swimming :o)

Enchanted Polish Austin Powers Swatch and Review

Wow, it has been way too long! I've mostly taken a break from blogging because my new computer will not load pictures form an SD card. But now I got a new nifty Eye Fi card that makes taking swatch pictures SOOOO much easier - it transfers automatically to my computer via our wifi network!

Anyway, on the the good stuff. I wanted to come back with a BANG, and I think this qualifies... This is my second favorite polish of all time (or maybe tied for first with Layla Flash Black, followed closely by Chanel Peridot): Enchanted Polish Austin Powers!

Here are some indoor indirect daylight shots. In the shade you can mostly see the super reflective gold foil finish, and it's super pretty. Sometimes you can even pick out the tiny orange glitter sprinkled throughout.

Austin Powers is a bright yellow gold foil with a linear holo shimmer. The thing that sets it apart from almost every other holo I own is the super shiny foil finish. It makes it stunning even in low light because of the beautiful reflective quality instead of the dull/flat grey finish that's so common with holos. On top of that, the gold is bright but neutral enough to be flattering on most skin tones.

 It has an awesome formula, requiring only two coats to be mostly opaque (I actually layered two coats over one coat of Pure Ice Bite Me here, but Bite Me is so sheer at one coat that I don't think it made much of a difference). And here's the best part: this is with no base coat (other than Bite Me) and no top coat AND this is day FIVE!! No chips or tip wear at all! I don't want to take it off... (but I want to try my Time to Pretend polishes!)

The only downside? This polish is fairly hard to find now. If you're lucky, one might pop up on ebay or a blog sale, but they're probably going to be quite a bit above retail price (current retail is $14-15). I'm not sure if Enchanted Polish is planning on making any more of this color, but other Enchanted Polishes may be purchased from the Enchanted Polish site, Llarowe, or Harlow & Co when they come into stock (watch out - they sell out quickly!)

Butter London - The Old Bill and Chanel - Delight: Review and Comparison

I love golden, coppery polish, especially for fall (I can't wait for fall nail polish season!).  Here are a couple awesome ones:

butter LONDON - The Old Bill

The Old Bill is a copper shimmer. It's not quite a metallic, not quite a foil. It almost comes across as a shiny nude color. Very nice at two easy coats.

Chanel - Delight

Delight, on me, looks like a shiny nude foil. It matches my skin tone wonderfully but isn't your typical "dull" nude (I actually happen to like nude polishes, but mostly when they have some pizzazz). It looks nice at both one and two coats, but it's hard to describe the difference.  Very elegant and eye catching!

Delight was actually a gift from one of my awesome readers.  Thank you so so SO much!

Here are a couple comparisons:

This one shows how similar The Old Bill and Delight are in terms of base color. Delight is a little lighter, but it could be just because of the intense foil shine.

These are all of the copper foils in my collection.  No dupes for delight.  Orly Rage is much more of a rose gold (pink toned) and a bit lighter, and Copper Penny is a more saturated orange-y copper.  I like Copper Penny on my toes, but I still prefer the nude foil look of Delight on my fingers.

The Old Bill can be purchased on butter LONDON's website, or at Ulta (and Ulta.com).  Chanel Delight is available from the Chanel website.

(The Old Bill was provided for review.  Delight was gifted by a friend.)

Dollish Polish - Toxic Avenger: Swatches and Review

Funny story about this polish.

Dollish Polish - Toxic Avenger

Toxic Avenger is an amazing duochrome AND holo foil. The duochrome is similar to Orly Space Cadet or Hard Candy Beetle: it's a purple to gold/green duochrome in a teal base, but this has a ton of holo pigment added to it. Usually, the holo takes over in the sun, and the duochrome really comes out in indirect light. Basically, it's just all-around interesting! It's also not being made anymore, so I'd pretty much given up hope at ever finding a bottle.

This was from a couple Dollish sales ago when the "bonus mystery shade" was a mini bottle of the original Toxic Avenger. I actually didn't know about the sale until it was already 15 minutes into it or something, and all the Toxic Avengers were in carts already (if you don't know, Big Cartel SUPPOSEDLY will hold it for 30 minutes once it's in someone's cart so it doesn't get taken from them while they're in the payment process).

So I waited for another 15 minutes (wildly refreshing the page) until it was finally dropped from someone's cart into MINE... WOOHOO! I was so excited and hurriedly went to payment and just as I was about to pay on Paypal's site... BOOM, it's gone out of my cart (obviously, Big Cartel's hold does NOT always work). OH, MISERY!

So I sat there for ANOTHER half hour wildly refreshing waiting for someone else to let go of one in their cart. And FINALLY, I got one and was able to pay for it, and you can bet I did it LICKETY SPLIT.

I know the story sounds dramatic, but really, even if I hadn't have gotten it I would have just moved on with my day. I LIKE the chase of nail polish sales on Etsy/Big Cartel/whatever. I think it's fun to try and snag the polishes I'm longing for, but to me it will always still be just nail polish. At the end of the day, there are so many more important things to me.

But yes, I DID spend an hour of my life refreshing a web page so I could get this polish, and it was totally worth it!

Like I said, unfortunately (because of availability of ingredients) Dollish Polish isn't making this polish (at lease with this particular formula) anymore. It could be she releases it with a new formula in the future, so be on the lookout for it!

butter LONDON - Lillibet's Jubilee for the Queen's Diamond Jubilee

From what I understand, this past weekend celebrated Queen Elizabeth's Diamond Jubilee, which marked 60 years since her ascension to the throne in 1952. In honor, butter LONDON has created a nail polish shade named Lillibet's Jubilee.

butter LONDON - Lillibet's Jubilee

Lillibet's Jubilee is a beautiful, bright silvery lilac foil. At first I was disappointed because I thought it was going to contain holo particles, but now that I've tried it I think it's stunning just how it is. What it does, it does very well! The finish is incredibly reflective and eye-catching, and the lilac tint sets it apart from all the other silver foils out there. It also has excellent formula, gliding on perfectly in two easy coats. I don't have anything like this in my collection; all the purple foils I have are darker and not as shiny. Elegant, yet striking.

Lillibet's Jubilee and all the other butter LONDON polishes are available on the butter LONDON website, as well as in Ulta stores and at Ulta.com. They retail for $14 each. Lillibet's Jubilee is labeled as a limited edition on Ulta, but I'm not sure since Butter London's site makes no indication.


(Products were provided for review.)

Zoya Beach and Surf: Accent Nails

The first thing I noticed about the Zoya Beach and Surf collections was that they all seem to have a "match" in the other collection. There are plenty of swatches out there for Beach and Surf already, so I wanted to give it a twist and show how wonderfully these work for multi-finger accent manicures! I like more contrast for single-finger accents, but prefer the colors to be more closely related for the multi-finger accents.

Check out how well these go together!

Zoya - Wednesday and Zuza

Zoya - Tracie and Meg

Zoya - Arizona and Myrta

Zoya - Shelby and Rory

Zoya - Lara and Kimber

Zoya - Reagan and Carly

Of course, you don't have to pair them up with the most matching color. You can also pair random ones together. For instance, I loved the look of the orange and teal together so I paired Arizona with Zuza for this single-accent:

Zoya - Arizona and Zuza

Overall, while the colors are quite pretty and beach-y and summery, I have to admit that I was disappointed in the collections.  After the killer Sparkle (Summer 2010) and Sunshine (Summer 2011) collections, I was REALLY hoping for more spectacular bling from Zoya for this year.  I know that many others love shimmers and cremes and will be delighted with this collection, but I can't help but feel let down a bit.

I think Arizona was my favorite even though I don't own or like very many orange polishes.  It is the perfect soft, yet bright creamsicle orange that I think would be perfect on finger or toes at the beach!  Carly was also a standout.  It's a rich, intense purple foil that I have nothing even close to in my collection, and it's nearly a one-coater!  Some of the others I liked, some I didn't, but all had excellent formula.  Most are slightly thick and cover in two coats.

The Zoya Beach and Surf collections are both available now at the Zoya website.  They retail for $8 each or $48 for each sampler set.


(These products were sent for review.)