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!)

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!

Zoya Rica and Tanzy: Swatches and Review

One of my favorite things lately is to paint the nails on each hand a different color. I usually try to pick colors that are similar enough so that it's not obvious at first glance that it's actually two different colors. My favorite combo so far has been Zoya Rica and Tanzy from the Sunshine collection.

Zoya - Tanzy and Zoya - Rica

Tanzy is an amazing light orange base that's absolutely packed with sparkly golden glass flecks. Rica is the same formula except with a coral pink base, and both are absolutely amazing. Zoya's Sparkle (summer 2010) and Sunshine (summer 2011) are two of my favorite collections of all time from any company, which is why I was a little disappointed in the 2012 summer collection. Oh well, maybe next year they'll come out with something even more spectacular!

It started out as one of those "I can't decide which one I want to wear!" days, and since I never actually made a decision, I just ended up painting one hand with Tanzy and one with Rica. Turns out, the crazy gold sparkles in both pulled them together into an awesome mismatched manicure, and I ended up loving the rebel feeling of having two different colors. I will certainly be doing this again!

Both of these are shown at two easy coats, but for some reason these have a longer-than-normal dry time.  They were still slightly dentable after a couple hours even with Cult Nail Wicked Fast (quick dry) topcoat.

Zoya Rica and Tanzy are both available on Zoya's website for $8 each, but if you love gold sparkles, I highly recommend picking up the whole Sunshine set. Every single one is a stunner.

Atrophie - Bathysphere: Swatch and Review

Unfortunately, I found the atrophie Esty shop a little too late. I saw so many polishes that I loved while looking through the past sales, but the one I wanted the most was a beautiful teal jelly with gold glitter: Bathysphere.

atrophie - Bathysphere

Isn't it squishy and sparkly and AWESOME?! I had almost given up all hope when I decided to post on facebook that I was looking for Bathysphere (and other atrophie polishes) and was SO surprised and excited when I got a reply from someone who had an extra bottle (THANK YOU SO MUCH)! I am so lucky to own this! I have to say, I like it best on the short nails in the listing, and next time I have to file my nails down because of a break I'm definitely wearing this one again.

Now, I know it says that it's named for the Cat Power song (I don't even know if I've heard it), but what it makes me think of is this:

Bioshock Bathysphere

I know, I can't help it. I'm a bit of a nerd. If you like video games and haven't played Bioshock, DO IT. It's such a trip.

Unfortunately, I don't really think there's any way to get atrophie polishes anymore. Hopefully someday in the future the shop will open once more, and if it does I have a whole wishlist of polishes ready!

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.

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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!

A True Color from the Capitol: 22kt Gold Glitter (pic heavy)

I feel like I should be sitting in the Capitol watching young kids fight to the death in an arena while I paint my nails with real 22kt gold glitter.

Real Gold Inc - 22kt Gold Glitter Topcoat

As many of you may know, I've been on the hunt for the perfect gold glitter, and I think I just may have found it. This is incredible. It's meant to be a top coat, but I built it up in four coats to try and make it opaque. It actually dries very quickly and thin and smooth (no Gelous needed!), so four coats wasn't a burden at all. It's hard to describe how mirror-like this is in person. It's also a beautiful, rich shade of gold - not too orange, not too green. My new favorite gold glitter!

Because it's meant to be a top coat, I wanted to try it over a couple colors:

22kt Gold Glitter (one coat) over Zoya Minka

22kt Gold Glitter (three coats) over Zoya Minka

22kt Gold Glitter (one coat) over China Glaze Liquid Leather

The funniest thing about this polish is that even though it's real gold, I've spent WAY more on plenty of other polishes. I got a set of three (22kt gold, 12kt white gold, and silver plus a top coat) for only $22, which makes each one less than a typical retail OPI! Incredibly affordable in my opinion.

The 22kt Real Gold Glitter top coat is available on the Real Gold Inc. website.  They also have 12 kt White Gold and Real Silver top coats, as well as UV gel versions, a red with 22kt gold version, and stripers, too!

The Perfect Gold Holo: Layering

Awhile ago when I reviewed HITS Hermes and was a little disappointed, one of my readers (Katie from katie's handmade) suggested that I try out Hefesto (a holo topcoat) over my favorite gold. And I finally tried it!

Here are the results:

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Gold Holo - Pure Ice Bite Me and HITS Hefesto

For these pictures, I used only one coat of Hefesto, but what's great about this combination is that you can add more coats of Hefesto to "tone down" the brassy gold color. I wanted to keep the rich gold of Bite Me because it's one of my favorites. Usually saturated golds like this don't look very nice on, but this one is stunning.

A little note: I took these pictures right after applying it. Over the next hour or so it developed a lot of bubbles! Has anybody else had this problem with the HITS No Olimpo collection? I had the same thing happen with Hermes, and it's pretty frustrating. Also, they don't seem to dry nearly as fast as other holos I own.

Here is a picture of Bite Me by itself from my previous post. I actually didn't know its name when I first posted about it because the bottom label only has a number!

Pure Ice - Bite Me

Pure Ice polishes can be found at most WalMarts and also on the Bari Cosmetics website.  Hefesto can be purchased from Llarowe or Ninja Polish when it's in stock.