Cupcake Polish American Beauty Collection Swatches and Review

*Press Sample*

Cupcake Polish is coming out with a super holo collection called American Beauty. Each Polish is named after a city here in the United States and all of them are gorgeous strong linear holos!

I was sent three of these for review:

Cupcake Polish - Chicago

Chicago is an amazing, unique, stunning light purple. I have a TON of purple holos, but this one is totally different from all of them. It's kind of between pink and purple... maybe orchid? The pictures portray it way more blue-toned purple than it is in person. It's much brighter and pinker. And freaking awesome.

Cupcake Polish - Dallas

Dallas is a bright coral red base with amazing holo flame. I now have over 200 holo polishes and this is absolutely unique in my collection. Most of the red holos I have lean very pink/fuchsia, but this one has a little bit of both pink and orange which gives it the overall coral color. I'm not usually a huge fan of reds, but I think this is my favorite of these three.

Cupcake Polish - New York

New York is a vibrant teal blue. Although I have quite a few teal holos, this is one of the most saturated ones, and the holo is super strong without making it look greyed out.


All three polishes had perfect, easy to work with formulas. They were all almost opaque in one thin coat, and completely opaque in two. They have none of the dragging, patchy issues that some holos have and don't require any special base coat. I actually swatched all of these with no base coat because I'd been warned that they might stain some and I wanted to test. Honestly, I had very minor staining with both Dallas (red) and New York (teal) (none with Chicago), but all it took was an extra clean cotton ball and it all came right off. I think a single coat of regular base coat would probably help with that too.

I have to say, I'm incredibly impressed with these. I've been on a huge holo kick lately, and I've been scouting out all of the very best brands. Cupcake Polish is definitely one of them. There are three more polishes in the American Beauty collection:

Los Angeles - Pink
Denver - Green
Miami - Orange

(Swatches for these can be seen in the shop)

The American Beauty collection is going to be available (in somewhat limited quantities) in the Cupcake Polish shop on September 29th at 12pm Central time. They will be $12 for a full size bottle.

What do you think of these Beauties?? Are you as enamored as I am? Seeing as I only got mini bottles to review I will be in line for some full size bottles.  I'm dying for Dallas, Miami, Denver, and Chicago!!

(These products were sent for review.)

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!)

China Glaze - Agro: Holo Layering

Just a quick post today.

(sun)

(shade)

China Glaze Agro and HITS Hefesto

This is China Glaze Agro with one coat of HITS Hefesto over the top. As you can see, Hefesto kind of mutes whatever color is underneath. I love the bright holo effect it creates, but wish it didn't grey out the base color so much. Oh well, the sage green holo it turned into was still pretty awesome.


Here are a couple pictures of Agro on its own:

China Glaze - Agro

Agro is a sage-olive green shimmer that has a bit of that "glowy" appearance. It gains a lot more depth with a top coat, and is on the edgy side of chic.

Agro was part of the China Glaze Hunger Games collection in spring 2012, but as of now it's still available on Transdesign. HITS Hefesto is available at Llarowe and Ninja Polish.

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.)

OPI - DS Design: Swatches and Review

I'm such a sucker for nude/gold holo polishes lately, and I was lucky enough recently to get OPI DS Design at an incredible price!

OPI - DS Design

Design is a perfect nude base with tons of sparkly holo pigment, just like the others in the DS series. For some reason, the rainbow colors seem a bit more subdued in this one, but it's still very stunning in the sun. In the shade, it matches my skin tone PERFECTLY.

Unfortunately, DS Design is discontinued (along with all the other holo DS polishes) and can be tricky to find. I found mine in a blog sale, so keep your eye out and you might just get lucky!