N.Y.C. - Bryant Park

My mother gave this polish, which was really sweet of her - and it gave me a chance to try a color which, to be honest, I'd probably never have picked up on my own.

Bryant Park is a cool-toned gold, leaning toward a taupey ashen bronze. I guess maybe you could call it a neutral gold, or a golden neutral, if such a thing exists. It looks slightly more gold-toned on the nail than it does in the bottle. It's an interesting color in its way and would probably look great on someone else, but I don't think it works well with my skin tone. I don't think I'll actually wear this one, and will probably swap or give it away, if I can find anybody who wants it.

I usually don't have any problems with the quality or application or N.Y.C. polishes, and this one was fine it that regard as well. I can't report anything about how well it held up in terms of chipping and wear, since I removed it pretty quickly as I didn't care for the color. It was kind of brushstrokey, but I think that's definitely because it's rather frosty in finish. (Another reason, I suppose I didn't care for this polish as much: this color+frost = just "meh" for me.) To sum it all up, nice polish, interesting color, just not my cup of tea. :)

The pics here came out fairly color-accurate (for once), despite being taken late in the afternoon of a rainy day, with less than great lighting. I used three coats plus base and topcoats.

Thanks for looking! :)

Savvy Femme - Fairy Twinkle layered over Wet'n'Wild Black Creme

Fairy Twinkle is a beautiful sheer pink polish with loads of gold glass-fleck shimmer. And when I say sheer, I do mean sheer! So I decided to layer it over black to see how it looked.
It came out a dusky, lavender/mauvey-pinky-gold (lol, I know, that's some description! Sorry, my brain's kind of short-circuited after a long day and being up late last with a mild though miserable case of food poisoning), extremely shimmery color. It didn't photograph all that well, so you can't really see too much of the pink, although it's noticeable on the nail itself.

And I don't know what's up with the green-toned zombie hands I've been sporting in all my pics lately! I know Halloween's coming up, but...sheesh! :P I'm blaming my camera, since I'm pretty sure I haven't died recently (though I did kind of feel like I might at around 4:30 last night!).

Anyway, no problems with applying this one, though it was a bit slow to dry and stayed kind of tacky to the touch for a while. Although it was also a wet and stormy night with high humidity, so that may have something to do with the drying issues. Pics show four coats, because I wanted lots of shimmery goodness, over black base coat and top coat.

Braaaaaiiiinsss! Er...I mean...thanks for looking. ;) Hee hee, I love zombies...just wish I didn't look like one in my pics...

Wet'n'Wild Craze - The Gold & the Beautiful

A bright, yellow-toned gold polish with lots of shimmer. This is from the collection of new Craze colors that was out earlier this summer, where all the polishes had names derived from tv shows. It's a bit...more brassy in tone than most of the golds in my collection, and the shimmer is really pretty. I think it's a nice fall gold, especially for early in the season, like now. (I don't know what's gotten into me; I never used to care about the seasons when it came to my polishes, and now suddenly, I'm all about the seasonal colors to the point where I actually kind of crave them. Must be some kind of phase I'm going through...Anyway, fall's my favorite season, and there are some gorgeous fall polish colors out there right now, so I'm just going to thoroughly enjoy my latest little obsession!)
This polish applied with no problems. Pics show three coats plus base and top coats.

Thanks for looking, and happy fall polishing! :)

Claire's - Hollywood

First of all, I'm sorry for my unexplained lack of posting lately - I've been working a lot more than usual lately, and although I've still been polishing my nails regularly, it just hasn't been possible to find the time for taking photos, editing them, and blogging about it. Hopefully, things will be slowing down a bit now, and I'll be able to resume regular posts.

Although, if they're all as lackluster as this one, that may or may not be a good thing! ;) This polish completely freaked out my camera and this picture does not do it any justice at all (though it was the best of the lot). Plus, I'll be the first to admit that this is a spectacularly lousy manicure. That's what I get for rushing it too much - polish flooding my cuticles.

Despite what it looks like here, this is actually a very pretty polish: fine silver and holo glitter in a shimmery silver base. It's sparkly, but not overly flashy.

It applied very smoothly and dried a bit rough, as glitters often do. I used an opaque white base coat and three coats of polish plus a top coat. It held up well on my nails without chipping or tip wear, and was a bit of a pain to remove (but I expect that of a glitter polish, so no biggie.)

All in all, I think it's a good option for when you want a bit of sparkle, but nothing too in-your-face.

Thanks for reading, and happy polishing!

Jordana Grape

First of all, I apologize for the quality of these pictures. I had a sick puppy dog to take care of today, and I didn't have a chance to take pictures of my nails until late in the day, and then I was too rushed to do a good job.

Anyway, on to the polish...

I like Jordana polishes, a a rule. They're decent quality, they have some nice colors, they apply well as a rule, and they're certainly budget-friendly: I've never paid over $1.50 for one.

Grape is a medium-deep mauve creme. It does not lean purple at all, as the name "grape" might seem to imply, but is more pink-toned. I wasn't sure about this color initially, but I really do like it once it's on my nails. I think it's a nice shade for fall, not too bright, but not wishy-washy either.
This is three coats (though two would have been fine) plus base and top coat.


Thanks very much for looking, and have a great weekend! :)

Ulta - After Hours

After hours is part of Ulta's Glam Goth Collection mini polish set. It's a very deep purple polish with some purple shimmer that's more noticeable in the bottle than on the nail.

Unfortunately, my camera doesn't like taking pictures of purple things, so the polish looks like a navy blue creme here, which it absolutely isn't. It's truly deepest purple, so purple that it almost looks black (but you can still tell it's purple in most lights, which I like. If I want a polish that looks indistinguishable from black, I'll just wear a black polish in the first place and not bother with a color. :-P) And it's not a creme; it definitely has a little more shimmer to it than shows up in the pictures.

Here it is with flash, showing a bit more of it's shimmery side (though it still looks way, way too blue, dang it!).

It went on a little thick, but otherwise applied fairly nicely. I did have a bit of a tough time with the brush, though, but that was more of a "me" issue than a flaw in the brush itself: I have fairly small and narrow nails and it was a surprisingly wide and full brush for a mini bottle. For me, that combination of narrow nail + big brush + slightly gloopy formula = lots of clean-up to do. For those of you who prefer a wider brush, though, it may be perfect.

All in all, it's a nice vampy color, but I don't know that I would necessarily want a full bottle of it, if it were available, simply because I have several other colors that are very similar already in my collection. And my collection is a bit overstocked with vampies and dark colors at the moment anyway; I'm trying to branch out a bit colorwise. (I really bought the set for Tainted Love and For Bitten, which seemed much more unique, and which I have yet to wear.) I'm still happy to have After Hours come along for the ride, though.

Thanks for looking! :-)

China Glaze - For Audrey

I know everyone has probably seen this lovely polish 4,593,789 times by now...but it's a recent a addition to my collection, and this is the first time I've worn it. I think I overlooked it due to my former aversion to cremes (which thankfully, I'm getting over now).

For Audrey is a gorgeous, robin's egg/Tiffany blue creme polish. It applied like a dream, with minimal streakiness on the first coat, and absolutely none on the second. It was also perfectly opaque in two coats, and I think if I were a more skilled polisher, it might have been good to go in one! I think this dreamy blue polish is helping me over the last of my mild dislike of cremes, since part of my problem with them was how hard it can be with some cremes to get a non-streaky finish in less than four or five coats, particularly for someone with a noticeable lack of patience and steady hands, like myself. Now that I know a creme polish can apply this flawlessly even in my clumsy paws, I foresee a bright future full of beautiful cremes on my fingertips! :) Thanks, China Glaze!
All pics are two coats, plus base and top coat.

Thanks for looking, and happy polishing! :)

Simple Pleasures Nail Polish - Unnamed

This is another polish from the Simple Pleasures set I found at Ross. It's a very pretty cantaloupe-colored creme, but it suffers from the same brush issues as the pink one I posted earlier. It's a shame; these would actually be quite lovely polishes if they only had better brushes. Oh, well - it's still a lovely, summery shade (and summer isn't entirely over quite yet!) and it was certainly well-priced!

Thanks for looking, and have a great weekend! :)

Savvy Femme Couture - Orange You Happy

As a matter of fact, I am happy with this orange polish. Very happy. In fact, I just LOVE this polish. Which is quite unusual, since orange is usually just one of those colors for me. I like it just fine in theory, I admire it on others, but on my own hands it just does nothing for me. But this...is just bright and cheerful and makes me feel happy. For some reason, I just feel playful and uplifted with this on my fingertips...Ok, I'm probably going overboard here - it's just nail polish! - but I really, really like this color, lol! I actually got a compliment from a stranger today on this polish, which never happens when I wear orange!
I was a little hesitant about trying another Savvy polish, after the difficult time I had with Prince Ala Charm, but I needn't have worried. It went on with no problems and was opaque in two coats, although I did three as usual. I also used a white base, just in case, but I don't think it needed it. It did chip a little at the tip of my second nail. I'm just a teensy tad of a wee bit compulsive about my polishes, and normally I would have known no rest until I whisked it all off of there and put fresh, new, unchipped polish on; but I liked this color so much I didn't even really care.

Here it is with flash, showing off it's pretty glowy-ness:
I will definitely be wearing this pretty orange polish again soon!

P.S. - I have a confession to make: I am actually getting jut a little bit tired of dark colors right now. Oh, it's not permanent! You can't actually take the goth out of a girl like me! ;-) I just feel like it's time for a short break from my beloved vampies, so I can appreciate them again with renewed enthusiasm later. Hope you're all enjoying the start of September!

Revlon -Slipper

I'm still getting back into the routine of blogging, and I've got a lot of other things going on in my life right now, including a potential change of careers and job-hunting, so my time online is kind of limited. I do want to get back to posting regularly, though, so here's my manicure of the day: one of Revlon's new topcoats, Slipper, layered over black:
Slipper is red and silver glitter with sparser silver holo hex-shaped glitter in a clear base. Very pretty. It's meant to to be layered over a corresponding Revlon red creme, but I only got the topcoat since the solid-color polishes just didn't look that appealing to me.
It applied nicely, and didn't dry nearly as rough-textured as some glitters can, probably because the glitter is a bit more sparsely distributed. I think it's quite pretty. I really wanted to get a good close-up of this manicure, so you could see the different shapes and sizes of the glitter clearly, but, as usual, the glitter freaked out my camera.

Pics show three coats plus base and top coat.

Not Dead Yet - And Savvy Femme Couture- Prince Ala Charm

Sorry for my abrupt disappearance over the past week or so; I haven't given up and abandoned my blog, despite how it may look. I've been having some pretty serious trouble with my internet connection, which, combined with some camera difficulties (mainly caused by me being a bit of an idiot noob about digital cameras) knocked me out of commission for a while as far as posting or commenting goes.

But...I'm back...and I have a beauty of a polish to show you all today. Well, a hidden beauty. Let me explain...

When I saw Prince Ala Charm tucked into a display at Sally's earlier this summer, it was love at first sight - or at least strong like at first sight. Such a pretty, shimmery, glistening blue. I have a weakness for blue...and shimmer. Done deal. I brought it home and tucked it into my untried stash.

And dug it out yesterday and tried it on. And promptly fell right out of love. My prince was a frog! Even though it doesn't look it in the bottle, it's sheer. Extremely, extremely sheer. Seven-desperate-coats-and-still-not-bottle-color-or-opaque sheer. Not at all pretty, just very washed-out looking. So, determined to make this doomed relationship work somehow (yeah, I have relationship drama with my polishes; I said I had a passion for nail polish, and I meant it! ;) I tried layering it over white. No dice. It was a little less sheer, but still disappointingly blah and watery-looking.

I was about to give up and resign it to my small never-to-be-worn-again polish box, when I figured: Well, why not see how it looks over black? And this is what happened:
With the kiss of a layer of black polish, my frog turned back into a prince - a gorgeous, shimmering, almost glass-flecked looking blue prince! It reminds me of the color of a blue morpho butterfly's wings (which I meant to add a picture of for comparison, but I forgot, and now I don't think my internet connection will hold up long enough to add it in.) Here it is with flash, since there was no sun to be found today:
And here, again with flash and deliberately blurred so youo can get an idea of the beautiful depth and shimmer:
So my fairy-tale romance with Prince Ala Charm had a happy ending after all; I just have to remember the next time I want to wear it, to layer it over black or another darker color. It's practically pointless on its own. All pics are three coats layered over Wet'n'Wild black polish plus top coat.

So glad to be back to blogging again; I've really missed it, and all the beautiful blogs I read regularly.

Mystery Polish Number Three

The next of the unnamed, unidentified-brand dollar store polishes.

Metallic magenta shimmer, butter-smooth application, dried in a flash, opaque in one coat (!!)...what's not to like? Nothing!...if you're me, that is. I thought this one was really pretty.
Here it is with flash:
I would have loved to have gotten a picture of this one in the sun, to really show off its shine, sparkle, and glow, but it was a dreary, drizzly here, so flash it is:
And one more for good measure:
I'm really impressed with the quality of these polishes, especially for a brand that I still can't identify or find any information about.

I must apologize for the awful pictures; the batteries in my camera were dying. All pics are two coats (though, really, one would have been just fine with this polish) plus base and top coat.

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend! :)

CQ - Vintage Gray

This looks very gray in the pictures, but is actually more of a "greige" creme in real life. Greiges and taupes really don't usually appeal to me that much, but I like this one because it does lean more toward a mouse-y gray in some lights. The first pic is closest to being color-accurate of any I took, although indoors the polish definitely takes on a more taupe/putty shade.

Here it is outdoors with flash:
And in shade, no flash, looking very gray:
It went on smoothly, but there was a little bit of minor bubbling on a few nails, which you can see in the pictures on my index finger; it was another scorching day here and I think the heat may have had something to do with the bubbling problem. Pics are three coats plus base and top coat.

Even with my nails being as short as they've been lately, I still somehow manged to break one of them yesterday, in such a way that I couldn't fix the break without it still being obvious and making all the nails on one hand look uneven. So - I took a nail-clipper to all ten of them and -chop! Off with their heads! My poor nails...they're almost as short now as they were when I used to bite them years ago. Good thing they grow back - in time!

Pure Ice - Super Star

I've always liked Pure Ice polishes; they're good quality, have a nice color selection, and at $2.00 each at Walmart, they're certainly inexpensive. This one is no exception.

Super Star is red with tiny multi-colored glitter. On the nail, it's subtly fiery and very pretty, especially in sunlight:

Indoors or in the shade, the red looks a little darker and the glitter is a bit more subdued, but still noticeable:
Application had no problems, as I've come to expect from the Pure Ice brand, and it dried fairly quickly. It did look just slightly more dull than I liked after it dried completely, but that was remedied by a clear topcoat, which brought out all the shine and sparkle.

All pics are three coats of polish, plus base and top coat, and are pre-clean-up, unfortunately. When I see how beautifully some bloggers polish their nails, it makes me a little ashamed of my sloppy paint jobs, especially in pre-clean-up pics. I've been polishing my nails almost daily since I was fourteen, so it isn't lack of practice...maybe my hands shake a bit, or maybe I just don't have a talent for it. I dunno...I do my best. :) I've wondered sometimes if I'm actually good enough at it to blog, but then I remember that I'm doing this to share my love of the polish itself, not to show off my polishing skills, or lack thereof. So I continue to take pictures of my nails less than perfectly polished, and admire and enjoy the skill and precision of those who are more talented at it than I am. :)

Confetti - Masqeurade Ball

Another of my beloved vampies. :) This one is tiny red glitter sparkles in a black base. I had a hard time getting the red sparkles to show up in the pics, but they're definitely noticeable on the nail; I love that this polish is truly dark, yet doesn't really look black even in indoor light. The beautiful blackened red shimmer/sparkle is still evident.

Here it is with flash:
Pics are three coats plus base and top coat.

I happened upon a full rack of Confetti polishes at CVS a few weeks ago, and picked up this one and a few other colors that looked promising. This is one of the first ones I've actually worn, and I must say I'm pretty impressed with this brand so far, especially for the price of $1.99. It went on with no application problems and wore well, lasting three days with no chips, dents or tip-wear before I got bored with the color and changed it. The quality, at least judging from this color, seems at least comparable to Sinful Colors, another drugstore brand with a similar price point. The color selection was nice; even if there didn't seem to be anything drop-dead stunningly different, there was a good selection of colors and some very pretty ones at that.

One thing to be aware of with this brand, though (and if you've seen any reviews of the brand on other nail blogs you'll probably already know this, but I guess it may still bear repeating): Check the brush before you buy! Some of the bottles had really wonky brushes, too long for the bottle and bent over at the tip, that could probably make application quite tricky.

If you're careful about making sure the bottle you buy has a functional brush, it's a very nice polish at a very good price.

L.A. Colors - Lollipop

I have two batches of L.A. Colors polishes: one batch that I got at the Dollar Tree, which doesn't have a name label on the bottom of the bottle, and one batch not from the dollar tree, which do have labels. This is from the latter, labeled group.
Lollipop is a pretty, bright pink with a subtle bluish flash in some lights. It went on with no issues. It might have been a bit sheer on its own, but I layered it over a white polish because I just do not like sheer or even slightly sheer polishes on my nails. (On some people's nails sheer polishes are gorgeous; on mine - not so much. :/) So every time I have even the slightest suspicion that a polish is going to be sheer I use an opaque basecoat under it.

Here it is in shade, showing a hint of its slightly bluey/lavender side:
In sunlight:
Pics are three coats, base coat, and top coat. I think it's a pretty, cheerful pink for summertime. (Which, by the way, I can't believe is going by so fast! Has this summer just flown by for anyone else? I noticed this afternoon that the leaves on the huge maple tree in front of the house are starting to get that slightly dusty, drooping look that they always have toward the end of the summer, as if the tree is getting a little tired of holding up the weight of its own foliage and is starting to look forward to the time when it can let its leaves drop, one by one...) I hope you'll all be able to enjoy this late-summer weekend to its fullest!

Color Club - Sexy Siren

My camera really doesn't seem to handle glitter well. Either that, or I just haven't figured out how to take really good pictures yet. That's entirely possible - it's a new camera (it was a birthday present from my very sweet boyfriend about a month ago) and I'm still not always sure if I'm using the right settings, etc...Anyway, these pictures didn't come out entirely accurate as to color. This polish is actually much less turquoise than it looks here. Weirdly enough, the bottle in the first photo is fairly color accurate. (Why will it show the right color in the bottle but not on my nails in the very same picture??)
Sexy Siren is part of the fall 2008 Color Club Glitter Vixen collection, all of which I coveted at the time, but never got around to actually buying. So when I spotted a lone bottle of Sexy Siren on a dusty shelf at the back of one of the local beauty supply stores, I pounced.
It's a very pretty medium blue glitter in a clear base. It went on very smoothly, and would have been opaque in three coats, but I used four, since I never quite know when to quit when there's glitter involved. My mind goes blank, except for the single thought: "MOAR GLITTER!" as I gleefully glop on coat after coat...Yes, I have issues. ;) It dried pretty rough to the touch, as so many glitter polishes do, but a top coat helped smooth it out.
I layered the polish over black for added opacity and to make the color of the glitter "pop" a little more. All pics are four coats plus base and top coat.

Here it is with flash: (There was no sun when I was taking these pics, more's the pity; it was another cloudy afternoon.)
I may just have to try to hunt up the rest of the Color Club glitter polishes at some point.

Simple Pleasures Nail Polish - Unnamed

This polish was one of a set that I found at Ross a few week ago. I bought it because I thought the colors were pretty (they are mostly pinks and corals, which I don't have that many of, and they're all cremes, in which my collection is also a bit lacking. I didn't use to care for cremes very much, but these days I find myself kind of drawn to them.) They were also a really good price - I think they were $4.99 for a set of six colors, plus a clear polish.
This is the first one of the set that I've tried and I must say I'm kind of torn about them. On the one hand, I really like the color and finish of this polish. It's a beautiful medium-pink creme, almost bubblegum or Barbie-like but a little more sophisticated (or so I like to think, anyway. Feel free to disillusion me.) It also works fairly well with my skintone, which usually does heinous and unappealing things when combined with the color pink...
That being said, though, there is one problem with this polish - the application, and that is entirely due to the brush. The brush is...well...pretty atrocious. Imagine going outside, selecting a nice-sized twig from a nearby tree, chewing on the end of the twig until it's all frayed and bristly and then trying to use it to polish your nails. That's kind of what using this brush was like. It's so coarse, stiff, and unruly that it made the polish streaky (which I don't think it would have been with a different brush), caused tons of cuticle drag, and took off whole strips of color when applying a second coat.

With careful handling and some patience, I managed to get a nice, smooth, even finish with this polish in three coats...and then, after all that effort, I went and put a big, noticeable ding in the polish on my second finger! Arrgh! I seem to be smooshing up every manicure I do lately...

Pics are three coats plus base and top coat.
If you're willing to work with the not-so-great brush, it's a really nice creme polish for not a lot of money. I'm looking forward to trying out the others in the set, and if I see another set from Simple Pleasures with different colors, I will be very tempted to get it.