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.