Quo by ORLY Spring 2013 Swatches

Hi everyone! I'm breaking out of my finals-cocoon to share with you some swatches of some of the new Quo by ORLY polishes! I was sent three of them to swatch and review and I think I have found the shade I'll be wearing all summer long, it is amazing. Let's see the pictures!

 

First up is My Muse, a very interesting purple glass fleck polish. I have nothing like this in my collection. In the bottle you can see a really pretty purple/gold-ish duochrome, but I couldn't find a way to get it to translate on the nail.

 

I used three coats for complete opacity here. This is one I would love to try layering over black to see if the duochrome will be accentuated.

 

Next up is Prepster, a very pretty light blue jelly with an intense shimmer. I know the shimmer doesn't translate well in this photo, but it's very apparent in person. I used three coats here since it was more of a jelly finish than a creme. This just screams spring to me!

 

Here's a shot with flash that shows off the pretty blue shimmer! 

 

This beauty is Quo by ORLY Femme Fatale. It is a neon pink that is honestly the brightest nail polish I have ever seen. My camera couldn't capture the true pop of this colour, it's even crazier than it appears in the photo. Like many neon polishes Femme Fatale dries to a matte finish.

 

This is what she looks like with a coat of Seche Vite. I wore this manicure for a few days, which is rare for me. I got so many compliments on it, these nails are begging for attention. My only complaint about Femme Fatale (and all neon polishes in my experience) is that they chip quite easily. Even with the Seche Vite the wear time wasn't excellent on that. This can be combated by making a "top coat sandwich," where you put down a layer of topcoat over your polish, then add one more layer of polish, and then another layer of topcoat if you desire.

Overall I'm really excited about these three polishes. I think that Femme Fatale is a must have and I know it'll be on my toes all summer long. Quo by ORLY polishes are available at Shopper's Drug Mart or Pharmaprix and they retail for $10.00 each!

Saran Wrap Manicure ft. OPI Euro Centrale

Hi everyone! Today I have kind of a fun manicure to show you using a technique that's gaining a lot of ground in the nail polish community called a saran wrap manicure. It's really easy and looks super cute, and as you can probably guess you just use regular cellophane to do it. If you're interested in trying this look out for yourself here is a great tutorial by Nailed It.

For this look I started with two layers of OPI Vant To Bite My Neck? I wasn't sure what colour I should use with this gorgeous eggplant shade, but something told me that OPI A Woman's Prague-ative would be a great addition.

This manicure was so shiny that it was difficult for my camera to capture. I really like this combination of colours.

Looks like I should have let the polish on my pink dry a little more because while doing the saran wrap portion of the manicure it took a little of the purple off. Make sure if you try this look that you allow the polish underneath to dry completely!

Have you done any saran wrap manicures? Do you like the marbled texture?

Don't forget to check out my ongoing giveaway that ends next week! I'm giving away a Liquid Sand polish from the Mariah Carey collection and a polish from the Euro Centrale collection!

Zoya Lovely - Swatches & Review

Hi everyone! Today I have an exciting collection to show you that most of you have already seen, haha. To be fair, I just got these in the mail on Thursday so there IS a reason to why I'm so late in posting these. I love the Zoya Lovely collection so much that I could sit around looking at swatches of it all day, so I hope you don't mind some repetition.

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So here I've shown you the bottle pictures both with my blinding flash, and then in natural light in my apartment. I honestly think that every single colour in this collection is perfect for spring. Let's get started with the review and swatches!

First up is Zoya Blu, a gorgeous, clean baby blue shade. The formula on this colour was okay. I used two coats for opacity, but it seemed a little chalky and it wasn't good at self-leveling so I added top coat and it was perfection!

I really like this colour and I think it translates extremely well into spring. This will be a really nice creme to have around to use in nail art!

Next up is Zoya Neely which is my absolute favourite from the collection. Seriously people, you NEED this colour in your life. Neely is a perfect light mint green creme.

The formula on Neely was better than the one on Blu, it was a little more watery but there was no problem with getting ugly ridges. I will be using this polish over and over and over again.

This stunner is called Zoya Jacqueline and she is a lovely off-white colour. At first glace she seems similar to OPI's My Vampire is Buff but I will get into that in a comparison post soon. Jacqueline had a similar formula to Blu, two coats for opacity but a bit of a chalky feel to it. A coat of topcoat smooths everything out deliciously.

I am in love with neutral shades like this. You can be sure that I will be wearing Jacqueline all spring for a clean, fresh manicure, and after spring is over I'll be using her in a lot of nail art.

Next I would like to introduce you to Zoya Piaf. I guess I'm thrown off a little by the name, I thought that Piaf would be a pink colour (La Vie en Rose anyone?). This shade was surprisingly flattering on my skin tone which is something that yellows don't usually accomplish for me.

I love the silver shimmer in this polish, it really brings it to life. This polish and the two other shimmers in the collection have very similar formulas and take three thin coats for opacity. They were all very easy to work with!

This pretty pink is Zoya GeiGei (spelled GieGie on my label..hmm). GeiGei has the same silver shimmer running through her as Piaf and I think this is a really great colour for spring. I'm not sure how original it is but I can get behind it because it's unique to my collection.

You guys know how I am, I just can't get enough pink polishes!

The last lacquer from the Lovely collection is Zoya Julie. Apart from loving the name Julie, I cannot get enough of this pretty purple shimmer. 

I'm not sure why I love Julie so much more than GeiGei and Piaf, but I think the silver shimmer really goes well with this light purple. 

I don't have anything bad to say about this collection, I really enjoyed all six of the colours and I think that they're both great for wearing this spring and incorporating into nail art for the future. You know what the colour scheme reminds me of? Easter eggs!

Will you be picking up any of the Zoya Lovely collection? You can check these beauties out by following this link. If you click on that link and create an account, a coupon for a free bottle of Zoya nail polish will be placed in your account, and by adding two more polishes to your cart you can get free shipping!

The products in this post were kindly provided for review. The above link is my personal referral link for Zoya's "Share the Love" program.

OPI Euro Centrale Full Collection - Swatches & Review

Hi everyone! I am so excited to be able to share with you swatches of the entire OPI Euro Centrale collection today. This collection is OPI's Spring/Summer 2013 line and features both bright and bold lacquers inspired by Romania, Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic. "Celebrating a region where history meets modern design, the collection’s twelve new nail lacquers offer a mixture of glamorous metallic hues; playful bright shades in periwinkle, aqua and pink; and creamy blues in indigo, midnight and aubergine."  I have hidden the rest of the post below the jump so that it doesn't take up the entire front page, so please click to read more!

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OPI Sprung vs. OPI Warm & Fozzie

Hi everyone! If you read my swatch and review post of part of the Mariah Carey collection, you'll know that upon seeing OPI Sprung I was immediately reminded of OPI Warm & Fozzie from last year's Muppet themed holiday collection. Let's check out some comparison shots of the two!

As you can see these are plainly NOT dupes! I used two coats of Warm & Fozzie to compare with three thin coats of OPI Sprung. The polish from the Mariah Carey collection is much more copper-red toned, whereas the Muppets polish leans brown. This glass-flecked finish is so gorgeous!

Here's a close up for you! One thing I noticed between the two is that Warm & Fozzie appears to be more sparkly.

Here you can see these pretty polishes in the shade, what do you think?

Honestly, these polishes are so different that if this is your type of colour it's definitely worth owning both. These aren't very similar hue-wise, but the finish is gorgeous and is very similar - OPI do gorgeous glass flecks. 

Will you be picking up Sprung now that you know that it's not a dupe for Warm & Fozzie? 

Mariah Carey for OPI - Swatches & Review

Hi everyone! Sorry for my recent disappearance, I've been battling a killer cold for going on eight days now, not to mention it's finals time! Fortunately, I think I have something to show you today that will make up for a couple days of inactivity - swatches of the Mariah Carey for OPI collection!

I've never really been a huge Mariah Carey fan, I appreciate her amazing voice but her music hasn't appealed to me. When I saw promo images of this collection, I'll admit that it didn't appeal much to me either. Let's get on with the swatches and see if my opinion has changed since seeing them in person!

First up is OPI A Butterfly Moment. This shade is a pretty champagne pink neutral with stunning gold shimmer. When I opened my package I honestly thought "please tell me that frosty mess of a light pink isn't in here" and I will gladly admit right now that I am one hundred percent eating my words. I love this shade.

A Butterfly Moment is what I could only describe as a glamorous neutral. This shade is completely office appropriate but when you see it in the light it has a surprising gold shimmer that really lights it up.

I really hate how this looks in the bottle but I can't stress enough how much I love it on my nails. It reminds me of a very pretty lipgloss that was made into a nail polish colour. I did have to use three coats but I think it is mainly do to some awful blue stains on a couple of my nails that refuse to be hidden. 

Here you can see this in the shade, it's a very subtle, pretty pink. 

The next colour is OPI Sprung which I would call a duochrome glass fleck in a copper-rose-gold shade. When I saw this I said to myself, "how could they do this? They are simply putting OPI Warm and Fozzie in a new bottle under a new name!" After doing a comparison of the two I can tell you that this is definitely not the case, which you can see for yourselves in tomorrow's post.

The formula on this was very nice, just like what I've come to expect from OPI glass flecks. I got near full coverage with two coats and only used a third coat in places that I needed to cover up bald spots. 

This colour, while perfect for the holidays, doesn't make much sense to me for a January release. I guess it is pretty universally flattering and not all nail polishes wearers are as wild as I am, but to me it seems a little tame.

The longer I wore OPI Sprung, the more I liked it. It is very elegant and all the different colours in it make it appear multidimensional. 

Switching gears now over to the revolutionary Liquid Sand shades that are coming out with this Mariah Carey collection. This red is called OPI The Impossible and above I have used two coats. One thing to note is that the star glitters are pretty difficult to get onto your nails, I had to do quite a bit of fishing around.

I'm not crazy about this shade, unfortunately. You do have to wait quite a bit for these liquid sand polishes to dry completely, even after about ten minutes you can tell that they're not completely dry and therefore haven't reached their sandy-ness potential. Even though I don't much care for the colour of The Impossible, I was pleasantly surprised with the Liquid Sand concept. It's not quite as rough as I had imagined and from some angles it is a really cool effect. 

To spruce things up, I used two layers of topcoat to bring out the glitter in OPI The Impossible. It looks super squishy and jelly - what do you think of this effect?

I don't think I've ever seen an OPI polish with star glitters, have you?

Here is a bottle shot of OPI The Impossible so you can get an idea of the different glitters.

Next we have my second favourite polish from the collection, OPI Can't Let Go. I'm begging you people, please don't give up on the Liquid Sand concept because this lacquer proves that it CAN work and it CAN look nice! I used two coats here, this one was much more opaque than The Impossible. 

It's not even as gritty as I was expecting, I am officially converted into a Liquid Sand lover. Well, maybe not quite, but I do love the effect of this polish. After trying The Impossible first I thought that the concept was dumb but I really think that Can't Let Go hit the ball out of the park.

This reminds me of one of the old OPI Suedes, but with more glitter!

I know you're probably dying to see it with topcoat so here you go - two thick coats later. I really like this polish both ways, Liquid Sand or with added topcoat. It looks kind of jelly-ish and the glitter isn't too overwhelming.

How do you prefer this polish - sandy or glossy? I want to know! I think maybe I prefer it sandy, it really is a neat concept.

What do you think of the three colours that I've swatched for you today? Are there any that you are going to be picking up? Even though some of the colours themselves aren't my favourite, they had really great formulas and if they appeal to you they are absolutely worth picking up!

These products were generously sent to me for my honest review!

OPI Die Another Day

Hi guys! After receiving a few of the lacquers from the OPI Skyfall collection to swatch and review, I still needed to get my paws on one of the other colours because it is so so beautiful. I used some ebay bucks that I had left over to purchase Die Another Day, a perfect holiday red.

Yum, I looove the shimmer in this. It is very different in the sun, where it appears to be a glimmery cherry red, whereas in the shade it looks like a deeper shinier colour.

Do you guys love this as much as I do? I'm a huge fan of all the colours released in the Skyfall collection.

I've been playing around with my watermark, what do you think of this one? All I really did was lower the opacity on the writing so it appears grey and a little less obnoxious. Opinions?