Cutie-cles' OPI Giveaway!

Hi everyone! I have some exciting news to share with you guys today, when I received my press samples to review of the Mariah Carey and Euro Centrale collections, I noticed that I was sent duplicate bottles of two polishes. I emailed my contact at the PR company and I was told that the two extra polishes were mine to keep and do whatever I want with. Naturally, I have decided to keep both bottles as back-ups for when mine run out...just kidding! I want to spread the Mariah Carey/Euro Centrale love and what better way to do that than a giveaway?

Have you been checking out the Liquid Sand polishes, but remain unsure of whether they're something you want to invest in? Do you want a sneak peek of one of the Euro Centrale shades that unites a traditional colour with gorgeous shimmer? Here is your chance to win these two polishes! There will be one winner and they will win OPI The Impossible and OPI Hands Off My Kielbasa! The giveaway starts immediately and ends on January 30th at midnight Eastern.

a Rafflecopter giveaway Due to my college-student budget, I will only ship this prize to the USA or Canada. International readers, if you have someone who could forward a package to you that has a mailing address in one of these two countries I would be happy to send it to them! I hope you all understand why I can't afford to make it international this time, but hopefully we can have another giveaway soon to include you all! Just a reminder of the two gorgeous prizes to be won, here are some of my swatches of these polishes.

OPI Oy - Another Polish Joke!

Hi everyone! I promised you that I would devote a post to OPI Oy - Another Polish Joke! since I was too intimidated to try it on its own in my original review post. Today I have a real swatch of this polish, as well as two layering combinations.

Here we go, the star of the show, OPI Oy - Another Polish Joke! The formula on this is interesting to say the least. I used three very thin coats plus one thicker coat, so four coats in total, to reach this level of opacity. The visible nail line in the photos wasn't quite as obvious in real life, but I still wasn't too crazy about it.

I think this polish taught me why some people don't like yellow gold, it's not terribly flattering on my skin tone unfortunately.

I'm sure that this polish is stunning in the sunlight, but I just don't think it's for me. Maybe we should kick it up a notch...how about some layering!?

Here I took Anti-Bleak from the Mariah Carey collection and layered one coat of Oy - Another Polish Joke! on top of it. I wasn't expecting the gold to go on so thick, and I was admittedly a little careless in my application.

I really thought I would love this, but I think the gold layered over berry just looks kind of brown-ish. Maybe a cooler toned purple would have worked better.

This on the other hand is a combination that I can get on board with! Here is one very thin coat of Oy - Another Polish Joke over OPI Thanks a Windmillion. I am so impressed by how the gold and the sage green play together, yum!

Don't you think this is a gorgeous combination? I just want to keep layering this gold over everything!

Do you have any combinations that you want to see or try out? Would you wear this polish on its own, or layered?

Some of the products in this post were sent for review.

OPI Euro Centrale - Comparisons

Hi everyone! I hope you're having a great start to the weekend. I've come down with a cold so I'm not doing much this weekend, luckily it's just the first week of the semester so there's not a lot that I'm missing out on. Today I've compiled some comparisons of a few of the colours from the new Euro Centrale collection by OPI. Unfortunately I don't have my entire stash with me, as many of my followers know I recently moved across the country and only brought around 50 polishes. That said, I think I was still able to come up with some great comparisons - let's check them out!

So first up we have OPI You're Such a BudaPest vs. OPI Do You Lilac It? Here you can see that the new polish from the Euro Centrale collection leans much more periwinkle, while the other is a true purple. No dupes here! I can definitely justify owning both... how about you?

Once again, OPI You're Such a BudaPest on the left and OPI Do You Lilac It? on the right.

Next up are some comparisons of OPI Can't Find my Czechbook. I thought that this would be easy to dupe, but at least in my personal collection I couldn't find anything that was exactly the same. 

As you can see, OPI Fly is quite a bit darker than OPI Can't Find My Czechbook and China Glaze For Audrey is much too pale.

China Glaze For Audrey vs. OPI Can't Find My Czechbook vs. OPI Fly

On the left we have OPI Eurso Euro, in the middle we have an old classic OPI Dating a Royal, and on the far right stands OPI I Saw...U Saw...We Saw...Warsaw. I hope it's clear in the photo, but if not just know that Dating a Royal is much lighter and creamier than either of these two shades.

Here we have OPI Ski Teal We Drop on the left and OPI I Saw...U Saw...We Saw...Warsaw on the right. I was positive that these were going to be dupes, or at least ridiculously similar, but again I don't think they're that close at all! Ski Teal We Drop is much greener than the Euro Centrale polish.

See what I mean? Again, I can justify owning both polishes because I don't consider them dupes. For people who don't hoard polishes though you may be able to get away with only having one of these. Maybe.

Alright, from left to right I've got: OPI A Roll in the Hague, OPI Call Me Gwen-ever, OPI My Paprika is Hotter Than Yours, OPI Red Lights Ahead...Where?, and OPI The Thrill of Brazil. On the nails I only chose to compare the middle three, but I wanted to show you all five to give you a night spectrum.

So as you can see these three polishes are very similar but they're definitely not dupes. As expected, Call ME Gwen-ever is much too orange. While My Paprika is Hotter Than Yours is a red, it looks orangey compared to OPI Red Lights Ahead...Where? I'm not sure if I needed a shade that fits perfectly between these two shades that were released in 2012, but they all have a great formula and if you're looking for one I would recommend any of these.

Here's a flash picture just to illustrate my point: not dupes, but pretty close to the untrained eye!

 I opted to just do a comparison of bottle shots for the next couple of polishes because they're not close at all.

Here's OPI Don't Touch My Tutu on the left, OPI My Vampire is Buff in the middle, and OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls on the right. As you can see, OPI My Vampire is Buff is definitely not white and is more of an eggshell neutral. Gorgeous.

OPI Vant to Bite my Neck? vs. OPI Funky Dunkey. Clearly Funky Dunkey is substantially lighter and creamier than the Euro Centrale polish. These will both be great to have in my collection to do nail art with.

OPI Suzi's Hungary AGAIN! vs. OPI If You Moust, You Moust. The Minnie Mouse themed polish is much more blue-toned while the Euro Centrale polish leans to the warm side. I love them both.

I hope some of these comparisons gave you a better idea of where these colours lie in relation to some older nail polish colours. Do you have any polishes similar enough to these that will persuade you not to purchase any from the Euro Centrale collection? Can someone really ever have too many gorgeous OPI cremes?

Some of the products in this post were generously provided for review.

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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Polka Dot Nails

Evening, everyone! Sorry I couldn't think of a more original title for today's post. I really like using unusual colour combinations and I wasn't too sure about how this would turn out, but I love it! I think dotting tools are a necessity to anyone who does nail art, whether you're an expert or just starting out.

 I used a base of OPI You Don't Know Jacques! and then a medium sized dotting tool to make this polka dot design in Zoya Caitlin, Quo by ORLY Tease, and OPI Banana Bandanna. These remind me of a banana split, but I'm not sure how the purple fits into that.

Polka dots are a classic look and there are literally endless possibilities for different colour combinations. I also am a big fan of the double accent nail.

What do you think of double accent nails? Do you like the manicure like this, or should I have done my entire hand with the polka dots?

Metallic Gradient

Good morning everyone! A couple of weeks ago I was browsing on /r/RedditLaqueristas [sic] and I saw a breathtaking metallic gradient that I have since not been able to locate. While I am a fan of gradients and have been doing them for a while, I always stick to using creme polishes. I am so excited to show this to you all because I think that metallic gradients are the best thing ever!

Are you guys drooling yet? 

I could have worn this manicure for an entire week, that's how much I love it. I used a base of OPI Unfor-Greta-bly Blue, then did a sponge gradient with Quo by ORLY Filthy Rich and OPI The Show Must Go On!

I want to try this out with ALL the metallic or shimmery polishes that I have. Unfortunately, they make up the minority of my collection.

The one single thing that I would modify would be changing the pink-red colour because I think it appears a little too red for my liking when I was going for a more pinky-orange. Could you imagine MAC Bad Fairy sponged in there? 

Alright. Be honest. How many of you are adding this to your to do list? It's so easy - it literally took me less than ten minutes and it is SO stunning.

Glitz & Glam

Hello lovelies! It's the beginning of January and the festivities are coming to an end, meaning back to the textbooks, calculators, formula sheets, and essays for me! I wanted to kick this month off with a sparkly and celebratory manicure, in hopes of giving myself some motivation for the last stretch before second semester begins. This month, I have 4 diploma exams so chances of me posting frequently are slim, but I will try my best to do some swatches over my exam break. 

That being said, when I went to visit my relatives for Christmas, my grandma gave me some polishes that she received from a salon owner. As soon as I opened the box, my eyes were drawn to the gorgeous silver capped silver polish, which was upon later inspection OPI's DS Radiance. I haven't ever bought any DS polishes, and I received one as a gift a long time ago but it's unfortunately an unflattering color with my skin tone. Suffice it to say, I was pleasantly surprised when I saw this in the box of goodies!

More pics after the jump!

Matte Splatter Mani

Morning everyone! As I mentioned before, I'm getting ready to pack up everything and move across the country to start the new semester. I have mixed feelings about it, but there's not much I can do now! I'm trying to get ahead with my nails so that I'm able to better adjust to being away when I've been home for six months. Today I have a splatter mani to show you all, which I then took to the next level and mattified!

I'm getting kind of bored of winter, so I decided to use some spring or summer colours and maybe summon some sunshine and warm weather! For a base, I used Quo by ORLY Little Black dress, then did the splattering with Zoya Arizona, Zoya Zuza, and China Glaze Happy Go Lucky. 

I'm not sure how I feel about those bubbles and all those smears. I guess a splatter mani isn't supposed to be perfect, right?

In case you're all intimidated by the clean up of a splatter mani, this is how I do it! Lots of scotch tape to cover the places that I don't really want to bathe in acetone.

What do you think about this colour combination?

2013 Baby!!

Happy New Year to all our lovely followers! I know I'm a couple days late, but here is my New Years' Eve mani - China Glaze Ahoy! with Sephora by OPI What's Your Poison? layered on top. I hope you all had a wonderful time celebrating, and that your manicures were fabulous!

I decided to wear a black lace dress with a blazer and some boots, so my accent color was hot pink. To fit with that theme, I chose these polishes for my glitzy NYE mani, and then some hot pink lipstick to match. All in all, I had a great night with great people so this was a very memorable manicure.

1 coat Ahoy! + 2 coats What's Your Poison? + Seche Vite Topcoat

So what did you guys do for your NYE manicures? Did you go sparkly or subdued? 

Thanks for reading! 

Cheers to a new year :)

Mandy

CrowsToes Cheshire

Good morning, everyone! I've scheduled a few posts ahead of time because as some of you may know, I leave back to Montreal for university this week and I need to pack, clean, and get ready to move into a new apartment. Today I have a gorgeous indie polish to show you all which is CrowsToes Cheshire!

I layered two coats of Cheshire over two coats of OPI Funky Dunkey - a perfect purple that really makes this indie polish stand out.

I am in love with the large gold hex glitters in this polish, as well as the mix of different purple glitters. Cheshire is gorgeous - if you have been thinking about getting it, I definitely recommend it.

Here's some close-up eye candy for you!

Finally here is a bottle shot of CrowsToes Cheshire which is another indie polish to add to your wishlist.