China Glaze IDK.

Hello~

Like I said, I do have a swatch of China Glaze Strawberry Fields somewhere on my camera ... but I figured this one is cooler so Strawberry Fields got pushed to the back of the queue.  :P

I actually have quite a few CG holographics from the OMG collection: IDK (light purple), 2NITE (light blue), TMI (coral red), and LOL (purple).  I think IDK might be my favorite, though.  The holographic effect isn't quite as strong with the darker colors like LOL, so the lighter colors are more attractive to me.

And here I am, blabbering on ... swatch time!

China Glaze LOL with flash

China Glaze LOL without flash

So ... just imagine that the actual color is a mix between those two pictures, haha.  The formula is smooth and easy to work with.  Although there are three coats for this swatch, you could easily get away with two.  The top coat I used is Seche Vite.  Some people say that a shiny top coat dulls the holo effect, but I don't see that happening with my polish.  The effect is slightly dulled directly after applying the top coat, but returns full force once it is dry.

That's all for now.  Strawberry Fields is next, promise!

Milani HD

No more empty promises ... I actually have a swatch today haha.

This picture was taken a while ago ... February 27th, or so says my camera.  I remember being really happy about getting this polish after I read the word "holographic" on the label.  Poor naive me thought that it would have the same finish as the China Glaze OMG collection ... so I was a bit disappointed.
Looking back on these pictures now, this is really not a bad polish.  I wanted to hate it at the time because it wasn't what I was expecting, but the effect is still nice.

My nails were shoooort!

This is three (messily-applied) coats, with some random top coat.
That's all for now.  I have China Glaze Strawberry Fields on my fingers right now, so expect a swatch of it soon!

Oooooooooooooooooooooops.

So I ended up taking another unplanned and very long break.  So so sorry.  D:

But I return with good news!  I finally found the battery charger for my camera, so now I'll be posting much better quality pictures than the ones from my webcam and my cell phone.

Unfortunately, my phone no longer wants to send pictures to my email, so I never could post about the swatches I was talking about in the previous post.  So sorry again!

My first post will be of a swatch I did many many months ago, of Milani HD.  My nails are very short and uneven in the picture and the polish is sloppily applied, but some blog content is better than nothing, aye?  :D

See you soon~

WOW.

My god, it's been a month since I've posted anything.

Well, good news!  Along with having a few pictures of previous manis I've done, my mom picked up two new polishes for me today.  Aaaand ... one of them is China Glaze LOL from the OMG Collection!   :D  Apparently, the local beauty store has some of the OMG Collection polishes, but my mom only picked up LOL because she knows I like purple.  We're probably gonna go back tomorrow to pick up any others.  :)  Oh and the other polish she got me is China Glaze VIII, which looks like a very dark plummy purple in the bottle.  Looks like it'd compliment my skin tone.

I also have pictures of Pure Ice Wild Thing (dupe for SH Insta-Dri Lickety Split Lime) and Wet 'n Wild Teal of Fortune coming up soon!  Sorry for the unplanned break.  :)

Finally better pictures ...

Being the budding genius that I am, I never thought about using the camera on my phone to take pictures of my nails.  Turns out the pictures are much clearer.  Of course, right?  So now, I present to you, in dazzling high-definition (well, at least in comparison to the crap pictures I was taking before) my nails.

Please excuse the boo-boo on my ring finger.

I've done this combination before: one coat of Wet 'n Wild Nocturnal, one coat of Sally Hansen Laser, and one coat of Sally Hansen Spectrum.  Nocturnal is a dark, dark blue that's practically black.  Laser is a duochromy blue-pink glass fleck.  Spectrum has the same effect as Laser, except it goes from turquoise to pink.  And of course, there is a generous coat of Seche Vite over the entire thing.  

This is like ... my go-to combination when I don't have the creativity to think of something else.  

Oh, I bought some new China Glaze Crackle Glazes, so I'll be posting a picture of my nails with that ... in a few days.  Haha.

White Crackle.

Today I got two China Glaze Crackle Polishes: Lightning Bolt and Cracked Concrete.  Lightning Bolt is a white crackle, and Cracked Concrete is a dark gray.  I haven't tried the Cracked Concrete yet, but this is Lightning Bolt.

Lightning Bolt on my pointer, over two coats of SH Calypso Blue

Yeah, I'm wearing Calypso Blue again.  I really like how vibrant the blue is without being a neon.  I do love neons, though, haha.  The Lightning Bolt crackled very nicely over the blue.  It also dried in no time flat.  In my opinion, it was much better than my OPI Black Shatter.  My bottle of Shatter is pretty old, though, so it's possible that they have improved on the formula since then (or I may have a defective bottle, who knows?).  

In any case, I'm pretty impressed with this Crackle Glaze so far, especially considering it costs $4.99 at Sally's if you have a Beauty Club card.  

And on a side note, did you notice how clean my cuticles are?  :D  Absolutely no cleanup, I was just being OCD during application.  I'm happy with how much cleaner it looks.  :)

A to Z~

A. Age: Eighteen.
B. Bed size: Twin?
C. Chore you hate: Sorting clothes for laundry.
D. Day: Saturday.
E. Essential start to your day: I really love when people do not talk to me right after I wake up.  Haha.
F. Favourite colour: Purple.
G. Gold or Silver: Silverrr.
H. Height: 5'5" - 5'6".
I. Instruments: Clarinet and alto saxophone, although I haven't touched a saxophone in a year or two.
J. Job title: Student?  Haha.
K. Kids: Nope.
L. Live: Hawaiiiiiii.
M. Mum’s name: Sibyl.
N. Nicknames: Turtle.
O. Overnight hospital stays: None, except for maybe when I was born.
P. Pet peeve: Lots of stuff.
Q. Quote from a movie: Elizabeth Swann: There will come a time when you have a chance to do the right thing.  Jack Sparrow: I love those moments.  I like to wave at them as they pass by.
R. Right or left handed: Left-hand dominant, but I'm ambidextrous.
S. Siblings: One, older sister.
T. Time you wake up: Haha, if I had my way I'd be getting up at around twelve in the afternoon daily.
U. Underwear: Light green.
V. Vegetables you dislike: Everything except for carrots.  I tolerate lettuce but only because it is a pain to take out of food.
W. What makes you run late: Other people.
X. X-Rays you’ve had: Nothing, I think.
Y. Yummy food you make: Buttered toast.  With cheese, if possible.
Z. Zoo: Haven't gone in years.

Duuuuuuupe.

Okay, so the first time I saw Sephora by OPI's Mermaid to Order, I really really really liked it.  I mean, a duochrome-y greenish blue?  Instant want.  The only thing holding me back was the $9.50 price tag.  Well, my want has been satisfied, and it's not because I bought Mermaid to Order.  Noooo sir, I found an exact dupe.

Revlon's Ocean Breeze.  Yeah, you do need to deal with the almost sickening Lysol-like scent of the polish for a day, but I think it's worth having an exact dupe of a polish that's almost double the price.  Believe it or not, one fingernail up there has Mermaid to Order, while all the others have Ocean Breeze.  I actually walked into Sephora, used their testing bottle of Mermaid to Order, then walked back out.  Haha.  I just hope the new scented Revlons are part of their permanent collection ...

Regret alleviated. :D

Okay, so today I was wandering around the mall with my mom and my sister, and my sister and I walked into a hair salon while we waited for my mom, who was using the bathroom.  Lo and behold, they have an OPI rack with OPI Ink.  :)  I bought one and, just for the heck of it, compared it to my bottle of Russian Navy .  And yep, they still look like the same color.  I don't understand why one comes out blue and the other comes out purple ... but it's okay, because now I have both of them.

Oh, and I also went into Sephora for the sole purpose of comparing their Mermaid to Order to my Revlon Ocean Breeze, which I am wearing right now.  They are exactly the same color.  Even my sister, who is really good at telling colors apart, couldn't tell which fingernail had the Mermaid to Order on it.  The only difference is that the Revlon makes my hands smell like I just cleaned a bathroom and got Lysol all over myself.  No matter.  It's cheaper.

That's all, folks.

Regreeeeet. D:

Today I went to a beauty supply / nail salon store that was nestled in this tiiiiny shopping center.  I wasn't expecting anything amazing, but they had an awesome assortment of Color Club, OPI, and China Glaze polishes.  I'm not so sure about how easy it is to find them on the mainland, but this is the first store in Hawaii that I know carries individual Color Clubs.  The only thing I didn't like about the store was the ridiculously strong (almost unbearable) chemical smell coming from the nail salon area of the store.  Phew, that was really bad.

Anyway, I was pretty happy with what I got, with the exception of one thing ... I didn't get OPI Ink.  :(  I was comparing OPI polishes, as I was only planning to get one, and - texture aside - OPI Ink and Russian Navy looked very similar in the bottle to me.  I ended up getting Russian Navy, but after looking at swatches, I think I should have gotten Ink.  D:  Oh well, I have a bunch of time to revisit the store and get it another time ...

I ended up getting OPI Russian Navy and a bottle of Seche Vite (for only five dollars, considering it's eight dollars at Sally's).  My mom got Color Club Covered in Diamonds.  It's really pretty.  :D

University of Washington.

So if you read my previous posts, you would know that I just graduated high school.  This fall I'll be going to the University of Washington in Seattle.  I'm really happy I got in because it was my first choice school.  :)  In celebration and out of sheer boredom, I decided to do my nails in the UW colors, which are purple and gold.
This is New York Color Prince Street, which is a deep royal purple color with an shimmery finish.  The gold is Icing Excuse Me, which is a shimmery silver gold.

And this a picture of the UW logo on a blanket:

Despite being a cheap brand, NYC Prince Street went on smoothly and it only took me two coats to get the opacity I wanted.  It'd be possible to get by with one thick coat, but I always do two out of habit.  The Excuse Me went on nicely as well, but left strange swirly brushstrokes when I used it for the tips.  The brushstrokes weren't as noticeable when I used it as the main color.  It also took two coats, but those two coats were necessary and I don't think you could pull this color off with one thick coat.  It is a gold, however, so that's completely reasonable.

Hope you all are having a great week.  :)

Essie Little Brown Dress

Haven't posted in a while.  Graduated this past Saturday, so I've been pretty busy and/or tired since then.  I actually wore this color a while ago, but I've only gotten around to posting it now.  

This is actually the first Essie polish I bought.  There was a sale on Essies at Longs, so I figured it would be a good time to try the brand.  I really like the formula: it's thick but not goopy.  Verrrrry pigmented.  Dried shiny, but I put a topcoat on out of habit.  My mom mentioned that it looked like I had chocolate on my nails, and I had to agree with her.

Two coats of LBD, plus topcoat

Again, sorry for the junky pictures.  Hopefully I'll find the battery charger for my Canon over the summer.  :(  

I'm impressed with the brand so far, but I'm going to have to find a color I really like for me to buy another one at regular price ... I'm sorry, but $7.99 for the tiny bottle is pushing it for me.  In any case, LBD is my first brown polish and I like it a lot.  

Sally Hansen HDs.

I don't know about you guys, but I feel like the Sally Hansen HD line is moving towards having more foil-type finishes instead of glass flecks.  My two glass fleck HD polishes are my absolute favorites, so I was sad when I went looking for some new HDs and saw only foil-y polishes.  Anyway, on to the color.

This is Spectrum over Laser.  Spectrum is a turquoise/teal with a strong royal blue shimmer.  Laser is royal blue with a pink and purple shimmer.  This combination is like a gradient from turquoise to royal blue to purple.  It looks reeeeeally nice in the sun.  This is one coat of a midnight blue base, with one coat of Laser followed by one coat of Spectrum.

Bottle picture~

Perfect colors for my last day of high school.  I cried.  S'okay.

Green and Black.

I remember doing this combination for St. Patricks Day, and I liked it so much that I kept it on for a while.  It's Icing's Green With Envy with OPI Black Shatter on top of it.

(Sorry for the bad quality and horrible application and terrifying face)

I was surprised with the quality of the Icing nail polishes.  This emerald green glitter in particular has great coverage and isn't goopy or sticky at all.  The Black Shatter is, well, Black Shatter and I'm sure you all know how that works by now.  My boyfriend has an affinity for black and green, so he liked this combination quite a bit.  Haha.

Going through all of my old mani pictures to see if there's anything worth posting now that I have a blog to post them on.  There might be a few other erratic, unseasonal posts after this.  Apologies in advance.

Sally Hansen Sale at Longs.

I'm pretty sure there are no Longs on the mainland ... here in Hawaii, Longs is a local drugstore similar to Walgreens or CVS.  I usually get most of my nail polish from the various Longs stores across the island.  Anyway, there is a sale on Sally Hansen polishes this week, so all of their polishes are 40% off.  I only ended up getting two colors: Xtreme Wear Blue Me Away and Salon Manicure Calypso Blue.  They seemed like they would be nice together, so I redid my nails with them.

One coat of Calypso Blue over one coat of Blue Me Away

The formulas for both were very good.  Blue Me Away is a sky blue creme that is practically opaque with one coat.  As I planned to layer Calypso Blue over it, I wasn't too concerned with having it completely opaque, but it did the job pretty well with one coat.  Calypso Blue is a bright turquoise shimmer that is pretty darn similar to Color Club's Wicked Sweet.  This also took only one coat.  I really like the Salon Manicure brushes; the width and shape of the brush make it easy to apply thick but even coats.  I also applied one coat of a nameless Color Club topcoat that came with the Electro Candy collection.

Very happy with the end result.  This is a good color to wear during my last few days of high school.  More posts to come soon~

Hello~

Hi, my name is Taylor.  I live in Hawaii and I'm graduating from high school in about a week.  I recently turned eighteen.

Now, the reason why I decided to make a blog.  I'm normally not one to enjoy writing, but because of my growing nail polish collection I decided to start a blog about them.  I've seen many nail polish blogs out there, and I don't ever think I will be as dedicated as they are about doing swatches and making consistent posts every day.  This is mostly for fun; for me as a blogger and for you as a reader.

About the polishes I use ... although I do like the colors that OPI, Zoya, Essie, and Deborah Lippmann make, I (at the moment, at least) can't see myself spending more than eight or nine dollars on a single bottle of polish.  As a result, I use more Sally Hansen, Orly, Color Club, and Revlon polishes.  On a side note, my favorite color is blue, and I have many, many blues.

Enough with the formalities; let's go on to the first substantial post!  :)