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!  :)