super holo glitter bomb

Yo. Check this mani.

Boooooom holo glitter! Like four layers of it!

I honestly cannot remember for sure which polishes went into this manicure. I just knew I needed a holo glitter bomb and I pulled out whatever I could!
I know for sure that the finishing touch to the mani was OPI - Which is Witch?
I was holding the bottle in my pictures... So I know that much. Ha!

Some days you just need a super holo glitter bomb. I could use one now actually after seeing these pictures!

OPI - Suzi Skis In The Pyrenees Suede

Hey guys! Hope you're having a lovely weekend.

I just finished up another exam, so I'm feeling pretty good! Just one exam left and I'm free until September. Gotta love those long university summers.

Anyway! Tonight's post is just a swatch of one of my favorite polishes.
I put this on today because I didn't have much time for a mani before leaving for my exam (so of course I went for a suede) and it was then that I realized I hadn't posted about this polish before!

OPI - Suzi Skis In The Pyrenees Suede
Ah, a beautiful suede. I truly can't get enough. I say this in all my posts about my suedes, but they are magical and wonderful and go on flawlessly in 2 coats, fully dry in about 15 seconds. Bam. No waitin'. So good when you're in a pinch.

Beauty. Yum. I wish OPI would make more. Really. No other mattes or suedes from other brands can compare.

This polish will make another appearance in a few days as undies for some glitter! Because of course I had to add glitter to my mani once I had time after my exam. You know me!

Toodles.

piCture pOlish - Atomic

Hey guys! I messed up this week and I missed PP Monday... And then also what could have been PP Tuesday... So now it is PP Wednesday!
I'm just not feeling well enough right now to always paint my nails but hopefully I am starting new medications next week that should be my miracle drug! Let's all keep our fingers crossed.

So here's this week's piCture pOlish installment.

piCture pOlish - Atomic
This shade was created with the lovely Sarah of Samarium's Swatches. 
Atomic is a platinum silver shimmer, with crazy holographic shimmer particles and I feel like I can see a bit of a pinky sheen to it at times as well. There's no glitter, so it's totally smooth and perfect. It's very complex and definitely deserves to be seen in person! Please check out Sarah's own swatches of her shade, because she has some amazing macro shots of the polish!

I wanted to do some nail art over Atomic, but couldn't decide what to do. I was talking to a different Sarah (Chalkboard Nails) and she made a great suggestion: "Duh, atoms."

I guess it is sort of a loose interpretation of chains of atoms, but I think it turned out kinda cute! And kinda silly, for sure.
I stamped with Bundle Monster plate BM-313 and then added the atoms with piCture pOlish - Jade and piCture pOlish - Wisteria.

What do you think of my silly Atomic atoms?

piCture pOlish is available at picturepolish.com.au as well as with lots of other network members around the world. Check out the Network list for a full rundown of the places you can find PP!

Stay tuned next week for another gorgeous shade!

Visit the on-line store - www.picturepolish.com.au

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Product provided for honest review.

Shimmer Polish - Candace, Lucie, & Maria

Hey guys! Today I'll be starting a series of posts of Shimmer Polish!
The lovely Cindy of Shimmer sent me a whole bunch of her pretties to try out, and I can't wait to show you all their glittery goodness.

I had a hard time deciding how to split up the posts - all at once? one at a time? bunches of 6? etc - but eventually I settled on doing them in sets of three.
I feel that each polish deserves four or five photos to show it off properly, and I don't want to overwhelm you with a million pictures every day. So here we go with our first set of three!

What I really like about Shimmer Polish is that you can tell that a lot of effort goes into the glitter mixes. Each polish has so many different elements, Cindy doesn't just throw one or two glitters into some base and call it a day.
Each mix is so fun and pretty, and the formulas are perfect and not gloopy despite the mass amounts of glitter. Most of the polishes can be worn layered or built up by themselves, which I love.
I also adore the Shimmer labels. The little heart is so cute!

Okay, let's see the swatches!

Shimmer Polish - Candace (over Color Club - Sunrise Canyon)
Candace is a mix of primarily black and gold glitters, and some teeny fuchsia/red glitter. The gold glitters are holographic so this is ultra sparkly! Shown is one thin coat of glitter - the formula spreads easily and perfectly.
You would probably expect to see this layered over gold but I went for a crazy combo and I like how it turned out! I think pretty much every Shimmer Polish would look good over anything.

Shimmer Polish - Lucie (over Color Club - On The Rocks)
It was hard to get clear photos of this one because it is so darn reflective! Lucie is mostly silver, with lots of red, and some bluey-green. Iridescent maybe? It's so hard to tell because they're so sparkly. Haha!
For this one I used two coats over silver to make it super blingy.
This could make for a nice Christmas/holiday manicure! But of course it is nice all year round, too.

Shimmer Polish - Maria (over Color Club - Endless Summer)
Blue lovers rejoice! All sorts of blue glitters in this one. This is just one coat of polish over a blue base. I really love this one! Jewel-toned glitters always get me.

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What do you guys think of these awesome glitters? I hope you like them as much as I do!
And I have a bunch more to show you in future posts. In fact, I think I'll post the next set tomorrow.

Shimmer Polish is available in their Etsy shop, or you can order via email.
The polishes are $12 each, and you can even order custom polishes for $15.
Head to shimmyshimmer.com for the details! And don't forget to check them out on Facebook.

Products provided for honest review.

Color Club Fiesta Collection Swatches!

If you've been around this blog for a while, you'll know that I have a serious thing for Color Club sets.
It's been a long time since I've gotten a new one because the last couple of collections did not seem to be released in the 7-piece sets.
So imagine my delight when I found two new sets at Winners this week! (Thanks to local reader Tracy for giving me the heads up!)

First up I've got the Fiesta Collection to show you.
This collection consists of five cremes and a metallic, plus the usual bottle of topcoat.

Color Club - Mamba
A simple-but-flawless opaque red creme. I love when reds are creme and not jelly. This is two thin coats, perfect formula! It reminds me of my go-to red, OPI Comet Loves Cupid, so I'm glad to have this for a replacement when/if that runs out.

At first glance I thought it was called Mambo and then I started singing Mambo Number 5 and now it's stuck in my head!
A little bit of Monica in my life... A little bit of Erica by my side...

Color Club - Flamingo
Faaaaaave. Bright pink creme. Perfect formula, two coats. It is borderline-neon but not quite, so it is still really flattering on my ultra-pale skin. Definitely adding this to my list of favorite pinks!
I'm wearing this one right now, actually.

Color Club - Wild Cactus
Another winner! This is my next favorite of the bunch. Wild Cactus is a green creme, with a slight blue undertone that makes the color unique.  Again the formula is wonderful and needs just two coats for opacity.
Had I gotten this polish just a day earlier, it would have made for a nice St. Patrick's Day mani!

Color Club - Sunrise Canyon
I just can't decide how I feel about this one. I liked it in person but now I'm not such a fan of the photos. Not sure if it is something I would reach for in the future. The formula on this one is not so good, needs three coats and can still be streaky.
It's quite a lot like OPI's Did It On 'Em, but I'm not sure if they're dupes, because I am currently a couch potato and do not want to go find that polish. Haha!

Color Club - Endless Summer
As you can probably see, the formula on this one is a bit weird. It dries semi-matte and is a little patchy/streaky. I needed three coats for the swatch and there are some streaks. But the color is really fun! Adding topcoat would make it look a whole lot better, but I wanted to show the true finish.
Despite the not-so-wonderful formula, I'm still a fan of this polish.

Color Club - On The Rocks
An unoriginal silver, but it is a good one! What I like about this polish is that it is not the type of metallic finish that is frosty or streaky, it's really just made up of teeny tiny shimmer particles. So it won't show off any imperfections the way other metallics do, but that also means that it gives you a serious case of shimmer-herpes when you're removing it. Haha!
Either way, I really like this polish and would probably choose it over other silvers in my collection! Blingy silver nails are always really fun.

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Overall, I'm so delighted that I found this set! Would you believe that Winners in Canada is now selling the sets for just $9.99?! Makes me feel ridiculous for spending like $20 on one Illamasqua when you can get seven of these for so cheap...

My favorites are Flamingo and Wild Cactus, and the price tag is worth those two alone, not to mention the four other polishes plus topcoat!
And the topcoat that comes with them is surprisingly great, and dries really quickly. (It's no Seche Vite, but it is definitely a winner, especially if you don't like the chemicals in SV.)

Hooray for Color Club sets! I hope they continue to pop up again in the future!

ultra random swatch spam

I thought this vacation series might be a good time to look back through swatches that I've never posted and see what is decent enough to post.

I've found twelve (yes, twelve!) totally random swatches that I feel are post-worthy! Some of them are even quite lovely.

I think part of the reason I like doing swatch spam and posting swatches it because it gives me a chance to write down anything special about the polish - like if it was a gift, or if it came from somewhere cool, etc! It's fun for me to be able to read back and see why each polish is special to me.
Let's get to it!

China Glaze - Drawn to You
This is one of those polishes that looks better in pictures than it does in person. The magnetic effect works well, but I'm just not a big fan of the actual color. 2 coats.

Icing - No Name Blue Magnetic
2 coats. This was the first magnetic polish I bought and still the only one I really like! The colors are awesome, the magnet effect really pulls out this purpley shimmer and the squiggle magnet it comes with is my favorite.

H&M - Bella's Choice
My dear pal Line in Denmark sent this beauty to me. A perfect turquoise creme! 2 coater. Definitely could be called "Rebecca's Choice" because I love it!

Cosmetic Arts - All The Trimmings 
This is one weird polish. I picked this up at Winners, just because of how different looking it is. The blue shimmer you see in the photo is not very prominent in person, and it actually has a pink flash. It's thin, 3 coats, and still kinda sheer. Not really attractive... But it was just so weird, I had to have it. 

Pure Ice - Ruffled Sheets
Ew, sorry for this yucky-colored photo. This is one of the newer matte/suede/velvet/whatever polishes from Pure Ice. The wonderful Lori picked this up for me! I've got 6 of 'em. They're nice. You almost can't tell this one is matte because it is so reflective!

Color Club - Feelin' Groovy
Super neon green! Three coats. Dries semi-matte. I think I bought this one in Toronto last year!

Essence - Hello Holo!
This is a Nail Art Special Effects Topper from Essence. Essentially just super blingy silver holo glitter in a clear base. Shown here over Sephora by OPI - Son of a Gun from the Betsey Johnson collection. 
This found its way to me from Caroline at Good Lack Nail!

Essie - Play Date
Hello, right hand! This is a lovely purple creme with a great formula. 2 coater.  

Nabi Magnetic - 05 Purple
A nice purple magnetic! 2 coats. Very vibrant. I got this polish from the wonderful Laurie @ Dressed Up Digits!

China Glaze - Riveting 
This was probably the most well-liked polish from the Hunger Games collection from China Glaze, but me, I hate it. Ha! I just do not like orange. Yuck. But if you do like orange then this is a must have, apparently. 

BB Couture - Junk In The Trunk
I have no idea why I have never posted about this polish or the one to follow. I believe they are the first polishes that I bought online, after seeing such beautiful swatches on blogs. I remember I felt a little crazy for spending $10 plus shipping on polishes but I knew I had to have these.
And then I swatched them, didn't even wear them, and didn't love the photos, and never even posted them! Shame on me, seriously. I'm going to actually wear these polishes ASAP because they deserve it.
Junk In The Trunk is a beautiful shimmery blue, and as far as I can remember, the formula is great! Isn't it purdy? The next one is even better...

BB Couture - Man Bug
So pretty. Probably one of the prettiest polishes I own, actually. It's so me! Turquoise with glittery shimmer. I have no idea why I don't wear this all the time.
It's a bit sheer, needs three coats. And as you can see I applied it a little thick back in the day when I did this swatch... Haha. I will wear this again and take even more beautiful photos!

I'll be home tomorrow! :)