31 Day Challenge, Day 3: I Choose You, Pikachu!

  Day 3 of the 31 Day Challenge is yellow, and I had a really hard time coming up with an idea for this one.  I don't wear a lot of yellow polish, and I really only have two or three truly yellow polishes in my stash of over 500.  I was very tempted to recreate my bumblebee manicure but wanted to try something new.  After coming up with and dismissing several different ideas, I finally realized that the perfect yellow manicure had been staring me in the face the whole time!  And I do mean that literally, as this has been the show I have been watching while I paint my nails the last couple of weeks.

  I have been a pretty big Pokemon fan since back in the good old days of Pokemon Red and Blue.  For Christmas, Becky got me the entire first season on DVD and I have been happily enjoying the nostalgia of what used to be one of my favorite cartoons as a kid.  What better yellow nails than some Pikachu nail art?  I used Nicole by OPI One Voice as my yellow base, and Zoya Tamsen, Zoya Raven, and Zoya Purity for the red, black, and white.  For the pokeball, I started off with a base of Tamsen and added Purity to the lower half, followed by a strip of black and a rhinestone in the middle.

  I got a lot of comments on these nails - from my residents, fellow students, nurses, the lady at the coffee shop... the two days I wore these I think I had around 15 people stop me and tell me how much they loved my nails.  Only half of them knew it was Pokemon without being told.. but that's okay, haha.  Loved this manicure a lot (although I clearly need to figure out how to put topcoat on dots without smearing them).  So much fun!

  If you are interested in a tutorial on this or any look, don't hesitate to ask (although this one is fairly straight forward).  Don't forget to check out Becky's blog to see what she came up with for Day 3!  I will have Day 4, green for you on Sunday, St. Patrick's Day!

A Love-ly Look with KBShimmer Elle

  Although I have been trying to hold off on buying many polishes lately (medical students don't exactly get paid... anything), I couldn't resist ordering a couple of KBShimmer polishes to add to my collection.  I've seen so many wonderful pictures, it was hard to pick just two to start with, but I finally narrowed it down!  Today I have for you nail art with KBShimmer Elle!

Outdoors, overcast

  Elle is a soft gray jelly base with dark pink, light pink, gray, white, and holographic silver glitters in a variety of shapes and sizes.  I used OPI If You Moust You Moust (dark pink) and Nicole by OPI Up and Kim-ing Pink (light pink) to paint/dot on the hearts and tips.  A very fun look for Valentine's week!

Indoors, lightbox

  Elle is so pretty, I had a bit of a hard time covering any of it up with nail art.  Shown is four coats.  It applied very well, with the glitter spreading nicely on its own - no glitter manipulation required!  I did give it just a bit of extra dry time between the last couple of coats to make sure I didn't push around the glitter too much.  The color combination is soft and feminine, and the many different sizes and shapes of glitter give it a nice complexity.  Please note: you will definitely see this polish again!  :)

Outdoors, shade

Outdoors, sunlight

  I'm really happy with my first KBShimmer experience, and I cannot wait to try out my second polish soon!  And possibly find some room in the budget for a few more...

Valentine's Water Marble

  It's been awhile since I decided to get my hands all messy... I mean since I did a water marble.  ;)

  I started with a base of Zoya Purity and then used OPI If You Moust, You Moust (pink), Nicole by OPI It's All About the Glam (white), and Nicole by OPI Kourt is Red-y For A Pedi (red).  I then used China Glaze Fairy Dust for a nice sprinkle of holo glitter.  Don't ask where that random silver glitter on my middle finger came from, because I don't know.  It bothers me, haha.  But other than that, I loved the results of this one!  The technique might be messy, but so worth it in the end!

Blurry close-up for the holographic glitter effect

With A Cherry On Top

  While I was creating this new layout, I kept getting ideas for matching nail designs using similar colors and patterns.  I have always wanted to do a cherry manicure of some sort, and this presented the perfect opportunity!

  For these nails I started out with one of my very favorite colors, China Glaze For Audrey, on all but my ring finger.  As an accent nail, I used Nicole by OPI Please Red-cycle.  I then added white polka dots using Konad Special White polish and plate BM-19, and the darker blue swirls to the other fingers using Nicole by OPI Khloe Had A Little Lam-Lam and plate m64.  For fun, here are the nails with stamping alone, before adding the cherries:

  For the cherries, I started out with Nicole by OPI Please Red-Cycle for the main body of the red cherries and Nicole by OPI Up & Kim-ing Pink for the pink cherries.  Stems were added with OPI Did It On 'Em, and the white reflection with Zoya Purity.

  This design was a lot of fun to create, and to wear!  I do, however, need to find some better paintbrushes for fine details on nail art, I think mine are too large and floppy.  I had only planned on wearing this for a day, but ended up leaving it on for three because it was too much fun to take off.  Got a lot of comments on this one! 

Nicole by OPI New Spring 2013 Shades - Swatches and Review

 Today I am thrilled to bring you four new shades from Nicole by OPI for Spring 2013!  This release features two bright and cheery shades and two dark, vampy shades.  All four of these looked great with two coats, which is awesome!  I also decided to try out my new indoor photo setup... which basically consists of a desk lamp and a rather inexpensive photo tent.  I think they turned out nice - although I am still working on tweaking it a bit! :)  Enjoy!

Please Red-Cycle

A medium red creme.  Fairly standard shade, but the super smooth application made it stand out.  It looked pretty good at one coat, but that second coat made it look pretty perfect!

Still Into Pink

Bright, cool-toned hot pink shimmer.  This polish is seriously insanely bright.  As in, made-my-camera-spaz-out-a-bit bright.  Think almost neon, but not quite.  This will be fabulous for summer!  Also, this is a matte polish - above you can see the polish with topcoat; below without.  Additionally, while the press release states this is a creme, it most definitely has a subtle shimmer going on!

Totally In The Dark

Deep black with silver microshimmer.  This seems to almost have a tiny hint of navy to it, but it is pretty much black.  This one is super shiny!

Plum To Your Senses!

 

Dark, blue-toned purple with purple. blue, and pink microshimmer.  When this polish arrived, all of the shimmer was settled down at the base of the bottle.  A night upside-down and some rolling solved the problem though!  This one was very shiny as well.

Overall Thoughts

The formula on all of these was superb, I didn't have problems with a single one of them.  And they are all two coaters, which is a bonus! While they are not insanely unique, it is a good collection of some necessary basics.  My picks are Still Into Pink and Plum To Your Senses!, as they are the most unique.  I love the matte finish and the subtle sparkle of the pink, and the delicate multi-color shimmer of the purple is really fun.  The formula alone makes these worth a look in my book!

Which do you plan on adding to your collection?

The polishes featured in this post  were provided to Polishology by OPI for review purposes.  This is an honest and independent review and was in no way influenced by the company.

The Weighted Companion Cube

  When Becky saw this polish, she knew I would need it.  As a huge fan of Portal and Portal 2, I have snatched up a lot of related merchandise, and what could be more perfect than a polish designed around my BFF in the game, the companion cube?

Outdoors, sun

  For my companion cube nails, I started off with two coats of Zoya Dove on all but the ring fingers, followed by two coats of NailsIT Companion Cube.  This polish is a medium gray jelly with pink heart, white square, silver hex, and small iridescent glitters.  The hearts were surprisingly east to get out, but I found that adding a second coat made them just a bit too grayed-out, so I used a brush dipped in remover to brighten them up again.  Love this glitter!

Outdoors, shade... with Wheatley

  On the ring finer, I started with two coats of Zoya Kelly, followed by painting on the light gray details with Zoya Dove and the pink details with Nicole by OPI Up & Kim-ing Pink.  I added a pink rhinestone in the center of the heart for good measure  Looks very nice with my companion cube plushie.  

Outdoors, shade

  I pretty much love this manicure... almost as much as the game.  And the cube itself.  I'm not going to lie, I probably ran around for about an hour trying to figure out how to save it... ANYWAY if you haven't played Portal I strongly suggest you do, it is really an amazing game.

  Look at me still talking when there's science to do...

Pink Bubbles

  Here is a fun stamping manicure I wore earlier this summer.  Got a lot of great comments on this one, as it was my manicure during my short (but still way too long) hospital stay in June.  All of my nurses loved it!

  Started off with two coats of China Glaze Dance Baby, with houndstooth pattern in Nicole by OPI All Kendall-ed Up using plate m63, and the circles in Konad Special White using plate m85.  I love the depth the houndstooth pattern in a slightly darker color gives this, even from far away.  Happy Pink Wednesday! :)

Happy Birthday To Me....

  My 26th birthday was a couple of weeks ago, and I did this fun brightly colored water marble for the event.

Outdoors, sunlight

  I started off with a base coat of OPI Pink Friday, and then marbled with OPI Funky Donkey, OPI Fly, and Nicole by OPI All Kendall-ed Up.  I added the tips using Konad Special White and plate BM17.  Of course I had to top it off with some China Glaze Fairy Dust.  These nails were perfect for my birthday, since these are some of my very favorite colors!

Outdoors, shade

Nicole by OPI Texture Coat - Swatches and Review

  I am started to get a bit crackled out, I must admit.  However these are just different enough that they renewed my interest in the crackle effect. All swatches shown with a top coat.

Opal Texture

Outdoors, natural light

 I just had to start out with my favorite.  This is a gorgeous opalescent crackle polish with a gorgeous duochrome and I pretty much love it.  It works best over fairly dark colors (shown here over black).  It has an amazing pink/purple/golden duochrome to it - while I had a tough time catching the gold flash on camera, here is a bit of the pinkish-purple shift up close.

Amethyst Texture

Outdoors, natural light

 This is a medium purple glitter crackle, which goes on rather spare-looking and them groups together to a denser finish.  However, it is best worn over dark or highly contrasting colors or you lose a lot of the effect.

Aquamarine Texture

Outdoors, natural light

 This is the bright blue version of Amethyst texture - similar sparse glitter crackle.  Once again, best over dark or highly contrasting colors.

Quartz Texture

Outdoors, natural light

This is the only shade to be truly dense and opaque enough to go over just about any base color (here shown over Nicole by OPI Great Minds Pink Alike).  It has a bit more purple in it than a standard silver crackle, making it a unique shade.

Overall Review

Once again, several of these crackles were unique enough to pique my curiosity after previously losing a bit of interest in the trend.  I am totally in love with Opal texture (especially over black) and the glitters are fun and unique as well.  Quartz is nice enough but I am not entirely sure it is necessary with so many silver crackles already available.  Opal is the clear must have out of these in my opinion.  All applied nicely for crackle polish and formed decent texture patterns.  A fun new addition to spice up this crackle trend - for now.  :)

 DISCLOSURE: The polishes featured in this post  were provided to Polishology by OPI for review purposes.  This is an honest and independent review and was in no way influenced by the company.

Nicole by OPI Wel-Kim To My World - Swatches and Review

  Finally made a bit of decent swatching time for myself the last week or so!  I am still a smidge behind but almost caught up.  Here are six new shades from Nicole by OPI, the Wel-Kim to My World collection for Spring 2012.  As always, swatches shown no base coat, with top coat.

Others Pale by Kim-parison

Outdoors, natural light

This polish is a slightly off-white creme with the slightest touch of rosy pink.  I really like it as an alternative to super bright white cremes, but I found it to be just a bit tacky and streaky on application - whites are always a bit tough.  However it evened out nicely with three coats.

Kim Konfidential

Outdoors, natural light

 Yellowish beige creme.  I think this has a bit too much yellow to look quite right with my skin tone perhaps?  I have seen it looking pretty nice on some other people though.  Smooth application, three coats.

Lights, Kim-era, Action!

Outdoors, natural light

Shimmery silver-white with a sort of opalescent glow.  This one has some duochrome in the bottle, which is not quite as apparent on the nails and totally absent in pictures.  This took three thin coats for full opacity as well.

Up and Kim-ing Pink

Outdoors, natural light

Light pink creme - fairly sure this is a near (or perfect) dupe to OPI Pink Friday (let me know if you want a comparison).   Three thin coats for full opacity

Her Kim's The Sun

Outdoors, natural light

 This glitter top coat is full of gorgeous golden iridescent small glitter particles.  This is one coat over Up and Kim-ing Pink, but it would look great over pretty much any shade.

Nothing Kim-pares to Blue

Outdoors, natural light

 Yay, a blue!  This is a periwinkle blue shimmer which took three coats to reach opacity.  This kind of reminds me a bit of I Don't Give a Rotterdam from OPI Holland, I may have to do a comparison soon.  However I think it is a bit brighter.

Overall Review

For the most part I really liked the colors in this collection.  I had a bit of trouble with the formula on a couple of these, and I would have preferred two-coaters (each polish shown is three coats, except for the glitter), however the colors are fun and very springy.  Some of these seem to be similar to what we have seen before and others are a bit more original.  I am growing a bit tired of the whole Kardashian theme, honestly... but I suppose the names don't really matter as long as the polish is pretty, right?  :)

More Nicole by OPI Spring 2012 collections up later this week!

 DISCLOSURE: The polishes featured in this post  were provided to Polishology by OPI for review purposes.  This is an honest and independent review and was in no way influenced by the company.

That hits the Sweet Spot!

  Here is another polish from the Deborah Lippmann Fashionista trio that my sister Christy got me for Christmas - Deborah Lippmann Sweet Spot!

Outdoors, shade

  Sweet Spot is a pinkish bronze metallic.  It is really fun in that it is a total chameleon - in certain lighting it looks almost completely chocolatey-bronze, in others almost completely rosy pink.  It applied super smooth and was opaque in two coats.  As with most metallics, there is the faintest hint of brushstrokes if you really look for them, but honestly I felt like it applied smoother than quite a few other metallics I have worn.

Outdoors, indirect sun

Outdoors, direct sun

  For this manicure, I did DL Sweet Spot on all nails but my ring finger, which I painted with Nicole by OPI Not A Gold Bigger.  I then used the alternate color on each nail and Konad plate m85 to add the design.  The gold and the rosy bronze really complimented each other well, and I thought the look was very elegant and classy.  What else would you expect from a "Fashionista" collection?  :)

Katwalk Nail Art

  Here is a fun and simple little mani I did awhile back using Nicole by OPI Kendall on the Katwalk, one of my favorite blue glitters.

Outdoors, shade

  I wanted to do something that would highlight the purple and green glitters that are found in the base color.  I used OPI Grape... Set... Match! to add sparkly purple tips to each nail, then I added the green dots using a dotting tool and Zoya Holly.

Close-up of detail

  While this manicure was fairly simple, I really like how all of the colors worked together.  I absolutely love this glitter and really like the purple and green mixed in with the blue, and this was a great way to showcase all of those colors!

Plaid Valentine

  Time for some Valentine nails!  These are pink, girly, and glittery... perfect for Valentine's Day!  :)

  For these nails I started off with two coats of China Glaze Dance Baby, from the ElectroPop collection.  I then added hot pink plaid with Nicole by OPI All Kendall-ed Up and plate m60.  Finally, I added the hearts using plate m59 and white stamping polish from a new little Fingrs Flirt set I found at Wal-Mart (I will be reviewing it soon).  On top of all that, I used my new absolute favorite top coat, China Glaze Fairy Dust, which is silver holographic glitter.  I had a hard time capturing the holo effect on camera, but here you can see some of it...

  I really love how this manicure turned out!  I kind of wish I had worn it for the actual day... but I still have a few more pink-with-hearts ideas up my sleeve for the rest of the week... :)

Nicole by OPI Kardashian Kolors - Swatches and Review Part Two!

  Here is the second half of the lovely 14-piece collection by Nicole by OPI.  This half include quite a few amazing chunky glitters... enjoy!  Remember, as always you can click to make the image bigger.  :)

Khloe Had A Little Lam-Lam

Outdoors, overcast

First up, the final creme of the collection.  This is a very dark teal creme, with lovely two coat application.

Indoors, artificial light

Listen To Your Momager

Outdoors, overcast

 Deep royal blue with glass fleck finish.  This is a really amazing blue, I love it!  Although.. is it really a surprise to anyone that I love a blue polish?  Haha.  Three coats.

Indoors, artificial light

Rainbow In The S-Kylie

Outdoors, overcast

Chunky rainbow glitter, with both small and large hex in a multitude of colors.  This is a dupe for OPI Rainbow Connection from the Muppets collection, and very similar to most of the other rainbow glitters out there.  I like it a lot - just like I have liked all of its clones and almost-clones, haha.  This is three coats.

Indoors, artificial light

One coat over Listen to your Momager

Wear Something Spar-Kylie

Outdoors, overcast

Medium pink glitter-bomb.  This is  OPI Excuse Moi! from the Muppets collection without the rainbow hex glitter.  While I love that rainbow hex glitter, and still prefer Excuse Moi!, this one is very nice also.  Two coats.

Artificial light

Disco Dolls

Outdoors, overcast

What was that I was just saying about loving the rainbow hex glitter?  This is a golden glitter bomb with multi-colored hex glitters throughout.  Think of it as the gold cousin to OPI Excuse Moi.  I totally love these!  Two easy coats.

Indoors, artificial light

Close-up

Follow Me On Glitter

Outdoors, overcast

 The charcoal cousin to finish off the rainbow hex trio.  This has dark gray and silver microglitter with multicolored hex glitter throughout.  I think these are really fun and unique.  Love this one as well!  Two coats.

Indoors, artificial light

Close up

Kendall on the Katwalk

Outdoors, overcast

 Blue, green, and purple glitter in a sheer navy base.  This is totally amazing... might be my favorite out of the entire collection.  I love the way the colors look together.  Overall a stunning polish!  Three coats.

Indoors, artificial light

Close up!

Overall Review

While I honestly don't know much of anything about the Kardashians, I love this entire collection.  There are some gorgeous basic cremes, which apply super smooth, and then these glitters are totally to die for.  There are some very unique polishes in here, which is really refreshing, especially considering all of the somewhat similar collections we have been seeing as of late.  My top picks from this batch are probably the last three glitters shown, Disco Dolls, Follow Me On Glitter, and Kendall on the Katwalk - these are the three I would really recommend getting from this half, but honestly I love the others as well so it is hard to pick.  A great collection of fun and unique colors from Nicole by OPI!

DISCLOSURE: The polishes featured in this post  were provided to Polishology by OPI for review purposes.  This is an honest and independent review and was in no way influenced by the company.