Zoya - Blaze (swatches and review)

     Hey guys, I have a nail polish swatch for you today. This is Zoya's Blaze from the 2012 Ornate Collection. I thought the way to spell the name was "Blaise", because of the similarly named Harry Potter character, but the variation does make sense. I think that if you have the balls to name your kid Blaze, you're either a pretty awesome parent or you were trashed at the time of the naming process and your child will hate you for the rest of her life. Either way, it's a cool name.

     Out of all the polishes I bought out of this collection, I was probably the least excited for this one. Although this is a great color on it's own and Zoya hasn't yet disappointed me with regards to formula/texture, I have a veritable ton of polishes in the red color family and this one didn't pop out at me as anything special. It was, however, a holo finish, which I do like so I picked it up. It certainly looked nice in the bottle.

Zoya - Logan (swatches and review)

     Hey guys, I have a nail polish swatch for you today. This is Zoya's Logan from the Ornate Collection. Because of Storm, the first thing I thought of when I saw the name of this polish was Wolverine. I thought it strange since Zoya polishes were only named after girls. Of course, Logan is one of those gender neutral names that fits either way so it really doesn't matter. But, it did give me pause for a few moments there.

    How cool would it be if there was an entire line of polishes dedicated to the X-men, though? I would buy them all, even if they were horrendous quality. Seriously, I'm that obsessed. Anyone out there excited for Days of Future's Past? I know I am.

     Anywho, I was as excited for this polish as I was for Ziv. Dark green foils are right up my alley and the press photos/swatches were all gorgeous. Even in the store, I was aching to put this on my nails to see how it would look because it looked damn good in the bottle.

Zoya - Storm (swatches and review)

     Hey guys, I have a nail polish swatch for you today. This is Zoya's Storm from the winter Ornate Collection. Just the name made me want this one. It also helps that the polish itself was pleasing to look at, but one of my favorite superheroes as a child was Storm. Never mind that we were technically suppose to identify with Jubilee (and she was also Asian too) but I never liked Mary Sues and that's what she came off to me as. Storm on the other hand, she was cool. Calling up lighting at will, creating hurricanes, etc. During the winter, when I didn't want to go to school, I didn't pray to God for snow. I prayed to Storm. I don't know why I thought that made sense, since I was fully aware that she was a fictional character, but it somehow worked in my mind at the time.

     Anywho, with that background, I was definitely going to pick this polish up whether it was a dud or not. It looked pretty awesome on the press release and looked even better on the swatches floating around online. I coveted this one almost as much as I did Ziv, and I'm so glad I was able to get it.

Zoya - Ziv (swatches and review)

     Hey guys, since the day is over and the world has not ended, I have a nail polish swatch for you today. This is Zoya's Ziv from the 2012 Ornate Collection. Out of all this year's holiday collection from Zoya I was probably most excited for this one. I know that golds are a dime a dozen lately, but this one looked absolutely gorgeous in the bottle and on other people's fingers so I couldn't wait to get my hands on it. Foil is only second to jelly finishes in my favorites and this one had what appeared to be a seamless finish, if other people's swatches were anything to go by.

     It actually took me a while to find this, for whatever reason. I'm not a big fan of ordering nail polish online blind without at least seeing what the polish looks like in real life first. Online photos are notorious for being different than the real product, especially if the monitor settings are off, so I was reluctant to get this blind from an online retailer. The only place I knew near me that sold Zoya polishes is ulta and I hadn't seen them there all season. I had all but given up on finding it when lo an behold, I see the display on the salon counter last week and I descended upon those racks like a starving predator.

Back to the Basics with Urban Decay

     Hey guys, I have something a little different for you guys today. I'm really excited to have gotten my hands on this here little gem. The new Naked Basics palette from Urban Decay.I'm a huge fan of the Urban Decay brand in general and especially their Naked line of eyeshadows. I own both the original and the Naked 2 palette and they get a lot of love from me.

     When they announced a new mostly matte Naked palette, I was pretty much on board from the concept alone. And now that I have my hands on the product, I can say that I'll get a lot of use out of this one too. If there had been one complaint that I had with the first two palettes, it would be that there isn't enough matte shades. Out of 24 shades, there is a total of 5 matte shades combined, which doesn't quite make sense for something that is supposed to be "naked".

Nail Art - Snowflakes and a Tree Are All You'll Neeed

     Hey guys, I have a nail art design for you guys today. I came up with this design is for the Born Pretty Store Christmas Contest. We'll see how my luck goes.

     Of all the things that come out of the holiday season, I think the flood of nail designs based on the holiday theme is most amusing. There is so much glitter. It's so sparkly and gaudy and over the top and I love it. Even though I'm not a big fan of glitter nail polish, this time of year does something to my brain and for about six weeks, I can't stop coveting all the glitters. Although to be honest, most of my attention goes to the foil branch of glitter polishes, I still spare a glance for those horrendously chunky glitters too. They're always a pain to remove, but man, do they shine.

You can watch the video tutorial here:

Click here to visit my channel for more tutorials!

butter LONDON - Scuppered (swatches and review)

     Hey guys, I have a swatch for you guys today. This polish is Scuppered from butter LONDON's Holiday 2012 collection. This polish is another glitter polish, of sorts. Of all the polishes in this collection, this one is probably the most unique in terms of looks. When I first saw the press release, I thought, "Oh yay. Yet another metallic glitter bomb to add to the backlog of metallic glitter bombs in this world."/sarcasm. But as it turns out, this one is probably the most unique of the bunch.

     In the bottle this polish is a bronzed copper foil/metallic that has pink, gold and green glitter. The green glitter is small, but is much more noticeable against the copper background. It's hard to be unique in a sea of 'unique', but I think this polish does pretty well in bringing something new to the table.

Nail Art - Ornaments

      Hey guys, I have a simple little Christmas themed nail design for you guys today.  This is a pretty simple ornaments on a string design that you can use for the holidays or on Christmas eve. I had originally recorded a full tutorial for this one but the picture quality throughout the entire video somehow turned out to be really blurry and practically unwatchable. It looked fine in the viewfinder while I was recording so I have no idea what happened, but it's not pretty. Oh well. The pictures I took afterwards turned out fine so it's not a complete loss. 

butter LONDON - Scallywag (swatches and review)

     Hey guys, I have another nail polish swatch for you today. I will be swatching Scallywag. This is another polish from butter LONDON's - Winter 2012 Collection. This polish is an amazing mess in the bottle. It's a glitter bomb of epic proportions. When I saw this in the store, it practically blinded me in it's glittery messiness. At the very least, it's really pretty to look at.

     This is a clear based polish with multiple shades of light blue and silver glitter. At least, it looks like a clear base. As stated before, it's packed with glitter so the only thing noticeable are the glitters. Photos don't really do this polish justice when it comes to the sheer amount of hurt-your-eyes shine and it's probably not a good idea to wear this in bright sunlight if you're planning to drive. You might just dazzle yourself into a car accident (no, I'm serious. The light reflective properties are pretty awesome).

butter LONDON - Fairy Cake (swatches and review)

     Hey guys, I have polish swatch for you guys today. It's yet another polish from the butter LONDON Holiday 2012 Collection : Fairy Cake. I am horribly prone to weakness with this is the kind of polish because it may be a glittery mess of doom, but it's a holographic glittery mess of doom. I held off from picking it up for about as long as I held off of eating cheesecake (which is to say, pretty much no time at all). OH WELL. You can't win them all, I guess.

     This polish is, as stated before, a holographic glittery mess of doom. It's not necessarily a messy polish, per se, but it's the type of kind-of-small-but-not-really holographic glitter that you've seen before in various sizes and shapes. It's pretty in the bottle and pretty average on the nails. It'd be a nice layer polish over another color, though you do need a soft hand and a light layer as the glitter is packed in pretty tightly. You could also do a gradient effect if you'd like, which I always thought looked much better than a full on bedazzle nail.

butter London - Fiddlesticks (swatches and review)

     Hey guys, I have a nail polish swatch for you guys today. This is a butter LONDON polish from the Winter 2012 Collection - Fiddlesticks. From the looks of some spring releases, I think this matte grit thing may be what companies are trying to push as the next trend for the year. I, for one, don't like it. I don't hate it as much as I hate crackle nail polish, but it's certainly not something I enjoy.

     This polish is a magenta toned base with tightly packed with a variety of pink and silver microglitter. It dries to an odd semi-matte finish that has a very gritty texture. The finish is reminiscent of OPI's Pepe's Purple Passion from last year's Muppet Collection.

butter LONDON - Jack the Lad (swatches and review)

 

     Hey guys, I have a swatch for you today. This polish is Jack the Lad from butter LONDON's Holiday 2012 collection. This collection is a glitter puke like many holiday collections, but it offers some nice polishes for the sparkletastic commercial market that is the winter season (or at least it is here in the U.S.). I mean seriously, we haven't even had time to digest our sugar overdose from Halloween and there are already Christmas decorations lining up the shelves at your local mega chains. Did we just up and decide to skip the thanking and go straight to the giving? Although, in terms of business savy, I suppose it's better to advertise early. It's just a bit annoying when I haven't even gotten the Black Friday sale flyers and I already see the ornament displays already up.

Essie - Butler Please (swatches and review)

     Hey guys, I have a swatch for you today. This is essie Butler Please from their winter 2012 Leading Lady collection. This is the first collection from essie that I've actually had an interest in a long time. Most of the collections that the brand has been coming out with lately have been a bit meh to me, although I will admit to eyeing a few polishes from styelonomics, every once in a while.

     This polish is a vibrant medium ultramarine blue. From the bottle, it looks pretty close to Nails Inc's Baker St, which I have yet to get my hands on so the comparison will have to wait until I own both. I do believe there are comparisons available somewhere in the far reaches of the interwebs if you search.

Grumping is appropriate for this crap.

     So I had this whole thing planned out, showing how I created this nail design. I had a grand long "How To" with video recordings and everything. But then,  my camera decided to be a jerk and loose about thirty minutes of video recording. The part of the video where I actually show how I paint the heads, which coincidentally is probably the most important part of the video. Since there were a ton of files associated with this design, I didn't even notice until I had started to edit the video that the files were missing. They were just gone.

     Believe me when I say, there was A LOT of profanity that flowed out of my mouth. I'm pretty sure I startled my goldfish a little because they were a little listless in the aftermath of my anger. At the very least I still have the pictures that I took of the design, otherwise I would probably still be cursing right this second. I think it was a sign of things to come when I spilled half a bottle of bright orange polish all over my desk while filming this thing. It was the world trying to tell me something.

     Here's to life's lemons, I guess. Doesn't make it any less hard to swallow, though. All that work *keyboard mashing* *rage quit*.

Nail Art - Wreck it Ralph

     Hey guys, I have some Wreck it Ralph inspired nails for you today! I've always loved playing video games and quite frankly, I still do. Though I never seem to have the time to play anymore, I still love the thrill of beating a game or even a hard level. I have not yet gone to see the movie, but I hear it's a treat. Just watching the previews throws me back to the days of yore when I had to go to the laundromat with my mother and spending hours playing (I sucked) or watching other people play (less suckage, but kinda boring) Street Fighter while waiting for the clothes to dry. It was that or watch the spanish channel on an endless soccer loop.

You can watch the video tutorial here:

Click here to go to my channel for more tutorials!

Nail Art - Halloween 2012

     Hey guys, I have a quick and simple black cat Halloween nails for you today. Black cats are always a staple for the Halloween season and this is something you can do to spice up your manicure when it comes time to costume up. And if you're still young enough at heart to go trick or treating, make sure you check those candies for razor blades. Or is that an urban myth?

     For this design, I used China Glaze Immortal from the new Halloween collection on the fourth finger and China Glaze recycle on the rest of the fingers. You don't necessarily need a different color for an accent nail. Also, any medium to medium-dark color will do for these nails. Blue, green or even purple would look really pretty with the design. Just make sure that the color you use is not too dark as to hide the black that you will need for the cat silhouette.

Nail Art - Skyfall

     Hey guys, I have some James Bond inspired nails for you today. With the release of Skyfall coming up - and more importantly for your and me, the launch of OPI's collection to tie in with the movie - I thought I'd do a little tribute to our quintessential secret agent. I don't know if I want the entire collection as some of the polishes are really not my cup of tea, Moonraker I'm looking straight at you, so we'll so how weak I feel in the next few weeks.

     Earlier this year, I fell for it with the Hunger Games collection from China Glaze, but I'd like to think I've learned from that experience. I'm probably never going to wear most of that collection, but I don't regret buying them and I know I can incorporate any and all of those polishes into some sort of nail design in the future. It's a little ironic that I cared so much about that collection since I didn't even know about the books prior to the announcement of the movie. And also, the only reason I knew of Jennifer Lawerence was because she played Mystique in X-men: First Class.

    Anywho.

butter LONDON - Two Fingered Salute (swatches and review)

     Hey guys, I have a butterLONDON swatch for you today. I have the color in Two Fingered Salute, which is a Nordstrom exclusive in the US. I scooped up the last bottle in my local store, but I'm sure they'll restock as it seems to be a pretty popular color. I know that this isn't the only exclusive at Nordstrom, but I couldn't find the other colors in store and I'm not a fan of buying cosmetics blind. Internet swatches are notoriously disappointing for nail polish.

     This color is reminiscent of burnished gold with the light green/teal base that was mostly opaque and with copper/gold flecks suspended in the mix. It's not quite a glitter, but it's also not quite a flakie or a foil either. It's a nice balance between all three finishes and I really liked the way it looked even though this is probably not the best color for my skin-tone.

Deborah Lippmann - Mermaid's Dream (swatches and review)

     Hey guys, I have a Deborah Lippmann polish for you today. The (in)famous Mermaid's Dream. I don't know how many people I have seen on blogs and youtube and the such, raving and lusting after about this polish. I was curious about this line of polish too. With a price tag of $18 a pop, this was definitely a splurge since most of my polishes are bought with deals and coupons which wind up giving me some hefty savings.

     I believe this polish is inspired by the reflective shine of a mermaid's tail. I personally don't really see the connection. It looks more like a shiny seafoam green puke with some bits of blue fish egg, but that's just me. It's not the most flattering of colors on my skin and makes my hand appear much darker than they are.

Zoya - Gloss Collection (swatches and review)

     Hey guys! I have the Gloss Collection from Zoya for you today. There are three polishes that have a jelly-like or 'sorbet' finish. This kind of finish is actually my favorite even though they tend to need more coats than a regular polish. I love the way they look almost squishy on the nails so of course I was going to do my darnest to get all of them.