Essie - Under Where?

Under Where? is from Essie's resort 2013 collection. Essie is one of my favourite brands though I don't own a lot because I didn't start loving it until a few months ago, and it's around the same price as OPI here! Since OPI is my #1 favourite brand I tend to buy those more than I should, but I'm making a point to buy more Essie. 

This gorgeous purple is really light and delicate. I think the purple is a little musty (I know that describes scents but I think you get what I mean with this polish.) It's just not an in your face colour, which is nice. It doesn't pop on your nails so if you're looking for something cute yet subtle, this is a great one! The formula was also great, one reason I love Essie. I used three coats for full opacity. 

As much as I loved this colour, it's not the most flattering against my skin tone. Or maybe it is, maybe I'm just used to brighter, harsher colours. Either dark and bold or bright and loud - I like colours that really stand out.

XO Natasha 

Untried: SOPI - Why Yellow There...

I got this polish at Winners for $5 or $6 and I've never seen SOPI there before so I was super excited! They had a couple other colours but none that I liked. This light muted yellow is really pretty for spring and summer if you like colour coordinating. It's also a very nice accent colour that goes well with most outfits. 

The formula was pretty nice, I used 3 thin coats for full opacity. You could probably get away with 2 thicker ones though. 

This polish reminds me of China Glaze - Lemon Fizz. Here is a comparison of the two polishes: 

Both these polishes dry differently than their bottle colour, but Lemon Fizz is definitely a little brighter, while Why Yellow There is a little more muted. I love both! 

XO Natasha 

China Glaze - Too Yacht To Handle

Today I have a swatch/review of Too Yacht To Handle from the China Glaze Sunsational collection for summer 2013. When I saw a picture of the bottle and some swatches, I thought it was very similar to Color Club - Blue-ming. But, as more people posted their swatches and reviews I learned it was like a brighter version of For Audrey and Aquadelic. Here is a comparison of the three polishes. They're all a little brighter IRL. 

Color Club - Blue-ming, China Glaze - Too Yacht To Handle, China Glaze - Aquadelic

While this colour is absolutely beautiful and definitely perfect for summer, the formula was  awful. I put one coat on and didn't think it was too bad, but after a second and third coat I realized that yes, this formula is just terrible. Even with three coats in the pictures below, there are still some bald spots because this polish is extremely prone to pulling. For best results I would recommend many extremely thin, smooth coats. Even then you'll probably have a hard time so you'll most likely have to dab extra polish on any bald spots, and finish with a nice self levelling top coat like Seche Vite. 

This polish is probably best for nail art, as opposed to being used over the whole nail. I'm picturing it as leopard spots or stripes! 

One other thing I really disliked about this polish is how prone to chipping it is. I know China Glaze tends to chip fairly easily but I always cap my tips and even then this polish chipped after a couple hours. I even put a second top coat on my thumb and that didn't help. Now, after one full day of wearing it there's larger chips at the sides of my nails where the free edge begins, and there's no reason for my nails to be chipping already, I did nothing all day. 

XO Natasha 

One Love Lacquers

I bought these polishes FOREVER ago and I never got around to swatching them! When I finally swatched them, I never got around to writing the blog post! This indie polish brand is called One Love Lacquers, and can be purchased from Victoria on her Etsy shop at http://www.etsy.com/shop/OneLoveLacquers. 

The first polish I'll show you is called Mermaid Lagoon.  This polish has pink and black hex glitters, and square blue glitters in a clear base. I love mermaids and I loooved this one when I saw it! In the picture above I have it over Zoya - Gei Gei and OPI - Suzi Says Feng Shui. I have two coats on all my fingers except my pinky, which has one coat. Formula was good. 

This next polish is called Captain Hook. This polish has red and black hex glitters and purple bar glitters. I'm a huge fan of bar glitter, and I love how Victoria put red and purple together, a combination I love but one that isn't very common. I have Captain Hook over Zoya - Julie and OPI - Comet Loves Cupid. All fingers have two coats, pinky has one. Formula was good. 

This last polish is called Grasshopper Pie. As much as I love the other two this one is definitely my favourite! This polish has (I think) matte mint hex glitter (it doesn't sparkle), larger brown hex glitter, and some silver micro glitter. I didn't think I woud like this one as much as I do. I have it over OPI - Gargantuan Green Grape, Orly - Buried Alive, China Glaze - Re-Fresh Mint. All nails have two coats and once again my pinky only has one coat. I think this polish goes PERFECTLY with Re-Fresh Mint! Formula was good. 

XO Natasha

Orly Glowstick

Hey guys! Today I'm just showing you a polish that I've used before, many times. It's Orly - Glowstick. It's the brightest polish I own! It literally feels like a highlighter, on my nails. Looove it. My best friend also happens to be obsessed with it; I did it on her toes and a week later she wanted her nails to match. 

I recently bought some loose glitter on ebBay. It was around $5 or $6 for 24 small jars of glitter! As soon as I got them I rearranged it all into rainbow order, yes I do realize I have OCD... but I knew I had a super bright glitter that matched Glowstick! 

I started by painting her nails with a base coat of strengthener (of course) then one coat of white. My white is pretty opaque so I only needed one coat. If your white is thinner it's best to do two coats so you have a better background for any neon polishes. Then I did two coats of Glowstick. Usually I do three coats, but today I only needed two. While the second coat was still wet on the middle and ring fingers, I dumped glitter onto those nails and pressed down gently so the glitter stuck to the wet polish. I turned her hand upside down and tapped off most of the excess glitter, but around the cuticles I just brushed the glitter off using a makeup sponge. I topped it off with a thick coat of Seche Vite. The nails with glitter dried textured, which you can leave if you want, but I added another top coat to smooth them out. 

One thing I love about Glowstick is that it glows in the dark! 

We're both really pleased with how these nails turned out! And I'm even more excited to use my glitter! 

What are some of your favourite things to do with loose glitter? 

XO Natasha 

NOTD: OPI - Can't Let Go (Liquid Sand)

Hey guys! So this is my first liquid sand polish. If you're not familiar with liquid sand, it's a matte textured polish made by OPI. They're still extremely glittery and sparkly even though they're matte!

Here it is with one coat of top coat on my first and ring fingers.

Two coats of top coat. Still a tad bit textured so if you want it completely smooth I would suggest either three top coats, or buff after the first top coat so your second top coat makes it smooth.

Here are all nails with two top coats.

Application for this polish was great, I had no troubles whatsoever. I've heard that the newer liquid sands are a much smoother application than the Mariah Carey liquid sands. If you have long nails like me you may need to use 3 coats. For my nails however I did one full coat, a tip coat, and a second full coat. I thought the textured effect would bother me but I really like it because it's so different! I'm going to be purchasing more liquid sands as soon as I get some money! 

XO Natasha 

NOTD: Pink and Glitter (Two Untrieds!)

I painted my nails with OPI - ElePhantastic Pink on Monday and I was so in love with it that I didn't want to take it off, but I needed to change it slightly just so I wasn't bored with it. This was the perfect opportunity to use an untried indie! (Most of my indies are untried... I should probably work on changing that.) 

Let me start by telling you about ElePhantastic Pink. I don't remember exactly where I first saw it, but I knew I had to have it. Then one day in the summer I was at the mall and saw it at a couple places but I didn't have cash on me and they didn't take debit, and I think I had just bought nail polish earlier that week so I decided I could get it later, but I regretted that as soon as I left the mall. When I made my order to mBeautyLounge a while back it was one of the first polishes in my cart! None of these pictures show the true colour but I was a little too lazy to check that before I uploaded the pictures on my computer. IRL this is a light pink with peachy undertones. I feel like it's a bit neon because of how it photographed. It is bright in person but doesn't look neon. With two coats there's still some VNL because the formula is a tad thinner than classic OPI but I don't mind - it's only visible in certain lighting. I'm so glad I finally own this polish and that I finally got around to using it because it's definitely one of my favourite pinks. I'll probably need a second bottle soon! 

To jazz up the plain pink I added Polish Addict - Laffy Taffy. These polishes are made by Laura Sanchez and her shop can be found at http://shoppolishaddict.bigcartel.com/. Her instagram is @polish_addict_34. This polish is jam packed with tiny blue, orange, yellow and purple hex, large blue and red hex, some pink squares and silver (I think) micro glitter. Application was very good, the polish wasn't too thick like some indies are. The only trouble I had with glitter placement was with the large hex and squares. I found there weren't enough for my liking so I had to place some of those just so my nail had a variety of glitter. Other than that I'm very satisfied with this polish and very happy I purchased it :) I have four other polishes from Laura so watch out for when I use those! 

What's your favourite pink polish? Is there a pink polish you're desperate to own?

XO Natasha

World Autism Awareness Day

April is Autism Awareness Month in the USA and other countries. April 2nd is World Autism Awareness Day. In spirit of that we are supposed to wear blue! Of course, I wanted to paint my nails blue as well. This deemed the perfect opportunity to use a couple polishes I've been meaning to try for a while! 

The first untried polish I have is Revlon - Royal. It's a deep royal blue jelly. The second polish is Revlon - Heavenly. This one is iridescent glitters in a clear base - predominantly square glitters but also a few hex. 

I started by using two coats of Royal over my base coat. The first coat was absolutely beautiful, it looked like a completely different colour than the bottle. The second coat evened everything out. Application was very good. 

I then put on a thick coat of Heavenly so there were enough glitters on my nails. There is a decent amount of glitter in this polish and I didn't have any trouble with placement. For the first nail, Heavenly applied very well. After that it got extremely thick - it barely moves in the bottle now. In the bottle it appears to have a slightly milky base however it dries clear. 

I put a thin coat of Royal on top and topped my mani off with a coat of Seche Vite. I could have added a second coat of Seche Vite to smooth the bumps even more, so I may do that today. 

What sorts of designs have you done or will you do for autism awareness? The symbol for autism is a puzzle piece so later this month I'm going to be doing a blue puzzle piece mani! 

This is my favourite jelly sandwich, I really think my nails look like gems! 

XO Natasha 

Quo by Orly - Prepster

I just wanted to do a really quick review on a new polish my mom bought me because I LOVE it! Lately I've really been going crazy for all sorts of blue polishes, and I didn't even think I liked blue! Apparently I do... This one caught my eye when I went into Shoppers Drug Mart. There were a couple other Quo polishes I liked but this one was absolutely gorgeous! Quo makes their own makeup but for their polish, it's by Orly. 

I do love Orly polishes and the formula and application was typical Orly. My only concern was the brush. It was cut evenly but at least 3 bristles came out as I was applying this polish! Talk about annoying! Like I said the formula and application were good. This polish is a little on the sheer side so it took 3 coats + an extra tip coat and you can still see some VNL. I don't really mind, because for the most part it's opaque, you only see the VNL in some lighting. 

The main reason I love this polish is because it's so unique. It stood out to me the first time I saw it but I fell even more in love with it when I put it on. This polish is so unique because it's a totally different colour depending on the lighting, and it photographs differently than it looks as well! I wish I could have gotten a couple pictures in my light box but I never got around to it. Sometimes this polish looks really dull and minty. Sometimes it looks teal - someone even told me it looks like a Tiffany blue. And sometimes it's just really bright blue. There's also a subtle shimmer in this polish which just makes it even prettier! It's so subtle and I wasn't sure I liked it at first but this polish wouldn't be the same without it. 

On top of being a pretty colour it's perfect for spring! Very light yet still fairly bold. As previously mentioned my only concern with this polish is the brush, but I think I just got a bad one. I'd like to try layering this polish over white & black to see how it looks! 

XO Natasha 

Zoya - Aurora

As soon as I saw a picture of this polish I knew I had to have it! Apparently so did everybody else, because while I was patiently waiting for mine to arrive, I noticed almost everyone posting swatches of it. 

Everyone said it's impossible to photograph this polish, and they are indeed correct. I've taken some different pictures of this polish so you can see the full effect, but even these pictures combined wouldn't do it justice. The polish is lighter IRL than in any of the pictures, simply because it has so much holo/glitter in it. And you can't tell in the pictures, but the holo is quite linear, more than I thought it would be. 

With flash, you can see just how much glitter is jam packed into this polish! It looks very speckled in the picture, but it's not as obvious IRL. 

Here are two pictures, both out of focus so you can see how much holo the polish really has. Still quite hard to capture but you can see it better in the bottle than on my nails. 

So we've already established how beautiful this polish LOOKS, but let me tell you about the application. I found this polish's formula extremely thick for Zoya which is really annoying, but it applied quite smoothly. Despite looking quite "dense", it's got a semi jelly finish so it took 3 thin coats to make it opaque. One thing I really like about this polish though is the fact that the holo glitter is tiny flakes as opposed to hex or square pieces. It makes the polish look a little more rustic and I just get a more natural feel since the shapes are very irregular. I didn't notice this until a day after I put the polish on, so if you're not a big fan of flakies, you don't have to worry about seeing them unless you look up close or do macro shots. 

This beauty is a must have in my opinion. It's a beautiful shade of purple to begin with, but with the teeny holo flakes, this colour just comes alive. 

Does anyone own own Blaze or Storm? I'm considering getting them since I love Aurora so much. 

XO Natashaa

Zoya Lovely Collection - Spring 2013

Zoya's Lovely collection for Spring 2013 consists of 6 beautiful polishes - 3 shimmers and 3 cremes. I had been lusting over this collection for a couple months before it was finally available on NPC. I was most excited for Jacqueline and Blu, but I ended up loving the whole collection! 

The three shimmers are Piaf, Gie Gie, and Julie. 

The three cremes are Blu, Neely, and Jacqueline. 

Piaf is a light and subtle mustard colour with very pretty shimmer in it. Colours in the yellow family tend to look awful against my Asian-yellow undertoned skin, but I don't mind this one. I like it much better on than in the bottle and I'm considering wearing this some time! The formula was great as always. This is two thin coats and you can see some VNL but if you did one half coat just at the tips the problem would be gone. 

Gei Gei is a really pretty light pink. There are already so many pinks like this one, with and without shimmer so I don't find this colour too unique, but it fits in perfectly with the whole collection. Formula was great again, and to fix the VNL you'll probably need three coats of this polish plus maybe one more just at the tips. 

This gorgeous light purple is called Julie. I don't have anything else like it and I was instantly in love with it when I put it on. It's bright yet fairly subtle and soft, and the slight shimmer really just makes it prettier. Formula was great like Piaf and Gei Gei. I found that of the three shimmers, Julie had the best coverage. Shown below is two coats with minimum VNL. 

Blu is a very light blue. Compared to a couple other blues I have, this one has undertones of purple, making it a teeny bit like a super white washed periwinkle! I find the intense white undertone is a little harsh, although I personally don't mind it. I love this one! It was the polish I was most excited for when I bought the Lovely collection. Application was good, a little thicker than normal cremes and not too smooth but a good top coat will fix any problems. I used two coats for the photo below to achieve full opacity. 

Neely is a great mint colour. I love this one because it's a little deeper and bolder than most mints which are really light and pale. This colour feels whole and it's got a little essence of OPI - Mermaid Tears. I don't own that polish but I've seen so many pictures that I know what it looks like. Application wasn't as good as the three shimmers, but it was typical for a creme polish. Shown below is two coats to achieve full opacity. 

Of the whole Lovely collection, this is the polish that caught my attention the most simply because of the name - it's my youngest sister's name! I've also really been into neutrals lately so I really liked this one. It's neutral, but not enough so that it just blends into your skin. I don't really know how to describe the colour, Zoya says it's a peach undertone. This one is way prettier in person and I'm glad I got it! Application was good, two coats are shown below for full opacity. 

What are your favourite polishes from this collection? I don't think I can pick one... or two... or three... I have to pick four! I like Julie, Blu, Neely and Jacqueline best. I do also like Piaf and Gei Gei, but Piaf isn't my first choice for polish colour at all, and I didn't find anything too special about Gei Gei that makes it stand out from other light pink polishes I have. 

Happy Polishing! 

XO Natasha