CND Night Factory Duo

Everyone knows that I regularly get excited about nail polish. But it's pretty rare that I get fanatic about one. But I am fanatic about this duo. CND's fall "fashion trend" is a creamy teal called Urban Oasis and its effect counterpart is Teal Sparkle. And Teal Sparkle is only the greatest thing to happen to nail polish all fall. I'm so in love with this effect it's not even funny. I've never bought any of the effect, so I ordered all the sparkles. I've been playing with them since the second I tore open the box and they are so much fun! The combination possibilities are endless.

I mentioned before that I'm digging teals this fall, and Urban Oasis is a unique one to me. It has just the slightest hint of dustiness to it, a quality that I'm always crazy about. And I was very pleased to see it was different from the other teals that have come out recently!

Comparison- left to right: Essence Meet You In Budapest, OPI Ski Teal We Drop (dupes to RBL Teal and Sonia Kashuk Taunting Teal), Urban Oasis, and the teal from StrangeBeautiful Volume 4. Urban Oasis is pigmented and smooth enough to be a 1-coater!

And here's the SPARKLE!! All the Sparkle Effects have flecks of flashy sparkle in them, like a flakie but smaller and more uniform in size. The flecks in Teal Sparkle, in direct light, show up blue, green and gold, giving an overall teal-y look. It's... well... amazing!


And as cool as it is in bright sunlight (which I'm SO glad I got today! It was supposed to storm on my Sparkle parade!), it's absolutely breathtaking indoors. When the sparkle catches a hint of indirect light, the whole nail looks like it's glowing. Think a slightly darker Zoya Charla. I love that these look even better indoors, cause we all know that's where we'll be spending more time during fall!


I started trying Teal Sparkle out on a bunch of other colors to see what I like and don't like. It's impossible to make this thing look bad. I've only bought 1 back up of a color ever, but this is back up worthy. Totally getting another bottle in my next order.

Over darker colors the teal color comes out beautifully, and it's best over black. My absolute favorite combination (so far) is over a dark purple, the contrast is epically amazing!

Left to right: OPI You Don't Know Jacques, RGB Plum, Barry M Grey, WnW Black


Here's more of the gold flecks:

Indoors, with flash:
Over lighter colors it looks pretty too, though I'm not as into these for fall.

Left to right: OPI Ogre the top Blue, Damone Roberts 1968, What's with the Cattitude? China Glaze Flyin' High

Seriously, looks SO much better indoors!


If you like teal, or sparkles, even just a little bit, the Night Factory Duo is MUST HAVE.

And a tip for using the Sparkle Effects: top coat between polish and effect is a must, because even if you let the polish dry the effect brush will pick up pigment and turn the clear base colored.

New Butter London's

Butter LONDON announced their new shades last week and I could not wait to buy Marrow. I've been hyped about it since it was shown during fashion week. I have an extreme passion for dark purple! So I ordered that and, oops, the other 3 new shades jumped in my cart too! I'm so excited to do full mani's with these, but I needed a small taste of them today so I did a quick skittles. They clash with the other 6 fingers still being pastel blue, but it's okay to have an ugly-eccentric nail day every once in a while!

From left to right is Marrow, Victoriana, All Hail McQueen and Bumster. Marrow is a deep purple with a whisper of shimmer. You have to know it's there to even see it, and even then it really doesn't show, but it does add a certain depth to the color. Victoriana is, color-wise, dupey to RBL 360, except this baby is loaded up with silver shimmer, it's so pretty! All Hail McQueen is the total star of this collection. It's a holographic neutral, something that I normal wouldn't even look twice at. It's not that I'm not a huge holo or neutral fan, I just never really go for them. But together they make the cutest little taupy-holo baby! I'm so glad I did with this one, I think it looks great with my skin tone! Lastly is Bumster, which confuses me so much. It is gold. I wish I could just leave it right there. But without a shimmer it doesn't really seem gold, it seems like a caramel color. But it really is gold! Not sure if it goes with my skin tone too well but I'm still going to rock it because the color is so interesting to me.

It was cloudy today so I didn't get the best pictures to show off the holo. When I do a full mani with it I'll pick a sunny day! But for now, here it is with super flash:

And no flash:

StrangeBeautiful Volume 4 part 1

I've been so intrigued with StrangeBeautiful for months. The idea of having a nail polish "wardrobe" but wowed and bugged me. While a majority of the colors in their first few collections were, for me, ranging from to-die-for-beautiful to pretty-enough-to-lem, they still had a few ick-I-would-never-wear-that-EVER shades thrown in the mix. But from the looks of Volume 4 they fixed that last problem, I'm totally digging every shade!

I'm hoping to get all of these swatched this week, but here's a first look in to the collection:

Here's the teal shade. I ordered these from Lucky Scent and although the names are listed, I'm still not 100% sure which name goes to which shade. I'm pretty sure this one is called Verdigris, which according to Google is "a common name for a green pigment obtained through the application of acetic acid to copper plates," and according to Google Images looked pretty close to this picture. But anyways. I love this teal. This definitely falls under to-die-for-beautiful. This color is the reason why I typically don't do swatches, because I wanted to wear it for the next 4 days rather than just 14 minutes. It applied flawlessly, was opaque in 2 coats, and I was extremely impressed with how it dried. I did not use a top coat for the swatches, but it dried to a high gloss shine and a full 10 minutes after the swatch did not dent when I ran in to a door. All of that without SV, amazing!


And here's the greige. This name I could not figure out. Greiges have been my thing lately, they're subtle like a neutral from a distance but up close they're surprisingly edgy. This shade sets itself apart from others in my stash with a slightly muddy-browny quality to it. Greige was another 2 coat flawless application, but it dried with just a hint of a jelly finish. Love it!


This was just a quick shot taken of the entire collection. I haven't found anything close to any of these colors in my collection, but I'm still going to do some comparison pictures just to give an idea of how they look next to their cousins (like that olive green and RBL No More War, they're very different!). If you have a request, shout it out in the comments and I promise to swatch them!

The glitter... it's multiplying! Hide the children!!!

I wanted a quick and lazy mani that I wouldn't have to clean up or worry about the finish on, so I pulled out ChG Flyin' High and Medallion. Cream is usually my favorite finish, but for once I didn't want to have to obsess about my every move just to make sure I get a flawless finish. 1 coat of Flyin' High and 1 coat of Medallion was the plan. I did this late at night, slapped on some SV and went to bed... and woke up nearly blind. I do not remember there being that much glitter! Other than the problem of my glitter mating like bunnies when I'm not watching, I really like this look. Turquoise and gold is so cute!


I love the little holo pieces mixed in the gold!

Who says a $2 polish can't be awesome?

Okay, so I'm a little bit of a NP snob. Just barely though. I won't touch Maybelline, and I have 2 Rimmels that I like but don't wear just in case someone says, "OMG I love your polish! Wear did you get it?" and then I have to say "uhm... the drugstore...". And I think Sally Hansen is becoming a huge rip off! What's with her price increase? I can get 3 China Glazes from Transdesign for the price of 1 new Sally Hansen! But I have a soft spot for Sinful polishes. The glitters, oh, the glitters they have... I love them. I usually wait for a sale, but these were on a special display case so I grabbed them, though I do think they are a part of the regular line. Someone on MUA made a comment that Mint Apple and Soul Mate could be dupes for Jade and Jade Rose. So I ran to grab them! But sorry, they're not even close.

But happily, Mint Apple is awesome. This alone made the trip worth it. It's a dusty green with a gold shimmer, and it applied beautifully. Look at the color! I am in love! You definitely get a bang for your 2 bucks.



With flash to show the gold shimmer:



And I took some comparisons with Essie Greenport on my thumb and Misa Dirty Sexy Money on my pinkie. Here you can really appreciate the dustiness. I badly smudged my middle finger so I just covered it with my thumb :)



Soul Mate was the supposed Jade Rose dupe. It's a creamy dusty pink. I'm not really feelin' this one. I don't think it's a very "me" color, though I do like the dustiness. It applied kind of goopy, though it wasn't as bad as the China Glaze's I compared them to.



Between China Glaze Sugar High on my index and Peachy Keen on my ring finger.



And the last new Sinful I grabbed, named Rise and Shine. This one I very much like. I did a quick swatch but took dozens of pictures, none of which came out accurate. It is VERY close to Four Leaf Clover, which is on my ring finger, only Rise and Shine has an added subtle shimmer and it dries neon matte. You cans see the original finish on my pinkie, and I added Seche Vite to my index and middle for the shine. This also brings out the fine shimmer in it. I think this is just too perfect for Spring!



My Walgreens display is ALWAYS half empty! Either they never get new shipments, or they do and someone comes in and picks it over before I get there! So I never get to see what all the Sinfuls look like. What are your favorite Sinful polishes? If I can find them I'd love to check them out!

Essence Groovy

I love Essence's polishes. Their colors are so wonderfully deceitful! In the bottle, Groovy looks pretty blue, but you put it on and you get these hints of teal... so it's a super blue teal, right? Then you get near something blue, say, your jeans, and that blue makes Groovy look like a slightly-greened blue. It can't make up it's mind, and I don't want it to. And this one is a delicious jelly. I love everything about it!


For fun, I pulled out 2 other polishes that I'm constantly moving from my drawer of blues to my drawer of greens and back again. I can't decide where to put them! On the left we have the lighter China Glaze Flyin' High. This was my first time swatching this color and I am SO excited to do a full mani with it, it is wonderful! And on the right is American Apparel Peacock. I typically keep this one with my teals, but every once in a while I see it in another light and it goes with my blues.

Under the Sea

Over the weekend I was sporting Atlantis for a day, and I LOVED it! For as long as I was lemming it (like 5 weeks?), and for the amount of time I've had it untried (2 months!), it's kind of embarrassing that I didn't try it sooner. I love the color in it, and the sparkle... well, it speaks for itself. Pictures galore because this one is a stunner!



Here's some blur to show the sparkle:

Just look at this color!



Here are some comparison pictures too! From left to right we have Claire's Green Confetti, Sinful Nail Junkie, and China Glaze Atlantis. And I know I just did a tribute to Atlantis, but I have to say my fave is Nail Junkie, but I do think you need both! Atlantis has an amazing color, but Nail Junkie has some bigger sparkles and these amazing blue flecks that peek out in some light. It's best to meet them in the middle; 3 coats of Atlantis for color and then 1-2 coats of Nail Junkie. I don't have pictures, but I did an experiment with them. 1 coat will give you some blue sparkle and bigger chunks, and 2 will give you the perfect amount, but will change the color of Atlantis. I personally like 1 coat better.


Claire's Green Confetti was something I picked up for $1 on clearance, and it's pretty cool. It's more of a standard green, which you can see in the second pic, and it has larger chunks of glitter! Sadly, it's pretty sparse, and while 3 coats will get you a jelly-opaqueness with color, you need at least 4, and really 5 coats, to get enough sparkle. But it does dry fast!

(You can click these two to see them bigger, it shows the color differences much better)


For my mom's b-day I let her pick anything from my collection, even my HTF's and LE's, and did her nails. She picked Nail Junkie, and got so many compliments at her party! Even more than my Absolutely Alice did.... not that I was jealous or anything, LOL!

Essence Meet You in Budapest

I didn't know anything about this brand when I first saw this color, but I new I had to have Meet You in Budapest. It's a perfect, so perfect, teal with a super-jelly finish. I managed to track down someone who wanted to swap, and I was so excited! Essence is a drugstore brand from Europe, and I didn't know what to expect in terms of application, but I was completely blown away. It applied flawlessly, and was perfectly opaque in two coats, which for a jelly is amazing! And do you see the shine on this? There is no topcoat. That's right. No Seche Vite, no Poshe, this is all Essence's natural finish. I actually picked this dulled down picture because the rest of them reflected me in my nails! This was a limited edition color, but if you have any super nice European friends, ask them to track it down!


I haven't done any swatch comparisons with this, I'm waiting to get the new China Glaze collection to see if it's close at all to Flyin' High, though the more swatches of that I see, the less similar they look. Possibly similar to RBL Teal? I'll need to compare next time I bring it out!

Neon Horror - Why I'm Never Listening to an Elf Again

Christmas Eve day I took a journey in a lull of a snowstorm to the least popular mall in town, the only mall that has Claire's. The mall had been open for an hour but there was no one there, and in the hallway stood a mid-30's aged elf. I wondered what she was doing so far from the Santa picture booth, but she followed me in to the store and asked if I needed help. "I'm in search of a nail polish!" Oops. So wrong to say. She was apparently an expert, though from what I could tell it was only in all things neon. "Get this!" she exclaimed. "If only I had your youth, I wish I could wear these neons!" She had so much Christmas cheer that I couldn't resist maybe just trying the neon teal that she had insisted would look great with my skin. The color was interesting and I figured since it was a teal that it wouldn't be glaring on my skin. Wrong. So, so wrong. Don't look directly at my nails, you may go blind. Maybe I could try it with glitter? I don't know. It's scary and in my sock drawer. I don't want it to frighten my other teals.


Claire's Marine Blue

American Apparel Nail Polish

I've never really shopped at American Apparel before, but after seeing their new nail polish line I was in love. The shades are hip and cool and very workable. So I took a chance and ordered three nail polishes hoping they'd be okay. And guess what? They're better than that. Much better. They applied so smooth that when I was doing comparison swatches with RBL, I kept thinking, "Wow, these $6 polishes are on par with ones 3 times the price!" The polishes are so pigmented that you can get away with one coat easily and the lacquer flows over the nail in a few seconds without any manipulation from the brush. I think I'll be picking up a few more!

Peacock is a lovely super blue teal. This is one coat.



Office is a dusty mint shade that was instant love. I'm wearing it now and it's subtle but so pretty!




Hunter is a deep dark slightly muddy green. Dried darker than the bottle and is near black in some lights.


And for fun here are some comparison pictures. Peacock next to RBL teal. Teal is much deeper and Peacock almost looks like Muse, but I've seen a few other swatches and Peacock is much bluer.



Here's Office in the middle with RGB Minty on the left and Essie's Mint Candy Apple on the right. Though Minty still reigns as my fave, I love office for it's dustiness! Great addition to any mint collection.


Hunter is a million miles away from RBL's recycle. It's very opaque so it's nice if you want a non-jelly deep green. It has a bit of a bluey-browny quality to it too.

If you have a store near you, I know they sell these for 3 for $15 rather than $6 for an individual. And if you can only order online, do a quick search for coupon codes! They often have free shipping or 10-15% off.