Best of 2013

Happy New Year's Eve, everyone. This post is a bit late, as you can see. These polishes are just those that I have tried in 2013, but they were not necessarily released in 2013. I didn't try very many indies this year but I hope to next year. High on my list to try are KB Shimmer, Picture Polish and Pahlish. Hopefully I can save enough money to splurge a bit on some new brands. Alright, here is my list of favorite polishes in 2013. Enjoy!

Rescue Beauty Lounge Killa Red
I snagged this during the RBL sale and am so glad I did. I don't have a shortage of reds but there's just something about this rich red jelly that I just love. I am totally considering a backup.

Maybelline Emerald Elegance
This whole line was gorgeous and I especially loved this beautiful emerald green. Look at all the glitter!

Maybelline Crushed Crimson
Another polish from Maybelline's Brocades collection. I love how rich and opulent this looks. The gold and red go together perfectly.

China Glaze Too Yacht to Handle
I love these pastel neons and Too Yacht to Handle was a super gorgeous addition to my collection this year. Formula was a bit fiddly but the results are stunning.

Sally Hansen Red-io Active

I hate the SH Insta-Dri brush but I will suffer through it for this gorgeous, glow-y red. Ugh, so beautiful.

Dare to Wear Ready For My Close Up

So. Much. Glitter. I love the mix of glitters in this polish and it really sparkles in the sun. 

Salon Perfect Playful Plum

Another polish that seems to glow. The purple lover in me is really happy that I found this one. Perfect for fall or any other season.

Nicole by OPI Cinn-a-man of My Dreams

This one stands out from the other textured polishes because of its unique color. I don't have anything like this in my collection. I love how warm and shimmery it is.

Cult Nails Fetish
This black wax finish polish is so sexy and edgy. Love it a lot.

Illamasqua Fragile

This was my first Illamasqua polish and I immediately fell in love with it. It's unique and delicate looking. 

Zoya Carter

Zoya does texture so well. Carter is beautiful and complex. 

There's my list of favorite polishes of 2013. Did any of these make your lists? What must have polish am I missing?

Have a safe and happy new years, everyone. See you in 2014! :)

Zoya London

Happy New Year's Eve, everyone. Do you guys have fun plans for this evening? I don't have anything interesting planned. I am not that biggest fan of New Years and like to spend it usually snuggled up with a good book. I can't believe that 2013 is almost over. It went by so quickly.

Anyhow, today I have for you Zoya London which is a textured polish from Zoya's Pixie Dust line. It's a medium grey with tons of fine silver glitter in it. he Pixie Dusts are some of my favorite textured polishes. They always have a great formula and are super sparkly. I had no issues at all with this formula and I am wearing 2 coats below with no top coat. I think they suggest not using base coat as well but I always do and have not had any issues.

I love this shade and think that the name is perfect for it. It makes me think of grey London skies. Like I said, I love the Pixie Dust line and London is no exception. Great color with lots of sparkle - what more could you ask for?

Thanks for coming by today. Have a safe and fun holiday. See you in 2014!

Stashed (12): China Glaze, Essie, Urban Decay, Sinful and more

Hi, everyone! I hope you all had a great Christmas holiday. I am still on vacation mode and have just been eating, shopping and watching movies with my family. I had fully planned to blog last week but life got in the way and I found myself distracted and not wanting to open the computer. I have been painting my nails though and hope to have some posts for you next week. I did do a bit of shopping though. I was looking for the new Gwen Stefani OPI collection or the new Zoya Naturel collection but the supply place I went to didn't have them yet. But fear not, I have one more supply place to try this week and I am crossing fingers that they have them.

from top:

Sinful Colors Chlorophylle

Sinful Colors Neptune

OPI My Vampire Is Buff

China Glaze All Wrapped Up

China Glaze Santa Red My List

Essie Apricot Cuticle Oil

Sephora gift set (gifted)

Sephora by OPI Rich and Buff - picked this up at Big Lots. Figured it couldn't hurt to try.

Shu Uemura Murakami polish set - I love artist Takashi Murakami and had no idea he did a collab with Shu Uemura. A good friend of mine got this set for me online. It's a pretty purple with gold glitter topper. And the packaging is super cute.

Urban Decay Naked 3 - YES. Just a little something I got for myself. Merry Christmas, to me. :)

Hope you're all having a good break!

Happy Holidays!

Merry Christmas! Sorry I've been absent of late. I am on holiday break at my parents' house and haven't found much time to blog. I have been spending lots of time with family and am looking forward to a few more days of rest. I hope you are all having a wonderful holiday, if you celebrate. I'll be back with more swatches and reviews soon.

Happy holidays!

Rescue Beauty Lounge Killa Red

Hello and happy hump day. I hope everyone's week is going by quickly. Each day is one day closer to Christmas. :) Today I have another Rescue Beauty Lounge polish to show you. Originally I wasn't sure if I wanted this one. I have plenty of reds in my collection and wasn't sure if this one would be worth it. In the end though, the name put it over the top and I placed an order for it.

Killa Red is a beautiful medium blue-based red jelly. Formula on this was perfection and it still has that slightly squishy look of a jelly but it super pigmented, requiring only 2 coats for a gorgeous finish. Sorry, I can't remember if I had applied top coat in these pics.

I am so, so glad I got this one. I fell in love with it on the first coat and am definitely adding it to my list of holy grail reds. There's just something so classic about it and I can see it working on a variety of skin tones. Formula was also fantastic and a dream to apply. I love this so much I am considering getting a backup of it. I want to go through my stash to see if I have anything similar but, so far, I haven't found an exact match.

This may not look like the most unique red but I love it. If you are a fan of reds or need a good, classic red, Killa Red is a knockout. The name is also fabulous and I feel like a sultry noir character when I wear it.

What do you think? Are you a fan of reds? I'd love to know what your favorite red polish shade is.

Happy Holidays! Giveaway (US - ends 12/29)

Happy Monday! To celebrate the upcoming holidays, I am having the first giveaway here at The Painted Ninja. I am giving away one set (shown above) of the Color Club Take Wing collection. I love this collection full of bright, glass-fleck polishes. This giveaway is US only. Sorry - due to customs regulations, shipping polish overseas can be a pain but I promise I will do something for all you international readers (if there are any) soon. Rafflecopter widget below. Good luck!

Giveaway Rules:

1. Open to US residents only.
2. We are not responsible for lost, stolen, or damaged items. 
3. One set of entries per household please. 
4. If you are under 13, please get a parent or guardian's permission to enter, as you will be sharing personal info such as an email address. 
5. Winner will be chosen randomly via Rafflecopter widget a day or two after the contest ends. 
6. Winner will have 48 hours to respond to to the email, otherwise we will pick a new winner. 
7. If you have any questions, feel free to email us. You can review our full contest policy here. 
8. PLEASE DO NOT LEAVE ANY PERSONAL INFO IN THE COMMENTS. Sorry for the caps but we always get people leaving their email in the comments. Rafflecopter will collect all that without having personal info in the comments for all the world (and spambots) to find. Thanks!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Stashed (11): Sally Hansen, Essie, Orly

Hello! I hope you're all having a good weekend. After a brief cold spell the temperature is back up to a balmy 70 degrees here in Southern California. It seriously does not feel like Christmas with this warm weather, but it only 10 days away. That's super crazy. This week's polishes are all gifts that I received this week. I love getting nail polish as a gift!

My friends saw my mention of Twitter or Instagram that I wanted to try the new Sally Hansen Triple Shines so they gave me a few as part of my Christmas gift. I think this is a nice assortment of colors and I am excited to try all of them. Shown are Red Snapper, Sparkling Water and Dive In.

Up next is an awesome swap package that I received from Pamper With Polish. I am part of the Hobby Polish Bloggers group on Facebook and they recently did a holiday swap. I got this awesome box of goodies from Mira and I love everything in it. The polishes I received were Orly Angel Rain, Orly Digital Glitter and Essie On A Silver Platter. There were other fun items thrown in as well. Thanks so much to Mira for this fantastic package.

That is my haul for this week. What new polishes did you receive this week?

Rescue Beauty Lounge Ghost

Hello, everyone and happy Friday! Hope you've all had a good week. I am happy to say that I am done with my Christmas shopping for the most part. I do have a couple of things to pick up and a few things to knit, but I think I am in good shape. The weather is also getting a lot colder lately, which I am loving.

Today's polish is the first from my recent Rescue Beauty Lounge haul. Ghost is a really unique shade - a cool leaning brown with tons of fine silver shimmer. This one was a bit of a chameleon and changed subtly depending on the lighting. Shown here without top coat.

I don't think I have anything else like this in my collection. I like that it's a cool brown and it looks sophisticated but still edgy. Formula was fantastic. It is slightly prone to brush strokes but they are easily avoided. I probably could have gotten away with one coat if I had used a thicker layer, but my coats were pretty thin and I decided to do 2 coats just in case.

Love this one and am super impressed with the formula. I haven't bought any RBL since the last sale 3 years ago because, to be honest, I was not super impressed with the formula on them. For the high price tag, I expected more. I don't know if my application skills or body chemistry had changed since them of if the formula has, but I had no problems at all with this and was impressed by how smooth and pigmented it was. I have tried a couple of others from my recent haul and they are just as good. I am really glad I was able to get this one during the sale because it is awesome.

I am hoping to get the rest of my RBL polishes soon. Thanks for coming by and have a good weekend!

L'Oreal I Like It Chunky

I am really getting a kick out of the name of today's polish. L'Oreal I Like It Chunky the brand's first foray into the texture trend. The Gold Dust collection consists of I believe 6 rich, textured polishes and I have one of them for you today.  

I Like It Chunky is a warm copper shade with plenty of shimmer and small hex glitter. I picked it up because it was an unusual shade and I didn't have anything like it in my collection. The finish of this is very similar to the Julie G Gum Drops texture polishes. It's pretty smooth overall but super sparkly. Remember, textured polishes are not meant to be work with top coat. I did use base coat with this though because, well, old habits die hard. 2 coats used below. 

I really liked this one. The color is unique and would look good on a variety of skin tones. I think it would look especially nice on those with darker skintones. No issues with the formula at all. If the rest of the Gold Dust collection is like this, then I want them all.

Textured polish is still going strong this winter. I, for one, am still enjoying them. Thanks for stopping by today. Happy hump day!

Stashed (10): Epic RBL Haul

Hello and happy Monday! Did you all have a good weekend? Things are in full Christmas countdown here and I am trying to get all of my shopping done in the next week or so. This week's Stashed post consists of some really awesome nail mail. I placed a pretty big order during the Rescue Beauty Lounge sale a few weeks back. I haven't bought any of their polishes in a long time because they are so expensive, but I could not resist them at 50% off. So far, the polishes I have swatched have all been fantastic. So look for some RBL reviews to come soon.

I am going to try to remember all of the names for you guys. Starting from top left and going clockwise: Piu Mosso, Catherine, Ghost, Grunge, Become One, Insousiant, Killa Red.

I also picked up these two metallic foil shades from Seche Vite at Ulta recently. They were having a BOGO sale and I could not resist. They didn't have a lot of interesting colors and all of the top and case coats were already sold out, so I picked these two. They look fun though and the gold especially looks like it would be good for the holidays.

Did you get anything good this week?

Zoya Sailor + Tomoko

Happy Friday, all! I am so glad that the weekend is just about here. I have been having a hard time adjusting to being back at work after my vacation and it's taking me a bit longer to get up to speed. I also think I may have caught a mild cold somewhere in the last couple of days, which isn't helping. But, to cheer myself up, I gave myself a fun, sophisticated manicure that is festive but still classy.

I paired Zoya Sailor, a dark navy creme with an accent nail of Zoya Pixie Dust in Tomoko, a cool toned gold textured polish. I have to say that I love the combo of these two together. They are both beautiful polishes. Sailor is extremely pigmented with a smooth formula. Even though it's quite dark, it definitely still looks blue. I only needed 2 coats for opacity. Tomoko is similar to the other Pixie Dust polishes and has a fine, textured look to it. I think this cool, champagne gold would look good on a variety of skin tones. Also shown with 2 coats.

Zoya is definitely one of my favorite polish brands since they consistently put out new and interesting shades with good formulas. Speaking of Zoya, have you guys been following them for their Flash Promos? Every holiday season the Zoya fairies release limited coupon codes throughout the day for great deals and freebies on Zoya.com. You have to be quick though because sometimes the codes go in seconds. But they are great deals and it's worth stalking their social media sites in case a good one comes along.

Thanks for stopping by today. I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

Zoya Harlow

Hi, everyone! I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving. Sorry it was a bit quiet for a couple of weeks but I went out of town for the holiday and didn't have as much time as I thought I would to blog. Today I have another of the Zoya Matte Velvet polishes to show you. Apologies in advance for these pictures. I took them at my parents' house on vacation and the lighting was just bad and these pictures came out less than stellar.

Harlow is a medium magenta shade with the same unique finish as all the Matte Velvet shades. The subtle shimmer running through the shade give it a much softer look than a flat matte finish. If you look closely you can see the silver particles in the photos below. Formula was a little thick but not too hard to work with. Only 2 coats were needed for the swatches below.

oops - this one is a bit blurry

Did anyone pick up any of the Matte Velvets during Zoya's pre-sale? I love the Matte Velvet finish and highly recommend them to anyone who likes matte finishes.  

Thanks for stopping by!