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! :)

Salon Perfect Playful Plum

Hi, everyone. Hope you all had a good weekend. I spent most of my weekend reading the Beautiful Bastard series by Christina Lauren. Does anyone else like reading smutty books? I read other things, too, but I admit to a weakness for books with a bit (or a lot) of romance in them.

Anyway, today I have a gorgeous fall polish from Salon Perfect. I picked this up on my last trip to Wal-mart when I was searching for the Salon Perfect matte glitters. The new fall display was out and I picked up a couple from the collection, including today's polish, Playful Plum. Playful plum is one of those polishes that glows in the sun. The shimmer is just gorgeous and this pink/purple shade also has tiny flecks of blue shimmer in there as well. You can see it in the close up shot. Pigementation was really good on this and I needed 2 thin coats to get the coverage you see below.

I love colors like this that surprise you.  This reminds me a lot of some of the older shades that OPI used to do and are now coming back. It's also reminiscent of the China Glaze Rodeo collection from a few years ago which also had a lot of great shimmers in it.

I had a lot of fun with this one and am glad to add it to my collection. Are you ready for rich fall colors? Have a good week!

Salon Perfect Bang

Hi! Did everyone have a good weekend? I saw Wolverine (which I enjoyed) and also made some peach blueberry jam. All in all, it was a pretty productive weekend.

I am sure that most of you are aware by now that Salon Perfect, a Wal-Mart exclusive brand, put out a collection of matte glitter polishes this summer. I don't normally shop at Wal-Mart but knew that I wanted to try and find this collection. Unfortunately by the time I was able to get to a Wal-Mart, most of the polishes were long gone. I did manage to find a few though and I have one for you today.

Bang is a dense orange and yellow matte glitter. I wore this one over 2 coats of Orly's Melodious Utopia. I am thinking now that maybe I should have used a base with a higher contrast since the yellow glitter is a little hard to see. This is a fun polish though and you really only need one coat to get a good coat of glitter on your nails. Like I said, it's matte so you'll need a good top coat to even things out and make it shiny.

Here is one coat of the glitter over my naked thumb nail. Yup, very dense. I like that more mainstream brands are creating polishes with more unusual finishes and colors. This collection also has a Floam dupe in it, which I hope to show you one day soon.

I am still on the hunt for Shocked (the pink/purple glitter). If you happen to know of where I can find a bottle in the L.A. area, let me know. :) Thanks for stopping by today. Have a great week!

Stashed (3): OPI, China Glaze, Salon Perfect, Zoya

Hi, guys! I have another Stashed post for you today. It's been a while since I have done one and I have some pretties to show you. Most of this is from a big haul I did over 4th of July weekend when I went to visit my family.  If you like stash/haul type posts (and awesome manicures), you should check out Mandee at The Bookish Manicurist. Her Polish on Parade post videos are super fun and I really do love seeing what people are hauling. On to the polishes!

So the first part of this haul came from a personal sale. When I got home, my mom told me that our neighbor had been trying to sell some polishes at a recent yard sale. The daughter of the house is a formal nail tech who is going back to school and was getting rid of a lot of polishes. She told my mom that I should come by when I was back in town to see if anything was left and she would sell it to me. My mom said she knew she had some brands I liked and that she was only selling for $2. A few days into my trip I finally managed to see my neighbor, and I totally hit the jackpot. She had a bunch of OPIs (lots of new collection stuff) and I snatched up almost all of her OPI collection.

l to r: OPI Got A Date To Knight, Pink Friday, My Very First Knockwurst, Meet Me On The Star Ferry

l to r: OPI Ink, Funky Dunkey, The Color to Watch, Cuckoo for this Color, Just Groovy

l to r: OPI Servin Up Sparkles, Number One Nemesis, The World Is Not Enough, Light My Sapphire, You Don't Know Jacques, Skyfall

l to r: Borghese Capri Coral, Revlon Mistetoe

I also got 8 or 9 mini Sephora by OPI polishes that have no names. All of the polishes about I got for $25! $25!! Can you believe that? Yes, awesome haul.

So the next batch I picked up at the local beauty supply near my parent's house and drugstore shopping. As you can see, I am very much in summer mode.

l to r: Dare to Wear Honeysucks, Dare to Wear Upper East Side, China Glaze Shell-O, China Glaze Too Yacht To Handle, Orly Mayhem Mentality

I don't have any Wal-Marts near me so I went on a mad hunt for the Salon Perfect matte glitters while I was at home. Unfortunately they were super hard to find. I did manage to find a few though they were hidden in the cosmetics section and I only found like one bottle of each. I am going on the hunt for more today.

l to r: Salon Perfect (no label but reminds my of ChG Flying Dragon, Kaboom, Jolt, Bang

l to r: Sinful Colors Star Dust (1164), High Strung (1125), Eva So Bright (1158), Maybelline Spotted, Sally Hansen Sugar Coat Pink Sprinkle

l to r: Zoya Chyna, Zoya London, Essie Naughty Nautical

I also picked up this nail art brush set for $5. I needed some finer brushes and the ones at the art supply store were more expensive so I gave this a go. And so far I really like them and use them a lot. They had other sets as well and I may pick one up the next time I am at that supply store.

That's my long overdue haul post. Of course I have bought more since I took these pics, but those will have to wait for another day. Have a great Sunday, everyone!