Zoya Sunshine

Purchased

Hi and happy hump day! Today I have Zoya Sunshine for you. Sunshine is a shade from Zoya's Pixie Dust line of textured polishes and is a beautiful, rich medium blue.

Like all of the Pixie Dusts that I have tried, Sunshine had a good formula, thick and pigmented but not hard to apply. I just made sure that each coat dried thoroughly before going on to the next coat. I think it helps it dry with a better texture. The color payoff on this shade is really great and I did 2 thin-ish coats in these swatches.

Sunshine is chock full of evenly sized silver glitter which gives it a nice grit that isn't too chunky or too fine. I love the finish on the Pixie Dusts and I think this blue is pretty awesome. 

I love this polish to bits and am glad to have it in my collection. I haven't tried it with top coat yet but I bet it would be stunning as well.  

I am so behind on all of the summer and fall collections. I saw the new Zoya display at Ulta the other day and had to refrain from buying all of them. Hopefully I'll have time to stash more polishes soon. Until then I have plenty of untrieds I can swatch. Have a great week, everyone!

L'Oreal La Pastille

Purchased

Hello! I hope you are all had a fantastic Fourth of July weekend if you happen to celebrate. Today I have the second polish from the recent L'Oreal speckled polish collection. L'Oreal La Pastille is a light nude shade with mixed matte black hex glitter.

If you recall, I was pretty disappointed in the other polish that I bought in this collection. I was hoping that the other one was a fluke and that the formula on La Pastille would be better. Unfortunately it wasn't and I actually found it to be even more watery and sheer than Spot Me. I used 3 coats for these swatches and you can see that it's still very sheer. I didn't want to do more coats because it was just getting super thick and chunky.

I don't really know what else to say about this one except that I didn't like it. Formula was way to sheer and watery and this shade does nothing for my skin tone. I am pretty sad that I don't like these as I was hoping to find more speckled polishes to add to my collection. It was a nice try by L'Oreal but the execution needs a little work.

:)

L'Oreal Spot Me

Purchased

Hello! Man it's been a while since I last posted. No real excuse except that I've been busy and the last thing I have been wanting to do at night after looking at the computer all day is edit more photos. I am trying to get back in the swing of things but posts may be erratic for a while.

Today I have a L'Oreal polish that came out a couple of months ago. I love, love speckled polishes (Illamasqua's Im'Perfect collection is still my favorite) so I'll snap up any speckle type polishes that I find. L'Oreal came out with a small collection this past spring and I had lost all hope of finding them when suddenly a full display popped up at a local Walgreens. Score one for me!

L'Oreal Spot Me is a pale blue creme with different sized black matte hex glitter. This was the one I was most excited by because it had that robin's egg look. Unfortunately, while I loved this in the bottle, I did not love the formula or the final look. Spot Me is very sheer and it took me 3 medium/thick coats to get what you see in these swatches. That might not sound like a lot but the formula was really thick and goopy and hard to apply. I think this actually had too much glitter in it, creating a pretty lumpy finish. The base was also very sheer, requiring multiple layers just to get it to look blue. It doesn't have that squishy, delicate quality I am looking for in a speckled polish. 

To even out the finish, I applied one thick coat of Out the Door Top Coat, which has become one of my new favorite top coats. 

While I think this looks OK in pictures, it didn't do anything for me in person. The base is too sheer and pale and the glitter overwhelms it. Sadly I think this one is going to go in the giveaway pile.

I have one more speckled polish from L'Oreal to review. Will I like it better than Spot Me? Tune in to see!

Orly Pink Your World

Purchased

Hi, everyone. Happy hump day! Hope you're all having a good week. I can't believe that it's June already. This year is seriously flying by! Today I have a polish that I picked up from Marshalls recently. This is Orly Pink Your World, which is a light pink glitter with gunmetal grey shard glitter in a clear base.

I was really excited to find this one. It looked really cool in the bottle and the shard glitter made it really unique. Unfortunately this was way cooler in the bottle than on the nail. The glitter payoff wasn't great and it took my 4 coats just to get it to look mildly OK in these swatches. The cool shard glitter was really hard to get but you can see that I did manage to get a few pieces on my nails. 

This may look better over a colored base but, after 4 coats I really didn't feel like working with this one again. 

I am kind of bummed that this one didn't turn out like I wanted it to, but it's definitely a unique polish. If you don't mind doing a little work, it might be fun over another color. Personally though this is probably going into the giveaway pile. 

Anyone here a fan of sheer glitter toppers? I'd be interested in hearing what you think of this one. Thanks for stopping by today!

Zoya Chyna

Purchased

Hi, guys. I hope you all had a nice long weekend. I had a good weekend and that extra day off was just awesome. I feel so refreshed and not tired. I really wish every week was a 4 day work week. One can dream. Today I have one of the classic Zoya Pixie Dust polishes. Chyna was one of the original Pixie Dusts if I remember correctly. I did not manage to snag it when it first came out by fixed that with my Zoya Earth Day order.

Chyna is a beautiful and deep cherry red polish with tons of red and silver glitter. This is a textured polish so it dries matte. The formula was thick (like most textures) but not problematic. It was very pigmented and the glitter payoff is fantastic. These swatches are 2 coats over base coat and no top coat. 

I don't usually put top coat on my textured polishes since I like their intended finish, but I have a feeling that this one would be really pretty with some top coat on it. 

This is a winner for me and I am glad to finally own it. I love all of the Pixie Dusts I've tried so far though I have not had the chance to try the Magical Pixie Dusts yet. Not sure if they'll be too chunky for me but I should pick one up the next time I place a Zoya order.

That's it for me. Hope you're having a wonderful week so far!

L'Oreal Some Like It Chunky

Purchased

Hello, hello. Thanks for coming by today. This morning I have a really unique polish to show you. L'Oreal Some Like It Chunky is a burnished gold/almost copper shade with subtle pink shimmer and silver hex glitter. This is a textured polish and is meant to be worn without top coat. Some Like It Chunky came out earlier this year as part of the Gold Dust collection. I wrote in my notes that the polish name sounds like a Flo Rida song. Ha.

Some Like It Chunky had a smooth formula and it was really easy to work with. I love how it looks matte. The texture is really uniform and I didn't have any snagging issues. 2 coats was all it took to get the luxe look above. 

The Gold Dust was originally a limited collection but L'Oreal smartly added it to their current core display. I really like this one. Love how glittery it is and it's a unique shade in my collection. What do you guys think of this one? Did you pick up any others from this line? :)

OPI Baby Please Come Home

Purchase

Hi, everyone. Man I've been so terrible about posting lately. It's just so hard to come home after work at night and find the enthusiasm to get on the computer again. Not to mention that my computer has been super slow lately. Anyway, those are just lame excuses that you don't want to hear. Let's get to the polish.

This is OPI Baby Please Come Home from last year's Mariah Carey Holiday collection. Baby Please Come Home is a cool toned lavender that leans a bit pink. It has a Liquid Sand finish, meaning it's textured and meant to be worn without a top coat. If found it to be nicely pigmented and only required 2 coats, as shown below.

 

I like this one. I don't have anything quite like it in my collection and I like that it's a very cool toned purple. Of course I love the bling-y glitter and the Liquid Sand formula is very nice. As you can see, I bought I have a mini bottle of this as part of a little 3-pack. I would consider getting a full size bottle though. I don't see the texture trend dying anytime soon and I am still a fan.

Thanks for hanging in there and I hope you all have a fantastic weekend!

OPI White Gold Top Coat

Purchase

Hello and happy Tuesday! Did any of you L.A. readers feel the earthquake yesterday? It was a pretty substantial one. I was actually in the shower when it happened and my shower door was rattling pretty badly. It was fine though and pretty short, though it did make for an interesting morning on Facebook and Twitter.

So I know today is St. Patrick's Day but I do not have a green manicure for you. Nope, I am busting out something that has been in my drafts for a little while now. It's OPI White Gold Top Coat. This came out last winter as part of the Mariah Carey Holiday collection (I think). I wasn't initially interested in this but I found it after Christmas on clearance at Ulta so I said why not.

OPI White Gold Top Coat is a...white gold top coat. Haha. It has white gold flakes and is basically the silver version of last year's Man with the Golden Gun, also from OPI.  I wore it here over MAC Grey Friday, a gunmetal grey. I found the flake payoff to be pretty good though I did have to do a little bit of dabbing to get the gold where I wanted it to go. It wasn't too fiddly though and I used about 1.5 coats here.

This is a fun polish to have in my collection though I am really glad that I bought it on sale. What do you guys think of the gold flake trend? Love or leave it? Let me know in the comments below. Have a lovely week!

Pahlish Mad Man with a Box

Purchase

Hello again. Look I am posting twice in one week. I am already doing better than I have been for the last few weeks. Let's see if I can keep it up. Today I am showing off another shade from the Of Space and Time collection from Pahlish. Pahlish Mad Man with a Box is a gorgeous deep blue with green undertones. This polish is filled with lots of purple, green and blue microflake glitter. This polish had great pigmentation. I used 2 coats below. It does dry with a somewhat matte finish so you will top coat to get it smooth and shiny.

I can see in my photos that my nails still look a little bumpy. I probably should have added another coat of top coat, but it looked OK to me at the time. And actually, I think it still looks pretty nice even if it is a little bumpy. 

Once again I am really impressed with the Pahlish formula and the uniqueness of this shade. I am really glad I ordered this collection, and am excited to try out the rest. Did anyone else pick up this set? I haven't gotten Part 2 yet but have been eyeing it.  Thank you for stopping by!

Pahlish Lullaby Without End

Purchase

Hi, everyone! I am sorry it's been so long since my last swatch post. Work's been super crazy and I just haven't had the energy to do a lot of swatching and photo editing in my off time. I am going to try to be better though, because I have lots of fun polishes I want to show you.

This week I have Pahlish Lullaby Without End to show you.  It's from the recent All of Space and Tinne collection. I'm rubbish at describing polishes but this is a bright cherry red that has a somewhat jelly consistency and is full of blue and red glitter. The Pahlish website describes it much better. Here is the description from the website.

Vivid coral red jelly that leans pink with soft shimmer and blue metallic glitter accented with iridescent orange hex.

This polish is really bright and fun. I love that the base isn't super sheer, nor is it so opaque that it obscures the glitters. The finish is just right. I didn't have to do any fishing for glitter. As I said, it's kind of jelly-ish so it's not going to be fully opaque unless you wear another shade underneath or use a lot of layers. I preferred to have that squishy jelly look and used 2 coats for these swatches. It is glitter so you'll need top coat to smooth it out. I think I just needed one coat of top coat. 

sorry this is blurry

Blue and red is one of my favorite combos and I think this polish is gorgeous. It's my first foray into Pahlish and I'm already looking forward to my next order.

Did anyone else pick up this collection? Thanks for vising and have a lovely week!

China Glaze Winter Holly

Purchased

Hi, guys! It's Saturday and I am so, so happy for the weekend. This week has been totally brutal. I just started a new commute and I am spending about 9 more hours in the car driving each week than I used to. It's put a serious damper on my life and blogging. By the time I get home at night I am just too tired to do much of anything. I recently set up a light box but I think I need a stronger light. Pics still seem a little dark to me. So I'll be trying to find another light bulb this weekend.

Today I am showing you China Glaze Winter Holly. I actually wore this over Christmas but forgot to post it. I think this was from last's year's China Glaze holiday collection though I am not sure. Winter Holly full of fine forest green and gold glitter in a clear base. The glitter is all the same size and is pretty dense. Below is 2 coats just over base coat with a top coat to even it all out.

I don't remember this being super gritty though it definitely needs some top coat to get it nice and smooth. I like this one a lot. It's Christmas-y but not overtly so. The glitter was really dense and had good coverage as well.

I know it's not the holidays anymore but I love wearing glitter polishes all year round. Thanks for stopping by. Have a wonderful weekend!

Essie On A Silver Platter

Happy hump day! I am so glad that it's already halfway through the week. Going back to work after a long vacation is always hard and it always takes me some time to adjust. Today I have a polish from the Essie Encrusted Treasures collection. On A Silver Platter is a gold shimmer with blue hex glitter. This was a gift from the lovely Pamper with Poilish.  The Encrusted Treasures collection was a mixed bag for me but On A Silver Platter was one that I was really excited about.  Two coats shown below.

I really liked this one. I wish the gold wasn't quite so opaque so that the blue glitter showed through more but I still really liked it. This is supposed to be a textured polish I think but it wasn't that textured and seemed like a regular glitter to me. Not sure if I didn't do thick enough layers or if the texture is just really subtle.  

On A Silver Platter really comes alive in the sun. You can see above the gold shimmer is crazy shiny and reflective.  This is a very fun polish that I think is great for the holidays.

Thanks, Mila, for this polish. <3 Have a good week, everyone!

L'Oreal Hidden Gems

Hellooooo, Monday. Sigh - vacation is officially over. :( But it's a new year and I am excited to see what it brings. Today I am showing you L'Oreal Hidden Gems, a textured polish from the Gold Dust collection. Hidden Gems is a blackened blue polish with chunky silver glitter. It is a textured polish and is meant to be worn without top coat. Below is 2 coats.

I was actually a little disappointed in this one. In the bottle it looks almost like a duochrome with a purple and blue shift but it really doesn't come out in real life and appears almost black in most lights. You can see the blue better in these pics, but on my nails it wasn't nearly as exciting. 

oooh, texture!

I think I have two other polishes from this collection to try. While this one wasn't as awesome as I'd hoped, I am still excited to try the rest of them.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great week!