OPI "Sapphire in the Snow"

Good morning, guys and gals! Happy Sunday! I woke up to see a little bit of frost on my car windshield this morning - winter's on it's way!


Today's post is looooong overdue. I can't believe I waited so long to share OPI's "Sapphire in the Snow" with you! It's probably one of my all-time favorite OPI cremes ever. In fact, it's one of those polishes that I rarely use, because I don't want it to ever run out! 


I feel very fortunate to have found this beauty about a year ago at my local beauty supply store. It was in a gift set with "Merry Midnight". I really only wanted SitS, but the sales clerk could only sell me the set (which came with a free silver cuff bracelet!). Who'da thunk that both of these polishes would become some of my favorite OPI's?! This is one of my only polishes that I feel I need a back-up bottle of. If it weren't going for so much on eBay, I might buy a bottle today. But I'll wait to see if I can find another bottle dusty-hunting some day. Fingers crossed!


Although the name is "Sapphire in the Snow", it's not a sapphire-colored polish. Instead, it's more of a purple-blue. When "Road House Blues" from the Touring America Collection came out earlier in the year, I thought (more like HOPED!) that it was just SitS re-named. RHB is more of a true blue creme; it's bluer than SitS. Regardless, they're both some pretty awesomely gorgeous cremes!


Application:
OPI Chip Skip
1 coat OPI Nail Envy, Original Formula
2 coats of OPI "Sapphire in the Snow"
1 coat of Poshe' Super-Fast Drying Topcoat

And here's a little sneak-peek of my next post...

Last night, at Target, I found this cute little holiday dog t-shirt and couldn't pass it up at only $2.50. As you know, I only have cats...

My little Snow Princess!

She might not look happy, but I really do think she likes her new t-shirt!

Well, enjoy the rest of your Sunday! Thanks for stopping by!

Katie

4 Swatch Comparisons - China Glaze, Zoya, L'Oreal and Revlon!

It's SATURDAY!!!! Yaaaaay! Except for getting a run in this morning, I have nothing else on my to-do list today! I love weekends like this!


I wanted to show you all a comparison I did of 4 polishes that appear to be similar to each other in the bottle, but that are actually quite different on the nail. I picked up Revlon's "Mistletoe" a couple of weeks ago at Walgreens and once I got home, I wondered how much it looked like one of my all-time favorites, China Glaze "Wagon Trail" (but I just never got around to comparing the two). Then, just tonight, I thought about two others that are kind of close: Zoya "Edyta" and L'Oreal "Owl's Night". So, while I was thinking about it and had time, I thought I'd swatch all 4 to show you how alike and different they are.

China Glaze "Wagon Trail", Zoya "Edyta", 

L'Oreal "Owl's Night", Revlon "Mistletoe"

Same order for the swatch photos below:

I used 2 coats of each color in the photos above (no top coat or base coat).

Which one is your favorite of these 4 colors? I'd have to say that my favorite is still Wagon Trail. Up next is Owl's Night, followed by Mistletoe, then Edyta.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend, everyone!

Thanks for stopping by!

Katie

OPI "Chatters Me Up" vs. Orly "Rococo A-Go-Go" - - - PICTURE HEAVY!

Happy Friday, everyone! I LOVE these 4-day work weeks!  :-)


I hope all of my US friends had a wonderful Thanksgiving yesterday! My day was pretty low-key, but quite long. I volunteered to be a balloon handler in the annual St. Louis Thanksgiving Day parade downtown. I even made it on TV (there was just a close-up shot of me walking, no interview!)! It's a lot of fun to be a part of, but it's very early in the morning, and it was reeeeeeally, reeeeeally cold yesterday morning. After that, my mom and I went and had Thanksgiving dinner at a nearby restaurant. After that, we went and saw The Muppets movie! It was so cute! I wish I had painted my nails in one of my Muppets polishes!


When I got home from work tonight, I had a lovely package from Canada from my friend Linda! She was kind enough to purchase a bottle of the Chatters exclusive OPI polish, "Chatters Me Up". I don't even know what a Chatters is (I'm thinking it's similar to a Trade Secret or Beauty Brands?), but I know that this polish was only being sold at the Chatters salons, so my only way of getting a bottle was if I knew someone in Canada - and lucky for me, I do!


Before my package arrived, I had heard that "Chatters Me Up" was a dupe (or very close dupe) of the new Orly "Rococo A-Go-Go", which I already had, but never tried. So, as soon as I opened my package, I knew I wanted to see for myself how close the two are.


Sure enough, they are almost exact dupes...

L to R on all hand pictures: Orly, OPI, Orly, OPI
(no base coat or top coat used)

What do you think? In the bottle, they don't look like dupes. But on the hands, it's my opinion that they do.


My reason for posting so many pictures is because there aren't a lot of pictures of "Chatters Me Up" online. Before I decided to purchase this, I wanted to check out swatch pictures, first. If I remember correctly, there was only one blog post which showed pictures of CMU. And at the time, there were no swatch comparisons of it with the Orly polish. 


Because I'm such an OPI hoarder/collector (just all-around FAN of OPI!), I'm not regretting buying CMU (even though it was the most expensive OPI I've ever bought!). I love it, and am anxious to wear it soon. That said, the Orly version *might* just have to go in the swap pile, since there's no need for me to own both.


Have a fantastic weekend, and thanks for stopping by to check out this post!


Love,
K

Orly - "Androgynie"

Hi!

Currently on my nails is "Androgynie" from Orly's new Holiday Soiree' Collection.

When I first laid eyes on Androgynie, I fell in love. I had seen pictures on The PolishAholic's website from when she went to Cosmoprof in Vegas in July. I was so anxious to see it for myself in person, I didn't think I could wait 3 or 4 months for it to be available!

So needless to say, when I did finally find the collection at Sally's a couple of weeks ago, I knew I needed Androgynie. The others in the collection, in my opinion, are very "passable", and I don't plan on buying any of them.

I've seen/heard some very mixed reviews of Androgynie from nail polish bloggers. Some are just head over heels for it, others are disappointed with the final results. I, myself, may have found a new favorite polish that will never - ever - go in the "swappable" pile! I LOVE it! It's so unique and unlike any of my other polishes!

Based on the pictures I had seen previously, I knew I wanted to layer Androgynie over a black creme polish to avoid it's jelly-like formula. My only complaint about this mani is that I didn't wrap my tips when I was applying the black creme polish. It looks like I have a lot of tip wear here, but I just forgot a step in my mani! Otherwise, this was a breeze to apply. I used 2 coats of Poshe' topcoat because it was still a little bit rough after 1 coat of top coat. Some have said that Orly polishes take longer to dry, but since I used the Poshe', my mani was completely dry within minutes.

Application:

OPI Chip Skip

2 coats of OPI Nail Envy, Original Formula

2 coats of OPI Black Onyx

1 coat of Orly Androgynie

2 coats of Poshe' Super-fast Drying Topcoat

OPI RapiDry Spray

What do you think? Are there any colors from this collection that you're anxious to get your hands on, or that you already own? Which ones?!

OPI's "Parlez-vous OPI?" and China Glaze "Below Deck" Comparison

Well hello!


Today's post is going to be short and sweet...


A friend of mine on Facebook recently wanted to see a comparison of OPI's "Parlez-vous OPI?" and China Glaze's "Below Deck" to see how similar they are. As you may know, PVO was part of OPI's 2008 Fall Collection de France (one of my favorite OPI collections!). I purchased mine at my local grocery store (I know, total diversion...) and am so glad I snatched it up when I did. It's quite hard to find, and is going for some pretty crazy prices on Amazon and eBay. I purchased Below Deck recently from a local beauty supply store. This one isn't as hard to find (yet!), since it was part of China Glaze's 2011 Anchor's Away Collection which was released earlier in the year. 


I never realized how close the two were until my friend requested a side-by-side comparison.

Sorry about the messy painting. I literally just slapped on a couple of coats of each and snapped some pictures quickly. 

But as you can see, they are very close, but not dupes. PVO is much more "purple-y", where BD has a hint of taupe in it. I can't believe I'm saying this, but I think I prefer the color of Below Deck over Parlez-vous OPI. Normally, I'm all about the OPI's, but this time, CG wins! That said, I'm not giving my bottle of PVO up to anyone! 

Essie - "Bobbing for Baubles"

Today's post is for one of my new favorites, "Bobbing for Baubles" from Essie's 2011 Winter Collection, Cocktail Bling.


Essie describes this color as "a deepest darkest sapphire". To me, it doesn't scream sapphire. It's more of a dusty gray-navy blue creme. That said, it's still pretty awesome. I got a lot of compliments on it when I wore it recently. I love the fact that it's a dark shade (as you know, I LOVE dark shades, especially blues!), but it's not black, and doesn't look black when you're wearing it. One of the women who complimented me when I was wearing it asked, "Oh, is that teal? It's amazing!". I didn't mind, because she didn't ask if it was black!


If you've never tried Essie before, you really should. It's one of my favorite brands of polish that never seems to disappoint. If you're looking to try Essie and not spend a lot, Beauty Brands has a bunch of their polish on clearance right now, since they will no longer be carrying the brand (*sad face*). Normally, they retail for around $8/bottle.

Sally Hansen Salon Effects Nail Polish Strips - Kitty, Kitty

Happy Sunday, everyone! Man, this weekend seems to have flown by! Hope you've been enjoying it! Today, our kickball team plays in the playoff games! Pretty exciting that we've come this far!


Today I wanted to show you my first attempt at the Sally Hansen Salon Effects Nail Polish Strips that I used for Halloween. For Halloween, I decided to go as the "Crazy Cat Lady". The costume itself seemed easy to put together, but I was racking my brain trying to figure out which polish would be perfect to wear. When I was at Wal-Mart the day before my Halloween party, I came across the Sally Hansen Salon Effects display and noticed they had these cheetah print strips! For $8, I thought it was worth it to see what all the hype was about. Ok, confession: I actually bought 2 packages of these, just in case I really messed up and needed to open another package. But the good news, is I have an unopened package that I can use when I want a fun, frisky, quick manicure! :-)


Now that I've applied them and worn them for more than a couple days, I feel that I can give an honest review about them. First, application was pretty easy! You literally just match up a strip to the nail that would fit it the best. It's better to be a little big than too small because you can always "trim" the extra off. I had no problem with the sizing of the strips. But I will say, don't even bother saving any of the unused strips, because after they've come out of their safety-sealed packaging, they're only "fresh" for a short while. 


I was able to get about 4 days wear out of them before I decided to remove them. Actually, I probably could've gotten longer wear out of them, but I just wanted to change my polish. I did not use a base coat when applying these. Instead, I cleaned my nails very good with Zoya Remove + and waited a couple of minutes for them to get nice and dry. Also, I did not use a top coat after I applied these, either. Honestly, I wasn't sure if I should or not, but I definitely didn't need to. Once they were on the nail, they were on good! 


I would absolutely buy these again for special occasions. They'd be perfect if you were going on vacation and wanted a long-lasting manicure. Or, if you had a special event (wedding, dance, party, etc.) that you wanted a fresh looking, chip-resistant manicure for. I will say, I used strips with a design on them, so it allowed for me to make mistakes without anyone noticing. I'd want to practice a little more before I tried using a one-color strip.

Have you tried the Sally Hansen Salon Effects strips? Or, have you tried another brand of strips? If so, what did you think? Would you try them again?


Sally Hansen Salon Effects Nail Polish Strips retail for around $8 and can be purchased where most drugstore brand polishes are sold (Walgreens, Ulta, Target, Wal-Mart).

Glitter Fun!

Since I already had a great base color on (Butter London "Big Smoke"), I thought it might be fun to experiment with some of my untried glitter polishes!

From L to R: OPI "Rainbow Connection", OPI "Simmer & Shimmer", OPI "Gone Gonzo!", OPI "Absolutely Alice", OPI "Last Friday Night". 


I should be ashamed of myself for never wearing any of these - I've got some awesome glitter polishes that need to be worn more often! I think my favorite one is Absolutely Alice!

Butter London "Big Smoke"

Soooooo......


I first wanted to apologize for being M.I.A for the past 32 days. But, thank you all for sticking around! I thought I would've lost a few followers due to my lack of activity, but everyone stayed - thank you! :-)


Tonight, I want to show you all my first Butter London, "Big Smoke". I bought this beauty on September 20th during Ulta's buy 1, get one free one-day-only sale. I only remember the date because it was my 30th birthday! Thanks, Ulta! I ended up getting 4 bottles total; it was my little birthday present to myself!


The formula was really nice; it wasn't too thin or too thick. I felt that because the brush was so small, I found myself re-dipping quite often. But, I only needed two coats to achieve full opacity (yay!). As I was browsing my polish collection, trying to decide on a color to wear, I noticed that I have a bunch of blues and blackened blues in my collection. I feel like I have a color very similar to this already (maybe an OPI or Nicole by OPI?). I'll try to report back with my findings. 


But the question is, "Was it worth the $14/bottle price tag?" No. Unless BL goes on sale again where I can get them for $7 (or less) a bottle, I don't see myself buying any more anytime soon. That said, they do have a Limited Edition color called "The Black Knight" that's out right now that I'd love to get my hands on. Maybe I'll find it at Ulta and will have a coupon! Wishful thinking!


Application:
Zoya Remove +
OPI Nail Envy, Sensitive and Peeling Formula
2 coats of Butter London's "Big Smoke"
1 coat of Poshe' Super Fast Drying Topcoat
OPI RapiDry Spray

Do you have any Butter London's? What's your favorite BL shade?