Lynnderella - Chocolotta Love

Hi, everyone!

Happy Monday! How was yours? Mine seemed to fly by - which is ALWAYS nice!

I wanted to share with you pictures of my recently-acquired Lynnderella "Chocolotta Love". I got this polish through a swap, since it's next to impossible to buy this one directly from the producer or distributor. 

I have to be honest, I'm very "meh" about this one. As much as I love browns and unique polishes, this doesn't seem like a very practical polish for me. I know that sounds silly, but what I mean, is I don't see myself wearing this for more than one day. I know Lynnderella polishes are very, very hard to find, but I'd be okay if I never owned any more. I know, I know...I'm a minority when it comes to Lynn's!


Here were the base colors I chose to use:

Left to Right: OPI Brisbane Bronze, Espresso Your Style!, Romeo & Joliet, Color Club With Abandon

(2 coats of each)

Now, one coat of Chocolotta Love on top of each of these:

My favorite combo is CL layered over OPI Brisbane Bronze. 

Do you own any Lynnderella's? If so, which ones are your favorites?

It's not easy pickin' a green...

Hello!

It's good to be back posting again! I know I've been a little M.I.A for the past few months, but there are a couple good reasons for that. First, my nails have been in horrible shape. I really think the winter months did a number on my nails and cuticles. They're finally to a point where I can paint them and not be embarrassed (Thank You, Nail Envy!!!!!!). And second, I just recently got a new camera. My old Canon broke and I waited quite a while to replace it. So, now that my nails are better and I have a nice new camera, I can get back to doing what I love - blogging!

My first post back is going to be a bottle shot post. I'm planning on wearing green polish to work tomorrow for St. Patrick's Day, but I'm having a very difficult time choosing a green polish! Until tonight, I didn't really realize how many green polishes I actually own! Decisions, decisions!

My first bottle shot picture is of my green China Glaze polishes (with an Orly that I snuck in because I forgot to include it with the other Orly's!).

Left to Right:  China Glaze"Starboard", "L8R G8R", "Glittering Garland", "Westside Warrior", "Zombie Zest", "Holly-Day", Orly "It's Not Rocket Science"

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Next, is a picture of some lonely greens from various brands...

Butter London "British Racing Green", Essie "Pretty Edgy", Essie "Sew Psyched", Deborah Lippmann "Billionaire", Revlon "Mistletoe", Revlon "Emerald City", Orly "Meet Me Under The Mistletoe", Orly "Jealous, Much?"

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My first 3 Zoya's (and first 3 green polishes) came from Zoya's St. Patrick's Day promo last year (2011). In the promo were Shawn, Ivanka and Suvi

Zoya "Opal", "Bevin", "Gemma", "Yara", "Shawn", "Ivanka", "Suvi"

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And now some of my favorites....

Nicole by OPI "Green Up Your Act!", OPI "Jade is the New Black", "Call My Cell-ery", "Green-wich Village", "Gargantuan Green Grape", "Fresh Frog of Bel Air", "Zom-body to Love", "Don't Mess With OPI", "Here Today...Aragon Tomorrow - Suede", "Here Today...Aragon Tomorrow", "Cuckoo For This Color"

Now, the hard part - deciding which color to wear!

Check back here tomorrow to see which color I chose!

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

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! 

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!

OPI - "Standing Room Only (Silver)"

!!!WARNING: PICTURE-HEAVY!!!


Hey, kids! How's your Monday been so far? I decided to take the day off today to get some stuff done around the house. I had a fun time in Chicago this past weekend. Unfortunately, the Cardinals lost the game we were at on Saturday afternoon. However, they did win the game the next day (but still lost the series). 


Since I was home during the day, and there was a little bit of sunshine, I decided I needed to try one of the few holos I own. I don't own many holos - not because I can't find them or won't pay high prices for them, but because I'm not a big holo fan (GASP!!!!). I know, I know, I'm definitely in that small percentage of polish lovers who don't care for holos all that much. Maybe I'm just too "plain" and boring. I like dark holos (like MPJ and Revvvolution), it's the lighter ones (especially light pinks and light purples) that I don't care for.


That said, I'm bringing you all one of my silver holos, OPI's "Standing Room Only (Silver)". I found this polish when I was getting a pedicure at local nail salon. I definitely wasn't dusty hunting that day, but when I saw it on the display rack (with all the other used polishes), I asked if I could buy it. I actually bought two SRO's that day - one bottle was about 75% full, the other bottle (the bottle I kept for myself) was about 90% full. They sold each bottle to me for $8! Pretty good deal!


SRO is a black label OPI, and boy, is it stinky! It's also very thin and watery. For this mani, I used 4 coats. I think the next time I used this color, I'll layer it over a black polish like "Black Onyx". Other than being on the thin side, this polish was actually really easy to apply and control.


I heard somewhere that you shouldn't use a top coat when wearing holos, because the top coat can take away from the holo-ness. I don't know how true that is, so I decided to skip the top coat this time. 


Application:
Zoya Remove +
OPI Chip Skip (I wonder if I really need to be using both of these?)
1 coat of Zoya Anchor Base Coat
4 coats of OPI's "Standing Room Only (Silver)"
Zoya Hurry Up Speed Dry Drops

Outside with natural sunlight:

Inside, under artificial light:

Inside, with flash:

So, what are your feelings about holos? What brand, in your opinion, makes (or has made in the past) the best holo? What's your favorite holo polish (even if you don't own it)?

Thanks for taking the time to read my posts - I appreciate all of your support!

Have a wonderful week!

<3,

Katie

OPI - "Color to Diner For"

Woo hoo! It's the weekend! It's about 11:00 right now on Friday night, and I can't even think about getting to bed! My mom and I are driving to Chicago tomorrow morning to go see a Cubs/Cardinals game at Wrigley Field! I've never seen the Cardinals play in an opposing team's stadium, and to see them play the Cubs makes it so much more exciting! A vendor of ours that I work closely with has gotten a suite at Wrigley for us, so it'll be an awesome experience! I'll be sure to post pics once we're back!


Since I'll be sporting my Cardinal red tomorrow, I had to decide what red I wanted to wear for the big day. Lucky for me, I just received "Color to Diner For" from the newTouring America Collection by OPI! I won the ENTIRE 12-bottle set in my friend Tara's blog giveaway. If you haven't checked out her blog, "For Your Nails Only" before, you can do so by clicking here. Thank you so much, Tara! I can't wait to try out all of these fantastic colors!


I've heard some really great reviews about this collection: from the trendy polish colors to the amazingly perfect formula. I have to agree, the colors are incredible and are right up my alley. I know it's still summer, but these little puppies will be worn before fall!


I was pretty pleased with the formula of "Color to Diner For". It was quite thin at first, but built up beautifully. Usually, I don't care for the look of 3 coats of polish, but I used 3 here, and thought it looked perfect. 


I'm not really a red shimmer fan, but this polish was a nice surprise. It's almost a blood red with golden shimmer. Very sexy! 


Application:
Remove +
OPI Chip Skip
2 coats OPI Nail Envy, Original Formula
3 coats of OPI "Color to Diner For"
1 coat of China Glaze Fast Forward Top Coat
Zoya Hurry Up Speed Dry Drops

Do you have anything fun planned for the weekend?! Whatever you end up doing, have fun! 


Thanks for stopping by! :-)


Love,
Katie

OPI - "Love is a Racket"

Tonight's post includes a review and pictures of one of OPI's newest shades, "Love is a Racket". LIAR (Oh my! I didn't realize that was the acronym that would appear! Maybe I'll keep referring to it by it's full name!) is from the recent and final Serena Williams Glam Slam duo called Glam Slam USA. The other color in this duo is "Pros and Bronze". I bought this duo at my favorite local beauty supply store, but I've seen it at Ulta and Beauty Brands as well. They retail for around $14.25.


"Love is a Racket" is a bright reddish-pink glass fleck polish. If "Ali's Big Break" and "Let Me Entertain You" (both from OPI's 2010 Burlesque Collection) were mixed together, I *think* this is what you'd get. 


I have to be honest, this is just too "flashy" for me. I love a good glitter or a good glass fleck polish, but I just don't think bright reds/fuchsias look that great on me; kinda the same way I felt about another recent glass fleck polish by OPI, "Be A Dahlia Won't You?". I don't know, they just aren't "me". So, yet another bottle that will probably end up in the swap/blog sale pile! Man, this pile is really starting to grow! I've kinda been striking out these past few times, but I'm bound to find a new favorite one of these days!


After only wearing this a few hours and trying to take it off (with Remove +), I noticed some pretty bad staining. So, I'd recommend wearing at least a base coat (maybe 2 coats, just to be safe) before applying this.


Application:
OPI Chip Skip
OPI Nail Envy, Soft & Thin Formula
2 coats of OPI's "Love is a Racket"
China Glaze Fast Forward Top Coat

Which Serena Williams duo has been your favorite so far? I'd have to say mine's been the one that included "Grape...Set...Match" and "Servin' Up Sparkle" (although, I have yet to do a full mani with either of these, but it's comin', I promise!

Enjoy the rest of your week, everyone! I doubt I'll be back any more this week, and the earliest I'll probably do another post is Sunday or Monday. So, enjoy the weekend! 

Katie