Sally Hansen Crushed Velvet

Colette's pick.

I freaking love this colour. I believe it's a Canadian Exclusive, that's what I keep hearing anyhow. I can't quite tell what kind of purple it is, but here are the pics. The sunlight one makes the polish out to be a little bit more red than it actually is. I swear it has blue and red shimmer in it. Not a lot, but enough that you sometimes see it. Just fantastic.







Two coats. Fantastic application. I like it when polishes have a shorter brush like these Sally Hansen salon brushes. Other than that, I don't have much else to say. Hope you like it!

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Here is the obligatory Christmas mani. I did two, actually. After screwing the first one up so bad, I redid it Christmas day. I went with less Christmas-obvious for the second one.


Sunlight


Natural Light

Base is three coats OPI I Only Drink Champagne with one coat of China Glaze Ruby Pumps or China Glaze Emerald Sparkle. I didn't wait long enough for Champagne to dry so when I peeled the pieces of sticker paper off, the polish peeled with it. So it just looks all gross and wrinkly.


Sunlight


Natural Light


Low Light

This is two coats of Zoya Lulu and one coat of OPI Up Front & Personal. I really need to get a back-up bottle of Up Front & Personal, I use it for everything. This mani is much more natural but still blingy and festive. I included a low light pic to try and show you the pinky peach of Lulu. I slapped Up Front & Personal on gold and it doesn't have anywhere near the type of impact as it does on just plain skin or a pink.

Anyhow, have a very Merry Christmas everyone! May your holidays be bright and your New Year be awesome. Remember, only one more week to take part in pick my polish. After the New Year I'm going to finish off the swatches and things will then go back to whatever I pick. BTW, I've added something like 30 new bottles of polish since I first started Pick-My-Polish, so for anyone who hasn't picked yet, there are more choices now. So gooooooooo.

Edit: Here's a pic in artificial light. Here you can see the pink and green shimmer.

OPI Mauving to Manitoba

Small Town Gal's pick.

Oh good ol' non-3-free nail polish smell. This is not as bad as the others, thank goodness.

Alright, question, is mauve a shade of purple? I always thought so, but this doesn't look like purple. It's like... pink and purple had a baby and this is the result. But yes, this is supposed to be mauve. Very shiny, metalic-y, shimmery. I like it.





This is two coats. Two thin coats is best. On my index finger I ended up with too much polish and it gets really streaky. This is opaque in two thin coats and goes on ridiculously smooth.

Overall, I like the colour, but when I look down, for some reason it makes me think of grandma finger nails. Can't quite figure out why. Maybe it's just one of those colours that were popular back in the day?

FYI: LJ Syndication feed

For any of you who have an LJ account and wish to follow Nail Polish Adventures through your friends page instead of blogger, I've set up a syndication feed for you.

http://syndicated.livejournal.com/perrypiepolish/

Sally Hansen Valentino

Jenel's pick!

This is a dark brown polish with predominantly gold shimmer. There's also a wee bit o' pink and green shimmer in there. Holy, I love this dark chocolate colour. It actually really reminds me of the Nubar Chocolate Truffles collection.





This is two coats and one coat of Poshe top coat. Goes on really smooth. Found that the brush was a bit long though, made control just slightly harder than I'm used to. But not a big deal. Overall, if you like browns, or dark colours, definitely give this one a try. But I've been told these guys are rare.

Anyhow, my brain is broken, if you want to know more about the polish, just ask. That's all for now, darlins'.

Gosh Purple Heart

I have been a bad blogger. I've been putting off posting this for a while. I just couldn't get good pictures of it. So I just took a lot and then having to pick which to post and then edit them all was just a pain. But here they are. Every picture was taken in some form of natural light. Most in low lighting except for the one in sunlight.

Purple Heart is a purple/green duochrome. I could not for the life of me get the green to show up for a picture. Holy shizznit, I've never taken so many pictures of a polish before. I think I was sitting at somewhere around 45 when I was done. When you look at the polish directly, you see purple, but on the edges, it's a very dark greyed out green. It doesn't look anywhere near as impressive as it does in the bottle though. The duochrome shows up best in lower lighting. Check out the bottle. It never flashes that light green/blue like the bottle, but the deep dark green definitely appears.











This is two coats. Purple Heart is very very pigmented. Opaque in one coat, but two here just because it lasts longer. Goes on wicked smooth.

I love the colour. If I had to choose between Gosh Mystery Night and Purple Heart, I would choose this. This is a bit more blue based where Mystery Night is more reddish.

Regular pick-my-polish resumes next post.

OPI Sand in My Suit

Mels' pick.

Sand in My Suit is a beige nude with lots of shimmer. When I first bought this polish I thought it'd be really boring but it's not. The shimmer gives it extra dimension and keeps it from looking like gross paint in your fingers. These pictures are done in artificial light. We definitely aren't getting any sunlight here in Calgary for a few days.





This is two coats. I made so many mistakes trying to get this damn thing swatched. I redid the mani three times. Ugh. Anyhow, you'll still see nail lines at two coats. But I think it's more than adequate. As usual, smooth easy application.

I can't wait until that knick on my finger heals.

Gosh Mystery Night

So I'm going to post something that's not a reader pick. I felt this was a big enough deal for me to move away from this month's pick-my-polish. I can't find any swatches of this polish online so I wanted to get it out there for anyone who may be interested in it.

I swatched this last night after I did China Glaze Flying Dragon. For some reason, all my swatches from last night sucked bad. I did one other one that I will post tomorrow night. Please ignore all my mistakes.


Mystery Night is from Gosh's Fall 2009 collection, "Sugar Babe" (click here for a picture and here for more information), and is a gorgeous deep eggplant purple. It's actually a black jelly polish packed to the brim with purple shimmer. I freaking love this. I saw it in the paper and I had to have it. So off I headed to my nearest Shoppers Drugmart. And I totally came home with five polishes. Then I went out again to find another polish in the collection and I came home with another two polishes. I will probably do swatches right away of polishes that I can't find pictures of online.



This is two coats with top coat. It's streaky at one coat, but evens out and gets all nice and dark in two coats. I really love their short brushes, it allows for great control. The formula is also very smooth. There's just one thing they could improve about their polishes though, make them longer lasting. This polish chipped on the second day. Not badly mind you, just a little bit, but this is quicker than polishes like OPI or China Glaze. But this really doesn't matter to me as my polish is on and off in about two days anyway.

China Glaze Flying Dragon

I apologize for not having any post of substance for the past little bit. I cut my finger and I wasn't feeling the idea of putting nail polish remover on it. So I waited until it was mostly healed. You can still see the little scabby on my index finger. (Boy, did that ever sound gross.) I'm actually surprised how shotty my application was. I can't believe how out of practice I got after only four days. Shameful.

Anyhow, here's Chey's pick.

Flying Dragon is a purple polish with blue and red glitter. Very pretty. But my crappy application doesn't do a very good job showcasing it.



The polish is watery so this is three coats. You can see on my index finger what the polish is capable of. That finger got one thick coat and two thin coats. All the other fingers got three thin coats. It'll probably require four thin coats for full coverage. Or do a thick coat somewhere. The polish dries sort of satiny matte. Not wicked shiny like I'm used to with most polishes. The picture is taken with no top coat.

Edit 6/12/2010: I've done an updated swatch, you can check that out here.

Whoa there!

I just got an influx of new followers. Where'd y'all come from? I usually average one new follower an entry. Six sort of blows my mind. Or was it seven? Eight? Either way, it's much more than usual. Lol. And why aren't you guys making polish picks?

For details and to participate in pick-my-polish month, please go here.

OPI Yoga-ta Get this Blue!

Arrrrr matey. Yeah, I don't know either. Anyhow, this is Kimber's pick.

Yoga-ta Get this Blue! is a deep blue polish with blue shimmer. When it comes to dark blues, this is the one I go for. It's blue, blue and blue.





This is two coats. It's so heavily pigmented that it's opaque in one but I put on two because it's a bit lacklustre at one. The polish is slightly thick, which is expected considering how pigmented it is, but it's not thick enough that it makes it hard to apply. For anyone who likes the colour blue, I suggest you go out and get this. Freaking gorgeous colour.

And that is all from me today, I'm gonna go and thaw out my fingers now, holy shat, it's cold.

For details and to participate in pick-my-polish month, please go here.

OPI I Only Drink Champagne

The second polish pick for the month by Katjo.

I Only Drink Champagne is a sheer light champagne gold frost. It's so perdysome. I really love this colour. In some lights it looks like a soft off-white, in others it looks like a light gold. Just fantastic. There is also a slight pink/green shimmer which adds a wee bit o' oompf.









This is three coats of colour. You could probably just do two for a nice even sheer look. Although at three, you can still see a bit of nail line. I was going to leave it at two, but I wanted to cover up my poor yellowed nails. I can not wait until they grow out. Just ick. As usual for OPIs, great application. But as I said above, it is sheer. So if you don't like smile lines, this may not be the polish for you.

For details and to participate in pick-my-polish month, please go here.

OPI Charmed by a Snake

I got these done yesterday but I didn't get home until 11:00. So I left them until today. Sorry about that. But pick-my-polish officially begins! Whee!

Pants' pick

Charmed by a Snake is a light brown with gold shimmer. Very warm. It really does make me think of a snake. I'm not sure how, but it does.





This is two coats and goes on wicked smooth. Sadly, I don't like the colour on me. I think it's just too warm for my already yellow skin tone. I had the same issue with OPI DS Illuminate.

To participate in pick-my-polish month, please go here.

Pick My Polish!

For the past three or so weeks StBF has been picking out my nail polish and I have to admit, it's been a lot of fun. I really look forward to seeing what she picks and leaving her with the tough choice of which polish to wear next has been pretty win. So for this month, I'm going to extend the pick-my-polish to you guys. Each of you get to choose one polish that I will wear and swatch in the order it was picked. So anything that has 'N' under the swatched column in the spreadsheet is up for picking.** And if this turns out to be a success, I wouldn't mind extending it indefinitely. Just comment on this entry with the polish you want to see.

Find the list HERE.

So I already have six picks lined up from my friends because I was worried no one was going to pick anything and I was worried that that would start me on a slow but steady decline into depression and then six months from now I would be standing on the roof of my work looking down at various shoppers, firemen, and policemen as I contemplate how much of a failure I am because no one had any interest in picking my polish. So... Yeah, it just seemed like a good idea. And it would give you guys time to pick.

Currently the list is:
1) OPI Charmed by a Snake (Pants)
2) OPI I Only Drink Champagne (Katjo)
3) OPI Yoga-ta Get This Blue (Kimber)
4) China Glaze Flying Dragon (Chey)
5) OPI Sand in My Suit (Mels)
6) Sally Hansen Valentino (Jenel)
7) OPI Mauving to Manitoba (Small Town Gal)
8) Sally Hansen Crushed Velvet (Colette)
9) Orly Enchanted Forest (jaljen)
10) Sally Hansen Gunmetal (fishgirl182)
11) OPI Russian Navy (Mary Beth)
12) OPI Concerto in Copper (PolishPig)
13) China Glaze Prize Winning Mare (Kelsea)
14) China Glaze Gussied Up Green (Brandi)
15) OPI DS Classic (Antonea)
16) OPI She's Golden (Lianne)

**A couple of these have already been swatched, but I wouldn't mind redoing them as they were crappy to begin with. There have also been a few polishes reserved for Christmas.

Edit 1/1/10: I am no longer taking picks. Stay tuned for round two.