Summer Haulin'

As per usual, about every month or two I head across the boarder for a brief shopping trip. When I say brief, I mean BRIEF, like hours! But I always manage to hit up the best polish supplier while I am in town :) This month I scored at Sally's and Five Below.

I was hoping to find Orly's Baked collection at Sally's, unfortunately they only had the mini set for purchase. I took a look through their sale section and picked out some Finger Paints which were an additional 50% off, lucky me! I chose Metallic Moondust and Stargazing Lilac.

Metallic Moondust is a dense glitter made up of gold  and silver micro and medium sized glitters and sprinkled with a teal hex glitter. This was more awesome than I was expecting, very dense and super sparkly. One coat is shown in my swatches below.

Stargazing Lilac is basically a lilac version of Metallic Moondust with the prettiest shade of purple hex glitter in place of the teal. One coat is shown in my swatches below.

An unexpected stop on my trip this month was at a newly opened Five Below. I just had to check it out, three polishes for $5? Fan-tastic! I picked up some lovely neon shades from Fresh Paint, Honeydew and Guava.

Honeydew is a light green pastel neon, I don't think it has enough blue in it to be considered a mint. It is totally a honeydew shade in neon form. It dries to a slightly satin finish, my swatches below show two coats.

Guava is this fantastic neon coral. I don;t know if I would compare the shade of this polish to the actual guava fruit. Although i have never tried it before, the photos I have seen are a deeper coral in comparison. This polish wears a lot better than other neons, making it one of my number one picks for summer 2014. I will post more about this polish soon. Two coats are shown in the swatch below.

sunlight

shade

The last polish I picked up at Five Below is a glitter topper. As soon as I saw this one I knew I HAD to have it, now! Funky Fingers Glitter Matters - has an unimaginative name... - but is so unique to anything I have seen or owned. Very indy inspired.

It is a glitter topper composed of tiny pink and yellow matte glitter with a mix or larger pink, yellow and white matte glitter. I can't wait to try this out over different shades of polish to see what works best. It would be awesome for a glitter sandwich as well. My swatch below shoes one coat.

sunlight

shade

That is all for now ...until next month ;)

Cult Nails Scandalous

Happy Friday! A nice sunny weekend calls for a bright and shiny shade. Summer seems to be in full force, however I feel like this whole season is just flying by since the weather picked up so late.

Today I am wearing Cult Nails Scandalous. This juicy shade is super duper shiny. The colour does not photograph very well, I would describe it as a pink based coral jelly. On screen it looks way more saturated. It is a very creamy jelly.

It was fairly thin on the first coat, but built up nicely in three coats, not bad for a jelly. I had no application issues, as always with my Cult Nails polishes, flawless formula :)

In Hind sight I regret not trying a jelly sandwich with Scandalous. It would go perfectly with captivated or Blaze! Whenever I pull out a Cultie to wear, it always makes me crave more. Can't wait to see what Maria has in store for us in her newer collections!

Pedal to the Metal

My boyfriend suggested I pick a few polishes for him to choose from to paint my nails the other day. While choosing the colours I already knew EXACTLY what he was going to pick, the blue shade, Essie, Butler Please. He always goes for the blues! He surprised me when he paired it with another Essie, Saturday Disco Fever. This of course would be the accent nail, according to him.

I told him maybe he should pick a colour based off the polish name, so out of the five in front of him, he picked out China Glaze, Pedal to the Metal. A perfect choice I didn't even consider seeing how my first road test (G2), was scheduled for the next day! I'm glad to say I easily passed, yay me! I was lucky enough to have a super nice examiner and no rain, it had been calling for rain all week. I had a little set back the morning of with my boyfriends car, but that is a whole other story all together. All that matters is that I made it there on time and passed, so we are both happy :)

Pedal to the Medal is a light, bright pink creme with the slightest of coral undertones. Application was good, not too thick, not too thin. There were some streaks, but better application on my part could have helped to avoid that. Only two coats were needed for full opacity.

It dried to a satin/matte finish, which I glossed up with a coat of Seche Vite. Application so far (2 days at this point) is good. Some slight shipping in my usual spot (inside right thumb). But I did also experience a larger than usual chip on day one, pointer finger of my left hand. This was due to a deep bend (crease) in the nail. Some of my nails are still healing after the toll winter took on them unfortunately. Luckily all of the other nails are looking good. I found this collection as a whole chipped a lot faster due to the satin/matte finish. Hopefully this last a few more days, I plan on doing a refresh of some sort :)

At Vase Value

China Glaze has confused me with their latest summer and spring collections, I feel like maybe their spring collection was supposed to be their summer collection and vise versa? Although Peonies in the Park (spring collection) has some lovely pastels, I find that they are brighter (including a few neons) and more appropriate for summer, where as the summer collection hardly has any neons!

I dont know how to classify At Vase Value, apart of the Peonies and Park collection. Sure, it may look like your standard "Tiffany" or baby blue, but I think it is different from the similar shades I own. First off, I would not consider it a neon polish, however it must be the brightest pastel blue I own. Secondly, it has a hint of yellow in there which makes it shift slightly teal while still being a blue. Basically it is a bright neon leaning pastel blue... LOVE!

I wish I could say the same about application, but to be honest I was actually expecting worse! This whole collection seems to be infamous for application issues and horrible wear. I can't comment on wear time just yet since I just applied the polish last night, but application wasn't the easiest. The first coat was a bit streaky, this occurred when over lapping layers. To avoid balding work quickly with three swift swipes. The second coat applied much easier, but to get full opacity I found I needed between 3-4 coats. It varied from finger to finger for me, and this is because I was painting in a dimly lit room watching Chopped (Sooooo hooked on this!), so, my fault. I would say in better lighting and atmosphere, 3 coats total should do it. The fourth coat was mostly just spot touch-ups with thinned out polish.

The natural finish of At Vase Value is a satiny matte. It did appear thick and uneven on the nail. I even thought I saw some bubbling on a few nails, but one coat of Seche Vite evened everything out fairly nice. Overall I am very happy with the final look, colour and finish. I felt even thought I needed between 3-4 coats It wasn't really a lot of extra work or as messy as the other polishes I have tried from this collection. I just hope it lasts me a few days without chips!

Naughty Nautical

I can decide if it feels like summer yet over the weekend totally but the weather is up and down, super hot some days and cool on others with a mix of rain and thunderstorms. I just want full out summer weather now that it's July!

An awesome summer shade I picked up in late winter was an Essie polish I had been wanting for a while, Naughty Nautical. This teal cream has a slight sprinkling of white/silver flecks that reflect beautifully in the bottle. Once the on the nail it is not really visible unless you look really, really close.

The formula was great, thinner than I expected for a creme, but very pigmented. I only required two coats for full opacity. I absolutely adore the colour. This is the time of the year where pretty much anything goes polish wise. cant wait for the sum to really shine, then I will bring out some neons!

Wish on a Starfish

Today I have a China Glaze texture polish from one of the many collections they have put out in the last few months, this is Wish On A Starfish.

As you can see it is a light pink texture with golden shimmer throughout. It was a bit sheer on the first coat but built up nicely with three thin coats. I find with these polishes if you add thicker coats the effect looks more like a clumpy mistake than a texture.

I had no issues with application. The polish dried neither quickly or slowly but since it was textured I think it dried pretty well. I love the name! This is totally a starfish pink and the gold shimmer makes it shine like a sparking star!

Sun Upon My Skin

I have had nothing but bad experiences applying polish outdoors. Whether it's the wind, sun or general temperature, my application usually sucks! Therefore, I don't really know how I should review China Glaze Sun Upon My Skin.

Sun Upon My Skin is apart of China Glaze's latest summer collection, Off Shore. There really isn't anything extra special about this yellow, it doesn't have a shimmer or neon pigment, however I don't have a lot of yellows in my collection and this was more of an impulse buy. This buttercup cream feels like it should be apart of a spring collection instead of summer.

Overall application as started in direct sunlight was difficult, thick and runny. Once I moved in to the shade application was a bit easier, but still uneven. I decided to run inside and grab some thinner in hopes of the evening out the polish on the second coat. I added a final third coat on top to make sure everything was covered up evenly and decided and three coats was good enough. A layer of Seche Vite helped to smooth out any imperfections and I was done.

The photos are forgiving compared to real life. The polish is still slightly streaky on some nails and I noticed some bubbling on others, but it is hardly noticeable. I will have to try this polish on indoors to give my final thoughts on it.