Alphabet Challenge: American Apparel Berry

Today I have a lovely, rich berry shade for you, appropriately named Berry! This is an American Apparel polish. I think their polish is definitely underrated. The formulas are always great (in my experience), as they are saturated, easy to apply, and long wearing, not to mention affordable ($6).

This is two coats of Berry. I like shades like this one for fall, especially. This is two coats. This polish is almost opaque in one coat; you might be able to achieve opacity with one thicker coat.

I don’t live near American Apparel and always order their polish online. I suggest waiting for them to pop up on a daily deal site like Living Social or Groupon; I had a Groupon so I was able to get a bunch of polish for about half price!

What do you think of this polish?

Revlon Royal + American Apparel Meteor Shower

Revlon Top Speed polish in Royal is a confusing polish. It very much appears to be a jelly in the bottle, and a lot of bloggers refer to it as a jelly. On the nail, it is not a jelly, but one of those weird jelly/creme hybrids. I quite like the formula of this polish as it dries quickly as the name implies, and it is incredibly pigmented. I love how deep this cobalt is!

American Apparel’s Meteor Shower is a shredded gold glitter. Call me impressed with this one. You know how some shredded glitters don’t lay flat and end up sticking up after applying top coat? Not this one. After applying a top coat (Healthy Hoof…review coming soon), the glitter was not bumpy and it didn’t stick up either. It also went on nicely; I hate it when you have to “dig” for the glitters, and this did not do that!

I love the combination of these two polishes and can’t wait to use Meteor Shower with some other colors. Definitely a favorite glitter of mine!

American Apparel Mouse

Ah, I knew it would happen eventually. Nails are growing and looking lovely, then I go ahead and break two of them. I eventually filed all of my nails way down so they were even, but not before taking photos of this polish, Mouse by American Apparel.

I love this color because it’s a great neutral and tends to lean gray; it’s taupe without being TOO brown. I’m not a big fan of true brown polish (at least not on myself), but do love taupe shades. Interestingly, this polish looks quite different in my photos compared to how it looks in person. The shade looks quite brown; Temptalia’s photos are much more true to color.

Mouse has perfect application and was even opaque in one coat, which I was surprised by! It dries quickly too. I have never been disappointed with American Apparel polish, and they’re cruelty free!

American Apparel Office

I am writing this as I mourn the loss of a nail on my right hand, and boy do I mean a big loss! I tore an entire nail off in almost one swoop this afternoon by opening a container in the garage. It’s actually quite tender and seems to be ripped down to the beginning of when I actually stopped biting! That means I have THREE nails gone from my right hand after ripping them on various things. Luckily, the thumb and middle finger are finally starting to grow back. Oh well…the important thing I DID NOT BITE!

Anyway, I have some American Apparel polish to show off today, in the shade called Office!

This polish is gorgeous and application is very smooth. I’m wearing two coats! Plus, it is affordable at $6, but when I bought my polish I had a coupon (of course I did!) so it was a little cheaper than that. Office is a beautiful minty green. I honestly debated this polish because I have quite a few green shades, but I can honestly say that this one is different than the others and is pretty unique. This shot is outside in natural light on an overcast day.

Here it is indoors. It looks a little more saturated here, but in real life is more consistent with the second photo. I really like American Apparel’s polish and definitely have some more shades on my wish list! Another thing I like about their polish is the shape of the bottle. I know that it doesn’t really matter overall, but I prefer the square bottles like Essie and Butter London, probably because they are easier to store.

American Apparel Neon Green

I talked about neon previously, but I had the chance to break out my neon polish thanks to some gorgeous weekend weather. With my sister in town, another neon fan, I just had to wear American Apparel’s green neon polish. She is also a neon fan. Unfortunately, I totally forgot to put on a coat of white before the neon (a little tip I found on many nail blogs), but despite that, the application wasn’t a problem.

I guarantee this would not be a “grandma approved” polish. She would probably want to chop my fingers off if she saw this color! 😀 This is three coats, and there is still a slight bit of visible nail line, but I was fine with that.

Here it is in the bright sun! I got a bunch of compliments on this color over the weekend, and I loved how it looked on my hands.

In other neon news, now that summer is approaching, neon is everywhere, including this new Sinful Colors display I saw at Walgreens. This is a poor quality non-smartphone photo, but these neons are really gorgeous in person! I especially loved the orange and yellow. These look like new colors, including the pink one (which I thought was maybe 24/7, but it isn’t).

 

China Glaze Secret Periwinkle + American Apparel Light Year

Here’s a combination my grandma would REALLY hate! Good thing I won’t be seeing her this week, since she would probably have plenty to say about this combination…a lot more than just “horrendous.” 🙂

China Glaze Secret Periwinkle seems to be a pretty popular color due to its true-to-the-name shade and application. I like this color because it is unique, and falls just right with blue and purple to make me not think “yuck, purple!” It also has a 4.8 out of 5 on the Makeup Alley reviews page, so I’m not alone in thinking this polish is fab. I paired with American Apparel’s Light Year glitter, which is SO pretty!

I love how big the glitter is, and I like how many colors happen here. This glitter could go with practically any color. I am completely obsessed with glitter right now, even though it is such a pain to remove. Actually, compared to most glitters, Light Year was pretty easy to take off.

Here’s an indoors, natural light shot. You can see how opaque Secret Periwinkle is. I only used two coats, plus Light Year and a top coat.

On Trend With Neon

Neon is one of the big trends this spring/summer, and I am into it! Of course, that only applies to certain things, and nail polish is one of them (I’ll pass on neon shoes and bags). My BFF is totally disgusted that I am so into the neon since it was the hot cool thing in the late 80s/early 90s when we were kids, but I have fond memories of neon and it just screams FUN! My mom made all sorts of neon shirts for me when I was a kid, including a green one with a flip flop applique on the front (Yes, I was a way cool fourth grader). Neon totally reminds me of having fun in the summer.

These are the current neons I have, plus one on the way through the mail. Neon is SO hard to photograph! The most accurate one in color here is the second bottle of China Glaze. From left to right:

China Glaze: Flip Flop Fantasy
China Glaze: Celtic Sun
Color Club: Age of Aquarius
Milani: Awesome Orange

What’s on the way:

American Apparel Neon Green. Boring name, cool polish. I can’t wait to wear these when it gets warmer, and especially Celtic Sun with this dress:

This dress looks very yellow on the product page, but it is way more neon looking in person! I am not a hot weather person at all (anything over 75 is misery), but I am looking forward to getting into my summery clothes after this mini-heat wave we had in Michigan.

The Celtic Sun polish I just bought at Sally Beauty. They had a China Glaze sale this week and all of the neon polishes in stock from last summer’s Poolside collection were sold out at my local Sally’s. I went to a different one and they had ONE bottle left, lucky for me! I guess that shows how strong the neon trend is this year!