Illamasqua Peruzzi

Peruzzi is a textured polish from Illamasqua that I was thrilled to get my hands on. I purchased it from Hautelook, since Illamasqua is impossible to find in the USA these days.

The formula is a little thick, but not hard to work with. You can easily get away with one coat. I found that it dried quickly and it wears REALLY well, as this brand usually does on me! I also love this color. The sparkle is high and it’s just so pretty!

I definitely recommend picking up this polish if you can. 🙂 Keep an eye out for Illamasqua on Hautelook!

2013 Polish Favorites: Part One!

Hello! Welcome to my 2013 nail polish favorites post…the first part anyway. 🙂 There are SO many great polishes that I fell in love with this year, so I had a hard time narrowing it down. This was my first full year of not biting my nails, and it has been about two years since I quit.

Dior Princess, Zoya Rocky, MAC Sweet Pop

Since I’m of the excitable personality type, I’m going to start with my FAVORITE polish of the year: Dior Princess! This is named perfectly, as it is a feminine pink with silver shimmer. This was a limited edition spring release, but you may be able to find it on eBay or at some counters. This is also a little sentimental since I bought it in Chicago while on a little getaway with my hubby.

Next up: Zoya Rocky. Zoya really impressed me in 2013. Their cream shades seemed to improve and the colors are soft, yet vibrant. Rocky is a gorgeous blue with the slightest hint of dustiness.

MAC Sweet Pop might be one of my top ten polishes ever! It is a not-quite-neon peach shade. Love!

Zoya Micky, China Glaze Dandy Lyin’ Around, China Glaze Snap My Dragon, Essie Maximillian Strasse Her

Zoya Micky is coming across a little dark here, but it’s described as “coral cream”. It definitely leans pink, and it has some slight silver shimmer.

China Glaze Dandy Lyin’ Around is a beautiful white shade with silver and white micro shimmer. The formula is incredible and this is definitely one of the best white polishes I’ve come across.

China Glaze Snap My Dragon- Another pick from the Avant Garden collection, Snap My Dragon is opaque in one coat and glows on the nail.

Essie Maximillian Strasse Her is a gray green shade that I wear all the time. It reminds me of a rainy day.

Butter London: Bit Faker, Kerfuffle, Fiver, and The 444

The next four are all Butter London shades.

Bit Faker– An explosion of bronze glitter.
Kerfuffle- Pale, peachy pink. Hubby picked out this one for me!
Fiver– Pastel mint
The 444– Champagne glitter!

Maybelline Coral Glow, Paul and Joe Toujours, Zoya Yana, Illamasqua Scarce

Maybelline Coral Glow is a limited edition polish that I loved so much on the nail, that I bought a backup. It’s a hot pinky coral that really does glow. It has that “lit from within” quality.

 Paul and Joe Toujours– Another pink, I know…I just can’t help myself! This color is the ultimate girly pink, a little on the old-fashioned side.

Zoya Yana– Deep red-based pink. 🙂

Illamasqua Scarce…speckled, neutral PINK!

OPI: Pussy Galore, Solitaire, and When Monkeys Fly

The last of the bunch on this wheel are from OPI, including two liquid sands from the Bond Girls collection, Pussy Galore (light pink), and Solitaire (shimmery, silver white). My other OPI favorite is from the Oz collection: When Monkeys Fly.

Stay tuned for more favorites to come! 🙂

Illamasqua Raindrops

Dun dun dun….it feels like this nail polish needs some kind of grand entrance. This is a HUGE polish cult classic, and when I heard Raindrops was coming back from Illamasqua, I stalked the Sephora website CONSTANTLY! So, is it worth the hype?

I believe that this is totally worth the hype if it is your type of color. While it is very sheer, the finish is just so pretty! I used three coats and love how delicate it is. The white/silvery flakes are subtle, but have a hint of sparkle.

Quality wise, this is definitely typical Illamasqua formula in that it is simply amazing. I don’t have anything like Raindrops and surprisingly, can’t think of any dupes!

Periwinkle Comparisons

After a reader comment wondering about how Sail la Vie compared to China Glaze Secret Periwinkle, I decided to do a quick comparison post about some polishes in the periwinkle family. Despite the fact that I don’t like purple, I do like periwinkle. It reminds me of lilacs and springtime!

Sail La Vie is a lot more blue than Secret Periwinkle; it’s also quite a bit brighter. These are all quite different from each other even though the swatches may seem similar. MAC Bleu Velvet has a lot more gray than the photo appears to have. OPI You’re Such a Budapest is definitely lavender over periwinkle.

As you can see, Secret Periwinkle is the darkest of the bunch. My favorite periwinkle shades are Bikini So Teeny, Cameo, and Sail La Vie, which all lean toward the blue side of the spectrum.

I hope this post is helpful to you! What is your favorite periwinkle shade?

Illamasqua Nudge

Good day to you, fine readers! It is so hot outside, but what’s killing me is the humidity! Yuck! Everything feels sticky and gross. Anyway, here’s an amazing color from Illamasqua! Nudge is a chalky baby blue shade. It’s great for spring and summer, but who am I kidding? I wear whatever I feel like year round. 😀 This would actually be gorgeous in the winter too, against the white snow and bleak gray skies.

Despite being a little streaky on the first coat (all colors like this are), Nudge is opaque in two coats and levels out nicely. Illamasqua, in my humble opinion, makes the longest lasting nail polish for my nails. I highly recommend always checking your Sephora for clearance Illamasqua too! I found many bottles for $7, and eventually some were marked down to $4.

What are your favorite baby blues?

Comprehensive Spring/Summer Polish Haul!

Hello! Thanks so much for reading this post, and stopping by. I really appreciate it! 🙂 Today I’m sharing a rather large, but comprehensive polish haul, meaning that these are the polishes I’ve purchased in the last three months. In looking at this, I’m realizing that I forgot to add two, but I will mention them anyway. 🙂

Let’s start with the ones I completely forgot to include: Butter London Keks and Torch! Torch is a gorgeous coral/orange with golden shimmer, available from Nordstorm.

Now, I’ll start left to right with the top row of the photo.

Sally Hansen All Fired Up– This is so vibrant! It is a warm red with a tinge of orange. I saw one of my favorite bloggers write about it and it looked amazing on her. Plus, I had a coupon so it was justified. 😉

NARS Versailles– Oh. MY. Gosh. This gold is just flat out sexy. Love.

Illamasqua Hemlock, Pink Raindrops, and Raindrops– Need I say more about these? Cult classic must haves. I’ll be blogging about these soon, for sure.

These OPI shades I was really excited about. The place to buy OPI is at hair salons. I always see them marked down to buy one, get two free, which is a crazy deal. I got Suzi’s Hungary Again, A Roll in the Hague, and Glitzerland!

Now for the second row! That mini bottle of Candy Darling is from a NARS set that was released with the Andy Warhol collection. It’s your standard hot fuchsia!

OPI Charmed By A Snake is one I had to track down online, since it’s from the old India collection. This is a sexy brown/bronze shade.

These two Essie polishes are true cult classics: Ballet Slippers and Fiji!

Orly Beautiful Garbage is a teal holographic glitter polish in a jelly base.

These two shades from China Glaze are from the summer Sunsational collection! Keeping It Teal and Sun of a Peach are both JELLIES! I can’t wait to wear these.

Finally, I have two from MAC: Tropical and Bleu Velvet. Tropical is pure bronze glitter goodness, and Bleu Velvet is a light periwinkle shade. I know MAC gets a bad rap for their polish, but I have had pretty good luck with them so far!

Anything catching your eye?

Illamasqua Scarce

Speckle polish was so hugely popular this spring! While there are some that I enjoy from a few brands, Illamasqua did it best, in my humble opinion. I love how the way the “speckles” end up distributed on the nail looks just like a bird’s egg.

The formula on this polish is incredibly smooth. Illamasqua just doesn’t go wrong with their polish! Scarce is opaque in two coats and the glitter doesn’t “catch” while applying, which I greatly appreciate! Scarce is also a very wearable pink; it’s almost a nude pink on me. These are sold out on Sephora’s website right now, but you may be able to find them at free standing stores, and you can also find them on Illamasqua’s website; however, you’ll need to pay for international shipping unless you buy a certain amount.

Are you a fan of the speckle polish craze?

Illamasqua Rare

What can I say about Rare, except that it’s amazing? I LOVE neon yellow. Love, love, love. I just love neon. 🙂 Anyway, I picked this up from Sephora earlier this year when my store had all of the Illamasqua polish marked down to $7. Now that they have upped the price to $17 from $14 (with the exchange rate, this is understandable), I’m glad that I bought this when I did!

Rare is clearly, a very vivid color. I did not wear white underneath and just used three coats of this. Like all Illamasqua polishes that I have tried, the formula is fantastic and went on easily. Their polishes last longer on me than other brands, which is important to me because I type a lot! I am definitely going to rock this shade on my toes this summer!

Abstract Pink Nail Art

Hey everyone! I have been trying to experiment more with different types of manicures, thanks to a great set of nail art brushes from MASH. I want to do a review on the brushes later, but for now I’m going to share this pink whatever manicure. I wasn’t really trying to do anything here…just something feminine and fun.

Polishes used: Illamasqua Superstitious as the base, Butter London Alcopop and Illamasqua Scorch on the nail. Superstitious is a great polish. It’s that great cream/jelly hybrid and has a squishy look to it.

What prompted me to pull this out is seeing Temptalia’s swatches of it. I was thinking, “That polish is so pretty…”, and then I remembered I had it. That sounds really bad, BUT there is a reason for not knowing! When I bought Superstitious I was debating between two colors, and that sticks out in my mind for some reason. Now I definitely won’t be forgetting which one I bought! My husband even made fun of me for that one. 😉

Anyway, hopefully I will have some better manicures in the future!

 

More Random Manicure Spam!

Hello! I have another manicure spam post today of some polishes I’ve been wearing over the last three weeks or so. Unfortunately, I don’t have a picture of one of my favorite combinations, so I may have to recreate that one again! First up is Essie Sand Tropez. Bad lighting makes this look like a really blah nude, but I promise it is very pretty! It just doesn’t look that great on those nubs… 😉

Another Essie here, a new one from their 2013 Resort Collection: In the Cab-Ana. This color is amazing! Every spring and summer there’s some kind of shade like this one released, and I never tire of it.

The last Essie, and a terrible cell phone quality photo, is First Timer. This is a great minty green and it is lighter than last year’s hit, Mojito Madness.

Butter London Alcopop is a classic baby pink shade. If you’re wondering how this compares to Teddy Girl, it isn’t as pale and chalky.

My nails are super short in this picture, but this is Deborah Lippman’s Rockin’ Robin. I’m going to hold off on my opinion of this because I want to do a separate review.

OPI Pussy Galore. OH MY…I am SO OBSESSED with this color! Yes, it deserves all of those capital letters. This is like fairy princess in a jar. This is a liquid sand polish from the new Bond Girls collection.

This last one is what I’m wearing right now! Illamasqua Noble with OPI Which is Witch? and OPI Lights of Emerald City. I love this combination!