Zoya Charisma

Summer doesn't last long when you live in Canada and a chilly morning prompted me to break out fall clothes.  The warm purple of my sweater inspired me to reach for Zoya's Charisma.  Charisma was one of the very first nail polishes I ever picked up.  It's a beautiful neon pink-y purple (or purple-y pink depending on what light you're standing in).  Like most neons it dries matte.  This took me off guard at first but once a glossy top coat was added it found its way into regular use.

Zoya Charisma

matte finish

with top coat in direct sunlight

Like I mentioned before, Charisma changes quite a bit depending on  the light. It's quite a chameleon!  In direct sunlight it's a watermelon pink.  Indoors its a raspberry color.  In low light it looks like a medium warm purple.  I enjoy colors that shift and change so much! It almost feels like it changes with your mood.

raspberry color indoors

in low light against my sweater

 I hope you liked Charisma!  As for me, I'm going to cuddle up in a warm blanket! Brrr!


Sondra

Essie Turquoise & Caicos + China Glaze White Cap

China Glaze White Cap is a milky gold color that looks amazing layered.  Today it's layered over Turquoise and Caicos from last post.  The result is beautiful mermaid-esque nails! I'm so excited to try White Cap over lots more colors.  I'm not feeling super verbose today (I'm still recovering from my really fun and really busy 1st wedding anniversary yesterday!) so I'll let the pictures do the rest of the talking.

s

Sondra

Essie Turquoise & Caicos

Essie Turquoise & Caicos has been my pedicure color of choice for 90% of the summer. It's a gorgeous feminine little turquoise color that verges on Tiffany blue. Maybe a little greener but hey- I actually prefer the greener shade and it's a much more affordable option than what comes in Tiffany boxes!  I've always been a sucker for turquoise.  When I was 14 I painted my childhood bedroom a robins egg blue color very similar to this.  Turquoise has a long history of impressing. The French were so taken with the blue color that adorned Turkish tiles that it became named after the Turks.

*sigh* This color never fails to lift my spirits. So pretty! Oh and it applies oh so beautifully. Posted here is just two thin coats.  This is just the icing on the cake but I'd still wear the color tons even it the application was terrible.

Sondra

Essie Lollipop

Essie Lollipop is a bright red creme that has a vintage-y vibe to it.  It's glossy and beautiful!  While it was part of a Christmas collection I think it's perfect for any time. Classic and beautiful.  The application was nice, I needed two coats for a full opaque finish.

I love the name "Lollipop" too, it's cute and fitting for the color. It also make me think of this-

Essie Lollipop also makes for one of my favorite pedicure polishes. It reminds me of 1950's pinup girls.  It's so fun to wear!  However while Lollipop finds its way to my toes, it hasn't been there for most of the summer. What has? You'll have to wait for my all time favorite pedicure color next post. :)

Until Then,
Sondra

OPI Bubble Bath

If I didn't love color so much, I'd wear OPI Bubble Bath all the time.  For me it's the perfect polished, everyday, ladylike baby pink polish.  I think of it as 'Tea with the Queen' nails. The name is adorable too, nothing girly-er like a bubble bath!

You may not be able to tell from the picture, but that is one loved bottle. It's about half full (or half empty, whatever you like).

One coat gives you a glossy finish (perfect base for a french manicure), three gives you the opaque finish I have here.  I do find it's best to finish with a quick drying top coat though while nails are tacky because for some reason Bubble Bath is prone to forming tiny little bubbles halfway before drying.  Bizarre that Bubble Bath bubbles right? Try saying that 10 times fast!

If you want a real low maintenance nail polish, light ones like these are the best.  Bright and dark colors show chipping immediately.  Love!!!

China Glaze Metro Urban-Night and CG in the City

China Glaze's Urban-Night is a creamy eggplant color.  While the color is nice, it's not particularly special and I didn't feel like the application was very easy.  I had to really work with the polish to not end up with patchy bits.  It turned out fine as you can see with the picture but it was a pain.

The color dries about a shade darker than it look in the bottle.  It still reads dark purple most of the time but in low light it definitely looks black.  Personally, purple is one of my favorite colors but with this I feel like it's just boring.  Maybe it's after wearing all those glitters the cream finish just seems flat.  Nothing to seek out on its own, I'm sure there are plenty of others that are similar and probably with better application.

However, I can see WHY they added Urban-Night to the collection. It looks super pretty with CG in the City!

Folks, it's like its enchanted with fairy dust!  China Glaze CG in the City is a clear based dusty purple/little bit of taupey gold.  It's very pretty layered but doesn't really work by itself.  I'm excited to try it on over Essie's Merino Cool which is a taupe with a  purple tinge to it!  In fact, I'm sure this glitter would look great over a lot of things!  If you're someone that can get bored with a manicure quickly it's nice to have a pretty glitter to coat over it and make you appreciate it for a few more days! :)

So that's my review of the mini pack of China Glaze Metro Fall 2011 collection!  Overall it's a really great collection and I love the minis because honestly- unless you LOVE a color you're not going to finish a whole big bottle of polish so it's great to be able to try out a bunch of colors with less mL's.  Midtown Magic was my surprise favorite, Skyscraper and CG in the City was love at first sight.  Urban-Night was the only 'meh' color but goes great under CG in the City.

China Glaze Skyscraper

China Glaze Skyscraper is a gorgeous glittery royal blue color.  It was made to resemble the night sky in a city and boy does it deliver!

The silver glitter is just packed in!  I was a little worried the blue base would be very sheer from the first coat, but after two it was opaque and stunning!  The application was great and as with all the glitters in the Metro collection it dried super fast.

Generally I'm not drawn to full on blues.  I feel like it makes my hands too ruddy and red.  However this color is beautiful and something I wouldn't mind wearing... a lot!

China Glaze Midtown Magic

Midtown Magic is described as a burgundy base but to my eye it's black/dark brown with bronze-y glitter.

I wasn't sure about this polish at first.   It thought I'd swatch it for the blog and take it off immediately after.  However I found myself really enjoying it and plan to keep it on for a few more days.  In the bottle I thought it just looked like the kind of polish that belongs in a Halloween collection. However now that it's on my nails I think its complex enough that you don't need to be wearing a witch hat to pull it off.  You still have to be comfortable with black nails because from a distance it reads as a simple black. However when you look closely the bronze and gold glitter make it a special color.

Pretty Glitter

Sorry for the messy thumb swatch!

That's all for now!  I'll be back later with more review of the China Glaze Metro Fall 2011 collection!

China Glaze Metro Collection

I had no intention on getting into the China Glaze Metro 2011 Fall collection but after seeing post after post of amazing glitter I had to cave.  So I got the mini pack which had everything I was interested in from the collection.

From Left to Right- Skyscraper, CG in the City, Urban-Night, Midtown Magic

This is hardly a 'mini' pack, especially compared to OPI's mini.  Good value for your dollar, I like it. Also my compliments to CG for their cute packaging.

From Left to Right- Normal sized China Glaze, Mini China Glaze, Mini OPI

I'll swatch these all in a bit but I couldn't wait- I put the dusty purple-y toned glitter CG in the City over yesterday's Essie Sexy Divide.

Uh-May-Zing

Seriously stunning right? I'm so excited to try the others!  Go China Glaze for some seriously stellar glitters in your collection this year!

The glitter polish itself was really a pleasure to apply.  That's one coat in that picture and I feel like after three coats it would give you pretty full coverage if you wanted to wear it by itself.  It also dried SUPER FAST!  It ended up with a really smooth texture too which I was worried about because the glitter looked pretty chunky.

That's all for now! I'll be back tomorrow with more review on the Metro Mini Pack

Essie Sexy Divide

I have a feeling Essie Sexy Divide is going to be on my nails a lot this fall.  It's glossy, shimmery purple perfection. Dark and vampy but not so dark and vampy you can't tell it's not purple. Some polishes are like that. Like OPI's William Tell Me About OPI. Appears promising in the bottle to walk the line of color and black but once it goes on the nails it appears black unless in the brightest of natural sunlight.

Essie Sexy Divide in natural light

Shimmery Glossy Goodness

I wonder if I'll ever come across an Essie nail polish I don't like?

Coffee Break

Today my nails match my coffee cup. The color is Essie A-List, a medium to dark creamy red. I found the color could look quite bright in sun light and quite dark inside.  I love the variation, it almost seems to change with your mood and keep you staring at your nails all day.  The application was a dream, glossy and creamy and within 10 minutes I had gorgeous red nails.

Essie A-list

Essie A-List is definitely what I'd consider a fall color.  The weather has been cool lately which has been making me think of autumn a lot lately.  I love the rich saturated colors that come with fall fashion.