Essie Spring 2015 Preview

Essie's spring collection is a study in pastels. The collection, launching in March, features six new shades that bring to mind a spring garden in full bloom.

L to R: Perennial Chic, Picked Perfect, Blossom Dandy, Garden Variety, Petal Pushers, Flowerista

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I of course love the mint and the turquoise, but that purple (Flowerista) looks really pretty too! I have a feeling this is gonna be one of those collections where I won't decide which ones I actually want until the moment I see them in the store.

How do you like the look of Essie's Spring 2015 offerings?

OPI Pink-ing Of You

I was in the mood for a palette cleanser shade, so what better pick than a good pastel pink? I went digging through my untrieds for one and found OPI Pink-ing Of You. I got this as part of the 2013 Pink Of Hearts Set (the other shade was a sweet pastel glitter called More Than A Glimmer) but it's been a mainstay in their core collection for years.

The formula was on the runny side, so my brush needed some wiping down after each dunk into the bottle. As far as application goes, it's your typical pastel: a little streaky and a little sheer. I needed four coats for total opacity here.

Not too much to say about this one. It's not a unique color by any stretch but it's a lovely example of a creamy baby pink. It's easy to see why OPI has kept this polish around for so many years. Simply put, it's a classic!

Twinsie Tuesday: Iggy Azalea "Black Widow" Nails

This week's Twinsie Tuesday has us replicating a manicure seen on a celebrity. I really had no idea what I wanted to do for this, so I just skimmed through Google images until something grabbed me. I came across a picture of Iggy Azalea's nails in the music video for "Black Widow" and it seemed like something I might be able to do.

It might be a little tricky to see here, but Iggy is sporting white nails with a black dot near the cuticle bed of each nail. I used OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls, Rimmel Black Satin and a dotting tool for my version. I did my dots a little larger than Iggy's, just as a matter of personal preference.

Other than some smudging when I went to apply topcoat (I'm always too impatient), this mani is easy enough. My dots didn't come out perfectly, but I don't claim to be a nail art aficionado by any stretch, so I'm happy with how everything came out!

Hope you enjoyed taking a look at my Iggy nails. Check out what my Twinsies did for their celeb-inspired manis this week!

Tiffany at Polished To Precision

Savannah at Addicted to Polish

Róisín at Cuti-CLUE-les

Marisa at Polish Obsession

Lisa at The Polish Playground

Lakeisha at Refined and Polished

Jessica at Blue Velvet Lacquer

Erin at Paint Those Piggies

ChiChi at I'm Just Me...ChiChi

Chelsea at Nailed Blog

Bridget at A Painted Nail

Amber at Nails Like Lace

Amanda at Fashion Footing

Amanda at Amandalandish

Alaina at The Little Canvas

Zoya Veruschka

Zoya Veruschka has been a lemming of mine since I first got into polish. So to finally be able to pick it up--on clearance, no less--felt pretty darn good. A recurring theme on this blog is my obsession with green polish and Veruschka is a very special one: a forest green satin. It's a really cool, different-looking polish that was absolutely worth the wait!

I wore Versuchka as-is for a day, then decided to try it with some topcoat, just for kicks.

I'm not sure how I prefer it, to be honest. The topcoat brings out that gorgeous shimmer, but I like how edgy and unique it looks without topcoat. So really, you win either way. Wear time without topcoat isn't great, however. After about half a day, I already had a decent-sized chip on my right index finger. The formula is absolutely excellent though! It's very easy to apply and not chalky in the slightest. I used two coats for this mani.

Do you like Veruschka better with or without topcoat? What was the last lemming you squashed?

Orly Sugar High Preview

Periodically, I go hunting on the web to try and find news on the latest collections to share with you guys. We've got a pretty good idea already of what most of the major brands have on the horizon, but I had to really dig to find anything on Orly's spring polishes. Honestly I feel like they've fallen off the map in the last year or two. I see less and less PR and buzz for their collections and maybe it's just where I live, but their newest polishes seem to be a bit harder to find in stores nowadays. Have you noticed this at all?

Anyways, the point is, I managed to find some info on their Spring 2015 collection, Sugar High. It launches in February. Let's take a look!

Cake Pop

 

Candy Shop

 

Frosting

 

Key Lime Twist

 

Plum Sugar

 

Sweet Dreams

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The colors are nice enough, but I don't see anything here that gets me super excited. Sorry, Orly. :(

How do you like the looks of the Sugar High Collection? See anything you'll be picking up?

Twinsie Tuesday: Fandom Nails

We are creating fandom nails for this week's Twinsie Tuesday! If you're unfamiliar, "fandom" refers to a group of people who are passionate about a particular movie, TV show, book, etc. The first thing that came to mind for me was to do something comic book-related. I love reading comics and follow a ton of different series and characters. I'm generally more of a Marvel gal (X-Men was one of my gateway drugs into comicdom) but I also read quite a bit of DC.

One of my favorite recent series was Brian Azzarello and Cliff Chiang's run on Wonder Woman. I was a huge Greek mythology nerd as a kid, so I liked that they put the Greek pantheon front and center in this version of Wonder Woman's world. But what I really loved is their multi-faceted take on Wonder Woman as a character. She's first and foremost a badass--as Wonder Woman should be--but aside from her physical strength and battle prowess she's also smart, witty, courageous and kind. Azzarello manages to contemporize her while still staying true to the core values and traits she's embodied since all the way back in 1941, when psychologist William Moulton Marston invented her as, in his words, "psychological propaganda for the new type of woman who should, I believe, rule the world." You don't need to be super familiar with Wonder Woman's history to read this series. All you need is a love of epic adventure and sistas doin' it for themselves.


Picking a polish to represent this fandom was easy: CrowsToes Wonder Woman! This glitterbomb features all of Wonder Woman's signature colors: gold, blue and red.

I originally wanted to wear Wonder Woman alone, but the individual shapes and colors got lost in the jumble, so I decided to layer it instead. I used Essie Good As Gold as my base here.

Hope you enjoyed my fandom nails! Be sure to show my Twinsies some love today too!

Alaina at The Little Canvas

Amanda at Amandalandish

Amanda at Fashion Footing

Amber at Nails Like Lace

Bridget at A Painted Nail

Chelsea at Nailed

ChiChi at I'm Just Me...ChiChi

Erin at Paint Those Piggies

Jessica at Blue Velvet Lacquer

Lakeisha at Refined and Polished
​Lisa at The Polish Playground

Marisa at Polish Obsession

Savannah at Addicted to Polish

Róisín at Cuti-CLUE-les

Tiffany at Polished To Precision

Deborah Lippmann Whisper Collection Preview

I was a huge fan of Deborah Lippmann's spring collection last year--I bought 2/3 of it--so I was really looking forward to seeing what Miss Deborah has in store for us this year. While last year's collection focused on garden pastels, this spring's set takes an even softer approach with four neutral sheers.

Chantilly Lace

 

Like Dreamers Do

A Fine Romance

 

Misty Morning

I can't lie: an all-neutral, all-sheer collection isn't really something that gets me reaching for my wallet. That's probably a good thing in my case, since I already know I'm gonna drop some serious cash on a lot of the other spring collections--Essie and OPI in particular.

The Whisper Collection is already up on DL's website. This one is gonna be a pass for me, but will YOU be picking anything up?