Zoya Anaka

Anaka is so wonderful. Bright pink with a great shimmer. And out of the sun, it hovers on the line between pink and purple.

Anaka, shade

Anaka, sun

Shade

 

Sun

Then I added Meep Meep Meep from the Muppets collection on my ring fingers. I expected it to be more different, but instead it ended up being a pretty good comparison. They're very similar color-wise, but the finishes are different, and Meep Meep Meep had a lot more depth.

Shade

 

Sun

OPI: OPI on Collins Ave

I said I would be back with more pictures of this one, so here are a couple! It's a strange polish... When I swatched it, I thought of it as an orange red. While wearing it over the last couple days, it's been mostly orange-orange. But the pictures that I have of it all show it as the orange-red that I first saw it as! So I'm not sure what I think it actually is...

 This is from my camera; it shows it as what I think of as orange-red, a red with strong orange undertones.

This is from my camera phone while I was at work. When I helping teach group lessons, part of my job is to sit up front and play the 12-bar blues over and over and over and over while they learn how to improv. It's supremely boring, especially since I've been playing the 12 bar blues for 10 years, so I keep myself awake by looking at my nails.

And! I went to Walgreens yesterday to see if there was anything I wanted, and I stumbled across Sinful Colors Cinderella! I've been seeing a lot of buzz about it on twitter, so I figured I'd pick on up for myself. Then I went back after work to get one for a blog-friend and one for a future giveaway. I'm at 26 followers, and once I get to 50 it's giveaway time! I figured if I got halfway here in a month, I'll get all the way there in the next month (hopefully!) so I would start picking things up for it.

What color do you think OPI on Collins Ave is? And are you on the hunt for Cinderella?

OPI swatches

I don't own a single one of these polishes. My husband and I are house/dog sitting for his parents this week, so I decided to go looking through her polish stash. She has about 15 polishes and they're all OPI except for 3 Isadora. I swatched the Isadora, so I'll show those to you later this week. Today I have most of her OPIs. I didn't swatch a few -- she has some of the Muppets collection, but I have them all, so I didn't bother, and I wore Friar Friar Pants on Fire last time we house sat, so I didn't swatch it, either. If you want to see it, let me know in the next couple days and I'll get some pictures of it!

So after the break, enjoy 7 random OPIs!

My Nail Journey: From nail biter to nail blogger

I was going through all of my pictures of my nails this morning and decided I want to share this with you. As bloggers, we are all obsessed with perfection; where I see nails that aren't shaped quite evenly and cuticles that need moisturizing, others leave comments that say, "Your nails look like they could be in a magazine!" Getting that comment just completely made my day, and I have to say that 9 months ago, my nails could not have been further from that.

You may want to have a seat and prepare yourself for this next image. I am going to show you what my nails looked like before I got into nail polish. This picture was taken in April of 2011.

Sadly, this was after a couple weeks of trying to take care of my nails.

Pink Wednesdays

It's my first official Pink Wednesday!

I remembered a couple days ago that there was a Target gift card that had been hanging out in my wallet for a couple years! So I took advantage of that and bought a couple bottles of polish! Yay! They still have the entire Come to Poppy & Pirates of the Caribbean collections, which seems strange, but since I never picked any of them up, I'm more than ok with that. I got Skull & Glossbones and Play the Peonies. I figured as a pianist, Play the Peonies should be in my stash!!

These photos are 2 coats, no top coat, no cleanup, in diffused light. This is a lovely, soft shade that just feels utterly ladylike. It's the tiniest bit brush-strokey, but not enough to bother me.
I'll probably be bored with it by tomorrow, but it's a gorgeous palate cleanser that would have been absolutely perfect for a piano concert. I'll probably come back to this in the spring!

OPI Manicurist of Seville

Here's a color I've worn at least 3 times in the last 5 months, which is pretty frequent for me. The first time was late last summer. The week I got back from our honeymoon, I jumped right into rehearsal for an opera scenes production. I wore for closing night; I figured if we're doing opera, then a polish named after an opera would be only appropriate!

Here is OPI Manicurist of Seville, as I photographed her in August:

Direct sunlight. Pretty color accurate.

Inside shade. Also color accurate for the lighting.

Then as I photographed her last week; these are all 2 coats, no topcoat, & in indirect sun.

I can't ever leave anything alone if it's on my nails for longer than a day or two, so I layered CND Sheer 24K Sparkle over it, and the result was seriously beautiful.

I wore this for 5 days and had minimal tip wear for me (as a pianist, I have a lot more tipwear than the average person!) and only got one tiny chip on day 5. Considering 9 months ago when I started wearing polish I HAD to repolish every day or two, that feels like a huge victory.

I also wore MoS in mid-December with a glitter gradient of Essie's A Cut Above, but my nails had a rough couple months between the two wearings pictured above, so I don't really want to subject you to pictures of it!

I know MoS is by now considered a pretty boring color, but I still love it.

Nail Mail! Zoya Mira + Danii

My zoya promo finally got here! Yaay, nail mail! I've been on a serious no-buy due to a severe lack of budget in our household this month, so this is my first new polish since Christmas. I'm sure you all understand how freaking excited I am!

 As always with Zoya, the box came with swatches of their recent collections. This time, the True + Fleck collections & the Feel collection as well.

This is the first time I've gotten a box this size. My first order from them I got two of the 6-pack box (yep, I bought a lot!), and the second order they just wrapped them up in soft packing stuff.

And the pretties!! Mira & Danii.

Mira could be a one coater if you're really good at polishing your nails; I had a couple bald, draggy spots from where I was being impatient and not quite careful enough. But here she is at two, with no top coat: utter glossy perfection.

I want to enjoy Mira in all of her beauty, but I also didn't want Danii to feel left out, so I did an accent gradient with her. These two look really lovely together!

No top coat

OPI Natural nail top coat

And finally! Since we all know what Zoya Mira/OPI Funkey Dunkey looks like, I figured she's a good judge against what the purples in the True collection are like for those of us who aren't fortunate to own them already. As you can see, the True purples' bases are much warmer & grayer.

Mira is my first purple cream and I think I officially need to get myself more purples!