Smooth Sailing Away

I'm usually much too lazy for nail art, but I've had a lot of free time lately so I'm trying to get better at it. So when my Portland bestie came over for Thursday morning mimosas & manis, I decided I'd be a little adventurous (possibly helped by the champagne!) and do a gradient. I've always done it the lazy way of only sponging on the second color, but it doesn't turn out as smoothly that way, so this time I actually dotted both colors and swirled them together to sponge. It turned out pretty fantastically if I do say so.

I started with one coat of Essie Smooth Sailing, then sponged a gradient of Smooth Sailing and Milani Sailing Away.

Over the gradient, I put a thin layer of Hard Candy's Black Tie Optional.

I ended up really loving this look! The gradient was subtle and that kept it feeling classy, but the glitter made it interesting. And it was so easy to do, I don't know why I'd been half-assing it this whole time. Never again!

Essie Sole Mate

Sole Mate is one of the very first polishes I ever bought. It's been with me at least since my junior year in college; I don't remember the act of purchasing it, which is crazy for me now! But it predates my nail polish obsession by a fair amount. There's a picture of me floating around somewhere, taken at my parents house, and my nails are super short and bitten with super chipped nail polish -- sole mate! It looks much better now when I wear it.

Two coats, minimal cleanup.

It's a SUPER dark eggplanty purple; it's pretty close to black in most lights. Around the edges you can see the purple, and in the sunlight it's not quite as black. It's also the quintessential Essie formula: slightly jelly, takes a couple coats, super shiny.

These photos are after TEN DAYS. I can't believe I not only didn't change my polish for 10 days, but that they stayed this perfect for that long! Go Essie go!

Alcatraz... Rocks!

I was convinced for a really long time that I hated the textured polish trend. Then I picked up a Sally Hansen textured polish on a whim at Fred Meyer (the one that looks like Sinful Colors Cinderella, I don't remember what it's called), and sort of accidentally fell in love. 

I still don't like the textured creams, but I am apparently a sucker for glittery textured polishes.

So of course I had to pick up Alcatraz Rocks from the OPI San Fran collection. And it's freakin beautiful.

Two coats, no top coat obviously, super easy application, no balding or dragging anywhere. So sparkly! So pretty!

After 5 days, I have some slight tipwear (to be expected, with how much I type and play piano), but it doesn't seem as sparkly. Or as textured. It's like it smooths out over time; it still feels gritty, but not as gritty. It's still sparkly, but not as blingy.

Out of focus so you can see the sparkle!

In summary: this is a glittery textured polish I can really get behind.

KU nails

Post number who knows out of way too many about red & blue nails. I just gotta rep my school spirit!

These are both China Glaze, both from the Wizard of Ooh Aahs collection. I miss Kansas, so I figured this was as good a way as any to fight my homesickness!

Ruby Pumps is darker and more blue than I expect it to be. It's also quite jelly, so it takes a third coat and more drying time than I'm prepared for. It also doesn't have great wear time on my nails, and I don't understand why...

Dorothy Who? is a gorgeous shade of blue; not too light, not too dark, not tooooo primary (though it comes close!). The silver glitter in this is awesome, but I have to be in a really blingy mood to wear it!

Zoya Lara

Zoya Lara. Bright blue-toned pink cream. I bought it because it's almost my name (one letter off!), and I wear it because it's the perfect barbie pink.

Day 1.

Day 5!

Day 5.

I went lipstick shopping while wearing this, and it's a pretty good match for Maybelline Color Sensational Vivid in Fuchsia Flash.

Essie It's Genius

Here's a quick phone swatch of a 3-day-old mani. It's Genius is a really pretty purple shimmer that's opaque in 2 coats.

China Glaze Cirque du Soleil

I've been DYING for this collection! On our first family vacation, my parents and I saw La Nouba, and it completely opened my eyes to what performance can be. It was seriously life changing. We've seen two or three shows that have travelled through our state since then. There was even a point in high school that I almost auditioned for a part in a show that was going to travel through Asia. Cirque is pretty much one of my favorite things ever. So the day that this collection showed up on Transdesign, I didn't even wait for any swatches to show up. Add to cart, check out, wait impatiently for them to be delivered!

I only ordered the "interesting" half of the collection, and they're all beautiful.


To start, here's Bend Over Backwards. This is just one coat, no top coat. It's a really pretty, shimmery red that feels very holiday appropriate.

Here it is with an accent nail of Whirled Away. Whirled Away is obviously related to Connect the Dots (what would Lynnderella have to say about this, I wonder?! haha), but as I've never seen it in person... I can only speculate, but the white hexes seem larger to me, and the bar glitter is only black.
Speaking of bar glitter, I actually don't hate it here! I think it's because it's just black, instead of shiny and obnoxious.

And here it is over all of my nails! This is over Zoya Carly, which I just recently showed you, because I slapped it on as soon as I got the box open!

Applying Whirled Away was not my favorite experience in the world, and here's why. Check out that brush: NOTHING ON IT. I had to fish around to get anything out of the bottle. Then dabbing seemed to be the best application for me. Your milage may vary, of course.

This is Get Carried Away. Silver micro glitter, the same black bars & hexes as Whirled Away, silver hexes, and hexes that I feel are supposed to be red but instead come out a little pink? Index is one coat over black; middle is one coat over gray (Orly Mirror Mirror), ring is 2 coats and pinky is 1.

 I think this is best as a layering polish, but I don't think I'll ever layer it over black. You lose the black glitter and it makes it much less interesting.

Running in Circles is a densely-packed green shimmer, and when I say dense I mean it: this is one coat! It falls somewhere between Zoya's Ivanka and Apple in terms of color. From some angles, there is some VNL, so I might layer this over a green, or do two or three thinner coats.

Water You Waiting For is small blue glitter and slightly larger purple glitter in a clear base. It dries really gritty. I put a thick coat of NYC top coat on these and took photos before it had dried, and by the time I was done taking pictures it had already started to eat it up.

I see myself wearing this as a really pretty gradient. I also see myself using peel off base!

Index is over black; middle finger is over gray (Orly Mirror Mirror), ring finger is two coats; and pinky is just one coat.

It's a Trap-eze! makes my little nerdy heart go all aflutter! Even if I didn't care about Cirque, this polish would have been mine JUST for the name! Ah, China Glaze, thank you for this.

This polish is sort of like making a jelly sandwich with a DL Happy Birthday dupe. I'm not a connoisseur of all those glitters, but I've been seeing some talk from The Polishaholic saying that this has white glitters that the others don't.

One coat:

 And two coats.

Overall, I can't say that I can see this collection as "inspired" by Cirque du Soleil, but I'm really glad I got these! I'll wait until I see swatches of the "boring" half of the collection before I decide to get any of those.
I hope this helps you decide which ones you will be getting!