Misa Office Polishtics

My first Misas! I've heard such amazing things about their formula, and I was definitely not disappointed. One perfect, applies-like-butter coat. And even though this is just a "boring" cream, I couldn't stop staring at it. Is it purple? Blue? Gray? I still haven't decided.
Here are way too many pictures so you can make your own call!

This looks pretty blue.

This is a really grayed out blue.

In the sunlight, it's very gray.

Again, blue, but this time with a little purple undertone.

I thought it was a dusty blue, and then several of my students called it purple, which I hadn't seen before. After they pointed it out, I could see why they thought that, but I would never call it "purple."
All I do know is that I want to wear it again, just so I can have the pleasure of applying it, and so I can stare at it in confusion.

Orly Fowl Play

This needed to be mine as soon as I saw the very first post about it last year. The second it was on my nails, I knew that all of those months of lusting had been worth it. What a freaking gorgeous polish!

These are 1 coat of Essie Sole Mate + 1 coat of Fowl Play. And I applied these pretty quickly, so I have some baldy spots where I wouldn't have if I had just been a little more patient & careful.

I hope these pictures capture the amazing depth of this polish. It's a gorgeous purple jelly with blue & red flakes and lots of shimmer. There's so much going on here.

As you can see, in the light you can see all of those wonderful bits. Out of the light, it's just a great purple. You can tell there's something join on there, but you can't see all of the details.

Click to view this sucker large... just ignore my ugly polish job on the pinky! :)

Fowl Play is seriously gorgeous. Red/orange and blue/green flakes, silver shimmer, purple jelly. This is definitely going to be a go-to when I want something dark and vampy but with a lot of interest!

Did you fall in love with Fowl Play right away, too, or was that just me?

Game Day nails!

Today's the big day: The Final Border War!
I graduated from The University of Kansas last spring. Our rivalry with Missouri goes back to the Civil War. Kansas wanted to be a Free State, but people from Missouri kept coming over the border and voting for Kansas to be a slave state. They burned Lawrence (where KU is located) to the ground on more than one occasion. Quantrell's raid was an ugly thing.  So when we say we hate Missouri, we don't mean in a "Their jerseys are ugly and they're geographically close to us so they're a reasonable team to choose for a rival." We hate them in a, "You wanted to be slave owners, you burned our town, and you raped our women," sort of way.
They're moving to the SEC next year, so this is the end of the Border War. If we win this game, then we are the Big 12 regular season champs, and our dominance over MU is assured for the rest of time.

It's sort of a big game.

So I went way out of my comfort zone and did some red & blue nail art for game day!!

This red is Essie Russian Roulette, & the blue is Essie Mesmerize. They're my go-to primary red & blue. 2 coats of RR, just 1 of Mesmerize!!

The stripes on index & pinky were done using a Kiss nail art striper.

I finally attempted a cloud! I mixed up the finishes: glossy red, matte black (Orly Matte Vinyl), and foil (Zoya Trixie). I think it turned out really nicely!

The middle finger, I painted the entire nail red, then half of it blue. I used the black Kiss striper down the middle & the lines coming out, and the gold lines are a gold Kiss striper that came in the same set.

My thumb is another cloud, blue-black-silver, and my left hand is a perfect mirror.

Over all, I am incredibly proud of hour this turned out! I am pretty awful when it comes to nail art, but I think this looks pretty good!

Now to get ready for the game. Rock Chalk!!

February Nail Mail!

In January, I spent at total of $5 on polish, because I only bought a couple bottles & I used a gift card to do it. This month our budget has had a little more leeway, so I put a bunch of polishes in a cart at Transdesign, stared at them for a couple days, and finally ordered them (because my husband made me). But before they got here, this lovely polish came via the wonderful Kelly!

WHIMSICAL! Ahh! Glitter in the Air was my very first lemming ever, but I refused to ever spend that much money on a polish. When Whimsical started appearing last month, I was dying for it, but no one in my town was carrying it! So Kelly, who is an absolute dear, found an extra one and sent it my way! Now I feel like my life is finally complete.

And then my order from TD came!

 I have always loved Essie polishes, and I'd been lusting after these three for a while. Your Hut or Mine, a pink shimmer that I think is going to be the perfect not-bubblegum and not-old-lady pink; Mochacino, a brown shimmer; & Smooth Sailing, a cornflower blue shimmer from last summer. I was actually into polish when this was on shelves and went searching for it, but every store that was carrying the Braziliant collection was sold out of Smooth Sailing.

My first Misas! I have actually worn both of these already -- swatches soon! -- and I am now officially in LOVE with Misa. Oh my gosh. They are the most perfect creams I have ever experienced. Office Polishtics and Gray Matter.

Of course, we all recognize Orly Fowl Play. I have been lusting after this one forever, too, and again couldn't find it here -- for a university town, we apparently have really crappy polish selection! -- and then just still hadn't quite convinced myself to pull the trigger online. I LOVE it.
Also pictured here is Orly Pure Porcelain. This is the interesting part: I didn't order this polish!! I ordered China Glaze Traffic Jam and got this instead! I emailed Trans the next day, and they refunded me the cost of ChG, no questions asked. So yay, they have good customer service!

View this one large: you can see some of the green flash of the flakes on the edges of the bottle!!

All of my lovelies all lined up!

Now you know what you have to look forward to in the near future!

Excuse Moi!

Ok, here's the deal. I loved how this looked on my nails. It is pink sparkly girly perfection. But I don't want to know how much top coat it would have taken to make it smooth... and the removal process was INSANE. I know everyone swears by the foil method, but I just don't think I should have to sit around with tinfoil on my fingers in order to get polish off of my nails. I think I'm just not cut out to be a glitter girl. A polish like Glitter in the Air with a little bit of glitter that won't make me insane, sure. But something like this? I will think long and hard before doing that again.

But here are some pictures! Feel free to click and view large. There are a lot of colors that turn into "pink & silver sparkles" from a distance, but if you look closely you can still see a lot of them.

OPI Excuse Moi!

My right hand!!

These are all 2 coats, no cleanup.

What do you think about glitter polishes? Are they worth the removal process for you?

OPI Animalistic

My husband's favorite nail polish -- or, at least, the only one that makes him consistently say "I like that one!" with no prompting -- is Zoya Kimmy. Kimmy is a red glass fleck with a lot of gold shimmer. Animalistic reminds me a lot of Kimmy, only slightly cooler and without the gold.

Every now and then it has a bit of a pink flash that you can almost see in the 2nd picture, but most of the the time it's just a lovely, glass-fleck red! Definitely one I will reach for again.

On Wednesdays we wear Pink! Strawberry Fields edition

I wore this LAST Wednesday, so it totally counts as a Wednesday pink!

China Glaze Strawberry Fields is one of the first polishes I bought after I got into polish. Just a couple quick swatches, since I'm sure you've all seen it before!

Shade

Indirect light

Winter finally descended upon us this last week, so no sunlight here! But I think these pictures show the gold shimmer pretty well! It's so pretty.

Princesses Rule vs Sparkle

Ack! I've been slacking on the polish blog front! I spent all weekend attending a 3-day photography workshop, and a couple days fixing up my business' website, so this sort of got pushed to the backburner... sorry!! The good news is, I should have goodies coming in the mail in the next couple days, so I will be super excited to play with the new pretties & share them here!

I haven't done anything Valentine's-y other than year reds & pinks, so nothing special is coming... instead, here's a simple comparison for you!

Zoya Sparkle & OPI Princesses Rule!
PR is one of those weird polishes that I don't understand why I own them. I bought it before I was into nail polish, when I really hated pink & red polishes, so WHY would I have bought this? But it's beautiful, and I wore it on my wedding day, so I shouldn't complain!
Sparkle I got in my first humongo order of Zoyas, and I'm not sure why I got it, either... I tend to only buy polishes that I've seen a lot of swatches of, and I can't find any of this! So strange...

These are layered over SH CSM Cafe au Lait, since it's what I was wearing when I decided to do this!

They're VERY similar, but not as close as I initially thought! PR is more noticably pink, while Sparkle is really just a sparkle top coat. So I suppose I am glad I have them both after all! They'll serve different purposes for me, now that I know what the differences are!

Mail!

A couple weeks ago, I saw that Lash Girl & Is That Odd were having a giveaway! All you had to do was like them both on facebook and write on ITO's wall. My husband saw me do it and judged me a little bit. Then I won! Not the big prize, but an extra little drawing after they chose the winner. My prizes came in the mail this week, and when I showed it to Ryan, he said, "Ok, that's actually pretty cool." So I'm slowly winning him over. In fact, a couple days ago I put a bunch of polish in a cart on Transdesign, and Ryan told me to buy it. Yay! :)

Here's what I got!

 Chapstick, lipgloss, and a mystery  box!

This stuff tastes really amazing. Love.

I'm not a huge lipgloss girl, but this is sweet and sparkly in a way that reminds me of middle school & sleepovers in the best way.

This was the mystery box, and look what's inside:

 Nail tools!

Definitely going into my purse!!

So many thanks to the lovely ladies who sent these my way. :)

Mannequin Hands with SH CSM Cafe Au Lait

I don't know why I bought this polish last year when I hated nudes, but I'm so glad I did! Now I want the perfect nude and it was waiting for me in my stash already.

Here is one thin coat of Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure Cafe Au Lait. It's the perfect My Nails But Better shade.

Here it is with 3 coats.

Mannequin hands!!

I wore it last summer as a french manicure.

My first freehand french! And then because it needed sparkle, I added OPI Princesses Rule!

How do you feel about nude manis? Have you found your mannequin hands shade?

Sinful Colors Cinderella

I wouldn't have even noticed this new polish in the Sinful Colors display, but thanks to all the buzz on twitter from ladies trying to find it, I had an eye open! And there it was, in the first Walgreens I visited. There were 4 bottles, and I bought 3. One for me, one for Kelly (who is sending me Whimsical!), and one for a future giveaway.

Cinderella is gorgeous. Seriously. It's exactly the same color as Cinderella's dress, and the shimmer is incredible. Please click to view these bigger, you have to see this amazeballs shimmer!

 

Freaking gorgeous pink shimmer!

What you're seeing here is 3 coats. It's really sheer, and it didn't want to dry. Yuck. After taking these pictures, I took this off and tried again. The second time I used 2 coats of Hard Candy Sky with one coat of Cinderella. That was better, but it still didn't want to dry. When I got home from work 8 hours later, it was still dentable. The next morning I started over once again and used two coats of Sky, a coat of Cinderella, and a healthy dose of INM Out the Door. I stopped using quick dry topcoats a few months ago because I have always had trouble with them peeling (SV, Poshe, and Out the Door have all done it to me!), but if that's what it takes for me to get to wear this polish, then I guess I'll just have to deal with it! I'll update this with some wear results later. I want to keep this on until my bottle of Whimsical gets here; I think it's going to be the most beautiful layering ever!!

What do you think about Cinderella? If you find a bottle, will you pick it up?