Indelible + Layering

Giving Formula X another chance! I decided to try a nice, easy cream. Creams are hard to mess up, and I wanted Formula X to get a chance to impress me after its previous failure. To that end, I picked out Indelible.

Of course, as purples tend to do, it photographed much more blue than it really is. I tried to correct it in the above photo, but it's still not quite right.

Here's how it photographs. It's a great polish! Easy to apply and control; even and opaque at two coats. Definitely one I'll be reaching for again.

But I was bored, so over it I layered Nars Disco Inferno. It was on sale + VIB discount, so I think I paid $4. What a steal!

It's really pretty! Pinky purple flecks, with a green shift from extreme angles that I could not pick up on camera.

But it's definitely a layering polish, and to be honest there's no way I will ever think a layering polish will be worth $19. So I'm glad I have this, but I'm also glad I got it on mega sale.

Glitterati

I hit VIB last month, so I got to indulge in the Sephora VIB sale for the first time ever! And of course I had to pick up a lot of nail polish... including my first high end brands! I picked up Illamasqua's Glitterati/Viridian duo. My mom said in the bottle she preferred Viridian, but after I put them both on she preferred Glitterati. So here it is for you!

These aren't my best photos ever; my family was staying at my house when I put this on, so I took poorly-lit phone pictures on day 3 of wearing this. But dang is this a pretty bottle. I need a better topcoat; I've been using Essie Good to Go, and it's been shrinking at the cuticles and it didn't quite smooth the glitter out. But that issue aside, this is definitely going to be a favorite fall polish for me.

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.

No H8.

Conveniently, I had a purple waiting to be worn! Zoya Carly, two coats.

Sinful Colors Zeus

Sinful Colors again! Zeus is from their Cast Away collection, as was Neptune. This is 2 coats, so hooray! The formula was weird... boo! It was runny, but it got goopy fast, and I had an impossible time trying to get the right amount on the brush. Harumph. Also, it has a really beautiful pink shimmer, but I don't see a lot of it. Some of that is probably due to the gross, cloudy day outside, but I don't think it's all the weather's fault...

What do you think about these pictures? I'm using a new lighting system for these pictures. Here's a comparison...

Pictures using window light aren't always that bad; as I said, today is really dreary & gray. But that's part of the wonderful thing of having a good light: it's reliable.
Do you prefer the new pictures? I'll do a few more entries with this lighting so you can let me know what you think!

Also! Before I took this off, I did some layering with a couple new Pure Ice polishes I picked up.
On my left hand, I tried out Busted. It's the perfect match for Zeus: they are both purple with pink shimmer. The shimmer in Busted in AMAZING, though.

I feel like putting Busted over top of Zeus just brings out what Zeus could be. My ring & pinky fingers have such a silly tiny shimmer compared to the two with Busted!

And from an extreme enough angle, Busted's shimmer turns slightly green! How awesome is that?

Next is Heartbreaker layered over my right hand. Here you will have to be a little lenient... of course I'm not as good at posing & taking pictures of my right hand, but I also have a nubby little middle finger. It broke last week and has been weak & peeling ever since. :(

Heartbreaker is really pretty, I'm excited to try layering it over other things!!

Zoya Danii

Danii was one of the 2 polishes I got back in the January Zoya promo... It takes me so dang long to get to polishes! She's a beautiful purple with seriously amazing gold shimmer. Compared to the letdown that was Your Hut or Mine, I am super excited about this one!

2 coats, no top coat.

That's it for today! Short & sweet.

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?

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!