29 March 2011

I Vant To Be A-Lone Star

Let me start off with apologizing for how horrible my nails looked in that last post - I just read over it again and was totally grossed out. Never again!

Anyway, when I first saw the Texas collection I automatically wrote off both It's Totally Fort Worth It and I Vant To Be A-Lone Star simply because I'm not a big fan of silvery polishes. After reading a few reviews on the collection however, I decided to go back and get I Vant To Be A-Lone Star because I didn't realize how blue it actually was. I don't currently own any colors like it and I've had my eye on Sea Spray by China Glaze for awhile now and saw that some people/bloggers had compared the two. So all of that paired with my current spring colors obsession it quickly turned into a must-have polish!

I Vant To Be A-Lone Star
 

Is it just me or is it weird that the name is "I Vant..." and not "I Want..."? Is there some sort of reference I'm missing here? Either way, in the bottle you can totally tell this is a pearly color. My bottle actually had like ribbons of silver running through it which looked really cool. When I went back to buy it, I felt totally dumb for not noticing it before - I LOVE this polish. It goes on so well (but would you expect any less from OPI?) and I only used a third coat to ensure the color stood out enough. I decided to spice it up a little though by using Sally Hansen's Salon Effects Nail Polish Strips on my ring fingers in Blue Ice (review on this product coming soon!). I wore it to work today and got tons of compliments - I love adding fun little touches to otherwise plain manicures. I also love how shiny this polish is straight from the bottle - I didn't even use a top coat in the picture and it looks so good!


Hope everyone is enjoying the Texas collection so far - I obviously am!

Are there any polishes that you wrote off only to go back and fall in love with? Tell me about them!

27 March 2011

Russian Navy - Matte and American Classic's Yellow Stopper

I've been waiting for what feels like forever to get my hands on an OPI matte. I know, I know - I could just order one online, but that takes all the fun out of searching through racks in store. So the other day when I was doing my usual inspection of my local supermarket's polish supply and I found this Russian Navy - Matte buried behind some other colors, I had a minor freakout. Not only have I been looking for this color forever, but low and behold it's also a matte. So excited!!! And despite my recent need for all things spring, the weather has been so nasty here lately, so the dark blue totally worked for all my rainy-day looks. Now, as excited as I was to get this color on my nails, I've got to say I'm not very happy with my look overall. I may have just built up too much hype for the polish since I searched for it for so long, but there were just little things throughout my whole process that didn't work very well. I'll explain more as we go on.

American Classic's Yellow Stopper


Since this is a really dark color, I decided to use my American Classic's yellow stopper polish to keep my nails from yellowing. I'm pretty sure this was my first mistake in my dislike of the Russian Navy Matte. Normally, if you use too thick of a layer of the yellow stopper, it causes whatever color you put on top of it to chip off very easily in one whole piece. There have been a couple times where I've just been doing something simple, like getting things out of my purse, and one second I'll have color on my nail and the next second it'll be totally gone. It's annoying, but for someone who can't stop using polish that yellows and can't stand looking like a chain smoker, you learn to outweigh the pros for the cons. I really do love this product though - it works like a charm wasn't too expensive (I think it was $5 at Sally's). The best solution I've found is to just barely paint it on the nails so some of the color can bond to your nail and not just the yellow stopper. The problem with this is it ends up being a little streaky-looking under your color. It's usually not a problem with regular polish - just an extra-thick first or second layer to even things out. What I didn't realize, however, is that this isn't exactly possible with how mattes dry.

Russian Navy - Matte


Like I said before, I've been looking for this color forever. I've never been a huge fan of stark black polish, and with dark colors being so trendy for the past few years, navy has been my go-to substitute. Every review I've read said this color has been fantastic as well. In the bottle, the color looks a lot more purple-y to me than it actually comes out. Maybe it's because I got the matte. Anyway, I could tell I was going to have a problem with it after I did the first coat on a couple nails and saw how the matte dried to show every little streak from the yellow stopper underneath it. I have a couple suede polishes and thought they would be about the same. Wrong! I thought that if I put a thick enough layer on top it would cover it up, but nothing I did made it look smooth enough for my tastes. This picture has about three thick layers and I still don't like it. (excuse how bad my nails look overall - I kind of just gave up on making it look good)


Adding a top coat helped slightly, but once you do that it sort of just ruins the matte effect.


Sigh. I really wanted this polish to work out. I'm sure I'll dig this color out next fall to use without the yellow stopper and hopefully things will turn out better. As far as my first experience with the matte finishes, I think I'd rather stick with the suedes - a little richer of a similar effect. For now, I'll go back to my bright spring colors and trying to find a regular creme Russian Navy!

Let me know what your experiences have been like with the matte finishes and your favorite way to combat yellow nails!

25 March 2011

Guy Meets Gal-veston

I'm really excited about getting to try out all the fun colors in the new Texas collection by OPI. Even though it's mostly reds/pinks/oranges (and I need another warm colored polish like I need a hole in my head) I still always find myself in search of more. When I first saw the collection online I was really drawn to San Tantonio, Big Hair Big Nails, Guy Meets Galveston and Don't Mess With OPI. I ended up only buying Guy Meets Galveston and Austin-tatious Turquoise (review coming soon!) because they were all sold out of San Tantonio and I ended up not liking the shade of Don't Mess With OPI in person - a little too dark for my current spring-transition colors obsession. Also, I wanted to make sure I really liked the "sorbet" finish before I committed to Big Hair Big Nails.


Guy Meets Gal-veston 


This is my current favorite color. Seriously, I am in LOVE with this polish. In the bottle, it looks a little more red to me than it comes out. The reason I picked it up still was because there was a little nail swatch in the store that showed the true coral color. When I got the chance to put it on and saw just how sheer one coat is, I was really excited. I know, a lot of people/other bloggers are saying it's a little too sheer and you have to use at least three coats to get any kind of opaqueness, but I happen to think it's a perfect spring/summer color. It's bright without being too harsh against my still-pale-from-winter skin tone. I have on three coats in this picture because I really wanted to get a bright pop of color with the outfit I was wearing today, but I'm thinking about re-doing it with just two coats for a lighter, more spring feel. The jelly/sorbet finish is really really great and I can't wait to see what it looks like with Big Hair Big Nails or even Y'all Come Back Ya Hear?


Let me know how you've liked OPI's take on jelly finishes, or any other colors you've really loved from this collection!

The Beginning

I'll never forget the first nail polish I truly fell in love with. It was OPI's You Don't Know Jacques! shortly after the French collection came out. I literally wore it almost every single day for an entire season - it's still one of my go-to colors when I can't figure out what type of color mood I'm in. Since then, I've had an all-out obsession with nail polish. It's to the point where I can barely keep a color on my nails for more than two days because I get so excited about trying out new colors. I figure there has to be more people out there like me - and what easier (and fun!) way to find these people than to start blogging about my nail adventures?

So here's to spreading my passion for polish with the world - hope you enjoy!