Chanel Peridot

Good afternoon, Dear Reader!

After passing on Chanel Peridot with confidence, I saw someone wearing it in person recently, and that completely changed my mind.  I think it's one that doesn't translate to photos terribly well - I've seen pictures where it looks mostly kind of yellowish or gold , and that's not what it looked like in person at all.  I decided to get it somewhere with easy returns in case I hated it, and I don't.  If only I'd waited to get Stairway to Heaven from Nordies...

Anyhow, Peridot seemed like a nice change for today, so I tried it out.  It's a well pigmented two-coater, mostly green with some pale yellow and a strong shimmer.  I used SpaRitual Lacquer Lock as a base and their Tout de Suite for top coat (some experimenting a few years back showed me those consistently work well with Chanels) and two coats of Peridot.  Then I went outside and took some pictures.  This is Peridot in the sun.

Chanel Peridot Nail Polish, Two Coats

Since it's a duochrome, I also took a picture in the shade.

Chanel Peridot Nail Polish, Two Coats in Shade

It took about ten pictures each to get the real color, and even at that neither picture is as cool as in person.  I never knew it had the shimmer that shows in sunlight, but it does.  Peridot is a happy surprise that's kind of made up for the Stairway letdown.  This is not my favorite duochrome color combination (and not terribly far off from Nubar Wildlife but definitely not a dupe), but it's a very nicely done duochrome so I like it.  If it were the purple/green kind, I'd be giddy about it.

That's Chanel Peridot and the update for today, Dear Reader.  I have some new Konad stuff (the two new plates and multiscraper, which looks super handy) to show you this weekend, so until then, love and nail polish to you!



All Rights Reserved, Siobhan@The Nailphile. If you're reading this elsewhere, it's stolen from a real nail polish blog.

Bad Blogger Posts Franken polish

I have been so busy between work (ES is growing very quickly) and takingcare of the family and hubbys tons of doctors appointments I've barely had time to do my nails let alone post.I would love to say I will do better but honestly I can't promise anything until I geteverything reorganized so I have a bit of time. And my hands have suffered from washing them a billion times and wearing gloves

A quick NOTD

My pal Janice recommended Milani Hi-Tech to go under Lynnderella She Lived In A Swamp, so I picked it up when I swung my CVS last week (ExtraBucks clutched in my hand). I put it on with every intention of immediately topping it with She Lived In A Swamp, but...

I love it so much on its own that I'm holding off for the time being. It's stunning in many different types of light and it applied perfectly. Recommend!

Estee Lauder Metallic Sage

Good morning, Dear Reader!

I'm wearing Estee Lauder Metallic Sage today, which is a particularly fabulous birthday present.  It's far more lovely in person than in any pictures I've seen, including mine, so I'll try to add to the descrption to give you a better idea.

Metallic Sage is well-named since it's a sage green with an extra touch of brown, and it has a gold shimmer similar to that in Surreal Violet in that it's super fine and very dense, but does not have as strong an appearance as most shimmers.  The polish benefits from the huge paperweight of a bottle because the little sphere of polish inside the glass cube lets the shimmer show through quite well.

For the manicure, I started with SpaRitual Lacquer Lock, then added two easy to control coats of color, and finished with Lippmann Addicted to Speed.  I've had this Addicted to Speed for while, I think I got it with a code or as a freebie or something, as it's way too pricey for top coat for me, but works beautifully, and I keep it for extra special polishes like Metallic Sage.

It's still cloudy out, but I managed to get a picture of Metallic Sage that shows its overall look and also hints at the in-person fabulousness.

Estee Lauder Metallic Sage Nail Polish, Two Coats

The color in this picture is what it really looks like indoors - holding my hand up to the monitor, it matches.  The cool gold shimmer that shows just above the EL logo is what didn't come across in the picture - that shows on the nail, and you can see on my nails in the picture that the shimmer bits don't give the impression of lines that most do, they're evenly dispersed.

I absolutely love Metallic Sage.  It made me think of OPI Greenwich Green, an older olive with gold shimmer that's kind of harsh (both the shimmer and shade) that I've always loved despite its brashness against very pale skin, but in a more grown up version that's refined to be a thousand times more flattering with just the softening of the shade and shimmer.  This is definitely my favorite olive shade of any that I've used, and the fall greens that proclaim the coming of autumn without threatening winter always put me in a happy frame of mind.

That's Estee Lauder Metallic Sage and all I have for today, so until next time, Dear Reader, love and nal polish to you!




All Rights Reserved, Siobhan@The Nailphile. If you're reading this elsewhere, it's stolen from a real nail polish blog.

Make Up Store holographic nail polish

First things first: My manicure today is Maybelline Be Scene In Green from the new fall collection.

I picked up this one and Cool Couture, which you can see on the right in the picture below. (Be Scene In Green is on the left.)

Another shot of BSIG.

So. I like this in theory. It is a very pretty medium green, perhaps leaning a bit teal, with lots of gold shimmer. On the nail the effect is kind of foily. I'm just not that big a fan of this particular manicure. For one thing, although I filed and buffed my nails before applying BSIG, the polish brought out every imperfection. So while you can't really see much of this in the pictures, there are all kinds of lumps and ridges showing, which of course annoys me to no end.

It's making me give this polish a side-eye, is what I'm saying.

However! I thought you might like to see bottle pics and nail wheel swatches of the Make Up Store holos I bought during their 40% nail polish sale at the end of August.

Madeline, Greta, Siw (I asked and found out this is pronounced "Seev," thus solving one of the Great Nail Polish Mysteries of my life).

The bottles are awesome. Round, perfectly solid. There is no undercap but I found them very comfortable to hold. Also the brush on these is much nicer than on my Nfu-Ohs.

Madeline, Greta, Siw.

Yeah.

*fans self*

Thus far I've worn Greta but did not get pictures because my cuticles were so displeasing to the eye. I used Essie Matte About You as a top coat and it definitely worked the best of anything I've tried with this type of holo. I'm still working out the perfect application, though. I had a few bald patches with Greta and it chipped pretty quickly, but I think some of that comes with the holo territory.

Anyway, that's all the news for now. I hope to show you some more Lynnderella goodness this week, and I'm fairly sure that I'm going to buy myself the Chanel Les Jeans collection for my birthday. We'll see if I pull the trigger when the time comes (I suspect I will).

OPI Zom-body to Love

Good afternoon, Dear Reader!

Today I have the fun task of showing you OPI's limited edition Halloween 2011 glow in the dark polish, which is called Zom-body to Love, a light green.  For those newer to collecting polish, each year OPI releases a set of Halloween minis that includes a glow-in-the-dark, and there are "Promotional - Not for Sale" full sized bottles of the GID shade floating around all the time, usually easy to get for retail, which is just what I did on Ebay.

My experience of OPI's GID polishes, which I've bought since 2006 (I don't know when OPI started them, that's when I started...) is that they're always very sheer, impossible to make opaque alone, and pretty much the opposite of self-leveling.  They glow like nobody's business,which makes them completely worth jumping through some hoops to make workable for me.

The first thing I did with my bottle was take it into the bathroom (which has no windows) and hold it up to a light bulb for a few seconds before shutting the door, turning off the light, and taking a picture.  Since there was no light at all, the shutter time was roughly an eternity and it's a little blurred, and I apologize for that, but I really caught the glow.  They all seem to glow greenish, it's just coincidence that the color in the light is green as well.

OPI Zom-body to Love Bottle Glowing in the Dark

Next, I did a manicure.  I started with base coat, and to take care of the opacity issue, I used two coats of Misa Heaven White to start.  One moderately thick coat would have been sufficient, but I have a hard time applying thicker coats and also when my nails are on the shorter end of my length range, so two thin was better for me here.  I assumed I'd need at least two coats of Zom-body to Love, so I allowed a few minutes of drying time between coats.  I ended up using three coats of Zom-body to Love, and I made them very thin so they would stay uniformly smooth and the lack of self leveling wouldn't be a problem, and continued to wait a few minutes between coats.  With so much polish, any shrinkage would look pretty bad, so I used Diamont over it.  After it dried, I went out into the sun and took a picture of it.

OPI Zom-body to Love Nail Polish, Three Coats over White

I like the shade because it's a happier green than a lot of the recent drab ones.  It also looks pretty standard, so the glow is a fun surprise.  On the way to the computer, I was thinking that holding this in sunlight probably super-charged the glow, so I stopped off to get a disembodied nails picture (also blurry, and again I apologize) to show you.  I thought the disembodied watermark made it a more amusing picture, so I put it in.

OPI Zom-body to Love Nail Polish Glowing in the Dark

I didn't Photoshop any of these pictures other than cropping and adding text, the OPI GID's just glow like crazy, which is why I'm always happy when one is released.  I think you also know I wouldn't normally give you blurry pictures, but for fun ones of something glowing in a totally dark room, I'm going to show you whatever I'm lucky enough to get!

For a one-polish purchase, Ebay's a good bet for this one.  I just searched for the name, looked at Buy It Now only, sorted by price + shipping, and bought the least expensive one that was coming from a seller whose feedback I was at ease with.  Although the full-sized bottles are collector material, I think it's just fun to  wear GID's, especially as a pedicure since I wear those longer.  I never wear shoes in the house and tend to completely forget I'm wearing a GID polish, then walking down the hall or something I'll see it glowing and it entertains me.  My mother used to tell me I was like a magpie with this kind of thing...

So that's Zom-body to Love, the 2011 OPI Halloween Glow in the Dark release.  I don't have a heck of a lot else to tell you about, so until next time, Dear Reader, love and nail polish to you!



All Rights Reserved, Siobhan@The Nailphile. If you're reading this elsewhere, it's stolen from a real nail polish blog.

Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Teeny Greeny Bikini

Good morning, Dear Reader!

I'm continuing to work my way through the Fall 2011 Sally Hansen Xtreme Wears today with Teeny Greeny Bikini, a pale green shimmer with the same finish as the others from its display.  It applied well, and I needed three thin coats to make it opaque and even.  It dried nicely, so a third coat wasn't a problem at all.

This is Sally Hansen Teeny Greeny Bikini in the sun after it dried.

Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Teeny Greeny Bikini Nail Polish, Three Coats

So far, eveything from that display has been unusually nice.  I've long been a fan of Xtreme Wears, particularly the seasonal collections, but I think this release has bumped Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear to the front of the line of my favorite drug store nail polishes.

That's what I know about Teeny Greeny bikini, Dear Reader, so until next time, love and nail polish to you!



All Rights Reserved, Siobhan@The Nailphile. If you're reading this elsewhere, it's stolen from a real nail polish blog.

The Neon Creeper Heel Manicure

Good morning, Dear Reader!

After a few days of no polish change, I was up for a more involved mani this morning, so I did a nail art interpretation of a T.U.K. high-heeled neon creeper.  Why yes, that is incredibly random and out of the blue, but when you see the shoe, you'll see why it inspired a manicure.

The backstory, to mitigate some of the randomness, is that I need a new pair of all-purpose, running out the door shoes.  I've mentioned my taste in clothing is pretty plain, but my taste in shoes is far from it, with the current worn-out pair being red/purple/pink mosaic flats.  I've always loved heels, and being kind of short I wore them just about all the time for years (I'm still a normal height for a woman wearing them, and if there's no good reason not to...).  That era ended when I completely tore an ankle ligament (I was pledging a sorority and fell on the first step of the house's spiral staircase, smashing my ankle on every step on the way down,  while everybody was waiting for me at the bottom - my grandest entrance ever), until I just recently discovered shoes with a platform.  They look impossible to walk in, but they're totally comfortable and nothing at all to walk in, so heels are back on the table for me, and they've been included in the hunt.

That brings us to the inspiration picture,which I mentioned was a pair of T.U.K. neon creeper heels.

My Manicure Inspiration

To make the manicure, I started with three coats of China Glaze Kiwi Cool-ada, stamping plate H9 for the leopard print, which is a larger pattern and let me cover each nail with only one stamp.  I used that XL stamper I tried once before and hated because I've read reviews from a few bloggers with whom I normally have a similar experience who loved it.  That made me think I needed practice, and that proved to be the case.  There is a trick to using it, which is absolutely no pressure picking up or placing the stamp, and then it does a really beautiful job.  Having stamped, I filled in the dots on the leopard print with Misa Dreamy Purple, painted the tip one nail with Dreamy Purple to make it like the top of the shoe, then sealed with top coat.  Here's how it turned out.

My Neon Creeper Heel Manicure

There's not fabulous light today, so Dreamy Purple looks darker in the picture than in real life, although I think I should have hunted down Nubar Pasadena Purple for this one - it would have been more clearly purple.  I'm still really happy with the manicure because it's ridiculously fun.

That's my new weekend manicure and just about all I have to yap about this morning Dear Reader, so until next time, love and nail polish to you!



All Rights Reserved, Siobhan@The Nailphile. If you're reading this elsewhere, it's stolen from a real nail polish blog.

Who doesn't love an Emerald Isle

This is another beautiful Best Nail Treatments colorEmerald Isle is a gorgeous Emerald green slightly blackened background with a teal shimmerIn the bottle it looks like a deep teal but on the nail you can see more of the EmeraldThis is 2 coats in lightbox lightingI love the formula, it's so easy to work with and so far non of the colors I've used (including this one) stained my hands or nails. I

Tony Moly Galaxy Glitters

I joke about his happening often enough, but it's pretty rare that I see a picture of a nail polish and immediately go buy it. But when I saw pictures of the Tony Moly galaxy glitters on MUA, I went directly to eBay and snapped up Neptune, which is (of course) the green one.

This is small green and gold glitter and larger round green glitter in a very pigmented green jelly base. If that sentence sounded like "magical magic magicky magic time" to you, that's because IT IS.

The cap of this polish is a little clumsy to hold, but the brush and formula are great so I had zero application problems. This jelly base is so pigmented and so full of glitter that this is what one coat looks like:

I mean, !!!!!!!!!!

I don't think my photo captures the amazing shiny blingy goodness of this polish, but:

My only tiny nitpick is that this dries pretty heavily textured. I used a coat of Gelous between the polish and a thick coat of SV and I still have some texture. Not enough to detract from the awesomeness, but next time I will probably use an additional coat of Gelous.

I LOVE THIS. I would like to buy more at some point but I've got other stuff percolating right now. This was $9.99 from the eBay seller where I found it, with free shipping from South Korea. I ordered it on June 3 and received it June 11.

Highly, highly recommend!

A couple of recent colors

Hello there. It's been a busy week and I'm very glad tomorrow is Friday. The only bummer is that there's no Formula 1 race this weekend or ANY weekend in fact until the end of the month. At my house we do love our Formula 1 Sundays.

In any event, I thought I'd share some recent manicures. No real theme other than I have the photos and I wanted to post!

This is Kleancolor Metallic Green. I got some not-so-nice comments on this one along with some raves. Green nail polish is very polarizing for some reason, I guess. I like it. It's a very glowy polish. If you are into this sort of thing, it would make a good St. Patrick's Day manicure.

I have to say though that the not-so-nice comments took the fun out of wearing it a little bit. So it didn't give me the usual joy to look at it.

Someone on MUA mentioned they got this color for stamping, so maybe I'll try another fishnet manicure with this as the accent color.

I was in the mood for another holo recently and I remembered that I have a couple of Sally Hansen Prisms. Unbelievably I found these in a local Dollar Tree. I feel like so many people find treasures at their Dollar Trees and mine are always nail polish wastelands. But one time I got lucky!

This is Purple Diamond.

I don't know if this is true for all of the Prisms, but this one has a very strong holo effect. It's even visible in relatively low light.

You'll have to forgive the leftovers of Metallic Green on my cuticles. It was stain-y!

Konad Olive Green Princess Polish

Good morning, Dear Reader!

I like my Sally Hansen Creamy Olive manicure so much that I just added to it today, and I used plate XL A with Konad Olive Green Princess Polish to do it.  My stamping job wasn't perfect, nor was my cleanup (I erred on the side of removing too much), but I figured I'd give you a look at Konad Olive Green just the same because it's a great Fall shade and seems to lend itself to stamping over a lot of the Fall cremes.

Here, I stamped using the regular Konad stamper (I keep meaning to break out the XL one for another try, but never remember until I'm tidying up a spot that the regular stamper missed) and Konad Olive Green Special Polish, then sealed the stamping with Konad Top Coat and then a coat of Poshe to dry it.  Here's the finished manicure in the sun, and my pinky nail is the best one to really show stamping.

Konad Olive Green Princess Polish over Sally Hansen Creamy Olive Nail Polish

The places where stamps overlapped and the over-cleaned spots show up clearly here in a blown-up picture, but just walking around it looks fine.  Frankly, these are the ones that drive me nuts because the picture shows a pretty jacked up manicure while it looks cool when I look at my hands, which is why I suggest using the pinky, the only one with a completely clean stamp, to evaluate how the polish and stamp really look when properly executed.

I like the two colors together quite a bit, but I think the pattern is a little too small and busy for this particular combination.  I recently broke out quite a few Konad polishes that have been out of rotation for a while, so that might just bring about more Konad manicures in the coming weeks.

That's my olive green manicure and just about all I have to tell you about this morning, so until next time, Dear Reader, love and nail polish to you!

Sally Hansen Nailgrowth Miracle Creamy Olive

Good afternoon, Dear Reader!

I'm still not ready to face another Fall color head-on, so today I chose one that kind of lets me ease into the idea.  Creamy Olive from the Sally Hansen Nailgrowth Miracle line is, as the name indicates, a very washed out olive green creme.  The olive nods toward Fall, but the very pale shade lets me believe that the heat index really is 105° again.  Remember in February when I was complaining of being snowed in during dangerously cold conditions?  I just did and began to question why the heck I live in this area...

Back to Creamy Olive, which is an overall good polish except for the gargantuan oddly shaped brush (I think it's the same as that in the Insta Dri line).  After starting with base coat, the first coat of color was super sheer and blotchy then the second magically evened it all out for me.  I finished this one with Poshe because I somehow got some microglitter bits into the Diamont bottle I've been refilling, and Creamy Olive dried in good time and to a very glossy finish.

Sally Hansen Nailgrowth Miracle Creamy Olive Nail Polish, Two Coats

One thing I particularly like about Creamy Olive is that despite how pale it is, there is no chalkiness to its overall look when dry, which is sometimes kind of a problem.  This is my second polish (I think, maybe third) from this relatively new line, and I absolutely love the polish and absolutely hate the brush, so replacing the brush looks like a good option here.

That's the update for today, Dear Reader, so until next time, love and nail polish to you!

Zoya Dree

Good morning, Dear Reader!

Continuing with the Zoya Smoke Collection for Spring 2011, today I have Dree for you.  Before I move on to Dree, I had one quick note about the removal of Zoya Cynthia to pass on to you.  You know how dark blues often leave Smurf fingers in their wake?  Well, I removed Cynthia with the pink Beauty Secrets acetone-based remover, and there was literally zero staining of my skin or nails, so that's a huge plus for a dark blue.

Back to Zoya Dree... That's the olive green creme in the Smoke Collection, and my initial reaction was not particularly thrilled just because I have olive green cremes.  Once I started applying it, I became far more enthusiastic about it for several reasons.  First, the shade is a good one - it's not as yellow as RBL No More War nor as washed out as Chanel Khaki Vert.  The application is very good, although a little bit slow for me since the brush is small and my nails are not, but that comes down to making the color change take 14 minutes instead of 8-10, which is completely reasonable.  Dree's dry time is exceptionally good - when I was painting the seventh nail, I bumped the freshly painted third nail and only made a tiny fixable mark in it, and it was completely dry very fast using everyday base and top coats for me.  The polish is very pigmented so two thin coats were all that I needed and it dries very shiny.  Here's Zoya Dree with base and top coat in the sun.

Zoya Dree Nail Polish, Two Coats

That's what I know about Zoya Dree.  So far so good on the Smoke Collection, and I'm looking forward to the other four.  Until next time, Dear Reader, love and nail polish to you!



*This polish was provided by the manufacturer for review, that fact has no bearing on the review itself.

Zoya Mirrors Collection

Good morning, Dear Reader!

After I thought I was all done yesterday, a set of Zoya's Mirror Collection sent for review arrived, and I have swatches of them for you today.  This is a really cool collection - each of them applied really beautifully, the one I'm wearing dried well in reasonable time, and they're fun to look at.

All of these are base coat, two coats of color, and top coat, and I let each dry for a few minutes before taking a picture in sunlight.  There's no real significance to the order of the swatches.  Now that you know all of that, let's look at pretties.

Tao, which Zoya describes as "smoky slate gray metallic", is what I'd call a light gunmetal shimmer, and a good one.

Zoya Tao Nail Polish, Two Coats

I'd agree with Zoya that Marina is "smoky steel blue," but I say it's a shimmer and not so much metallic.

Zoya Marina Nail Polish, Two Coats

Nimue is called "smoky rich thistle metallic", and and strange as it sounds, I think "smoky thistle" is the best description of Nimue, a shimmer.  A technical difficulty resulted in less nails swatched for this one.

Zoya Nimue Nail Polish, Two Coats

Zoya says Neeka is "sparkly amethyst purple  metallic," it's a bit deeper purple than Nimue and has little gold glitter.  Neeka is right along the lines of Sally Hansen Salon Arabian Night from a collection Tracy Reese did with them a few years ago.

Zoya Neeka Nail Polish, Two Coats

The other with glitter just like that in Neeka is Yara, where it's in an olive green shimmer base.

Zoya Yara Nail Polish, Two Coats

These five are all lovely, but I think almost any polish would pale in comparison to Zoya Jem.  It's described as "sparkly fandango pink metallic," but mine's nothing like fandango pink at all.  It's a fantastic red plum shimmer, and there's something about the shimmer in it that makes it look just like cool custom car paint.  It makes me think of a neighbor I had when I was a teenager who was terribly proud of his IROC-Z.  The custom paint job even included his name on the driver's door - too bad it was spelled wrong... Anyhow, this is Zoya Jem - see if it transports you back to the days of watching a whole bunch of guys trying to construct an entire car out of Bondo.

Zoya Gem Nail Polish, Two Coats

I think the whole Mirrors Collection is excellent (Zoya's really been making great colors), but Jem put it over the top.  Jem is one amazing nail polish.

That's what I know about Zoya Mirrors, so until next time, Dear Reader, love and nail polish to you!