Nicole by OPI: Denim to Earth

Afternoon! Happy Thanksgiving to those of you [and me] located in the United States! Hope you are having a good day! I got off of work early so I decided to do a post for you all. This is sort of a part two to the last post. As I mentioned, I think, the jaw-droppingly gorgeous Me + Blue was part of a two pack of polish I picked up from TJ Maxx. Unfortunately, while the other polish looked pretty in the bottle it was the complete opposite to Me + Blue... extremely disappointing.

In the bottle this looks like a deep plum-purple with pretty little purple/pink shimmer in it. The shimmer is nearly invisible on the nail. I'm not fond of polishes that LOOK black unless you  know they are a different color. This is one of those. My pictures are usually taken indoors under different types of lighting, but most always artificial light of some sort. This is what I when I looked at my fingers:

Look at the "e" in Nicole. See the shimmer there? I wanted that!

Well. That was disappointing. So I thought Hmmm, maybe if I go outside the sparkle will come out!! I went outside on my porch. I started in the shade, but had some sun so I hoped for some sparkle like what what in the bottle buuuuuut....... blah. Just blah dark-purpley blackness. 

Finally, I got some direct sunlight. Oh look! Look!!! It only  shimmers where the sunlight hits. That's it. It doesn't even move around the nail while you rotate your hand. :( I wasn't really impressed. You can make the image larger if you want.

This was really the only way to *sort of* see the shimmer: outside, up-close camera crop.

Can't see it? Enlarge and see the speckles. That's all they look like.

At least the other half of this duo had enough WOW in it to make up for this sadness. I'm actually still wearing a full mani of Me + Blue. I didn't take it off for Thanksgiving. Although, with all the food, at least the drooling didn't look so weird...... shhhh. Haha!

Thanks for checking in!

-Amy


*****Disclaimer: the polish in this post was purchased by me*****

OPI: Every Month is Oktoberfest

Hello everyone! I hope your days are all going well! Today I have for you a polish from the OPI Germany Collection. I didn't get very many of these. Not many colors stood out to me so I only picked up Every Month is Oktoberfest and the odd yellow that I can't remember the name of. It's across the room so I'm not going to go grab it. >_< Haha.

Every Month is Oktoberfest (EMIO?) ha, anyway, EMIO is a deep red-purple with subtle gold and purple shimmers. It leans more red to me than purple, but the base has a definite deep purple tinge to it. I was actually hoping for a smidge more purple than what there was, but it's still a really pretty polish anyway. I thought the formula was great. It went on smoothly with two coats. I topped it with Seche Ultra-V, a UV topcoat. (The lamp was on sale.)

And please forgive me some for slight swooning. I am still on my new-camera high and these pictures are TONS better than ones I could have gotten with my old camera or, heaven forbid, my phone! *drool* haha! You can also click on them to make them bigger if you want to check out the shimmer!

I don't know what is going on with my ring finger! I think it's just the way the light is glaring off of it. There isn't anything smudged on it at all but I had a hard time getting a picture without that smudge/dirt looking thing there!  

I started using the UV topcoat to see if it lasted any longer than a regular top coat. I didn't notice much of a difference in wear time between this and regular Seche Vite. I use my nails a lot and regardless, I always have a chip or two within a day with either one. When I remember, I plan on doing a test with alternating fingers. My main reason for sticking with this is that the curing with the lamp takes a few minutes  longer, but there isn't that slight fear of bumping something and getting a dent or a scratch in your ALMOST dry mani. Maybe that's just me, but with this you are pretty much good to go when you're done curing unless you hit something REALLY hard or sharp. That seems to work better for me!

Have a good day/night everyone! 

***Disclaimer: all products in this post were purchased by me

Girly Bits: Street Magic

I have a beauty for you all today! I managed to get my hands on a mini of Street Magic when the Girly Bits store did their last restock. I was hoping to get Shift Happens (like a lot of others, I bet!) but it was sold out by the time I was able to place an order. I'll try again next time, but until then this gorgeous polish will hold me over!

Not a lot of words for this one. It's soooo PRETTY! I chose to layer it over a dark green polish today and love the way it turned out! This flashes from gold to green to blue to bronze depending on how the light hits. My camera didn't want to capture anything other than the gold, for the most part, but I tried. This is really one you do need to see in person! It's worth it!

(Direct lamp light - Indoors)

(Lightbox. This didn't work well. I was hoping to get some of the other colors.)

And the beauty of them all (for me anyway):

(Direct Lamplight - Indoors)

Aren't you just drooling? I took a ton of pictures of this but all of them either ended up blurry or only half my nails were in focus! Oh well. You can catch a little more of the green shimmer here.

You can pick up Girly Bits polishes at her store http://girlybits.bigcartel.com/ or at Llarowe. You can also check out her BLOG to keep up-to-date on restock status.... or look at all the pretty pictures!