Essie - Trophy Wife!

Hey friends! Here's my second Essie polish I bought recently - it's Trophy Wife!

I've had a lemming for a nice teal color lately, so Trophy Wife caught my eye immediately! I actually just got Zoya Akyra right afterwards, and they are very nearly dupes - but they're both lovely so I'm happy to have them both!

Trophy Wife is a really nice dark teal, but not too dark. It has a lovely shimmer in it too! This was 3 coats, but you could get away with 2 if you're careful! I always err on the side of too many coats because inevitably there's a little patch I somehow miss or something like that!

I think the Essie bottle is too cute! I love the name etched into the glass, so cool, and makes it feel kind of expensive! Since these are from their drugstore line (same shades, but a few extras that are available specially at Walmart, etc) there was a little label on the side of the bottle as well, but I just peeled it right off!

See? Shimmer!

I recently picked up Sally Hansen crackle in Antiqued Gold - this worked WAY better than my OPI silver one, which, by the way, has completely hardened up. Very irritating....a big waste of my money. I only used it like three times! Anyways....it's a gorgeous golden shade, clearly gold, not silver like it sort of looks in this pic! If you find the Sally Hansen crackles, I'd suggest picking it up!

OPI Sweet Memories

Hi friends! Today I have a lovely little pink from OPI, Sweet Memories. I originally bought this earlier in the summer to wear under OPI I Lily Love You, but it's a very pretty pale pink on its own too!

Sooo gorgeous!

I think this was two coats. As usual OPI's formula was very good, a tad thick but its easily controlled!

I then decided to top it with a new one I picked up from Walgreens - Sally Hansen Hard as Nails in Rock Candy! It's a peachy colored base packed with lots of iridescent glitter, similar to the glitter in I Lily Love You, but obviously no flakies :( The base color does go on almost totally clear, you wouldn't have to worry about seeing it over a darker color, for sure. I like Rock Candy over Sweet Memories, it adds a little sparkle without being over the top! :)

Sky Blue :)

After a few days with Kieko I was ready to move on to another color. Recently I bought Sally Hansen's Insta-Dri nail color in Blue-Away, a pretty robin's egg blue/sky blue color from Target for like $4.50. It's a really pretty blue so I decided to do that, and a layer of Sally Hansen DVD over it, since it has that great blue/purple sparkle. The sparkle appears purple when it's over purple polish, so I figured it would appear blue when it's over blue polish - and I was right! Although it is very easy to see lines, since the glitter polish is darker than the base color.

Here is just plain old Blue-Away. I was a little heavy handed with the application so it's not the prettiest but it looks much nicer a couple days later now that it's been cleaned up!

Then I layered DVD over the top:

And finally topped it off with a generous coating of Seche Vite as usual! I LOVE this top coat! It adds an extra 3-4 days to my polish life and even then there's usually like one tiny chip at the very end of my nail, nothing too noticeable! I see people with nail polish all chipped up halfway off their fingers and I'm like, how is that possible? I mean I would be like madly scrubbing to get the polish off my hands because I hate that badly chipped look, but clearly these people don't use top coats!! I was at Ulta and the cashier and I were talking about nail polish and I said how I love Zoya and it's long-lasting self, and she said she had put her polish on two days prior, and it was beyond chipped up! Like half the polish was missing, meanwhile my Zoya manicure + Seche Vite topcoat had one TEENSY chip after like 4 days of wear PLUS being filed!! 

Anyways...enough ranting! I think this mani looks nice but not my favorite. I think Blue Away would look nice as a pedicure! Hope you all have a lovely weekend!

Zoya Mira!

I had an absolutely ridiculous time trying to decide which of my new Zoya colors to use first! My indecision was absolutely pathetic, haha! I even had a deadline - my fiance was on his way to pick me up, that just made it worse! I hurriedly took off my silver tips mani and threw some of each color on each finger on one hand.....which didn't help at all. My best friend said "Pink! The answer is always pink!" when I texted her to see her opinion, but in the end, I went with my favorite color, purple, and Mira!

Mira looks gorgeous, a true dark (but not too dark) purple, the color I think of when I hear the word grape! Unfortunately it photographs some weird blue-ish color, but here's a picture anyways!

See what I mean about the blue-ishness? It doesn't look blue at all, it is my new favorite grape color :)

So then I thought to myself, hmmm, I wonder how Sally Hansen HD color in DVD would look over this? I bought that bottle about a month ago when it lured me in at a Target display. It is this gorgeous sparklyness that appears either blue or purple, depending how it catches the light. Now, I also do gymnastics (well, not right now thanks to the dang ACL reconstruction.....which was actually thanks to gymnastics. It's a vicious cycle!) and before I hurt myself I had JUST ordered a new leotard which is this great fabric that is purple with blue sparkles over it - JUST LIKE THIS NAIL POLISH! I put a picture of the leo at the bottom for reference!! So you can see why I bought DVD, right?! Anyways, when I put DVD on my fingers, it was so translucent, I was kind of sad. 3 coats made a beautiful purply blueness on my finger, but I thought, Oh well...it will make a good layering color. Enter Mira, and behold:

I love it! You mainly get the blue sparkles, as the purple is hard to capture on camera, but you can kind of see it at the very top of the bottle and about the top third of each nail shows a little purple. I love it! Mira is the perfect backdrop for DVD! :)

And of course, Revlon basecoat, and Seche Vite topcoat perfect the look!

And here's my beautiful new leotard, which I have no idea when I will get to wear. Boohoo :(

Doesn't it match DVD perfectly?!