Sephora by OPI "Havana Dreams"

Hi everyone!  So this week I decided to break out another bottle of nail polish from my collection that I have never worn!  I bought this color last summer and for some reason never got around to trying it!  It is Sephora by OPI's "Havana Dreams" which is this gorgeous sky blue nail polish!  It is a pastel and perfect for Spring!

Sephora by OPI's "Havana Dreams" is a pale sky blue and I was a bit worried about streaking and about how many coats of polish it would take to get good opaque coverage.  However "Havana Dreams" surprised me because it only required two coats of nail polish and had very little streaking!  And most of the streaking I had was on my thumbs, which I think was due to the fact that my thumb nails are pretty wide and I just couldn't get enough nail polish on quick enough to get an even coat.  As for application I have had great luck with Sephora by OPI nail polish.  It goes on quick and easy and has a nice brush that makes it easy to apply polish to my nails!  Formula wise "Havana Dreams"is very nice and was not too thick or too thin!  In terms of chipping I didn't really see too much.  I was able to wear "Havana Dreams" for about four days before I noticed some minor tip chips.  And even then the tip chips wear just from normal wear and tear I put on my poor nails.

Overall I am very pleased with Sephora by OPI's "Havana Dreams."  I have had really good luck with Sephora by OPI nail polish lasting a decent amount of time before chipping.  Also I adore the pale sky blue color of "Havana Dreams" and it reminds me of summertime when the sun is shining and the sky is full little puffy white clouds.  (Which for now is about as close to nice weather as I am having!  It is Spring but North Carolina missed the memo and has been freezing lately!)  I can hardly wait to wear this nail polish again!!

Thanks for reading my blog!  :)

FLOWER "What's the Daffodilly-O?"

Hi everyone!  I am so excited that it is officially Spring now!  I really hope that the cold weather is gone for good (or until Fall).  Since it is Spring now and flowers are starting to bloom I decided to try out Drew Barrymore's new line of cosmetics called FLOWER.  FLOWER is a cool brand that is made here in the United States, which is nice and Drew Barrymore helps selected the colors and products she likes!  I purchased a few of her nail polishes and have been dying to try them!

So this week I decided to try "What's the Daffodilly-O?" which is a pretty pink coral color and I love how all the nail polish names have a flower name in it!  "What's the Daffodilly-O?" has a great formula and went on very well!  I think I probably could have gotten away with one coat, but I almost always do two coats just to make the color brighter.  Also I worried that because of FLOWER's square cap it might be awkward to hold and apply the nail polish, but in my opinion it was easy to hold and apply nail polish with.  In terms of chipping "What's the Daffodilly-O?" didn't hold up very long.  I started seeing minor tip chips within the first day, but as the days passed the chipping didn't get any worse.  In the end I wore "What's the Daffodilly-O?" for about four or five days, so I was pleased.

Overall I am in love with the color of "What's The Daffodilly-O?" and I love how shiny it looks when it is dry!  And I am very pleased with the new comer brand FLOWER and cannot wait to try out many of the other colors in the collection as well as using "What's the Daffodilly-O?" again!

Here is a bit more about FLOWER:  FLOWER is owned and operated by actress Drew Barrymore and the company prides itself on NOT spending any money on advertising, but instead using word or mouth to advertise.  FLOWER is exclusively available at Wal-Mart.  And all FLOWER nail polishes are 3-Free.  Be sure to check-out www.flowerbeauty.com to see FLOWER's full line of products!

Thanks for reading my blog!  :)

Revlon "Rain Forest"

Hi everyone!  So with St. Patrick's Day right around the corner I wanted to try out some fun green nail polish!  I have recently been loving Revlon's nail polishes so when I ran across their gorgeous green glitter called "Rain Forest" I knew I had to have it!

"Rain Forest" is a unique glitter to my collection because it has visible green glitters, but the glitter pieces aren't very big.  However the base color of the nail polish covers so amazingly well and the overall application was very good for a glitter.  But what I did notice during application though was that this glitter does not apply evenly during the first coat and that the brush holds a lot more nail polish than I initially realized.  So on the first few nails a fair amount of polish ran off onto my fingers.  This presented a problem because the nail polish started to become very thick in the tips of my finger nails and also got all over my skin.  Since the tips of my nail polish were very thick, as the nail polish dried (even long after the quick dry top coat) it started to bunch up, which basically ruined the manicure.  Here is how many of my nails looked after less than a day:

As for chipping or how long Revlon's "Rain Forest" is wearable I can't say because with the nail polish gathering into heavy pools on the tips of my nails it caused the manicure to be ruined in less than a day.  But I feel confident that should I be able to get two even coats of "Rain Forest" on the nail polish would last for longer.  And in terms of taking the nail polish off it did take some time but it came off easier than most glitter nail polishes.  Even though I only wore "Rain Forest" for one day my finger nails when I removed the nail polish I did have some light green staining occur on my nails, which was disappointing.

Overall I still love Revlon nail polish, and the color of "Rain Forest" is pretty (and perfect for St. Patrick's Day!), but as of right now after one use I am not too impressed simply because the nail polish barely stayed on for 12 hours and was a pain to try and get even coats of polish!

Thanks for reading my blog!  And Happy St. Patty's Day!  :)

butterLONDON "Jasper"

Hi guys!  So this week I decided to try out a new nail polish that recently came out as part of butterLONDON's Spring/Summer 2013 Sweetie Shop Collection.  This collection from butterLONDON is mostly  comprised of pastel colors, which I wasn't too impressed with since pastel nail polish is fairly easy to find, but one pale yellow color called "Jasper" caught my eye because I do not have a color like that in my collection.  I purchased "Jasper" at my local Nordstroms for $15 (USA), which is pretty expensive for a nail polish, but at the time Nordstroms was having a butterLONDON special that if you bought a nail polish you got a butterLONDON Lippy for free.  And I couldn't pass that up, which means that I really got the nail polish for about $8 (USA), and that is fairly reasonable for a nail polish.

So butterLONDON's "Jasper" is a pale Spring-like color, perfect for Easter in a few weeks.  I love the creamy yellow color of "Jasper" and was pleasantly surprised how well the color looked on my skin tone.  Often I find yellows and beiges very difficult to look nice on me.  As for application butterLONDON "Jasper" went on pretty well, though being a light color the polish has a decent amount of streaking.  The streaking was less noticeable once I applied the second coat of color, and even less noticeable after I applied a quick drying top coat.  However some minor streaking is still noticeable.  In terms of chipping I was afraid that like the last two butterLONDON nail polishes I had tried "Jasper" would begin to chip withing 24 to 48 hours.  But "Jasper" surprised me by lasting about 5 days before I saw a lot of chipping!  And even then the chipping was minimal and mostly on the tips of my nails!  I am very pleased with butterLONDON's "Jasper"!

Overall I like butterLONDON's "Jasper" for its gorgeous color, but $15 is pretty high for a nail polish.  But I know I will be wearing this polish more throughout the rest of Spring and into Summer 2013!

Thanks for reading my blog!  :)

Aquamarine Dupes

Hi everyone!  So now that Spring is officially here I have started to put away my darker polish and started pulling out my fun bright polishes!  As I was pulling out my Spring and Summer nail polish colors I noticed that I had four aquamarine blue nail polishes (two of which I have bought in the last  month or so) that appeared to look very similar in the bottle.  So I decided to try them out side by side to see if I had any dupes (duplicates).  As it turns out none of these four nail polishes are dupes, but several are close enough that unless you are a polish-a-holic you probably don't need to own all four!

The four nail polishes I decided to test were: Essie's "Turquoise & Caicos", OPI's "Mermaid Tears", Nicole by OPI's "Alex by the Books", and Zoya's "Wednesday". As you can tell from the picture above, all four nail polishes looked very similar in the bottle.  I wanted to give you all an idea of how the nail polishes compared to each other along the way!  So here is how the polishes all looked after I applied a clear base coat (I use Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in "Invisible") and then one coat of nail polish:

After one coat I was convinced that I probably did NOT have any dupes, but sometimes you never can tell until you get that second coat of nail polish on!  While applying these four polishes I noticed that Essie's "Turquoise & Caicos" was very watery and thin, which I find to be a problem with a lot of Essie nail polishes.  But on the opposite end of the scale I found OPI's "Mermaid's Tears" to be a tad goopy and thick.  Zoya "Wednesday" and Nicole by OPI "Alex by the Books" both applied very easily.  After waiting about 15 minutes between coats of polish I added a second coat to all four nails, and then I had to add a third coat to Essie's "Turquoise & Caicos"  After a quick drying topcoat (I use Orly's "Sec'N'Dry") here is how the finished nails looked:

In the end Zoya's "Wednesday" and OPI's "Mermaid's Tears" were very similar.  The only real difference was Zoya had more blue in it.  Nicole by OPI's "Alex by the Books" (which is part of the new Modern Family line) was the lightest of the four polishes and Essie's "Turquoise & Caicos" was just a tad bit darker and than "Alex by the Books."

Here are my over all impressions of each nail polish:

Zoya's "Wednesday":  Easy application, covered well in two coats, no streaking, and very little to no staining on my nail upon removal.  Cost: approx. $7-8 (USA)

OPI's "Mermaid's Tears": Slightly thick and goopy, amazing coverage (almost a one coater!!), no streaking, and unfortunately some staining occurred on my nail upon removal. Cost: $9 (USA)

Nicole by OPI's "Alex by the Books": Easy application, covers well in two coats, no streaking, and no stained nail after removing the polish. Cost: Between $6-8 (USA)

Essie's "Turquoise & Caicos": Very watery, difficult to apply (though buildable with patience), required three coats, but was very easy to remove and left no staining on my nails. Cost: approx. $8 (USA)

Overall since the four colors are very similar you really don't need to own all four of them.  My favorite of the four is OPI's "Mermaid's Tears" which unfortunately was a limited edition color and is a bit difficult to get your hands on.  So if you cannot find the OPI then I suggest you go for either Nicole by OPI's or Zoya's nail polish.  My least favorite by far is Essie's "Turquoise & Caicos" because of the watery formula.

Thanks for reading my blog!  :)