amyopoly » green

Butter London Victoriana

Amy — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 22:23:04 +0000

I bought my first Butter London polish a few months ago as a birthday present for myself. $14 is something I can only justify rarely right now. But it’s a BEAUTIFUL color and I love the formula, so it’s worth it.

First, the way Butter London describes this color: “A textured twinkling vintage blue pale and slightly smoky. Things reminiscent of the Victorian era, such as corsets, top hats and Syphilis.”

I laughed pretty hard at that last descriptor!

I’d describe it as a dusty teal base with very fine silver specks of glitter.

The formula was fantastically smooth. I only did 2 coats out of habit, but it was opaque in one. Really perfect application. The bottle is pretty too! If Butter London polishes weren’t so expensive, I’d have the ENTIRE collection by now.

Bought in-store at ULTA. $14 for 11ml/.4 fl oz. Big 3 Free.

China Glaze Haunting Halloween Collection

Amy — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 05:30:57 +0000

While at Cosmoprof 2011 I got a nice look at some future collections, including “Haunting,” the upcoming Halloween collection from China Glaze.

Here we have a 2 glitters, 2 creams, and one very awesome glow in the dark top coat! Check out swatches below! :)

My descriptions of the colors:

Haunting: black base with bright silver round micro-glitter
It’s Alive: sheer olive green base loaded with chunky round glitter and small round micro-glitter
Crimson: deep eggplant-purple cream (looks mostly black)
Near Dark: murky deep olive green cream (looks mostly black)
Ghoulish Glow: transparent glow-in-the-dark top coat (!!)

edit: Scrangie just posted swatches of the Nars Fall 2011 collection, and Haunting looks pretty similar to Night Breed. The only thing, it seems, is that Haunting was comprised of all the same sized round glitter, and Scrangie says that Night Breed has irregular sizes/shapes. Will wait for comparison shots of the two!

Backlog of Manicures!

Amy — Sat, 04 Jun 2011 00:37:47 +0000

I have a little treat for you today, several manicures.. mostly nail art I’ve done over the past month or so that I’ve been meaning to share. Hopefully I’ll be able to upload some higher quality pictures another time, but for now cell phone pictures will have to do!

China Glaze Crushed Candy Crackle layered over China Glaze Swing Baby

What I call a “preppy” manicure, it made me feel very tennis-club-in-the-Hamptons. Used Essie Cute As A Button, Essie Mint Candy Apple, Essie Tart Deco and (unfortunately) an unknown Essie (the bright pink).

!!Toes alert!! Essie Mint Candy Apple bows outlined in Art Club black nail art polish, layered over Essie Cute As A Button!

I can’t find the nail art inspiration picture I interpreted for this manicure–but I used Justin Bieber for NOPI I’m A Belieber with white and black Art Club nail art polishes for the design.

I am so utterly obsessed with jelly polishes, and this color especially: OPI Big Hair, Big Nails from the Texas 2011 collection!

I can’t tell you how ecstatic I was when I found OPI Sparkle-icious at a salon nearby. I didn’t jump on them when they first came out because I was poorly, and I couldn’t pass it up again!

Nail art with Zoya Dove and some Art Club studs! Loved this one, so chic, so… Rihanna.

I recently bought wall shelves from Target to organize my polish collection. This is a shot of all my polishes as of May 23, not including my MAC polishes (which are stored on a MAC polish display next to my make-up).

Shabby Chic Nail Art

Amy — Sat, 19 Feb 2011 04:50:07 +0000

Yay, I had a lot of fun doing this manicure! I was inspired by a picture of someone’s manicure that I found on tumblr. The “roses” are very easy to make, just lots of semi-circles in varying tints and shades of a couple colors. I chose to do roses only on my ring and thumb nails for this manicure, while the rest just had the striped pattern.

Before I post the pictures, an apology for the state of my nails in these photos. My nails (and hands) take a lot of abuse from me right now, as I am giving 2-3 facials a day, and constantly washing my hands to keep sanitary. I get thirsty just looking at my poor dehydrated skin!

USED:
Color Club High Society
Color Club Who Are You Wearing?
Color Club Ms. Socialite
Color Club She’s Sooo Glam
OPI Who the Shrek Are You?
Seche Vite Top Coat

Tartan Nail Art

Amy — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 04:00:17 +0000

Today I’m bringing you some nail art inspired by one of the season’s trends… tartan!! I felt a little bad about bashing MAC’s holiday nail set, so I thought I’d show appreciation where it’s due. Also, I think it’s appropriate that I welcome December with some tartan loveliness! :)

USED:
Layer 1: Gelous Base Coat
Layer 2: Asiatique Nail Lacquer
Layer 3: mixture of Icing Jaded & MAC Blue India
Layer 4: MAC Blue India
Layer 5: China Glaze Lemon Fizz
Layer 6: mixture of China Glaze Lemon Fizz & Confetti White Wedding
Layer 7: Seche Vite

I started by painting my entire nail with one coat of Gelous. I let it dry for a few minutes and followed it with a coat of Asiatique. Next, I painted half of my nail with the layer 3 mixture. Then, I painted a small spot of Blue India over the red half, right on the border of the green half. Next, I painted a line of diagonal stripes horizontally and vertically with Lemon Fizz. Lastly, I painted two vertical lines with the layer 6 mixture around the dot of Blue India. Finished with a coat of Seche Vite! I used a very thin, short-bristled paint brush from an art store for all the steps after Asiatique.

This nail art was clearly inspired by the promo image for MAC’s A Tartan Tale collection.

Sally Hansen XtremeWear Mystic Lilac

Amy — Sat, 27 Nov 2010 00:00:55 +0000

Mystic Lilac is so beautiful. It’s a light lilac colored polish with a gorgeous, subtle green shimmer–almost an aqua color–that really sparkles in sunlight. It’s a pretty sheer polish, but builds up well. These are 3 coats.

Close up of the yummy aqua shimmer!

The aqua was hard to capture with the camera. It’s more evident in real life.

China Glaze Party Hearty

Amy — Mon, 22 Nov 2010 21:00:37 +0000

From China Glaze’s holiday collection, ‘Tis the Season To Be Naughty & Nice, is Party Hearty, a multi-colored glitter topcoat for the Christmas season. The polish is clear based with small silver and gold glitter, medium green glitter, and big red glitter. You can do several coats of this polish on its own over bare nails, or layered over other polishes. Here are some layering ideas for you!

China Glaze Party Hearty over OPI Who the Shrek Are You?

China Glaze Party Hearty over China Glaze Mistletoe Kisses

China Glaze Party Hearty over MAC Nocturnelle

China Glaze Party Hearty over China Glaze Mrs. Claus

China Glaze Party Hearty over Confetti White Wedding

Comparison Swatches: Orly CosmicFX vs. MAC Venomous Villians

Amy — Wed, 06 Oct 2010 23:19:48 +0000

Just thought I’d mention that I tried water marbling for the first time today. It was sort of a failure :P, but I’ll post pictures soon!

Ever since product pictures were revealed for MAC’s Venomous Villians/Maleficent nail polishes, the beauty community has suspected that two of the polishes from Orly’s CosmicFX collection, Galaxy Girl and Space Cadet, were dupes for MAC’s Formidable! and Mean & Green. I wanted to post some comparison swatches of the four polishes along with my thoughts.

To get it out of the way, you definitely don’t need all 4 polishes. Space Cadet and Mean & Green, and Galaxy Girl and Formidable! are so similar to one another that unless you’re an avid collector of some sort, it’s be redundant to add them all to your collection.

Pictures are below. I’ve posted several because getting the same light on each finger while photographing proved to be impossible. Please forgive the messiness!

USED: (no base or top coat)
Orly Galaxy Girl (index finger): 2 coats
MAC Formidable! (middle finger): 3 coats
Orly Space Cadet (ring finger): 3 coats
MAC Mean & Green: 4 coats

Reviews

MAC Formidable! is beautiful, but is exactly the same as Orly Galaxy Girl. (Full review here.) I have seen people say that Formidable! has more of the blue sparkle than Galaxy Girl, but this was not my experience at all. Formidable! was perhaps slightly more sheer, but when coated to opacity (I used 2 coats Galaxy Girl and 3 coats Formidable!), they look exactly the same.

Mean & Green was EXTREMELY sheer in one coat. And although Mean & Green and Space Cadet contain the same colors and the same multichrome, Space Cadet appeared to be much more “sparkly” than Mean & Green. Space Cadet (full review here) is, for lack of a better description, all bling-bling all the time. Even in low light, the pink sparkle is beautiful and stands out against the olive/emerald green base. Mean & Green, disappointingly, did not exhibit as much of this pink sparkle as I would have liked. That being said, these are pretty much the same polishes. If you have one or the other, you shouldn’t be disappointed.

So what’s the bottom line? Here we go: Orly raised their prices with the CosmicFX collection for the first time, so Galaxy Girl and Space Cadet go for around $10 online. Formidable! and Mean & Green, on the other hand, cost $13 at MAC. What’s more, all of the MAC polishes are sold out online and likely at every counter and store you’ll find. Case in point, MAC is amazing at marketing limited edition collections. You may still have a chance to find the Orly polishes at Sally’s and on online retailers. In addition to being cheaper, the Orly polishes have a more consistent formula which means quick drying time, beautiful sparkle finish, and long-wearing quality polish. Also, I’ve seen at least a dozen complaints online about some of the MAC polish brushes being wonky. (If you received a polish with a wonky brush, you should be able to contact customer service to get a replacement cap.)

MAC Jade Dragon Nail Lacquer Review & Swatch

Amy — Sun, 19 Sep 2010 01:33:33 +0000

Before I start with another polish from MAC’s 2010 F/W trend collaboration with Jin Soi, I think it’s fairly obvious that with this manicure I decided to experiment a little bit with my nail shape. I went for a round shape (whereas I usually rock the squoval) but immediately after this manicure I went back to my comfort zone. Squoval fits me better, I think! Now, on to Jade Dragon. To see my review & swatch of another polish from this collection, Earthly Harmony, click here.

Jade Dragon is described as an emerald green frost. As was the case with Earthly Harmony, the description of Jade Dragon on their website and the actual product differ quite significantly. I think it is important to review this for readers who may not be able to get to MAC to check it out for themselves. If you’re in love with the color based on MACCosmetics.com, you’re going to be disappointed.

These pictures were taken after a couple days of wear, so please excuse tipwear!

Color

Jade Dragon has a deep emerald green base with beautiful blue specks of shimmer throughout. While the sparkles cling to the side of the bottle, in application they are a bit less prominent. I found that mostly they are obvious in flashes of direct sunlight and especially on the sides of the nails. Even though it’s described as a frost, Jade Dragon is definitely a sparse shimmer.

Formula

Formula was great, nothing noteworthy which is generally a good thing. Even with my favorite top coat, Sally Hansen’s Mega-Shine, it was completely dry really quickly. As I mentioned in my review of Earthly Harmony, I’m actually not sure if MAC knows how to make a polish with the shimmer (or, in the past, flakies) sufficiently suspended in the base. However, I think Jade Dragon was more successful in this venture, though it definitely wasn’t a homerun.

Final Recommendations

I have no regrets with Jade Dragon! I’m really happy with the color, so even though I was looking forward to a bit more blue shimmer, it is present enough to not be a complete disappointment. This color is a gorgeous unique addition to my collection.

MAC, please step it up and start taking actual pictures of your products! It can be downright misleading when you fake it, and it’s painfully obvious that even though there have been rumors you’re going to switch to actual swatches for years, you still haven’t done it.

Green Spam: MAC, Confetti & Icing

Amy — Sun, 12 Sep 2010 21:17:28 +0000

If you don’t know about Confetti already, you should run to your nearest CVS and see what is left of the display! Confetti polishes cost only $1.99 and have a pretty fantastic formula (especially for an inexpensive polish). I picked up 3 yesterday: My Favorite Martian, Wedding White (I meant to get White Tie, but that’s another story :(), & Tiara.

So why is it a big deal that you run and get these right now? Well, CVS is currently being sued by Sally Hansen for selling Confetti polishes in the drugstore chain due to a non-compete clause. So while most CVS stores have retained the displays, the polishes aren’t being restocked when they sell out. Get to it! :)

I knew My Favorite Martian was a little on the sheer side, so I decided I wanted to layer it–but I couldn’t decide over which green polish I already owned. So I just decided to do all of them! :D

MAC Peppermint Patti, Icing Jade & MAC Beyond Jealous.

As it turns out, My Favorite Martian is a bit more opaque than I anticipated. I was hoping that the base color gradient would be a bit more obvious, but that’s okay. Love the green!!

Base coat: Gelous
Top coat: Sally Hansen Mega-Shine