Zoya Song

Happy hump day, friends :)  I must admit to being a tad underwhelmed by the holiday collections, especially those from Zoya and Butter London... Maybe it's because their respective fall collections spoke so much to me.  At any rate, I have not purchased ONE holiday collection polish this year.  Once December hit, though, Zoya Song suddenly started to sing to me (lolol).  

Song is so bright and vibrant, the perfect Christmas blue.  And those little aqua shimmers... so gorgeous!  It's a one-coater, too, which makes up for the fact that it's pretty thick.  Song reminds me of those little blue Christmas lights, blue themed trees, and blue curling ribbon.  Zoya's best holiday color this year isn't even from their holiday collection. 

So what about you?  What are your thoughts on the holiday collections?  I know some gals are saying Zoya Ornate is their favorite collection this year.  The fall Zoyas were just so up my alley, I felt like they were a hard act to follow. 

Zoya Evvie

This post is a study in real life, lol... what nail polish blogging in the PNW can tend to mean.  

This is Zoya Evvie, another one of my picks from this fall's Designer collection.  It's raining out, and I wasn't going to let a few little droplets get in the way of some otherwise decent shots.

Evvie's a medium toned olive khaki creme with a distinctly casual feel to it.  It's a pretty neat color-- a little bit greyscale, not quite as fashionable as a true or bluish grey.   Just... comfortable.  Good with blue jeans.  Good for relaxing on the sofa playing on your phone while your husband is watching college football. I've worn this one three times this fall already. 

The formula's kind of funny.  It's thin but goes on thick.  You know when you initially pull the brush out and wipe the excess polish off?  Let another drop slide off, then let the next drop slide down the brush.  That, I've found, is the best way to apply this one.  This is two coats and a topcoat.

Aaand, here's my last Joby Nail Art giveaway update... Lizzy O. is the winner, and I've contacted her, she's responded, and her decals will be in the mail today. <3  Thanks again for entering, friends. 

Have an awesome weekend! :)

NARS Walk On the Wild Side-- It

Good morning!!  Today's notd is NARS It, a mini (0.25 fl oz, to be exact) from the Andy Warhol Walk On the Wild Side gift set, a Sephora exclusive I had to have as soon as I saw the previews.  Here's the box.

Here's the polish.

I just love colors like this.  It is a shimmery, blackened purple in the bottle, one of those colors that translates to inky blue on the nail.  This one is a bit more purple leaning, kind of like an exploded blue BIC ballpoint pen, with red and blue shimmers.  I used two coats.  This formula's on the thick side, as it's more pigmented than other similar colors I've got.

The Walk On the Wild Side gift set also contains an Orgasm mini lipgloss and a Silver Factory Skin Illuminator, and is available at Sephora. 

NARS Superstar-- Andy Warhol Collection

Good morning!!  I've been really excited about the NARS Andy Warhol collection since I first heard about it back at the end of August.  While I'm not a huge fan of the artist's work, his bright, punchy color palette makes for an absolutely brilliant makeup collection.  And I love the fact that NARS, a brand I'm totally in love with at the moment, was the one to come up with it.

There are five full size nail polishes in this collection.  The one that really grabbed my in real life is what I've been sporting on my nails the past few days-- Superstar.

Superstar is an ultra saturated deep teal creme, so dark that one of the Sephora gals called it navy.  It's much greener than that.  Superstar stains like the dickens but it ridiculously glossy, sophisticated, and spot-on elegant for fall.  This one's really pigmented, so the formula is thick, and a careful, light application is needed.  Two coats will give you perfect, even coverage.

Superstar is currently available at select Sephora stores.

For fun, I decided to Warhol-ize one of my photos...

Here's the site I used if you want to play around with it, yourselves :)  Send me your results if you do!  I'd love to feature some of your Warhol-ized portraits in an upcoming post.

Thanks for reading!  Go check out this fabulous new collection, and seize your 15 minutes, tastefully, of course. :)

Zoya Rekha

Good morning!!  I truly could not wait to take off my pretty pink from yesterday so I could put Zoya Rekha on again.  Zoya's Designer collection is full of gorgeous cremes, and I'm having a serious love affair with this red right now.  I think it might be my favorite fall polish (maybe even my new favorite red... too early to tell on that one).  This is not your typical classic red.  This is femme fatale, borderline nsfw blood red.

Rekha's cold, blue based and creamy.  There is no polish in the world I love more than red cremes, and this one is dark and dangerous.   And maybe I'm a little too into Once Upon a Time right now (NO spoilers, please, we haven't watched the season premiere yet) but this totally looks like something the evil queen/Regina would wear... although it works better when offering a real apple, as opposed to a freshly baked turnover, lol.

Have a bite, my pretty!

The formula's a little tricky.  I used three coats and it's still a little patchy in places.  I get some shrinkage with this one, too, even when wrapping my tips.  This is where Zoya's own topcoat would have come in handy, but it doesn't bother me too much because the color's so great.  It's barely visible on my index and ring fingers, in case you're curious. 

Thanks for reading!  Have a tantalizing Thursday. ;)

LLPT's Fall Favorites and an Empty!

Good morning!!  The highly unpleasant cold bug thingie that was toying with me all last week hit me hard this weekend and I did nothing and went nowhere for three days, until Sunday afternoon, when I thought some retail therapy and a good sale might perk me up.  "Must... get... to... Ulta...."   It's October 1, and I've got two different Breast Cancer Awareness events I'm taking part in (see the adorable pink buttons to the right) and I wanted to stock up on some pinks.  Nothing was speaking to me, though, or maybe I was just too tired to think straight, and I left empty handed.  I should have something pretty and pink ready to go for today, but I don't. :(  Instead, I've got a couple things I've seen around the beauty blogosphere. 

First up is a special empty, because it's the first perfume bottle I've actually drained since I was a kid, and it's my favorite perfume.  Fortunately, I have a brand new 100ml bottle waiting in the wings.

Caron Tabac Blond edp.  I used to belong to a few perfume blogs and forums, where we'd discuss fumes and swap decants.  I was fairly active until I decided I was happier inhabiting a few specific scents than always trying out the newest (or most sought after vintage) thing.  I discovered this, my "soul scent," through kindness and stellar writing, and the rest is history.  I actually had my own blog on one of the forums (my first foray into this world, as it were).  Check it out here if you're bored. :)

Lots o' gals have been doing posts on their favorite fall polishes, and I wanted to jump on that bandwagon.  I thought I'd do something slightly different, though.  There are some absolutely fabulous collections out this season, so I decided to choose my favorites from my favorite collections.  The best of the best, imo.  

First up is NARS Storm Bird. 

Ever since a certain big blogger whose name starts with S and ends with E posted about this I knew I had to have it, and it didn't disappoint on the nail.  Storm Bird's the lone polish from NARS's fall collection and I LOVE it.  It is the perfect dark, stormy grey creme.

L'Oreal The Muse's Attitude from the Project Runway/Electric Fantasie collection.  I've gone on about this one recently so I won't bore you with the details again.  Dark, gorgeous peacock teal.

Butter London Shag, from BL's fall/winter collection.  Another I've posted about recently.  Dodgy Barnett is rockin' too, but Shag's very specifically, gorgeously, fall.  So this one gets the vote.

Zoya Fei Fei, from the Diva collection.  Cadet blue jelly packed with every color shimmer under the sun.  All those shimmers are perfect for a warm, Indian summer sun, but the base is autumn cool. 

Zoya Rekha, from the Designer collection.  Dark, femme fatale, poison apple, blood-red.  Believe me when I say there's nothing classy about this one.  Swatches coming soon.

So there you have it!  Time to Day-quil myself up and trudge on into work.  Thoughts on any of these?  Favorite collection this fall?  Emptied anything lately?  Got a signature scent?  

Butter London Shag

Good morning!!  Butter London's been my favorite polish brand for a while now, and I'm loving all the swatches I'm seeing from the Ulta and Coterie sales.  I admit to being underwhelmed at the fall/winter collection, though, mainly because I was hoping for some good cremes (Butter makes the BEST cremes).  I took a chance during the Ulta sale and picked up two of the new ones, Dodgy Barnett (which you know I lurve) and Shag.  I don't even remember what prompted that one.  I must have read or seen something that convinced me to try it.  I'm glad I did, because this stuff is liquid burnished copper magic.

I think someone said Shag's the color of burning leaves, and that description made it official that I had to have it.  It's a fiery copper metallic with red, gold, even a bit of green shimmer, and the most surprisingly beautiful color I've seen this fall.  I used three coats (mostly because it's one of those colors that is fascinating when wet) and the formula's typical Butter London perfection.  

You may or may not have noticed my photos are back to their regular size....  The positive response to the extra large ones was overwhelming, which I think is very cool, considering my photos aren't anywhere near perfect.  So thank you gals for the votes of confidence. <3  I'm an odd bird, I guess, in that I actually prefer smaller ones and I like how they look with the rest of my blog.  I'll probably feel bad for not listening to you guys and change the size again this evening or something, but in the meantime PLEASE DON'T STOP READING because I like my photos smaller... lool.  

Anyway... Enjoy your day and thanks again for being awesome. <3

L'Oreal Electric Fantasie/Project Runway 2012

Goood morning!!  I was hot on the trail of one polish the other day when I came across the most delicious looking L'Oreal display, the Electric Fantasie/Project Runway Fall 2012 collection.  The collection's divided into four different subsets, each vibrant and unique, and each representing a different fairytale persona-- the Temptress, the Queen, the Mystic, and the Muse.  Each subset contains two different polishes.  I showed tremendous restraint and chose three, The Temptress' Power (more on that name in a minute), The Mystic's Future, and The Muse's Attitude.

This is The Temptress' Power, or so it says on the bottle.  Everything on the internet says this one is Temptress' Touch, so the batch at my local Rite Aid may very well be mislabeled.  Rest assured it's from the Temptress collection.  This one's a regal honey gold with a pale green iridescence.  It's thin and sheer, but fun and understated.  I used three coats.

This beauty is The Muse's Attitude, my favorite of the bunch.  Many polishes claim to be peacock blue, or green, but this one truly is, to my eye.  This one's a dark, iridescent teal with monochromatic shimmer, absolutely striking and gorgeous on the nail.  The formula's as good as L'Oreal gets, perfect in two coats.  

 

This is The Mystic's Future, an effervescent metallic fuschia with silver shimmer.  It reminds me a little of  Sally Hansen Nail Prisms Burgundy Orchid without the wild multichrome.  Not a bad thing at all.  In fact, it's quite the gorgeous little number, and at a better price point and availability, will be a great stand in for some stuff I wanted to try with my precioussss Prism.  The Mystic's Future went on as nicely as The Muse's Attitude, beautiful in two coats.  

The only place I've seen this collection so far is Rite Aid, but apparently it's been spotted at various Walgreens around the US.  These polishes retail for $5.99.

Thanks for reading, and have a loverly day. :)

L'Oreal New York Nudes Collection Broadway Boogie & Brownie Points

Gooood morning!!  I told you how excited I was about L'Oreal's New York Nudes collection, which is full of gorgeous fall neutrals for lips and nails.  There are six polishes in all, ranging from the lightest putty to a dark, delectable espresso.  There are two light, two medium, and two dark shades.  I think the light and the dark offerings are the prettiest and most unique.  Here are the two I ended up buying.

This is Broadway Boogie, the second lightest of the bunch.  It's a yellow based nude creme, and unique to my collection.  I tend towards pinky nudes, but this one is fun and different because it isn't exactly fleshtoned.  It's more like a toasted marshmallow shade.  Or the color I like my coffee to be, lol.  It's subtle but still pops a little against the skin.  

The formula on this was really nice, especially for a light color.  I used three coats but could have gotten away with two.

This is Brownie Points.  Brownie Points is gorgeous.  This is the darkest of the collection, a deep, rich brown that calls to mind the darkest molten chocolate.  I've never been a fan of brown polish before, certainly not brown cremes, so this was a step outside the box for me.  It's so elegant that I can't help but love it.  It's glamour minus the drama.

This one goes on darker than it looks in the bottle.  It's a little bit streaky, too, but very easy to control.  I used two coats for every digit but my thumb.

I know a lot of folks will find this collection terribly boring, but I love my neutrals and the dark and light offerings of this collection are perfectly chic for fall and definitely worth a look.  

L'Oreal polishes retail for $5.99. 

Thanks for reading!

L'Oreal Colour Riche Lipstick Nature's Blush

Good morning!!  If you've been reading for a while, you know that I kind of like L'Oreal products.  I'd been totally excited for their fall collections to show up in my neck o' the woods, and when one of them did, I was totally in love.  The collection is New York Nudes, and it's full of beautiful, rich neutral colors for nails and lips--RIGHT up my alley.  

I hadn't used a L'Oreal lipstick in years, for whatever reason, but one of the offerings this season looked highly promising.  It's a light brown leaning nude cream with the slightest touch of pink, called Nature's Blush.

 Nature's Blush is browner than I'm used to wearing.  I've got quite the arsenal of muted pinks and pinky nudes, but I haven't been 100% comfortable with them since I started coloring my hair red last September.  I was pleasantly surprised to see that this color looks great with my unnatural red.

I've finally found the perfect lipstick for my hair!  WOOEEE!

Nature's Blush has a nice, pigmented payoff, but wearing lipstick alone leaves my lips feeling really dry, even a great, creamy formula like this.  The best layering balm I've found are those little round EOS balms.  This is a few swipes of Nature's Blush over the balm.  It sheers the color out a little and gives it a nice, subtle gloss.  

I just love it.  I never thought I'd happily give up my pinks, but this color's so easy to wear and lovely.  It works so well with my newly beloved NARS Lhasa eyeshadow that I've been fairly living in both for the past few weeks (and wearing makeup on a more regular basis because of it, too, lol).  

The L'Oreal New York Nudes collection is available at Fred Meyer, and the lipstick retails for $7.99.

 Have an awesome day and thanks for reading! <3

Zoya FeiFei

Happy Caturday night :)  I'm back from my brother-in-law's overnight 30th birthday bash, which was sooo much fun.  C and I took a two and a half hour nap once we got home, and now we're in full chill the heck out mode.  I picked up Zoya FeiFei Friday afternoon and that's what I wore on my nails for the occasion.  

 Let me start out by saying that everything you've heard about FeiFei's complete awesomeness is true.  It is unique and slightly edgy, not beautiful by conventional standards but highly, highly intriguing.  I used two coats.

FeiFei is a dark, steely, cadet blue jelly base packed with every color shimmer under the sun. 

If you've got this one, and you're anything like me, you picked it up based on the accolades and not the photos.  FeiFei's fine in photos, but not mindblowing.  You know when a person's not really photogenic, but in real life they're a total knockout?  That's FeiFei, to me.  Its beauty is undeniable, but highly uncapturable.  I tried. 

And, because I'm falling behind in Gosia's ABC challenge, I'm going to temporarily rename this one Viola, after the heroine in my favorite Shakespearean comedy, Twelfth Night.  Viola's a shipwrecked gal posing as a boy for protection in an unknown world, whose androgynous charm creates an entertainingly messy love triangle between the Duke she ends up working for and the woman the Duke wishes to pursue.  Androgynous charm totally fits, I think. ;)