Nicole by OPI - Iceberg Lotus

Hello friends! I hope you all had a great weekend :) My birthday was wonderful, and I woke up to Craig trying to figure out the food processor to make a carrot cake. Adorable.

This is a polish from Nicole by OPI, Iceberg Lotus. It took me longer than I'd like to admit before I got the pun in the name, and for a while I sat there thinking, what? Lotus? This looks nothing like the color of an iceberg!

Ah me. 

I wish the duochrome element was more apparent in my photos than it appears to be. This is such a bright, vibrant, insane color and my camera just absolutely hated it. The base color is a bright teal-green, but at the edges it flashes blue and purple and unfortunately my photos just don't do it justice. The formula was on the thin side, so these swatches required about 3 coats to bring out the vibrant green but that seemed perfectly fine to me. 

My only problem with this is that it has the most ridiculous brush. I know this is a sore spot for a lot of people, but this was my first Nicole by OPI so I was really surprised. The brush is slightly wider than the new-ish OPI Pro-wide brush, but thinner than the Sally Hansen brushes (which are on whole other level of terrible), and it just makes for sloppy application. It was not pleasant.

(On a side-note, I also find the bottle shape to be silly.)

 So what do you think? I believe this is from the Something about Spring 2011 collection, and I picked mine up at Target about a month ago so I'm sure you can still find it there. I don't pay any attention to Nicole brand polishes, but they appear to be coming out with some interesting colors that look worthwhile. If only I could get over that silly brush...

See you on Wednesday!

China Glaze Rare and Radiant

Guess what, it's Friday!! As promised, I have my last polish from China Glaze Bohemian Luster Chrome collection. Rare and Radiant. Soo many brands have been putting out their version of this color, a yellow gold duochrome that flashes green, but I hadn't been able to get my hands on any of the previous polishes until now.

The duochrome is pretty evident in this polish, but (and you may whack me over the head for saying this) I was not impressed with this polish. The formula was fine, the color is pretty, but it doesn't work on my skin and I found it boring. Mayhaps I'm a little jaded with all the green-yellow duochromes coming out as everyone tries to get their fingers in the Chanel Peridot pie. All I know is, this was the polish I was most excited to get my hands on, and my least favorite in the bunch. And that's disappointing. 

Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of people who really like this polish, and that's fantastic. I'm just really not feeling it today. I think on another day, I might actually be fond of it! Perhaps the problem is I scheduled this polish for today specifically to complete the week, when I normally grab whatever suits my fancy for the day. So the moral of the story is: don't let this whinging grouch spoil your fun on this polish!

What do you think? Are you tired of the Peridot dupes?

Have a great weekend everyone! 

China Glaze Unpredictable

Hi guys! I hope you are all having a bearable Wednesday. I have a few things on my to-do list today, so I need to get cracking!

To continue the China Glaze theme from Monday, I have another polish from the Bohemian collection, Unpredictable. 

This is a yellowish-green duochrome with hints of blue. As I tried to capture in the below photo, the duochrome element is much stronger in this polish than in Deviantly Daring. This is also relatively sheer in comparison, requiring 2-3 coats. The one downside is that it took absolutely ages to dry.  Maybe it was my application, but I spent an absurd amount of time trying to work with this polish. I think with a good quick dry topcoat you'd normally be fine though. 

My thoughts? I hemmed and hahhed over this at the display at Sally's and I'm pleased that I grabbed it in the end.  I haven't tried a lot of chrome-y polishes, and this collection is quite satisfactory. A couple of collections already released and/or coming out for fall are chrome (Essie anyone?) so this collection doesn't seem groundbreaking. I'd still pick it up though, there are a few Chanel and Deborah Lippmann dupes to be found and the colors really are lovely.  

That's all for today! On Friday I'll wrap up the week with another China Glaze so check back!

China Glaze Deviantly Daring

Hello friends, did you all have a great weekend? I spent my weekend repotting some poor root-bound houseplants of mine, and we had friends over for dinner last night which was a lot of fun.

To start off the week, I have a polish from China Glaze's Bohemian Luster Chrome collection for Fall 2012 to show you! Deviantly Daring.

This is a bold, turquoise blue that flashes green and deeper blue in certain angles. It's very thick and so pigmented I only needed 1-2 coats to get full coverage. The duochrome isn't as strong as it could be, but what the polish lacks on that department it makes up for in vibrancy. My camera freaked out a little over the color.

The bottle flashes purple at the edges, and I was really hoping that this would translate onto the polish, but it doesn't unfortunately. I tried to capture the color shift, but it's much more noticeable in person.

So what do you think about Deviantly Daring? I also picked up Rare and Radiant and Unpredictable and I'll be posting them soon!

I was able to pick my bottle up at Sally Beauty Supply for about $7.00, but they're also available online for purchase here and here.

Have a good Monday everyone!