Sonia Kashuk Tauped

Sometimes you need a good, clean creme polish. DH had training to do at work (an hour away) and I tagged along to squeeze a nice dinner out of him. While he was training, I killed time at Target. The one in my town closed more than ten years ago and I miss it dearly. So, yes dear. I CAN kill two hours in Target!

I cruised through the beauty section and decided to get a Sonia Kashuk polish as I can't pick them up at home. While poking through, I realized I don't have a mushroom creme, and there was Tauped staring me in the face.

Application was absolutely wonderful. In fact, I don't think I had to do any clean up on this mani. The brush was great and the formula buttery. I finished with Digital Nails Ain't Nobody Got Time For That and got 3-4 days wear out of this one. 

Picks from OPI's Fall 2012 Germany Collection

I tried to resist this collection. I really did. Then my favorite and most guilty polish enabler, Christy, texted and said, "I've found a bunch of the OPI Germany collection. Which ones do you want?" How could I deny her?

Every Month is Oktoberfest is a beautiful, vampy burgundy shimmer in a vivid purple base. This is two perfect coats. Look at it glow!

Gratuitous shot of Every Month is Oktoberfest. Please enbiggen, and promise to buy it if you find this one in the wild.

I've been searching for a good mannequin hands shade, and couldn't turn down Don't Pretzel My Buttons. I asked her to grab this one, but picked up H&M Nerd before Christy dropped these in my lap. The color is great, but it was streaky and had a hard time self-leveling. I like Nerd's formula much better. This one will be a great base for glitters and such.

This is three coats of Germanicure by OPI. Such an odd bird. I seriously think I got an off bottle, but will try reswatching it. It's hard for me to believe the photos above and below are the same polish. Germanicure has a similar finish to Oktoberfest, but has a red-brown base and red and gold fine shimmers.

I was so disappointed in this polish. I want to give it another chance before I write it off for good.

So tell me, which polishes from this collection made it into your stash?

KBShimmer Snow Way! and Cocoa Nut

Today I have a couple of polishes from indie polish brand KBShimmer. Christy put out an excellent holiday collection this year, and I had a hard time sticking to my self-imposed limit of two polishes. 

My first choice was super easy. Snow Way! is a totally unique polish. I am completely unaware of a polish similar to this one. The base is a squishy, pale blue jelly that reminds me of a clear, sunny winter sky. The glitters in this mix are all matte white and combine with the base to mimic fluffy snowflakes. 

The following mani was three thin coats. I had to be mindful to wait a couple of minutes between coats to avoid dragging. The glitter flowed nicely and no "placing" was necessary. It looks as if there is some balding on the middle finger, but that was not the case in real life.

Cocoa Nut was my second choice. I debated between it, No Whine Left, and Witch Way. I love purples, but in the end, the unique pairing of brown and pink glitter won out.

Application was simple as pie with this one. The base is a warm chocolate brown with small brown glitters. There is a significant smattering of larger, shiny, bright fuchsia glitter. Two coats was all that was needed for opacity and it dried super smooth and glossy.

butter LONDON Dodgy Barnett and Shag - Swatches and Review

It seems that butter LONDON had released a store-exclusive polish every other week shortly after their regular Autumn/Winter collection was released. Several seemed lovely, but I've been trying to reign in my polish spending lately and if there are two things I have trouble backing away from, it's holos and browns. So, to my home came Dodgy Barnett and Shag.

Dodgy Barnett is a very fine silver glitter with scattered holo particles. It's rather thin, but builds up easily. I have two coats on my ring finger and three on the others. Dodgy Barnett is a beautiful, clean-feeling polish. I wish the holo were a bit more pronounced, but I'm still pretty happy with it.

The other polish I ordered from this collection is Shag. Shag is a warm-toned, brown shimmer polish. I was so excited for this one because I love browns, but I was very underwhelmed by this polish on my nails. I don't know if it's because of my skin tone or what, but just don't like the look of it. I'll probably give it another go before I completely give up.

What do you think of butter LONDON's new offerings? Any you just couldn't say no to?

Orly Buried Alive - A Great Brown Glitter for Cheap! (And, Duri gets along nicely with Poshe)

Orly Buried Alive is part of the Spring 2012 Dark Shadows collection. It consisted of 4 polishes, and this was the only one I was remotely interested in. I eyeballed it every time I went to Sally Beauty Supply, but never actually got it. However, last weekend was the 1/2 off of all clearance items sale at Sally's, and I couldn't pass it up for $1.45 

Buried Alive has a warm, yellow-toned brown base and lots of gold/bronze shimmer. It was rather thick, and the first coat literally looked as if I'd painted Hershey's Syrup on my nails, but the second coat evened out nicely.

Also, I've discovered that Duri Rejuvacote plays nicely with Poshe. Poshe isn't my favorite topcoat, but I want to be able to see if Duri really helps with my peeling nails. So, I'll use it until I can make that decision.

Nails Inc Fenchurch Street

This is the first polish I have to show you from Sephora's Nails Inc Autumn Colour Collection. The collection includes this color, a bright red, a smoky grey, and a nice wine color. They are all named after Underground stations on the Central Line in London. They definitely appealed to the Anglophile in me. :)

After Kensington, I found I had a much easier time with application this time. The full-ish brush holds a lot of color, and I didn't find it so awkward to get the right amount of color this time. Fenchurch Street is described as warm caramel on the Sephora page. It definitely reminds me of Brach's Caramels, which is a great candy to be thinking about in the fall! I've had this color on for 4 days, and were it not for closing my finger in a drawer (ouch!), I could easily get another day or two out of this mani. The drawer chipped the color though, so I'll take it off tomorrow. I think I'll go for Paddington next, which is the smoky grey color.

Layering! Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Pumpkin Spice

I picked this polish up over the weekend at Meijer. I had recently seen it floating around the blogosphere, and knew it was a rather hard to find LE, so in the cart it went. Honestly, I'm a sucker for fall and pumpkin anything, so I'd have gotten it even if I thought it was ugly. Which I don't. :)

It's very sheer. Round orange glitter suspended in a smoky jelly base. I put two coats over China Glaze Brownstone and lookit!! I swear it makes me want to jump into a leaf pile. I love it! The finish is very smooth. I used a coat of Seche Vite for the quick-dry-ness, but didn't need it to smooth things out.
I remember seeing someone layer this over Essie Super Bossa Nova and it was fab. If I can find it again, I will link.

UPDATE: Laura from LaquerWear is the brilliant lady who layered this over a bright fuchsia polish. See it here.

China Glaze Brownstone

This polish is from China Glaze's fall collection - Metro. There were lots of great colors (which you can find swatches of all over...) but this one fills a hole in my polish box.

I love browns and bought Zoya Cola a while ago because I loved the brownish brick red color of it, but the formula was uncharacteristically horrible and didn't look good on my nails. Brownstone, however, is fabulous. Below is 2 thin coats that went on beautifully. I really like China Glaze's brush. I did no clean up at all on this mani, and it looks pretty good.

I want to keep it on longer, but I also picked up Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Pumpkin Spice this weekend and am excited to wear it. I just might be all matchy-matchy tomorrow. :)

Essie Little Brown Dress

Another horrid, horrid picture, but it was so hard to capture the color. I will say that it is absolutely brown. A deep, dark chocolate brown. I love it. The formula was wonderful. I probably could've gotten it in one coat if I were careful, but I am not usually careful when polishing my nails. This picture is taken after 3 days of wear. Bonder, 2 coats polish, and Seche Vite. Barely a chip. Definitely a favorite!

China Glaze Ingrid

Okay, first off, I must leave a note to self to work harder on keeping my hands & cuticles soft! I wash them between 25 and 40 times a day at work depending on how many patients I have, and they get pretty atrocious during the winter. I am a reformed nail picker, and am working on being a reformed cuticle picker. *See hangnail on middle finger* Dry cuticles are too tempting to pick at, even when my nails look nice.

But on to Ingrid. I had to come to grips with this one. I'm not sure what I was expecting when I bought it... Maybe a little lighter and more greyed out? I drooled over it on ALU, and got it when I saw the Vintage Vixen display in Sally's. I tried it on and it was brown. Just brown. I was so disappointed.

I have since come to love it. Yes, it is brown. And I love brown. So there you go. It has a faint shimmer that keeps it from being dull. The formula was a little watery, but has great coverage with 2 thick-ish coats. Shown over Bonder, with a topcoat of Poshe. I put it on last night, and this is after washing my hair and a day at work. Hardly any tip wear. I wish I loved Poshe like I love Seche Vite. Or that Seche Vite didn't have such shrinkage. I've tried wrapping my tips and it doesn't help me much. (I usually don't have 1 color on long enough to worry about it anyway!)

And omg! I have a follower! Hi Kellie. :) I'm a goober. I totally look at Kellie's blog daily, but haven't formerly followed her yet. Off to remedy this. And post a polish-filled package to my bestie.