Orly Miss Conduct

Today's beauty is one of my luckiest polish finds yet! Miss Conduct is a highly coveted and hard to find part of Orly's Naughty and Nice Holiday 2012 collection. I'd seen it on a few blogs and looked everywhere... to no avail.

Fast forward nine months and I was in my local TJ Maxx. I always swing through the beauty section because there are occasionally awesome deals (Hello, liter bottles of Dermorganic shampoo and conditioner for $10 each - $60 savings!!). I saw several Orly two-packs and snagged the last one with Miss Conduct and Angel Eyes for $6.99!

Miss Conduct is a squishy but highly pigmented berry with fairly tightly scattered holo particles. It's a bit thin, but there's no need for more than two coats of polish. The rainbow effect isn't super evident in this photo, but trust me. If you see this in the wild, you HAVE to pick it up!!

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.

Max Factor Fantasy Fire over Orly Charged Up and China Glaze First Mate

This one is going to be pic heavy! It's impossible to do Fantasy Fire justice with a camera. All I can advise is to get it if you have a chance! I was lucky and won it in a giveaway. From What I understand, it's only available in the UK. :(

Fantasy Fire is a multi-chrome, fine glitter polish in a jelly-ish purple base. It's best to use as a topcoat because it comes in a tiny 5ml bottle and multiple coats would be wasteful! I used one coat over Orly Charged Up and 2 coats over China Glaze First Mate. Charged Up is a bright purple jelly. Not neon, but a true purple. First Mate is a true blue creme. Fantasy Fire's application was a cinch as it goes on like butter!

Click on the pictures to make them bigger if you want a better look!

1 coat over Charged Up. Look at the colors in the bottle!

You can see the red glow on the left and the shift from yellow/green to red on the right.

Another shot of the shift. Yellow/green near the cuticle, red at the tip.

This one is purely for the pretty. :)

Two coats of Fantasy Fire over First Mate. Not the best photo, but  I wanted to show it over blue as well.

You can see the difference in the shift with two coats .

Orly Fowl Play

This is from Orly's Birds of a Feather collection. It's the only one I had my eye on, and my lovely friend at Sally's called me when she saw it in their shipment. It came in a set with Lucky Duck (which is very similar to Jade is the New Black) and Peacock Blue (which is similar to Bluey). Those two may find new homes, but this one isn't going anywhere! *ETA: Looking back, Lucky Duck is lighter than JITNB.

Fowl Play has tiny silver/gold shimmer, larger pink/purple glitter, and warm-toned flakies suspended in a very pretty purple jelly base. It's rather sheer, but three coats gives it very nice depth. I tried to choose a picture that showed all of those elements. It does not do this polish justice. It reminds me of a galaxy manicure. You should definitely snatch it up if you see it in the wild!

Catching up! Misbehaved II, Essie Sew Psyched, and Orly Royal Velvet

So, I allowed myself to get super behind on my posts, so rather than make 3 separate ones, I'll do one larger... BTW, unless otherwise noted, 1 coat Bonder, 2 coats color, 1 coat Seche Vite.

So, this is a washed out, busy shot of my nails after 9 days of Misbehaved. Absolutely perfect but for the growth. Had I been able to tolerate that, I believe they could've lasted 3-4 days more. It's especially noticeable on my 1st and 4th fingers. I'll be much more careful to get them closer to my cuticles when I put on the Cut It Out ones. I also tried adding a coat of Seche Vite about a week in, and found it just peeled loose from my bare nail.

Yes, that is yarn on my desktop. Have I not geeked out about the knitting here?

This is Essie Sew Psyched. I have wanted this one for so long, I was afraid I'd be so disappointed with it. Not. At. All. I was a little nervous after the first coat as it looked super streaky, but the second evened it out, and it looked totally beautiful! The formula is super smooth. This picture is way too yellow d/t my lighting. (my child has kidnapped my sucky-but-better-than-the-iphone camera) The color is a nice, dusty green.

The following is Orly Royal Velvet. It's from the Spring 2011 collection. I saw swatches of them on Vampy Varnish and this was the only one that sparked my interest. I went to Sally's in hopes of getting a China Glaze crackle polish or two, but no go. They sold out in an hour. :( But, this was on the shelf, so I got it. I had my heart set on new polish. The picture below is very accurate as far as the color on me. Looks very little like Vampy's. It looks like a bright blue with royal purple undertones. It took 3 coats of Royal Velvet to even it out. This is after 3 days of wear. I'm now up to day 5 and only have 2 small chips.

So what's next? I was going to do my second set of Sally Hansen strips, but since St Patrick's Day is coming, I figure I'll throw in a green polish. Trying to decide between RBL Anne, CG Peace on Earth, or Sew Psyched again. And now that Sew Psyched is all mine, I'll be turning my efforts to butter LONDON All Hail the Queen...