I forgot!

About this pretty little thing! From Nicole by OPI's target exclusive holiday collection I bring you Fell From the Tree. FFTT is my own personal piece of emerald green heaven. It is the exact color of my birthstone, and not to mention a perfect holiday green. The photo is almost exactly color accurate but makes it appear a little brighter then it really is. Application was perfect, opaque in two coats and the formula was a dream. Over Christmas I wore it topped with China Glaze's Party Hearty.

The picture didn't turn out very well :-( Bad lighting AND blurry but they looked so good together!

In my opinion this fall/holiday boasted some of the best collections. I loved every bit of OPI Swiss, CG Vintage Vixen, OPI Burlesque and CG Tis the Season to be Naughty or Nice? As far as spring goes the only collection I've felt that every color was a must have has been Zoya Intimate. Texas was a flop in my opinion but that's mainly because of the "sorbets." I detest VNL and those six colors are all so similar that they could almost all pass for the same one. There is just nothing in the entire collection that sticks out at me. I did end up getting I Vant to Be A-lone Star and although I haven't tried it yet one polish won't have me eating my words about the rest of the lackluster collection.

Don't get me wrong, there are several colors in Anchor's Away that I adore (First Mate, Sea Spray, Life Preserver) but the collection as a whole is not a must have. I suppose since Intimate is only a six color collection then it might be easier to make a dynamite collection filled with must haves, or maybe I'm just hard to please ;-)

On the other hand I was super excited to scoop up all of the holos coming out in the Tronica collection but balked as soon as reviews on a lot of the blogs I read claimed they boasted a much weaker holo effect then the famed OMG collection. Boo! What happened in two years that CG can't make a decent holo anymore?

Varnish Vixen's Giveaway!

Varnish Vixen is hosting the giveaway to end all spring giveaways! Seven different prize packages are up for grabs and the winners even get their pick of prize!

The prizes are as follows:

The Katy Perry Collection (including Black Shatter)

A set of China Glaze Holographic Polishes

MAC Wonder Woman Polishes

Three BB Couture Polishes

Rescue Beauty Lounge Insouciant

Illamasqua Scorn

A grab bag of 19 polishes

Click here to view pictures of all of the prizes and enter into the giveaway! You must be a follower of Varnish Vixen to enter.

Shame on me.

For a ten day hiatus. Is an extremely hectic academic schedule a valid excuse? Fear not, in this time I have not neglected my nails, just been neglecting blogging about them. Since I never posted about my myriad of St. Patrick's Day themed manicures I have belated gorgeous greens for you!

My dusty diving find of a lifetime.

Otherwise known as, the time I scored several hard to find polishes at a bargain basement price. Still being relatively new to collecting nail polish, I missed out on the goodness that is the OMG collection by a couple years, and have been lemming for DV8 in a big way, but not enough to spend $22 on it from ebay. I considered Techno Teal as a substitute but after hearing from numerous sources that the holo effect leaves much to be desired I knew I'd still end up wanting DV8 anyways, not to mention the fact that I haven't been able to track down the Tronica collection at a couple different area Sally's. Lo and behold one day I am strolling past a little nail place called Pro Nails in my town when I spied silver bottles in an under the register counter. Knowing only good can come from that I ran like the wind calmly and collectedly strolled in and crouched down to stare at the glory before me.

For the quite astonishing price of $5 a bottle I added these beauties to my collection. DV8, Don't Be A Square, IDK, OMG, and BFF. I'm in polish heaven! Once the sun decides to shine around here I'll do a post about DV8, and sadly I'll have to wait to try the other four out because they are going to be birthday presents for me come May 22nd. I can hardly wait but DV8 will fill the hole in the meantime! How cool are the Kaleidoscope bottles?

Emily stamps for the first time... and it's love.

I've always been intrigued by polish stamping, especially after reading Let them have Polish!  and seeing all of the amazing designs she does, but have been wary about investing the money into it, as most plates cost about $7 each. What if I'm no good at it? Then that's good polish money wasted! Luckily, a girl I work with has a set that she let me borrow so I could get a feel for it before investing in my own set. Thanks Lauren! Lauren has only one Konad plate, the stamper and the scraper, and a huge set of Bundle Monster plates that she said worked just as well.

I started by applying Rain Drops, a light grey creme from Claire's as my base. I'm loving all the grey polishes I've seen this spring.

Isn't she lovely?

Zoya Crystal is unlike any other polish I own or have wanted, and trust me, both lists are long. The gold flecks add the perfect element of interest to what would otherwise be just an average light blue shimmer polish. I've heard that is bears striking resemblance to a limited edition OPI polish called Reflecting Pool. I don't have a bottle of RP to compare with but judging by the comparison pictures I've seen Crystal can satisfy that lemming. I believe I used three coats for full coverage, the first was sheer but it built up nicely.

On the subject of Zoya polishes, did anyone else grab their chance to get the Intimate collection for $25 during Zoya's Women's Day promo? Or the three greens from their March 4th promo? I gave in and grabbed both! Still waiting for my Intimate collection to arrive!

The PolishAholic's One Year Blogiversary Giveaway!

Congratulations are in order to Jen at The PolishAholic for a year of awesome blogging! If you've never seen her site before I highly encourage checking it out. To celebrate she is hosting a giveaway of four prize options including  polishes from Misa, OPI, Nicole by OPI and Maybelline.

Click here to enter the giveaway and check out the prizes!

Parlez-vous OPI? Yes I do!

Often described as the perfect grayed, muted, dusty lavender by... yours truly, I am not exaggerating when I say PVO may be my favorite nail polish. (But don't tell the others I said that!)

The One That Got Away... and then some.

It's been a while since my last post, so I have one I've been excited about! The weekend before Valentine's Day I picked up the Katy Perry Minis from Trade Secret and plopped them right in my untrieds box (which now contains about 20 polishes... good grief) where they would stay until the end of February. I finally picked up The One That Got Away, wanting to stick to my promise to wear only reds and pinks throughout February I tried it out.