Essie Love, Beverly Hills

Once upon a time, Essie released a Limited Edition polish called Love, Beverly Hills xx that claims to be infused with pure 24K gold. This gold infused polish also carried a hefty price tag of $18. Is it worth it?

Three coats, afternoon sun:




The sun kind of washed out the color, so I moved indoors and under my "daylight" lamp:




The last picture best shows what this polish looks like most of the time indoors (which is where I spend most of the time anyway). Application was smooth, any streaks evened themselves out within seconds. Two coats was okay, but a third really added depth. I love this color, but I don't think its worth the $18 price tag it originally had. I bought my bottle for $3.99 at a discount outlet. I think the most I would be willing to pay is the $8 Essie usually retails for.

OPI Suzi Says Fung Shui

Recently OPI released the Hong Kong Collection. I would have loved to get them all, but I'm trying to scale back on how many new polishes I buy (at least for a little while!). I couldn't resist picking up the blue in the collection though. I can never resist a blue!

OPI Suzi Says Fung Shui


According to OPI, Suzi Says Fung Shui is "A serene cobalt blue to balance your yin yang". I don't know about balancing my yin and yang or if I would call this cobalt, but I do like it! It's a sort of bright blue with a dusty cast that I didn't quite capture. Anyhow, this polish applied very smoothly, I only wish all my polishes would apply so hassle-free. Three coats out of habit, it really would have been fine with two.

Fourth of July Nails

I know, I know, it's not July. But I wanted to show you this mani from last year. Nice and simple, that's my kind of nail art. It would be even simpler if you have a star design Konad (or Fauxnad, the Konad knockoff). I didn't have one at the time so I improvised with a bit of Con-Tact paper and a craft knife.



(I originally posted this on MakeupAlley and don't have an unaltered copy handy right now to change the watermark. Oh well.)

Nfu-Oh 54 MATTE

Okay this is the last picture of this mani, I swear. On the third day I wore Nfu-Oh 54 over Icing Manic Monday, I had to see what it looked like matte. So I swiped some Nailtek Foundation II basecoat over it. Quite pretty mattified, I think. Apologies for the tipwear, my job is hard on my nails.



A few weeks ago, I actually found this Color Club set in my local Ross. Browns aren't usually my thing, but for that kind of price I'm certainly willing to try them!



Hopefully I'll get to them soon!

Nfu-Oh 54 Layered

Last time, I showed you my Icing Manic Monday disaster. I fixed my cleanup issues ( definitely need more practice using a brush instead of an orange wood stick) and yet I still wasn't happy with Manic Monday. Too dark for my mood. So I did the best thing you can do with a dark polish you're just not feeling.

I layered it.

Two coats of Nfu-Oh 54 over two coats of Icing Manic Monday. Pictures taken outdoors on a sunny day.







Nfu-oh 54 is a gorgeous flaky. Heck, even the Nfu-Oh bottles are pretty. I'd really like to try layering this over a beautiful teal creme. I think the effect will be rather like a mermaid's tail. There is nothing I can say that you can't see in pictures. All I can say is I'll be buying more of them when I can.

I forgot to mention in my last post that these are not old pictures. My nails are shorties again. In fact, today they're even shorter than these pictures show due to an unfortunate accident. I was filing a rough edge while watching House and got so caught up in what was going on I kind of filed a little too much on one side of the nail and had to even it out and then it didn't match the length of my other nails and then....well you know how it is. I well and truly have nubbins now.

Icing Manic Monday

I tried something new while painting my nails. When the time for cleanup came, instead of using my orange wood stick, I tried using a nice stiff paintbrush dipped in acetone.

Me + paintbrush = FAIL

You can totally see where I missed spots and even managed to get polish in my cuticles where there was no polish originally. I'm almost too embarrassed to post this, but I want to show you the base for what I did the next day.

First, a bottle pic of today's polish under a daylight lamp, Icing Manic Monday.



Pretty color, very dark though. I took the next photo outside, midday sun. I don't know what was going on that day, but I kept getting dust on my hands when I would go outside no matter what I did.



This was two coats of polish that applied very smoothly. Color is highly pigmented. Outside on a sunny day, you can definitely tell this polish is a deep green. Indoors under fluorescent lighting it really starts to lean toward black unless the lighting is blindingly bright. Overall the polish itself is nice, but my skills were sadly lacking and I just wasn't feeling it that day. So what do I do when I'm not feeling our manicure? I layer something over it! But that will have to be a post for another day.

Color Club Wild and Willing

Duochromes are a particular love of mine. I love all polish. Cremes, shimmers, glitter...even sheers, although I don't wear them much due to having stained nails. I'll even tolerate a frost if it isn't too frosty. Maybe. But duochromes...the way the color plays across the curve of my nail fascinates me.

Last fall Color Club released the Wild at Heart collection which is where today's polish comes from. Wild and Willing is a beautiful gold-orange-pink with green winking at you from the edges. First up, a bottle pic.



In the bottle you can see multiple colors around the edges. Hmmm, does that make this a multichrome?





I took so many pictures trying to capture this one, it was hard to pick out only a few to show you. I'm always trying to improve my photography skills and I hope that one day I can do this beautiful polish the justice it deserves.