OPI DS Magic VS Orly Lunar Eclipse

Hey Guys! Hope you’re all having a wonderful weekend! I know I am! I’ve been super busy lately, as usual 🙂 I ordered a nail polish making kit on Etsy the other day so I’ve been doing that lately, and I LOVE IT!

Anyway, I was going through my nail polish collection and saw that these 2 polishes look almost exactly alike. I was a little disappointed because I don’t like “wasting” money so when I find 2 polishes that are so similar, that’s exactly how I feel. But, I figured that it would be a good thing to show you, considering one of these is considerably higher priced than the other.

I already did a review of OPI Designer Series Magic which you can find here. Orly Lunar Eclipse is from the Cosmic FX collection that released in Fall 2010. I actually bought this at Ulta and I think it may have been on sale.

Heres OPI DS Magic next to Orly Lunar Eclipse

First and Ring Finger: Orly Lunar Eclipse
 Middle and Pinky: OPI DS Magic

I spent probably 10 full minutes staring at my nails just to see if I could tell the difference and I honestly couldn’t. Orly LE has a lot more purple color shift in the bottle but it doesn’t really show up on the nail. These are definitely dupes.

Considering Orly retails for $8 and the OPI DS bottles retail at $12 (I think), I think Orly is the better choice. Also, Orly has .6 oz as opposed to OPI, with only .5. The only plus side about the OPI bottle is that it has a pretty brush handle, and I prefer the brush size.

NOTD- Curved Dots

So today I have a quick nail art post for you guys! 🙂 These didn’t really turn out the way I wanted it too, the purple glitter didn’t have enough pink and the hot pink turned out red! 😦

Left to right, these polishes are Erre Due #186, China Glaze- Flip Flop Fantasy, and Wet N Wild in Glitz. In the bottle in real life, the Erre Due polish looks totally hot pink, but I think this picture captures how it looks on the nail very well.

I would like this a lot better if I had used different colors but I still really like the way the dots are done! I’ll try it again sometime with different colors and post it for you guys 🙂

Orly Torrid Swatch

The other day I ordered a couple things from TransDesign and i found a set of 3 Orly polishes from their Naughty or Nice Collection. It came with Torrid (a shimmer darkish red), Halo (champagne/silver glitter), and Devil May Care which is red and gold glitter. As much as I love glittery polishes, the one that kept catching my eye was Torrid!

It looks super dark in this picture, but it’s not too dark in real life. It’s a scarlet red that’s super shimmery. Very classy. 🙂

It was a great formula. It dries fast and is very opaque. This is 2 coats and of course a top coat. I love this red! Probably my second favorite red that I own (first is China Glaze Ruby Pumps.) Even my mom said that it’s her favorite red 🙂 Then again, she says that about basically every red I wear…

Wet ‘N Wild Blazed Swatch

I have a whole rack of drugstore polishes that I almost never use. I was going through them the other day, looking to see which ones I wanted to keep, and which I should probably get rid of soon. This one really caught my eye.

I did the best I could to photograph this polish to make it look true to the color. This is Wet ‘N Wild’s Blazed. It’s super hard to describe because it’s the perfect mix of orange and pink, so I guess it’s considered coral. It’s a little more orange in real life. Even on the nail, it looks super pink until you put it next to a hot pink kind of color, then the orange in it really shows. It’s one of my favorite “Wild Shine” colors that I have, probably because it’s so unique.

Again, it looks pretty pink here but that is pretty true to the real life color in most lights. It’s a really pretty color, especially for being only a dollar or 2. It had sort of a jelly finish to it, which means it was pretty sheer. This is 3 thick coats and it’s still very see through. It’s hard to tell in this picture but in real life, you could see it clearly. Sheer polishes really bother me, but this one didn’t for some reason. Other than the sheerness, I love this color. It’s very fun but maybe not for fall.

Zoya Ornate Holiday Collection Preview

Hey guys! I have some more exciting news to share with you today. For one, I’ve been doing a little more on my blog today and added a ‘wishlist’ page as well as posting some stuff for the next 2 or 3 days.

I spent the entire day just browsing the web for swatches and just looking through different nail blogs and I found something on Zoya’s website. They are letting people preorder the Winter 2012/13 collection!

Wow look at those colors! They’re so gorgeous!

Electro- A full coverage, micro fine diamond holographic glitter with holographic bar tinsel mixed in.

Ziv- Full coverage gold foil with micro diamond particles.

Storm- Holiday black with lots of micro holo glitter.

Aurora- Cool undertone plum with micro diamond holographic glitter. (My favorite so far!)

Logan-  (forest?) green sparkly foil finish.

Blaze- Looks like a darkened fushia/pink with micro holo glitter.

You can preorder the whole collection right here. I’m not sure if I’ll preorder it soon or maybe just wait for it to come out, but I’m pretty sure I’ll get all of them… They’ll be out in stores in October. Yay!

Orly Monster Mash Swatch

Today I have a swatch of Orly’s Monster Mash from the Halloween 2012 Spellbound Collection. It’s probably my favorite of the 3 I picked up, which is odd because I’m not usually a fan of greens. But, I do love glitter 😀

Monster Mash is a green holo top coat glitter with hexagon, bar, and micro glitter. All the glitter has blue/green/yellow holo effect and it’s so gorgeous. Instead of layering it over black or white, I picked another green.

I chose Sinful Colors HD Nails. It’s just a regular shiny green. I almost matched these too almost too perfectly because the glitter didn’t show up that well against the green except in the sunlight. I actually swatch all of my polish on nail wheels, so instead of just showing you guys Monster Mash on my nails, I also snapped a pic of it on my wheel.

This is 2 coats of Monster Mash over a white/creamy “nail”. The orange color next to it is Right Amount of Evil, from the same collection.

This is 1 coat of Monster Mash over 3 coats of HD Nails. The formula on this was fine, the glitter kept wanting to clump together but it was an easy fix. HD Nails was a bit sheer at first but at 3 coats it evened out. The dry time on these were both great. That’s surprising because usually drugstore brands take forever to dry. I think Monster Mash is such a gorgeous color. But, next time I’ll layer it over a different color, maybe white.

NOTD – Dots!

So I guess technically this isn’t a NOTD (nail of the day) because I wore this for 3 days, but it still counts 🙂 The other day I was in the mood to do some nail art without any real effort and this is what I came up with, something simple, yet adorable!

For the white accent nail and white dots, I used OPI Alpine Snow. For the blue, I used a brand I had never heard of until I bought a bottle, Anise in the color Chill Out. I picked up that and another color at DSW a couple of months ago and just now used it. It’s a super cute color, but the brush is wayyy too tiny. It’s like trying to paint your nails with a striper brush! But, the formula was awesome, so that’s a plus I guess…

Anyway, I thought this was a super cute mani and wanted to share it with you all 🙂

OPI Designer Series Magic

It still amazes me that this is the first OPI polish I’ve posted. It is the brand that I have the most of in my collection (34 bottles!) and it’s definitely my favorite! This is OPI Magic, one of the three Designer Series bottles I own. I’ve seen many swatches of the other DS colors, and none of them really stood out to me. This was my favorite but I was still kinda “Meh…” about it.

I actually ordered this from Transdesign.com when I ordered my 3rd polish rack, so it was only $7.50 (but shipping was crazy expensive!) Even when I saw it in the bottle I wasn’t too stoked to wear it. I think it has something to do with the shimmer. I love purple, but the purple shimmer in this just doesn’t move me. Anyway, I put this on for the first time ever the other day and I really regret not trying it earlier.

I have no words for this besides “wow….” It’s probably one of the most beautiful colors I own. I got compliments for the past 2 days so I guess I’m not the only one who likes it 🙂  It’s almost like a dark blue foil almost. In the shade, it does have a slight purple shimmer. It has a great formula too, this is 3 coats. I tried it with 2 and though it was full coverage but I put another coat on to fix it 🙂 The clean up around my nails was super easy too. Hopefully this means that it will be easy to remove!

China Glaze Stella Swatch

Hey guys! I’m sooo sorry it’s been so long since my last post. I’ve been so busy trying to finish my AP summer homework and school started on Monday. Then, yesterday, I finally had time to post something. I wrote out this entire post and guess what? My computer crashed… Awesome. But! After I post this, I’m going to add another post that will be published tomorrow so be sure to check that out too! Anyway, onto the post!

Have you guys ever bought a polish just because you liked the name? I do that occasionally. This polish happens to be one of those. This is China Glaze’s Stella.

I decided a while ago that whenever I have a daughter, I will name her Stella Marie. Don’t ask me why, I think that name is just so… glamorous.

Stella is a dark violet color with purple and reddish shimmer. It’s like a dark fuchsia. It reminds me a lot of Zoya Yasmeen, but a lighter. It’s a lot more beautiful than I thought it would be.

Oh gosh, I love purples. This is such a gorgeous color. Actually, I say that about most of the colors i review, don’t I? Oh well, I guess it just love nail polish ^_^ It has a great formula, only took 2 coats in the above picture. The only problem I had with this one was the drying time. It took longer than most polishes, even with my insta-dri top coat! Oh and it’s an older polish so I doubt you’ll be able to find it in stores, so I would check the internet 🙂

Milani Gems Swatch

Last month, I went to Ocean City, Maryland for my family’s yearly vacation. This is the second time I’ve been there and it’s honestly my favorite place to be. While we were there, we stopped by a Walmart to grab some groceries when I realized that I forgot to bring a top coat! So I ran to the makeup section to look for a cheap top coat to use. While I was there, I saw a brand of nail polish that I recognized, but wasn’t available near me, Milani.

I’ve seen a lot of swatches of Milani polishes and when I saw this on the shelf, it intrigued me. This one is called Milani Gems from the Jewel FX collection that came out in 2010. From what I can tell, it’s a dupe for  Deborah Lippmann’s Happy Birthday and OPI’s Rainbow Connection, neither of which I own. I actually didn’t use it until just now, and I’m upset that I didn’t. It’s soooo beautiful. I’m also upset that my camera didn’t seem to like this one very much, and it was really hard to capture a good picture of this one.

I took a couple of pictures in the sunlight but the glitter didn’t really seem to shine like it did in real life so I decided to take a couple more in the shade.

This picture is much, much better. Anyway, on to the polish! Gems is a mixture of silver, gold, red, green, and magenta hexagon glitter and blue, green, red, and magenta micro glitter. Wow, sooo beautiful. This is 1 coats over 2 coats of Sally Hasen Black Out.  As much as I love glitter and shimmer, I don’t usually wear glitter top coats but I completely love this one. The formula on this was perfect except that the hex glitter likes to clump together a little bit but that doesn’t take away from the beauty of it.