P2 - Toffee Time, swatch

This is the black sheep in the collection, I assume more pinks will be sold than brown at least. ;) But it do feel super unusual and not even KIKO had a brown like this. And I just had to have it.. it's too weird to miss out on, at least for me.

The base color is a light (but not necessarily pastel) and cold toned brown, like mud and more like the color taupe (purple undertones) than chocolate brown. The others from the Crisp Color collection also feel like they're mixed with "white" and they're crelly like while Toffee Time is more jelly. In this one the shredded particles is red and that dark brown. Surprisingly this was much thinner than the other in the collection. Most of them have been quite thin on the first coat, but because of the texture, the second coat has filled them up perfectly. However here I needed 3 coats and therefore this probably is slightly more slow drying. I actually don't think it's that ugly, it feels unusual and is definitely unique in my stash. 

2.45 euro at DM.

So people, what do you think about this? Is this cool mud or is it poo? Does this makes your face wrinkle in horror like Mrs Data described some previous textures or do you find it interesting?

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Cirque Colors Metropolis Collection Swatches: November & December

Cirque's Metropolis collection, a series of creme nail polishes inspired by New York City, continues to grow! There are new polishes added to the line every month, and today's swatches cover the November and December releases. You can check out the September and October releases in my previous post.

Kickerbocker is a deep chocolate brown creme. It's very dark, almost black. Two coats.

Tavern On the Teal is a dark teal shade. It's slightly more green than my swatch shows here. Two coats.

The Devil Wears Cirque is a rich red creme. I love the name on this one so much. Two coats.

I don't have any complaints about the formula on these; they were all easy to apply, smooth, and glossy. The shades do feel very New York chic, though maybe I'm projecting a little too because of the collection name. "NYFW" does still reign supreme as my favorite Metropolis shade, though I do love the richness of Tavern on the Teal now, too.

The Metropolis collection is available now on CirqueColors.com, where each shade retails for $13.

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Smitten Polish - Bluebird II, swatch

A color combo I really like is brown and combined with a color, and Bluebird II from Smitten Polish is that, a brown crelly with blue/teal/green colored glitter in two hexagon sizes. Below is 3 coats.

Flourecent light.

Since I bought this long time ago, this is from the previous etsystore, but nowdays Smitten Polish has a big cartel site. :)

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Dermelect Bejeweled Collection for Fall 2014

Though I'm not much for fall color palettes, there are a few shades in the Dermelect Bejeweled collection that really appeal to me! Keep reading for swatches and my thoughts, and be sure to let me know which ones you are digging in the comments.

Belle Epoque is a dark chocolate creme polish. The formula was smooth, but it was still a tiny bit streaky after two coats. I've used three here. It looks very near black indoors, but when you get it in the sunlight, the brown shows better.

Gilded is similar to Chanel Peridot or OPI Just Spotted the Lizard, but with a very very intriguing twist... it's textured! I used two coats for the swatch here. Isn't it just gorgeous? I'd love to try layering it over black, as well. I know textures have started to fade away but I'm happy to see this one.

Heirloom is a deep, blue-purple shimmer. Like Belle Epoque, it's quite dark, but this one has a bit of that "glow from within" to it. I only needed two coats for coverage, but beware: the blue base on this one stains.

Lustrous is a brick red with heavy shimmer. This was one of my favorites in the collection. It's very autumnal, almost like spiced cider. Lustrous was close to full coverage at two coats, but I went with three for good measure.

My top picks are Lustrous and Gilded. Lustrous is the perfect fall shimmer, and Gilded is just so strange and cool. The other two shades are too dark for my personal taste.

Dermelect polishes are available on Dermelect.com, in Ulta stores, and on Ulta.com.

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Louis Vuitton Pattern Freehand Nail Art

Today is "inspired by a color" day in the 31 Day Challenge. I always take this prompt to mean "take inspiration from a polish color," particularly drawing inspiration from the name. This year, I reached for China Glaze's Lug Your Designer Baggage from the All Aboard collection for Fall 2014.

Nail polishes used:
China Glaze Lug Your Designer Baggage
Deborah Lippmann Autumn In New York

My inspiration for this look came from Michelle's review of the collection on All Lacquered Up. She mentioned that the name of the polish, plus the color in it, reminded her of a Louis Vuitton trunk. The color alone is really interesting -- it's a dark brown with golden flecks. I needed two coats for coverage.

I initially had trouble creating this pattern, and even came close to giving up on the look entirely. I posted my pinky on Instagram, intending to show off the one nail that had turned out well, but felt so encouraged by everyone's comments that I decided to try it one more time. My final attempt was passable, so here we are!

Check out my "inspired by a color" looks from past years:

• OPI Skull and Glossbones
• China Glaze Kalahari Kiss
• Color Club Wild Cactus

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Sunset On Tatooine - Star Wars Nail Art

Today I have a bit of geeky nail art to share with you! If you are a fan of Star Wars, I'm sure you know about Tatooine. The planet was both Anakin's and Luke's home and is where Luke first meets C-3PO and R2-D2 in A New Hope. This nail art shows Luke with the two droids as the planet's twin suns set on the horizon.

The background of this nail art is an incredibly subtle gradient of OPI Going My Way or Norway? and OPI Ice-bergers and Fries. The silhouettes of Luke, C-3PO, R2-D2, and the Lars homestead were painted with OPI How Great Is Your Dane?. All three of those shades are from the new OPI Nordic Collection. I am loving the two caramel shades, in particular.

The ground is painted with OPI I Sing In Color, while the suns are done with Lime Crime Milky Ways and Lime Crime Peaches <3 Cream.

The manicure is finished off with OPI Matte Topcoat.

This nail art ended up being pretty timely. A few days after I finished it, a group of us watched A New Hope! If only I'd still been wearing it that day.

Are you a fan of Star Wars? Which one is your favorite?

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Geometric Faceted Neutrals - OPI Brazil Nail Art

While I originally guessed I'd be drawn to the brights in OPI's Brazil collection, when I got them all together, I really responded to the way the four neutral/earth tones looked. I couldn't get the group of them out of my mind. I had a hankering for some geometric nail art, and for this look I drew some of my inspiration from a DIY geometric necklace tutorial.

OPI Don't Bossa Nova Me Around - This is the lightest neutral, and the shade that I used for the base of the manicure. It's more pink that my camera was able to capture here; the shade kind of reminds me of Silly Putty. Definitely a very flattering nude, it'd be a perfect shade for someone whose skin tone leans pink rather than yellow. Covered perfectly in two coats.

OPI Taupe-less Beach - The second lightest shade shown here, this polish is a lovely greige. It was nicely opaque for this nail art and is a perfect step between Bossa Nova and the next darkest color.

OPI I Sao Paulo Over There - The darkest taupe shown. I always enjoy medium earthy shades like this and I found the formula easy to work with.

OPI OPI Scores a Goal! - This rich red-brown shade is the standout "accent" here. While the three previous polishes are fairly neutral, this one does bring a bit more to the party, color wise. Like the others, the formula didn't give me any trouble.

I painted all of my nails with a base of OPI Don't Bossa Nova Me Around, and the rest of the geometric shapes were painted freehand on top of it with a super skinny nail art brush.

The key for me was to paint one large geometric shape near the center of the nail and then build outwards from that. Another important thing I had to remember was to leave some spaces "unpainted," at least with the freehand, so the base could show through and do its part.

Check out a behind the scenes shot from this manicure on my Instagram; you can see my bitty nail art brush and polishes, plus the wax paper that I put down on my table as a palette.

While this nail art took forever (an episode of The Ellen Show AND @midnight), I'm very pleased with the final outcome. It gave me some good practice on my linework and on making the brush stop exactly where I need it to so the facets would match up.

Brazil by OPI will be available beginning tomorrow, February 5, 2014. Nail lacquers will retail for $9.00 ($10.95 CAN) each at Professional Salons, including Beauty Brands, Beauty First, Chatters, Dillard’s, jcp Salons, Pure Beauty, Regis, Trade Secret, ULTA and ulta.com.

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Claudia - 604, swatch (brown)

A quick swatch for today. This is Claudia - 604 and at first I wasn't in the mood of buying it, it looked too pink, almost like a pink nougat color and I was looking for something more chocolate like. But for 10SEK (about 1€/£0,9/$1,4) it's worth to try.

And this time it payed off, it dried both to a darker and colder shade and it do look chocolaty! Like the perfect milk chocolate shade. This is a creme and below is two coats and application was good. If you stumble upon these I recommend them!

Do you like wearing brown shades on your nails?

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Chocolate Cherry Stripes - Zoya Cashmere Nail Art

The Zoya Cashmere Collection brings all the warmth and richness of fall that you would expect, boasting deep jewel tones and cozy browns. In today's nail art, I've combined three of the shades in a simple striped manicure.

Press Sample

When I first opened up this collection, it was a given that I would be using Zoya Louise and Zoya Flynn together in some nail art. The chocolate brown of Louise just paired too beautifully with Flynn's camel color for me not to.

But then, the question was which other shade to add into the mix! Pepper, the brick red from the collection, would lend a Burberry feel, while Hunter, a forest green, would make the look more earthy. In the end, I selected Zoya Livingston, a cherry red, because I thought the pop of bold color would look great with the neutral browns.

I know I can't resist a color palette that reminds me of chocolate covered cherries, either...

I painted all of my nails with two coats of Livingston. I then sealed them in with topcoat and let them dry completely before moving on to the next steps of this manicure.

Using nail art striping tape, I created some differently sized horizontal stripes on all of my nails. I also made sure that the stripes were positioned in different spots on each nail.

Then, using a small nail art brush, I painted alternating stripes of Louise and Flynn within the guides of my tape. When I removed the tape, clean stripes remained! A final layer of topcoat and the manicure was finished.

I like the consistent-yet-inconsistent aspect of this manicure. All of the nails match together perfectly, but they don't match together perfectly, you know what I mean?

It's perfectly imperfect, I think.

The Zoya Cashmere Collection is available now on Zoya.com, where each shade retails for $8.

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