swatch: zoya ciara

i actually have this on my toes at the moment, but a picture of my feet will go up on the internet over my dead body. so, a quick swatch!


as i've mentioned before, zoya is my go-to brand for pedis, for a couple of reasons. first, while i normally love the opi pro-wide, trying to maneuver it around my wee nubbin toenails makes for a huge mess. i find the small brush of zoya polishes less than ideal for manis, but absolutely perfect for mess-free pedicures. in addition, while i'll rock even the most out-there colors on my fingernails (teal jelly holo glitter? i'm there!), for my pedis i'm super-traditional: vampy, red, berry, or pink cremes only, no exceptions. and zoya does these more conservative colors so well!

i'm quite happy with ciara - it's very pretty, and while most people would consider it a "safe" color, sometimes that's exactly what i want. plus its application was smooth, and it was opaque in two coats. i do my pedis while standing in front of my desk, putting my feet up on the writing surface one at a time (basically like a flamingo, haha), so i'm always glad to find a polish that minimizes how much time i'll have to spend in that odd position.

by the way, ciara is quite a bit darker in indoor lighting... definitely more of a berry than a pink.

bf says: "excellent application!" that's a big compliment coming from him, since the last time i did swatches, he told me my "gap" was too big, ha!

comparison swatches: avon golden twilight, china glaze wagon trail, and opi ds mystery

a friend on the nb was planning an avon order and was curious how golden twilight compared to some similar polishes from other brands, so i took the opportunity to do these swatches:




from left to right:

china glaze wagon trail (on my index finger) is a black base color packed with fine gold shimmer, giving the polish an overall olive appearance. it's a well-done polish, but the shimmer is too fine to really appeal to my taste these days.

avon golden twilight (on my middle finger) actually has a very deep blue-purple base (captured well by steph's closet), but it looks pretty much black on my nails. the gold shimmer in golden twilight is chunkier than the shimmer in wagon trail yet doesn't shine through the base color well, giving this polish a muddy appearance. i wish i'd passed on this one!

opi ds mystery (on my ring finger) is my favorite of the bunch. while it's not the deep purple holo i had imagined when i first heard that a purple ds polish was in the works, i still love it. this polish has a base color that's much more strongly purple than golden twilight's (although to be fair, it's still quite close to black) as well as very chunky gold shimmer that stands out nicely. i'll definitely be doing a full notd with this one soon.

swatch: lippmann superstar

i hope you all had a nice day yesterday, whether it was thanksgiving for you or not! here's a pic of my holiday mani:


this espresso jelly with copper glitter struck me as the perfect thanksgiving polish, and i got lots of compliments on it yesterday (even from normally polish-oblivious boys). the coverage superstar offers is quite good, which i always appreciate from a jelly/glitter - the above photograph is of three coats, although i think two would generally be fine for most people. i think i might make this my go-to thanksgiving mani, just like i plan to wear china glaze fortune teller on halloween every year from here on out.

swatch: orly enchanted forest and zoya "green friday" promotion

happy thanksgiving!! as this post goes up, i'm currently on a train to the berkshires to spend the holiday with a good friend and his family. i unfortunately didn't have enough light to take pictures of my thanksgiving notd (lippmann superstar) before i left, but i'll be sure to post photos tomorrow. for now, here's a pic of orly enchanted forest, since i neglected to include it in my recent green comparison:


by the way, if you like green polish, zoya is running a great promotion through 11:59 p.m. est this friday (11/27). with the code "greenfriday," any purchase of $20 or more will receive six full-size green zoya polishes (envy, irene, midori, suvi, tangy, and veruschka) absolutely free! for swatches of these colors, check nailgal.com (always an excellent resource!), and for more details on the promotion, visit the zoya blog.

i personally love zoya - to the point that i have close to 50 of their polishes. not only do i appreciate that they offer great discount codes to make their polishes affordable for their customers, but they're also my go-to brand for pedis because of their small brush (clean-up-free pedicures? sign me up!). to see swatches of all the brand's polishes i've posted on my blog so far, check the zoya label - while i don't have pics of all of them up here yet, my personal top five are ali, astra, dita, pinta, and roxy. and now i have to stop typing because i've written the word "zoya" about nine million times in this post, and it's starting to look weird. i hope those of you who celebrate thanksgiving have a great holiday!

comparison swatches: bb couture, illamasqua, rescue beauty lounge, and zoya greens

i haven't yet decided on today's notd (currently leaning towards nails inc. curzon street, but we'll see), so in the meantime here are some green comparison swatches i did this past weekend.


from thumb to pinky: bb couture green goblin, rescue beauty lounge orbis non sufficit, rescue beauty lounge recycle, zoya envy, and illamasqua rampage. orbis non sufficit is the dustiest of the bunch and has the best formula, envy is (clearly) the darkest, and rampage is the only one of these polishes with a jelly finish.

i wasn't thinking and didn't include orly enchanted forest in this comp, so i'll try to take pics with it included in the near future. i also have a dark green from l.a. girl's flare line that might be interesting to compare as well.

as you can see from the above pic, green goblin and recycle are quite similar, so i did a second comp featuring just those two polishes:


bb couture green goblin on index and ring finger, rescue beauty lounge recycle on middle finger.

recycle is more of a "clear"/true green, whereas green goblin is more yellow/brown (which i personally prefer). also, green goblin's formula is superior to recycle's - while green goblin was perfect in two coats, recycle was more watery and needed three coats for complete evenness.

scrangie has a comp of recycle and green goblin here that makes the two polishes look much more different from each other, but i can honestly say that they didn't look nearly that different on me, even under a bright desk lamp. the pic i posted above is literally the *most* different they ever look on me, and in most/dimmer lighting, the two polishes are practically indistinguishable.

swatch: nails inc. berkeley square

sorry to have slacked off on the notd posting... all the swatching i was doing for the nb top 20 totally killed my desire to take even more nail photos. but i'm back!


asoifhdsohfihwhas obsessed!!! i love how dark this cool-toned gray is, and it has that famous nails inc. application - wonderfully creamy, richly pigmented, and absolutely perfect in two coats.

the nails inc. formula is right up there with rbl's and illamasqua's; in my experience, nails inc. and rbl polishes are a bit more "flowy" than illamasqua lacquers (which, in contrast, generally go exactly where you put them), but their pigmentation is richer and more consistent. that said, all three brands are excellent, and the differences between them that i'm mentioning are quite subtle.

bf says: "WHOA i like that color a LOT. it kind of has blue tones."

top 20!

it's top 20 day, and i couldn't be more excited - this is one of my favorite nb events! my list this time around consists of:

barielle beaches & dreams
bb couture laguna lagoon
bb couture night ops
illamasqua boosh
illamasqua muse
nails inc. berkeley square
nails inc. the serpentine
opi cajun shrimp
opi monsooner or later
opi we'll always have paris
rescue beauty lounge mismas
rescue beauty lounge orbis non sufficit
rescue beauty lounge teal
sephora by opi dark room
sephora by opi what's a tire jack? matte
zoya ali
zoya astra
zoya dita
zoya pinta
zoya roxy

as i post notds with more of these polishes, i'll update this post with links to the entries.