swatch: nars zulu

vvvvvhtf and highly coveted for years, nars zulu was rereleased a couple of months ago - and i was thrilled to get my hands on this piece of nail polish history!


i'd heard that zulu was a streaky pita to apply, but luckily the (reformulated) new version wasn't bad at all. i applied three coats for the mani above and found that overall, the application of the polish was fine and its appearance was quite even. i'll admit, though, that i did preemptively wait a bit longer than i usually do between coats, just to ward off any potential issues. on the one finger where i tried to touch up a nail that had started to dry but wasn't fully set, the polish did pull away a bit, leaving a bald spot (that luckily was easily fixed).

one other thing potential buyers/swappers should be aware of - as far as i can tell, the square caps on nars polish bottles do not pull off, unlike the caps on illamasqua or chanel bottles. this doesn't get in the way of application too much, but just a heads-up.

while i like zulu a lot, i'm still not a jelly convert... at the end of the day, while i do appreciate zulu's glassy finish, i'd still prefer a dark green creme (like sephora by opi dark room or zoya envy).

boy says: "look at the sloppy application on your pinky!" :(

swatch: zoya charla

since i hated that last mani so much, how about i now post a mani i love:


zoya charla is probably my favorite of this past summer's sparkle collection (although ivanka is a close second). so sparkly and vivid (and a bit more green) irl! i actually haven't worn this since the summer, as in my opinion this color and finish don't go well with the more professional attire and fairly subdued hues i sport during the school year (i know there are others who disagree and wear any nail polish with any outfit, but this is what works for me and my style). but i loved this color when i wore it a few months ago and can't wait for the warmer months (with their accompanying bright colors and bold prints) to roll around again so that i can break this shade out once more! this picture is of three coats.

boy says: "zoya seems to make good nail polish." direct quote, i kid you not.

swatch: opi the show must go on!

the day after thanksgiving i wore opi the show must go on!, which quite frankly, i hated... screamingly bright pink-orange foil is so not my scene:


this polish applied smoothly (two coats are shown above), and i know many people love this shade, but again, the color really just isn't for me. i'm actually somewhat relieved, as i bought mac bad fairy right when it was released but never wore it because i was disappointed by the murky/muddy quality it had. at the same time, however, i was hesitant to jettison something so highly coveted without even a cursory swatch. but now i can safely assume that i won't like bad fairy either and can feel comfortable offloading it!

boy says: "that looks finely textured, like pink aluminum foil."

thanksgiving notd/swatch: nubar raspberry truffle + finger paints holly good time

hi everyone! sorry for the extended absence but my new job and grad school are keeping me very busy (not to mention far from my camera during the daylight hours!). i have a couple of days off for thanksgiving, though, so i thought i'd post pics of the mani i wore for the holiday:


this is two coats of nubar raspberry truffle topped with one coat of fp holly good time (courtesy of my dear friend michelle, since we don't have sally's here!). i was really impressed by the smooth application of the nubar as well as how dense the glitter was in the fp. in fact, my original intention was to do a holly good time gradient over raspberry truffle, but i had to abandon that idea once i realized the glitter in holly good time was offering far too good of coverage for that to work. it's hard to tell in this picture, but holly good time is also super sparkly, and i look forward to wearing it again (perhaps layered over a different polish, perhaps solo) closer to christmas.

boy says: "you can't focus your eyes on it. it's just too much."

hope all of you who celebrate had a nice thanksgiving!

streetwear toad: swatch picture and review

this is my favorite version of sw toad... beautiful olive green shimmer:


this polish is fairly thin and watery and tends toward bald spots, so i did four coats to get this evenly opaque. worth it, though! thanks to my sweet friend amy for hooking me up with this pretty!

american apparel summer 2010 swatches part 1: butter, malibu green

hi everyone! sorry for my absence the past couple of days... we've hardly had any sun around here, which makes photographing polishes no fun! this morning, however, we had some nice weather, so i thought it would be a great time to swatch a couple of the latest offerings from american apparel.

as i've posted before, being a die-hard creme lover i'm a big fan of smerican apparel's range of polishes, so i was thrilled to hear that this summer, they were expanding their line to include five new colors: butter, california trooper, l'esprit, malibu green, and summer peach.

i had mixed feelings about butter - i loved the color, a gorgeous warm soft yellow, but i did have issues with the application:


yellows are notoriously difficult to apply, and butter wasn't particularly awful in that respect; it was both thick and runny, and somewhat streaky as well, but most people could probably get it to work in three thick coats (since i didn't figure this out through midway through my application, i used four regular coats for the swatch above). however, the american apparel brush is designed in such a way that the stem retains a lot of polish even if you wipe off your brush well, causing drips and mess if you aren't careful. thus, in order to have a controlled, neat manicure, you have to wipe off the brush and stem so thoroughly that you simply don't have enough polish left to do properly thick coats. if you're able to figure out how to apply butter in a way that works for you, though, the color is very pretty.

malibu green on the other hand, had an awesome formula, and i really liked the color as well:


(please note that the polish is brighter and more saturated irl.) this had the thin, super-pigmented formula that i love and think of as being typical of american apparel's polish! with all my love of crazy polish i've never really ventured into bright blues and greens, so i was surprised by how much i loved this shade... i actually wound up wearing it for three days! the formula of this polish was excellent - smooth and very easy to work with - and it was opaque in two thin coats. malibu green makes a great pop of color against the blacks and neutrals i insist on wearing even throughout the summer, and i'm looking forward to breaking it out again.

i should have the rest of the american apparel summer colors (california trooper, l'esprit, and summer peach) swatched and posted for you on monday... i'll update this post with a link once that's done. happy weekend!

disclosure: the products in this post were sent to me by american apparel for consideration

streetwear midnight and streetwear fx flash (blue version): swatch pictures and review

for today installment of streetwear saturdays, i started with three coats of sw midnight, a glowy dark blue shimmer:


i'm not really a fan of blue shimmers (well, any shimmers, but blue shimmers in particular), so i decided to top this mani with a little glitter to make it more my style. here's sw midnight with one coat of sw fx flash (the blue version) on top:


full disclosure: i got this idea from a gorgeous mani done by another np lover... afraid i can't take credit for it! while i like the blue version of fx flash well enough, it's the green/chameleon version that i really love. for pics of that polish, please check out my posts here and here.