Embroidered Emerald (pic heavy)

I'm baaaaaaaaack! (Back again, Jana's back, tell a friend.  Guess who's back dun nun na)  I've got roughly 300 things to show you all and today I was sitting here trying to figure out where to start and eventually I just decided to go big.  Let's just put a handful of pictures up and drool for a while, shall we?

Warning: This post is wicked picture heavy.  I needed every one of these pictures to try and show the gorgeous-ness that is this polish.  (Yes, I said wicked.  I just watched the movie Fever Pitch so I feel very Boston-y right now.)  I'm not putting them under a cut either...I won't hide it from the world! 

Misa - Emboridered Emerald.  What can I say about it?  I love this polish, I love the name... everything is perfect about it. 

Holy moly.  This might be my favorite picture of it.  The colors!  The shimmer!

My hand is at a funny angle here so I could try to show you what the base color of Embroidered Emerald is. It's a raisin-y kind of purple if that makes sense. Very pretty, dark without being too dark and you know how I love me some purple.

Now with Embroidered Emerald, you get a serious multi-chrome thing happening.  There are 3 or 4 different colors of shimmer that will pop out depending on the angle of you hand and lighting.  Wearing this polish can be hazardous to any type of productivity, beware :)

 

So here you can see the subtle gold shimmer on my nails and you can see the green in the bottle

Here you can see the blue shimmer



And the green shimmer (mixed with some blue)

 There also is this green-ish gold shimmer that comes out in certain lights.

Look how even in the shade so many different colors show up on your nails.  Yum.

Have I saturated you with pictures yet?  Well, let me gush some more.  The formula on Embroidered Emerald is pretty solid.  Misa doesn't disappoint formula-wise even with the older polishes.  I have either 3 coats or 4 thin coats on in these pictures (sorry I don't remember for sure but I'd guess for 4 thin coats if I had to pick.)  This baby came out in Fall 2006 (I believe) and has become pretty tough to find by now.  I was lucky enough to get my hands on it last year which made me sooo happy since I had been lusting after it for a long time. 

Can we talk about the name for a second...Embroidered Emerald.  This is the kind of name nail polish should have; not suzi this or that or something generic like "green."  Perfect name for the color. 


How about one more picture for the road? :)

What do you think of Embroidered Emerald?

Layering with... Orly- Fowl Play (picture heavy!)

So Orly- Fowl Play is one of the star polishes of the fall collections and has been hotly anticipated ever since the lovely Carina over at Gilded Nails put promos and swatches of it up. It started trickling into stores recently and I'm sure you've all seen swatches of it by now, be it on other blogs, the nail board, etc. It has kind of a squishy, jelly-like finish, which made me curious about how it would look layered over some other colors. I wanted to try and lighten up the dark purple base color of Fowl Play too. I rummaged through my stash and asked on twitter if there were any colors you wanted to see it over and came up with a nail wheel full of choices :)

Enough with the words, on to the pictures right? haha. So here is a picture of the nail wheel before I put Fowl Play over everything...

(remember you can click to enlarge all of the pictures!)

1. Orly - Fowl Play (3 coats)
2. Orly - Royal Velvet (3 coats)
3. Diamond Cosmetics - Crushed Velvet (1 coat)
4. China Glaze - Light As Air (1 Coat)
5. OPI - Done Out In Deco (1 coat)
6. China Glaze - Spontaneous (2 coats)
7. China Glaze - Grape Pop (1 coat)
8. Essie - Sexy Divide (2 coats)
9. Zoya - Demi (1 coat)
10. OPI - Manicurist of Seville (1 coat)
11. SpaRitual 0 Devil Inside (1 coat)
12. OPI - Mrs. O'Leary's BBQ (2 coats)
13. Orly - Enchanted Forest ( 2 coats)
14. China Glaze - Re-Fresh Mint (2 coats)
15. Avon - Vintage Blue (2 coats)
16. Wet n Wild - Blue Moon (2 coats)
17. Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear - White On (2 coats)
18. Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear - Black Out (1 coat)

Now let's check out how Fowl Play layered shall we? Since it's kind of a complex polish with the flakies and shimmer and all that good stuff, I'm giving you pictures in sunlight and in the shade with flash, to try and capture the differences and nuances of each combo.

1-4 in sunlight

1-4 in shade, with flash

4-7 in sunlight

5-8 in shade with flash

8-11 in sunlight

8-11 in shade with flash

12-15 in sunlight

12-15 in shade with flash

15-18 in sunlight

15-18 in shade with flash

17-2 in the shade with flash


Did you make it this far after all the pictures? :) Out of 17 possible choices on this nail wheel, which ones are your favorite? I liked a lot of these! I think China Glaze - Spontaneous (number 6) gave me the perfect purple base color I originally was looking for, but I also really loved how Orly - Royal Velvet (number 2), Essie - Sexy Divide (number 8), and Wet n Wild - Blue Moon (number 16) looked because the shimmer in the base colors added to what Fowl Play already had. The most surprising ones for me were the red shades I tried, (thank you Allibally for the suggestion!) OPI - Manicurist of Seville (number 10) and SpaRitual -Devil Inside (number 11) I looooooved how pretty and burgundy looking those turned out. I can see myself wearing these combos during the fall/winter for sure. I like the idea of those manis with sweaters and fall clothes for some reason haha.

Demure Vixen vs. Venus di Violet (comparison)

Every now and then I post spam on MUA (MakeUp Alley) of random polishes, and in one of those posts I had OPI - Venus di Violet (which I showed you earlier here) Someone asked to see how it compared to Essie- Demure Vixen. So here we go!

Three coats of each color, Venus di Violet on index and ring fingers and Demure Vixen on middle and pinky fingers.


sunlight

shade

indoors

bottle shot!

The Verdict? Obviously they aren't dupes, Demure Vixen is darker and more mauve, but they are relatives. Demure Vixen is somewhat of a darker version of Venus di Violet. The shimmer in DV is a little more "secret" and VdV is a little more obvious. Also the shimmer isn't 100% the same, although it is very similar. It feels almost identical but VdV is a little pinker, more of a purpley-pink shimmer.

If you like one you'll probably like the other polish, I hope this helps :) Are there other comparisons you'd like to see? Tell me in the comments!

Yasmeen and a bonus!

I think Zoya - Yasmeen was my first ever Zoya lemming. (Thanks to Scrangie of course!) After you see these pictures, you'll totally understand why. For one reason or another, it took me a long time to get my hands on this, but a few weeks ago I finally ordered it from the Zoya site...when they had that buy one get one free promo. I was getting Nikki for a gift for someone and got Yasmeen as my free polish, yay. So of course I had to put it on as soon as it got here. Yasmeen definitely lived up to my lemming, check it out:

sun (look at the sun! and grass! it's been snowing a lot here lately and more coming tomorrow afternoon)

shade

inside

Dark purple with lighter shimmer? I'm so there. It has a lit from within feel to it. And by that I mean it's darker at the edges and lighter in the middle. Yasmeen has a similar feel to China Glaze - Let's Groove, one of my all-time favorite polishes, which I showed you in the very first post here :) But that's not why I felt like I had seen the color of Yasmeen somewhere before...

It turns out that a ring I bought from an Etsy seller last year is an exact match for Yasmeen! Clearly I like the color, eh? Haha. Here it is on:

I'd normally wear it on my right hand, but for swatch pictures I use my left. Exact match! It felt pretty chic to have a matching ring while I had this on as a mani. Do you have any jewelry that matches a polish? What do you think about being matching like that? I think it's neat when it's something small like this (although I'd never tried something bigger, so I can't say for sure...)

I have three new Zoyas coming in the next few days from the latest promo :) So you'll be seeing those swatched soon! Did you order any during the sale last week?

The One In Which I Declare My Love For Perplex

The first polish I'm showing you in 2011 is currently my favorite polish, period. I've got Revlon - Perplex for you today! As I'm sure you have heard by now, Perplex is very similar to Chanel - Paradoxal. They aren't exact dupes but close for sure. (There are several blogs with comparisons if you want to see for yourself.) I have a few extra pictures in this post to show you the depth of Perplex, check it out!

two sun pictures
shade

2 indoor pictures to show you how it can look different on the lighting.

Ahhh, so gorgeous. Perplex is a gray-ed out smokey purple with subtle (or secret) purple shimmer. It's complex and sophisticated and perfect! Depending how the light hits it, the shimmer can be seen more or the polish can appear more purple, I tried to capture that in the pictures above for you. I wore this for my birthday mani last month and am wearing it again for a concert next week, it seriously works for every occasion.

When I first found the Perplex display at CVS, I bought one bottle. I tried it that night and liked it so much that I went back to CVS two days later and bought two back-up bottles. Big time love haha. Do you have Perplex or its sister polish Paradoxal? What do you think about the gray-purple trend of late?

Let's Boogie, Bogie

Haha I really like this post title! China Glaze - Bogie is the color I was most excited about when the Vintage Vixen collection came out; I'm always drawn to purples. But then once the collection actually came out, my lemming sort of hit the back burner - I don't really know why though. Eventually I came to my senses and bought it thankfully, because I really really love it.

sun

shade

inside

My fingers look big in these pictures, yeesh. But I'm totally into Bogie! I don't really have anything like this in my collection. It's a dark purple eggplant color with pretty pink and green subtle shimmer (which by the way I've noticed this shimmer in multiple other polishes, but that's for another post, I digress) My neighbor came by when I was wearing this and liked it on me so much she borrowed it! If that doesn't say it's a pretty polish, I don't know what will haha :) This was easy to work with too, 2 coats and you're good to go, which is always a bonus especially with dark colors.

I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving/weekend (depending which applies to you :) ) and don't forget about my giveaway!

Catherine The Grape

Today I have an older OPI polish to show you! It's OPI - Catherine The Grape. This isn't easy to find, but it's not incredibly hard to find either... kind of in between haha. It's not readily available in stores, but you can find it online still I believe. I got this with a few other polishes in a swap with a really sweet MUAer and I'm so excited to finally have my hands on it! I also like the name, it fits the polish. The color absolutely reminds me of a grape, so I have pretty nails that also make me a little bit hungry for fruit haha!

sunlight
shade

inside

As you can see, Catherine The Grape is reddish-purple with soft gold shimmer. Depending on how the light hits this on your nails, it's going to look a little different, which is fun. Like in my shade picture it seems like a slightly darker purple, but indoors you can see the shimmer and it picks up more of the red in the color. I really like how this has character but is still a somewhat subdued color, you know what I mean? This feels perfect for fall to me right now, just fits with the weather :)

I Have Concrete Evidence That This Is A Pretty Polish

Sally Hansen - Concrete doesn't really look like concrete to me, and that's a good thing. This was a part of the last "limited edition" Xtreme Wear release. It came out with the much coveted Mystic Lilac (which I will be showing you another day.) This color initially didn't really jump out at me, and it wasn't until I saw a display for the second or third time that I picked this up. Mainly because it was purple and I think I had a coupon haha. But oh man am I glad I did!

sunlight

shade

indoors

This a really nice gray-ed out purple with hints of pink. Very interesting neutral color. Application was good, two coats and you're good to go. This is like the little sister of colors like OPI- Parlez-Vous OPI? and Confetti - Moonstruck. A nice color for work, job interviews, or any other places you would need a neutral nail look.

Beautiful Dusk...A Tale Of Fate.

When I was first getting into nail polish, I saw a picture of China Glaze - Dusk and it immediately went on my wishlist. I was so totally in love with it, just from pictures. But it's an older China Glaze for sure, and pretty hard to find. It's one of those polishes I had on my list that I never really thought I'd get my hands on, but oh man did I ever search for it. I've never even seen it on ebay. But then I found it on a blog sale so I was elated, then saw it was pending, rats! I took a chance and emailed the lady selling it, luckily her original buyer ended up changing their mind so I finally got my hands on this beautiful, beautiful polish. Nail polish karma is real people! Whenever I have access to something someone is lemming, I help them get it...build that nail polish karma and your lemmings will find a way to you! Haha it's for real. Now that story time is over, would you like to see the pictures? ;-) There are a few extra, just a heads up.



sunlight



shade


indoors

You know how it feels when you finally find something you were looking for and then it doesn't live up to what you hoped? Well I totally don't haha. This is even better than I thought it would be! Love love love love it. It's a smoky dark purple with this wonderful subtle shimmer in it. It's not too dark that it looks black inside, you always know it's purple, which is important for me - I hate when colors look black inside, makes me crazy. Thank you for listening to me ramble on and on about this, but I just can't help it! What do you think of Dusk? Do you have any favorite older China Glaze colors?

Frankens are fun for everyone!

I really love when people post pictures of their frankens. I've always been intrigued by the idea of making a totally unique polish, but the idea of figuring out what works and what doesn't stresses me out. Crazy? A little bit, but I'm working on it. So anyway, Alexandra (who does the awesome nail art posts here) posted pictures of a couple of frankens she did on MUA one day. And I fell soooo in love with this one I'm about to show you. I messaged Alexandra begging her to make me one haha. I sent her the ingredients to mix, thanked her roughly a thousand times, and now am the proud owner of two bottles of this gorgeous franken!


sunlight

more sunlight (too pretty for just one picture)

shade
inside

The sunlight pictures are pretty accurate; it's a darker purple holo. This is one of my top five favorite polishes EVER! It's a mix of Milani - Hi-Res (the purple holo) and OPI - Lincoln Park At Midnight. So it's easy to make, which is excellent because I feel like I need a few more bottles... I wear this a lot! I think it would be fun to use all of the Milani holos to make frankens... I want to make a dark blue holo! Any suggestions on what to mix with it?

Have you made any frankens? What are you favorites?