Sinful Colors Nirvana

Okay, I've got a huge backlog of untrieds that I'm slowly working my way through. I bought Nirvana during one of the half off sales at Walgreen's, and hadn't actually tried it! It reminds me a lot of OPI You Don't Know Jacques, although I no longer have that to compare.

The one thing I remember for sure is that YDKJ is a straight up creme, and Nirvana is not - it's more of a jelly creme, closer to the jelly side than the creme. I needed three coats for opacity, but I absolutely loved applying it, jellies seem to be a bit easier to work with, less lumpy/bumpy/prone for mess than cremes, so I love a good jelly creme. This is my kind of neutral, a gorgeous mushroom shade! 

I actually had it in mind to layer this with another Sinful Colors, Smoking Hot, but I somehow managed to put a huge chunk into my pinkie finger while I was waiting for it to dry. I'll try that out another time and show you, because Smoking Hot is pretty awesome!

Watercolor Nails

So, totally inspired by Sarah of Chalkboard Nails, I decided to try my hand at watercolor nails. Hers looked amazing! I had enough similar colors, so last night I decided to give it a whirl.
I had just pulled out OPI's Skull & Glossbones, I had thought about trying a sponge with it - but when I read she used that as a base, I thought it was perfect.
In addition to that, for the dots of color, I used Color Club Raspberry Rush, Maybelline Express Finish Sunshine, Sinful Colors Fly Away, Envy, and Amethyst. I would like to try this again with other colors, it was fun! I think my pinkie and ring turned out a tiny bit muddy but overall I'm really happy with it.

So, what do you guys think? They're pretty easy, if you just follow Sarah's instructions - I'd like to see it if anyone else does these!

Top Picks For 2011, Part One

It's finally time to do my top picks of the year! I decided to do mine after December, since I still had holiday polishes to show off.

This takes the place of my usual Focus On series for January, so we'll get back to that next month.

Essie Mochachino. Actually, this is tied with Smooth Sailing - I just love the small silver shimmer in both shades, they're perfection!

Revlon Just Tinted Mystical. Actually, let's be fair - I love ALL of the Just Tinted jellies. Soooo squishy and perfect!

Essie Ruby Slippers. While this wasn't released this year, I did finally manage to acquire it - and it's become my favorite red, ever. Mmmm.

Sinful Colors Seaweed. Shown here layered with SH Hidden Treasure and mattified with China Glaze Matte Magic. 

Revlon Orange Fizz. Bright, juicy orange jelly with small gold flakies? Yes please! Revlon had a banner year in my opinion.

And that wraps up the first part of my favorites of 2011! Stay tuned for part two, tomorrow.

Layering: Sinful Colors Last Chance and Agaci

I recently got Sinful Colors Agaci in a package from a wonderful reader - thanks Kim!! - and I just knew it would be a great layering polish. I thought at first I might try it over black, but I kept looking at it and so I decided to try it over a green jelly. Enter Sinful Colors Last Chance. It's a nice deep forest green jelly - not so dark you can't tell it's green, for those of you that might worry about that! I got good coverage in three coats but I can still see the telltale squishy light tips, which is always an obvious sign of a jelly finish to me. SO shiny and the perfect dark green.
After that, I added two layers of Agaci. Now, this is just a stunning combination in person, but although it looks pretty in my photos, I don't think they do it justice. I'm going to have to play some more with Agaci to see what other colors it would look good layered over! Agaci has a smoky, clear base and is loaded with tiny pieces of glitter that are multi-chromatic. I see sparks of gold, green, aqua, blue and sometimes pink. It totally depends which way the light hits it, you see such a rainbow!

I wonder what this might look like over blue, or red even? This was really a Christmassy looking layering when I got done with it, so green was definitely a winner.

Sinful Colors Slate

This is the second of two recent releases from Sinful Colors, Slate. This is a soft grey jelly-creme that goes on alarmingly thin in the first coat, but builds up nicely after three coats. It's so pretty - it has that same shimmer that is in Winterberry, looks silvery in low light and then when you get in bright sunlight, it sparkles blue and pink. Very cool!

My pinkie is almost healed. I'm glad for that, but my nails are growing out slow this time!
Anyway, I absolutely love shades of grey, so I have a hard time resisting them. This one is a bit different because of that shimmer than others I have in my collection. Do you know, my first lemming as a polish blogger (seems like forever ago that I started doing this!) was China Glaze Recycle? True facts!

Sinful Colors Winterberry

This polish was a surprise gift from my sweet girlfriend Kris, after she heard me swooning over her swatches on Twitter. We are Sinful Colors fangirls together - now, Friday she's promised to show us a video of her Sinful Colors collection, so if you're interested, be sure to check out her lovely blog!
Winterberry is a lovely plum shade that leans a bit red - I always do like red leaning purples, they're such a pretty shade - and it has a fine microshimmer that in the shade looks like silver, but in the sun it comes alive, glinting blue and pink! Very, very pretty. Slightly squishy, almost jelly but covers nicely with three thin coats or two thicker coats.
These shots are both in the shade, natural light. 

Love this so much! This is one of two new Sinful Colors shades, I have Slate to show you this week as well. Thank you Kris!

Glitterbomb

I was working in the lab, late one night...nah, just kidding. Getting into the spirit of the season early. I was up super late one night, browsing through my dashboard and I came across this awesomesauce post by Marisa. I thought, I don't have all of those but I have similar stuff, surely I can pull this off! Seven layers later, I had something different, but I still love it.
Okay, I used Taunting Teal by Sonia Kashuk as my base. I know I've got a deep navy somewhere but I couldn't think of one, so I picked this off of my desk and thought it might be similar enough to achieve the results.
My layering went like this: Sinful Colors Green Ocean, Island Girl Mahalo Dream, Nubar 2010, NYX Girls Aqua Glitter, Pure Ice Busted, and Sinful Colors All About You. Whew. The flakie/glitter iridescence going on here is amazing - it flashes so many colors and it just glows. Mermaid scales! You'd think seven layers would dry slowly, right? Nah, it went pretty quickly since I used thin layers. I was pretty shocked myself. I think the next time I try this I'll be more careful in my placement, and maybe go for more of a gradient effect.
On to the photos. I think this looks a lot better in person, in my opinion, but hopefully you'll get the idea!

Really, it doesn't feel as thick as it looks here, especially my pinkie finger. Also, this is surprisingly smooth - the mylar opalescent flakies in Mahalo Dream can be sticky, but smooth out well with one layer of top coat.
I wish I could capture how much more magical this looks. If you decide to try this, please let me know, I'd like to see!

Focus On Duochrome: Sinful Colors Let Me Go

Sinful Colors has several polishes that seem to be only good for layering. A prime example of this is Let Me Go - I bought three of these thin polishes, and nothing seemed to get them to opacity. But they flash some amazing colors in the bottles! Let Me Go looks gold, purple and blue in the bottle.
I layered this over Sinful Color Verbena, and wow. What a stunning color! The blue flash turns into a green shimmer. The purple is kind of absorbed by Verbena, but you can see the gold shot through, I think, in these photos. One layer of Verbena, one layer of Let Me Go here.

The other two polishes that I have that are duochromes and great for layering are Bali Mist and You Just Wait. If you have these, and don't know what to do with them - give layering a whirl, you'll be pleasantly surprised!

Sinful Colors Amethyst

This is a super quickie post, requested especially by Gianna of Nouveau Cheap. Speaking of which, if for some reason any of my readers don't follow her blog - I was just interviewed by Gianna, the post went up last night!
Back to the subject at hand - upon asking around, no one seems to have ever seen Amethyst anywhere before the Go Plaid display came out, so apparently this is a brand new release from Sinful Colors! I love it when they release new shades. This is a perfect core shade for me - I don't have a mid-toned purple in my collection, so I'm glad I snagged this.
I definitely didn't do this justice, but I wanted to get this swatched and posted quickly, so my apologies if it's a little sloppy. I only needed two coats - application was perfect. The finish for Amethyst was definitely creme, so if you like that better than the jelly cremes we've seen recently, you're in luck. It's super shiny without top coat though.

You may or may not realize this, but it's supremely hard to photograph purples correctly. This is the closest I came to correct color in all of my shots, but Amethyst is both deeper and less blue than it appears here. It's not a dark purple, but it is darker than my photo shows. Have any of you picked this up yet? Have you spotted the Go Plaid display?

Nail Art: Blood Drippings

This is sort of a fail, but I'm going to go ahead and post this anyway! I have been wanting to try doing my own "dripping nails" nail art forever, but you guys know that I'm ... exceptionally untalented when it comes to nail art. I can't even stamp!
So I painted my nails a basic black - Sinful Colors Black On Black. I used China Glaze Hey Sailor for the drippings.
If you try this, don't be like me: wait until your nails and drippings are completely dry before you apply top coat! I didn't, and I definitely got some smearings.

I would DEFINITELY try this again. It's been requested that the next time, I do a tutorial, so I'll give it a whirl! I don't think it's horrible for a first attempt. What do you think, have you tried these and mastered them? What colors did you use? This would be cute with a pastel theme too.
And, I'm done spamming you for the night. True Blood is on in one hour here!

New Sinful Colors Display: Go Plaid

Okay, so this popped up at my Walgreen's this weekend:

Four stripers and four polishes: Amethyst, Courtney Orange, Envy and Ruby Ruby - in order from left to right in my photo. The only one I've never seen before is Amethyst, which is a mid-toned purple - can anyone confirm if it's new or is it a repromote? It's definitely not in the Sinful Colors core display.
Envy, the green that I fell in love with from the Beverly Hills display, has made a reappearance here, so if you didn't snag it before, you will hopefully be able to pick it up again.
However, I want to tell y'all something weird: there are probably four Walgreen's in my area. In one of them, this display had all of the green polishes labeled as Ciao, Bella! - which is, of course, the name of a sparkly deep blue Sinful Colors polish. I was quite confused by that!

Sinful Colors Envy and China Glaze Cracked Medallion

Oh my GOSH. How much do I love Envy? SO much that I'm going to get a backup of it. Fingers crossed this hasn't sold out at my Walgreen's. Envy is from the Beverly Hills display, and it's a lighter green than Last Chance, which I think was introduced to the Sinful Colors core line this spring. It's got the jelly creme formula, and it's a mid toned forest green. Two coats of perfection here.
I thought it might look good with China Glaze Cracked Medallion, which I'm calling a coppery gold crackle. I was right - what a great combo.

Ahhh, so much love. I've still got to find something I want to pair with Latticed Lilac. I think these new metallic crackles are so awesome! Okay, I'm sure you're all breathing a sigh of relief - that's all of the two SC collections, Adventure Island and Beverly Hills, that I've got to show you.

Sinful Colors Open Seas

Sinful Colors Open Seas, from the Adventure Island display, is supposed to be an exact dupe for OPI Mermaid's Tears. I don't have that to do a comparison, but I'll tell you what - Open Seas is awesome. Like all of the other polishes I've swatched from AI, it has a jelly creme formula. Completely opaque at two coats!
I'm repeating myself here a lot, but I'll say this phrase again, this is a murky, dusky shade of mint green - it has just the slightest hint of yellow to it.

Yummeh. I love it!

Sinful Colors Oh La La

This is going to be a super quickie post. Oh La La is from the new Sinful Colors display, Beverly Hills. I'd like to call this a coral, but I think it leans just a bit too orange for that - maybe it's best described as a mid toned peachy orange. That sounds indecisive, right? Regardless, it's a lovely color, and application was smooth - two coats, a jelly creme.

I didn't do any layering with this, but I think it would look good with a nice layer of flakies over it, don't you? This is a really pretty color that I'm sure would be a crowd pleaser - it's not a bright screaming orange.

Sinful Colors Beverly Hills and Pure Ice Busted

Today's Sinful Colors is another namesake of the new collection, Beverly Hills. This is a pastel purple with quite a bit of red in it - I don't have anything like this, and I have a lot of lilac and pastel purples!
Again we have what I'm coming to see as Sinful Colors' signature formula, the jelly creme. Squishy and shiny, but well pigmented. The Beverly Hills collection comes with these little rings around the neck of the bottle, with a little flower. Kind of cute, but nothing I'd wear.
Now, I wanted to do some layering with this, so I pulled out Pure Ice Busted, which is a great layering polish. I'd only ever worn Busted over a black, so I was curious how it would look over a lilac. It's awesome! This is a super sheer purple with metallic shimmer packed in the bottle. I tried so hard to capture the pink shimmer on the nails, but you may have to click to enlarge the photos to see it.

I'll have to try this over some other colors! It's awesome. Do you have Busted? What have you layered it over besides black?

Pink Wednesday: Sinful Colors Star Fish

I'm not usually overly fond of soft pinks. But this one is a bit different - Sinful Colors Star Fish is a dusty, murky pale pink. It's got a touch of purple in it, I think. Application was great, two coats of jelly creme goodness. This one is another from the Adventure Island collection.

I'm trying to make myself wear more pinks, so Pink Wednesdays are helping! Are you a part of Pink Wednesday?

Sinful Colors Adventure Island

This polish is the namesake of the collection. This is what I'd call a creme jelly. It has the squishiness of a jelly and the opacity of a creme. Adventure Island is green, but whoa does it have a high amount of yellow in it! I love it, but then I've always loved the uglyawesome colors, particularly unusual shades of green.
This was two coats, and for a creme, it applied very well.

It definitely dries just a tad darker than the bottle shade, so be aware of that. What a great murky, grungy green!

Focus On Glitter: Sinful Colors Frenzy

Brace yourselves. Tonight's glitter is only $1.99 at your local Walgreen's or Rite Aid. It's not limited edition, it's not hard to find in brick and mortar stores, and it's dirt cheap. Plus, it's pretty to look at.
Frenzy has a clear base and is packed with reddish purple and blue glitter. I used three coats here. My camera just DID not want to focus on this, it was so blingtastic. Sinful Colors came out with a bunch of glitters that are still available in the core collection - I love all of them! I think I have them all now. If you don't want to wear these as a full on mani, you can do a glitter accent nail with a regular manicure.

Of the two, I think the second photo is just a shade more accurate. You can see the light reflecting off of the glitter in my macro! Do you have any of the awesome Sinful Colors glitters?

Sinful Colors Verbena

Today, another color from the Adventure Island set - Verbena. Verbena is not in the Sinful Colors permanent display, so I hope to go ahead and snag another bottle. This is another purple I've fallen for, hard core. It's a lovely mid toned purple creme, not quite pastel and definitely not a deep purple. Again, hard to capture the color correctly, but my photo today is pretty close. I used two coats for this manicure, and it's making me like cremes again. I'd dealt with so many chalky and hard to apply cremes that my love for them had diminished.

This is in full sunlight, and it's just a tad deeper purple in "real life" as opposed to this photo.

Sinful Colors Seaweed

Seaweed is from the Sinful Colors Adventure Island collection, which is dupe-y to OPI's summer offering, Pirates of the Caribbean. There were a lot of colors that I wanted from OPI but I hadn't picked any up yet - ULTA is a bit of a hike for me, and OPI is a tad pricey when you pay full retail for it. When Adventure Island came out, I bought all but two of them. Seaweed is apparently a dupe for Stranger Tides!
Totally in love with this little $2 bottle of polish, and I for one am glad for a cheaper alternative. It had a great application - two very smooth creamy coats to perfection.
I thought it might be interesting with some flakies - so I pulled out Hidden Treasure and went to layering. Of course, I had to add matte top coat, so China Glaze Matte Magic was slapped on top of that. It's like subtle tapestry and I LOVE this. Seaweed is a greyed out grungy green creme.

I have a bunch more of this collection to show you, next up will be the purple - Verbena, which is a repromote. What do you think of this with the flakies?? Too subtle, or just right?