Ulta Envy

Ulta Envy is a gorgeous emerald green shimmer. Seriously, it's bright and eye catching. But what puzzles me is how different it looks from the bottle - the bottle looks like a peacock green with a possible purple duochrome. The duochrome doesn't transfer to the nail at all, which I have had happen before, but this is not peacock green, it's most definitely emerald on your nails.
Pigmentation was good, I used three coats here for full opacity, and I am getting used to the stumpy brush. I really do wish they were a bit longer.

I tried to capture what this looked like in the bottle - if you enlarge it, you can see the hint of duochrome at the base of the bottle. No matter, it's such a gorgeous shade and I think it would make a great polish over the holidays also.

Ulta Devious and Kiko 237 (or, The Traveling Polish!)

A while ago, Allison of Alli McBally and I arranged a swap - she was still living in Switzerland with access to a lot of the European brands we US girls regularly drool over, and I was able to nab her some seasonal stuff that she couldn't get before they disappeared. I got a big box of some really AMAZING polishes. Thank you Alli! So awesome.
Anyway, a couple of days after I got my box, she found a polish rolling around in her car that she had meant to send me - so, instead of the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, we have the Traveling Polish. Kiko doesn't name their polishes that I can see, so it's actually number 237.
I picked up Ulta's Devious polish because it looks like the perfect polish for layering - it's a nice deep purple that's dark, but still very obviously purple. It does indeed make for a great layering base, and it fills a color hole in my stash. The only thing I'd complain about is the stumpy brush, which I have a picture of here for you, if you've never seen them. I wish the brushes were just a tad longer, it would make application a bit easier to control, less likelihood of a mess. I love the bottle shape and design, though. Not a big complaint, but something to bear in mind if you use them. The polish itself is a nice creme, well pigmented.

Sometimes purples can be a bit of a pain to capture on camera. That's probably pretty true to life though, maybe a tad less blue than it's leaning there.
Anyway, so I decided to use Devious as a base to layer Kiko 237 (The Traveling Polish!) over, and this was drool inducing. Seriously. 237 looks like a bright, shimmery sheer pink in the bottle, but put it on your nails over an existing base, like Devious, and it's almost impossible to describe.

Gold and pink shimmers, for sure, but there's a lot going on there, right? It's completely stunning! I could not love this any more than I do, but I'm going to try it over some other colors, too. Go ahead and click to enlarge these. *hands around bibs for drooling* I just LOVE to layer stuff!
Tomorrow we'll officially start off with the Focus On Purple series!

ULTA Bombshell

I had some extra birthday money a couple months ago and picked up some of the OPI Burlesque collection, as well as three ULTA polishes. Bombshell has been mentioned with great affection, so of course I snagged it. This is a raspberry, pink leaning, red jelly with holographic glitter. I may have to reswatch this at some point for better photos, but I'm going to be a dissenter - I don't like it. I know there's a lot of love for this polish, but I'm not feeling it. The shade of red is one I can wear, and I do love jellies - but it's prone for balding; see my pinky finger for an example. Also, the glitter is SUPER chunky, so I had to use a pile of top coat - I think I used three layers or four. It seems to suck the top coat dry. Also, I just wasn't falling head over heels for it on me. I dunno, I guess I just felt kind of "meh" when looking at it. Am I the only one?

What polishes do you not fall in love with, despite them being popular?