Zoya True Collection

Tonight I have Zoya's spring 2012 collection, True, to show you guys! I think I like this as much as I liked Smoke and Mirrors from fall. Tomorrow I have the coordinating mini collection, Fleck Effect.
A quick word about the formula, because these are all uniformly great - I needed only two coats for each polish. That's a good consistency with six different polishes! Also, for the record, I don't use top coat unless otherwise stated in my swatches, so these are all glossy on their own.
Okay, let's get this going with Bevin. Do I have to tell you how much I love this? I knew I was going to love it from the first swatch I saw of it and my opinion hasn't changed. It's perfection. It's in the mint family, but darker, dustier and a tad more blue than many mints. Gorgeous. Perfect for spring, I think!

Cho is the first of two neutral shades in this collection. Cho is the warmer of the two, it's a tad more yellow and warm and it has a fine shimmer that's barely noticeable on the nail. You can see it if you click to enlarge my photos but it mostly serves to add depth to this polish. It's very pretty. I think this doesn't suit my skintone as much as the other neutral, though.

Farah is the other neutral, and it's darker, cooler and a tad more brown/grey than Cho. It doesn't have a subtle shimmer, either. This one is much more suited to my skintone, I think.

The last three of the spring collection are straight out shimmers, so I have two shots of each. This first shimmer is Lotus, and it's one of two purples in the True collection. This one is cooler, lighter, more blue toned and dusty than Tru. The shimmer is a metallic, electric purple. Gorgeous! Might want to click to enlarge these to see the shimmer better.

Next up is Skylar. When I first saw this, I thought the shimmer in it was straight silver, but it's not - it's silver, gold, pink, and turquoise. I tried to capture all the colors but nope, no such luck. The base color of Skylar is a gorgeous dusty slate blue.

The last color I have to show you is Tru, which is deeper and brighter than Lotus. It's also more red toned. The shimmer in Tru is metallic red and gold.

I am so in love with these! I don't guess I need to say that. The shimmers are awesome, Bevin is totally a me color. Farah is the perfect "nude" shade for me. I like Cho as well, but I think it'd be better suited on someone with a different skintone than me. What do you guys think of this collection?
As I mentioned, tomorrow I have a bunch of swatches of the Fleck Effect Collection!

Disclaimer: Product(s) in this post were provided in return for an honest review.

Nostalgic Nail Lacquer: Bizarre Teenage Love Triangle Collection

Good evening everyone! I have something fun to share with you guys tonight. Recently, Erin, of The Sugar Cube, launched her own Etsy shop where she is selling her line of nail lacquers, called Nostalgic Nail Lacquer. She sent me a couple of sets to show you guys!
The first trio I want to show you is the Bizarre Teenage Love Triangle collection, inspired by the eighties movie Pretty In Pink. *swoon* These are really cute pastel jellies - be still my heart! - with various sized glitters floating in them. They remind me of Sweet Tarts. I have not layered any of these, but these would be FANTASTIC layered.
I'll start with Duckie. Oh sweet Gods, a mint green jelly? Yes please! Duckie has three different shades of glitter. This is a darker mint, though - and quite a bit blue. So, an aqua mint? It's perfect. Because it's a jelly, it's a bit sheer, but I prefer it that way. I liked it with three layers but I could honestly have left it at two and been fine with it, I like it a bit sheer and squishy.

Click to enlarge these, please! The next one I'm showing you is Andie, which is a baby doll pink jelly with four shades of glitter. I used three coats here also. This shade of pink is pretty flattering on my skin tone, it's not too grey like some other baby pinks I've tried!

The last shade of this trio is Blane, and it's a squishy lilac jelly that maddeningly, reads strongly pink in photos. I assure you this REALLY IS purple.  No matter what light I took this in, it appeared more pink than purple! This was the most opaque of the three, but I still used three coats here.

Well, put directly below Andie, it definitely looks more purple. *whew* And I'm glad, because I dislike misrepresenting a color, but I'm sure you guys out there have read more than one nail blogger complaining about trying to get a purple to photograph correctly! They're stubborn little suckers.
This is the cutest collection, isn't it? I'm absolutely in love with it, they're JELLIES! They're PASTEL JELLIES WITH GLITTER! Squishy. I could squee all day over these. What do you guys think?

Disclaimer: Product(s) featured in this post were provided in return for an honest review.

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!

Nail Art: Polka Dot FAIL.

This is Orly Ancient Jade and NYC Lemon Cream - and I love the color scheme of this SOOO freaking much. But as you can see, I have by no means perfected my dotting skills. I'm working on it though. You can see some of my blobs, and then my dots are uneven - but this is such a cute idea for an Easter/spring mani! I definitely want to try again.

Too bad I am le suck at nail art. I have so many ideas. I did finally do my lace nails, I'll be posting those soon.

Orly Ancient Jade

Oh, Ancient Jade. I love you because I love ALL mint shades, and the fact that you're a tad different - more deep, more dusty than the others - but you gave me heap big troubles. Seriously. Almost as much trouble as your collection sister, Pure Porcelain. The formula was thicker than I'm used to from Orly, and it just refused to level out. This is three coats.

And - no, this doesn't give me lobster hands, but for some reason the best representation of the mint shade showed up as red fingered? I dunno why. In reality, it doesn't do that to me at all.

Anyone else having troubles with Pure Porcelain or Ancient Jade, in terms of application? LOVE the shades, maybe I should add a little thinner.