Orly Le Chateau and Shining Star

This is probably not my favorite layering combination - it looks really pretty, but I think I could put Orly's Shining Star over something to bring it out a bit better than Le Chateau.
I recently participated in a little Twitter party that Orly had for the holiday collection, and by answering a question correctly I won a prize. Le Chateau was one of the polishes I received - pretty cool huh?
Anyway, so Le Chateau is a deep, dark teal along the lines of OPI Here Today, Aragon Tomorrow or China Glaze Near Dark. So dark you almost can't tell what the base is unless you're in direct sunlight - so I've got a photo to show you with one coat, so you get an idea of what it's supposed to be.
It's nice and shiny and fully opaque at two coats, and really is a great base for layering.
Orly Shining Star is definitely a layering polish, with a very light base filled with mostly gold sparkle. There are warm and cool gold sparkle, as well as silver and green. It's really neat and I think would be best shown off over another shade, so I'll try it again. This is pretty, though.

What do you guys think of this one?

CQ Corduroy

Here is the other CQ I mentioned I picked up recently, CQ Corduroy. It's in the same color family as Slate, a teal green that is mostly green, but much lighter and very dusty. It's not as light as Finger Paints Vintage Velvet, and it's a bit more dusty. It's a squishy jelly creme with great coverage, two coats here.

I have been consistently impressed with this brand - I'm not a big fan of the bottle shape but the shades I have are all really cool!

CQ Slate

I recently picked up a few more CQ polishes that I'd been eyeing, and I am not disappointed! I've found these at Rite Aid, but I've been told some people have seen them at CVS, so it's worth a check. They're cheap, if I remember they're only $2.99. Slate is a deep teal green - it is mostly green, but definitely has a blue cast. It reminds me of a chalkboard, so the name makes sense. It's a jelly creme. Can I just tell you how much I love and adore this? I don't have anything like it in my collection. I wore this without swatching it last week, for about four days. I had no chips or tipwear - it lasted extraordinarily well! I think it would make a great layering base, but I haven't experimented with that yet.
Pigmentation was nice too, this is two coats. It's squishy and glossy on its own - but you might want to double up on your base coat, I neglected that and ended up with hulk fingers the first time around.

Mmmm. Isn't that great? I have Corduroy to show you this week too, which is in the same color family but lighter.

Finger Paints Vintage Velvet

Slowly but surely making my way through these fall picks! But then again, I still haven't spotted any of the drugstore collections. I'll be in trouble when I do! So many I want.
Vintage Velvet, from the Finger Paints fall collection, is a soft, dusty teal/turquoise shade. I have a lot of darker teals, I think this is one of the lighter ones I own, and I like the dusty quality. This is another amazing one coater!
You know, I had a favorite combination of flakies I tried a while back - I put SH Hidden Treasure over OPI Suzi Says Feng Shui. I absolutely adored it.  Soooo, I got to thinking I should try out the combo with Vintage Velvet. This time I used Nubar 2010. I've been alternating my use of these two bottles, since they're so similar.
I think I like this at least as much as I liked it over Suzi Says Feng Shui! Flakies look fantastic over Vintage Velvet. And naturally, I mattified it - China Glaze Matte Magic.
Get ready to drool.

Isn't that cool? I love it so much. Seriously, what a great color on its own - but topped with flakies it's divine. I'm so happy with these Finger Paints, I need to go back and make sure I don't need any more of the fall collection - the application has been divine and I love the colors!

Zoya Cynthia

Yay, it's September! We're running right into fall. Thank goodness!
Since I wasn't sure which of the Zoya polishes I wanted to swatch next, I decided to go with Nathalie's request and swatch Cynthia, from the Smoke half of the fall collection. I think that Nat's taste in polish and mine are very similar - except she's much more comfortable with red polish than I am!
So, Zoya describes this as a smoky blackened peacock teal with soft warm undertones. I don't think I could have come up with that on my own! I'm glad I referred back to them - because that's about perfect. Very dark and sexy, is what I'd have to add to this. I only need two coats to get this to perfect opacity. As a matter of fact, I could almost have left it at one coat, but I had a few spots I needed to cover!

Isn't that a dark beauty? You can still tell this is teal in low light, as you can see - in sunlight the color brightens up more.

NYX Girls Robotic

I'd been wanting to replace my China Glaze Blk-Bila-Bong for a while now, because I really liked it. So imagine my surprise when I got around to swatching this NYX Girls Robotic, and it looks like a dead on dupe! What a bonus. I don't have the two to compare, but I'm going to reference you to Helen's swatch of the China Glaze, so you can know what that looks like as well.
Robotic is a black jelly base loaded with teal metallic shimmer. It's an awesome vampy polish! I had to use three coats to get it to this level of opacity, but I didn't mind that - I actually anticipated it, a lot of times these types of dark jellies with shimmer require more than two coats.

Ahhh it just glows! This will probably not appeal to those of you who don't like dark polishes, but I LOVE polishes like this and I just crave them. They were my first loves, before I branched out into bright colors.

BB Couture Eye Candy: GUYS!

Phew. I haven't done swatches for a review in - well, forever! This will be my first collection swatch post on Nightly Nails.
BB Couture recently came out with a collection of polishes called Eye Candy, and as with the Infamous Lovers collection, it comes in two sets - ladies and guys. Today I have for you the guys! You can snag these at Overall Beauty.
I'll show individual shades off, and then I'll tell you my overall thoughts.

First up I've got Rustic Romance. This is the one Kim said she didn't like - but I knew I'd love it. The color description they've got is honey orange. I can see this, but I call it a dirty, grungy toned down orange. LOVE. Very unusual, and I don't have a single orange like this. This photo was in direct sunlight. I used two coats here and there is very subtle shimmer - you wouldn't notice it on the nail but when I was going through photos, my shade shots showed it. Unfortunately they weren't the correct color, so I chose the full sunlight.

Dirty Blond. Can I just say the name of this is perfect for this polish? Tan creme is the shade description, and I'd say that's dead on. This was the only one I wasn't sure I'd like, but I do - I love a good neutral shade and this is different from the ones I have. Slightly yellowy tan.

Heavenly Hunk. This is a light blue creme with BB Couture's famous fine silver and black glitter. I LOVE this. It's sort of like last Christmas' Blue Christmas, but much paler. Gorgeous. Two coats here.

Silver Fox. Shimmery silver gray, says the description - dead on. This is a silver grey creme with fine, lighter silver shimmer. I had to use three coats. Go slow with this and you won't see many brush strokes, although it has the potential. I love it!

This is my second favorite of this collection - Sexy Centerfold. Why, yes, you are sexy, sir! Muted light green creme with that silver and grey fine glitter. NOT mint at all. This was two coats. See, BB Couture has the most AMAZING greens ever and this is no exception.

BAM. Hellooooo, Playboy. You sexy beast. Oh em GEE is this freaking gorgeous or what? Hands down my favorite from the whole collection. This is a deep blue teal base with silvery blue and pinky purple fine glitter. Wow, that's a heck of a description. The glitter looks mainly silver on the nail, as you can see. Two coats here. My most color accurate photos were, again, in direct sunlight. 

Overall, what an interesting collection! I love all of these. Even Dirty Blond, I think it's an interesting shade for a nude. These are all unusual shades, nothing in my collection compares to them. The formula is standard across the board, very smooth and well pigmented. I had to be a bit careful with Silver Fox, as I mentioned, because it could have been prone to brush strokes, so I used thinner coats and three instead of two. I've always loved the BB Couture formula. 

These polishes are more pricey than a drugstore polish, but they do include BB Couture's formula of a base and top coat all in one bottle. I would, however, highly recommend doing a base coat under both Playboy and Sexy Centerfold, since they both left a bit of stain when I was swatching them. 

Of all of them, if I could only pick out one for you, I'd say you have to get Playboy. 

So what do you all think of these? Are you as in love with them as I am?

Disclosure: These were sent to me for review by the retailer in return for an honest review. 

H&M Moody Model

Well, that was an unexpected break. I moved, and the internet service wasn't set up to be ready to go. (Mind you, they promised it would be!)

I DESPISE that.

Anyway, back to your regularly scheduled program. Tonight I've got an awesome jelly creme teal to show you - H&M's Moody Model. Beware, you might want to use a couple of base coats for protection, this stained like a BITCH the first time I wore it. Using a couple of coats of base coat helped though.

Hot, right? Looks a little darker when not in direct sunlight, but boy, that's just luscious. I wonder if using a ridge filler would help as an alternative to regular base coat with the staining?

Coming up tomorrow is my first franken for this blog. I LOVE to franken jellies of unusual colors, and I just made a kick ass grey I'm in love with.

And this is weird. I went to add the label for this post, and it wouldn't let me use the ampersand symbol - but it let me use the plus symbol? *scratches head* Oh well, I assume folks will get the idea.