LA Girl Allure

Today we got lots of sun and semi-warm temperatures in Texas! So I decided to pull out a nice summer color for a matching manicure and pedicure. Fortunately, I will be sparing you the pedicure pictures, because I dont like pictures of feet. I own a lot of pink polishes, but this one is different. LA Girl Allure is a hot pink with beautiful golden shimmer running through it. Looks like its glowing in the bottle! I couldnt get a good picture of it of the bottle, but you can see the shimmer on the nails.

 Outdoors (above)

Indoors

This is two coats + Poshe topcoat. It dries matte like a neon, but thats nothing that a topcoat cant handle. 

Random Polishes in a Pretty Box!

These polishes have no name, really no brand but you know what? I'm a sucker for cute packaging! Plus, I immediately liked the peach, yellow and purple so I took it home with me. Lets see if the polishes were worth it. 


When I got home, I thought I had dupes for the purple and blue already in my collection. See:

I dont know if you can tell in this picture, but the new shades are slightly lighter than the Sally Hansen Blue Me Away and Zoya Malia.


So we have some winners in the bunch and some losers. First off, the brushes in these polishes are definelty LOSERS! They were wild and bushy and when I went back over my polish, it kept taking it off in spots. I hate that about these otherwise good colors. Drying time was fast, so complaints on that one. Lets see the winners!

*The Good*

  Peach

Dark pink

Light Pink

*The Not So Good*

Blue: This would have been a good polish except for the fine black particles dispersed through this polish. No, I don't think it was intentional.

Light purple: What is with the streaking? Do you see that discoloration? 

*The Bad & The Ugly*

Should I even show you this polish? Its that terrible. But on my behalf, those brushes were wide and out of control. I could not stop this from pooling around my cuticles and getting onto my skin. So here it is folks, the worst yellow swatch you've ever seen. 

 

Yellow: *Cringes* This hurts my eyes. I love the color, but the brush really messed it up for me. I'm thinking about using another brush or emptying this into another bottle just because I want to try and get some use out of it.

So there, you have it. What happens when you try nail polishes from God knows where. At least some of them are salvageable.

Sally Hansen Deep Purple + Santee Purple Sparkle

I actually have had SH Deep Purple for a while and cant believe I ever debated on getting it. "No, you have too many purple polishes, you can pass on this one." Thats what I said to myself everytime I saw it in the store. Then finally, I broke down and got it. This past weekend, I picked up the Santee polish for a dollar and it gave me the perfect reason to dig SH Deep Purple out! I think I picked up the Santee polish because in the store it reminded me of OPI Mad as a Hatter. Yeah, thats a long shot because when I got home, I realized it was glitter in clear base and was way less dense that MAAH. Oh well, its a win/win situation anyway.

 
Did you see the blue shimmer in Deep purple? Amazing, I tell ya.

Polish Bloggers Network: Lacquer Link Love 2/5/10

Polishing the Nails showcases 3 new nail polishes in the cutest little bottles, in shades that are perfect for Spring.

Naive Nails shows off her Mannequin Hands using OPI's gorgeous shade Dulce de Leche. Trust me, these are not your typical mannequin hands!

Check out swatches of OPI Hong Kong's Meet Me On A Star Ferry from polishSWATCHES and dare to fall in love with this shade.

Travels with Euridice gives us a wonderful BB Couture comparison between Cap Haitian and OPI's Do You Lilac it. I think that she may have found a dupe ladies, what do you think?!

Polish Freak is glad she changed her mind and went back to grab Essie's Lilacism and now she's sharing it with the world! Beautiful color.

Cucumpear gives a go at a Gradient Glitter Mannicure and it leaves me thinking of the cosmic and stars. You definitely have to check out this glittery manicure that will remind of the twinkling stars.

Mannicure Mammas has found a new love and it just so happens to be OPI's Shim-Merry Chic. Have you seen it?

and now it's time for the Network Giveaways announcement...

Look who's having a celebration party!!! Join in on all the fun by participating in 52 Flavors Blogaversary Giveaway.

Tuli's Nails is hosting a romantic Valentine's Day Giveaway on her site and if you haven't had the chance to enter you really must do so. The goodies are extra sweet without the calories.

Can you name a dupe for this polish?! If so, leave your answer for your chance to win your choice of color from OPI's Hong Kong collection.

and Polish Freak is having another China Glaze Up & Away giveaway in lieu of her reaching 200 followers.

Taupe Polish: Hit or Miss?

It doesnt matter if youre a polish addict, style watcher, trendsetter or whatever you proclaim yourself to be, you've probably seen this (or hopeful dupes) popping up on nails everywhere:

Now when I first saw this polish, I said to myself, "Eh, looks like dirt." Seriously. Taupe is not the first color family I run to when shopping for nail polish. However, despite my reservations for this color, its been flying off the shelves, seen on red carpets and runways and is now trickling down to the masses.

For what its worth, I decided to try the taupe trend. No, I didnt pick up this Chanel polish, so sorry to disappoint you if you were looking for yet another swatch of that color. I picked up its cheap, older sister that was obviously before her time, Maybelline Touch of Taupe. I found this at Dollar Tree! Obviously, I was not about to plunk down the cash for a trend I was just wanting to try for kicks.

 This picture (above) is indoors + flash. It looks really light here.

I think this is a more color accurate representation of how it really looks in most indoor lighting situations.

So what do I think about taupe polishes after trying one? I think its a huge MISS! I don't like this trend at all because I really hate this color against my skin tone. This chica is brown enough, I don't need brown nails! Now if this is your thing, by all means, feel free to taupe it up! But me? I wont be following this trend.

The Color Workshop "Orange Shimmer"

I've never heard of The Color Workshop until I got this from a coworker at my old job. I tried to google "The Color Workshop nail polish" and really didn't get much from it. I see that they sell makeup as well and you could find it on Ebay or Walmart.com, but that's all I got. This polish had no label. So I just decided to call it Orange Shimmer because that's what it looks like to me.

Indoors

Looks a little red here, but I promise its orange.

Outdoors

This was three coats + Zoya Armor. It really is a nice little polish, but sorry I cant even tell you where to get it!

Savvy Totally Teal

 Bottle Picture-Isn't it pretty?

I have a confession to make. I don't own a teal polish, this is my first one! I cant believe that I don't have this color in my collection, so glad I'm I picked this up at Sally's Beauty Supply. They had a dollar off coupon on the display, so it was 2.99 with my Beauty Club card (yay for savings!).

How it looks most of the time, indoors (above)

A little brighter, with flash

In addition to being my first teal,this was also my first Savvy polish and I must say I do like it. The polish wasn't too thick or thin, didn't pool around my cuticles and dried fast. Really, that's all I ask of my polish. I think I will be trying more of Savvy polishes in the future. They had some interesting colors, you can check those shades out here . Unfortunately, this is another polish that I've only seen at Sally's. If you know of anywhere else to get, let me know! Other than that, are you liking Totally Teal? Any other teal recommendations you have for me? I can tell this is a color I can get into!