Essie - No More Film

This color really changes depending on the lighting. While coming across as black or navy indoors, bright sunlight brings out deep violet tones. Very unique and pretty. The formula is excellent, can probably get away with one coat if you are careful. 

Zoya - Faye

Faye is from Zoya's recent Sunshine collection, a series of 6 polishes full of golden metallic micro glitter. Much like the Sparkle collection, this glitter is suspended in a sheer base. The colors need 3-4 thin coats for coverage, but they dry very fast and last super long so I have no complaints. The thin formula actually lends to the really unique finish of these colors. The micro glitter builds with each coat, so the final result is a nail completely covered in shiny particles.

Faye consists gold/bronze glitter in a purple base. My warm skin tone completely brings out the bronze in this polish, though hints of purple peak through depending on the lighting. I had a lot of trouble photographing this polish in my usual setting, but I was able to grab some random shots while out and about. I think I captured the range of this polish fairly well, though the sunlight photo does it absolutely no justice.

Orly - Galaxy Girl

Galaxy Girl is one of those polishes that are just impossible to capture accurately. It is a deep, murky eggplant color with metallic glass flecks that flash blue and pink depending on the angle. The finish on this is definitely unique. Metalic? Foil? Duochrome? Little of each? Here is how it looks at it's worst:

And then at certain angles this happens:

Wet and Wild - Wild Card / OPI - You Don't Know Jacques

Wild Card on it's own is pretty sheer, it's great for layering and I love it over You Don't Know Jacques. I was trying to recreate what Chanel's Paradoxal looks like in the bottle (which is a lot more shimmery than it looks on a nail) and I think this is close enough.

Paradoxal on index and ring finger, Wild Card over YDKJ on middle and pinky.  I will have a better photos of just Paradoxal up soon. 

Wet and Wild - Night Prowl

Bad photo, great polish. Night Prowl is a very deep eggplant purple loaded with fuchsia glitter. Even though it's dark, it rarely comes across as black. For 99 cents this is pretty much a must have for anyone who likes vampy colors. It did chip a lot after 48 hours (as you can see in my photo), but once again a proper base coat would probably help out with that. Definitely needs a nice top coat to even out the finish. 

Not really the greatest photo, but it shows the color in artificial light pretty accurately. Sorry I wasn't able to photograph this in the sun, maybe next time! 

Milani Liquid Metal for Summer (?)

Polish friends, I did something today that is probably a huge no no. I tried on polish in a drugstore (without buying). You see, I am currently starting week 2 of a 2 month no buy and I could not stay away from these colors. I mean, I had to make sure they were not worth purchasing, ya know?

The display that inspired my devious behavior was Milani's new Liquid Metal for Summer Collection. I might be making that name up. My mind was too distracted by metallic micro glitter to get a proper photo of the display, and the name of this collection is completely cut off. I think I remember seeing Liquid Metal so I'm just going to go with that.

Here are my quick and messy skittle swatches. 

Pinky: Metal Gear (one coat) - a yellow/gold metallic. 

Ring: Melt Down (one coat, probably not color accurate) - red metallic 

Middle: Molten Rock - shimmery metallic teal

Index: Hot Metal - pink/purple jelly with pink and blue microglitter. This one is way more pink in person, but the microglitter gives it that bluish purple flash you see in the photo. 

Ok people. I inherited a very stumpy thumb from my father. I really wanted to keep it off the internet, but I used it to swatch an awesome color so I have no choice but to feature it in this next photo. I'm sorry. This is Melt With You - orange metallic with gold microglitter. This one only one coat, I'm sure it's better with two. I don't really own anything like it so I might have to go back and purchase. 

Molten Rock instantly reminded me of Zoya Charla. It's definitely in the same family, but the glitter is a lot finer so the finish is smooth and less glitzy. Charla also has a green duochrome effect. I really like them both, though part of me leans towards Molten Rock cause Charla is almost *too* sparkly for my fingers. They are different enough where owning both is extremely justifiable. Here is a quick side by side: 

OPI - DS Extravagance

OPI charges a premium for their DS line because of the "diamond dust" formula; this polish actually does look like there are crushed diamonds inside. I like it because even in low light all that hidden sparkle gives off an interesting textured look. Of course when the sun hits it, it is superb.

The formula is pretty great. This is two coats plus layer of Seche Vite. Unlike some sparkly polishes, this one is super easy to remove - anyone who has spent a substantial amount of time scrubbing glitter off their nails can appreciate that!

Direct sunlight: 

Indirect natural light:

Artificial light: 

Mixed light: 

OPI - Pamplona Purple

A perfect purple! Received lots of compliments on this one. Here are two sunlight photos (looks a lil more reddish indoors):

Color Club - Wild at Heart

This is a popular polish that gets a lot of love on blogs, and now I see why! The holo effect is absolutely stunning. It ranges from blue/pink/purple and everything in between. It was extremely hard to capture. I've been using my phone photos over my camera ones because for some reason my camera does not always capture colors correctly in macro mode. I figured a blurry shot that is more color accurate beats a crisp photo that misrepresents a polish. Now for the pic spam!

This first photo is a best case scenario kind of deal. The polish is super pretty but when the sun hits it a certain way it's practically magical (can you tell i'm in love?) 

These are darker than real life, but capture the holo pretty well: 

This one is the shade: 

And indoors/mixed light: 

Duri - Divas Only

This is a Zoya Adina dupe I found over at Vampy Varnish. Really interesting purple/green/sometimes pinkish duochrome. I grabbed this for $5 plus free shipping at duri.com, so it was quite a steal! They seem have a lot of other great colors, but I always hesitate to buy without seeing a swatch first.