Tag Archives: dupe

My Fall 2014 Limited Edition Polishes

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I just sort of realized that I’ve picked up a few limited edition nail polishes recently that I haven’t shared on here, so… Shame on me.  These are all drugstore polishes that cost about $2 each.  Really, I love a good polish, but I’m no snob.

I haven’t gotten around to wearing all of these on my nails yet, but if I wait until that day comes, these will be long gone.  The swatches that are next to the bottles are all two coats.

Let’s start with the Wet n Wild Megalast Matte collection.  There are 6 polishes in this collection, but I just grabbed the two that spoke to me the most.

This is Careful, It’s Vine-tage:

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This is a beautiful dusty purple in the bottle, but it does dry a good bit darker.  My swatch looks REALLY dark, but when it’s on the nail, it’s still clear that it’s purple, not black.

This is Echo Dark:

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This is a beautiful deep blue in the bottle, but on the swatch it really does look almost black.  The formula is a jelly, which seems weird for a polish with a matte finish.  I’m a little disappointed that it dries so dark.  I haven’t done a full mani of this yet, but I’m pretty sure that it will just look black once I have it on.  I wonder if I could make a jelly sandwich with this…  If I try that, I’ll let you know.

Next I have two polishes from the NYC Fashion Queen collection.  This collection of six polishes has been around for a few months, and I didn’t think I wanted any of the polishes…. Until I got a $1 off coupon.  That prompted me to pick up two.

Here’s Royal Chic:

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I highly suspect that this is a dupe for Essie – Little Brown Dress, but I don’t know for sure.  This looks like Hershey’s Syrup when it’s wet.  It’s such a rich chocolate brown!  It’s dark, but it is definitely brown, not black.  I used this as a base for my recent Golden Leafy Nails. I’m a little bit in love with this polish right now.

I also have Rule the City:

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This is a gunmetal grey micro-glitter polish with slightly larger red hex glitter.  The red glitter tends to stick to the sides of the bottle, so on the nail it looks like it has less glitter than it does in the bottle.  The finish is a little bit textured.  I have yet to wear this, but I’ll bet it would look super pretty with a shiny top coat…. It might even look awesome with a matte top coat.

Last I have Sinful Colors  – Prosecco.

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This is from the Sinful Shine line of polishes and the collection is called Shining Bright Off the Runway.  There are 8 polishes in the collection.  The display said, “5x more glossy that patent leather shoes!”  Who the heck comes up with stuff like that?  What kind of gloss-o-meter is used to determine that sort of thing?  Anyway…

After I bought this polish, I found out that it’s kind of the big deal color from this collection.  People out there are searching high and low to find it.  I found mine at Rite Aid, by the way.

I have actually worn this polish, but I was a dork and deleted, so you’ll have to check it out on my instagram.  I think I had to apply three coats to get good coverage.  It really is super shiny!  Because it’s sheer, you can sort of slop it on and it will still look good.  I actually didn’t love the color at first, but it really grew on me!  It’s a perfect color to wear when you need to look a little more professional for work or an event or whatever.

Okay, so that’s the end of that!

I’m looking for a little feedback from you.  Would you rather see a series of posts that are color themed (my favorite reds, my favorite pinks,…) or would you rather see posts that are brand themed (my favorite Sinful Colors, my favorite Wet n Wild,…)?  Or do you mostly just care about nail art?  Any feedback is appreciated!  Thanks for reading!

October Favorites

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So I’ve been a bad blogger recently.  I’ve been working extra hours at my job, plus this is the busiest time of year for my Pampered Chef business.  Okay, those are my excuses.  So…. October favorites.  Here they are:

IMG_3875Now, four out of the five of these polishes I bought in Canada, so I think they are going to be next to impossible to find for my fellow U.S. Americans. Side note: Do you know the sales taxes in Canada (or at least in Ontario) are like, 13%?  Ugh, it’s painful!  It was like a dagger through the heart whenever I went to pay for anything.  If I was Canadian, I would totally come to the U.S. to shop for stuff…. Except for these nail polishes.

Let’s start from the left.

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This is Essence Effect – Glitz & Glam.  Here I have it swatched over black.  It’s a clear base with small and medium size pink hex glitter with a mint green shimmer running through it.  When it’s worn over a dense pink glitter polish, the green shimmer sort of gives a duo-chrome effect.  This also looks cool over a mint green polish.  I got this in Canada, but I think you might be able to find these at Ulta.  Not sure.

Next we have…

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Joe Fresh – Twilight.  This is a flaky polish, but the base is a sheer black instead of your typical clear.  I think it took 3 or 4 coats to get the desired effect, but it was so worth it!  When I had this on, I could not stop looking at my nails!

And…

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Joe Fresh – Bumbleberry.  I don’t think that’s an actual type of berry…. Unless is some sort of exclusively Canadian berry.  Anyway, this picture does not do this polish justice.  I messed around with my lighting, and I just couldn’t capture the true color.  This polish is much more purple in real life.  It’s just a really beautiful berry color.  It seems like it should be a really common color, but I didn’t have anything really close already in my collection.  It’s on my toes now.  It’s just a perfect girly fall color.

Next we have…

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Joe Fresh  – Sour Citron.  This is an almost neon color that straddles the yellow/green fence.  It’s the perfect color to top with a glow-in-the-dark topper for all of your Halloween activities.  The formula is really great on this, too.  Usually colors like this are super sheer, but I think this only took 2-3 coats to get the color you see in the bottle.

Finally we have…

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Fresh Paint – Sugar Crush.  Ever since I got this polish back in the summer I have been eagerly anticipating October, just so I could wear it over black.  It’s just amazing.  I could go on and on, but I’ll spare you.  By the way, as far as I can tell, this is a perfect dupe for Essie – Shine of the Times.

I promise that I won’t keep you waiting forever for my next post!  I know all of you have nothing better to do than to keep refreshing your screen on my website to see if I put up a new post.  (That’s some tongue-in-cheek, there.)  Thanks for reading and commenting!

Mannequin Hands… And Then I Added Stuff.

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I while back, I went on a quest to find my perfect “mannequin hands” polish.  By that I mean a polish that was as close to a perfect match to my skin as I could find.  I had heard that Deborah Lippmann had a polish called Naked that was a good match for a lot of people who are fair like me, so I checked it out at Sephora.  Yep, it’s a great nude shade that was a really close match to my skin, but you know what?  Deborah Lippmann polishes cost $20 and I absolutely refuse to spend $20 on a single polish.  Nope, I’m never going to do it.  I can’t imagine any possible scenario in which I would spend $20 on a single polish.  If I’m spending $20 on polish, you’d better believe that I’m going to be getting like, 10 bottles for that price.  Okay, let me get back on track…

So, this one time I was at Kmart and I spotted a color that I had never noticed before from NCY from the In A New York Minute line called Fashion Safari.  I did that thing that you’re not supposed to do (even though everyone does it) and opened up the bottle in the store.  I had polish on my nails already, so I just brushed a tiny bit of the polish onto the back of my hand and it blended right in!  best of all, it cost under $2!  I feel bad for the suckers who buy Deborah Lippmann Naked when there’s NYC Fashion Safari in the world.  Anyway, here it is with a matte top coat:

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Fun, right?  My hand really almost looks like a mannequin’s, right?  By the way, this is the color I used for the sand colored nails in my Beach Inspired Nail Art. In that tutorial, I actually painted my sister’s nails and her skin is definitely a shade or two darker than mine.  It’s a little hard to tell in the picture, but in person, you could definitely see that Fashion Safari was lighter than my sister’s skin.  I also used it in my Real Seashell Nails with a pearly color shifting polish over top.

Well, my mannequin hands fascinated me for about 24 hours, and then I decided that I needed to add something to them.  I opted for some of the chunky glitter that is Funky Fingers Pep Rally and I ended up with this look:

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I didn’t actually just brush the glitter onto my nails.  I used a little dotting tool to pick the individual pieces of glitter off the brush and placed them where I wanted them.  It’s a little time consuming, but not very hard.  I also opted to top them with Sech Vite, since it’s thick enough to smooth out this really chunky glitter. 

That’s it for today!  As always, thank you for liking, following, and sharing!  Come find me on instagram and facebook!

Five Below Haul

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I went into a Five Below store.  That’s a rarity, because well, I’m a solid 20 years older than their target demographic.   I had been in a Five Below a year or so ago, and I had a vague recollection of seeing nail polish there, so when my path crossed a Five Below a few weeks ago, I figured that it might be worth checking out. Was it ever!

Five Below is a chain of stores that specialize in trendy gadgets and accessories and whatnot  that appeal to the teen and tween crowd, so not surprisingly, the nail polish they carry is all very young and trendy.  They carry two lines of nail polish: Funky Fingers and Fresh Paint.  They were all $2 each or 3 for $5, which you could mix and match between the two lines.  I ended up with 6 polishes.  My little sis was kind enough to let me use her nails for swatching.  Here they are:

Fresh Paint: Guava

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This is a beautiful neon peach.  Although the middle and pinky fingers have a white base underneath, you don’t need it for it to be amazingly bright.  The formula is really great and it’s also a dupe for China Glaze Flip Flop Fantasy!  I had been itching for Flip Flop Fantasy for a few months, but I didn’t want to spend $7.  I actually went into a Sally Beauty Supply right after I picked this up and did a little comparison, and yep, they’re identical.

Fresh Paint: Sugar Crush

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This is an iridescent topper that pulls primarily orange, but also green, blue and yellow. It’s not really a glitter, but little flakes.  We tried it over Guava, white and black.  It looked great over Guava!  It sort of took Guava from just neon to classy neon.  It was not that amazing over white, but it was really fun over black!  I’m definitely going to be wearing it over black in the cooler months.

Funky Fingers: Glowstick

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This is a neon yellow that leans a little toward the green side of things with a subtle iridescent sheen.  Again, the middle and pinky fingers have a white base, which did make this polish a little brighter.

Funky Fingers: Pep Rally

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This is a really fun neon glitter with matte blue and pink hexes in different sizes, big green iridescent hexes, small metallic purple hexes, and small orange and purple bar glitter.  We swatched this glitter over Glowstick, white and black.  It really looked cool over all of those colors!  There are a few drawbacks with this polish.  The clear base is really thick and a little hard to work with.  I think I will end up using the makeup sponge method to apply this glitter.  Also, the glitters themselves were pretty thick, so it may take 2 or three layers of a thick top coat like Seche Vite to make the nails smooth.

Funky Fingers: Unicorn Farts

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This polish is all medium size metallic hex glitters in pretty much every color.  The glitter gives off light is a linear sort of way that gives the glitter the appearance of being curved, but it actually does lay flat on the nail.  The clear base is similar to that of Pep Rally, so I think I’m going to end up using the makeup sponge method with this one as well.  We tested it over white, black, nude, and green.  Actually, with the green I attempted a jelly sandwich, but it got a little thick and goopy   because of the thick clear base. This polish is just really fun and shiny and versatile, so I know I’ll get a lot of use out of it.

Funky Fingers: Sand & Stilettos

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This polish should be called The Most Sparkly Polish In The World.  these pictures just aren’t doing it justice.  This is a light purple -almost gray- holographic micro glitter.  In the picture, I believe we have 3 coats on bare nail on the first, two coats over white on the middle finger, and two coats over black on the ring finger.  The glitter is so dense, that it’s opaque in 3 coats, which is pretty amazing.  There are two kinds of holographic glitters: scattered and linear.  Scattered reflect all different colors all over the place.  Linear reflects a more defined rainbow so that you can actually see bands of color.  I really feel this polish is both scattered and linear.  You definitely get different colored sparkles all over the nail, but when sunlight hits the bottle of polish, I can see a rainbow, too.  I have this color on my toes now and I just feel like my toenails are covered in tiny diamonds.   Seriously, it’s the kind of polish that you just can’t stop staring at.

The polishes from this haul are so fun and I feel like they go together really well!  I think I could do a ton of different looks only using these 6 polishes.  If you follow me in instagram, you may have seen my current doticure using Guava and Sand & Stilettos.  They’re so fun together!

Thus concludeth my Five Below haul.  I highly recommend that you check out the polishes at Five Below, and if you do, please let me know what you think and what polishes you get!