Tag Archives: fresh paint

March Favorites

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March.  For those of us in the eastern half of the US, it was one more month of winter weather when it should have been feeling like spring.  It was a heck of a lot better than February, though.  Am I right?

Anyway, onto what you are actually here for: my favorites from March.

IMG_4691Again March I participated in the Weekly Nail Challenge (#wnac2015) on instagram, and the theme for the month was holographic.  For that reason, a lot of my monthly favorites were holographic polishes.  Let’s start with the top left…

This is IMG_4587Nicole by OPI – Rock the Look from the Roughles collection.  This came out awhile ago on clearance… I’m thinking it was last spring or summer.  This was one that sat in my untried pile for months.  I haven’t been big into the textured polish thing, but I figured I should finally try it.  The longer I wore it, the more it grew on me!  It was just so soft looking and different from anything else I wear on a regular basis.  The feel of the textured polish took a little getting used to, but I really liked it!  I think I’ll be wearing this one again!

IMG_4633Next is Nicole by OPI – Party Bus.  I got this one on clearance for $149!  I mostly got it for the large flower shaped holographic glitters in it.  These are great to fish out and use for glitter placement manis.  Like most holographic things, it’s hard to catch the true beauty and sparkly-ness of these glitters. IMG_4642

The next two polishes become a monthly favorite when they are paired together.  Pictured is Revlon – Matte Pearl Glaze over NYC – Lexington Yellow.  I love yellow, but like most light-haired white girls, yellow doesn’t love me back.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve picked happy yellow clothing of the rack while shopping only to discover in the dressing room that it makes my complexion look sickly.  It’s so sad.

When I first put on Lexington Yellow, it really didn’t look that great with my skin tone, but then I added Matte Pearl Glaze, and it transformed it into this soft yellow with a pinkish glow that was actually wearable for me!  Plus, my nails reminded me of Belle from Beauty and the beast.

IMG_4592Next we have Orly – Mirrorball.  Here’s the story with this polish.  Back before Christmas, when this polish came out, I stared at it in the store.  I held it.  I caressed the bottle.  Then I practiced some self control and put it back on the shelf.  I had been regretting that decision ever since.  Then one day last month, I was down in York, PA and I stopped in the Sally’s there.  Lo and behold, they had two bottles of Mirrorball in their clearance bin!  I couldn’t believe my good fortune!  My only regret is that I only bought one bottle.

IMG_4603Mirrorball has a fairly sheer formula, so it actually works really well as a topper to other polishes.  Here it is layered over Wet n Wild -I Need a Refresh-Mint.  (By the way, the current version of I Need a Refresh-Mint is a much brighter blue than the version I own.  The older version is pretty much a dead on dupe for China Glaze – For Audrey.)  I can’t wait to layer Mirrorball over all sorts of neon colors this summer.

IMG_4646The next polish is just like camping… It’s in tents.  (In tents… Intense.  Get it?)  Polish Me Silly – Tealing No Lies is the most holo of the holo polishes that I own.  The linear rainbow is just so strong.  Someday I’ve got to order me some more Polish Me Silly polishes.   IMG_4647Here’s some really simple flower nail art I did using Tealing No Lies as a base.  (I just used my biggest dotting tool to make 5 petaled flowers with a really light blue polish, and then I made slightly smaller petals with a deep blue polish over the light petals.  Then I used a little dotting tool to add some dots to the centers. Super easy and no artsy skills required!)

IMG_4341The last polish that was  monthly favorite was Fresh Paint – Honeydew.  I used this in several Easter manis, and I’ll show you those pictures in a separate post.  I’m pretty sure this polish qualifies as pastel neon.  It’s light and bright at the same time.  It water marbles well, and you can get away with almost one coat.  I think it will look great in the summer when I’ve got a bit of a tan.  (I’m foundation shade “fair” in the winter, but with a tan I’m can wear “light” colored foundation.)

So, that’s all I have for you today.  Thanks for reading!  I do post realy regularly on instagram, so follow me there if you want to see my nails as I do them and not a month after the fact.  Happy Spring to you all!

February Favorites

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I figure that if I get my monthly favorites posted within the first two weeks of the following month, they are not completely irrelevant yet.  That’s my logic and I’m sticking to it.

The last few months have been extra super busy for me because of my work schedule, and I am itching for life to settle down so that I can get back to posting regularly.  I can almost see the light at the end of the tunnel, as I’ve been told my work schedule will go back to normal in a few week. Yay!IMG_4566

I did manage to come up with some favorites for the month of February.  And I thought the would look nice in a star formation.  Lets start at 12:00 and go clockwise….

At noon we have Wet n Wild Fergie – Going Platinum.  This polish, is amazing!  It’s a foil finish, so it has a little more sparkle that just a straight metallic polish.  Also, metallic polishes tend to show brush strokes, but this doesn’t at all.  It’s opaque in two easy coats.

IMG_4517Really, this is just a great polish.  All of the stuff I just said also goes for Wet n Wild Fergie – Gold Album.  Gold album has the exact same formula and finish.  It’s just gold instead of platinum.  (That last sentence was probably unnecessary.)   Plus, they are only $3 per bottle!  I don’t love all of the Wet n Wild Fergie polishes, but Going Platinum and Gold album are definite winners.

At 2:30 we have China Glaze – Thistle Do Nicely.  This is from the 2014 spring collection, so it’ll be tough to find in stores.  This is not a shockingly unique polish or anything.  It’s just a really pretty neon coral.  IMG_4516And while it’s not an eye-searing neon, it does do that cool thing where it looks like it’s glowing when the light is a little dim, like at dusk.  With the brutal February we had in PA (and pretty much every other state east of the Rockies) I was itching for something that felt like springtime.  This is a polish that just makes you feel happy inside when you wear it.

In this picture, I topped it with an shredded iridescent glitter which looks flaky-like.  I added a matte top coat for extra fun.

At 5:00, is Fresh Paint – Honeydew.  IMG_4341 This polish is a lovely light minty, springtime-y cream polish.   The formula is a tad on the thick side, but it’s almost a one-coater.  One of the reasons that I’m really loving this polish right now is because it works well for water marbling.  Someone on instagram (I can’t remember who, so I’m a little sad that I can’t give that instagramer proper credit) said that she had good success water marbling with Fresh Paint cream polishes, including Honeydew.  Well, that gave me the inspiration I needed to take another stab at water marbling… She was right!  I tested several fresh paint polishes and they all spread beautifully in the water and were easy to manipulate.  I’m so happy about that!  I hate using expensive polishes for water marbling, because I feel like so much is wasted.  Fresh Paint polishes are always 3 for $5 at Five Below, so… that’s awesome. IMG_4355

At 7:30 we have LA Colors – Candy Sprinkles.  This is such a fun polish!  It’s a rarity for a cheapo line of polish to have a crelly polish with awesome glitter like this.  I had been eyeballing this one for a little while before I finally picked it up.  This polish is sort of versatile, too.  You can do 2 or 3 coats of the polish on its own if you want a really dense glitter look, or you can just do one coat over pink or purple polish if you like your polish a little more sparse.  Very fun, and totally worth the $1.5Pictured is two coats of Candy Sprinkles over one coat of a pinky-lavender polish.

IMG_4468At 10:00, we have this beauty.  Such a classic.  Sally Hansen – Pacific Blue original formula.  And this picture is one coat.  I know, it’s amazing.  The nail polish world mourned when Sally Hansen reformulated this polish last summer, but I still see the occasional bottle of the original formulaon the shelf in drugstores.  Really, I just saw one at the Rite Aid in Middletown, PA like, four hours ago.  The new formula is a darker blue with a shimmer running through it.  The original is just this perfect cream color.  They both say “420 Pacific Blue” on the cap.  Stupid, sneaky Sally Hansen, thinking we wouldn’t notice.

So, those are my February favorites.  Do you have any of these polishes?  What have you been loving lately?  Thanks for reading, following, and liking both here and on instagram.  You people are the greatest!

November Favorites

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Wow, it’s December 1st already!  That means it’s time to talk about November favorites.  Here are the polishes that I was loving last month:

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The first one is Wet n Wild Fergie – Gold Album.  This is just the prettiest, sparkliest gold polish.  I love it more every time I use it!  Here I used it for the leaves in this my Golden Leafy Nails.

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The base for these nails is NYC – Royal Chic.  I am seriously in love with this polish right now.  I know I’ve said this before, but it is just the perfect chocolate brown.  It’s such a rich color.  So dark, but it never looks black.  I also used Royal Chic as the base for these next nails:

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The polish I’m holding is one of my favorites for November also.  It’s Spoiled – Vitamin C.  These polishes are available exclusively at CVS for $1.99.

Vitamin C is pretty sheer on its own.  It takes about 4 coats to be opaque.  It’s almost an orange jelly base with tons of orangey-gold shimmer.  I’ve  layered it over orange polish in the past, but this is the first time I’ve ever tried to layer it over a darker polish.  I was actually really surprised with the results!  I fully expected it to add a bright orange shimmer to my nails, but it it really more of a golden – almost greenish – shimmer.  I always love to discover that  polish I have owned for a while can be worn some new and different way.

Here’s another one of my favorites:

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This is NYC – Precious Peacock.  This was really sheer and took 4 coats to be opaque, but the results were totally worth it!  Such a beautiful shimmery teal polish!  Most of the time this polish looked teal on my nails, but there were times when I felt like it was an emerald green.  Such a perfect color for this time of year!

I was also a huge fan of this polish:

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This is Fresh Paint – Let the Games Begin.  In this picture it looks almost navy, but in real life it’s not quite that dark.  It’s just a really beautiful creamy blue, and it’s opaque in one coat!  I don’t know how much I’ll be wearing this color this month, since I plan to hit the red and green Christmas colors pretty hard, but I’m sure I’ll wear this a bunch in January and February.   By the way, the white crelly polish with the colored matte glitter is Funky Fingers – Jawbreaker.  The formula is just a little too thick and gloppy for me to call it a favorite.

Lastly, I loved this pale blueish-grey polish last month:

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The base for this mani is Fresh Paint – Firefly.  The second picture shows it on the right next to a white polish, just to prove that firefly isn’t actually white.  Firefly’s formula is a little on the thick side, but it is a one coat polish, which is pretty amazing for a light polish!  It’s a great color to us as a base for nail art if you don’t want to use a really stark white.  I’m not sure how this color compares to OPI – My Boyfriend Scales Walls, but I think it might be close.

So, those are my favorites for last month!  I plan to dive head first into Christmas nail art next.  ‘Tis the season!

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!

Splotchy Neon Nails

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Splotchy Neon Nails is what I’m calling these, because I can’t think of a better name, although I’m sure there is one:

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Again, these are my sister’s nails.  She felt she needed something cute and beach-appropriate for her trip to Cancun.  Here’s how we got this look…

First, I started with two coats of white polish.  Specifically, I used Sinful Colors – Snow Me White.  Then I put tape around the nails to make clean up easier at the end. 

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I’m hoping you can see the tape that is over the top of the nail, and around the finger at the base of the cuticle. 

I used these four polishes for the colored part:

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L-R: Nina – Blue Blaze, Fresh Paint – Guava, Funky Fingers – Glow Stick, Sinful Colors – Dream On. 

From here on out, the technique was pretty much exactly the same as it was for the white polish for my Beach Inspired Nail Art.  (Check it out for a more detailed description of this technique).  Basically, I took a disposable plastic container, filled it with room-temperature filtered water, dropped nail polish on the surface of the water, and sprayed it with some alcohol-based body spray to get the polish to break up.  Then I had my sister dunk her fingers in the water, which allowed the polish that’s floating on the surface to adhere to her nails.  While her fingers were still in the water, I used a Q-tip to pull the remaining polish off the surface of the water.  It’s hard to do more than about 2 fingers at a time, so you will need to repeat this process quite a few times.  There is a bit of a learning curve, but it’s really not too hard, just a little time-consuming.

We did Guava on the index finger, pinky, and thumb, and Glow Stick on the other two fingers. 

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Then we repeated the steps with Blue Blaze over the Guava nails, and Dream On over the Glow Stick nails.

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Then, one more time we did Guava on the index finger, pinky, and thumb, and Glow Stick on the other two fingers, just to make sure that those lighter colors were showing up well enough on the nail. 

At this point, it was a little hard to appreciate the designs on her nails since there was so much polish all over her fingers.  My sister was an enthusiastic finger dunker so she had polish pretty far up her fingers. 

From here we took off the tape and topped the nails with Seche Vite, a quick dry top coat.  Then using a Q-tip dipped in acetone as well as a little brush dipped in acetone, I cleaned up all of the excess polish.  

Here’s our end result!

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Fun and cute, right?  If you give this look a try, I’d love to see your recreations on either facebook or instagram.  Just make sure you tag Polish Me Snazzy or use the hashtag #polishmesnazzy so that I can see it.  Thanks for reading!

Nails of the Day

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I guess this post should actually be called “Nails of Last Week” since that’s more accurate.  I just realized that I never officially posted a pick of this really easy “doticure”.  No artsy skills required, just a few different size dotting tools. 

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These are two of the polished that I picked up in my Five Below Haul a few weeks ago.  These colors just make me so happy!  I loved this manicure so much that I kept it on for 8 days, and even when I took it off, I was tempted to just paint my nails again with these colors.  

Thanks for reading!  I’ll be back with a more substantial post on Monday!

 

July Favorites

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Happy August!  I got really excited, probably irrationally excited, when I realized that July was over and I could do my first monthly favorites post.  I’ve always enjoyed checking out other bloggers monthly favorites, and for some reason, I just get a huge kick out of being able to do my own.

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So, here we go…

Wet n Wild  – Tickled Pink

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This is just the most beautiful baby pink.  It looks so pretty with a tan.  It’s the pink I used for this look. This is a polish that I’ve had for a year or so, but I just remembered this month how pretty it is!

Broadway Nails – Sour Apple

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This is such a great neon green!  The formula is a great and it only cost me $1!  The only place I’ve see these sold is at Dollar General / Family Dollar stores.  It’s the green I used here.

NYC – Amazon Green from the City Samba collection

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This polish is actually a little lighter and greener than it looks in this pic.  It’s got a lovely frosty finish and makes me feel like my nails are covered in mint chocolate chip ice cream, which of course is a good thing.  I haven’t seen this in stores for a little while, so it might be tough to find.  Sorry about that.

China Glaze – Turned Up Turquoise

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This color is just do deep and rich!  It’s also got a beautiful shimmer that I feel sometimes reflects blue, sometimes green.  This polish was promoted as being a summer neon, but I think it’s also part of the permanent line, so you shouldn’t have too much trouble finding it.  If you’re a sucker for turquoise polish, do yourself a favor and get this one asap.

NYC – Matte Me Crazy top coat.

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I used this top coat for this aforementioned look and I was really happy with how it held up! I actually bumped one of my nails before it was completely dry, but this top coat sort of plumped back up and fixed itself so that you couldn’t even see where I had bumped it!  Some matte finishes will start to get glossy after a few days, but this just held up really well.

Funky Fingers – Sand & Stilettos

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I already gushed over this polish in my Five Below Haul, but I just can’t get enough of this polish!  It’s just SO sparkly and SO holographic.  I had it on my toes for a while and I just felt like they were covered in little diamonds when I was in the sun.  I used this polish for the little dots on my thumb nail here.

Fresh Paint – Guava

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This is the current color on my fingers.  Pardon my nail growth.  I just love this color so much that I’ve left it on for a whole week, and that’s saying something!  This is the most beautiful neon peach / light coral, and it’s one of those neons that just sort of glows at dusk when you’re outside.  It’s a dupe for China Glaze – Flip Flop Fantasy and way cheaper.  I picked this color up in my Five Below Haul also.  I love this color.  I love it so much.  I need to stop saying that.

So those were my July favorites!  What polishes have you been loving so far this summer?

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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!