Lovely As The Lavender Fields of France

"...Imagine fields of bright purple and delicate mauve under a deep blue sky, take a deep breath and experience the true scent and colour of Provence, France." 

So I had picked up two absolutely stunning, classy, elegant colors from the new Revlon ColorStay polish line: "Provence" (named after the famous lavender fields in Provence, France) and "Calla Lilly".  When I bought them, I was imagining a nice dainty mani with these used together as a duo.  This is a total 180 from my last edgy vampster mani ;)  I really loved these 2 polishes together & they are so sophisticated.  And you can't beat the $4 price for this quality of lacquer! Makes me wish I was really in Provence!

 Revlon ColorStay: "Provence" by itself

 It's a very light muted greyish lavender....very pretty

 How about a little lavender scent to go with lavender nails???

 now let's add some subtle shimmer with Revlon ColorStay "Calla Lilly" - a sheer milky base filled with gold fleck shimmer (in some lights shines iridescent green-blue) beautiful.

 some outdoors shots for direct sunlight on the shimmer

It's a great look for Spring & is a knockoff of many other polish brands' new nude-ish style color lines....plus its so much cheaper than the average $8+ dollar brands like Zoya/Essie/OPI

Jar Of Hearts...

HAPPY SINGLES AWARENESS DAY!!!! I did 2 little lovey-dovey Valentines manis earlier this month full of pink & white & happiness.  This mani is def a more edgy vampy. In honor of this dark edginess...I'm dedicating it to my love for True Blood, and more specifically an ode to Bill + Sookie :) I am freakin addicted to this show (among many other things) and can't wait for Season 4 to come out on DVD!  I would like to say this represents the reality of 'love', the times when its rough & messy & sometimes theres heartbreak.  It's not always the perfect fairytale story.  

 To start this mani, I used "Metallic For Life" by OPI from the Nicki Minaj Collection....a truly stunning black jelly base densely PACKED small & micro round glitters & then some medium silver hex. I applied 2 coats to get it completely black...with 1 coat its more a dark charcoal. 

 next I used a fine tipped art brush to apply a red base in a V-shape to create a funky french tip look. For this part I used my go-to Essie red "Forever Yummy".

 Is it ever possible to have TOO much glitter??? I layered my favorite red glitter by OPI called "Speak For Your-Elf!" over the Essie red.  I just wanted MORE glitter! Is that so wrong?  This is a glorious red jelly filled with fine red glitters. GORGEOUS! (*an Ulta holiday exclusive I found on the sale rack)

What do you think of this unorthodox funky edgy Valentine's mani??? Too dark for you?

Hope everyone had a happy V-Day! Who else is in love with True Blood?

♥ For the first time in 140 years, I felt something I thought had been
lost to me forever. I love you... and for that I shall never feel sorry ♥

-Bill Compton

The Bold & The Beautiful

Oh yes, you read that title right! Named this blog post after one of my 3 favorite Soap Operas!! ;) I thought the title was very fitting for this polish post..because this orange is quite bold but also surprisingly beautiful.  I surprised my own self because I NEVER wear oranges & couldn't believe I even owned these polishes...and they are both a few years old.  "Tasmanian Devil Made Me Do It" is from the Australia Collection from Spring/Summer 2007.  While "Dress To Empress!" was from the Japanese Collection, i think Spring/Sumer 2011, but can't be sure.  Both are bright corally oranges, with Tasmanian Devil being much more orange than Empress.  I wanted to use the Empress as a top coat layer to add some shimmer to this mani. I was pretty pleased with the outcome.  Also happy to report that haven't experienced any bubbling since using OPI Nail Envy as my base coat!!! And as always finished with a SV topcoat!

 This was about 3 coats of 'Tasmanian Devil Made Me Do It'...a slightly sheer coral orange, almost a jelly creme blend formula. (taken in artificial lighting)

Next step was to add a coat of OPI "Dress To Empress!" for a little shimmer effect (thinking back I may have purchased this in Spring of 2004 for my Junior Prom mani).  It's really a pretty coral orange jelly base with fine flecks of silvery-gold shimmer.  It was slightly lighter & more pink-toned than the Tasmanian color.  

haha so many photos...I was still attempting to capture the sparkly shimmer perfectly ;)

Below is my nails holding onto my MacBook.

So my left hand ring finger is my absolutely favorite nail right now...random I know. Do you have a favorite nail that is just shaped so perfectly?? And what do you think of this loud orange? Are you bold enough to don your nails with it? ...I know you're beautiful enough to pull it off :) 

Swatches, Comparisons & Dupes...Oh My!

It's my first comparison/dupe swatching attempt....I was subbing for high school Spanish & during my lunch/prep time, I had brought along a mini-salon to do some comparisons ;) Some of these ended up looking more different then I originally thought when first glancing at the bottles.  But they are pretty similar & it was fun checking them all out on my nail. Let's get started already!

Here are some of my shimmery milky whites: Revlon "Calla Lilly", China Glaze "White Cap", & NOPI "All About The Glam".  They look similar in the bottle but not on...

The NOPI goes on opaque white in 1 coat, a milky white with silver/white shimmer.  The ChG ends up being more of a clear base & PACKED with gold flecky shimmer. The Revlon would actually make a great shimmery topcoat.  It's very sheer, very fine white/gold shimmer...took 4 coats to get it semi-opaque

 Love my blues! Ok these are very similar shades of blue but very different formulas as whole.  The ChG is a jelly based blue filled with fine flecks of silvery-white glitters.  The OPI is more of a frosty creme blue which I ended up not liking as much bc I'm not too into frosts.

 I can't remember the last time I had pinks on my nails...but mom got me this OPI for Christmas & the ZOYA was from their 2 polish promo deal last month that I hadn't tried yet.  They were both a nice fuchsia base with fine iridescent shimmer.  The slight different was that the OPI was more blue-toned & the Zoya was more red-toned & more densely packed with glitters.

 I think these greens are my most identical dupes of the whole post.  I bought these 2 on the same day too, not realizing id purchased 2 identical greens...guess my subconscious was really feeling green that day! ;) Anyways, Ive swatched this OPI before (from the Texas Collection) & have been wanting to compare it to this Ulta green.  Only slight difference is the Ulta is more blue-toned & dries a tiny bit darker.

 This certainly isn't a 'dupe', seeing as they're both OPI's, but wanted to compare these 2 colors seeing how similar they are.  I'm sad that my photos suck the big one & don't capture the sunset shimmer in both of these deep purple-toned blues. They look almost identical in the bottle..."Play 'Til Midnight" is just touch more purple & "Russian Navy" is more bluish, but both have spectacular gold-pink shimmer.

 With these 2 black cremes, I am not comparing colors obviously, but more the quality of the polish formula.  These are both fabulous highly pigmented black cremes.  I'm sure most out there own "Black Onyx" as a staple essential.  If you've seen my swatches of other Revlon ColorStay polishes, I can't stop raving about the formula, quality, application of this line (supposed to be similar to gel polish without needing the UV light).  Dare I say that the Revlon "Stiletto" is better than "Black Onyx"!?!?!? **gasp** ;) Both are great...OPI will always be a dependable classic, but I am highly endorsing you all to try some of Revlon's ColorStay!!!!!! 

What do y'all think of these comparisons????