Rescue Beauty Lounge Catherine

So during my trip to Rescue Beauty Lounge (RBL) in NYC, I got a Catherine pedicure and completely fell in love with the polish. Too bad it's Limited Edition and has been sold out for quite some time. To add insult to injury, I could have bought Catherine many times, including during the 50% off sale (RBL no longer has these, so don't get your hopes up). Catherine is part of "The Real Housewives of the Tudor Dynasty" collection that Ji Baek created for Fall 2010. And even though I saw many swatches of all the Tudor ladies, I never thought they were special enough to purchase. Unfortunately pictures do not do this polish justice. Even my favorite nail polish bloggers can't capture the real life beauty and shimmer of this. One just has to trust that you NEED a polish like this. Too bad I didn't....

Enter Pam from Polish Police. I contacted Pam on MUA (a message board for makeup and nail polish) to see if she was interested in swapping her brand new Catherine for any polish on the RBL website, that I would purchase and send her. She quickly said yes, selected Grunge, and our swap was underway!!! We added another polish to our swap as well - Pepto Pink for Recycle - so look for Recycle later on too. Pam was amazing to chat and swap with - thanks Pam!!!! Now let's give Catherine some love.

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Catherine is definitely one of my favorite RBL polishes. A deep, dusty, royal purple with gorgeous shimmer. The RBL site says the shimmer is pewter, blue, and fuchsia. You can see the shimmer really well in the 3rd picture. This polish applies like butter. It's so smooth and flows so evenly. I also spoil myself when I use RBL polish, and use the RBL treatment system as well. It's so easy and gets me a minimum of 5 days of wear (which for me is a lot).

Catherine isn't currently sold on on Rescue Beauty's website, but it does pop up on Ebay occasionally. Ji Baek is closing her New York Salon on June 24th for an online only business, and has stated via her facebook page that they may find boxes of sold out polish during their shutdown, so if there is any hope of buying direct from the source, it's best to start stalking now through the end of June. RBL Polish retails for $18.

My Beach Manicure: Milani HD and OPI Paris Couture For Sure

Hello lovelies!  The hubby and I just got back from celebrating our two year anniversary with a fabulous weekend at the beach in Ocean City, Maryland.  YAY!  Okay, it was really more like a few hours at the beach and then hitting up bars with friends, but same difference, right?  ;-)  Knowing I'd finally be exposed to more sun in one weekend than I had all year, I had to do a manicure that thrived off the sun - holographics!!

I started with Milani 3D Holographic polish in HD.  HD is a silver scattered (meaning the rainbow/oil slick effect is weaker and kind of dispersed, or "scattered" on the nail) holo, and was surprisingly sheer.  I used three coats for what you see below, and I still had some VNL.  Application was easy, and I didn't need to use any special base coats.  Scattered holos are a little tricky to photograph, as you need the light to hit them in just the right way to really show off their beauty, so I took a ton of photos.  I'm sure you guys don't mind.  ;-)

The first two photos were taken under my Ott-Lite.

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 And since holos love sun, the next two photos were taken in sunlight.

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The Milani holos are really great and super affordable.  I'm pretty sure Milani made these permanent, so you can find them for less than $5 at your local CVS, Rite Aid, etc.  You can also get them from Milani's website, along with a few other favorite Milani hard-to-finds, at www.milanicosmetics.com.

I loved the look of HD, but I wanted to spice it up a bit.  I found OPI Paris Couture for Sure on my first dusty hunt with Jessie and had been dying to try it out.  This was the perfect opportunity!  PCFS (that name is way too long to type out over and over again) is an old black-label OPI that was released with the Shopping Around the World holiday collection back in 2005.  It's labeled as a "glitter top coat," but it really isn't a glitter at all.  It's more of a very fine irregular holographic flakie to my eyes.  I'd call it a scattered holo, but it certainly has some linear holo qualities.  (Linear holos have a very pronounced rainbow/oil slick effect on the nail.  They're not as sparkly, but the overall effect is jaw-dropping.  I have a few to show you - just waiting for a good sunny day!)

OPI PCFS is very sheer - even more so than Milani HD - which makes it perfect for layering.  I added just one coat of PCFS over HD.  It applies extremely well, and I was so happy with the result!  You can see how much more pronounced the holographic effect is!  The first three photos were taken under my Ott-Lite.

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And then in sunlight.

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PCFS is so awesome!  I hate that it was limited edition.  Your best bet for tracking this one down is swapping, dusty hunting, or shelling on on eBay.  There's no listings currently, but I see them pop up all the time.  It's one of the few that I'd say would be worth it.  It's just too cool!

OPI Paris Couture for Sure and Milani HD say hello from the beach!  :-D

Essie Smooth Sailing

Hello again! Hope everyone is having a great weekend. It's ridiculously hot in Maryland right now, so I thought I'd wear a polish to make me think cool thoughts. Enter Essie Smooth Sailing, from the 2011 Summer Collection Braziliant. This polish is a breeze to apply - an easy 2 coats. It's a beautiful periwinkle blue packed full of silver shimmer. I tried using the Ott-Lite again (to no avail!) but my mostly-sunny skies up on the deck turned out quite well. In the pictures the shimmer is more evident in the bottle than the nail, but in real life that's not the case. My nails are a shimmery blue lovers dream. Smooth Sailing look so beautiful in the sunlight - check it out!

Essie Smooth Sailing was just released, so it can be found at Ulta, Drugstores, or online for $8. I picked up one other polish from the collection, which I should be posting next week - Super Bossa Nova!

Good news is I'm really liking this nail polish blogging thing - I've already got my next 8 manicures planned!! Until next time...

Rescue Beauty Lounge Square Pants - Part 2

Since Courtney shared her amazing RBL Square Pants swatches with you, I thought I share this picture of me picking up our polishes at the one and only (and soon to be closed forever) Rescue Beauty Lounge in New York City. My friend Megan and I had amazing pedicures (RBL Catherine...where have you been all my life? :) swatches coming soon). After our pedicure I made her take this super cheesy pick of me with my bag of pretties.

So I apologize for the quality of these pictures, but I thought it would be nice to post it anyway. My skin tone is a bit different than Courtney so it gives you a different perspective on the color. This is also in the regular lighting of my house, which makes the yellow look much softer. It really is a fantastic yellow for yellow wimps. It's super easy to apply considering it's a sheer. And most of all, the wear!!!! This was after 5 days. I do not have a dishwasher, so I do all dishes by hand (and I don't wear gloves).

So before I took it off I thought I'd try some layering. I wasn't really happy with any of these. From index to pinky - Butter London No More Waity, Katie, OPI Sparkle-icious (I think) , China Glaze Dorothy Who, and Deborah Lippmann Glitter in the Air. Out of the four, Glitter in the Air is the only one I'd consider doing again.

Close up of Deborah Lippmann Glitter in the Air over Rescue Beauty Lounge Square Pants. Kind of reminds me of baby clowns...

Hope you enjoyed this alternate look at RBL Square Pants!!

OPI Movin' Out

Wow... first off I'd like to thank Courtney for graciously letting me do some blogging for her. She is completely amazing and I am so happy we met and are friends. However the blogging request turned out to be both a blessing and a (tiny) curse. As soon as I agreed and we went out and bought me an Ott-Lite, things took a turn for the worse.

First, I actually wasn't in the mood to paint my nails. I've been painting my nails about once every 2-3 days for about a year now, so not wanting to paint my nails for a week or so was strange. Then 2 huge shelves fall off my wall crushing my Wet-n-Wild Black Creme with it (crucial to this blog post). Finally I attend a crab feast and completely murdered my nails. So I decided to suck it up, file them down, stop by CVS for a new WnW Black Creme and force myself to sit down for my mani. I was so nervous painting my nails that I got black nail polish all over my hands, clean-up was horrible. Then the dreaded picture taking. My first pictures looked nothing like Courtney's amazing pictures. So after taking about 40 in different lights and backgrounds over the last 24 hours, I finally got a set of pictures I was happy with.

So you see, this first post was a serious labor of love. So it can only get better from here! I am so excited to finally be posting, to be sharing my love of nail polish with the blog world, and doing it with my dear friend Courtney.

I first became aware of OPI's Movin' Out when reading this post on Fashion Polish. I've been dying to get Clarins 230, a nail polish with amazing color changing pigment, but it goes for about $60 on Ebay. I love nail polish, but not that much! So when I saw this post and Sam's amazing pictures and video, I instantly got onto Ebay and secured one for $10. Now my pictures don't do this nearly as much justice as the ones on Fashion Polish, so I urge you to check those out as well. Enough blabbing! Onto the polish!

To achieve this look, you need layer one or two thin coats of Movin' Out over any black creme polish. This multichrome polish flashes purple, magenta, amber, and green. It also has beautiful shimmer to it, which I believe is what actually gives it the amazing color changing abilities that I tried desperately to capture. I didn't do it justice (couldn't manage to capture the amber at all). Movin' Out is from the 2003 Holiday on Broadway collection which means it is Hard-to-Find. However you can still grab it on Ebay for under $15. It's also still available on Aveyou.com. Since it's from 2003, that means its the old, chemical filled formula and no Pro-Wide brush. Pick this up, you won't regret it!

Rescue Beauty Lounge Square Pants

It's always fun when you love a polish that you knew you were going to love.  It's even more fun when you love a polish you thought you'd probably hate!  :-)

A few months ago - after reeeeally getting into my nail polish hobby - I discovered that Rescue Beauty Lounge released a Spongebob themed collection back in Spring 2008.  The three polishes released with the collection were Bikini Bottom (a pale blue), Square Pants (a pale yellow), and Starfish-Patrick (a pale coral).  1)  I LOVE that creator Ji Baek can find inspiration in the most unlikely places!  2)  A SPONGEBOB collection?!  Count me IN!!  I knew I had to have Bikini Bottom, but I just wasn't sold on a yellow or coral polish.  The completionist (and Spongebob fan) in me couldn't bare to leave the other two behind, so I had my friend Jessie pick up Square Pants and Starfish-Patrick for me when she visited the RBL salon in New York City. 

As much as I've been dying to try out Bikini Bottom, I NEVER wear yellow nail polish, and I kind of had the hankering to wear something unusual for the weekend.  Square Pants it was!  It's not your typical obnoxious yellow.  Instead, it's a soft,  buttery sunshine yellow.  However, it's not the color, but the consistency that makes this stand out for me.  What you see below is four coats, but you can see how sheer it is, as I still have pretty noticeable VNL (visible nail line).  It has a milkiness to it that gives it kind of a squishy appearance.  I've heard horror stories of how awful some yellow polishes can be to work with (I'm looking at you, Chanel Mimosa!), but this formula was a dream to work with - hardly any streaks and it actually dried quicker than I expected!

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I looooooooooooove this!  Adore it!  Typically sheer polishes (and yellow polishes for that matter) aren't my cup of tea, but there's something about the sheerness of this one that makes me love it more.  Everything about Square Pants is unique - from its color to its texture.  Even at its $18 price tag, this a MUST-HAVE polish in my book!

I know what you're thinking, because I thought it too.  But you CAN wear yellow nail polish!  I promise!  Yellow is super hot this summer in nail polish trends, so they're popping up everywhere.  Save your money on Chanel Mimosa and try Square Pants instead.  RBL polishes are worth every penny, and you never know when they might be sold out for good (aside from the occasional Bring It Back vote - which is how I landed Bikini Bottom in the first place).  Currently Bikini Bottom and Square Pants are both in stock, so RUN to www.rescuebeauty.com and pick them up while you still can!

I'll *definitely* be showing you guys Bikini Bottom and Starfish-Patrick later on, and I'm super excited for them after my love affair with Square Pants!  Woo-hoo!  :-)

OPI Affair in Times Square

Cue Rebecca Black - IT'S FRIDAY!!  And boy, I sure am looking forward to the weekend - it's been one hell of a four-day week at work!  On to the good stuff!  :-)

My friend (and soon to be guest blogger) Jessie and I met up on Sunday for some shopping and of course couldn't pass up the opportunity to do some dusty hunting while we were at it.  She took me to a place where she previously found two (TWO!!!) La Bohemes.  No sight of a third, but they did have some great old black-labels.  I was lucky enough to find a lemming of mine - Affair in Times Square.  Woo-hoo!

Affair in Times Square is a taupe-y mushroom creme.  In some lights it's more brown and in some lights it's more grey.  Totally an edgy-neutral, so you know I was all over this one.  It's a black label, so it's got the skinny brush, which is so strange to use once you've been accustomed to those darn pro-wides.  It was super easy to apply, and I only used two coats, but I probably should've added a third.  Oh well, I think it turned out just fine.  :-)

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See the color difference in all three pictures?  A morphing polish, this one is!  It was released back in Fall of 2000 with the New York City Collection, which I believe makes this the oldest polish I own!  I think it's funny that these colors are so popular right now, but OPI was ahead of the curve on it - and then discontinued it.  Silly OPI.

But I have a confession to make...and you guys are gonna think I've lost my mind....I think I'm edgy-neutral-ed out.  Affair in Times Square is pretty, but nothing special.  My huge binge on edgy neutrals means I've got like five other colors that are similar enough to this for me to be slightly disappointed.

For a comparison, I pulled out Milani Teddy Bare (dupe of Chanel Particulere) and Sephora by OPI Metro Chic.  I REALLY wanted to compare this to Essie Mink Muffs, but I had literally just packaged it up for a swap before I did my manicure.

(L) to (R) Milani Teddy Bare, OPI Affair in Times Square, Sephora by OPI Metro Chic

Clearly not a total dupe of these, but it is pretty similar to Metro Chic - just a bit warmer and less purple.  You definitely don't need both, although Affair in Times Square is nice to have if you're more of a collector.  I'm still glad to have found it, but I'm sad it wasn't a bit more unique for my collection.  Still, it was a great dusty find, especially considering it's going for around $17 on eBay right now.  Score!!  :-)

And of course, the cherry on top is....It's Fridayyyyyy, Fridayyyyyyyyy!!