Twinsie Tuesday: Favorite Nail Polish Brand

This week's challenge was tough! As a nail blogger, I am sure that all of us have had many, many different brands to try, from main stream to indie. However, in this post, I think I'm going to stick with the main stream theme and if you already don't know me, I have to give it to OPI.



OPI Planks A Lot. Released in the Pirate of the Caribbean collection in 2011, this polish still doesn't fail me. OPI is a great brand. Steady flow of good polishes throughout the collections being released each time and the formula is always fabulous. I do wish they would explore more with jelly's and glitter - sort of indie I guess.

Planks A Lot is a gorgeous dusty purple creme. Perfect for the upcoming Spring and Summer. 2 smooth coats and I achieved this lovely mani here!

What are some of your favorite brands?
Anna

Maybe, I'll do a favorite indie polish brand post?! That would be fun! In the mean time...

Please check my Twinsies' post for their favorite brand!

Alaina at The Little Canvas

Amanda at Amandalandish

Amber at Nails Like Lace
Anne at Grape Fizz Nails

Casey at CaseyLane Loves Polish

Chelsea at Nailed Blog

ChiChi at I'm Just Me...ChiChi

Elizabeth at Did My Nails

Erin at Paint Those Piggies

Heather at Peace, Love, & Polish

Kelly at Tuxarina

Lakeisha at Refined and Polished

Maribeth at Obsessive Cosmetic Hoarders Unite

Marisa at Polish Obsession

Rachel at Top Coat It

Róisín at Cuti-CLUE-les

Stephanie at A Little Polish

Tiffany at Polished To Precision

Traci at DrinkCitra

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Twinsie Tuesday: Inspiration From Your Family

This week's challenge comes from inspiration from a family member, and for me, that was my husband. 

OPI Dating A Royal. Something blue. I was thinking he'd give me some crazy nail art challenge but he actually didn't, as you can see. And for some reason, I think this really represents my husband. Blue is his favorite color, even though he always denies it. DAR is a nice creme blue. My husband is a really chill and easy going man and I think if he was a nail polish, this would be it. Dating A Royal, best name ever as well. 

What are some of your favorite blues?

Anna 

For more Twinsie posts, click the links below!

Alaina at The Little Canvas

Amanda at Amandalandish

Amber at Nails Like Lace
Anna at Going to the Showing

Casey at CaseyLane Loves Polish

Chelsea at Nailed Blog

ChiChi at I'm Just Me...ChiChi

Elizabeth at Did My Nails

Erin at Paint Those Piggies

Heather at Peace, Love, & Polish

Kelly at Tuxarina

Lakeisha at Refined and Polished

Maribeth at Obsessive Cosmetic Hoarders Unite

Marisa at Polish Obsession

Rachel at Top Coat It

Róisín at Cuti-CLUE-les

Stephanie at A Little Polish

Tiffany at Polished To Precision

Traci at DrinkCitra

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Twinsie Tuesday: Something New

Ever just have a bad swatch day? That was definitely me. My nails just didn't want to cooperate. Horrific. I kept smudging everything. It took forever to dry. Just a bad day. On top of that, I couldn't get a good picture. Someone tell me I'm not the only one who gets this?

Anywho, Somethine NEW! This was gifted to me recently from my older sister and I'm really enjoying this shade. So instead of something actually new, I wanted to do this one a little differently. Hopefully you enjoy my interpretation!

You know I love my OPI's. This is Berry Berry Broadway. A gorgeous bronzed berry shimmer. These are my kind of polishes. Not a creme but not too in-your-face type of polish. This is 2 coats. Unfortunately I kept bumping into everything it was just bad. None the less, I love this polish!

Have you done any polish hauls lately?
Anna

Check out my Twinsies' for todays post!

Amanda at Amandalandish

Amber at Nails Like Lace

Anne at Grape Fizz Nails

Chelsea at Nailed Blog

ChiChi at I'm Just Me...ChiChi

Cordia at Seriously Swatched

Elizabeth at Did My Nails

Heather at Peace, Love, & Polish

Kelly at Tuxarina

Lakeisha at Refined and Polished

Maribeth at Obsessive Cosmetic Hoarders Unite

Marisa at Polish Obsession

Meredith at Polish and Charms

Rachel at Top Coat It

Róisín at Cuti-CLUE-les

Traci at DrinkCitra

Don't forget today is the last day to enter the giveaway!

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Twinsie Tuesday: Oldest Untried

Ever sat around at work and wondered why no one commented on your post? And come to find out, it never even posted? Well, that happens to me quite often unfortunately.

This weeks theme is our longest untried. And for this, I know I had to run to my favorite all time brand, OPI. OPI polishes are the first polishes that I started out with, so that made it easier. Anywho, onto the swatch!

OPI It's All Greek To Me. It's almost metallic-ky. Eh. Definitely not one of my favorites but it's one of my longest untrieds! So I hope you enjoyed this swatch!

By the way, do any of you have Mozilla Firefox but it won't upload any of your pictures? What do you do?

Anna

For more oldest untrieds posts, check them out!

 Amanda at Amandalandish

Anna at Going to the Showing

Anne at Grape Fizz Nails

Chelsea at Nailed Blog

ChiChi at I'm Just Me...ChiChi

Cordia at Seriously Swatched

Elizabeth at Did My Nails

Jamie at Polish, Please!

Katherine at Haul of Fame

Kelly at Tuxarina

Lakeisha at Refined and Polished

Maribeth at Obsessive Cosmetic Hoarders Unite

Marisa at Polish Obsession

Meredith at Polish and Charms

Nory at Fierce Makeup and Nails

Rachel at Top Coat It

Sarah at See Sarah Swatch

Traci at DrinkCitra

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007 + Giveaway Reminder

In honor of James Bond, I have come up with this manicure which I absolutely love. I hope you love it just as much as I do!

I hope you are able to see the little gun. I was inspired by this picture:

I used a basic black polish and Goldeneye from the OPI Skyfall collection and I can't even tell you how amazingly gorgeous that polish is. Unfortunately, it doesn't work well with my skin tone and that will going to my swap pile.

I don't know about you but I'm actually not really a James Bond fan. I have never seen a single James Bond movie, but if you're interested, and are a Bond fan, check out the top 5 grossing Bond movies. $900 million dollars? That is crazy. It's making me wonder if I'm missing out on something.

By the way, can you believe that Christmas is only 3 days away?! This month has definitely gone by!

What do you think? Are you a Bond fan?
Anna

And don't forget to check out my 555 followers giveaway! There are only 3 more days to enter! I'm getting the jitters already!

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Smitten with Mittens

This is another hard-to-find polish that my lovely friend Carrie let me burrow and I can't even begin to tell how you much I love this one! I never cared about this polish until I polished this baby on, and now I understand why this is a hard-to-find polish. It's so pretty, seriously. I feel like I need this one to keep now.

 

OPI Smitten with Mittens is a deep red with tons of gold and red'ish glass flecks. Some would say that it's glitter but it's so much finer than glitter.Hopefully you are able to see that in the picture above. Smitten with Mittens is breath taking. This would make it to one of my 10 polishes of the year - or even in my top 10 list. 

Now I understand the craze about this polish. It's gorgeous. If you could ever get your hands on this, I'd say snatch it up quick! 

What a beauty right?

Anna

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Pink Me I'm Good

Happy Friday and thanks Carrie!

Now this baby here is from Carrie's stash and I wish it were mine! If you don't know who Carrie is, she is the lovely creator behind the indie brand Darling Diva Polish. She was kind enough to let me burrow this hard-to-find polish, so thanks a ton Carrie!

OPI Pink Me I'm Good. Look that jam packed golden'ish-opalescent glitter with the yellow tone pink base. I just love how the pink is so soft and muted and the glitter just literally pops!

This covered perfectly in 2 coats. No underwear or anything! In this photo, the pink is a bit washed out due to the lighting, regardless, isn't she beautiful?

Oh, and please excuse me as I haven't been engaging much lately. This weekend is the funeral of my mother-in-law and things have been rough. Thank goodness for polish because it's great therapy! Well, hope you have a fabulous weekend!

What do you think of this baby?
Anna

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At Your Quebec And Call

So I have heard that this nail polish in particular is sort of hard to find? I'm not sure, but if you do know, please be sure to leave me a comment letting me know!

It's finally Thursday! I'm excited for this weekend except knowing that after this weekend, school starts. Boo. I guess Autumn is finally here. When the days start getting cooler and when school starts, yeah. On the other hand, I look forward to the state fair! Yay! Roasted corn, the best corn ever.

Anywho, now that's totally not what you were interested in. On the other hand, I hope you all have a fabulous summer!

OPI At Your Quebec And Call is definitely one of a kind. It's like a deep golden olive sort brown almost green with very tiny beautiful shimmers throughout. It's simply gorgeous and one that I don't have anything similar to in my collection.

Thanks to Victoria from Miss Vee's Nails, I was able to swap for this lovely. Oh she is such a sweetie bear! The packaging was superb as well. I hope to do another swap with her soon!

The formula for AYQAC was nice. A bit thin since it needed 3 coats for full opacity but it was by no means hard to work with or extremely streaky. It's probably one of favorites, sort of. I really like the uniqueness of it.

What do you think? Do you own At Your Quebec And Call?
Anna

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Kim Konfidential

Hi lovelies!

I have been posting very sporadically and I apologize for that as well as not commenting on your blogs and commenting back. I feel so horrible! I have been so busy! But now, I am back in it!

And I have finally found my most favorite nude!

I was in search for a nude for the longest time ever and I bought this one on a whim. Come to find out, strangely, it's my favorite and most loved nude ever!

This is NOPI Kim Konfidential. 2 awesome coats, I should've done 3, but I like the way it looks. I don't know if you would agree that it looks good on me. But there is something about this one that just draws me in.

KK is a honey'ish nude creme with yellow undertones and it is just lovely. It applied well and dried relatively quick.

What do you think of this one?
Anna

And stay tuned for tomorrows post as I decorated this, and showing you some love! Rawrrrrrrrrrrr!

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Ink

I hope all of you had a great weekend! I totally forgot to take a bottle shot and I suddenly remembered when I already removed the mani. That sucks. Ever done that before? But, this one won't disappoint because it's so pretty!

 

At first when I saw this bottle, I wasn't too fond of it but I picked it anyways because I had seen a few people in the blogger community write about it. 

As soon as I polished and pictured this. I could mot believe my eyes. I was truly mesmerized. Look at it! How the blue and purple ultra fine glitter just meshes into together. The blur-ple color is just amazing. I am so glad that I picked this up.

I love finding those polishes. Where you think you might not like it but buy it anyway, and when you do try it, it looks absolutely gorgeous. It's such a wonderful surprise.

OPI Ink was perfectly opaque after 2 smoother coats. The formula and brush was perfect as I would always expect. 

Now this polish, certainly did not disappoint.

Do you own any colors similar to this? 

Anna

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Coral Stripes

These summer days have been a killer. Blasting the A/C in the house like cray cray! How's the weather in your neck of the woods? Hopefully better than here!

This is what I have for you today!

I truly love the simplicity of it. I used Sally Hansen White On as the base, for the coral I used OPI Call Me Gwen-ever then a regular black acrylic paint for the black stripes as I didn't want any smudging, or whatever, you know what I mean.

This was so simple and easy. All polishes were very easy to work with and are very pigmented. So I hope you enjoy it!

By the way, happy July 4th once again to the Americans! Are any of you planning to watch the fireworks?

Does this seem a bit nautical to you?
Anna

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Ginger Bells

Totally not Spring or Summer appropriate, but I could care less because I love this one!

I recently purchased OPI Ginger Bells from a blog sale. I have heard so many wonderful and beautiful things about this! Once I saw it, I hopped on it like a bunny in the night on the street! (I'm imagining that you see yourself driving and see bunnies hopping all over the street because your headlights are blinding and scaring!)

This beautiful creme-y pumpkin pie look a like dusty orange took 1 coat. I should've done 2 coats but I was in awe of the coverage in 1 coat. Amazing much?! I'm not sure when this one was released but I know that it was sometime during the holiday. Isn't it lovely? Not for Spring or summer, none the less it's gorgeous!

What are some of your favorite oranges? (Besides "Color Of The Year")
Anna

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Gargantuan Green Grape

This one was released a while ago, I believe sometime in 2010. Correct me if I am wrong. But today I have a polish that I have seen a lot of blog wish lists:

Gargantuan Green Grape. Is that not the coolest name ever? I could never forget that cute little name! Just imagine a huge green grape being squeezed and the juices were a milky mint green creme color (as showed above). This was 3 nice and streaky coats. I must say, this is a lovely color but not one for me unfortunately. Sorry for the lobster looking hands.

So a question, where do you ladies go to find discontinued polishes? Purchasing nail polish on the internet is more sort of a last resort thing for me or unless it's a special polish. Anyways, to my point I just purchased this recently. So where do you buy all of your discontinued polishes?

So where do you buy all of your discontinued polishes?
Anna

Also, I apologize for my slacking posts here lately. I have swamped with life, school and work. But the good this is only 2 more weeks of summer classes! A 3 month semester class mashed into 6 weeks?! Somehow, I'm managing. Yay!

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Prized Possession Purple

I've never been the kind of person to follow that trend where you change your polishes due to the season. Why? Because I feel that it's not necessary. I wear what I want to wear, and wear it whenever I want to. This is a plus because so many of my "fall appropriate" polishes get much more lovin'.

I purchased this polish in a duo set a while ago for a really good deal, but I can't remember where from. I was actually hesitant to purchase it but the price wouldn't allow me to give it up. Now, I am really glad that I did.

 Hopefully you can see the shimmers in the blurr, because it's gorgeous!
(Indoor with flash)

The 2 bottom photos are color accurate but because this is a blurple type of color, you can't quite see it in the above pictures. The formula was perfect! Due to my poor application and impatience, you can see the pulling. Despite that, I really love this polish. I am so glad that I haven't ran into any polishes that I don't really like. There has a few but I love this one. PPP is actually my 2nd polish that I have purchased from the Nicole by OPI line. I dislike the shape of the bottles. That's what always stopped me from purchasing. But after this one, I am more than willing to branch out and try more polishes from NOPI. I only hope that the other polishes are just as amazing!

Do you have any NOPI faves?
Anna

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Twinsie Tuesday: Holo (Pic Heavy)

I forgot that Tuesday was just around the corner. Where has this weekend gone? Wherever it is, I hope that you all had a great memorial weekend! Anywho, this weeks Twinsie Tuesday challenge is: holo!

I own absolutely not a single holo polish and I was totally freaking out because I had no idea what I was going to do for this. Luckily I ran across Spectraflair on a blog sale and purchased it just in time for this. While I love how holo polishes look, I'm not entirely in love with the trend and can't justify spending $10-$15 on a single polish. I have been looking around and there are some that I really like and might even purchase in the near future, but for now my Spectraflair will do it for me!

Now onto the loveliness:

 (Indoor with flash)

Sorry for so many pictures but I really wanted you to see the holo in this bad boy. I used 2 coats of OPI Road House Blues and 1 coat of the Spectraflair top coat to achieve this. Both polishes were buttery smooth to apply. I sort of wish the holo was more pronounced but I love how subtle it was since I'm not all that into holo polishes. Sometimes when I look it too much, I feel like vomiting. Gross and weird but I wasn't like this until when I was pregnant. Some glitters make me feel this way too. Sorry for the TMI but you gotta love pregnancy! Anywho, I can' wait to try out the Spectraflair topcoat on some other polishes! But in the mean time, I really hope you enjoyed this!

What do you think of holos?
Anna

Also, I want to apologize since I haven't been posting as much I used to and as much as I would like, but I can assure you once summer classes are over, I will be posting much more often.

Don't forget to check out the Twinsies' holo polish posts! I bet your wishlist will be longer after... 

Amanda at Amandalandish

Anne at Grape Fizz Nails

Ashley at Art Evolve
Brandi at The Collegiate Nail

Chelsea at Nailed Blog
ChiChi at I''m just me...ChiChi
Cordia at Srsly Swatched

Jenn at All That is Gorgeous...

Jenna at I'm Still Thinking...

Katherine at Haul of Fame

Marisa at Polish Obsession

Meredith at Polish and Charms

Nory at Fierce Makeup and Nails

Rachel at Top Coat It

Sarah at See Sarah Swatch
Tara at Polishy of Truth

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Number One Nemesis Dupe

I know I recently just posted a comparison a few days ago but I could not wait to share this with you all! As you recently know OPI Number One Nemesis was released with The Spiderman collection, which is the most recent collection released. I received this polish a while ago when I was one of the few thousands who were lucky enough to get the Bloom.com certificate for $20 a while back during Mother's day. While skimming through my collection, I noticed that the recent Jessica polish I purchased looked a lot like Number One Nemesis.

 Index and ring: OPI Number One Nemesis
Middle and pinky: Jessica Smoky Feather

Left: OPI Number One Nemesis
Right: Jessica Smoky Feather

Both polishes are a deep greenish-charcoal grey micro-shimmer almost glitter looking. There's charcoal, gold, green, a silvery color, and an ever slight hint of blue.

So, I present to you Jessica Smoky Feather. I'm not sure where you can purchase these polishes but I buy mine from a local nail supply. But you can purchase Jessica polishes here. Both polishes were 2 coats although Smoky Feather is a lot more opaque than Number One Nemesis. Both polishes applied like butter, very smooth. The only difference that I see, is that Number One Nemesis has a slightly darker base but from a far, you could hardly tell. Smoky Feather is also glossier with no topcoat applied. Other than that, you can be the judge. As for me, I would say that Smoky Feather is close enough to be a dupe.

What you would say? Nay or yay?
Anna

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Polish Haul

This was purchased over the course of the week, not all in a day!

Enjoy!

Wet n Wild

Candy-licious, On A Trip, I Need A Refresh-mint, Through The Grapevine

Ulta Salon Formula

OH!, Grin & Berry It

Nail Life Nail Revitalizer
OPI Pirouette My Whistle

Hard Candy
Beetle

Orly

La Vida Loca, Buried Alive, Mysterious Curse, Royal Navy, Plum Noir

China Glaze

Jamaican Out, White Cap

I'm suppose to be on a "no-buy" but seriously, how do you say no to good deals? I need more self-control! If you have any "no-buy" tips. Please feel free to share!

Have you hauled any new polishes lately?
Anna

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Color To Diner For

I hope everyone had a great weekend!

I was going to blog this morning but didn't feel like it too much. So it's around 10PM right now and here I am!

Today I have a polish from the OPI Touring America collection. I actually didn't even know it was from that collection. But here is Color To Diner For. This was 2 opaque coats. This color is a berry leaning red with tiny gold/copper shimmer in it. I am beginning to notice that a lot of OPI polishes have this golden shimmer in it but doesn't transfer well onto the nails. Which is a little disappointing. None the less, it's a beautiful color. I just wished that the shimmer were more pronounced as the nails as it obvious in the bottle.

What do you think?
Anna

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Twinsie Tuesday: Go To Polish

Good morning Tuesday. This weeks edition is our go-to mani/polish. 

It was hard for me to pick a go-to polish just because I really don't have a go-to polish. But I choose this one because it's one of my favorite go-to polishes for the Spring because Spring is just around the corner!

This picture is not color accurate at all. I usually don't post and take pictures when there's no sunlight and lately we haven't been seeing any of that here unfortunately. So it was very hard to capture the true beauty of this polish.

This is OPI I Mainely Eat Lobster. This was 3 coats. The formula was like butter except the brush was very hard and stiff which created bald spots on my nails even with the littlest pressure I used to apply the polish. IEML is like a coral leaning orange polish with coral shimmer. The shimmer in the bottle doesn't transfer well on the nails which is very unfortunate because it's so pretty. However, I LOVE this color against my skin tone. It just makes my hands look white, and clean.

Again, sorry for the not-so-good pictures.

What's your favorite go-to polish?
Anna

I'm excited to see what the other Twinsie ladies are their go-to polishes!

Amanda at Amandalandish

Anne at Grape Fizz Nails

Ashley at Art Evolve
Brandi at The Collegiate Nail

Chelsea at Nailed Blog
ChiChi at I''m just me...ChiChi

Jenn at All That is Gorgeous...

Jenna at I'm Still Thinking...

Katherine at Haul of Fame

Marisa at Polish Obsession

Meredith at Polish and Charms

Nory at Fierce Makeup and Nails

Rachel at Top Coat It

Sarah at See Sarah Swatch

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Twinsie Tuesday: Hyped Up Polish

It's Tuesday! You know what that means! Twinsie Tuesday! This weeks edition: a hyped up polish.

Sorry for the late post, something was wrong with the router. Called the husband - and here I am!

It took me a while to choose what I wanted since I didn't have that many hyped up polishes. Originally, I was going to do the famous dupe for Bad Romance, but then I thought about the removal process, and I was like, nahhhhh. So here is what I decided on:

Sorry for the many pictures. I just could not capture the copper/brown super fine shimmer. It didn't really transfer well on the nails - which was disappointing. I used 2 coats and it looks perfect! It's super opaque. I could have gotten away with coat but I really wanted the copper shimmer to stand out in which it really didn't. But it's ok I guess.

I just purchased this MPJ recently and really wish I would've picked it up when it was first released back in 2007. Because the newer formulas are not the same as the first original one. As you can see:

Pictured from The Polish Addict

Look at the big difference. That is so disappointing. I mean, it's still very pretty but I would have preferred the original formula. The new MPJ looks almost like the original one but without the holo. How sad is that? It's what made MPJ so awesome, wasn't it? Anywho, what do you think of this?

Do you own the original MPJ?
Anna

Can't wait to check out what the other Twinsie Tuesday ladies choose!
Amanda at Amandalandish

Anne at Grape Fizz Nails

Ashley at Art Evolve
Brandi at The Collegiate Nail

Chelsea at Nailed Blog
ChiChi at I''m just me...ChiChi

Jenn at All That is Gorgeous...

Jenna at I'm Still Thinking...

Katherine at Haul of Fame

Marisa at Polish Obsession

Meredith at Polish and Charms

Nory at Fierce Makeup and Nails

Rachel at Top Coat It

Sarah at See Sarah Swatch

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