OPI I Vant To Be A-Lone Star Swatch & Review

 Today I just have a quick little post for you guys. Last week when I went to Ulta I picked up again. Every time I've gone to Ulta in the past few months I'd always pick this one up and say "ooh this is pretty!" then put it back. But this time was different- it was on clearance! It was only marked down to $6.49 instead of the usual $8.50, but hey, that's still enough to make me finally buy it! It didn't disappoint either.

Pictured here is three coats of I Vant To Be A-Lone Star with one coat of Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Anti-Chip Top Coat (review of which is soon to come!)

I Vant To Be A-Lone Star is is a light blue with a hint of grey. It has some silver shimmer in it too. The shimmer in this reminds me of a frost, it's not though, which is good because that means no brush strokes showing! Application and consistency were pretty good. Three coats and it was perfect, and it wasn't too watery or runny either, I can honestly say this is now one of my favorite polishes I own!

Unrelated to the color, but I had to trim my nails down because I will be starting college in about a week and a half and since I'm going to be a music major I have to take a keyboard class. If any of you guys have tried playing piano with longer nails, you'd understand why I cut them, playing piano with long nails is not only hurtful but really difficult when your nails just slide around on the keys and get stuck between the keys!

How do you guys prefer your nails-short or long? Personally, I prefer this length but just get too lazy to cut them and let them just grow!

OPI Pirouette My Whistle over OPI My Pointe Exactly

Pictured is one coat of OPI Pirouette My Whistle Over yesterday's nails, OPI My Pointe Exactly. I am absolutely in love with Pirouette My Whistle! I have a huge weakness for glitter polish and I don't have anything like this in my collection. It reminds me of China Glaze Techno, except it's not holo glitter! Despite not being holo, it's still sparkly and gorgeous, it just makes it great for when you want glitter, but don't want it to be "in your face" glitter. The larger pieces of hex glitter are more sparse than the fine pieces, which means if you don't want to have a nail with only 1 hex piece of glitter and others with a large amount of hex glitters, then you will want to just pay a little more attention to your application, unlike if you were applying China Glaze Fairy Dust. Aside from that, the application is wonderful. Unlike China Glaze Snow Globe, where it sinks into the polish a little bit, this just lays on top of the polish perfectly. It is lies smooth and flat.

OPI My Point Exactly Swatches & Review

Pictured is 4 coats of My Pointe Exactly and one coat of Seche Vite

I've seen many pictures of this and read many reviews of the NYC Ballet Collection, and in all the reviews I've read, everyone said these were not streaky, patchy, and were "self-leveling".

Obviously I didn't quite get the application right then, because you can see in the last picture with flash that it's streaky and uneven in spots. Unevenness aside, this is a great color. It's a sheer grey jelly, that on my skin tone leans more on the blue side. It leans so much on the blue side on me that it makes my hands look like I'm just really cold. However the application was much better than I expected with this. Usually with sheer polishes they're a streaky mess on me, these didn't even look that streaky and uneven unless I was really looking for it, so even though they were uneven in spots, it was not that noticeable and was most likely just due to my application. 

Usually I hate seeing any VNL, but the finish on these made these acceptable to me, and I actually really love it! I bought it with the intention of doing a jelly sandwich, but I think I actually might wear it by itself a lot also! 

Zoya Ivanka

Pictured is three coats plus one coat of Seche Vite.

Like all the other Zoya's in my collection, the application and formula were great. The polish goes on smooth and doesn't get chunky like other glass flecks/glitter tend to do. Honestly, I can't tell if this is a glass fleck or a glitter. In the bottle it looked like a glass fleck but when i went to apply it it looked like very fine glitter. There is some VNL, but that was most likely due to my application, my room was dark when I applied it so I may have missed some spots.

Don't forget to wrap the tips though! I didn't and it's painfully obvious. 

Color Club Holo Swatches and Review

As many of you probably have seen, Color Club will be releasing a new holo collection this August/September! Ah! More holos! I'm So excited to get my hands on them! You can see a couple pictures here at Neverland Nail Blog. :) Because of this new collection, I decided to swatch the old, well soon to be "old", Color Club holos in preparation of the new holos! Now, onto the photos! warning, there's a TON of pictures, and you can probably tell which one is my favorite based off the absurd amount of pictures I posted of it :) Please note some of these pictures are in fact blurred, but I included them because they showed the holo a lot better than nearly all the in focus ones.

 All taken with flash in indirect sunlight from my window.

Revvvolution. Black holo

China Glaze Trendsetter

China Glaze Trendsetter is from their Metro Collection from last fall. It's a mustard yellow with gold shimmer in it. In the lighting in my house it looks more like a darker olive shade than a mustard, but once I'm outside I can see how it's mustard. My mom actually described this as "an ugly pea baby food" color, which I have to agree with. It's ugly, but awesome. I've actually had this sitting on my nail rack for almost a year now because I wasn't that fond of it and thought it was ugly, but eventually it grew on me. It reminds me of those dogs that are so ugly yet somehow they're cute and you just want to play with all day. It's so ugly and unique, that it's awesome! See for yourself!

What do you guys think? Are you into these kinds of ugly, yet awesome colors? Is it something you'd wear?

Quick Mini Haul!

Well, is it still considered a haul if they're rejects from your step mom? Probably not. I guess this is a "nail polish my step mom bought herself then realized she didn't like so she gave them to me" post. This actually happens a lot, she'll always buy some then find out she didn't like the color, it didn't look the same as the bottle, it didn't look good on her skin tone, etc. So here is what i acquired from her:

Left to right:

China Glaze Below Deck

China Glaze Admire

Nicole by OPI It Starts With Me

Orly Rock the World

Maybelline Express Finish Mod Mauve

All swatches were three coats, except for Below Deck, which was only two.

Do you see this uneven mess? This is the brush on the Nicole by OPI polish. This is my first Nicole by OPI and I have to say, I'm very disappointed in the quality of this brush, it's completely uneven, as you can see, and was just poor. It reminds me of the Sally Hansen Insta Dri brushes, except less even. I'm assuming this was just a defective brush, but since the packaging said "New Perfect Stroke Brush", I had higher expectations. It wasn't hard to work with at all since I'm used to larger brushes, but I think uneven brushes like this should never make it's way into a polish. I know if I'm spending a good amount of money on a nail polish, I want the brush to be just as good as the polish itself, not an uneven mess. Hopefully the polish quality is better than it's brush's quality. 

Other than that brush, they all seem very promising. I already had a bottle of Below Deck so I know for a fact that it is promising, but as for the others I'll do real swatches another day and see just how good they are, I'm thinking Rock The World may be a tad sheer, and Admire looks like it will show a lot of brush strokes, but I guess we'll have to wait and see!

Icing After Party

Icing After Party is the colorful rainbow version of Icing Shredded, which is what I was originally looking for when I purchased this. It reminds me of OPI Rainbow Connection if it were thrown in a paper shredder and shredded into tiny bits. The brushes on Icing polishes reminds me a lot of China Glaze brushes, I'll include a picture of the brush, I like it, it's not too big but it's not too small, it's just right for me. The only downside of this polish for me is that my bottle has dried polish and glitter on the outside of it, which was there when i purchased it. I think that maybe it was with another bottle that broke and they just didn't bother to clean the bottle off, which is no big deal, but you can really see the dried polish on the bottom of the bottle. You would definitely want to wear a topcoat with this since some of the glitter bits don't lay flat against the nail and stick up a little bit, nothing a little Seche Vite can't solve though!

Pictured is one coat of Icing After Party over top of three coats of OPI Are We There Yet? 

Look at that glitter! So pretty

See the dried polish on the bottle?

A lot like China Glaze brushes, am I right?

Sally Hansen Lacey Lilac

I picked up this lovely pale purple at Target yesterday, expecting it to have horrible application since it was a lighter color, and I was pleasantly surprised! Would you believe that this is two coats? Because it is. Two coats and a coat of Seche Vite. It was absolutely flawless in two coats, a couple of my fingers were actually perfect in one coat! Compared to all my other pale, pastel purples, this is by far the best one. Color wise, I think it's a tad bit lighter than my picture is showing, but not by much. It's still a nice, pale lilac creme. It's very similar to Essie Nice is Nice, but a little darker. If you're looking for a pale lilac creme that isn't streaky, definitely pick up this. 

Swatch & Review- Zoya Zuza

Outside, full sun

Indoors, indirect sunlight from window 

I'm wearing two coats of Zoya Zuza and one coat of Seche Vite in these pictures. The formula on this was fantastic, as with almost all the other Zoya's I have. No complaints on the formula at all. I need to figure out how to properly photograph this color, the indoor color does it more justice than the outdoor one does. It's a blueish teal with a metallic looking shimmer. I posted on my Instagram earlier that Zuza just became my favorite Zoya polish, it had been Zoya Kissy, but this just blows that one away. I highly suggest this color, especially if you like teal, blue, or green polishes. 

I also want to note that this polish seemed to dry pretty quickly compared to other polishes I own, while I didn't wait for the second coat to dry before putting Seche Vite over it, the first coat was completely dry by the time I put the second coat on, which usually doesn't happen.

Swatch & Review- Color Club's Oooooo La La

Oooooo La La is a nice, wearable white with a pearl finish. While the end result is nice, and not chalky like a lot of white seem to be, the application was less than stellar. I usually apply 1-2 thin coats then 1 thicker coat for most polishes. Unfortunately the thinner coats made the application uneven, resulting in needing 4 coats. However if you do slightly thicker coats and take your time you could easily get away with 3 coats. 

Overall, I'm pleased with this color. While 4 coats and a coat of Seche Vite may be a lot, the subtle pearl finish to this makes it worth it in my opinion. So if you're looking for a wearable white that's NOT chalky, look no more! 

Please ignore the lighting, I tried to catch the sun while it was still out but wasn't quite fast enough.