Vintage Stash Spam Week - OPI and China Glaze

Happy Monday everyone! Today's post will be a quick one with my vintage OPI and China Glaze bottle spam!

~~~~

First up is OPI. OPI vintage polish is probably some of the easiest to come across in person because most nail salons in the US use OPI. Much of my vintage OPI stash has been found through dusty hunting, which is where you go to old nail salons and see if they have any old, vintage gems lying around. If you've been reading mine and Dana's blogs for awhile, you will know that we have absolutely insane dusty hunting luck when we are together. So if you want to start a vintage collection but don't know where to begin, check out some of your local nail salons. The longer the salon has been there, the better because they will have the older collections. The best ones always have a layer of dust on top- hence, "dusty hunting" =)

I decided to include only black label OPIs in this stash post, because they are what I truly believe constitute the "vintage" years of OPI. I believe that OPI switched over to the green label (a.k.a. big 3-free) somewhere around 2006 (correct me if I'm wrong!) so even though I do have several OPIs that have been released since then that are considered hard to find, or "HTF", I did not include them here. Several of my vintage OPIs date all the way back to 1989 and are among the oldest in my stash. And yes, they are still good as new!

Anyways, here's my vintage OPI collection. Enjoy!

OPI

 Pinks and Mauves, L-R:

Bubble Bath, Let Them Eat Rice Cake, Hawaiian Orchid, Silent Mauvie, Maine-iac Mauve

 Reds, L-R:

Vampire State Building, Mrs. O'Leary's BBQ, Revved Up and Red-y, Mauna Loa Lava, Never Lon-done Shopping, My Throne for a Cranberry Scone

 Orange/Bronze, L-R:

Hungary for My Honey, Sonata in Bronze, OPI and Apple Pie

 Greens, L-R:

Creme de Menthe, Rainforest, Jasper Jade, At Your Quebec and Call

 Purples, L-R:

H-Andover the Amethyst, The Grape Lakes, Two Plums Up, Peel Me a Gobi Grape, 

Black Tie Optional

 Color Shifters, L-R:

La Boheme, Movin Out, Telepathic Topaz, Pluto Plum

Summer for Shore holos, L-R:

Crim-sun, Coral Reef, Day at the Peach, Blue Moon Lagoon, Sand-erella

Fun note about my Summer for Shores - they have all been found through dusty hunting. I know I could easily buy What's Dune online to complete the collection, but I am determined to find it in its natural habitat one day =) 

~~~~

Next up is China Glaze! Not a lot is known about pre-1999 China Glaze polishes, many of which these are. Some of these are from the early 2000's as well. I have found several of these through dusty hunting also since China Glaze is readily used in nail salons around here as well. I just love the old China Glaze bottles with the ridged cap and old logo! Hope you enjoy =)

China Glaze

 Reds, Orange, Yellow, L-R:

Crystal Ball, Secrets, Go Crazy Red, Naked, China Rain, Sundiver

 Greens, L-R:

Out on Safari, Cat's Eye, Crocodile Lounge, Moonpool, Wet Velvet

 Blues, L-R:

Walk on the Wild Side, Indian Ocean, Nightfall, No Name Yet

 Purples, etc., L-R:

Grape Crush, Mink Frost, Dusk, Lavender Lynx, Lush Lavender, Orchid Shadow

Original Wizard of Ooh Ahz and In the Mood, L-R:

Ruby Pumps, Cowardly Lyin', Green Shimmer, Black to Silver

~~~~

Do you have any old-school OPI or China Glaze in your stash? I'd love to hear about them!

That's all for today folks, thanks for stopping by!

Stash Swap with Rach from stuff i (s)watched

OMG A NEW BLOG POST! COULD IT BE?!

Hi everyone!! I'm baaaaaaaaaack! We are finally all settled into our new house, my polish room set up, my nails finally grown back from the breaks I suffered during moving and I'm ready to go! Thanks for sticking around during my long hiatus! I'm a bit rusty with my swatching and photographing skills so hopefully they get back up to par in the next few weeks =)

A while back, Rach from stuff i (s)watched and I decided to do a stash swap! A stash swap is where you send each other a few polishes from your own stash for the other person to swatch and then send them back. I'm so glad to have done this with Rachel and I'm sure she's glad that I'm finally swatching her polishes after a few months of having them so I can finally send them back to her =D Anyways, stash swaps - they're a good time!! Thanks Rach for letting me try these polishes and being patient with me while I found the time to swatch them!

~~~~

First up is RGB Camp. Rach wanted me to try this one because she is a huge fan of RGB and I had never tried one of their polishes before. Camp is a lovely greyed-out dusty green creme. The end result is gorgeous but it was a little streaky for me, and I wasn't in love with the formula.

In the bottle, the pigment has separated a bit and even through vigorous shaking, I wasn't able to get rid of the little blue streaks throughout. It ended up being barely noticeable on the nail though. The formula was a bit thick, and if it were my own polish I probably would have thinned it out.

But, despite the less-than-perfect application, it is a GORGEOUS color and I may have to pick up a bottle for myself because a) I don't have anything quite like it in my stash and b) I am a huge camper, went to summer camp every year as a kid and the word "camp" just gives me warm fuzzies.

Anyways, here is 2 coats of RGB Camp!

Next up is Maybelline Hip Huggers! This is a vintage Maybelline Express Finish polish from the Denim collection. I'm not sure what year this came out, and I'm not even sure if there was an official name for this collection. My guess is that this is circa late 90's-early 00's. I own pretty much the whole collection, but Hip Huggers has been one that has eluded my reach!! I'm so glad to have been able to swatch it because it is a beaut!

Hip Huggers is a dark, dusty periwinkle creme with the tiniest bit of hidden shimmer. The formula was a bit thick, very on par with other Maybelline Express Finish polishes from that time. Again, if it was my own polish I probably would have added a few drops of thinner but it did fine without it. It was a bit difficult to capture the shimmer on the nail but I did my best!

Here's two coats of Maybelline Hip Huggers. If you click to enlarge, you might be able to see hints of shimmah!

And last, but certainly not least, is China Glaze Paper Chasing. This is the polish that started the whole stash swap idea! I told Rach that had never tried it, and she insisted that I must as it is one of her favorite greens! I was not disappointed folks, this is one heck of a green!!

Paper Chasing is an awesome shimmery grass green polish from the 2009 Summer Kicks collection. It is a bit sheer so it took 3 coats to reach opacity, but its sheerness allowed the depth of the shimmer to show through and it was just perfect. Formula was absolutely outstanding, thin but not runny and easy to control! UGH! Rach, you are right, I am head over heels for this green! As a lover of all things green, I'm fairly certain I will need to pick up a bottle for my own stash.

Here's 3 coats of China Glaze Paper Chasing.

~~~~~~

Thanks everyone for stopping by today! I have lots planned for you all coming up, so stay tuned! Have a fantastic Friday <3

Hunger Games Midnight Premiere Day featuring China Glaze Agro

Happy Thursday everyone! So I know that the premiere for The Hunger Games isn't technically until tomorrow but since my husband and I are going to the midnight showing tonight, today's the day for us! As you've probably figured by now, I am a huge Hunger Games fan. I devoured all three books within a week, desperately trying to spread them out because I didn't want them to end but finding myself unable to stop reading. I'm sure you've all heard about The Hunger Games at this point, so I wont bore your with the details of the story. But let's just say even my husband loves the books. That's how awesome they are.

So for the premiere I decided to wear my district's color from the China Glaze Capitol Colors Collection. If you don't know what district you are in, you can find out here: The Capitol of Panem. I am from District 11, the agriculture district.  I was so excited to find out that 11 was my district, because I come from the same district as sweet little Rue =) Anyways, the corresponding color for District 11 in the Capitol Colors Collection is Agro.

I was so pumped to learn that my color was going to be Agro. It is a lovely olive green metallic polish with micro flecks of copper, right up my alley. Unfortunately, application on this polish was HORRID on me. I have read blogs praising the formula of this polish, saying how wonderfully velvety and smooth it was. I seemed to have the exact opposite experience with it. I found Agro to be incredibly thick yet runny at the same time, making it hard to control and ended up flooding my cuticles several times. Also, it bubbled on me like no other polish I had ever seen. Horrid.

So yeah, Agro just did not agree with me. I don't know if it was my body chemistry, the bottle that I received in combination with the super thick formula, but I'm not impressed. I'll keep this in my stash and maybe give it another try one day, but mostly because I am a major Hunger Games fan, and of course, because it is my district's color.

In order to save the manicure, I layered one of my color shifting topcoat frankens on top. The one that I chose was one that I frankened from gold-to-green color shifting pigment and Confetti Tiara. Not only did it save an otherwise streaky and bubbly manicure, but it looks BANGIN!

Manicure is as follows:
-base coat
-2 coats China Glaze Agro
-1 coat green-to-gold color shifting franken
-top coat

Hope you enjoy! I apologize for the bubbliness, I swear my nails aren't made out of sandpaper!

Are you a Hunger Games fan? Will you be wearing your district's color to the theatre?

Christmas Glitter Vomit featuring China Glaze Party Hearty

Hi there everyone!! Christmas is just around the corner, so I figured that I would do a festive mani for you guys today! Sorry I've been in and out lately, for some reason I've been ultra critical of my pictures lately (I feel like they get worse as I go along) so I just haven't been posting much.

Anyways, for the base of this manicure, I used Essie Mint Candy Apple from the Essie 2009 Winter collection. This polish is actually the one that really got me started into collection nail polish again so although MCA is kind of a streaky mess, it holds a special place in my heart because it was one of my first polishes! MCA is a gorgeous light mint green cream, and since it is a bit sheer and streaky, I did three coats here.

Then, I layered on 2 coats of China Glaze Party Hearty from the 2010 Tis the Season collection. Ahh! I love this polish so much! It has small round green glitter, medium sized red hex glitter and micro gold glitter. This is probably the best Christmas polish ever. I wanted to add a little bit more sparkly goodness so I added a coat of Essie Golden Nuggets over Party Hearty. Golden Nuggets is the perfect gold microglitter top coat. I love how dense the glitter is in this, but not too dense to still let Party Hearty shine through!

Here is my Christmas Glitter Vomit manicure. Hope you enjoy!!

Thanks for stopping by! I hope all of those out there who celebrate the holidays are enjoying themselves and have completed all their shopping! I, of course, have a lot more shopping to do. Ugh! I always wait until the last minute, you think I would have learned my lesson by now.

Anyways, see you all again soon!

China Glaze Emerald Sparkle

Good afternoon everyone! Just dropping by with a super quick post today. I had to cut my nails really short due to a break, and I'm not too thrilled with them right now. Especially since the nail bed on my pinky fingers are longer than the rest and can never be as short as the others. It looks ridiculous!

China Glaze Emerald Sparkle is an amazing polish! I could not do this bad boy justice with my photography skills. It is a lovely forest green with green glitter throughout. So sparkly, so festive and a hands-down favorite polish of many people in the nail polish community. So check it out! Don't forget to enlarge to see the awesome detail this polish has =)

Also, just wanted to let you know that I added a link to the spreadsheet of my polish collection at the top of the page, so check it out if you would like! It took me all evening yesterday and all morning today to finish =) I will be adding my swap list very soon as well, so check back soon for that!

See you all tomorrow!

Ecto Cooler Nails featuring Pure Ice Crackle in Shattered

Hello there! I have a bit of a weird manicure for you today. Every kid who grew up in the 80's and 90's loved Ghostbusters. It's just a fact of life. Ghostbusters and Halloween always seem to go together in my head, so I wanted to do a Ghostbusters inspired mani for you all this month. Since I'm crap at freehand nail art, I tried to think of something Ghostbusters related, and then I remembered Hi-C's Ecto Cooler!

Image Credit

Ecto Cooler was a staple in my lunchbox during my elementary school years. It was based on Slimer, the gluttonous green ghost sidekick of the Ghostbusters. The drink had a sweet citrus flavor but instead of the typical orange color, it was lime green. And it was damn good. It was discontinued in the late 90's, but us 80's and 90's kids remember this drink fondly.

Ecto Cooler Commercial

So, I'm not much of a crackle fan and I think it has been way over done since it's release early this year. However, if you can't do crackle in October for Halloween, when else can you do it? For this manicure, I did a base of China Glaze Papaya Punch, a bright (almost neon) yellow-orange creme. Then, I slapped on Pure Ice's Shattered, a lime green crackle. Definitely not my favorite manicure, but it's super fun for Halloween and definitely reminiscent of Hi-C Ecto Cooler. 

Have a great Sunday everyone!

-Jacqui

China Glaze It's Alive!

Happy October everyone! I'm so excited that it is finally my favorite month of the year. It is my favorite for several reasons, but mainly because of the holiday that it contains. Halloween is my number one holiday of all time, favorite until the end, till death do us part. Yes, I even had a Halloween themed wedding! Coming up this month is our one year wedding anniversary and I have a super fun post planned for that day =) But anyways, since Halloween is the most wonderful time of year (whoever said that Christmas is the most wonderful time of year was sadly mistaken), I have a month full of fun, spooky and ridiculously fun manicures for you all!

First up is from this year's China Glaze Haunting collection, a wonderfully murky polish named "It's Alive." Yes, I know you have all seen a lot of China Glaze polishes on this blog already, but they are my favorite brand so expect to see a lot more in the next month because they have some spectacular Halloween polishes! It's Alive was the only polish that I got from the Haunting collection, as I had dupes of the others in my collection already. It is truly the star of the collection, and if you can only buy one Halloween polish this year, It's Alive should be the one.

Anyways, It's Alive a dark and grubby olive green jelly packed full of lighter green hex and micro glitter to create a fantastic polish reminiscent of the Swamp Thing. It is so sparkly yet so dreary at the same time - a perfect Halloween polish! It took two coats to reach opacity, which is not bad at all for a glitter polish of this nature. Application was very easy. It's Alive is definitely a "hungry glitter," meaning that it definitely takes more than a few layers of topcoat to smooth it out. To solve the hungry glitter problem, I always use one coat of Gelous (available at Sally Beauty Supply) and then one coat of my normal quick dry top coat and I'm good to go!

I have been dying to wear this polish ever since I picked it up at Ulta a few weeks ago, and I knew that it would be the first polish I would wear during October. So here are a few pics, hope you enjoy =)

And here a macro shot for you, to see how awesome the glitter is in this polish!

Hope everyone's weekend is off to a great start! Thanks for reading =)

-Jacqui

Ugly-Pretty or Pretty Ugly: China Glaze Trendsetter

Good morning everyone! Hope your day is going swimmingly. Today, I am starting a series of posts titled "Ugly-Pretty or Pretty Ugly" because I realized I seem to have an attraction to ugly colors. Well, perhaps colors that others would find ugly and I find them to be fantastic! Anything murky, old lady or baby poop colored, send them my way!

Ugly-pretty is a phrase often credited as being coined by Tyra Banks on America's Next Top Model meaning something that is so damn ugly that it actually looks pretty awesome at the same time. This modeling concept also applies to nail polish. What's hot in nail polish now are colors that may be considered fairly ugly by many people.

China Glaze Trendsetter is one of those colors. It is from the fantastic fall 2011 Metro Collection from China Glaze. The Metro Collection was probably the only fall collection this year that I really loved, and I think this color is one of the reasons why. Trendsetter is a mustardy-green-yellow-brown color with golden shimmer throughout. Some may look at it and think it is hideous, while I think it is brilliant! The shimmer really pulls this color together, making it have almost a brocade finish as it is very dense and velvety.

The following pictures are all two coats plus one coat of topcoat. It is a bit thicker than the rest of the colors in this collection, but the polish leveled out fairly well and did not create any bubbling or other problems. It tends to pull quite green on my skin tone, but I have seen other pictures where it looks very yellow on people. I am completely in love with this color! I don't really care how it looks on my skintone, it's just such a fascinating color that I will wear it no matter what.

Natural Light

Natural Light

Natural Light

Natural Light

Artificial Light - click to enlarge to see the pretty shimmer!

Artficial Light - Mattified with Essie Matte About You Topcoat. Love this!

And there you have it - China Glaze Trendsetter. What do you think? Ugly-pretty or just plain pretty ugly?

-Jacqui

China Glaze Branding Iron - Vampy Nubs

Good evening everyone and happy autumnal equinox! Today marks the start of my absolute favorite season of the year. There is just something about fall that makes me giddy. The cool, crisp air, the changing leaves, the pumpkins, the apple cider, the bonfires, and of course, Halloween!

I decided to start out the season by chopping off my nails and turning them into nubs. I had several breaks along the edges, so I figured it was time to get rid of my long nails and start fresh again. I am constantly playing with the shape and length of my nails, so please bear with me =)

There is nothing quite like a deep, vampy polish on über short nails. I decided to go with China Glaze Branding Iron, a velvety deep and glowy burgundy red. It is from China Glaze's Fall 2008 collection Rodeo Diva, which in my opinion, is the best fall collection that China Glaze has ever released. It is filled with beautiful, rich colors that really epitomize the season for me. If you have never checked out China Glaze's Rodeo Diva collection, please do! It is absolutely fantastic.

So here is Branding Iron! It is so wonderful and glowy, and such a perfect color for my newly shortened nails. I am in love with it! Hope you enjoy!

And here's one without the bottle so you can get a better view of my nubs. I quite like them at this length!

Hope everyone has a great evening!

-Jacqui =)