Thanksgiving Nails: OPI & Apple Pie

Hello, and Happy Thanksgiving to all my American friends! I just wanted to stop by with a quick post today.

OPI & Apple Pie is often considered the ugliest nail polish in existence. It is a deep burnt orange tan color, so of course, I adore it! I was totally stumped about what to wear as my Thanksgiving manicure, but when my mom called this morning and said she wasn't sure she was going to make apple pie for the feast, I insisted that there "MUST BE APPLE PIE!" It just wouldn't be Thanksgiving without apple pie. So I thought this would be the perfect color to wear!

OPI & Apple Pie is from the 2001 World Collection, which means this polish is 10 years old! It is a black label polish (which I will show in the pictures below), so it is a non 3-free polish. Usually, I adore the formula of OPI black labels, but this one was not as nice as others I had experienced. It was a bit thick, which is fine, but it did not self-level AT ALL. This means that I had some very lumpy polish on my hand. It took a good 3 coats to smooth everything out. Not really a fan of the formula, but I'll keep it around as it is a unique color. 

Unfortunately, my nails and cuticles are badly stained from yesterday's Kleancolor Metallic Pink manicure. An amazing polish, but that baby stains like nothing else I have ever experienced! My nails are a nice shade of pink, and my cuticles are ORANGE. I tried everything to remove the stains: acetone, buffing, whitening toothpaste, whitening nail soak - even a scalding hot shower didn't do the trick. So, you guys will have to bear with me today. I only have a few pictures so as to spare you from the orange/pink massacre.

So here's, OPI & Apple Pie, 3 coats, Seche Vite topcoat, in natural light. In real life, its a bit lighter and less orange, but these were the best I could do in a short time today. Enjoy!

And, a bonus pup for you! This is UZI, and I am extremely thankful for this little guy today. Plus, my manicure matches the color of his fur =)

See you all tomorrow! Happy Thanksgiving =)

Rescue Beauty Lounge No More War - Swatches and Review

Good afternoon my lovelies! Today I have for you my very first RBL polish for you. I ordered in October from the BiB pre-order and ended up ordering 8 polishes! Now, for those of you not yet in the know, Rescue Beauty Lounge is a boutique polish company whose polishes are highly coveted in the nail world. Most of their polishes are limited edition, meaning that once they are sold out they are gone forever. Or, until Bring it Back comes around. Bring it Back is when RBL fans (or ReBeLs, as they are called on Facebook) vote on which colors they would like to see available for sale again.

No More War is still available for sale, and as far as I know has not sold out yet. It is one of those ugly-pretty colors that I just love so much! It is a murky, brown-leaning olive green cream. In some lights the green sticks out more, and in some lights (such as direct sunlight) the brown undertones really shine. I just LOVE this color. I have tons of olive/army greens in my stash, and not one has the baby-poop undertones that No More War has. There's probably some of you out there who are thinking "FUG, would never wear such a color," but I can't get enough of those baby poop colors.

As far as the formula goes, I wasn't in love. I know, I know, there's people out there that would swear up and down that RBL has the best polish formula out there. But for me, it was a bit too thick. It was kind of hard to get even, thin coats. Out of the bottle, I would have guessed that it was a 3-coater, but during application, the polish was so thick that 2 coats were enough. I do have to say that it was incredibly self-leveling, which meant that it there were no visible bumps due to the thickness.

Overall, after trying only one RBL polish, I'm still not convinced that the forumla is all that it's cracked up to be. However, I adore this color so I'll keep it in my stash and give all my other RBLs a chance to wow me with their formula.

Here is No More War, 2 coats, with topcoat, in various outdoor lighting conditions.

Thanks for stopping by!

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