Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Happy Halloween! China Glaze Fortune Teller

Happy Halloween everyone! My favorite holiday of the year is finally here!

Today's quick post is of my all-time favorite black and orange Halloween nail polish, China Glaze Fortune Teller. Of course, black and orange is a very popular color combination for Halloween themed polish, but none of the other polishes do it quite as well as Fortune Teller does. Fortune Teller was part of China Glaze's 2009 Halloween collection and is now pretty hard to find. Another good one from that collection was Spellbound, which is another favorite of mine and even more hard to find than Fortune Teller. Alas, I ran out of time to swatch Spellbound for you all. I will definitely be sure to bring it out next Halloween!

Anyways, China Glaze Fortune Teller is a black jelly base packed with a few different sizes of orange hex glitters. It sounds simple enough but the effect it has is absolutely stunning!! Pictured is 3 coats, and it was fairly easy to apply with no problems in the formula. It's almost an unwritten rule that when you wear Fortune Teller, you HAVE to put a matte topcoat over top because it enhances the awesomeness. Hey, I don't make the rules! So of course, I have pictures of it both with regular top coat and with a matte topcoat today.

So here's 3 coats of China Glaze Fortune Teller, first with regular top coat and the last two with a matte top coat (I used Essie's). Enjoy!








Thanks for stopping by today! I hope you've all enjoyed the Halloween polishes that I showed you this year. I was hoping to do more, but life just got in the way this time around. But hey, there's always next year!

Hope everyone has a safe and Happy Halloween!!!! 


Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Piggy Polish Lightmare

Good morning my lovelies!! Happy Halloween Eve! I hope everyone in the path of Hurricane Sandy is staying safe! I live in Cleveland and although not technically in the direct path of Sandy, it collided with a major cold front and we've been experiencing some crazy winds and rain here. We've had lots of flooding, power outages and major storm damages in the area. Over 500 schools and school districts in the area were closed today (my school not being one of them, of course) so things are definitely crazy around the CLE today. Frankenstorm indeed!

Anyways, back to the polish! Today I have for you another great Halloween polish, Piggy Polish Lightmare. Piggy Polish is a brand that is exclusively available at Ulta and I have never picked up one of their polishes until now. Lightmare is an LE Halloween polish that Piggy Polish released this year, and it proved pretty difficult to me to find. I went to 4 Ultas before I finally was able to snag the very last bottle in the display! This polish is popular for good reason - it is fantastic!!

Lightmare has a base of small gunmetal glitters with coppery-orange medium sized round glitters thrown in! I can definitely say I don't have anything like this in my stash, which is great because a lot of the big brands' Halloween polishes tend to look the same after awhile. The formula on this was a bit tricky, it was pretty gloopy and hard to work with. Pictured is two coats of Lightmare, and these two coats were kind of difficult to smooth out but the end result was well worth it. I did do a coat of Seche Vite over it and it was still a bit gritty but not too bad. My bottle of SV is getting kind of thick anyways so it's been smoothing out glitters quite nicely. Lightmare has a Halloween feel to it without being too run-of-the-mill orange and black. I would say it is a solid 9 out of 10 in my book!

Here's 2 coats of Piggy Polish Lightmare. Enjoy!






Thanks for stopping by today! Hope everyone has a splendid day =)


Thursday, October 25, 2012

Dollish Polish - What's This? What's This?

Good morning everyone!! Today I have for you another polish from this year's Dollish Polish Halloween collection, What's This? What's This? This Nightmare Before Christmas inspired collection is definitely my favorite Halloween collection that came out this year from any brand, big or indie brand. The colors in this collection are so varied and cover every possible facet of the season, from glow-in-the-dark glitter, to a slimy looking green color, to vampy and deep colors to your traditional Halloween colored glitter bombs.

What's This, What's This is a veritable glitter extravaganza with all the colors of Halloween. There's 2 different shades of green glitter, 2 different shades of purple glitter, orange glitter, black glitter and white glitter in all different shapes and sizes. There's small squares, there's big squares, there's big hexes, there's small hexes, there's micro glitter, and there's bar glitter.  WHAT IS THIS? It is the ultimate Halloween polish, that's what it is.

Application was average for a glitterbomb, it took a bit of dabbing and it was kind of gloopy. The brush that I got in my bottle was pretty deformed, so that probably contributed to the bit of difficulty I had with application. But overall, I was extremely pleased with this polish and I honestly could not imagine a more perfect Halloween glitter.

Here's 2 coats of Dollish Polish What's This? What's This? over Finger Paints Black Expressionism. Enjoy!







What do you guys think? What would your ultimate Halloween glitter look like?

Thanks for stopping by today! See you all soon for more Halloween goodness! Can you all believe that Halloween is just around the corner?! I can't wait!!!

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Sephora by OPI - If You've Got It, Haunt It

Hello my lovely readers!! Quick apology for my absence, I have a lot going on in school right now so my posts are going to be sparse for the next few weeks. But never fear, I could never abandon you all! I'm back today with a quick post of one of my favorite Halloween polishes in my stash, $OPI If You've Got It, Haunt It. I believe this is one of the only (if not THE only) Halloween collections that Sephora by OPI has done and this was definitely the standout of the collection. I believe the other two were a white glow-in-the-dark polish and a matte black. In fact, If You've Got It, Haunt It blows pretty much everything that the regular OPI brand has done for Halloween in a few years as well. I'm a huge fan of this polish and I hope you guys enjoy it!

If You've Got It, Haunt It is from Sephora by OPI's 2010 Halloween collecton. It is a very unique polish, I have nothing like it in my stash! IYGIHI is has a smoky grey jelly base packed with black glitter with silver and blue opalescent micro glitter that flashes blue, green and orange. At the time, this polish was kind of a big deal due to the use of black glitter. Nowadays black glitter is everywhere but this polish still holds a special place in my heart because it is so cool looking. It was super thick and I probably could have gotten away with one coat but I did two for photos. It doesn't exactly scream Halloween to me but I love it just the same =)

Here's 2 coats of Sephora by OPI If You've Got It, Haunt It. Enjoy!





What do you guys think?

Thanks for stopping by today everyone and I hope you all are doing well! I can't wait to catch up on everyone's blogs and see what you all have been up to! Talk to you all soon =)

Thursday, October 18, 2012

Vintage Sally Hansen Slime and Giveaway Winners!

Good morning everyone!! I have another quick vintage Sally Hansen post for you today!! As some of you may have gathered, vintage Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Halloween polishes are among the most prized polishes in my stash and I feel very lucky to have them as they are very rare. Upon reading Kaz's blog about these Sally Hansen's the other day, I realized that my dates for these collections have been 1 year off. So, the first two I showed you were actually from the 2000 collection and Vampira was from the 1999 collection.

Anyways, today I have for you vintage Sally Hansen Slime, which was from the 2000 Hard as Nails Halloween collection. Slime is a bright green glitter in a murky green jelly base. I thought this was going to be similar to Jack-o-Lantern in that the base would become opaque after a few coats but Slime's base was much more sheer. I probably should have layered it over another polish but instead, I was determined to cover my VNL and ended up doing 4 coats of Slime. I do like how it turned out because you can see that murky green base color poking through but it was a bit of a pain to get it to look nice. Slime probably could have been another candidate for Fug Friday, it definitely has that "ugly-pretty" vibe going for it.

So here's 4 coats of vintage Sally Hansen Slime. Enjoy!





What do you guys think of Slime?

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Also on the agenda for today is announcing the winners of my Halloween Giveaway Spooktacular! I just want to thank everyone for such an amazing turnout for my very first giveaway, it was so much fun reading all of your comments about what you love about fall and Halloween! And for all of my new followers, thank you for joining The Scholarly Nail and I hope that you have been enjoying my nails and will stick around on this journey with me!

Without further ado, here are the winners of the giveaway! Congratulations to all!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

For those who didn't win, I will be running a second chance giveaway on Twitter and Facebook very soon, so stay tuned!!

Hope you all have a fabulous day and I will see you all tomorrow for more Halloween fun!


Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Dollish Polish - We're Simply Meant To Be

Good morning everyone!! Just a quick note to let everyone know that giveaway winners have been chosen and e-mails will be going out shortly. Keep in mind that the winners have 48 hours to respond to the e-mail and if I have not heard back in that time, a new winner will be chosen in your place.

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Anyways, today is a very special post! This was actually supposed to be posted yesterday but I was having some issues yesterday morning and it never happened. So, I'm posting it a day late. Yesterday was my 2 year wedding anniversary with my wonderful husband!! I know I've mentioned it on here before but our wedding was the absolute best day of our lives. It was a dream wedding, the ceremony outdoors under the changing fall leaves with pumpkins lining the aisle and the reception was in an old barn, with chandeliers and pumpkins and black and orange everywhere! We even had a bonfire. Yes, it was our perfect wedding. But what made it even more perfect was that I married the guy of my dreams, my best friend, the greatest person I know and the love of my life. Haha, okay, enough with the mushy stuff!

To celebrate our 2 year anniversary, I knew I had to used Dollish Polish's We're Simply Meant to Be from this year's Nightmare Before Christmas collection that she did for Halloween! We're Simply Meant to be is an amazing glitter in a clear base with pink and blue microglitters and blue, yellow and burgundy large hex glitters. If you haven't seen the Nightmare Before Christmas you may be a bit confused as to why these colors make a Halloween polish. These colors fit into this collection because they are the colors of Jack Skellington's girlfriend Sally's ragdoll clothing. So awesome!

I absolutely LOVE We're Simply Meant to Be! One of the reasons why I love Dollish Polish in general is because they don't use a lot of those matte glitters - you know, the ones where you can see the paper lines on the glitter - because I'm really just not a fan of them. I like my glitters to be reflective and shiny, and that is exactly what these glitters are. The colors look so amazing together! I decided to layer WSMTB over China Glaze Immortal, a fantastic grey shimmer and it really provided an awesome base for all the awesome colors in this polish.

So enough talking, on to the pics! Here is two coats of Dollish Polish We're Simply Meant to Be over China Glaze Immortal. Definitely click these to enlarge, you'll want to soak in every detail. Enjoy!






What do you guys think? Did you pick up any polishes from this collection?

Thanks for stopping by today and I will see you all tomorrow with even MORE Halloween polish!

Oh, and HAPPY ANNIVERSARY REMY! <3

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Last Day for the Halloween Giveaway Spooktacular!

Hi everyone! Just wanted to remind you that today is the LAST DAY to enter the giveaway! Entries will not be accepted after midnight tonight. Good luck to everyone!

To get to the giveaway, click the link in my sidebar or click here:


Monday, October 15, 2012

Vintage Sally Hansen - Vampira

Good morning everyone! Super quick post for you all today. It's another busy week so I probably won't be able to catch up on reading everyone's blogs until the end of this week again. I wish I could sit and read blogs all day long!!

I have another vintage Sally Hansen Halloween polish for you all. This time it's Vampira, from the 1998 Halloween collection. Vampira is the only one I have from this collection which is proving to be more difficult to get my hands on than even the 1997 collection! Anyways, I'm glad to have this polish because it is another one of my favorites. 

Sally Hansen Vampira has a dark red jelly base (blood red, if you will) with silver and bright red micro square glitter. I just LOVE those teeny, tiny square glitters. When I first saw a picture of this on eBay, I figured it was going to be another one of those black base with red glitter polishes a la Lubu Heels, but I couldn't have been more wrong. The blood red base mixed with the red and silver square glitters put Vampira in a class all its own! Application was a breeze and it was opaque in 2 coats, although I probably should have done 3 for the pics, as there are a few bald spots that the camera picked up. Oh well!

Here's 2 coats of vintage Sally Hansen Vampira. Enjoy!






What do you guys think?

As I'm typing this, I am realizing how awesome Vampira would have looked with a matte top coat over it. I'll definitely try it next time I wear this!

Also, don't forget to enter the Halloween Giveaway Spooktacular! It ends tomorrow at midnight!

Anyways, thanks for stoping by today! I'll see you all tomorrow with a very special post =)

Sunday, October 14, 2012

Retro Sunday Squared - Vintage Sally Hansen HALLOWEENIES!

Good afternoon my lovely readers! So sorry it took awhile to get this post up, my computer keeps crashing =( Not good, not good at all! Anyways, Dana and I are back with yet another Halloween edition of Retro Sunday Squared! We are so excited about this one because we are both obsessed with vintage Sally Hansens and were both lucky enough to get our hands on tons of the vintage Halloween Sally Hansens recently! These vintage Halloween Sally Hansens have been at the top of my wishlist FOR EVER and I never thought I would see most of them in my lifetime. They came out between 1997-1999 for Halloween and after that, the Hard as Nails line stopped doing Halloween collections. So, we are VERY lucky to have found an eBay store who recently got a few of them in from old, closeout and liquidated stock.

These vintage Sally Hansen Halloween polishes may be some of my favorite polishes in my entire 1200+ polish collection. Of course, I love Halloween so that's a given but the colors they did were absolutely stunning and I love the matching caps as well. I wish I could convey to you how truly excited I am to have finally added these polishes to my collection, but you would have had to see me jumping up and down like a crazy person when they popped up on eBay to truly understand =)

Don't forget to check out Dana's vintage Sally Hansen post over at Polished Claws Up!

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First up is Sally Hansen Jack-o-Lantern. Jack-o-Lantern is from their 1999 Halloween collection and is an orange jelly packed with copper glitter. O M G you guys this is SUCH an awesome polish. It took 3 coats for opacity and applied like a gem. It is a very bright orange for sure. If I could buy an entire gallon of Jack-o-Lantern, I would. In fact, I would like an entire bathtub full of this polish. Backup worthy? Pshhh try bathtub worthy! There's not really much else to say here, I will let the pictures do the talking.

Here's 3 coats of Sally Hansen Jack-o-Lantern. Enjoy!






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Next up is Sally Hansen Trick or Treat. I am so thrilled to finally have this polish in my stash because I almost had it once before but it was ripped out from under me! I set up a swap with a very nice girl from MUA who lived in Latvia who was sending me Trick or Treat. Sadly, the package got lost in the mail and I was absolutely devastated. We filed multiple investigations and claims with both the Latvian and US Post and it was never found =( So imagine my excitement when this bad boy popped up on eBay last month!

Anyways, Trick or Treat is a black jelly polish with lots of multi-colored iridescent glitter. When I first saw pics of this polish, I thought it was going to be holo glitter but it is definitely NOT holo glitter. The effect that these iridescent glitters have up against the black base is absolutely stunning. I was thinking about layering a coat of this over black to conserve the polish, but I just love the depth of the glitters when layering a few coats of this. Another bathtub worthy polish for sure!

Here's 3 coats of Sally Hansen Trick or Treat. Enjoy!








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What do you guys think? Are these polishes bathtub worthy?

If you want a chance to win them, I am giving away both of these polishes in a prize in my giveaway!! Don't forget to check out my Halloween Giveaway Spooktacular! There's only 2 days left to enter!!

Thanks for stopping by today and I will see you all with more awesome Halloween polishes all week long =)

Friday, October 12, 2012

Fug Friday - China Glaze Zombie Zest

Happy Friday to all you lovely people out there! I am so excited about today's post! My friend Rachel over at stuff i (s)watched and I have decided to team up and do a series on some of our fantastically fugly polishes! We both have great affinity for those kinds of polishes where you just can't decide whether it's ugly, awesome or awesomely ugly. Upon deep and thoughtful consideration (i.e. a twitter conversation), Rach and I have come to the conclusion that the best fugly polishes are those that closely resemble bodily secretions. Yes, I'm talking about baby poop yellows and puke greens here people. I don't know why but sometimes the more hideous a color is, the more I love it!

The first polish I've chosen for Fug Friday is one of my favorite Halloween polishes of all time, China Glaze Zombie Zest. It is from the 2010 Awakening collection which, as you may know, is probably one of the best Halloween collections that China Glaze has ever done. Zombie Zest has a murky greenish-brown jelly base packed with yellowish-green glass flecks. I feel like the overall effect is a cross between baby poop and zombie flesh. So fugly, yet so awesome at the same time. Whoever thought to cross this dingy, swampy base color with the bright glass flecks is pure genius. Zombie Zest is the perfect color for Halloween and a perfect example of what fug polishes all around the world should aspire to be.

Zombie Zest is a bit on the sheer side, so it took three coats to cover my visible nail line. The overall fugliness of it probably stands out better at two coats so maybe one day when I have nubs, I will wear the polish again and let the base show through a bit more. Overall, the formula on this polish was fantastic. Application was easy, the consistency was great so there was no worry of cuticle flooding or anything like that. Even though this polish came out in 2010, it's still relatively easy to find from online retailers. In fact, there are several places that still have it for around $3 a bottle.

Here's 3 coats of China Glaze Zombie Zest. Enjoy! And don't forget to check out Rach's Fug Friday post over at stuff i (s)watched!






What do you guys think? Would you qualify Zombie Zest as a fug polish? What are some of your favorite fugly polishes?

Thanks for stopping by today! As always, don't forget to enter my Halloween Giveaway Spooktacular!