OPI Alcatraz… Rocks Swatches and Review
The other day at ULTA I spotted the OPI San Francisco collection- there’s a lot of pretty colors, but the one that jumped out at me most (and into my bag) was Alcatraz… Rocks. I’d seen it in photos, but it was SO much prettier in person!
I’m still a bit on the fence when it comes to the textured polish trend- I don’t like many, but super sparkly ones (like Zoya’s Pixie Dusts or JulieG Gumdrops) I LOVE! And Alactraz… Rocks is definitely sparkly!
Alcatraz… Rocks is a dark blurple base (more purple leaning than I initially realized) filled with lots of different shimmer. I definitely saw blue, pink, and gold, though there could be a touch of green in there as well.
Application was great- I had good coverage with 1 coat, and complete coverage with 2. Photos show 2 coats with no topcoat. The dry time was pretty good- textured polishes can sometimes take a bit longer to dry, but it seemed like this one was touch-dry in around the same length of time my normal polishes are.
This is my first Liquid Sand polish, though I have quite a few textured offerings from other brands- and I can definitely say OPI did a great job with it. Dry time seemed to be superior to others I have used, and the sparkle was over the top (in a good way). If you like textures, definitely be sure to pick this one up!
I bought my bottle at ULTA for $9, but you can find this at most places OPI nail polish is sold!
Model City Polish: Christmas Collection swatches and review!
Well, today was sunny and beautiful, so I had great sunshine for photos! As promised, I have some fun Christmas polishes to show you (sometimes I use a lightbox, but these didn’t want to cooperate inside). We’re in the process of putting up our tree and decorating here- I adore this time of year!
Tonight I have some of the colors from Model City Polishes Christmas Collection: O Christmas Tree, Silver and Gold, and You’re A Mean One.
First up, I have O Christmas Tree!
This is a fun polish, filled with green shards, gold stars, silver bar glitter, and a variety of multi colored hex glitter! Everything you’d imagine on a Christmas tree 🙂 This polish applied well- I chose to use the dabbing method to apply it exactly where I wanted it. I layered 1 coat of O Christmas Tree over 2 coats of OPI Just Spotted The Lizard.
Next up is the Silver and Gold duo! I’ll start off with Silver.
Silver and Gold is made up of 2 polishes- a silver glitter topcoat, and a gold glitter topcoat. Both are filled up with multiple sizes of hexes and bar glitter. Again, I chose to dab to apply where I wanted. This one was a bit tricky to work with, but it didn’t take long to have everything where I wanted it. I layered 1 coat of Silver over 2 coats of China Glaze For Audrey.
And now for the gold part of the duo!
Like Silver, Gold is made up of multiple sizes of metallic gold hexes and bar glitter. This one was the most tricky of the bunch- the bar glitter has a bit of a curve to it (though topcoat helps smooth it down), and I definitely had to dab to place everything just so. Out in the sun, this was very stunning! I love wearing gold on my nails. It was a beautiful counterpart to my base color- 365 Day’s of Color’s Mrs. Claus (which will be shown off all on its own in a few days!).
Last but not least, we have my favorite- You’re A Mean One!
This is a fun glitter topcoat filled with green squares, silver hexes and bright red hearts. Again, I dabbed the glitter on for placement. What I loved about this one was that I never once had to fish for hearts- what you see is what came out! I think I had to put a few BACK one time! This is 1 coat of You’re A Mean One over 2 coats of OPI Just Spotted the Lizard (which makes for a great undie coat for these Christmas colors!).
Overall, I really like this collection. The glitters can definitely be a bit tricky with placement and things of that nature, so these are better suited for us ladies (or guys!) that love glitter and are used to dealing with the challenges they can sometimes come with- though it doesn’t take much longer using the dabbing method, just a bit more patience! And I really encourage everyone to check out the store- there are some other AMAZING colors in this collection! I just adore Spearmint and Sugar Plum, and Cookies and Milk is such fun!
You can find Model City polish on Facebook here, and you can buy all of the Christmas collection and more here at the Etsy store!
*These products were sent to me for review, all opinions are my own*
(Just Another) Mani Monday: Olympic Nails
First off, I’d like to say again- THANK YOU for all the support, and for all the interest in the giveaway!
As I mentioned on Facebook, I drew the names of the winners last night, and they have already responded! So big congratulations to Tina, Patricia, and Cayce!! 2 of the 3 winners will have their packages on their way to them tomorrow- the 3rd (at her request) will be getting hers mailed as soon as the Olympics are over. My first international winner!
Be sure to post pictures on my wall when you make a fuzzy monster mani, guys!
Now onto today’s post- Olympic Nails. Unless you’ve been living under a rock (which is always possible, I’m fairly in the dark with news a lot of times), you know that the Olympics began this weekend. Go Team USA!
I will freely admit, this is not my best work. But the kids were screaming, and I’m sure it’s fun to see the ‘fails’ as often as the wins. The idea is good though, in my opinion! Maybe you can recreate it a bit better 🙂
Here’s the first round of polishes I used. This is OPI’s DS Radiance, Essie’s Penny Talk, a franken thrown together 5 minutes earlier by me, Color Club’s mini gold with no sticker (from May’s BirchBox), and Julep Kate. (Or in other words- you need white, gold, silver, bronze, and (optional) patriotic topcoat)
I had planned to use Pretty and Polished’s Freedom Calling, but I couldn’t find the bottle for the life of me. I know it’s around here somewhere. That is a good one to use though, it’s fairly similar to this one but not identical. Same idea- red, white and blue mixed glitter.
I painted white on my thumb and pinky, and did the 3 medal colors across the inner fingers, like so:
I think using all 3 colors from Essie’s Mirror Metallics would be good if you have them. This gold and silver did not play nicely when it came to cleanup, because of the glittery effect.
Next round of colors:
You’ll need black, green, yellow, red, blue, and some straws (cutting them is up to you- but you’ll need 5 ‘sides’). I used Cult Nails Nevermore, Julep Emilie, Sinful Colors Pull Over, Zoya Sooki, and Sinful Color’s Rain Storm. For cleaning purposes, I also used a paper plate, but a piece of paper will also work.
Now we’re going to use these colors to create the Olympic rings on our thumb!
To make the rings, I dipped the tip of the straw into a little blob of polish. If you don’t know off the top of your head (I didn’t), the rings go blue-black-red, and then yellow-green below them. So I began with blue, and worked my way down!
Here’s the tip of the straw with polish on it. Then you’ll place the straw end where you want the first ring, and gently rock it around to ensure the polish gets on the nail around the entire circle. On my first circle, I lifted up after just placing it on my nail, and 1/2 the circle was missing. When I re-did it, it made it look a bit ‘off’. Do make sure you have a good bit of polish on the straw, but it doesn’t have to be dripping.
My nails, in addition to being shorter, are not very big. I could *barely* fit the rings on my thumb, and they were all overlapping each other. If you have slightly smaller nails, I’d advise trying out a coffee stirrer straw instead of a standard one. If I had any, that’s what I would have used!
My ghetto rings. At least it’s obvious what they’re supposed to be!
I didn’t take photos of the next step (because my husband wasn’t home to help with pictures), but I wrote ‘USA’ in red and blue polish on my pinky. I did this using a paintbrush, but you could easily do it using nail art stripers, or maybe even a standard brush if you’re patient.
I then finished it all off with my red, white and blue topcoat over the gold, silver and bronze nails. Obviously, if you’re not from the USA, Britain, or another r/w/b country, you can use something else to represent your colors!
Believe it or not, I DID clean up those metallic nails. The gold and silver really don’t like me!
And I didn’t realize my USA was upside down in the swatches until after I’d taken pictures. I didn’t want to redo the entire nail, so I hope you guys understand 🙂
Go Team USA! Make us proud!
If you do any kind of Olympic mani, even if it’s completely different from this, please link up on my Facebook page- I’d love to see it and feature it!
Nicole by O.P.I. Target Exclusives Part 2: Iris My Case, You’re S-Teal The One, and Mer-Maid for Each Other
This post is not technically late.
Well ok, I originally promised it Thursday. So it’s late from that date.
Then I promised Saturday. As I have not yet gone to bed, I still consider it to be Saturday in my head. So I’m totally still on time.
If you haven’t already, be sure to enter my latest giveaway!
At the beginning of the month, I posted about 3 colors from Nicole by OPI that I found at Target, which you can see here. I know for a fact 2 are Fall Target exclusives, though I don’t think Look At Me Look At Me! is new.
This past week Target was having a sale on NOPI colors, and I had coupons for them… so I bought the remaining 3. And here they are!
Mer-Maid For Each Other, Iris My Case, and You’re S-Teal The One!
First up I’m going to show off You’re S-Teal The One.
I know that the other 2 are definitely Target Fall Exclusives, but I’m not so sure about this one. I think I heard somewhere that it isn’t- but I’m going to show it anyways 😉
You’re S-Teal The One is a pretty bright blue metallic-y shimmer color. In the bottle it appears that there’s a strong (and beautiful) purple color shift, but that honestly doesn’t translate to the nail. I could barely see any purple once the polish was on- if I squinted very closely at a nail, I could see some purple shift in individual glitters.
This was REALLY bright! I definitely noticed my nails a lot while wearing this. This is 2 coats. It went on fairly well- I don’t think I did much in the way of cleanup for any of these colors.
Next up- Iris My Case!
Iris My Case is a beautiful purple to greenish-gold duochrome. Like You’re S-Teal The One, the effect was more prominent in the bottle. However, you could still see the duochrome on the nail- if you look closely in the photos you can see where the effect happens.
A very pretty addition to any collection- I’m really looking forward to China Glaze’s upcoming Bohemian collection, which will be full of duochromes like this but probably more pronounced. So this one will still be worth having! 2 coats again, not much in the way of cleanup.
And finally, we have Mer-Maid for Each Other!
When I first saw this display a month ago, I didn’t intend on picking this one up because I thought it was for sure a dupe of OPI’s Just Spotted the Lizard (which is a dupe of Chanel Peridot….). However, I’m happy to say it’s NOT a dupe, and in fact I find it much prettier!
Mer-Maid for Each Other is a very pretty green duochrome. Like Just Spotted the Lizard it leans golden in some lights, but unlike Lizard it also leans blue. The base color is definitely a blue green rather than a golden color.
The name for this one is really fitting, because I instantly think of mermaids and the sea when I see this. Like the others, this was 2 coats with minimal cleanup needed.
I decided to do a side-by-side comparison of OPI’s Just Spotted the Lizard and Nicole by OPI’s Mer-Maid for Each Other. I completely forgot to include Sephora by OPI’s Mermaid To Order- but I can promise that REALLY doesn’t look anything like these 2.
You can already see from the bottle shots when side by side that they’re nothing alike- but in the store without seeing both together it’s hard to tell. In the bottle, Just Spotted the Lizard appears to have an AMAZING color shift from the color of Mer-Maid to Order all the way to golden, but that just doesn’t really translate to the nail (seems to be a common problem!).
Just Spotted the Lizard is on my pinky, middle finger, and thumb, while Mer-Maid for Each Other is on my index and ring finger. I had trouble showing off the color shift of these, but you can see in this photo- the base colors are nothing alike. Lizard is a greenish gold, while Mer-Maid is a golden green. Hah, that makes it sound like there shouldn’t be a big difference 🙂
There you have it! I’d say these are definitely worth picking up if you can find them- they’re at Target and retail for $7.04 (though this past week, they were on sale for $6.50 at Target). You can also find most of these and the colors from the previous post at Target’s website, too!
See you all in a day for the next Mani Monday!
Polish Monster 