Reader Requests, Part 1!

Here are a couple of reader requests! Please ignore my broken nail in some of the pictures- I've been trying not to swatch until the broken nails grow out a little bit, but I got impatient!

In no particular order....

For lovely Karman, some comparisons. I've tried labeling them, but I'm not sure if it makes the picture too confusing. Should I keep doing comparisons with text, or ditch it?


Thumb to pinkie: Lippmann Bitches Brew, China Glaze Heart of Africa, China Glaze Metropolitan, China Glaze On Your Knees!, CND Dark Secret.


Thumb to pinkie: China Glaze Red Stallion, OPI Apple Of My Eye, OPI Never Lon-Done Shopping, OPI Red-y For Anything, Essie Valentine Red.

These two were a challenge! I thought there would be a lot of close matches, but after pulling pretty much every similar color out of my stash and lining them all up together, I only came out with a few close ones. Oddly enough, the nearest matches are all discontinued colors.... Maybe it's a sign? Then again, these are only dupes I have in my stash, I'm sure someone who has more of these types of colors would have more matches?

Another comparison, this one for the wonderful Grace:


Thumb to pinkie: OPI Espresso Your Style, Borghese Espresso Brown F, China Glaze Unplugged, Orly Golden Maharaja, Lippmann Brown-Eyed Girl.

I could do these brown comparisons all day. I love browns, and I couldn't choose just five.... I should do another picture! Anyway, these are all similar to each other, but different enough to justify owning them all. The shimmer in these are all different textures- some are more sparkly, more frosty, sparse, glowy... I love them all.

A purple comparison for the fabulous Tink:


Thumb to pinkie: Misa Fatal Affair, Color Club Electronica, Misa Forbidden Lust, China Glaze Drama Queen, China Glaze Coconut Kiss.

The request was originally just a comparison of Fatal Affair and Electronica, but these other purples were sitting in front of me and looked similar, so I included them as well. They all look much closer in color in the bottle- they're much different on the nail! All gorgeous, but an indication that sometimes bottle color can be deceiving.

A beautiful swatch for dear Tiffany:


Essie Starry Starry Night.

I think Starry Starry Night is a perfect name for this color. It's spectacular!

I'm working on editing the rest of the request photos, so I should have them up soon.

Thanks for the great requests, guys! I had fun doing these!

Fun With Konad!!

I love the Konad stamper. It's so fun, and really transforms an ordinary manicure into something special. There are so many designs, from stars and flowers, to animal prints and fishnet. I usually use the small designs, like the little stars and the spider and the little cupcake, but the other day I decided to dust off one of the pattern plates (M57) and this is how it turned out:



Chanel Gold Fiction with Konad Plate M57 and Borghese Espresso Brown F. My thumb has OPI Brisbane Bronze, but as you can see it came out a little too light.

The Konad stamper works best with polishes that are on the thick side. Konad polishes make the most crisp designs, but any thicker nail polish will work.

Once my poor broken nails grow out a little bit more, I'll be doing a post on the Konad French Manicure plates for wonderful reader Carla G.

Also, a small request from me!

As you can tell, I'm way behind on my swatching! I always take my pictures outside in full sunlight, but lately it's been too overcast to get a good picture. Is there a way to get good indoor pictures when it's dark outside? I bought one of those 200w Reveal bulbs yesterday to see if that works well indoors, but I haven't tried it out yet. Do you guys have any tips for me?

I'm currently waiting on some sunlight to do swatches of the China Glaze OMG and Kaleidoscope collections for another lovely reader, and those just don't turn out well unless there's bright light.

So, help! What do I do?

Random Swatches: OPI, Zoya, Misa and Urban Decay

Following up on a couple requests, here's OPI Mod About You for Tabe-Chan:


As you can see, it's a milky "white out" pink, very stark but also very cool. I like the way this stands out.

For Kittylamour, here's Misa Passion 4 Fashion:

It's a deep dark espresso shade that looks super rich. It also doesn't make my hands look red! Bonus.

And, here's some random swatches just because.


Following the brown trend, here's Borghese Espresso Brown F. I love the brush in this, it's the perfect shape! Maybe if the OPI Pro Wide brushes were shaped more like this they'd be easier to use. It's apparently two small brushes next to each other, but it's slightly rounded on the ends. It fans out perfectly at the cuticle and makes just the right shape.



Misa Moody Model. Like melted milk chocolate, right?



Zoya Pasha. I'm not sure what color this is, but I love it! Is it grey? Taupe? I have no idea. Whatever it is, it has this fine silver frost running though it that in certain lights gives the illusion of a blue reflection. Extremely unique, in my opinion.


Here's Pasha with a thin coat of Zoya Sparkle Gloss topcoat. Sparkle gloss is really interesting, it has very fine flat flecks of shimmer that look white. It's really sparkly but it doesn't look glittery at all. It almost reminds me of the edible glitter I used to use when making cakes.




Urban Decay Id. I tried to capture the green reflection in this, but I don't think I did a very good job. This color is amazing, it changes from gold reflection to green reflection depending on the light. Lots of pretty gold shimmer, and it has a "jelly" finish to it. Why on earth did they discontinue these?!?! They were awesome!


Petites Dare. This is another polish that has those flat glitter flecks. They look like tiny pieces of chopped up cellophane or something. I'm growing fond of these flaky-looking glitters.

What other brands have some good "flaky" glitter polishes? I have CND Limelight, but I need MORE!! What are your favorites?