Obsessive Compulsive Cosmetics Nail Lacquer

I wouldn't have discovered this brand if it weren't for a wonderful reader recommending them to me, so thank you!

Before I post these pictures I want to apologize for the quality. I was too anxious to swatch them and spent a couple hours battling clouds. They are a little blurry and have lots of reflections of clouds on them, but the colors still show accurately. Sorry!

Okay, hold onto your hats!


Blackboard. Chalkboard green creme. Wow. Totally unique color. Exact same shade as the chalkboards (blackboards) from when I was a kid. I love this to death. I don't own a single dupe for this color.




Dangerous. Medium grey creme. This is the color of sharks. Gorgeous grey creme with easy application.

Grandma. Bright coral creme. The name of this one had me practically rolling on the floor laughing. I love a company with a sense of humor. This is totally something my grandma would wear. Despite the fact that it's a grandma color, it's still nice! Bright and summery.


Swamped aka Swamp Thing. Dark olive creme. My bottle says Swamped, website has it listed as Swamp Thing, I'm not sure which is correct. This is such a perfect color. It's the olive I've been looking for. Not bright and clean olive by any means, this is a murky, dirty, stagnant swamp green and I couldn't be happier.

Traffic. Taxi cab yellow creme. This is a bold bright yellow creme that has a surprisingly good formula. I've been trying out a lot of new yellows lately (including this one) and the formulas seem to be improving drastically. Maybe they have finally figured out how to make a yellow smooth? Either way, this had great formula and opacity, especially for a yellow. It could be a two coater if you're careful, but I did three because I was too excited to apply it properly.

Wasabi. Wasabi-paste bright spring green creme. This is almost the exact color of that little ball of wasabi that you get with cheap sushi. It's bright but at the same time it's a little murky, if that makes sense. It's crisp with a little dirtiness. Fantastic and also pretty unique.

The formula on these is great. It's on the thin side but it's very pigmented. All but Traffic and Wasabi were two-coaters. I'm pretty sure these are three-free but the texture of the polish wouldn't make you believe so. I had zero application issues. Drying time was very good as well.

I am so impressed with these polishes. All of the names are pure genius, the formula is impeccable and the colors are mostly unique and not boring. I'm always complaining that polish companies are playing it too safe, but you won't hear me say that about Obsessive Compulsive Cosmetics.

After a quick browsing of their website, I can say they're definitely not afraid to think outside the box. They seem to be focused mainly on professional, theatrical and special effects makeup, but when looking through all the shades of products you'll see every color of the rainbow represented. Not just boring safe pinks. Their polish line is the same- it's a small, limited selection but every color is represented, and for once, someone has more than one green. Awesome.

Overall, I am ridiculously pleased with my new polishes from Obsessive Compulsive Cosmetics. Blackboard and Swamped/Swamp Thing were instantly added to my 'favorite polishes ever' list the minute I opened the package, and the rest of the ones I tried were very memorable. I especially love the names of all of them, even the ones I didn't try- Uber, Lucretia, Pallid, Bone Daddy and Anime, just to name a few. I hope that in the future they will expand their polish line to include even more colors and finishes! I, for one, would love to see a little glitter.

Obsessive Compulsive Cosmetics nail lacquers and cosmetics are also vegan and cruelty-free. The polishes can be purchased directly from their website and retail for $8.00.

Jessica Summer 2009 Life's A Beach Collection

This is the second collection I've tried from Jessica and I love it even more than the first!

The Life's A Beach collection is a collection of brights and a few have a very jelly-like finish!


Bikini Bottoms. A bright fuchsia creme. This isn't really as jelly-like as the other shades in this collection. It's a nice, bright pink but it's not neon. It also looks good against my skintone, which is rare for pink!






Diva On The Dunes. Bright orange creme. This one is a lot more jelly-like, but doing three coats covered up the squishy look. It's a very bright but not quite neon orange.



Loving The Lifeguard. Rich red-purple creme. This looks a lot like some of the neon purples in my collection but with the 'neon' removed! It's not really bright but it is bold.



My Cabana Boy. Near-neon coral-orange creme. This color is hot! It was also impossible to photograph. This is as close as I was able to get to the real life shade. It's much brighter and more saturated. I don't think it's a true neon, it doesn't dry matte, but it is bright enough to be seen from across the room! I think this is my favorite one so far!



No Tan Lines. Bright bubblegum pink creme. Your standard girly pink.




Under My Umbrella. Near neon hot pink creme. This has the most obvious jelly finish out of all the polishes in this collection. It's also super bright but not a true neon. It's right on the edge of bright/neon! Bold and bright, perfect for a summer pedicure.


I didn't think Jessica did a whole lot of brights or neon-like colors, so this collection was another surprise for me. The more and more I experience this brand, the more I like it.

I especially love the name of this collection. Life's A Beach. Ha!

The polishes all have a great texture, not too thin, not too thick. They don't seem to have three-free syndrome. They all apply evenly with no streaking, running or pooling. They dry very quickly and the wear on them is really quite good. The bottles and brushes are also of a very high quality, and that helps a lot when applying polish.


I love these colors. Like I said, they're bright but not neon. Brighter than the colors in China Glaze Kicks but not as bright as the colors in Zoya La-Di-Da. Every shade is flattering and could be worn by a wide variety of skin tones and still look perfect. I was especially shocked that the pinks looked good on me. Pinks usually make my fingers look dirty or burnt. Bonus!


Overall, hot colors, perfect for summer. Great formula. Not the most exciting or unique collection, but at least there aren't any ugly colors. Perfect for someone who's not brave enough to venture into neons but wants to wear bright color.

I don't have an exact release date for these, but they're available at the end of April and can be purchased from Jessica's website.

Jessica Botanicals Collection Spring 2009

I think this may be the first time I've ever reviewed Jessica products on my blog! I don't have very much experience at all with this brand, but I've been doing a little more research and I found out some cool facts.

In 1969, the founder of Jessica Cosmetics, Jessica Vartoughian, opened a salon just for natural nails called Jessica Nail Clinic. The salon was the first of it's kind: the main focus of Jessica Nail Clinic is to care for and 'cultivate' the natural nail instead of covering them with enhancements. This is interesting because most nail salons don't seem to care about the health of the natural nail and almost all of their services involve applying or maintaining artificial nails.

Since I'm a natural nail girl myself, this seems like a brand that I can really get into.

Anyway, Jessica does a color line as well as natural nail treatments, and I've been playing with their beautiful spring collection, Botanicals.




Birds of Paradise. A pearly, glowy purple. This color was completely unexpected and it has me absolutely THRILLED. It's one of the most beautiful purples I've ever seen. It's bright and shimmery but it also has a soft, pearly, glowy quality that keeps it from being too loud. It looks less blue and more purple in real life.



Butterfly Kisses. A metallic blue. This is another unexpected color and also ridiculously cool! It's a foily metallic blue with lots of shimmery silver particles. It's not a shiny chrome finish metallic, more of a foil like Zoya Trixie, but blue.



Color Me Calla Lily. A soft pink-purple creme. My camera can't do this color justice. It's extremely soft and pretty like petals of a beautiful flower. It's more purple than pink like this picture shows and has a muted, dusty quality to it.



Coral Reef Daisies. A metallic coral. This is another foil metallic, but in a soft coral shade. Same texture as Butterfly Kisses.




Loving The Lilacs. Pale, shimmery lilac. Another muted lilac shade for spring. This one's not quite as colorful as the other shades in this collection. It has more of a dense shimmer finish as opposed to the foil metallic finish the other polishes in this collection have.





Rosy Romance. Rose pink metallic. This is another foil-finish metallic shade like the others. The color of this seems a lot more pale and dusty indoors, but in the sunlight it becomes a cleaner, brighter rose pink.


The formula on these polishes is great. I have not tried very many Jessica polishes so I'm not sure how they compare to each other, but based on these I'm quite impressed with the quality. The polish is on the thin side and very smooth. The drying time is average. The wear on these is really good- I wore a few of these before I photographed them and didn't experience any major tipwear and there was no chipping.


This collection was a surprise for me. For the most part, these shades all look pretty bland and uninteresting in the bottle, but when you apply them they come to life. Birds of Paradise is especially amazing, and I'd highly recommend it for purple lovers like me. The metallics are smooth and sparkly and the shades are not what you'd typically find when looking for metallic polishes. My least favorite shade is Loving The Lilacs- it seems lifeless to me compared to the other spring-like shades in the collection. Overall, a little mainstream but still a beautiful, enjoyable spring collection.

Jessica can be purchased directly from their website, but I have also seen a limited selection at Target.

Piggy Polish Spring/Summer 2009 Collection

With the constant barrage of Spring and Summer collections being thrown at us, I think I've been swatching non-stop! Just a few more collections to go and I'll be able to rest for a little bit and get to all the requests and comparisons on my list.

Okay, here we go, one more Spring/Summer collection to drool over: Piggy Polish!



Azure Thing. A bright, frosty turquoise blue. This is a beautiful color but it's very sheer. I have on three coats and you can still see my nail through the polish. The sheerness makes it awesome for layering- the day I got these I layered them all over black and wow, startlingly awesome colors resulted.



Dog Daises Of Summer. A pearly metallic yellow. The name confuses me a little. I know it's supposed to be a play on "Dog Days Of Summer" but were they trying to go for Daisies? Typo? Am I just reading it wrong? Either way, this is a great summer color. The best part of this color? It's NOT STREAKY!!! It's basically a law of nail polish that yellows have to be streaky, but this one isn't. So, if you've been wanting to wear yellow but are too frustrated to deal with them, you might be pleased with this one.



Grin And Berry It. A bright, almost jelly-like coral-fuchsia creme. This is one eye-catching shade. It's not really what I think of when I hear the word 'berry'- it just doesn't look berry-like to me. To me, this is more of a very bright coral verging on fuchsia. Staple summer color, executed very well.


Lily's Pad. Pearly bright grass green. I know, I've posted this color before, but it's worth seeing again! It's fantastic.




Live With Purplish. A nearly-neon purple creme. I love these types of shades. It is an extremely bright purple/pink creme but it's not quite neon so it doesn't dry matte. There are never enough bright purples in the world.


The tagline states, "Goes on toes!" but there's no reason you can't wear these on your fingers. I do!

The formula is excellent. These polishes are quite sheer, I did three coats in these pictures, but the formula is so thin and smooth that doing three of more coats is easy. I'm pretty sure that these are big three free, but they don't feel like it. The formula is too smooth. These all dry quickly. No complaints.

I love all the colors. They're bright, flashy, adventurous, and best of all, not boring! I'm so sick of boring polish colors being released all the time and I don't think Piggy Polish even has a boring color in their line. I love them for that. They are willing to take a chance and release fun, cheerful shades instead of the depressing red cremes and sheer pinks that plague the polish racks.

Another thing I love about Piggy Polish is that they come with toe rings. I believe the flowers on the toe rings used to be porcelain roses, but now they are made of a much less fragile plastic polymer clay type substance. Each toe ring is coordinated to the color of the polish in the bottle. Genius!

Overall, Piggy Polish rocks and their polishes always excite me and rarely, if ever, disappoint me. Their line contains brights, blues, greens, purples, duochromes and the holo glitter that I can't live without- Sunshine On Snowflakes.

The only retail store I've ever seen selling Piggy Polish is Ulta, but I believe you can order directly from Piggy Polish as well.

OPI Summer 2009 Colorcopia Collection - 20th Anniversary of OPI

Colorcopia is a special OPI collection- instead of being a set of twelve brand new colors, they have re-released the most popular or best-selling shades from classic OPI collections.

I absolutely can not think today so please don't mind my incoherent babble. I can't even remember my middle name right now, much less construct an understandable sentence! Also, another warning ahead of time: OPI picked the twelve most IMPOSSIBLE to photograph shades they could think of, so not all of these pictures are 100% color-accurate. I did the best I could, but pinks and reds do a number on my camera!

I have many thoughts about this concept, but I'll save that for last. Swatches first!





Berry Berry Broadway. Re-release from the New York City Collection (2000). A bronzed berry shimmer.




Cancun Fiesta. Re-release from the original OPI launch in 1989! A medium blue-toned pink with very subtle shimmer. This is not a very good representation of the shade- it's more saturated and leans a little more purple in real life.




Copper Mountain Copper. Re-release from the Winter Resort Collection (1995). A rich red-mauve near-metallic shimmer. Not really what I think of when I hear 'copper' but it's still a beautiful autumn shade.




D.C. Cherry Blossom. Re-release from the 9091 Collection (1990). A saturated blue-pink creme. This color isn't the most unique but it's really hot. On the rare occasion that I do wear pink, I love these nearly-purple bright pinks.




Florentine Fuchsia. Re-release from the International Collection (1991). A medium fuchsia jelly. This is also a fairly poor representation of this shade- it's nearly impossible to photograph. It's very jelly-like: squishy looking and nearly translucent but not sheer. It's more of a berry shade but it's not like Misa Push Upon It or Zoya Moxie.





French Bordeaux. Re-release from the International Collection (2001). A warm red with slightly magenta-hued shimmer. This color is a little more brown in real life. It appears a lot more brown in the bottle, but when applied it is a brighter shade of red than expected.





Kinky In Helsinki. Re-release from the European Collection (2002). Pearly metallic fuchsia with blue-pink duochrome. I love the name of this, it was one of the first OPI polishes I ever bought just for the name. This is a really glowy shade, it looks lit from within.




Mediterranean Moonlight. Re-release from the Mediterranean Collection (1994). OPI describes this as "a light shade of gleaming caramel" but it's so not caramel. It's peach... Deep peach. It's a little more faded looking in real life.




Purple-opolis. Re-release from the Greek Isles collection (2004). A light, shimmery red-toned purple. This looks really different in sunlight and indoors. The sunlight picks up on the warm tones in the polish, but in dim light the cooler more blue purple shade comes out. Very, very pretty. Although, I'm pretty sure this is a bit different from the original release, but I can't find my bottle to compare. I need to re-organize. Ugh.




Sahara Sapphire. Re-release from the Painted Desert Collection (1998). A metallic blue pearl. This goes on with heavy brushstrokes, but they fade a little bit as the polish dries. They don't completely disappear, but they're not too bad. It has the same texture as Pike's Peek-A-Boo Purple. This almost has a hint of violet to it in certain lights. Serene looking.





Shootout At The O.K. Coral. Re-release from the American Collection (1995). A bright coral with blue/pink duochrome. This was my go-to pedicure color for years. It is very bright but not quite neon.



Venus Di Violet. Re-release from the Collezione Italiana (2001). A soft lilac pearl with blue-violet duochrome. A very unusual color!


I think it's really cool that OPI re-releases shades from long discontinued collections. I love old polishes and I love that people will have the chance to be able to buy them again for a regular price. However...


... I think they picked the most bland, boring shades they could find! Okay, there are a few old favorites of mine in this collection of re-released shades, but three reds? Three pink cremes?? Cancun Fiesta isn't really a creme, but the shimmer is so subtle that it could pass as one.

OPI has released some *incredible* unique shades in the past and I would have loved to see them as part of this collection. I feel like the colors they chose are really playing it safe. It is stated that the colors selected for this collection of re-releases were past best sellers. I believe that. These are the types of colors that tend to sell really well. That doesn't necessarily mean they're unique, but they'll most likely be very popular.

If I had to choose twelve shades to re-release in my very own Colorcopia, they would be these:

1. Rainforest
2. Jasper Jade
3. I Get A Kick Out Of Gold
4. Black Tie Optional
5. Crim-Sun
6. Amethyst Abyss
7. Mystic Moonshine
8. La Boheme
9. Affair In Times Square
10. Vampire State Building
11. Real Teal
12. Home On The O-Range

Okay, that's just one possible set I can think of- there are hundreds of combinations of 'vintage' awesome colors that could be re-released. Those are just a few long-gone favorites and impossible to obtain wishes of mine.


Overall, not a terrible collection but not terribly adventurous. I love a lot of the colors- Venus Di Violet, Kinky In Helsinki, Shootout At The O.K. Coral, Florentine Fuchsia, Sahara Sapphire- that's almost half! I can't complain too much, but I would have liked to see some of their more unique shades in this collection instead of three uninteresting reds and three easily duplicated pinks.

And, just for fun, here are some very old pictures of me wearing the original versions of a couple of these colors:


Kinky In Helsinki.



Shootout At The O.K. Coral.



What would you have rather seen in this collection? Or is it perfect the way it is?