50% Off Every Order at Carolyn New York!

Just got this in my email, thought I'd share:

Carolyn New York is wishing you a happy 2009 with a limited-time New Year's sale guaranteed to keep your lacquer lasting long!

50% off plus free shipping for one week only. Must end January 7th. Use promo code HAPPYNEWYEAR

Sweet. The bottom of the email also says you get a free base coat and top coat with every order.

I have a few Carolyn New York polishes that I've never gotten around to reviewing, but I do like them. Here are a couple of the ones I've swatched:


Subway Surfing


Hangin' On The Stoop



Handball Courts


Greenwich Avenue


Frankie Joins The Navy

Good gravy those are terrible pictures... but you get the idea. Pretty sweet grey, green and blue polishes!

Swatches: Lippmann Collection Winter 2008

Wow! These are gorgeous!

I apologize for the poor quality of these swatches. I'm having camera problems today! I think my battery is going bad- I charged it to full and on the second picture of each set it gave me a low battery warning and refused to focus! :(

Anyway, here they are:


Maneater. Beautiful reddish brown creme, or dare I say, jelly? It's dark but still looks brown and not black.


Holiday. Ooooooh! A bright pinkish-red with tons of sparkle- same vein as Shut Up And Drive and Lady Marmalade. I'm thinking this is a re-release because the name sounds familiar and I could have sworn I saw this in a holiday set at Nordstrom or something. I would totally wear this.


SUPERSTAR! Brown and gold glitter! It's a brown jelly base with golden brown glitter. I'm in LOVE with this! I don't own a single color that looks even remotely like this. A winner in my eyes.


Icing On The Cake. A pretty, delicate yet super streaky metallic silvery whitish pink. Very 'dainty'. Super streaky, though. This reminds me a ton of those old Sally Hansen Crystal Chrome polishes they used to have- I'll have to dig a few out to compare- could be a dupe of Petal Chrome?


And the Party Like A Rockstar set:



Comes in an adorable black/blue shimmery snakeskin bag. I love it, I can't stop admiring it.




Devil In A Blue Dress. Deep, dark navy blue creme. Looks almost black on the nail.


Good Girl Gone Bad. Stunning mellow burgundy glitter. I think I need nine or ten backups of this. I could wear this every day. It's so beautiful! And it was super easy to remove- rare for a glitter polish!

Overall, these ROCK! The formula is magical- applies so smooth and even, it's almost as nice as Rescue Beauty Lounge. The bottles themselves are great to look at, they're some if the prettiest bottles around. I would 100% recommend these for anyone looking for a more interesting glitter shade or a unique creme polish. Love them all. Great job, Lippmann!!

Orly Fall 2008: Gems Collection Swatches

This collection was a surprise to me! I heard nothing about it until I saw it online when I was ordering my France polishes. It's a good surprise, though, it's an awesome collection!

I realized that I don't feature Orly (YARLY.) very much on here... It's not intentional! I really do like Orly, they just don't seem to release new collections as often at the other polish companies. If you can't tell, I'm a sucker for 'new'. I'm always curious about new and exciting polishes, makeup, fragrance, hell, anything 'new'!

The only thing I don't like about Orly is that they take for-ev-er to dry. I always seem to ruin my nails when I'm wearing Orly because I can't wait for them to dry.

Anyway, on to the gems.


Here they are, all lined up. Look, they come with cute rings! They don't fit on my tiny fingers, but they fit the bottle nicely. Star of Bombay, Golden Maharaja, Mandalay Ruby, Sea of Light, Golden Jubilee, Midnight Star.


Golden Jubilee. Bright orangey gold shimmer. Very bright. Sparkly. Mmm.


Star of Bombay, Super deep dark blue with the faintest hint of shimmer. The shimmer is almost invisible on the nail, except on very bright light.


Sea of Light. A peachy-coral-pink kind of color with a blueish-purple shimmer overlay. Almost duochrome, but not quite.


Golden Maharaja. My favorite out of the collection. Gorgeous rich brown with golden shimmer. This bubbled badly seconds after applying. I'm not sure why. Must be an Orly thing.


Mandaly Ruby. Medium red creme. That pretty much says it all.


Midnight Star. Very pretty frosty deep purple. It's like a purple/silver fusion. This one also bubbled very badly just seconds after application. What's up with that?? I bubbled before I could even take a picture of it. Lame! Still an awesome color, though.

Hooray for nice surprises!

On a totally unrelated note, have any of you been having trouble with your China Glaze polishes lately? Every time I try to wear a China Glaze polish, it takes hours to dry. This is happening with old and new formula polishes. The other day I tried to wear Passion In The Pacific with Seche as a topcoat, and eight hours later I could still dent the polish. Same with Side Saddle on my toes. Is it just the weather, or do they really take that long to dry? I didn't have this problem with any of the Ink collection, but every other collection seems to be doing it now. Hmmm...

MAC Stowaways Quad, Naughty Nauticals 2008

This is gorgeous.

The blue is a little chalky, but everything is just perfect. I especially love the yellow.

As always, click for larger pictures.

Again, here's the pigments and the polish:




Lark About, Mutiny, Bell Bottom Blue.



MAC Naughty Nautical.

Naughty Nauticals!

My MAC Naughty Nauticals pigments and polish just arrived! Let's get to the good stuff.

Naughty Nautical polish:

Naughty Nautical comparison:


Index and ring finger are MAC Naughty Nautical. Middle finger is OPI Yoga-ta Get This Blue, pinkie is Essie Aruba Blue.


Here's the pigments:

Lark About, Mutiny, Bell-Bottom Blue


My thoughts? I love the Naughty Nautical polish. It's completely opaque in one coat and the color really has depth. I'll try to take better pictures, but the lack of sunlight doesn't help.

As for the pigments, they all seem to be that weird flaky texture that's hard to work with. I like the colors, but Lark About is much sheerer than I anticipated. Bell-Bottom Blue has glitter, bonus! Mutiny is gorgeous, but I don't see myself wearing it too often.

I'll have pics of some of the OPI Retro Fun In The Sun polishes next week, so stay tuned.

China Glaze INK Collection 2008 Swatches and Pictures

I really love the China Glaze Ink collection!

I took some pictures of it... Wanna see?







Flying Dragon, Blue Sparrow, A Rose Among Thorns, Japanese Koi, Sacred heart



Shocking Pink, Pink Voltage, Purple Panic, Celtic Sun, Turned Up Turquoise



And last, but not least, Ink.

China Glaze Ink Special Edition Cuticle Oil and Nail Art Polish

News flash!

Much to my surprise, China Glaze Ink (the color with the special nail art brush) isn't black... It's a dark navy blue!

The bottle is slightly smaller than a regular China Glaze bottle (.5oz?) and the brush is long and skinny, like a nail art brush. The brush looks perfect for doing stripes and other kinds of art. I can't wait to use it.

Also, the special edition China Glaze orange cuticle oil in Ink packaging has no brush. It's smaller than I thought it would be, and has a screw-top orange plastic cap. Not an issue, just unexpected.

To summarize:

China Glaze Ink is blue, not black.
China Glaze Ink Cuticle Oil has no brush.

Back to your regularly scheduled programming.