Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Tips & Toes

Hello lovelies!  Happy new year, and I'm glad to be back writing again.  It's been too long.  What have I been doing lately?  Well, I have a confession....


I'm addicted to nail polish.  I have become completely obsessed with everything nail polish, reading and researching about colors online, popping into random beauty stores and drugstores trying to locate hard-to-find polishes that I've read about and lusted over online, and buying colors from ebay and amazon.  I think I have a problem!  A fun, enjoyable problem ;-)


So, I wanted to share some of my favorite, coveted polishes that I've both purchased recently and have had in my stash for a while.






One of my favorite nail polish brands is Sinful Colors, which I usually find at Walgreens. They're two bucks each, and they have really bold colors that are highly pigmented and go on really well.  Some of them tend to chip more than others, but then again I feel that way about a lot of nail polishes, even the more expensive brands such as OPI and Essie.  The polishes below are titled, in order from left to right: "I Love You", "Paris" and "Rich In Heart". Another one I covet but did not post is "Creme Pink".  It's the brightest hot pink I've found, and looks super sassy on toes.


I Love You - this is a dark purple jelly formula with small grain glitter. It's hard to tell the color from this picture, but it looks fabulous on my tips and matches my ring, however this color has been recently replaced by my beloved Chanel Vendetta (which you'll see below too), but I did want to highlight it in this post for those that don't want to spend $25 on nail polish.

Paris (the gold glitter) is probably my favorite nail polish I own - its the perfect shade of gold -not too yellow, too coppery or too orange - and the glitter size is perfect as well.  If the glitter grain size is too small it tends to lean towards the side of being a shimmer, and too large it goes on chunky and just doesn't look good.  I add this on top of all kinds of colors - deep purple (to match my favorite ring that I wear every day, which is pictured down below in this post) over black, over white and over shades of grey as well.  It really adds a punch to an otherwise lackluster manicure.  I think it might have recently been discontinued because I cannot find it at any Walgreens in San Francisco anywhere!  I ended up buying another bottle on Amazon, but if it HAS been continued I'm going to be extra sad, because this is my tried and true and I absolutely LOVE it.

Rich In Heart is a fabulous color on both tips and toes. It's one of the ones I've been using for years - definitely a staple in my polish stash. Its a deep wine/garnet shade and it stays on my tips for about 4-5 days (which is long for me - usually I get chips within a day) and about two weeks on my toes.  LOVE it!




Next on the list: WHITES.  Anyone who knows me personally knows that everything white is my favorite color.  I love to wear it in both nail polishes and clothes.  My whole room is decked out in everything white as well.




Pictured above we have Sinful Colors "Snow Me White", Essie "Marshmallow" and Sinful Colors "Tokyo Pearl".  All white, but oh so different.  Snow me white is probably the most white white out of all of them, and this color looks fantastic on your toes.  Don't be afraid to try it out - it is super flattering, especially if you're tan.  Every time I do my toes in white I get TONS of compliments.  Tokyo Pearl is a great white for my tips, but it takes three coats to really get it opaque.  Lastly, Essie Marshmallow is more of a soft white, so I'd recommend this for your tips instead of toes, or else it leaves your toes looking kind of strange and washes the color out.  It looks very classy and smooth on your tips, however.  As a general rule of thumb, I usually only choose bold and/or bright colors for my toes.  Think hot pink, stark white, deep red or black black.  Anything lighter will make your feet look weird.  Trust me.




Next up, my newest purchase: Essie "Master Plan" (and my beloved ring I keep mentioning in this post):  


This is a creamy, putty-like color.  Clay with a hint of lavender in there.  I just applied it today and is the color I'm currently rocking on my tips.  I don't think I'd want this for my toes, however.  As you can see, it goes nicely with my ring as well, which is usually my goal with any polish I'm wearing.  If it doesn't flatter my ring, it won't make the cut.  And to the right of Master Plan below, I've pictured Wet n' Wild's Craze line, color #233.  This is what I'm currently wearing on my toes.  Its a rich copper color and was really easy and smooth to apply.  Even with making a few mistakes, they evened out really well and it dried luxe, rich and shiny.


Essie "Master Plan", Wet n Wild Craze #233




Chanel.  No additional introduction needed.


I used to browse through the department stores and come across Chanel nail polishes and think to myself "who the F would ever spend that much money on a bottle of nail polish?!?!"  Well nowadays.... yea, THIS PERSON *points to self*.  Haha, yes - I've fallen victim to the Chanel nail polishes.  Yes they're expensive, but.....they're SO BEAUTIFUL.  And they go on like a dream!  The only one I use two coats on is the polish all the way on the right in the picture above, because I prefer a more opaque nude.  My mom only uses one coat with that one because she likes a more natural sheer look.  From left to right:  "Peridot", "Paradoxal", "Vendetta", "Rose Cashe".


Peridot.  The most lusted after color of the season.  I searched and searched for this one all over the city, eventually buying it off of the Nordstrom website.  I was giddy like a schoolgirl when this one finally came and the UPS man rang my bell...and I was not disappointed.  It is a duochrome teal/lime green with strands of gold shimmer running through. Amazing color that really pops! And wait until you get it in the sunlight...you won't be disappointed. Paradoxal is a creamy, dark lavender.  At some angles it looks lilac, at others it looks more on the grape/amethyst side.  It looks fabulous on almost any skin tone and of course, applies like a dream like EVERY Chanel polish I've tried.  They go on like satin, and they do not chip as fast as any other brand I've used.  The quality really is there.  Vendetta - my favorite nail polish I own (it's a tie with Sinful Colors Paris).  A lot of girls I know wear black as their everyday daily driver nail color.  Vendetta is my version of that - I can wear this every day of the year, and I used to to just that until I recently became obsessed with nail polish.  It's a deep, blackberry purple with a slight shimmer, and it goes on SO shiny and glossy.  I wear it both alone and with gold glitter over it to compliment my ring.  I'll be using this one for a long time.  And lastly, Rose Cashe.  I actually bought this one for my mom as a gift, and it's the best nude nail color I've found.  All other nude nail polishes wash me out and look terrible against my skin tone, but this one doesn't.  It has just the right amount of pink in it to give it some life, and it looks great with gold glitter as well.  Go ahead and splurge on a bottle of Chanel polish the next time you're feeling frisky...I promise you won't be disappointed.  Well worth the cash.










Deborah Lippmann "Good Girl Gone Bad" :



Manicurist to the stars Deborah Lippmann has come out with her own polish line, and they are all pretty impressive.  This one stood out to me - you can't really see from this picture, but it's a dark-ish ruby red with mega glitter.  Looks great on my toes, and it works on tips as well.  It's also pretty pricy - $18 per bottle, but for what it's worth, it lasted 3 weeks on my toes.  She has a great line and it's available at Nordstroms as well.  Definitely worth checking out....especially because Nordstrom's return policy will basically accept anything in any condition its in, so you can bring it back if you've decided against it.









Another one of my favorite cheap nail polish lines is Milani.  I probably have about 30 bottles of this stuff!  I've been using it for years because the formula is pretty consistent, it goes on evenly and they have a lot of really bright colors that I use on my toes in the summertime.  Below we have from left to right: "Gold Glitz", "Ms. Milani", "Disco Lights" and "Sunkissed Glow".


Gold Glitz is a THICK copper and gold glitter.  Small and medium sized grain bits of both gold and copper glitter PACKED into a little bottle.  This nail polish is cool because you can wear it without topcoat and you'll get a really cool sandpaper glitter effect.  It's hard to explain, but it's almost like a matte glitter.  It feels really cool too...when I wear this I can't help but constantly glide my thumb over my other four nails and feel the sensation.  Really fun color for summertime.  Ms. Milani is my daily driver gold nail polish. You know how I'm picky about my golds....has to be the right this, the right that - and Ms. Milani passes all the tests.  Perfect shade of gold.  Disco lights is a fun watermelon glitter punch.  I find myself adding this pink glitter over all sorts of colors I wouldn't think it looks good with.  My most recent concoction was Disco Lights over a matte taupe color, and it looked fantabulous.  Last but definitely not least, my No. 1 favorite color for my toes - Sunkissed Glow.  This color looks AMAZING on tan feet in the summertime.  I have a pair of these silver gladiator sandals that I like to pair with this shimmery coral, peachy shade and it makes my feet look soooo pretty.  You'd be hard-pressed to find a skin tone that this color doesn't look good on.  Hands down, favorite toe color for the sumemrtime! 


So there you have it, I've confessed where I've been all this time, I've been stalking Sally Beauty supply, waiting at their door minutes before they open and driving across town to the other Walgreens or Rite Aid to see what colors they might have!  Maybe this post will drive my lady friends to get in touch with their tips and toes...its fun.  Almost TOO fun.  Also, check out these nail-polish-devoted blogs...they have a lot of great pictures and tips that revolve around nail polish.  I thought I was obsessed....haha.




Additionally....one of my readers recently commented on my "High and Low" post from about a year ago asking me to post a picture of my wallet after I mentioned how I get a tiny bit happy every time I pull it out of my purse at the cash register, ha ha.  I got this beauty almost a year ago and I still love it as much as I did when I first got it.  These are the things that make me happy. :-)



One last thing I wanted to share with my readers - if you shop at Sephora a lot and you're one of their VIB members, I wanted to turn you on to their 100 perk prize for this month: sample sizes of Gucci Guilty!  And not those janky little straw-sized tubes, actual little miniatures of their signature bottle! I bought this perfume a year ago I think actually the day it came out after one of my dear friends brought me back one of these little sample guys from her trip to Europe, before it had been released in the U.S.  I was in love at first sniff - juicy, fruit-based notes yet floral as well.  To make a long description short, I'm now on my third bottle of it and when I saw that these mini's were the 100 perk prize at Sephora I used all of my 800 points that I'd been saving for a good prize, and I think I went a little overboard, ha ha.  I have even more than what's pictured below.  BUT - check it out!  I get a ton of compliments when I wear this, and most of them are from men. Meow ;-)



Ciao for now...


xoxo,
Viva