Mint Apple Redux

Last year I had Mint Apple by Sinful on its own. I thought I'd pull it out again and layer up it a bit.

First up is Sinful Mint Apple with a Dollar Store polish, Sally Hansen Sheer Joy. Sheer does describe this polish. I have a feeling that it's more of a wedding themed kind of thing. I've used it before, and here it's not really a full on win.

Sheer Joy has an aqua shimmer. It's in a transparent pink base that might as well be clear.

The difficulty of my camera picking up the subtle aqua shimmer, on a blueish green base is not lost on me. I think this might have really popped in the sunshine. I've used Sheer Joy in the past over Sally Hansen's Beachy Keen (here) with success.



Next up I've got it under OPI's Significant Other Color.

I think I was zonked when I edited this, because I wrote "Mint Candy Apple" which isn't the name on my photos. Sigh. Doh!

Full on WIN!!

This really is a darling combination. What we've got is the shimmer below in the slightly shimmery Mint Apple really coming out in the bright yellow shimmer of SOC.

If this looks like a rare and hard to find OPI or Misa, I don't know, so I won't drop the name, since I don't have the original to compare it to. It does remind me of a Jessica polish I own. Perhaps next year I'll crack that out and comp it to this.

Thanks for going on this March madness with me!! It's been a total blast doing greens and they are my favorite polish color. What will April, May and June hold? We shall see!!


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Frosty Moss

When does a shimmer turn into a frost? I really want to know.

Here is a Max Factor called Momentum Moss:

It is densely filled with green shimmer, but it also has a lot of this frosty white reflecting in there, too.

They call it a perle, which is a pearl finish. Truth is, that it really isn't like any pearl I've ever seen in real life.  To me it is frost. But, I am not the person who really knows finishes.

This is three coats, and a delightful muted gray green.

Mossy!

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Space Cadet, Orly Style

This polish came out last year in a batch by Orly. They said it was a very unique type of nail color, very special, new and wholly their own.

Of course the nail aficionados sleuthed out a dupe - or two - but still this baby gots legs.

It's in the green selection for march for one reason: it's in a pine green jelly base. It being hoards and hoards of duochrome foily glass particles that go from purple through amber to yellow green.

It's a stunning polish. Best of all, perhaps, is that Orly packs their polish in these gigantic bottles! Booya!

Sadly they upped the price considerably. I found a place online that had it for a little less, then I swapped for a back up.

Photo heavy, but worth the wait!

First the bottle:

Promises, promises!

All photos are four coats. Beneath I have a tan/beige color, as there is some visible nail line in this polish, and this eliminates it quite nicely.

Suffice to say, it reminds me of the carapace of a beetle, or some other wise insect that has had millennia of evolutionary biology to test out the colors. We humans are amateurs at best, and of course behold our efforts (not so shab-tastic!):

Whoo!

I was watching the chariot race in Ben Hur while I was editing, so this might explain the exuberant quantity of photos!!

As you can see, there is an abundance of dancing color. This polish is unique, but I believe that Hard Candy, Claires, and Mac have a form of it in their lines - some might be limited editions. This, though is available online, which is always a relief!


Phew!

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Significantly Galactic

When I first ordered some OPI online, I grabbed a bottle of Significant Other Color with my order. The only issue I have with ordering online is not having decent photos. This has been the one driving force behind my blog. My nails aren't pretty but I try to get photos.

Meanwhile, SOC, for short, is about as sheer as you can get. It does have a highly redeeming quality: It imparts a jazzy yellow green shimmer that is not hard to love.

Here is Maybellline Galactic Green with a comparison of it with and without OPI's SOC.

Excuse the linty-ness!!! Ack!

Galactic Green is a limey creme with a tendency on the cool side, but really not so much as to call it a blueish green. Very easy to use. I am having lint issues with my nail polish removal cloths: I was ultra economical and tried to use an old sock, well, that was a linty idea better left alone. Now I have a 1 quart zip lock back with tiny squares. Barbie washrags? Tiny makeup remover cloths? No idea what to do!

OK, back to the polish. Galactic Green here is three coats, and it applied and dried well. Then I tossed on one coat of OPI's Significant Other Color, which donned it with a gorgeous yellow green shimmer.
Win!

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Chrome Green

Good old Pure Ice by Bari!

It's about $2 a bottle at Walmartland, last I looked, it may have gone up.

I was out of town in Missoula Montana when I picked up this one (my Walmartland seems to not get new Pure Ice, which is a bummer).

This one is called First Time.

Please forgive the lint. This is a very unforgiving polish to a hit-or-miss-applicator like myself. It shows not only lint from my linty polish removal cloths, but my not-so-straight application. So, again, please accept my apologies on this one. No cleanup here, either. For some reason, getting a halfway decent gap, and maybe too much of one, is the only thing I seem to grasp halfway decently.

It is, though so beautiful. When I first got it, I thought it was a sage, but it's really a pretty dusty mint. Perhaps, on further examination, it is more like a pastel pine green. That, perhaps is more helpful than the broad brush of "mint" in describing this color.

It is pretty nice as a chrome, though I think all of them tend to show a bit of brush stroke, at least the ones I have seen.

The oddest, and perhaps coolest, thing about this polish is that it when I first got the bottle at the store, I thought it was a metallic shimmer, but when I shook the bottle it all smoothed out into a mirror-like texture in the bottle. Wow!

I feel that with careful application you can reduce the brushstrokes, though I doubt remove them, you can get a really nice chrome.

Application was very nice, it dried fast and wore well, too.

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Tinting a Metallic

I have been trying to figure out ways to use the Maybelline and L'Oreal tinted polishes for a while now. Back in December I posted about how the orange one seemed to be very ineffective, but I've had good luck with Violet Water (Maybelline) here is an example.

Now Emerald Water, also Maybelline, makes a debut:

This is three coats of Sally Hansen Celeb City (two would have been fine) and two coats of Maybelline Emerald Water. Water polishes are those which are too thin to be a jelly, but have too much pigment to be a plain old top coat.

It is actually a little more on the aqua side of things, but they call it emerald and the foily goodness of the silver comes through.

A bit of a closeup:

The texture of the base makes it look like a pretty aqua foil.

I have a feeling that these water polishes might be the golden ticket in a syrup manicure. We shall see!!

In the realm of layering these are nice to have in the tool box.

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Enchanting Green

Orly Enchanted Forest: dark and shadowed. I have a sneaking hunch that it's less Little Red Riding Hood and more Fitzcarraldo.

Gorgeous, purely green. Pure creamy goodness!

Not too dark, but dark enough!

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Green Dupes: WetnWild Jade and Zoya Midori

Here's an interesting thing:

Totally identical. OK, very very close. Meaning, I really had to jot down which nail had which polish on it. I knew I put Midori on the index and ring fingers.

I think the difference is marginal at best. WetnWild Jade is slightly lighter than Zoya Midori, but only just.

Sometimes I think one has more yellow shimmer than the other, but...which one? Hehehe...ahem.

What is more weird is that I think I have two bottles of Midori because I bought it originally, then got it with a bunch of greens Zoya was giving away.

Formula-wise, both applied and dried very well!

These WetnWild Craze collection colors are really quite nice, so far the whole collection has been super. From what I understand this line is being discontinued kind of a shame. Much better selection than some of their basic line stuff.

I have had problems in the past with Zoya, but here, none. So, truly both are a win.

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Turquoise Jelly

The sun was out and I had some time, so I swatched. Nice!

Here is an unnamed turqoise by L.A. Colors. There are tons of these on the racks at my Dollar Tree, however, I bought this one a while ago and just now am getting around to it. The name is on the package, I wish I had noticed that before I sent all the packaging to recycle!!! Ack!

Aaaaah....Sunshine!!!

Maaaaaaahvelous!!

It's a beautiful thing to find a nice subtle jelly in the Dollar Tree!! It's a dusty turquoise that has that perfect jelliness. Not so much that it's nearly clear and definitely not a "what happened to the pigment!" in a murky mess.

It is funny how jelly can be such an elusive finish. Sometimes, as seen in the previous L.A. Girl Green Glaze post, it can be rather hard to see it as much more than a sheer. In other cases, it's more like this. The light gently passes through it, and lights it up, as though it's lit from within.  There is a soft, glowing luminescence. Perfect for an early spring day with the sun trying its hardest to melt the snow and grow my tulips!

Green or Blue? We color organizers always have to wrestle with these shades!

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Crazy Cool Layering Combo!!

Excuse me while I gush a little.

Oooooooooh, niiiiiiice!!!

What have we got here????

Great combo!!! I love it!

Sinful's San Francisco is a medium dark green shimmer. On its own it is a nice polish, but throw some Sally Hansen's Hidden Treasure on board and voila! Cool contrasty layering!!
Yay!

Plus, it reminds me a bit of the Irish flag. OK, the orange and the green...but imagine the white...squint if you have to! ;}

*clink* Cin cin!

A match made in heaven. Nice!!!

Thanks for reading my little nail polish journal! Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Green Foil...Am I Seeing Doubles?

I found this crazily named polish, "Hedy's Okē Dokē" in Right Aid. I love how the e's are marked so that you know that they are long instead of silent.

I grabbed a couple, what the heck, $1.99 and buy one, get one 50% off, why not?

Here is Camo Loco

Very reminiscent of Princessa's Martian Jade:

Not as light, not as lovely, but certainly not bad.  Camo Loco is more earthbound, more brushstrokey.

There is something about Martian Jade that enables angels to dance on pins, the heavens open up and beam gloriously down on me when I wear it.
OK, I'm nuts about it, and this may have been a gratuituous way to repost it...hehehe.


Back to Camo Loco....I love the name, and it was an easy to use polish: dried well, applied easily and wore well, too. It is a little thicker than Princessa, but it's not really a foil, it's more of a glassy particle kind of thing.

 Had I not found Princessa prior to this polish, I might be - might - gushing about Camo Loco. Right now Camo Loco is the guy who looks like Russell Crowe but acts like Carrot Top. You know, perfect until he moves, opens his mouth, or tries to order a drink.

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Yes, I Can...Sparitual

Sparitual.

Aaaaah.

Hear the angels singing quietly in demure appreciation?

Yes, I Can is a beautiful green. Evoking rainforest canopy and sun-filtered leaves.

Not too dark, not too blue. Not blue at all, purely green, with a nod to the yellow warmth of the sun. I can feel the chlorophyl making sugar on my nails! (Ok, yeah, I know, huh?)

This is three coats. Excuse the bumps, I was using nail polish remover cloths that were linty. Truly a bummer!!

Here is a bottle shot:

And the little dangly you get:

Cuteness!

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Jelly Mint?

Is it possible that I stumbled upon a favorite polish of mine without even realizing it?

L.A. Girl Green Glaze is a gorgeous pale jelly mint. Almost a ghost mint.

This is four coats, but with a jelly I expect transparency.

Maybe down the pike I'll try a syrup manicure with this and another color. It seems very good for that kind of job.

These L.A. Girl polishes are interesting colors. For some reason I kind of took a crap shoot when I ordered, and I've not seen much else like them (of course except the Fantasea dupe).

Still, this is a really interesting polish.
Neat!!

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Layering Lime?

Nicole by OPI's Make Mine Lime is a pretty lime green. Who can argue with that? I sure can't!

The first time I put it on, the base coat was sheer enough to be a layering coat. I had a nude base beneath it, and see that it could work as a layering coat as well.

From left to right you can see 1, 2, 3, and 4 coats respectively. It's a nice switch hitter.

Although this feels like a half of a blog entry, i.e. there should ensue several of examples of layering, it's all I've got on this baby. I think in the future it needs to spread it's wings over some navy, black, other greens, etc.

Indeed, I like the polishes, but the bottles are so wacky. They remind me of a horse's hoof. I always wonder if Nicole was a rider.

OK, file this one under: reblog!

Thanks for reading my little nail polish journal!!!

Sally Hansen Going Green

Last year there was a lot of excitement over green. The summer saw a few, spring before as well. I almost got into another Essie, but instead grabbed Sally Hansen Going Green.

It has a beautiful rich kelly green then some blue shimmer thrown in for good measure. For some reason my camera would not get the blue shimmer correctly at all, it's a little bluer than in the photo.

This is three coats, and you can see a bit of nail line, so coverage was a bit of a let down. If, however, you need to wear green and want it to not look the least bit yellow, this is the green to go with.

Shamrocky!

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Fusion Fusion Fusion

WetnWild's Mint Fusion reminds me of an experimental jazz number. It's got this zippy mint, which is more like a yellow green of early spring, then it is laced with shimmer.

The shimmer is green, but very much more minty than the base itself!

Crazy!!

Like a couple of different tempos coming together to make a song.

I really like this polish a lot.
It's three coats. Dries a little like a satin, I've got no top coat here.
Also, the shimmer is a bit of a blue mint, rather than the plain whitish green you see in the photo.

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Green Eyed Monster

Zoya Envy: a really great dark green!

Here I've got three coats going on and I love it.  It is a dark, but not tooooo dark green. There is a  tendency to be warm. It feels almost like a dark rainforest green, perhaps shadows of the Amazon dripping with poisonous snakes, eye-licking bees, and stealthy jaguars. (I just read a book about an explorer who was lost in the Amazon - I might survive with a dozen cans of raid, a bug net, and...oh, let's face it, I'd be freaking out)

This is also a great frankening green. It imparts darkness and greenness. Not blue, which can be troublesome.

It also has a secret shimmer!

I just browsed the Zoya website and they call this a creme, but it really does have some delicious light-catching shimmer in  it, which is a beautiful thing in a dark polish.

I did have chipping issues, I am going to work on this, because I was using a cheap base coat that was a combo of several leftovers poured into one bottle. I have been told that their Color Lock system is very good for stopping chips, but I've also been told that a couple other options may work as well. I guess my only issue is that I have so many base/top coats that I hate to buy more. Worse, I hate having to remember what I should wear with what brand. This also goes for shrinkage issues, too. This, however, isn't the only polish I have to work on "special" application with, so I realize it's just part of the territory of nail polish chemistry. Am I the Lucy van Pelt of nail polish? Am I fussy? Probably. Moving on!

I purchased one bottle in the recycle program Zoya was running and prior to that I received one when they were running a green special for six free greens. I love it, as it has creme and shimmer combined.

Great job Zoya!!

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Mint Frostiness

Here is an L.A. Girl minty green that is a frost.

It's three coats, but probably could have used a fourth. I like that this is a green mint versus a blue mint.

I am not sure what it is called, as the bottom of the bottle has no tag, this one fell off and I can't find it! I did, however look over the L.A. Girl website, and believe it is called Green Satin. Yes, I'll agree that it's satin-like, but much more like a frost.

This is three coats and probably could have used a fourth.
It wears pretty well, but it did take a little bit of nursing to get it to dry.


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Layering A-Go-Go

Last year I wore Sally Hansen's Mint Sprint and labored over a good photo. Plus I did some layering!

For a flashback, check it out here.

I love the Insta Dry polishes by Sally Hansen, in many ways I have overcome the brush issues, and almost wish she'd come out with better colors. I was at the store and saw a new collection of pretty dull colors.

Here is Mint Sprint, layered again, with Silver Lining, also Sally Hansen. I wore this on a lark, then thought, dawwwwg, I need to blog this!!

You can see the silver particles as well as the shimmer on the right, with the signature blue flash that makes Silver Lining a really cool layering polish!

Here is the bottle shot, and I must say that better lighting makes it look much more true to life.

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A Gorgeous Frost?

So, in my humble observations, I can see that frosts are swinging back into favor.

Here's a Sinful I picked up right around Christmas 2009, so it's not hugely new, nor is it an oldie. Sinful's displays vary wildly around here: some stores have a small stand alone display, others have a big one, most have a hodgepodge of polishes that don't even seem to match the display name they are in. Then they pull out old colors and make new promo displays, which is totally bogus. Seriously.

Meanwhile, while I was reorganizing by color, I ran into this baby:

Frostiness!

A frosty light teal green. In the bottle there is this lovely blue/green mix that almost makes you think "ooooh, duochrome" but then ou see it on the nail and it's pretty much uniformly one color.

Three coats here, and very easy to apply with very nice coverage. In the bottle it's darker, too. I find that Sinful has some great polishes and some "wha...?" polishes. This falls in the middle. One expects duochrome, but gets a blue-emerald frosty polish.


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Dressing up a Green

Last year I posted about Rimmel Camouflage: a gorgeous shimmer that had many shades of green blended together.

This year I donned it again and added a layer of a very sheer un-named greenish blue over it in one layer:

Three coats of Rimmel Camouflage on all, but the two on the right have one coat of this crazy sheer I received in a swap. It totally turns it into an emerald green.

This isn't a franken I made at all and so I can't even begin to guess at what might be in it. It's full of shimmer and the payoff as a layering topcoat makes it a keeper.

Thank you so much for reading my little nail polish journal!