Zoya Rica and Tanzy: Swatches and Review

One of my favorite things lately is to paint the nails on each hand a different color. I usually try to pick colors that are similar enough so that it's not obvious at first glance that it's actually two different colors. My favorite combo so far has been Zoya Rica and Tanzy from the Sunshine collection.

Zoya - Tanzy and Zoya - Rica

Tanzy is an amazing light orange base that's absolutely packed with sparkly golden glass flecks. Rica is the same formula except with a coral pink base, and both are absolutely amazing. Zoya's Sparkle (summer 2010) and Sunshine (summer 2011) are two of my favorite collections of all time from any company, which is why I was a little disappointed in the 2012 summer collection. Oh well, maybe next year they'll come out with something even more spectacular!

It started out as one of those "I can't decide which one I want to wear!" days, and since I never actually made a decision, I just ended up painting one hand with Tanzy and one with Rica. Turns out, the crazy gold sparkles in both pulled them together into an awesome mismatched manicure, and I ended up loving the rebel feeling of having two different colors. I will certainly be doing this again!

Both of these are shown at two easy coats, but for some reason these have a longer-than-normal dry time.  They were still slightly dentable after a couple hours even with Cult Nail Wicked Fast (quick dry) topcoat.

Zoya Rica and Tanzy are both available on Zoya's website for $8 each, but if you love gold sparkles, I highly recommend picking up the whole Sunshine set. Every single one is a stunner.

Claire's Starstruck - Cosmic: Swatch and Review

I haven't gone to Claire's polish-hunting in awhile, so I was pretty excited when I found this pretty polish the other day.

Claire's Starstruck - Cosmic

Cosmic is a sparkly purple with what looks like micro glass flecks in violet and blue. I think it's a tad more purple (less blue) than the pictures show, but it's close.  It is part of the Starstruck line, which parallels the Color Club Take Wing collection (the Claire's polishes actually say "Color Club" on the back), except that Take Wing doesn't have this purple, and Starstruck doesn't seem to have the yellow. I love the chunky square bottle it comes in.

Katniss, Girl on Fire: Hunger Games Midnight Release Mani

Edited to add sun pictures.

After re-reading the Hunger Games in the last couple of days, I was reminded that Katniss herself had her nails done for the interview directly preceding the beginning of the Games. In the book, Katniss says Cinna's team decorates her by "painting flame designs on [her] twenty perfect nails." So of course, I had to do a flame design.

(sun)

(sun)

(artificial light)

For a background, I used Orly Iron Butterfly. I wanted it to look a bit like smoke and ashes as well as being representative of District 12's coal industry. It's an easy one-coater matte black with silver shimmer, and it resembles China Glaze Stone Cold from the Colors from the Capitol collection.

(artificial light)

I wanted a flame design but I wanted it to look a little more natural than the typical hot rod flames. So I opted to paint the flames right over the charcoal instead of using a more opaque base. I started by freehanding the flame design in China Glaze Riveting, a red-orange glass fleck.  At first I'd planned the flames coming up my nails from the tip, but decided since Katniss was the girl on fire, the flames should be coming from her nails instead.

(indirect sunlight)

After doing all the red, I used Zoya Tanzy to fill in all the flames, leaving a bit of a red outline around the edges. I went over it twice to make it a little more opaque.

(indirect sunlight)

Lastly, I added some Milani Gold Glitz to the base of each flame (at the cuticle), to make it fully opaque and add a little bit of extra sparkle. It also toned down the fire to a bronzey-gold. Again, I didn't want bright hot rod flames, but more natural coppery flames.

(indirect sunlight)

I tried so many "versions" of flames (including the "hot rod type" which were made by painting black over the flames instead of the flames on the charcoal), but these actually came out exactly how I wanted them to.  I had a heck of a time trying to get pictures of these in natural light because the glare wanted to wipe out the flame shapes.

I won't lie, these were NOT easy, and it took a LONG time. But the result made it all worth it to me. I feel like the Girl on Fire.

Revlon Rain Forest & China Glaze Glittering Garland Comparison

When I saw Revlon Rain Forest in the new displays at Walgreens, my first thought was "Ooooh!" but my second thought was "I bet it's a dupe for Glittering Garland." I was kinda right. They ARE very similar, but have a couple little differences:

Revlon Rain Forest (index and ring) and China Glaze Glittering Garland (middle and pinkie)

First off, both have very nice formulas and cover very well in two coats, so I suggest getting whichever looks better to you. They both have slightly duochrome gold glass fleck glitter, but the base color is where they differ the most. Rain Forest has a darker, more yellow-toned base than Glittering Garland's emerald green. For this reason, the glitter seems to "pop" just a tad more in Rain Forest, but it shows up more densely in Glittering Garland.

Overall, I say they are similar but not dupes, and it's up to you whether you want both. I like different aspects of each of them, so I don't think I have a favorite of the two.

Revlon Rain Forest is now available in most places that carry Revlon like Walgreens, Walmart, Target, and Ulta.  Glittering Garland was part of the China Glaze Holiday 2011 collection and is still available on some sites like Trans Design.

On a side note, I was super excited when I realized that the sparkles in these appeared to be duochrome in the bottle (I can even see blue and purple!), but sadly, it really doesn't translate at all on the nail.  Oh well.

The 12 Days of Christmas Nails: Day 3 - Spice Drops

This was a manicure I had in mind since Mrs. Claus and Mistletoe Kisses came out last year in China Glaze's holiday collection. I wanted them to look like various flavors of spice drops (you know, the ones you decorate gingerbread houses with?). So here they are!

Spice Drops - CND Sugar Sparkle over various bases

For the bases, I used CG Grape Juice, CG Mistletoe Kisses, CG Mrs. Claus, Ulta Sun-sational, and Revlon Powder Puff, then I topped each with two coats of CND Sugar Sparkle.  This is what I was going for:

I love these candies, but only the ones that are flavored like spices (not fruits).  If you haven't had them, you should try them!  Some of the flavors are anise (purple), spearmint (green), peppermint (white), and cinnamon (red).  I can't remember what the orange and yellow ones are...  ginger might be one?


Do you have any favorite Christmas candies?

Model's Own Beetlejuice Collection Swatches and Review

As soon as the Model's Own Beetlejuice Collection was announced, I was super excited. So when they were released, I ordered them all (except for Pinky Brown, which was out of stock already). Since this is my favorite picture of the bunch, I wanted to put it first so it shows up in the blogroll:

This is an underwater pic of Purple Blue (the one that resembles Orly Galaxy Girl), and you'll see it again at the end.

On to the polishes:

Model's Own - Golden Green

This one is the one I thought might dupe Chanel Peridot (I was hoping, because I desperately need a backup). It turns out it's quite different, but still utterly gorgeous. It looks like a bright olive/lime green from straight on, and takes on a more grassy green at the edges and at high angles. Unfortunately, it didn't look spectacular underwater, so I didn't bother taking pictures. I really do like this one, and it had nice depth at three coats (shown).

Model's Own - Aqua Violet

This, too, was one that didn't show its colors underwater, but the prominent sky blue and lavender both show most of the time in person. While the colors aren't intensely bright, the duochrome is almost always apparent. Very pretty. I'll have to get Sally Hansen Lapis Amethyst out to compare them sometime. This also took three easy, thin coats to get nice depth and coverage.

Model's Own - Emerald Black

Holy gooses. I didn't think this would be such a stunner. Even thought the duochrome is a lot harder to see in this one, it is such a rich dark emerald green that I was captivated by it right off. I think this is a perfect Christmas green if you like dark vampy colors. At high angles you can see a navy blue side to it, but it's not often visible, and it covers in two easy, thin coats. So lovely.

Model's Own - Purple Blue

I'm pretty sure this is the one of the group with the strongest duochrome, and it does resemble Orly Galaxy Girl, but is not quite the same. It shifts from blue to pink and into the orange/gold realm. Three coats are shown.

This is one that DID show off nicely underwater:

There are a couple of these that I thought might have dupes, but so far I haven't seen any true duplicates.  The Polishaholic did some awesome comparisons here if you'd like to see.

What do you think of the Beetlejuice Collection? Did it live up to your expectations?