butter LONDON - Lillibet's Jubilee for the Queen's Diamond Jubilee

From what I understand, this past weekend celebrated Queen Elizabeth's Diamond Jubilee, which marked 60 years since her ascension to the throne in 1952. In honor, butter LONDON has created a nail polish shade named Lillibet's Jubilee.

butter LONDON - Lillibet's Jubilee

Lillibet's Jubilee is a beautiful, bright silvery lilac foil. At first I was disappointed because I thought it was going to contain holo particles, but now that I've tried it I think it's stunning just how it is. What it does, it does very well! The finish is incredibly reflective and eye-catching, and the lilac tint sets it apart from all the other silver foils out there. It also has excellent formula, gliding on perfectly in two easy coats. I don't have anything like this in my collection; all the purple foils I have are darker and not as shiny. Elegant, yet striking.

Lillibet's Jubilee and all the other butter LONDON polishes are available on the butter LONDON website, as well as in Ulta stores and at Ulta.com. They retail for $14 each. Lillibet's Jubilee is labeled as a limited edition on Ulta, but I'm not sure since Butter London's site makes no indication.


(Products were provided for review.)

OPI DS Desire

DS Desire is a beautiful brown/tan holo that I've been eyeing around the blogging world for a long time, but haven't been willing to spend the high price for it (I planned on trying to make my own frankendupe with some spectraflair). It's funny, because pictures of this polish tend to give the effect of all different colors: some pinkish-brown, some dark brown, and some golden. Here is the best representation of the color that I could get.

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OPI - DS Desire

In my eyes, DS Desire is a light brown holo that leans a little mauve in some lights, but has a golden cast as well (You can see it inside the rainbows on the sun picture. It looks fairly neutral on my skin tone, and is incredibly flattering.The holo is typical OPI DS holo: very bright colors in a "grainy" linear holo.  This type of holo is lost in dim lighting as shown in the second photo, but shines beautifully in the sun.  I tried layering it over a dark brown and a gold as well, and it was awesome!

Now I'm not one to drop a lot of money on a nail polish unless it was really worth it, but the reason I ended up with this one was because the money from my purchase was going to go to leukemia and lymphoma research.  The girl I bought it from, Christine, lost her brother Derick to leukemia and was raising money through her nail polish sales.  I was very honored to get the chance to contribute and support Team Derick!

A Starry, Starry... dupe? CM - Midnight Imposter

I'm not one for buying expensive nail polishes unless they are extremely unique. I'm always on the lookout for cheaper dupes or a way to franken-dupe my own for less. This is a polish I saw on a couple blogs and I thought it looked a lot like Essie's very-hard-to-find Starry, Starry Night.

CM - Midnight Imposter

Midnight Imposter is a rich royal navy blue jelly with lots of small silver hex and square glitters. The formula is wonderful. It is opaque at two coats, but for a little extra depth I used three coats for the pictures and one coat of Cult Nails Wicket Fast on top and it came out glassy smooth. In short, it is beautiful and everything I would hope Starry, Starry Night would be if I ever decided to pay the high prices for it (which I won't... the only time I've spent $30+ on a nail polish was when the money was going to charitable causes).

Now after I've looked up Starry, Starry Night again, I see that it appears to have smaller micro glitter instead of the slightly bigger pieces in Midnight Imposter, but honestly I like the look of Midnight Imposter more. Because the glitter is a little bit bigger and more sparse, it actually looks like individual little stars, and I love how some of the pieces get buried underneath jelly layers to appear to be different shades of blue along with the silver. It's classy and chic indoors and sparkly out in the sun!

I got Midnight Imposter from East Bay Beauty Supply, and the cost and shipping was very reasonable in my opinion. I feel like I've seen CM polishes in store as well, but I can't remember where.

A True Color from the Capitol: 22kt Gold Glitter (pic heavy)

I feel like I should be sitting in the Capitol watching young kids fight to the death in an arena while I paint my nails with real 22kt gold glitter.

Real Gold Inc - 22kt Gold Glitter Topcoat

As many of you may know, I've been on the hunt for the perfect gold glitter, and I think I just may have found it. This is incredible. It's meant to be a top coat, but I built it up in four coats to try and make it opaque. It actually dries very quickly and thin and smooth (no Gelous needed!), so four coats wasn't a burden at all. It's hard to describe how mirror-like this is in person. It's also a beautiful, rich shade of gold - not too orange, not too green. My new favorite gold glitter!

Because it's meant to be a top coat, I wanted to try it over a couple colors:

22kt Gold Glitter (one coat) over Zoya Minka

22kt Gold Glitter (three coats) over Zoya Minka

22kt Gold Glitter (one coat) over China Glaze Liquid Leather

The funniest thing about this polish is that even though it's real gold, I've spent WAY more on plenty of other polishes. I got a set of three (22kt gold, 12kt white gold, and silver plus a top coat) for only $22, which makes each one less than a typical retail OPI! Incredibly affordable in my opinion.

The 22kt Real Gold Glitter top coat is available on the Real Gold Inc. website.  They also have 12 kt White Gold and Real Silver top coats, as well as UV gel versions, a red with 22kt gold version, and stripers, too!

Love & Beauty - Silver: The Blingy-est Polish I Own

I can't believe I haven't worn this until today. I remember thinking how amazing it was when I swatched it on a nail wheel, but somehow I never got around to actually wearing it until just now. It's really too bad Love & Beauty doesn't give their polishes actual names. This one just says "Silver" on the price sticker.

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Love & Beauty - Silver

Silver is a clear base that's packed with small holo hex glitters. It's not micro glitter, but it lays pretty flat and gives excellent coverage. What struck me about this polish is how much the rainbows show even in the dim light. I'm pretty sure it's the strongest holo glitter I've seen in a polish. I've worn the Layla holos and glitter bombs like OPI Crown Me Already, but this one takes the cake for the single most "blingy" polish that I own. Even better is that this glitter doesn't even dry very gritty so it's nearly perfect with one coat of Wicked Fast.

In the right light, the colors are almost blinding:

These were all taken under a particular lamp that really amplifies the rainbows in holo polishes (as a side note, one of my favorite things to do is sit under this lamp with my holo polish swatches and just stare at the beauty... *sigh*). The pictures do not even come close to portraying the amount of color and sparkle.

I LOVE when I find a new favorite polish and it happens to be incredibly inexpensive! I got this on Forever 21's website a while ago, so I'm not sure if it's still available (it could be this one or this one), but they have a lot of amazing colors (especially glitters!) and they're less than $3 each!

The Perfect Gold Holo: Layering

Awhile ago when I reviewed HITS Hermes and was a little disappointed, one of my readers (Katie from katie's handmade) suggested that I try out Hefesto (a holo topcoat) over my favorite gold. And I finally tried it!

Here are the results:

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Gold Holo - Pure Ice Bite Me and HITS Hefesto

For these pictures, I used only one coat of Hefesto, but what's great about this combination is that you can add more coats of Hefesto to "tone down" the brassy gold color. I wanted to keep the rich gold of Bite Me because it's one of my favorites. Usually saturated golds like this don't look very nice on, but this one is stunning.

A little note: I took these pictures right after applying it. Over the next hour or so it developed a lot of bubbles! Has anybody else had this problem with the HITS No Olimpo collection? I had the same thing happen with Hermes, and it's pretty frustrating. Also, they don't seem to dry nearly as fast as other holos I own.

Here is a picture of Bite Me by itself from my previous post. I actually didn't know its name when I first posted about it because the bottom label only has a number!

Pure Ice - Bite Me

Pure Ice polishes can be found at most WalMarts and also on the Bari Cosmetics website.  Hefesto can be purchased from Llarowe or Ninja Polish when it's in stock.

Tony Moly Galaxy: Swatches and Review

I finally caved in and bought the Tony Moly Galaxy collection. We all know how much I love glitter, so it was only a matter of time... At first I was only planning on picking up the two or three that were my favorite, but I'm glad I got all of them because most of the others won me over completely!

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Tony Moly - Mercury

Mercury is made up of lots of small silver glitter with some sky blue and red mixed in. The base is slightly tinted grey, but it doesn't make much of a difference because the glitter is so dense. This is the most shiny of the set, and ended up being one of my favorites.

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Tony Moly - Earth

Earth is a translucent navy blue base with steel colored micro glitter and small fuchsia holo glitter. It's not as sparkly as Mercury, but still incredibly interesting!

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Tony Moly - Mars

Mars is a mix of small copper and micro orange glitter with a sprinkling of royal blue micro glitter that's not always apparent. In fact, I couldn't really see it in the bottle until I held it in the sun. I kind of wish the blue glitter was a tad bit more prominent but it's still a really awesome accent! I love brown and copper glitter so I figured this would be one of my favorites.

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Tony Moly - Neptune

Neptune is a crazy blend of green glitters in a sheer green base. From what I can tell, it has olive/gold and forest micro glitter as well as medium grass green hexes. I love green polish and glitter, but didn't expect to like this one as much. I wish it had another accent color like the rest of them to add a little bit of pizzazz.

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Tony Moly - Jupiter

Jupiter is comprised of small lavender and indigo glitter and medium cerulean blue holo glitters, but to spice things up it also has a sprinkling of copper micro glitter! I wouldn't be nearly as captivated if it didn't have the copper, but this ended up being one of my favorites as well!
*Aside note:  This one kind of reminds me of The Hungry Asian's Sea Creature because of Sea Creature's purple micro glitter accent amongst the teal and blue.  LOVE.


I was surprisingly impressed with this collection! All of them had wonderful formulas that were opaque in two coats (however, they all required at least a coat of Gelous and Seche Vite to make them glassy smooth) and they weren't too thick like some glitters can be. I was so enamored with the "accent" colors in all of them, especially Jupiter.  The odd thing about them was that none of the bottle actually have the planet names on them (in English, anyway). They are labeled GT01-GT05.  Also, Neptune is 04 and Jupiter is 05... weird.

My only complaint is that they didn't do one for ALL of the planets! MOAR GLITTER!

I bought my set of these off ebay and they range from about $32-35 for the set or $7-9 each.

Dandy Nails - Come Out and Play and You Set My Soul Alight: Swatches and Review

Another indie/Etsy brand! This time it's Dandy Nails. I had been contemplating Come Out and Play for a long time, and finally caved and bought it, along with You Set My Soul Alight and Colorblind (but I haven't figured out which color to layer Colorblind over yet).

Dandy Nails - Come Out and Play

Come Out and Play is a beautiful fuchsia-purple jelly base with lots of small white glitter and is opaque in two coats. This one has the "jelly sandwich" look where some of the glitters get buried in the purple jelly to create extra depth. It's so simple, yet so stunning. The brush was a bit "fluffy" on this one, but I hear Dandy Nails has nice new brushes that are a lot better.

Dandy Nails - You Set My Soul Alight

This one is a charcoal/black jelly base with multicolored micro glitter. Again, this one has a lot of depth (I love glitter in jelly bases!). At the same time, it's not to flashy in dim light, so it'd still be elegant enough for a formal setting. I didn't know how much I'd love this one until I tried it on. It's gorgeous!  I should have gotten pictures in the sunlight to show how sparkly this one can be!

I have yet to find an awesome base for Colorblind, but I'll definitely post it when I find something fun!

Dandy Nails polishes can be purchased from the Dandy Nails Etsy shop and retail for $8 for a 15mL bottle. If the one you're looking for isn't in stock, don't worry - the shop is restocked pretty often!

KKCenterHK Nail Strips: Swatches and Review

KKCenterHK has some pretty nifty nail patches. The first kind I tried didn't seem to work well on my nails, but these are much better! These are basically very thin plastic strips.

Most nail patches I've tried that are not actual nail polish have been kind of thick and tend to wrinkle because of the curved shape of some of my nails (if you want to see what I'm talking about, check here).  These are different in that they are very thin and flexible, as well as a bit stretchy.  They worked MUCH better for me than the others (although still not quite as nice as 100% nail polish strips).

KKCenterHK Nail Patches

As you can see in the closeup, I got a few tiny wrinkles on some of the nails, but honestly I got better at it with each nail I did, stretching it just perfectly to minimize the crinkles. Just like the 100% nail polish strips, these take a little bit of practice. Overall, though, they're pretty easy and the result is nice.

I didn't get a chance to test the wear - I only wore them for a day. The problem came in the shower... one and only one of the stickers started to peel up on all the edges. The rest were still stuck nice and tight. I'm not sure what I did differently on that finger, maybe I accidentally touched it and ruined the adhesive before I applied it. Not sure. They were easy to remove though. They peeled off easily without doing any damage, and left the adhesive as a film on the nails that came off right away with polish remover.

As you can see, they come in a sealed package like Incoco, but since these aren't nail polish I don't think they dry out after they're opened. I'm saving the extras for accent nails, so I'll update this post when I find out.

Overall, I actually really liked these!  The design is nice (although I wish the little "tail" of black had fit onto my nails), and they'd be perfect for a special occasion or night out.  They were much easier to manage than other nail patches and didn't bother me with rough or peeling edges.

These can be ordered from the KKCenterHK site here, along with lots of other cool nail patches!

OPI NY Ballet Collection: Swatches and Review

This was an unexpected love for me. I'm not usually the sheer/pink/nude type, but something drew me in: these are beautiful, elegant JELLIES! I've been crazy about the glitter/jelly sandwiches lately, and I have a feeling these would be perfect for them!

OPI - My Pointe Exactly

This is my favorite. My Pointe Exactly is a light grey jelly that is semi-opaque at three coats (shown). Even with a bit of VNL, I still loved the look of this. Elegant and edgy at the same time!

OPI - Don't Touch My Tutu!

Don't Touch My Tutu is a nice clean white jelly. Along the same lines as Essie Marshmallow but a little bit more sheer, I think it would work even better for the glitter sandwiches. I love the way white jellies make glitter look like sprinkles on a cupcake.

OPI - Care to Danse

Care to Danse is a light purple jelly. The bottle looks more purple than it appears on the nail.  I'm not sure, but this may be my second favorite.

OPI - Barre My Soul

Barre My Soul is a very nice peachy beige jelly.  This would be a lovely base for a French manicure!

OPI - You Callin' Me a Lyre?

You Callin' Me a Lyre is a a peachy pink jelly that's more saturated than the others in this collection. Again, it'd be a great base for a French manicure base.  I think of the collection this was the most opaque at three coats.

OPI - Pirouette my Whistle (over each of the colors above)

Pirouette My Whistle is a clear base with silver micro glitter and large white/silvery pearl hex glitters. Most pictures of this at one coat didn't have too many white hexes, but my bottle seemed to be packed with them. I had to actually TRY not to get too many because I wanted a sparse look. Either way, it's quite elegant for a glitter. I think I like this even better than Nubar White Polka Dot.

All of these applied very nicely and easily in three coats, although it seems easiest to avoid streaks by using medium-thick coats. I suggest waiting a few minutes between each coat to prevent bubbling as well. They do kind of self-level though, which is a plus.

OPI is available at Ulta stores as well as in JC Penney Salons. I prefer JC Penney because if you buy two or more, they're only $6 each instead of $8.50 at Ulta.