Aly Loves Lacquer

I bought this polish, along with NYX Robotic, from Jen the PolishAholic's blogsale. She still has many great polishes left and everything is priced really well. Thanks Jen!

Milani Totally 80's is from the Neon Collection. It's my first Milani polish, and I had no problems with it. I was actually very surprised to find it dried with a sheen to it, instead of drying matte like many neons. It was quite sheer at first, and required 4 coats to build up. Though that is a lot of coats, I didn't mind because the payoff was great. The color reminds of the color of tennis balls. It's a fun color, and very summery. In the pictures I'm wearing 4 coats of Milani Totally 80's and 1 coat of Seche Vite.




           As you can see, this color really glows.
           I liked it a lot more than I expected to,
           and it didn't give me crazy lobster hands.


This polish was a pleasant surprise. If all Milani polishes have a formula like this one, I am going to fall in love with the brand. The application was great.

- Aly

I picked up OPI Significant Other Color the other day on sale at the school salon. It's a light pink with a very prominent greenish gold duochrome finish. Duochromes are always fun to look at, and Significant Other Color is no different. It started out very sheer, and took 3 coats to build up to opacity. I topped it off with 1 coat of Seche Vite.

I tried to capture the duochrome effect as best I could. You can see that it sometimes shines gold and sometimes shines greener. Also, I should note that I had no VNL, which was a nice surprise. I thought it might be a sheer polish, but it did build up well.





A few hours later, I decided to add some OPI Black Shatter to Significant Other Color. The effect was great! I love it. Significant Other Color really shines through the shatter well. It's a very nice pairing.



See how the duochrome really shines through? I just love that effect. I think I'll try this look with OPI Go On Green soon, too. That polish is like the blue cousin to Significant Other Color. Altogether, I really enjoyed this mani and it was fun to look at all day.

- Aly

Color Club Revvvolution is amazing! It's the first holographic polish I've tried, and I love it. Plus it has an adorable name :) I don't want to take it off! The application was quite easy, especially considering holo polishes can be difficult to apply. It took only one coat for full coverage, which is pretty awesome. I'm not wearing any top coat today, since that can diminish the holographic effect.

Look how gorgeous these pictures are :)





Sadly, I didn't catch any pictures of this baby outside. I'll try to get some tomorrow, because you guys need to see how great this holo looks in the sunshine. Still, it looks great in these indoor pictures too. Color Club Revvvolution is a winner.

- Aly

P.S. Happy birthday to my friend Tiffany! You'll be getting some brand new OPI as a gift as soon as I see you :)

OPI Conquistadorable Color was released in the Spain Collection, one of my favorite OPI collections. Lots of colors from that collection are still very popular, like Here Today...Aragon Tomorrow, Can You Tapas This?, No Spain No Gain, and Pamplona Purple. Conquistadorable Color is a blue-toned red. It's actually my favorite red crème. It applies beautifully and it goes well with my skin tone.

Color Club Covered in Diamonds has popped up pretty frequently in the blogosphere. After finally trying it, I can see why. Though the application is finicky, the payoff is worth it. I had to use two coats of Seche Vite on top in order to get rid of any roughness caused by the flakies. This polish is gorgeous! I am sure I will be wearing it over plenty of bright crèmes this summer.


The pictures are 2 coats OPI Conquistadorable Color, 1 coat Covered in Diamonds by Color Club, and 2 coats of Seche Vite.

This is a mystery color that I borrowed from my friend Tiffany. We couldn't find any names on the bottle besides WE253. It's a turquoise-leaning blue metallic polish. The wear wasn't that great; I had tip wear after one day. But, I didn't wear top coat at all. This lacquer was very pretty on the nail.


Please excuse the wear -- this picture was taken after a day of paintballing. Normally I stay away from metallic and frosty polishes because I hate brushstrokes, but this one turned out alright. The main thing about it I didn't like was that it had a lingering bad scent. It definitely did not smell B3F, even after it dried.

- Aly

Serena Williams and OPI teamed up to create nail polish collections that correspond to the Grand Slam tennis tournaments. The first pairing included Simply Smash-ing, a gorgeous green-gold, and the now-famous Black Shatter.

Some of my favorite blogs have giveaways going on right now. I highly recommend entering, because they have some great prizes.

Ria from Serious Stuff About Lif...Oooh shiny! is having a giveaway to celebrate her (almost) 1 year blogiversary. She's a month away. The prizes include MAC and NYX lipsticks and Korres polishes, plus she's letting you pick what colors you get. Also, look at the adorable owl she's using to represent the giveaway. One of the options for an extra entry is to give it a name :) I think that is a pretty cute idea, and I chose Belinda. She looks like a Belinda to me.


The PolishAholic is also celebrating a one-year blogiversary. She has some great prizes, including the entire Nicole by OPI Justin Bieber collection and the entire OPI Texas collection. She is also giving away Misa polishes, including Genie in this Bottle, a personal lemming. Here's a picture of another grouping of polishes up for grabs:

I'm sure by now you're familiar with the entirety of the Katy Perry for OPI Collection. Last Friday Night was a color I was very excited about, but it just didn't give me the opacity I wanted. I was hoping for it to be more pigmented. Despite that, I absolutely LOVE the glitter particles it has.

In order to give Last Friday Night a stronger base color, I decided to layer it over Office, by American Apparel. American Apparel Nail Lacquer is very nice, from what I can tell. Office applied kind of streaky on the first coat, but everything evened out nicely on the second. You can buy American Apparel Nail Lacquer here for $6 a bottle.

This picture is 2 coats of Office followed by 2 coats of Last Friday Night in the lovely sunny weather. Click the picture for a close up of all the glittery goodness.

Zoya has some new summer collections coming out: Sunshine, Summertime, and some new Mod Mattes.  Sunshine is going to consist of six polishes that are "infused with a glowing golden metallic sparkle," according to Zoya's website. Summertime will be six cremes in "bold, luscious shades." The mattes should have the same finish as previous Zoya matte polishes, but the website offers no description.

Check out the promo pictures for the matte polishes.

Orly is one of my favorite brands, but I don't have nearly enough of their polishes. Today in St. Louis, it's 74º and beautiful. I opted for a bright and cheery nail of the day.

Orly Orange Sorbet applied nicely, like most Orly polishes do. It's a gorgeous orange with golden shimmer that looks great in the sun.

All pictures are 3 coats for maximum opacity. Sorry about the less-than-great quality -- I took these with my phone since my camera isn't working properly today.

Hey, everyone! I saw I've already been getting some views, so I thought I should say I plan on posting some swatches this coming week. I can't wait!

I just bought a bunch of Golden Rose polishes. Golden Rose is a Turkish brand, and I'm excited to try one of my first international polish brands.

Stay tuned, and for now here's a cute picture!


- Aly