Indigo Bananas!!!! Anansi

Firstly, I would like to say thank you to everyone for the condolences and well wishes.  Death happens.  It's sad and horrible for those close to the individual, but you know?  You have to move forward and live a life that the deceased would've wanted you to live.

Ok, now, let's get back to business!  It's been a whole week since I've seen you guys!  I've missed you!!  I'm pretty excited about the polish I'm going to show you tonight.  It's a new indie brand called Indigo Bananas.  Andrea of IB is a friend of mine from the polish community, so I was so excited to check out her new brand!  She is seriously one of the most brilliant people I know when it comes to polish, the chemistry of polish, and gorgeous color combinations.  I have four IB polishes to show you, so I'm going to share a little bit about the creator with each post.  I asked her a few questions, and she was kind enough to put up with my ridiculous nosey-ness.  Here are her answers!


1) How many collections do you have, and what are their names?

I opened my shop with three collections - a main, or core one, which is inspired by some of my favorite songs/music, and two duochrome lines, inspired by the theme of 'tricksters' as a play on the duochromes themselves tricking your eye.  The first duochrome collection, 'Arcane Tricksters', is a set of six polishes, all with microfine holo glitter in them, covering a rainbow of colors.  Each polish is named after a mythological trickster or thief type character, and there is a little paragraph, story, poem or quote under each listing in my etsy shop explaining my thought process behind naming them (or, in the case of Eris a pretty silly quote from the Principia Discordia).  

The second duochrome collection, 'Nothing Cannot Last', is a quad of duochromes with a much larger particle size and a glass fleck type finish - each is named after a major character from American Gods - all of which are also tricksters in mythology, and in the book.  All the duochromes are formulated to be opaque in three coats and require no base color. I felt this was important because I have a really big collection of commercial duochromes that are all pretty sheer or weak or both.

The core collection is what I've worked on the most, with some of them having gone through six or seven revisions going back all the way to June 2012.  There are cremes, duochrome shimmers, glitter top coats, duochrome flakies, and duochrome glitters in there and a rainbow of options. All the songs in the Core collection were listened to over and over while I was fiddling with revisions and formulas for most of the polishes - the names came first for these and I tried to fit the 'feel' of the songs to the polish (dorky I know, haha).  Julie's Note: Not dorky at all...  I do the exact same thing when I'm making polish!


2) Of the polishes I've chosen, what collection(s) do they belong to?  The four polishes I've sent you belong to two different collections - Core & Nothing Cannot Last.

Let's get down to business, shall we??  Tonight, we're taking a look at Anansi, which is from the Nothing Cannot Last collection and is an amazingly gorgeous duochrome!  Get ready for some major picture spam.

Color: Black base with green, gold, and red shift.

Finish: Chrome – a polish that shifts between colors depending on the angle you look at it.

Bottle / Brush: Round bottle brush (i.e. Seche Vite) – standard width and length.  Easy to control and manipulate.

Opacity: High – opaque in two coats!  May need three coats for even more vibrant coverage.

Glitter Application: N/A

Consistency: Medium – applies easily and doesn’t flood the cuticles.

Overall Ease of Application: Easy – applies well without pooling, dragging, streaking, or balding.  Spreads evenly and smoothly.

Stampability: Not tested for stamping.

Dry Time: Medium – dry to the touch with minimal smudging in 3-8 minutes.

Overall Thoughts: Wow.  I have several chromes, and none of them apply with as much opacity as Anansi.  It flowed easily off the brush with very little cleanup required.  The shift is very strong in all different types of light, which is why I've given you photos in all sorts of light with both my Powershot 12 and my iPhone camera (indoor, outdoor, direct sunlight, direct daylight lamp, refrigerator lightbox, etc).  I also really loved the presentation.  It came with a super cute little ring with the Indigo Banana logo!  Isn't that just adorable?!  I messed up one of my nails while it was still wet, and there wasn't any staining, despite the black base, when I took it off.  It's been a full day, and the wear has been fantastic!  No real tip wear and absolutely no chips.  I used Rejuvacote as my base and Liquid Lacquer No Time quick dry top coat.  

Ok, time to continue on with the nail porn...  Get ready!

Right on top of my daylight lamp (without any other light sources, so it's a bit orange, lol).

Inside lighting.

Natural light and direct sunlight with the iPhone.

You can purchase Indigo Banana polishes at Andrea's Etsy shop.  Also, follow her on Facebook and website for news and announcements.

I'm so in love with all four polishes I picked out.  I can't wait to show you the one I've chosen for a wear test.  Let me just say that it may help squash some RBL Aqua Lily lemmings...  But you'll have to see for yourself!

What's your favorite color shifting/chrome polish?

*I was not financially compensated for this post. I received a sample for review purposes. The opinions are completely my own based on my experience.  For more information, please see my disclosure policy in the tab above.*

Deborah Lippmann Bad Romance

First thing's first, we've finally hit 1000 GFC followers!!!!  I'm so humbled by you guys every day.  Thank you for making this such an amazing place to share, joke, laugh, and have a great time.  To say thank you, I am giving away 3 sets of 4 polishes from my Valentine's collection, which you can see here.  I've already given away one set via a question on my Facebook page.  I'll have another question on my Instagram later this weekend, so keep your eyes open for that.  For those of you who follow only on my blog, though, you can enter to win through the rafflecopter widget below!  No crazy hoops, just leave me the name you follow under so I can verify it, and you're good to go!  The person who wins from the rafflecopter giveaway will win a full size set of polishes!  So, thank you all so very much for your patience, laughter, suggestions, and sharing.  I'm glad to have you along for the ride!
a Rafflecopter giveaway


Alright, let's get down to business, shall we?  Tonight we're going to take a look at Deborah Lippmann Bad Romance.  I can't really give you a background about this polish, other than to say that it is clearly Lady Gaga inspired, because I received it in a swap.  However, I can tell you about my experiences with it!

Color: Black jelly with purple glitters.

Finish: Glitter Jelly – glitter in a colored jelly base.

Bottle / Brush: Deborah Lippmann – smaller lid with a lip at the top to help with control.  Average wand and brush length and width.  Good control with easy application.

Opacity: High – this is one coat over Elevation Pic du Gar, which is a purple.  Bad Romance is so pigmented, you can't even see the purple at all.

Glitter Application: Easy – Once I added thinner, it spread evenly without much manipulation.

Consistency: Thick – thick or it can be clumpy, but is easily remedied with some polish thinner.

Overall Ease of Application: Medium – applies well once thinner has been added.  Spreads well without much manipulation.

Stampability: Not designed for stamping.

Dry Time: Medium – dry to the touch with minimal smudging in 3-8 minutes.

Overall Thoughts: When I first opened this bottle, I was seriously disappointed.  It was thick.  Goopy.  Hard to manage.  My other DL's, while I don't have many, have simply gorgeous formulas.  Bad Romance, however, was a disaster to deal with - until I added thinner.  I didn't just add a little thinner, either.  I added a lot of thinner.  Shook it up.  Let it sit.  Tried again later.  That seemed to do the trick!  Once it was sufficiently thinned, I was able to apply it without any effort.  I re-swatched it over Elevation Pic du Gar, which is what you're seeing in these pictures, and it was pretty perfect.  The glitter came out of the bottle easily and it spread without much manipulation.    I'm torn about this polish...  While it is quite pretty, I don't really need it in my collection like I need other polishes.  It's currently in my sell stash, but after looking at these pictures again, I may have changed my mind!  Ack!!

Around where I live, you can purchase Deborah Lippmann polishes from Nordstrom, Neiman Marcus, and Von Maur.  I've also purchased some from QVC.

What do you think I should do?  Keep or sell Bad Romance?

Comparison Thursday: the Pale Greens

A few housekeeping notes, then we can get to the comparison.  First, I'm selling some polishes from my stash to clear out room as well as try to make some of my money back.  You know, so I can buy more polishes.  

Source

Anyway, information for my sale is located in my blog sale tab up above, or by clicky clicky this link.  Also, don't forget about the meeeeeeeeeeeellion giveaways going on around here.  Here's a cheat sheet:

Share the Love! There are like 23 prizes.  This giveaway is massive.

1000 GFC Followers!  Only 8 away!!

Untried Parade!  Show me those digits!

Reader of the Month!  (This is an older post, but it has the rules...)

So yeah.  Free stuff!  Also, what do you think about the new blog look?  Is it still readable?  Do you like the background?  I'm really excited about it, but I still want your input!

Tonight, we're going to take a look at three pale greens I have from my collection.  They aren't exact dupes, but they're close enough that I don't necessarily think you truly need all three.  The three polishes I've got for you tonight are OPI Who the Shrek are You?, Almost Paradise, and Navigate Her.

Each one of these greens could be a great addition to your stash for different reasons.  Honestly, they kind of look pretty awesome as an ombre here, which is why I don't have any of them up for sale right now.  What can I say, I'm greedy!

Who the Shrek are You is a bright, vivid, grass green.  It really is the same shade as Shrek.  They really nailed it, unlike some of the other colors in this collection that don't really make sense.  For example, what's so purple about a Donkey?  Oh, OPI.  You and your silly names never cease to amaze me.  Application was a bit tricky for the first two coats, but evened out on the third.  Please excuse the bubbles from my topcoat and the bit of polish on my cuticle that I didn't notice until I was editing the pictures...  Womp Womp.  As far as the greens go, this is probably my least favorite of the three.  It doesn't really look all that great with my skin tone.

Navigate Her is a dusty green creme that applied easily in three coats.  It's the perfect color for wearing under several of my glitter polishes.  There's not a whole lot to be said about Navigate Her.  It's a pretty creme but not anything super unique.

Almost Paradise is a really pretty pastel green that leans a little yellow.  AP has a thicker application, but it went on well without pooling or clumping.  Two coats were great, but I added a third for the photos.  I think this is the perfect green for spring.

And one more last look at them all together.

Unfortunately, Who the Shrek are You has been discontinued, but you can often find it at salons and on blog sales.  Navigate Her can be purchased where Essie's are sold, but Navigate Her isn't a part of the core line so you may have to look for it at Ulta or salons.  Lastly, Almost Paradise was a limited edition polish that was sold on QVC this past summer.

Which is your favorite of the three?  Should I keep them all?

OPI Ink!

I totally rocked out to Dead Weather and Cindy Lauper on the drive home from work today.  It made my day, let me tell you.  There is nothing better than belting out some pretty amazing tunes to change your mood for the better!  After dealing with this one dude who just doesn't seem to like women, or at least assertive and intelligent women, I was kind of done for the day.  Ahhh the life of working in a male-dominant profession.  They really just don't get that...

Source

Oh, and one more note before we get to the polish today!  I've mentioned on my Facebook page that when (if?) I reach 1000 GFC followers, I will give away 3 mini sets of 4 of my Valentine's Day polishes.  The polishes included in the giveaway would be: Rescue Me, Deepest Inquisitions, All I'll Ever Need, and (hopefully if I can get the formula just right) Easy to love.  Click on the pic below to enlarge.

Left side picture (from l-r): Rescue Me, Deepest Inquisitions, All I'll Ever Need, Every Touch Electrical, and Wicked and Divine
Right side picture: Easy to Love

The giveaway will consist of 2 questions (the first person to answer each question correctly gets a set of 4 minis) and an easy Rafflecopter giveaway without any crazy requirements.  It's just going to be a "do you follow me via GFC" kinda thing to really thank you guys for being here with me on this little journey.  Wow.  I've got a lot of giveaways going on...  It's like the damn Price is Right up in here!

Source

Alright, let's get on to tonight's polish!  In keeping with the mainstream theme, let's take a look at OPI Ink!  Ink originated in the OPI Night Brights collection circa 2007.  It's a beautiful blurple that really does look like ink.  The color is just so rich and lush...  Let's get to the review!  This is going to be very picture heavy as I had some issues getting accurate photos.  I used three different light sources for these photos, so hopefully you'll get a good idea of the true color.

Color: Dark purpleish blue with flecks of pink.

Finish: Chrome – a polish that shifts between colors depending on the angle you look at it.

Bottle / Brush: OPI bottle with the new wide brush – if you have small nail beds, this brush may be too large for you.  The wide brush tends to cause the polish to flood your cuticles, so you have to be very careful when applying.  Don't get too much polish on the brush when you're ready to apply it to the nail.  The brush length and cap are both the standard that OPI uses, and has a pretty average application.

Here's a comparison between the old OPI brush and the new pro-wide brush.

Opacity: Medium – achieves opacity at three to four coats.  Here, I used three coats.

Glitter Application: N/A

Consistency: Medium – applies easily and doesn’t flood the cuticles despite the wide brush.

Overall Ease of Application: Difficult – applies with some dragging and streaking.  Requires quick work to get a smooth result.

Stampability: Not tested for stamping.

Dry Time: Quick – dry to the touch without smudging in under 3 minutes.

Macro shot to see the pink flecks a little better.

Overall Thoughts: The depth of this polish is pretty amazing.  In some lights it's blue, in other lights it's purple, and then it can look like a blurple with pink flashes.  Application was a little annoying, though.  The first two coats are streaky.  It dried so quickly that it clumps, and then it would bald in spots when I would go back over it with the brush.  You really need to work fast when applying in order to get it even.  The third coat, however, really evens it all out nicely.  If you're looking for a vampy inky color, then Ink is the polish for you.  See what I did there?  Heh.  Unfortunately, it's not a super unique color.  I'm pretty sure I have at least three more colors similar enough to justify not having both.  I'll try to get a comparison post of those up sometime soon.

You can buy Ink where OPIs are sold.  I purchased mine at a salon, but I remember seeing it at Kroger (a grocery store in the south) a few weeks ago.

What's your favorite blurple?

OPI My Very First Knockwurst

I'm not really a neutral kind of gal.  Tans and browns just aren't my thing.  However, I knew I needed something neutral in my collection for those days that required something more demure and conservative.  Since I don't like to wear tans or browns, I decided that a neutral with a hint of pink would fit the bill.  I think that part of the reason I don't really like or wear tans or browns is because my fair skin has hints of pink and red versus any hints of olive.  Tonight, I'm going to show you my favorite neutral - OPI's My Very First Knockwurst.  Have you had a knockwurst, by the way?  If not, and you eat meat, you must try one.  Also, there's an amazing butcher in the Atlanta area called the Spotted Trotter who everyone in the area really needs to try.  Just sayin.

Color: Neutral with hints of pink.

Finish: Crème – a flat polish that finishes smooth with full opacity.

Bottle / Brush: OPI bottle with the new wide brush – if you have small nail beds, this brush may be too large for you.  The wide brush tends to cause the polish to flood your cuticles, so you have to be very careful when applying.  Don't get too much polish on the brush when you're ready to apply it to the nail - just a drop will do ya.  The brush length and cap are both the standard that OPI uses, and has a pretty average application other than the possibility of flooding your cuticles due to the wide brush.

Opacity: Medium – achieves opacity at three to four coats.

Glitter Application: N/A

Consistency: Fluid – thin but flows easily from the brush.

Overall Ease of Application: Difficult – applies with pooling and streaking.

Stampability: Not tested for stamping.

Dry Time: Medium – dry to the touch with minimal smudging in 3-8 minutes.

Overall Thoughts: While this is my favorite neutral, I do have to admit that the application is a bit of a pain.  The "pro-wide" brush causes pooling and flooding of the cuticles unless you're very careful with application.  As I mentioned above, the consistency is fluid, which means it goes onto the brush easily and flows onto the nail without any gloopiness.  However, this doesn't mean that the consistency and application was flawless.  As you can see on my pinkie finger, there's a pretty large bald spot.  This is three coats.  The first two coats were a streaky mess, so I had to add another coat, which you can see on my pinkie still wasn't necessarily enough.  Either that, or I wasn't very careful with application, which wouldn't surprise me since this was on my non-swatch hand.  [Sometimes I swatch on my non-swatch hand when I'm in a rush during a swatch fest.  Usually, though, I try to wear everything for at least a day before I post it on the blog, so I don't really do swatch fests often.  This time, though, I was using it as undies for my prize in the Valentine's Giveaway, Kelara My One and Only.]  Once you build it up, though, it looks gorgeous.  It is creamy neutral goodness that's perfectly work appropriate and great for any occasion where you need to be a bit more reserved and conservative.  If you're like me and need a pink-toned neutral, I highly recommend this polish.  Even though the application was the best, it was still pretty good for a neutral, which never go on me well at all.  

My First Knockwurst was part of OPI's Germany collection that was released last fall.  You can still find them in stores where OPI is sold.

What's your favorite neutral?

China Glaze Spontaneous

Today has been a good day.  Well, other than having an endoscope shoved up my nose.  The end result, though, was an answer to the question that has been plaguing me for the past two years.  What the eff is wrong with me???  I may have mentioned like a million times about how I'm always sick.  That isn't hyperbole.  I won't go into too much detail, but suffice it to say, my sinuses are a big ball of messed up causing me to constantly have infections and thus constantly run a low-grade fever.  I don't really know what the next steps will be, but I do know that I will be on some crazy antibiotics for the next three weeks.  So yeah, that's one good thing to come from today.  The other good thing - I got my car back from the body shop!!  YAAAAY!!!!  After getting rear-ended three weeks ago, my baby is finally whole again.  Now, I just need to get new tires before I can drive her again.  I've missed my little car.  I've been driving around in my mom's Ford Thunderbird, which, despite being a two-seater, is GINORMOUS.  It's like a boat.  Seriously.  So yeah, it's nice being in a car with minimal blind spots.  

Ok, enough of my chattering, let's get on to the polish!  Tonight, we're going to take a look at my favorite purple creme, China Glaze Spontaneous. 

Color: Bright purple leaning more blue than red.

Finish: Crème – a flat polish that finishes smooth with full opacity.

Bottle / Brush: China Glaze brush – lid is a little hard to hold if you have problems grasping things.  The length and width of the brush are average with average application.

Opacity: High – opaque at two coats!

Glitter Application: N/A

Consistency: Medium – applies easily and doesn't flood the cuticles.

Overall Ease of Application: Easy – applies well without pooling, dragging, streaking, or balding.  Spreads evenly and smoothly.

Stampability: Not tested for stamping.

Dry Time: Quick – dry to the touch without smudging in under 3 minutes.

Overall Thoughts: This is two coats without a top coat.  Do you see the shine??  For me, Spontaneous is the perfect polish.  It has amazing pigmentation allowing it to be opaque in two coats.  It applies evenly without any streaking or balding.  I mean, the application on this guy is amazing.  The polish flows from the brush easily with great control and requires little to no cleanup.  Here, I didn't even need to do any touch-ups with my cleanup brush (that spot on my middle finger is a tear in my poor little cuticle, womp womp).  It's also perfect as undies for so many things.  Most recently, I wore it under Kelara My One and Only, which is part of my prize in the Valentine's Day giveaway, here.  If you don't have a purple creme yet, I highly recommend that you purchase Spontaneous.

Spontaneous is a core color and is available anywhere China Glazes are sold.  I purchased mine at Sally's, but it's also available at Ulta.

What is your perfect creme?

Oldie but Goodie: OPI Excuse Moi

This will be a quick one as I'm getting to this kind of late...  Tomorrow, I'm going to play around with some of the new glitters I just got, so I'm sooooo excited!  I love making polishes!  I'll try to post some photos on Instagram tomorrow while I work, which you can see if you follow me @blueeyedlawyer.  I'm set to private, but I add anyone who asks -well, other than those creepers from high school that just want to up their follow count.  So yeah, sorry to just phone it in tonight...  Next week should be better as I'll have time this weekend to edit photos (crop and watermark only, really) and maybe pre-draft some posts so I can give you guys proper reviews again.  Anyway, tonight we're going to take a look at OPI Excuse Moi from the December 2011 Muppets Collection.  

Excuse Moi has a rusty red base with glitters of various sizes in gold, silver, and green.  It spread easily and the glitters came out of the bottle very easily.  The brush is one of the OPI pro-wide brushes, which works well with my nails but can be a pain for people with smaller nail beds.  Further, it didn't shrink even with Seche Vite.

Here it is blurry so you can see the sparkliness of the glitter.

I wasn't a huge fan of Excuse Moi.  The color combination just wasn't for me, so I sold it a few months ago. Excuse Moi has been discontinued, but you can still find bottles at salons.

You may have noticed a bit of a trend lately...  I'm working through photos of polishes I've sold as well as polishes I've decided I'd like to sell.  I'm in desperate need of a serious de-stash, so I'm working through untrieds that I think I probably won't like once I wear them.  Anything I don't like will end up on my blog sale page.  If I get enough polishes, I'll do grab bags again since so many of you loved them.  We'll see, though, since I haven't really gotten through too many untrieds that I want to sell yet.  It's so hard to let go of my preciouses...

Do you have any of the Muppets Collection polishes?