I may have taken a break from blogging....

...but I didn't take a break from polishing my nails and photographing them!  So without further ado, here is some more swatch spam for your viewing pleasure.  :)


First up is Finger Paints Itsy Bitsy Spider, a very pretty purple with bright bright bright (almost neon) blue shimmer that is so prevalent, it makes the polish lean more blue in certain lights.

Now, I swatched this a long time ago and I can't remember if I did 2 or 3 coats.  The purple base is somewhat jelly-like so I might have done 3 coats.  But then again, I could have done 2 since I rarely have the patience for a 3rd coat of any polish.  My apologies for not taking better notes! 

More swatches after the jump!

Zoya Suri and NOPI Kendall On The Katwalk

I have so many polishes in my untried pile that I've recently taken to putting together "skittle" or "skittlette" manis in order to try out more than one polish at a time.  Though as I'm typing this, I realize that's not what I did for today's manicure....whoops.  Oh well, at least it'll explain why I've been posting more manis of this style lately, I guess I'm just in the mood for jazzing up my nails a little more than your basic swatching mani.  I've also been completely inspired by the YouTube video blogger Young Wild and Polished, who does the cutest skittle manis ever, imo.

Anyway, here is a skittlette mani I did a couple weeks ago:

The purple gorgeousness is Zoya Suri, a polish I picked up in one of their more recent sales, though it wasn't one of the post-Thanksgiving flash sales.  Zoya basically has all of my money from the past couple months, they've been running AWESOME sales leading up to Christmas.  I resisted getting this color for a while, I have TONS of purples (many of which are Zoyas, which is known for creating awesome purples) so I felt that Suri was one I could pass up.  Then, a sale and my weak self-control hit at the same time, and I tossed Suri into my cart.  I'm glad I did though...it's such a gorgeous, royal, glowy purple once on the nail, about 100x better than what you see in the bottle.

The glitter is Nicole by OPI Kendall on the Katwalk, one of the few glitter bombs I love.  It's the perfect size glitter (ie. micro) in blue and purple that really packs a punch.  From using this in the past, I would have expected to say that the formula is good and easy to work with for a glitter, but either the cap was loose on mine or it's just been too long since I used it, because it was gloopy and a real pain to apply this time.  I added what seemed like way too much thinner after I did this mani and it didn't seem to make much difference.  I'll check it again soon to see if it's better or worse, and in the meantime I'll be keeping an eye out for another bottle....THAT is how much I love this glitter polish.  :)

More pics after the jump:

Cult Flushed...plus a few others

Behold the pretty pretty....my very first Cult Nails polish called Flushed.  I know I can achieve opacity with it in 2-3 coats, but I had an untried purple creme in the form of Spoiled 2 Weeks Sober and decided to layer one coat of Flushed over one heavy coat of 2 Weeks Sober.  Both polishes were super easy to work with, though I'll definitely do two coats when I wear 2 Weeks Sober on its own.

On the second day I had some tip wear (most likely NOT due to the polish, I'm super tough on my hands/fingers), so I decided to play with some tape and two of my Julie G textured polishes.  I love the result:

 

Be sure to check out more photos after the jump, including ones of this mani before the nail art was added...