Kiss My Acetone

So a while back a really cool nail polish company called Tip Top contacted me asking if I’d like to review some of their nail polishes on my blog. I’d honestly never heard of the brand but when I looked into them and noticed that the brand was based out of Johannesburg, South Africa I was immediately excited. I literally love anything foreign and foreign beauty products are my favorite beauty products to try out since usually I’ve never heard of them and/or they’re really hard to get a hold of here in the states. Also, just as a side note, I have a small obsession with South Africa and I really, reeeeeallly want to go one day. But now that I’ve gotten all off topic… onto the swatches…

Wild Thing. Probably my favorite of the collection. It’s a bright, pigmented blue creme with subtle silver shimmer. The hue of blue reminds me of Smurfs or silly putty… I really quite like it. And it’s very bright and pigmented and I literally own no other blue in my collection that’s even sort of similar to this color.

Lazy Lizard. A really pretty lizard-lime-grass green with green, silver and blue shimmer. This one is pretty unique and it really does remind me of the color of a lizard. It’s a tad frosty and if you’re not careful with application, the brush strokes will be noticeable but it’s really very pretty and nice for spring.

Baby Cheeks. A really pretty off white cream color filled with light yellow gold shimmer. The shimmer in this polish really isn’t very obvious on the nail unless you’re looking for it but it adds a really soft and feminine touch and it’s not as stark as it would have been had it been a solid creme with no shimmer. It’s not very unique but it’s soft and clean looking with a feminine touch so I quite like it.

Dangerous Robot. A cherry red jelly. I really like this red cause it’s not cool or warm toned. It’s very neutral and a really true red. I also like that it’s a jelly finish so it looks squishy.

The formula of these polishes is really good. I didn’t have any troubles with any of the formulas being too thick, runny or gloopy and they all applied very nicely. All of these polishes are swatched here with three coats. These polishes are available online for viewing (thought I’m not sure where you would purchase cause I didn’t see any place to do so on the website) at www.tiptopnails.co.za/, or you can like Tip Top on Facebook www.facebook.com/TipTopNailsSouthAfrica.

Dori

(These products were sent to me for review.)

Little late on this post but better late than never! I took these pictures ages ago and have yet to post them so here they are… finally!

A Butterfly Moment. A light peachy pink with frosty gold shimmer. I honestly thought I would hate this polish… it looks sooo boring and way too frosty in the bottle but on, it’s actually very soft, feminine and flattering. And the frostiness? It’s actually really not bad at all. I’m a fan!

Pink Yet Lavender (over A Butterfly Moment). What a heck of a name this is. And on top of it, it’s really only pink, not lavender at all. Soooo I’m not really getting it..? Anyways, it’s a slightly pink/lavender(?) tinged clear base filled with large light pink hex glitter and small square holo glitter. I don’t think I would really like it alone which is why I topped it over A Butterfly Moment but it is pretty dense I suppose. This is just one coat.

Sprung. A warm copper-bronze with gold and rose gold shimmer. This reminds me of a mix between OPI Pros and Bronze & Warm An Fozzie. It’s very pretty and probably my second favorite of the collection.

Anti-Bleak. A warm, red-toned plum-purple creme. Meh, not very interesting or unique. This is two coats here.

These last four polishes all have the sand finish without top coat. The last picture of each of the sand polishes have top coat on top. I prefer them all without top coat, just for reference.

Can’t Let Go. A royal purple that’s slightly blue filled with large purple hex glitter and tons of micro glitter.

The Impossible. A bight cherry red filled with some large silver star, medium red hex, small red and small micro glitter.

Get Your Number. A bright jelly blue with medium hex and small holo glitter. Even without glitter, you can see the holo which I think is really pretty.

Stay The Night. My FAVORITE of the collection. Its filled with small red glitter. I love, love, love this polish. Now, this may be a really weird statement, but I think this polish is even prettier on days two and three. Why? Because something happens with the red glitter.. maybe it flakes off or something? I have no clue. But some of the red glitter turns silver for some reason that is beyond me and so the polish has mostly red and some sparse silver glitter shimmering. Sounds odd but it’s soooo, soo pretty

Seriously, I was not impressed at all seeing swatches of these sand finish polishes online but they are way prettier in person. Even if you think you don’t need these, I reassure you, YOU DO. You’ll thank me later.

Dori

(These products were sent to me for review.)

Right now I’m pretty embarrassed to mention that I’ve had this collection swatched for a month now. A month exactly. I know cause I just checked the date the images were uploaded to my computer. The 17th of October. It is now the 17th of November. I’m terrible, I know. So without further adieu, here are the swatches from the OPI Holiday 2012 Skyfall collection, inspired by the new James Bond film… Skyfall. Bet you didn’t see the one coming.
Moonraker. A light frosty, silver-shifting-gunmetal metallic. It appears very light silver when you look at it head on but around the edges it darkens quite a lot into a medium toned gunmetal silver. It’s a bit frosty and brush stroke-y so you have to be careful on application. This is two coats.

Tomorrow Never Dies. A bright royal purple with tiny shimmer particles in blue, and fuchsia. This ones also a bit brush stroke-y. This is two coats.

The Living Daylights. A clear polish sparsely filled with large hex glitter in light gold, teal, silver and peachy-rose gold. This here is two coats and you can see how sparse the glitter is. This is clearly meant to be layered over another polish rather than being worn alone over bare nails.

The World Is Not Enough. A brownish-grey-taupe with rose and gold shimmer. It’s hard to describe this color. It looks more brown/taupe in some lighting and more silver-grey in others but then the gold and rose shimmer in it is heavy and very apparent and shifts the color too… it’s very odd and very unique but I quite like it. I own nothing at all similar to this polish. My only qualm is that it’s on the sheer side. This is three thick coats.

Live And Let Die. A dark blackened forest green creme with gold fleck glitter. I swear this polish is so… weird… or something. It’s like, a creme but the fleck glitter still shows through so much when normally creme polishes hide and cover up all the glitter from showing through. It’s so cool. I really like this polish. This is two coats.

On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. A smokey silver jam packed with fleck glitter in gold, blue, light silver and green. It’s like a darker, more silvery version of The World Is Not Enough… same idea. This one is also on the sheer side so it requires three coats.

The Spy Who Loved Me. A bright cherry/apple red with red fleck glitter. This one is seriously so pretty. It’s way prettier in person, I promise. If you love reds, you need this one. This is two coats. Three may have been better but two was sufficient.

Die Another Day. A metallic tomato red with red and orangey-gold shimmer. This is two coats.

You Only Live Twice. A bright raspberry pink jelly filled with hot pink fleck glitter. Really pretty. This is two coats.

Casino Royale. A warm toned medium plum-purple creme. It’s slightly sheer, especially at the tips so this one looks best with three coats.

Skyfall. A medium brown toned maroon-burgundy creme. Probably my least favorite from the collection. It’s not bad, it’s just kinda boring. This is two coats.

Goldeneye. My hands down favorite from the collection… it’s not hard to see why. Goldeneye is a bright, metallic gold fleck polish. It’s hard to describe. It’s like flecks of golden amazeballs. Yeah, bad description. But seriously, this might just take Dazzled By Gold’s place as my favorite gold polish. Just maybe. You need this. No joke. I mean, I love gold polishes so I’m biased… but still. Even if you don’t like gold polish, you still need this one. You’ll thank me later. You’re welcome.

This collection is available now and retails for $8.50 a bottle. Go get em!!!

(These products were sent to me for review.)

Dori

Let me just start off by saying that Zoya’s Ornate holiday collection is not only, in my opinion, the best holiday collection of the season but also my favorite collection that’s been released in quite some time. Maybe it’s because they’re so much holo glitter. Maybe it’s because it’s holo glitter inside a jelly! Maybe it’s because there’s holo glitter inside of jelly polishes and it’s Zoya’s first ever release of holo polish and they hit the nail on the head!! Okay, okay, enough rambling and onto the swatches!

Ziv. (not holographic, but just wait…) A light gold foil polish with different sizes and shapes of foil flakes in light gold, silver-gold and darker warm-gold. I am such a huge fan of gold polishes and this one is really, really pretty. The variation in colors and shapes of the flecks is really pretty. Of you’re a fan of gold, you need this polish. I promise. And actually, you need this whole collection. Just saying. ….This is two coats.

Logan. A dark and vibrant evergreen base filled with gold foil flakes that shift from gold to green to even blue (at an extreme angles). This one is really, really, really pretty. It’s going on this list of my favorite greens. It reminds me a lot of Orly Meet Me Under The Mistletoe… but better. This is two coats.

Blaze. A rich red-berry jelly filled with holo glitter. HOLO GLITTER! RED HOLO GLITTER!!! This polish is really pretty. Like, really, really pretty. The red jelly base tints the holo flecks of glitter to make them appear mostly red and iridescent purple. It reminds me of ULTA Bombshell (which is clearly pretty different yet the most similar polish in my collection) but with a deeper base that leans more berry, and smaller flecks of holo glitter compared to Bombshell’s larger pieces of square holo glitter. Out of the two, I prefer Blaze. This is two coats.

Aurora. Let me start off by saying that for these pictures I only applied two coats. It looked fine in real life but according to the pictures, this polish would clearly look better having applied three coats. Don’t hold the slight sheerness and streaky-ness against the polish. It was my fault, not hte polish’s. Aurora is a fuchsia-purple jelly filled with tons of holo flecks of glitter. I think the holo glitter in this is more dense than it is in the other two holo polishes, making for a more intense holo. It’s really very pretty.

Storm. My hands down favorite from the collection. I’ve been wanting a black holo polish for basically forever and for a long time Color Club Revvvolution was the closest I had. Then while I was in London over the summer, I picked up Barry M Black Multi Glitter which is also a black jelly base filled with holo glitter. However, Barry M Black Multi Glitter was a let down. The holo barely showed through the black base. Fortunately, Zoya Storm is everything and more than I hoped Black Mutli Glitter Would be. Storm is a dense black jelly base filled with holo flecks of glitter. Out of the three holo polishes, Storm seems to have the least amount of holo glitter. Honestly, there is still a ton of holo glitter in this baby though so my no means is this polish lacking or on the dull side of holo. This is two coats. If you’re only going to pick up one polish from this collection, my suggestion is, let it be this.

Electra. A clear base densely packed with smaller thinner and bigger thicker silver holo bar glitter. It can be worn alone or used for layering but in my opinion, ever=n with one coat it’s a little too dense for layering for my liking. This here is three coats. And though I don’t have any similar polishes in my collection this this reminds me, the name does remind me of something…

I haven’t posted a music video in a while and since I just posted Electra, I figured it’s a good enough excuse to share my favorite song from Marina and the Diamonds’ album Electra Heart. Ayye, ayyye, see what I did there? ;]

(These products were sent to me for review.)

Dori

Christmas is officially in the air. Today I went to the mall and Christmas trees are already up, lights are strung and lit and the sweet sounds of Christmas music fill the crisp, cool air. So to get in the Christmas spirit, I bring you red glitter. This is two coats of Zoya Rehka topped with one coat of OPI Getting Miss Piggy With It. Unlike how I handled my Halloween manis (or lack thereof), holiday manis (Thanksgiving and Christmas) start now. Well, don’t fully quote me on that… I do have a few polishes I’ve been wanting to share which are holo, and by no means fall/winter colors . But besides those, I’m all fall/winter manis and hopefully this holiday around I’ll actually get around to doing a good amount of nail art.

Dori

This Halloween, OPI has released another new collection of four mini polishes paired with matching stickers. This year, the set entitled So So Skullicious includes four mini polishes: Hi, Pumpkin! (a medium orange creme), A Rose From The Dead (a medium rosey pink creme), Morning Glory (black creme) and Candle Light (a slightly sheer yellow jelly) as well as a set of 10 Dia de los Muertos stickers.

The majority of the stickers included (seven to be exact) are skulls, two are flowers and one is a… something. I actually really like this set for Halloween, it’s something completely different than what they’ve done before. This set is available now for a limited time only.

(This set was sent to me for review.)

Dori

I know I’ve posted on the polish before but it’s one of my all time favorite polishes for autumn. It’s pumpkin-y orange, shimmery and just screams fall. Plus it has perfect formula and application. This is three coats. Though you may be able to get away with just two and have enough coverage if they were thicker coats.

I also used LA Girls Copper for my first Halloween mani of the season. I realize it’s already the 20th of October so maybe I should have started the Halloween manis a few weeks earlier but better late than never, I always say. Thi is Wet n Wild Spoiled Cougar attack (three coats for full coverage) with accent fingers in LA Girls Copper. I used the haunted house and bats Bundle Monster for nail art.

I guess I better try to do Halloween manis daily from this point on since I got such a late start in the game.

Dori