Lynnderella Manis, Vol VIII

 *Purchased by me*

Today I have my three most recent Lynnderella manis for your enjoyment and all three are from the spring Bunny Magic core collection. Lynnderella Bunny Nosegay is a multiglitter with many colors of both pastel and neon glitters in a  multi-colored shimmer base. The shimmer in the base is SO gorgeous in person, it flashes pink, purple and blue and really adds dimension to the polish. I always love Lynnderella's multiglitters, the colors look so cheerful all together.

This is one dabbed coat of Bunny Nosegay over two coats of China Glaze Peachy Keen. I stamped the flowers on the accent nail with China Glaze Heli-Yum. I'm really into stamped accent nails at the moment. I haven't stamped in forever, so I'm trying to get better at it too, haha. The flowers look a little bit melted, but I tried!

Lynnderella Bunny Robin is a sky blue microglitter in a heavily pink-shimmered base. The resulting effect is almost like a pink/blue duochrome at times and it's really lovely. Bunny Robin also contains some larger pastel blue, pink and yellow glitters, both matte and shiny. This is definitely a unique polish, thanks to the strong pink shimmer. I wish it showed up a bit more in my pictures. You can see it on the ring finger in the picture above, but it's more obvious in person.

You could definitely wear Bunny Robin alone in 2-3 coats, but I layered two thin coats over OPI Dining Al Frisco. Lynnderella's microglitters are very easy to use with or without a base. I like that because it makes them more versatile.

Lynnderella Rare Pink Bunicorn is another microglitter, this time it's a shade of delicate pink. Lynnderella says this one has "pink, white and neon pink microglitters accented with assorted pink glitters in a pink-shimmered clear base". It's a lot of pink!

Rare Pink Bunicorn seems to be more sheer than other Lynnderella microglitters I have tried. I used one coat over OPI Lucky Lucky Lavender for this mani. I tested it alone without a base on one nail and felt like it would need 4 coats for opacity, but I have seen others wear it alone in just 3 coats. I hate to do 4 coats of a Lynn, so I decided to use a base! Conserve the pretties!

The Lynnderella Bunny Magic collection is available now at lynnderella.com, Glitter Connect and Norway Nails.

Also, congratulations to Jessi, the winner of my $25 in your Paypal account giveaway! I will have a polish giveaway in about 2 weeks, so hang in there!

*I purchased all of the polishes in this post, except for OPI Dining Al Frisco (sent for review).

Happy First Day of Spring! SinfulColors Violets Are Blue

*Purchased by me*

Happy first day of spring to my readers in the Northern Hemisphere! Wooooohoo, finally! I might actually see sunshine and be warm sometime soon. I'm sorry for the radio silence around here this week, but I barely survived St. Patrick's Day. My school had more than 25 shows this past week and I danced in almost all of them. I didn't have time to eat or sleep, let alone blog, but hopefully I can get back to some kind of schedule now. I thought I'd kick off spring with this gorgeous pale periwinkle with silver glass fleck shimmer, SinfulColors Violets Are Blue. Violets Are Blue is from the all new Mod in Bloom spring pastels collection. I finally saw this collection in Rite Aid last weekend and I guess I wasn't in a spending mood, because I only got this one polish. I might have to go back and look again.

Look at that gorgeous silver shimmer! This is three coats of Violets Are Blue, two thin ones and one thicker coat. I thought this could have been a tad more pigmented, but I'm willing to deal with it for such a gorgeous hue. The formula was pretty good, maybe a tad thin, but I didn't have any trouble with it.

*Purchased by me*

The SinfulColors Mod in Bloom collection is available now at Rite Aid!

Nicole by OPI Roughles Swatches!

 *Sent for review*

Like a lot of people, I really like wearing pastel polish in the spring. I do find myself getting frustrated at the chalky pastel cremes that need babying to look good and sometimes take forever to dry. Happily, Nicole by OPI has a really good solution for me this spring! They've taken my favorite "nail pajamas" (i.e. they're so easy to throw on, they are like pajamas), textures, and given us sweet speckled pastel versions. Nicole by OPI I'm Stucco On You is a pale purple matte texture with blue and red-purple speckles. These Roughles are not sparkly textures, and the scattered flecks are also matte. The matte finish, pastel color and speckles gives the effect of a really beautiful bird egg.

I'm Stucco On You was very pigmented and easy to apply. This is two coats with no top coat. The formula on all of these was maybe a little on the thicker side, but pretty typical for matte texture polish and not at all difficult to work with.

Ahhhh, a pastel yellow texture!!!!! Nicole by OPI Sand in My Shoe is a pale banana yellow matte texture with peachy speckles. This is super exciting to me because yellow textures are still pretty few and far between, and pale yellows are usually so annoying to use that I don't wear them as often as I'd like. This one is still nail pajamas, so I'll be wearing pastel yellow to my heart's content! This reminds me of one of the Jelly Belly jelly beans, maybe buttered popcorn?

Like I said, nail pajamas. This is two coats, it was beautifully opaque. Easy peasy application and great formula. Finally, a yellow I can apply in 5 minutes and not look like a nail dunce.

Nicole by OPI Rock the Look is a light pink matte texture with darker pink and peach speckles. This is pretty cool, I can't think of another pastel pink texture off the top of my head (there may be one though). Rock the Look makes me think of the strawberry shortcake ice cream bars you get from the ice cream man LOL. You know, the ones with the coating on top of the ice cream? Mmmmm now I want one of those!

Sorry for the blurry macro shot. I had better ones but there was cat fur in them! Binx says to tell you it was very soft, luxurious cat fur though. Rock the Look was a bit thicker than the other Roughles. This is two coats, but I did find it a little harder to apply it smoothly without it chunking up. Not terrible, just not as good as the others.

Last, but definitely not least is Nicole by OPI On What Grounds?. I'm totally smitten with this minty seafoam matte texture with turquoise speckles. You already saw it the other day in my gradient mani and I just want to wear it all the time! It's a very blue-leaning mint, so not really a true mint. I guess it's more of a pastel teal. I just think of tropical water and warm places when I look at this (a.k.a. NOT Connecticut).

This is two easy coats. I do love that all of these Roughles were nice and opaque in two coats. It's really useful to have some pastel options that aren't time consuming.

*Sent for review*

What do you think about the Roughles? If you are still loving textures, you will need these. I can't pick a favorite because I love them all! I want to wear them as skittles next. I may not wear anything else for several weeks LOL.

Nicole by OPI Roughles are available now for $7.99 each at retailers including select Duane Reade, Kroger, Kmart, Fred Meyer, CVS locations. In Canada, these shades will be available for $10.99 each at Shoppers Drug Mart, Jean Coutu, Rexall, Walmart Canada, Jean Coutu, Loblaw, and London Drug.

For more information, visit nicolebyopi.com. Follow Nicole by OPI on Twitter @NicoleByOPI and become a Facebook fan!

A Fun Spring French with Zoya Awaken Polishes!

*sent for review*

I do not typically do French manis of any sort, but I really liked the way the Zoya Awaken colors looked sitting next to each other and wanted to use some of them together. While trying to think of how to put them together in a mani that wasn't skittles or polka dots, I saw a mani like this on Essie's Facebook with Essie spring colors. I don't have Essie spring (yet) so I put this into action with Zoya spring instead! I used Zoya Brooklyn for the base and Hudson and Dillon for the tips.

This kind of French tip is relatively easy to freehand, so give it a try if you haven't already. You can, of course, use just one color for the tips if this seems like too many colors for you. I realized afterwards that these are kind of like lighter, more pastel Mardi Gras colors- gold, purple, and green!

 Then, just because I can, I had to try Zoya Monet on top of this. I feel like Monet pushed this looked a little bit too far over the edge here. I should have stuck to the look without added extra colors and sparkle LOL. Now it reminds me of a carnival!

*sent for review*

Are you doing any nail art with the Zoya Awaken collection? I want to do some more, but I am stuck on dots and want to do something else that isn't dots (although Cole with Dillon, Hudson, and Rebel dots is reaaalllly tempting)! Any ideas?

The Zoya Awaken collection is available now at zoya.com.

Zoya Awaken Collection Spring 2014, part 2!

 *sent for review*

It was FREEZING when I took these pictures. Dear Polar Vortex, no one wants you here anymore! Luckily, these spring colors helped me remember that spring will probably come to CT this year. Probably. Let's start off with Zoya Cole, an orange-y peach creme. Zoya describes this as "full-coverage peach whisper cream". Peach whisper sounds cooler than my description!

This wasn't my favorite formula in this collection. I didn't find it to be quite as pigmented as I would have liked, this is four thin coats on every nail except the index. That is two thin coats, plus a blobbed on third coat (accidentally blobbed on, I should say). The first two coats were streaky, and you can see some of that remaining, although it did smooth out a lot. This also took longer to dry than Zoyas usually do for me. This was originally released for fashion designer Peter Som's spring/summer 2014 Collection under the name "Stella".

I do like Cole a lot when it's topped with Monet! This is really pretty!

Next we get back to to lovely metallic shimmers with Zoya Rebel. I really enjoy Zoya's metallic shimmer formula and the highly visible silver shimmer. Zoya calls this one a "blue sky metallic" and that description is fitting and perfect! Like that first perfect warm day when the sky is clear and so incredibly blue.

Rebel had the same fantastic formula as the other two metallic shimmers in the collection. So easy to use and generously pigmented. This is two coats. The shimmer makes this just glide on.

Zoya Dot is a pale whitened pink creme. This was originally released for the fashion designer Zang Toi's spring/summer 2014 collection. It is pretty typical of what you tend to see on spring runways, so that makes sense.

I wasn't crazy about this formula either. Zoya says it's a 4 out of 5 in terms of opacity, but this is three coats and I still see a lot of VNL. I also thought it was hard to get a streak free finish. I am generally not a huge fan of sheerer pale pinks, so other people may enjoy this more than I do.

 I do, however, quite enjoy Dot topped with Monet! I think this was my favorite of the Monet combos I did, the pale background really let Monet reflect all sorts of different colors. Monet is cool in the respect, it picks up colors from the polish it's layered over and also from the area around you. I can see it becoming a favorite topper of mine! It applied pretty well, the base is a little bit gloopy, so I tried to wipe a lot of it off. This is one coat of Monet over Dot.

*sent for review*

My standout favorites from the Zoya Awaken collection are Rebel and Dillon for sure (check out my first post for swatches if you missed it). Zoya Monet is also a big hit with me and I'll be trying it out over a lot of different colors, so you'll see it again soon. Do you have your eye on any of these?

The Zoya Awaken collection is available now at zoya.com.

Zoya Awaken Collection Spring 2014, Part 1!

 *sent for review*

I really look forward to the Zoya spring collection every year. It seems to be the most "spring-y" feeling of any brand's spring offering. They always choose light and fresh colors that I haven't worn all winter and suddenly feel like wearing, even if they aren't my normal style. The Zoya Awaken collection is no different and I was excited to start swatching it today. Zoya Hudson is a gorgeous medium purple with lots of sparkling silver shimmer. I love this kind of silver shimmer, where you can see all of the shimmer particles. Hudson feels very much like spring, but it's more saturated than a pastel so it's good anyone who isn't feeling the typical pastel fare.

This is two coats. Hudson is nicely pigmented and had a great, easy to apply formula. I had no trouble getting the polish very close to the cuticles without making a mess.

The next picture shows Hudson topped with Zoya Monet, the iridescent cellophane glitter topper that Zoya released alongside the Awaken collection. Monet has a clear base filled with hexagonal glitter pieces that reflect lots of different colors, making it a great topper for any base color.

Zoya Brooklyn is either a very pale gold or a very washed out yellow shimmering metallic. Zoya calls it a "white-gold shimmer metallic", but to me, white gold is always silver. This is decidedly from the yellow/gold family, it's just a very pale version. I love gold and yellow polish, so I am loving this spring version!

This is three coats of Brooklyn. It has great pigmentation and a lovely formula. You could most likely do just two coats if you do thicker coats. This could possibly get some visible brushstrokes, so try to do a maximum of three brush strokes per nail when applying.

Zoya Dillon is like a spring mermaid in a bottle! LOVE this! Dillon is a minty seafoam green with the same silver shimmer that is in Hudson. I love mint greens, but I feel like a lot of them are either cremes or have very subtle shimmer, so I'm excited to see one with SHIMMER!

Dillon was lovely to work with, no problems to report. This is three coats, again you might be able to do two.

*sent for review*

So far I am loving the Zoya Awaken collection! I'll have the other three, plus more looks at Zoya Monet soon! The Zoya Awaken collection is available now at zoya.com.

Zoya Magical Pixie Swatches!

 *Sent for review*

Today I have the holo glitter goodness of the new Zoya Magical Pixie Dust polishes to show you. These are texture polishes, like the Zoya PixieDusts, but with larger glitter particles and with both small and large holo glitter added in as well. First up is the sparkling silver Zoya Cosmo. The holo glitter in this really throws rainbows all over the place, it was kind of freaking out my camera!

This is two coats of Cosmo. It covered easily and was pretty easy to apply. The formula feels thicker than the usual PixieDust formula, but that didn't make it hard to use at all.

Below is one coat of Gelous over Cosmo. With one coat of Gelous, it felt mostly smooth to the touch and I think the shiny top coat really brings out the sparkle.

Zoya Vega is a medium blue texture with large and smaller holo glitter. I really love the holo glitter in these! I love holo glitter in anything though, haha!

This is also two coats. It had good coverage at two coats, with the same slightly thicker feeling formula as Cosmo.

This picture below is Vega with one coat of Gelous. I like this one better without top coat I think, but it's very pretty both ways!

Finally, the lovely Zoya Lux is a light pink texture with the same mix of holo glitters as Cosmo and Vega. I think Lux was a little smoother than the other two in this collection, but still packs the same glittery punch. Somehow the particles felt smaller on the nail, but they look the same as the others, so maybe I'm imagining it!

This is three coats of Lux. It's a lighter pink, so I felt the coverage was better at three coats myself. Good application and it was a bit thinner than the other two.

Below is one coat of Gelous over Lux. It's gorgeous this way too!

*Sent for review*

I really love all three of these Magical Pixies. I always love holo glitter and as you already know, I love textures. They all dry nice and quickly and will be in my regular rotation for when I need a super fast mani. I do think they will be kind of a matter of personal opinion. I can see some people not liking the larger glitter in these and the added texture. They do seem to smooth out well with top coat though. What do you think of the Magical Pixies?

Zoya Magical Pixie Dusts are available now on zoya.com.