An OPI Holiday NOTD

 *Sent for review*

I'm just popping in today with a quick post- I'm in the thick of holiday action this week with decorating, parties, shopping, etc. But I've been dying to sponge one of the OPI holiday glitters over the tips of OPI In My Santa Suit since I first reviewed the OPI Mariah Carey Holiday collection and this time I picked My Favorite Ornament.

I always use a wedge-shaped make-up sponge to sponge on a glitter gradient. I always feel like the corners of the sponge give me more control. I love this look for a fun and festive holiday nail that doesn't take all day to do.

*Sent for review*

The OPI Mariah Carey Holiday collection is available now at Ulta and salons near you.

Deck the Halls with Two Gorgeous Holiday Lumina Lacquers

 *Purchased by me*

The indie polish makers have been killing me lately with their holiday offerings, Lumina Lacquer in particular. I have two of this year's holiday Lumina Lacquers to show you, and I really wish I could have purchased about 4 more! First up is Lumina Lacquer Lights, Christmas, Action. Lights, Christmas, Action is a mix of many different colored round glitters in several sizes and holo green Christmas tree glitter, all in a clear shimmered base. I have been dying for one of these round glitter polishes, they are so cool! The mix of colors in this polish remind me exactly of ornaments on a tree.

I wanted all the different color glitters to pop, so I layered this over two coats of OPI Alpine Snow. It was easiest to load up the brush with glitter, then wipe most of it off onto the neck of the bottle and take it right from the bottle neck to your nail. Tatiana recommends dabbing her polishes on and I normally find that to be the best method, but I think the base of this one is a little thick for dabbing. I just kept applying glitter until I was satisfied, so this isn't really a particular number of coats. Lights, Christmas, Action comes with a bag of extra Christmas tree glitter so you don't have to fish for them if you don't want to!

Lumina Lacquer The Snow King is quite possibly my favorite winter-themed polish EVER. Now, I think I might be a little biased because it just happens to contain my favorite color combination, purple and gold, a lot of the glitter is holo (we all know I love that) AND it has my new favorite circle glitter. There are a couple different shades of purple in here, along with gold and silver. There are also holo silver snowflakes and snowmen! You get an extra bag of glitter with this polish too, with a ton of snowmen and snowflakes. Without the snowflakes and snowmen, I would and will wear this polish year round. I also like that it's an alternative to red and green that still looks really festive.

I decided to layer one dabbed coat of The Snow King over two coats of my new favorite purple creme, Zoya Odette. The Snow King was easier to apply than Lights, Christmas, Action. I had no trouble dabbing it on and getting plenty of glitter on the brush.

*Purchased by me*

Lumina Lacquer's store is supposed to be restocked today! I don't know what time, but I would keep an eye out on Lumina Lacquer's Facebook and Big Cartel store for details. I usually find out restock times on Instagram, so you can follow @luminalacquer there.

SinfulColors SinfulShine Devious

 *Purchased by me*

Pretty much every week, I like to wander around Walgreens after work on Wednesdays. I get out of work a little earlier on Wednesdays and there is a Walgreens that can be on my way home if I don't take the highway (there are actually 2 Walgreens, 2 CVS's and a Rite Aid I can hit on the "way home" on Wednesdays LOL). But anyway, on my most recent trip, my goal was to get a SinfulColors SinfulShine red that would be perfect for the holidays. SinfulColors Devious clearly fits the bill! Devious is a bright true red that actually looks red on the first coat, not pink like some red cremes. Like it's relatives in the SinfulShine line, it is SUPER shiny without top coat. All swatches here are shown with no top coat.

This is two coats of Devious. The pigmentation was excellent. It might be able to be a one-coater if you tend toward thicker coats. The formula was a tad bit thinner than some SinfulShines I've tried, but not hard to work with.

*Purchased by me*

SinfulColors Devious is available at a Walgreens near you!

Zoya Naturel Collection Swatches

*Sent for review*

I feel like I need to make a meme that says "I don't always wear neutral polish, but when I do, it's a Zoya" LOL. Zoya always does these beautiful and slightly edgy neutral collections that make me fall in love, even though I am not the world's biggest lover of neutrals. Zoya Chantal was the first polish I swatched in the Naturel collection, and it is the almost mannequin hands shade I've been searching for. Zoya calls this a "french vanilla creme" and that's a great description. It has a little bit of yellow in it, but not too much. In these pictures, my hands look really red (it was FREEZING OUT!!), but in person, this is a great match for my skin tone (around MAC NC15).

This is two coats of Chantal. It was nicely pigmented and applied well. My one note about Chantal and the next polish, Taylor, (the two lightest shades) is that they did not really self-level all that well. I felt like I had to be a bit careful of how many brushstrokes I used to apply them, or else they looked a little lumpy. They mostly smoothed out with top coat though, so not a huge concern.

 Zoya Taylor is a bit darker and more brown-toned than Chantal, but still a nice light neutral creme. Zoya describes it as a "light toffee creme". So now I'm hungry because we have french vanilla and light toffee LOL. Taylor is not a mannequin hands shade for me, but it's a nicely flattering neutral shade and might be close to a slightly darker skin tone.

In the above picture you can definitely see what I meant about Taylor and Chantal not leveling out, mostly on the middle and index nails. You can also weirdly see my reflection on the ring nail! Strange! This is three coats of Taylor. It was opaque enough in two coats, but I was trying to smooth it out a bit more with the third. Again, no a huge problem, as a thicker top coat like Seche Vite would smooth this out no problem (I used OPI Top Coat for all of these swatches).

Next up is the lovely Zoya Rue, an interesting purple-y blush creme. Rue is a pretty combination of purple, pink and nude that I think will be flattering on a wide variety of skin tones. These pinky purple nudes seem to be the big trend in make-up right now too with palettes like Urban Decay Naked3 and Laura Mercier Artist's Palette (oh why did you sell out so fast??).

This is three coats of Rue, I felt like I needed a third for complete coverage. The application was great though, no problems here!

I think Zoya Brigitte is my favorite of this collection. I am always a sucker for these purple-y taupe cremes. Brigitte is less gray than some of the purple-y taupes I already own, so I think if you like this kind of polish shade, it is really worth getting! I can tell I'll be reaching for this a lot.

This is two coats of Brigitte. Nice coverage, perfect formula! Sorry about the weird one and a half watermarks in the above picture, I don't know what happened there!

Zoya really knows how to do a knockout purple. Out of the 100 or so purples I own, so many are Zoyas. They just seem to have mastered the art of a fine purple polish! Zoya Odette is no exception! They describe Odette as "sultry maroon", but I see a medium orchid purple creme, with a bit of pink. It actually reminds me of the Pantone 2014 Color of the Year, Radiant Orchid. If you haven't seen that yet, Google it now, I know it'll be all the rage in make-up and nails this coming year.

This is two coats of Odette. Again, great coverage and excellent formula. Another one I'll be wearing a lot!

Last, but definitely not least, we have Zoya Normani (side note: is there really anyone out there named Normani?). Normani is a mushroomy purple taupe, another polish color I can't ever get enough of. This version definitely has a bit of pink in it and not too much gray, so I think it's more flattering than other iterations of this color.

This is two coats of Normani and it also had an excellent formula. So really the whole collection had great pigmentation and good application throughout, just the first two needed a little more cautious application.

*Sent for review*

The Zoya Naturel collection shipped early and is actually available now on Zoya.com, rather than January 1. My favorites are definitely Odette and Normani, but I also like Chantal for a mannequin hands shade. I want to wear these all together sometime, they look really gorgeous all lined up next to each other. Which shades are catching your eye in this collection? This is going to be a great collection to wear in January when I'm sick of red, green and glitter!

SinfulColors Pine Away with Christmas Decals!

*SinfulColors Pine Away purchased by me, decals sent for review*

The "good" Walgreens in town is not really on my way home from work on Wednesday nights, so I often take a little stroll through to see what's new. The SinfulColors holiday display caught my eye and SinfulColors Pine Away came home with me this week. Pine Away is the perfect Christmas green I've been looking for. Sometimes I feel greens are too dark or too summer-y to be a real Christmas green, but this one is right on. Pine Away is a dense foil, so it looks glittery, but is totally smooth to the touch.

 Pine Away has great pigmentation. It was nearly a one-coater, but I did two in these photos. The formula was also excellent. Gotta love when a $1.99 polish is super pigmented, has a great formula, AND looks amazing!

I was going to a Christmas fair this weekend to work at a fundraiser for my dance school, so I wanted to add some holiday decals to my nails. I used these Born Pretty Store water decals I showed you last year. I was originally just going to do an accent nail or two with decals, but I got a little excited and just kept putting them on LOL.

Here's a close-up of the cute Santa in a sleigh that was on my thumb nail.

*SinfulColors Pine Away purchased by me, decals sent for review*

SinfulColors Pine Away is available at a Walgreens near you and the Christmas decals are still available at Born Pretty Store.

Nicole by OPI Holiday Photo Contest

Nicole by OPI is doing a fun holiday giveaway. One lucky winner will receive Nicole by OPI's entire 2013 product line (44 lacquers) and their brand new line of nail treatments (6 products) x 2.
Enter and find out all the details here.

My Manis Are Lasting Longer Than Ever-- Here's How!

 *Some items sent for review. See end of post*

I've mentioned before that I almost never comment on the wear time of polishes because nothing wears very well for me personally. Wear time is a very individual thing and it depends on a lot of factors- your nail health, your nail type, hand washing, etc. I have very dry nails and wash my hands constantly, so polish very often chips on me within 24 hours. HOWEVER, I recently found my magic combination that has been allowing me to wear polish for 4+ days with very minimal tip wear and no chips!!! *cue triumphant trumpet sounds* I do want to preface this by saying that your own results may vary, due to all of the factors I listed above, but if you have wear problems like I used to, this may be worth a try!

First of all, and I think this is the most important step here, instead of cleaning the nail plate prior to applying polish, I have been oiling my nails! This seems counter-intuitive, and I know we've all read the magazine articles where the nail professionals tell us to wipe the nails with acetone or white vinegar before applying base coat. But, if I already have dry nails, does it really make sense to dehydrate them more before applying polish? I've been reading others say that applying an oil before a mani has really helped prevent chips and reduced peeling in their nails, so I had to give it a try. It has worked beautifully for me. I can now wear a mani for 4 days with no chips and when I remove my polish, I have noticed that my nails appear much healthier. I've been using China Glaze Peppermint Cuticle Oil or Orly Argan Cuticle Oil, but I've heard that just plain coconut oil or any variety of oil works just fine.

 I apply the oil to my nails and let it absorb for a few minutes. Then I rub any excess oil away with a cloth (or the edge of the shirt I'm wearing, depending on my laziness) and then apply my base coat WITHOUT RINSING the oil off! You will be tempted to rinse, but you must resist. The oil will not interfere with the polish application, just apply base coat as usual. I've been using Nicole by OPI Base Coat Plus with great results.

*Some items sent for review. See end of post*

I also discovered that I really love the OPI Top Coat. It's nice and glossy and has helped to increase wear time for me. However, it takes a while to dry and I have no patience, so I've been using Essie Good to Go to top the whole thing off. It dries all the layers quickly and I don't get the shrinkage I always get with Seche Vite. I think the oiling is probably the step that is making the most difference for me, but I am so happy with this whole system. I don't want to change a thing! I have tried so many base and top coats over the years, so I'm thrilled to have found the combination that works best for me. Have you found your magical combo?

*OPI Top Coat and Nicole by OPI Base Coat Plus sent for review. China Glaze Cuticle Oil and Essie Good to Go purchased by me*