Roses over Revlon "Electric"

This is one of my favorite nail art manicures to do, mainly because it is fairly simple and people are always impressed. This manicure reminds me of the wallpaper that was in the Betsey Johnson store at the Garden State Plaza. Yes, that is a weirdly specific reference.

China Glaze "Instant Chemistry"

One of my first forays into magnetic nail polish. I really do like the effect, but the magnet for the China Glaze polish is terrible. I don't know if my nails are too long, or too curved, but I would wind up with a small patch of the design in the middle of my nails, which looked pretty stupid. I had more luck with the magnet that came with some drugstore magnetic polish.

OPI "Pirouette My Whistle" over OPI "Steady as She Rose" with a matte topcoat

Despite the ridiculous name, "Pirouette My Whistle" is one of my favorite glitters. It looks really delicate, for lack of a better word, and works over a lot of different colors. Making it matte gives it an almost lunar look.

Ninja Polish "Sticks and Stones" over Sally Hansen "Blue-Away"

While I never fully bought into the Lynnderella craze, I really really wanted "Connect the Dots." Alas, it was impossible to get and I wasn't willing to put myself on waiting lists or stay up into the wee hours of the night refreshing and waiting for a restock. Nor was I willing to spend $50 (literally) on eBay. So when Ninja Polish released this dupe, I was more than happy to spend my dollars their way. It's a great polish and it is easy to get a variety of shapes on your brush.

Essie "A Crewed Interest"

Nice peach/coral creme that is perfect for summer. Not much else to say.

China Glaze "Rich and Famous"

Very bright and very pink.

Essie "Pretty Edgy"

Perfect grass green borderline-jelly polish. I love this color.

OPI "Don't Touch My Tutu"

Another attempt to make these milky polishes work for me.

Layla "Flash Black"

Who doesn't love a holographic polish? This is everything I wanted OPI "My Private Jet" to be.

China Glaze "Gothic Lolita"

I don't know why it took me forever to wear this polish. I like that this is a warm toned purple, which for some reason are harder to find. This picture doesn't show the subtle pink and blue shimmer.

Yep, here I am.

Oh hi, I didn't see you there. I suppose I should feel bashful about this vowing to blog more often, posting once or twice, and then going MIA for the better part of a year thing I keep doing. I will blame it on the part of my personality that immediately turns a task into something insurmountably dread-worthy. So what I am going to do is to post 10 swatches every day (or nearly every day) until my back catalog is empty, and then give blogging the old college try.

Easter Manicure - Various polishes This was a favorite of mine. It was surprisingly not-that-difficult to do and my students went nutty for it. I saw a picture on Tumblr that inspired this, but it didn't link to a blog, so I have no idea who to credit.

Essie “Go Overboard” with Pure Ice "Heartbreaker" on top. "Heartbreaker" is a cult favorite topcoat and I bought mine over a year ago but never used it. It did a great job of sprucing up a basic dark teal polish. This looked especially pretty under water, but alas, it is impractical to live life with sinks running on your hands at all times.

Glitter Gal "Light as a Feather" Major, major, major disappointment but I can't really blame the outcome of this manicure entirely on the polish. I did this manicure the night before I left to chaperone my school's Washington, DC field trip. I painted my nails, but in the interest of time I used Seche Vite to top coat them. I have heard that quick dry top coats (or maybe top coats in general) dull the effect of holographic polishes, but I needed to do to bed and my nails needed to be dry for that to happen. The holo effect was average at best and the Seche Vite darkened the polish and made the tips look dingy. I was seriously tempted to stop at some DC drugstore for remover and cotton balls. Does this Seche Vite darkening/dingy thing happen to anyone else? It usually only happens with light colors and it is quite distressing.

Revlon "Calla Lily" A better in theory than in practice. This is a white jelly base with lots of gold shimmer. I always want this kind of polish to work for me, but it always winds up thick and/or streaky.

Cult Nails "Crusin Nude" It was hard to capture the pink sheen in photos. This is a great understated but not old lady color. I had forgotten how much I liked this color until this blog post, so huzzah blogging.

Zoya “Bevin” I am pretty sure I got this in a Birchbox. It is a nice, but standard teal/jade creme. Nothing to write home about.

Butter London “Disco Biscuit” I like this polish, but I wish it looked more like it did in the bottle. Which is more blue, less pink. It should probably be noted that this dried to a matte and somewhat blah finish. It top coat really makes this.

Cult Nails "Living Water" The base is a bit too dark and overpowers the shimmer. This looks fantastic in the sunlight though.

OPI "Just Spotted the Lizard" One of the many Chanel "Peridot" dupes that have come out over the last year. The formula on this was pretty good and definitely less streaky than I feared. This was also a big hit, which confused me until I remembered that I don't live in a world populated exclusively by nail bloggers and sometimes people are just impressed with an unusual color. A nice realization.

Rescue Beauty Lounge "Chinoise" Classic, true red. As is the case with every RBL polish I own, the application was flawless and was nearly a one-coater.