Nicole by OPI Modern Family Collection Comparisons

Hi guys, Happy last day of 2012! Anyone doing anything fun tonight for New Years Eve? I'm probably staying home, going out on NYE scares me....too many drunk idiots behind the wheel. I am doing up my nails though, I'm wearing Nails Inc Noho with a gradient of Essie Set In Stones! Before I get into the meat of this post I just wanted to take a moment to be corny and thank you all for visiting my blog. I appreciate that you take time out of your day to read my posts and interact with me places like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. You guys make me feel sane for my weird obsession with nail polish. When I'm having a bad day this blog and all of you make me feel better, I'm so thankful for all you guys. I never imagined that anyone would read my blog and it still blows my mind that so many of you do. I hope you all have a great and safe New Years Eve tonight and I'll see ya in 2013!

Today I'm going out with a bang for 2012 in the form of a gigantic comparison post for Nicole by OPI's Modern Family Collection. I loved the collection but I felt like we had seen the majority of the colors before. I found some dupes and some very close shades and I'm excited to share them with you! Hope you all find this post helpful!

To see all the comparisons click the read more button below!

Saturday Spam: Random Swatch Spam!

Hi guys! Happy weekend :D Today I have a spam post for you!! I feel like it's been a while since I did a Saturday Spam, I'm not sure if it actually has been but it feels like it. Today's spam is a random assortment of goodies, mostly combos I've tried while swatching big collections or things I've worn throughout the week when I'm not swatching.

To see all the spam click the read more button below!

Friday Favorites #5: 2012 Indie Favorites

Hi guys! Can you believe it's the very last Friday of 2012 already? This year has flown by, it seems like every year goes fast but this one was like exceptionally quick feeling...I think that means I'm getting old haha!

Today I have the second half of my 2012 favorites, these are all from indies or niche brands that are made in a lab but I still consider them indie. 2012 has pretty much been the year of the indie, last year at this time I think I had heard of maybe 3 indie brands...Hare, Dollish Polish and Girly Bits. It's pretty amazing how the market has exploded...there are hundreds of brands to choose from.

I wish I could say that I've tried something from every brand but I haven't...most of my favorites are from the well known indie brands. A few months ago I had a very bad experience with a couple sellers and it pretty much turned me off all indies with the exception of a few brands for a while. I've started dipping my toes back in the indie waters so hopefully there will be a greater variety next year in terms of brands I buy and show on here.

I'd love to hear what your indie favorites were for 2012 in the comments!

To see all my picks click the read more button below.

LAQA & Co Swatches

Hi guys! Today I have a few polishes from a new to me brand called LAQA & Co to share with you. Not only does LAQA & Co make polishes but they also make lip glosses and nail polish pens. What I really like about them is that their products come in awesome boxes. It's a nice touch, you should go check out their website to see what I'm talking about. I usually toss the boxes when I get polishes in them but these are ones I will keep!

To see my swatches of a few of LAQA & Co's polishes click the read more button under the photo!

Nicole by OPI Modern Family Collection Swatches

Hi guys, hope you all had a fantastic Christmas if you celebrated it yesterday! Today I have swatches of Nicole by OPI's Modern Family Collection to share with you. Nicole by OPI has teamed up with Twentieth Century Fox for this 14 polish collection that is inspired by the personalities from the show Modern Family. I really enjoy the show so I think it's fun to have a polish collection themed after it!

Check out all my swatches & reviews of each shade by clicking the read more button after the collage!

Simple Christmas Manicure

Merry Christmas to those of you who celebrate! Hope you're all having a great day with your loved ones! I thought I'd do a quick post to show you my manicure for the holiday. I decided to do something simple, mostly because I haven't had time to do anything else the last couple days!

I started out with a base of OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls on all of my nails. For the french tips I used Zoya Veruschka. The Snowman face is done with Zoya Raven for the eyes and mouth and Zoya Jancyn for the nose.

Incoco Winter Wonderland

Hi guys! Hope you all had a great weekend, mine was nice...busy but nice. The good thing about this Monday is no work....wooohoo! I thought I'd do a quick post today to show you what I wore over the weekend for a holiday party I went to.

These are nail polish strips from a brand Incoco, the design is named Winter Wonderland. These are part of their Holiday 2012 Collection! Incoco has a ton of cute designs for this time of year, everything from glitter to a design that looks like a Christmas Sweater! Winter Wonderland is a creamy white background adorned with light and dark blue snowflakes. I tried to do something like this with polish on my nails and it was a mess so this is perfect for me!

Application with these was super easy and I had no issues finding sizes of strips that fit my nail perfectly. When I've worn Incoco strips in the past I've gotten great wear time out of them, I probably will only be wearing these for the night unfortunately :( Removal is also really easy, these come off with regular nail polish remover. In fact, Incoco includes a pad with remover in each package of strips to make it super easy!

All photos below are in the shade and with a coat of top coat, I used Wet Look Top Coat from Chick Nail Polish.

The Winter Wonderland design is part of Incoco's Holiday 2012 Collection which is available right now, they retail for $9.99 and can be purchased at Incoco.com

OPI Mariah Carey Collection Swatches

Hi guys, if you're reading this that means we both survived the apocalypse! Mayan fail. Today I have OPI's Mariah Carey Collection to share with you! OPI has teamed up with Mariah to bring us 8 new shades for Spring 2013, 4 Studio Shades and 4 Stage Shades. The Stage Shades are what OPI is calling Liquid Sand which is gritty matte glitter, if you like texture you will like these!

I'm pretty excited about this collection, I grew up on Mariah Carey. My best friend Kaitie and I used to be all about Mariah when we were kids. I'm pretty sure we actually wore out her Music Box album back in the day from listening to it so much. I have so many memories of riding in her Mom's car and the 2 of us sitting in the back seat with a boom box between us singing songs from that album at the top of our lungs (I'm sure her Mom loved that). I just had to stop writing this post to take a trip down memory lane via Youtube haha!

To check out all my swatches & reviews of each shade click the read more button under the collage!

Friday Favorites #4: 2012 Mainstream Brand Favorites!

Happy Apocalypse day everyone! Hope you're all living up your last day on earth before we all bite the big one...I am at work, whomp whomp. My Apocalypse mani in case you're wondering is Nails Inc Baker Street topped with Cirque Au. If the world is going to implode of whatever I'd like to go out with pretty nails.

Today I have my first 2012 favorites post for you. I was going to do 1 big post but I decided to split up indies and mainstream brands because I couldn't whittle my list down enough to fit it into 1 post. The indies half of my favorites will be up next Friday!

Overall the list after the cut is not in order of how much I like each one but I can easily tell you my favorite polish of all of 2012 is Nails Inc Baker Street. It's just perfection in a bottle, seriously. If you like blue and don't own it yet go buy it, you need it in your life too. I've already made a sizable dent in my bottle and that makes me so sad.

I'd love to hear what your favorites are for 2012 in the comments!

Lac Attack Magical Musings Collection Swatches

Hi guys! Today I am very excited to share Lac Attack's Magical Musings Collection with you. Ana from Lac Attack collaborated with Kirsten from Glitta Gloves on this collection and it's based on the world of Harry Potter. Kirsten has become one of my best friends through blogging, it makes me so happy to see something she loves so much translated so well into nail polish.  I can't say I'm quite as big of a Harry Potter fan but I really love all the stories behind the polishes and all the thought that has gone into each one.

The Magical Musings Collection is currently sold out on the Lac Attack website but it is restocking tomorrow 12/21/12 at 4pm EST. I wanted to mention that up here since I know sometimes people don't always read the entire post. If you are lemming any of these make sure you mark your calendar for tomorrow's restock!

To see swatches & reviews of each shade in the Magical Musings Collection click the read more button below!

LCN Holiday 2012 Mystique Burlesque Collection Swatches

Hi guys! Today I have another holiday collection to share with you, I thought I'd do a holiday post because today is the holiday luncheon where I work. I'm not a huge fan of going to work things like this but hopefully it'll be a good time...we do a gift exchange and that is always entertaining. Every year the gift that people think is some kind alcohol gets stolen about a bazillion times before we get through everyone. I'm always tempted to somehow wrap my gift to be heavy and shaped like a 6 pack of beer and then have it really be something awful...like a box of bacon shaped Christmas ornaments. I'm too lazy to make it happen though...next year I should do it. It would probably be worth the effort just to see the look on someones face when they open it haha!

Anyway, today I have LCN's Mystique Burlesque Collection for Holiday 2012 to share with you! This collection is 4 really gorgeous jewel toned shimmers. These were gorgeous in the bottle but they pretty much blew me away when I started putting them on! Check out more photos and reviews of each shade after the jump.

piCture pOlish Monroe (new version)

Hi guys! Today I have the new version of piCture pOlish Monroe to share with you! Monroe has been out for a little while but piCture pOlish recently revamped the shade and made it even better than it was before! If you'd like to see my swatches of the old version you can check them out here.

The new and improved version of Monroe is pretty awesome, I like it much more than the original version! It's a bit more jelly like and the holo is much stronger! I also enjoyed the formula of the new version better than the old version. The old version was a little thick and patchy but this one goes on nice and easy, I had no issues with patchiness or it looking uneven on the nail. I used 2 coats of Monroe for the photos below, both photos are in direct sunlight.

piCture pOlish is available a few places including their official website, www.picturepolish.com.au (please note they are closed for shipping until 2013) You can also find Amethyst at several of the network etailers like Llarowe and Harlow & Co. For a full list of network members check out the piCture pOlish website.

NOTD: Christmas Plaid

Hi guys, hope you all had a great weekend! Today I have a little bit of nail art for you! I sat down the other day with white nails and a roll of striping tape with no ideas and this is what came out. I quite like the results! I think these look so neat in person, I'll probably be recreating it with different colors sometime in the future.

For the "plaid" nails I used OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls, China Glaze Holly-Day and Layla Ceramic Effect #40. I have a couple photos at the end of the post for how I did the stripes, it was quite time consuming but I think the result is worth it!

For the accent tree nail I used Layla Ceramic Effect #40 as my base then did a triangle of China Glaze Holly-Day. The dots are a bunch of different holos, I believe they were Layla Flash Black, Layla Ultra Violet, Urban Outfitters Green Holo and Urban Outfitters Pink Holo (there might have been one more, I don't remember, sorry!). The piece of star glitter was fished out of some cheap polish, it doesn't have a brand name or anything on it so I have no idea what it is.

Below is a picture of the accent nail in my light box, I was hoping to take a sun photo of it but the sun didn't feel like coming out at all yesterday. This shows a bit of the sparkle of the dots!

For the stripes I started with a base of OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls, once it was completely dry I put on strips of striping tape vertically on my nail and went over it with China Glaze Holly-Day.

Once my Holly-Day stripes were 100% dry I took more striping tape and put them across my nail horizontally. I went over that with Layla Ceramic Effect #40.

I'm sure you could do this free hand and it would be less time consuming but I don't have that steady of a hand!

Degen's December 2012 BarkBox

Hi guys! Hope you're all having a good weekend so far! Last night I went and saw a band called The Starting Line, it was great! Today I have Degen's December BarkBox to share with you! It came in the mail yesterday afternoon and we ripped right into it as usual! I was pretty excited to see what was included this month, I thought there might be some cute holiday themed goodies in there!

To see everything Degen got along with a few photos of Degen click the read more button below!

piCture pOlish Amethyst

Hi guys! This afternoon I have a gorgeous piCture pOlish shade to share with you called Amethyst! Amethyst is the collaboration shade with Susan of Star Trinkets you may also know Susan as the blogger behind The Subtle Shimmer (that's how I know her!). You can read Susan's post about how she came up with Amethyst here if you'd like!

Amethyst is the purple sister of piCture pOlish Denim (which I don't own but you can see here at Chalkboard Nails). This polish is so interesting in person, there is so much going on in it that I found myself just staring at my nails haha! The base color of the polish is a nice dusty medium purple, it also has a gorgeous blue shimmer and little white flakes of glitter. The formula was really nice, it flowed nicely off the brush and was opaque in 2 coats.

From what I hear Amethyst is now a limited edition shade so get it while you can! I'll link to where you can pick this up after the photos!

piCture pOlish is available a few places including their official website, www.picturepolish.com.au. You can also find Amethyst at several of the network etailers like Star Trinkets, Llarowe and Harlow & Co. For a full list of network members check out the piCture pOlish website.

Whimsical Ideas by Pam Cookie Monster

TGIF! Anyone have fun plans this weekend? I'm planning on finishing up my Christmas shopping and I'm going to a concert tomorrow night, should be a fun weekend!

I have a fun polish to show you today from Whimsical Ideas by Pam called Cookie Monster. This is from Pam's Holiday Collection! Cookie Monster is a beautiful mix of bright blue matte glitter, black matte glitter and white matte glitter in a clear base. This was love at first bottle shot on Pam's Facebook page, I died even more when it came in the mail and I put it on. I wish photos did justice to just how bright an beautiful the shade of blue glitter is in this!

The formula was great, the glitter is crazy dense while still being easy to apply. You could easily get this opaque on it's own if you wanted to. I used 1 coat of Cookie Monster over OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls for the photos below. I got so many compliments when I wore this a couple weeks ago, if you're a fan of glitters like this you're going to want to pick this up before it's gone!

Whimsical Ideas by Pam are purchased via email, each polish retails for $10. Please check out Pam's Facebook page here for more info.

*This polish was a gift from Pam, I actually emailed her to order it and ruined the surprise of it showing up at my house haha! Thank you Pam for the polish and for making beautiful creations like this...I can't wait to see what you have in store for 2013!*

Ninja Polish Holiday 2012 Collection Swatches

Hi guys! Hope you're all having a good week so far, it's almost done yay! It feels like it should already be Friday. I actually thought it was Friday and was really excited because it means an extra half hour of sleep for me but then I realized nope...it's Thursday :(

Today I have the Holiday Collection from Ninja Polish to share with you guys! Ninja Polish just recently released 10 gorgeous shades for the holidays and I'm pretty much dying over the awesome. One of these is even in my 2012 Indie Favorites, wonder if you can guess which one!

Check out all the swatches by clicking the read more button below!

Nicole by OPI Selena Gomez Collection Comparisons

Hi guys, happy 12/12/12 I love fun dates like that! Today I have a few comparisons of the Nicole by OPI Selena Gomez Collection to share with you! If you missed my swatches of the entire collection you can check them out here.

Nicole by OPI Confetti Fun vs. OPI Rainbow Connection. Both are rainbow glitter, they are similar but very clearly not dupes. I don't think I have a rainbow glitter quite like Confetti Fun in my stash. I don't think that Confetti Fun is unique enough to get if you own any of the other glitters like it on the market but if you are looking for a rainbow glitter it would be my choice. I used 1 coat of each polish over Zoya Breezi for the photo below. Photo is in the shade.

Nicole by OPI Naturally vs OPI Sparrow Me The Drama vs OPI Pink Friday. No dupes here either but all similar. Pink Friday is much lighter and more white based and Sparrow Me The Drama is lighter and much more dusty looking.  I used 2 coats for each polish.

Nicole by OPI Hit The Lights vs OPI Need Sunglasses. In the bottle these are pretty much dead on but on the nail they are fairly different. Need Sunglasses is more of a squishy jelly formula so it appears darker and not as vibrant once you build up the opacity. If you've been looking for a more in your face creme version of Need Sunglasses you will like Hit The Lights. I used 3 coats of each polish for the photo below.

Nicole by OPI Love Song vs. Zoya Malia vs OPI Planks A Lot. OPI Do You Lilac It is pretty similar to Love Song also but I could seriously not get my bottle open so that's why it missing in this comparison. No dupes here! I used 2 coats for each polish...apologies for the slightly blurry photo :/

Nicole by OPI Pretty In Plum vs OPI Suzi and the 7 Dusselsorfs. These 2 are very similar in finish but not in color. Pretty In Plum is brighter and more of a red leaning purple. I used 2 coats for each polish.

Nicole by OPI Scarlett vs. OPI I'm All Ears vs. OPI You Only Live Twice. In the sun all 3 of these look pretty close but in the shade is where you can see the big differences. I really like all 3 even though they are fairly similar. I used 3 coats of I'm All Ears and 2 coats of the other 2 polishes for the photos below.

Shade

Nicole by OPI Selena vs. Orly Cotton Candy. When I was first thinking about comparisons for the Selena Gomez Collection I thought Selena would be closer to something like Essie A Crewed Interest but it's much more pink toned than I thought it was so I went back and pulled a more pink color to compare. Orly Cotton Candy looked almost dead on in the bottle next to Selena. On the nail it's a couple shades lighter but it might be close enough for people to skip Selena. I used 2 coats for each polish.

Nicole by OPI Spring Break vs OPI Pink Flamenco. These 2 are pretty much dupes, it's not 100% but I don't think most people would be able to tell the difference if you were wearing them at the same time. I used 2 coats for each polish.

Nicole by OPI Stars At Night vs Zoya Electra. These 2 are dead on, both in color and formula. Both have great glitter payoff and are easy to apply. If you have one I'd skip the other. I used 1 coat of each polish over Nails Inc Black Taxi for the photo below.

*some polishes provided for review*

SquareHue December 2012 Box Swatches & Review

Hi guys! Today I have a brand new monthly nail polish subscription service to tell you about called SquareHue! I'm pretty excited about this, I've been looking for something other than Julep to subscribe to that is focused on polish. I subscribe to a few monthly boxes, of course you guys know about BarkBox, but I also subscribe to a couple beauty ones like MyGlam (ipsy? whatever they call it now). It's always a nice treat to get polish in those boxes but lets face it, I'd rather just have ALL polish...so this is perfect for me!

SqaureHue is a brand new subscription service that only sends nail polish, as of right now they only ship within the US (no idea if that will change, sorry international ladies). Each month they will be sending out 3 full sized new polishes.They are their own house brand and come in really gorgeous bottles, they remind me of the Urban Outfitters bottles just for reference. All of the polishes are Big 3 and Camphor Free and cruelty free! In addition to all of that SquareHue also donates a portion of each monthly subscription to charity, their current focus is Human Trafficking. If you want read more about SquareHue please check out their FAQ on their website here!

The cost of the service is $21 per month, that includes shipping. However, good news...I have a promo code to share with you that makes the subscription $14.99 per month for the life of your subscription, woohoo! The following code is only good until December 24th 2012, to sign up for the $14.99 promo price go to SquareHue.com and use the code DECBLOGGER13 at checkout when you go to purchase your subscription. There is a link to enter it right above where you enter your billing address! I do not get any kind of credit for anyone who uses the code...I'm just passing along a good deal!

To see swatches of the 3 polishes included in the December SquareHue box along with photos of the bottles, brush and packaging click the read more button below!

China Glaze Tranzitions Collection Striping Tape Manicure

Hello again! I have a quick NOTD to share with you for this afternoon! After I swatched the China Glaze Tranzitions Collection (swatches here) I decided to try and make myself like the pastel shades. If you've already seen my review of the entire collection already you know that I didn't like these, at all. I was determined guys...the pastels were so pretty before top coat, surely there was a way I could like them, right?

I did a gradient using Split Person-nail-ity, Duplicity and Modify Me then applied random pieces of striping tape after the gradient was dry and went over it with top coat.I still had issues with the top coat looking streaky over these shades but it doesn't stand out as much as it did with the polishes on their own.

Mission accomplished, I quite like how this turned out!

Hope you guys like this mani!

China Glaze Tranzitions Collection Swatches

Hi guys, hope you all had a great weekend! Today I have another new collection to share with you...it's the China Glaze Tranzitions collection! I believe this is a Spring release for China Glaze but my beauty supply already had them out when I stopped by last week...I'm sure that means they will be online at places like Transdesign soon also (if not already).

The Tranzitions Collection is 6 polishes that change color when you apply top coat to them. We saw something similar earlier this year at drugstores called Colorphase, I reviewed one of those here if you missed it. I heard about these a while back and was excited for them to come out because I liked that Colorphase polish, plus I'm a sucker for things that are like an easy way to do nail art!

Check out all the swatches along with my thoughts about these after the jump!

Nicole by OPI Selena Gomez Collection Swatches

Hi guys! Hope you're all having a great weekend so far! Mine has been busy busy busy, besides blog stuff I went shopping for toys for a charity my work donates to every year for the holidays. I went a little crazy, I enjoy shopping for other people more than I enjoy shopping for myself...it's guilt free haha! I have to say though, I'm a little traumatized by how creepy the new improved Furby is...I saw them when I was at Target and wow! I don't remember them looking so scary when they were around years ago!

Anyway, today I have my first bit of Spring 2013 to share with you, it's the Nicole by OPI Selena Gomez Collection! Nicole by OPI has teamed up with Selena Gomez to bring us a new 14 piece collection, everything from gorgeous glitters to bright cremes! I'm usually a fan of winter collections because I love all the darker shades but when it starts being this late in the year I get antsy for brights again, this collection has a bunch of great ones! It makes me excited for Spring to get here!

Check out all the swatches after the jump!

Saturday Spam: a england

Hi guys, happy weekend! Anyone doing anything fun this weekend? I'm doing lots of blog related things this weekend so that should keep me busy, then I'm going out with some friends to look at Christmas lights. I'm generally not a woohooo holidays kind of person but I always loving going and looking at how people decorate their houses.

Today I have a little bit of a england spam for you! It includes the entire Gothic Beauties collection along with 2 of the newer shades Adina recently put out. Check out all the swatches after the jump!

NOTD: Candy Cane Nails + Tutorial

Hi guys! I have a quick NOTD and tutorial for you this afternoon! I posted these nails a few days on Instagram and have been meaning to do a real post for them! I did my first holiday-ish mani over the weekend and have really been enjoying it, I'm going on almost a week with these nails...I'm going to be sad when I remove them :(

For my base I used OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls, the red stripes are done with LCN Rubin Red. I'll have swatches of Rubin Red on it's own soon, but man...I am loving it! I was having some tape issues with this mani but I quite like how it turned out, you can't see the mistakes in real life! (macro is a bish)

Shade

To do these nails it's really easy. I tried to make a video for it but yeaaaaaah it just wasn't happening lol! All you need to do is paint your nails white, once the white is completely dry you tape off lines for your stripes.

You can use regular tape or striping tape (can be found on ebay). I used a combo of both for my nails. For the bigger spaces I wanted to leave white I used regular tape cut into strips. You can also put a couple pieces of striping tape next to each other to get a thicker line. Once you have all the pieces of tape where you want them make sure they are flat to the nail so the red polish doesn't seep under it...you can tell that I had issues with that :(

Then all you do is paint over your nail with your red. Immediately after you paint on the red remove the tape, that's how you get the crisp lines! Once everything is dry apply a top coat and you're good to go!

In the spirit of the holidays I had to share this photo of Degen with you. I picked up the little antlers and bells collar at Target. Degen loathes the antlers but he completely loves the collar part. I put it on him when I'm home and he walks around the house jingling away. He'll only answer to "Degerbells The Jingling Wiener Dog" until further notice ;)

I bribed him with treats to get this photo, you're welcome