It's time for another letter in the A,B,C Challenge!! Toady the letter is "R".  I had a lot of choices for today but I ultimately decided to go with this GORGEOUS Deborah Lippmann called Razzle Dazzle.  This was a Christmas gift from my husband and I haven't really gotten around to wearing it yet.  It's a stunning magenta jelly with glitters.  It looks really mulch-dimensional on the nails and it's super duper sparkly! This is two coats and it's completely opaque but it still has a squishy quality about it which I love! What do you think?

Don't forget to check out what Emma and Kerrie had for the letter "R"!

Today I have one of the new OPI Mariah Carey polishes for you.  This is one of the liquid sand polishes, which is a new textured polish.  I know I'm a little late on swatching these, you can find them all over the internet.  I had promised myself I'd get these OR the Zoya Pixies and since the Pixie's were a little cheaper for me I went with those.  Then my husband found these for a steal and since I've always loved Mariah....well...here they are anyway!  This one is a red jelly with larger glitter pieces and then some stars.  A word of advice, the stars sink to the bottom of the bottle so if you want them on your nails, you'll want to sit the bottle upside down for a few minutes before polishing.  Shaking seemed to be less effective for  me but I went ahead and swatched without the stars.  These actually go on very easily and dry pretty quickly.  They say to use base coat but no top coat but I skipped both.  You can tell when it's dry because it has a really matte textured appearance, even though it's still sparkly.  I waited a little longer between coats than I'd normally do with polish because I wanted to make sure it would dry all the way fairly quickly but it still dried much faster than I expected.  It wasn't difficult to remove either, like some glitters can be.  I had no staining with these, no damage to my nail from removal, and they're not exceptionally rough.  It's sort of the same way a fine grit file feels.  Here's a close-up of this one for you:

What do you think? Love it or hate it?

I have another swatch for you today!! Sort of. This is actually a jelly sandwich even though it looks like it's just a few coats of polish.  I've been wanting this color, I Lily Love You, for sometime now but it's kind of hard to find since the collection has been out of stores for awhile.  This is why I love my Kroger.  It seems like while they always have the newest collection, they also always have random collections popping up.  I remember passing the new Burlesque display half a million times and asserting that I wasn't interested in them.  Months later when I decided I loved them I was heartbroken to find that they were ridiculously expensive on eBay. Then...Kroger!! They popped up again. Same with Shrek and same with this gorgeous jelly.  I Lily Love You is a flakie jelly and it's a beautiful bright pink color.  I also like that the flakies are sort of iridescent.  It's just stunning BUT it requires quite a few coats to build up the color.  So...I decided to pair it with what is quickly becoming one of my top ten polishes; Zoya Paloma.  I used two coats of Paloma underneath the I Lily Love You and then topped it with one more coat.  The effect is to die for.  Paloma is nearly exactly the shade of the I Lily Love You base but it packs much more of a punch AND you don't have four layers of overlapping flakies since there's only one coat of the I Lily Love You on there. :)  Loving this.  

Bonus Instagram pic!!

What's your favorite jelly sandwich combo?

This past weekend my husband caught me off guard with a trip to the city for the weekend.  Granted, we basically live inside a different city so it wasn't much of a getaway, but sometimes it's nice to just not be at home for awhile.  The original plan was to see a concert in Chicago, but since that didn't work out, we went to a baseball game instead.  It was a fun and much needed date weekend for us!! While we were there we decided to scope out the local Sephora to see what they had.  My husband actually had to ask the sales clerk about these Nails Inc Sprinkles polishes.  It turns out that while they carry about six four in total, the only one they had of interest to me was this gem: Pudding Lane.  It's a blue jellyish base with blue and yellow glitter in it.  I was both impressed and also disappointed by this polish.  I'm impressed because I thought it would take more coats to be opaque (this is an easy two).  I'm disappointed that there is so MUCH glitter.  I guess I wanted a more sparse look so it would be more like a jelly sandwich and less like a whole load of glitter fell on my nails.  It actually reminds me a lot of an indie polish called Floam which I have also recently acquired (and will likely swatch soon).  Of course, Floam has smaller glitter and a clear base.  But the overwhelming glitter effect is the same.  I did like this look but on the downside, it required several coats of Seche Vite to be smooth and ultimately it peeled off within a day. :(  Lame.  I also hate it when glitters are so heavily laden that the glitters stick off the nail and make the edges jagged.  Although a bit more maneuvering on my part would have solved that problem!  Do you have any of these polishes?  Did you love them? 

The sun is finally out again!! It's been dreary and rainy here for some time now and while we definitely needed some rain and cooler weather, it wasn't so great for my nail blogging pics!  So the sun is out and it was a perfect opportunity for me to give this little gem a go on my nails.  The base on this is Orly Buried Alive.  It's just an absolutely stunning polish as you can see!  It has a deep mahogany jelly base which is just crammed with coppery shimmer.  Gorgeous.  Since I have another 'brown' glitter in my collection I thought I'd marry the two and see what came of it.  I think it came out rather lovely myself.  The tips (and base on my accent nail) are Lynderella Choco-latta Love.  It has colored glitter as well as smaller brownish glitter in it and mostly the color is what shows on these nails.  The only flaw with the Lynn is that it's very chunky and I found the clear base to be very thick and difficult to work with.  I don't know if thinner would have helped any as I didn't try it but the effect is still quite nice on the nails!  I hope you're all having a wonderful weekend!!

Today I have some new swatches for you! The Zoya Gloss collection.  It's a collection of three, layer-able jelly polishes.  I'm a huge lover of jellies in general but the problem with them is that they often have a finicky formula.  Some are too thin, some are too thick, many are streaky and difficult to get an even look from.  I'm happy to report that these are none of the above.  So let's get on with the swatching, shall we?

I'm starting with Zoya Paloma.  Paloma is a bright, raspberry toned pink polish.  I used three coats here and it's still not opaque (jellies never really are!) but there isn't an obvious nail line either which I really liked.  It's SUPER glossy, even, and still has that squishy quality about it that makes me love jelly polishes!  This one has a nice, bright color to it so it would be perfect to wear with less coats as well.  I think Paloma was my favorite of the bunch.

This is Zoya Katherine.  Katherine is a red-toned aubergine according to their website.  I think that about sums it up though.  It's definitely an eggplant hue but it's just a smidgen on the red side.  I thought I was going to dislike this one after the first coat but here we are at three again and it's just perfect.  These were all so easy to work with.  They even out nicely on the nail with little effort and look how glossy this one was when it dried!  They don't even need topcoat! Perfection.  This one was originally designed for Peter Som during NY Fashion Week.

Finally we have Frida.  Frida is a teal toned jelly and it was the one I expected to like the most.  But it's also the most sheer of the bunch and unfortunately, teal nails just never look appealing when the polish is sheer!  This is three coats and you can clearly still see VNL which was a surprise to me given how the other two built up.  That said it's still a really gorgeous shade and the formula was still a dream on it.  I can see myself wearing it in the future but more likely as a jelly sandwich of some sort than just as a color on its own. 

Overall these are great polishes.  No streaks on the formula, no unevenness (which is common with jelly polishes), rich colors and an unbeatable glossy finish.  Which one is your favorite?

Today I have another swatch for you!  I'm really working on my swatching but I have a sort of sub-par camera and I'm not really interested in upgrading it anytime soon!! So instead I'm experimenting with different lighting and modes on the camera I have.  Hopefully you can all see the improvement!  At any rate this is a Hungry Asian polish called Twenty Ten.  She describes the polish as:

"...small square red glitter, micro-fine and small blue hex glitter in a sheer black base. This color was one of my first ever made, it has had a few versions over the last couple of years and I am quite happy with this final one."

...and that's pretty accurate.  It's definitely a jelly polish and it's fairly sheer on the first two coats.

This is three coats in natural light.  I really love the formula on this.  Even though it's pretty packed with glitter it's not thick or lumpy and the glitter spreads pretty evenly on the nail without having to "place" it like you do with some glitters. On the downside, it didn't dry to a very shiny finish and it was a little bit gritty.  Not a crazy amount or even an amount which was unexpected given the amount of glitter in the polish. Still, a topcoat is necessary with this polish.  I used one coat of Seche Vite and it dried smooth as glass so it's nothing you need anything special to conquer!

Here's a macro shot so you can see all the glitters!

Gorgeous, isn't she?  You can see on the macro too that there is a little bit on VNL but on the far shots you'll notice that it's not incredibly obvious from a distance.  I personally LOVE jellies so a bit of VNL is nothing that bothers me but I'm sure this would also be lovely over a few coats of black creme.  (I did three coats on all pictures).  Overall I really loved this polish!  It's fun, pretty, and easy to layer or use as a fun topcoat.  I'd certainly purchase more Hungry Asian polishes!

Thanks for following! Do you have any Hungry Asians?

Hungry Asian is an indie polish brand available on Etsy at: http://www.etsy.com/shop/TheHungryAsian.  They retail for $9.25 for full sized bottles and $4.50 for a mini.

It's Friday!! So you know what that means! Time for another Purple Crumpet Fairy Challenge! This weeks challenge was chosen by Emma, and it will be the last Friday challenge until January since we're working our way through the 31 Days of Christmas Challenge! :)  

I was really excited for this one because jellies are one of my favorite finishes.  I had a ton to choose from but I decided to use a new one that my husband picked up for me recently.  It was a bit sheer on it's own, as jellies tend to be, so I layered it over another jelly with a bit more finish before I made the sandwich.  I think it came out pretty nice!! I actually have a few of the Deborah Lippmann's which are intended to create this jelly sandwich like effect (think Glitter In The Air, Across The Universe...etc.) and I think this came out as great if not better than the Lippmann's.  I love the way the glitter looks suspended between the layers and also the way it's sort of muted but still glittery. :)  

Enjoy and thanks for following! Have you ever made a jelly sandwich?

Don't forget to check out what Debbie, Claire, Kerrie, and Emma came up with for their jelly sandwich mani's!

Base is: Essie Like Linen

Jelly sandwich made with: Essie Main Squeeze and NYC Starry Silver