LA Girl 3D Purple Effect vs Studio M Purple Medallion

Not going to lie. I'm totally biased. Studio M is my ultimate favorite polish. I just love it. It's just as sparkly in low lighting as it is in good lighting. At first, I was a bit underwhelmed by the LA Girl. I guess because I'm used to my Studio M still being sparkly in low lighting; but LA Girl is pretty amazeballs in the sunlight! Totally worth the $4 I paid for it.

They look similar in the bottles--albeit Purple Medallion's holo flakies are just a hair bigger. LA Girl is definitely more refined and evenly spaced. I did three coats of both polishes. There is also a few shades difference with the purple base.

Dang. Forgot to get bottle pictures. I may come back and edit this post with pictures of the bottles. That's what I get for having life get in the way of polishing!

BY THE WAY--MY PHOTOS ARE WITH TOP COAT. I use Out the Door. Sadly, it DOES dull the effect a bit. (but just a hair!)

Switching back and forth, starting with LA Girl Purple Effect on my thumb, then Studio M
Purple Medallion, etc etc.

Little to no direct sunlight.

Direct sunlight, with a bit of a blur which shows the holo better. Also... 

yep, there we go. The persistent hair in every single post I make...

So there we go. Not quite dupes. They looked a lot similar in the bottle besides one being bigger than the other. Oh well!

Sation - Diamond Diggin' Diva swatch

Found this baby in TJ Maxx for $2.99. Very pleased with it, actually. Came out a little thick, had to redo one of my middle fingers because it didn't look right. (Accidentally got too much, easy to do with this polish.)

I had never seen Sation in person until I found some in TJ Maxx. I swatched it over Studio M - Thunderbolt. Will be keeping my eyes peeled for more Sation.

My nail polish resolution this year is to only buy polish in person. I always overspend online, heh. I will inevitably fail, but I'd like to keep it going anyway. Happy 2013 everyone, keep polishin'!

I added this one to show just how holographic it is. Holo is hard to capture without it being blurry.

I swear my nails are magnets for random pieces of hair... >_<

Pure Ice - Temptress swatch

Squeal! Purple. My favorite. Shimmer is usually a slight pet peeve of mine but this is a glittery shimmer and I looove it. I think it's my 2nd all time favorite polish, with Studio M's Purple Medallion being the first. Maybe I should do a "My favorite polishes" post eventually... It has a lot of gold undertones in it, and it also looks just as pretty on the nails as it does in the bottle. Damn shame Pure Ice hasn't updated their polishes in my local Walmarts, this was another gift from my awesome Secret Santa.

The only downside is that I did 2 coats, and with some of the pics I took you could see through my nails some what... could have used a 3rd. But that's my bad, in general you can't see through my nails unless it's in the pics.

I cut my nails down to nubbies. So the skin on the tips looks odd, sorry.

I just figured out what OPI polish this reminds me of! OPI - It's My Year has a similar coloring, only a lighter purple/pink.

China Glaze Traffic Jam with Candie's White Noise

I was very intrigued when I seen Candie's White Noise in Khol's. Heck, I'm always intrigued by flakie glitters especially by uncommon brands. So I got it. I had a coupon as well, combined with the two t-shirts I got, this polish was essentially free. Original price is $8. I'm not sure I would buy any others from that brand at that price, but there was another glitter I may go back and get eventually.

It's a very very pretty bar glitter. Application was easy but my nails got tip wear faster just slightly easier, even though Traffic Jam doesn't usually get tip wear/minor chips that easily when worn alone.

As I sit here and put labels on my blog post, I suppose it's not so much holographic and more of a flakie. So I worded that a bit wrong but you get the idea. It's more of a blue green bar flakie really.

I wish I had gotten more decent pictures of it, but at least I got some of the bottle this time, heh. I like that there is also little tiny micro glitters in with it as well. :)

OPI - It's My Year swatch

Ehhh. I don't care for this too much on my nails. It looks gorgeous in photos though. It's still very pretty, but for some reason I just don't like looking at it in person.

Got this baby at Marshall's in a two pack for $8. :-) Along with a gold shatter I haven't used yet.

This is the longest my nails have ever been, pretty proud of myself. I may cut them soon though because I almost broke one.

Low-ish lighting in this one.

 

 

Ok so i'm not crazy! There is a weird ridge in my nail after growing
it out quite a bit. Weird, right?

China Glaze's No Plain Jane swatch/review

I'm not a huge fan of duochrome colors but I wanted at least one for my collection and my husband got me one when I was sick. So. He actually went in to Sally's for me (lol!), and got 3 polishes. Including No Plain Jane, which wasn't on sale, but for some reason the lady gave him a discount for being a dude getting polish for his wife. Heh. Amusing. But in total the 3 polishes was only $6, so I was pretty pleased!

Anyway, for No Plain Jane I would seriously advise buffing your nails before hand. The polish seems to be thin and where it's metallic, it shows every little thing if not buffed. (I didn't buff mine because I lost my darn buffer.)

No Plain Jane is a light-ish purple metallic with a brown-ish undertone which shows through in different lighting. It's pretty cool. Still not a huge fan of duochromes, probably my least favorite polish type. I wish it wasn't so thin.

Wth cuticle?

Not the best, but I didn't get a whole lot of the full on purple effect. A few days
worth of tip wear at this point, too.

Barbie gradient nails

I finally done a gradient without glitter that I ended up liking. I was using a very shimmery yellow to attempt it and it did not work out at all, apparently shimmers aren't good for sponging. Stick to the creams.

The pink is Revlon's Oh My Magenta, the purple is from Pure Ice. (Can't think of the exact name off the top of my head.) I thought the colors complimented each other as Revlon's polish had slight blue/purple undertones. I had some sponges I bought from Michael's, they didn't work too well. I hoard dish sponges for various uses (yay for recycling), and cut one up (after washing it mind you) to use for my nails--worked much better.

Ended up not using a base coat as I was experimenting. I do wish I hadn't of gone so far up with the purple, but I did an OK job and I didn't immediately hate it.

HMMMM. I can't stand my cursive writing lol.

Cropped + a little color enhancement.

Funky plaid (AKA fun with taping)

I was rather indifferent about this design. I liked it more after I turned it into a plaid design rather than just the silver and purple glitter stripes. For the glitter stripes, I actually used Studio M - Purple Medallion (swatch can be found here!) and then put Essie's Shine of The Times on top of it. Pretty unique color combos shining through. I was rather eh about it but I will admit it was unique.

Before I added the yellow China Glaze stripes.

My thumb design. Better pic of all the colors. Verging on hating it,
this mani did not last very long.

Pretty sure I got inspiration from my phones case without realizing it, lol.

Got new top coat, too. :D

Swatch: Studio M - Purple Medallion

LOVE. Love. ~LOVE~! I quickly fell head over heels for this color. I haven't stumbled over a color I absolutely loved in a very long time. I originally bought this with another Studio M polish so that I could layer it. But it turns out it has a nice purple base with the glitter, so I didn't need to do that.

ALSO--I'm excited--I'm getting better at applying my nail polish so that there is a LOT less jagged edges near my cuticles. I'm very excited. I couldn't stop looking at this polish on my nails because I was so happy with it.

My favorite color is purple. I'm fairly certain this Studio M polish is yet another jelly polish, it went on like the other jelly did. It has little flecks of blue, pink, purple glitters in it. In the sun it almost looks holographic, I'm not quite sure what to call it. This mani was a few days old when I took pictures, so excuse the tip wear. Other than the tip wear, these are my favorite photos to date.

Whenever I do a blog give away, I may go buy another one to give out I like it that much. I do wish I had taken some pics of the bottle, but oh well.

I'm also getting better at shaping my nails. Turns out i was putting way too much pressure on them when I filed them. Herp derp.

Dark plum holographic half moon stripes

That's a mouthful, huh? I suppose this half moon mani is rather hard to see when it comes to the half moon part, but it's still pretty and I like it a lot. My nails do look a bit wonky as my Sally Hansen Insta Dry top coat is very very VERY low and it's a little gooey and such at this point. I may have 3 more uses out of it, max, if that. I even put in some polish thinner before I used it this time.

I had actually done a swatch of the China Glaze dark plum color, but my Nikon camera is super awkward with uploading and I couldn't find them. I shall upload them at a later date.

If you haven't noticed, I'm really liking the holographic striping polishes.

The following polishes are what I used:

1. Sephora by OPI base coat
2. China Glaze - VII
3. Art Club - Lilac Hologram
4. Sally Hansen Insta Dry top coat