Stash Swatch - 2true Glitterati Shade 3 and a comparison

Here is the last of my 2true polishes, a shade from the Glitterati collection, Shade 3. When I first got it, I couldn't figure out why it looked so familiar until with a sinking feeling I wondered if I had inadvertently bought a dupe for Deborah Lippman Across the Universe. This would be especially bad since I already had Icing Hey Sailor Boy, another ATU look-a-like. When I finally got a chance to swatch the 2true polish, I decided to do some comparisons, which you can see below.

I wore Shade 3 (what a boring name) with three coats. It's very jelly like so even with four coats, you can see some nail line. In the future, I'll have to layer it over something. Revlon Royal maybe?

Even just looking at the bottles, I could tell immediately that they were not dupes. The 2true polish is a much lighter blue and more sheer.

I only wore Icing Hey Sailor Boy and DL Across the Universe next to each other because the differences between those and the 2true polish were large enough that I didn't need side by side comparisons. These two on the other hand....

Well, no dupes here either. Even at one coat, you can see that the DL polish has a darker base. The glitter ratio and type seem to be about the same, though. 

At three coats, you can still tell they are different, although you probably don't need both. If I had to purge, I would probably get rid of the Icing polish since it seems to straddle a line between the other two in terms of the color of blue and sheerness. Lucky for me, I don't feel the urge to purge just yet!

Independence day with Zoya and OPI

Hi everybody! I'm taking a break from my swatch posts to show you what I did for the Fourth of July this year. It's a simple mani but one I'd been thinking about for a while. Ever since I bought my Zoya Pixie Dust polishes, I had always thought that Chyna and Liberty would be great colors for the Fourth of July, and they are!

The red texture is Zoya Chyna and the blue texture is Zoya Liberty. I also created an accent with OPI Don't Touch my Tutu sandwiched with Icing Blue Ice. Blue ice has small silver glitter, larger shiny blue hex glitter and holo stars. The holo stars in that polish definitely needed to be fished out. 

Isn't that sparkle lovely? I just love the Pixie Dusts. Every time I put one on, I feel the need to buy immediate backups! I'm so sad they are discontinued. They could have come out with textures in every shade on earth as far as I'm concerned! What are your guys' thoughts on textures? Are they here to stay. Do you still have a love for them?

Here is a bonus pic of me modeling this mani in front of my older little man, who is playing at his newly assembled water table this weekend.

Hope everyone is having a great weekend!

Icing Blow Pop and Sand in Sunset skittlette

Hi everyone!

A few weeks ago, I went to stay with my parents for a week. Ever since I got into polish, going to my parent's place has become the biggest tempation for nail polish buying, bar none. They live within minutes of...everything! All the pharmacies, Walmart, Marshalls, TJ Maxx, Ulta, Sally's, Meijers, Target...and Icing. I realized a while ago that Icing sometimes comes up with some really unique polishes that I can't get from drugstore brands. My parents' place is the only place with an Icing store nearby. Of course, I had to shop. Here I have two of my picks from my trip there. This is Blow Pop, a neon pastel pink, and Sand in Sunset, a textured gold polish. Top picture is in the sun and bottom picture is in the shade.

Although I don't usually care too much about formula if there are slight flaws and the color is nice, I had an incredibly hard time with Blow Pop. It was awful. Although the pictures don't show it, it was streaky beyond belief. Even with three coats, I could tell there were some thin patches. I needed large amounts of patience to work with this polish. Which meant that with a baby around, it took me three days to finally finish this mani to the point where I was somewhat happy with it. I couldn't just slap the polish on and go. Oh well, the color is unique to my collection so I will keep it for now. I would hate to even give away this polish, that's how bad I think it is.  The textured polish, however, was fine. It was really thick so it only took one coat to cover the nail. Also, it took a while to dry...but it's pretty so I'm willing to live with that. All in all, it was a frustrating mani but I liked the way it finally ended up looking.

Essie Smooth Sailing Clouds

Hi folks! So guess what? I'm in London, England now! I'm here on vacation, visiting my cousins. I spent all of Christmas traveling, which was crazy awful but then I got to participate in my first Boxing Day! For those who don't know, Boxing Day is equivalent to Black Friday in the US. Biggest shopping day of the year. All I bought was nail polish and I did get a couple of deals. I only bought polishes I didn't think I could get in the US easily but that still ended up being quite a few! For my next few posts, I'm just going to show you guys a few manis from the vault.

Today's mani features a design I haven't shown before. This another one from the vault before the blog. I first saw the cloud mani created by Nailside. She even has a tutorial for it. It's such a simple art but looks amazing in real life. The colors I used for this one are Essie Smooth Sailing, Icing Glimmer and Wet n' Wild Black Creme. Smooth Sailing is such a great blue, great formula.