Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure, Take the Leap

I may have mentioned in the past I have a topper problem. I mean you wouldn't think that based on most of my posts, but I do have one. Last year in particular I went super topper crazy. But I mean it wasn't totally my fault, Dior came out with Perle, I finally bothered looking at the Formula X polishes and Sally Hansen put out a ton of toppers. (not to mention I found some good ones on clearance too...)

Since I amassed so many toppers last year, I didn't really wear any of them more than once.... oops. Take the Leap is definitely different than a lot of other toppers I've seen (and own). It is very purple-y in the bottle but on the nails it (while still looking pale purple) has a lot of dimension and surprising color flecks. This was super hard to photograph, I know it would have been easier over black but I don't normally wear my toppers that way... so why do it just for photos?

You can see some of the pink and a hint of the blue in the upper left corner

I'm typically not a huge fan of purple polishes, but this one is such a pretty and delicate shade. I bought the blue version of this as well and was honestly more excited about it, but this one really is such a stand out color.  It definitely has a larger particle size than a typical topper, they are like small glass fleck flakies. Perhaps a touch too "fuzzy" looking for a true topper (for my taste) but it is really a nice shade to have if you want something work appropriate but not boring.

Apologies for lack of posts this month, I've still been going through my polishes and some of them are just too meh to even photograph and share. (Revlon Punk for instance , and couple other polishes from their downtown "foil" collection from fall 2011... spoiler alert; they are fuzzy foils... BLECH)


Anyway happy Sunday!

~drastic

Zoya Piaf: Turnover

     And now I am onto another polish that sadly will be finding another home. :-( Zoya Piaf is a nice soft yellow with a good amount of shimmer. In the bottle it is super pretty. On my nails it turns mustard-y. I think had it been a bit more vibrant I wouldn't have had such a problem with it. Every time I wear this I think by adding another coat (compared to the last time I wore it) would help. I believe the photos I have are four coats. I started to suspect that the pink/red in my nails was showing through, but even at four coats it didn't help. Maybe I will try it one last time with a white base? So sad, I do like yellow for polishes, but they have to be pretty bright for me to really like them. I'm sure this would look much prettier on a darker skintone. I think yellow looks really nice on deeper skintones, but this one being so soft might just make it problematic for everyone.

Doesn't actually look too mustard-y here

Sorry this is out of focus :-( don't mind the dents....

So pretty how can this look bad???

 I wonder if the mustard effect is due to the lobster hands I get when I wear this. I still can't get over how it looks like honey mustard on me, feel like I need to get chicken nuggets to dunk into my fingers.









I love Fugazi. I wish they were still together, I'd really love to see them live. No moshing, no drunkenness sounds like the perfect show.  But that might just be because I'm straight edge. Minor Threat would be cool to see too, but I definitely would prefer Fugazi :-).

(Oh and I picked Turnover...because I"m going to turn Piaf over to someone who'd actually enjoy it)

~Drastic ♥

Nicole by Opi DC Lover

So I'm obviously terrible at blogging. I've got limited macro photography skills, I have super dry, slightly off putting cuticles and I'm usually "too busy" doing yoga, going for a walk, scrubbing something with a Brillo pad or watching an episode of Black Books for the 100th time, to blog. OH well, I actually had a relaxing weekend for once.

Anyway... I was at the grocery store Thursday night and I saw the Nicole by OPI Coke collection and I kind of had to buy this polish. This polish makes me think of the blue glittery shade from the 50 Shades of Grey Collection. But I don't have that since I didn't want contribute any money to that franchise, and I'm not totally sure I'd have liked it.

It is a almost foil like sliver base with small red glitters. Application is a bit sheer even after three coats but it is a very me color. The red does have a tendency to settle so a good shake is needed if you don't want to be fishing out red glitters.

Onward to the photos.

From a distance... don't mind my "old" witchy hands...

I'm not sure if this polish is a must have, but it is definitely nice for people like me who need every silver with some other color mixed in. Maybe a good option for someone trying to branch out into glitters? It isn't as big and crazy as the Sprite color from the collection (which I actually really wanted since I love Sprite and green, but I'm not sure I need another chunky glitter in my collection since I rarely wear them anymore...perhaps if I find it on clearance later...)


Subtle (for me...) but still very pretty.


Happy Tuesday :-D

~drastic



This episode in particular is where I've spent most of my time since my last blog post. That and The Church concert, which for those of you who saw the past post about it, was good! But about 0.37 people actually read my blog so you probably didn't see that one.

Zoya Crystal: meh.

So as I am continuing my quest to remove some unwanted polishes from my collection, I am finding it harder and harder to let go of things. Zoya Crystal has been one of those haunting me for many years. I know I do not wear this polish, and no matter how many times I try to get it to work, it just doesn't.

Crystal is from the 2010 Fall/Winter Flame collection (originally called Fire and Ice, I think Revlon or someone wouldn't let them use Fire and Ice). Crystal is the main reason I've always been so iffy about buying Zoyas. I started buying Zoya polishes early 2010, and I kind of fell in love with them, but then after a couple of disappointments (this one being the biggest) I kind of stopped buying Zoya. I know that's horrible of me to say but it is the truth!

Let me get onto the photos before I really start rambling....

Zoya Crystal

Zoya Crystal and some seriously wavy nails

 So as you can see Crystal is a medium sort of blue with gold flakes. They are typical of most Zoya gold flakes/glitter/shimmer in that there is some definite orange-y copper flakes mixed in as well. Now my probelm with Crystal is that it isn't exactly a foil in my sense of the term. It isn't like Trixie or Ziv (also by Zoya) it is more just large flakes/flecks. I really don't like how it looks on me, it does come off a bit darker blue in person and in different lighting, but it just doesn't seem flattering.

It is similar to Tiffany in finish (from the same collection). And what I find annoying is that Zoya calls all sorts of polishes foil when they really aren't. Crystal and Tiffany (in my opinion) aren't really foils, same with Zuza and similar colors (they are too fuzzy looking to be true foils, just maybe super heavy weird glass flecks?).

Anyway a comparison.

Zoya Hazel, Zoya Crystal and Cover Girl Midnight Magic (a Fei Fei dupe)

Hazel (L) and Crystal (R) again

Crystal and Midnight Magic (again)

My dislike for Crystal messed me up for a couple years. I was too busy in 2010 obsessing over the OPI Burlesque collection to pay much attention to the Zoyas that came out. But later in 2011 I got really excited about Crystal in particular and bought it (along with Tiffany) That along with my disappointment in Neeka... kind of made me super weary.  So I put off buying Fei Fei in 2012 even though it looked amazing, I seemed to think blue Zoyas were cursed or something (my only other one was Jo and that one was disappointing as well) . So I didn't buy Fei Fei but back this past summer when I found Cover Girl's Midnight Magic(which is almost exactly the same as Fei Fei) on clearance I had to buy it for curiosity's sake. Long story short, I fell in love with it and it made me rethink my dismissal of Zoya Hazel. Those two are definitely better than Crystal in my opinion. I don't know why because they are both blues with gold glitter/shimmer Midnight Magic has more multi colors in it and Hazel is more silver (and more of a true foil).

I honestly don't know why I don't like this polish and for years it has bothered me, why can't I get into this polish when everyone else loves it? Who knows!

On the bright side it is now March! Woo woo! February is always a crappy month (same with January they are the only two months I can't stand)  So hopefully things will be better (and it has nothing to do with cold and snow, I like the snow and cold but I do admit too much of it puts a damper on my walking adventures and I don't like that).  I never can get into polishes too much this time of year because there isn't really any direction I can take. For Fall or holidays there is an obvious direction you can take with your nails (if you so wish) but this time of year is so meh! Hence why I've been working on getting rid of some polishes since I have nothing in particular that I really want to wear.

Anyway Happy March!

~drastic actions