OPI Designer Series Magic

Magic is one of the newer Designer Series polishes, and while it's very pretty, it does not justify either the name or the price tag.  It's a well-behaved royal blue glass-fleck glitter, but it's not unique.  All swatches are two coats without top coat.

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OPI Designer Series: Reflection

Reflection is a red-hued coral scattered holographic polish from back when OPI's Designer Series designation meant stunning holo polishes.  *sigh*  This is a lovely polish, but it reminds me that the newer DS polishes don't deserve the name or the higher price tag.  The formula was a bit on the thicker side, but far from unworkable, and the dry time was good.  All swatches are two coats with no top coat.

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Whatever the Designer Series label has come to mean, this is a beautiful polish, in a coral dark enough to qualify as an autumn polish and vivid enough to qualify as a summer polish.

Butter London All Hail the Queen

"...shoot on sight anything wearing BEIGE."

So says my darling friend angelkitty, and while I would agree with her most of the time about beige, especially nail polish, All Hail the Queen is an allowed exception.  You see, this is a gorgeous, warm, dark-ish beige nail polish with a tiny hint of pink and a ton of scattered holo!  It's just lovely, and very unique, so it gets a free "Don't Shoot Me!" card. ;)  All swatches are two coats, no top coat.

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If you're looking for a work-safe or mother-of-the-groom safe polish that still has the power to make you look at your nails and smile, grab a bottle of All Hail the Queen. :)

Butter London West End Wonderland

My second Butter London polish from Coterie is West End Wonderland, which is a versatile gold glitter.  I've seen it used as a layering polish, and I'm going to try that very soon, but this little beauty is opaque in only two coats.  It does dry gritty and a bit matte, but one coat of Nubar Diamont shined it right up.  All swatches are two coats with top coat.

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West End Wonderland reminds me of a brown challis skirt I have--it's not the most unique or prettiest thing I own, but it's a workhorse which can go with many things and be worn in many ways.  If you don't have a reliable gold glitter which can serve both as a topper and on its own, you could do a lot worse than this polish.

Butter London Knackered

When Coterie first started up, they had a great deal on Butter London polishes, so I got three polishes plus the BL top coat.  Knackered was the first one I tried and my least favorite.  It's a decent duochrome, but it was terribly sheer and thin enough to pool if I wasn't super-careful.  All swatches are three coats, and you can see that I could have used four.

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Knackered is in the same family as a lot of duochromes out there, and unless you feel the need to have ALL THE COLORS, I'd recommend skipping this one.

Halloweekends 1.5: Witchy Stockings

My second Halloween manicure is a striped green & black that looks to me like witchy stockings!  I knew I wanted to do this with OPI Zom-Body To Love (green glow-in-the-dark from last year's Halloween collection) as the base, but when I tried it, the OPI was so sheer I despaired.  I tried Zoya Shawn as underwear, but the green was too dark.  Then it occurred to me that China Glaze Unpredictable was perfect, so I used one coat of that, then topped it with two coats of Zom-body To Love.  The stripes were done using black stamping polish and French manicure guides.  I'm pretty pleased with how in turned out, I love that a bit of the glimmer from the chrome shows through, and I love that the stripes show up when the polish glows in the dark.

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Halloweekends 1.0: Sally Hansen Salon Effects in Headbanger

These particular polish strips are not part of the Sally Hansen Halloween collection, although I do have some of those to show you later, but were part of the limited edition Avril Lavigne collection.  When I bought them, I knew I was going to save them for Halloween, since there's little room in my ordinary style for pink glitter with little black skulls and crossbones. ;)  The strips were pretty thin, which made them a bit more difficult to work with, but I managed to get them on fairly straight.  The advantage of short nails is that I could use one packet of eight strips for both hands and six of my toes.

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Sally Hansen Salon Effects real nail polish strips are available at most major drugstores.