I have some fabulous, out of the ordinary grays for you! First is Shades by Barielle, U-Concrete-Me. This is a mere two coats of gloriousness! I adore this color, much more than I originally anticipated. It has a hint of cool blueness, just barely, which keeps me interested and makes it more than just gray. Unfortunately, I only captured one decent picture!

Savina Black Pearl. Three coats.

I found this gem in a Nordstrom outlet store. It is so superb.

The pictures do not do it justice. It is much more flashy, vivid and duo-chromey in real life!!

It has a really nice, strong, teal/purple flash. There is also some green and pink going on. I know this would be even more stunning over black (I tried it that way initially, but had some bubble issues and had to scrap it).

I am getting ready to leave for a business trip very soon (in about 90 minutes!). I'll be going to San Francisco for 10 days. I am taking polish, my camera, and my laptop, but I just wanted to put it out there for you because I don't know how hectic my days will be and cannot promise that I'll be able to post regularly. Wish me luck! :)

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Hello, friends! Today I have a lovely, crisp blue for you! This is Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Pacific Blue. I did two coats and topped my ring finger with one coat of OPI Paris Couture for Sure top coat.

Pacific Blue is supremely gorgeous. It applied very well and I have no complaints with the formula.

I had a little trouble with applying Paris Couture for Sure evenly, partly due to not being used to OPI's older, skinny brush!

I think it still turned out really pretty and fun.

I noticed on a couple fingers it almost seemed like there were some bubbles deep under the coats of polish, but it wasn't super apparent. I can't really blame the polish as it might have been from the two base coats I used.

In any case, if a polish is going to bubble on me, I'd much rather the bubbles be deep under and hardly noticeable than up top and oooogly! :)

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I recently wore OPI Absolutely Alice and had to add a little twist, OPI Blue Moon Lagoon. This is three coats of Absolutely Alice and one coat of Blue Moon Lagoon. The picture below is my attempt at showing how the intense sparkle and shimmer showed through the awesome holo.

The flash picture below shows off the insane holo!

LOVE blue. LOVE holo. LOVE sparkle!

I can't believe how hot Absolutely Alice is.

I have nothing left to say about this beauteousness...I'm going to let the pictures do the talking.

I can't wait to wear this again - either by itself (which would be slightly freaky for me, since I seem to have an uncontrollable compulsion to layer), or in some other layering combination! Also, I have so many untrieds that I don't know when that would be! :)

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Okay, okay, here's another post on OPI My Private Jet. This is my third bottle. It is, of course, distinctly different than the other two. Ha! I broke down and bought this from a seller on E-bay. I'm glad it panned out!

I believe this was three coats. Isn't she a beaut?!

This appears to be the brown holo version.

Now all I need is the charcoal holo!!

It's a sickness.

I have to say in all honesty the holo doesn't show much in most lighting for me. I was a bit sad about that. But it was still a gorgeous silky smooth gray (or so it looked in "normal" lighting). The sun brings out the best, though! I adore it.

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How flippin' fantastic is OPI's new Alice in Wonderland collection?! And by collection, you know I really mean, Mad as a Hatter and Absolutely Alice (bah blah to the boring reds - sorry red lovers). This is my take on Mad as a Hatter. I started with a coat of Illamasqua Boosh, applied two coats of Mad as a Hatter, and then a coat of China Glaze Shooting Stars.

Now, get out the shades, people.

Zoinks!!

Bling! Kapow! Zing!

Seriously!?! How much do you love this?!?

I love it A LOT. But you probably already knew that. :)

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I'm so excited to show you my first official review!! Illamasqua was kind enough to send me Ruthless and Wayward for review. You all know how much I adore Illamsqua, so this is HUGE for me. :D I want you to know that I will always, always provide honest reviews, and the possibility or reality of a company sending me gratis polish will in no way affect my opinions. Also, I suppose I will have to get a pre-fab disclosure thingy pretty soon. In any case, on to the glorious polish!

Two coats of Ruthless, a delicious and most shiny medium red creme. It applied most excellently, as I have come to expect from Illamasqua. The polish just goes where you want it to go and flows very evenly off the brush. :)

It leans a wee bit warm, and looks a little more warm in these pictures than in real life due to some quirkiness factor of my uber pale skin and/or Canon ELPH camera.

If you didn't already know, Illamasqua is a line that prides itself for being an edgy, unique brand that encourages and promotes self-expression as well as discovering and enjoying your alter ego. Many of their products are geared toward night-time and night life, which I think is kind of cool and interesting. I, personally, do not, nor have ever really had an exciting night life by any means.

However, I can sure as heck appreciate beautiful colors and high performing products!

Wayward, a vivid mid-toned yellow creme, applied nicely for me in three coats.

It needed three coats to be perfectly smooth and even, but otherwise it had none of the problems that often present with yellow polishes.

I think this is a super fun color that is cheery and light-hearted whilst still being funky and interesting.

If you still haven't had the pleasure of trying Illamasqua, I do highly recommend them! I realize they are pricey, but if you are able to get a few of your favorite colors, I do not think you will regret it. You may just become a psycho-raving-lunatic fan, like myself...

Which, might be a good thing...and also might not! :)

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Here I layered two red Color Club polishes, Slow Jam and Feel the Beat. Slow Jam is a nice dark burgundy and Feel the Beat is a duochrome with orange and red.

I put on two coats of Slow Jam and then one coat of Feel the Beat.

You can tell I'm holding different bottles in the different pictures. The first picture and the one below shows the bottle for Slow Jam. The second and fourth pictures have Feel the Beat as the bottle.

It turned out really smooth and sexy!

What do you get when you layer these three colors below?

Let's find out! They are Emerald Depths, Blue Hawaii, and Runway Muse.

I used two coats of Emerald Depths (it's a little more green in real life, but not much), one coat of Blue Hawaii (it's way thick and I need to thin it!), and one coat of Runway Muse.

It turned out pretty cool. I debated whether or not to do Runway Muse last. Usually I would do the most glittery polish last, but figured why not try the sheer duochrome last?

It's nice and frosty and wintery!

My skin's been dry due to the colder weather...sorry I didn't think to moisturize better before taking these pictures!

And now for some magical wintry Walt Disney World castle goodness!

My bud and I went on the sixth. They still had up all the holiday decorations and were blasting Christmas tunes throughout the park. The castle lights looked like ice sort of. Just gorgeous!

They also did a nice fireworks show. :) It was really cold for Orlando, but we had fun.

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It's been so long since I've posted! My vacation is officially drawing to a close. It's a little startling to think of having to rejoin the real world (work!). But more work = more money and more money = more nail polish!! :D (Always a silver lining.)

The first pictures are of Illamasqua Velocity with Boo! layered on top. I did two coats of Boo!, which is tiny specks of purple, blue, and pink glitter in clear polish. Velocity is a lovely, slightly dusty, but still very obviously purple creme. In real life, compared to the bottle shown just below, Velocity is just a little cooler, I'd say.

My nails were such nubs then!

Boo! is a layering polish, in my opinion. You could probably get it close to opaque in four or five coats, but I'm thinking it's going to look best over other colors.

Next up is OPI Smitten with Mittens layered below Wet 'N Wild Fantasy Makers Magical.

The photo above might as well serve as a reminder to all pool owners who have neglected their proper chemical balance! The pool was quite GREEN then. Oh man. My husband has since fixed the chemicals, it's back to blue, and I even got to sit in the hot tub the other night. Oo so nice!!

Got a little side-tracked there. Sorry. Smitten with Mittens is from OPI's Holiday 2009 collection. It's a gorgeous glowing neutral/cool red with depth and shimmer.

The shimmer in the polish is sort of golden so I decided to amp it up with the Magical gold and orange glitter. It's so fabulous, don't you think?!

This was a mani I wore just prior to and through Christmas.

In many of these pictures the red looks warmer than it is. I think it's partly due to the fact that I took these pictures in the warm golden light just before sundown. Below is a scary flash picture in front of the green pool water!

This picture is more accurate, color wise.

And here is a picture of my precious dogs. They were all snuggled up close to each other on the couch, looking so adorable. I took a bunch of pictures, so maybe I'll post a few more later on.

Georgia, 2, is being her nosy self on the left. Varekai, 7, is looking so innocent on the right.

I can hardly believe that I have 99 followers now! I just want to thank you all so, so much for taking the time to check in with my lil' blog. I have lots of good things in store for this year, so I hope you'll continue to enjoy DizzyNails. My best bud, who just went home yesterday, has organized my polish collection into three Helmers that my husband got me for Christmas. I think I have been in denial about how large my collection is until now! Folks, I have a lot of polish. :) I will take and post some stash pictures for you all soon. And believe you me, I have a lot of swatching of untrieds to do!

Happy Belated New Year!

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