I recently found a really pretty mood polish at Claire's. It looked blurple with a blue shimmer in the bottle. I had to have it! It's called Relaxed/Hyper.

I used three coats here, and topped it with one coat of Paul & Joe 014.

Well, the Relaxed/Hyper looks totally different on my nails, as compared to the bottle. It's more turquoise into cobalt. Still very pretty, but no lovely blurple to be found!

The Paul & Joe glitter is really fun because it has sort of pastel multi-colored glitter. I'm not sure if it's scented like the other P&J I've worn before. I have a major head cold and cannot smell.

The long nails are officially driving me crazy! I'm definitely going to have to shape them and take off a wee bit of length tonight.

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I'm being a big nerd here, but it's nearly time for True Blood! Of course, I am wearing Zoya Sooki.

Sooki pretty much blew me away. It applied perfectly and was opaque in just one coat! I did go ahead and do a second coat, though, just to be sure. On me, it's a neutral-leaning-warm classic bright red creme.

I was kind of scared to wear it on its own, so I added a layer of KleanColor V.I.P., which seemed fitting.

I have to say, I love these pictures very much, but actually wearing it in real life, it's kind of freaking me out. I just don't think I like red on my long-ish nails.

V.I.P. reminds me of Revlon Slipper. Remember that one?

So who else is wearing Sooki right now? 'Fess up! :)

Let's hope it's a great first show for season four!

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As I'm sure you probably know, I'm not a big swatcher. I kind of hate swatching. But I received some encouragement from my friends on MUA and busted a move earlier this afternoon! I swatched the new Revlon scented Fizz polishes. All are shown at three coats with no top coat.

From left to right: Pineapple Fizz, Orange Fizz, Grapefruit Fizz, and Watermelon Fizz.

My nails are stained, which sucks. I would totally wear these sheer if they weren't stained! At any rate, I can see these being great for layering and also some would be fine on their own with three or four coats, probably.

From left to right: Colada Fizz (the bottle looks baby blue), Apple-tini Fizz, Mint Fizz, and Grape Fizz.

Mint is quite opaque, actually. It also stains like crazy!

Grape might be my favorite, but I really do like them all. The glass-flecked shimmer is so lovely and almost looks like wee little flakies!

I wish I could tell you more about the scents but I have quite the head cold right now. :( In the swatching process I recall generally fruitiness and I do believe I smelled the mint. That's about all I know. I scratched the stickers on the bottles in the store and actually liked how they all smelled. Scented polish is a double-edged sword for me. I very much enjoy the novelty but also find that I get annoyed by the smell at the same time!

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It's day six of my wear of the Sally Hansen appliques in the Cut It Out design. They looked a little shabby this morning, starting to crack just a little in some areas, so I decided to spruce them up with some bloody jelly-licious OPI Red Shatter.

I wasn't sure if the Shatter would crack well if I put it straight on the appliques, so I painted on a coat of CND effects in Silver Sparkling first. It's very subtle. Then, a coat of Red Shatter. Then, a coat of Gelous, followed by Seche Vite.

I really like how it turned out! I unintentionally did thinner coats of Shatter on my right hand, and it shattered more, but with slightly smaller spaces in between. Since I did thicker coats on the left hand (as seen in the first two pictures above), the cracks are bigger, but the red doesn't look quite as piece-y.

Above is a picture of my oft neglected right hand, to show the difference in how it shattered. I like both, honestly! I can't say which I like better. I have to tell you, I really ridiculously love the jelly shatters. And I love this bloody lookin' crazy manicure. :)

On an only slightly related note, I just ordered Tarte True Blood makeup from sephora.com. I'm so excited!!!! I am getting the palette and the lip tint. I may or may not get the cheek tint, since I tend to prefer powder blushes. But YAY Tarte and YAY True Blood!!!

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Dear readers, are you wondering why I haven't posted very much over the past four days? If you guessed Sally Hansen appliques (sorry, I cannot for the life of me get the proper accent mark to show over that "e!"), then you are spot on!

This is the "Cut It Out" design. I put them on Thursday night. I took these pictures on Saturday morning, but truthfully, they look nearly exactly the same right now.

This is only my second time wearing these, but I got such good wear out of them the last time around (five days), I figured I'd give it a go again. And the allure of not having to wait for polish to dry, late last Thursday night, was too great to resist!

I have the urge to color these designs in with Sharpie markers.

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It cracks like molten hot, purplelicious magma!

This is one of those manis that got out of hand (no pun intended) pretty quickly. You know the ones? You start out one way, thinking it will look just so, and then you keep going and going because it's just not exactly quite what you expected?

I used two coats of NYX Girls Nude White as "underwear." Then I layered on two coats of Kleancolor Chunky Holo Bluebell. After that, a coat of Sally Hansen Crackle in Vintage Violet.

This is my first time using a Sally Hansen Crackle for a mani. I've only played with it before, and was actually kind of scared that it would never crack right for me. Overall, I think it cracked pretty well and I'm satisfied with the outcome.

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Now I am wearing three coats of Essence Irreplaceable. It's one of the newer polishes to show up in the Essence core line at Ulta stores.

This polish has a gorgeous glass-flecked shimmer that is iridescent gold with a subtle green twist.

I was Ooo-ing and Aah-ing when I first picked up the bottle.

I'm really not loving this on me, though. Next to my skin, it just looks "off" somehow. Too warm, too drab, too blah - I can't quite put my finger on it yet.

I'm hoping that it grows on me, in any case.

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Yesterday I decided to use some new OPI Shatter polishes for both my pedi and mani. Yes! I'm Shattered from tip to toe! I started with three coats of Orly Here Comes Trouble.

Here Comes Trouble is this grass green, vibrant glitter polish with teeny tiny glitters and then medium sized glitters. It reminds me of Crayola green, if you get my drift. Very bright, very pretty.

It was actually still a bit sheer at three coats, so had I been wearing it all by itself, I think I would have opted for a fourth coat. But, knowing I was going to Shatter it, I didn't worry about it at all.

I added OPI Navy Shatter.

I love the fact that Navy Shatter is a jelly finish!! It lets some of the glitter shine through from below, just barely, which is really cool. I also am fairly pleased with the shatter pattern that I got using a medium-ish coat.

The sad part is that the Navy looks pretty well black indoors. But at least I know it's Navy!

You know, I had really thought before that Shatter/Crackle made my nubby short nails look even shorter. Now I'm feeling like it's making my long nails look longer. Is there some optical illusion here or am I crazy?!

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For this mani I started with three coats of Claire's Mood Polish in Innocent/Daring.

As you can see, it looks quite gray in the bottle. On the nail, it goes from a somewhat bright peach to a deeper blue toned gray.

My hands were pretty warm in these pics, no thanks (or maybe thanks) to the Florida blazing hot sun. The tips usually look more blue most of the time - which is really neat.

I finished with a coat of L.A. Girl Glitter Addict Celebrate.

I really like how the colors all look together!

I only wish Claire's polishes lasted longer on me. I got a pretty big chip on my right thumbnail less than 24 hours after I had put it on. :(

Last night I was sitting on a blue-gray couch and looked down to find my nails perfectly matched the couch. I was cold...and it was an odd moment. I felt a bit like a chameleon!

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I recently bought several styles of the new (to the U.S.) Essence Studio Nails Nail Fashion Stickers. I'm pretty much a sucker (and a psycho) for anything Essence. I tried them out this past weekend but did not have luck in the end. Here is a quick picture I took.

Whatever is wrong, you might be wondering!? They look so cute! And nicely applied! Yes, it's true. They are super cute and the application is excellent. The PROBLEM is that the largest sticker isn't nearly wide enough for my thumb nails! I did not take a picture of this (but should have, for laughs).

I tried to think of a way to shift it or cut pieces off of other stickers and make it work somehow, but eventually came to the realization that it just wasn't going to work for me. The kind ladies on MUA suggested that I could use them still and just paint my thumb nails black. That's a great idea, actually! I may end up doing that if I decide to keep the other packs I bought. It kind of defeats the purpose of not having to paint your nails and wait for them to dry and all that stuff, though. :(

If you have wee little nails, or just don't have big man hands like I do, these could work for you. I've also gathered that they do not stay on very long - so it would probably be a one shot day long kind of deal. Still fun and cute and cheap.

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I figured I should have the best of both worlds: nudes and glitters. I started this mani with three coats of Sephora by OPI Don't Feed the Hand Models.

Don't Feed the Hand Models is a creme nude that definitely gives me a nice, slightly cool, slightly pink mannequin hand effect.

I put one coat of L.A. Girl Glitter Addict Uninhibited on top.

Uninhibited is a clear base with small (looks to be) square and larger black hex glitters. The glitters have a neat glimmery, shiny finish to them that looks very interesting on the nail.

I did try to do a thin coat with Uninhibited, but it wasn't cooperating that way and wanted to come out rather thick. It wouldn't spread right thin. Other than it not doing what I wanted it to do, it applied just fine.

When I got the bottle and first looked at it, I noticed random red glitters in it. Sure enough, I have two pieces of red glitter on my nails. You can probably see the one on my middle finger and the other is on the middle finger of my right hand. Kind of funny, huh?

Maybe they got glitter happy and/or sloppy when manufacturing. Either way, this polish is really cool and definitely rocks! The over all effect reminds me of lace, or speckled egg shell (that's what Sid thought), or cookies and cream!

The finish looks a little bumpy in these last two pictures, but it's actually nearly smooth with two coats of top coat over.

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I've been going through some kind of random subdued phase. Well, fear not, fellow glitter lovers. I have not forsaken you!

Glittah's back!! This is three coats of OPI Spark De Triomphe.

I originally thought I would go ahead and put the white Shatter on top (that came with it in the duo pack). But it's too pretty! I can't do it!

I love this. It's awesome disco ball goodness. Sometimes it seems silver, other times gold. And then other times you can tell it's just this perfect mix of gold and silver (which it is)!

I absolutely love the different sizes and shapes of glitter and how they work together.

Perfection, I tell you. Total perfection!

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