Friday, February 19, 2016

flashback friday: shattered mint

Hey everyone! Hope you're doing fine on this Friday evening.

I'm sure you're all familiar with the handy app TimeHop, and how it sends you down memory lane basically every day. Two days ago, it reminded me of this post and how obsessed I was with OPI's Black Shatter (and every other shatter for that matter.)
It gave me the sudden urge to play with that old forgotten shatter again, and I decided to go full-flashback and recreate the mani!


This is OPI - Black Shatter over China Glaze - Re-Fresh Mint.

When I pulled out my main bottle of Black Shatter, it was a sad sight because it had dried up into one little piece inside the bottle. I'm not sure if it'll come back to life, but I put in a bunch of polish thinner and had my boyfriend shake it for a while. I'm still letting it sit, but hopefully it can be revived.
I happened to have an untouched backup that was totally fine, and all the rest of my OPI shatters were fine as well. (My China Glaze ones bit the dust two years ago).


I totally still dig the look, its edgy and easy.
How long has it been since you played with shatter? Shake those babies up and give it another go!

Tuesday, February 16, 2016

OPI Hello Kitty Collection - May Pal Joey + Charmmy & Sugar

Hey everyone! You may have seen my Instagram post hinting that a long-overdue blog post may be necessary thanks to the unbearably cute new Hello Kitty collection from OPI.
If you've been following me for a few years, you definitely know two things:
1) I love Hello Kitty.
2) I love OPI.
Which brings us to the conclusion that clearly I need this collection. Bad.



For whatever stupid and disappointing reason, my local professional beauty supply that carries OPI is not getting the collection. Which makes me real sad because I was hoping to pick up the entire thing there (including the little display that they all would come in.)
Wait a second... I wonder if my Sally Beauty supply would have the display and let me have that one? Hmmm.....

Anyway, I promptly hopped onto my favorite trusty polish website, Nail Polish Canada, and I picked up the Collector's Edition set that comes in the little pop-up box, with six polishes inside. (I also totally want the little train case type thing I've seen around but I'm sure that's out of my current polish price range. But a girl can dream?) So that set is on the way to me now, but in the meantime, I also hit up my local Winners and found a huge full display with 3 of each polish. How did they get it right away? Who knows. But I picked up the two I wanted most that weren't in the 6-piece set!


OPI - My Pal Joey
Now, this isn't an original color or anything, but it is a really great royal blue with a dreamy formula. It takes two smooth coats to get it perfect, and I experienced no staining which can sometimes be a problem with blues this pigmented.


OPI - Charmmy & Sugar
This is a cute and girly shimmer/glitter polish best used as a topcoat. The shimmer is pink with a duochrome flash and the bigger glitter bits consist of pinks and silver and a blue/green.

I brought it home thinking I had nothing like it at all in my collection! But upon arriving home, I realized I had something practically identical. You'd think this wouldn't happen to me after I've weaned off my polish buying so significantly, but no. I perused a few other people's reviews of the collection, and googled their names together but couldn't find anyone else who made the connection between these two polishes (probably because not a lot of people buy MAC nail polish besides MAC hoarders, who aren't necessarily also nail polish hoarders).



OPI - Charmmy & Sugar vs MAC Just Jewels
As you can see, these are basically identical. The MAC one has slightly less of the larger glitters throughout, but not enough to really make a difference so if you already own it, you don't need the other. The MAC shade has been long sold out though (it was in the Heirloom Mix collection for Holiday 2014) so if these glitters are catching your eye, pick up the OPI! It's cheaper, anyway.

Jeez, I guess posting so rarely causes me to ramble on and on when I do get around to posting! Hope you guys don't mind!
After noticing that I only scrounged up 7 posts in 2015, I've decided that I'm gonna try to come up with something to post at least every 2 weeks for the rest of the year. It might not happen, thanks to grad school, but I'll give it a shot! Got any suggestions for things you might like to see around here?
Until next time!